and he didn't think anyonewouldcom e "Happy birthday." Dan handed Vanessa the poem he'd written for her and leaned against the door frame. "I wanted to give you this before anyone gets here." "Don't say, 'If anyone is coming,'" Vanessa warned. "They'll come." She leaned over the bathroom sink, squinting at her reflection as she applied Tiphany's purpley-black lipstick to her lips. Then she sat down on the toilet and began to read the poem out loud. a list of things you love: black steel-toed boots dead pigeons dirty rain irony me a list of things I love: cigarettes coffee you and your apple-white arms but the thing about lists is they tend to get lost "Thanks," Vanessa said. She folded the piece of paper and nicked it into the drawer in the vanity under the sink where Kuby kept all her hair goop and makeup. It was kind of a weird response to a poem that was supposed to be bittersweet. "Jesus, dude, you need to start taking happy pills," Tiphany muttered from out in the hall. "How can you write your girlfriend a birthday poem that sounds so melancholy?" She nudged Dan out of the way, grabbed the tube of lipstick from off the sink, and smeared some on her lips. "Roses are red, violets are blue." She pulled Vanessa upright and kissed her on the cheek, leaving a smudgy, purpley-black imprint. Then she kissed her on the other cheek. "Babe, you look hot with lips all over you!" The two girls giggled and checked each other out in the mirror. Tiphany was wearing a black silk camisole borrowed from Ruby's closet. "Nice shirt," Vanessa noted. "Nice pants," Tiphany said back. Vanessa had borrowed Ruby's zebra-striped pajama bottoms and they actually kind of worked with a black denim miniskirt, a black T-shirt, and combat boots. Very Blondie meets the Sex Pistols. Dan wandered away, wishing Tiphany hadn't been her usual rude self and eavesdropped on his poem. So what if it wasn't all happy and cheerful and fun? It was still a love poem. And there was a message in it, if only Vanessa had taken the time to listen. "I was thinking tonight might be a good night for a little piercing," Tiphany announced. Vanessa glanced at her in the mirror. Tiphany's ears weren't even pierced. "Really? Like where?" Tiphany grinned and wiggled her eyebrows ominously. "Not me, silly. You!" The downstairs buzzer rang repeatedly and Tiphany grabbed Vanessa's arm and tugged her out of the bathroom. "I invited some people. You don't mind, do you?" "Of course not," Vanessa said, glad to get away from the topic of piercing. Dan buzzed them in and a moment later a troop of enormous guys in dusty, paint-smeared coveralls stomped into the apartment in their work boots. "Hey boys." Tiphany dragged her army-issue duffel bag across the living room and opened it up. It was full of pint bottles of Grey Goose vodka. "This is my construction team. They don't speak much English." She handed each guy a bottle and then cracked one open herself. "Time to get happy!" Dan went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of bad coffee. The construction guys smelled like paint thinner and were probably all psychopaths, just like Tiphany. But if they didn't speak English, he wouldn't have to talk to them, which was a good thing. like paint thinner and were probably all psychopaths, just like Tiphany. But if they didn't speak English, he wouldn't have to talk to them, which was a good thing. "'Prick my finger, kiss my ass!'" Ruby's voice howled from out of the speakers. "Serena! I just met a girl named Serena!" a more melodic group of voices echoed from outside the apartment. The front door was still open. Out in the hall stood a boyish blond boy followed by nine other guys, all wearing navy blue suits and Yale ties, with red roses in their buttonholes. "Is Serena here yet?" the blond boy asked. Actually, he didn't ask the question so much as sing it. "Noooot yeeeet" Tiphany sang back. "But cooommmme oonnn innnnn!" She handed each boy a bottle of Grey Goose. "Do you guys dance, too, or just sing?" Dan stood in the kitchen, chain-smoking and gulping coffee. The party was turning into something out of West Side Story—the construction workers versus the singers. Maybe there'd even be a rumble. Vanessa perched on the windowsill, filming people. The party was already so random, she couldn't imagine what would happen next. Then the front door edged open a crack and a white monkey wearing a little red monogrammed S T-shirt scampered in. "Sweetie!" Tiphany cried, scooping the monkey up in her arms. "Tooter's asleep in the closet. But if he knew you were here, I bet he'd come out and play." "Anyone want a cigar?" Chuck Bass asked, brandishing a handful of them. "My dad's footman just brought back a whole suitcaseful from Cuba." His footman? The Whiffenpoofs and Tiphany's construction team helped themselves to cigars. Tiphany carried Chuck's monkey over to the closet where Tooter was sleeping on the floor, curled up on top of Dan's favorite gray sweater. "No monkey business in there, okay, kids?" she said, closing the door partway to give them some privacy. She turned to Vanessa. "Now how 'bout that piercing?" Vanessa smiled nervously. "I always kind of wanted one on my lip." "Done!" Tiphany grabbed one of .her burly construction guys by the shirt. "Ice, needles, vodka, matches. In the bathroom. Go," she ordered, pushing him away again. Suddenly four blond girls wearing gray Georgetown sweatshirts appeared at the door, holding hands. "Is Blair Waldorf here yet?" one of them asked. "Not yet," Tiphany replied, as if she'd known Blair all her life. She doled a bottle of vodka out to each girl. "But I'm giving piercings in the bathroom if you want to come." The four girls glanced giddily at one another, their shining. They'd always wanted matching tattoos. Matching navel pierces would be even better. "Let's do it!" they cried in unison. Vanessa put down her camera and followed them down the hall to the bathroom. After all, it was her birthday. Why shouldn't she? Because it was going to hurt like hell? b&n Yale had a full-time baby-nurse who was sharing Myrtle's room, but whenever Blair heard the baby fuss, she'd dash into the room before the baby-nurse even got there and stroke Yale's bald head until she settled down again. She'd been doing it so regularly, the baby-nurse didn't even bother to get up when she heard Yale cry through the baby monitor, for soon enough she'd hear Blair croon, "Who's my little princess?" in a voice no one knew Blair was capable of. Tonight, though, the baby-nurse would actually have to do her job, because Blair was going out. "I'll be back in two hours," she promised her tiny sister. The cab let her off on a scrap of Broadway in Williamsburg that could only be described as miserable. Garbage was strewn all over the sidewalk and every doorway was scrawled with graffiti. She supposed that shaven-headed freak Vanessa and her sister thought it was urban and tough and cool to live in a place like this, but Blair could live without urban and tough and cool, thank you very much. Fifth Avenue suited her just fine. The cab let her off on a scrap of Broadway in Williamsburg that could only be described as miserable. Garbage was strewn all over the sidewalk and every doorway was scrawled with graffiti. She supposed that shaven-headed freak Vanessa and her sister thought it was urban and tough and cool to live in a place like this, but Blair could live without urban and tough and cool, thank you very much. Fifth Avenue suited her just fine. "I think they left it open," said a familiar voice. Blair whipped around to find Nate standing below her on the sidewalk. There they were, together, in Brooklyn. It was most unexpected. As if he wasn't the reason she'd come to the party in the first place. "I only came by to see who was here. I can't stay for long," she told him hastily. Nate looked kind of tired and unkempt, but in a cute way. Like he'd taken a nap in his clothes. Actually, he looked exactly the way she felt. "Me too," he said, shyly checking her out with those glittering green eyes of his. "You look pretty. I—I like your hair." Blair touched her hair. He was the only person in the entire universe who'd noticed that it was slightly darker than before. "Thanks." "So how's everything at home with the baby and all?" Nate asked. He shoved his hands in his pockets as though he wasn't sure what to do with them. Someone threw a bottle of vodka out of an upstairs window and it splintered on the sidewalk only twenty feet away. Blair stepped down off the cement slab. She wasn't going upstairs, not now. "Yale is . . ." Her voice trailed off as she struggled to find the right words to describe her little sister. "Perfect," she said finally. There was a happy sheen in Blair's eyes that hadn't been there before. "I'd really like to meet her sometime," Nate added. Blair reached for his arm. What were they doing at a party in Brooklyn that neither of them wanted to go to? "Let's go now." Just then a taxi pulled up and Serena, Jenny, Elisc, and tow guys dressed in matching banana yellow Dolce & Gabbana suits stepped out. Then another cab pulled up and out came four models in Carmen Miranda outfits complete with fruit bowl headdresses. Then another cabload of models, and then the Raves—yes, the entire band, minus the lead singer, who had just quit—pulled up in yet another cab. "Our Hummer limo broke down so we had to get cabs," Jenny explained to Blair and Nate with a happy giggle. Blair tightened her grip on Nate's arm and pulled him toward the first empty taxi. "Come on." Serena winked as they climbed into the backseat. "Be good, you two!" Blair smiled and let her head fall back against the cab's fake-leather upholstery. Nate's leg was touching hers and her whole body was burning with the warmth of it. She felt kind of like Sandy at the end of the original Grease movie, when she and Danny ride off into the sky in that souped-up car, leaving everyone else at the school carnival. It was always pretty obvious to Blair what Sandy and Danny were about to do next, what with Sandy wearing those black vinyl hot pants and everything. He couldn't keep his hands off her. "You're the one that I want—ooh, ooh, ooh, honey!" Nate slipped his hand between Blair's knees and left it there. Oh, she'd be good all right. j travels with an entourage Dan hardly recognized his sister. She and Serena burst into the party looking like movie stars in matching turquoise-and-black-striped leggings, white pointy ankle boots, and turquoise leather vests. matching turquoise-and-black-striped leggings, white pointy ankle boots, and turquoise leather vests. Very eighties biker bitch meets the Mod Squad. .Better still, they were followed by a whole crew of models and fashion people from their photo shoot, and the members of a very hot new band called the Raves. Elise was there, too, wearing the bright orange jumpsuit that Jonathan Joyce had given her as a gift for being such a doll on the shoot. Jenny sashayed up to Dan and kissed him on the cheek. "Happy birthday!" she squealed, even though she knew perfectly well it wasn't his birthday. She'd had the time of her life today and she was brimming with adrenaline. "Where's Vanessa?" Dan tucked his ninetieth cigarette of the evening between his lips and lit it quickly. "In the bathroom, getting pierced," he answered bitterly. "Wow!" Jenny kissed him on the cheek again. "What a great party!" The band began to set up their equipment in the mom. Elise came over to drag Jenny away. "If you'll excuse us, Daniel, there's something I'd like to show Jennifer." She grabbed Jenny's elbow. "You've got to see this. It's in the closet." Would that be two little animals making fuzzy whoopee, perhaps? Dan didn't know what he'd been so worried about. Jenny was fine. Maybe that was the difference between fourteen and eighteen. When you were fourteen, something that seemed like the end of the world today could be completely forgotten tomorrow. When you were eighteen, your life was that much closer to being over. Oh, please. He's not even eighteen yet! The band began to play and immediately people started throwing their bodies around. In the last hour a steady stream of people had trickled in and the apartment was packed with kids from every private school in Manhattan. Now that they were second-semester seniors, it didn't matter whether they knew Vanessa or not. Give them a reason to get crazy and people would turn up. Dan didn't much feel like dancing or getting crazy. Instead he decided to get drunk. Wandering into the living room, he grabbed a bottle of Grey Goose from Tiphany's half-empty sack and then hunkered by the wall to drink and watch the band play. Chuck Bass was dancing with one of the girls from Georgetown. The girl's newly pierced navel was covered with a Band-Aid and the metal whistle hanging from a chain around her neck kept bobbing up and slapping her in her seriously pugged nose. Considering her dance partner, that whistle just might come in handy. A girl in army fatigues, complete with helmet and dog tags, walked up to Dan and saluted. "Have you seen Blair Waldorf?" she asked. Dan shook his head and took a giant swig of vodka. He wasn't exactly sure how it would manifest itself, but his own brand of craziness was not far off. s can't keep her boys straight Serena danced with the two gay stylists from the shoot, their banana yellow suits clashing with her turquoise-and-black leggings in a garish eighties way she just couldn't get enough of. "Serena?" A tall boy with silver-rimmed spectacles bobbed into her line of vision and took her hand. Serena stopped dancing, her heart all aflutter. It was Drew, from Harvard. Or was it Brown? "Hi," she said slowly, batting her fake eyelashes at him. She pointed at her crazy striped leggings and pointy white boots. "You see, this is the way I normally dress." She was struggling now to place Drew. Already the boys had blurred together. Was he the xylophone player or the painter? Drew smiled tightly. He looked sort of uncomfortable in his neatly pressed J. Crew ensemble and brown suede shoes. It was as if he couldn't wait for her to say, Let's blow this joint and go have an intimate cup of coffee someplace nice and quiet. Serena hesitated. She wanted to be that girl, she really did. The girl who drank coffee with her boyfriend. A couple. But she didn't want it badly enough to miss the party. All of a sudden someone grabbed her around the waist and lowered her into an exaggerated dip. Serena's breath caught in her throat as she gazed up into the square-jawed-jock face of Drew's meathead roommate. "Whoa!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide. All of a sudden someone grabbed her around the waist and lowered her into an exaggerated dip. Serena's breath caught in her throat as she gazed up into the square-jawed-jock face of Drew's meathead roommate. "Whoa!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide. Wade pulled her close and kissed her on the lips. Smack! "Aren't you glad?" he demanded. Serena didn't want to appear easy, but she had to admit that she was glad. The more the merrier, as far as she was concerned. A petite strawberry blond woman with a tidy black Kate Spade purse tapped her on the shoulder. "Do you know Nate Archibald?" the woman asked. Serena nodded. "He already left." Drew was still standing next to her, hands in his pockets, looking as if he needed something to do. "This is my friend Drew," Serena told the strawberry blond woman. "He goes to— "Harvard," Drew said, holding out his hand in that geekily charming way of his. On the other side of the room the Whiffenpoofs began singing backup for the Raves. They sounded fantastic. Serena stood on tiptoe to wave at them and all ten boys blew her a kiss. But wasn't there somebody missing? The artist from Brown. Didn't he love her as much as the others? Oh, did he ever. People were huddled by the windows, looking out at something happening down on the street. "Put me on your shoulders?" she asked Wade sweetly. Wade carried Serena over to the windows and she gazed over the tops of the onlookers' heads to see what all the fuss was about. Down on the street, someone was spray-painting a mural in shades of green and gold. It was Christian. His dark head bent seriously over his work. As the mural took shape it became apparent that it was a portrait of Serena, with fluorescent green butterflies in her hair and gold wings sprouting out of her shoulders, like some sort of glorious angel. Serena giggled, embarrassed by Christian's gaudy adoration, but reveling in it just the same. Maybe it wasn't true love she wanted after all. Maybe it was just . . . love. And that was all around her. b's teething rattle turns n on "Walk on this side of the room," Blair whispered. "The floorboards creak over there." Nate followed her across the nursery, lit only by a paper moon nightlight, to where Yale lay sleeping in her white lace-covered bassinet. In the corner by the window, the life-size dappled gray pony he'd had sent over from FAO Schwarz stood watching them like a sentry. The baby was swaddled in a pink blanket and was lying on her back, her face puckered and red and new-looking. "See how her eyes are moving underneath the lids," Blair whispered. "She's dreaming." Nate couldn't imagine what somebody so new to the world could be dreaming about, but he supposed it must be kind of like one of those dreams he had when he was severely stoned. Nothing happened, he just felt stuff. And he always woke up hungry. Blair reached into the bassinet and retrieved a little silver rattle. It looked like a tiny barbell. "This was mine when I was a baby." She turned it over. "See all the little bite marks?" She handed the rattle to Nate. At first glance it appeared smooth, but when he looked closely he could see hundreds of indentations. It was no surprise that Blair had been a various teether, obsessive and aggressive right from the start. But there was something calm about her now, as if through soothing the baby she'd learned to soothe herself. Nate handed the rattle back and it shook noisily. Instantly, Yale began to fuss and whimper, her arms and legs lucking out in all directions and her face puckering like a dried apricot. Blair leaned over the bassinet and picked her sister up. "Shhh," she whispered. "It was nothing. Go back to sleep." She rocked back and forth until Yale stopped fussing. Then she put the baby down and tucked the blanket up around her. "There. Go to sleep," she said again, and then looked up at Nate. and tucked the blanket up around her. "There. Go to sleep," she said again, and then looked up at Nate. The penthouse was so hushed, Blair could practically hear her own heart beating. Tyler and Aaron were watching movies in the library, and her mom and Cyrus were out. But she couldn't exactly have sex with Nate while Yale lay sleeping innocently in the next room. She closed her eyes and kissed him again before whispering, "Okay, I'm ready." Finally. J looks forward to a scandalous Mure Jenny had never been a big dancer, but how could she not dance in those crazy white pointy boots? And the amazing thing about her turquoise leather vest was it held everything in place. No boob whiplash. No accidental groping. No wiggly-wobbly. Even without the vest, though, she would have been okay. Better than okay. The Raves stopped playing and announced that they were taking a short break. The Whiffenpoofs, however, were just getting going. "One, two, a one, two, three—"they began to sing in their traditional a cappella harmony. " Jenny, oh, Jennifer," they began to serenade her. "Serena's little sister, Jennifer. They don't look alike. One's tall, one's short, but they're the craziest gals in any pan." Serena came and draped her arm around Jenny's shoulders, swaying back and forth to the song. The other party-goers drifted back and forth across the room, not paying much attention now that the real music had cut out. "Jennifer, she's got big huge bazongas!" Chuck Bass sang loudly as he staggered past the two girls, shaking his ass drunkenly with his monkey on his shoulders and his military school beret on his head. A few titters echoed throughout the room. Uh-oh. "You know they did it once, right?" a girl from Seaton Arms whispered to her friend. "Got caught at a party in October, in the bathroom. She was, like, totally naked and Chuck was giving it to her on the toilet." "I thought he was gay," said a girl wearing a brand-new Vassar T-shirt. "Everyone wants to squeeze Jenny's great big boobeez!" Chuck carried on obnoxiously. "Chuck Bass has a hairy ass!" Serena countered loudly. "Just ignore him," she told Jenny. But instead of turning purple with outrage and utter shame, Jenny couldn't stop giggling. Two weeks ago Chuck's little performance would have been devastating. Now everyone was laughing at him, not with him. And now that she'd been through a scandal—or two or three—and come out ahead, she was more resilient. She had a past, a history. She was the girl no one would be able to stop talking about. Big bazongas and all, she, Jennifer, was destined for success. And if life took a crappy turn and things went irreparably wrong, she could always get sent to boarding school like her father had threatened. There she could reinvent herself. Maybe she'd even come back from boarding school and reinvent herself again, just like Serena had done. She might even have as many boyfriends as Serena. One day. d explores a new talent "Could I borrow a smoke, bro?" Damian Polk, the lead guitarist of the Raves and one of Dan's musical favorites, asked him. Dan was too drunk to be starstruck. He held up the rumpled half-empty pack of Camels he'd opened only a half hour ago, then Damian lit his cigarette with Dan's yellow plastic Bic. Damian was wearing a sort of brown canvas military, coat with words in Finnish or some other random language painted on it in black. It was the type of coat only a famous person could get away with. "Don't happen to know who lives here, do you?" he asked. Bic. Damian was wearing a sort of brown canvas military, coat with words in Finnish or some other random language painted on it in black. It was the type of coat only a famous person could get away with. "Don't happen to know who lives here, do you?" he asked. Damian nodded thoughtfully. "Any idea who wrote all those songs in those black leather books in the other room?" Dan wondered suddenly if he hadn't passed out and was dreaming this entire conversation. "Poems," he corrected, blinking away the happy melodic notes of the Whiffenpoofs, who were still serenading his sister. A tall guy with wire-rimmed glasses and a short woman with strawberry blond hair tangoed across the floor. "Those are my poems." He tried to stand up but his ankles buckled and he slumped against the wall again. If he didn't move soon, he was going to piss himself. Damian tucked his coat behind him and squatted down in front of Dan. "I'm telling you, man, they're songs." Dan stared woodenly at the famous five-inch-long scar that cut across Damian's famous forehead. It was supposedly from a BMX bike accident. Was he brain damaged or something? "Dude," he insisted. "I wrote them. They're poems." "Songs. Songs, songs, songs." Damian held out his hand and coaxed Dan into a standing position. "Come on, I'll show you." Dan stumbled along after Damian, bumping into people and slurring his sorrys. "When you guys gonna start playing again?" someone yelled. "Soon, asshole," Damian muttered, giving them the finger. Vanessa's room was just as crowded as the living room. The other members of the Raves were gathered on her bed, sorting through Dan's notebooks. "Did you see this one? It's called 'Sluts,'" the bass player told Damian, holding up the poem. "It'd be the perfect, like, pissed-off love ballad, you know? Like the perfect middle song for a show. Especially after this funny one, 'Killing Tooter.'" Dan stared at them. There was still a very good chance he was dreaming or had died after being stepped on by one of Tiphany's huge construction-worker friends. Damian nudged him forward. "I found the guy who wrote them. He's good-looking enough to be a front man." Dan swayed in front of the others. Front man? "But can he sing?" the drummer asked, giving Dan the once-over and pulling on his weird, scary mustache. The Raves had a mixed-bag kind of style. Part cool older brother, part serial killer. Sing? Damian clapped Dan on the back. "You'll give it a try, won't you? They're your songs, after all. Sing 'em however you want to. We play pretty loud, so you'll feel like you're shouting." He patted Dan's back again. "Just make it sound good, yeah?" "Yeah." As he followed the band into the living room, Dan felt like his body was in the hands of some maniacal puppeteer with a very twisted sense of humor. Next thing he knew, he'd be taking his shirt off. Well, he is the front man, after all. The drummer whacked his drums a few times and a hush of anticipation fell over the room. "We'll do 'Killing Tooter' first, yeah?" he asked Dan. Dan nodded. He barely knew the words, bu............