You're the One That I Want (3 page)

As if we haven't already suffered enough. Anyway, rumor has it the bundles went out on Monday, and since we all basically live in the same zip code, we should be getting ours, like... TODAY!!

Your e-mail

Dear GG,

You are the bomb. FYI, everyone: Party at my dad's restau-rant tonight. True West, Pier Hotel, top floor, West Street. I've reserved a couple suites in the hotel too so there will be plenty of space to blow off steam. Stay cool.

--jay

No, you are the bomb. See you tonight!

--GG

Sightings

B, harassing her mailman. It's because of people like her that we're all suffering right now! S reading the personal ads in Time Out dur-ing her Mandarin Oriental Spa pedicure. Interestingly enough, she was kind of stuck on the Women Seeking Women page. D sitting on the marble floor in the lobby of his apartment building right under the mailboxes, writing furiously in a little black notebook. Guess the pres-sure's getting to him. N drinking highballs with his parents at the Yale Club. Celebrating so early? J buying a three-foot-high stack of fash-ion magazines at her local newsstand. Is she researching a school assignment or just making a collage? And V, interviewing anybody and everybody. That's going to be one fed-up movie!

If you have a big dog who likes to bite mailmen, please keep him on a leash.

And remember people, we're all in this together.

You know you love me,

gossip girl on your marks, get set, rrrip!!

"Oh my God, I can't breathe," Blair gasped dramatically. She hugged one of her stepbrother Aaron's barley-husk-filled bed pillows against her stomach. "I'm going to throw up."

It wouldn't be the first time.

"Calm down," Serena advised, arranging two little piles of white, cream, and manila envelopes on top of Aaron's egg-plant-colored hemp bedspread. Her instincts in the park the other day about this little letter-opening party had been dead accurate. Blair was simply way too competitive to be civilized about the whole thing.

"I'm going to die," Blair moaned, clutching her stomach.

The two girls sat cross-legged on top of Aaron's bed in his bedroom, which was actually Blair's room from now until she went away to college. Her real bedroom was being made over into a nursery for Yale, her new baby half-sister, due to arrive in June. Aaron had moved in with her little brother, Tyler. Blair despised the room's ecofriendly decor and the persistent odor of stale soy hot dogs and herbal cigarettes. She was even thinking of petitioning for a suite at the Carlyle Hotel on Madison, at least until graduation.

Talk about perfect setting for a post-getting-into-Yale rendezvous with Nate! But first things first: she had to get in.

On the bed between the two girls were two piles of envelopes, stacked facedown so that the return addresses were hidden. There were seven in Blair's stack and five in Serena's, yet Serena's stack was taller. There was no question about it: Serena's envelopes were suspiciously fatter.

"Okay. Ready?" Serena asked. She reached across the bed to give Blair's hand a little good-luck squeeze.

"Wait!" Blair grabbed the bottle of Ketel One vodka she'd swiped from her stepfather's nightstand and opened it with her teeth.

"The longer you drag it out, the more painful it's gonna be," Serena replied, beginning to lose patience.

Blair took a swig, then closed her eyes and reached for the first envelope in her stack. "Fuck it. Okay. Let's do it."

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. Waldorf,

The Office of Admissions is sorry to inform you that we have reviewed your application and cannot offer you a place at Harvard University next fall.

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. van der Wbodsen,

The Office of Admissions has reviewed your application and is pleased to offer you a place at Harvard University. . . .

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. Waldorf,

Thank you for your application. Princeton University had an out-standing pool of applicants this year. The admissions decision is always a difficult one. We regret to inform you that we cannot offer you a place in the class of...

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. van der Woodsen,

Thank you for your outstanding application. Princeton University is pleased to offer you a place in the class of...

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. Waldorf, We regret to inform you that Brown University cannot. ..

Rriipp! Dear Ms. van der Woodsen,

The Office of Admissions was impressed with your application. We are pleased to invite you to join Brown University's class of...

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. Waldorf,

We have reviewed your application and have decided not to offer you a place atWesleyan next fall. We wish you well.

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. van der Woodsen,

The Office of Admissions at Wesleyan University is pleased to offer you a place...

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. Waldorf,

Vassar College is a small school and can only accept a limited number of applicants. We regret to inform you that we cannot offer you a place at Vassar next fall.

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. van der Woodsen,

Thank you for your application to Yale University. We are very pleased to invite you to join the class of...

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. Waldorf,

Thank you for your application to Yale University. The Office of Admissions has added your name to a wait list. The office will inform you of your status on or before June 15.

Rriipp!

Dear Ms. Waldorf,

We have reviewed your application and are very pleased to offer you a place at Georgetown University next fall.

Blair tossed the last letter on top of the bedspread and seized the bottle of vodka. Wait-listed at Yale, and she only got into Georgetown? But that was her safety! No way had she thought she'd ever actually wind up there.

Drink up and think again, honey-pie.

She took a panicked gulp and then handed the bottle to Serena. "How'd you do?" she demanded.

Serena could tell from the scary look on Blair's face that the news was not good. She didn't know what to say. "Urn, I got in ... um . . . basically . . . everywhere?"

Blair stared disbelievingly at the sheaf of acceptance letters in Serena's hands. On top was a cream-colored letter marked with the distinctive blue Yale University letterhead. Her vision blurred. "Wait, you applied to Yale?"

Serena nodded. "At the last minute I just decided, why not, you know?"

"And you got in?"

Serena nodded again. "Sorry." She reached for the remote and flicked on Aaron's TV. Then she flicked it off again. The way Blair was glaring at her with her teeth bared was making her nervous.

Blair kept on glaring. Back in first grade she'd acciden-tally chopped off a foot-long swath of Serena's long golden hair with a steak knife. All these years she'd felt sort of guilty about it--until now. Now she wished she'd cut Serena's entire blond fucking head off. She snatched up the bottle and took another angry swig of vodka. What did Serena have that she didn't? She was in the top of her class at Constance and took every AP course they offered. She'd aced the SAT. She did charity work. She ran the French club. She was a ranked tennis player. Her entire high-school career--practically her whole life--she'd been working toward getting into Yale. Her father had gone there. His father had gone there. Her great-uncle had donated two buildings and a playing field. Serena had been kicked out of boarding school that fall. She took no APs at all, did hardly any extracurriculars, was pur-ported to have mediocre grades and even lower SAT scores than Nate. Serena's dad had gone to Princeton and Brown, two of Yale's biggest competitors. Still, Yale had accepted Serena and stuck Blair on their fucking wait list! Was there something Serena knew that she didn't even after twelve two-hour sessions with Ms. Glos, the uptight, wig-wearing Constance Billard School senior guidance counselor, and one hundred and fourteen weeks of SAT prep??

"I probably won't even go," Serena faltered in an attempt to play things down. "I have to ... you know . . . visit all the schools before I decide." She gathered her luxurious blond hair on top of her head and frowned. "Maybe I won't even go to college right away. I could stay in the city and try to do some acting or something."

Blair scooted off the bed, scattering her pile of rejection letters. So Serena got into Yale, but she didn't even really want to go there? "What the fuck?!" she cried, sloshing vodka all over the natural-sea-grass mat beneath her feet.

Serena collected her letters and held them behind her back. "What about the other schools? You must have-All of a sudden Blair's stepbrother, Aaron Rose, poked his smug, dreadlocked Rasta, into-Harvard-early-admission head into the room. "I thought I heard shouting." He squinted at the letters in Serena's hand. "Accepted at Harvard!" He walked into the room and held his hand up to give her a high five. "Nice!" He grinned over at Blair. "Wuzzabout you, sis?"

Blair wasn't sure whether to kill them both or kill herself. "I'm not your sister," she spat back. She slammed the half-empty vodka bottle down on the top of Aaron's organically grown beechwood dresser, nearly breaking the glass bottle. "But since you're both obviously so interested, I got fucking wait-listed at Yale. The only place that accepted me is Georgetown. Fucking stupid-ass Georgetown."

Serena and Aaron stared at her for a moment, their eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and fear of the Mighty Wrath of Blair.

"That's not so bad," Serena murmured finally. She didn't know much about Georgetown, but she'd met some cute boys who went there, and it might be kind of cool to live in the same city as the president. "I'm sure Yale is just playing hard to get. And if you don't wind up getting in, at least you have backup."

It was easy for Serena to talk about backup when her backup schools were Harvard and Brown. Blair stuffed her feet back into her new dove gray Eugenia Kim flats and snatched her black DKNY zip-up cardigan off the bed.

"Come on, Blair, don't be such sore loser. New Haven's a dump anyway. You'd probably hate it there." Aaron hooked his guitar-playing-callused thumbs into the pockets of his army green cargo pants. "At least they have a Prada in DC."

Of course the only thing Blair had heard him say was the word loser.

"Fuck off," she hissed to both of them as she stomped out the door on her way over to Nate's house. Chances were Nate had only been accepted at some lame stoner school like Hobart or UNH. At least he could sympathize.

He'd probably even have sympathy sex. Not that she was even close to being in the mood.

n's news is too good to share

No one else was even home, but out of sheer habit, Nate stuffed a rolled-up navy blue Ralph Lauren bath towel into the space between the hardwood floor and his closed bedroom door before sitting down on his green-and-black-plaid bed-spread and lighting up. He took a big hit and then reached for the first envelope in the short stack on his bedside table. He tore it open.

Congratulations, Mr. Archibald,

Brown University is pleased to offer you . . .

Score!

Nate dropped the letter on the bed, took another hit, and then tore open the second envelope.

Dear Mr. Archibald, The Office of Admissions has reviewed your application and would like to invite you to join Boston University's class of...

Double score!

He sucked on the joint and then balanced it on the edge of his bedside table. Next envelope.

Hampshire College had a strong and interesting pool of appli-cants this year. Yours stood out. Mr. Archibald, we are pleased to offer you a place at Hampshire next fall.

Triple score!

Last envelope--he'd only been able to deal with applying to four schools.

Thank you for your application. Yale University's office of admis-sions is pleased to offer you a place in the class of...

Quadruple fucking score!!!

Nate couldn't wait to tell Blair. They could go to Yale together, live in the married people's housing just like she used to dream about. They could even get a dog, maybe. A Great Dane.

Nate examined the other paperwork stuffed inside the envelopes. Along with the acceptance letters from Brown and Yale were extra letters from the schools' lacrosse coaches, promising him a starting place on the team. "Holy shit," Nate breathed, reading the letters. They didn't just want him. They wanted him bad.

Join the club.

He reached for his cell phone and was about to speed-dial Blair's private line when the phone rang in his hand. The name blair appeared on the phone's little screen.

"Hey. I was about to call you," Nate chuckled. "How'd it go?"

"Buzz me in." Blair replied in a clipped tone. "I'm like two doors away from your house."

Uh-oh.

Nate licked his fingers and pinched the burning end of the joint until it went out. Then he squirted a little Hermes Eau d'Orange Verte cologne into the air to freshen up the room. Not that he was trying to completely hide the fact that he'd been smoking weed; he just didn't want to gross Blair out with the smell.

The doorbell rang and he buzzed her in. "I'm in my room," he said into the high-tech video-intercom system.

"Come on up."

On the bed were his four acceptance letters. He gathered them up, eager to present Blair with the awesome news: they were both going to Yale! This particular strain of pot always made him horny. Maybe Blair would finally be ready to have sex, and they could celebrate properly, with their clothes off.

Or maybe not.

Nate's house was even nicer than Blair's--after all, it was a whole house with a garden and everything, and since he was an only child, Nate even had his own floor. But the stairs always annoyed Blair. Couldn't his parents just install an escalator?

"I'm dying," Blair wailed as soon as she reached the top step. She staggered into Nate's room and flopped facedown on the bed. Then she rolled over and stared up at the clear blue sky through the skylight in the ceiling. "At least, I wish I were dead."

The odds were pretty high that Blair wouldn't be consid-ering death if she'd gotten into Yale. Nate slid his acceptance letters onto his desk and sat down next to her. Gingerly, he brushed his thumb against her flawlessly smooth cheek.