Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

All dressed up with no place to go

"Isn't life just perfect?" Serena wondered aloud as she puffed on the ridiculously long black lacquered cigarette holder she'd discovered in the tiny drawer in Mrs. Archibald's gold-painted antique bedside table, along with several prescription bottles of pills and a small red-suede diary full of illegible blue felt-tipped scribbles in drunken French. Zut alors, je deteste Misty Bass! J'adore mon nouvel chauffeur!

"Merveilleux," Blair agreed, adjusting Mrs. Archibald's enormous black Chanel sunglasses on her nose.

The girls were lying on their backs on Nate's parents' bed, watching the stars come out through the round skylight over- head. Nate lay between them, his glittering green eyes closed. His dad's purple-and-black silk bow tie and matching cummerbund were tied around his white Polo shirt. "Hmm," he noted drunkenly. Nate was sort of a lightweight when it came to gin, but even drunk and dressed like a jackass he was still hot.

"Do you think she wore pajamas to bed?" Serena mused.

"Or a nightgown?"

"Pajamas," Blair responded definitively. "White satin pajamas with black velvet trim." They'd watched Breakfast at Tiffany's twice in a row and neither girl could stop talking about it. They were obsessed.

"If I ever become a director, that's the kind of movie I'd like to make," Serena declared dreamily as a plane flew high above the skylight, its lights flashing. "And you two can star in it."

"Not me," Nate yawned. Acting was totally not his thing. Memorize all those lines? No, thanks. He was a sailor. He'd always be a sailor. Not that he actually sailed much during the school year, but he and his father were working on the blue- prints for the awesome sailboat they were going to build up at their family compound on Mt. Desert Island, in Maine. One day he'd take Serena and Blair sailing on that boat. And one day he'd win the America's Cup with it.

In her head, Blair was already playing the movie she was going to star in. She and Nate couldn't be perfect strangers in her movie the way Fred and Holly Golightly had been. They'd known each other forever. But maybe after college they'd wind up living in the same building on the Upper East Side just like Holly and Fred. And one day, when they were both running for the same taxi, they'd bump into each other in the rain. Blair would be holding a cat, and they'd kiss and realize that they'd actually been in love their whole lives. Then they'd rush up to her apartment and have wild, passionate sex.

Or maybe that would happen right now.

Blair turned her head slightly to glance at Nate. There was a tuft of soft golden fuzz on his cheekbone that he'd missed with his electric razor. His light brown eyelashes curled so dramati- cally they looked fake. It was almost painful to be this close to him and not actually touch him. Boldly, she pressed her head into his chest and sighed sleepily in her best Audrey Hepburn voice, "Thank heaven for king-size beds."

On Nate's other side, Serena tapped out her cigarette in an empty martini glass, unbuttoned her still-snow-dampened Earl jeans, and slithered out of them. Then she rolled over, slipping one long, always-tanned, perfect leg around one of Nate's khaki- clad knees. He was just a great big yummy teddy bear, perfect for snuggling. And one day soon she would get up the courage to slip her hands underneath his shirt and kiss him, really kiss him.

One day soon, please.

It was a blessing he was drunk or Nate wouldn't have been able to stand it. Even with three martinis swirling around in his belly, his khakis were getting tighter and tighter in a certain zippered area. He loved both Serena and Blair, he really did, and they were both so hot. He even liked Breakfast at Tiffany's a little better the second time around. But one thing had occurred to him while he was watching it again: everyone seemed so repressed. All the girls wore makeup and the guys wore hats and they all stayed fully clothed the whole time. It just made him want to... want to...

Nate was fifteen going on sixteen and tired of being a virgin. Finding himself the cheddar in a Serena-Blair grilled cheese sandwich didn't help matters either—it just made him hornier than heck. But how could he choose between them? They were both so much a part of him it felt wrong to imagine one of them naked. He crossed his ankles, throwing off Serena's leg. Maybe it would be better if he remained their best friend, eunuchlike and asexual—at least as far as his two best friends were concerned—while he found some other girl to finally do it with. Just to get it out of his system.

Urn, not exactly what either of them had in mind.

"Let's stay together like this forever/' Serena murmured sleepily, burrowing her nose into Nate's warm neck. Then she remembered that her parents wanted to send her to boarding school next year. She squeezed her enormous navy blue eyes shut, but she no longer felt tired. Her long, nearly black eyelashes fluttered against Nate's neck as she opened her eyes again. His breathing slowed as he drifted into dreamland. Blair was already wheezing and whistling in her sleep, the way she always did when she'd been drinking and smoking. Serena lifted her head to look at them, both fast asleep in an adorable, cozy heap, like puppies that had played too hard.

In Mrs. Warwick's English class they'd been reading The

Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. In it, this guy Dorian stays young and beautiful while the portrait some painter paints of him ages and gets ugly. Serena cupped her hands around her eyes and clicked her tongue, pretending to take a picture of her friends that would freeze them like this, together and forever perfect. She bent down and lightly kissed Nate's cheek, breathing in the wonderful sandalwood soap smell of him and dampening his skin with her tears. She was crying because she loved both him and Blair, and she was never happier than when she was with them. How could she leave her two best friends?

And maybe she was crying because the idea of Blair and Nate snuggling on his parents' bed without her was simply too much to bear.

GOSSIP GIRL.NET

hey people!

watch out, liz smith

Much to my surprise, this tell-all business comes quite naturally to me. The only thing I cannot share is my own identity. Many of you are already clamoring for it, but alas, I operate under a strict don't-ask-don't-tell policy, so don't even bother. You might want to tell me all sorts of other juicy stuff, which is entirely welcome. I'm totally easy when it comes to gossip—I'll listen to anything. After all, I descend from a long line of glamorous gossips and advice columnists, including Dear Abby, Hedda Hopper, Simon Doonan, and Liz Smith. Not that I'm actually related to any of them by blood, but I can feel them in my veins. So give me the scoop!

sightings

B fighting with her dad in Ferragamo on Fifth and Fifty-second Street. She's scary when she's angry, but she finally did calm downlong enough to try on and make Daddy buy six—count 'em, six—pairs of cute satin ballet flats in jewel shades. S with her mom in Frette buying Italian flannel sheets in twin size X-long. Where's she going, sleepaway camp? N flirting with a gaggle of French girls from L'Ecole in front of that pizzeria on Eighty-sixth and Madison. Pardonnez-moi, but hands off—he's already spoken for, by more than one girl.

the / word

We're young, we're not completely freaking out about college yet, and we still make major fashion mistakes and social faux pas and totally get away with them. Why bother with love now when we're so footloose and fancy free? The obvious answer: boredom. We need to stir things up a little, and because we're bored, not boring, we have no qualms about telling our best friends that after all these years of friendship, all we can think about is them—naked. I know, I know, I can already hear you squealing, Ew! But just imagine that your best friend is N—who could not think about him with his shirt off and taking your shirt off with him? I mean, come on!

There, I've said it. I'm in love with him too. Et vous? Or am I enough for you?

You know you just can't get enough of me,
gossip girl