Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

V helps B notice the little things

"It's just so pink" Vanessa observed, kneeling down on the dirty ice to get another close-up photograph of the wad of spat-out chewing gum just outside Constance Billard's massive blue- painted wooden doors.

She'd been photographing the gum for almost half an hour, and Blair wanted to strangle her. Blair could not believe she was walking around with someone wearing bloomers, which were basically puffy navy-blue-and-white-checked underwear, in public. "Our pictures are all black-and-white anyway, remember?" she snapped. "Can we go now?"

Of course Vanessa knew perfectly well what kind of film was loaded in her camera. "I just want to get it from one more angle," she replied distractedly, lying down on her back on the sidewalk and holding the camera upside down over the piece of gum. She fought back an attack of the giggles. Wow, was it fun to annoy Blair.

Will it still be fun when her camera gets chucked onto Fifth Avenue?

"Jesus," Blair muttered, yanking her vibrating cell phone from the pocket of her kelly green Marc Jacobs Jackie O coat with the gigantic tortoiseshell buttons. "Hello, Mother," she said coldly. "I'm glad you finally found the time to return my calls." Blair had left four messages for her mother since yesterday, having decided the night before last that she had to tell her about the incident with her father in his dressing room. Of course, she saw her parents nearly every morning before school—her father insisted on family breakfasts during the week—but she needed to speak to her mother alone.

"I'm sorry, honey, but you know how busy I am this time of year. Spring is coming and there are just so many benefits to plan. I wish there were three of me!" Eleanor exclaimed.      Blair rolled her eyes. There already were three of her. Over the past month her mother had gotten extremely fat on some ridiculous French diet which required her to eat a steak a day and an entire wheel of brie a week. Blair squatted down on the sidewalk and rummaged around in her bag for her white TSE cashmere scarf. She wasn't wearing any tights, and she was freezing her ass off. "I just thought you should know that last weekend I caught Daddy hiding in his dressing room while he was having this gross conversation with another woman while you were tasting food for the Guggenheim benefit," Blair blurted out. "He's having an affair. I'm sure of it."

"Like most mothers and daughters, they had a complicated love-hate relationship. Blair thought her mother had a right to know what she'd seen and heard, but telling her was a sort of challenge, as if to say, "Here's the deal, Droopyass. Now what are you going to do about it?" Not that Blair really wanted her parents to fight or split up or whatever, but it would certainly add drama to her life.

And we all need drama.

"Oh, I'm sure you just misheard him, sweetie," Eleanor replied in her chirpiest "this information does not compute" voice. It was all Blair could do not to hang up on her. "Daddy has been working very hard lately. He was probably just practicing for a case or something."

Blair's father was a patent lawyer who specialized in pharmaceuticals and footwear. Blair was pretty damned sure he wasn't working on any cases for Ernest and Julio Gallo.

She found the scarf and stood up to wind it around her neck, only to find that Vanessa had left. She whirled around, her mother's overly perky voice still chattering in the background. "I thought maybe we could go to Bergdorf's after school," she was saying. "I haven't been there in weeks, and you need a new spring coat."

It was a gray, dank February day and the air smelled like cold mashed potatoes. Dirty slush crowded the curbs, and even the bright yellow taxis looked cold. It was the kind of day that made Blair want to put on her favorite Missoni knit bikini and elope with Nate to St. Barts.

Across Madison Avenue Blair caught sight of Vanessa's wide, bloomered butt sashaying down Ninety-third Street toward Park Avenue, her long jet-black hair billowing out behind her in the damp, winter wind. Blair started to follow her, walking quickly. The phone call with her mother seemed totally irrelevant since her mother wasn't listening to her anyway. It was much more important that Vanessa know that she was the one who was supposed to decide where they were going. She'd wanted to take pictures of the cute new baby ducklings swimming in the reservoir in Central Park, but Vanessa was walking east, away from the park.