Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

Look what the tooth fairy dragged in

Serena lay on top of her white eyelet bedspread, fully dressed in her favorite pair of TSE charcoal-colored cashmere leggings and a black cashmere J.Crew V-neck. It was Saturday morning. She'd been asleep for part of the night but had woken up at five a.m. to take a bath and give herself a milk facial and never made it back to sleep. It must have been eight o'clock or maybe even nine by now, she wasn't sure. It had stopped snowing, and sunlight filtered into the room through her white eyelet curtains, which were shut tight.

With a listless hand she reached for the little silver Tiffany box on her antique mahogany bedside table. The lid was monogrammed with her initials: SvdW. She pulled it off and examined the inside of the box, which was lined with Tiffany's signature light blue velvet. Six tiny teeth were clustered together on the velvet, a little brown around the edges—her baby teeth. Why were there only six, Nate always wanted to know. There were two incisors, two top teeth, and two bottom teeth. Where were the molars? Where were the rest? Serena always told him that the others had fallen out while she was eating chocolate mousse cake at his eighth birthday party and she'd swallowed them all at once, but they both knew that wasn't the truth. It was a mystery.

She dumped the teeth out of the box and held them in her hand. They felt sort of gross, like the bones of roadkill, something she wasn't supposed to touch. She returned them to the box and closed the lid, keeping it balanced on her tummy. Her body felt tired, so tired she could have slept for days, but she was afraid to close her eyes and see Blair and Nate kissing again. It was something she'd never forget.

"Miss Serena?" The van der Woodsens' Brazilian house-keeper, Deidre, knocked lightly on the door. "There is a Mr. Chuck Bass here. He has presents," she added teasingly, like Serena would be totally overjoyed to see Mr. Chuck Bass so early on a Saturday morning.

"Uh-oh," Serena muttered, stuffing her feet into her old black sheepskin Ugg slippers. She padded over to the door and opened it a crack. "Hey Deidre, is he, like, in the house? Or is he waiting down in the lobby?" she asked, hoping the maid could tell the doorman to send Chuck away.

"I'm right here," Chuck's loud voice responded grandly. He appeared in front of the door brandishing a bouquet of smelly white lilies and a gigantic venti frozen mocha-choco-frappi drink topped with Reddi Whip in a clear plastic trough-size cup from Starbucks. "Good morning, darling." He kissed her cheek and stepped into her bedroom like this was their regular Saturday morning routine. Deidre swished down the hall in her gray-and-white maid's uniform, shooting Serena an amused backward glance with her soft brown eyes as if to say, "What a charmer!"

Serena didn't hate a lot of things, but she despised overly sweet frozen Starbucks beverages, and the overpowering scent of lilies had always repulsed her. As did Chuck's manly cologne, his wet-looking hair, and his huge, shiny white teeth. She wondered fleetingly if Chuck had ever had baby teeth. It was hard to imagine him with baby anything.

"Hi, Chuck," she greeted him tiredly. She took the coffee and put the lilies on her desk. She wanted to toss them out the window, but thought that might be rude. "You're up early. Where's Donatella?"

She noticed that he was still wearing his coat and tails, and he still looked nice, in a deodorant-commercial sort of way. All of a sudden he was kneeling in front of her, holding her limp hands.

"All night I was awake, watching your building. Watching your lights go on and off. The night doorman wouldn't let me in. He wouldn't even ring up." He stopped, as if that was all he needed to say.

Serena frowned. She had the feeling she was missing something. "Where's Donatella?" she repeated stupidly. "You guys looked so . . . good together."

Chuck rolled his eyes as though Donatella de la Varga and her perfectly round naked breasts were so yesterday. "She was a baby. A total virgin. It turns out she's betrothed to some Swiss prince, and he has it in writing that she has to be a virgin on their wedding night, which is in, like, two months. Her dad was watching her like a hawk the whole time. Maybe he wasn't even her dad. I'm pretty sure he had a gun. Kind of ruined my plans. Anyway, it doesn't matter." Chuck held her hands a little tighter. "When you kissed me last night, I knew. You're the one I love."

Serena stared down at him, the corners of her perfectly shaped mouth twitching. He couldn't possibly be serious. "Did Blair put you up to this?" she demanded suspiciously. Blair loved pranks. And she was completely unaware that she'd broken Serena's heart last night. She was very apt to pull a prank.

Chuck frowned. "No. She was a little busy last night." He did something disgusting with his hands, sliding his right index finger in and out of an O-shaped hole he'd made with his left index finger and thumb. "With Nate," he added for good measure.

The gesture felt like a kick in the stomach. Serena grimaced and clutched her throat. "I don't mean to hurt your feelings, Chuck," she told him quietly, "but I need you to go now." She tugged urgently on his hands, trying to pull him to a standing position.

Chuck stood up and grasped her cashmere-swathed upper arms. He was about to swallow her face in one of his overwhelming wet, gulping kisses, but Serena stepped back, yanking her arms out of his hands. "Please," she pleaded.

He stood there, glaring at her. This was not what he'd expected. Obviously, he thought her kiss last night had been some kind of open invitation. "You're supposed to be so slutty," he growled. "Or do you only do it with girls?"

Serena decided not to answer that question. "Bye, Chuck." She picked up the phone, thinking he'd be more likely to leave if she was busy doing something else. She pushed a few buttons at random.

"I'll call you," he told her breezily, and flapped his hand in her direction before leaving.

Please don't.

The phone rang in Serena's anxious hand.

"Hey!" It was Blair, sounding so excited she was practically screaming. "We did it!"

Serena flopped dizzily down on her bed. She felt wrung out or waterlogged. What was she supposed to say—-congratulations? At least Blair was happy now and not leaning over the toilet, miserably puking her guts up.

"Is he still there?" Serena whispered hoarsely.

"Yes," Blair whispered giddily back. "He's sleeping."

Serena closed her eyes as tears spilled out of them uncontrollably. "Oh."

"Don't forget to call that travel agent with our itinerary for our trip this summer," Blair reminded her bossily. "Tell him we don't care about hiking in the Alps or the Appian Way or whatever. I don't hike. I just want to spend as much time on the train as possible, in my couchette, with Nate."

"Okay," Serena sobbed breathlessly. "I'll call you later," she added hurriedly and hung up. She remained seated on the edge of her bed, staring at her cheery pink-and-blue rose-patterned needlepoint rug while the tears coursed down her cheeks and into her lap. So complete was her misery, she might have sat there for a minute or ten minutes or forty-five, she didn't know.

Finally she wiped her tears and went over to her desk. She shoved aside the forgotten pile of boarding school catalogs and flipped open her Latin textbook. Amo, amas, amat. In her entire life she'd never done homework on a Saturday morning. But since her two best friends were now otherwise engaged—with each other—maybe this was her chance to become a model student, devote her spare time to charity, perfect her backhand.

Rehabilitate her broken heart.