After that first day of skiing, Fenner had invited Serena out with his other ski bum friends, but she had turned him down. She preferred solitude or the reassuring company of Blair's father and his nice gay lover over pretending to flirt with a boy she wasn't even remotely interested in. While Nate and Blair fooled around on the other side of the door, she tried to watch Cocktail—the worst Tom Cruise movie ever made—but had to turn away when the people in Tom's hideously crowded bar started to recite terrible poetry and everyone in the bar hooted and clapped like it was the most kick-ass, profound stuff they'd ever heard. She turned the TV off and tried to unpack her clothes into the lodge's bureau drawers. She washed her hair and blow-dried it. She filed her nails. She turned the TV back on and tried to watch Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst, but the story was so thin she quickly grew bored. Every few minutes a sultry giggle or an amused chuckle emanated from the next room. Marie Antoinette wasn't getting any action from King Louis, but it sounded like Blair and Nate were getting plenty.
Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she threw on a black merino cardigan and her favorite pair of beat-up black Chanel flats and hastily left the room. On the second floor of the lodge was the famous bar and late-night dance lounge, popular with the over-sixty set, that the lodge staff had nicknamed the Wrinkle Room. Serena sat down at the bar, feeling young and conspicuous. Older couples crowded the dance floor, gingerly holding each other as they waltzed and tangoed to the medley of Frank Sinatra songs belted out by the tuxedoed, mustachioed piano player.
Come fly with me, come fly, come fly away. . .
"I'd like a shot of Absolut, please," Serena told the frail, thousand-year-old bartender. "And a Coke." The bartender poured her the Coke but not the shot. His body looked totally decrepit, but his mind must have been working fine. Clearly she was too young for him to even card.
Serena was grateful he allowed her to stay. The lounge was lit by candlelight, and through the windows she could see a light snow begin to fall. The snow appeared to be made of gold. A couple swept by her place at the bar. They were the best dancers of the bunch, and the best dressed. He was silver"haired and dapper in a hunter green velvet evening jacket and tuxedo pants. She was elegant in a pewter-colored silk gown, her white hair done up in a neat French twist. They danced gracefully and easily, as if they'd practiced for such a long time that the steps were second nature. Their eyes never strayed from each other's faces, and they were both smiling, like they were the luckiest couple alive.
It was difficult not to see herself and Nate in them. Half a century after their romance had begun, they would celebrate by dancing here. If things were entirely different, that is. Now it seemed a lot more likely that Nate and Blair would be the ones to do the dancing. How could he have changed partners so easily and guiltlessly, without batting a single one of his perfect golden brown eyelashes? How could he forget how they'd kissed in her warm bed that cold February night? And kissed, and kissed . . .
She lit a cigarette, letting the smoke trail away into the candlelight. If only she could give Nate up to Blair wholly and completely and stop thinking about kissing him. But she couldn't. Even if it was all in her head, he was still just a little bit hers. One thing was certain: she wouldn't torture herself again by traveling with them this summer. After this drink she would e-mail the agent in charge of arranging their summer train trip to tell him there would only be two travelers this summer, not three. No way was she going to sit in romantic French cafés with Blair and Nate while they fondled each other beneath the table and called each other pet names like Gummy Bear and Noodle. No way was she going to listen to them having loud, giggly sex in their romantic couchette while she sat alone in her couchette, knitting misshapen sweaters or doing the crossword in French, which had never been her best subject. She'd find something else to do this summer, like help her mother prune the rosebushes up in Ridgefield, learn to juggle, perfect her breaststroke, meet another boy.
As if there could ever be another boy.
Serena's well-defined shoulders slumped and she leaned heavily on the dark wooden bar. Salty tears seeped out of her sad navy blue eyes and slid down her cheeks. She suddenly felt older and more tired than any of the other patrons in the lounge. She pushed her Coke away and was about to slip off her lonely bar stool when the bartender set a shot glass down in front of her. He poured out a shot of Absolut. The piano player belted out another tune.
It had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you. . . .
Serena steeled herself, tipped her head back, and did the shot. She'd never done a shot before, but she'd always been bolder when she was alone.
Looks like this might be the dawn of a bold new era.
YOU ARE READING
Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You
Teen Fiction'Welcome to New York City's Upper East Side, where my friends and I all live in huge, fabulous apartments and go to exclusive single-sex private schools. We aren't always the nicest people in the world, but we make up for it in looks and taste.' Ent...
