Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

What the ladies-who-lunch talk about during lunch

"Wait your turn, girls," Mrs. Wiley, the wide-nostriled lunch proctor instructed the semi-orderly queue of uniformed Constance Billard girls lined up at the entrance to the cafeteria, orange plastic trays in hand. "There are plenty of fish sticks to go around. Watch out for the little ones."

Constance Billard parents had been complaining about the uninspired school lunches for years, and the school was determined to improve on its standard fare of cold roast beef and powdered mash potatoes. The first step was to hire a lunch proctor whose job was to monitor how much the girls ate, what their preferences were, and what sorts of foods they brought from home to supplement the disgusting school lunch. During the upcoming summer, the administration had promised to refurbish the cafeteria, and in the fall it would offer a deluxe salad bar and smoothie center, with offerings garnered from Mrs. Wiley's observations. Not that she'd garnered anything awe-inspiring. Who wouldn't prefer braised carrot sticks in pesto, sourdough baguettes, and green-tea yogurt to scary gray meat loaf and canned string beans? If the students and parents were satisfied with the new menu, Mrs. Wiley would take her nostrils to another malnourished school.

And she would be sorely missed. Not.

Blair and Serena stood in line for the salad bar, remaining oddly silent. Blair was in a foul mood. She'd received Nate's horrendous e-mail only moments before—and to think, all morning she'd been in a blissed-out pre-summer trance, gloriously reviewing every momentous event since she and Nate had kissed that first night in Chuck's suite. How thrilled she'd felt to wake up the next morning to him kissing her. Tiffany. Watching the sea lion feeding at the zoo. The hour-long carriage ride in the snow, fooling around the whole time beneath a scratchy woolen blanket. Giving Nate the moss green sweater with the gold heart sewn into it. Promising to finally do it with him this summer on the train as it left Paris. Now they weren't even going to Europe anymore.

The girls placed modest piles of iceberg lettuce on their plates, ladling a dollop of bleu cheese dressing next to it before moving along to the dessert area, where they each selected a Dannon nonfat lemon yogurt. This was the "diet plate" they'd invented in fifth grade and had been eating ever since. Serena followed Blair over to their favorite table, in front of a full wall of mirrors. As usual, Serena sat facing the mirror and Blair sat with her back to it. Blair couldn't look at herself and eat at the same time.

Serena twirled her spoon around in her yogurt, wondering why Blair looked so glum. Had she done badly on her AP French test? Had she and Nate had a fight? she couldn't help but wonder hopefully. Across the lunchroom Rain, Laura, Kati, and Isabel were getting their trays and lining up. Now was Serena's chance for a private conversation before they were bombarded. Blair stirred her coffee with exaggerated annoyance, spilling half of it onto her tray.

"Are you okay?" Serena asked tentatively. She unbuttoned the top button of her white Peter Pan–collared short-sleeved Tocca blouse and then buttoned it again.

The small, crowded cafeteria was teeming with chattering girls, but an almost imperceptible hush seemed to fall over them when Serena uttered this question. Without actually moving, the room full of girls bent their ears toward the two pretty sophomores speaking in low voices at their special table near the mirrored wall, and their mindless chatter morphed into ruthless gossip.

"You know those poems by Anonymous? Serena is Anonymous. She's totally in love with Blair. It's really sad," a bed-wetting eighth-grader named Susie Wexler declared.

"They're so beautiful," sighed a freshman with Coke bottle glasses.

"Serena had a nose job," countered her frizzy-haired classmate. "My dad's a podiatrist—I should know."

"I heard Blair and Nate are getting married. I heard someone saw him looking at engagement rings in Tiffany this weekend. Oh my God, do you think she's pregnant?" a tragically stubby-legged senior wondered gleefully.