Chapter excerpt from Gossip Girl:
You're the One That I Want
B is the star of her own little movie
"Just talk about how you're feeling right now. You know, with college admission letters coming this week and everything." Vanessa Abrams squinted into the camera and adjusted the lens so Blair's jade-and-Swarovski-crystal chandelier earrings were in the frame. It was a balmy April afternoon and the park was a madhouse. Behind them a group of senior boys from St. Jude's chased a Frisbee up the terraced steps overlooking Bethesda Fountain, swearing and tackling one another in a frenzy of pent-up pre-college-admission stress. Around the perimeter of the fountain lay sprawled the perfectly tanned and manicured bodies of Upper East Side high-school girls, smoking cigarettes and rubbing their legs with the latest Lancome tan invigorator, while the winged bronze lady in the center of the fountain gazed down on them forgivingly.
Vanessa pressed record. "You can start anytime."
Blair Waldorf licked her glossy lips and tucked the grown-out wisps of her dark brown pixie cut behind her ears. Underneath her plain black Polo skirt and gray Constance Billard uniform she was wearing the new turquoise-silk-and-black-lace underwire bra-and-thong set she's bought in Barneys' lingerie department. She pressed her back against the fountain's rim and adjusted her butt on the folded-up bath towel Vanessa had given her to sit on.
Hot weather and thongs are a bad combination.
"I promised myself that if I got into Yale, Nate and I would finally do it," Blair began. She glanced down and twirled her ruby ring around and around on the ring finger of her left hand. "We're not even really together�yet. But we both know we want to be, and as soon as that letter comes..." She looked up at the camera, ignoring Vanessa�s weirdly intense, shaven-headed, black-combat-boots-wearing stare. "For me it's not just about having sex, though. It's about my whole future. Yale and Nate. The two things I've always wanted."
She cocked her head. Actually, she wanted a lot of things. But except for that exquisite pair of Christian Louboutin silver lizard platform sandals, those were the two major ones.
"Nice try, loser!" a boy shouted as he snatched a Frisbee out of the air from under his friend's nose.
Blair closed her blue eyes and opened them again. "And if I don't get in..." She paused dramatically. "Someone is going to fucking pay."
Maybe she should be required to wear a muzzle this week.
Blair sighed, reached into her skirt, and adjusted her bra straps. "Some of my other friends�like Serena and Nate�aren't as freaked out about the whole college thing. But that's because they aren't living with their way-too-old-to-be-pregnant mom and their fat, gross stepfather. I mean, I don't even have my own room anymore!" She swiped a tear away and looked up at the camera with a mournful expression. "This is like my one chance to be happy. And I think I deserve it, you know?"
Cue applause.
n just wants to taste her lip gloss
Reaching the end of the elm-tree-lined promenade leading up to the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, Nate Archibald tossed the nub end of the joint he'd been smoking to the ground and walked straight past his Frisbee-playing friends. Not ten feet away, Blair sat cross-legged at the base of the fountain, talking into a camera. She looked nervous and sort of innocent. Her delicate hands fluttered around her small, foxlike face, and her short gray school uniform barely covered her muscular thighs. He shook the golden brown locks out of his emerald green eyes and shoved his hands into his khaki pants pockets. She was sexy all right.
Of course, at that very moment every single female in the park was thinking exactly the same thing�about him.
Nat recognised the odd, shaven-headed girl behind the camera only vaguely. Normally Blair would have nothing to do with her, but she was always up for anything that involved talking about herself. Blair liked attention, and even after breaking up with her and cheating on her for the umpteenth time, Nate still liked giving it to her. He dipped his hand into the fountain, walked up behind her, and flicked a few drops of water on her bare arm.
Blair whipped her head around to find Nate looking irresistible as ever in a pale yellow button-down, unbuttoned, untucked, and rolled up, so all she could see were his wonderful tanned muscles and perfect face. "You weren�t listening to what I said, were you?" she demanded.
He shook his heads and she got up from the towel, ignoring Vanessa completely. As far as Blair was concerned, they were finished.
"Hey." Nate ducked down and kissed her cheek. He smelled like smoke and clean laundry and new leather�all the good boy smells.
Yum
"Hello." Blair tugged on her uniform. Why the hell hadn't she gotten into Yale today?
"I was just thinking about how last summer you were completely addicted to ice cream sandwiches," Nate observed. He had a sudden urge to lick all that candy-sweet-smelling lip gloss off her lips and run his tongue over her teeth.
She pretended to adjust her new earrings so he would notice them. "I'm too nervous to eat, but lemonade would taste really good right now."
Nate smiled and Blair tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, just as she always used to when they went around together. The old familiar thrill passed through her. It was always like this when they got back together�comfortable and thrilling at the same time. They walked over to the vendor parked at the top of the steps and Nate bought two cans of Country Time lemonade. Then they sat down on a nearby bench and he removed a silver flask from his olive green canvas Jack Spade backpack.
Cocktail hour!
Blair ignored the lemonade and grabbed the flask.
"I don't know why you're nervous," Nate assured her.
"You're like the best student in your class." Nate felt sort of ambivalent about getting into college. He applied to five schools and yeah, he wanted to get into one of them, but he was pretty confident he'd have a decent time wherever he went.
Blair took another swig from the flask before giving it back. "In case you totally forgot, I kind of totally fucked up both of my interviews?" she reminded him.
Nate had heard about her little nervous breakdown at her first Yale interview and how she'd ended the session by kissing her interviewer. He'd also heard about her brief flirtation in a hotel room with her alumni interviewer. In a way, her was responsible for both mishaps. Whenever they broke up, Blair went completely apeshit.
He reached over and adjusted the ruby ring on her finger. "Relax. Everything's going to be okay," he told her soothingly. "I promise."
"Okay," Blair agreed, although the truth was she wasn't going to stop stressing until she had the Yale acceptance letter hanging above her bed in a custum made silver Tiffany frame. She'd turn on the new Rave CD that always made her horny, even though it was kind of loud and obnoxious, and lie down on the bed, reading her acceptance letter over and over while Nate ravaged her naked body�
"Good." Nate leaned in and began to kiss her, interrupting her little X-rated fantasy.
Blair groaned inwardly. If only she could have sex with him right there on the greasy old wooden Central Park bench! But she had to wait until she heard from Yale. It was the deal she'd made with herself.
� Cecily von Ziegesar
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