I Will Always Love You (20 page)

I haven’t forgotten about all of you who stayed stateside. My first subject: S, current cause célèbre at Yale. Sadly for the Yale drama club and all the other school societies eager to claim her as a
member, she’s practically a part-time student, hopping on the Metro North every Thursday afternoon after Moral Philosophy
class. Her destination? The Upper West Side, where she spends most of her time holed up with D. Those two only venture out occasionally, blissfully disheveled, for pancakes and coffee on Sunday mornings. Boring couple
alert!

Meanwhile, V has been keeping a low profile at her Williamsburg loft, occasionally emerging to walk her adorable dog. Whatever happened
to that filmmaker boyfriend of hers? It’s an awfully big apartment for just one person. N has been spotted out at Deep Springs, his eyes glittering for one girl only… a newborn albino calf named Gertie. Or perhaps
I should refer to her as Baby G? Finally, little J is back in the city for the holidays, last seen lunching at Balthazar and poring over college catalogs with her dark-haired,
violet-eyed boarding school friend. Is our little J all grown up? All I can say is, boarding school has been very good to her.

q: Dear Gossip Girl,

So, I’m a freshman and when I got my housing assignment last August, I was thrilled to find out I was rooming with S. As in, the famous S. But she’s never around, and when she is, all she does is read philosophy and have sappy convos on her cell with her boyfriend. Isn’t she supposed to be the dancing-on-tables
life-of-the-party? What happened?

—roomie

a: Dear Roomie,

It’s called acting far beyond her years, because she’s all boring and married. Hopefully she’ll grow out of it soon and will
start having fun with the rest of us. Or at least attempting to entertain us again.

—GG

J piled in a car with S and D. Destination: Providence, Rhode Island. Can’t believe she’s ready to tour colleges!… B being picked up at Logan Airport in Boston by her gay dad, H, his new husband, and her adopted stepbrother and sister. What a beautiful, accepting family!… N at Grand Central, drinking a large coffee and glancing wistfully at the clock in the center of the station. Headed somewhere, or just remembering
the road not taken?… V walking her chow-poodle mix around Williamsburg, watching all the hipster couples holding hands. Lonely much?

For most of us, the exhausting process of choosing a college is in our distant past. But for those of you using the holiday
break to plan your future, here’s a helpful hint: College tours never give an accurate representation of what your experience
will be like. You may never even set foot in that fabulous science library or use the multimillion-dollar athletic complex.
But you do have to make friends. My advice: Go on a tour of your own and see what—or who—you come across.

You know you love me,

gossip girl

an almost missed connection

“This is the John Hay Library,” Naomi, Nate’s tour guide at Brown, explained, stopping in front of a large Gothic building
in the chilly late-December afternoon. The aged brick buildings of the Brown campus looked stately in the crisp winter air
and there was a light dusting of snow on the campus green. “It houses our collection of rare books. Most students prefer to
study at the John D. Rockefeller library, which we call the Rock,” Naomi continued with a smile. She was a pixieish junior
with spiky short brown hair who majored in feminist dance, and had proudly explained that Brown allowed its undergrads to
design their own major. Back in high school, Nate had thought designing a major seemed cool, but now it seemed sort of dumb.
What was feminist dance, anyway?

I’m sure he could get a private lesson.

“They say rubbing the nose of the John Hay statue brings good luck.” Naomi rolled her eyes as if to show how ridiculous she
thought the tradition was. It didn’t stop several students from dipping away from the group to forcefully rub the sculpture,
determined to increase their chances of admission.

Nate sighed. He’d been at Deep Springs for the last year, but the college was only a two-year program. Afterward, students
transferred to schools like Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, or Brown, which Nate had always heard was the most flexible and mellow
of all the Ivies. But no matter how laid-back Brown was, after living on a farm with thirty dudes, going to an actual university
was going to be a giant jolt to the system.

“Let’s keep going! I can’t wait to show you the science library!” Naomi trilled, walking backward. Nate tried not to groan.
The more he heard, the less he felt like he belonged anywhere.

He jammed his hands in the pockets of his khakis. It was just a few days after Christmas, and the Brown campus was practically
deserted. Nate looked around dazedly, trying to place himself here, but he couldn’t.

As he approached the campus gates, he noticed a pretty girl in a bright red coat, squinting at the campus map. She was obviously
lost. Something about her made Nate want to go over and help her, and he found himself stepping away from the group.

As he got closer, he took in the girl’s long, curly brown hair and milky white skin. It was Jennifer Humphrey, the sweet,
big-chested freshman he’d hooked up with senior year!

Jenny squinted up at the map of the Brown campus. She’d come to Providence to tour RISD, where she’d applied back in November,
but Brown was right next door, and she figured she might as well look around. If she could ever find anything. It looked a lot like Waverly—the snow-covered green, the oversize brick buildings, the occasional
preppie-boho student who crossed her path—except bigger. She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to find herself looking
up into a familiar pair of glittering green eyes.

“Nate?” she squeaked, her voice going up an octave. “I mean, Nate,” she repeated, trying to sound like the mature and collected
eighteen-year-old she was. Or would be, if she hadn’t just been confronted by her high school crush.

“Jennifer, right?” Nate smiled easily, his whole face lighting up.

Jenny nodded mutely, trying to ignore the sweat beads forming along her hairline and her heart hammering in her chest. She
was glad her belted red Searle coat was buttoned up all the way, so Nate couldn’t see the red hives that sprang up on her
chest when she was embarrassed.

“Long time no see.” Nate smiled. “Do you go here?” His green eyes searched Jenny’s dark brown ones.

Jenny shook her head, her brunette curls bouncing around her head like vines. “I just went on a tour of RISD. I applied there,
and Pratt, but I can’t decide between them. I’m a senior this year,” she explained nervously, feeling like she’d traveled
back in time to her awkward high school years. She might as well be wearing her seersucker Constance Billard uniform, worrying
about whether Mrs. M was going to bust her for talking to a boy on campus. “Do you go here?”

“Nah.” Nate shuffled from side to side. “Just looking. Where are you headed now?”

“My brother’s supposed to pick me up on Thayer Street. Think you can help me find it?” Jenny asked coyly.

Who can resist a damsel in distress?

“I think it’s that way.” Nate pointed to a set of tall wrought-iron gates on the other side of the snowy campus. “I’ll walk
over there with you,” he offered, and led the way down a path that ran along a squat, ivy-covered building.

“Thanks!” Jenny practically had to run in her distressed Frye cowboy boots to keep up with Nate’s long strides.

Nate slowed down. He’d gotten used to a faster clip, keeping up with Gertie and the other girls on the farm. “So, do you go
to Constance?” he asked.

“No, I go to Waverly. It’s a boarding school upstate. But what about you? Didn’t you go to Yale?” She remembered hearing about
Nate getting into all the schools he’d applied to, despite being a well-known stoner and slacker. She hoped she didn’t sound
like a stalker.

“I go to Deep Springs. It’s a working ranch in California. We spend the morning reading and in classes and then the afternoon
doing manual labor on the ranch.”

“Oh.” Jenny wrinkled her nose. Poor Nate! “Did your parents make you go there?”

Nate shook his head, his green eyes suddenly far-off. Jenny wondered what he was thinking about. He seemed so much older than
the guys at Waverly, who bragged about sneaking booze to the Crater, Waverly’s best outdoor party spot, or how many times
they’d fallen asleep in Ms. Hummerton’s Texts of the Twentieth Century class. She loved Waverly, but she was more than ready
for her next adventure.

And it might just be more imminent than she thinks.

They were nearing the center of campus and Jenny felt her heart flutter in anticipation. She could imagine everyone passing
them thinking they were a couple back early from break, deep in conversation about what to do for New Year’s.

“So, why did you go to Deep Springs?” Jenny pressed.

“I just needed to get away from everything. But the program only lasts two years, and then you transfer. Next year, I’m thinking
Brown.” Nate nodded definitively. The tour guide had been annoying, but the campus was pretty and Yale was out of the question
now that both Blair and Serena were there. Or so he’d heard.

Jenny scanned the parked cars for Dan’s beat-up Buick Skylark when they reached Thayer Street. The redbrick sidewalk was confettied
with coarse salt. “I’m seriously considering RISD….” She trailed off, hoping Nate would make the connection.

Nate smiled. Jennifer looked really cute in her red coat, with her hair pulled back from her round, cherubic face. “Well,
if you’re at RISD and I’m here, I guess we may be seeing each other a lot next year.”

Jenny smiled right back. She’d make sure of it!

Just the sort of determination every college admissions officer wants in a college candidate.

watching him watching her watching him

It was a Saturday night and Vanessa was curled up on the black leather couch, eating takeout straight from the carton and
watching Flesh, the 1968 Paul Morrissey movie about a hustler in New York who has a whole lot of sex. When she’d first watched it in high
school, she’d thought she’d missed something. Now, she realized that there really wasn’t much else going on in the film. It
was practically a porno.

In a way, everything—the movie, the takeout, the fact that it wasn’t even ten o’clock on a Saturday night and she was curled
up on the couch wearing an oversize purple NYU sweatshirt and a pair of Hollis’s boxer shorts—was the same as her life had
been five years ago, when she was fifteen and friendless.

Except she wasn’t fifteen anymore, and she was far from friendless—she was dating Hollis Lyons, even if he had been away in
Iceland for the last ten months. She was living in a spacious loft with its own elevator and a gorgeous view of the Williamsburg
Bridge. She was a junior at the Tisch School of the Arts. She had a so-ugly-it’s-cute reddish-brown choodle, currently snoring
gently on the floor. She had everything she wanted. So why did she feel so lame?

The intercom buzzed, which was odd, since she wasn’t expecting anyone. She didn’t hang out with her friends much anymore,
preferring to be home in case Hollis called from Reykjavík. The movie shoot had raged on for months and months longer than
originally planned, and now he was still there, editing on location until the end of January. She’d visited once, during her
spring break in April. It had been amazing to see him, but devastating to leave after only five days. They e-mailed as much
as they could, but between the time difference and his insane work schedule, they’d barely even spoken save for a crackly
ten-minute call on Christmas. It had been so long since they’d seen each other that Vanessa sometimes wondered if Hollis had
been a figment of her imagination.

Filmmakers are creative people.

Vanessa quickly threw the empty aluminum container into the plastic takeout bag and skidded on her stockinged feet over to
the door, pressing the video intercom buzzer. A grainy image of Ruby and her baby, Moxie, sprang onto the screen.

“It’s your sister and your favorite niece!” Ruby trilled, unaware that Vanessa could see them. “And it’s fucking freezing
down here,” she added.

“Come on up!” Vanessa yelled happily. Ruby and Piotr had moved to a two-bedroom apartment in Prospect Heights right after
they’d had Moxie. It was two subway rides away, and Vanessa missed having them right around the corner. She hurriedly picked
up a pair of jeans from the floor and pulled them on over the boxers.

The elevator door slid open. Ruby was bundled up in a black Brooklyn Industries puffer coat and a red hat, and eight-month-old
Moxie wore a white fur hood. She looked like the monkey Chuck Bass used to tote around in high school.

Vanessa immediately plucked the baby from her sister’s hands.

“Don’t say hi to me. I’m just the mom,” Ruby joked as she walked into the large loft. “So, Piotr’s family is here through
New Year’s and I seriously need a break.” She pulled out a bottle of wine from her voluminous bag and set it on the counter.
She paused and glanced around the room suspiciously. “God, it’s always so neat in here.”

“I like it this way,” Vanessa explained. She naturally had sloblike tendencies, but in the last year that had all changed.
She liked scrubbing the tiles in the shower and Swiffering under the Sub-Zero. It gave her something to do besides miss Hollis.

If it makes you happy…

Vanessa pulled Moxie’s hood off her tiny head. “Still no hair,” she observed, checking the baby’s bald head.

“You didn’t have any hair for four years,” Ruby observed blithely, settling in on the leather couch. Now, Vanessa’s silky
jet-black hair fell inches past her shoulders. “Hand her over, she needs to feed.” Ruby pulled the neck of her gray Hanes
T-shirt down to expose her boob, and cradled Moxie in the crook of her arm. Vanessa looked away politely.

Ruby’s head fell back against the couch. “You know, you should really throw a New Year’s party. I mean, with an apartment
like this, it’s practically your duty. Do you ever have people over?”

“Sometimes,” Vanessa said evasively. In truth, she’d never invited anyone except Ruby up to the loft. She felt it would somehow
be disloyal to Hollis, having people over in his apartment while he slaved away in Iceland. She checked the fridge to see
if there was anything she could offer her sister. A forgotten carton of lo mein from last week, a container of orange juice,
and a plastic tub of almonds sat on the center shelf. “Nuts?” Vanessa pulled out the container and threw a couple in her mouth.

“Thanks.” Ruby took a couple, crunched them loudly, and threw one over to Norma. It bounced off the dog’s nose and onto the
floor. She just stared at it. “Seriously, Vanessa, you’ve become weird.”

“I have? Look at your shoes,” Vanessa shot back. Ruby wore a pair of burnt sienna–colored Dansko clogs, cutoff sweatpants, and
the same red woolly cardigan that she’d worn on Christmas.

“They’re not weird, they’re comfortable. You’re the one wasting your youth. I already had mine.” She sniffed, tucked her boob back inside her shirt, and passed the
baby to Vanessa.

“Hi, Bunny!” Vanessa cooed, inhaling the sweet scent of Johnson’s baby shampoo, which Ruby used despite the fact that Moxie
had approximately three strands of hair. Moxie felt reassuringly heavy in Vanessa’s lap.

“Listen, you’re acting like you’re in mourning or something. Live a little! I’ve been given the night off from Piotr’s family
and I intend to use it for good.” Ruby grinned. “Let’s buy some slice and bake cookies and listen to Christmas music. I’m
not ready for the holidays to be over yet. What do you say?”

“I’m in!” Vanessa smiled and then headed up the winding staircase to the sleeping loft. Their California king-size bed was
immaculately made, with a white duvet cover contrasting with the black bed frame. Vanessa wasn’t sure when she’d slept there
last. It felt too big by herself, so she often curled up with Norma on the couch. She pulled a scarf from her closet and wrapped
it around her neck. Her sister was right. Maybe she had gone a little bit overboard with the reclusive-widow thing, acting like Hollis was a ship captain lost at sea instead of
a film director caught up with editing. It would be good to get out for a little bit.

“Ready!” Vanessa yelled down the stairs as she ran her fingers through her long hair. Her index finger caught on a large snarl.
“And FYI, I didn’t take a shower today so sorry if I smell,” she called as she ran down the steps. She reached the bottom
and gasped.