Psycho Killer (12 page)

As for
D
—well, he’s sitting in a dark corner of the Riverside Prep courtyard again, reading a book of Sylvia Plath poems and drinking a ninety-nine-cent cup of coffee. I know that sounds extremely sad, but don’t worry about
D
. His time is about to come. Stay tuned.

SIGHTINGS

K
was seen returning a suede zebra-print Betsey Johnson handbag at
Saks Fifth Avenue
. Personally, I thought the bag was cute. But someone must have changed her mind for her. Heaven forbid she change her
own
mind.

See you at
B
’s party. Bet you’re too scared to go to
S
’s.

Aren’t we all?

You know you love me,

“Hey, Nate. It’s Serena. Just calling to see if you’re planning to stop by my pajama party tonight. Hope so. There are real torches. Can’t wait. Love you. Bye.”

Serena hung up. Some party. She’d spread the word around school and posted an open invite online. She’d changed into a pair of gold Chanel short-shorts and a smiley face–embellished pajama tank top she’d had since eighth grade. The cook had filled the bathtubs with ice and pepper-flavored vodka and papayas. The maid had lit tall tiki torches in every corner. Serena’s favorite party playlist was on, a slow three-hour build from acoustic guitar to dance music. Now, the acoustic part was almost over, but so far no one had shown up.

Her room was quiet. Even Fifth Avenue was still, except for the occasional passing taxi. From where she sat on her big canopy bed, she could see the silver-framed photograph of her family, taken on a chartered sailboat in Greece when she was twelve. They were all in bathing suits. Her brother, Erik, who was fourteen at the time, was making a big fart kiss on Serena’s cheek
while their parents looked on, laughing. Serena had gotten her period for the first time on that trip and Erik had swum ashore, stolen a Vespa, and bought her some maxipads. He came back with them in a little plastic bag, tied on top of his head, her hero. Serena had thrown her ruined underwear overboard. They were probably still there, stuck on a reef somewhere along with the remains of some of the boys she’d killed.

Oceans are so convenient like that.

Now Erik was a freshman at Brown, and Serena never got to see him. He’d been in France with her this past summer, but she’d spent the whole time chasing or being chased by boys while Erik chased girls, so they’d never really had time to hang out.

Serena picked up the phone again and pressed the speed-dial button for Erik’s off-campus apartment. The phone rang and rang until finally the voicemail system picked up, just as it had every other time she’d tried to call her brother at school. Sometimes she wondered if he was avoiding her.

“If you would like to leave a message for Dillon, press one. If you would like to leave a message for Tim, press two. If you would like to leave a message for Drew, press three. If you would like to leave a message for Erik, press four.”

Serena pressed four and then hesitated. “… Hey… it’s Serena. Sorry I haven’t called in a while. But you could have called me too, you big jerk. I was stuck up in Ridgefield, bored out of my mind. Now I’m back in the city. It’s my first week of school. It’s kind of strange. Actually, it sucks. Everyone is… everything is… I don’t know… it’s weird…. Anyway, call me back sometime. I miss your hairy ass. Love you. Bye.”

She picked up her MacBook and began to browse through the list of international boarding schools where her parents had
offered to send her as an alternative to coming home. One of them was a monastery in Tibet. Another was a “camp” in Uganda. Another was a “tree village” in a rainforest in Borneo. And there was one in the South Pacific called Saint Get Away that sounded strangely like a leper colony.

Perfect.

The downstairs buzzer buzzed. She leapt up to answer it.

The doorman announced the arrival of Mr. Nathaniel Archibald. He was on his way up.

“Oh, Natie. I knew I could count on you!” Serena exclaimed, throwing open the door and twining her arms around his adorable neck.

“Hi,” Nate said shyly. Serena’s breath smelled of pepper-flavored vodka and her turquoise silk La Perla bra was clearly visible beneath her smiley face pajama tank top. “Hi,” he said again, chuckling softly as Serena kissed him on the lips.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she sighed, leading him into the empty, half-dark penthouse. Music played from a distant bedroom. “I didn’t think anyone was coming. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

Nate held on to her hand. Yes, he was hungry and thirsty. And horny. Christ, why had he come? He never could control himself around Serena.

“Is that Nirvana
Unplugged
?”

She shrugged. “I think so.”

“Let’s go see,” he said, tugging her toward her bedroom. It felt so nice to be at home with her, sort of like it had always felt when they were younger—everything smelling like flowers and smoke, the white canopy bed, the hulking Metropolitan Museum staring at them from across the street, Serena’s addictive laughter,
her dark blue eyes and sexy mouth, her piles of blond hair, him wanting to touch her—except this time, they were alone. Blair wasn’t there.

She sat down on the bed.

“I’m glad you came back,” Nate said and sat down next to her.

Serena rested her head on his shoulder. The smoky honey patchouli scent of her shampoo mingled with the lavender linen scent the maid spritzed on the sheets, overtaking his nostrils and making him woozy.

Serena didn’t want to have a party anymore. A small tête-à-tête would do. And unlike those of some of the boys she’d gone out with last year at Hanover, Nate’s gorgeous head would remain firmly on his shoulders. She couldn’t believe she’d spent almost the entire spring term last year at boarding school plotting his death. Nate was the one person on earth she couldn’t bear to kill.

How reassuring.

“Me too,” she whispered hoarsely into his warm neck. “I’m glad I’m back.” Then she lifted her head and kissed his closed eyelids, ever grateful that she hadn’t succeeded in exploding his marvelous green eyes.

Nate didn’t know why he’d taken so long picking out a shirt. Serena’s slender, nimble fingers wasted no time undoing the buttons and throwing the crumpled shirt to the floor. The shirt was followed by her tank top and shorts. Soon they were both naked beneath the covers as Serena’s iPod crooned out songs of tortured heartache, raging jealousy, and love sublime.

Kati and Isabel had decided to drop in on Serena’s party before reporting back to Blair. The doorman recognized them
from parties past and waved them on to the elevator without buzzing up to the van der Woodsen penthouse.

The elevator doors rolled open onto a dark and empty foyer. Tiki torches flickered and smoked in the corners. It looked like the entrance hall to a wealthy Tahitian cannibal’s palace.

“Whoa,” Kati breathed. “There’s like, nobody here.”

“I think that’s the idea. They’re all at Blair’s party. She invited everyone we know. Except Serena, of course.” Isabel stepped onto the gleaming parquet floor and glanced around. “I think I hear music.”

Both girls paused to listen as the crooning heartbreak of Bob Dylan’s vintage
Blood on the Tracks
album wafted down the long hall leading to Serena’s bedroom.

“Slow songs,” Kati observed meaningfully. She pointed at Nate’s discarded Abercrombie & Fitch waxed canvas anorak. “Look.”

Wordlessly the two girls crept down the torchlit hall, cell phones clutched in their hands.

Serena lazed on her bed with only a white sheet wrapped around her, wondering idly whether to put her shorts back on or if jeans would be better, in case she and Nate decided to venture out. Nate was in the shower. Steam rose from the crack under the door as he ran through fake lacrosse plays in a loud sportscaster’s voice.

“
And it’s Archibald sprinting in from midfield. He makes an impossible catch! Look at him go! And it’s Archibald again! Goal!!!
”

“Hi, Serena,” Isabel taunted from the doorway. “I know it’s a pajama party, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend it in bed.”

Serena bolted upright. Nate’s jubilant shouts from the
shower were impossible to conceal. And everything—the clothes on the floor, the steamy air, the rumpled sheets—spelled one thing: S-E-X.

“What are you guys doing?” she demanded. “Spying on me?”

Kati crossed her arms over her chest. “You invited us, remember? You invited everyone. You’re supposed to be having a party. Although Blair’s having one too now, and hers sounds way more fun.”

Something about the way Kati’s brown eyebrows were waxed so very thin, the way her beige face powder stood out in little dots on her nose in the humid air, the way she crossed her legs one over the other like she had to pee or was trying to look taller and thinner, made Serena decide that both she and Isabel would have to die.

“Hey.” Serena pointed at the delicate garnet heart earrings dangling from Isabel’s ears. “Weren’t those Nicki Button’s earrings?”

Isabel touched the earrings with her fingertips. “So?” she rolled her eyes. “I’m the one who bought them for her. And it’s not like she’s going to wear them again.”

Neither will you
, Serena thought.

It wasn’t just Kati’s face or Isabel’s sarcasm. The real problem was them knowing about her and Nate. If she didn’t kill them now, Kati and Isabel would tell Blair, and then Blair would absolutely and finally never be friends with Serena again.

The two girls were carrying cell phones. She had to act fast.

“Uh-oh. Nate and I made such a mess.” Serena rolled off the far side of the bed and pulled Nate’s big white button-down shirt on over her head, covering all the necessary naked parts. She began to yank the Frette sheets and comforter into a big pile on
top of the mattress. “Could you guys help me get these sheets into the incinerator? There’s like, chocolate sauce and champagne all over them. I don’t want the maid telling my mom. Mom hates it when I stain the linens.”

“
I’m bringing sexy back…. Yeah
,” Nate sang embarrassingly from the shower.

Kati and Isabel nudged each other with their bony elbows.

“The garbage chute is right outside the back door,” Serena said, gathering a handful of bedding in her arms. “You guys grab the comforter and I’ll get the sheets and pillows.”

Excited by the prospect of having even more dirt to spill to Blair, the two girls were happy to oblige. The white Swedish down duvet was heavy and awkward. Kati and Isabel followed behind the barefoot Serena, dragging the duvet between them as she padded through the enormous white kitchen.

“The maid’s out shopping, thank God.” She unlocked the back door and held it open for them. “Go ahead. Chute’s on the left.” The girls dragged the duvet into the dusty back hallway of the building, where only the super and the help were meant to go.

“It smells weird back here,” Kati observed.

Isabel glanced around nervously. “Quick, open the chute.”

Kati pulled open the heavy metal door and they began to stuff the duvet into the chute. Just then, Serena appeared with a bottle of Absolut Pepper vodka and a flaming tiki torch in her hands. She doused their hair and faces with the pepper-flavored vodka. Blinded, Kati and Isabel fell on their hands and knees, moaning. Serena tossed in the torch and the two girls became a giant, flaming flambé. Their eyelashes and hair crackled and shriveled. Their skin blistered and smoked. Their clothes seemed to swell and then pucker and shrink as they burned.

“
Owee
, it stings!” Kati screeched as Serena removed Kati’s iPhone from her flaming back pocket.

“You insane bitch!” Isabel shrieked, crawling around in a circle like a blind Labradoodle on fire. “What did you do to me?”

The flames began to die out. Serena snatched up Isabel’s cell phone from off the floor, grasped Isabel’s skinny-jeaned ankles, and dragged her toward the garbage chute. Yanking the duvet out of the way, she stuffed her writhing classmate down the chute leading to the building’s high-efficiency, industrial-grade incinerator. A blinded, toasted, and whimpering Kati slid down easily afterwards. The door to the chute slammed closed with a metallic bang, sealing off the pungent, carcinogenic scent of burning denim, torched hair, and melted Jimmy Choos.

Serena wadded up the duvet and the sheets and carried them into the kitchen, leaving them in a pile on the floor next to the washing machine for the maid to launder.

The iPod was now in full dance party mode. Nate shimmied around her bedroom wearing only a towel. His chest muscles bulged and his normally tousled hair was slicked back and wet.

“
A-a-a-ahhhh, freak out! Le freak, c’est Chic
…” he sang goofily into Serena’s hairbrush along to the old disco song.

He is definitely not le freak.

“Hey. What happened to the covers?” He looked up at Serena. “You’re wearing my shirt.”

His oblivious puppy dog hotness never failed to slay her. Eager for a distraction from the demise of her classmates and energized by the effort of stuffing them down the incinerator chute, Serena tackled Nate and pulled him down on the bare mattress. It occurred to her that maybe they should crash Blair’s
party—together—just to shock everyone. But first she had to show Nate just how freaking special he was—for coming to her party, and for being the only person she wanted to keep alive.