Arden, and Cyrus and I are going out to Bridgehampton later this week. Half and hour on
Mondays and Wednesdays is all the bonding time I have!"
Still, she gets points for trying.
"Oh, and Blair, dear, there's a Dior sample sale I thought you might be interested in going to. It's at
noon. You could meet me there."
Mrs. M raised an un-plucked brown eyebrow. Shopping during school hours- heaven forbid!
Although if it had been a Talbots sample sale, even she might have been tempted.
"Mrs. Rose." Mrs. M pointed efficiently to the wing backed chair next to the loveseat upon which
the girls were perched. "I realize you're busy, but I wanted to express my concern about the fact
that your daughter is apparently living in a hotel. With her acceptance at Yale University hanging
in the balance, I hardly think it's appropriate for a young woman to be living in such..." She
paused searching for the appropriate words. "An undisciplined environment."
Eleanor beamed cluelessly back at the headmistress. She had noticed that Blair had gone away for
the weekend, but she wasn't exactly sure where, and she hadn't really notice that Blair hadn't come
home last night, because she and Cyrus had gone to a cocktail party to celebrate the opening of
one of his new buildings and hadn't come home until nearly two themselves. She sat down in an
armchair to the left of Mrs. M's desk and crossed her legs, tucking Yale up under her arm like the
latest Hermès Birkin bag. Yale whined in protest, but Eleanor kept on smiling, as if she wasn't sure
what else to do.
Blair squirmed uncomfortably in her place on the loveseat. With a mother like that, couldn't Mrs.
M understand why she had to live in a hotel?
"Blair stayed at my house last night," Serena fibbed. For someone who looked like Upper East
Side Barbie, Serena was extremely good at thinking on her feet, or her Manolos, or whatever
shoe-of-the-moment she happened to be wearing. "Look, she even borrowed one of my uniforms."
"Then why have I been fielding calls all morning from parents and prospective parents worried
about their daughters sleeping in hotel rooms with drunken rock stars?" Mrs. M demanded. "I
even had a publishing house call to inform me that next year Constance Billard will have the
honor of being listed as one of the best five schools to send your daughter to if you want her to be
a celebrity or just date one."
"Cool," jenny blurted out, and then immediately wished she hadn't.
Mrs. M shot her a don't-even-start-you-little-chickenshit glare. The headmistress seemed to be at
loss for giving Eleanor advice on how to raise her daughter, which most have been frequent
problem, considering the fact that most of the parents of Constance Billard did not raise their
daughters themselves. They had help,a nd lots of it.
"I'm sure if the girls were together they couldn't have done much harm," Eleanor commented with
more savvy than Blair had thought she was capable of.
"We didn't even leave the room," Blair added, and then clamped her mouth shut again. What was
her problem anyway? Serena had just said they'd stayed at her house last night.
Then Serena's mother, Lillian van der Woodsen and Jenny's father, Rufus Humphrey, suddenly
appeared in the doorway of Mrs. M's office. Rufus was unaccustomed to leaving the house or even
waking up before eleven o'clock and looked even more disheveled and outrageous than usual. His
long, wiry salt-and pepper hair was pulled into a bun updo and fastened with the huge glittery
purple plastic hairclip Jenny had bought in fourth grade, and he was wearing grey sweatpants that
had been cut off to a sort of midcalf calm-digger length and a red flannel shirt withone sleeve
rolled up and a pack of unfiltered Camels sticking out of the breast pocket. His shoes were okay-
vintage brown penny loafers- only not so good with the sweatpants and seriously awful without
socks.
Mrs. van der Woodsen was her usual immaculately dressed and poised self, seeming to emanate an
odor of fresh-cut lilies and French-milled soap. She hugged her long, tanned arms against her
chest, risking wrinkling her mint green linen Chanel dress so that none of her body parts would get
too close to Rufus.
"Sorry we're late for the inquisition," Rufus growled. He shot Jenny a threatening look. "I wouldn't
have missed it for the world."
Mrs. van der Woodsen went over and graciously kissed Mrs. M on the cheek. It was the sort of
kiss benefactors are used to bestowing on the directors of the organizations they so generously
give millions of dollars to. "It's my fault the girls were late for school," she admitted. "My driver
had to rush off to pick up my dry cleaning, so they were forced to walk."
Serena shot her mother a grateful glance and her mother blinked with silent understanding.
Now we all know where Serena got her grace under pressure.
Baby Yale suddenly made the type of gastrointestinal noise that only babies are allowed to make
in public. Eleanor wiped out her cell phone and dialed the nanny. She'd had quite enough bonding,
thank you very much. She wasn't about to risk having to change a diaper. "Stay in the car, I'll be
right out," she directed frantically.
Mrs. M looked like she suddenly realized there were way too many people in the room and that if
she didn't do something about it, things were going to get extremely weird.
As if they weren't weird enough already.
The headmistress sighed heavily, as though her weekend up in Woodstock baling hay with Vonda
had come and gone way too quickly, and maybe she'd better start thinking about early retirement.
"Serena and Blair. You're seniors, your parents are busy people. Let's just leave it at this: You may
be nearing adulthood, but I'd prefer it of you slept in your own beds, particularly on school
nights."
Eleanor nodded and hastily gathered the howling Yale up in her sling as best she could, clearly
eager to get the child safely into her nanny's capable hands. Mrs. van der Woodsen smiled ruefully,
as if she were confident that nay trouble Serena caused could be easily ironed out with a
democratic kiss on the cheek and the promise of a large donation to Constance Billard's
development fund. And Rufus grunted, like he couldn't wait to be alone with Jenny and Mrs. M so
he could give them both a piece of his mind.
The bell rang, signaling the end of first period.
"May we go to class now?" Blair asked sweetly, as if missing gym was really going to mess up her
day.
"You may," Mrs. M relented. Serena and Blair stood up, leaving Jenny alone on the loveseat. "Just
remember, girls," the headmistress added, "your acceptance at college can be revoked if you do
not maintain the standards promised on your record."
"Thank you for the warning," Serena replied, bobbing her head in sort of obedient half-curtsy
before grabbing Blair's elbow and booking out of the room. They kissed their mothers good-bye
and then took the stairs up to the senior lounge three at a time, breathlessly repeating over and
over, "What the hell was that?!"
"Jennifer," Mrs. M and Rufus said, pratically in unison.
Jenny crossed her ankles and sat on her hands, feeling very small and unprotected now that the
two older girls had gone. Her father sat down beside her on the loveseat and put his arm around
her shoulders. He smelled like stale onion bagels and bad coffee. There were little cigarette burns
all over his sweatpants.
"You've always been a good kid." He gave Jenny's shoulders a squeeze. "Good grades. Great Artist.
Reads a lot. Nice to her daddy- most of the time." He shot Mrs. M an amused look. "Are you
going to tell me I've been deluded all these years?"
Mrs. M smiled her first genuine smile in weeks. She liked Rufus Humphrey. Sure, he was scruffy
and inappropriate, but he was as ingle dad who'd raised two kids himself and done a decent job of
it. His only trouble was that he lived on the other side of the park and didn't play by the same rules
that the rest of Upper East Side had played by since they started nursery school at Brick Church on
Park Avenue. He'd never been given a cent to the school's endowment or attended a fundraiser.
He'd never offered to build the school a new library or gym or swimming pool if it could
guarantee Jenny a place at Harvard after graduation. He was also more protective of his daughter
than most of the parents she was used to, mainly because he'd changed her diapers himself, and
stayed up with her when she couldn't sleep, and punished her when she'd done wrong, and
therefore felt a certain personal responsibility for how she behaved.
Whoa, what a concept.
Jenny seriously hoped that this was one of the weird dreams she often had when she ate too many
Entenmann's chocolate donuts. Not that she'd eaten any donuts recently. As far as she could
remember, all she'd eaten for dinner last night were six fine breadsticks imported from Italy via
Federal Express to a particular suite at the Plaza Hotel.
Not to mention the seventh, which she'd wrapped in gold-embroidered Plaza Hotel hand towel as a
memento.
"Thank you for coming at such short notice, Mr. Humphrey" Mrs. M began. "And I have to admit
I agree. Jennifer is an intelligent, creative and mostly well-behaved girl. However, she is building
a reputation, for being... a little wild, and the parents of her peers are beginning to ask questions."
Rufus gave his beard a perplexed tug. As a self-proclaimed anarchist he must have felt supremely
uncomfortable in Mrs. M's patriotically decorated office, having to defer to an authority figure
about his daughter's supposed wild behaviour.
"What do you mean by a 'reputation for being a little wild'?"
Mrs. M took off her glasses and folded them carefully in front of her. "Mr. Humphrey, are you
aware that your daughter was not at home last night?"
Rufus nodded. "You got a problem with that?"
Jenny giggled and then clamped her hand over her mouth.
"Well, where do you imagine that she was?" Mrs. M persisted, her soft, rag-doll face becoming
more and more stern by the minute.
Rufus snorted, and Jenny could sense his anarchist blood beginning to boil. "I don't have to
imagine where she was. She told me. She spent the night at her friend Elise's house. Right around
here somewhere."
"Elise Wells," Jenny elaborated hoarsely. "She's in my class."
"Yes. Well. Elise wasn't an hour late to school this morning. In fact, she arrived at school on time
and alone. Your daughter, however, only just arrived. And that is because she had to go home and
change first. Because, in fact, she spent the night at a hotel, in a suite, with a rather well known
rock music group."
Rufus's jaw fell open, revealing his crooked, coffee-stained teeth. For once, he was completely
speechless. Jenny hugged her arms around her chest, keeping her eyes fixed on the royal blue rug.
"This isn't her first mishap, either," Mrs. M continued. "There was that compromising image of her
and a boy that was passed around the internet a few months back. Afterwards, I sent you a letter
suggesting Jennifer see a therapist a few times a week here at school, to which you never
responded. And then last month Jennifer appeared in a popular teen magazine in only an exercise
bra, upsetting more than a few of her classmates' parents- mostly those who also have teenage
sons."
Rufus swiped his hand over his face. "Jesus, Jenny," he breathed. Even Jenny had to agree that
Mrs. M made her sound like a first-class slut, but she wasn't even going to try to defend herself.
Besides she'd been mostly good most of her life- it was kind of exciting being the bad girl.
"So are you suspending her, or what?" her dad demanded.
Yes, please. Jenny thought with silent pleasure. And send me to boarding school.
Mrs. M shook her head. "Not yet. This is only a warning. But if Jennifer continues to behave in
such a publicly flagrant way, or in a way that upsets her schoolmates and their parents, I will have
to take measures to ensure that the reputation of this institution remains intact."
The third bell rang, signaling the start of second period.
"I'm missing Latin," Jenny squeaked. "May I go?"
"Not so fast, missy," her father bellowed, tightening his grip around her shoulders. Rufus was a
softy at heart, but he did a mean disciplinarian act when he was pissed off.
"That's all right. You are both dismissed," Mrs. M responded. She pushed her chair back and
folded her arms across her chest, looking dykier than ever.
Jenny jumped to her feet and hurried out of the office before her father could catch up and have
the last word- and before Mrs. M could send her home for being so completely out of uniform.
"You look tired, Mr. Humphrey," she heard Mrs. M say behind her. "I've got a wonderful farm in
Woodstock. You really should visit sometime."
"Woodstock- I love Woodstock!" Rufus exclaimed. "I camped out there back in 1974. I was living
in a van with a couple poet pals-"
Jenny bolted upstairs to Latin, oddly thrilled at how close she'd come to getting expelled from
Constance. Who cared if her picture was in the gossip columns as an unidentified, short,
curly-haired, "publicly flagrant" floozy? Eventually she'd be recognized as the girl who always
hung out with the Raves. People would constantly ask if she was Damian's girlfriend, and she'd be
a Page Six girl, just like she'd always wanted!
