His fingers taping on the wrapped packet, Dan was eagerly awaiting the little ringing noise that would signal him he reached the Waldorfs’ penthouse. It somehow felt like mornings, right before the alarm clock starts ringing and you think you’re awake but when it actually rings, you’re hit by a wave of exhaustion and you just wish you could fall back asleep for another hour and a half. He thought he was fine, at ease, but it ringed, the doors slid open and his heart skipped a beat. Maybe two. He stepped inside the cold but bright hallway and heard rapid footsteps on the stairs. A flash of golden hair appeared in his sight and he felt the stone of disappointment falling in his chest. He used to love seeing her blond hair catching the light. Now it just felt outdated.
“Dan! What a surprise! What are you doing here?” Serena was pulling her overly happy smiley face. There was a time he thought she pulled this smile only for him. Now he knew she would have been as annoyingly happy had he been anybody else.
Blair’s smile was hard to obtain. She was always distributing her fake, polished smile but she safely kept her sincere one for great occasions. She would do the same with her tears. You had to be in her closest circle to see them – you had to be able to witness her right at that split second where she was vulnerable. Like comets, or eclipses, it only happens once in decades. But he got to witness those, the smile, the tears; he also got the worried frown, the fleeting shadow of deep sorrow in her brown eyes, the clear, sweet laugh when Audrey Hepburn finds Peter O’Toole in her living room in How To Steal A Million Dollars, the shivers when he walks into the fog at the end of Casablanca. He got all of those. He knew it was precious.
“I’m here to see Blair. Is she here?”
Serena frowned. “No, she’s out.”
Dan’s eyes crossed her face.
“Do you know where she is?” he asked, trying to get her to give the information but she just kept frowning.
“No, I don’t.” she paused, looked intensely at him with her mouth half-open, which signaled that she was missing on something – she asked: “Is it… important?”
For a second he thought of answering no, of making up an excuse to explain why he came up to see her in her apartment, of rejecting this attraction he felt towards his ex-girlfriend/love of his life (or so he used to think)’s best friend. But he did not.
“Yes.” He said simply. “I wanted to give her this.” Serena frowned at the rectangular shape of the packet. She was not accustomed to offering books as gifts. “It’s quite a rare printing of War and Peace that I found this morning, and I wanted to give it to her. She’s had a rough week.”
He could see she was confused. Serena’s face was an open book. “Maybe you can leave it here and she’ll get it when she gets back.”
Obviously it wasn’t an option. He came to see the comet. “I’ll come by later. Can you call me when she arrives? I think her phone’s off.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
He turned around, trying to ignore the awkwardness of the situation because he didn’t want it to be. He only wished Serena hadn’t been here. She made it (falling asleep together on the couch, spending hours on the phone watching movies and reading books aloud, buying a coffee on the other side of the Park), all of it, seem strange. She was a reminder that he and Blair were an unlikely match. But it didn’t feel strange. It felt obvious.
“Dan?” He had already pushed the elevator button. “I… I… Don’t mind me asking this, but… is this a twisted way to get back at me?”
He huffed in surprise. Serena was supposed to be selfless. That’s why he had fallen for her four years ago. But when it came to love… she naively thought it was all for her. It had always been all for her. The golden hair, this smile, her eyes, it would make anybody fall for her, she knew that. But somehow he thought she would think higher of him to not want to make her jealous with her best friend.
“No, Serena, not at all.”
“But then… why this?” He remained silent, hoping for the elevator to arrive. “Is there something going on that I don’t know of?” More silence and a look she would bet her head on. “You. And Blair. You’re falling for her, aren’t you?” The jigsaw finally fell into place. “With B. My B. Who would have thought that…”
He smiled at the bitterness and sweet jealousy of her tone.
“Oh Serena… The Blair you know is really different from the Blair I’m acquainted with. My Blair…” He caressed the book. He felt the relief of the leather cover. “My Blair she’s… smart, she likes movies, she likes arts, she likes books. She’s a hopeless romantic. She doesn’t pretend to like Scrabble and dinners in just to please her current date only to run back to a hot party whenever she can. She actually likes to just watch a movie, eat pizza and fall asleep in my arms but she can’t say that because the world would be disappointed and she couldn’t stand it. My Blair… She’s hurt, you know, everyday she’s hurt, by the inconstancy of this world, including yours. She just wants people to like her for what she actually is but everybody is all so busy sticking labels on her that she can’t just be. She tries so hard to please everybody… She loses herself sometimes. But then she comes back to me and she’s back again. The Blair I’d like to offer this book to, she’s far better than your best friend.”
The sliding doors opened. He stepped in and pressed the ground floor button. “So, call me when she’s back?”
