Blair

"Mrs. Bass, your two o' clock appointment just canceled."

Blair rolled her eyes, exasperated by the incompetence of her latest assistant Jessica. She'd corrected her more than once: she was Blair Waldorf-Bass. She had absolutely no problem with her husband's surname but she was a Waldorf long before she was a Bass and she wanted the world to know it. That and the fact that she had inherited her mother's legacy, of course. Having a 'Mrs. Bass' at the helm of the company wouldn't make as much sense as having a 'Waldorf'. And since she had no brothers, it was up to her to keep the family name going.

That was why she'd also named her darling son Henry Waldorf-Bass.

"Could you send Jenny in here? I need to see her," said Blair. "Thank you." She hung up the phone.

Now that her afternoon was completely free thanks to the designers who were supposed to be building the new Waldorf Designs boutique in the Meatpacking District, she felt like she could probably do something fun with the rest of it. Like surprise Charles—the 'Chuck' thing was so five years ago—at his office and whisk him away to their house in the Hamptons early for the long Labor Day weekend. After all, it was the Friday before the last weekend in summer. And everyone who was anyone would be in the Hamptons, especially for Serena's pink party, which was scheduled to take place on Saturday at the Humphrey estate, which was a wedding gift from Lily to her daughter and son-in-law last year, and which was right next to Blair's. They could swing by the house and collect Henry and then head into the Hamptons like they'd been doing all summer.

Blair was just about to unlock her BlackBerry when she heard a knock on her door and Jenny Humphrey was standing there, smiling over at her. Sometimes it was hard to believe how much Jenny had grown since their high school days; how much she had changed. She was certainly past that gothic phase and traded her miniskirts for tasteful dresses. She'd even managed to cut her hair into a pixie cut, which made her look really pretty and forced you to admire her cheekbones.

"Hi, Blair," said Jenny, sitting down on the other side of Blair's large, wooden table. She crossed her legs daintily and pulled her turquoise jacket closer to her slender frame. "What can I do for you?"

"I just wanted to hear about how things are going down in the atelier," said Blair meekly, refusing to lock eyes with Jenny. "Is everything going well?"

Jenny chuckled, forcing Blair to glare at her.

"What's so funny?" barked Blair.

"Blair, everything is fine," responded Jenny. "We're all okay. The latest samples for Fashion Week are really wonderful and the models are coming in for fittings on Monday. We have a really good team down there."

"Good, good," said Blair. "I was just checking."

Jenny arched an eyebrow. "Just checking? Blair, if that's all you wanted to know you could have called me on my cell. You know I always have it on me." She waved her iPhone in the air. "I would have answered."

"Fine," said Blair. "I'm sorry. It's just…I feel like I don't have much to do anymore now that I'm not in the atelier anymore."

"Blair, what you do is really important," said Jenny, smiling in a lopsided way and nodding her head. "You're the business head of the company. You run our day-to-day operations."

"But you're the talent," mumbled Blair.

She knew that it was juvenile to be…jealous of Jenny but it was hard not to be. Especially since Jenny had all but replaced her exactly eight months ago as the new head designer at Waldorf Designs. Essentially, Jenny was supposed to be the Yves St. Laurent to Blair's Pierre Berge: Jenny actually did all of the designing while Blair handled the business end. So it was Jenny who had been the one getting to walk down the runway at the end of every fashion show last season while Blair was forced to sit front row and clap with the other plebs.

Even though she hated to admit it, she had started looking forward to those final walks at the various Fashion Weeks that she would attend in London, Paris, Milan and, of course, New York (her hometown). But she also hated to admit that she was fresh out of ideas. Her last collection had not been critically acclaimed by the fashion world and while it had sold, the figures weren't up to Waldorf Design standards.

And that was when Jenny was called in.

Blair secretly despised how much of an eye her mother had obviously been keeping on Jenny since she'd moved to New York after getting her fashion design degree at Central Saint Martins. So when Blair had somewhat of a nervous breakdown while having brunch with her mom at Sarabeth's concerning the state of affairs at Waldorf Designs and Eleanor simply said, "We should try to get our hands on Jenny Humphrey," Blair had been immediately offended.

Had Eleanor always wanted Jenny to work at the company? She knew that Eleanor had always had a soft spot for Jenny but still! Why was Jenny the first candidate for the position over any of the other talented designers living in New York City?

Of course, it was difficult to not know about all that Jenny had achieved.

Fact: Jenny Humphrey had risen up the ranks at Badgley Mischka in record time.

Fact: Jenny Humphrey had managed to upgrade from Brooklyn to a Carrie Bradshaw-esque apartment on the Upper East Side.

Fact: Jenny Humphrey was engaged to mayoral candidate and one of Blair's oldest friends Nate Archibald.

All of this simply meant that, much like her brother Dan, Jenny was very much on the inside. Or at least she was on the cusp of it. So Blair decided to go with the flow and had offered Jenny a position at Waldorf Designs that paid twice as much as she was getting at Badgley Mischka. How could Jenny refuse?

"Well I guess that's it," said Blair, logging off her computer and pushing her chair back. She got up and put on her Burberry-check jacket over her red Eleanor Waldorf dress and picked up her snakeskin Hermes Birkin Bag. "You can leave."

Jenny said, "Enjoy your weekend," and quickly left the room.

Blair took a deep breath as she looked out her window, gazing at the passersby who were oblivious to her own penance. She couldn't believe that she was actually indebted to Jenny Humphrey for keeping her mother's company afloat. And Jenny certainly had managed to turn out some fabulous designs last season: from their high fashion to their mass market, Waldorf Designs was getting up there and competing with all of the big names in fashion like Chanel, Gucci and Stella McCartney.

Vogue had even named Waldorf "the look of the Manhattan woman" since Jenny's debut as head designer. Nothing like that had ever been written up about Blair other than, "Blair Waldorf-Bass managed to put out a nice collection this season, true to the Manhattan roots established by her mother."

Yet another slap in the face.

Blair walked out of her clean, modern office and said, "Would you have my car brought around?" to her assistant before making a beeline for the elevator. At a moment like this, she knew that there was only one person who she wanted to just sit around the pool with and moan and groan about her life and about everything that was happening.

Serena.

Her best friend for as long as she could remember. Yes, they'd had their fair share of fallings out but those days were long gone. They'd learnt the art of agreeing to disagree because the reality of it was that they handled most things in very different ways. They always had and they always would.

Blair got down to the lobby of her building and everyone said, "Good evening," to her but she only vaguely recalled that they were speaking to her. She felt the way she used to back in school: like she was trapped in an Audrey Hepburn movie. As if her Breakfast At Tiffany's film had ended without her Paul Varjak. She just wanted to get home, throw some things into a bag, and head over to her house in the Hamptons.

Her car was waiting for her out front and she got in. It was still pretty early in the afternoon so she didn't encounter much traffic outside of the ordinary New York traffic that she'd grown accustomed to and eventually the car pulled up in front of her perfect five-storey townhouse on scenic East 70th Street.

She'd first stumbled across the house in a book that she'd gotten from her real estate agent four years ago, when she was pregnant with Henry. She'd been looking for a place for her and Chuck to start a fresh life together: somewhere that was big enough to house a family but still classy and, of course, on the Upper East Side. She liked her mother's duplex but it was time that she and Chuck got something of their own. And when she'd seen it, she'd found it to be absolutely perfect. It had five bedrooms, five bathrooms and an 18th century fireplace that pretty much sold it for Blair. Chuck didn't seem to care all that much, as long as she was happy with it, and he'd bought it for their little family.

"Dorota!" called Blair, as she opened the front door of the house. "Cecile!"

Dorota shuffled out from the kitchen with Cecile, Henry's live-in French nanny, in her wake with little Henry in her arms. Henry was covered in flour. Clearly he was helping them bake something and he was making a mess of it.

"Dorota, do you have a bag packed for me to go to the Hamptons house?" asked Blair, tossing her bag and jacket onto the antique sofa. She started walking up the staircase. "I'd like to leave. Now."

"Of course, Mrs. Blair," said Dorota, picking up the things Blair had set down and following Blair up the staircase. "I expected you to want to go for Mrs. Serena's pink party."

"Cecile," continued Blair, "I'm going to need you to prepare Henry for tomorrow, okay? Bring him up then. I think I just need this night to myself. So I'm going up to the Hamptons house alone."

"Alone? In that big house?"

Blair's husband Charles was standing at the top of the staircase, his hands in the pockets of his grey trousers. His waistcoat was unbuttoned; his red tie was loose around his white shirt's collar; and he had one impeccably shiny black shoe on and one shoe off. He was smiling down at her and she couldn't help from blushing.

"Yes," said Blair, throwing her black Christian Louboutin shoes off. "I just need a little break from everything. Just me and Serena."

"Just you and Serena?" he asked, as she breezed past him and went into their room. He closed the door behind him as he entered. "Are you sure she's going to be able to entertain you tonight? I mean, it is the night before her big pink party. She would probably be caught up with that. And when I was playing squash with Humphrey the other day, he said that she was pretty wound up about it."

Blair hadn't even known that he played squash with Humdrum Humphrey but she didn't bother to say anything other than, "Well, if she is, I'll help her and I'm sure we'll wrap it up in no time. I mean, nobody throws a party like Blair Waldorf."

"Bass," amended Chuck, coming up behind her and unzipping the back of her dress. "Waldorf-Bass."

She chuckled. "I'm sorry."

"I guess you're going to have to show me how sorry."

It was amazing how truthful the saying 'The more things change, the more they stay the same' was. Chuck—Charles—still had the magic touch which made her shudder and her knees buckle. He knew all the right spots and he certainly knew all the right things to do to make her enjoy their intimate time together.

Serena would have to wait.