Manhattan Island: Upper East Side
Constance Billard K-12 Prep School
September 4th, 2005 8:05 AM
"Class, we have a new student," Headmistress Kwellar boomed, standing in full command at the front of the classroom. "He moved here from-where was it, Charles?"
The boy smirked, showing off an identical set of cute dimples. "Philadelphia," he said in a deep, sexy voice that would have made my knees buckle, if I had been standing at the time.
Instead, I was sitting in the exact middle of the classroom (the best spot to catch every going-on), in a pristine new desk-new ones were bought every year (for the lofty tuition, New York royalty's children deserved to sit in only the best)-surrounded by the girls in my class, most who had totally copied my back-to-school outfit and signature headband.
The teacher continued, "His name is Charles Bass. Please welcome him with the good Constance spirit!"
Charles smirked again. "Call me Chuck. Chuck Bass." And then he sauntered off confidently to a desk catty-cornered from me.
My best friend Serena and I exchanged a look. Hottie, she mouthed at me, raising her delicately plucked eyebrows. Serena scribbled on a notecard and handed it to me.
"Too bad you're taken," her loopy cursive spelled.
As if on cue, my boyfriend for 4 years, Nate, turned toward me and ran his hand through his sandy blonde locks, involuntarily flexing his biceps. He had gotten his braces off this summer and looked hot.
Although not as hot as this new Chuck Bass, I mentally added. Not at all.
"We'll see. I love Nate, but maybe the start of 9th grade calls for a break?" I wrote back in my own bubbly handwriting.
I gave Nate a smile, then turned back to Chuck, who was getting acquainted with a few of the boys. He wore the required boys' uniform: navy blue blazer, khaki pants, pale yellow button down, and red-and-yellow striped tie. He also wore a scarf. Perfect, I knew my first ice-breaker.
"Nice scarf," I said, half-teasingly, looking at him out of the corner of my eye. It was pretty cool. "Vintage Hermes?"
Chuck raised his eyebrows, looking surprised. He looked me up and down, and I knew he liked what he saw.
This summer, I had done some modeling for Dior. People told me I had the perfect face, and I wouldn't correct them. My long chestnut hair cascaded down my back, done in loose curls and held off my forehead by a silk headband. My heart shaped face accentuated my high cheekbones and delicate jawline, and my nose was a cute button. My porcelain skin had a natural flush, and my chocolate eyes were accentuated by light gold eyeshadow (very light, Constance didn't allow makeup at all, so you had to be careful.)
He smiled, and then answered. "Yes, actually. Someone knows her brands." He said it in a bit of a mocking tone, but I knew it was flirty. A few guys behind him chuckled with him.
Nate looked at Chuck. "You better watch what you're getting into, brother. She can insult you to tears," she said. I looked back and forth at them, amused. Was Nate jealous?
Chuck didn't care (if he did, he never let on). "Well, she hasn't been through me yet. People will say the same about me."
Nate narrowed his eyes. "Why?"
Chuck threw back his head and laughed. "Because I'm Chuck Bass, that's why!" He fist-bumped a couple of his seatmates. "Now, where were we?" He asked me, turning his smoldering gaze on me.
"Your scarf," I said.
He took off his scarf, and then handed it to me. "Wanna feel it?" He asked.
I tried to ignore how suggestive that question was, and instead looped it around my neck. It clashed with my plaid skirt, but so what? I had Chuck Bass's signature Hermes scarf around my neck, and I was at the center of attention.
Somebody cleared their throat from the front of the room. "Now, class, my name is Mrs. Holt, your geometry teacher. I'm sure you're all well acquainted with our new student, Mr. Bass, by now." Chuck raised his hand to a smattering of applause and high-fives.
I took out my math notebook. Geometry was one of my favorite subjects (well, all subjects were my favorite, because I did well in them), and I resolved not to let Chuck distract me from the review of the different shapes and angles.
Except Chuck wouldn't let me concentrate. He had looped part of his scarf around his hand and was now sliding it back and forth across my neck skin. I giggled.
Nate stared at him, his eyes like daggers. Chuck saw his stare and laughed. "Dude, I'm not hitting on your girlfriend. I do this to everybody..." He trailed off suggestively.
Nate did a double take. "Wait, how did you know that I'm her boyfriend?" I was wondering that too.
Chuck shrugged. "Isn't it sort of obvious, the vibes between the two of you?" He gestured at the air like there were signals in it. "I read people well."
That was an understatement. I felt like in the 15 minutes he had been part of this class, he already knew everybody's personal info and was ready to take over as the one to watch.
My thoughts were interrupted by Mrs. Holt clearing her throat. "Since you all seem to be very talkative-" she stared around the room, her eyes finally landing on Chuck, Nate, and me-"here's a seating chart. The person across from you is your partner for the next term. "Okay, when I put it up, quietly move to your seat..."
The chart went up on the overhead, and I was expecting to be seated with Nelly and Ling, the smart girls, or Wendy, the weird and untalkative one. Instead, I was surprised to see that I was in the back, next to Chuck (of all people), in front of Nate, and diagonal from Serena.
Once we had moved to our new desks, exchanging suspicious looks (this seating assignment was way too good to be true), I checked out the rest of the classroom.
Huh. They all seemed to be organized into groups of four. Everyone in these groups hung out with each other outside of school and were, for the most part, friends. Who had made this seating chart?
As the giggles grew as the new groups chatted, Mrs. Holt silenced the crowd. "I know you're all wondering why the seating chart is so in your favor. You're sitting next to all your friends. It's something that all of your teachers have worked together on, called Family Groups. We wanted to group you with people you would be inclined to talk to, so it is a practice of self-control. We put Chuck where we thought he might fit."
Chuck leaned over in his desk to whisper to me. "In the group of the most beautiful girls and most popular guy," he explained to me with a wink. "They must really want to succeed socially here." Either he just really wanted to flatter me, or he was reading the situation (because he was at the 'popular table,' whether he knew it or not).
"In your family groups, you will be doing everything. You will sit together in every class, do projects together, and coordinate study groups outside Constance. The person sitting across from you is your partner. In my class, especially, and in almost every other class, like science, you will be working with specifically this person. So I hope you like each other."
Chuck and I grinned at each other sarcastically. Serena and Nate laughed about something, perhaps a new inside joke. I sighed a little. Serena was known for inadvertently stealing boyfriends with her charm and good attitude. Usually, boys went for me first, but then they drifted toward Serena, once they saw how demanding I was.
It seemed like they could sense my jealousy, so they stopped laughing, the look on their face saying, "Hey, we're not going to cheat." Serena smiled at me. Nate played with the ends of my hair. They both wanted to make it up to me, because I knew nobody wanted to make me sad because I looked so beautiful when I was happy.
And Chuck did something that made my stomach do a loop: without Nate seeing, he placed his soft warm hand on my thigh, just below the end of my skirt. And kept it there for a beat.
I did like my partner. Maybe a little too much.