Blair Waldorf's Day Off

Blair Waldorf did not take days off. She never saw the need. She had timing down to such a perfect art that she'd even gone into labour precisely an hour and a half after returning home from the atelier, in the bath, shortly after remarking to her bump how convenient it would be if it that day happened to be the one it was planning on for its grand entrance.

But her husband was in Munich, and her son was with his grandmother (one of his grandmothers: there was Eleanor and there was Lily and there was also, bizarrely, Georgina, who seemed to think 'grandmother' less of an ageing term than 'great aunt'. Blair hadn't been planning on removing Henry from a strip club until he was…twelve, at least, but who knew there were lap dancers with joint honours in Russian literature and French language? His pronunciation was coming along very well), and although she'd drop by the Plaza, where Eleanor and Cyrus were staying ("I refuse," her mother had said, the second to last time she was in New York. "To ever again stay in a hotel where I receive endless gift baskets of massage oil and natural hallucinogens which Charles claims to know nothing about!") to kiss Henry goodnight, until then she had no work to do and no other children to worry about (she was working on that, and Chuck's return from Germany ever so coincidentally coincided with the date of her next ovulation).

So Blair Waldorf took a day off.

"Dorota. Dorota!"

She began by staying in bed until noon, reading the newspapers.

"Yes, Miss Blair?"

"Chuck always reads the FTSE aloud and tells me who we hate has gone bust this week."

"But Mister Chuck is not here…"

"Then I guess you'll have to do it, won't you?"

"You want me to put on voice?"

"No, I do not want you to put on – wait. Do the voice."

She followed this up with lunch with her best friend.

"You must never see him again! I forbid you!"

"B, we're married."

"And he put your Prada in the washer with his plaid! Doesn't he know you can't wash things with a label, they have to be washed for you?"

"Dan says –"

"Thank God you didn't change your name. It'll make divorcing him that much easier."

"B!"

And a brief trip to Saks.

"A glass of champagne while you wait?"

"No."

"Are you sure I can't tempt you?"

"No. God, are you all raging alcoholics in this department? I'm not having any champagne because I'm not waiting. I want my order, and I want it now, and if you're hoping for any invitations to my spring show, you will take fifty percent off everything I look at."

And a deep tissue massage.

"Madam is very tense."

"Madam's husband is absent."

"What a shame."

"It is."

"Can I interest you in one of our weekend packages?"

"I said he was absent, not that we were getting a divorce."

"I apologise, Madam."

"Besides, Madam's husband is a trained masseur."

"Very good."

"Or so he claims."

"Very good."

"Just stop talking. Save yourself and Madam the effort."

With a shopping bag in one hand and a recalcitrant intern in the other, Blair entered the Waldorf-Rose suite at the Plaza. She let the intern drop onto the couch and introduced Cyrus as her attorney who would explain the terms of the gagging order. She then went from the formal to the informal lounge, pounced on her son, presented him with the brownie Uncle Nate had baked him but which she'd checked for nasty leaves this time, kissed the top of his sweet-smelling head, smiled as she observed the battle between Henry and Eleanor over brushing his teeth and tucked him into bed.

You look lovely tonight.

She'd just dropped her keys onto the Moroccan end table behind the front door.

You don't know if I do or not. You can't see me.

You always look lovely. My taste in women is second to none.

Women, plural?

Woman, singular. Plus I have a live feed from the cameras. Smile.

Pervert.

Which was Blair's cue to turn off her phone, put up her hair and spend the rest of the night lying naked on her bed, eating macarons tortuously slowly and watching It Happened One Night in the intervals between ignoring emails from Chuck and licking ganache off her fingers.

So ended Blair Waldorf's day off.

Fin.