A/N: I've posted a new Chuck/Bair story, In Fair Manhattan -- don't worry, until this sucker is completed, it is my FIRST priority. However, FF has a great deal more actual Waldass than you've seen here, so for those of you anxiously awaiting that sort of action here should definitely check FF out for a quick fix in the meantime.

You can check out all the outfits Elle has worn up until now at my LiveJournal -- it's friends only, though, so comment my top entry to be added so you can view! I post other things in my LJ, like sneak peeks for upcoming chapters, pictures of what I think the characters look like, and updates on how the writing is going. Ch-ch-check it out. (Link provided in my profile.)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Will the Real Queen Bee Please Shut Up?

Maverick, of course, had not been attending dance rehearsals.

I found this out when he and I happened to reach the same street corner at the same time just as the intersection's lights changed and we were shown the glaring red DON'T WALK hand signal. His motorcycle was in the shop and my bicycle was rotting in a junkyard somewhere, and it was impossible to get a cab at 4 PM; and while he got out of class half an hour after me and our curbside meeting never should have taken place, I had gone to the townhouse to change clothes, and therefore happened to stroll up to the intersection the same time he came to a stop just before the asphalt with his hands stuffed in his khaki pockets.

"Never?" I asked a bit cautiously, because I hadn't spoken to him once since my episode on the back of his Harley-Davidson.

He shrugged at me, checked his watch, then glanced up to examine the steady flow of traffic running back and forth in front of us.

"We are not late," I brushed my bangs aside and looked evenly at the glowing red hand. "But we might be if this light does not change."

"Will you freak out if I touch you?" he asked, and it was the first time he had made eye contact with me in days.

I blinked up at him and stammered for a reply, "Um, about that—I was just—"

Maverick grabbed my hand quite suddenly and tugged me into the street. I let out a small yell of protest and alarm, as the light had not changed from yellow to red, and in fact was still rather blatantly shining GREEN, meaning either one of us could be struck by an oncoming automobile at any given moment! I clenched my eyes, bracing my body and mind for the impact that would surely come—but all I felt were my flats beating against the black street, his fingers clenched around mine, and the rush of fear that negated any reservations I had about physical contact.

When I peeled my eyes open, we were safely under the shade of the traffic post across the street and Maverick had let go of my hand.

I turned to look for a rush of cars we had perhaps only just avoided, but found the street desolately empty as the lights blinked their changes and the red hand was replaced with a green person encouraging pedestrians to WALK.

"Merde, are you trying to kill me?" I hit him rather ineffectively on the arm in a fit of righteous anger. "It said do not walk!"

"There weren't any cars." He chuckled at me and ignored my tirade as we made our way farther down Fifth Avenue towards the studio.

When we finally reached the tall, gray building, he opened the pristine glass door and walked inside without stopping to hold it open for me, or even nudging it with his hand to allow me space to slip through. I stared at his figure past my foggy reflection and thought I should have listened to Julian when he had told me to be careful with Maverick Sparks. Tristan, with all of his hang-ups and imperfections and vices, had never once let me touch a door handle.

Never once!

And where had his manners gone? Had he not held the school doors open for me after Saffron pelted me with strawberry banana yogurt?

I missed Lex.

But, then I glanced past my rude escort and saw a certain puffy-headed blonde sidling up to him, and decided maybe then wasn't the time to be wondering where his virtues were—after all, I wasn't going to the ball with him because I liked his natural musk. It was purely to spite 'Queen Saffron' and very effectively put another tally under to my name, as opposed to the two beneath hers.

Elle
II
Last season Prada and stealing Maverick

Saffron
II
Yogurt in hair and spreading rumors

I had a few more tricks up my sleeve, however, and would soon surpass even her best efforts. It was a great day to be me.

Despite the fact that I had to open the door for myself and touch the handle and think about how many unwashed hands had come into contact with it before my own pristine palm and fingertips, I found my way to my date, and smiled at my moral and loathsomely flirtatious and insufferably dressed enemy with as much fake sugar as I could squeeze from my pores.

"Where is your escort?" I inquired innocently, stressing the word 'your' as lightly as I could to avoid sounding catty. "Or could you not find one?"

As I had known she would, Saffron blatantly ignored my thinly veiled civility and scowled. "I have one, but he is detained today."

"Oh, really?" I tried not to laugh. "Has he gotten his tux fitted yet? I heard it can be almost impossible to take invisible people's measurements."

At that moment the old and refined dance instructor, Mrs. Prescott, clapped her hands together to draw her attention. Saffron flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked across the room to Teddy, who was also escort-less and had the dubious honor of filling in as her stand-in for that afternoon. His dark eyes, however, were trained on the brilliantly red head of her sister, who stood nearby in vibrantly yellow stockings on the arm of a tall, thin, surly-faced blond whose angled eyebrows and puckered lips only meant he was a male runway model.

Teddy's jaw was tight with misery.

I didn't have time to focus on his dilemma though, for Mrs. Prescott arranged us in a circle and began pacing us to through the opening dance, as a gangling pianist watched us through large, bottle-top glasses over the top of the black baby grand in the corner. Our upper bodies remained structured and stiff as our legs stepped and crossed and turned and twirled. Maverick was a fast learner, but he sighed hugely every time he had to perform a particularly intricate movement, and more than once I considered elbowing him very hard in his presumably taut stomach—I mean, judging from his arms, which were absolutely solid as rocks and thick as –

He was being incredibly difficult, and I was almost grateful when the music altered key and required us to change partners.

I settled my right hand into Teddy's as he slid his arm around to rest his hand on my upper back. Nearby, Maverick swept Scarlett into an easy embrace and began a simple but graceful English waltz at the same time as the rest of us. Teddy's eyes, invariably, wandered over my shoulder to rest on the figure of the person he so clearly and frantically wanted but was utterly incapable of attaining.

"Have you even said hello to her today?" I whispered, avoiding the fiercely judgmental gaze of Mrs. Prescott as she walked between our groups and corrected postures and techniques, and told one pair to 'look like your happy to be doing this, for God's sake—this is your debut, not your wedding day'. "It might be a good start."

"I was going to," he admitted in an equally quiet tone. "But then she looked at me and all I managed to say was hell."

Had we not been waltzing, I might have slapped my palm to my forehead in a dramatic display of despair. "Teddy!"

Mrs. Prescott's chin turned sharply to us and I quickly straightened my back and plastered on a pearly smile. Our feet moved in perfect parallel, our bodies swung like pendulums in time with the soothingly lush 30 bars per minute, 3 beats to a bar, which dictated our rigidly closed position and steered us slowly through our carefully choreographed steps.

"I know," he muttered, missing a step and almost stepping on my toes. I flawlessly avoided him and corrected our course.

Something rapped me hard on the shoulder, and I discovered it was Mrs. Prescott's wooden cane when I glanced backwards.

"The man leads, not you," she barked, before moving on to the next erroneous couple.

We changed direction along with the rest of our peers, twirling in and out of each other in flawless circles as we followed the line of dance and rearranged ourselves in a very untraditional diamond formation, which Mrs. Prescott informed us rather haughtily that she was known for the world over—her signature move. I could appreciate a good signature.

"Mais, well, before we leave then—tell her she dances very well, or something," I hissed, managing to hear Mrs. Prescott over myself.

She slapped her wooden cane against her hand and came to a sharp stop in the middle of everyone. "The ladies curtsey and offer their right hands; the men put their left arms behind them and accept with a bow." In almost unison, the girls sunk into delicate curtsies and their partners took their hands a bit awkwardly as they inclined their torsos towards them. "And now, the men kiss the proffered hands and move to the left and back to their original partners."

Teddy nodded, but not in response to her instructions. I offered an encouraging smile as he slid to the left, and suddenly Maverick was in front of me again. He took me in his arms without much reservation, clearly assured that I would no longer 'freak out' if he touched me, and I very gently laid my left hand around the (very slightly bulging) back of his right arm. His right hand settled a little too low on my waist.

"That is inappropriate touching," I admonished as we began a new dance, a luscious Viennese waltz that Mrs. Prescott took very seriously; she threatened to rap us hard on the backs of our necks if any of us messed it up even slightly.

Maverick smirked and as we twirled in a romantic and constant natural clockwise turn while the other couples followed in our footsteps. The room became a blur around us and I would have felt dizzy from all the spinning, were it not for the dark anchor I found in the immeasurable fathoms in the pits of his violently blue eyes. I felt 20,000 leagues under the sea and a bit pressed for air when his hand pressed firmly into the small of my back, very much not in the right place.

"That's my favorite kind of touching."

Julian's warning words reverberated in my head again as I glanced around for Mrs. Prescott and firmly moved his hand back to its proper home beneath my left shoulder. Before her hawk-like eyes could train-in on the way my own hand was quite absent from its required perch on his shoulder, I hastily replaced it and lifted my chin as regally I could to enhance the vision of a perfectly swirling fairytale prince and princess.

I imagined the skirt of my elegant dress, which Jenny assured me would be worthy of royalty and ready to wear by the 18th, fanning out around me, and the floor was not parquet but lavish and shining reflective marble on the floor of The Palace's most luxurious and royal ballroom. Maverick was in tails and a neatly arranged tie, his hair sitting evenly on his head, his ever-wandering fingers encased in fine white gloves.

That reminded me to remind him that Jenny had already made his tie to perfectly match my gown, so he wouldn't have to purchase one to go with his suit. Of course, 60 measures per minute required a lot of continuous poised spinning, so I saved that for when we were more stationary.

After another run-through, Mrs. Prescott allowed us a break. I went to my purse to find the bottle of Evian I had pulled from the fridge in my haste to get out the townhouse door and to the studio on time, and when I turned around with its cool contents sliding down my throat, I was greeted with the sight of platinum-haired Lily van der Woodsen smiling at me.

I suspected she had moisturized three times a day in her youth, for there wasn't a single sheen of botox on her forehead or around her mouth.

"Good afternoon, Eleanor," she smiled and reminded me of Grace Kelly in every photograph and movie I had ever seen her in.

"Elle," I corrected after I managed to gulp down my water. "You can call me Elle, Ms. Van der Woodsen."

"Mrs. Humphrey," she corrected congenially, "technically. But you can, of course, call me Lily." I noticed she did not agree to call me 'Elle'.

Humphrey was what stuck out in my mind like a golden gong that had been struck by a large mallet. Humphrey as in 'Daniel Humphrey', author of the New York Times bestseller Gossip Girl and all-around bane of Blair Waldorf's existence (or so she so often told me)? Father of Cedric Humphrey, my own personal paparazzo? Humphrey, as in Aunt Jenny's maiden name? Lily van der Woodsen was really named Lily Humphrey?

Somehow, that didn't sound nearly as impressive. I understood why she still went by Van der Woodsen in polite circles.

"I watched you dance," she said, sitting down on the window bench and tucking her left ankle behind her right as she set her large quilted bag down on the parquet floor. I took the spot beside her when she graciously patted it with her diamond ring-free left hand. "You're very beautiful at it, just like your mother."

I cleared my throat and rearranged my features to look grateful. Blair Waldorf was, indeed, one of the most amazing dancers I had ever seen—I remembered her in an array of different sweeping dresses in countless chic styles and classic colors, in the arms of many handsome men as they guided her on the dance floor, while I stood by with carefully arranged hair and watched eagerly alongside a multitude of other little girls who thought they were in a fairytale. I had not inherited my talent from her, but it was flattering to even be compared to the woman I had once known as ma mère.

"Merci beaucoup."

"You have read the itinerary?" Lily removed her winter gloves and let them fall into her lap. I nodded and she returned the gesture with a sharp dip of her chin. "Good, then you'll be attending the Sunday brunch and the dinner party at the Plaza on Friday night?"

Jenny had informed me that she would go with me to the mother-daughter brunch at Arabelle, since I did not have a mother nearby to accompany me, and that we would go for frozen yogurt at some place called 40 Carrots and she would show me some of her favorite places in Central Park. I wasn't entirely sure whether or not I should be grateful that I had time to spend with her and pump her for any information she might accidentally let slip, or whether I should be dreading the experience as a torturous day full to the brim of things I wanted to avoid at all costs.

But, she had helped me pick out a very pretty abstractly printed silk periwinkle blue-and-white empire-waisted dress with a ruffled tiered skirt that fell just above my knees (to hint at what I would be wearing at the actual cotillion) plus the patent snake-embossed 3 ½" high Manolo Blahniks that would serve as the perfect accompaniment, and I really wanted to show the ensemble off. Therefore, the fake-mother/daughter brunch was basically required.

I had also intended to skip out on the Friday night party, but the pale gold goldfish print foil A-line Diane von Furstenberg dress in my closet was begging to be worn with my favorite pair of silver leather Oscar de la Renta slingbacks. I had a tragically beautiful aurum Judith Leiber minaudiere covered with multicolored Austrian crystals depicting a dragonfly alight a gorgeous pink flower, plated with brass that would definitely outdo whatever tacky clutch Saffron would coordinate with her shoes, which undoubtedly would not complement her chosen ill-fitting and unimaginative dress at all.

...Okay, perhaps Cedric's dad's book was right and I was, by association, a label whore like Blair Waldorf.

There were worse things I could be. A monstrously bitchy plastic bimbo named Saffron, for instance. (What a stupid name.)

"Yes, I will be at both," I vowed, imagining how devastatingly more stunning than her I would look at each event. "Aunt Jenny is taking me to the brunch."

Lily nodded and reached into her bag, which I recognized as vintage Salvatore Ferragamo, and procured a list off of which she struck mine and Maverick's names with a felt pen. Then, she looked up at me and there was something stirring in the careful display of her features, the serene smoothness of her eyebrows and the delicate smile, and a light behind her face that read of some untold happiness or hidden joy. I imagined she had had some fortunate news that day, or something of that sort, but wondered at what could possibly be so providential to make her stare at me that adoringly.

"Good, I can't wait to see you there and find out more about you."

"More about me?" I capped my Evian and forgot to be polite for a second. "Why do you want to know about me?"

"Because," wryness grabbed the corners of her pink lips and she seemed to withhold a laugh, "you're an enigma."

"Me?" An enigma? That sounded exciting. I had always wanted to be an enigma. "Really?"

"To me, anyway." My eyes latched onto hers and she held my gaze for a long moment before her mobile rang. "Excuse me."

Mrs. Prescott was signaling for my return, so I put down my water bottle and returned to Maverick's side before I could be admonished.

The remainder of the dance lesson went very well, and Maverick didn't have to make physical contact with Saffron even once—all the switched partners dances either involved him with Scarlett and me with Teddy, or him with a willowy duchess who had recently moved to Manhattan with her father and mother and whose New York debut was almost as highly anticipated as my own.

...As soon as I got word out to the papers, of course. If grandmamma hadn't already beat me to it.

I switched off with a sort of clumsy St. Jude's boy who didn't make my skin crawl as pleasurably as Maverick did. It was more a feeling of disgust and less one of misguided desire, because he had probably stopped into a bakery on the way to the dance studio to partake in a particularly heady garlic bagel before the lesson.

When she was at last satisfied with us, Mrs. Prescott put her cane down on the wood floor and wished us luck on Saturday.

We dispersed, most of the girls heading to clump around Saffron and whisper about me, no doubt. The boys put back on their St. Jude's blazers and chatted about sports and the upcoming Christmas holiday and where they planned to spend it and with whom; Scarlett and Maverick broke away to the corner where she had set her Christian Dior tote, and commenced a hushed and rather passionate conversation that I really, really wished I could have eavesdropped on without being intensely obvious.

Instead, I returned to where Lily van der Woodsen/Humphrey sat still, speaking faintly on the phone. Her voice dropped to a mere whisper when she noticed my approach, but I was able to make out, "You know the board won't like that..." before she turned her head and covered her free ear, presumably to block out the sudden outbreak of high school chatter.

I knelt to put my Evian back in my satchel purse and strained my ears to hear the tail end of her telephone conversation.

"...All right. I will see you then, Charles."

Charles.

Charles.

Charles.

If I had forgotten the complex myriad of emotions from hearing Nate accidentally say 'Chuck' at the lunch table all those many eons ago in the dining room in Paris, every one of those sensations shocked through my bloodstream like a shot of adrenaline and starkly reminded me. I was refreshed, suddenly desperate for that name again, and wondered how many Charleses there could possibly be in Lily van der Woodsen/Humphrey's exclusive Upper East Side life. Then, I remembered she had been near Teddy the whole Thanksgiving night at grandmamma's penthouse, which strengthened my odds considerably. Was she looking after Teddy while his father was out of town? Did she know Chuck Bass?

There were a few more hummed sentences, and then she slipped her phone back into her bag and stood up with it in tow.

"Good afternoon, Eleanor."

I smiled and watched her walk through the doorway, my heart thundering against my ribcage. I felt positive that if I peered down my shirt, I would see a bruise forming from under the skin, that was how hard my pulse raced and how deep my breath hitched.

That name turned me into crusader again. Who said I had to wait until Serena arrived to find out the truth?

There had to be plenty I could do in the meantime!

Teddy looked like he was screwing up the courage to approach Scarlett, but I predicted from the way her conversation with Maverick was ongoing and still rather private-looking that then was not exactly the right time to impress her with his gentlemanliness. I swung my purse over my arm and brushed my hair over my shoulders as I made a beeline for where he stood on the opposite side of the sunlit studio, when someone rather blonde and incredibly pesky stepped into my path and forced me to stop in my tracks.

Saffron was surrounded by her fellow debutante minions, arms crossed over her chest in some kind of smug victory over a battle I was not aware had already been fought—I certainly did not remember taking part in it.

"I'm lead deb, you know." Ah, there it was. "And I'm going to tell Lily van der Woodsen, the chairwoman of the debutante ball committee, and my own personal family friend and business associate, to banish you from the cotillion."

How precious. She really did think she had won before even allowing me a chance to strike back. This was the perfect opportunity to put another tally beneath my name in our unwritten war, so I hastily caught Teddy's eye and tried to telepathically communicate to him to not approach Scarlett. He seemed to get the message, because he sunk into a rather distraught puddle of Bass misery against the wall behind him and stared glumly at his dapper Italian leather shoes.

"You can tell her that, of course," I forewent crossing my arms defensively, and instead put my hands on my hips matter-of-factly and openly. "But since she came to my house to deliver an invitation in person..."

Saffron's ladies-in-waiting looked at each other, the urge to explode in whispers latent and only suppressed because of their proximity to their undeserving and obviously unskilled queen. Did she not have someone on research, looking for prime opportunities, rather than spouting off whatever half-wit idea came into her brain? When I was crowned Constance Billard's queen, I would have two people on research at all times, and perhaps an outside PI to do the really messy work.

"Well," I finished, face neutral but angled upward just enough to make me look taller than her, "I doubt she will be sympathetic to your cause."

"I'll tell a committee member, then," she snapped, abandoning her cool just long enough to lose a bit of her underlings' respect. "Or I'll take it up with the people at The Palace. I happen to be one of their most influential guests, and the doormen happen to be so freaking fond of me. If I tell them not to let you in, then you will not be allowed in."

"Should I be impressed that you have fucked enough of the help that they'll do whatever you want?" I retorted calmly, before any of the spectators had a chance to twitter silently to each other about how influential she was.

They gasped at my vulgarity, but I saw the impressed light go on in several of their eyes; I had stood up to their fearless leader before, but never had I so sharply and harshly rebuked her in front of her peers. I insulted her authority and the respect she demanded outright by not only accusing her of lowering herself to dallying with the people who waited on them hand-and-foot, but by using a very 'naughty' term to describe said repulsive act.

"You know what I think?" I composedly continued, frosting my voice with the chilling ice required of a real monarch. "I think you are steaming mad, mon chouchou. Absolutely furious that 'the new girl' managed to come along and sweep away the boy you so desperately—" I made 'desperately' rhyme rather successfully with 'pathetically' without outright saying it, "—wanted to go to your sweet little cotillion with."

It was almost comical how often Saffron was struck speechless. I half wanted to suggest that she go home and practice her ferocity in a mirror before she even attempted to go toe-to-toe with me in a battle of words; either that, or stick to the little middle school tricks of yogurt and gossip to spread her spider-like influence.

"And do you want to know the really funny part?" I lowered my voice and raised my lips in the same Maverickesque smirkile she had failed to recreate that Monday. "I do not even need to do this. I have already debuted," I paused for dramatic flair, which I knew she also could not duplicate no matter how hard she tried, "in Paris. This is just charity work for me. Lily van der Woodsen actually asked me to grace you with my presence."

And, for the first time I had ever seen, Saffron actually fumed so much that her golden brown face turned exceptionally and unmistakably red.

I couldn't help it; I dreamed up the magic chalkboard in my mind and altered it accordingly:

Elle
III
Last season Prada, stealing Maverick, and outdoing the 'lead deb'

Another flash of red appeared, but it was her sister and not her own heady flush of anger intensifying. Scarlett looked from Saffron's clenched and shaking fists, to the insipid pout on her glossed lips—I swore I saw her teeth gnashing behind them, to the deep set of her annoyed brow, then turned to me and reached for my hand.

"Elle!" She kissed both of my cheeks in the way I was accustomed to, and I returned the greeting routinely. Then, she let go of my hand and slipped her arm through the crook of my elbow instead, waving to Saffron over her shoulder, and steering me out the same way Lily had gone not five minutes before after saying that name. "Why don't we go grab dinner or something?"

"How can you possibly be related to her?" I asked curiously when we were back outside and she was leading me in the direction of Madison.

Scarlett laughed, a tinkling and melodic sound that made me understand just why Teddy liked her so wretchedly much. It wasn't just her slightly-freckled and porcelain good looks, which were stunning by anyone's standards much less the entire world's, but the laugh that tied her lips into a pretty bow and crinkled the carefully made up eyelids that sat just perfectly between her eyebrows and the tip of her upturned nose. I approved of his choice.

"We're step-sisters," she clarified, and we walked beneath sparse trees and underneath construction and past pet stores and right past several able looking cafés on our way to have dinner. "Different mothers, same father who was being very wicked at the time. He ended up with my mother for good eventually, and Saffron's mother sent her to live with us when the both of us were three and she heard how well off he was. She's actually okay, if you—"

"—Get to know her?" I laughed my own laugh and shook my head. "Do not think that is going to happen."

"I know she can be awful," Scarlett allowed, "and God knows she hates every single one of my guts, but I still remember the smiling little blonde girl in messy pigtails I used to play dolls and dress-up with, so you can understand how I'm sort of protective of her."

My mind's eye flashed a series of memories, all of them involving my own little blonde girl in messy pigtails, breaking my china dolls and refusing to apologize for her crime, raiding ma mère's closet with me and digging into the alluring and mysterious makeup drawer of her vanity to join me in inexpertly applying mascara and spreading bright red lipstick all over her cheeks and teeth.

"I understand."

We reached a sidewalk café decorated with timeless classic movie posters, and when I saw the silent movie playing on one of the walls inside and noticed a large mural of Casablanca, I knew Scarlett and I would be very good friends—this was just the sort of place I loved, especially since it was a sidewalk café decorated beautifully with gorgeous flowers lining the exterior.

We ordered jumbo shrimp & watercress shu mai and pan seared mahi mahi for dinner, tiramisu with espresso sauce and apple spring rolls for dessert, and she a passionfruit cosmo and me a strawberry-mint gin tini to start; and we sat beneath the awning in the cold and crisp winter air and didn't speak for a few minutes between sips and people-watching. I half-hoped there was a trained paparazzo (anyone but Cedric, basically) hiding in the foliage to snap a picture of the world-famous fashion model in her natural habitat with 'unidentified stunning brunette friend', and was only slightly disappointed when I heard no clicking and saw no flashes.

The arrival of an avid fan of hers filled the companionable silence, and when Scarlett autographed the napkin Scarlett Rose, I thought of something.

"Why do you go by Scarlett Rose if your last name is Kennedy?"

Uncle Aaron had introduced her as his 'other sort-of-niece', which meant that they might also be sort of related the way he and I were, which sort of added a squicky vaguely incestuous factor to Teddy's blazing hot crush if things turned out how I hoped they would and he and I wound up also being sort of related.

Oh, what a headache.

"Rose is my middle name," she answered, as soon as the gushing fan was out of sight. "It's a stage name to keep attention off my family."

"Oh." I had forgotten all about her school file, which had indeed read Kennedy, Scarlett Rose in official-looking large Courier font. "How do you know Uncle Aaron?"

Scarlett frowned in bewilderment for a moment before connecting the dots. "Oh, he does commissions for my mom and dad. He went to school with them, or something, so he does them kind of as presents, like for our birthdays or at Christmastime. We should be getting one sent to us by his personal courier along with a pound of chocolates any day now."

That was a relief. Now I could fully support this potential union between her and Teddy again! I opened my mouth to ask what she thought of him, but she set down her half-empty glass and cut me off.

"My turn to ask a question." She unfolded her napkin and spread the creases out of it as she spoke. "How the hell did you convince Maverick to take you to the ball? He not only hates formal affairs, he positively loathes them. I can't wait to see him in tails and a tie and in white gloves. I'll need all of your pictures just to save the memory for perfectly untainted posterity!"

My opening had arrived. TWO openings, in fact. I could learn more about her complex relationship with my escort, and pimp out all of Teddy's finer qualities while I was at it. I beamed, not entirely from the recollection of Maverick agreeing to take me to cotillion on the 18th it is, princess... the flush on my face was also not at ALL from that reminiscence, just from the sheer excitement of how much I was about to help Teddy. Not anything to do with the way he had looked so handsome standing at the top of the steps like he owned them and smoking his Camel cigarette as he consented...

"I asked," I said breezily, hoping to jump over that topic and onto more important ones before the temperature under my skin rose 30 degrees.

"So, how come you did not ask him to take you? You two seem like you are friends or something, just from what I have noticed offhand here and there around school and..." I realized then how not stealthy I was, "...stuff."

Perhaps in revenge for the way I had glazed over her question, she hopped right over mine. "We're just friends." Then, she suddenly turned sheepish and fingered the rim of her glass looking a bit discomfited. "I actually don't have a proper escort; I had to ask one of my other friends to stand in with me today so I could do the steps with a partner."

Chimes rang and chirped and dinged in my head. She didn't have a date! Perfect.

"You know..." I began innocently as a waiter set my plate in front of me along with a glass of water. "Teddy is on the list of escorts, but he has not made any offers to accompany any of the other debs, so..."

"Teddy Bass?"

I nodded cheerfully at her ready recognition of his name. That was a good sign!

"I doubt he wants to go with me," she paused to chew on her shrimp. "He's been angry at me for weeks."

Huh?

"He is not angry at you," I insisted, going through the mental catalogue of information I had about his feelings for her, all of which included the big, bold, and artfully arranged letters L, O, V, and E.

He had only ever spoken of her with extreme tenderness and desire, had never once indicated that he wished her ill will—only waxed and waned about all the different colors of red and orange in her hair and how she looked like an expertly commissioned painting done by a master artist with a great love and appreciation for the subject. It was all very boring and sappy.

Scarlett shook her head, insisting that she, not me, was the correct one. "No, I'm sure he is. A few weeks ago, we were both at my friend Monica's 17th birthday party in TriBeCa, and he dumped his drink on my dress and hasn't spoken to me since."

"...Oh." I was sure it was just a big misunderstanding—he had accidentally spilled it! Then, he had reacted the way I suspected Teddy would in that situation and slunk off quickly to avoid further humiliating himself, therefore making himself look like a total jackass in front of his lady love. What a lovable idiot he was turning out to be.

"But, if he asked you," I prompted, swallowing a bite of food, "would you say yes?"

My dinner companion shrugged and finished off her cosmopolitan before she answered, "I wouldn't say no."

We parted ways as soon as we finished dessert and paid our parts of the check, and when I was sure she had disappeared around the corner to hail a cab back to St. Mark's Place and, undoubtedly, Maverick Sparks' company (not that I was jealous, because I was NOT jealous at all—she had said it herself, they were friends, and even Saffron had said so which meant it was true, because Saffron would probably kill her sister if she tried to hone in on 'her' man, so I was NOT jealous at all), I pulled out my mobile and pressed number 3 on my speed dial.

The phone rang three or four times before Teddy answered in a despondent voice, "Hello, Elle."

"She thinks you are mad at her," I told him flat-out, glancing up and down the street to make sure it was safe to cross as Maverick had so recently taught me was possible to do without expressed stoplight permission. "So you should probably clear that misunderstanding up and ask her to the ball, because she said if you did ask her, she would not say no."

"Really?" He sounded significantly more cheerful.

"Yes, but she also thinks you are mad at her. Focus." I reached the opposite sidewalk and started walking. "Where do you live?"

"What?" I envisioned him rubbing the top of his head and frowning in incomprehension. "Why?"

"So I can come over, dummy." I put up my arm and managed to flag down a yellow taxicab. "What's your address?"

He gave it and I relayed it to the impatient cab driver before sliding into the backseat and shutting the door behind me.

"I'll be there soon," I said into the phone. "So we can sort through this whole fiasco."

When I reached the elaborate hotel building Teddy had instructed me to go to, I rode the lift to the very top floor after giving my name to the man behind the front desk and waiting for Teddy to buzz down permission for me to enter the triplex penthouse. The sleek elevator doors slid quietly open and I stepped into a very modern yet overwhelmingly expensive-looking living room. A startlingly breathtaking view of Upper Manhattan sparkled in its large, almost floor-to-ceiling windows.

Teddy came down the stairs just as I set my purse down on one of the cream colored couches. "She thinks I'm mad at her?"

"Yes," I confirmed on autopilot, too struck by the fact that, all of the sudden, I was in the Bass house. Chuck Bass lived in the very penthouse I was standing in, ate breakfast in its kitchen, drank at the bar, sat on the cream couch I was so very close to, had a bedroom up the stairs Teddy had just descended, with a closet probably full of his clothes in a room full of pictures and clues about who he really was.

The same thrill I got from hearing his very name flooded my blood and colored my vision.

"She said you poured a drink on her and stormed off?"

He instantly groaned and sank into a chair by one of the windows. "No, no, no...I knew it...She hates me..."

"Shut up," I instructed, perching on the edge of the cream couch and dusting off my skirt. "She does not hate you. She thinks you hate her."

"Oh, God," he covered his face and I rolled my eyes. "That's worse."

"Teddy!" I snapped my fingers abruptly to break him out of his stale 'poor forlorn boy in unrequited love' act. "Pull it together!"

"I have to apologize," he decided, to which I whispered 'Duh', "and you said I should ask her to the ball?"

"Yes," I stressed, folding my hands over my knees. "Ask her to the damn cotillion and she will go with you, okay? Je sacre par Dieu..."

Teddy agreed almost silently with a very small noise of assent and took a few deep, calming breaths as he probably thought about all of the different ways he could bring up that topic in a casual conversation without looking like he had planned it—I knew that's what I would have been doing, if I was him. I took that time to glance at the art hanging from the walls, to appreciate and loathe the fact that there were no gaudy family portraits taking up space and announcing to all visitors that 'a happy family lives here!'. That's what it was like at the Archibald townhouse, but I dearly craved a look at what the handsome man in my photograph looked like seventeen years later.

"So, is there an office where we can sit down and write out a list of the things you have to do?"

I knew that would prompt him to get up—Theodore Bass lived for lists.

He led me up the stairs and into a muted room dominated by a large fine mahogany desk. An imposing black safe sat regally behind it, locked and bolted, a red light blinking slowly beside its combination keypad. Also behind the desk, hanging dead center on the wall, was a large painting of the island of Manhattan as it must have looked before the Dutch purchased it from the natives in exchange for trade goods.

The photographs on the desk were generic, with one of those loathsome 'a happy family is in this picture!' pictures of the Archibalds near one of the corners, and a gilded frame containing another picture of the magnificently and darkly beautiful Misty Bass within its clasps. I hesitated to pick it up, but touched the reflective glass surface delicately as Teddy rummaged through the drawers for some paper and a pen.

"How did you find out her name?"

Teddy looked up and saw what I was gazing at, and his eyes went silent. "I had to look it up. Dad would never tell me."

I frowned and caressed her two-dimensional cheek. "You had to look it up?"

"At the library, because there was nothing on the internet about him marrying anybody." He set some printer paper on top of a lightly dusty desk calendar that was still set on September, and grabbed a pen from within the top drawer. "I had to search through old newspaper archives, until I found a snippet talking about Misty Parker marrying the CEO of Bass Industries, and then something about them having a son."

"And that would be you," I assumed meditatively. No mention of a daughter?

He sat down in his father's chair behind his father's desk, and looked rather achingly like a boy playing dress-up and pretending to be grown up—as Lux and I had once done in too-big heels with clown faces in front of a gorgeous woman's vanity.

"Have you looked in his room for any clues about her?" I pressed, needing to know more about the glamorous pin-up woman from my daydreams and wanting, perhaps, to get even a tiny glimpse into that important bedroom.

But Teddy's eyes went from silent to noisy in one second flat and he tousled his hair awkwardly. "Dad's room is locked unless he's here. He has a key, and the butler has a key so he can go in there once a month and dust and vacuum and stuff. No one else is allowed in there, ever, not the maids, not anyone. Not even me." He pressed the pen to the paper and wrote out How to Apologize to Scarlett at the top of it. "Especially not me..."

Chuck Bass, of course, had his own secrets to guard. It seemed he and Blair Waldorf had a lot in common.