Because I'm Worth it
Copyright © 2003 by 17th Street Productions, an Alloy company
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
First eBook Edition: August 2008
Hachette Book Group
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN 978-0-316-04203-1
Contents
Chapter 1: b bonds with j over breast size
Chapter 2: a very different kind of homework
Chapter 3: waspoid prince tries to score
Chapter 4: sex poems are full of lies
Chapter 6: b does j a little favor
Chapter 7: as if he didn’t have it good enough already
Chapter 8: scrawny westside poet has first taste of fame
Chapter 9: the scoop on the stoop
Chapter 11: introducing the new d
Chapter 12: s has just what they’ve been looking for
Chapter 13: v rocks people’s worlds
Chapter 14: j and e explore their problem areas
Chapter 15: b has hots for older man
Chapter 16: kindred spirits connect in rehab
Chapter 17: s wears her love like a baby tee
Chapter 18: way better than naked
Chapter 19: v poses as a poser
Chapter 20: just like that scene in titanic
Chapter 22: s can’t find her boyfriend, but so what?
Chapter 23: romancing the stoner
Chapter 24: our bodies, ourselves
Chapter 25: the next keats meets his next muse
Chapter 26: the girl behind the camera
Chapter 27: audrey keeps her clothes on
Chapter 28: some girls have all the fun
Chapter 29: experimentation may be overrated
Chapter 30: n facilitates recovery of messed-up orphan heiress
Chapter 31: the icing on b’s cake
Chapter 33: girls go gaga over secret admirers
Chapter 35: v-day turned d-day for b
Chapter 36: lifestyles of the rich and famous
Chapter 38: v turns down chance to film decomposing fish bodies!
Chapter 39: s reinvents the tear
Chapter 40: rehab is the new spa
Chapter 41: for the sake of her art
Chapter 42: diva makes her entrance
Chapter 43: what we talk about when we’re not talking about love
Gossip Girl novels by Cecily von Ziegesar:
Gossip Girl
You Know You Love Me
All I Want Is Everything
Because I’m Worth It
It makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch. . . .
—Ernest Hemingway
The Sun Also Rises
Disclaimer: All the real names of places, people, and events have been altered or abbreviated to protect the innocent. Namely, me.
hey people!
February is like the girl at that party I threw when my parents took a “second honeymoon” in Cabo last week (I know: sad). You remember—the girl who puked all over the Spanish marble floor in the guest bathroom and then refused to leave? We had to throw her Dior saddlebag and Oscar de la Renta embroidered sheepskin coat into the elevator before she finally got the message. Unlike most places in the world, though, New York refuses to fall into a February-induced depression and become a cold, gray, dismal wasteland. At least,
my
New York does. Here on the Upper East Side we all know the cure for the drearies: one of Jedediah Angel’s crazy-sexy party dresses, a pair of black satin Manolos, that new “Ready or Not” red lipstick you can only get at Bendel’s, a good Brazilian bikini wax, and a generous slathering of Estée Lauder self-tanner, in case your St. Barts tan left over from Christmas break has finally faded. Most of us are second-semester seniors—
at last
. Our college applications are in and our schedules are light, with a double free period every day during which we can catch a Fashion Week runway show or head back to a friend’s penthouse apartment to drink skinny lattes, smoke cigarettes, and help pick out the evening’s screw-homework party outfit.
Another redeeming thing about February is my all-time favorite should-be-a-national-no-school-holiday, Valentine’s Day. If you already have a sweetheart, lucky you. If you don’t, now’s the chance to put the moves on that hottie you’ve been drooling over all winter. Who knows? You might find true love, or at least true lust, and soon
every
day will feel like Valentine’s Day. Either that or you can just sit at home IMing sad, anonymous notes to people and eating heart-shaped chocolates until you can’t fit into your favorite pair of Seven jeans anymore. It’s up to you. . . .
Sightings
S
and
A
holding hands and wandering slowly down
Fifth Avenue
to the bar at the
Compton Hotel
, where they can be seen most Friday nights, quaffing
Red Bull
and
Veuve Clicquot
cocktails and chuckling to themselves with the heady knowledge that they are without a doubt the hottest couple in the room.
B
refusing to go inside
Veronique
—a maternity store on Madison—with her glowingly pregnant mom.
D
and
V
wearing matching black turtlenecks, their legs intertwined as they watched that twisted, depressing
Ken Mogul
film downtown at the
Angelika.
They’re two morbid, artistic, weirdo peas in a pod—so insanely perfect for each other, you want to shout at them, “Hey, what took you so
long
?!”
J
on the Ninety-sixth Street crosstown bus, carefully studying a billboard for breast-reduction surgery. I’d definitely go for it if I were in her double-D cups . . . um, I mean shoes. The ever-adorable
N
playing a stoned game of ice-hockey golf with his buddies at
Sky Rink
. He doesn’t seem to mind being girlfriendless. It’s not like he’ll have any trouble finding a new one. . . .
And finally:
Who’s getting in early??
This week an annoying little group of us is going to find out whether or not we got early admission to the top colleges in the country. This is it. There’s no more time for our parents to build another new wing on the library. No time to bribe another esteemed alum into sending the dean of admissions a letter of recommendation. No time to star in another school play. The envelopes are already in the mail.
I’d like to take a moment to point out that the decision is completely arbitrary because basically we’re all perfect specimens. We’re gorgeous, intelligent, well mannered and eloquent, with influential parents and perfect transcripts (except for the occasional blip, like getting kicked out of boarding school or having to take the SATs eight times).
I’d also like to give a word of advice to those of us who
do
get in early: Try not to talk about it
too
much, okay? The rest of us have a couple more months of waiting to do, and if you want to get invited out with us, you’d better not even mention the words
Ivy League
in our presence. Our parents do that quite enough already, thank you very much. Not that it’s a sore subject or anything.
I think it’s safe to say we’re all suffering from late-winter waiting-to-hear-from-colleges cabin fever. It’s time to run a little wild! Just think, the later we stay out, the quicker the days will blur by. And believe me, every wicked thing we get up to will be glamorized, dissected, and blown totally out of proportion right here by yours truly. Have I ever let you down?
You know you love me.
gossip girl
b
bonds with j over breast size
“Just a few fries and some ketchup, please,” Jenny Humphrey told Irene, the one-hundred-year-old bearded lunch lady behind the counter in the basement cafeteria of the Constance Billard School for Girls. “Just a
few
,” Jenny repeated. Today was the first day of peer group, and Jenny didn’t want her senior peer group leaders to think she was a total pig.
Peer group was a new program the school was trying out. Every Monday at lunchtime the freshman girls were to meet in groups of five with two senior girls to discuss peer pressure, body image, boys, sex, drugs, alcohol, and any other issues that might be bothering the freshman girls or that the two senior peer group leaders deemed important enough to talk about. The idea was that if the older girls shared their experiences with the younger girls and started a sympathetic dialogue, the younger girls would make informed decisions instead of stupid high-school-career-damaging mistakes that might embarrass their parents or the school.
With its beamed ceiling, mirrored walls, and birchwood modernist tables and chairs, the Constance Billard School cafeteria looked more like a hot new restaurant than an institutional dining room. The dingy old cafeteria had been redone last summer because so many students had been going out for lunch or bringing their own that the school had been losing money on wasted food. The new cafeteria had won an architectural prize for its appealing design and high-tech kitchen, and it was now the students’ favorite in-school hangout, despite the fact that Irene and her mean, stingy, grubby-fingernailed old cronies were still the ones serving the food from the cafeteria’s updated, nouvelle American menu.
Jenny wove her way through the clusters of girls in pleated navy blue, gray, or maroon wool uniform skirts, picking at their wasabi-smoked tuna burgers and Red Bliss pommes frites and chatting about the parties they’d been to this past weekend. She slid her stainless steel tray onto the empty round table that had been reserved for peer group A and sat down with her back to the mirrored wall so she wouldn’t have to look at herself while she ate. She couldn’t wait to find out who her senior peer group leaders were going to be. Supposedly the competition had been fierce, since being a leader was a relatively painless way of showing colleges that you were still involved in school activities even though your applications were already in. It was like getting extra credit for eating fries and talking about sex for fifty minutes.
Who wouldn’t want to do that?
“Hello, Ginny.” Blair Waldorf, the bitchiest, vainest girl in the entire senior class, or maybe the entire world, slid her tray into the place across from Jenny and sat down. She tucked a wavy lock of dark brown shoulder-length hair behind her ear and muttered at her reflection in the wall of mirrors. “I can’t wait for my haircut.” She glanced at Jenny, picked up her fork, and raked it through the dollop of whipped cream on top of her chocolate angel food cake. “I’m one of the leaders for peer group A. Are
you
in group A?”
Jenny nodded, clutching the seat of her chair as she stared gloomily down at her plate of cold, greasy fries. She couldn’t believe her bad luck. Not only was Blair Waldorf the most intimidating senior in the school, she was also Nate Archibald’s ex-girlfriend. Blair and Nate had always been the perfect couple; the ones destined to stay together forever and ever. Then, strange as it might have seemed, Nate had actually dumped Blair for Jenny after meeting Jenny in the park and sharing a joint with her.
It had been Jenny’s first joint, and Nate had been her first love. She’d never dreamed of having an older boyfriend, let alone one as gorgeous and cool as Nate. But after a couple of too-good-to-be-true months, Nate had gotten bored with Jenny and had proceeded to break her heart in the cruelest way by ditching her on New Year’s Eve. So now she and Blair Waldorf actually had something in common—they’d both been dumped by the same boy. Not that that made any difference. Jenny was pretty sure that Blair still hated her guts.