fic: All the Girls We Could Be
Nov. 18th, 2009 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firstaudrinaOriginally for gossipink.
Title: All the Girls We Could Be
Rating: PG13
Pairing(s): Nelly/Dan, Georgina/Dan, Nelly/Georgina, vague Serena/Georgina
Disclaimer: Gossip Girl belongs to people with way more money than me.
Author's Note: Let's pretend, for the purposes of this fic, that Georgina and Nelly have had very limited interaction and would not recognize each other on the street.
Summary: Georgina Sparks and Nelly Yuki have one thing in common: Dan Humphrey. And Georgina will do anything to get him.
All the Girls We Could Be
Her real name was Eleanor Yuki, but no one ever called her that. As a kid it had been Ellie or Ella, which had been fine with her, but sometime in the crossover from Junior High to Constance Billard, Nelly had taken over. It was a stupid name, clunky and pathetic, so obviously asking to be mocked, but it was settled on her with finality, to the point where even her parents adopted it.
She supposed it didn't matter much anyway; half the girls at school called her either Kati-With-Glasses or Kati-Grew-Out-Her-Bangs.
*
Svetlana Kaminski was the first one.
Serena had always thought Georgina had made up the name, quick-witted and mischievous one night, but Svetlana was indeed a real girl. She was the daughter of a friend of Georgina's father; she didn't speak any English, but she was a master of sultry, dark eyed looks.
Georgie stole her accent for laughs and her purse for quick cash, finding a number of other goodies inside it besides the wad of American money often carried around by foolish tourists. There was a nice new lipstick, some jewelry, an iPod full of Russian pop, and a passport. Holding the photograph of Svetlana against one of herself, Georgina couldn't help but notice a resemblance there: a sheet of dark hair obscuring soft features. It was a blurry, crappy photo, but it worked well enough at getting Georgina out of the country after the Pete situation.
*
Nelly thought Yale would be a magical fairytale place where it would no longer matter that she had been a smudge on the heel of a Louboutin in high school – and it was, in a way. But she was quick to discover that it also didn't matter that she was in the top three of her class or that she was a Merit Scholar, a Peabody Scholar, and an Intel Science Talent Search Finalist. It didn't matter that she knew Itzhak Perlman as Uncle Itzy. Half the kids at Yale could say the same (not about Uncle Itzy in particular). She was absolutely nothing special. Again.
Sarah Berkowitz was somewhere around number thirteen.
Georgina met her in the park. Sarah Berkowitz had a sweet, trusting gaze and Pollyanna pigtails to match. Georgina didn't get her ID, but she did steal the Bambi eyes and the dog. Dan Humphrey didn't stand a chance.
*
The thing that got Nelly through Constance (and the thing Yale is lacking horribly) is Dan Humphrey. Demoted to low-ranking minion, trotting around behind Hazel and Penelope, always in silent competition with Blair for Yale – it was all made worth it by fourth period, the lunch period she shared with Dan Humphrey.
She had intentionally made sure she had lunch a period before the other girls so she could ensconce herself in a corner of the courtyard, a fortress of textbooks around her, and stare unabashedly at him. Dan was always absorbed in something, taking copious notes in his tiny notebook or looking over a paper, sometimes reading, but mostly staring into space meaningfully.
Nelly loved him. She loved his slightly crooked nose and his constantly pouty mouth and his sarcastically raised eyebrow. She loved that he didn't care about being popular. She obsessively carried around the copy of the New Yorker that he had been published in, depressingly aware of the fact that his story was about Serena, but impressed by him nonetheless.
Yale had a lot of dark-haired, dark-eyed boys who could reference great writers left and right, but none of them were Dan Humphrey.
*
Georgina Sparks had not been a nice girl. She did not have humanizing, wistful memories of making cornbread with her grandmother when she was little or nursing baby birds back to health, or whatever pompous little princesses like Blair Waldorf did growing up. She'd been raised by a collection of spiteful nannies, seeing her parents every six months or so when they took weekend breaks from their constant business trips to check that she was still alive. She'd lost her virginity to her fourteen-year-old cousin when she was twelve. She'd gotten drunk for the first time a few months later. She had never done the things nice girls did.
Georgie didn't regret any of this until OMJC. She had been proud of being wicked instead of white, sinful instead of sorry.
After a month in the camp, it began to affect her. Everyone was so nice all the time. Everyone was lit from within, glowing with gratitude and love. They reminded her of Serena.
Georgie wanted to be lit up, too. She didn't want to be angry. She didn't want to be vengeful. She wanted to let in the light of God and allow it to cleanse her wicked soul.
*
It took a week of pre-Law courses for Nelly to be fed up with every part of her stupid depressing life. She read the Gossip Girl blasts of her old classmates – Serena gallivanting around Europe, Blair and Chuck happily entwined, Dan poised to become one of the richest boys in New York. It made her ache uncomfortably for her previously detested years of high school. It made her do something drastic.
Blair Waldorf was the most determined person Nelly had ever met and Serena van der Woodsen the most confident, so Nelly thought they'd be the best to imitate. She perched a bright yellow headband in carefully curled hair and spent ages practicing monologues; she switched into the Drama program, jittering with nerves as she feigned nonchalance. She switched to contacts. She began to sport pearls and ruffles and a small, nondescript ruby ring. She adopted a haughty but pleasing smile. She was nice to everyone, but somehow distant. They were all under her spell.
Which meant, of course, it was time for a visit home.
*
Georgina 3.0 was a carefully mixed and measured persona.
Christ-love had gotten her nowhere but screwed over, but try as she might, Georgina could not displace the Lord from her heart. She decided he would just have to share space with the dregs of Old Georgie she couldn't kick out of her system either.
The only thing old Georgina and new Georgina and in-the-middle Georgina had in common was Serena.
She didn't want to be Serena so much as she wanted to devour her – to consume everything that Serena was and make it a part of herself. Georgina used to play Serena sometimes, in the old days; she would swirl around in S's second skin, in her slinky dresses and golden tones, her blonde wig a glorious storm cloud around her face. Georgina guessed that at least a quarter of the old photos of Serena on Gossip Girl were actually her, not that anyone noticed. As long as there was a toss of golden hair obscuring her face and drinks all around, they just believed. Confidence was a beautiful thing.
A swiped credit card of Serena's paid for rounds, of course – and lots of other things, not limited to clothes and coke. Lily just paid them off anyway, unable to distinguish the tangle of her own spending from Serena's and rich enough not to care.
The only thing better than being Serena was being with Serena, being the focus of her happy, blurry, drunk gaze. Being the recipient of her pomegranate martini kisses, taking bumps off the same table, falling asleep in the same stranger's bed, and walking Serena to Constance every morning long after Georgina had stopped going.
She missed it. She knew Christ would probably frown on the casual drug use and homosexuality, but she figured He appreciated the love aspect.
She didn't want to be Serena, but she wanted to own everything about her. And Dan Humphrey made a lovely parting gift.
*
The closer the train got to New York, the more Nelly's anxiety grew. She tried to convince herself that it was just a meeting with an advisor to discuss possibly transferring to Tisch. If she happened to go to that coffee shop that Dan was always being spotted at, it was only because she was getting a lay of the land. And she loved a good cup of strong black coffee – incidentally, so did Dan.
Attempting to calm herself, she adjusted her headscarf and settled in to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's on her iPod. She could do with some last minute tips.
At one of the stops, a dark haired girl came in to share Nelly's compartment. She was on her cell phone, looking pleased with herself. "Yeah, I just have to set up some things, it shouldn't take more than a few days. I'll call you. Mhm. Mhmmm. Okay, see you soon, Scott!"
She settled across from Nelly, grinning. She looked oddly familiar; Nelly stared at her trying to figure it out and it was only when the girl waved her hand in front of Nelly's face that she realized that was rude.
"Sorry," she said, extracting her ear buds. "I don't mean to be a creep."
The girl smiled. "It's fine." She stuck out a hand. "Hi. I'm Sabrina."
*
Georgina didn't intend anything other than snagging the girl's wallet – she was light on cash, she was bored, and she couldn't use Poppy's cards anymore since the deportation paperwork had been finalized.
She didn't even realize who the girl was at first. She was pretty, but not stunning, with her long black hair clustered in curls around her face. Her pale pink top was ruffled up to her throat, which was further adorned with strand upon strand of coffee-colored pearls. Total Blair clone, Georgina scoffed silently.
Then it clicked.
Georgie mentally added some chunky frames and tacky clothes. She smothered a laugh – it was Blair's Token Asian in the flesh. Time to have some fun.
"Hi," she said, chipper as all hell. She glanced at Token Asian's iPod screen, deciding her new name. "I'm Sabrina."
"Eleanor," she replied with forced gracefulness. Georgina was forced to swallow another snort. How obviously pathetic. "I'm sorry, do we know each other? You look so familiar."
Georgina frowned theatrically. "Hmm…I don't think so. Where'd you go to high school?"
She had no doubt she'd be more familiar to Eleanor if she hadn't just lopped off her long hair and dyed it pitch black. The girl wasn't stupid. But the disguise had been necessary - she couldn't do with being recognized just yet. She had to remain incognito until the groundwork had been fully laid.
"Constance Billard," she said. What had her name been? Not Eleanor.
"Too ritzy for me," Georgina said, which was half-true. "Do you go to BU?"
"Yale," Eleanor said. "I was just visiting cousins in Boston." Elle? Ellie? The anxiety Eleanor was trying to keep hidden in her expression blossomed. "But I'm transferring. To NYU."
"Oh my god!" Georgina squealed. "Me too! How lucky is this?"
Ellie smiled.
"Leaving Yale, huh?" Georgina clucked. "Why? I hear that's the hot ticket."
Ell – Nelly! It came to her in a rush as the girl flushed bright red. Her tone, when she spoke, was brash but wavering. "A boy."
Georgina smiled kindly. "Must be some boy."
"He is," Nelly said dreamily.
*
Nelly had no idea how she ended up telling Sabrina all about Dan. It was a distinctly not a Blair-Serena thing to do. But Sabrina was so nice; she didn't seem judgmental at all and her open face was so familiar.
"Dan Humphrey," Sabrina repeated, tasting the name. "I feel like I've heard that before."
"He's a writer," Nelly said proudly. "He was in the New Yorker."
"Oh!" Sabrina exclaims. "Oh, I read that! It was amazing!" She nudged Nelly companionably. "Nice catch there, Eleanor."
*
Sabrina Hartell was, admittedly, a fabrication. That didn't stop her from being one of Georgina's most useful inventions; with a hint of sarcasm and a boatload of sincerity, she was able to move in with Nelly and therefore have complete access to any of her cards or I.D.s. It was perfect if she ended up needing a quick escape and new name; until then, it was just fun.
Nelly's face was frozen in a sneeze in her driver's license photo and Georgina's hair was recently raven-colored, so the deception was even easier than she had thought it would be. She only had to trill that she was a quarter Japanese on her father's side when people gave her odd looks after she told them her last name was Yuki.
She rang up astronomical charges and tore up the bills, but it was an unnecessary step. Nelly had settled quite comfortably in the palm of her hand and didn't seem to be getting perceptive any time soon.
Half her time was spent at the dorm with Blair, pretty much ignoring class entirely and making sure to stay in Dan's peripheral vision. She told Nelly she was off visiting her sister, an easily accepted excuse. Mostly she feigned indifference as she watched Dan canoodle with that Olivia, whose teeth seemed to be threatening to take over her head.
Georgina called Scott one night to tell him to hold off on his visit; she had a new plan.
*
"You should talk to him," Sabrina urged her from her spot on the couch, carefully painting her nails gunmetal gray. "That Olivia chick is in my Lit class. She's so vapid. One conversation with you and he'd forget her name."
Nelly blushed. Sabrina was really way too nice; she was rapidly becoming the kind of best friend Nelly had always wished she'd had. "She's a movie star. And she's gorgeous."
"If you like horses," Sabrina harrumphed.
Nelly giggled.
"Really though," Sabrina continued. "Just talk to him. Show him the new, confident you. He'll fall for it."
Nelly resolved to catch Dan the next day. Though she had planned for a morning coffeehouse meet-cute, fate intervened and she ran into Dan quite unexpectedly and literally outside of Tisch one day.
"Sorry," Dan said, bending to pick up the books he had knocked out of her arms. "I sort of walk in a haze of idiocy after Economics, which accounts for my not noticing an entire person right in my path." He straightened and handed the textbooks back. "I'm Dan."
A playful smile curled her lips. "You're acting like you don't know me at all, Mr. Humphrey."
He looked taken aback. "Um…I'm sorry, do I?"
She nodded primly. "Oh yes."
He squinted at her and his expression cleared, eyes wide with shock. "Nelly Yuki?"
She nodded again, not trusting her voice.
"Oh man," he said. "You look…different. Good different." His ears were actually turning beet red. Nelly had never in all her life been so thrilled. "Awesome different."
"Thanks," she said with a practiced Mona Lisa smile. "See you around, Dan."
And she sashayed past him, not even bothering to turn and see if he was watching. The Serena in her knew he was.
*
"O.M.J.C.," Georgie said with completely false enthusiasm when Nelly told her of the day's events. "What did I tell you? You cast a spell on him! He and that movie star will be over in days. No, no – minutes. Seconds. Whatever's shorter than seconds."
Nelly blushed harder than ever. "It's like I wasn't even me."
"Oh no, girl, that was all you," Georgina said and wrapped her up in a hug. Too fucking easy.
It took a few more weeks of casual meetings and coffee dates for Dan Humphrey to follow the libido that had been ruling his entire college experience thus far and break up with Olivia to hit on Nelly Yuki.
Well, that and Georgina had leaked a story about an Olivia Burke pregnancy scare to the tabloids.
She'd also made an appearance at an industry party one night (a night Dan was conveniently studying for finals) so she could get some insurance. It only took one of Georgina's Special Cocktails for Olivia to fall into bed with a co-star ex, pictures taken by an "unidentified source" splashed all over the pages of People and Dan's heart broken.
Dan needed a lot of comfort after that that Nelly was only too happy to give.
Meanwhile, Georgina bided her time. The best plans always took the longest.
*
Nelly and Dan were progressing blissfully on the way to courtship, sharing a few innocent pecks under the gently falling autumn foliage. She helped him with math and he helped her with English; it was the relationship of her Blair-borrowed dreams. It was a real partnership.
Nelly liked taking it slow. She was not a virgin (thanks to Isabel Coates' older brother) but Dan was so sweet and thoughtful and kind that she wanted sleeping with him to mean more. She wanted it to mean everything.
The only problem was that their relationship seemed to exist in some separate other world. He always begged off coming back to her place when she wanted him to meet Sabrina; he never asked her to lunch with him and Vanessa. When she confronted him, Dan attributed it to his past relationship troubles. He wanted them to be settled, he said, before announcing it to the world. Nelly accepted that (she was in no hurry to see Blair Waldorf anytime soon, even if she wanted to gloat about her own transformation) but it rang untrue.
Sabrina seemed doubtful too when Nelly told her. "I would just wait and see," she said. "I mean, it's weird, don't get me wrong. But it's only been a few months. And he's the guy of your dreams!"
Nelly nodded, fears somewhat allayed, but the niggling thought that maybe he didn't care as much as she did hummed in the back of her mind.
*
Dan let out an exhausted sigh from where he sat two tables down from her. Georgina perked up immediately, head swiveling towards Dan's melodramatic slouch. She scooped up her bag and show-textbooks and settled in across from him.
"Hey, Dan," she said. "Something on your mind?"
He straightened with comical fright. "Um, yeah, fine, yeah. I am fine."
She gave him a look. He sighed again.
"Okay, I'm…kind of…kind of seeing someone."
Georgina let her eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. "Going through them this year, aren't you, Humphrey?"
He smiled sheepishly. "Well…I guess."
"Who is she?"
"This girl from high school. Nelly."
Georgina pretended to think really hard about that. Then she let out a practiced laugh. "Nelly Yuki? You're seeing Nelly Yuki?"
Dan laughed too. Georgina took that as a good sign. "Sort of! I know, it's weird, right? But she's like a whole different person."
"Soooo," she said. "Other than the fact that you're dating Nelly Yuki, what seems to be the problem?"
Dan hesitated. "Isn't this weird? Talking to you about this?"
She gave him a repeat of her earlier look. "Believe me, playa, I'm over our little dalliance. This is strictly a friends talk."
"Okay. Um…well, it's just that, I don't know, I feel like it's turning into more than I planned? So soon after Olivia, I wasn't looking for anything serious, but…"
Georgina's mouth curved into a smile. Everything was going according to plan. "Miss Yuki has enthralled you?"
He smiled a tiny, embarrassed smile. "Yeah, I think so." He laughed a little. "What a thing to complain about, right?"
"Poor Dan Humphrey," Georgina joked. "Girls are falling all over themselves for him. What a cross to bear."
He laughed again.
*
When Sabrina kissed her, Nelly didn't know how to react except to kiss back.
She could've blamed it on her frustration over waiting to sleep with Dan or on the celebratory cocktails Sabrina had taken her out for after Dan re-introduced her to Vanessa. She could've blamed it on her friend's pushy, insistent hands.
She could've blamed it on a lot of things, but that didn’t change anything. She had cheated on Dan.
Drunk as she was, Nelly didn't think the kiss itself had been that big a deal. Plenty of the old Constance gang had succumbed to Party Lesbianism when the drinks were flowing. But none of them, to Nelly's knowledge, had allowed it to snowball into stumbling up to their apartments and stumbling out of their dresses.
As they fell onto the couch, Nelly was hazily aware of it being Sabrina who was kissing her stomach, Sabrina who was curling fingers around the tops of her stockings. However, as soon as she closed her eyes, it was only Dan she felt and heard and saw and when she came, it was Dan's name on her lips.
*
Feeling it was appropriate given the occasion of their celebration, Georgina used Vanessa Abrams' debit card (which she had taken ages ago, at that first NYU party) to buy them trashy fruity martinis. She also used some of Vanessa's cash to get some enhancements with which to improve the cocktails.
Nelly was obnoxiously easy to get into bed; trashed like she was, she didn't even bother to bring up Dan's name in protest, just moaned it in pleasure. She followed Georgina's every lead perfectly.
Georgina had originally fucked with Nelly for fun and money, two of her main motivating factors, but she fucked her just because she could. She could have easily accomplished her goal without sleeping with Nelly, but it made everything more delicious, more tormented. Georgina loved the girl, had genuine affection for her, just like the Lord gave Georgina love for all people. But her motives for fucking Nelly were pure, beautiful selfishness.
Waking up to Nelly's muffled, regretful crying and comforting her right back into another tumble was a natural high only God could give.
*
Nelly had to tell Dan. If it had been once, she would have written it off as a drunken mistake. But every time her key clicked open the apartment door, she knew with finality that she would end up kissing Sabrina, that they would trail back to someone's bedroom and tug at each other's clothes. After the third time or so, she had stopped picturing Dan during and then only thought of him afterwards, crying in the shower and cursing herself for being such an idiot.
She didn't mention Sabrina's name in particular when, tears dripping down her cheeks, she told Dan she'd been sleeping with someone else. At first he seemed more shocked than anything else, but it didn't take long for the steely glint of anger to show up in his eyes. He called her a whore and kicked her out of his room, cursing the day she came back into his life.
When she returned home, she thought she'd at least find her welcoming friend, someone who really wanted her and truly cared. But what she discovered was a half-empty apartment, all of Sabrina's belongings gone and no note to alert Nelly as to her whereabouts.
Nelly frantically dialed her number, only to find that it had been disconnected. She had never met Sabrina's sister, didn't have any other way to contact her. She was just gone, as if she'd never been there at all.
Nelly leaned against the door to try and catch her breath, practically hyperventilating with her disgust at herself. She'd honestly thought that all it would take to fix her life was a few acting classes and contacts. She felt tears prick at her eyes again. She had no idea what to do.
*
Nelly's remained Georgina's favorite false identity for years afterwards, filling her mouth with the taste of triumph and shame every time she used it. She'd facilitated things better than Scott ever could and had been decent in bed on top of it. God would not approve, but Georgina began to forget his name more and more with every day that passed.
All it took was a couple of days of Dan upset about how all his girlfriends betrayed him and Georgina's reminder that she had never done that for him to see the light. She snuggled into him and accepted his kisses with relish, made herself perfect for him.
Every day, she felt herself becoming more ingratiated into his life and his family. She felt herself getting closer and closer to Serena.
The best plans always took the longest.
Title: All the Girls We Could Be
Rating: PG13
Pairing(s): Nelly/Dan, Georgina/Dan, Nelly/Georgina, vague Serena/Georgina
Disclaimer: Gossip Girl belongs to people with way more money than me.
Author's Note: Let's pretend, for the purposes of this fic, that Georgina and Nelly have had very limited interaction and would not recognize each other on the street.
Summary: Georgina Sparks and Nelly Yuki have one thing in common: Dan Humphrey. And Georgina will do anything to get him.
All the Girls We Could Be
Her real name was Eleanor Yuki, but no one ever called her that. As a kid it had been Ellie or Ella, which had been fine with her, but sometime in the crossover from Junior High to Constance Billard, Nelly had taken over. It was a stupid name, clunky and pathetic, so obviously asking to be mocked, but it was settled on her with finality, to the point where even her parents adopted it.
She supposed it didn't matter much anyway; half the girls at school called her either Kati-With-Glasses or Kati-Grew-Out-Her-Bangs.
*
Svetlana Kaminski was the first one.
Serena had always thought Georgina had made up the name, quick-witted and mischievous one night, but Svetlana was indeed a real girl. She was the daughter of a friend of Georgina's father; she didn't speak any English, but she was a master of sultry, dark eyed looks.
Georgie stole her accent for laughs and her purse for quick cash, finding a number of other goodies inside it besides the wad of American money often carried around by foolish tourists. There was a nice new lipstick, some jewelry, an iPod full of Russian pop, and a passport. Holding the photograph of Svetlana against one of herself, Georgina couldn't help but notice a resemblance there: a sheet of dark hair obscuring soft features. It was a blurry, crappy photo, but it worked well enough at getting Georgina out of the country after the Pete situation.
*
Nelly thought Yale would be a magical fairytale place where it would no longer matter that she had been a smudge on the heel of a Louboutin in high school – and it was, in a way. But she was quick to discover that it also didn't matter that she was in the top three of her class or that she was a Merit Scholar, a Peabody Scholar, and an Intel Science Talent Search Finalist. It didn't matter that she knew Itzhak Perlman as Uncle Itzy. Half the kids at Yale could say the same (not about Uncle Itzy in particular). She was absolutely nothing special. Again.
Sarah Berkowitz was somewhere around number thirteen.
Georgina met her in the park. Sarah Berkowitz had a sweet, trusting gaze and Pollyanna pigtails to match. Georgina didn't get her ID, but she did steal the Bambi eyes and the dog. Dan Humphrey didn't stand a chance.
*
The thing that got Nelly through Constance (and the thing Yale is lacking horribly) is Dan Humphrey. Demoted to low-ranking minion, trotting around behind Hazel and Penelope, always in silent competition with Blair for Yale – it was all made worth it by fourth period, the lunch period she shared with Dan Humphrey.
She had intentionally made sure she had lunch a period before the other girls so she could ensconce herself in a corner of the courtyard, a fortress of textbooks around her, and stare unabashedly at him. Dan was always absorbed in something, taking copious notes in his tiny notebook or looking over a paper, sometimes reading, but mostly staring into space meaningfully.
Nelly loved him. She loved his slightly crooked nose and his constantly pouty mouth and his sarcastically raised eyebrow. She loved that he didn't care about being popular. She obsessively carried around the copy of the New Yorker that he had been published in, depressingly aware of the fact that his story was about Serena, but impressed by him nonetheless.
Yale had a lot of dark-haired, dark-eyed boys who could reference great writers left and right, but none of them were Dan Humphrey.
*
Georgina Sparks had not been a nice girl. She did not have humanizing, wistful memories of making cornbread with her grandmother when she was little or nursing baby birds back to health, or whatever pompous little princesses like Blair Waldorf did growing up. She'd been raised by a collection of spiteful nannies, seeing her parents every six months or so when they took weekend breaks from their constant business trips to check that she was still alive. She'd lost her virginity to her fourteen-year-old cousin when she was twelve. She'd gotten drunk for the first time a few months later. She had never done the things nice girls did.
Georgie didn't regret any of this until OMJC. She had been proud of being wicked instead of white, sinful instead of sorry.
After a month in the camp, it began to affect her. Everyone was so nice all the time. Everyone was lit from within, glowing with gratitude and love. They reminded her of Serena.
Georgie wanted to be lit up, too. She didn't want to be angry. She didn't want to be vengeful. She wanted to let in the light of God and allow it to cleanse her wicked soul.
*
It took a week of pre-Law courses for Nelly to be fed up with every part of her stupid depressing life. She read the Gossip Girl blasts of her old classmates – Serena gallivanting around Europe, Blair and Chuck happily entwined, Dan poised to become one of the richest boys in New York. It made her ache uncomfortably for her previously detested years of high school. It made her do something drastic.
Blair Waldorf was the most determined person Nelly had ever met and Serena van der Woodsen the most confident, so Nelly thought they'd be the best to imitate. She perched a bright yellow headband in carefully curled hair and spent ages practicing monologues; she switched into the Drama program, jittering with nerves as she feigned nonchalance. She switched to contacts. She began to sport pearls and ruffles and a small, nondescript ruby ring. She adopted a haughty but pleasing smile. She was nice to everyone, but somehow distant. They were all under her spell.
Which meant, of course, it was time for a visit home.
*
Georgina 3.0 was a carefully mixed and measured persona.
Christ-love had gotten her nowhere but screwed over, but try as she might, Georgina could not displace the Lord from her heart. She decided he would just have to share space with the dregs of Old Georgie she couldn't kick out of her system either.
The only thing old Georgina and new Georgina and in-the-middle Georgina had in common was Serena.
She didn't want to be Serena so much as she wanted to devour her – to consume everything that Serena was and make it a part of herself. Georgina used to play Serena sometimes, in the old days; she would swirl around in S's second skin, in her slinky dresses and golden tones, her blonde wig a glorious storm cloud around her face. Georgina guessed that at least a quarter of the old photos of Serena on Gossip Girl were actually her, not that anyone noticed. As long as there was a toss of golden hair obscuring her face and drinks all around, they just believed. Confidence was a beautiful thing.
A swiped credit card of Serena's paid for rounds, of course – and lots of other things, not limited to clothes and coke. Lily just paid them off anyway, unable to distinguish the tangle of her own spending from Serena's and rich enough not to care.
The only thing better than being Serena was being with Serena, being the focus of her happy, blurry, drunk gaze. Being the recipient of her pomegranate martini kisses, taking bumps off the same table, falling asleep in the same stranger's bed, and walking Serena to Constance every morning long after Georgina had stopped going.
She missed it. She knew Christ would probably frown on the casual drug use and homosexuality, but she figured He appreciated the love aspect.
She didn't want to be Serena, but she wanted to own everything about her. And Dan Humphrey made a lovely parting gift.
*
The closer the train got to New York, the more Nelly's anxiety grew. She tried to convince herself that it was just a meeting with an advisor to discuss possibly transferring to Tisch. If she happened to go to that coffee shop that Dan was always being spotted at, it was only because she was getting a lay of the land. And she loved a good cup of strong black coffee – incidentally, so did Dan.
Attempting to calm herself, she adjusted her headscarf and settled in to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's on her iPod. She could do with some last minute tips.
At one of the stops, a dark haired girl came in to share Nelly's compartment. She was on her cell phone, looking pleased with herself. "Yeah, I just have to set up some things, it shouldn't take more than a few days. I'll call you. Mhm. Mhmmm. Okay, see you soon, Scott!"
She settled across from Nelly, grinning. She looked oddly familiar; Nelly stared at her trying to figure it out and it was only when the girl waved her hand in front of Nelly's face that she realized that was rude.
"Sorry," she said, extracting her ear buds. "I don't mean to be a creep."
The girl smiled. "It's fine." She stuck out a hand. "Hi. I'm Sabrina."
*
Georgina didn't intend anything other than snagging the girl's wallet – she was light on cash, she was bored, and she couldn't use Poppy's cards anymore since the deportation paperwork had been finalized.
She didn't even realize who the girl was at first. She was pretty, but not stunning, with her long black hair clustered in curls around her face. Her pale pink top was ruffled up to her throat, which was further adorned with strand upon strand of coffee-colored pearls. Total Blair clone, Georgina scoffed silently.
Then it clicked.
Georgie mentally added some chunky frames and tacky clothes. She smothered a laugh – it was Blair's Token Asian in the flesh. Time to have some fun.
"Hi," she said, chipper as all hell. She glanced at Token Asian's iPod screen, deciding her new name. "I'm Sabrina."
"Eleanor," she replied with forced gracefulness. Georgina was forced to swallow another snort. How obviously pathetic. "I'm sorry, do we know each other? You look so familiar."
Georgina frowned theatrically. "Hmm…I don't think so. Where'd you go to high school?"
She had no doubt she'd be more familiar to Eleanor if she hadn't just lopped off her long hair and dyed it pitch black. The girl wasn't stupid. But the disguise had been necessary - she couldn't do with being recognized just yet. She had to remain incognito until the groundwork had been fully laid.
"Constance Billard," she said. What had her name been? Not Eleanor.
"Too ritzy for me," Georgina said, which was half-true. "Do you go to BU?"
"Yale," Eleanor said. "I was just visiting cousins in Boston." Elle? Ellie? The anxiety Eleanor was trying to keep hidden in her expression blossomed. "But I'm transferring. To NYU."
"Oh my god!" Georgina squealed. "Me too! How lucky is this?"
Ellie smiled.
"Leaving Yale, huh?" Georgina clucked. "Why? I hear that's the hot ticket."
Ell – Nelly! It came to her in a rush as the girl flushed bright red. Her tone, when she spoke, was brash but wavering. "A boy."
Georgina smiled kindly. "Must be some boy."
"He is," Nelly said dreamily.
*
Nelly had no idea how she ended up telling Sabrina all about Dan. It was a distinctly not a Blair-Serena thing to do. But Sabrina was so nice; she didn't seem judgmental at all and her open face was so familiar.
"Dan Humphrey," Sabrina repeated, tasting the name. "I feel like I've heard that before."
"He's a writer," Nelly said proudly. "He was in the New Yorker."
"Oh!" Sabrina exclaims. "Oh, I read that! It was amazing!" She nudged Nelly companionably. "Nice catch there, Eleanor."
*
Sabrina Hartell was, admittedly, a fabrication. That didn't stop her from being one of Georgina's most useful inventions; with a hint of sarcasm and a boatload of sincerity, she was able to move in with Nelly and therefore have complete access to any of her cards or I.D.s. It was perfect if she ended up needing a quick escape and new name; until then, it was just fun.
Nelly's face was frozen in a sneeze in her driver's license photo and Georgina's hair was recently raven-colored, so the deception was even easier than she had thought it would be. She only had to trill that she was a quarter Japanese on her father's side when people gave her odd looks after she told them her last name was Yuki.
She rang up astronomical charges and tore up the bills, but it was an unnecessary step. Nelly had settled quite comfortably in the palm of her hand and didn't seem to be getting perceptive any time soon.
Half her time was spent at the dorm with Blair, pretty much ignoring class entirely and making sure to stay in Dan's peripheral vision. She told Nelly she was off visiting her sister, an easily accepted excuse. Mostly she feigned indifference as she watched Dan canoodle with that Olivia, whose teeth seemed to be threatening to take over her head.
Georgina called Scott one night to tell him to hold off on his visit; she had a new plan.
*
"You should talk to him," Sabrina urged her from her spot on the couch, carefully painting her nails gunmetal gray. "That Olivia chick is in my Lit class. She's so vapid. One conversation with you and he'd forget her name."
Nelly blushed. Sabrina was really way too nice; she was rapidly becoming the kind of best friend Nelly had always wished she'd had. "She's a movie star. And she's gorgeous."
"If you like horses," Sabrina harrumphed.
Nelly giggled.
"Really though," Sabrina continued. "Just talk to him. Show him the new, confident you. He'll fall for it."
Nelly resolved to catch Dan the next day. Though she had planned for a morning coffeehouse meet-cute, fate intervened and she ran into Dan quite unexpectedly and literally outside of Tisch one day.
"Sorry," Dan said, bending to pick up the books he had knocked out of her arms. "I sort of walk in a haze of idiocy after Economics, which accounts for my not noticing an entire person right in my path." He straightened and handed the textbooks back. "I'm Dan."
A playful smile curled her lips. "You're acting like you don't know me at all, Mr. Humphrey."
He looked taken aback. "Um…I'm sorry, do I?"
She nodded primly. "Oh yes."
He squinted at her and his expression cleared, eyes wide with shock. "Nelly Yuki?"
She nodded again, not trusting her voice.
"Oh man," he said. "You look…different. Good different." His ears were actually turning beet red. Nelly had never in all her life been so thrilled. "Awesome different."
"Thanks," she said with a practiced Mona Lisa smile. "See you around, Dan."
And she sashayed past him, not even bothering to turn and see if he was watching. The Serena in her knew he was.
*
"O.M.J.C.," Georgie said with completely false enthusiasm when Nelly told her of the day's events. "What did I tell you? You cast a spell on him! He and that movie star will be over in days. No, no – minutes. Seconds. Whatever's shorter than seconds."
Nelly blushed harder than ever. "It's like I wasn't even me."
"Oh no, girl, that was all you," Georgina said and wrapped her up in a hug. Too fucking easy.
It took a few more weeks of casual meetings and coffee dates for Dan Humphrey to follow the libido that had been ruling his entire college experience thus far and break up with Olivia to hit on Nelly Yuki.
Well, that and Georgina had leaked a story about an Olivia Burke pregnancy scare to the tabloids.
She'd also made an appearance at an industry party one night (a night Dan was conveniently studying for finals) so she could get some insurance. It only took one of Georgina's Special Cocktails for Olivia to fall into bed with a co-star ex, pictures taken by an "unidentified source" splashed all over the pages of People and Dan's heart broken.
Dan needed a lot of comfort after that that Nelly was only too happy to give.
Meanwhile, Georgina bided her time. The best plans always took the longest.
*
Nelly and Dan were progressing blissfully on the way to courtship, sharing a few innocent pecks under the gently falling autumn foliage. She helped him with math and he helped her with English; it was the relationship of her Blair-borrowed dreams. It was a real partnership.
Nelly liked taking it slow. She was not a virgin (thanks to Isabel Coates' older brother) but Dan was so sweet and thoughtful and kind that she wanted sleeping with him to mean more. She wanted it to mean everything.
The only problem was that their relationship seemed to exist in some separate other world. He always begged off coming back to her place when she wanted him to meet Sabrina; he never asked her to lunch with him and Vanessa. When she confronted him, Dan attributed it to his past relationship troubles. He wanted them to be settled, he said, before announcing it to the world. Nelly accepted that (she was in no hurry to see Blair Waldorf anytime soon, even if she wanted to gloat about her own transformation) but it rang untrue.
Sabrina seemed doubtful too when Nelly told her. "I would just wait and see," she said. "I mean, it's weird, don't get me wrong. But it's only been a few months. And he's the guy of your dreams!"
Nelly nodded, fears somewhat allayed, but the niggling thought that maybe he didn't care as much as she did hummed in the back of her mind.
*
Dan let out an exhausted sigh from where he sat two tables down from her. Georgina perked up immediately, head swiveling towards Dan's melodramatic slouch. She scooped up her bag and show-textbooks and settled in across from him.
"Hey, Dan," she said. "Something on your mind?"
He straightened with comical fright. "Um, yeah, fine, yeah. I am fine."
She gave him a look. He sighed again.
"Okay, I'm…kind of…kind of seeing someone."
Georgina let her eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. "Going through them this year, aren't you, Humphrey?"
He smiled sheepishly. "Well…I guess."
"Who is she?"
"This girl from high school. Nelly."
Georgina pretended to think really hard about that. Then she let out a practiced laugh. "Nelly Yuki? You're seeing Nelly Yuki?"
Dan laughed too. Georgina took that as a good sign. "Sort of! I know, it's weird, right? But she's like a whole different person."
"Soooo," she said. "Other than the fact that you're dating Nelly Yuki, what seems to be the problem?"
Dan hesitated. "Isn't this weird? Talking to you about this?"
She gave him a repeat of her earlier look. "Believe me, playa, I'm over our little dalliance. This is strictly a friends talk."
"Okay. Um…well, it's just that, I don't know, I feel like it's turning into more than I planned? So soon after Olivia, I wasn't looking for anything serious, but…"
Georgina's mouth curved into a smile. Everything was going according to plan. "Miss Yuki has enthralled you?"
He smiled a tiny, embarrassed smile. "Yeah, I think so." He laughed a little. "What a thing to complain about, right?"
"Poor Dan Humphrey," Georgina joked. "Girls are falling all over themselves for him. What a cross to bear."
He laughed again.
*
When Sabrina kissed her, Nelly didn't know how to react except to kiss back.
She could've blamed it on her frustration over waiting to sleep with Dan or on the celebratory cocktails Sabrina had taken her out for after Dan re-introduced her to Vanessa. She could've blamed it on her friend's pushy, insistent hands.
She could've blamed it on a lot of things, but that didn’t change anything. She had cheated on Dan.
Drunk as she was, Nelly didn't think the kiss itself had been that big a deal. Plenty of the old Constance gang had succumbed to Party Lesbianism when the drinks were flowing. But none of them, to Nelly's knowledge, had allowed it to snowball into stumbling up to their apartments and stumbling out of their dresses.
As they fell onto the couch, Nelly was hazily aware of it being Sabrina who was kissing her stomach, Sabrina who was curling fingers around the tops of her stockings. However, as soon as she closed her eyes, it was only Dan she felt and heard and saw and when she came, it was Dan's name on her lips.
*
Feeling it was appropriate given the occasion of their celebration, Georgina used Vanessa Abrams' debit card (which she had taken ages ago, at that first NYU party) to buy them trashy fruity martinis. She also used some of Vanessa's cash to get some enhancements with which to improve the cocktails.
Nelly was obnoxiously easy to get into bed; trashed like she was, she didn't even bother to bring up Dan's name in protest, just moaned it in pleasure. She followed Georgina's every lead perfectly.
Georgina had originally fucked with Nelly for fun and money, two of her main motivating factors, but she fucked her just because she could. She could have easily accomplished her goal without sleeping with Nelly, but it made everything more delicious, more tormented. Georgina loved the girl, had genuine affection for her, just like the Lord gave Georgina love for all people. But her motives for fucking Nelly were pure, beautiful selfishness.
Waking up to Nelly's muffled, regretful crying and comforting her right back into another tumble was a natural high only God could give.
*
Nelly had to tell Dan. If it had been once, she would have written it off as a drunken mistake. But every time her key clicked open the apartment door, she knew with finality that she would end up kissing Sabrina, that they would trail back to someone's bedroom and tug at each other's clothes. After the third time or so, she had stopped picturing Dan during and then only thought of him afterwards, crying in the shower and cursing herself for being such an idiot.
She didn't mention Sabrina's name in particular when, tears dripping down her cheeks, she told Dan she'd been sleeping with someone else. At first he seemed more shocked than anything else, but it didn't take long for the steely glint of anger to show up in his eyes. He called her a whore and kicked her out of his room, cursing the day she came back into his life.
When she returned home, she thought she'd at least find her welcoming friend, someone who really wanted her and truly cared. But what she discovered was a half-empty apartment, all of Sabrina's belongings gone and no note to alert Nelly as to her whereabouts.
Nelly frantically dialed her number, only to find that it had been disconnected. She had never met Sabrina's sister, didn't have any other way to contact her. She was just gone, as if she'd never been there at all.
Nelly leaned against the door to try and catch her breath, practically hyperventilating with her disgust at herself. She'd honestly thought that all it would take to fix her life was a few acting classes and contacts. She felt tears prick at her eyes again. She had no idea what to do.
*
Nelly's remained Georgina's favorite false identity for years afterwards, filling her mouth with the taste of triumph and shame every time she used it. She'd facilitated things better than Scott ever could and had been decent in bed on top of it. God would not approve, but Georgina began to forget his name more and more with every day that passed.
All it took was a couple of days of Dan upset about how all his girlfriends betrayed him and Georgina's reminder that she had never done that for him to see the light. She snuggled into him and accepted his kisses with relish, made herself perfect for him.
Every day, she felt herself becoming more ingratiated into his life and his family. She felt herself getting closer and closer to Serena.
The best plans always took the longest.
