Golden Powder

Golden powder
 

“So he said that I care so much about what people think about me that I can’t see who I am anymore!” Blair rants, as she inspect the table in the living room that Dorota has set up.

“Which is true.” The domestic dares to state, but Blair simply ignores her, as she checks the flowers.

“And he added that it’s a pity I can’t see what he sees in me…” She goes on, fixing the position of the chairs, rather than admit that everything is according to her tastes.

“Which is not a ugly thing to say to someone, Miss Blair, especially to you.”

Blair tenses up, but once more she pretends she didn’t hear her.

“And I even asked him to help me to find myself again and he promised he would help, which is why he’s coming here. It’s like I need to be tutored in Blairology and Dan is the most qualified teacher ever.” She finds it hard to admit.

“It seems very kind of Lonely Boy to do so…”

“Dorota! Where do your loyalties lie?” Blair finally snaps.

“Of course I’m on your team, Miss Blair, always!” Dorota rushes to assure.

“Good. That’s why you will just quit praising Lonely Boy and play along with me with the little prank we talked about.”

“It doesn’t seem so little to me…” Dorota grumbles.

“Dorota? Do you want me to book you a one way ticket to Russia?” Blair threatens her.

“No, thanks; plus, I’ve already found my Zar here.” She sighs happily, before noticing how her employer is glaring at her. “Uh, I promise I’m gonna behave.”

“So, c’mon, place the vase where I asked you, on the golden credence table behind us.”

Dorota has no choice but to comply.

“Good, now I just have to use some tiny tape to connect this to a transparent thread that I’ll be able to pull from my chair… and the fun will start!” She sneers.

Dorota can’t help but stare at her with a hint of reproach.

“There’s no need for that look, Dorota. I know that it’s not among the nicest things to do; but it’s also true that if I have to find the path that leads to a better me, first I have to say goodbye to the despicable me in the best way I know.”

About a quarter later, Dan reaches Blair, impeccably timed.

“Hello, gorgeous,” He greets her with a short, but intense kiss. “Ready to find yourself again?”

“That’s the plan,” she smiles at him, as they walk towards the table.

Dan places his bag on the top and opens it.

“I’ve thought the best way to find you again is starting from what you love the most; that’s why we’re going to rewatch some of your favourite movies I brought with me, along with some books to reread.”

“Sounds so good.” Blair agrees, right before she starts unbuttoning the first two buttons of her shirt, gasping for air, as she fans herself with her hands.

“Are you feeling hot, Blair?” Dan asks her, as he displays his stuff, making room among the cake stands with every kind of delicacies.

“Are you not? This is not a room, this is an oven!” Blair complains. “My dear, please, would you mind opening the French window?”

“Your wish is my command.” He gets up, walking towards the French window.

Just what Blair is waiting for, ready to pull the thread.

“I just have to pull the curtains and…”

Crash.

Dan startles as a freezing shiver traces all his spine.

“Oh my God, Dan, what the hell did you do?” Blair gives her best hyper alarmed performance.

And Dorota proves to be no less.

“Oh, no! Mrs. Eleaonor’s favourite vase!” She adds, enriching all with an explicit Polish exclamation.

Slowly, very slowly, Dan turns to see the blue and white vase with what used to be floral patterns now smashed on the floor in tons of tiny pieces.

“Her favourite? Really?” He gulps.

“We’re doomed!” Blair acts as dramatically as she can. “Mostly, you are. I wasn’t aiming for such a tragic love story like Les Misérables, but… mon cher, c’est la vie!”

Dan chuckles, very nervously.

“Exaggerated much?”

“I wish it could be so, Lonely Boy, but Mrs Eleonor will be very furious about it!” Dorota comments, looking very worried.

This doesn’t help the poor Dan.

“It’s because this vase had a sentimental value for her, right?” He ventures to ask.

Blair glares at him.

“Sentimental? Oh please! This was a precious, inestimable gift from the Sheik when she held a fashion show in the Arab Emirates  years ago!” Blair explains.

Now it’s Dan unbuttoning his shirt, because he feels like he’s suffocating.

“What?! I mean, why the hell that vase was there? There was no vase before!”

“That’s because mother wanted to make the living room even more elegant for the gala she’ll have here tonight; that’s why she asked Dorota to bring the vase there… Now I wish she never did!” Blair explains.

Dan is growing paler and paler.

“Wait. Does it mean.. she will be here?”

“Yes, her flight should arrive in a few hours!” Dorota informs him. “And Mrs Eleonor is always very hostile after a long flight.”

“Geez, I’m so dead!” He grows nervous. “Oh, wait.. I still have a few hours to live.. few hours I can use to try and fix this vase. Do you have glue and maybe some golden powder, too?”

“Why the golden powder?” Blair narrows her eyes.

“Have you ever heard about Kintsugi? It’s an ancient Japanese art where they fix broken ceramics with glue and golden powder, in order to enhance the cracks, making something unique, more resistant and even more precious than before. It’s the most basic resilience.” Dan displays his deep knowledge.

“Well I see you chose your last hours to act like a Professor!” Blair rolls her eyes, but the truth is that she’s very impressed.

“I’m sorry, no golden powder, only glue.” Dorota hands the tube to him.

“It’s better than nothing.” Dan shrugs, kneeling down and attempting to fix the vase, but after assembling four or five pieces in not such a flawless way he just gives up.

“Blair, sweetie, could you please lend me a scarf?”

Blair is a bit puzzled by his request, but goes to her room to please him.

“Here.” She hands it to him. “I just wonder what you need that for, you might even cover the shards, but eventually my mother will find… Wait, what are you doing, Dan?”

Dan has climbed onto the table and is trying to fasten the scarf on the chandelier, almost as if it was a rope.

“If it’s strong enough not to fall from the ceiling, maybe I can hang myself before your mother is back!”

Blair decides she’s going too far with her joke, especially now that she’s about to become a widow, even before having the chance of becoming a wifey -for the second time, for the records -

“Oh, for god’s sake, Dan, it’s not the authentic vase!” She tries to pull him down the table.

“What?” He frowns, but at least he jumps down.

“I mean, mother really received such a precious gift, but of course she keeps it safe in her bedroom. So when I glanced at its perfect imitation at a market I just couldn’t resist.” She confesses. “And guess what? It’s something I’ve found just in the DUMBO market; peak of irony, uh?”

But Dan is looking at her as someone who doesn’t feel like joking at all.


“I was against it, Lonely Boy, from the very start, but Miss Blair blackmailed me into doing that!”

“Dorota!” Blair turns to her, feeling betrayed.

“So, it was only a joke…” Dan recaps, his tone low and cold.

“Yep, of the most innocent kind; it’s not my fault if you’re a Drama Queen much more than me!” Blair justifies.

“Did you figure out that your ‘innocent joke’ almost gave me a heart attack?”

“Almost. That’s the key word you should focus on.”

“Blair!” Dan snaps so much that she jolts and keeps silent.

Even Dorota decides it’s better to leave them alone.

“So, first you admit you are in trouble and ask for my support, I gladly agree to help you, even reschedule some important meetings with the publicists in order to come here to you today.”

The more she listens to her boyfriend, the more Blair wishes the floor beneath her feet would crack open and fully swallow her.

“And you made me believe I broke a very expensive vase your mother was incredibly fond of… well knowing how your mother scares the hell out of me!”

-Well, my mother scares the hell out of anyone, me included!- Blair would like to strike back, but she knows it’s not the proper moment.

“So, Blair, do you have anything to say?” He inquires.

“April Fools’!”
 

“But we are beyond half May!” Dan snaps again.

“Hell yeah, otherwise you would expect that!” Blair strikes back, adamant.
 

Dan finds himself chuckling, despite everything.

This makes Blair more confident in approaching him.

“Dan, honey, correct me if I’m wrong: wasn’’t the main problem that I lost my true self?”

“Yes…” He nods.

“And you said the real Blair Waldorf was the one who worked with you side-by-side at W…”

“Yeah…”

“So, just imagine we are still there. Wouldn’t that girl, capable of anything, try to play that trick on you in order to take you down?”

Dan smirks.

“The Blair who used to work with me wouldn’t stop until she was sure I would have left not only the town, but the continent, too.” He makes her laugh.

She takes another step closer, until she can hold his hands.

“Dan, I really appreciate your suggestion to make me find myself again, and later on we’re going to do that stuff, too; but I guess that the best way to find me again is start from my untamable fighting attitude.”

“One of the reasons I fell so hopelessly in love with you.” Dan murmurs, before bending on her to kiss her, slowly  and deeply.

As they’re still holding hands.

“Hopelessly?” Blair repeats, amused, when they part.

“Inevitably.” Dan adds, kissing her for every other word he manages to find.

“Endlessly.”

“Madly.”

“Uncontollably.”

Dan lets her hands go in order to cup her face.

“Let me make you a promise, Blair.”

“Such as?” she stares at him, mesmerized.

“If there were some cracks in the vase of our relationship, even the tiniest one; I’m gonna do whatever it takes to find the golden powder and repair it, making it even more beautiful, more precious and stronger than before.”
 

This time it’s Blair caressing his face, tenderly.

“Sometimes I think I don’t deserve you.” She murmurs, before grabbing him by the shirt collar and kissing him.

“Can I write this with the golden powder on the vase of our relationship?” Dan smiles against her lips, right before she kicks his shin. “Ouch!”

“In your dreams, Humphrey!” She sneers.

Dan chuckles, as he massages his aching leg.

“Who gives a damn about dreams, when I already have reality?”

Blair beams, as she toys with his curls.

“This is the sentence we should write on our vase, Dan.”

--

THE END