Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(11)

Vanessa didn’t want to make small talk about Blair’s renovations. Ruby was back just when she needed her most! “Hello, you’re back! That’s what’s going on. How was the tour?”

Her older sister shrugged. “Berlin, London, Paris, Budapest. We rocked. It was incredible.”

“All hail the conquering rock star. I’m Vanessa.” She clomped over to the guy Ruby was straddling. He hadn’t looked at her once.

“This is Piotr,” Ruby explained, wiggling her purple-leather-clad ass as she said his name, as if just saying it was a real turnon. “We met after our show in Prague.”

“Hallo,” Piotr replied in a stiff accent, exhaling a long plume of smoke as he spoke.

Charming.

“The apartment looks cool.” Ruby sounded skeptical. She glanced around the room. “But how could you afford all this? The furniture, the drapes?”

“It’s a long story,” Vanessa answered, leaning against the lavender-painted wall and trying to look anywhere but at the fawn-colored suede couch where the filthy, scrawny Eastern European stranger was stretched out underneath her sister.

“Like the story of where you got those shoes?” Ruby asked, throwing her purple hair back. It was the same color as Willy Wonka’s hat. “And that top? Jesus, look at you. You’re a real fashion plate.”

“I had a meeting.” Vanessa felt hurt. Why was Ruby being such a bitch? If only the slimebag between her legs would get lost so they could order some sushi and have one of their sisterly heart-to-hearts.

“A word?” Ruby climbed down off of Piotr’s lap. She nod-ded toward the kitchen.

Vanessa followed, wondering how long Ruby was going to be home. They leaned against the Formica countertop. “You two look pretty . . . serious,”Vanessa observed.

“It’s love,” Ruby murmured wistfully, sounding surprisingly un–rocker chick. She did a little half-pirouette then stopped, pseudo-embarrassed, and leaned against the counter again.

“That’s cool,” Vanessa responded, irritated. It didn’t look like they were going to be doing any sisterly bonding after all. She fiddled with the ceramic Statue of Liberty salt and pepper shakers Dan had given her in a fit of romantic corniness.

“Well, the apartment does look good, even if it’s not what I expected to come home to,” Ruby commented. “But I hate to think that you went to all this trouble when . . .”

“When what?”Vanessa asked suspiciously.

“Not to be the bearer of bad news, but . . . Piotr is going to be here for a while. Some local galleries are interested in him—he’s a painter, did I mention? He does monolithic nudes with their canines. He’s huge in the underground Prague scene, and he’s hoping to break into Williamsburg.”

Vanessa wasn’t exactly sure what “monolithic nudes and their canines” meant, but she could imagine Ruby borrowing somebody’s pit bull and posing for him butt-naked, teeth bared. “Good for him.”

“Well, I kind of thought he’d stay here, with me,” Ruby mumbled.

“That’s kind of a tight fit,” Vanessa muttered back. “But that’s cool. We’ll work it out.”

“That’s the thing,” Ruby corrected her. “Piotr needs a studio. And since he can’t afford to rent one, we were thinking . . . we’d turn the other room, your room, into his studio.”

Ex-squeeze me?

“So, what, you’re kicking me out?” Vanessa stopped fiddling and turned to face her sister. She’d been living with Ruby since she was fifteen. It was her home too.

“Well, this was always just a temporary solution. You know, like, while you were in high school. But now that you’ve graduated, it’s time to strike out on your own, like I did when I was eighteen.”

“Fine,” Vanessa snapped. “That’s cool. I get it, I’m all grown up and on my own now. I get it.”

“Don’t be like that,” Ruby pleaded guiltily. “Come back and sit, let’s talk things over a little more.”

“No, it’s cool, really. Let me just grab my stuff and I’ll be out of Pita Bread or whatever-the-hell-his-name-is’s hair immediately.” Shaking a little, Vanessa stormed out of the kitchen and into the living room, where Pizza Face sat smoking some rotten-smelling Czech cigarettes. Vanessa snatched her still photograph of a dead pigeon off the wall above his head and tucked it under her arm. It was her favorite, and she wasn’t about to leave it behind so he could copy it in one of his paintings. She could see it now: he’d become known as the “dead pigeon” artist, when all along it had been her dead pigeon and her freaking apartment.

A few minutes later, Vanessa crashed down the stairs, lugging her camera equipment and one giant black duffel bag. She burst out into the late afternoon sun and stumbled down Bedford Avenue, dodging indifferent, funkily dressed passersby and piles of dog shit and wondering where, exactly, she was going to go.

She dropped her duffel on the ground and sat, using the fully stuffed bag as a perch. Digging her cell phone from her pocket, she hit speed dial. There were two rings and then the familiar sound of Dan’s voice.

“What’s up?”

“My sister kicked me out.” Her voice cracked. She tried desperately not to cry. “And I don’t have any money, and I don’t have anywhere to go, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”