Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(14)
“I’ll find it,” huffed Blair, stumbling a little as she started toward the house. The gin had gone straight to her head. “Don’t get up.”
She clopped along the flagstone path, smoothing the wrinkles in the white Thomas Pink shirtdress she’d changed into especially for their afternoon of lawn games. The house was surprisingly cluttered and smelled of rotting flowers. Of course the furniture was beautiful and the rugs especially so—apparently Lady Rhodes sent a buyer to Marrakech every other year to add to her collection. But a stained-glass window in the library made the house feel oddly churchlike, and Blair felt strange wandering around alone, knowing Lady Rhodes was upstairs somewhere nursing a hangover.
Alone in the powder room, she lit another Silk Cut, her new favorite English cigarette, and studied her reflection in the gilt-framed mirror as she exhaled. She narrowed her eyes and tucked in her chin, practicing the sexy look she’d fix on her boyfriend. One more drink and she’d suggest heading back to Claridge’s for a late-afternoon romp. Lawn games were all well and good, but she was in the mood for some real exercise. She smoked the entire cigarette and pocketed a piece of the Beaton-Rhodes French-milled shell-shaped soap just because.
Old habits never die.
Outside, a new batch of martinis had been mixed, and Lord Marcus offered a fresh glass to Blair as she took her seat.
“She’ll want an ashtray,” Camilla quipped, nervously eyeing the inch of ash at the tip of Blair’s cigarette.
“I’ll use the lawn, thanks,” Blair replied flatly, taking a swig from her paper-thin Riedel glass, spilling only a little on the table in the process.
“Darling, wait,” Lord Marcus jovially reprimanded her. “We’re having a toast. We were waiting for you.”
“What’s the occasion?” asked Blair, holding in a burp.
“While you were inside, Camilla gave me the most wonderful news.”
She’s going to Switzerland to get her enormous nose fixed? She’s finally coming out of the closet as a big fat dyke? She’s decided to become a nun?
“She’s extending her stay. She’ll be with us all summer long. Isn’t that glorious?” Lord Marcus clinked his glass against hers.
Camilla took a dainty sip of her drink and put her hand protectively over Blair’s.
“We’ll be such good friends, we’ll be almost like sisters,” she promised, this time sounding more like the evil witchy stepmother who wants to eat Hansel and Gretel than one of the three little pigs.
Blair smiled tightly and drained her glass quickly before turning back to Camilla. “I always wanted an older sister.”
Marcus wrapped his squash-toned arms around the two of them and squeezed them into a group hug. “I knew you two would get along.”
He kissed them each on the cheek, and Blair closed her eyes, trying to pretend Camilla wasn’t there.
Thank goodness she’s always had a vivid imagination.
Gossip Girl 09 - Only in Your Dreams
a star is born (sort of)
Serena’s bright orange Hermès rubber flip-flops thwacked noisily against the black-and-white-checked marble floor of the Chelsea Hotel hallway as she made her way to room 609, where Ken Mogul was putting up her costar, Thaddeus Smith. The Chelsea was probably the most famous hotel in New York City. Home to iconic artists like Andy Warhol and rock stars like Janis Joplin, it had once suffered a terrible fire and all its famous residents had been forced out. Now it was mostly a tourist trap, but it still had a historic sixties allure, and its basement housed a dark, trendy bar, aptly named Serena.
Serena couldn’t understand why Thaddeus got to stay in a hotel and she had to live in a shabby apartment with no A/C. She’d been sitting alone, too hot to move, since Jason left, when Ken had called and told her to come down for an impromptu rehearsal with Thad. Serena took a deep breath, fiddled nervously with the zippers on her gunmetal gray Balenciaga motor-cycle bag, and knocked on the chipped door to room 609.
“Hi, you!” she squealed happily when Vanessa Abrams opened the door. It had only been a little over two weeks since graduation, but it felt like this was their twentieth reunion or something. Vanessa was wearing a black silk jersey wrap dress and the coolest silver flat sandals Serena had ever seen. “You look amazing!”
Vanessa opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by Ken. “Serena,” he called slowly. He was perched on the windowsill inside the large main room of the hotel suite, smoking an unfiltered cigarette. “Welcome to our universe!”
“Nice to see you again.” Serena giggled as she stepped through the door and crossed the room, which was flooded with light from Twenty-third Street. The walls were painted an astringent mint green that reminded her of the dorm bathrooms at Hanover Academy, the New Hampshire boarding school where she’d spent her junior year. There was an over-stuffed brown couch with cracks and splits in the leather along the armrests, and dozens of little potted cactuses lined the windowsill. Serena could see an unmade king-size bed through the French doors.
“You can kind of picture all the people who’ve had sex here, can’t you?” Vanessa whispered. Serena wrinkled her nose. Now she could.
“You know Vanessa, of course.” Ken tossed his cigarette out of the open window behind him. “I’ve asked her to come aboard as our director of photography.”