Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(2)


It took a lot of begging and pleading, but I finally convincedmy dad to shell out for a summer rental in Southampton justfor me and my friends. Now we’re here and no one else is. What gives?

—No Sex on the Beach

A:

Dear NSOTB:

If you must know, getting to the Hamptons too early in the season is a little ... well, tacky, unless you have to be there, like some people I know. In the meantime, why not shake it up? You’ve got a whole house at your disposal—fashion those palm-frond-patterned ABC Carpet & Home sheets into togas and get into the college spirit!





—GG


Sightings

B accusing a Virgin Atlantic bag handler of stealing one of her many Cosabella lace thongs from her Tumi duffel. That’s what you get for flying commercial! S reading—reading? Hello, school’s out!—a tattered paperback copy of Breakfast at Tiffany’s on a shady bench in Central Park. No doubt she’ll reminisce about it someday on Inside the Actors Studio. A sweaty N pumping up and down and up and—there goes my imagination!—through East Hampton center on his old red Schwinn tenspeed. What happened to the Range Rover? V at Bonita, that tiny, rustic Mexican place in Williamsburg, asking someone to wipe down the table before she sat down. Maybe B really did rub off on her. D cruising up and down West End Avenue for hours— where’s he supposed to park that big blue Buick pimpmobile he scored as a graduation present, anyway?

That’s all for now. I’m out of here. After all, you don’t have to be an MIT-bound math geek to realize there are only eleven weeks of summer—a mere seventy-seven days—before we have to grapple with things like coed dorms and declaring a major in fashion design and maybe a torrid extracurricular affair with that probably-pretty-cute-under-his-tweed-blazer-and-bow-tie English lit professor. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: it’s hot outside, and things are already getting steamy. Life is full of mystery—not to mention cute girls in polka-dot bikinis and hot guys in pastel-colored surf shorts. The summer, with its lack of rules and schedules, provides the perfect setting for some severe misbehavior. Right now, I’m taking my new oversized pale pink Gucci sunglasses, a copy of French Elle, some Guerlain SPF 45 sunblock, and a cozy turquoise-and-tangerine-striped Missoni towel and hitting the park. Which part of the park? Wouldn’t you like to know?

You know you love me.

gossip girl





Gossip Girl 09 - Only in Your Dreams

the honeymooners

“Good morning, madam!” trilled a female voice in a super-perky British accent.

Blair Waldorf sighed and turned over onto her side. She’d been in London three days but still wasn’t over her jet lag. She didn’t mind, though: it was a small price to pay to see her movie-star-handsome, real-life-English-blueblood boyfriend, Lord Marcus.

Wendy, one of the three maids whose round-the-clock services came with Blair’s penthouse suite at Claridge’s, clacked across the blond parquet floors and deposited a heavy mahogany tray onto the king-size bed, which was so big Blair had divided it up into four sections: one for sleeping, one for eating, one for watching TV, and one for sex. So far, that section had remained unused. Wendy drew the thick maroon velvet curtains on the massive wall of windows, flooding the enormous room with light. It reflected off the opulent gold-filigree ceiling and bounced off the gilded mirrors that lined the attached dressing room.

“Ouch!” Blair cried, pulling one of the six sumptuous goose-down pillows over her head to shield her eyes from the sun.

“Breakfast as requested, Miss Waldorf,” announced Wendy, lifting the silver cover off the tray to reveal a barfy-looking mush of watery scrambled eggs, massive greasy sausages, and a pool of stewed tomatoes.

Classic English cuisine.Yum.

Blair smoothed her tousled chestnut hair and straightened the straps of the soft pink Hanro cami she’d worn to bed. The food looked disgusting but smelled delicious. Oh well, she deserved a little treat, didn’t she? She’d worked up an appetite the day before, walking around West London sightseeing.

If you call Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Whistles sights.

“And your paper,” added Wendy setting the International Herald Tribune on the tray with a flourish. Blair had requested the daily paper when she checked in—a Yale woman had to keep up on world events, after all. So what if she hadn’t exactly gotten around to the reading part?

“Will that be all?”Wendy asked primly.

Blair nodded and the maid disappeared into the sitting room. Blair speared one of the huge sausages with her fork and picked up the paper, skimming the front page. But the tiny typeface and matter-of-fact photographs were so boring she couldn’t concentrate. The only paper she ever read was the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times, if only to scan the charity event pictures for familiar faces. Why would a worldly woman like herself need to read world news, anyway? She was world news.

Blair had always been impulsive, but her presence in London had actually been Marcus’s idea. His graduation present to her—other than the ridiculously extravagant Bvlgari earrings—had been a plane ticket to London. Blair had envisioned rainy weeks locked in his enormous stone castle having chain-sex—the equivalent of chain-smoking—stopping only to gnaw on a cold leg of mutton or whatever medieval snack was stored in the castle’s primitive but well-stocked kitchen. But Marcus had been so busy working for his dad all he ever had time for was lunch and a brief snog.

Cecily von Ziegesar's Books