Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(42)

After being unceremoniously thrown off the set of Breakfast at Fred’s, Vanessa had ridden the elevator with the possibly humanoid Blair-Waldorf-in-training Jasmine, who had informed Vanessa that it just so happened that her mother was looking for a highly qualified, energetic, and enthusiastic person for a very important job. Vanessa had been too upset to get the exact details, but Jasmine tore a page from her Louis Vuitton agenda and scribbled an address, urging Vanessa to follow up on it immediately.

After a few glasses of wine pilfered from Rufus Humphrey’s personal stash, Vanessa had started to see things more clearly.

Ken Mogul is a soulless sellout. He was making a run-of-the-mill Hollywood teen soap while she was an experimental auteur! She had no business wasting her time and her talent on that crap. She was bound for NYU, the best film program in the country. She’d have access to the finest professors, world-class equipment, and an entire acting program full of the most talented student actors around. Why should she be wasting her time as a hack, working on a project she didn’t believe in when she could be working her ass off and saving up the cold hard cash to produce her own film in the fall. She already had an idea for a feature, about a conflicted young artist forced to choose between following her muse or staying in a rapidly decaying relationship with her insane incense-and-herbal-tea-addicted writer boyfriend.

Sounds like a case of art imitating life.

A sour-faced maid in an honest-to-God black skirt with white apron and little white lace doily on her head opened the heavy glass door. “Can I help you?” she demanded suspiciously.

“I’m here about the job,” Vanessa slurred. “The mom’s daughter,” she paused momentarily fumbling with the girl’s name. “Jasmine! That’s it. She told me to come and see her mom about a job. So I did.”

The maid frowned. “I see. Come in then. The lady of the house will meet you in her office.”

Vanessa stomped through the marble foyer, past a sweeping staircase illuminated by a massive crystal chandelier, and into a mahogany-paneled room lined with bookcases and furnished with tasteful antiques. She had no idea what the job in question was, but clearly this was a very successful business-woman. She was probably a busy executive in desperate need of a competent personal assistant. It was sure to be shit work, but artists always had to suffer for their art, unless they wanted to make commercial shit like Ken Mogul.

“Please wait here,” the maid instructed.

Vanessa perched on the edge of an ornate Art Deco wood chair. The room was ever-so-slightly spinning, and she gripped the seat tightly. Just don’t throw up, she told herself.

“You my new friend?”

Vanessa looked up. There was no one there.

Great, I’m so trashed I’m hearing voices.

“You my new friend?” asked the voice again before dissolving into giggles.

“Wh-who’s there?” Vanessa called out nervously. The last thing she wanted was to be caught talking to herself in front of her new boss.

“Are you a girl?” another voice asked.

“Why don’t you have any hair?” asked the first voice.

Two voices? How much had she had to drink?

Vanessa held her breath and listened. She stood up. Where were the voices coming from? She knelt and pressed her cheek to the cold, perfectly polished wood floor, scanning the room from that vantage. It worked: under the gilded wood couch she could make out the figure of a skinny little boy with taut curly hair.

“You found me!” he cried, clambering out from under the couch.

“Yeah, hi,”Vanessa said.“Is your mommy home?”

“You smell like wine,” the boy announced, frowning. “I’m four. How old are you?”

“Find me too!” cried the other voice.

What could she do?

“Where are you?” she called out, propping herself up on her hands and knees. She looked under the other furniture.

“Find me, find me!” the voice called.

She followed the sound of the voice to the corner of the library, where a large globe stood on a round glass-topped table. She lifted the tablecloth, and underneath was a little boy who looked, and was dressed, exactly like the other kid.

“You found me!” the boy cried. He dashed out from under the table and ran over to the couch, where his brother was still bouncing. He leaped onto the couch and rammed into his brother. The two boys tumbled onto the floor.

“Boys!” called a voice. A tall, magenta-pink-Chanel-suit-clad redheaded woman strode into the library, clutching a Treo and a rolled up copy of Vogue.

“You must be Vanessa,” the woman observed in a clipped tone. “Jasmine mentioned you might be calling. I’m a little surprised you’ve decided to just drop by, but I suppose that’s fine. Shows initiative. I like that.”

Oops.

“Right,” Vanessa said, standing up and trying her best to appear completely sober. “You must be Mrs....?”She paused, realizing that she had no idea what Jasmine’s last name was.

“It’s Ms. Morgan,” the woman replied. “I didn’t take my husband’s name. This is the twenty-first century, after all.”

“Sorry,”Vanessa mumbled. This was the weirdest job interview ever.

“No matter,” the woman continued. “You’re clearly a hit with the boys.”