Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(48)

And this was called acting?

“But I’m just supposed to walk?” Serena asked. This wasn’t like walking in a fashion show—which she’d done, of course. “I feel silly.”

“Pretend it’s graduation again,” Blair suggested, remembering Serena’s irksome, last-minute dash down the aisle of Brick Church, wearing the exact same Oscar de la Renta suit Blair was wearing.

“I’ll try,” Serena sighed.

Blair returned to her station in front of Tiffany. She had a lot of work to do, but she had to admit it was kind of fun bossing Serena around for a change.

All in the name of friendship.





Gossip Girl 09 - Only in Your Dreams

just another manic sunday in the park with v . . . and d

With Nils tugging at her left hand and Edgar pulling on her right—or was it Nils on the right and Edgar on the left?— Vanessa Abrams remembered why it was never a good idea to have two boys vying for one girl’s attention.

Like she hadn’t already learned that lesson.

“Come on, come on,” complained one of the boys—who cared which one anymore? Their tiny hands were sticky, their little-boy voices whiny, and besides that they were strong. They had grips of steel, and since they refused to slow down, Vanessa was half walking and half being dragged along Central Park’s shady asphalt paths. It reminded her of the times she and Aaron had walked his fawn-and-white purebred boxer, Mookie, together, except the twins were even more eager to get outside than that dog had been. If they’d had tails, they’d have been wagging them insanely.

“Christ,” muttered Vanessa. “Slow down, please!”

Eighteen dollars an hour, eighteen dollars an hour. She’d already made thirty-six dollars that day; not a fortune, but it would go right in the coffers for her next project.

How about her next apartment?

Vanessa stumbled a little as the boys stopped short in front of an umbrella-covered cart.

“Can we get ice cream sandwiches?”

She highly doubted that their mother had ever in her life taken the kids to the park, let alone bought them ice cream. Vanessa hadn’t even set eyes on her since their bizarre job interview, and Ms. Morgan didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would tolerate ice cream dripping on her bouclé Chanel suits. The Abramses had always kept her and Ruby on a strict sugar-free diet when they were kids, preferring Tofutti and fruit to ice cream and candy, but she didn’t care what these two ate.

“Sure, ice cream sandwiches, whatever, you got it,” she agreed, wriggling free of the boys’ death grips and pulling a crumpled twenty out of her jeans pocket. “Three ice cream sandwiches, please,” she told the vendor, who had a handlebar moustache and was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt circa 1972.

The boys leapt up and down, grabbing at the ice cream. They tore the wrappers open hungrily, then raced away into the confines of the playground, screaming and laughing through gooey mouthfuls of ice cream.

“Wait up!” Vanessa yelled after them halfheartedly. She wasn’t sure she cared if they disappeared and she lost her job and went to prison. Had it really been only three days since she’d started work as the principal cinematographer on a major Hollywood production? Or was this whole thing some kind of horrible nightmare?

She sank onto a bench under a tall, gracious oak and watched the twins scarf down their treats and toss their wrappers onto the ground. Oops. Then they started a dizzying game of tag, racing under the slide, between the swings, narrowly avoiding collisions with teetering prewalkers and their menacing minders.

“Stay close!”Vanessa called out weakly. She finished her ice cream and leaned back onto the surprisingly comfortable wood-and-concrete bench. Cars whizzed by on their way through the park at Ninety-seventh Street, a nice, sleep-inducing sound. The sun was strong but there was plenty of shade, and for one brief second she almost didn’t mind that she was there as a nanny, not just as some other adult enjoying the park on a nice Sunday afternoon. Her eyes closed and she tuned out for a moment.

Then she heard a familiar high-pitched yelp and her eyes flew open.

Who knew she had a maternal instinct?

There was a commotion not far in the distance, and Vanessa recognized two familiar blond heads.

She got to her feet and hurried over to where one of the twins was sprawled out on the sidewalk, clutching his skinned knee and crying. His brother stood at his side, pointing an angry finger at a rollerblader lying prone on the sidewalk.

“What’s going on?” Vanessa demanded, trying to sound authoritative.

“That big boy ran into Edgar!” cried Nils.

A freckle-faced blond nymphet cheerleader type in hot pink short shorts and a complicated electric blue sports bra rolled athletically up to the scene. “What’s going on,” she snapped, “is that you’re not controlling your kids, and we’re trying to get some exercise here!”

“They’re not my kids,”Vanessa retorted, kneeling to pat the sobbing Edgar on his head. “And you don’t have to be rude.”

“Vanessa, Vanessa, let’s go home now,” Nils whined, pulling on her arm.

“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” Lycra Girl commented, kneeling to tend to her fallen comrade. She looked like she’d rollerbladed right out of a Coors Light commercial.