Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(6)
Better get used to it, Miss NYU Film School.
“So, what do you say?” asked Ken, openly picking his nose and flicking the findings onto the floor. “I know it’s a major studio, I know it’s big budget, I know it’s romantic comedy. But those are all the reasons I need you. I need your vision to help me deliver something that’s going to make the movie-going public sit up and take notice. ”
As if they hadn’t already.
Vanessa stared out the window at some elevated train tracks that had been abandoned decades before and were now sprouting trees and grass, and a big building under construction on the next block. It was everything she was against: a major studio’s romantic comedy for teenagers. But Ken Mogul needed her; how many incoming NYU freshmen could say the same thing? Plus, it sounded like a shitload of fun, and she had f*ck-all to do that summer. That was why she’d come there today in the first place: sheer boredom.
She turned back to Ken. “I’ll have to think about it.”
Ken took his feet off the desk and fiddled with his papers, finally unearthing a beaten pack of cigarettes. He stuck one in his mouth but didn’t light it. “The female lead was supposed to be my wife,” Ken continued, “but, as you already know, I’ve decided to go in another direction.”
“Wife?” Vanessa could hardly believe that anyone would dream of marrying a googly-eyed, neurotic, conceited freak like Ken Mogul.
“Heather. I think she showed you in.”
Miss Congeniality was Mrs. Mogul?
“Oh, right.” Vanessa couldn’t resist taking another peek at the nudie photo behind the desk. It looked like a scene from a pirated porn movie.
Freaks of the Caribbean?
“Well, now she’s not speaking to me because I’ve decided to go with Serena. Serena’s going to be huge. And so are you.”
“I’m honored,” Vanessa replied. “I really am. But you’ll have to let me think about it, okay?”
Better think fast, honey. Hollywood waits for no one!
Gossip Girl 09 - Only in Your Dreams
s moves out
“I’m going to 169 East Seventy-first Street,” Serena van der Woodsen said to the cabbie as she slid into the taxi’s black vinyl backseat. She rolled down the window and let the warm late morning air blow across her face. Aah, summer. All her life summer had meant parties at her family’s estate in Ridgefield, Connecticut, or long, sunny afternoons in the park, reading old W magazines and slurping Stoli-and-cranberry popsicles with Blair. Now, for the first time ever, Serena had a job. She turned a thick manila envelope over in her hands and removed the letter she’d already read several times:
Holly:You must suffer for your art. You must BE your part. Pack your bags. The keys in this envelope are the keys to your new life— the original life of Holly. See you soon. Kenneth.
It was an odd letter, sure, but what else did she expect from a world-famous eccentric like Kenneth Mogul? He was her director, so she figured she better do as directed.
She patted the two old monogrammed red-and-white-striped Kate Spade tote bags beside her. They still smelled deliciously like the ocean and suntan lotion and contained a stash of Cosabella underwear, one of her brother Erik’s old Brown T-shirts that she’d swiped the last time he’d been home, a flimsy Milly sundress, her most comfortable Michael Kors flip-flops, a Cynthia Vincent pink-and-black paisley print jersey dress, her trusty Seven jeans, a second pair of flip-flops, just in case, and a white embroidered Viktor & Rolf top. Only the essentials.
She stared out the window at the grand steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the lush trees of Central Park, the grand apartment buildings on Seventy-second Street, the panoramic vista of Park Avenue, and then at the unfamiliar, ugly modern towers on Third Avenue. Ew.
“We’re here, miss,” the cabdriver announced, grinning at her in the rearview mirror with a mouthful of gold-capped teeth. One tooth even had the initial Z stenciled into it. Maybe for Zorro or Zeus? Serena wondered.
“Oh.” She pulled out her burgundy Bottega Veneta wallet and thumbed through the cash. Then she climbed out of the taxi, balancing her packed-to-the-gills tote bags, and scanned the putty-colored town houses for the right number.
There was number 171, and there was number 167, but there were some unmarked buildings in between the two, and she couldn’t figure out which was hers. She lugged her bags to the nearest stoop and sat down. Judging from some of the boxy, low buildings on the street, the place she was moving into wouldn’t be quite on par with what she was accustomed to. She dug out a cigarette and lit it, stepping aside as a stream of foul-smelling gray smoke billowed out of a grate in the gutter.
Wake up, Dorothy: you’re not on the Golden Mile anymore.
It was funny how everything could change so quickly— she’d gone from being Serena van der Woodsen, senior at Constance Billard and sometimes-model, to being Serena the working actress. It didn’t seem so long ago that her biggest worries had been remembering where the Catherine Malandrino sample sale would be this month, or bickering with Blair in the VIP room at Marquee, or hooking up with Nate wherever he wanted—which, for a short while, had been everywhere and all the time.
It’s a hard-knock life.
“You lost?”
Serena looked up . . . and up, and up. Standing above her was a gorgeously tall guy with broad shoulders, preppily cut dark brown hair, a cleft in his wide chin, and pretty blue eyes. He was wearing a plain gray suit and stiff navy tie, but his smile was so charming she was willing to overlook his dorky office ensemble.