Only in Your Dreams (Gossip Girl #9)(8)
It is?
Serena strolled around the apartment’s main room, almost losing her balance on the sloping, creaky wood floor. Three windows faced the street, with tattered screens and a view of the solid brick old people’s home across the street. Out of the back window off the tiny kitchen, Serena recognized the fire escape from the original Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where Holly Golightly had strummed her mandolin and sung “Moon River.” Blair got teary every time they watched that scene. Serena pushed a window open. The apartment had a stale, claustrophobic, gag-inducing smell, like sweaty feet and sardines.
“But where’s the furniture?” she asked, her voice dangerously close to a whine.
“And who’s this?” Jason added. A black cat wandered into the living room from the bedroom at the back of the apartment.
Well, that explains the smell.
Serena pulled out her pack of Gauloises and poked her head out that famous kitchen window, hoping to feel inspired, but all she felt was nervous and a little lost. Why was she there again?
Because she was about to star in a major motion picture— hello?
“He’s cute.” In the kitchen, Jason crouched down to stroke the cat behind its ears.
Serena turned, lighting her cigarette as she watched her dark-haired, blue-eyed neighbor playing with the cat, who apparently lived in their building too.
See? The views aren’t all bad.
Gossip Girl 09 - Only in Your Dreams
d learns the art of customer service
“Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where I can find the romance novels?”
Daniel Humphrey was crouched on the floor, making sure the biographies were alphabetized by subject, not author. When working at the Strand, New York’s best—and biggest— bookstore, it was important to pay attention to details like the proper arrangement of the biographies.
Whatever turns him on.
“We might have a few on the shelves by the stairs, but we don’t have a romance section,” Dan explained, unable to hide his displeasure.
“Thanks,” the woman replied cheerfully as she strolled away to browse the dusty Johanna Lindsey books and what-ever Nora Roberts novels were still left on the shelves.
The Strand was legendary not just for its incredible selection but also for its highly educated, highly snotty staff, and Dan was thrilled to have gotten the job. He’d seen the help-wanted poster after dropping his sister, Jenny, off at Kennedy on her impromptu trip to visit their mom in Prague and take some art classes, and he’d been feeling a little down about what he was supposed to do with his own summer. When he saw the poster in the store window, it really felt like a sign.
Now here he was, shelving books at the best store in town. But compared to other bookstores, the Strand had zero atmosphere. There was no music, no coffee. Just rows and rows of mismatched bookshelves crammed with books.
Pushing a creaky cart overloaded with dusty volumes, Dan made his way down the narrow aisle of the biography section. His job involved spending lots of time on his own and ignoring customers, which gave him plenty of time to think: about literature, about his poetry, about what Evergreen College in Washington state was going to be like, and mostly about what his last summer in New York—and his last summer with Vanessa—was going to be like. He’d made a big scene at his graduation when he’d declared he wouldn’t be enrolling in college at all so he could stay by her side, but as it turned out, he was looking forward to driving out west in the rad metallic blue ’77 Buick Skylark his dad had given him as a graduation present. It was the perfect car for a road trip; he’d be just like Jack Kerouac in On the Road, tearing up the highways and making love to the land and sky with the words that crept into his head as he drove along. He’d leave poems for all the women he met—the mysterious lover they’d never quite have. Until then, he’d have one last perfect summer in the city with Vanessa, his first love.
Dan grabbed a copy of Boswell’s Life of Johnson off the top of his cart and crouched on the dusty wood floor of the store trying to find the spot where it belonged. His mind began to wander as the words came to him:
Hot hands steer the wheel
You’re my gears, my pedals
Stir up the dust. Lust. Lust. Make it last
Sure, it was a little cheesy, but God, that was how he felt right now. He started making a mental list of classic romantic New York dates: Seeing Shakespeare in Central Park, riding the Staten Island Ferry just for the hell of it, watching the sun rise over the Fifty-ninth Street bridge just like Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in Manhattan. Maybe a drive out to Jones Beach in the Skylark, the salty wind blowing through the open windows, Vanessa’s hair blowing behind them . . . Okay, well, not her hair—she basically had no hair—but maybe she could wear a long silk scarf or something. He could see it now. It was going to be the most romantic summer.
It’s going to be something, that’s for sure.
“Excuse me, do you have the Cliffs Notes for Ulysses?” a high-pitched male voice whispered barely audibly, interrupting Dan’s reverie.
Cliffs Notes for James Joyce? The horror!
Dan scowled at the nerdy-looking goth kid who’d asked for his help. He was holding a Batman lunch box, and Dan realized he wasn’t nerdy or goth so much as hopeless.
“Why don’t you try reading the real thing?” he responded disparagingly.