Novels by Cecily von Ziegesar: Gossip Girl You Know You ... - Weebly

cracked open L’Etranger, by Albert Camus, which he was reading in
French class that term. Dan was psyched. He’d already read the
English translation, but it felt especially cool to read the French
original, especially while sitting outside drinking bad coffee and
smoking a cigarette in the middle of noisy, smelly Broadway. It was
very hard-core. As people walked past in a hurry to get somewhere,
Dan felt aloof and removed from the chaos of everyday life, just like
the guy in the book.
Dan had dark circles under his eyes because he hadn’t been able to
sleep the night before. All he could think about was Serena van der
Woodsen. They were starring in a movie together. They were even
going to kiss. It was too good to be true.
Poor dude, he had that right.
His cell phone was still ringing.
“Yeah?” Dan said, answering it.
“Hey. It’s Vanessa.”
“Hey.”
“Listen, I have to make it quick. I just wanted you to know that I told
Marjorie she has the part,” Vanessa said quickly.
“You mean Serena,” Dan said, flicking his ash and taking another
puff of his cigarette.
“No, I mean Marjorie.”
Dan exhaled and clenched the phone tightly. “Wait. What are you
talking about? Marjorie, with the red hair and the gum?”
“Yes, that’s right. I haven’t got their names mixed up,” Vanessa said
patiently.
“But Marjorie stank, you can’t use her!” Dan insisted.
“Yeah, well, I kind of like that she stank. She’s sort of rough around
the edges. I think it will make it feel edgier, you know? Like, not
what you’d expect,” said Vanessa.
“Yeah, definitely not,” Dan sneered. “Look, I really think this is a
mistake. Serena totally ruled. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want
her. She was awesome.”
“Yeah, well, I’m the director, so it’s my choice. And I chose Marjorie.
Okay?” Vanessa really didn’t want to hear about how awesome
Serena had been. “Besides, I keep hearing all these stories about
Serena. I don’t think she’s all that reliable.”
Vanessa was pretty sure that everything she’d heard was
completely bogus, but it couldn’t hurt to mention it to Dan.
“What do you mean?” Dan said. “What kind of stories?”
“Like she manufactures her own drug called S, and she has some
pretty bad STDs,” Vanessa said. “I really don’t want to deal with
that.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Dan said.