Class - Cecily Von Ziegesar [99]
Behind them, the road was a black river cutting across a glistening white field fringed with dark trees. A curl of smoke rose up from the chimney of a nearby farmhouse. She imagined Patrick and Adam and Adam’s parents sitting around a fire, eating Tragedy’s cookies and drinking wine. If Adam went to England, Patrick could drive his car instead of hers. Patrick might even move in with the Gatzes. It might work out for everyone.
She wrapped her arms around Tom’s neck and kissed him in a roving, tentative manner, like a person trying to get into a house when they’ve forgotten the key. She kissed his forehead, his temples, his ears, his neck, his chin. He smelled like Ivory soap and Gillette shaving cream and Colgate toothpaste and Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo—all the things she was used to. But there were other things she craved, things she didn’t even know existed. Once you got a taste for the unexpected, it was hard to settle for anything less.
She paused for a breath. “Did you know they have snow in Hawaii?”
“That’s why I went to college,” Tom joked. “To learn shit like that.” He tilted his head back and puckered his lips, eager for more of her.
Shipley slammed his head against the back of the seat and kissed him on the mouth, this time with conviction. Then, without another word, she pulled away and crawled back over Beetle’s car seat. The van lurched over a bump and, for a moment, was airborne. One of Nick’s Philosophy textbooks dropped out of his bag and slid across the floor beneath Shipley’s feet. An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, she read upside down. Thank goodness she wasn’t in that class.
She refastened her seat belt and gazed out the window. The sky was swollen and ripe. It would snow again, soon. There would be more snow, more kisses, more sex, more gunshots, more fires. This was what she had come for—what they had all come for. This was college.
Acknowledgments
I would be plagued by guilt and unable to write anything if I didn’t know that my children were always having a good time without me, and for that I thank Marsha Torres, Erasmo Paolo, and my mother, Olivia. Thank you, Suzanne Gluck, agent extraordinaire, for being fierce, wise, sympathetic, and funny at all the right times; and Sarah Ceglarski, Elizabeth Tigue, and Caroline Donofrio for being wonderful. At Hyperion, thank you, Brenda Copeland, for your wit, keen insight, swift responses, and good taste in cheese; Kate Griffin for your professionalism; and Ellen Archer, for giving me a chance and then some. Thank you Barbara Pavlock for your help with Latin. Thank you Paragraph, where this book’s beginnings were written. Thank you Karaoke Wednesdays. Thank you Ambien. Thank you Agnes and Oscar, my children and the teachers from whom I’ve learned the most. And thank you Richard, for reading this thing more than once, and for being a really good husband, despite being married to me.
About the Author
Cecily von Ziegesar is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Gossip Girl novels, upon which the hit television show is based. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction and the events, incidents, and characters are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 Cecily von Ziegesar
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4013-1048-6
eBook Edition ISBN: 978-1-4013-0425-6
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