Read Online I Like It Like That by Cecily von Ziegesar - Free Book Online

dragged her parents over to the gesticulating woman.
    Mwa! Mwa!
    “We are just too glad you're here!” Pilar Rosenfeld cried, kissing each one of the Abramses twice on each cheek. “Isn't it wonderful, Roy?” she asked, touching her husband's crisp, tuxe-doed arm. “Here we all are together again after all these years.”
    “Splendid!” Roy Rosenfeld said in his deep, dapper voice. The Rosenfelds had gone to art school with the Abramses and had once worn only tie-dyes, cutoffs, and no shoes, even though they were both from wealthy New England families. Obviously their shoeless days had been just a phase.
    Next to Mr. Rosenfeld, a tall, dark-haired boy wearing wire-rimmed Armani glasses stood peering down his formidable nose at Vanessa, as if trying to place her.
    “Jordy, you remember Gabriela and Arlo and Ruby and Vanessa?” his mother asked.
    The boy's haughty stance didn't change. “I think the last time I saw you, you were only a baby, but I'm pretty sure you had more hair.”
    Vanessa had just noticed Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf basking in their glory at the next table, making her even more aware of the fact that she was wearing her school uniform. “Last time I saw you, you were wearing tie-dyed diapers.”
    Jordy pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his tremendous nose. “Well, now I'm prelaw, at Columbia.”
    Ruby sat down at the table and poured herself a huge glass of champagne. “Mom? Dad? Are you guys okay?”
    Their parents were standing stiffly together, propping each other up like one of their found-art statues. Vanessa wondered if they'd expected to be dancing barefoot around a fire to welcome the coming of spring instead of sitting down at a black-tie affair.
    “Please.” Mr. Rosenfeld pulled out the empty chair next to him and gestured for Vanessa's mother to sit down.
    “I just love your skirt,” Mrs. Rosenfeld noted, pointing to Arlo's accidental fashion statement. “Is that Galliano by any chance?”
    Arlo stared at her blankly. A white-jacketed waiter arrived to serve the first course, a duck pate terrine. Arlo began to poke at it with his dessert spoon, checking it for signs of life. Vanessa's mother picked up her cloth napkin and blew her nose into it. Ruby snorted and giggled into her champagne.
    “Are you still making art for peace, or have you given all that up?” Gabriela asked Pilar.
    Pilar smiled. “Roy and I are in real estate law. Jordy wants to get into law, too, when he's done with school. Forget about it—we don't even have time to recycle anymore!”
    Vanessa's parents both blanched. Recycling was what found art was all about. Without recycling, they and their art would cease to exist. “Well, that's a pity,” Gabriela said, frowning down at her paté. “You don't suppose I could ask them to make us a salad, do you?”
    Vanessa dug into her pate, delighted with this entertaining turn of events.
    “What kind of law do you want to practice?” she asked Jordy.
    He waved cigarette smoke away from his weirdly long nostrils. Behind him, Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen were smoking like chimneys while Blair's pregnant mother polished off the food on their plates. “Probably real estate, just like my parents.”
    Vanessa nodded. It was sort of hard to relate someone's desire to emulate his parents when her own parents were such freaks. But Jordy's lack of imagination was also strangely appealing. And he wasn't bad-looking either, with nice wavy black hair that looked like he probably spent a lot of time grooming it, and that nose. Vanessa wouldn't have minded getting Jordy's nose on film. “I like your glasses,” she told him.
    Just because she had a shaved head didn't mean she didn't know how to flirt.
    “Thanks.” He pulled them off and then put them back on again. “You're a senior, right? Know where you're going to college next year?”
    Vanessa glared at Ruby, daring her to blurt out the information about Vanessa's early acceptance at