Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot Page B

situation, since Andrew says, reaching out to wrap an arm around my waist and bringing me up close against him, “Look, don’t worry, Liz. I’ll see you tonight when I get off work.”
    Suddenly he’s grinding the cigarette beneath his heel and his lips are against my throat.
    “And when I do,” he murmurs, “I’m going to show you the best time you ever had. All right?”
    It’s very hard to think properly when a cute guy with a British accent is nuzzling your neck.
    Not that there’s anything to think about, really. My boyfriend obviously adores me. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
    “Well,” I say, “that sounds—”
    And the next thing I know, Andrew’s mouth is on mine, and we’re making out on the front steps of his parents’ house.
    I hope the Marshalls don’t have any easily startled little old ladies as neighbors, and that if they do, they aren’t actually looking out their windows right now.
    “Fuck,” Andrew breaks off our kiss to say, “I have to go to work. But look, I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”
    My lips are still tingling from where his razor stubble chafed them. They’re probably about as swollen as Angelina Jolie’s by now, from all the pressure on them.
    Not that I mind. I don’t have a lot of experience in the kissing department.
    But I think Andrew may just be the best kisser in the world.

    Plus I can’t help noticing that there appears to be something going on in the vicinity of the crotch of Andrew’s jeans that I also like very much.
    “Do you really have to go to work?” I ask him. “Can’t you blow it off?”
    “Not today. But I’ve got tomorrow off,” he says. “There’s something I’ve got to do in the city. But after that, we’ll do whatever you like. Oh God.” He kisses me a few more times, then rests his forehead against mine. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You’ll be all right, yeah?”
    I stare at him, thinking how good-looking he is, in spite of the hideous jacket, and how sweet and unassuming he is as well. I mean, he’s just so determined to follow in his father’s footsteps and teach all those children to read. Only he’s not going to settle for just any situation. He’s waiting for the right one to come along…
    I am so lucky that I was taking a shower at theexact moment that girl’s potpourri caught on fire and that Andrew happened to have been the R.A. on duty at the time.
    I think of the first time he kissed me, outside McCracken Hall (with me in my towel and him in those Levi’s that were faded in just the right places), his breath smoky—but from cigarettes, not the fire—and hot in my mouth.
    I remember all the phone calls and e-mails between us since. I remember the fact that I blew all my money on a plane ticket to England, since I’m not moving to New York with Shari and Chaz, so I can live at home and be near Andrew in the fall instead.
    And I say with a big smile, “I’ll be fine.”
    “Cheers, then,” Andrew says. And gives me one last kiss.
    And then he turns around and leaves.

    One of the earliest known female arbiters of fashion was the Byzantine empress Theodora, the daughter of a bear trainer who beat out thousands of other girls for the hand of Emperor Justinian. Rumor had it she was helped in no small part during the talent portion of the Empress Hunt by her background in dancing and acrobatics.
    Though it took a special act of legislation to allow Justinian to marry one of such lowly stature, Theodora proved herself a worthy empress, commissioning two royal spies to sneak into China and steal silkworms so that she could drape herself in the manner in which she felt she could become accustomed.
    If Theodora couldn’t get to Chanel, well, she just had Chanel brought to her.
    History of Fashion
    SENIOR THESIS BY ELIZABETH NICHOLS
    5
    “I never repeat anything.” That is the ritual phrase of society people, by which the gossip is reassured every time.

    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922), French novelist,