Summer and the City Read online

  “I’m Glenn,” the first woman says, holding out a long, bony hand with a discreet platinum watch clasped around her thin wrist. She must be left-handed, because left-handed people always wear their watches on their right wrist so everyone will know they’re left-handed and, therefore, possibly more interesting and special. She indicates the young woman next to her. “This is my daughter, Erica.”

  Erica gives me a firm, no-nonsense handshake. There’s something refreshing about her, like she knows how ridiculous her mother is and how this whole scene is kind of silly.

  “Hi,” I say, warmly, and take a seat on the edge of a small, decorative chair.

  Samantha told me Glenn had a face-lift, so while Glenn smoothes her hair and Erica eats a cookie, I surreptitiously study Glenn’s face, looking for signs of the surgery. On closer inspection, they’re not hard to find. Glenn’s mouth is stretched and tucked up like the grin of the Joker, although she’s not smiling. Her eyebrows are dangerously close to her hairline. I’m peering at her so hard she can’t help but sense my staring. She turns to me and, with a little flutter of her hand, says, “That’s quite an interesting outfit you’re wearing.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “I got it for free.”

  “I should hope so.”

  I can’t tell if she’s being deliberately rude or if this is simply her usual demeanor. I take a cookie, and feel a little sad. I can’t fathom why Samantha has insisted on my presence. Surely she isn’t planning to include me on her journey into the future. I can’t imagine where I would fit in.

  Glenn shakes her arm and peers at her watch. “Where’s Samantha?” she asks, with a quiet sigh of annoyance.

  “Maybe she’s caught in traffic,” I suggest.

  “It’s terribly rude, being late for your own dress fitting,” Glenn murmurs, in a low, warm voice intended to take the sting out of the insult. There’s a knock on the door and I jump up to open it.

  “Here she is,” I chirp, expecting Samantha but finding Donna LaDonna and her mother, instead.

  There’s no sign of Samantha. Nevertheless, I’m so relieved not to be alone with Glenn and her daughter, I go too far. “Donna!” I shout.

  Donna is all sexed up in a slouchy top with shoulder pads and leggings. Her mother is wearing a sad imitation of Glenn’s real Chanel suit. What will Glenn think of Donna and her mother? I can already tell she’s none too impressed by me. And suddenly, I’m a tad embarrassed for Castlebury.

  Donna, of course, doesn’t notice. “Hi, Carrie,” she says, like she just saw me yesterday.

  She and her mother go to Glenn, who shakes hands nicely and pretends to be thrilled to meet them.

  While Donna and her mother coo over the room, Glenn’s suit, and the future wedding plans, I sit back and observe. I always thought Donna was one of the most sophisticated girls in our school, but seeing her in New York, on my turf, I wonder what I ever found so intriguing about her. Sure, she’s pretty, but not as pretty as Samantha. And she’s not the least bit stylish in that Flashdance getup. She’s not even very interesting, babbling to me about how she and her mother got their nails done and bragging about how they shopped at Macy’s. Jeez. Even I know only tourists shop at Macy’s.

  And then Donna blurts out her own very exciting news. She, too, is getting married. She holds out her hand, revealing a solitaire diamond chip.

  I lean over to admire it, although you practically need a magnifying glass to see the damn thing. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

  She gives me a brief smile as if she’s surprised I haven’t heard. “Tommy.”

  “Tommy? Tommy Brewster?” The Tommy Brewster who basically made my life hell merely because I had the bad luck to sit next to him in assembly for four years of high school? The big dumb jock who was Cynthia Viande’s serious boyfriend?

  The question is apparently written all over my face, because Donna immediately explains that Cynthia broke up with him. “She’s going to BU and she didn’t want to take Tommy with her. She actually thought she could do better,” Donna smirks.

  No kidding, I want to say.

  “Tommy’s going into the military. He’s going to be a pilot,” Donna adds boastfully. “He’ll be traveling a lot and it’ll be easier if we’re married.”

  “Wow.” Donna LaDonna engaged to Tommy Brewster? How could this happen? If I’d had to place bets in high school, I would have wagered that Donna LaDonna was the one who was on her way to bigger and better things. She was the last person I imagined would be the first to become a housewife.

  Having dispatched this information, Donna veers the conversation onto the topic of babies.

  “I was always a hands-on mom,” Glenn says, nodding. “I breast-fed Charlie for nearly a year. Of course, it meant I could barely leave the apartment. But it was worth every minute. The scent of his little head . . .”

  “The smell of his poopy diaper,” Erica mutters under her breath. I give her a grateful look. She’s been so quiet, I’d forgotten she was there.

  “I think it’s one of the reasons Charlie turned out so well,” Glenn continues, ignoring her daughter as she directs her comments to Donna. “I know breast-feeding isn’t very popular, but I think it’s terribly rewarding.”

  “I’ve heard it can make the kid smarter,” Donna says.

  I stare at the plate of cookies, wondering what Samantha would think of this discussion. Does she know Glenn is planning to turn her into a baby-making machine? The thought gives me the willies. What if what Miranda said about endometriosis is true, and Samantha can’t get pregnant right away—or at all? And what if she does, and the baby is born in her intestine?

  Where the hell is Samantha, anyway?

  Boy, this is really making me uncomfortable. I’ve got to get out of here. “Can I use the phone?” I ask, and without waiting for permission, pick up the receiver and dial Bernard’s number. He’s still not there. I hang up, fuming, and decide to call him every thirty minutes until I reach him.

  When I turn back to the room, the conversation has flagged. So much so that Donna actually asks how my summer is going.

  Now it’s my turn to brag.

  “I’m having a play reading next week.”

  “Oh,” Donna says, clearly unimpressed. “What’s a play reading?”

  “Well, I wrote this play, and my professor really loved it and then I met this guy, Bobby, who has a sort of performance space in his apartment, and I have a boyfriend who actually is a playwright—Bernard Singer, maybe you’ve heard of him—not that I’m not an actual writer but . . .” My voice gets smaller and smaller until it trails off into a painful little nothingness.

  And where is Samantha in all this?

  Glenn taps her watch impatiently.

  “Oh, she’ll show up,” Mrs. LaDonna gushes. “We LaDonnas are always late,” she says proudly, as if this is a plus. I look at her and shake my head. She’s no help at all.

  “I think your play sounds very exciting,” Erica says, tactfully changing the subject.

  “It is,” I agree, praying Samantha will arrive at any moment. “It’s kind of a big deal. Being my first play and all.”

  “I always told Erica she should become a writer,” Glenn says, giving her daughter a disapproving look. “If you’re a writer, you can stay at home with your children. If you actually decide to have children.”

  “Mother, please,” Erica says, as if she’s had to tolerate this discussion many times before.

  “Instead Erica’s decided to become a public defender!” Glenn exclaims grimly.

  “A public defender,” Mrs. LaDonna says, attempting to look impressed.

  “What’s that?” Donna asks, examining her manicure.

  “It’s a special kind of lawyer,” I answer, wondering how Donna cannot know this.

  “It’s all about choice, Mother,” Erica says firmly. “And I choose not to be chosen.”

  Glenn gives her a stiff little smile. She probably can’t move her muscles too much due to the face-lift. �
��It all sounds so terribly sad.”

  “But it isn’t sad at all,” Erica replies evenly. “It’s freeing.”

  “I don’t believe in choice,” Glenn announces, addressing the room. “I believe in destiny. And the sooner you accept your destiny, the better. It seems to me you young girls waste a terrible amount of time trying to choose. And all you end up with is nothing.”

  Erica smiles. And turning to me, she explains, “Mother’s been trying to marry Charlie off for years. She’s pushed every debutante in the Blue Book in his direction, but of course, he never liked any of them. Charlie’s not that dumb.”

  There’s an audible gasp from Mrs. LaDonna as I peer around in shock. Donna and her mother look like they’ve had face-lifts as well. Their expressions are as frozen as Glenn’s.

  The phone rings and I automatically reach for it, wondering if it’s Bernard, having somehow managed to track me down at Kleinfeld.

  I’m such a dummy sometimes. It’s Samantha.

  “Where are you?” I whisper urgently. “Everyone’s here. Glenn and Erica—”

  “Carrie.” She cuts me off. “I’m not going to be able to make it.”

  “What?”

  “Something came up. A meeting I can’t get out of. So if you wouldn’t mind telling Glenn . . .”

  Actually, I would mind. I’m suddenly tired of doing her dirty work. “I think you should tell her yourself.” I hand Glenn the phone.

  While Glenn speaks to Samantha, a saleswoman peeks into the room, beaming with excitement, pulling an enormous rack of wedding dresses behind her. The atmosphere explodes as Donna and her mother rush toward the dresses, pawing and fondling the garments like they’re sugary confections.

  I’ve had enough. I dive into the rack of wedding dresses and fight my way through to the other side.

  Weddings are like a train. Once you get on, you can’t get off.

  Sort of like the subway.

  The train is stopped, again, somewhere in the dark catacombs between Forty-second and Fifty-ninth streets. It’s been stuck for twenty minutes now, and the natives are getting restless.

  Including myself. I yank open the door between the cars and step out onto the tiny platform, leaning over the edge in an attempt to discover the cause of the holdup. It’s useless, of course. It always is. I can just make out the walls of the tunnel until they disappear into darkness.

  The train lurches unexpectedly and I nearly tip off the platform. I grab the handle of the door just in time, reminding myself that I need to be more careful. It’s hard to be careful, though, when you feel indestructible.

  My heart does that jackhammer thing that happens whenever I get all anticipatory about the future.

  Bernard read my play.

  The minute I escaped from Kleinfeld, I ran to a phone booth and finally reached him. He said he was in the middle of casting. I could tell by his voice that he didn’t want me to come by, but I kept insisting and finally he relented. He could probably tell by my voice that I was in one of those nothing-is-going-to-stop-me moods.

  Not even the subway.

  The train screeches to a halt just inside the platform at Fifty-ninth Street.

  I bang though the cars until I reach the head compartment, then I do the dangerous thing again and leap from the train onto the concrete. I run up the escalator, zoom through Bloomingdale’s, and race up to Sutton Place, sweating like a mad thing in the white vinyl.

  I catch Bernard in front of his building, hailing a cab. I spring up behind him.

  “You’re late,” he says, jangling his keys. “And now I’m late too.”

  “I’ll ride with you to the theater. Then you can tell me how much you loved my play.”

  “It’s not the best time, Carrie. My mind’s not focused.” He’s being all business. I hate it when he’s like this.

  “I’ve been waiting all day,” I plead. “I’m going crazy. You have to tell me what you thought.”

  I don’t know why I’m in such a frenzy. Maybe it’s because I just came from Kleinfeld. Maybe it’s because Samantha didn’t show up. Or maybe it’s because I don’t ever want to have to marry a man like Charlie and have a mother-in-law like Glenn. Which means I have to succeed at something else.

  Bernard grimaces.

  “Oh my God. You didn’t like it.” I can feel my knees buckling beneath me.

  “Take it easy, kid,” he says, hustling me into the cab.

  I perch on the seat next to him like a bird about to take flight. I swear I see a look of pity cross his face, but it’s immediately gone and I tell myself I must have imagined it.

  He smiles and pats my leg. “It’s good, Carrie. Really.”

  “Good? Or really good?”

  He shifts in his seat. “Really good.”

  “Honestly? Do you mean it? You’re not just humoring me?”

  “I said it was really good, didn’t I?”

  “Say it again. Please.”

  “It’s really good.” He smiles.

  “Yippee!” I shout.

  “Can I go to my casting now?” he asks, extracting the manuscript from his briefcase and holding it out to me.

  I suddenly realize I’ve been clutching his arm in fear. “Cast away,” I say gallantly. “Castaways. Ha-ha. Get it?”

  “Sure, kiddo.” He leans over to give me a quick kiss.

  But I hold on to him. I put my hands around his face and kiss him hard. “That’s for liking my play.”

  “I guess I’ll have to like your plays more often,” he jokes, getting out of the cab.

  “Oh, you will,” I say from the open window.

  Bernard goes into the theater as I throw back my head in relief. I wonder what I was so worked up about. And then it hits me: If Bernard didn’t like my play, if he didn’t like my writing, would I still be able to like him?

  Luckily, that’s one question I don’t have to answer.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “And she has the nerve to tell Samantha I’ve got a big head.”

  “Well—” Miranda says cautiously.

  “A big fat swollen head. Like a basketball,” I say, leaning into the mirror to apply more lipstick. “And meanwhile, she’s marrying this stupid jock—”

  “Why do you care so much?” Miranda asks. “It’s not like you have to see them again.”

  “I know. But couldn’t they have been a little impressed? I’m doing so much more with my life than they ever will.”

  I’m talking, of course, about Donna LaDonna and her mother. After her no-show at Kleinfeld, Samantha took the LaDonnas to Benihana as a consolation prize. When I asked Samantha if Donna mentioned me, she said Donna told her I’d become completely full of myself and obnoxious. Which really pissed me off.

  “Did Samantha find a dress?” Miranda asks, fluffing her hair.

  “She never showed up. She had an important meeting she couldn’t get out of. But that’s not the point. What bugs me is that this girl, who thought she was such a big deal in high school—” I break off, wondering if I have become a monster. “You don’t think I have a big head, do you?”

  “Oh, Carrie. I don’t know.”

  Which means yes. “Even if I do, I don’t care,” I insist, trying to justify my attitude. “Maybe I do have a bit of an ego. So what? Do you know how long it’s taken me to even get an ego? And I’m still not sure it’s fully developed. It’s more of an ‘egg’ than an ‘ego.’”

  “Uh-huh.” Miranda looks dubious.

  “Besides, men have egos all the time and no one says they’re full of themselves. And now that I have this tiny little bit of self-esteem, I don’t intend to let it go.”

  “Good,” she says. “Don’t.”

  I march past her into the bedroom, where I snake my legs into a pair of fishnet stockings and slip the white plastic dress with the clear plastic cut-outs over my head. I pull on the bright blue Fiorucci boots and check my appearance in the full-length mirror.

  “Who are these people again?” Miranda
eyes me with a worried expression.

  “Bernard’s agent—Teensie Dyer. And her husband.”

  “Is that what you’re supposed to wear to the Hamptons?”

  “It’s what I wear to the Hamptons.”

  True to his word, Bernard has actually come through on his promise to introduce me to Teensie. In fact, he’s gone above and beyond his call to duty and invited me to the Hamptons to stay with Teensie and her husband. It’s only for Saturday night, but who cares? It’s the Hamptons! All summer, I’ve been dying to go. Not just to find out why they’re such a big deal, but to be able to say, “I went to the Hamptons,” to people like Capote.

  “Do you really think you should be wearing plastic?” Miranda asks. “What if they think you’re wearing a garbage bag?”

  “Then they’re stupid.”

  Yep, I’m full of myself all right.

  I toss a bathing suit, the Chinese robe, my new red rubber pants, and the hostess gown into my carpenter’s bag. The bag reminds me of how Bernard said I needed a valise. Which leads me to wonder if Bernard is finally going to demand I have sex with him. I’ve been taking the pill, so I suppose there’s no reason not to, but I’m pretty adamant about waiting for my eighteenth birthday. I want the event to be special and memorable, something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

  Of course, the thought of finally doing it also makes me queasy.

  Miranda must pick up on my mood, because she looks at me curiously. “Have you slept with him yet?”

  “No.”

  “How can you go away with him and not sleep with him?”

  “He respects me.”

  “No offense, but it sounds weird. Are you sure he’s not gay?”

  “Bernard is not gay!” I nearly shout.

  I go out into the living room and pick up my play, wondering if I should bring it with me in case I have a chance to slip it to Teensie. But that might be too obvious. Instead, I have another idea.

  “Hey,” I say, holding up the manuscript. “You should read my play.”