Summer and the City Read online

  “I didn’t mean it though. I never thought—”

  “Well, here’s what real gets you in New York.” She runs back to the bedroom and returns with another pile, which she drops at our feet. Then she grabs the box of garbage bags, rips one open, and begins frantically shoving clothes into the bag. “This is what it gets you,” she repeats, her voice rising. “A kick in the teeth and fifty cents for the subway.”

  “Whoa. Are you serious?” I ask.

  She pauses for a moment and thrusts out her arm. “See this?” She indicates a large gold Rolex encrusted with diamonds.

  “Is that real too?” Miranda gasps.

  “Hold on,” I caution. “Why would someone who’s breaking up with you give you a giant Rolex?”

  “You could probably buy a small country with that,” Miranda adds.

  Samantha rocks back on her heels. “Apparently, it’s a tradition. When you break off an engagement, you give your ex-fiancée a watch.”

  “You should get engaged more often.”

  In a fury, Samantha rips off the watch and throws it against the Plexiglas case, where it bounces off harmlessly. Some things are simply indestructible. “How did this happen to me? I had it all figured out. I had New York by the balls. Everything was working. I was so good at being someone else.”

  If only we could all put our hearts in a Plexiglas case, I think, as I kneel down next to her. “You weren’t so good about showing up at Kleinfeld,” I say gently.

  “That was an exception. One slipup. And I made up for it by telling Glenn I’d be happy to use her decorator to redo the apartment. Even if it meant living with chintz. What’s wrong with a few flowers here and there? I can do roses if I have to—” And suddenly, she bursts into tears. Only this time, they’re real.

  “Don’t you get it?” she sobs. “I’ve been rejected. For having faulty fallopian tubes.”

  In the annals of dating, being rejected for your fallopian tubes has got to be right up there with—well, you name it, I suppose. But maybe dating in New York really is like what Samantha always says: everything counts, even the things you can’t see.

  And what you can see is usually bad enough.

  I mentally count the number of garbage bags strewn around Charlie’s apartment. Fourteen. I had to run out and get another box. Two years in a relationship and you can really accumulate a lot of stuff.

  “Baggage,” Samantha says, kicking one of the bags out of the way. “All baggage.”

  “Hey!” I exclaim. “There are Gucci shoes in that one.”

  “Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci? Who cares?” She throws up her hands. “What’s the difference when your entire life has been ripped away?”

  “You’ll find someone else,” Miranda says nonchalantly. “You always do.”

  “But not someone who will marry me. Everyone knows the only reason a man in Manhattan ever says ‘I do’ is because he wants children.”

  “But you don’t know that you can’t have children,” Miranda points out. “The doctor said—”

  “Who cares what he said? It’s always going to be the same old story.”

  “You don’t know that,” I insist. I grab a bag and pull it toward the door. “And do you really want to spend the rest of your life pretending to be someone you’re not?” I take a breath and gesture at the Plexiglas furnishings. “Surrounded by plastic?”

  “All men are jerks. But you knew that.” Miranda retrieves the watch from under the coffee table. “I guess that’s the last of it,” she says, holding out the Rolex. “Don’t want to leave this behind.”

  Samantha carefully weighs the watch in the palm of her hand. Her face scrunches in agony. She takes a deep breath. “Actually, I do.”

  She places the watch on the table as Miranda and I look at each other in bewilderment.

  “Where’s the bag with the Gucci shoes?” she orders.

  “There?” I ask, wondering what’s come over her.

  She rips open the bag and dumps out two pairs of loafers. “And the Chanel suit. Where’s that?”

  “I think it’s in here,” Miranda says cautiously, pushing a bag into the center of the room.

  “What are you doing?” I ask anxiously, as Samantha extracts the Chanel suit and places it on the table next to the watch.

  “What do you think I’m doing?”

  “I have no idea.” I look to Miranda for help, but she’s as mystified as I am.

  Samantha finds a tennis dress, and holds it up, laughing. “Did I tell you Charlie wanted me to take tennis lessons? So I could play with Glenn. In Southampton. As if I would actually enjoy hitting balls with that mummy. She’s sixty-five years old and she says she’s fifty. Like anyone’s going to believe that.”

  “Well—” I sneak another glance at Miranda, who shakes her head, stupefied.

  “Do you want this, Sparrow?” Samantha tosses me the tennis dress.

  “Sure,” I say hesitantly.

  I’m wondering what to do with it, when Samantha suddenly changes her mind and rips it out of my hands. “On second thought, no,” she shouts, hurling the dress onto the pile. “Don’t take it. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

  She continues on in this vein, tearing through the bags and removing every item of clothing from her life with Charlie. The pile gets bigger and bigger, while Miranda and I watch in concern. I bite my lip. “Are you really going to leave all this stuff?”

  “What do you think, Sparrow?” she says. She pauses and takes a deep breath, hands on her hips. She tilts her head, and gives me a fierce smile.

  “It’s baggage. And even if I’m not the most real person in the world, I’ll tell you one thing about Samantha Jones. She can’t be bought. At any price.”

  “Remember when I first moved here and you made me pour that carton of milk down the drain because you said the smell made you sick?” I ask, rearranging myself on the futon. It’s two a.m. and we’re finally back at Samantha’s apartment. All the packing and unpacking has me beat.

  “Did she really do that?” Miranda asks.

  “Oh yeah.” I nod.

  “Adults shouldn’t drink milk anyway.” Samantha exhales as she throws back her head in relief. “Thank God that’s over. If these fallopian tubes could talk—”

  “Luckily, they can’t.” I get up and go into the bedroom. I look at my own meager belongings, and with a sigh, open my suitcase.

  “Sparrow?” Samantha calls. “What are you doing?”

  “Packing,” I say loudly. “I’m leaving tomorrow, remember?” I stand in the doorway. “And after this summer, I really don’t think I’m a sparrow anymore. Haven’t I graduated by now?”

  “You have indeed,” Samantha agrees. “I now declare you a pigeon. The official bird of New York City.”

  “The only bird in New York City,” Miranda giggles. “Hey, it’s better than being a rat. Did you know that in China, rats are good luck?”

  “I love the Chinese.” Samantha smiles. “Did you know they invented pornography?”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Stanford White,” Capote says. “He designed the original Pennsylvania Station. It was one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. But in 1963 some idiot sold the air rights and they tore it down to put up this monstrosity.”

  “That is so sad,” I murmur, riding down the escalator behind him. “I wonder if it smelled as bad then as it does now.”

  “What?” he asks loudly, over the hubbub.

  “Nothing.”

  “I always wish I could have lived in New York at the turn of the century,” he says.

  “I’m glad I was able to live here at all.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think I’d ever be able to leave New York,” he adds, his words causing another jolt of despair.

  All morning we’ve been saying the wrong things to each other, when we’ve managed to say anything at all.

  I’ve been studiously trying to bring up the future, while Capote keeps studiously avoiding it.


  Hence the history lesson about Penn Station.

  “Listen,” I begin.

  “Look at the time,” he says quickly, nodding at the clock. “You don’t want to miss your train.”

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was trying to get rid of me.

  “That was fun, wasn’t it?” I venture, shuffling in line to buy my ticket.

  “Yeah. It was great.” For a moment he yields, and I see the little boy in him.

  “You could come and visit me in Providence—”

  “Sure,” he says. I can tell by the way his eyes dart to the side that it’s never going to happen, though. He’ll have found another girl by then. But if I weren’t leaving, maybe I could have been The One.

  He has to find her someday, right?

  I purchase my ticket. Capote picks up my suitcase as I buy copies of The New York Times and the Post. I won’t be doing that for a while, I think sourly. We find the escalator to my gate. As we descend, I’m filled with a blinding emptiness. This is it, I think. The End.

  “All aboard,” the conductor shouts.

  I place one foot on the step and pause. If only Capote would rush forward, grab my arm, and pull me back to him. If only there was a sudden blackout. If only something would happen—anything—to prevent me from getting on that train.

  I look back over my shoulder and find Capote in the crowd.

  He waves.

  The trip to Hartford is three hours. For the first hour, I’m a puddle of misery. I can’t believe I’ve left New York. I can’t believe I’ve left Capote. What if I never see him again?

  It isn’t right. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Capote should have declared his undying love.

  “Should,” I suddenly recall myself saying to Samantha and Miranda, “is the worst word in the English language. People always think things ‘should’ be a certain way, and when they’re not, they’re disappointed.”

  “What happened to you?” Samantha asked. “You had sex and now you know everything?”

  “I not only had sex, I had an orgasm,” I said proudly.

  “Oh, honey, welcome to the club,” Samantha exclaimed. And then she turned to Miranda. “Don’t worry. Someday you’ll have one too.”

  “How do you know I haven’t?” Miranda shrieked.

  I close my eyes and lean my head back against the seat. Maybe it’s okay about Capote. Just because something doesn’t last forever, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t meaningful while it did last. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t important.

  And what’s more important than your first guy? Hey, I could have done a lot worse.

  And suddenly, I feel free.

  I shuffle through my newspapers and open the New York Post. And that’s when I spot my name.

  I frown. It can’t be. Why is my name in Page Six? Then I look at the title of the piece: “Disaster and Plaster.”

  I drop the paper like I’ve been bitten.

  When the train pulls into New Haven for a twenty-minute layover, I race out of my compartment and run to the nearest phone booth. I catch Samantha in her office, and shaking and spluttering manage to ask if she’s seen the Post.

  “Yes, Carrie, I did. And I thought it was terrific.”

  “What?” I scream.

  “Calm down. You can’t take these things so personally. There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “They said my reading was the worst thing they’ve seen since their high school Christmas pageant.”

  “Who cares?” she purrs. “They’re probably jealous. You got a mention for your first play in New York City. Aren’t you excited?”

  “I’m mortified.”

  “That’s too bad. Because Cholly Hammond called. He’s been trying to get in touch with you for days. He wants you to call him immediately.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, Sparrow,” she sighs. “How should I know? But he said it was important. I’ve got to go. I’ve got Harry Mills in my office—” And she hangs up.

  I stare at the phone. Cholly Hammond? What can he want?

  I count out more change. Normally, the cost of making a long-distance call from a pay phone would be a problem, but I happen to be kind of flush right now. In the spirit of Samantha, I sold my brand-new, never used Chanel bag to the nice man at the vintage shop for two hundred and fifty dollars. I knew the money wasn’t near what it was worth, but I wouldn’t need the bag at Brown. And besides, I was kind of happy to get rid of it.

  Baggage.

  I drop several quarters into the slot. The phone is answered by a bright young thing.

  “Is Cholly there?” I ask, giving my name.

  Cholly immediately gets on the line.

  “Little one!” he exclaims, like I’m his long-lost friend.

  “Cholly!” I reply.

  “I saw your mention in the Post and found it very intriguing,” he enthuses. “Especially as I’ve been thinking about you for weeks. Ever since I sat next to you at Barry Jessen’s opening.”

  My heart sinks. Here we go again. Another old geezer who wants to get into my pants.

  “I kept musing about our oh-so-amusing conversation. Pun intended.”

  “Is that so?” I ask, trying to recall what I might have said that could be so memorable.

  “And since I’m always on the lookout for something new, I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to try to get some younger readers to The New Review? And who better to capture them than a young woman herself? In a sort of column, if you will. New York through the eyes of an ingenue.”

  “I don’t know how good it would be. Given how badly my play went over.”

  “Goodness gracious,” he exclaims. “But that’s the whole point. If it had been a swimming success, I wouldn’t be calling you. Because the whole idea behind this enterprise is that Carrie Bradshaw never wins.”

  “Excuse me?” I gasp.

  “Carrie never wins. That’s the fun of it, don’t you see? It’s what keeps her going.”

  “But what about love? Does she ever win at love?”

  “Especially not at love.”

  I hesitate. “That sounds like a curse, Cholly.”

  He laughs loud and long. “You know what they say: One man’s curse is another man’s opportunity. So what do you say? Can we meet in my office this afternoon at three?”

  “In New York?”

  “Where else?” he says.

  Whoo-hooo, I think, swaying through the first-class cabin on the train headed back to the city. The seats are enormous and covered in red velvet and there’s a paper napkin on each headrest. There’s even a special compartment where you can stash your suitcase. It’s a heck of a lot nicer than coach.

  “Always go first-class.” I hear Samantha’s voice in my head.

  “But only if you can pay for it yourself,” Miranda counters.

  Well, I am paying for it myself. Via Bernard and his lovely gift. But what the hell? I deserve it.

  Maybe I’m not a failure after all.

  I don’t know how long I’ll stay in New York, or what my father will do when I tell him. But I’ll worry about that later. For the moment, all I care about is one simple fact: I’m going back.

  I teeter up the aisle, looking for a place to sit and someone decent to sit next to. I pass a balding man, and a lady who’s knitting. Then I spot a pretty girl with a luxurious mane of hair, flipping through a copy of Brides magazine.

  Brides. She’s got to be kidding. I take the seat next to her.

  “Oh hi!” she says eagerly, moving her bag. I smile. She’s just as sweet as I thought she’d be, given that gorgeous hair.

  “I’m so glad to get you as a seatmate,” she whispers intimately, looking around. “The last time I took the train to New York, this creepy guy sat right next to me. He actually tried to put his hand on my leg. Can you believe it? I had to move my seat three times.”

  “That’s terrible,” I say.

  “I know.” She nods, wide-eyed.

  I smile.
“Getting married?” I ask, indicating her magazine.

  She blushes. “Not exactly. I mean, not yet. But I hope to be engaged in a couple of years. My boyfriend works in New York. On Wall Street.” She ducks her head prettily. “My name’s Charlotte, by the way.”

  “Carrie,” I say, holding out my hand.

  “What about you? Do you have a boyfriend?”

  I burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” she says, confused. “They say Paris is romantic, but I think New York is romantic too. And the men—”

  I laugh even harder.

  “Well, really,” she says primly. “If you’re going to laugh the whole way to New York . . . I don’t see what’s so funny about going to New York to find love.”

  I howl.

  “Well?” she demands.

  I wipe away my tears. I sit back and cross my arms. “Do you really want to know about love in New York?”

  “Yes, I do.” Her tone is curious and a little bit cautious.

  The train toots its horn as I lean forward in my seat.

  “Sweetie,” I say, with a smile. “Have I got a story for you.”

  About the Author

  CANDACE BUSHNELL is the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of THE CARRIE DIARIES, SEX AND THE CITY, LIPSTICK JUNGLE, ONE FIFTH AVENUE, 4 BLONDES, and TRADING UP, which have sold millions of copies. SEX AND THE CITY was the basis for the HBO hit show and films of the same name. LIPSTICK JUNGLE became a popular television series on NBC. Candace lives in New York City.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Copyright

  Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  Summer and the City: A Carrie Diaries Novel

  Copyright © 2011 by Candace Bushnell

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