“You hate me because of some shoes I wore when I was four?” I say in disbelief.
“It wasn’t just the shoes,” she counters. “It was your whole attitude. You and your perfect little family. The Bradshaw girls,” she says mockingly. “Aren’t they cute? And so well-behaved.”
If she only knew.
I’m suddenly exhausted. Why do girls carry these grudges for years and years? Do boys do that too?
I think about Lali and shiver.
She looks at me, gives a little exclamation of triumph, and goes inside.
And then I just stand there, wondering what to do. Go home? Call it a day? But if I leave, it means Donna LaDonna has won. She’ll have claimed this class as her territory and my absence will mean she’s driven me out.
I won’t let her win. Even if it requires being stuck with her for an hour once a week.
I mean, can my life really get any worse?
I pull open the heavy door, trudge up the stairs, and take my seat next to her.
For the next thirty minutes, while Todd Upsky talks about f-stops and shutter speeds, we sit next to each other in silence, each desperately pretending that the other one does not exist.
Just like me and Lali.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Gorgon
“Why don’t you write about it?” George asks.
“No,” I say, snapping off the delicate tip of a tree branch. I examine it, rubbing the soft dry wood between my fingers before tossing it back into the woods.
“Why not?”
“Because.” I push forward on the path that leads up a steep hill. Behind me, I hear George breathing heavily from the effort. I grab a sapling around the middle and use it to pull me to the top. “I don’t want to be a writer so I can write about my life. I want to be a writer to escape from it.”
“Then you shouldn’t be a writer,” George says, puffing.
That’s it.
“I am so sick of everyone telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. Maybe I don’t want to be your idea of a writer. Did you ever think about that?”
“Hey,” he says. “Take it easy.”
“I will not take it easy. And I will not listen to you, or anybody else. Because you know what? Everyone thinks they know so goddamned much about everything and no one knows fuck all about anything.”
“Sorry,” he says, his mouth drawn into a prim line of disapproval. “I was only trying to help.”
I take a breath. Sebastian would have laughed at me. His laughter would have briefly pissed me off, but then I’d have found it funny too. George, on the other hand, is so damn serious.
He’s right, though. He is only trying to help. And Sebastian is gone. He dumped me, just like George said he would.
I should be grateful. George, at least, has had the decency not to say I told you so.
“Remember when I told you I’d introduce you to my great-aunt?” he asks now.
“The one who’s a writer?” I say, still slightly miffed.
“That’s right. Do you want to meet her?”
“Oh, George.” Now I feel guilty.
“I’m going to arrange it for next week. I think it will cheer you up.”
I could kick myself. George really is the best. If only I could fall in love with him.
We pass through Hartford and turn onto a wide street lined with maples. The houses are set back from the road — large, white, practically mansions — with columns and decorative tiny paned windows. This is West Hartford, where the wealthy old families live, where, I imagine, they have gardeners to tend to their roses and swimming pools and red-clay tennis courts. It doesn’t surprise me that George is taking me here. George’s family is rich, after all — he never talks about it, but he must be, living in a four-bedroom apartment on Fifth Avenue with a father who works on Wall Street and a mother who spends her summers in Southampton, wherever that is. We pull into a gravel driveway edged with hedges and park in front of a carriage house with a cupola on top.
“Your great-aunt lives here?”
“I told you she was successful,” George says with a mysterious smile.
I experience a jab of panic. It’s one thing to imagine someone has money, but quite another to be confronted with the spoils of their loot. A flagstone path leads around the side of the house to a glassed-in conservatory, filled with plants and elaborately wrought garden furniture. George knocks on the door, and then opens it, releasing a cloud of warm, steamy air. “Bunny?” he calls out.
Bunny?
A red-haired middle-aged woman in a gray uniform crosses the room. “Mr. George,” she exclaims. “You startled me.”
“Hello, Gwyneth. This is my friend Carrie Bradshaw. Is Bunny home?”
“She’s expecting you.”
We follow Gwyneth down a long hall, past a dining room and a library, and into an enormous living room. There’s a fireplace at one end with a marble mantelpiece, above which hangs a painting of a young woman in a pink tulle dress. Her eyes are wide, brown, and authoritative — eyes, I’m sure, I’ve seen before. But where?
George walks to a brass cart and holds up a bottle of sherry. “Drink?” he asks.
“Should we?” I whisper, still gazing up at the painting.
“Of course. Bunny always likes a bit of sherry. And she gets very angry when people won’t drink with her.”
“So this — er — Bunny. She’s not cute and fluffy?”
“Hardly.” George’s eyes widen in amusement as he hands me a crystal glass filled with amber fluid. “Some people say she’s a monster.”
“Who says that?” a booming voice declares. If I didn’t know Bunny was a woman, I might have guessed the voice belonged to a man.
“Hello, old thing,” George says, moving across the room to greet her.
“And what have we here?” she asks, indicating me. “Who have you dragged to meet me this time?”
The insult is lost on George. He must be used to her nasty sense of humor. “Carrie,” he says proudly, “this is my aunt Bunny.”
I nod weakly and hold out my hand. “Bu-bu-bu...” I falter, unable to speak.
Bunny is Mary Gordon Howard.
Mary Gordon Howard arranges herself on the couch like she’s a precious piece of china. Physically, she’s frailer than I remember, although George did say she was eighty. But her persona is just as terrifying as it was four years ago when she attacked me at the library.
This cannot be happening.
Her hair is white and thick, swept back off her forehead into a bosomy arrangement. But her eyes look weak, the irises a watery brown, as if time has leaked out their color. “So, dear,” she says as she takes a sip of sherry and slyly licks the excess from her lips, “George says you want to be a writer.”
Oh no. Not this again. My hand shakes as I pick up my glass.
“She doesn’t want to be a writer. She is a writer,” George interjects, beaming with pride. “I’ve read some of her stories. She has potential...”
“I see,” MGH says with a sigh. No doubt, she’s heard this too many times. As if by rote, she launches into a lecture: “There are only two kinds of people who make great writers — great artists: those from the upper classes, who have access to the finest education — or those who have suffered greatly. The middle classes” — she looks at me, disapprovingly — “can sometimes produce a simulacrum of art, but it tends to be middle-brow or slyly commercial and of no real value. It’s merely meretricious entertainment.”
I nod dazedly. I can see my mother’s face, the cheeks sunk right down to the jaw, head shrunken to the size of a baby’s.
“I — um — actually, I met you before.” My voice is barely audible. “At the library. In Castlebury?”
“Goodness. I do so many of those little readings.”
“I asked you to sign a book for my mother. She was dying.”
“And did she? Die, that is,” she demands.
“Yes. She did.”
“Oh, C
arrie.” George shifts from one foot to another. “What a nice thing to do. Having her book signed by Bunny.”
Suddenly, Bunny leans forward and, with a fearful intensity, says, “Ah, yes. I do recall meeting you now. You were wearing yellow ribbons.”
“Yes.” How can she possibly remember? Did I make an impact after all?
“And I believe I told you not to become a writer. Clearly, you haven’t taken my advice.” Bunny pats her hair in triumph. “I never forget a face.”
“Auntie, you’re a genius,” George exclaims.
I look from one to the other in astonishment. And then I get it: They’re playing some kind of sick game.
“Why shouldn’t Carrie become a writer?” George laughs. He seems to find everything “Aunt Bunny” says extremely amusing.
Guess what? I can play too.
“She’s too pretty,” Aunt Bun-Bun responds.
“Excuse me?” I choke on my sherry, which tastes like cough medicine.
Irony of Ironies: too pretty to be a writer but not pretty enough to keep my boyfriend.
“Not pretty enough to be a movie star. Not that kind of pretty,” she continues. “But pretty enough to think you can get by in life by using your looks.”
“What would I use them for?”
“To get a husband,” she says, looking at George. Aha. She thinks I’m after her nephew.
This is all too Jane Austen-ish and weird.
“I think Carrie is very pretty,” George counters.
“And then, of course, you’ll want to have children,” MGH says poisonously.
“Aunt Bun,” George says, grinning from ear to ear, “how do you know?”
“Because every woman wants children. Unless you are a very great exception. I, myself, never wanted children.” She holds out her glass to George, indicating she needs a refill. “If you want to become a very great writer, you cannot have children. Your books must be your children!”
I wonder if the Bunny has had too much to drink and it’s beginning to show.
And suddenly, I can’t help it. The words just slip out of my mouth. “Do books need to be diapered as well?”
My voice drips with sarcasm.
Bunny’s jaw drops. Clearly, she isn’t used to having her authority challenged. She looks to George, who shrugs as if I’m the most delightful creature in the world.
And then Bunny laughs. She actually guffaws in mirth.
She pats the couch next to her. “What did you say your name was again, dear? Carrie Bradshaw?” She looks up at George and winks. “Come, sit. George keeps telling me I’m turning into a bitter old woman, and I could use some amusement.”
The Writer’s Life, by Mary Gordon Howard.
I open the cover and read the inscription:
To Carrie Bradshaw. Don’t forget to diaper your babies.
I turn the page. Chapter One: The Importance of Keeping a Journal.
Ugh. I put it down and pick up a heavy black book with a leather cover, a gift from George. “I told you she’d love you,” he exclaimed in the car on the way home. And then he was so excited by the success of the visit, he insisted on stopping at a stationery store and buying me my very own journal.
I balance Bunny’s book on top of the journal and randomly flip through it, landing on Chapter Four: How to Create Character.
Audiences often ask if characters are based on “real people.” Indeed, the impulse of the amateur is to write about “who one knows.” The professional, on the other hand, understands the impossibility of such a task. The “creator” of the character must know more about the character than one could ever possibly know about a “real person.” The author must possess complete knowledge: what the character was wearing on Christmas morning when he or she was five, what presents he or she received, who gave them, and how they were given. A “character,” therefore, is a “real person” who exists in another plane, a parallel universe based on the author’s perception of reality.
When it comes to people — don’t write about who you know, but what you know of human nature.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Accidents Will Happen
I write a short story about Mary Gordon Howard. Her maid puts poison in her sherry and she dies a long and drawn-out death. It’s six pages and it sucks. I stick it in my drawer.
I talk to George a lot on the phone. I take Dorrit to the shrink George found for her in West Hartford.
I feel like I’m marking time.
Dorrit is surly, but she hasn’t gotten into any more trouble. “Dad says you’re going to Brown,” she says one afternoon, when I’m driving her home from her appointment.
“Haven’t been accepted yet.”
“I hope you are,” she says. “All Dad ever wanted was for one of his daughters to go to his alma mater. If you get in, I won’t have to worry about it.”
“What if I don’t want to go to Brown?”
“Then you’re stupid,” Dorrit says.
“Carrie!” Missy says, running out of the house. “Carrie!” She’s waving a thick envelope. “It’s from Brown.”
“See?” Dorrit says. Even she’s excited.
I tear open the envelope. It’s filled with schedules and maps and pamphlets with titles like, Student Life. My hands are shaking as I unfold the letter. Dear Ms. Bradshaw, it reads. Congratulations —
Oh, God. “I’m going to Brown!” I jump up and down and run around the car in glee. Then I stop. It’s only forty-five minutes away. My life will be exactly the same, except I’ll be in college.
But I’ll be at Brown. Which is pretty darn good. It’s kind of a big deal.
“Brown,” Missy squeals. “Dad will be so happy.”
“I know,” I say, floating on the moment. Maybe my luck has changed. Maybe my life is finally going in the right direction.
“So, Dad,” I say later, after he’s hugged me and patted me on the back and said things like, “I always knew you could do it, kid, if you applied yourself,” “since I’m going to Brown…” I hesitate, wanting to position this in the best possible light. “I was wondering if maybe I could spend the summer in New York.”
The question takes him by surprise, but he’s too thrilled about Brown to actually analyze it.
“With George?” he asks.
“Not necessarily with George,” I say quickly. “But there’s this writing program I’ve been trying to get into...”
“Writing?” he says. “But now that you’re going to Brown, you’re going to want to be a scientist.”
“Dad, I’m not sure...”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says with a wave, as if shooing the issue away. “The important thing is that you’re going to Brown. You don’t have to figure out your entire life this very minute.”
And then it’s the day swim team starts again.
The break is over. I’ll have to see Lali.
Six weeks have passed and she’s still seeing Sebastian.
I don’t have to go. I don’t, in fact, have to do anything anymore. I’ve been accepted to college. My father has sent in a check. I can skip classes, drop swim team, come to school intoxicated, and there’s nothing anyone can do. I’m in.
So maybe it’s pure perversity that propels me down the hall to the locker rooms.
She’s there. Standing in front of the lockers where we always used to change. As if claiming our once-mutual territory for herself, the way she claimed Sebastian. My blood boils. She’s the bad person here, the one who’s done wrong. She ought to at least have the decency to move to a different part of the locker room.
My head suddenly feels encased in cement.
I drop my gym bag next to hers. She stiffens, sensing my presence the way I can sense hers even when she’s at the other end of the hallway. I swing open the door of my locker. It bangs against hers, nearly slamming her finger.
She pulls her hand back at the last second. She stares at me, surprised, then angry.
I shrug.
We take
off our clothes. But now I don’t sink into myself the way I usually do, trying to hide my nakedness. She’s not looking at me anyway, wriggling herself into her suit and stretching the straps over her shoulders with a snap.
In a moment, she’ll be gone. “How’s Sebastian?” I ask.
This time, when she looks at me, I see everything I need to know. She is never going to apologize. She is never going to admit she did anything wrong. She is never going to acknowledge that she hurt me. She will not say she misses me or even feels bad. She is going to continue forward, like nothing happened, like we were friends, but we were never that close.
“Fine.” She walks away, swinging her goggles.
Fine. I put my clothes back on. I don’t need to be around her. Let her have swim team. Let her have Sebastian, too. If she needs him badly enough to destroy a friendship, I feel sorry for her.
On my way out, I hear shouting coming from the gym. I peek through the hatched window in the wooden door. Cheerleading practice is in session.
I walk across the polished floor to the bleachers, take a seat in the fourth row, and lean into my hands, wondering why I’m doing this.
The members of the squad are dressed in leotards or T-shirts with leggings, their hair pulled back into pony-tails. They wear old-fashioned saddle shoes. The tinny thump of “Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown” echoes from a tape-player in the corner as the line of girls shake their pom-poms, step forward and back, turn right, place a hand on the shoulder of the girl in front of them, and one by one, with varying degrees of gracefulness and skill, slide their legs apart into a split.
The song ends and they jump to their feet, shaking their pom-poms over their heads and shouting, “Go team!”
Honestly? They suck.
The group breaks up. Donna LaDonna uses the white headband she’s been wearing around her forehead to wipe her face. She and another cheerleader, a girl named Naomi, head to the bleachers and, without acknowledging my presence, sit two rows ahead.
Carrie Diaries Page 24
