You can get used to anything, I guess, if you’ve been there enough.
You can even get used to the idea that your ex–best friend is still dating your ex-boyfriend and that they are going to the senior prom together. But it doesn’t mean you have to talk to them. Nor does it mean you have to talk about them. Not after you’ve lived with the fact for four months.
It’s just another thing you have to live through.
I pick up the camera and examine the lens. I gently blow away a speck of dust and replace the cover.
“Donna?” I call out. “Hurry up.”
“I can’t get the zipper up,” she yells back.
I sigh and carefully place the camera on the counter. Am I going to have to see her in her underwear again? Donna, I’ve discovered, is one of those girls who will shed her clothing at the slightest provocation. Actually, that’s wrong. She requires no provocation at all, only a minimum amount of privacy. The first thing she did — the first thing she always does, she informed me, when she brought me to her house after school — is take off her clothes.
“I think the human body is beautiful,” she said, removing her skirt and sweater and tossing them onto the couch.
I tried not to look but couldn’t resist. “Uh-huh. If you have a body like yours.”
“Oh, your body isn’t bad,” she said dismissively. “But you could use some curves.”
“They don’t exactly hand out perfect breasts like candy, you know. I mean, it’s not like you can go into a store and buy them.”
“You’re funny. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to tell us that babies came from a store.”
“And boy was she wrong.”
I head upstairs to Donna’s room, wondering once again, how we ever got to be friends. Or friendly, anyway. We’re not really friends. We’re too different for that. I’ll never completely understand her, and she has no interest in understanding me. But other than that, she’s a great girl.
It feels like a million years ago when I walked into that photography class at the library and got paired up with her. I kept going to the class, and so did she, and after the piece came out about the queen bee, her attitude toward me began to thaw. “I still can’t figure out f-stops,” she said one afternoon. “Every time I see the letter ‘f,’ I think of the word, ‘fuck.’ I can’t help it.”
“Fuck stops,” I said. “They’re like truck stops but you only go there to have sex.”
After that, Donna stopped hating me and decided I was this wacky, funny, crazy girl instead. And when we were again assigned to work in pairs, Donna picked me as her partner.
This week, we had to come up with a theme and photograph it. Donna and I chose “transformation.” Actually, I came up with the idea and Donna eagerly agreed. With Donna’s looks, I figured we could dress her up in different outfits and make her into three different women, while I’d take the pictures.
“Donna?” I ask now. Her door is open, but I rap on it anyway, just to be polite. She’s bent forward, struggling with the zipper on the black silk vintage dress I found among my mother’s old clothes. She swings up her head and puts her hands on her hips. “Carrie, for Christ’s sake, you don’t have to knock. Will you get over here and help me?”
She turns around, and for a moment, seeing her in my mother’s dress feels like the past and future rushing together like two rivers emptying into the sea. I feel marooned — a survivor on a raft with no land in sight.
“Carrie?” Donna demands. “Is something wrong?”
I take a deep breath and shake my head. I have a paddle now, I remind myself. It’s time to start rowing into my future.
I step forward and zip up the dress.
“Thanks,” she says.
Downstairs, Donna arranges herself seductively on the couch, while I set up the tripod.
“You are funny, you know?” she says.
“Yeah,” I say with a smile.
“Not ha-ha funny,” she says, leaning back on her elbows. “A different kind of funny. You’re not what you seem.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I always thought you were pretty much of a wimp. Kind of a nerd. I mean, you’re pretty and all, but you never seemed like you wanted to use it.”
“Maybe I wanted to use my brains instead.”
“No, it’s not that,” she says musingly. “I guess I thought I could run right over you. But then I read that piece in The Nutmeg. I should have been pissed off, but it made me kind of admire you. I thought, ‘This is a girl who can stand up for herself. Who can stand up to me.’ And there aren’t a lot of girls who can do that.”
She lifts her head. “I mean, you are Pinky Weatherton, right?”
I open my mouth, full of arguments and explanations as to why I’m not, but then I close it again. I no longer need to pretend. “Yeah,” I say simply.
“Hmph. You sure had a lot of people fooled. Aren’t you afraid they’re going to find out?”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t need to write for The Nutmeg anymore.” I hesitate and then deliver the news. “I got into this special writing program. I’m going to New York City for the summer.”
“Well.” Donna sounds slightly impressed and also slightly envious. Not to be outdone, she says, “You know I have a cousin who lives in New York?”
“Uh-huh.” I nod. “You’ve told me a million times.”
“She’s this big deal in advertising. And she has a million guys after her. And she’s really pretty.”
“That’s nice.”
“But I mean, really pretty. And successful. Anyway…” She pauses to adjust the dress. “You should meet her.”
“Okay.”
“No, seriously,” she insists. “I’ll give you her number. You should call her up and get together. You’ll like her. She’s even wilder than I am.”
I pull into my driveway and stop, confused.
A red truck is parked in front of the garage, and it takes me a second to realize that the truck is Lali’s, and that she’s come to my house and is waiting for me. Maybe she and Sebastian broke up, I think wildly. Maybe they broke up and she’s come to apologize, which means that maybe, just maybe, I can start seeing Sebastian again and Lali and I can be friends….
I make a face as I park next to the truck. What am I thinking? I could never go out with Sebastian now. He’s ruined, like a favorite sweater with a hideous stain. And my friendship with Lali? Also permanently damaged. So what the hell is she doing here?
I find her sitting on the patio with my sister Missy. Ever polite, Missy is helplessly trying to make small talk, probably as confused as I am about Lali’s presence. “And how’s your mother?” Missy asks awkwardly.
“Fine,” Lali says. “My father bought her a new puppy, so she’s happy.”
“That’s nice,” Missy says, with a glazed smile. She looks away and spots me coming up the walk. “Carrie.” She jumps to her feet. “Thank God you’re here. I have to practice,” she says, making a piano-playing motion with her fingers.
“Nice to see you,” Lali says. She stares at Missy’s back until she’s safely inside. Then she turns to me.
“Well?” I say, crossing my arms.
“How could you?” she demands.
“Huh?” I ask, taken aback. I’m expecting her to beg for forgiveness and instead she’s attacking me?
“How could you?” I ask, astonished.
And then I notice the rolled-up manuscript in her hand. My heart sinks. I know immediately what it is: my story about her and Sebastian. The one I gave to Gayle weeks ago and told her to hold. The one I was planning to tell her not to bother publishing.
“How could you write this?” Lali asks. I take a step toward her, hesitate, and then gingerly take a seat on the other side of the table. She’s playing the tough guy, but her eyes are wide and watery, like she’s about to cry.
“What are you talking about?”
“This!” She bangs the pages onto the table. They scatter apart an
d she quickly gathers them up. “Don’t even try to lie about it. You know you wrote it.”
“I do?”
She hastily wipes the corner of her eye. “You can’t fool me. There are things in here that only you would know.”
Double crap. Now I actually do feel bad. And guilty.
But then I remind myself that she’s the one who’s responsible for this mess.
I rock back in my chair, sliding my feet onto the table. “How did you get it anyway?”
“Jen P.”
Jen P must have been hanging out with Peter in the art department and she found it in Gayle’s folder and stole it. “Why would Jen P give it to you?”
“I’ve known her a long time,” she says slowly. “Some people are loyal.”
Now she’s being really nasty. She’s known me a long time too. Perhaps she’s chosen to skip that part. “Sounds more like a case of ‘like attracts like.’ You stole Sebastian and she stole Peter.”
“Oh, Carrie.” She sighs. “You were always so dumb about boys. You can’t steal someone’s boyfriend unless he wants to be stolen.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re so mean,” she says, shaking the manuscript. “How could you do this?”
“Because you deserve it?”
“Who are you to say who deserves what? Who do you think you are? God? You always think you’re just a little bit better than everyone else. You always think something better is going to happen to you. Like this” — she indicates my backyard — “like all this isn’t really your life. Like all this is just a stepping-stone to someplace better.”
“Maybe it is,” I counter.
“And maybe it isn’t.”
We stare at each other, shocked into silence by our animosity.
“Well.” I toss my head. “Has Sebastian seen it?”
The question seems to further agitate her. She looks away, pressing her fingers over her eyes. She takes a deep breath as if she’s making a decision, then leans across the table, her face twisting in pain. “No.”
“Why not? I would think it would be another useful brick in your we-hate-Carrie-Bradshaw edifice.”
“He hasn’t seen it and he never will.” Her face hardens. “We broke up.”
“Really?” My voice cracks. “Why?”
“Because I caught him making out with my little sister.”
I gather the pages she’s thrown onto the table and tap them up and down until the corners are neatly aligned. Then I giggle. I try to hold it in, but it’s impossible. I cover my mouth and a snort comes from my nose. I put my head between my knees, but it’s no use. My mouth opens and I emit a whoop of laughter.
“It’s not funny!” She makes a motion to get up but bangs her fist on the table instead. “It is not funny,” she repeats.
“Oh, but it is.” I nod, laughing hysterically. “It’s hilarious.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A Free Man in Paris
June 20th, I write.
I press my knuckles to my lips and look out the window.
Amtrak train. Dad, Missy, and Dorrit take me to the station to wave good-bye. I kept saying Missy and Dorrit didn’t have to come. I kept saying it was no big deal. I kept saying I was only going for the summer. But we were all nervous, stumbling over one another in an attempt to get me out the door. It’s not like it’s 1893 and I’m going to China or anything, but we sure as hell acted like it.
And then we were standing on the rickety platform, trying to make small talk. “Do you have the address?” my dad asked for the umpteenth time.
“Yes, Dad. I wrote it down in my address book.” Just to make sure, I take the address book out of my Carrie bag, and read the entry out loud: “Two forty-five East Forty-seventh Street.”
“And money. You have money?”
“Two hundred dollars.”
“That’s only for an emergency. You won’t spend it all in one place?”
“No.”
“And you’ll call when you get there?”
“I’ll try.” I’ll try — but my words are drowned out by the long, slow holler of the approaching train as the speaker crackles to life. “Eleven-oh-three train to Penn Station New York, and Washington, D.C., arriving in approximately one minute...”
“Good-bye, good-bye” — hugs all around as the giant locomotive rolls slowly down the tracks, wheels screeching like a hundred crows — “good-bye, good-bye” — as my father heaves my suitcase up the steps and I clap my hat to my head — “good-bye, good-bye” — the train starts with a jerk, the doors close and my heart heaves to the bottom of my stomach — “good-bye, good-bye” — relief.
I make my way down the aisle swaying like a drunken sailor. New York, I think, as I plop down onto a cracked red leather seat and take out my journal.
Yesterday, I said good-bye to all my friends. Maggie, Walt, The Mouse, and I met at the Hamburger Shack for one final hamburger with sautéed onions and peppers. Walt’s not working there anymore. He got a job at a law office, answering phones. His father said that even though he couldn’t forgive Walt for being gay, he was willing to overlook it if he was successful. The Mouse is going to her government camp in Washington, and Maggie is going to Hilton Head for the summer, where her sister and brother-in-law have rented a cottage. Maggie’s going to help out with their kids, and no doubt hook up with a few lifeguards along the way.
I heard Lali is going to the University of Hartford, where she’s planning to study accounting.
But there was one person I still had to see.
I knew I should have let it go.
I couldn’t.
I was curious. Or maybe I had to see for myself that it was truly over. I needed proof that he absolutely did not love me and never had.
On Saturday evening around seven, I drove by his house. I didn’t expect him to be home. I had worked up this idea in my head that I would leave him a note, saying I was going to New York and I hoped he would have a good summer. I convinced myself it was the right thing to do — the polite thing — and would somehow make me the bigger person.
His car was in the driveway.
I told myself I wouldn’t even knock. I would leave the note on the windshield of his car.
But then I heard music coming from the house. The screen door was open, and suddenly I just had to see him one last time.
I knocked.
“Yup?” His voice, slightly annoyed, came from the recesses of the family room.
I knocked again.
“Who is it?” he demanded, this time with more irritation.
“Sebastian?” I called out.
And then he was there, staring at me from behind the screen door. I’d like to say he no longer affected me, that seeing him was a disappointment. But it wasn’t true. I felt as strongly about him as I had on that first day I’d seen him in calculus class.
He looked surprised. “What’s up?”
“I came to say good-bye.”
“Oh.” He opened the door and stepped outside. “Where are you going?”
“New York. I got into that writing program,” I said in a rush. “I wrote you a note. I was going to leave it on your car, but…” I took out the folded piece of paper and handed it to him.
He scanned it quickly. “Well.” He nodded. “Good luck.”
He crumpled up the note and handed it back to me.
“What are you doing? For the summer, I mean,” I asked quickly, suddenly desperate to keep him there, for at least a moment longer.
“France,” he said. “Going to France.” And then he grinned. “Wanna come?”
I have this theory: If you forgive someone, they can’t hurt you anymore.
The train rattles and shakes. We pass hollow buildings scrawled with graffiti, billboards advertising toothpaste and hemorrhoid cream and a smiling girl in a mermaid outfit pointing at the words, “CALL ME!” in capital letters. Then the scenery disappears and we’re going through a tunnel.
“New York Cit
y,” the conductor calls out. “Penn Station.”
I close my journal and slip it into my suitcase. The lights inside the car flicker on and off, on and off, and then black out altogether.
And like a newborn child, I enter my future in darkness.
An escalator that goes on forever. And then an enormous space, tiled like a bathroom, and the sharp smell of urine and sweet warm sweat. Penn Station. People everywhere.
I stop and adjust my hat. It’s one of my grandmother’s old numbers, with a long green plume and a small net. For some reason, I thought it was appropriate. I wanted to arrive in New York wearing a hat.
It was part of my fantasy.
“Watch where you’re going!”
“Get out of the way.”
“Do you know where you’re going?” This from a middle-aged lady wearing a black suit and an even blacker scowl.
“The exit? Taxis?” I ask.
“That way,” she says, pointing to yet another escalator that seems to rise straight up into nothingness.
I get on, balancing my suitcase behind me. A man, weaving this way and that, comes up behind me — striped pants, jaunty cap, eyes hidden behind dark green glass in gold-rimmed sunglasses. “Hey, little girl, you look lost.”
“I’m not,” I say.
“You sure?” he asks. “I got a real sweet place you can stay, real nice place, hot shower and pretty clothes. Let me help you with that bag, honey, that looks real heavy...”
“I have a place to stay. Thank you.” He shrugs and walks away with a rolling gait.
“Hey! Hey,” someone yells impatiently. “You want a taxi or not? I don’t have all day here...”
“Yes, please,” I say breathlessly, hauling my suitcase across the sidewalk to a yellow cab. I plunk the suitcase onto the curb, place my Carrie handbag on top of it, and lean into the open window.
“How much?” I ask.
“Where you going?”
I turn around to pick up my bag so I can give him the address.
Carrie Diaries Page 28
