Sex and the City

by Candace Bushnell

  Why is she like this? “It’s something about New York,” she said. She shrugged. “It’s competitive. I want my son to have everything everybody else has, and more. Plus, I always wanted a boy. Sons always take care of their mothers.”

  THE NANNY CAMERA

  In other words, after years of men who won’t make commitments and can’t be depended on, a son becomes a man substitute. “Oh, yeah,” said Janice. “You can’t trust men. You can’t trust anyone who isn’t your blood.

  “My husband is really a second-class citizen,” she said. “I used to be pretty crazy about him, but then the baby came along. Now, if he’s like, ‘Could you please get me a Diet Coke?’ I tell him to buzz off.”

  Meanwhile, a small, wary crowd had gathered in the middle of the loft. Wobbling a bit was a tiny girl wearing pink ballet slippers and a tutu. “Brooke insisted on wearing her ballet outfit today. Isn’t it adorable?” said a tall, beaming woman. “When I tried to put pants on her, she started crying. She knew. She knew she had to wear her ballet outfit today so she could put on a performance, didn’t she, pumpkin? Didn’t she, pumpkin?” The woman stooped, her hands clasped to her chest, her head cocked, and her face frozen in a large fake smile inches from the child’s face. Then she began making odd gesturing motions.

  “Blow a kiss. Blow a kiss,” she said. The little girl, smiling fixedly, brought her little palm to her mouth and then whooshed out air between her lips. The mother screamed wildly.

  “She curtseys, too,” Amanda said with some derision to Carrie. “She does tricks. Her mother got Brooke on the cover of one of those baby magazines, and since then, she’s gone nuts. Every time we call her, she’s rushing Brooke off to a ‘go-see.’ She’s with a modeling agency. I mean, she’s cute, but . . .”

  Just then, another mother walked by, holding the hand of a two-year-old boy. “Look, Garrick, table. Table, Garrick. Can you say table? What do we do at a table? Eat, Garrick. We eat at a table. Can you spell table? T-a-b-l-e. Garrick, rug. Garrick. R-u-g, rug, Garrick . . .”

  Amanda started making onion dip. “Excuse me,” said Georgia, a woman in a checked suit. “Onion dip? Just be sure to keep it away from the kids. The salt and fat makes them nuts.” This sentiment, however, did not prevent her from dipping her finger into the heinous concoction and sticking it in her mouth.

  “Hey, have you guys checked out the Sutton Gym?” Georgia asked. “It’s fabulous. You have to take Chester to the Sutton. It’s like a David Barton gym for kids. Has he started to talk yet? If he has, maybe we could make a playdate. Rosie is nearly one, but I want to start her on improving playdates.

  “I also recommend the baby massage class at the 92nd Street Y. Very bonding. You’re not still breast feeding, are you? I didn’t think so.” Georgia extracted another glop of onion dip. “Say, how’s your nanny?”

  “Fine,” Amanda said, glancing at Packard.

  “She’s from Jamaica. We’re lucky to have her,” Packard said.

  “Yeah, but are you sure she’s taking good care of little Chester?” Georgia asked.

  “He seems fine to me,” Packard said.

  “Yes, but I mean, good care,” Georgia said, looking at Amanda meaningfully, at which point Packard slipped away.

  “You can’t be too careful with these nannies,” Georgia said, leaning in toward Amanda. “I went through eleven nannies. Finally, I got the spy camera.”

  “Spy camera?” Carrie asked.

  Georgia looked at Carrie as if seeing her for the first time. “You don’t have kids, do you? Anyway, I thought it was going to cost a fortune, but it doesn’t. This friend of mine saw it on Oprah. A guy comes to your house and sets it up. You can watch your nanny for five hours. I called mine and said, ‘What did you do today?’ She said, ‘Oh, I took Jones to the park, then we played.’ It was all a lie. She hadn’t even left the house! All she did all day was watch TV and talk on the phone. She practically ignored Jones the whole day. I’ve got all my girlfriends doing it. One of them watched the nanny trying to dismantle the spy camera!”

  “Wow,” said Amanda.

  I’m going to get sick, Carrie thought.

  “MARRIED SEX”

  Carrie went into the bathroom in Packard and Amanda’s room. Julie was still in the bedroom with Barry. He was lying on the bed with his head in her lap. Becca and Janice were in there, too. Talking about their husbands.

  “Let me tell you something about married sex,” Becca said. “What’s the point?”

  “What’s the point of a husband?” Julie said. “I mean, who needs two babies?”

  “I totally agree,” said Janice. “Except that now I want to have another baby. I was thinking of getting rid of my husband, but now I’m not sure that I want to—yet.”

  Julie leaned over her son. “When are you going to grow up, baby baby?”

  Carrie went back into the living room. She walked over to the window for some fresh air. Somehow, Garrick had become detached from his mother and was standing, looking lost, in the corner.

  Carrie leaned over. She took something out of her purse. “Pssst. Hey kid,” she said, motioning. “Come here.”

  Curious, Garrick wandered over. Carrie held up a small, plastic package. “Condom, Garrick,” she whispered. “Can you say condom? C-O-N-D-O-M. If your parents had used one of these, you might not even be here.”

  Garrick reached out for the plastic package. “Condom,” he said.

  Two days later, Amanda called Carrie. “I’ve just had the worst day of my life,” she said. “My nanny has a kid—a son—three months older than Chester. Her kid got sick, so I had to stay home.

  “First, I tried taking him to the park. I didn’t know where the gate was to the playground, and I felt totally embarrassed because all of the other nannies were already inside and I couldn’t figure out how to get in. They were all looking up at me like, Who are you? Then Chester wanted to go on the slide. Like twenty times. I kept looking up at the big clock on Fifth Avenue. Five minutes had passed. I swung Chester on the swing. Another five minutes. I let him play in the sand-box. Then more sliding. A total of fifteen minutes had passed. ‘Haven’t you had enough?’ I said. I put him kicking and screaming into his stroller. ‘We’ve got to run some errands,’ I said.

  “Poor Chester. I was racing him up the sidewalk, and he was bumping around in the stroller, not knowing what was going on. I tried to go shopping, but I couldn’t get the stroller into the dressing room. Then we went to the bank, and the stroller got stuck in the revolving door. I mean, how am I supposed to know that you’re not supposed to put a stroller in a revolving door? We were trapped. Some man had to push us through, inch by inch.

  “Finally, it was eleven-thirty. I took him home and cooked him lunch. An egg.”

  Later that night, Carrie called Mr. Big. She forgot about the time difference—he was sleeping. “I just wanted to tell you,” she said. “I got my period.”

  “Oh. So . . . no baby,” he said.

  They hung up, but two minutes later he called back.

  “I just remembered the dream I was having,” he said. “I dreamed we had a baby.”

  “A baby?” Carrie asked. “What kind of baby?”

  “A little tiny one,” said Mr. Big. “You know. A newborn. Lying right here in the bed with us.”

  20

  When Mr. Big is Away, the Girl Comes to Play

  Carrie met the Girl in the bathroom stall at a club. She didn’t mean to meet the Girl.

  Someone was knocking on the door of the stall. Carrie was in a good mood, she was hanging out in the stall with Cici, so instead of telling the person to buzz off, she opened the door a crack. The Girl was standing there. She had dark hair and she could have been beautiful. “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Carrie said.

  “Excuse me,” Cici said, “but do we know you?”

  “No, we don’t,” Carrie answered.

  “What do you have?” the Girl asked.

  “What do yo
u want?” Carrie said.

  “I’ve got some great weed,” the Girl said.

  “Good,” Carrie said.

  The Girl lit the joint and held it up. “Best weed you’ve ever smoked.”

  “I doubt it,” Carrie said, inhaling deeply.

  The club was crowded, and it was pleasant to be hanging out in the bathroom stall. The Girl leaned back against the wall and toked on the joint. She said she was twenty-seven, and Carrie didn’t believe her, but that was okay, too. Because, at first, she was just a girl she met in the bathroom. It happened all the time.

  “So, like, what do you do?” Cici asked.

  “I’m developing my own skin care company,” the Girl said.

  “Ah,” Carrie said.

  “It’s based on science. I’d love to take care of your skin for you.”

  “Oh, really?” Carrie said. She lit up a cigarette. Other people were banging on the door now.

  “We should get out of here,” Cici said.

  “I’d like someone to take care of my skin,” Carrie said. “I don’t think it’s quite as good as it could be.”

  “Let me out,” Cici said.

  “I can make it better,” the Girl said.

  She was on the short side, but she had presence. A cool face that could be beautiful, but you had to keep looking at it to make sure. She was wearing leather pants, boots. Both expensive. Her voice was low.

  “There are people out there who know me,” Cici said. She was fidgeting.

  “Chill out,” Carrie said.

  “I want you to hang with me,” the Girl said. “I want you to stay with me the whole night. I think you’re beautiful, you know.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Carrie said. But she was surprised.

  WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?

  In eighth grade, Carrie knew a girl named Charlotte Netts. Charlotte was one of the popular girls, which basically meant she was an early developer. Charlotte used to invite other girls over to spend the night. She used to send notes to girls, too. Carrie’s friend Jackie went to spend the night at Charlotte’s, and the next day it turned out that she had called her father in the middle of the night to come get her. Charlotte, Jackie said, had “attacked” her. She tried to kiss her and touch her breasts, and she wanted Jackie to do the same thing to her. She said it was “practice for boys.” After that, they weren’t friends anymore.

  It was a scary story, and for years, Carrie would never sleep in the same bed with other girls or undress in front of them, even though you were supposed to be able to do that, because it was just girls. She used to think, What is wrong with me, why can’t I just be like everybody else and not be up-tight about it? But it would be terrible to have to say no to sexual advances from someone who was your friend.

  A few years back, two of her girlfriends had gotten drunk and ended up spending the night together. The next day, both of them called Carrie and complained about how the other one tried to have sex with her, and how Carrie had better watch out. Carrie didn’t know which one to believe. But the two women were never friends again.

  ROUGH PERSUASION

  Mr. Big was away for the whole month of October, and everything was just a little bit off. On the streets on the Upper East Side, people were walking around in their fall clothing, but the weather was too warm and sunny. At first, Carrie stayed home nights, not drinking and reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion instead of seeing the movie. She’d read it twice before, but this time the book was boring, the characters going on in long speeches, and Carrie was depressed from a lack of alcohol and parties. Then she tried going out, but no one had changed or was doing anything new.

  One night, Stanford Blatch came late to Wax, the new nightclub in SoHo, with a man’s handkerchief tied around his neck.

  “What’s up?” Carrie asked, and Stanford said, “Oh, you mean with this? It’s the Goose Guy’s fault.” The Goose Guy was a man who liked to have his neck wrung during sex. “Which was fine,” Stanford said, “until he tried it on me. Meanwhile, I’ll probably see him again. That’s how sick I am.”

  The next night, she had dinner with Rock McQuire, a TV actor. “I really want a boyfriend,” he said. “I think I’m finally ready for a relationship.”

  “You’re such a great guy,” Carrie said. “You’re smart, cute, really successful. You shouldn’t have a problem.”

  “But it’s not that easy,” Rock said. “I don’t want to go out with a twenty-two-year-old pretty boy. But if I go out with someone in their thirties, they have to be really successful, too. And how many guys are there around like that? So instead, I end up going to a sex club and having an encounter and going home. At least it’s not, you know, emotionally messy.”

  The next morning, Miranda called up. “You’ll never believe what I did,” she said, and Carrie said, “What, sweetie?” while her right hand curled into a fist, a gesture she’s been repeating a lot lately.

  “Got a second? You’re gonna love this.”

  “I don’t, but I’m dying to hear it.

  “I went to a party with my friend Josephine. You know Josephine, right?”

  “No, but . . .”

  “I introduced you. At that party that my friend Sallie had. You remember Sallie, don’t you? Motorcycle Sallie?”

  “Motorcycle Sallie.”

  “Right. There were all these baseball players there. And guess what? I made out with one of them, and then I went into a bedroom with another and we did it, right at the party.”

  “That’s incredible,” Carrie said. “Was it great?”

  “Awesome,” Miranda said.

  Something’s gotta give, Carrie thought.

  BEHIND THE WALL

  “Let’s go to some clubs,” the Girl said. They were sitting on a banquette. Carrie, the Girl, and the Girl’s friends, who turned out to be unattractive guys in their twenties with short, frizzy hair. “They’re richer than anyone you’ll ever meet,” the Girl whispered, earlier, but Carrie thought they were completely forgettable.

  Now the Girl was pulling her arm, pulling her to her feet. She kicked the guy who was closest to her. “C’mon, asshole, we want to go out.”

  “I’m going to a party in Trump Tower,” the guy said, with a fake Euro-accent.

  “Like hell you are,” she said.

  “C’mon, sweetie. Come out with us,” she whispered to Carrie.

  Carrie and the Girl crammed into the front seat of the kid’s car, which was a Range Rover, and they started going up-town. Suddenly the Girl yelled, “Stop the car, you shithead!” She leaned over and opened the door and pushed Carrie out. “We’re going,” she said.

  And then they were two girls running down the streets west of Eighth Avenue.

  They found a club and they went in. They walked all through the club holding hands and the Girl knew some people there and Carrie didn’t know anyone and she liked it. Men looked at them, but they didn’t look back. It wasn’t like two girls going out looking for a good time; there was a wall up. On the other side of the wall was freedom and power. It felt good. This is the way I’m going to be from now on, Carrie thought. It didn’t feel scary.

  Carrie remembered that at a party recently a woman named Alex told her a story about a friend of hers who was bisexual. She went out with women and men. She’d be with a man she liked, and then she’d meet a woman she liked and leave the man for the woman.

  “I mean, I’ve never been with a woman,” Alex said. “Maybe I’m the only one—but who hasn’t said, ‘I wish I could be a lesbian just so I wouldn’t have to deal with men.’ But the funny thing is, my friend said being with a woman was so intense because you’re both women in the relationship. You know how women always want to talk about everything? Well, imagine that times two. It’s constant talking. About everything, until four in the morning. After a while, she has to leave and go back to a man because she can’t take the talking.”

  “Have you ever been with a woman?” the Girl asked Carrie. “You’ll like it.”

 
“Okay,” Carrie said. She was thinking, I’m ready for this. It’s time. Maybe I’ve secretly been a lesbian my whole life and I just didn’t know it. She imagined the kissing. The Girl would be softer and squishier than a man. But it would be okay.

  Then Carrie went back to the Girl’s house. The Girl lived in an expensive high-rise, two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. The furniture was that Danish stuff with knitted afghans. There were porcelain kittens on the side tables. They went into the kitchen and the Girl lit up a roach. She had a small, earthenware bowl filled with roaches. She had an open, half-empty bottle of wine. She poured them both some wine and handed Carrie a glass.

  “I still sleep with men sometimes,” the Girl said. “They just drive me crazy.”

  “Uh huh,” Carrie said. She was wondering when the Girl was going to make her move and how she would make it.

  “I sleep with men and women,” the Girl said. “But I prefer women.”

  “Then why sleep with men?” Carrie asked.

  The girl shrugged. “They’re good for stuff.”

  “In other words, it’s just the same old story,” Carrie said.

  She glanced around the apartment. She lit up a cigarette and leaned back against the counter. “Okay,” she said. “What’s the deal? Really. You must be independently wealthy to be able to afford this place, or else you’ve got something else going on.”

  The Girl took a sip of her wine. “I dance,” she said.

  “Oh, I see,” Carrie said. “Where?”

  “Stringfellows. I’m good. I can make about a thousand a night.”

  “So that’s what this is about.”

  “Can I have a cigarette?” the Girl asked.

  “Topless dancers all sleep with each other because they hate men.”

  “Yeah, well,” the Girl said, “the men are all losers.”