Sex and the City (30 page)

"A Japanese businessman wanted to set me up in an apartment,"

Amalita said. "You know, I detest that kind of thing, but the truth is, file://D:\Bushnell, Candace - Sex and the City.htm 2008.09.06.

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I'm temporarily broke. The only reason I was considering doing it was for the baby. I'm trying to get her into a preschool, and I need money to pay for it. So I said yes. Two weeks pass and I haven't heard from him. Not a peep. So that just goes to show."

Amalita sat on the couch in her sweatpants, tearing off pieces of pizza. Carrie sat on a narrow wooden chair. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with yellow stains under the armpits. Both girls had greasy hair. "When I look back in retrospect," Amalita said, "I think, I shouldn't have slept with this guy, I shouldn't have slept with that guy. Maybe I should have done things differently."

She paused. "I know you're thinking about leaving Mr. Big.

Don't. Hold on to him. Of course, you're beautiful, and you should have a million guys calling you up, wanting to be with you. But you and I, we know the truth. We know something about real life, don't we?"

"Mama!" the little girl said. She held up a magazine, pointing to a photo spread of Amalita: She was wearing a white Chanel ski suit on the slopes of St. Moritz, then getting out of a limo at a Rolling Stones concert, smiling demurely in a black suit and pearls next to a senator.

"Carrington! Not now," Amalita said, with mock severity. The little girl looked at her and giggled. She threw the magazine into the air.

It was a sunny day. The sun streamed in through the dirty windows. "Come here, sweetpea," Amalita said. "Come here and have some pizza."

"Hello, I'm home," Mr. Big said.

"Hello," Carrie said. She went to the door and kissed him. "How was the cocktail party?"

"Fine, fine."

"I'm making dinner."

"Good. I'm so glad we don't have to go out." "Me too," she said. "Want a drink?" he asked.

"No thanks," she said. "Just maybe a glass of wine with dinner."

She lit candles, and they sat in the dining room. Carrie sat up very straight in her chair. Mr. Big talked on and on about some deal he was in the middle of doing, and Carrie stared at him and nodded and made encouraging noises. But she wasn't really paying attention.

When he was finished talking, she said: "I'm so excited. The amaryllis finally bloomed. It has four flowers."

"Four flowers," Mr. Big said. And then: "I'm so happy you've taken an interest in plants."

"Yes. Isn't it nice?" Carrie said. "It's amazing the way they grow if you just pay a bit of attention."

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Goodbye, Mr. Big!

"Is there someone else?"

"This is not about anyone else. This is about us." "That's not answering the question." "This is about us."

"It's a yes or no question. Is . . . there . . . someone . . . else?" "No."

"Liar. "Vbu've been coached, haven't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Someone's been coaching you on what to say."

"This is about us. Not about anyone else."

"See? There you go again."

"Why do you have to make this harder?"

"I'm not making it harder. I have to get a cigarette."

"I have to go to sleep. Why won't you let me sleep?"

"You
don't deserve to sleep."

"I haven't done anything wrong."

"You
haven't done anything right, either."

"Thank you for making Mr. Big a nicer guy."

This was said to Carrie at the end of the closing dinner for the acquisition of the $80 million golf-clothing manufacturing company. The dinner was held at "21." The statement was made by Keemi Tailon, a non-American investment banker who worked for Goldman, Sachs & Company.

He held up his glass of port and made the statement as a sort of toast to Carrie. He was drunk. Mr. Big wasn't. Mr. Big "never got drunk." He said he didn't like to be "out of control." After the statement was made, Mr. Big held Carrie's hand for about twenty seconds. The conversation then moved on to the usual round of jokes.

That was in June, and by then the statement was meaningless almost to the point of being an embarrassment to the two major players.

By then, it was already over.

By then, disgust, self-loathing, and hatred had set in.

By then, the female golf pro was calling, but Mr. Big had yet to say, "I want to be with someone normal.' I want to have a normal life."

Because at that point, on the surface, everything seemed status quo.

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Everything except the weather.

THIEVES AND BITCHES

Nico Barone probably hadn't meant to become a player in the drama, but she popped up unexpectedly, and she became one. That was also sometime in June. Or was it May? Or April? It must have been May, because in April there was the lengthy phone conversation in St. Barts. Topic: Nico Barone.

Nico was up for a job as the anchor of a network afternoon news show. The caller was a reporter who wanted "background" from Carrie about Nico; the real background was that the reporter had met Nico and was hoping to fuck her in the guise of doing a story.

"Well, I haven't seen Nico for years," Carrie said. She could have ended the conversation, but Mr. Big was sitting by the pool on his cellular and instead she expounded on tiny details. Like the fact that Nico was from San Antonio, Texas. "Most San Antonions are third- or fourth-generation Mexican," she said. "Nico's a WASP. That she ended up growing up there is a fluke."

Mr. Big came into the villa. "Get off the phone," he said. "I want to go into town." She hadn't particularly wanted to go into town, but she didn't particularly want to stay at the villa. She didn't particularly want to be there at all; or, she wanted to be there, but not with him.

It wasn't the first time she'd been in this situation. There had been, with past boyfriends, the time at the Hotel du Cap in the south of France; the time in Sydney, Australia; and three years ago in St. Barts. On the last evening of that trip, while the "boyfriend" was sleeping, she'd snorted the shitty local cocaine (which came in a straw) and the next morning, she played
"You
Can Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac over and over again, until it was time to go to the plane.

The month had also been April.

That relationship hung on until just before Memorial Day. He was going away for a big weekend. "Are you coming or not?" he'd asked. Everyone recommended she not go, on principle. At the last minute, she didn't go. He didn't call for a couple of days after the weekend; then he did call. Then she found out that he'd brought someone else, a girl he'd met on a plane the week before. The new relationship didn't last for more than a couple of months after that, and he was miserable—which was also a standard subplot in the drama. Then the attempt to be friends with Carrie: the twice-weekly phone calls, which were about his misery (why he couldn't figure out how to make a relationship work); the new woman (why she wouldn't be able to make it better); and what a good idea it would be if he would see a shrink.

It was coming home from the St. Barts week that Carrie allowed herself to acknowledge the fact that the relationship with Mr. Big would probably not last the summer.

Don't ask questions.

Don't waste time.

Do what's right for you.

Move past it.

Get over it.

What happened between April and the middle of July was nothing. A few incidents stand out: the explosion of T.W.A. Flight 800. The hurricane.

The fights.

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The fights were: She wanted to talk, he didn't. She wanted more attention; he didn't want to make the effort. "Now you sound like all of my ex-wives," he'd say. "Always demanding something. Don't ask for anything and maybe you'll get it. Don't tell me what to do."

Why had she thought that if they were married, she'd get the attention she wanted? Why didn't she understand that if they did get married, she'd become more and more of an accessory? That was a pattern.

The warnings were (dropped casually by Carrie, after either one of them had made any vague reference to the future): "Well, after the summer, I'm probably not going to be around."

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know."

That was also a pattern.

One day at the beginning of July, on another lousy gray day in the house in East Hampton when Carrie had stayed out for the week, some friends dropped by.

"I'd break up with him tomorrow if I could. I'm dying to get out of here,"

she said, slamming cupboard doors. She'd just hung up from yet another remote conversation on the phone, all about logistics.

Why not end it then?

That would be inconvenient.

Instead, she was doing laundry (why? they had a maid), she was making sure the kitchen was stocked with food (with things they would never eat, like packages of yellow rice), and she was watering the vegetable garden.

The relationship was over before they actually had any vegetables, but the garden was useful because it gave her something to talk about with him and his friends. Everything was growing but nothing was ripening. No sun.

In the evenings on the weekends in the Hamptons, they'd have dinners, or go to dinners. Everyone got drunk, very fast and very early, and went to bed by eleven.

Carrie found herself complaining about how the guy at the Red Horse Market never sliced the smoked salmon thin enough. Then Mr. Big would tell a story about how he'd refused to buy a six-dollar pound of butter at Thieves and Bitches.

Occasionally, she stopped herself from calling him "Dad." As in,
"Yes,
Dad, I will take out the garbage,
Yes,
Dad, I will drive carefully."

FRANTIC MESSAGES

There was a story circulating about how Nico Barone once went to breakfast at the Candy Kitchen in pajamas and flip-flops, which Carrie never told the reporter. Why should she?

He wouldn't get it. He wouldn't be able to help himself: He would feel compelled to point the finger. Because a girl who would wear pajamas to the Candy Kitchen wouldn't be the kind of girl who would go to breakfast with him. He'd get revenge in print.

So it wasn't strange when Nico Barone called Carrie sometime in the beginning of May Ostensibly for advice on what to do about the reporter.

"I'll take care of it," Carrie said.

She called the reporter. "The story's premature," she said. "Right now, there is no story."

So it wasn't strange that shortly after that she and Nico began talking on the phone again. Even though they hadn't been in touch for eight years.

Even though they'd both been in New ^fork all along.

And it also made sense that when one of the telltale incidents took place, Nico Barone was there.

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It must have been early June, in Manhattan. According to their usual morning routine, Carrie and Mr. Big discussed what they were doing that evening.

"I have something. I don't know what," he said.

"O.K.," Carrie said. By then, she'd been beaten down enough to have learned to be cautious when he didn't want to divulge information. Even though he had his daily schedule in his hand—a schedule that his secretary printed out every evening detailing the next day's activities. Even though he was in the middle of the golf deal.

Don't ask questions.

Thank you for making Mr. Big a nicer guy. "What are
you
doing?" he asked. "Seeing Nico."

"O.K.," he said. "So, either way, we'll meet back here around eleven."

That afternoon, when they spoke, he said he was having dinner with Keemi Tailon, the banker from Goldman.

At eight, Carrie walked into La Goulue and saw Keemi Tailon having dinner with his girlfriend. Nico Barone was sitting outside. There was a man with her, holding her hand. It was the good-looking, formerly drug-addicted son of a U.S. Ambassador, who now worked as a lawyer for one of the telecommunications moguls.

"I know who you are," he said to Carrie. "He wanted to meet you," Nico said.

"I know who you are," he said, and he put his elbow on the table. "I've read your stuff." "That's great," Carrie said.

"She's probably told you about me," he said, indicating Nico. "No,"

Carrie said. "Not a word."

"I thought you wanted to keep it a secret," Nico said. According to him, the telecommunications mogul was in love with Nico. And jealous.

According to him, the telecommunications mogul might or might not be having her followed.

According to Nico, they were both crazy

There was an uncomfortable moment when Keemi Tailon came to the table to say hello after the formerly drug-addicted son of the US.

Ambassador had left. He stood next to the table and put his shoe on the rung of a chair. "I just wanted to tell you," he said. "I just remembered. Mr. Big is having dinner downtown. With some people from the golf company"

"Thank you," Carrie said.

"It doesn't matter. It's not important. It's a setup," Nico said when he had left.

Later, when Carrie arrived at Mr. Big's apartment, there was a message on the machine. She played it, although she hadn't played his messages for a long time, because the last time she had, he'd gotten angry. "O.K., O.K.," she'd said. "I won't play your damn messages. I won't answer the phone when you're not here."