am.
“What are you laughing about?” Capote asks, wrapping his arms around me from behind. We haven’t been able to take our hands off each other, leaning into each other on the subway, walking arm in arm as we strolled up Fifth Avenue, and kissing at the entrance to the zoo. My body has turned to butter. I can’t believe I wasted the whole summer pursuing Bernard instead of Capote.
But maybe Capote wouldn’t like me so much if I hadn’t.
“I’m always laughing,” I say.
“Why?” he asks sweetly.
“Because life is funny.”
At the zoo, we buy hot dogs and polar bear baseball caps. We run down Fifth Avenue, past the old man who sells pencils in front of Saks, which reminds me of the first time I met Miranda. We join a line of tourists inside the Empire State Building and ride the elevator to the top. We look through viewfinders and make out until we’re breathless. We take a taxi back to Capote’s.
We have sex again, and don’t stop until we both realize we’re starving. We go to Chinatown and eat Peking duck, which I’ve never had before, and we wander through SoHo and laugh about how Teensie took a pill at Barry Jessen’s opening and all the other crazy things that have happened to us during the summer. It’s pretty late by now-after midnight-so I figure I’ll spend one more night with him and go home in the morning.
But when morning comes, we still can’t manage to tear ourselves apart. We go back to my place and make love on Samantha’s bed. I change my clothes, stick my toothbrush and a change of underwear into my carpenter’s bag, and we head out to be tourists again. We do the Circle Line and the Statue of Liberty, climbing all the way to the top and laughing about how small it is once you finally get up to the crown, then we go back to Capote’s.
We eat hamburgers at the Corner Bistro and pizza at John’s. I have my first orgasm.
The hours pass in a fuzzy, dreamlike way, mingled with a thread of despair. This can’t last forever. Capote starts a job at a publishing company after Labor Day. And I have to go to Brown.
“Are you sure?” he murmurs.
“I don’t have a choice. I was hoping something would happen with my play and I’d be able to convince my father to let me go to NYU instead.”
“Why don’t you tell him you changed your mind?”
“I’d need a pretty big excuse.”
“Like you met a guy you’re crazy about and want to be with him?”
“He’d have a heart attack. I wasn’t raised to base my decisions on a guy.”
“He sounds like a tough old nut.”
“Nah. You’d like him. He’s a genius. Like you.” Three days with Capote have taught me that what I thought was Capote’s arrogance was simply due to his deep knowledge of literature. Like me, he has a searing belief that books are sacred. They might not be to other people, but when you have a passion, you hold on to it. You defend it. You don’t pretend it isn’t important at the risk of offending others.
And suddenly it’s Wednesday morning. Our last class is today. I’m so weak with sadness I can barely lift my arm to brush my teeth. I’m dreading facing the class. But like so much in life, it turns out I needn’t have worried.
No one really cares.
Ryan and Rainbow are chatting outside the building when Capote and I arrive together. I drop Capote’s hand, thinking it’s not a good idea for people to know about us, but Capote has no such compunction. He takes back my hand and drapes my arm over his shoulder.
“Ho, ho, are you guys an item now?” Ryan asks.
“I don’t know.” I look to Capote for confirmation.
He answers by kissing me on the mouth.
“Gross,” Rainbow declares.
“I was wondering how long it would take for you two to get together,” Ryan says.
“There’s a new club opening on the Bowery,” Rainbow remarks.
“And a reading at Cholly Hammond’s,” Ryan says. “I’ve heard he throws a great party.”
“Anyone want to go to Elaine’s next week?” Capote asks.
And on and on they go, with no mention of the fact that I won’t be around. Or of my play. They’ve probably forgotten it by now anyway.
Or, like me, they’re too embarrassed to mention it.
When in doubt, there’s always plan C: If something really horrible happens, ignore it.
I follow the group inside, trudging my feet. What was it all for, anyway? I made friends with people I’ll probably never see again, dated a man who turned out to be a dud, found a love that can’t be sustained, and spent all summer writing a play that no one will ever see. As my father would say, I didn’t use my time “constructively.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“What’s going to happen with you and Capote?” Miranda demands. “Do you actually think you’re going to have a long-distance relationship? Sounds like a case of the deliberate subconscious-”
“If it’s deliberate, how can it be subconscious?”
“You know what I mean. You choose the end of the summer to fall in love with this guy because secretly,
I fold the white vinyl jumpsuit and press it into my suitcase. “I don’t think my subconscious is capable of being that conniving.”
“Oh, but it is,” Miranda says. “Your subconscious can make you do all kinds of things. For instance, why are you still wearing his shirt?”
I glance down at the light blue shirt I took from him after our first night. “I forgot I was wearing it.”
“You see?” Miranda says victoriously. “That’s why it’s so important to have analysis.”
“How do you explain Marty, then?”
“Subconscious again.” She flicks her shoulders in dismissal. “I finally realized he wasn’t for me. Even though my conscious was trying to break the pattern, my unconscious knew it wouldn’t work. Plus, I couldn’t go to the bathroom the whole time I was with him.”
“Sounds like your intestines were the problem and not your subconscious.” I yank open a drawer and remove three pairs of socks. Which I haven’t seen since I put them there two months ago. Socks! What was I thinking? I throw them into the suitcase as well.
“Let’s face it, Carrie,” Miranda sighs. “It’s
Men, or the fact that I have to leave New York? “Isn’t that what they call wish fulfillment?”
“I’m a realist. Just because you had sex once doesn’t mean you have to fall in love,” she mutters. “And I never thought you and Samantha would turn out to be those dopey types who moon over their wedding dresses and the smell of their man’s shirt.”
“First of all, Samantha didn’t even show up for her wedding dress. And secondly-” I break off. “Do you think you’ll visit me in Providence?”
“Why would I want to go there? What do they have in Providence that we don’t have in New York?”
“Me?” I ask mournfully.
“You can visit me anytime,” Miranda says firmly. “You can sleep on the couch if you don’t mind the springs.”
“You know me. I don’t mind anything.”
“Oh, Carrie,” she says sadly.
“I know.”
“Got anything to eat in this place? I’m starving,” she asks.
“Maybe some peanut butter crackers left over from the blackout.”
