Summer and the City

diamonds.

“Is that real too?” Miranda gasps.

“Hold on,” I caution. “Why would someone who’s breaking up with you give you a giant Rolex?”

“You could probably buy a small country with that,” Miranda adds.

Samantha rocks back on her heels. “Apparently, it’s a tradition. When you break off an engagement, you give your ex-fiancee a watch.”

“You should get engaged more often.”

In a fury, Samantha rips off the watch and throws it against the Plexiglas case, where it bounces off harmlessly. Some things are simply indestructible. “How did this happen to me? I had it all figured out. I had New York by the balls. Everything was working. I was so good at being someone else.”

If only we could all put our hearts in a Plexiglas case, I think, as I kneel down next to her. “You weren’t so good about showing up at Kleinfeld,” I say gently.

“That was an exception. One slipup. And I made up for it by telling Glenn I’d be happy to use her decorator to redo the apartment. Even if it meant living with chintz. What’s wrong with a few flowers here and there? I can do roses if I have to-” And suddenly, she bursts into tears. Only this time, they’re real.

“Don’t you get it?” she sobs. “I’ve been rejected. For having faulty fallopian tubes.”

In the annals of dating, being rejected for your fallopian tubes has got to be right up there with-well, you name it, I suppose. But maybe dating in New York really is like what Samantha always says: everything counts, even the things you can’t see.

And what you can see is usually bad enough.

I mentally count the number of garbage bags strewn around Charlie’s apartment. Fourteen. I had to run out and get another box. Two years in a relationship and you can really accumulate a lot of stuff.

“Baggage,” Samantha says, kicking one of the bags out of the way. “All baggage.”

“Hey!” I exclaim. “There are Gucci shoes in that one.”

“Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci? Who cares?” She throws up her hands. “What’s the difference when your entire life has been ripped away?”

“You’ll find someone else,” Miranda says nonchalantly. “You always do.”

“But not someone who will marry me. Everyone knows the only reason a man in Manhattan ever says ‘I do’ is because he wants children.”

“But you don’t know that you can’t have children,” Miranda points out. “The doctor said-”

“Who cares what he said? It’s always going to be the same old story.”

“You don’t know that,” I insist. I grab a bag and pull it toward the door. “And do you really want to spend the rest of your life pretending to be someone you’re not?” I take a breath and gesture at the Plexiglas furnishings. “Surrounded by plastic ?”

“All men are jerks. But you knew that.” Miranda retrieves the watch from under the coffee table. “I guess that’s the last of it,” she says, holding out the Rolex. “Don’t want to leave this behind.”

Samantha carefully weighs the watch in the palm of her hand. Her face scrunches in agony. She takes a deep breath. “Actually, I do.”

She places the watch on the table as Miranda and I look at each other in bewilderment.

“Where’s the bag with the Gucci shoes?” she orders.

“There?” I ask, wondering what’s come over her.

She rips open the bag and dumps out two pairs of loafers. “And the Chanel suit. Where’s that?”

“I think it’s in here,” Miranda says cautiously, pushing a bag into the center of the room.

“What are you doing?” I ask anxiously, as Samantha extracts the Chanel suit and places it on the table next to the watch.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“I have no idea.” I look to Miranda for help, but she’s as mystified as I am.

Samantha finds a tennis dress, and holds it up, laughing. “Did I tell you Charlie wanted me to take tennis lessons? So I could play with Glenn. In Southampton. As if I would actually enjoy hitting balls with that mummy. She’s sixty-five years old and she says she’s fifty. Like anyone’s going to believe that .”

“Well-” I sneak another glance at Miranda, who shakes her head, stupefied.

“Do you want this, Sparrow?” Samantha tosses me the tennis dress.

“Sure,” I say hesitantly.

I’m wondering what to do with it, when Samantha suddenly changes her mind and rips it out of my hands. “On second thought, no ,” she shouts, hurling the dress onto the pile. “Don’t take it. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

She continues on in this vein, tearing through the bags and removing every item of clothing from her life with Charlie. The pile gets bigger and bigger, while Miranda and I watch in concern. I bite my lip. “Are you really going to leave all this stuff?”

“What do you think, Sparrow?” she says. She pauses and takes a deep breath, hands on her hips. She tilts her head, and gives me a fierce smile.

“It’s baggage. And even if I’m not the most real person in the world, I’ll tell you one thing about Samantha Jones. She can’t be bought. At any price.”

“Remember when I first moved here and you made me pour that carton of milk down the drain because you said the smell made you sick?” I ask, rearranging myself on the futon. It’s two a.m. and we’re finally back at Samantha’s apartment. All the packing and unpacking has me beat.

“Did she really do that?” Miranda asks.

“Oh yeah.” I nod.

“Adults shouldn’t drink milk anyway.” Samantha exhales as she throws back her head in relief. “Thank God that’s over. If these fallopian tubes could talk-”

“Luckily, they can’t.” I get up and go into the bedroom. I look at my own meager belongings, and with a sigh, open my suitcase.

“Sparrow?” Samantha calls. “What are you doing?”

“Packing,” I say loudly. “I’m leaving tomorrow, remember?” I stand in the doorway. “And after this summer, I really don’t think I’m a sparrow anymore. Haven’t I graduated by now?”

“You have indeed,” Samantha agrees. “I now declare you a pigeon. The official bird of New York City.”

“The only bird in New York City,” Miranda giggles. “Hey, it’s better than being a rat. Did you know that in China, rats are good luck?”

“I love the Chinese.” Samantha smiles. “Did you know they invented pornography?”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Stanford White,” Capote says. “He designed the original Pennsylvania Station. It was one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. But in 1963 some idiot sold the air rights and they tore it down to put up this monstrosity.”

“That is so sad,” I murmur, riding down the escalator behind him. “I wonder if it smelled as bad then as it does now.”

“What?” he asks loudly, over the hubbub.

“Nothing.”

“I always wish I could have lived in New York at the turn of the century,” he says.

“I’m glad I was able to live here at all.”