Summer and the City

Thighs in Thirty Days.’ ‘Kissable Lips.’ ‘How to Tell What He’s Really Thinking.’ I can tell you what he’s really thinking. Nothing. ”

I laugh, partly because she’s probably right, and partly because I’m in the giddy throes of a new friendship.

It’s my second Saturday in New York, and what no one tells you is how the city empties out on the weekends. Samantha goes to the Hamptons with Charlie, and even L’il said she was going to the Adirondacks. I told myself I didn’t mind. I’d had enough excitement for the week, and besides, I had to write.

And I did work, for a few hours, anyway. Then I started to feel lonely. I decided there must be a particular kind of lonely in New York, because once you start thinking about all the millions of people out there eating or shopping or going to movies or museums with friends, it’s pretty depressing not to be one of them.

I tried calling Maggie, who’s spending the summer in South Carolina, but her sister said she was at the beach. Then I tried Walt. He was in Provincetown. I even called my father. But all he said was how much I must be looking forward to Brown in the fall and he’d talk more but he had an appointment.

I wished I could tell him what a hard time I was having with my writing class, but it would have been pointless. He’s never been interested in my writing anyway, convinced it’s a phase I’ll get over when I go to Brown.

Then I looked through Samantha’s closet. I found a pair of neon-blue Fiorucci boots that I particularly coveted, and even tried them on, but they were too big. I also discovered an old leather biker jacket that appeared to be from her former life-whatever that was.

I tried Miranda Hobbes again. I’d actually tried her three times since Thursday, but there was no answer.

But apparently she doesn’t protest on Saturdays, because she picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Hello?” she asked suspiciously.

“Miranda? It’s Carrie Bradshaw.”

“Oh.”

“I was wondering… what are you doing right now? Do you want to get a cup of coffee or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh,” I said again, disappointed.

I guess she felt sorry for me, because she asked, “Where do you live?”

“Chelsea?”

“I’m on Bank Street. There’s a coffee shop around the corner. As long as I don’t have to take the subway, I guess I could meet you.”

We spent two hours at the coffee shop, discovering all kinds of things we had in common. Like we both went to our local high schools. And we both loved the book The Consensus as kids. When I told her I knew the author, Mary Gordon Howard, she laughed. “Somehow, I knew you were the type who would.” And over yet another cup of coffee, we began to have that magical, unspoken realization that we were going to be friends.

Then we decided we were hungry, but also admitted we didn’t have any money. Hence my plan to cook us dinner.

“Why do magazines do this to women?” Miranda complains now, glaring at Vogue . “It’s all about creating insecurity. Trying to make women feel like they’re not good enough. And when women don’t feel like they’re good enough, guess what?”

“What?” I ask, picking up the grocery bag.

“Men win. That’s how they keep us down,” she concludes.

“Except the problem with women’s magazines is that they’re written by women,” I point out.

“That only shows you how deep this thing goes. Men have made women coconspirators in their own oppression. I mean, if you spend all your time worrying about leg hair, how can you possibly have time to take over the world?”

I want to point out that shaving your legs takes about five minutes, leaving plenty of time for world-taking-over, but I know she only means it as a rhetorical question.

“Are you sure your roommate won’t mind my coming over?” she asks.

“She’s not really my roommate. She’s engaged. She lives with her boyfriend. She’s in the Hamptons anyway.”

“Lucky you,” Miranda says as we start up the five flights of stairs to the apartment. By the third flight, she’s panting. “How do you do this every day?”

“It’s better than living with Peggy.”

“That Peggy sounds like a nightmare. People like that should be in therapy.”

“She probably is, and it’s not working.”

“Then she needs to find a new shrink,” Miranda says, puffing. “I could recommend mine.”

“You see a shrink?” I ask, startled, fitting my key into the lock.

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“No. Why would I?”

“Because everyone needs to see a shrink. Otherwise you keep repeating the same unhealthy patterns.”

“But what if you don’t have unhealthy patterns?” I throw open the door and Miranda stumbles in. She flops onto the futon.

“Thinking you don’t have unhealthy patterns is an unhealthy pattern in itself. And everyone has something unhealthy from their childhood. If you don’t deal with it, it can ruin your life.”

I open the cantilevered doors to reveal the small kitchen and place the grocery bag onto the few inches of counter space next to the tiny sink. “What’s yours?” I ask.

“My mother.”

I find a bent skillet in the oven, pour in some oil, and light one of the two burners with a match. “How do you know all this stuff?”

“My father’s a shrink. And my mother is a perfectionist. She used to spend an hour every morning styling my hair before I went to school. Which is why I cut it and dyed it as soon as I could get away from her. My father says she suffers from guilt. But I say she’s a classic narcissist. Everything is about her. Including me.”

“But she’s your mother,” I say, placing the chicken thighs in the hot oil.

“And I hate her. Which is okay, because she hates me, too. I don’t fit into her narrow idea of what a daughter should be. What about your mother?”

I pause, but she doesn’t seem all that interested in the answer. She’s examining the collection of photographs Samantha keeps on the side table, with the zeal of an anthropologist who has suddenly discovered an old piece of pottery. “Is this the woman who lives here? Christ, is she an egomaniac or what? She’s in every photograph.”

“It is her apartment.”

“Don’t you think it’s weird when someone has photographs of themselves all over the place? It’s like they’re trying to prove they exist.”

“I don’t know her that well.”

“What is she?” Miranda sneers. “An actress? A model? Who has five photographs of themselves in a bikini?”

“She’s in advertising.”

“Another business designed to make women feel insecure.”

She gets up and comes into the kitchen. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

“I sort of had to.”

“My mother tried to teach me, but I refused. I rejected anything that could turn me into a housewife.” She leans over the skillet. “That smells pretty good though.”

“It will be,” I say, adding two inches of water to the pan. When it boils, I pour in the rice, add the tomato, then turn down the heat and cover the skillet. “And it’s cheap. We get a whole meal for four dollars.”

“Which reminds me.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two one-dollar bills. “My share. I hate owing anyone anything. Don’t you?”

We go back into the living room and curl up on either end of the couch. We light cigarettes, and I inhale