contemplatively. “What if I can’t become a writer and I have to get married, instead. What if I have to ask my husband for money? I couldn’t do it. I’d hate myself.”
“Marriage turns women into whores,” Miranda declares. “The whole thing is a sham.”
“That’s what I think too!” I can hardly believe I’ve found someone who shares my secret suspicions. “But if you let people know, they want to kill you. They hate the truth.”
“That’s what happens to women when they go against the system.” Miranda fumbles awkwardly with her cigarette. I can tell she’s not really a smoker, but maybe, because everyone else in New York smokes, she’s trying it out. “And I, for one, plan to do something about it,” she continues, coughing.
“What?”
“Haven’t decided yet. But I will.” She narrows her eyes. “You’re lucky you’re going to be a writer. You can change people’s perceptions. You should write about marriage and what a lie it is. Or even sex.”
“Sex?” I grind my cigarette out in the ashtray.
“Sex. It’s the biggest sham of all. I mean, your whole life, all you ever hear is how you’re supposed to save yourself for marriage. And how it’s so special. And then you finally do it. And you’re like,
“You’re kidding.”
“Come on,” she says. “You’ve done it.”
I grimace. “Actually, I haven’t.”
“Really?” She’s surprised. Then pragmatic. “Well, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. You’re not missing anything. In fact, if you haven’t done it, I would recommend not doing it. Ever.” She pauses. “And the worst thing about it? Once you do it, you have to
“Why’d you do it in the first place?” I ask, lighting another cigarette.
“Pressure. I had the same boyfriend all through high school. Although, I have to admit, I was curious.”
“And?”
“Everything but ‘it’ is fine,” she says matter-of-factly. “‘It’ itself is boring as hell. That’s what no one tells you. How boring it is. And it hurts.”
“I have a friend who did it for the first time and loved it. She said she had an actual orgasm.”
“From intercourse?” Miranda yelps. “She’s lying. Everyone knows women cannot have an orgasm from intercourse only.”
“Then why does everyone do it?”
“Because they have to,” she practically screams. “And then you just lie there, waiting for it to be over. The only good thing about it is that it only lasts a minute or two.”
“Maybe you have to do it a lot to like it.”
“Nope. I’ve done it at least twenty times, and each time it was as bad as the first.” She crosses her arms. “You’ll see. And it doesn’t matter who you do it with. I did it with another guy six months ago to make sure it wasn’t me, and it was just as lousy.”
“What about with an older guy?” I ask, thinking about Bernard. “A guy with experience-”
“How old?”
“Thirty?”
“That’s even worse,” she declares. “His thing could be all wrinkly. There’s nothing more disgusting than a wrinkly thing.”
“Have you ever seen one?” I ask.
“Nope. And I hope I never have to.”
“Well,” I say, laughing. “What if I do it and I like it? Then what?”
Miranda snickers, as if this is not a possibility. She jabs her finger at Samantha’s photograph. “I bet even she thinks it’s boring. She looks like she likes it, but I promise you, she’s pretending. Just like every other goddamn woman on the planet.”
Part Two. Bite the Big Apple
Chapter Ten
Bernard!
“He called me,” I sing to myself like a little bird, skipping down Forty-fifth Street into the Theater District. Apparently, he did call my old apartment and Peggy told him I no longer lived there and she didn’t know where I was. And then Peggy had the gall to ask Bernard if she could audition for his new play. Bernard coldly suggested she call his casting director, and suddenly, Peggy’s memory as to my whereabouts mysteriously returned. “She’s staying with a friend of hers. Cindy? Samantha?”
Just as I’d given up hope of him calling me on his own, Bernard, bless his soul, managed to put two and two together and rang me first.
“Can you meet me at the theater around lunchtime tomorrow?” he asked.
Bernard sure has some odd ideas about what constitutes a date. But he is a wunderkind, so perhaps he lives outside the rules.
The Theater District is so exciting, even during the day. There are the flashing lights of Broadway, the cute little restaurants, and the seedy theaters promising “LIVE GIRLS,” which makes me scratch my head. Would anyone want dead ones?
And then on to Shubert Alley. It’s only a narrow street, but I can’t help imagining what it would be like to have my own play performed in this theater. If that happened, it would mean everything in my life was perfect.
As per Bernard’s instructions, I enter through the stage door. It’s nothing special-just a dingy lobby with gray cement walls and peeling linoleum on the floor and a man stationed behind a little window that slides open. “Bernard Singer?” I ask.
The guard looks up from his
“No, I’m a friend.”
“Ah. You’re the young lady. Carrie Bradshaw.”
“That’s right.”
“He said he was expecting you. He’s out, but he’ll be back soon. He said I should take you on a backstage tour.”
“Yes, please,” I exclaim. The Shubert Theatre
“Ever been here before?”
“No!” I can’t keep the squeal of excitement out of my voice.
“Mr. Shubert founded the theater in 1913.” The guard pulls apart a heavy black curtain to reveal the stage. “Katharine Hepburn performed here in 1939.
“On this very stage?”
“Used to stand right where you are now, every evening, before her first entrance. ‘Jimmy,’ she’d say, ‘how’s the house tonight?’ And I’d say, ‘All the better for you being here, Miss Hepburn.’”
“Jimmy,” I plead. “Could I-”
He smiles, catching my enthusiasm. “Only for a second. No one’s allowed on that stage who ain’t union-”
And before he can change his mind, I’m crossing the boards, looking out at the house. I stride to the footlights and take in row after row of velvet chairs, the balconies, the luxurious boxes on the side. And for a moment, I imagine the theater filled with people, all there to see little ol’ me.
