Summer and the City

sighs.

“I thought she was asleep.”

L’il shakes her head. She’s in my program at The New School, but arrived a week earlier to get acclimated, which also means she got the slightly better room. She has to walk through my space to get to hers, so I have even less privacy than she does. “Peggy always gets up early to go jogging. She says she has to lose twenty pounds-”

“In that rubber suit?” I ask, astounded.

“She says it sweats the fat out.”

I look at L’il in appreciation. She’s two years older than I am, but looks about five years younger. With her birdlike stature, she’s one of those girls who will probably look like she’s twelve for most of her life. But L’il is not to be underestimated.

When we first met yesterday, I joked about how “L’il” would look on the cover of a book, but she only shrugged and said, “My writing name is E. R. Waters. For Elizabeth Reynolds Waters. It helps to get published if people don’t know you’re a girl.” Then she showed me two poems she’d had published in The New Yorker.

I nearly fell over.

Then I told her how I’d met Kenton James and Bernard Singer. I knew meeting famous writers wasn’t the same as being published yourself, but I figured it was better than nothing. I even showed her the paper where Bernard Singer had written his phone number.

“You have to call him,” she said.

“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to make too big a deal of it.

Thinking of Bernard made me all jellyish until Peggy came in and told us to be quiet.

Now I give L’il a wicked smile. “Peggy,” I say. “She really goes to auditions in that rubber suit? Can you imagine the smell?”

L’il grins. “She belongs to a gym. Lucille Roberts. She says she takes a shower there before. That’s why she’s always so crazy. She’s sweating and showering all over town.”

This cracks us up, and we fall onto my bed in giggles.

The red-haired girl is right: I have no problem finding her.

Indeed, she’s impossible to miss, planted on the sidewalk in front of Saks, holding a huge sign that reads, DOWN WITH PORNOGRAPHY on one side, and PORNOGRAPHY EXPLOITS WOMEN on the other. Behind her is a small table covered with graphic images from porno magazines. “Women, wake up! Say no to pornography!” she shouts.

She waves me over with her placard. “Do you want to sign a petition against pornography?”

I’m about to explain who I am, when a stranger cuts me off.

“Oh, puhleeze,” the woman mutters, stepping around us. “You’d think some people would have better things to do than worrying about other people’s sex lives.”

“Hey,” the red-haired girl shouts. “I heard that, you know? And I don’t exactly appreciate it.”

The woman spins around. “And?”

“What do you know about my sex life?” she demands. Her hair is cut short like a boy’s and, as promised, dyed a bright tomato red. She’s wearing construction boots and overalls, and underneath, a ragged purple T-shirt.

“Honey, it’s pretty clear you don’t have one,” the woman responds with a smirk.

“Is that so? Maybe I don’t have as much sex as you do, but you’re a victim of the system. You’ve been brainwashed by the patriarchy.”

“Sex sells,” the woman says.

“At the expense of women.”

“That’s ridiculous. Have you ever considered the fact that some women actually like sex?”

“And?” The girl glares as I take advantage of the momentary lull to quickly introduce myself.

“I’m Carrie Bradshaw. You called me. You have my bag?”

“ You’re Carrie Bradshaw?” She seems disappointed. “What are you doing with her?” She jerks her thumb in the woman’s direction.

“I don’t even know her. If I could just get my bag-”

“Take it,” the redheaded girl says, as if she’s had enough. She picks up her knapsack, removes my Carrie bag, and hands it to me.

“Thank you,” I say gratefully. “If there’s anything I can ever do-”

“Don’t worry about it,” she replies proudly. She picks up her placard and accosts an elderly woman in pearls. “Do you want to sign a petition against pornography?”

The old woman smiles. “No thank you, dear. After all, what’s the point?”

The red-haired girl looks momentarily crestfallen.

“Hey,” I say. “I’ll sign your petition.”

“Thanks,” she says, handing me a pen.

I scribble my name and skip off down Fifth Avenue. I dodge through the crowds, wondering what my mother would have thought about me being in New York. Maybe she’s watching over me, making sure the funny red-haired girl found my bag. My mother was a feminist, too. At the very least, she’d be proud I signed the petition.

“There you are!” L’il calls out. “I was afraid you were going to be late.”

“Nope,” I say, panting, as I join her on the sidewalk in front of The New School. The trek downtown was a lot farther than I expected, and my feet are killing me. But I saw all kinds of interesting things along the way: the skating rink at Rockefeller Center. The New York Public Library. Lord & Taylor. Something called the Toy Building. “I got my bag,” I say, holding it up.

“Carrie was robbed her very first hour in New York,” L’il crows to a cute guy with bright blue eyes and wavy black hair.

He shrugs. “That’s nothing. My car was broken into the second night I was here. They smashed the window and stole the radio.”

“You have a car?” I ask in surprise. Peggy told us no one had cars in New York. Everyone is supposed to walk or take the bus or ride the subway.

“Ryan’s from Massachusetts,” L’il says as if this explains it. “He’s in our class too.”

I hold out my hand. “Carrie Bradshaw.”

“Ryan McCann.” He’s got a goofy, sweet smile, but his eyes bore into me as if summing up the competition. “What do you think about our professor, Viktor Greene?”

“I think he’s extraordinary,” L’il jumps in. “He’s what I consider a serious artist.”

“He may be an artist, but he’s definitely a creep,” Ryan replies, goading her.

“You hardly know him,” L’il says, incensed.

“Wait a minute. You guys have met him?” I ask.

“Last week,” Ryan says casually. “We had our conferences. Didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know we were supposed to have a conference,” I falter. How did this happen? Am I already behind?

L’il gives Ryan a look. “Not everyone had a conference. It was only if you were going to be in New York early. It doesn’t matter.”

“Hey, you kids want to go to a party?”

We turn around. A guy with a Cheshire cat grin holds up some postcards. “It’s at The Puck Building. Wednesday night. Free admission if you get there before ten o’clock.”

“Thanks,” Ryan says eagerly as the guy hands us each a postcard and strolls away.

“Do you know him?” L’il asks.

“Never seen him before in my life. But that’s cool, isn’t it?” Ryan says. “Where else would some stranger walk up to you and invite you to a party?”

“Along with a thousand other strangers,” L’il adds.