Summer and the City

revealing a solitaire diamond chip.

I lean over to admire it, although you practically need a magnifying glass to see the damn thing. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

She gives me a brief smile as if she’s surprised I haven’t heard. “Tommy.”

“Tommy? Tommy Brewster ?” The Tommy Brewster who basically made my life hell merely because I had the bad luck to sit next to him in assembly for four years of high school? The big dumb jock who was Cynthia Viande’s serious boyfriend?

The question is apparently written all over my face, because Donna immediately explains that Cynthia broke up with him. “She’s going to BU and she didn’t want to take Tommy with her. She actually thought she could do better,” Donna smirks.

No kidding, I want to say.

“Tommy’s going into the military. He’s going to be a pilot,” Donna adds boastfully. “He’ll be traveling a lot and it’ll be easier if we’re married.”

“Wow.” Donna LaDonna engaged to Tommy Brewster? How could this happen? If I’d had to place bets in high school, I would have wagered that Donna LaDonna was the one who was on her way to bigger and better things. She was the last person I imagined would be the first to become a housewife.

Having dispatched this information, Donna veers the conversation onto the topic of babies.

“I was always a hands-on mom,” Glenn says, nodding. “I breast-fed Charlie for nearly a year. Of course, it meant I could barely leave the apartment. But it was worth every minute. The scent of his little head…”

“The smell of his poopy diaper,” Erica mutters under her breath. I give her a grateful look. She’s been so quiet, I’d forgotten she was there.

“I think it’s one of the reasons Charlie turned out so well,” Glenn continues, ignoring her daughter as she directs her comments to Donna. “I know breast-feeding isn’t very popular, but I think it’s terribly rewarding.”

“I’ve heard it can make the kid smarter,” Donna says.

I stare at the plate of cookies, wondering what Samantha would think of this discussion. Does she know Glenn is planning to turn her into a baby-making machine? The thought gives me the willies. What if what Miranda said about endometriosis is true, and Samantha can’t get pregnant right away-or at all? And what if she does, and the baby is born in her intestine?

Where the hell is Samantha, anyway?

Boy, this is really making me uncomfortable. I’ve got to get out of here. “Can I use the phone?” I ask, and without waiting for permission, pick up the receiver and dial Bernard’s number. He’s still not there. I hang up, fuming, and decide to call him every thirty minutes until I reach him.

When I turn back to the room, the conversation has flagged. So much so that Donna actually asks how my summer is going.

Now it’s my turn to brag.

“I’m having a play reading next week.”

“Oh,” Donna says, clearly unimpressed. “What’s a play reading?”

“Well, I wrote this play, and my professor really loved it and then I met this guy, Bobby, who has a sort of performance space in his apartment, and I have a boyfriend who actually is a playwright-Bernard Singer, maybe you’ve heard of him-not that I’m not an actual writer but…” My voice gets smaller and smaller until it trails off into a painful little nothingness.

And where is Samantha in all this?

Glenn taps her watch impatiently.

“Oh, she’ll show up,” Mrs. LaDonna gushes. “We LaDonnas are always late,” she says proudly, as if this is a plus. I look at her and shake my head. She’s no help at all.

“I think your play sounds very exciting,” Erica says, tactfully changing the subject.

“It is,” I agree, praying Samantha will arrive at any moment. “It’s kind of a big deal. Being my first play and all.”

“I always told Erica she should become a writer,” Glenn says, giving her daughter a disapproving look. “If you’re a writer, you can stay at home with your children. If you actually decide to have children.”

“Mother, please,” Erica says, as if she’s had to tolerate this discussion many times before.

“Instead Erica’s decided to become a public defender!” Glenn exclaims grimly.

“A public defender,” Mrs. LaDonna says, attempting to look impressed.

“What’s that?” Donna asks, examining her manicure.

“It’s a special kind of lawyer,” I answer, wondering how Donna cannot know this.

“It’s all about choice, Mother,” Erica says firmly. “And I choose not to be chosen.”

Glenn gives her a stiff little smile. She probably can’t move her muscles too much due to the face-lift. “It all sounds so terribly sad.”

“But it isn’t sad at all,” Erica replies evenly. “It’s freeing.”

“I don’t believe in choice,” Glenn announces, addressing the room. “I believe in destiny. And the sooner you accept your destiny, the better. It seems to me you young girls waste a terrible amount of time trying to choose. And all you end up with is nothing.”

Erica smiles. And turning to me, she explains, “Mother’s been trying to marry Charlie off for years. She’s pushed every debutante in the Blue Book in his direction, but of course, he never liked any of them. Charlie’s not that dumb.”

There’s an audible gasp from Mrs. LaDonna as I peer around in shock. Donna and her mother look like they’ve had face-lifts as well. Their expressions are as frozen as Glenn’s.

The phone rings and I automatically reach for it, wondering if it’s Bernard, having somehow managed to track me down at Kleinfeld.

I’m such a dummy sometimes. It’s Samantha.

“Where are you?” I whisper urgently. “Everyone’s here. Glenn and Erica-”

“Carrie.” She cuts me off. “I’m not going to be able to make it.”

“What?”

“Something came up. A meeting I can’t get out of. So if you wouldn’t mind telling Glenn…”

Actually, I would mind. I’m suddenly tired of doing her dirty work. “I think you should tell her yourself.” I hand Glenn the phone.

While Glenn speaks to Samantha, a saleswoman peeks into the room, beaming with excitement, pulling an enormous rack of wedding dresses behind her. The atmosphere explodes as Donna and her mother rush toward the dresses, pawing and fondling the garments like they’re sugary confections.

I’ve had enough. I dive into the rack of wedding dresses and fight my way through to the other side.

Weddings are like a train. Once you get on, you can’t get off.

Sort of like the subway.

The train is stopped, again, somewhere in the dark catacombs between Forty-second and Fifty-ninth streets. It’s been stuck for twenty minutes now, and the natives are getting restless.

Including myself. I yank open the door between the cars and step out onto the tiny platform, leaning over the edge in an attempt to discover the cause of the holdup. It’s useless, of course. It always is. I can just make out the walls of the tunnel until they disappear into darkness.

The train lurches unexpectedly and I nearly tip off the platform. I grab the handle of the door just in time, reminding myself that I need to be more careful. It’s hard to be careful, though, when you feel indestructible.

My heart does that jackhammer thing that happens whenever I get all anticipatory about the future.

Bernard read my play.

The minute I escaped from Kleinfeld, I ran to a phone booth and finally reached him. He said he was in the middle of casting. I could tell by his voice that he didn’t want me to come by, but I kept insisting and finally he relented. He could probably tell by my voice that I was in one of those nothing-is-going-to-stop-me moods.

Not even the subway.

The train screeches to a halt just inside the platform at Fifty-ninth Street.