Summer and the City

  Or maybe . . . I give up. Who knows what he wants. I smoke a cigarette and make my way to his office.

  The door is closed. I knock.

  It opens a crack, and the first thing I’m confronted by is Viktor’s enormous mustache, followed by his soft sloping face, as if skin and muscle have abandoned any attempt to attach to the skull. He silently swings open the door and I enter a small room filled with a mess of papers and books and magazines. He removes a pile from the chair in front of his desk and looks around helplessly.

  “Over there,” I say, pointing to a relatively small mound of books perched on the sill.

  “Right,” he says, plopping the papers on top, where they balance precariously.

  I sit down in the chair as he clumsily drops into his seat.

  “Well.” He touches his mustache.

  It’s still there, I want to scream, but don’t.

  “How do you feel about this class?” he asks.

  “Good. Really good.” I’m pretty sure I suck, but there’s no reason to give him ammunition.

  “How long have you wanted to become a writer?”

  “Since I was a kid, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “I know.” Why do conversations with teachers always go around in circles?

  “Why?”

  I sit on my hands and stare. There’s no good answer to this question. “I’m a genius and the world can’t live without my words,” is too pretentious and probably untrue. “I love books and want to write the great American novel” is true, but is also what every student wants, because why else would they be in this class? “It’s my calling,” sounds overly dramatic. On the other hand, why is he even asking me this question? Can’t he tell that I should be a writer?

  In consequence, I end up saying nothing. Instead, I open my eyes as wide as possible.

  This has an interesting effect. Viktor Greene suddenly becomes uncomfortable, shifting in his chair and then opening and closing a drawer.

  “Why do you have that mustache?” I ask.

  “Mmph?” He covers his lips with his tapered, waxy fingers.

  “Is it because you think that mustache is a part of you?” I’ve never talked to a teacher this way, but I’m not exactly in school. I’m in a seminar. And who says Viktor Greene has to be the authority?

  “Don’t you like the mustache?” he asks.

  Hold on. Viktor Greene is vain?

  “Sure,” I say, thinking about how vanity is a weakness. It’s a chink in the armor. If you’re vain, you should do everything possible to conceal it.

  I lean forward slightly to emphasize my admiration. “Your mustache is really, er, great.”

  “You think so?” he repeats.

  Jeez. What a Pandora’s box. If he only knew how Ryan and I make fun of that mustache. I’ve even given it a name: “Waldo.” Waldo is not any ordinary mustache, however. He’s able to go on adventures without Viktor. He goes to the zoo and Studio 54, and the other day, he even went to Benihana, where the chef mistook him for a piece of meat and accidently chopped him up.

  Waldo recovered, though. He’s immortal and cannot be destroyed.

  “Your mustache,” I continue. “It’s kind of like me wanting to be a writer. It’s a part of me. I don’t know who I’d be if I didn’t want to be a writer.” I deliver this line with great conviction, and Viktor nods.

  “That’s fine, then,” he says.

  I smile.

  “I was worried you’d come to New York to become famous.”

  What?

  Now I’m confused. And kind of insulted. “What does my wanting to be a writer have to do with wanting to become famous?”

  He wets his lips. “Some people think writing is glamorous. They make the mistake of thinking it’s a good vehicle for becoming famous. But it isn’t. It’s only hard work. Years and years and years of it, and even then, most people don’t get what they want out of it.”

  Like you, I wonder? “I’m not worried, Mr. Greene.”

  He sadly fingers his mustache.

  “Is that it?” I stand up.

  “Yes,” he says. “That’s it.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Greene.” I glare at him, wondering what Waldo would say.

  But when I get outside, I’m shaking.

  Why shouldn’t I? I demand silently. Why shouldn’t I become a famous writer? Like Norman Mailer. Or Philip Roth. And F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and all those other men. Why can’t I be like them? I mean, what is the point of becoming a writer if no one reads what you’ve written?

  Damn Viktor Greene and The New School. Why do I have to keep proving myself all the time? Why can’t I be like L’il, with everyone praising and encouraging me? Or Rainbow, with her sense of entitlement. I bet Viktor Greene never asked Rainbow why she wanted to be a writer.

  Or what if—I wince—Viktor Greene is right? I’m not a writer after all.

  I light a cigarette and start walking.

  Why did I come to New York? Why did I think I could make it here?

  I walk as fast as I can, pausing only to light yet another cigarette. By the time I get to Sixteenth Street, I figure I’ve probably smoked nearly half a pack.

  I feel sick.

  It’s one thing to write for the school newspaper. But New York is on a whole different level. It’s a mountain, with a few successful people like Bernard at the top, and a mass of dreamers and strivers like me at the bottom.

  And then there are people like Viktor, who aren’t afraid to tell you that you’re never going to reach that peak.

  I flick my cigarette butt onto the sidewalk and grind it out in a fury. A fire truck roars down the avenue, horns blaring. “I am pissed off,” I scream, my frustration mingling with the wail of the siren.

  A couple of people glance my way but don’t pause. I’m only another crazy person on the street in New York.

  I stomp down the sidewalk to Samantha’s building, take the stairs two at a time, unlock the three bolts, and fling myself onto her bed. Which makes me feel, once again, like an interloper. It’s a four-poster with a black coverlet and what Samantha calls silk sheets, which, she claims, prevent wrinkles. Except they’re really made of some kind of super slippery polyester and I have to push my foot against one of the posts to keep from sliding onto the floor.

  I grab a pillow and put it over my head. I think about Viktor Greene and Bernard. I think about how I’m all alone. How I’m constantly having to pull myself up from the depths of despair, trying to convince myself to try one more time. I bury my face deeper into the pillow.

  Maybe I should give up. Go back home. And in two months, I’ll go to Brown.

  My throat closes at the thought of leaving New York. Am I going to allow what Viktor Greene said to cause me to quit? I have to talk to someone. But who?

  That girl. The one with the red hair. The one who found my Carrie bag. She seems like the kind of person who would have something to say about my situation. She hates life, and right now, I do too.

  What was her name, again? Miranda. Miranda Hobbes. “H-o-b-b-e-s.” I hear her voice in my head.

  I pick up the phone and dial information.

  Chapter Nine

  “All men are a disappointment. No matter what anyone says.” Miranda Hobbes glares at the cover of Cosmopolitan. “‘How to Get Him and Keep Him,’” she says, reading the cover line aloud in disgust.

  She places the magazine back in the rack. “Even if you could get Him—and why do they always capitalize His name like He’s God—I can personally guarantee He wouldn’t be worth keeping.”

  “What about Paul Newman?” I count out four dollars and hand the money to the cashier. “I’m sure he’s worth keeping. Joanne Woodward thinks so.”

  “First of all, no one knows what goes on between two people in a marriage. And secondly, he’s an actor. Which means by definition he’s a narcissist.” She looks at the package of chicken thighs doubtfully. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
br />   I put the chicken thighs, rice, and the tomato into a bag, feigning ignorance about her concerns. Truth is, I’m a little worried about the chicken myself. Besides being minuscule, the supermarket is none too clean. Maybe that’s why no one cooks in New York. “Don’t you think everyone’s a narcissist?” I ask. “I have this theory that all anyone ever really thinks about is themself. It’s human nature.”

  “Is this human nature?” Miranda demands, still absorbed by the rack of magazines. “‘How to De-dimple Your 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 cigarett
es, and I inhale 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, that’s it? This is what everyone’s been raving about?”

  “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 keep doing it. Because the guy expects you 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.”