“The ones you know. The ones who go into the club,” Carrie said.
“Is there any other kind?” the Girl asked. In the kitchen light, Carrie saw that her skin was not so good, that it was pockmarked under a heavy coat of foundation. “I’m tired,” the Girl said. “Let’s go lie down.”
“Let’s do it,” Carrie said.
They went into the bedroom. Carrie sat on the edge of the bed, trying to keep up a patter of conversation. “I’m going to get more comfortable,” the Girl said. She went to her closet. She took off her fancy leather pants and put on sloppy gray sweatpants. She took out a T-shirt. When she undid her bra, she turned away. Without her clothes on, she was short and kind of chubby.
They lay down on top of the bed. The pot was beginning to wear off. “Do you have a boyfriend?” the Girl asked.
“Yes,” Carrie said, “I do and I’m crazy about him.”
They lay there for a few minutes. Carrie got an ache in her stomach from missing Mr. Big.
“Listen,” Carrie said, “I’ve got to go home. It was great to meet you, though.”
“Great to meet you,” the Girl said. She turned her head to the wall and closed her eyes. “Make sure the door is shut on your way out, okay? I’ll call you.”
Two days later, the phone rang and it was the Girl. Carrie thought, Why did I give you my number? The Girl said, “Hi? Carrie? It’s me. How are you?”
“Fine,” Carrie said. Pause. “Listen. Can I call you right back? What’s your number?”
She took down the Girl’s number, even though she already had it. She didn’t call back, and for the next two hours until she went out, she didn’t answer the phone. She let the machine pick up.
CATWALK
A few days later, Carrie was at the Ralph Lauren fashion show in Bryant Park. The girls, tall and slim, came out one after another, their long blond hair floating over their shoulders. For a moment, it was a beautiful world, and when the girls passed, their eyes met and they gave each other secret smiles.
21
Women Who Ran with Wolves:
Perennial Bachelors? See Ya
In the past few weeks, several seemingly unrelated yet similar incidents occurred.
Simon Piperstock, the owner of a software company, was lying in bed in his plush two-bedroom apartment, nursing the flu, when the phone rang.
“You piece of shit,” said a woman’s voice.
“What?” Simon said. “Who is this?”
“It’s me.”
“Oh. M.K. I was going to call you, but I got the flu. Terrific party the other night.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” M.K. said. “Because nobody else did.”
“Really?” Simon sat up in bed.
“It’s you, Simon. Your behavior is reprehensible. It’s disgusting.”
“What did I do?” Simon asked.
“You brought that bimbo. You always bring a bimbo. No one can stand it anymore.”
“Hey. Hold on a second,” Simon said. “Teesie is not a bimbo. She’s a very bright girl.”
“Right, Simon,” M.K. said. “Why don’t you get a life? Why don’t you get married?”
She hung up.
Harry Samson, forty-six, a well-known, eligible-bachelor art dealer, was having one of his typical drinking evenings at Frederick’s, when he was introduced to a very attractive woman in her mid-twenties. She had just moved to New York to be an assistant to an artist with whom Harry worked.
“Hi. I’m Harry Samson,” he said in his East Coast drawl, affected, perhaps, by the fact that he had a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.
“I know who you are,” the girl said.
“Have a drink?” Harry asked.
She glanced at the girlfriend who accompanied her. “You’re that guy, aren’t you?” she said. “No, thanks. I know all about your reputation.”
“This place sucks tonight,” Harry said to no one in particular.
There’s something rotten in New York society, and it’s the character formerly known as the “eligible” bachelor. It’s not your imagination. Those men in their forties and fifties who have never been married, who have not, in years anyway, had a serious girlfriend, have acquired a certain, unmistakable stink. The evidence is everywhere.
Miranda Hobbes was at a Christmas party when she ran into Packard and Amanda Deale, a couple she had met briefly through Sam, the investment banker she had dated for three months over the summer.
“Where have you been?” Amanda asked. “We called you to come to a couple of our parties, but we never heard from you.”
“I couldn’t,” Miranda said. “I know you’re friends with Sam, and, I’m sorry, but to tell you the truth, I just can’t stand him. I can’t stand being in the same room with him. That man is sick. I think he hates women. He leads you on, tells you he wants to get married, and then doesn’t call. Meanwhile, he’s trying to pick up twenty-one year olds.”
Packard moved closer. “We’re not friends with him anymore, either. Amanda can’t stand him, and neither can I. He’s gotten to be friends with this guy named Barry, and all the two of them do every night is go to these SoHo restaurants and try to pick up women.”
“They’re in their forties!” Amanda said. “It’s gross.”
“When are they going to grow up?” Miranda asked.
“Or come out of the closet,” Packard said.
CRYING NONWOLF
On a gray afternoon in late November, a man we’ll call Chollie Wentworth was holding forth on one of his favorite topics—New York society. “These perennial bachelors?” he asked, ticking off the names of some well-known high rollers who have been part of the scene for years. “Frankly, my dear, they’re just a bore.”
Chollie tucked into his second Scotch. “There are a lot of reasons why a man might not get married,” he said. “Some men never grow past sex; and for some people, marriage spoils sex. Then there’s the difficult choice between a woman in her thirties who can bear you children, or a woman like Carol Petrie, who can organize your life.
“Mothers can also be a problem,” Chollie continued. “Such is the case with X,” he said, naming a multimillionaire financier who was now in his late fifties and had still not tied the knot. “He suffers from a permanent case of bimbo-itis. Still, if you’re X, who are you going to bring home? Are you going to challenge your mother with a real standup woman who will disrupt the family?
“Even so,” Chollie said, leaning forward in his chair, “a lot of people are tired of these guys’ commitment problems. If I were a single woman, I’d think, Why bother with these guys, when there are 296 million amusing gay men out there who can fill a chair? I’d find a very amusing gay man who can be entertaining on a hundred topics to take me out. Why waste your time with X? Who wants to sit there and listen to him drone on about his business? To have to fawn all over him? He’s old. He’s too old to change. A man like X is not worth the effort. These men have cried nonwolf too many times.
“After all, it’s women who decide if a man is desirable or undesirable. And if a man is never going to make the effort to get married, if he’s never going to contribute . . . well, I think women are fed up. And for good reason.”
JACK’S THANKSGIVING
“Here’s what happens,” said Norman, a photographer. “Take Jack. You know Jack—everybody knows Jack. I’ve been married for three years. I’ve known Jack for ten. The other day I’m thinking, In all the time I’ve known Jack, he’s never had a girlfriend for more than six weeks. So we all go to a Thanksgiving dinner at some friends’. Everyone at the dinner has known each other for years. Okay, not everyone’s married, but they’re at least in serious relationships. Then Jack shows up, once again, with a bimbo. Twenty-something. Blond. Turns out, sure enough, she’s a waitress he met the week before. So, one, she’s a stranger, doesn’t fit in, and changes the whole tenor of the dinner. And he’s useless, too, because all he’s thinking about is how he’s going to get laid. Any time anyon
e sees Jack, it’s this same scenario. Why spend time with him? After Thanksgiving, the women in our group all decided that Jack was out. He was banned.”
Samantha Jones was having dinner at Kiosk with Magda, the novelist. They were discussing bachelors—Jack and Harry in particular.
“Someone said that Jack is still talking about who he scored with,” said Magda. “It’s the same conversation he was having fifteen years ago. Men think that a bad reputation is something that only women can get. They’re wrong. Don’t these guys understand that when you see who they want to be with—a bimbo—that you don’t want to be with a man who wants to be with that?”
“Take a guy like Harry,” Samantha said. “I can sort of understand Jack—he’s totally into his career and making big money. But Harry doesn’t want that. He says he doesn’t care about power and money. On the other hand, he doesn’t care about love and relationships, either. So exactly what is he about? What is the point of his existence?”
“Besides,” said Magda, “who knows where these guys’ dirty dicks have been.”
“I couldn’t find it less interesting,” said Samantha.
“I ran into Roger the other day, outside Mortimers, of course,” Magda said.
“He must be fifty now,” Samantha said.
“Close to it. You know, I dated him when I was twenty-five. He’d just been named one of New York’s most eligible bachelors by Town & Country. I remember thinking, It’s all such a crock! First of all, he lived with his mother—okay, he did have the top floor of their town house, but still. Then there was the perfect house in Southampton and the perfect house in Palm Beach and the membership at the Bath & Tennis. And you know what? That was it. That was his life. Playing this role of eligible bachelor. And there wasn’t anything below the surface.”
“What’s he doing now?” Samantha asked.
“The usual,” Magda said. “He went through all the girls in New York, and when they finally got his number, he moved to L.A. From there, to London, now Paris. He said he was back in New York for two months, spending time with his mother.”
The two women screamed with laughter.
“Get this,” Magda said. “He tells me a story. ‘I really like French girls,’ he says. He goes to dinner at the home of this big shot Frenchman with three daughters. ‘I’d take any of them,’ he says. He’s at dinner, he thinks he’s doing pretty well, he tells them about his friend, some Arab prince, who has three wives, all of them sisters. The French girls start glaring at him, and the dinner ends almost immediately.”
“Do you think these guys get it? Do you think they realize how pathetic they are?” Samantha asked.
“Nope,” Magda said.
“I SUFFER”
The next day, Simon Piperstock made several calls from the first-class lounge at Kennedy International Airport. One of them was to a young woman he’d dated several years ago.
“I’m on my way to Seattle,” Simon said. “I’m not good.”
“Really.” The woman sounded almost happy about it.
“For some reason, everybody is telling me that my behavior is reprehensible. They say it’s disgusting.”
“Do you think it’s disgusting?”
“A little bit.”
“I see.”
“My relationship with Mary isn’t working out, so I took a beautiful young girl, a friend of mine, to this party. She’s a nice girl. And she’s a friend. And everybody was on my case about it.”
“Your relationships never work out, Simon.”
“Then I ran into a woman at the theater who I’d been fixed up with a couple of years ago. And I wasn’t really interested in her, so we became friends. She came up to me and she said, ‘You know, I would never want to get involved with you. I would never want any of my friends to be involved with you. You’ve hurt too many women.’”
“You have.”
“What am I supposed to do? I suffer from the problem of never thinking that I’ve met the right person. So I take people out. Jeez. Everybody’s done it.” There was a pause. “I was sick yesterday,” Simon said.
“That’s too bad,” the woman said. “Did you wish you had someone to take care of you?”
“Not really,” Simon said. “I mean, I was only sick for a little bit. . . . Damn it. Yes. It’s true. I did think about it. Do you think I have a problem? I’d like to see you. Talk about it. Maybe you can help me.”
“I have a serious boyfriend now,” the woman said. “I think maybe we’re going to get married. Frankly, I don’t think he’d appreciate it if I was seen out with you.”
“Oh,” Simon said. “Okay.”
“But if you want to call, feel free.”
22
Bone and the White Mink:
Carrie’s Christmas Carol
Christmas season in New York. The parties. The star on 57th Street. The tree. Most of the time, it’s never the way it should be. But once in a while, something happens and it works.
Carrie was at Rockefeller Center, thinking about ghosts of Christmas Past. How many years ago was it, she thought, putting on her skates, that I was last here? Her fingers trembled a little as she wrapped the laces around the hooks. Anticipation. Hoping the ice would be hard and clear.
Samantha Jones made her remember. Lately, Sam had been complaining about not having a boyfriend. About not having a love during the holidays for years and years. “You’re lucky now,” she told Carrie, and they both knew it was true. “I wonder if it will ever happen to me,” Sam said. And both of them knew what “it” was. “I walk by Christmas trees, and I feel sad,” said Sam.
Sam walks by Christmas trees and Carrie skates. And she remembers.
* * *
It was Skipper Johnson’s second Christmas in New York, and he was driving everyone crazy. One night, he went to three cocktail parties in a row.
At the first one, he saw James, a makeup artist. James was at the second and third cocktail parties, too, and Skipper talked to him. He couldn’t help talking to everyone. Remy, a hair-stylist, came up to Skipper and asked, “What are you doing with that guy, James? You’re too good for him.”
“What do you mean?” Skipper said.
“I’ve seen the two of you everywhere together. And let me tell you something. He’s scum. A user. You can do better.”
“But I’m not gay,” Skipper said.
“Oh, sure, darling.”
The next morning, Skipper called up Stanford Blatch, the screenwriter. “People thinking I’m gay, it’s bad for my reputation,” he said.
“Please,” said Stanford. “Reputations are like cat litter. They can be changed daily. In fact, they should be. Besides, I’ve got enough of my own problems right now.”
Skipper called up River Wilde, the famous novelist. “I want to see-e-e you,” he said.
“You can’t,” said River.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m busy.”
“Busy with what?”
“With Mark. My new boyfriend.”
“I don’t get it,” Skipper said. “I thought I was your friend.”
“He does things for me that you won’t do.”
There was a pause.
“But I do things for you that he can’t do,” Skipper said.
“Like what?”
Another pause.
“That doesn’t mean you have to be with him all the time,” said Skipper.
“Don’t you get it, Skipper?” River said. “He’s here. His things are here. His underwear. His CDs. His hairballs.”
“Hairballs?”
“He has a cat.”
“Oh,” Skipper said. Then: “You let a cat in your apartment?”
Skipper called up Carrie. “I can’t stand it. It’s Christmas, and everybody is in a relationship. Everybody except me. What are you doing tonight?”
“Big and I are staying home,” Carrie said. “I’m cooking.”
“I want a home,” Skipper said. “I need a house. Maybe in Connec
ticut. I want a nest.”
“Skipper,” Carrie said, “you’re twenty-five years old.”
“Why can’t everything be the way it was last year, when nobody was in a relationship?” Skipper moaned. “Last night, I had the most amazing dream about Gae Garden,” he said, referring to the famously frosty socialite in her mid-forties. “She’s so-o-o beautiful. And I had a dream that we were holding hands and we were so in love. And then I woke up, totally bummed because it wasn’t true. It was just that feeling. Do you think you can ever have that feeling in real life?”
The year before, Skipper, Carrie, and River Wilde had all gone to Belle’s Christmas party at her family’s mansion in the country. Skipper drove his Mercedes, and River sat in the back seat like a papal personage and made Skipper keep flipping radio stations until he found some music he could tolerate. Afterward, they went back to River’s apartment, and River and Carrie were talking while Skipper complained about how his car was parked illegally. Then Skipper went to the window and looked out, and sure enough, his car was being towed. He started screaming, and Carrie and River told him to shut up and do a line or smoke a joint or at least have another drink. And they thought it was hysterical.
The next day, Stanford Blatch went with Skipper to get his car out of the pound. The car had a flat tire, and Stanford sat inside the car, reading the papers, while Skipper changed the tire.
THE BONE
“I need a favor,” Stanford Blatch said.
He and Carrie were having their annual Christmas lunch, at Harry Cipriani. “I have to sell some paintings in the Sotheby’s auction. I want you to sit in the audience and bid them up.”
“Sure,” Carrie said.
“Frankly, I’m broke,” Stanford said. After he lost his investment in a rock band, Stanford’s family had cut him off. Then he’d gone through all the money from his last screenplay. “I’ve been such a fool,” he said.
And then there was the Bone. Stanford had been writing a screenplay for him and paying for the Bone to get acting lessons. “Of course, he said he wasn’t gay,” Stanford said, “but I didn’t believe him. Nobody understands. I took care of that kid. He used to fall asleep at night while we were talking on the phone. With the phone cradled in his arms. I’ve never met anyone who was so vulnerable. So mixed up.”