The week before, Stanford had asked the Bone if he wanted to go to the Costume Institute benefit at the Met. The Bone freaked out. “I told him it would be good for his career. He screamed at me,” Stanford said. “Insisted that he wasn’t gay. That I should leave him alone. Said he never wanted to talk to me again.”
Stanford took a sip of his Bellini. “People thought I was secretly in love with him. I thought I wasn’t.
“He beat me up once. I was in his apartment. We got into a fight. I set up an audition for him with a director. He said he was too tired. That I should leave. I said, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ He threw me against a wall, then he literally picked me up and threw me down the stairs. Of course he lived in a cheap walkup. A beautiful boy like that. My shoulder hasn’t worked right since.”
THE WHITE MINK
Carrie has been getting complaints about Skipper. From women who are older than he is. Like Carrie’s agent, and one of her editors at a magazine. Skipper has been putting his hand on their knees under the table at dinners all over town.
The night of the Costume Institute benefit, Carrie was getting her hair done and yelling at Skipper on the phone when Mr. Big came home. He had a big package under his arm. “What’s that?” Carrie asked.
“It’s a present for me,” Mr. Big said.
He went into the bedroom and came out holding a white mink coat. “Merry Christmas.”
“Skipper, I have to go,” Carrie said.
It was just three years ago Christmas that Carrie had been living in a studio apartment where an old lady had died two months before. Carrie had no money. A friend lent her a piece of foam for a bed. All she had was a mink coat and a Louis Vuitton suitcase, both of which were stolen when the apartment was inevitably robbed. But until then, she slept on the piece of foam with the fur coat over her, and she still went out every night. People liked her, and nobody asked questions. One night, she was invited to yet another party at someone’s grand Park Avenue apartment. She knew she didn’t really fit in, and it was always tempting to stuff your face on the free food, but you couldn’t do that. Instead, she met a man who had a name. He asked her to dinner, and she thought, Fuck you, all of you.
They went to dinner at Elio’s and sat at one of the front tables. The man laughed a lot and ate breadsticks spread with cold butter from his knife. “Are you a successful writer?” he asked.
“I have a story in Woman’s Day next month,” Carrie said.
“Woman’s Day? Who reads Woman’s Day?”
Then he said, “I’m going to St. Barts for Christmas. Ever been to St. Barts?”
“No.”
“You should go. You really should. I rent a villa every year. Everyone goes to St. Barts.”
“Sure,” Carrie said.
The next time they had dinner, he had changed his mind and couldn’t decide if he should go skiing in Gstaad or Aspen or to St. Barts. He asked her where she went to school.
“Nayaug High School,” she said. “In Connecticut.”
“Nayaug?” he asked. “Never heard of it. Hey, do you think I should get my ex-girlfriend a Christmas present? She says she’s getting me one. Anyway.”
Carrie just looked at him.
Still, her misery lifted for a few days until she realized that maybe he wasn’t going to call again.
Two days before Christmas, she called him. “Oh, I’m about to take off,” he said.
“Where did you decide to go?”
“St. Barts. After all. We’ve got a terrific house party. Jason Mould, the movie director, and his girlfriend, Stelli Stein, are coming in from L.A. But you have a very merry Christmas, okay? I hope Santa is good to you.”
“You have a good Christmas, too,” she said.
HI, MOM
That afternoon, she went ice skating, doing one spin after another in the center of the rink until they made everyone get off because the session was over. She called her mother. “I’m coming home,” she said. It began snowing. She got on a train at Penn Station. There were no seats. She stood in the vestibule between the cars.
The train went through Rye and Greenwich. The snow turned into a blizzard. They passed Greens Farms and Westport and then the dirty little industrial towns. The train stopped, delayed because of the snow. Strangers began talking. It was Christmas.
Carrie lit a cigarette. She kept thinking about the man and Jason Mould and Stelli Stein (whoever she was) lying around a pool underneath a blue St. Barts sky. Stelli Stein would be wearing a white bikini and a black hat. They’d be sipping drinks through straws. People would come for lunch. And everyone would be long and tan and beautiful.
Carrie watched the snow blow into the car through a crack in the door. She wondered if she would ever get anything right.
It was midnight. Skipper was sitting in his apartment, talking on the phone to California, standing in front of the window. A cab pulled up to the building across the street. He could see a man and a woman in the back seat, making out. Then the woman got out, and she was wearing a big fur coat with like twelve cashmere sweaters wrapped around her head, and the cab drove off.
It was Samantha Jones.
Two minutes later, his doorbell rang.
“Sam,” Skipper said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Oh, please, Skipper. Stop with the juvenilities. I was wondering if I could borrow some shampoo,” she said.
“Shampoo? How about a drink?” Skipper asked.
“A small one,” Sam said. “And don’t get any funny ideas. Like putting Ecstasy in it or anything.”
“Ecstasy? I don’t even do drugs. I’ve never even done coke, I swear. Wow. I can’t believe you’re in my apartment.”
“I can’t either,” Sam said. She began walking around the living room. Touching things. “You know, I’m not quite as organized as everyone thinks.”
“Why don’t you take off your coat?” Skipper said. “Sit down. Do you want to have sex?”
“I really want to wash my hair,” Sam said.
“You can wash it here,” Skipper said. “After.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Who was that man you were kissing in the cab?” Skipper asked.
“Just another man I either don’t want or can’t have,” Samantha said. “Like you.”
“But you can have me,” Skipper said. “I’m available.”
“Exactly,” Sam said.
YOU’RE SO NAUGHTY
“Cheri,” said a man’s voice from the living room. “I’m so glad you come to see me.”
“You know I always come to see you,” said the Bone.
“Come here. I have some presents for you.”
The Bone checked himself in the mirror in the marble foyer, then went into the living room. A middle-aged man was sitting on the couch, sipping tea, tapping his Italian-slippered foot against the coffee table.
“Come to me. Let me see you. See how you’ve aged in the past two months. No sun damage from our time in the Aegean?”
“You haven’t aged at all,” said the Bone. “You always look young. What’s your secret?”
“That wonderful face cream you gave me,” said the man. “What was it again?”
“Kiehl’s.” The Bone sat on the edge of a bergère.
“You must bring me some more,” the man said. “Do you still have the watch?”
“The watch?” the Bone said. “Oh, I gave that to some homeless man. He kept asking me what time it was, so I figured he needed it.”
“Oh! You’re so naughty,” the man said. “Teasing me like that.”
“Would I ever give away anything you gave me?”
“No,” the man said. “Now look at what I brought you. Cashmere sweaters in every color. You’ll try them on?”
“As long as I get to keep all of them,” the Bone said.
RIVER’S PARTY
River Wilde’s annual Christmas party. Loud music. People everywhere. In the stairwell. Doing drugs. Someone was peeing off the balcony onto
the head of the unsuspecting superintendent below. The Bone was ignoring Stanford Blatch, who showed up with twin male models who had just come into town. Skipper was making out with a woman in the corner. The Christmas tree fell over.
Skipper broke free and came up to Carrie. She asked him why he was always trying to kiss women. “I feel like it’s my duty,” he said, then asked Mr. Big, “Aren’t you impressed with how fast I moved?”
Skipper moved on to River. “How come you never include me anymore? I feel like all my friends are dissing me. It’s because of Mark, isn’t it? He doesn’t like me.”
“If you keep this up, no one is going to like you,” River said. Someone was puking in the bathroom.
At one A.M., the floor was awash in alcohol, and a cadre of druggies had taken over the bathroom. The tree had fallen over three times and no one could find their coat.
Stanford said to River, “I’ve finally given up on the Bone. I’ve never been wrong before, but maybe he really is straight.” River stared at him, dazed.
“Come, River,” Stanford said, suddenly happy. “Look at your Christmas tree. Look at how beautiful it is.”
23
Party Girl’s Tale of Sex and Woe: He Was Rich, Doting, and . . . Ugly
Carrie was walking out of Bergdorf’s when she ran into Bunny Entwistle.
“Sweetie!” Bunny said. “I haven’t seen you for years. You look great!”
“You, too,” Carrie said.
“You must have lunch with me. Immediately. Amalita Amalfi—yes, she’s in town too, and we’re still friends—stood me up.”
“Probably waiting for a phone call from Jake.”
“Oh, is she still seeing him?” Bunny tossed her white-blond hair over the shoulder of her sable coat. “I have a table at ‘21.’ Please have lunch with me. I haven’t been in New York for a year, and I’m dying to dish.”
Bunny was fortyish, still beautiful, L.A.-tanned, a sometime TV actress, but before that, she’d been around New York for years. She was the quintessential party girl, a girl so wild no man would consider marrying her, but plenty tried to get in her pants.
“I want a table in the back. Where I can smoke and no one will bother us,” Bunny said. They sat down and she lit up a Cuban cigar. “The absolutely first thing I want to talk about is that wedding announcement.” She was referring to a notice about the marriage of Chloe—thirty-six, still considered a classic beauty—to a homely fellow named Jason Jingsley in a ceremony on the Galápagos Islands.
“Well, he is rich, smart, and sweet,” Carrie said. “He was always friendly to me.”
“Please, darling,” Bunny said. “Men like Jingles, and there’s a whole group of them in New York, are not the type of guys you marry. They make great friends—attentive, always there when you’re in a tight spot—and late at night when you’re lonely and desperate as hell, you whisper to yourself, ‘Well, I could always marry a guy like Jingles. At least that way I wouldn’t have to worry about paying the rent.’ But you wake up and really think about it, and realize that you’d have to share a bed with him, watch him brush his teeth, that stuff.”
“Sandra said he tried to kiss her once,” Carrie said. “She said, ‘If I wanted a fur ball in my bed, I’d get a cat.’”
Bunny snapped open a compact, pretending to check her eyelashes but really, Carrie thought, checking to see if anyone in the restaurant was looking at her. “I’d love to call Chloe and ask her about it directly, but I can’t, because she hasn’t exactly been talking to me for years,” she said. “Strangely enough, I did get one of those invitations to one of those Upper East Side museum benefits, and sure enough, Chloe is once again a cochair. I haven’t gone to that benefit for years, but I actually thought about paying the $350 and going by myself. Just so I could see what she looked like.”
Bunny laughed her famous laugh, and several heads swiveled around to look at her. “A few years back, when I was kind of fucked up and sometimes even had dried coke residue around my nostrils, my father used to call me up and say, ‘Come home.’ ‘Why?’ I’d ask. ‘So I can seeeee you,’ he’d say. ‘If I seeeeee you I’ll know whether or not you’re all right.’
“It’s the same thing with Chloe. If I can just see her, I’ll know everything. Is she filled with self-loathing? Is she on Prozac?”
“I don’t think so,” Carrie started to say.
“Or do you think she’s had some kind of remarkable religious experience?” Bunny continued. “People do these days. It’s very chic.
“Anyway, I have my reasons for wanting to know. A few years ago, I almost married a guy like Jingles,” Bunny said, slowly. “The situation is still not resolved and probably never will be.
“Let’s have champagne. Waiter!” Bunny snapped her fingers. She took a breath. “Well. It all started after a nasty breakup with a man I’ll call Dominique. He was an Italian banker, Euro-trashy and proud of it, with a personality like a scorpion. Just like his mother. Of course he treated me like shit and I put up with it, and strangely enough, I didn’t mind that much. At least, not until the end when I drank too much psychedelic mushroom tea in Jamaica and realized he didn’t love me after all. But I was a different person back then. I still had my beauty—you know, strangers stopped me on the street, that kind of thing—and a good-girl upbringing that comes from growing up in a small town in Maine. But on the inside, I was not nice. I had absolutely no feelings at all, emotionally or physically. I’d never been in love.
“The only reason I lived with Dominique for three years was, one, he asked me to on our first date, and two, he had a gorgeous two-bedroom apartment in a prewar overlooking the East River and a big house in East Hampton. I had no money, no job—I did some voice-overs and sang some jingles for TV commercials.
“So when Dominique and I broke up—he found out I was having affairs and made me give back jewelry he’d bought for me—I decided that what I needed to do was get married. Quickly.”
THE TRILBY HAT
“I moved into a friend’s apartment,” said Bunny, “and about two weeks later I met Dudley at Chester’s—that East Side bar for young swells. Within five minutes of meeting him, I was annoyed. He was wearing spectator shoes, a trilby hat, and a Ralph Lauren suit. His lips were damp. He was tall and skinny, with no chin to speak of, eyes like boiled eggs, and a large, bobbing Adam’s apple. He sits down, uninvited, at our table, and he insists on ordering martinis for everyone. He tells bad jokes, makes fun of my pony-skin designer shoes. ‘I’m a cow, moo, wear me,’ he said. ‘Excuse me, but I believe you’re the big beef,’ I said. I was embarrassed to be seen talking to him.
“The next day, sure enough, he called. ‘Shelby gave me your number,’ he said. Shelby’s a friend of mine and somehow related to George Washington. I can be rude, but only up to a point. ‘I didn’t know you knew Shelby,’ I said. ‘Su-u-re,’ he said. ‘Since kindergarten. Even back then he was a goofy kid.’
“‘He was? What about you?’ I said.
“My mistake. I should never have gotten started with him. Before I knew it, I was telling him all about my breakup with Dominique, and the next day, he sent flowers ‘because a beautiful girl shouldn’t be depressed about being dumped.’ Shelby called. ‘Dudley’s a great guy,’ he said.
“‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘What’s so great about him?’
“‘His family owns half of Nantucket.’
“Dudley was persistent. He sent gifts—stuffed bears and, one time, a Vermont cheese basket. He called three or four times a day. At first, he set my teeth on edge. But after a while, I got used to his bad sense of humor and almost looked forward to his calls. He listened with fascination to any spoiled, mundane detail of my day: you know, like how I was pissed because Yvonne had bought a new Chanel suit and I couldn’t afford one; how a taxi driver kicked me out of the cab for smoking; how I cut my ankle again shaving. He was setting a trap for me and I knew it—but I still thought that I, of all people, could get out of it.
“And then
came the weekend invitation, via Shelby, who called me and said, ‘Dudley wants us to go to his house in Nantucket with him.’
“‘Not on your life,’ I said.
“‘His house is beautiful. Antique. Main Street.’
“‘Which one?’ I asked.
“‘I think it’s one of the brick ones.’
“‘You think?’
“‘I’m pretty sure. But every time I was there, I was fucked up. So I don’t really remember.’
“‘If it’s one of the brick houses, I’ll think about it,’ I said.
“Ten minutes later, Dudley himself called. ‘I already bought your plane tickets,’ he said. ‘And yeah, it’s one of the brick houses.’”
DUDLEY DANCES
“I still have no explanation for what happened that weekend. Maybe it was the alcohol, the marijuana. Or maybe it was just the house itself. As a kid, my family had spent summers on Nantucket. I say that, but the reality is, we spent two weeks at a rooming house. I shared a room with my brothers, and my parents boiled lobsters for dinner on a hot plate.
“I slept with Dudley that weekend. I didn’t want to. We were on the landing of the staircase, saying good night, when he sort of swooped down and started to kiss me. I didn’t refuse. We went to his bed, and as he lay on top of me, I remember at first feeling that I was being suffocated, which probably wasn’t in my imagination since Dudley is six feet, two inches, and then feeling like I was sleeping with a little boy, since he couldn’t have weighed more than 160 pounds and he had no hair on his body whatsoever.
“But for the first time in my life, the sex was great. I had a sort of epiphany: Maybe if I was with a guy because he was nice and adored me, I would be happy. But still I was afraid to look at Dudley when we woke up, afraid that I’d be repulsed.