“Two weeks after we got back to the city, we attended an Upper East Side museum benefit. It was our first official event together as a couple. And, in what would become typical of our relationship, it was a series of mishaps. He was an hour late, then we couldn’t find a cab because it was 105 degrees. We had to walk, and Dudley—as usual—hadn’t eaten anything that day and nearly passed out, and someone had to get him glasses of ice water. Then he insisted on dancing, which basically consisted of flinging me into other couples. Then he smoked a cigar and threw up. Meanwhile, everyone kept telling me what a great guy he was.
“Except my friends. Amalita said, ‘You can do better. This is ridiculous.’
“I said, ‘But he’s great in bed.’
“She said, ‘Please don’t make me puke.’
“A month later, Dudley unofficially asked me to marry him, and I said yes. I had this feeling of shame about Dudley, but I kept thinking I would get over it. Plus, he kept me busy. We were always shopping. For apartments. Engagement rings. Antiques. Oriental rugs. Silver. Wine. And then there were weekend trips to Nantucket, and trips to Maine to visit my parents, but Dudley was perniciously late and always unorganized, so that we were always missing trains and ferries.
“The turning point came the night we missed a ferry to Nantucket for the fourth time. We had to spend the night at a motel. I was starving and wanted Dudley to go out and get Chinese food, but instead he came back with a head of iceberg lettuce and a pitiful looking tomato. While I lay in bed, trying to block out the noise of a couple screwing in the next room, Dudley sat at a Formica table in his boxers, cutting away the rotten parts of the tomato with his silver Tiffany Swiss Army knife. He was only thirty, but he had the persnickety habits of a seventy-five year old.
“The next morning, I started in. ‘Don’t you think you should work out? Gain a little weight?’
“After that, everything about him began to drive me crazy. His silly, flashy clothing. The way he acted like everyone was his best friend. The three long blond hairs on his Adam’s apple. His smell.
“Each day, I tried to get him to the gym. I would stand there and force him to do reps with five-pound barbells, which was all he could handle. He actually did gain ten pounds, but then he lost it all again. One night, we went to dinner at his parents’ apartment on Fifth Avenue. The cook was making lamb chops. Dudley insisted that he couldn’t eat meat, screamed at his parents for not being considerate about his eating habits, and made the cook run out to the store to buy brown rice and broccoli. The dinner was two hours late, and still Dudley only picked at his food. I was mortified. Afterward, his father said to me, ‘You come to dinner again anytime you like, but leave Dudley behind.’
“I should have ended it right there, but Christmas was two weeks away. On Christmas Eve, Dudley officially asked me to marry him, with an eight-carat ring, in front of my whole family. There was always something a little bit nasty about him, and in typical Dudley fashion, he squished the ring into a Godiva chocolate and then handed me the box. ‘Here’s your Christmas present,’ he said. ‘Better start eating.’
“‘I don’t want chocolates now,’ I said, giving him the sort of dirty look that usually shut him up.
“‘I think you do,’ he said, somewhat menacingly, so I began eating. My family watched, in horror. I could have chipped a tooth, or worse, choked. Still, I said yes.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been engaged to the wrong person, but, once it happens, it’s like being on a freight train you can’t stop. There were the rounds of Park Avenue parties, little dinners at Mortimers and Bilboquet. Women I hardly knew had heard about the ring and begged to see it. ‘He’s such a great guy,’ everyone said.
“‘Yes, he is,’ I’d reply. And inside, I felt like a shitheel.
“And then the day came when I was supposed to move into our newly bought, perfectly furnished classic-six apartment on East 72nd Street. My boxes were packed, and the movers were downstairs when I called Dudley.
“‘I can’t do this,’ I said.
“‘Can’t do what?’ he asked.
“I hung up.
“He called back. He came over. He left. His friends called. I went out and went on a bender. Dudley’s Upper East Side friends sharpened their knives. They made stuff up: I was spotted at someone’s house at four in the morning wearing only cowboy boots. I’d given another guy a blow job at a club. I was trying to pawn the engagement ring. I was a gold digger. I’d taken Dudley for a ride.
“There is no good way to end these things. I moved into a tiny studio apartment in a dirty walkup on York Avenue, which I could actually afford myself, and started working on my career. Things got worse for Dudley. The real estate market crashed, and he couldn’t sell the apartment. It was all my fault. Dudley left town. Moved to London. Also, my fault. Even though I kept hearing about what a great time he was having. Dating some duke’s homely daughter.
“Everyone forgets that the three years after that were hell for me. Pure hell. Even though I had no money and had to eat hot dogs on the street and was suicidal half the time—I once actually called the suicide hot line, but then someone beeped in inviting me to a party—I vowed I’d never get into that situation again. Never take another penny from any man. It’s terrible to hurt someone like that.”
“But do you really think it was because of the way he looked?” Carrie asked.
“I’ve been thinking about that. And the one thing I forgot to mention is that every time I got into the car with him, I fell asleep. I literally couldn’t keep my eyes open. The truth is, he bored me.”
Maybe it was all the champagne, but Bunny laughed a little uncertainly. “Isn’t that just awful?” she said.
24
Aspen
Carrie went to Aspen by Lear jet. She wore the white mink coat, a short dress, and white patent leather boots. It seemed like the thing to wear on a Lear jet, but it wasn’t. The other people she was traveling with, the ones who owned the jet, were wearing jeans and pretty embroidered sweaters and sensible boots for snow. Carrie was very hung over. When the jet stopped for refueling in Lincoln, Nebraska, she had to be helped down the steps by the pilot. It was slightly warm, and she wandered around in her big mink and sunglasses, smoking cigarettes and staring out at the endless, flat, yellow-dry fields.
Mr. Big was waiting at the airport in Aspen. He was sitting outside, too perfectly dressed in a brown suede coat and a brown suede hat, smoking a cigar. He walked across the tarmac and the first thing he said was, “The plane is late. I’m freezing.”
“Why didn’t you wait inside?” Carrie asked. They drove through the tiny town, which was like a toy town lovingly placed by a child at the base of a Christmas tree. Carrie pressed her fingers over her eyes and sighed. “I’m going to relax. Get healthy,” she said. “Cook.”
Stanford Blatch also arrived by private jet. He was staying with his childhood friend Suzannah Martin. After River Wilde’s party, he had told Suzannah, “I want to turn over a new leaf. We’re such good friends, we should really think about getting married. That way, I can get my inheritance, and with your money and my money combined, we can live the way we’ve always wanted.”
Suzannah was a forty-year-old sculptress who wore dramatic makeup and large pieces of jewelry. She had never seen herself in a traditional marriage anyway. “Separate bedrooms?” she asked.
“Naturally,” Stanford said.
Skipper Johnson flew in commercial, upgrading his ticket to first class using mileage. He was vacationing with his parents and his two younger sisters. I have to find a girlfriend, he thought. This is ridiculous. He envisioned the lucky woman as older, somewhere between thirty and thirty-five, smart, beautiful, and lots of fun. Someone who could keep his interest. In the last year, he’d realized that girls his age were boring. They looked up to him too much, and it was scary.
Mr. Big taught Carrie to ski. He had bought her a ski suit, gloves, hat, long underwear. Also a tiny thermometer that clipp
ed to her ski gloves—the one thing she had begged him to buy her. He had resisted until she pouted; then he agreed to buy it in exchange for a blow job even though it only cost four dollars. In the house they rented, he zipped up her ski suit, and she held out her hands and he put on her gloves. He clipped on the mini thermometer and she said, “You’re going to be so glad we have this. It’s cold out there.” He laughed and they kissed.
Mr. Big smoked cigars on the gondola and talked on his cellular phone. Then he would ski behind Carrie on the slopes, watching to make sure no one ran into her. “You can handle it,” he’d say, as she made turn after turn, curving slowly down the mountain. Then she’d stand at the bottom of the slope, shielding her eyes with her hand as she watched Mr. Big bounce over the moguls.
In the evenings, they would get massages and go in the hot tub. At night, when they were lying in bed together, Mr. Big said, “We’re close now, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Carrie said.
“Remember how you always used to say we had to be closer? You don’t say that anymore.”
Carrie thought, Things can’t get any better.
“I’M LOOKING FOR TAIL”
Stanford Blatch was strolling along the top of Aspen mountain in a pair of pony-skin après ski boots and swinging a pair of binoculars, on his way to meet Suzannah at the lodge for lunch, when he heard a familiar voice scream out, “Stanford!” followed by “Watch out!” He turned just as Skipper Johnson was about to ski into him and deftly jumped back into a snow bank to avoid being hit. “Dear, dear Skipper,” he said.
“Don’t you love running into your friends on vacation?” Skipper asked. He was dressed in a ski suit that resembled what a Boy Scout might wear for inclement weather: Floppy yellow ski jacket and a hat with earflaps that stuck out at right angles.
“That depends on the friends and how one runs into them,” Stanford said.
“I didn’t know you were a bird watcher,” Skipper said.
“I’m not looking for birds, I’m looking for tail,” Stanford said. “I’m checking out the private jets so I’ll know what kind to buy.”
“You’re getting a jet?” Skipper asked.
“Soon,” Stanford said. “I’m thinking about getting married and I want to be sure my wife gets around properly.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes, Skipper,” Stanford said patiently. “In fact, I’m on my way to have lunch with her right now. Would you like to meet her?”
“I can’t believe this,” Skipper said. “Well,” he said, snapping off his skis, “I’ve already hooked up with three different girls. Why not you?”
Stanford looked at him pityingly. “Dear, dear Skipper,” he said. “When are you going to stop pretending you’re straight?”
Carrie and Mr. Big went for a romantic dinner at the Pine Creek Cookhouse. They drove through the mountains, and then they took a horse-drawn sleigh to the restaurant. The sky was black and clear, and Mr. Big talked all about the stars, and how he was poor as a kid and had to leave school at thirteen and work and then go into the air force.
They brought a Polaroid camera and took pictures of each other in the restaurant. They drank wine and held hands and Carrie got a little drunk. “Listen,” she said. “I have to ask you something.”
“Shoot,” said Mr. Big.
“You know at the beginning of the summer? When we’d been seeing each other for two months and then you said you wanted to date other people?”
“Yeah?” Mr. Big said cautiously.
“And then you dated that model for a week? And when I ran into you, you were horrible and I screamed at you and we had that big fight in front of Bowery Bar?”
“I was afraid you were never going to talk to me again.”
“I just want to know,” Carrie said. “If you were me, what would you have done?”
“I guess I never would have talked to you again.”
“Is that what you wanted?” Carrie asked. “Did you want me to go away?”
“No,” Mr. Big said. “I wanted you to stick around. I was confused.”
“But you would have left.”
“I didn’t want you to go. It was like, I don’t know. It was a test,” he said.
“A test?”
“To see if you really liked me. Enough to stick around.”
“But you really hurt me,” Carrie said. “How could you hurt me like that? I can never forget that—you know?”
“I know, baby. I’m sorry,” he said.
When they got back to their house, there was a message on the answering machine from their friend Rock Gibralter, the TV actor. “I’m here,” he said. “Staying with Tyler Kydd. You guys will love him.”
“Is that Tyler Kydd, the actor?” Mr. Big asked.
“Sounds like it,” Carrie said, aware that she was trying to sound as if she couldn’t have cared less.
PROMETHEUS BOUND
“That was just wonderful,” Stanford said. He and Suzannah were sitting on the couch in front of the fire. Suzannah was smoking a cigarette. Her fingers were slim and elegant, ending in long, perfectly manicured red nails. She was wrapped in a black silk Chinese robe. “Thank you, darling,” she said.
“You really are the perfect wife, you know,” Stanford said. “I can’t imagine why you’re not already married.”
“Straight men bore me,” Suzannah said. “Eventually anyway. It always starts off fine, and then they become incredibly demanding. Before you know it, you’re doing everything they want, and you have no life left.”
“We won’t be like that,” Stanford said. “This is perfect.”
Suzannah stood up. “I’m off to bed,” she said. “I want to get up early and ski. Sure you won’t join me?”
“On the slopes? Never,” Stanford said. “But you must promise me one thing. That we have an evening exactly like this one tomorrow night.”
“Certainly.”
“You really are the most wonderful cook. Where did you learn to cook like that?”
“Paris.”
Stanford stood up. “Good night, my dear.”
“Good night,” she said. Stanford leaned forward and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Until tomorrow,” he said, giving her a little wave as she walked to her room.
A few minutes later, Stanford went to his room. But he did not go to sleep. Instead, he turned on his computer and checked his e-mail. As he had hoped, there was a message for him. He picked up the phone and called a taxi. Then he waited by the window.
When the taxi pulled up, he slipped out of the house. “Caribou Club,” he said to the driver.
And then it was like a bad dream. The taxi took him to a cobblestoned street in the center of town. Stanford walked through a narrow alley lined with tiny shops, then went in a door and down some stairs. A blond woman, who was probably forty but through the miracles of facial plastic surgery and breast implants looked five years younger, was standing behind a wooden podium.
“I’m meeting someone here,” Stanford said. “But I don’t know what his name is.”
The woman looked at him suspiciously.
“I’m Stanford Blatch. The screenplay writer?” he said.
“Yes?” she said.
Stanford smiled. “Did you ever see the movie Fashion Victims?”
“Oh!” the woman said. “I loved that movie. Did you write that?”
“Yes I did.”
“What are you working on now?” she asked.
“I’m thinking about doing a movie about people who have too much plastic surgery,” he said.
“Omigod,” she said. “My best friend . . .”
“I think I see my friends now,” Stanford said.
In one corner, two men and a woman were drinking and laughing. Stanford approached. The guy in the middle looked up. He was about forty, tanned, with bleached hair. Stanford could see that he’d had his nose and cheeks done, and probably had hair plugs. “Hercules?” Stanford asked.
“Yeah,” the guy
said.
“I’m Prometheus,” Stanford said.
The girl looked from the guy back to Stanford. “Hercules? Prometheus?” she asked. She had an obnoxious, nasally voice, and she was wearing a cheap, fuzzy, pink sweater. Not good enough to clean my grandmother’s attic, Stanford thought, and decided to ignore her.
“You don’t look like much of a Prometheus to me,” Hercules said, taking in Stanford’s long hair and fancy clothes.
“Are you going to invite me to sit down and have a drink, or are you just going to insult me?” Stanford asked.
“I think we should just insult you,” said the other guy. “Who are you, anyway?”
“Another loser I met on the Internet,” said Hercules. He took a sip of his drink.
“Takes one to know one,” Stanford said.
“Man. I don’t even know how to turn on a computer,” the girl said.
“I check out every guy who comes through Aspen. Then I take my pick,” said Hercules. “And you don’t . . . make the cut.”
“Well, at least I know how to pick my plastic surgeon,” Stanford said calmly. “It’s such a shame when people remember your plastic surgery and not you.” He smiled. “Have a pleasant evening. Gentlemen.”
CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?
Carrie and Mr. Big were having lunch outside at the Little Nell when they ran into Rock Gibralter. And Tyler Kydd.
Tyler Kydd saw them first. He wasn’t handsome like Mr. Big. But he was cool. Craggy face. Longish blond hair. Lanky body. He caught Carrie’s eye. “Uh oh,” she thought.
Then Mr. Big said, “Rocko. Baby.” And stuck his cigar in his mouth and slapped Rock on the back and pumped his hand.
“I’ve been looking for you guys,” Rock said. And then: “Do you know Tyler Kydd?”
“No, man,” Mr. Big said. “But I know your movies. When are you gonna get the girl?” They all laughed and sat down.
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