Relationship In Love

When Mr. Big is Away, the Girl Comes to Play

Carrie met the Girl in the bathroom stall at a club. She didn’t mean to meet the Girl.
Someone was knocking on the door of the stall. Carrie was in a good mood, she was hanging out in the stall with Cici, so instead of telling the person to buzz off, she opened the door a crack. The Girl was standing there. She had dark hair and she could have been beautiful. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah, sure,” Carrie said.
“Excuse me,” Cici said, “but do we know you?”
“No, we don’t,” Carrie answered.
“What do you have?” the Girl asked.
“What do you want?” Carrie said.
“I’ve got some great weed,” the Girl said.
“Good,” Carrie said.
The Girl lit the Joint and held it up. “Bvest weed you’ve ever smoked.”
“I doubt it,” Carrie said, inhaling deeply.
The club was crowded, and it was pleasant to be hanging out in the bathroom stall. The Girl leaned back against the wall and toked on the joint. She said she was twenty-seven, and Carrie didn’t believe her, but that was Okay, too. Because, at first, she was just a girl she met in the bathroom. It happened all the time.
“So, like, what do you do?” Cici asked.
“I’m debeloping my own skin care company,” the Girl said.
“Ah,” Carrie said.
“It’s based on science. I’d love to take care of your skin for you.”
“Oh, really?” Carrie said. She lit up a cigarette. Other people were banging on the door now.
“We should get out of here,” Cici said.
“I’d like someone to take care of my skin,” Carrie said. “I don’t think it’s quite as good as it could be.”
“Let me out,” Cici said.
“I can make it better,” the Girl said.
She was on the short side, but she had presence. A cool face that could be beautiful, but you had to keep looking at it to make sure. She was wearing elather pants, boots. Both expensive. Her voice was low.
“There are people out there who know me,” Cici said. She was fidgeting.
“Chill out,” Carrie said.
“I want you to hang with me,” the Girl said. “I want you to stay with me the whole night. I think you’re beautiful, you know.”
“Yeah, sure,” Carrie said. But she was surprised.

What’s Wrong With Me?
In eighth grade, Carrie knew a girl named Charlotte Netts. Charlotte was one of the popular girls, shich basically mant she was an early developer. Charlotte used to invite other girls over to spend the night. She used to send notes to girls, too. Carrie’s friend Jackie went to spend the night at Charlotte’s, and the next day it turned out that she had called her father in the middle of the night to come get her. Charlotte, Jackie said, had “attacked” her. She tried to kiss her and touch her breasts, and she wanted Jackie to do the same thing to her. She said it was “practice for boys.” After that, they weren’t friends anymore.
It was a scary sotry, and for years, Carrie would never sleep in the same bed with other girls or undress in front of them, even though you were supposed to be able to do that, be cause it was just girls. She used to think, What is wrong with me, why can’t I just be like everybody else and not be uptight about it? But it would be terrible to have to say no to sexual advances from someone who was your friend.
A few years back, two of her girlfriends had gotten drunk and ended up spending the night together. The next day, both of them called Carrie and complained about how the other one tried to have sex with her, and how Carrie had better watch out. Carrie didn’t knkow which one to believe. But the two women were never friends again.

Rough Persuasion
Mr. Big was away for the whole month of October, and everything was just a little bit off. On the streets on the Upper East Side, people were walking around in their fall clothing, but the weather was too warm and sunny. At first, Carrie stayed home nights, not drinking and reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion instead of seeing the movie. She’d read it twice before, but this time the book was boring, the characters going on in long speeches, and Carrie was despressed from a lack of alcohol and parties. Then she tried going out, but no one had changed or was doing anything new.
One night, Stanford Blatch came later to Wax, the new night-club in SoHo, with a man’s handkerchief tied around his neck.
“What’s up?” Carrie asked, and Stanford said, “Oh, you mean with this? It’s the Goose Guy’s fault.” The Goose Guy was a man who liked to have his neck wrung during sex. “Which was fine,” Stanford said, “until he tried it on me. Meanwhile, I’ll probably see him again. That’s how sick I am.”
The next night, she had dinner with Rock McQuire, a TV actor. “I really want a boyfriend.” He said. “I think I’m finally ready for a relationhip.”
“You’re such a great guy,” Carrie said. “You’re smart, cute, really successful. You shouldn’t have a problem.”
“But it’s not that easy,” Tock said. “I don’t want to go out with a twenty-two-year-old pretty boy. But if I go out with someone in their thirties, they have to be really successful, too. And how many guys are there around like that? So instead, I end up going to a sex club and having an encounter and going home. At least it’s not, you know, emotionally messy.”
The next morning, Miranda called up. “You’ll never believe what I did,” she said, and Carrie said, “What, sweetie?” while her right hand curled into a fist, a gesture she’s been repeating a lot lately.
“Got a second? You’re gonna love this.”
“I don’t, but I’m dying to hear it.”
“I went to a party with my friend Josephine. You know Josephine, right?”
“No, but…”
“I introduced you. At that party that my friend Sallie had. You remember Sallie, don’t you? Motorcycle Sallie?”
“Motorcycle Sallie.”
“Right. There were all these baseball players there. And guess what? I made out with one of them, and then I went into a bed room with another and we did it, right at the party.”
“That’s incredible,” Carrie said. “Was it great?”
“Awesome,” Miranda said.
Something’s gotta give, Carrie thought.

Behind the Wall
“Let’s go to some clubs,” the Girl said. They were sitting on a banquette. Carrie, the Girl, and the Girl’s friends, who turned out to be unattractive guys in their twenties with short, frizzy hair. “They’re richer than anyone you’ll ever meet,” the Girl whispered, earlier, but Carrie thought they were completely forgettable.
Now the Girl was pulling her arm, pulling her to her feet. She kicked the guy who was closest to her. “C’mon, asshole, we want to go out.”
“I’m going to a party in Trump Tower,” the guy said, with a fake Euro-zccent.
“Like hell you are,” she said.
“C’mon, sweetie. Come out with us,” she whispered to Carrie.
Carrie and the Girl crammed into the front seat of the kid’s car, which was a Range Rover, and they started going up-town. Suddenly the Girl yelled, “Stop the car, you shithead!” she leaned over and opened the door and pushed Carrie out. “We’re going,” she said.
And then they were two girls running down the streets west of Eighth Avenue.
They found a club and they went in. they walked all through the club holding hands and the Girl knew some people there and Carrie didn’t know anyone and she liked it. Men looked at them, but they didn’t look back. It wasn’t like two girls going out looking for a good time; there was a wall up. On the other side of the wall was freedom and power. It felt good. This is the way I’m going to be from now on, Carrie thoght. It didn’t feel scary.
Carrie remembered that at a party recently a woman named Alex told her a story about a friend of hers who was bisexual. She went out with women and men. She’d be with a man she liked, and then she’d meet a woman she liked and leave the man for the woman.
“I mean, I’ve never been with a woman,” A;ex saod/ “Maybe I’m the only one—but who hasn’t said, ‘I wish I could be a lesbian just so I wouldn’t have to deal with men.’ But the funny thing is, my friend said being with a woman was so intense because you’re both women in the relationship. You know how women always want to talk about everything? Well, imagine that times two. It’s constant talking. About everything, until four in the morning. After a while, she has to leave and go back to a man because she can’t take the talking.”
“Have you ever been with a woman?” the Girl asked Carrie. “You’ll like it.”
“Okay,” Carrie said. She was thinking, I’m ready for this. It’s time. Maybe I’ve secretly been a lesbian my whole life and I just didn[‘t know it. She imagined the kissing. The Girl would be softer and squishier than a man. But it would be okay.
Then Carrie went back to the Girl’s house. The Girl lived in an expensive high-rise, two-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. The furniture was that Danish stuff with knitted afghans. There were porcelain kittens on the side tables. They went into the kitchen an the Girl lit up a roach. She had a small, earthenware bowl filled with roaches. She had an open, half-empty bottle of wine. She poured them both some wine and handed Carrie a glass.
“I still sleep with men sometimes,” the Girl said. “They just drive me crazy.”
“Uh huh,” Carrie said. She was wondering when the Girl was going to make her move and how she would make it.
“I sleep with men and women,” the Girl said. “But I prefer women.”
“Then why sleep with men?” Carrie asked.
The girl shrugged. “They’re good for stuff.”
“In other words, it’s just the same old story,” Carrie said. She glanced around the apartment. She lit up a cigarette and leaned back against the counter. “Okay,” she said. “What’s the deal? Really. You must be independently wealthy to be able to afford this place, or else you’ve got something else going on.”
The Girl took a sip of her wine. “I dance,” she said.
“Oh, I see,” Carrie said. “Where?”
“Stringfellows. I’m good. I can make about a thousand a night.”
“So that’s what this is about.”
“Can I have a cigarette?” the Girl asked.
“Topless dancers all sleep with each other because they hate men.”
“Yeah, well,” the Girl said, “the men are all losers.”
“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 aobu thim.”
They lay there for a few minutes. Carrie got an ache in her stomack from missing Mr. Big.
“Listen,” Carrie said, “I’ve got to go home. It was great to meet you, though.”
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 alreay 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.