Candace Bushnell: Summer and the City

“Look,” Samantha says, dabbing her eye and holding out her finger for inspection. “That is an actual tear.”

“Could have fooled me,” I say.

Miranda looks around in awe. “Wow. This place is nice. ”

“Check out the view,” Samantha says. “It’s the last time you’ll see it, too. I’m leaving.”

“What?”

“That’s right,” she says, strolling to the sunken living room. There’s a stunning vista of Central Park. You can practically see right into the duck pond. “The wedding’s off,” she declares. “Charlie and I are over .”

I look at Miranda and roll my eyes. “Surely, this too shall pass,” I murmur, heading to the window for a better view.

“Carrie, I’m serious,” Samantha says. She goes to a glass tray on wheels, picks up a crystal decanter, and pours herself a healthy dose of whiskey. “And I have you to thank for it.” She slugs back her drink and turns on us. “Actually, I have both of you to thank.”

“Me?” Miranda asks. “I’ve hardly even met the guy.”

“But you’re the one who told me to tell him.”

“Tell him what?” Miranda says, mystified.

“About my condition.”

“Which is?”

“You know. The thing,” Samantha hisses. “The lining…”

“Endometriosis?” I ask.

Samantha holds up her hands. “I don’t want to hear that word. Ever again.”

“Endometriosis is hardly a ‘condition,’” Miranda remarks.

“Try telling that to Charlie’s mother.”

“Oh boy.” I realize I could use a drink too. And a cigarette.

“I don’t get it.” Miranda goes to the Plexiglas case that contains Charlie’s collection of sports memorabilia. She leans closer. “Is that a real baseball?”

“What do you think? And yes, that really is Joe DiMaggio’s signature,” Samantha snaps.

“I thought you were picking out China patterns,” Miranda says, as Samantha gives her a look and disappears down the hallway.

“Hey, I just figured something out. You know how Samantha always says Charlie wanted to be a baseball player and his mother wouldn’t let him?” I ask. “Maybe Charlie secretly thinks he’s Joe DiMaggio and Samantha is Marilyn Monroe.”

“That’s right. And remember how Joe DiMaggio always resented Marilyn’s sexuality and tried to turn her into a housewife? It’s practically textbook.”

Samantha returns with a pile of clothes in her arms, which she dumps onto the Ultrasuede couch as she glares at me. “And you’re as much to blame as Miranda. You were the one who told me to be a little more real.”

“I didn’t mean it though. I never thought-”

“Well, here’s what real gets you in New York.” She runs back to the bedroom and returns with another pile, which she drops at our feet. Then she grabs the box of garbage bags, rips one open, and begins frantically shoving clothes into the bag. “This is what it gets you,” she repeats, her voice rising. “A kick in the teeth and fifty cents for the subway.”

“Whoa. Are you serious?” I ask.

She pauses for a moment and thrusts out her arm. “See this?” She indicates a large gold Rolex encrusted with diamonds.

“Is that real too?” Miranda gasps.

“Hold on,” I caution. “Why would someone who’s breaking up with you give you a giant Rolex?”

“You could probably buy a small country with that,” Miranda adds.

Samantha rocks back on her heels. “Apparently, it’s a tradition. When you break off an engagement, you give your ex-fiancée a watch.”

“You should get engaged more often.”

In a fury, Samantha rips off the watch and throws it against the Plexiglas case, where it bounces off harmlessly. Some things are simply indestructible. “How did this happen to me? I had it all figured out. I had New York by the balls. Everything was working. I was so good at being someone else.”

If only we could all put our hearts in a Plexiglas case, I think, as I kneel down next to her. “You weren’t so good about showing up at Kleinfeld,” I say gently.

“That was an exception. One slipup. And I made up for it by telling Glenn I’d be happy to use her decorator to redo the apartment. Even if it meant living with chintz. What’s wrong with a few flowers here and there? I can do roses if I have to-” And suddenly, she bursts into tears. Only this time, they’re real.

“Don’t you get it?” she sobs. “I’ve been rejected. For having faulty fallopian tubes.”

In the annals of dating, being rejected for your fallopian tubes has got to be right up there with-well, you name it, I suppose. But maybe dating in New York really is like what Samantha always says: everything counts, even the things you can’t see.

And what you can see is usually bad enough.

I mentally count the number of garbage bags strewn around Charlie’s apartment. Fourteen. I had to run out and get another box. Two years in a relationship and you can really accumulate a lot of stuff.

“Baggage,” Samantha says, kicking one of the bags out of the way. “All baggage.”

“Hey!” I exclaim. “There are Gucci shoes in that one.”

“Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci? Who cares?” She throws up her hands. “What’s the difference when your entire life has been ripped away?”

“You’ll find someone else,” Miranda says nonchalantly. “You always do.”

“But not someone who will marry me. Everyone knows the only reason a man in Manhattan ever says ‘I do’ is because he wants children.”

“But you don’t know that you can’t have children,” Miranda points out. “The doctor said-”

“Who cares what he said? It’s always going to be the same old story.”

“You don’t know that,” I insist. I grab a bag and pull it toward the door. “And do you really want to spend the rest of your life pretending to be someone you’re not?” I take a breath and gesture at the Plexiglas furnishings. “Surrounded by plastic ?”

“All men are jerks. But you knew that.” Miranda retrieves the watch from under the coffee table. “I guess that’s the last of it,” she says, holding out the Rolex. “Don’t want to leave this behind.”

Samantha carefully weighs the watch in the palm of her hand. Her face scrunches in agony. She takes a deep breath. “Actually, I do.”

She places the watch on the table as Miranda and I look at each other in bewilderment.

“Where’s the bag with the Gucci shoes?” she orders.

“There?” I ask, wondering what’s come over her.

She rips open the bag and dumps out two pairs of loafers. “And the Chanel suit. Where’s that?”

“I think it’s in here,” Miranda says cautiously, pushing a bag into the center of the room.

“What are you doing?” I ask anxiously, as Samantha extracts the Chanel suit and places it on the table next to the watch.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“I have no idea.” I look to Miranda for help, but she’s as mystified as I am.

Samantha finds a tennis dress, and holds it up, laughing. “Did I tell you Charlie wanted me to take tennis lessons? So I could play with Glenn. In Southampton. As if I would actually enjoy hitting balls with that mummy. She’s sixty-five years old and she says she’s fifty. Like anyone’s going to believe that .”

“Well-” I sneak another glance at Miranda, who shakes her head, stupefied.

“Do you want this, Sparrow?” Samantha tosses me the tennis dress.

“Sure,” I say hesitantly.

I’m wondering what to do with it, when Samantha suddenly changes her mind and rips it out of my hands. “On second thought, no ,” she shouts, hurling the dress onto the pile. “Don’t take it. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”