Candace Bushnell - SEX and the CITY

up to Nico and said, "Aren't you on ABC?" Dirk turned and walked briskly out of the station. Nico went to the Oyster Bar and ordered a Bloody Mary and six bluepoints. At eleven-thirty A.M.

At the end of July, Carrie was sitting in a downtown studio having her picture taken for a magazine. The makeup artist was applying liquid foundation to her face with a paintbrush. The photographer was saying, "We want you naked. You don't mind being naked. You've done it before, eh?" in a European accent of indeterminate origin.

"Can I wear my underwear?" Carrie asked. I just want to be with someone normal.

"Can we have some music?" the makeup artist asked.

Do you mind being naked?

In the morning, Carrie had heard from the Australian. The Australian was a female private detective, a friend of a friend's. Carrie had met her at a dinner after a movie premiere. She was standing in a corner, eating a slice of beef with her fingers off a bloody napkin.

"These guys are all the same," she had said. "That's why I don't get involved."

That morning, the Australian had things to tell Carrie. Like Mr. Big had made dozens of phone calls to a number in Palm Springs. Mostly after the fifteenth of July. All made to one female golf pro. Age twenty-eight. "He probably wants help with his swing. For free, you know," the Australian said. The results were inconclusive at that time. But still.

"You can take your shirt off behind the chair," the photographer said.

The bad day, the day that tipped the balance so to speak, occurred back in June, shortly after Mr. Big's business dinner for the golf company, a dinner at which, Carrie was told, a female golf pro was present.

It started with a dinner at an apartment on the Upper East Side.

Friends of Nico's. Halfway through the dinner, Carrie started having fun. She left Mr. Big a message, telling him she was tired and was going to go to her house that night.

She was exhausted, but after the dinner she didn't feel like going home. She didn't feel like making the right decision. She felt like getting on the wrong train. She went downtown. Pravda. Saw some people she knew. They

went someplace else. Someplace else after that. Etc.

At eight in the morning, she turned up at Mr. Big's apartment. "I'm not

even going to ask," he said.

She got into bed and began to take the long, delicious slide into hysteria. Hours were passing inside her head, but when she looked up, Mr. Big was still sitting on the chair in the bedroom, in a starched white shirt and dark socks, staring. Saying nothing. Just with that expression on his face. "I'm not happy," she said.

After he left to go to work, she began crying uncontrollably. The maid came in and looked horrified. At eleven A.M., Carrie called his office. "I want to go to an insane asylum."

She wanted to put herself in someone else's hands. She wanted no responsibility. She wanted to lie in a white room and watch TV, and maybe make potholders. You can't act like you're twelve. "Take a shower," Mr. Big said.

Sometime in the middle of September, Carrie was at a restaurant and Mr. Big was there. He came over and sat down at the table.

"I never knew what you were thinking," he said. "You never talked about your feelings. Every time I tried to talk to you, you would go to that place in your head, A fou're like a cyborg or something."

His hand was on the table. Carrie touched his finger. Let's face it, Carrie thought, you ate the pickle.

Stanford Blatch's movie Fashion Victims eventually raked in over $200 million worldwide. Stanford recently bought a Challenger and had the interior decorated like Elizabeth Taylor's boudoir in Cleopatra.

Paver Wilde is still working on his novel. In it, Mr. Big roasts a child and eats it. Stanford Blatch shows up everywhere, but nothing ever happens to him.

Samantha Jones decided to give up on New \brk. She went out to L.A. for the Oscars and met Tyler Kydd at a party where they were both naked in the swimming pool. They're now living together, but he has vowed that he'll never marry her because after he failed to win the Academy Award for best actor, Samantha said, "Well, that's because the movie was just cute." Nevertheless, Sam is producing his next movie—an art flick.

Amalita Amalfi's daughter got into the prestigious Kitford preschool in New A brk. Amalita started her own consulting firm. She has three employees, as well as a small staff—a driver, a nanny, and a maid. She recently bought her daughter her first designer suit.

The Bone is still a male model.

Magda, the novelist, went to a party to celebrate the publication of a calendar featuring New A fork City firefighters. Mr. September, thirty-three, picked her up, and they've been inseparable ever since.

Packard and Amanda Deale had another child, a girl. They're raising their children to be geniuses. The last time Carrie had din— ner at their house, Packard said to Chester, "Do you realize that honey— roasted peanuts are a phenomenon of our lifetime?" Chester nodded.

Brigid Chalmers left her husband. She was last seen at the Tunnel at four A.M., dancing wildly with Barkley.

All of the perennial bachelors are still available.

Belle and Newbert went to a coed baby shower on Fifth Avenue. Newbert insisted on wearing a funny, striped Cat-in-the-Hat chapeau; then he made everyone drink shots of tequila while he danced on a credenza. The stereo blew out just as Newbert fell out the fifth-story window—luckily, he landed on the awning. During the two months Newbert was in traction, Belle became a president at her bank. She is still not pregnant.

After spending the night with Ray, Skipper Johnson came back to New %rk and disappeared. He resurfaced after two months, telling everyone that he was "totally in love."

Mr. Marvelous was named as the father of a child out of wedlock. He made the mother take a DNA test, and it turned out the kid wasn't his.

Mr. Big is happily married. Carrie is happily single.