MR. RESIDUE

"I'm going to introduce you to a guy, and I know you're going to fall in love with him, but don't," Carolyne said to Cici. So she did.

Ben was forty, a sometime restaurateur and party promoter who'd already been married twice (in fact, he was still married, but his wife had gone back to Florida) and been in and out of rehab a dozen times. Everyone in New York knew about him, and when his name came up, people would roll their eyes and change the subject. After all his drinking and coke snorting, he still possessed a residue of what he was before—charming, amusing, handsome—and Cici fell in love with the residue. They spent two great weekends together, even though they never actually had sex. Then they went to a party, he disappeared, and Cici found him rubbing up against a sixteen— year-old model who had just come to town. "You're disgusting!" she screamed.

"Oh, come on" he said. "You've got to let me live out my fantasies. I have a fantasy of being with a sixteen year old." He grinned, and you could see that his teeth needed to be rebonded.

The next morning, Cici turned up uninvited at his apartment. His three-year-old daughter was visiting. "I brought you a present," she said, acting hke nothing had happened. The present was a baby bunny. She put it on the couch, and it peed several times.

Meanwhile, Carolyne sort of moved in with Sam. She kept her apartment but spent every night at his and always left something— shoes, perfume, earrings, dry-cleaned blouses, six or seven different kinds of face cream—behind. This went on for three months. The night before Valentine's Day, he exploded. "I want you out," he said. "Out!" He was screaming and breathing heavily.

"I don't get it," Carolyne said.

"There's nothing to get," Sam said. "I just want you, and your stuff, out of here now!" Sam cranked open a window and began throwing her things out.

Carolyne said, "I'll fix your wagon, buster," and she smacked him hard across the back of his head.

He turned around. "You hit me," he said.

"Sam. . she said.

"I can't believe. . you hit me." He began backing across the floor. "Don't come near me," he said. He cautiously reached down and picked up his cat.

"Sam," Carolyne said, walking toward him.

"Stay back," he said. He grabbed the cat under its armpits so its legs were sticking straight out at Carolyne; he held it up like a weapon. "I said, get back."

"Sam. Sam." Carolyne shook her head. "This is so pity-ful."

"Not to me," Sam said. He hurried into the bedroom, cradling the cat in his arms. "She's a witch, isn't she, Puffy?" he asked the cat. "A real witch."

Carolyne took a few steps toward the bed. "I didn't mean …"

"You hit me," Sam said in a weird, little-boy voice. "Don't ever hit me. Don't hit Sam no more."

"Okay. .," Carolyne said cautiously.

The cat struggled out of Sam's arms. It ran across the floor. "Here kitty kitty," Carolyne said. "C'mere kitty. Want some milk?" She heard the TV click on.

"HE WAS SO MORTIFIED"

Carrie was always promising Cici and Carolyne that she'd have dinner with them, so one day, she finally did. On a Sunday night. Her only free night. Carolyne and Cici were sitting back on the banquette, their legs crossed, stirring their drinks, and looking very smart. Carolyne was talking on a cellular phone. "I have to go out every night for my job," Cici said, sounding bored. "I'm just so tired all the time."

Carolyne flipped her cellular phone closed and looked at Carrie. "We've got to go to this party tonight. Downtown. Lots of models. You should come," she said, in a tone that suggested she definitely should not.

"Well, how is eveiything?" Carrie said. "You know, like Sam and. .»

"Everything is fine," Carolyne said.

Cici lit a cigarette and looked offin another direction. "Sam went around telling everyone that he and Carolyne had never slept together, even though tons of people had seen them making out, so we mortified him."

"We found out he started seeing this girl who has diseases, so I called him up and I said, 'Sam, please, as a friend, promise me you won't sleep with her, " Carolyne said.

"Then we saw the two of them at this brunch place."

"We were dressed to the nines. They were wearing sweatpants. We went up to them and they asked us for a cigarette and we said, 'A cigarette? Oh please. Get one from the waiter. "

"We sat right next to them. Intentionally. They kept trying to talk to us, and Carolyne kept making calls on her cellular phone. Then I said, 'Sam, how's that girl I saw you with last week? "

"He was so mortified. We sent him notes saying, 'Herpes simplex 19."

"Is there a herpes simplex 19?" Carrie asked. "No,"

Cici said. "Don't you get it?"

"Right," Carrie said. She didn't say anything for a minute while she took a long time to light a cigarette, then she said, "What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Cici said. "The only thing I care about is my career. Like you. You're my idol."

Then the two girls looked at their watches and each other. "Do you mind," Cici said. "We have to go to this party."

17. City in Heat! Sexual Panic Seizes Mr. Big

Manhattan 's Own Brand of Summertime Steaminess Gives Way to Sidewalk Fantasies, Drunken Jigs, Bedroom Craekups, and Air-Conditioned Nightmares

New York is a completely different city in August. Like living in some South American country with a corrupt and drunk dictator, skyrocketing inflation, drug cartels, dust-covered roads, clogged plumbing—where nothing will ever get better, the rains will never come.

The psyche of most New Yorkers cracks under the heat. Bad thoughts and bad feelings bubble to the surface. They lead to bad behavior, the kind New Yorkers specialize in. It's secretive. It's nasty. Relationships break up. People who shouldn't be together get together.

The city's in heat. Days of ninety-five-plus-degree weather are strung together one after the other. Everyone is cranky.

In the heat, you can't trust anyone, especially yourself.

Carrie is lying in Mr. Big's bed at eight a.m. She believes she is not going to be okay. In fact, she is pretty damn sure that she is not going to be okay. She's crying hysterically into the pillow.

"Carrie. Calm down. Calm down," Mr. Big orders. She rolls over, and her face is a grotesque, blotchy mask.

"You're going to be okay. I have to go to work now. Right now. You're keeping me from work." "Can you help me?" Carrie asks.

"No," he says, sliding his gold cufflinks through the holes of starched cuffs. "You have to help yourself. Figure it out."

Carrie puts her head under the covers, still crying. "Call me in a couple of hours," he says, then walks out of the room. "Goodbye." Two minutes later, he comes back. "I forgot my cigar case," he

says, watching her as he crosses the room. She's quiet now. "Goodbye," he says. "Goodbye. Goodbye." It's the tenth day in a row of suffocating heat and humidity.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 900