OLD GREENWICH, NEW ENEMIES

Of course, Saturday was the most beautiful day of the year so far. Sunny, seventy degrees. When they met up at Grand

having to be stuck inside Jolie's house on the most beautiful day of the year, even though, being dyed-in-the-wool city dwellers, none of them ever went outside if they could possibly avoid it.

The trouble began on the train. As usual, Carrie had gone to bed at four in the morning, and she was terribly hung over and kept thinking she was going to puke. Belle got into an argument with the woman in front of her, whose kid kept sticking its head over the top

of the seat and sticking his tongue out at her.

Then Sarah revealed that Jolie was in A. A. — had been for three months—which meant there might not be cocktails at the shower.

Carrie and Miranda immediately decided they would get off the train at the next stop and go back to the city, but Belle and Sarah wouldn't let them; and then Sarah told Carrie that she should probably join A. A. herself.

The train stopped in Old Greenwich, and the four women crammed into the back seat of a white and green cab.

"Why are we doing this?" Sarah asked.

"Because we have to," Carrie said.

"They just better not have any trendy gardening tools lying around," said Miranda. "If I see gardening tools, I'm going to scream."

"If I see kids, I'm going to scream."

"Look. Grass. Trees. Breathe in the aroma of freshly mown grass," said Carrie, who had mysteriously begun to feel better. Everyone looked at her suspiciously.

The cab pulled up in front of a white, Colonial-style house whose value had obviously been increased by the addition of a pointy slate roof and balconies off the second floor. The lawn was very green, and the trees that dotted the yard had borders of pink flowers around their bases.

"Oh, what a cute puppy," Carrie said, as a golden retriever raced barking across the lawn. But as the dog reached the edge of the yard, it was suddenly jerked back, as if yanked by

Miranda lit up a blue Dunhill. "Invisible electric fencing," she said. "They all have it. And I bet you anything we're going to have to hear about it."

For a moment, the four women stood in the driveway, staring at the dog, who was now sitting, subdued but valiantly wagging its tail, in the middle of the yard.

"Can we go back to the city now, please?" Sarah asked.

Inside the house, half a dozen women were already sitting in the living room, legs crossed, balancing cups of coffee and tea on their knees. A spread was laid out: cucumber sandwiches, quesadillas with salsa. Sitting off to one side, unopened, untouched, was a big bottle of white wine, its sides covered in a film of moisture. The bride-to-be, Lucy, looked somewhat terrified at the city women's arrival.

There were introductions all around.

A woman named Brigid Chalmers, Hermes from head to toe, was sipping what looked like a bloody mary. "You guys are late. Jolie thought maybe you weren't coming," she said, with that particular breezy nastiness that only women can show to one another.

"Well, the train schedule," Sarah shrugged apologetically.

"Excuse me, but do we know you?" Miranda whispered in Carrie's ear. That meant as far as Miranda was concerned, it was war with Brigid from now on.

"Is that a bloody mary?" Carrie asked.

Brigid and one of the other women exchanged glances. "Actually, it's a virgin mary," she said. Her eyes flickered in Jolie's direction for a second. "I did all that stuff for years. All that drinking and partying. And then, I don't know, it just gets boring. You move on to more important things."

"The only important thing to me right now is vodka," Carrie said,

putting her hands to her head. "I've got the worst hangover. If I don't get some vodka. .»

" Raleigh!" said one of the women on the couch, bending

around to peer into one of the other rooms. " Raleigh! Go outside and play."

Miranda leaned over to Carrie: "Is she talking to her dog or her kid?"

"MARRIED SEX"

Miranda turned to Brigid. "So tell me, Brigid," she said. "What exactly is it that you do?"

Brigid opened her mouth and neatly inserted a quesadilla triangle. "I work at home. I've got my own consulting firm."

"I see," Miranda said, nodding. "And what do you consult on?"

"Computers."

"She's our sort of neighborhood Bill Gates," said another woman, named Marguerite, drinking Evian from a wine goblet. "Whenever we have a computer problem, we call Brigid, and she can fix it."

"That's so important when you have a computer," Belle said. "Computers can be so tricky. Especially if you don't use one every day." She smiled. "And what about you, Marguerite? Do you have children?"

Marguerite blushed shghtly and looked away. "One," she said a little wistfully. "One beautiful httle angel. Of course, he's not so httle anymore. He's eight, he's in that real-boy stage. But we're trying for another."

"Margie's on that in-vitro trail," Jolie said, and then, addressing the room, added, "I'm so glad I got my two over with early."

Unfortunately, Carrie chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen sipping on a large glass of vodka with two ice cubes floating on the top. "Speaking of rug rats," she said, "Belle's husband wants her to get preggers, but she doesn't want to. So she went to a drug store, bought one of those test kits that tell you when you're ovulating, and the woman behind the counter was like, 'Good luck! And Belle was like, 'No, no, you don't understand. I'm going to use this so I know when not to have sex. Isn't that hysterical?"

"I can't possibly be pregnant during the summer," Belle said. "I wouldn't want to be seen in a bathing suit."

Brigid yanked the conversation back. "And what do you do, Miranda?" she asked. "You live in the city, don't you?"

"Well, actually, I'm the executive director at a cable company."

"Oh, I love cable," said a woman named Rita, who was wearing three heavy gold necklaces and sporting a twelve-carat sapphire engagement ring next to a sapphire-encrusted wedding band.

"Yes," Belle said, smiling sweetly. "We think of Miranda as our own little Bob Pittman. He started MTV, you know."

"Oh, I know," said Rita. "My husband is at CBS. I should tell him I met you, Miranda. I'm sure he'd—in fact, I was his assistant! Until everyone found out we were seeing each other. Especially since he was married at the time." She and the other Connecticut women exchanged glances.

Carrie plunked down next to Rita, accidentally sloshing her with

some vodka.

"So sorry," she said. "I'm so damn clumsy today. Napkin?"

"That's okay," Rita said.

"It's just so fascinating," Carrie said. "Getting a married man. I would never be able to pull it off. I'd probably end up becoming best friends with his wife."

"That's why there are courses at the Learning Annex," Sarah said dryly.

"Yeah, but I don't want to take courses with a bunch of losers," Carrie said.

"I know a lot of people who have taken courses at the Learning Annex. And they're pretty good," Brigid said.

"What was our favorite?" Rita asked. "The S&M course. How to be a dominatrix."

"Well, whipping is just about the only way I can keep my husband awake," Brigid said. "Married sex."

Lucy laughed gamely.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 1050