Sex and the City (27 page)

"I can't beheve this," Skipper said. "Well," he said, snapping off his skis, "I've already hooked up with three different girls. Why not you?"

Stanford looked at him pityingly. "Dear, dear Skipper," he said.

"When are you going to stop pretending you're straight?"

Carrie and Mr. Big went for a romantic dinner at the Pine Creek Cookhouse. They drove through the mountains, and then they took a horse-drawn sleigh to the restaurant. The sky was black and clear, and Mr. Big talked all about the stars, and how he was poor as a kid and had to leave school at thirteen and work and then go into the air force.

They brought a Polaroid camera and took pictures of each other in the restaurant. They drank wine and held hands and Carrie got a httle drunk. "Listen," she said. "I have to ask you something."

"Shoot," said Mr. Big.

"You know at the beginning of the summer? When we'd been seeing each other for two months and then you said you wanted to date other people?"

"Yeah?" Mr. Big said cautiously.

"And then you dated that model for a week? And when I ran into you, you were horrible and I screamed at you and we had that big fight in front of Bowery Bar?"

"I was afraid you were never going to talk to me again."

"I just want to know," Carrie said. "If you were me, what would you have done?"

"I guess I never would have talked to you again."

"Is that what you wanted?" Carrie asked. "Did you want me to go away?"

"No," Mr. Big said. "I wanted you to stick around. I was confused."

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"But
you
would have left."

"I didn't want you to go. It was like, I don't know. It was a test,"

he said. "A test?"

"To see if you really liked me. Enough to stick around." "But you really hurt me," Carrie said. "How could you hurt me like that? I can never forget that—you know?" "I know, baby. I'm sorry," he said.

When they got back to their house, there was a message on the answering machine from their friend Rock Gibralter, the TV actor.

"I'm here," he said. "Staying with Tyler Kydd. You guys will love him."

"Is that Tyler Kydd, the actor?" Mr. Big asked.

"Sounds like it," Carrie said, aware that she was trying to sound as if she couldn't have cared less.

"That was just wonderful," Stanford said. He and Suzannah were sitting on the couch in front of the fire. Suzannah was smoking a cigarette. Her fingers were slim and elegant, ending in long, perfectly manicured red nails. She was wrapped in a black silk Chinese robe. "Thank you, darling," she said.

"You really are the perfect wife, you know," Stanford said. "I can't imagine why you're not already married."

"Straight men bore me," Suzannah said. "Eventually anyway. It always starts off fine, and then they become incredibly demanding.

Before you know it, you're doing eveiything they want, and you have no life left."

"We won't be like that," Stanford said. "This is perfect."

Suzannah stood up. "I'm off to bed," she said. "I want to get up early and ski. Sure you won't join me?"

"On the slopes? Never," Stanford said. "But you must promise me one thing. That we have an evening exactly like this one tomorrow night."

"Certainly."

"You really are the most wonderful cook. Where did you learn to cook hke that?" "Paris."

Stanford stood up. "Good night, my dear."

"Good night," she said. Stanford leaned forward and gave her a chaste kiss on the cheek. "Until tomorrow," he said, giving her a little wave as she walked to her room.

A few minutes later, Stanford went to his room. But he did not go to sleep. Instead, he turned on his computer and checked his e-mail.

As he had hoped, there was a message for him. He picked up the phone and called a taxi. Then he waited by the window.

When the taxi pulled up, he slipped out of the house. "Caribou Club," he said to the driver.

And then it was hke a bad dream.The taxi took him to a cobblestoned street in the center of town. Stanford walked through a narrow alley lined with tiny shops, then went in a door and down file://D:\Bushnell, Candace - Sex and the City.htm 2008.09.06.

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some stairs. A blond woman, who was probably forty but through the miracles of facial plastic surgery and breast implants looked five years younger, was standing behind a wooden podium.

"I'm meeting someone here," Stanford said. "But I don't know what his name is."

The woman looked at him suspiciously.

"I'm Stanford Blatch. The screenplay writer?" he said.

"Yes?" she said.

Stanford smiled. "Did you ever see the movie
Fashion
Victims?"

"Oh!" the woman said. "I loved that movie. Did you write that?"

"Yes I did."

"What are you working on now?" she asked. "I'm thinking about doing a movie about people who have too much plastic surgery," he said.

"Omigod," she said. "My best friend . . . "

In one corner, two men and a woman were drinking and laughing. Stanford approached. The guy in the middle looked up.

He was about forty, tanned, with bleached hair. Stanford could see that he'd had his nose and cheeks done, and probably had hair plugs.

"Hercules?" Stanford asked.

"Yeah," the guy said.

"I'm Prometheus," Stanford said.

The girl looked from the guy back to Stanford. "Hercules?

Prometheus?" she asked. She had an obnoxious, nasally voice, and she was wearing a cheap, fuzzy, pink sweater. Not good enough to clean my grandmother's attic, Stanford thought, and decided to ignore her.

"You don't look like much of a Prometheus to me," Hercules said, taking in Stanford's long hair and fancy clothes.

"Are you going to invite me to sit down and have a drink, or are you just going to insult me?" Stanford asked.

"I think we should just insult you," said the other guy. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Another loser I met on the Internet," said Hercules. He took a sip of his drink.

"Takes one to know one," Stanford said.

"Man. I don't even know how to turn on a computer," the girl said.

"I check out every guy who comes through Aspen. Then I take my pick," said Hercules. "And you don't. . . make the cut."

"Well, at least I know how to pick my plastic surgeon," Stanford said calmly. "It's such a shame when people remember your plastic surgery and not you." He smiled. "Have a pleasant evening.

Gentlemen."

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET? Carrie and Mr. Big

were having lunch outside at the Little Nell when they ran into Rock Gibralter. And Tyler Kydd. Tyler Kydd saw them first. He wasn't handsome like

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hair. Lanky body. He caught Carrie's eye. "Uh oh," she thought.

Then Mr. Big said, "Rocko. Baby." And stuck his cigar in his mouth and slapped Rock on the back and pumped his hand.

"I've been looking for you guys," Rock said. And then: "Do you know Tyler Kydd?"

"No, man," Mr. Big said. "But I know your movies. When are you gonna get the girl?" They all laughed and sat down.

"Big just got accosted by a mountie," Carrie said. "For smoking his cigar on the gondola."

"Oh, man," Mr. Big said. "Every day, I'm smoking my cigar on the gondola and the girl keeps telling me there's no smoking. I just say it's not lit," he said to Tyler.

"Cuban?" Tyler asked.

"Yeah, man."

"Something hke that happened to me once in Gstaad," Tyler said to Carrie. She thought to herself, He would be perfect for Samantha Jones.

"Hey baby, can you pass the salt?" Mr. Big said, patting her leg.

She leaned over and they kissed briefly on the hps. "Excuse me,"

she said.

She got up. She went into the ladies' room. She was a httle nervous. If I wasn't with Mr. Big . . . , she thought. And then she thought that it wasn't even a good idea to think that way.

When she came out, Tyler was smoking a cigar with Mr. Big.

"Hey baby, guess what?" Mr. Big said. "Tyler's invited us to go snowmobiling. Then we're going to go to his house and race go-carts."

"Go-carts?" Carrie said.

"I've got a frozen lake on my property."

"Isn't that great?" Mr. Big said.

"Yeah," Carrie said. "Great."

That night, Carrie and Mr. Big had dinner with Stanford and Suzannah. All through the dinner, whenever Suzannah said anything, Stanford would lean over and say, "Isn't she just terrific?" He held her hand, and she said, "Oh Stanford. You're such a dope," and laughed and removed her hand to lift her wineglass.

"I'm so glad you've finally come over to the other side," Mr. Big said.

"Who said anything about that?" Suzannah said.

"I'll always be a queen, if that's what you're worried about,"

Stanford said.

Carrie went outside to smoke a cigarette. A woman came up to her. "Can I have a light?" she said. And it turned out the woman was Brigid. The obnoxious woman from the bridal shower last summer.

"Carrie?" she said. "Is that you?"

"Brigid!" Carrie said. "What are you doing here?"

"Skiing," Brigid said. And then, glancing around as if she were afraid of being overheard, she said, "With my husband. And no kids.

We left the kids at my mother's house."

"Weren't you, um, pregnant?" Carrie asked.

"Miscarriage," Brigid said. She glanced around again. "Say, you wouldn't happen to have an extra cigarette in addition to that match, would you?"

"Sure," Carrie said.

"I haven't smoked for years. Years. But I
need
this." She inhaled deeply. "When I used to smoke, I only smoked Marlboro Reds."

Carrie gave her an evil smile. "Of course you did." She dropped file://D:\Bushnell, Candace - Sex and the City.htm 2008.09.06.

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her cigarette on the sidewalk and mashed it with her boot.

"Can you keep a secret?" Brigid asked.

"Yeah . . . ," Carrie said.

"Well." Brigid took another deep drag and blew the smoke out her nose. "I didn't go home last night."

"Uh huh," Carrie said, thinking, Why are you telling me this?

"No. I mean, I
didn't go home."

"Oh," Carrie said.

"That's right. I didn't spend the night with my husband. I stayed out all night. I slept, I actually
spent the night,
in Snowmass."

"I see," Carrie said, nodding. "Were you, uh, you know. Doing drugs?"

"Nooooo," Brigid said. "I was with a guy. Not my husband."

"You mean you . . . "

"Yes. J
slept with another guy."

"That's amazing," Carrie said. She ht another cigarette.

"I haven't slept with another man for fifteen years. Well, okay, maybe seven," Brigid said. "But I'm thinking about leaving my husband, and I had this incredibly amazing ski instructor, and I just decided, what am I doing with my life? So I told my husband I was going out, and I went to meet him, Justin, the ski instructor, at this bar in Snowmass, and then I went back to his little apartment with him and we had sex all night."

"Does your, uh, husband know about this?" Carrie asked. "I told him this morning when I got in. But what could he do? I'd already done it." "Jeez," Carrie said.

"He's inside the restaurant now," Brigid said. "Freaking out. And I told Justin I would meet him later." Brigid took a final drag on the cigarette. "You know, I knew you were the one person who would understand," she said. "I want to call you. When we get back. We should go out and have a girl's night."

"Great," Carrie said. Thinking, That's just what I need.

"MY FEET ARE COLD" They went

snowmobiling with Tyler and Rock. Tyler and Mr. Big drove too fast and some people yelled at them. Then

she kept screaming at him to let her off because she was afraid they were going to tip over.

A couple of days later, they went to Tyler's house. It was a fort in the woods that had once belonged to a porno star. There were bearskin rugs and animal heads mounted on the walls. They drank shots of tequila and shot bows and arrows. They raced the go-carts, and Carrie won every race. Then they went for a walk in the woods.

"I want to go in. My feet are cold," Mr. Big said.

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"Why didn't you wear sensible shoes?" Carrie said. She stood at the edge of the stream, pushing snow in with the toe of her boot.

"Don't," Mr. Big said. "You'll fall in."

"No I won't," Carrie said. She kicked more snow into the stream, watching it melt in the water. "I always used to do this when I was a kid."

Tyler was standing behind them. "Always pushing the limits," he said. Carrie turned, and they stared at each other for the briefest second.

On their last night, they all went to a party at the home of Bob Milo, a famous Hollywood movie star. His house was up on the other side of the mountain, and to get there, they had to park the car and ride on snowmobiles. The house and grounds were decorated with Japanese lanterns, even though it was February and snowy. Inside the house, there was a sort of grotto with koi swimming in it and a bridge you had to walk over to get to the living room.

Bob Milo was holding forth in front of the fireplace. His girlfriend and his soon-to-be-ex-wife were there, looking almost like twins except the wife was about five years older than the girlfriend. Bob Milo was dressed in a sweater and the bottom half of his long underwear. He was about five feet tall and was wearing felt slippers with pointy toes, so that he resembled an elf.