Summer and the City (6 page)

Chapter Eight

“You’re alive!” L’il throws her arms around my neck.

“Of course I am,” I say, as if getting kicked out of an apartment happens to me all the time. We’re standing in front of The New School, waiting to go in.

“I was worried.” She steps back to give me a searching once-over. “You don’t look so good.”

“Hangover,” I explain. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“Did you finish your story?”

I laugh. My voice sounds like it’s been scraped over the sidewalk. “Hardly.”

“You’ll have to tell Viktor what happened.”

“
Viktor?
Since when did you start calling him by his first name?”

“It’s his name, isn’t it?” She starts into the building ahead of me.

I was beyond relieved when Samantha showed up and rescued me, explaining how she’d decided to give Charlie the night off to keep him guessing. And I was thrilled when I realized Charlie’s night off meant Samantha’s night out, and that she expected me to accompany her. It wasn’t until I discovered that Samantha’s night out literally meant
all
night that I began to get worried.

First we went to a place called One Fifth. The inside was a replica of a cruise ship, and even though it was technically a restaurant, no one was eating. Apparently, no one actually eats in trendy restaurants because you’re only supposed to be
seen
in them. The bartender bought us drinks, and then two guys started buying us drinks, and then someone decided we should all go to this club, Xenon, where everyone was purple under the black lights. It was pretty funny because no one was acting like they were purple, and just when I was getting used to it, Samantha found some other people who were going to a club called The Saint, so we all piled into taxis and went there. The ceiling was painted like the sky, illuminated by tiny lights over a revolving dance floor that spun like a record, and people kept falling down. Then I got caught up dancing with a bunch of guys who were wearing wigs and lost Samantha but found her again in the bathroom, where you could hear people having sex. I danced on top of a speaker and one of my shoes fell off and I couldn’t find it, and Samantha made me leave without it because she said she was hungry, and we were in a taxi again with more people, and Samantha made the driver stop at a twenty-four-hour drugstore in Chinatown to see if they had shoes. Mysteriously, they did but they were bamboo flip-flops. I tried them on along with a pointy hat, which was apparently so hilarious, everyone else had to have bamboo flip-flops and pointy hats as well. Finally, we managed to get back into the taxi, which took us to a metal diner where we ate scrambled eggs.

I think we got home around five a.m. I was too scared to look at my watch, but the birds were singing. Who knew there were so many damn birds in New York? I figured I’d never be able to sleep with the racket, so I got up and started typing. About fifteen minutes later Samantha came out of her room, pushing a velvet sleeping mask onto her forehead.

“Carrie,” she said. “What are you
doing
?”

“Writing?”

“Can you please save it for morning?” She groaned in pain. “Plus, I’ve got terrible cramps. They don’t call it ‘the curse’ for nothing.”

“Sure,” I said, flustered. The last thing I needed was to annoy her or her cramps.

Now, following L’il’s neat head up the stairs to class, I’m racked with guilt. I need to start writing. I have to get serious.

I only have fifty-six days left.

I run after L’il and tap her on the shoulder. “Did Bernard call?”

She shakes her head and gives me a pitying look.

Today we’re treated to the pleasure of Capote Duncan’s work. It’s the last thing I need, considering my condition. I rest my head in my hand, wondering how I’m going to get through this class.

“‘She held the razor between her fingers. A piece of glass. A piece of ice. A savior. The sun was a moon. The ice became snow as she slipped away, a pilgrim lost in a blizzard.’” Capote adjusts his glasses and smiles, pleased with himself.

“Thank you, Capote,” Viktor Greene says. He’s slumped in a chair in the back of the room.

“You’re welcome,” Capote says, as if he’s just done us an enormous favor. I study him closely in an attempt to discover what L’il and, supposedly, hundreds of other women in New York, including models, see in him. He does have surprisingly masculine hands, the kind of hands that look like they’d know how to sail a boat or hammer a nail or pull you up from the edge of a steep rock face. Too bad he doesn’t have the personality to match.

“Any comments on Capote’s story?” Viktor asks. I turn around to give Capote a dirty look. Yes, I want to say. I have a response. It sucked. I actually feel like I might puke. There’s nothing I hate more than some cheesy romantic story about a perfect girl who every guy is in love with and then she kills herself. Because she’s so tragic. When in reality, she’s just crazy. But, of course, the guy can’t see that. All he can see is her beauty. And her sadness.

Guys can be so stupid.

“Who is this girl again?” Ryan asks, with a touch of skepticism that tells me I’m not alone in my thinking.

Capote stiffens. “My sister. I thought that was pretty apparent from the beginning.”

“I guess I missed it,” Ryan says. “I mean, the way you write about her—she doesn’t sound like your sister. She sounds like some girl you’re in love with.” Ryan’s being pretty hard on Capote, especially since they’re supposed to be friends. But that’s what it’s like in this class. When you enter the room, you’re a writer first.

“It does sound a little . . . incestuous,” I add.

Capote looks at me. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged my presence, but only because he has to. “That’s the point of the story. And if you didn’t get the point, I can’t help you.”

I press on. “But is it really
you
?”

“It’s fiction,” he snaps. “Of course it’s not really me.”

“So if it’s not really you or your sister, I guess we can criticize her after all,” Ryan says as the rest of the class titters. “I wouldn’t want to say something negative about a member of your family.”

“A writer has to be able to look at everything in their life with a critical eye,” L’il says. “Including their own family. They do say the artist must kill the father in order to succeed.”

“But Capote hasn’t killed anyone. Yet,” I say. The class snickers.

“This discussion is totally stupid,” Rainbow interjects. It’s the second time she’s deigned to speak in class, and her tone is world-weary, defiant and superior, designed to put us in our place. Which seems to be somewhere far below hers. “Anyway, the sister is dead. So what difference does it make what we say about her? I thought the story was great. I identified with the sister’s pain. It seemed very real to me.”

“Thank you,” Capote says, as if he and Rainbow are two aristocrats stranded in a crowd of peasants.

Now I’m sure Rainbow is sleeping with him. I wonder if she knows about the model.

Capote takes his seat, and once again I find myself staring at him with open curiosity. Studied in profile, his nose has character—a distinctive bump of the type passed from one generation to another—“the Duncan nose”—likely the bane of every female family member. Combined with closely spaced eyes, the nose would give the face a rodentlike demeanor, but Capote’s eyes are wide-set. And now that I’m really looking at him, a dark inky blue.

“Will L’il read her poem, please?” Viktor murmurs.

L’il’s poem is about a flower and its effect on three generations of women. When she’s finished, there’s silence.

“That was wonderful.” Viktor shuffles to the front of the room.

“Anyone can do it,” L’il says with cheerful modesty. She might be the only genuine person in this class, probably because she really does have talent.

Viktor Greene stoops over and picks up his knapsack. I can’t imagine what’s in it besides papers, but the weight tilts him perilously to one side, like a boat listing in the waves. “We reconvene on Wednesday. In the meantime, for those of you who haven’t handed in your first story, you need to do so by Monday.” He scans the room. “And I need to see Carrie Bradshaw in my office.”

Huh? I look to L’il, wondering if she might know the reason for this unexpected meeting, but she only shrugs.

Maybe Viktor Greene is going to tell me I don’t belong in this class.

Or
maybe
he’s going to tell me I’m the most talented, brilliant student he’s ever had.

Or maybe . . . I give up. Who knows what he wants. I smoke a cigarette and make my way to his office.

The door is closed. I knock.

It opens a crack, and the first thing I’m confronted by is Viktor’s enormous mustache, followed by his soft sloping face, as if skin and muscle have abandoned any attempt to attach to the skull. He silently swings open the door and I enter a small room filled with a mess of papers and books and magazines. He removes a pile from the chair in front of his desk and looks around helplessly.

“Over there,” I say, pointing to a relatively small mound of books perched on the sill.

“Right,” he says, plopping the papers on top, where they balance precariously.

I sit down in the chair as he clumsily drops into his seat.

“Well.” He touches his mustache.

It’s still there,
I want to scream, but don’t.

“How do you feel about this class?” he asks.

“Good. Really good.” I’m pretty sure I suck, but there’s no reason to give him ammunition.

“How long have you wanted to become a writer?”

“Since I was a kid, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I
know
.” Why do conversations with teachers always go around in circles?

“Why?”

I sit on my hands and stare. There’s no good answer to this question. “I’m a genius and the world can’t live without my words,” is too pretentious and probably untrue. “I love books and want to write the great American novel” is true, but is also what every student wants, because why else would they be in this class? “It’s my calling,” sounds overly dramatic. On the other hand, why is he even asking me this question? Can’t he tell that I
should
be a writer?

In consequence, I end up saying nothing. Instead, I open my eyes as wide as possible.

This has an interesting effect. Viktor Greene suddenly becomes uncomfortable, shifting in his chair and then opening and closing a drawer.

“Why do you have that mustache?” I ask.

“Mmph?” He covers his lips with his tapered, waxy fingers.

“Is it because you think that mustache is a part of you?” I’ve never talked to a teacher this way, but I’m not exactly in school. I’m in a seminar. And who says Viktor Greene has to be the authority?

“Don’t you like the mustache?” he asks.

Hold on. Viktor Greene is
vain
?

“Sure,” I say, thinking about how vanity is a weakness. It’s a chink in the armor. If you’re vain, you should do everything possible to conceal it.

I lean forward slightly to emphasize my admiration. “Your mustache is really, er, great.”

“You think so?” he repeats.

Jeez. What a Pandora’s box. If he only knew how Ryan and I make fun of that mustache. I’ve even given it a name: “Waldo.” Waldo is not any ordinary mustache, however. He’s able to go on adventures without Viktor. He goes to the zoo and Studio 54, and the other day, he even went to Benihana, where the chef mistook him for a piece of meat and accidently chopped him up.

Waldo recovered, though. He’s immortal and cannot be destroyed.

“Your mustache,” I continue. “It’s kind of like me wanting to be a writer. It’s a part of me. I don’t know who I’d be if I didn’t want to be a writer.” I deliver this line with great conviction, and Viktor nods.

“That’s fine, then,” he says.

I smile.

“I was worried you’d come to New York to become
famous
.”

What?

Now I’m confused. And kind of insulted. “What does my wanting to be a writer have to do with wanting to become famous?”

He wets his lips. “Some people think writing is glamorous. They make the mistake of thinking it’s a good vehicle for becoming famous. But it isn’t. It’s only hard work. Years and years and years of it, and even then, most people don’t get what they want out of it.”

Like you, I wonder? “I’m not worried, Mr. Greene.”

He sadly fingers his mustache.

“Is that it?” I stand up.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s it.”

“Thanks, Mr. Greene.” I glare at him, wondering what Waldo would say.

But when I get outside, I’m shaking.

Why shouldn’t I?
I demand silently. Why shouldn’t I become a famous writer? Like Norman Mailer. Or Philip Roth. And F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and all those other men. Why can’t I be like them? I mean, what is the point of becoming a writer if no one reads what you’ve written?

Damn Viktor Greene and The New School. Why do I have to keep proving myself all the time? Why can’t I be like L’il, with everyone praising and encouraging me? Or Rainbow, with her sense of entitlement. I bet Viktor Greene never asked Rainbow why she wanted to be a writer.

Or what if—I wince—Viktor Greene is right? I’m
not
a writer after all.

I light a cigarette and start walking.

Why did I come to New York? Why did I think I could make it here?

I walk as fast as I can, pausing only to light yet another cigarette. By the time I get to Sixteenth Street, I figure I’ve probably smoked nearly half a pack.

I feel sick.

It’s one thing to write for the school newspaper. But New York is on a whole different level. It’s a mountain, with a few successful people like Bernard at the top, and a mass of dreamers and strivers like me at the bottom.

And then there are people like Viktor, who aren’t afraid to tell you that you’re never going to reach that peak.

I flick my cigarette butt onto the sidewalk and grind it out in a fury. A fire truck roars down the avenue, horns blaring. “I am pissed off,” I scream, my frustration mingling with the wail of the siren.

A couple of people glance my way but don’t pause. I’m only another crazy person on the street in New York.