“We’re leaving,” Samantha said. “We have to find a new hangout.”
They found one. The Baby Doll Lounge. Strip joint in TriBeCa. They couldn’t shake Barkley, so they let him come along. It might be good to have a guy with them at a topless bar. Plus, he had smoke. They smoked in the cab, and when they got out at the Baby Doll Lounge, Sam grabbed Carrie’s arm (Sam almost never did stuff like that) and said, “I really want to know about Mr. Big. I’m not sure he’s the right man for you.”
Carrie had to think about whether she wanted to answer or not, because it was always like this between her and Sam. Just when she was happy with a man, Sam would come along and insert those doubts, like driving a crowbar between two pieces of wood. She said, “I don’t know. I think I’m crazy about him.”
Sam said, “But does he really know how great you are? How great I think you are?”
Carrie thought, “Someday, Sam and I will sleep with the same man at once, but not tonight.”
The bartender, a woman, came over and said, “It’s so nice to see women in here again,” and began pouring them free drinks. That was always a problem. Then Barkley was trying to have a discussion. About how he really wanted to be a director and how that was what all the artists were doing anyway, so why shouldn’t he just skip the boring artist part and start directing?
Two girls were dancing on the stage. They looked like real women, and they didn’t look so good—small saggy breasts and big bottoms. By now, Barkley was screaming, “But I’m better than David Salle! I’m a fucking genius!”
“Oh, yeah? Says who?” Sam screamed back.
“We’re all fucking geniuses,” Carrie said. Then she went to the bathroom.
You had to walk through a tiny slot in between the two stages, and then downstairs. The bathroom had a gray wooden door that wouldn’t shut properly, and broken tiles. She thought about Greenwich. Marriage. Kids.
“I’m not ready,” she thought.
She went upstairs, and she took her clothes off and got up on the stage and started to dance. Samantha was staring at her, laughing, but by the time the bartender came over and politely told her to get down, Sam wasn’t laughing anymore.
The next morning, Mr. Big called at eight A.M. He was going to play golf. He
sounded tense. “When did you get home?” he asked. “What did you do?”
“Not much,” she said. “Went to Bowery. And then this other place. The Baby Doll Lounge.”
“Oh yeah? Do anything special there?”
“Had too much to drink.” She laughed.
“Nothing else you want to tell me?”
“No, not really,” Carrie said in the little-girl voice she used when she wanted to soothe him. “What about you?”
“I got a phone call this morning,” he said. “Someone said they saw you dancing topless at the Baby Doll Lounge.”
“Oh. Really?” she said. “How did they know it was me?”
“They knew.”
“Are you mad?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“Are you mad?”
“I’m mad you didn’t tell me. How can you have a relationship if you can’t be honest?”
“But how do I know I can trust you?” she asked.
“Believe me,” he said. “I’m the one person you can trust.”
And he hung up.
Carrie took all their pictures from Jamaica (how happy they looked, just discovering each other), and cut out the ones of Mr. Big smoking his cigar. She thought about what it was like sleeping with him, how she would sleep curled around his back.