“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 Crackups, 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.
MR. BIG’S HEAT RITUAL
Carrie has been spending too much time with Mr. Big. He has air conditioning. She does, too, but hers doesn’t work. They develop a little ritual. A heat ritual. Every evening at eleven, if they haven’t been out together, Mr. Big calls.