The next morning, Mr. Big was his usual cheery self and it was annoying. “Help me pick out a tie, baby,” he said, the way he always did. He brought five ties over to where Carrie was still trying to sleep, turned on the light, and handed her her glasses. He held the ties up to his suit.
Carrie glanced at them briefly. “That one,” she said. She threw off the glasses and lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes.
“But you hardly even looked at them,” Mr. Big said.
“That’s my final decision,” she said. Besides, in the end, isn’t one tie very much like another?”
“Oh. You’re still mad,” Mr. Big said. “I don’t get it. You should be happy. After last night, I think things are a lot better.”
HOME SWEET HOME
“The baby’s starving and the nanny left and I’m broke,” Amalita said on the phone. “Bring some pizza, won’t you, sweetpea, just two or three slices with pepperoni, and I’ll pay you back later.”
Amalita was staying in a friend-of-a-friend’s apartment on the Upper East Side. It was one of those side streets Carrie knew too well: dirty brick buildings with narrow entranceways littered with takeout menus from Chinese restaurants, and on the streets, grubby people walking scruffy dogs, and in the summer, obese women sitting out on the stoops. For a long time, Carrie had thought she’d never get away from it. She bought the pizza at the same place where she always used to buy pizza, near where she’d lived for four years when she was broke. It was still the same guy with the dirty fingers making the pizza and his little wife who never said anything working the cash register.
Amalita’s apartment was at the top of four rickety flights of stairs, in the back. One of those places where someone had tried to make the best of the exposed cinderblock walls and failed. “Well,” Amalita said. “It’s temporary. The rent is cheap. Five hundred a month.”
Her daughter, a beautiful little girl with dark hair and huge blue eyes, sat on the floor in front of a pile of old newspapers and magazines turning the pages.
“Well!” Amalita said. “I never heard from Righty. After he wanted me to go on tour with him and after I sent him a book he wanted me to send him. These guys don’t want a girl who’s a great fuck. Or even a good fuck. They want a girl who’s a bad fuck.”
“I know,” Carrie said.
“Look! Mama!” the girl said proudly. She pointed to a photo of Amalita at Ascot in a picture hat with Lord somebody or other.
“A Japanese businessman wanted to set me up in an apartment,” Amalita said. “You know, I detest that kind of thing, but the truth is, I’m temporarily broke. The only reason I was considering doing it was for the baby. I’m trying to get her into a preschool, and I need money to pay for it. So I said yes. Two weeks pass and I haven’t heard from him. Not a peep. So that just goes to show.”
Amalita sat on the couch in her sweatpants, tearing off pieces of pizza. Carrie sat on a narrow wooden chair. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with yellow stains under the armpits. Both girls had greasy hair. “When I look back in retrospect,” Amalita said, “I think, I shouldn’t have slept with this guy, I shouldn’t have slept with that guy. Maybe I should have done things differently.”
She paused. “I know you’re thinking about leaving Mr. Big. Don’t. Hold on to him. Of course, you’re beautiful, and you should have a million guys calling you up, wanting to be with you. But you and I, we know the truth. We know something about real life, don’t we?”
“Mama!” the little girl said. She held up a magazine, pointing to a photo spread of Amalita: She was wearing a white Chanel ski suit on the slopes of St. Moritz, then getting out of a limo at a Rolling Stones concert, smiling demurely in a black suit and pearls next to a senator.
“Carrington! Not now,” Amalita said, with mock severity. The little girl looked at her and giggled. She threw the magazine into the air.
It was a sunny day. The sun streamed in through the dirty windows. “Come here, sweetpea,” Amalita said. “Come here and have some pizza.”
“Hello, I’m home,” Mr. Big said.
“Hello,” Carrie said. She went to the door and kissed him. “How was the cocktail party?”
“Fine, fine.”
“I’m making dinner.”
“Good. I’m so glad we don’t have to go out.”
“Me too,” she said.
“Want a drink?” he asked.
“No thanks,” she said. “Just maybe a glass of wine with dinner.”
She lit candles, and they sat in the dining room. Carrie sat up very straight in her chair. Mr. Big talked on and on about some deal he was in the middle of doing, and Carrie stared at him and nodded and made encouraging noises. But she wasn’t really paying attention.
When he was finished talking, she said: “I’m so excited. The amaryllis finally bloomed. It has four flowers.”
“Four flowers,” Mr. Big said. And then: “I’m so happy you’ve taken an interest in plants.”