Summer and the City (The Carrie Diaries 2)

“You never give up, do you—”

“Crispin knows him and he’s terrified—”

“I said, ‘Why don’t you try diagramming a sentence—’”

“Dreadful. Even her diamonds looked dirty—”

Bernard gives me a wink. And suddenly his full name comes back to me from some old copy of Time magazine or Newsweek. Bernard Singer? The playwright?

He can’t be, I panic, knowing instinctively he is.

How the hell did this happen? I’ve been in New York for exactly two hours, and already I’m with the beautiful people?

“What’s your name again?” he asks.

“Carrie Bradshaw.” The name of his play, the one that won the Pulitzer Prize, enters my brain like a shard of glass: Cutting Water.

“I’d better get you back to Samantha before I take you home myself,” he purrs.

“I wouldn’t go,” I say tartly. Blood pounds in my ears. My glass of champagne is sweating.

“Where do you live?” He squeezes my shoulder.

“I don’t know.”

This makes him roar with laughter. “You’re an orphan. Are you Annie?”

“I’d rather be Candide.” We’re edged up against a wall near French doors that lead to a garden. He slides down so we’re eye-level.

“Where did you come from?”

I remind myself of what Samantha told me. “Does it matter? I’m here.”

“Cheeky devil,” he declares. And suddenly, I’m glad I was robbed. The thief took my bag and my money, but he also took my identity. Which means for the next few hours, I can be anyone I want.

Bernard grabs my hand and leads me to the garden. A variety of people—men, women, old, young, beautiful, ugly—are seated around a marble table, shrieking with laughter and indignation as if heated conversation is the fuel that keeps them going. He wriggles us in between a tiny woman with short hair and a distinguished man in a seersucker jacket.

“Bernard,” the woman says in a feathery voice. “We’re coming to see your play in September.” Bernard’s response is drowned out, however, by a sudden yelp of recognition from the man seated across the table.

He’s enveloped in black, a voluminous coat that resembles a nun’s habit. Brown-shaded sunglasses hide his eyes and a felt hat is pressed over his forehead. The skin on his face is gently folded, as if wrapped in soft white fabric.

“Bernard!” he exclaims. “Bernardo. Darling. Love of my life. Do get me a drink?” He spots me, and points a trembling finger. “You’ve brought a child!”

His voice is shrill, eerily pitched, almost inhuman. Every cell in my body contracts.

Kenton James.

My throat closes. I grab for my glass of champagne, and drain the last drop, feeling a nudge from the man in the seersucker jacket. He nods at Kenton James. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” he says, in a voice that’s pure patrician New England, low and assured. “It’s the grain alcohol. Years of it. Destroys the brain. In other words, he’s a hopeless drunk.”

I giggle in appreciation, like I know exactly what he’s talking about. “Isn’t everyone?”

“Now that you mention it, yes.”

“Bernardo, please,” Kenton pleads. “It’s only practical. You’re the one who’s closest to the bar. You can’t expect me to enter that filthy sweating mass of humanity—”

“Guilty!” shouts the man in the seersucker.

“And what are you wearing under that dishabille?” booms Bernard.