Summer and the City (The Carrie Diaries 2)

It’s like the dinner with Maggie never happened. Nor my series of desperate phone calls. Nor his not calling me the way he promised. But maybe, because he’s a writer, he lives in a slightly different reality, where the things that seem earth-shattering to me are nothing to him.

“My suitcase,” I murmur, glancing back.

“You moving in?” he laughs.

“Maybe.”

“Just in time, too,” he teases. “My furniture finally arrived.”

I spend the night at Bernard’s. We sleep in the crisp new sheets on the enormous king-size bed. It’s so very, very comfortable.

I sleep like a baby and when I wake up, darling Bernard is next to me, his face buried in his pillow. I lie back and close my eyes, enjoying the luxurious quiet while I mentally review the events of the evening.

We started by fooling around on the new couch. Then we moved into the bedroom and fooled around while we watched TV. Then we ordered Chinese food (why does sex always seem to make people hungry?) and fooled around some more. We finished off with a bubble bath. Bernard was very gentle and sweet, and he didn’t even try to put in the old weenie. Or at least I’m pretty sure he didn’t. Miranda says the guy really has to jam it in there, so I doubt I could have missed it.

I wonder if Bernard secretly knows I’m a virgin. If there’s something about me that flashes “undefiled.”

“Hiya, butterfly,” he says now, stretching his arms toward the ceiling. He rolls over and smiles, and moves in for a kiss, morning breath and all.

“Have you gotten the pill yet?” Bernard asks, making coffee in the spiffy new machine that gurgles like a baby’s belly.

I casually light a cigarette and hand him one. “Not yet.”

“Why not?”

Good question. “I forgot?”

“Pumpkin, you can’t neglect these kinds of things,” he chastises gently.

“I know. But it’s just that—with my father and his new girlfriend—I’ll take care of it this week, I promise.”

“If you did, you could spend the night more often.” Bernard sets two cups of coffee on the sleek dining room table. “And you could get a small valise for your things.”

“Like my toothbrush?” I giggle.

“Like whatever you need,” he says.

A valise, huh? The word makes spending the night sound planned and glamorous, as opposed to last-minute and smutty. I laugh. A valise sounds very expensive. “I don’t think I can afford a valise.”

“Oh well then.” He shrugs. “Something nice. So the doormen won’t be suspicious.”

“They’ll be suspicious if I’m carrying a plastic grocery bag but not if I’m carrying a valise?”

“You know what I mean.”

I nod. With a valise, I wouldn’t look so much like a troubled teenager he’d picked up at Penn Station. Which reminds me of Teensie.

“I met your agent. At a party,” I say easily, not wanting to ruin the mood.

“Did you?” He smiles, clearly unconcerned about the incident. “Was she a dragon lady?”

“She practically ripped me to shreds with her claws,” I say jokingly. “Is she always like that?”

“Pretty much.” He rubs the top of my head. “Maybe we should have dinner with her. So the two of you can get to know each other.”

“Whatever you want, Mr. Singer,” I purr, climbing into his lap. If he wants me to have dinner with his agent, it means our relationship is not only back on track, but speeding forward like a European train. I kiss him on the mouth, imagining I’m a Katharine Hepburn character in a romantic black-and-white movie.

Chapter Twenty-Five