Summer and the City (The Carrie Diaries 2)

But I’m never going to see him again, so it doesn’t matter. And now I have to face the future: Brown.

Maybe, after four years of college, I’ll try again. I’ll storm the gates of the Emerald City, and this time, I’ll succeed.

But for now, I’m too tired. Who knew eighteen could be so exhausting?

I sigh and wriggle my feet into my shoes. I had a good run. Sure, I messed up a few times, but I managed to survive.

I tiptoe back to the bedroom for one last look at Capote. “Good-bye, lover,” I murmur quietly.

His mouth pops open and he wakes, pounding his pillow in confusion. He sits up and squints at me. “Huh?”

“Sorry,” I whisper, picking up my watch. “I was just—” I indicate the door.

“Why?” He rubs his eyes. “Didn’t you like it?”

“I loved it. But—”

“Why are you leaving then?”

I shrug.

He feels for his glasses and puts them on, blinking behind the thick lenses. “Aren’t you going to at least allow me the pleasure of giving you breakfast? A gentleman never lets a lady leave without feeding her, first.”

I laugh. “I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself. Besides, you make me sound like a bird.”

“A bird? More like a tiger,” he chuckles. “C’mere.” He opens his arms. I crawl across the bed and fall into them.

He strokes my hair. He’s warm and snuggly and smells a little. Of man, I suppose. The scent is strangely familiar. Like toast.

He pulls back his head and smiles. “Did anyone ever tell you how pretty you look in the morning?”

At about two in the afternoon, we manage to make it to the Pink Tea Cup for breakfast. I wear one of Capote’s shirts over my rubber pants and we eat pancakes and bacon with real maple syrup and drink about a gallon of coffee and smoke cigarettes and talk shyly and eagerly about nothing. “Hey,” he says, when the check comes. “Want to go to the zoo?”

“The zoo?”

“I hear they have a new polar bear.”

And suddenly, I do want to go to the zoo with Capote. In my two months in New York, I haven’t done one touristy thing. I haven’t been to the Empire State Building. Or the Statue of Liberty. Or Wollman Rink or the Metropolitan Museum or even the Public Library.

I’ve been sorely remiss. I can’t leave New York without going on the Circle Line.

“I need to do one thing first,” I say.

I get up and head to the restroom. There’s a pay phone on the wall outside the door.

Miranda picks up after the first ring. “Hello?” she asks urgently, as if she’s expecting bad news. She always answers the phone like that. It’s one of the things I love about her.

“I did it!” I squeal triumphantly.

“Carrie? Is that you? Oh my God. What happened? How was it? Did it hurt? How was Bernard?”

“I didn’t do it with Bernard.”

“What?” She gasps. “Who did you do it with? You can’t go out there and pick up some random stranger. Oh no, Carrie. You didn’t. You didn’t pick up some guy at a bar—”

“I did it with Capote,” I say proudly.

“That guy?” I can hear her jaw drop. “I thought you hated him.”