Summer and the City (The Carrie Diaries 2)

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“Gross,” Rainbow declares.

“I was wondering how long it would take for you two to get together,” Ryan says.

“There’s a new club opening on the Bowery,” Rainbow remarks.

“And a reading at Cholly Hammond’s,” Ryan says. “I’ve heard he throws a great party.”

“Anyone want to go to Elaine’s next week?” Capote asks.

And on and on they go, with no mention of the fact that I won’t be around. Or of my play. They’ve probably forgotten it by now anyway.

Or, like me, they’re too embarrassed to mention it.

When in doubt, there’s always plan C: If something really horrible happens, ignore it.

I follow the group inside, trudging my feet. What was it all for, anyway? I made friends with people I’ll probably never see again, dated a man who turned out to be a dud, found a love that can’t be sustained, and spent all summer writing a play that no one will ever see. As my father would say, I didn’t use my time “constructively.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“What’s going to happen with you and Capote?” Miranda demands. “Do you actually think you’re going to have a long-distance relationship? Sounds like a case of the deliberate subconscious—”

“If it’s deliberate, how can it be subconscious?”

“You know what I mean. You choose the end of the summer to fall in love with this guy because secretly, you don’t want it to last.”

I fold the white vinyl jumpsuit and press it into my suitcase. “I don’t think my subconscious is capable of being that conniving.”

“Oh, but it is,” Miranda says. “Your subconscious can make you do all kinds of things. For instance, why are you still wearing his shirt?”

I glance down at the light blue shirt I took from him after our first night. “I forgot I was wearing it.”

“You see?” Miranda says victoriously. “That’s why it’s so important to have analysis.”

“How do you explain Marty, then?”

“Subconscious again.” She flicks her shoulders in dismissal. “I finally realized he wasn’t for me. Even though my conscious was trying to break the pattern, my unconscious knew it wouldn’t work. Plus, I couldn’t go to the bathroom the whole time I was with him.”

“Sounds like your intestines were the problem and not your subconscious.” I yank open a drawer and remove three pairs of socks. Which I haven’t seen since I put them there two months ago. Socks! What was I thinking? I throw them into the suitcase as well.

“Let’s face it, Carrie,” Miranda sighs. “It’s all hopeless.”

Men, or the fact that I have to leave New York? “Isn’t that what they call wish fulfillment?”

“I’m a realist. Just because you had sex once doesn’t mean you have to fall in love,” she mutters. “And I never thought you and Samantha would turn out to be those dopey types who moon over their wedding dresses and the smell of their man’s shirt.”

“First of all, Samantha didn’t even show up for her wedding dress. And secondly—” I break off. “Do you think you’ll visit me in Providence?”

“Why would I want to go there? What do they have in Providence that we don’t have in New York?”

“Me?” I ask mournfully.

“You can visit me anytime,” Miranda says firmly. “You can sleep on the couch if you don’t mind the springs.”

“You know me. I don’t mind anything.”

“Oh, Carrie,” she says sadly.