“And what about you?” Sam asked. “How are the kids?”
“Great. And I just got money to make my first documentary.”
“Really?” Sam said. She hiked her bag up onto her shoulder. “About what?”
“This year’s female political candidates. I’ve got some Hollywood actresses who are interested in narrating. We’re going to take it to one of the networks. I’m going to have to spend a lot of time in Washington, so I told Roger and the kids they were just going to have to do without me.”
“How will they manage?” Sam asked.
“Well, Sam, that’s what I ask myself about you,” the girl said. “I mean, with this project, I couldn’t do it if I wasn’t married. Roger’s given me so much self-confidence. Anytime something goes wrong, I run into his office, screaming. I couldn’t handle it if I didn’t have him. I’d crumple up and never take any real risks. I don’t know how you girls do it, being single for years and years.”
“That makes me sick,” Sam said, when the girl walked away. “Why should she get money for doing a documentary? She’s never done a fucking thing in her life.”
“Everybody’s a rock star,” Carrie said.
“I think Roger’s going to need some company while she’s away,” Sam said. “I’d definitely marry a guy like that.”
“You’d only marry a guy like that,” Carrie said, lighting a cigarette. “A guy who was already married.”
“You’re full of shit,” Sam said.
“Going out afterward?” Carrie asked.
“Dinner with ——,” Sam said, naming a well-known artist. “Going home?”
“I told Big I’d cook him dinner.”
“That’s so cute. Cooking dinner,” Sam said.
“Yeah. Sure,” Carrie said. She mashed out her cigarette and went through a revolving door onto the street.
A RELATIONSHIP? HOW SILLY
Sam was having a big week. “Did you ever have one of those weeks when, I don’t know how to explain it, you walk into a room and every guy wants to be with you?” she asked Carrie.
Sam went to a party where she bumped into a guy she hadn’t seen for about seven years. He was one of those guys who, seven years ago, every woman on the Upper East Side had been after. He was handsome, came from a wealthy, connected family, dated models. Now, he said, he was looking for a relationship.
At the party, Sam let him back her into a corner. He’d had a few drinks. “I always thought you were so beautiful,” he said. “But I was scared of you.”
“Scared? Of me?” Sam laughed.
“You were smart. And tough. I thought you’d rip me to shreds.”
“You’re saying you thought I was a bitch.”
“Not a bitch. Just that I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep up.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
“I like it when men think I’m smarter than they are,” Sam said. “Because it’s usually true.”
They went to dinner. More drinks. “God, Sam,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m with you.”
“Why not?” Sam said, holding her cocktail glass high in the air.
“I kept reading about you in the papers. I kept wanting to get in touch with you. But I thought, She’s famous now.”