Summer and the City (The Carrie Diaries 2)

Erica gives me a firm, no-nonsense handshake. There’s something refreshing about her, like she knows how ridiculous her mother is and how this whole scene is kind of silly.

“Hi,” I say, warmly, and take a seat on the edge of a small, decorative chair.

Samantha told me Glenn had a face-lift, so while Glenn smoothes her hair and Erica eats a cookie, I surreptitiously study Glenn’s face, looking for signs of the surgery. On closer inspection, they’re not hard to find. Glenn’s mouth is stretched and tucked up like the grin of the Joker, although she’s not smiling. Her eyebrows are dangerously close to her hairline. I’m peering at her so hard she can’t help but sense my staring. She turns to me and, with a little flutter of her hand, says, “That’s quite an interesting outfit you’re wearing.”

“Thank you,” I say. “I got it for free.”

“I should hope so.”

I can’t tell if she’s being deliberately rude or if this is simply her usual demeanor. I take a cookie, and feel a little sad. I can’t fathom why Samantha has insisted on my presence. Surely she isn’t planning to include me on her journey into the future. I can’t imagine where I would fit in.

Glenn shakes her arm and peers at her watch. “Where’s Samantha?” she asks, with a quiet sigh of annoyance.

“Maybe she’s caught in traffic,” I suggest.

“It’s terribly rude, being late for your own dress fitting,” Glenn murmurs, in a low, warm voice intended to take the sting out of the insult. There’s a knock on the door and I jump up to open it.

“Here she is,” I chirp, expecting Samantha but finding Donna LaDonna and her mother, instead.

There’s no sign of Samantha. Nevertheless, I’m so relieved not to be alone with Glenn and her daughter, I go too far. “Donna!” I shout.

Donna is all sexed up in a slouchy top with shoulder pads and leggings. Her mother is wearing a sad imitation of Glenn’s real Chanel suit. What will Glenn think of Donna and her mother? I can already tell she’s none too impressed by me. And suddenly, I’m a tad embarrassed for Castlebury.

Donna, of course, doesn’t notice. “Hi, Carrie,” she says, like she just saw me yesterday.

She and her mother go to Glenn, who shakes hands nicely and pretends to be thrilled to meet them.

While Donna and her mother coo over the room, Glenn’s suit, and the future wedding plans, I sit back and observe. I always thought Donna was one of the most sophisticated girls in our school, but seeing her in New York, on my turf, I wonder what I ever found so intriguing about her. Sure, she’s pretty, but not as pretty as Samantha. And she’s not the least bit stylish in that Flashdance getup. She’s not even very interesting, babbling to me about how she and her mother got their nails done and bragging about how they shopped at Macy’s. Jeez. Even I know only tourists shop at Macy’s.

And then Donna blurts out her own very exciting news. She, too, is getting married. She holds out her hand, revealing a solitaire diamond chip.

I lean over to admire it, although you practically need a magnifying glass to see the damn thing. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

She gives me a brief smile as if she’s surprised I haven’t heard. “Tommy.”

“Tommy? Tommy Brewster?” The Tommy Brewster who basically made my life hell merely because I had the bad luck to sit next to him in assembly for four years of high school? The big dumb jock who was Cynthia Viande’s serious boyfriend?

The question is apparently written all over my face, because Donna immediately explains that Cynthia broke up with him. “She’s going to BU and she didn’t want to take Tommy with her. She actually thought she could do better,” Donna smirks.

No kidding, I want to say.

“Tommy’s going into the military. He’s going to be a pilot,” Donna adds boastfully. “He’ll be traveling a lot and it’ll be easier if we’re married.”

“Wow.” Donna LaDonna engaged to Tommy Brewster? How could this happen? If I’d had to place bets in high school, I would have wagered that Donna LaDonna was the one who was on her way to bigger and better things. She was the last person I imagined would be the first to become a housewife.

Having dispatched this information, Donna veers the conversation onto the topic of babies.

“I was always a hands-on mom,” Glenn says, nodding. “I breast-fed Charlie for nearly a year. Of course, it meant I could barely leave the apartment. But it was worth every minute. The scent of his little head . . .”

“The smell of his poopy diaper,” Erica mutters under her breath. I give her a grateful look. She’s been so quiet, I’d forgotten she was there.

“I think it’s one of the reasons Charlie turned out so well,” Glenn continues, ignoring her daughter as she directs her comments to Donna. “I know breast-feeding isn’t very popular, but I think it’s terribly rewarding.”

“I’ve heard it can make the kid smarter,” Donna says.

I stare at the plate of cookies, wondering what Samantha would think of this discussion. Does she know Glenn is planning to turn her into a baby-making machine? The thought gives me the willies. What if what Miranda said about endometriosis is true, and Samantha can’t get pregnant right away—or at all? And what if she does, and the baby is born in her intestine?

Where the hell is Samantha, anyway?