The Carrie Diaries (9 page)

My parents met in a library.

After college, my mother was a librarian. My father came in to borrow some books, saw my mother, and fell in love.

They were married six months later.

Everyone says my mother used to look like Elizabeth Taylor, but in those days they told every pretty girl she looked like Elizabeth Taylor. Nevertheless, I always picture Elizabeth Taylor sitting demurely behind an oak desk. My father, bespectacled and lanky, his blond hair modeled into a stiff crew cut, approaches the desk as my mother/Elizabeth Taylor stands up to help him. She is wearing a poodle skirt flourished with fuzzy pink pom-poms.

The skirt is somewhere up in the attic, zipped away in a garment bag with the rest of my mother’s old clothes, including her wedding gown, saddle shoes, ballet slippers,
and the megaphone embossed with her name, Mimi, from her days as a high-school cheerleader.

I almost never saw my mother when she wasn’t beautifully dressed and had completed her hair and makeup. For a period, she sewed her own clothes and many of ours. She prepared entire meals from the Julia Child cookbook. She decorated the house with local antiques, had the prettiest gardens and Christmas tree, and still surprised us with elaborate Easter baskets well past the time when we had ceased to believe in the Easter Bunny.

My mother was just like all the other mothers, but a little better, because she felt that presenting one’s home and family in the best possible light was a worthy pursuit, and she made everything look easy.

And even though she wore White Shoulders perfume and thought jeans were for farmers, she also assumed that women should embrace this wonderful way of being called feminism.

The summer before I started second grade, my mother and her friends started reading
The Consensus
, by Mary Gordon Howard. It was a heavy novel, lugged to and from the club in large canvas bags filled with towels and suntan lotion and potions for insect bites. Every morning, as they settled into their chaises around the pool, one woman after another would pull
The Consensus
out of her bag. The cover is still etched in my brain: a blue sea with an abandoned sailboat, surrounded by the black-and-white college photographs of eight young women. On the back was a photograph of Mary Gordon Howard herself, taken
in profile, a patrician woman who, to my young mind, resembled George Washington wearing a tweed suit and pearls.

“Did you get to the part about the pessary?” one lady would whisper to another.

“Shhhh. Not yet. Don’t give it away.”

“Mom, what’s a pessary?” I asked.

“It’s not something you need to worry about as a child.”

“Will I need to worry about it as an adult?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. There might be new methods by then.”

I spent the whole summer trying to find out what it was about that book that so managed to hold the attention of the ladies at the club that Mrs. Dewittle didn’t even notice when her son David fell off the diving board and needed ten stitches in his head.

“Mom!” I said later, trying to get her attention. “Why does Mary Gordon Howard have two last names?”

My mother put down the book, holding her place with her finger. “Gordon is her mother’s maiden name and Howard is her father’s last name.”

I considered this. “What happens if she gets married?”

My mother seemed pleased by the question. “She is married. She’s been married three times.”

I thought it must be the most glamorous thing in the world to be married three times. Back then, I didn’t know one adult who had been divorced even once.

“But she never takes her husbands’ names. Mary Gordon
Howard is a very great feminist. She believes that women should be able to define themselves and shouldn’t let a man take their identity.”

I thought it must be the most glamorous thing in the world to be a feminist.

Until
The Consensus
came along, I’d never thought much about the power of books. I’d read a ton of picture books, and then the Roald Dahl novels and the
Chronicles of Narnia
by C. S. Lewis. But that summer, the idea that a book could change people began to flutter around the edges of my consciousness. I thought that I, too, might want to become a writer and a feminist.

On Christmas of that year, as we sat around the table eating the Bûche de Noël that my mother had spent two days assembling, she made an announcement. She was going back to school to get her architecture degree. Nothing would change, except that Daddy would have to make us dinner some nights.

Years later, my mother got a job with Beakon and Beakon Architects. I loved to go to her office after school, which was in an antique house in the center of town. Every room was softly carpeted, perfumed with the gentle scent of paper and ink. There was a funny slanted desk where my mother did her work, drawing elegant structures in a fine, strict hand. She had two people working for her, both young men who seemed to adore her, and I never thought you couldn’t be a feminist if you wore pantyhose and high heels and pulled your hair back in a pretty barrette.

I thought being a feminist was about how you conducted your life.

When I was thirteen, I saw in the local paper that Mary Gordon Howard was coming to speak and sign books at our public library. My mother was no longer well enough to leave the house, so I decided to go on my own and surprise her with a signed book. I braided my hair into pigtails and tied the ends with yellow ribbons. I wore a yellow India print dress and a pair of wedge sandals. Before I left, I went in to see my mother.

She was lying in her bed with the blinds half-closed. As always, there was the mechanical
tick, tick, tick
of the grandfather clock, and I imagined the little teeth in the mechanism biting off a tiny piece of time with each inexorable movement.

“Where are you going?” my mother asked. Her voice, once mellifluous, was reduced to a needle scratch.

“To the library,” I said, beaming. I was dying to tell her my secret.

“That’s nice,” she said. “You look pretty.” She took a heavy breath and continued. “I like your ribbons. Where did you get them?”

“From your old sewing box.”

She nodded. “My father brought those ribbons from Belgium.”

I touched the ribbons, unsure if I should have taken them.

“No, no,” my mother said. “You wear them. That’s what they’re there for, right? Besides,” she repeated, “you look pretty.”

She began to cough. I dreaded the sound—high and weak, it was more like the futile gasping of a helpless animal than an actual cough. She’d coughed for a year before they discovered she was sick. The nurse came in, pulling the top off a syringe with her teeth while tapping my mother’s forearm with two fingers.

“There you go, dear, there you go,” she said reassuringly, smoothly inserting the needle. “Now you’ll sleep. You’ll sleep for a bit and when you wake up, you’ll feel better.”

My mother looked at me and winked. “I doubt it,” she said as she began to drift away.

I got on my bike and rode the five miles down Main Street to the library. I was late, and as I pedaled, an idea began to form in my head that Mary Gordon Howard was going to rescue me.

Mary Gordon Howard was going to
recognize
me.

Mary Gordon Howard was going to see me and know, instinctively, that I, too, was a writer and a feminist, and would someday write a book that would change the world.

Standing atop my pedals to pump more furiously, I had high hopes for a dramatic transformation.

When I reached the library, I threw my bike into the bushes and ran upstairs to the main reading room.

Twelve rows of women sat on folding chairs. The great Mary Gordon Howard, the lower half of her body hidden behind a podium, stood before them. She appeared as a woman dressed for battle, in a stiff suit the color of armor
enhanced by enormous shoulder pads. I caught an under-current of hostility in the air, and slipped behind a stack.

“Yes?” she barked at a woman in the front row who had raised her hand. It was our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Agnosta. “What you’re saying is all very well and good,” Mrs. Agnosta began carefully. “But what if you’re not unhappy with your life? I mean, I’m not sure my daughter’s life
should
be different than mine. In fact, I’d really like my daughter to turn out just like me.”

Mary Gordon Howard frowned. On her ears were enormous blue stones. As she moved her hand to adjust her earring, I noticed a rectangular diamond watch on her wrist. Somehow, I hadn’t expected Mary Gordon Howard to be so bejeweled. Then she lowered her head like a bull and stared straight at Mrs. Agnosta as if she were about to charge. For a second, I was actually afraid for Mrs. Agnosta, who no doubt had no idea what she’d wandered into and was only looking for a little culture to enhance her afternoon.

“That, my dear, is because you are a classic narcissist,” Mary Gordon Howard declared. “You are so in love with yourself, you imagine that a woman can only be happy if she is ‘just like you.’ You are exactly what I’m talking about when I refer to women who are a hindrance to the progress of other women.”

Well, I thought. That was probably true. If it were up to Mrs. Agnosta, all women would spend their days baking cookies and scrubbing toilets.

Mary Gordon Howard looked around the room, her mouth drawn into a line of triumph. “And now, if there are
no more questions, I will be happy to sign your books.”

There were no more questions. The audience, I figured, was too scared.

I got in line, clutching my mother’s copy of
The Consensus
to my chest. The head librarian, Ms. Detooten, who I’d known since I was a kid, stood next to Mary Gordon Howard, handing her books to sign. Mary Gordon Howard sighed several times in annoyance. Finally she turned to Ms. Detooten and muttered, “Unenlightened housewives, I’m afraid.” By then I was only two people away. “Oh no,” I wanted to protest. “That isn’t true at all.” And I wished I could tell her about my mother and how
The Consensus
had changed her life.

Ms. Detooten shrank and, flushed with embarrassment, turned away and spotted me. “Why, here’s Carrie Bradshaw,” she exclaimed in a too-happy, nudging voice, as if I were a person Mary Gordon Howard might like to meet.

My fingers curled tightly around the book. I couldn’t seem to move the muscles in my face, and I pictured how I must look with my lips frozen into a silly, timid smile.

The Gorgon, as I’d now begun to think of her, glanced my way, took in my appearance, and went back to her signing.

“Carrie’s going to be a writer,” Ms. Detooten gushed. “Isn’t that so, Carrie?”

I nodded.

Suddenly I had The Gorgon’s attention. She put down her pen. “And why is that?” she asked.

“Excuse me?” I whispered. My face prickled with heat.

“Why do
you
want to be a writer?”

I looked to Ms. Detooten for help. But Ms. Detooten only looked as terrified as I did. “I…I don’t know.”

“If you can’t think of a very good reason to do it, then don’t,” The Gorgon snapped. “Being a writer is all about having something to say. And it’d better be interesting. If you don’t have anything interesting to say, don’t become a writer. Become something useful. Like a doctor.”

“Thank you,” I whispered.

The Gorgon held out her hand for my mother’s book. For a moment, I thought about snatching it away and running out of there, but I was too intimidated. The Gorgon scrawled her name in sharp, tiny handwriting.

“Thank you for coming, Carrie,” Ms. Detooten said as the book was handed back to me.

My mouth was dry. I nodded my head dumbly as I stumbled outside.

I was too weak to pick up my bike. I sat on the curb instead, trying to recover my ego. I waited as poisonous waves of shame crashed over me, and when they passed, I stood up, feeling as if I’d lost a dimension. I got on my bike and rode home.

“How’d it go?” my mother whispered later, when she was awake. I sat on the chair next to her bed, holding her hand. My mother always took good care of her hands. If you only looked at her hands, you would never know she was sick.

I shrugged. “They didn’t have the book I wanted.”

My mother nodded. “Maybe next time.”

I never told my mother how I’d gone to see her hero, Mary Gordon Howard. I never told her Mary Gordon Howard had signed her book. I certainly didn’t tell her that Mary Gordon Howard was no feminist. How can you be a feminist when you treat other women like dirt? Then you’re just a mean girl like Donna LaDonna. I never told anyone about the incident at all. But it stayed with me, like a terrible beating you can push out of your mind but never quite forget.

I still feel a flicker of shame when I think about it. I wanted Mary Gordon Howard to rescue me.

But that was a long time ago. I’m not that girl anymore. I don’t need to feel ashamed. I turn over and squish my pillow under my cheek, thinking about my date with Sebastian.

And I don’t need to be rescued anymore, either.

“I hear Donna LaDonna is seeing Sebastian Kydd,” Lali says, adjusting her goggles.

What?
I dip my toe into the water as I tug on the straps of my Speedo, trying to compose myself. “Really,” I say casually. “How’d you hear that?”

“She told the two Jens and they’re telling everyone.”

“Maybe she’s making it up,” I say, stretching my legs.

“Why would she do that?”

I get up on the block next to her and shrug.

“On your mark. Get set.
Go!
” Coach Nipsie says.

As we’re both airborne, I suddenly shout, “I went on a date with Sebastian Kydd.”

I catch a glimpse of her shocked expression as she belly flops into the pool.

The water’s cold, barely seventy-five degrees. I swim one lap, turn, and when I see Lali coming up behind
me, start pounding the water.

Lali’s a better swimmer than I am, but I’m the better diver. For almost eight years now, we’ve been competing with each other and against each other. We’ve gotten up at four a.m., swallowed weird concoctions of raw eggs to make us stronger, spent weeks at swimming camp, given each other wedgies, made up funny victory dances, and painted our faces with the school colors. We’ve been screamed at by coaches, berated by mothers, and made little kids cry. We’re considered a bad combination, but so far, no one’s been able to separate us.

We swim an exhausting eight-lap medley. Lali passes me on the sixth lap, and when I hit the wall, she’s standing above me, dripping water into my lane. “Nice way to freak out the competition,” she says as we high-five.

“Except it’s true,” I say, grabbing my towel and rubbing my head.

“What?”

“Last night. He came to my house. We went to a museum. Then we went to his house and made out.”

“Uh-huh.” She flexes her foot and pulls it up to her thigh.

“And he spent a summer living in Rome. And”—I look around to make sure no one is listening—“he bites his nails.”

“Right, Bradley.”

“Lali,” I whisper. “I’m
serious
.”

She stops stretching her leg and looks at me. For a second, I think she’s angry. Then she grins and blurts out,
“Come on, Carrie. Why would Sebastian Kydd go out with
you
?”

For a moment, we’re both stunned into one of those terrible awkward moments when a friend has gone too far and you wonder if ugly words will be exchanged. You’ll say something nasty and defensive. She’ll say something hurtful and cruel. You wonder if you’ll ever speak again.

But maybe she didn’t mean it. So you give her another chance. “Why wouldn’t he?” I ask, trying to make light of it.

“It’s only because of Donna LaDonna,” she says, backtracking. “I mean, if he’s seeing her…you wouldn’t think he’d start seeing someone else, too.”

“Maybe he isn’t seeing her,” I say, my throat tight. I’d been looking forward to telling Lali everything about the date, turning over each little thing he said and did, but now I can’t.

What if he
is
seeing Donna LaDonna? I’ll look like a complete and utter fool.

“Bradshaw!” Coach Nipsie shouts. “What the hell is wrong with you today? You’re up on the planks.”

“Sorry,” I say to Lali, as if somehow it’s all my fault. I grab my towel and head to the diving boards.

“And I need you to nail the half gainer with a full twist for the meet on Thursday,” Coach Nipsie calls out.

Great.

I climb the rungs to the board and pause, trying to visualize my dive. But all I can see is Donna LaDonna and Sebastian together that night at The Emerald. Maybe Lali
is right. Why would he bother chasing me if he’s still seeing Donna LaDonna? On the other hand, maybe he isn’t seeing her and Lali’s just trying to mess me up. But why would she do that?

“Bradshaw!” Coach Nipsie warns. “I don’t have all day.”

Right. I take four steps, come down hard on my left foot, and pop straight up. As soon as I’m in the air, I know the dive is going to be a disaster. My arms and legs flail to the side as I land on the back of my head.

“Come on, Bradshaw. You’re not even trying,” Coach Nipsie reprimands.

Usually, I’m pretty tough, but tears well up in my eyes. I can’t tell if it’s from the pain in my head or the humiliation to my ego, but either way, they both hurt. I glance toward Lali, hoping for sympathy, but she isn’t paying attention. She’s seated in the bleachers, and next to her, about a foot away, is Sebastian.

Why does he keep popping up unexpectedly? I’m not prepared for this.

I get back on the board. I don’t dare look at him, but I can feel him watching. My second attempt is a little better, and when I get out of the water, Lali and Sebastian have started talking. Lali looks up at me and raises her fist. “Go, Bradley!”

“Thanks.” I wave. Sebastian catches my eye and winks.

My third dive is actually pretty good, but Lali and Sebastian are too engaged in their animated conversation to notice.

“Hey,” I say, squeezing water out of my hair as I stride over.

“Oh, hi,” Lali says, as if she’s seeing me for the first time that day. Now that Sebastian is here, I figure she must be feeling pretty cheesy about what she said.

“Did it hurt?” Sebastian asks as I sit down next to him. He pats the top of my head and says sweetly, “Your noggin. It looked like it took some damage there.”

I glance at Lali, whose eyes are the size of eggs. “Nah.” I shrug. “Happens all the time. It’s nothing.”

“We were just talking about the night we painted the barn,” Lali says.

“That was hysterical,” I say, in an attempt to behave as if all of this is normal, as if I’m not even surprised to find Sebastian waiting for me.

“You want a ride home?” he asks.

“Sure.” He follows me to the locker room door, and for some reason, I’m relieved. I suddenly realize I don’t want to leave him alone with Lali.

I want him all to myself. He’s too new to share.

And then I feel like a crap heel. Lali is my best friend.

I slip out to the parking lot through the gym instead of the pool, my hair still wet, my jeans clinging uncomfortably to my thighs. I’m halfway across the asphalt when a beige Toyota pulls up beside me and stops. The window rolls down and Jen S sticks her head out. “Hey, Carrie,” she says, all casual. “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.”

Jen P leans across her. “Want to go to the Hamburger Shack?”

I give them a deliberately skeptical look. They’ve never asked me to go to the Hamburger Shack before—hell, they’ve never asked me to go anywhere. Do they really think I’m that dumb?

“Can’t,” I say vaguely.

“Why not?”

“I have to go home.”

“You have time for a hamburger,” Jen S says. It might be my imagination, but I detect a slight threat in her tone.

Sebastian honks his horn.

I jump. Jen S and Jen P exchange another look. “Get in,” Jen P urges.

“Really, guys. Thanks. Some other time.”

Jen S glares at me. And this time there is no mistaking the hostility in her voice. “Suit yourself,” she says as she rolls up the window. And then they just sit there, watching as I walk up to Sebastian’s car and get in.

“Hi,” he says, leaning over to kiss me.

I pull away. “Better not. We’re being watched.” I point out the beige Toyota. “The two Jens.”

“Who cares?” he says, and kisses me again. I go along with it but break away after a few seconds. “The Jens,” I say pointedly. “They’re best friends with Donna LaDonna.”

“And?”

“Well, obviously they’re going to tell her. About you and me,” I say cautiously, not wanting to be presumptuous.

He frowns, turns the key in the ignition, and slams the
stick into second gear. The car leaps forward with a screech. I peek out the back window. The Toyota has pulled right up behind. I slump down in the seat. “I can’t believe this,” I mutter. “They’re following us.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he says, looking into the rearview mirror. “Maybe it’s time someone taught them a lesson.”

The engine roars like a wild animal as he puts the car into fourth gear. We take a sharp turn onto the highway and hit seventy-five. I turn around to check the progress of the Toyota. “I think we’re losing them.”

“Why would they do this? What is wrong with these girls?”

“Boredom. They don’t have anything better to do.”

“Well, they’d better find someone else to tail.”

“Or what? You’re going to beat them up?” I giggle.

“Something like that.” He rubs my leg and smiles. We take a sharp turn off the highway and onto Main Street. As we approach my house, he slows down.

“Not here.” I panic. “They’ll see your car in the driveway.”

“Where then?”

I consider for a moment. “The library.”

No one will think to look for us there, except maybe The Mouse, who knows that the Castlebury Public Library is my favorite secret place. It’s housed in a white brick mansion, built in the early 1900s, when Castlebury was a booming mill town and had millionaires who wanted to show off their wealth by building grand mansions on the Connecticut River. But hardly anyone has the money to
keep them up now, so they’ve all been turned into public properties or nursing homes.

Sebastian whips into the driveway and parks behind the building. I hop out and peek around the side. The beige Toyota is slowly making its way down Main Street, past the library. Inside the car, the two Jens are swiveling their heads around like swizzle sticks, trying to find us.

I bend over, laughing. Every time I try to straighten up, I look at Sebastian and burst out into hysterics. I stumble around the parking lot and fall to the ground, holding my stomach.

“Carrie?” he says. “Is it really
that
funny?”

“Yes,” I cry. And I collapse into another wave of laughter while Sebastian looks at me, gives up, and lights a cigarette.

“Here,” he says, handing it to me.

I get up, holding on to him for support. “It is funny, isn’t it?”

“It’s hilarious.”

“How come you’re not laughing?”

“I am. But I like watching you laugh more.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It makes me happy.” He puts his arm around me and we go inside.

I lead him up to the fourth floor. Hardly anyone comes up here because all the books are on engineering and botany and obscure scientific research that most people don’t want to bother trekking up four flights to read. In the middle of the room is an old chintz-covered couch.

We’re at least half an hour into an intense make-out session when we’re startled by a loud angry voice.

“Hello, Sebastian. I was wondering where you’d run off to.”

Sebastian is on top of me. I look over his shoulder and see Donna LaDonna looming over us, like an angry Valkyrie. Her arms are crossed, emphasizing her formidable chest. If breasts could kill, I’d be dead.

“You’re disgusting,” she sneers at Sebastian before she focuses her attention on me. “And
you
, Carrie Bradshaw. You’re even
worse
.”

“I don’t get it,” I say in a small voice.

Sebastian looks guilty. “Carrie, I’m sorry. I had no idea she would react that way.”

How could he have “no idea”? I wonder, my anger growing. It’s going to be all over the school tomorrow. And I’m the one who’s going to look like either a fool or a bitch.

Sebastian has one hand on the wheel, tapping the fake wood inlay with a ragged nail, as if he’s as perplexed by this as I am. I’m probably supposed to yell at him, but he looks so cute and innocent, I can’t quite muster the energy.

I look at him hard, folding my arms. “
Are
you seeing her?”

“It’s complicated.”

“How?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It’s like being a little bit pregnant. You either are or you’re not.”

“I’m not, but she
thinks
I am.”

And whose fault is that? “Can’t you tell her you’re not seeing her?”

“It’s not so easy. She
needs
me.”

Now I really have had enough. How can any self-respecting girl respond to this nonsense? Am I supposed to say, “No, please, I need you too”? And what’s up with this old-fashioned “neediness” stuff, anyway?

He pulls into my driveway and parks the car. “Carrie—”

“I should probably go.” There’s a bit of an edge to my voice. But what else am I supposed to do? What if he does like Donna LaDonna better and he’s only using me to make her jealous?

I get out of the car and slam the door.

I race up the walk. I’m nearly at the door when I hear the quick, satisfying tread of his footsteps behind me.

He grabs my arm. “Don’t go,” he says. I allow him to turn me around, put his hands in my hair. “Don’t go,” he whispers. He tilts my face up to his. “Maybe
I
need
you
.”