Chapter 18 #2
Now Carrie has a photo shoot for a New York magazine article about single girls.
She knows about the shoot, but she stays out drinking and oversleeps.
She’s mad because she looks like shit in the photo.
Samantha is right. Like anyone’s gonna give a fuck in a few days, and now it’s another holiday, sort of.
Carrie and The Others are at a funeral for a fashion designer.
They’re all making jokes about the dead guy.
Are you that cold? That crass? She’s doing it, Vail.
She’s calling Big. They’re bowling. Just bowling but…
Nope. She did it, Vail. She got him back.
This is not a rom-com or a rom-con. This show is your bible, the reason you think you have to ice me out, spit and run to keep me in your orbit.
Don’t you get it? Guys like me and Big, you can drag us bowling. Lie and cheat. Wear stupid capes.
And still, we like you. Still.
She’s being a shady bitch. Yawn. Lying to The Others about seeing Big.
Would Big even like her if he knew she was ashamed of him, of them?
The Others are sick of her shit. She barely asks about their shit, and when she does ask, she just starts talking about her shit again.
Is that why you lost your best friend back home?
Is that why Cynthia’s a wreck? Don’t you realize you don’t need friends if you have a good fucking boyfriend? !
Big is a good boyfriend. He’s going to a wedding with Carrie.
She tells him he looks good. She’s finally being nice to him…
for about ten seconds. She’s nervous and bent out of shape about writing a poem for the wedding (he was supportive, tried to help her write her poem, and she mocked him) and now they’re at the wedding.
She’s reading her poem, and he gets a call.
HE IS MR. BIG. BANKERS LIKE HIM LIVE ON THEIR CELL PHONES.
Now she wants to dance. He doesn’t like to dance when people are eating (I get it, my man) and guess what LOL…
she’s pissed again. I kinda wish he and Miranda could hook up, but Carrie wants cake. They’re going home to eat cake in bed.
I want to eat cake in bed with you, Vail. The episode ends and it’s Valentine’s Day. You didn’t call and we are not going to Serendipity.
Still, I like you. Still.
Carrie seems to realize she’s a lucky woman.
Cool Cat Big is making an ass of himself singing an old song to her in a restaurant where everyone knows him.
He’s cooking for her (he’s making veal, do you like veal?) and Miranda calls.
Carrie is standing her up (such a bitch), and I don’t blame Miranda for being pissed.
Big asks if everything is okay, and she lies and says it is.
And wait…that’s Steve. Steve the bartender!
You mentioned him. Miranda likes Steve, and so do I.
He digs Hemingway. But Carrie is a bad influence, so Miranda’s not giving Steve a chance.
Gross. Time for dinner (in the show; I already had my Szechuan), and Carrie gives Big attitude because he’s not dressed up.
It’s raining and he doesn’t wanna go out and she’s pouting.
She is a wimp, Vail. Now she’s in a restaurant called Denial (ha) lying to The Others, too full of herself to admit she fucked up with Big.
But…here he comes like a cool cat…tapping on the toe with a new hat.
Miranda has an epiphany and runs after Steve and who says love is fucking over?
I know where the show is going. Samantha will get with Donald Trump or Rudy Giuliani (Would he do a guest spot?
Is that the kind of stuff we’re gonna talk about now that I speak your language?).
Big will go to a shrink to figure out why he can’t quit Carrie and fall for the shrink.
Miranda will start up her own practice in Steve’s bar à la John Grisham.
Charlotte…Ugh. She’s like one of those girls who thinks you can’t read books and sell them at the same fucking time. A soldier has his limits.
I was wrong. Miranda’s already blowing it with Steve, whining about his hours like she didn’t know going in.
Carrie’s bitching about Big, and is this what you want, Vail?
To talk about me with your friends instead of being with me?
They’re never happy. Steve is too poor and Big is too rich.
He gets Carrie a purse and it’s embarrassing, like your cape.
But hello…that’s her thing. Loud, ugly clothes.
Carrie isn’t brave enough to say she doesn’t like the purse.
She says, “I love you,” and he doesn’t say it back, and hello, why should he?
We’re the men. We say it first.
Now she’s at a party with Big and holy shit.
Even for her this is bad. She’s smoking with a waiter and now she’s leaving with the waiter, she’s waking up with the waiter.
Poor Big calls because that’s what poor Big does because she made a fool out of him; she threw love at him because she was too weak to say she didn’t like the stupid purse.
And still, he likes her. Still.
It’s getting old. It’s only season 2. This time, Carrie is mad at Big because she left her stuff at his place, as if he’s psychic, as if he knew she did that on purpose.
Anyway, sometimes I get it. Carrie can be a cool cat now and then, like when she flings her panties at him, and he says they’d better be clean.
For once in her selfish life, she laughs and lightens up and who knows?
Maybe sometimes gold can stay.
Nope. Big got a job in Paris, and she is going crazy because it’s always about her.
Nothing he does makes her happy, and now she’s drunk on cosmos.
At least they’re finally showing how women can’t drink this much without getting drunk.
She calls him to scream at him while he’s in Paris trying to sleep.
Oh boy. Actual psycho. He’s home. She got a beret.
She got McDonald’s AS IF MCDONALD’S IS FRENCH.
She tells Big she can visit him and they can have les phone sex and he’s squirming…
. HELLO SHE DRUNK-DIALED HIM LIKE A POSSESSIVE FUCKING NUTJOB and did she…
Yep. She threw McDonald’s at his TV and dumped him.
Poor guy. Did anyone ever try so hard to put up with someone? I really don’t think so, Vail.
Season 3 and I want a TV in my fucking kitchen. I pop an Advil. My back hurts.
The girls are in the Hamptons and Charlotte is lying about her age and Carrie is making a list of everything wrong with a nice, sheepish doctor.
But ooh…Big is back and he has a new girlfriend.
She’s pretty. Sarah, Plain and Tall. Carrie is puking on the beach, literally green with envy.
Now she’s calling his house and hanging up because the stick figure with no soul picked up.
I’m a little scared for Big. It’s his engagement party and Carrie is skulking around and Big leaves his beautiful plain fiancée to go talk to Carrie.
Big is better than that, and poor Natasha rolls down the window like “Where’s my man?” Carrie touches Big’s hair like she owns him. Like she didn’t make this mess. I’m tired, Vail; I have to put my pen down. I’ll write more when I’m all caught up.
—
Okay, I’m baaack. And I made it to the present. I know where we are.
I think I know why you fear the end of love in Manhattan, Vail.
Big lost everything because he couldn’t let go of Carrie.
He cheated on Natasha in their bed. Same way Carrie cheated on her dull, cigarette-hating boyfriend Aidan.
Big’s wife broke a tooth. It was all gross and it’s all on Carrie.
She’s not a tube of red lipstick like Samantha.
She’s not a string of pearls like Charlotte or a hot slice of rye like Miranda.
She’s all show, all capes and sequins. Big is the opposite.
A still water that runs deep. You once told me you’re afraid of not having a dream.
Because of Sex, you think the road to happy is paved with crazy obsession.
On our first date, you warned me that you couldn’t tell me about the fate of Carrie and Aidan.
It kills me that you believe there was ever any chance of those two sticking it out.
Two matches can’t start a fire. They need the book, the charcoal, the friction.
Same way a rowboat without oars just sits in the Central Park Reservoir.
You need me to be your Big, and yesterday I turned into Aidan on you.
A pathetic, aspiring heart-shaped candy of a man.
Well, those days are over, my peanut M&M.
I’m gonna get a suit or, at the very least, a blazer.
I need an umbrella. I need my hair to get thick again, and I need to make reservations and talk a little slower, use fewer words.
More biting my lip and raising my eyebrows.
I stand here in front of the mirror like some doubtful loser in a movie and love is supposed to be a Billy Joel ballad where you love the person just the way they are, but I’m hooked.
Invested. I just watched hours of fucking television for you and learned a language and… and…
Still, I like you. Still.