介绍:
SUBURBAN SURPRISE: BIDET
Carrie stood up and yawned. "Does anyone know where the
bathroom is?"
Carrie did not go to the bathroom. Nor was she as drunk as she
appeared to be. Instead, she tiptoed up the stairs, carpeted with an
oriental runner, and thought that if she were Jolie, she would
probably know what kind of oriental rug it was because that was the
kind of stuff you were supposed to know if you were married to a
rich banker and making him a home in the suburbs.
She went into Johe's bedroom. There was a thick white carpet on
the floor and photographs everywhere in silver frames, some
professional-looking shots of Johe in a bathing suit, her long blond
hair swinging over her shoulders.
Carrie stared at those photographs for a long time. What was it
like to be Johe? How did it happen? How did you find someone
who fell in love with you and gave you all this? She was thirty-four
and she'd never even come close, and there was a good chance she
never would.
And this was the kind of life she'd grown up believing she could
have, simply because she wanted it. But the men you wanted didn't
want it, or you; and the men who did want it were too boring. She
went into the bathroom. Floor-to-ceiling black marble. A bidet.
Maybe suburban husbands wouldn't play ball unless their wives
were just-washed, unlike guys in the city. Then she almost
screamed.
There was a fourteen-by-seventeen color photograph of Jolie,
Demi Moore-style, naked save for a skimpy negligee that was open
in the front to reveal humongous tits and a huge belly. Johe was
staring proudly into the camera, her hand resting just above her belly
button, which had been pushed straight out like a httle stem. Carrie
flushed the toilet and ran breathless down the stairs.
"We're opening presents," Brigid scolded.
Carrie sat down in a chair next to Miranda. "What's your
problem?" Miranda asked.
"Photograph. In the master bathroom. Check it out," Carrie said.
"Excuse me," Miranda said, leaving the room.
"What are you two doing?" Jolie asked.
"Nothing," Carrie said. She looked at the bride-to-be, who was
holding up a pair of red silk, crotchless panties bordered in black
lace. Everyone was laughing. Which is what you do at showers.
.TM SHAKING"
"Could you believe the photograph?" Miranda asked. They were
rocking gently on the train back to the city.
"If I ever get pregnant," Belle said, "I'm going to stay inside for
nine months. I will see no one."
"I think I could get into it," Sarah said moodily, staring out the
window. "They've got houses and cars and nannies. Their lives look
so manageable. I'm jealous."
"What do they do all day? That's what I want to know," Miranda
said.
"They don't even have sex," Carrie said. She was thinking about
her new boyfriend, Mr. Big. Right now, things were great, but after
a year, or two years—if it even lasted that long—then what
happened?
"You wouldn't believe the story I heard about Brigid," Belle
said. "While you guys were upstairs, Jolie pulled me into the
kitchen. 'Be nice to Brigid,' she said. 'She just found her husband,
Tad, in flagrante with another woman.'"
The other woman was Brigid's next door neighbor, Susan. Susan
and Tad both worked in the city and for the last year had carpooled
to and from the train each day. When Brigid found them, it was ten
in the evening and they were both drunk in the car, parked at the
cul-de-sac at the end of the street. Brigid had been out walking the
dog.
She yanked open the car door and tapped Tad on his naked bum.
"Wheaton has the flu and wants to say good night to his HaHHv "
she said, then went back inside.
For the next week, she continued to ignore the situation, while
Tad became more and more agitated, sometimes calling her ten
times a day from his office. Every time he tried to bring it up, she
brought up something about their two children. Finally, on Saturday
night, when Tad was getting stoned and mixing up margaritas on the
deck, she told him. "I'm pregnant again. Three months. So we
shouldn't have to worry about a miscarriage this time. Aren't you
happy, dear?" Then she took the pitcher of margaritas and poured it
over his head.
"Typical," Carrie said, cleaning under her fingernails with the
edge of a matchbook.
"I'm just so happy I can trust my husband," Belle said.
"I'm shaking," Miranda said. They saw the city, dusky and
brown, looming up as the train went over a bridge. "I need a drink.
Anyone coming?"
After three cocktails at Ici, Carrie called Mr. Big.
"Yo, yo," he said. "What up."
"It was awful," she giggled. "You know how much I hate those
kinds of things. All they talked about was babies and private schools
and how this friend of theirs got blackballed from the country club
and how one of their nannies crashed a new Mercedes."
She could hear Mr. Big puffing away on his cigar. "Don't worry,
kid. You'll get used to it," he said.
"I don't think so," she said.
She turned and looked back to their table. Miranda had
shanghaied two guys from another table, one of whom was already
in deep conversation with Sarah.
"Gimme shelter—in Bowery Bar," she said, and hung up.
