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“I didn’t grow until I was eighteen. What about you?”
“I stopped growing when I was six.”
“Hahaha. You’re funny.”
And just as the conversation is about to take off, the maître d’ returns with a bottle of white wine. “Your Pouilly-Fuissé, Monsieur Singer.”
“Oh, thanks,” Bernard says, looking sheepish again. This is very odd. The apartment, the restaurant, the wine—surely Bernard is wealthy. Why, then, does he insist on acting like he’s not? Or rather, that it’s all a burden which he must somehow endure?
The wine pouring is yet another ritual. When it’s over, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“It’s annoying, isn’t it?” Bernard says, echoing my thoughts.
“Why do you let them do it, then?”
“It makes them happy. If I didn’t sniff the cork, they’d be very disappointed.”
“You might even lose your special table.”
“I’ve been trying to sit at that table”—he points to an empty table in the back of the room—“for years. But they won’t let me. It’s Siberia,” he adds, in a dramatic whisper.
“Is it colder there?”
“Freezing.”
“And what about this table?”
“Right on the equator.” He pauses. “And you—you’re on the equator too.” He reaches out and takes my hand. “I like your gumption,” he says.
The chef pulls out all the stops for Bernard. After a stomach-numbing meal of seven courses—including soup, a soufflé, two desserts, and some delicious after-dinner wine that tastes like ambrosia—I look at my watch and discover it’s just after midnight. “I ought to go.”
“Why? Will you turn into a pumpkin?”
“Something like that,” I say, thinking about Peggy.
His next move hangs in the air, spinning like a lazy disco ball. “I suppose I should walk you home,” he says finally.
“And ruin all this?” I laugh.
“I haven’t done ‘this’ for a while. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m an expert,” I tease.
We walk back to my building, swinging our hands between us.
“Good night, pussycat,” he says, stopping in front of my door. We stand awkwardly, until he makes his move. He tilts up my chin and leans in for a kiss. It’s gentle and civilized at first, then more and more urgent, ending just before some imaginary line of lust is crossed.
The kiss leaves me swooning. Bernard looks at me longingly, but settles for a gentlemanly peck on the cheek and a squeeze of my hand. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.” I can barely breathe.
I watch him stroll off into the night. At the corner, he turns and waves. When he’s disappeared completely, I slip inside.
I creep down the hallway to the apartment, brushing my fingers against the pea-green wall for support, wondering why anyone would paint a hallway such an ugly color. At the door, I carefully insert my key into the first lock. The bolt drops with an alarming ping.
I hold my breath, wondering if Peggy has heard the sound, and if so, what she’ll do. But when I don’t hear anything for several seconds, I try the next lock.
It, too, turns easily, which means I should now be able to enter the apartment. I twist the knob and try to ease open the door, but it won’t move.
Huh? Maybe Peggy didn’t lock the door after all and I’ve ended up locking it instead. It doesn’t seem like something Peggy would do, but I try turning the locks in the opposite direction just to make sure.
No luck. The door moves precisely one-sixteenth of an inch, and then refuses to budge, as if someone has shoved a heavy piece of furniture in front of it.
The dead bolt, I think, with rising panic. It’s a metal bar that runs across the door and can only be opened and closed from inside the apartment. We’re supposed to use it strictly in an emergency, like a nuclear war or a blackout or a zombie attack. But apparently Peggy has decided to break her own stupid rule and has locked it to teach me a lesson.
Crap. I have to either wake her up or sleep in the hallway.
I scratch on the door. “L’il?” I hiss, hoping L’il is awake and will hear me. “L’il?”
Nothing.
I slump to the floor, resting my back against the wall. Does Peggy really hate me that much? And why? What have I ever done to her?
Another half hour passes, and I give up. I curl into a ball with my Carrie bag nestled between my arms, and try to get some sleep.
And then I guess I do fall asleep, because the next thing I hear is L’il whispering, “Carrie? Are you okay?”
I open my eyes, wondering where the hell I am, and what the hell I’m doing in the hallway.
And then I remember: Peggy and her damn dead bolt.
L’il puts her finger to her lips and motions for me to come inside.
“Thanks,” I mouth. She nods as we quietly shut the door. I pause, listening for sounds of Peggy, but there’s only silence.
I turn the knob on the bolt and lock us inside.
Chapter Six
The next morning, triumphant, perhaps, in her perceived victory, Peggy sleeps until nine. This allows the Prisoners of Second Avenue a much-needed extra hour of shut-eye.
But once Peggy’s up, she’s up. And while early-morning silence has never been her forte, this morning she appears to be in an especially good mood.
She’s singing show tunes.
I turn over on my cot, and rap quietly on the plywood. L’il raps back, indicating she’s awake and has heard the singing as well.
I slide under the sheet and pull the covers up to my nose. Maybe if I lie flat on my bed and put the pillow over my head, Peggy won’t notice me. It was a trick my sisters and I perfected when we were kids. But I’m quite a bit bigger now, and Peggy, with her beady crow eyes, is sure to notice the lumps. Perhaps I could hide under my cot?
This, I decide, is beyond ridiculous.
I won’t have it. I’m going to confront Peggy. And full of brio, I hop out of bed and put my ear to the door.
The shower is running, and above that, I can hear Peggy’s particularly grating rendition of “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story.
I wait, my hand on the doorknob.
Finally, the water stops. I imagine Peggy toweling herself off and applying creams to her body. She carries her toiletries to and from the bathroom in a plastic shower basket she keeps in her room. It’s yet another deliberate reminder that no one is to use her precious possessions on the sly.
When I hear the bathroom door open, I step out into the living room. “Good morning, Peggy.”
Her hair is wrapped in a pink towel, and she’s wearing a worn chenille robe and fluffy slippers in the shape of bears. At the sound of my voice, she throws up her arms, nearly dropping her basket of toiletries. “You almost scared me to death.”
“Sorry,” I say. “If you’re finished in the bathroom—”
Perhaps Peggy’s not such a bad actress after all, because she immediately recovers. “I need it back in a minute. I have to dry my hair.”
“No problem.” We stand there, wondering who’s going to bring up the locking-out issue first. I say nothing and neither does Peggy. Then she gives me a shrewd, vicious smile and goes into her room.
She’s not going to mention it.
On the other hand, she doesn’t have to. She made her point.
I trip into the bathroom. If she isn’t going to say anything to me, I’m certainly not going to say anything to her.
When I exit, Peggy is standing there with a blow-dryer in her hand. “Excuse me,” I say as I wriggle past her.
She goes back into the bathroom and shuts the door.
While the apartment is filled with the buzz of the dryer, I take the opportunity to check in on L’il. She’s so tiny, she looks like a doll someone laid under the comforter, her round face as pale as porcelain.
“She’s drying her hair,” I report.
“You should sneak in there and drop her blow-dryer into the sink.”
I tilt my head. The whirring has suddenly ceased, and I skittle back to my cell. I quickly plop myself in the chair in front of my mother’s old Royal typewriter.
A few seconds later, Peggy’s behind me. I just love the way she insists we respect her privacy, yet doesn’t believe we deserve the same, barging into our rooms whenever she feels like it.
She’s slurping down her ubiquitous can of Tab. It must be like mother’s milk to her—good for any occasion, including breakfast.
“I’ve got an audition this afternoon, so I’ll need quiet in the apartment while I’m practicing.” She eyes my typewriter doubtfully. “I hope you’re not planning on using that noisy thing. You need to get an electric typewriter. Like everyone else.”
“I’d love to, but I can’t exactly afford one right now,” I reply, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my tone.
“That’s not my problem, is it?” she says with more saccharine than an entire six-pack of diet soda.
“It’s that little itch.” Pause. “No. It’s that little itch.
“Damn. It’s that little itch.”
Yes, it’s true. Peggy is auditioning for a hemorrhoid commercial.
“What did you expect?” L’il mouths. “Breck?” She checks her appearance in a hand mirror, carefully dabbing her cheeks with a pot of blush.
“Where are you going?” I hiss in outrage, as if I can’t believe she’s going to abandon me to Peggy and her little itch.
“Out,” she says, mysteriously.
“But where?” And then, feeling like Oliver Twist asking for more grub, I say, “Can I come?”
L’il is suddenly flustered. “You can’t. I have to—”
“What?”
“See someone,” she says firmly.
“Who?”
“A friend of my mother’s. She’s very old. She’s in the hospital. She can’t have visitors.”
“How come she can see you?”
L’il blushes, holding up the mirror as if to block my inquiries. “I’m like family,” she says, fiddling with her lashes. “What are you doing today?”
“Haven’t decided,” I grumble, eyeing her suspiciously. “Don’t you want to hear about my evening with Bernard?”
“Of course. How was it?”
“Incredibly interesting. His ex-wife took all his furniture. Then we went to La Grenouille.”
“That’s nice.” L’il is annoyingly distracted this morning. I wonder if it’s due to Peggy locking me out—or something else entirely. I’m sure she’s lying about her mother’s sick friend, though. Who puts on blush and mascara to go to a hospital?
But then I don’t care, because I get an idea.
I dash into my cubbyhole and come back with my Carrie bag. I rifle through it and pull out a piece of paper. “I’m going to see Samantha Jones.”
“Who’s that?” L’il murmurs.
“The woman who let me stay at her apartment?” I ask, trying to jog her memory. “Donna LaDonna’s cousin? She lent me twenty dollars. I’m going to pay her back.” This, of course, is merely an excuse. Both to get out of the apartment and to talk to Samantha about Bernard.
“Good idea.” L’il puts down the mirror and smiles, as if she hasn’t heard a word I’ve said.
I open my bag to replace the paper, and find the folded-up invitation to the party at The Puck Building, which I wave in L’il’s face. “That party is tonight. We should go.” And maybe, if Bernard calls, he could come with us.
L’il looks skeptical. “I’m sure there’s a party every night in New York.”
“I’m sure there is,” I counter. “And I plan to go to every one.”
