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I frown, wondering once again how I’m going to make it through this dinner. George orders the escargot and the cassoulet, which is what I wanted to order last night but didn’t, because Sebastian wouldn’t let me.
“I want to know all about you,” George says, taking my hand from across the table.
I slip it away, hiding my resistance by acting like I simply have to have another sip of my martini. How does a person explain everything about themselves anyway? “What do you want to know?”
“For starters, can I expect to see you at Brown next fall?”
I lower my eyes. “My father wants me to go. But I’ve always wanted to live in Manhattan.” And before I know it, I’m telling him all about my dream of becoming a writer and how I tried to get into the summer writing program and was rejected.
He doesn’t find this shocking or embarrassing. “I’ve known a few writers in my life,” he says slyly. “Rejection is part of the process. At least at first. Plenty of writers don’t even get published until they’ve written two or three books.”
“Really?” I feel a soaring hope.
“Oh, sure,” he says with authority. “Publishing is full of stories about the manuscript that got rejected by twenty publishers before someone took a chance on it and turned it into a huge bestseller.”
Just like me, I think. I’m masquerading as a regular girl, but somewhere inside me there’s a star, waiting for someone to give me a chance.
“Hey,” he says. “If you want, I’d be happy to read some of your stuff. Maybe I can help you.”
“Would you?” I ask, astonished. No one’s ever offered to help me before. No one’s even encouraged me. I take in George’s gentle brown sloping eyes. He’s so nice. And damn it, I do want to get into that writing program. I want to live in “the city.” And I want to visit George and hear the lions roaring in Central Park.
I suddenly want my future to begin.
“Wouldn’t it be cool if you were a writer and I was an editor at The New York Times?”
Yes! I want to shout. There’s only one problem. I have a boyfriend. I can’t be a louse. I have to let George know now. Otherwise, it isn’t fair.
“George. I have to tell you something—”
I’m about to spill my secret, when Eileen approaches the table with a self-important look on her face. “Carrie?” she says. “You have a phone call.”
“I do?” I squeak, looking from George to Eileen. “Who would be calling me?”
“You’d better find out.” George stands as I get up from the table.
“Hello?” I say into the phone. I have a wild thought that it’s Sebastian. He’s tracked me down, discovered I’m on a date with another guy, and he’s furious. Instead, it’s Missy.
“Carrie?” she asks in a terrified voice that immediately makes me imagine my father or Dorrit has been killed in an accident. “You’d better come home right away.”
My knees nearly buckle beneath me. “What happened?” I ask in a hoarse whisper.
“It’s Dorrit. She’s at the police station.” Missy pauses before delivering the final blow. “She’s been arrested.”
“I don’t know about you,” says a strange woman clutching an old fur coat over what appears to be a pair of silk pajamas, “but I’m finished. Through. Ready to wash my hands of her.”
My father, who is sitting next to her on a molded plastic chair, nods bleakly.
“I’ve been doing this for too long,” the woman continues, blinking rapidly. “Four boys, and I had to keep trying for a girl. Then I got her. Now I have to say I wish I didn’t. No matter what anyone says, girls are more trouble than boys. Do you have any sons, Mr., er—”
“Bradshaw,” my father says sharply. “And no, I don’t have any sons, just three daughters.”
The woman nods and pats my father on the knee. “You poor man,” she says. This, apparently, is the mother of Dorrit’s notorious pot-smoking friend, Cheryl.
“Really,” my father says, shifting in his seat to get away from her. His glasses slide to the tip of his nose. “In general,” he says, launching into one of his theories on child rearing, “a preference for children of one sex over the other, especially when it’s so baldly expressed by the parent, often results in a lack in the child, an inherent lack—”
“Dad!” I say, skittering across the floor to rescue him.
He pushes his glasses up his nose, stands, and opens his arms. “Carrie!”
“Mr. Bradshaw,” George says.
“George.”
“George?” Cheryl’s mother stands, batting her eyes like butterfly wings. “I’m Connie.”
“Ah.” George nods, as if somehow this makes sense. Connie is now clinging to George’s arm. “I’m Cheryl’s mother. And really, she’s not a bad girl—”
“I’m sure she isn’t,” George says kindly.
Oh jeez. Is Cheryl’s mother flirting with George now?
I motion my father aside. I keep picturing the small marijuana pipe I found in Mr. Panda. “Was it—” I can’t bring myself to say the word “drugs” aloud.
“Gum,” my father says wearily.
“Gum? She was arrested for stealing gum?”
“Apparently it’s her third offense. She was caught shoplifting twice before, but the police let her go. This time, she wasn’t so lucky.”
“Mr. Bradshaw? I’m Chip Marone, the arresting officer,” says a shiny-faced young man in a uniform.
Marone—the cop from the barn.
“Can I see my daughter, please?”
“We have to fingerprint her. And take a mug shot.”
“For stealing gum?” I blurt out. I can’t help myself.
My father blanches. “She’s going to have a record? My thirteen-year-old daughter is going to have a record like a common criminal?”
“Those are the rules,” Marone says.
I nudge my father. “Excuse me. But we’re really good friends with the Kandesies—”
“It’s a small town,” Marone says, rubbing his cheeks. “A lot of people know the Kandesies—”
“But Lali is like one of the family. And we’ve known them forever. Right, Dad?”
“Now, look here, Carrie,” my father says. “You can’t go asking people to bend the rules. It isn’t right.”
“But—”
“Maybe we could call them. The Kandesies,” George says. “Just to make sure.”
“I can assure you. My little Cheryl has never been in trouble before,” Connie says, squeezing George’s arm for support as she blinks at Marone.
Marone has clearly had enough. “I’ll see what I can do,” he mutters, and picks up the phone behind the desk. “Right,” he says into the receiver. “Okay. No problem.” He hangs up the phone and glowers.
“Community service.” Dorrit gasps.
“You’ll be lucky to get off that easily,” says my father.
George, my father, Dorrit, and I are gathered in the den, discussing the situation. Marone agreed to release Dorrit and Cheryl with the caveat that they have to see the judge on Wednesday, who will probably sentence them to community service to pay for their crimes.
“I hope you like picking up trash,” George says playfully, poking Dorrit in the ribs. She giggles. The two are sitting on the couch. My father told Dorrit she should go to bed, but she refused.
“Have you ever been arrested?” Dorrit asks George.
“Dorrit!”
“What?” she says, staring at me blankly.
“As a matter of fact I have. But my crime was much worse than yours. I jumped a subway turnstile and ran right into a cop.”
Dorrit gazes up at George, her eyes filled with admiration. “What happened then?”
“He called my father. And boy, was my dad pissed. I had to spend every afternoon in his office, rearranging his business books in alphabetical order and filing all his bank statements.”
“Really?” Dorrit’s eyes widen in awe.
“So the moral of the story is, always pay the fare.”
“You hear that, Dorrit?” my father says. He stands, but his shoulders are stooped and he suddenly looks exhausted. “I’m going to bed. You too, Dorrit.”
“But—”
“Now,” he says quietly.
Dorrit gives George one last, longing look and runs upstairs.
“Good night, kids,” my father says.
I absentmindedly smooth my skirt. “Sorry about that. My father, Dorrit—”
“It’s okay,” George says, taking my hand again. “I understand. No family is perfect. Including mine.”
“Really?” I try to maneuver my hand out from under his, but I can’t. I attempt to change the subject instead.
“Dorrit seemed to like you.”
“I’m good with kids,” he says, leaning in for a kiss. “Always have been.”
“George.” I twist my head away. “I’m—uh—really exhausted—”
He sighs. “I get it. Time to go home. But I’ll see you again soon, right?”
“Sure.”
He pulls me to my feet and wraps his arms around my waist. I bury my face in his chest in an attempt to avoid what’s inevitably coming next.
“Carrie?” He strokes my hair.
It feels nice, but I can’t let this go any further. “I’m so tired,” I moan.
“Okay.” He steps back, lifts my head, and brushes my lips with his. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN How Far Will You Go? (#ulink_746e3adf-f62f-5a7e-b6d1-193dd9927c97)
“What’s the holdup?” Sebastian asks.
“Have to fix my makeup,” I say.
He runs his hand up my arm and tries to kiss me. “You don’t need makeup.”
“Stop,” I hiss. “Not in the house.”
“You don’t have a problem doing this in my house.”
“You don’t have two younger sisters. One of whom—”
“I know. Was arrested for shoplifting gum,” he says with disdain. “Which ranks pretty low in the annals of criminal activity. It’s right down there with lighting firecrackers in neighbors’ mailboxes.”
“And thus began your own life of crime,” I say, gently closing the bathroom door in his face.
He knocks.
“Yeeeees?”
“Hurry up.”
“Hurrying,” I say. “Hurrying and scurrying.” Which is not true. I’m stalling.
I’m waiting for George to call. Two weeks have passed since Dorrit’s arrest, but true to form, George called me the next day and the day after that, and then I asked him if he really meant it when he said he would read one of my stories and he said yes. So I sent it to him and now I haven’t heard from him for five days, except for yesterday when he left a message with Dorrit saying he’d call me today between six and seven. Damn him. If he’d called at six, Sebastian wouldn’t be here, hovering. It’s nearly seven. Sebastian will be furious if I get a phone call just before we’re about to go.
I unscrew a tube of mascara and lean forward, applying the wand to my lashes. It’s the second coat, and my lashes twist into jagged little spikes. I’m about to apply a third, when the phone rings.
“Phone!” Missy shouts.
