The sculptor Dane Peen returned to his SoHo loft at noon. He stumbled into the kitchen where Sonya, the Brazilian nanny, was cooking his 2-year-old son, Sting, a hard-boiled egg.

“Oh, Mister Peen,” Sonya said, as Dane sat down at the kitchen table and put his head in his hands. “Everybody been looking for you. Mrs. Peen go to find you.”

“Where Mrs. Peen?” Dane asked.

“She went to some funeral.”

“Funeral. I’d like to go to funeral. My own.” He jumped up. “Oh, shit—get out of the way!” he said, rushing to bathroom. Sting started screaming.

Maria Kydd-Peen came in the door.

“Oh, Dane,” Maria said. Dane emerged, panting, no tie, his shirt soiled and unbuttoned. “Now are you going to tell me you weren’t doing coke?”

“None of your business,” Dane said.

“Fucking liar. I am so sick of this fucking lying. What else are you lying about, you fucking bastard?”

“Fuck-ing…” said little Sting.

“Forget it, Maria,” Dane said.

“You forget it,” Maria said. She slapped him across the face. “Get out. I want you out of my house.”

“Fine,” Dane said. “But just remember, it’s my fucking house, too.”

“And don’t come back,” Maria said. “You’re fucking up our kid.”

A Bloody Nose

In the king-size bed in the penthouse at the Morgans hotel, the actor Tyler Kydd rolled over, having just woken from a small nap. “Yoo-hooo….love cakes,” he called. “Where aaaare you?”

Evie came to the top of the stairs. She was wearing one of Tyler’s English custom-made shirts (which she planned to steal) and her high heels from the night before. “Yes, darling?” she said.

“Let’s have some fun.”

“We’ve just had lots of fun.”

“I want more fun. Bring me a bloody, will you?”
“A bloody nose?”

“No stupid chick wisecracks, O.K.? Get down here and make me happy.”

“Make yourself happy,” Evie said.

“Honey,” Tyler said, “just remember one thing: If you won’t rock me, somebody will.”

“Oh, Tyler.”

“I’m calling another girl. Toss me my book, will you?”
“Are you serious?” Evie said.

“On top of the TV.”

“You scumbag,” Evie said. But she handed the phone book to him.

Tyler yawned. “I’m horny, a horny old toad.” He grabbed Evie by the shirt and pulled her down on top of him.

“What kind of girl do you like?” Tyler asked. “Blonde, brunette, redhead, French, Spanish?”

“Stop kidding around," Evie said. She tried to kiss him on the mouth.

“Why not? I want a threesome,” Tyler said. He began pawing through the book and then started dialing. Evie sat back on her haunches. “But what if I don’t want a threesome?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Tyler said. “All women want to sleep with other women. They just don’t admit it.”

“Excuse me,” Evie said.

Tyler put his hand over the receiver. “Where are you going?”

“Leaving.”

“Suit yourself. Hi sweetheart,” he said into the phone. “I’m baaaaaack.”

Ten minutes later, Evie was riding in a cab going home, flipping through the Post, when she saw an ad for Tyler’s new movie. It suddenly came back to her that Tyler really was a movie star, a movie star whom other women would kill to be with. She thought about returning to his hotel room and having the damn threesome, but she knew that he might not let her back in, and she couldn’t face the embarrassment. “I’ve lost him,” she thought. She began crying quietly, in spite of herself.

‘What If We Get Caught’

The Big Apple town car pulled up in front of a corrugated metal warehouse in Brooklyn, and TV journalist Nico Barone and magazine writer James Dieke got out of the car.

“What if we get caught?” James asked.

“So? They’ll arrest us. I’ve got a great lawyer. We’ll be out in 24,” Nico said.

“I don’t think my wife is going to like it if I end up in jail,” James said.

“Who gives a fuck about your wife?”

“It’s just that the last 24 hours have been a bit…trying on her.”

“By the way, exactly what has happened to you in the last 24 hours?” Nico said.

“I’ve already been in the hospital,” James said, picking his way over the broken sidewalk.

“Ambulatory surgery? Chin liposuction?” Nico said.

“No, not exactly,” James said thinking, What would Nico Barone think if I told her I snorted too much coke with Tyler Kydd and I thought I was having a heart attack and my wife Winnie had to take me to the hospital? He knew what she’d think, so he didn’t say anything.

Nico pulled open the door to the warehouse.

“Are you just going to walk right in?” James asked.

Nico turned. “Excuse me, James, but I think that’s what doors are for?”

Inside, the light was dim, but James realized he would never forget what he saw: Hundreds of monkeys in a huge cage. Monkeys screaming, jumping up and down, fighting, pulling each other’s fur, scratching, biting. The bodies of bloodied, dead, mangled monkeys on the floor. Some with their eyes plucked out.

James screamed.

“Whoa. I …need a drink,” Nico said. She turned and ran out of the warehouse. James followed. They ran across the sidewalk and fell into the back seat of the car. They were both breathing heavily. “My place, please,” Nico said to the driver. And then: “That was…awful, James. Oh, James, that was really, really bad. I’m so sorry. I had no idea it was going to be…like that.” She leaned across the seat. He opened his arms, and the next thing he knew, they were kissing, and he was sticking his hand inside her red suit, and they were in her lobby and her elevator and her apartment, and he was on top of her, pounding away, and she was loving it, yes, she actually seemed to be at least liking it…

When they were finished, Nico got up and went to the top of her bureau. “D’you mind?” she asked, holding up a straw and then leaning over to snort up a line of cocaine. “I don’t usually do this, but I need this right now.”

“Do you have a phone?” James asked.

“Over there,” Nico said, gesturing with the straw. “Who are you calling? Office?”

“My old shrink.”

“Your old shrink?” Nico said. “If you need a shrink, you can call mine. But hang on a minute, I’ve got to call my producer to get a ca
mera crew over to that place.”

They’re Killers’

“Oh, good. I’m glad you’re finally home,” Winnie said as James walked in. “Dane’s here—Marie kicked him out this afternoon. She’s smart. Maybe I should kick the both of you out. On second thought, I should go to a hotel and make you pay for it. You spend the whole afternoon at a press conference, and I have to baby-sit somebody else’s husband.”

“Winnie,” James said. He grabbed her by her upper arms, and led her down the hall to the bedroom, passing by the living room, where James could see Dane lying on the couch watching TV.

“James. What is it? What is wrong with you? Besides everything else that’s been wrong with you in the last two days…”

James closed the bedroom door. “Winnie,” he said. “I saw those chimps.”

"So what?"

“Winnie, you don’t understand,” James said. “This is big—this piece could make my career. These chimps that they’re doing the experiments on? They’re killers. Winnie, don’t you get it, those chimps are homicidal maniacs.”

‘Better Fake Than Lactate’

That night, Maria Kydd-Peen had a dinner party for Tyler’s last night in town before he returned to L.A. She hadn’t wanted to—but he was her brother, and she had a sense of tradition.

“James has a great lead for his piece,” Winnie said, leaning against Maria’s kitchen counter. “You know. The piece he's doing for Esquire on chimps?”

“Uh-huh,” Maria said. She carried some plates to the table.

“I think he could win another National Magazine Award,” Winnie said. “He needs it. He hasn’t really done anything of renown since he won the last one.”
“Really,” Maria said. She was conscious of putting the plates quietly onto the table, conscious of it because she felt like throwing them across the room. Couldn’t Winnie see that she wasn’t interested in her husband and his stupid, useless career?

“Is everything O.K. with Dane?” Winnie asked.

“No.”

“But you’ve taken him back.”

“I have let him back in the house,” Maria said. She wished Winnie would go away. She wished the whole lot of them—her brother Tyler and her husband Dane and boring old James (she often wondered how Winnie could be married to him, he was such a wimp)—would just leave her alone and get out of her apartment.

But of course, that was impossible. She had to keep up this front of providing her husband, the important sculptor, with the backdrop for his life. She had to police him. Make sure he worked, make sure that he didn’t get into trouble, make sure he gave the right interviews, turned down the B-list party invitations. And if she didn’t do her job, the whole thing fell apart.

“You set such a beautiful table,” Winnie said. "I wouldn’t even know where to get china like this.” Winnie looked at Maria and thought, Why doesn’t she get a job, no wonder her husband is always trying to get away from her. She’s like everybody’s mother. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dane was having an affair.

Meanwhile, Dane Peen was being very contrite. “Can I help you with anything, honey?” he asked Maria.

“The blue napkins,” she said.

“Right, the blue napkins,” Dane said, and this little exchange comforted him, reminding him that he was at home, in a place where he knew where everything was, including his bed with its familiar royal-blue Ralph Lauren sheets. As he brought Maria the napkins, he whispered in her ear, “Everything O.K.?”

“No,” she said.

James and Tyler were hovering and drinking (Winnie had only allowed James a half-glass of white wine).

Winnie’s sister Evie arrived. She was wearing a tiny black skirt and black over-the-knee boots, and her breasts protruded prominently from a scoop-neck black sweater. (“Those breasts!” Maria thought. “I am so sick of those breasts. She looks even more desperate than usual.”) Evie swerved around Tyler and went to the bar and poured herself a drink. Maria had seen this behavior a million times before, and she knew that Evie must have slept with Tyler, and now he was rejecting her and she was trying to get his attention again by ignoring him. But that wouldn’t work with Tyler. Nothing worked with Tyler. He had no need for women (except for sex) and never had. When they were children, he treated their mother like a maid.

Dane kissed Evie. “We missed you,” he said. “I was worried you weren’t coming.”

“Oh, I just got into a fight with a cab driver…” Evie said.

Every time Evie talked to Dane, she could feel Maria’s hatred, just as every time she talked to James, she could feel Winnie’s hatred. “For Christ’s sake,” she thought, “It’s not my fault they’re married and have kids and have lost their looks and their husbands don’t want to sleep with them anymore.”

Winnie called Evie over. “Evie! Come here.”

“Why?” Evie said.

“I don’t,” Maria said.

“She should do something,” Winnie said, even though she herself was just standing there eating carrot sticks.

“What can I do?” Evie said, thinking, I thought she had like six maids.

Later, near the end of the meal, Tyler raised his glass. “I’d like to make a toast,” he said, “to my wonderful sister Maria and my fabulous brother-in-law Dane. To many more nights like the one we had last night. Those were some dancing girls, eh, James, Daney boy?”
James and Dane didn’t say anything Winnie and Maria exchanged glances across the table.

Tyler leaned back. “Anyone mind if I light up a joint? O.K. with you, Maria? Are you going to let the boys do what they want this time?”

“Do whatever the hell you want Tyler,” Maria said. “As long as you let me do whatever the hell I want.”

“Be my guest,” Tyler said, lighting up the joint. “Live and let live, sis. My motto.”

The joint was passed to James, who refused, then to Evie, who inhaled deeply while trying to catch Tyler’s eye, then to Maria. “Thank you, Evie,” Maria said. “I think I will have a hit. I think I will have several hits.” The joint went around the table again. James looked at Winnie—she shook her head, so he refused. The joint landed in the ashtray.

“Oh, go on, Winnie,” Maria said. Winnie looked at James. She picked up the joint tentatively, took a tiny drag and put it down, James picked it up, turned away from the table and took a large hit.

Tyler leaned his head back and sang in loud voice, “I’m a monkeeey. And all my friends are junkies…”

“So. Dancing girls, Dane?” Maria said.

“Shall we tell them about the dancing boys?” Maria said to Winnie. “While you guys were out destroying your brain cells, Winnie and I went to a club and met some hot young 25-year-old guys.”

“I will be your monkey man and you can be my monkey woman, too…!” Tyler's voice scratched the air above the table.

James looked at Tyler—why was he singing that ridiculous Rolling Stones song? Did Tyler know that James had sex with Nico? If he did, James wouldn’t put it past Tyler to mention it in front everyone. If Winnie found out, their whole marriage—with its carefully planned intimacies, its public agreeability, its dovetail toward mutual success—would be over. And where would he be? Their friends would take Winnie’s side, surely. She was the smarter of the two. He’d be reduced to writing travel pieces. If that. Maybe medical textbooks…

“We went to Wax. Heard of it?” Winnie said, naming the club she’d written about but had never been to. “Packed with celebrities. I’m surprised you weren’t there Tyler.”

“I thought you went home,” James said to Winnie.

Winnie and Maria looked at each other. “We lied,” they said, collapsing into hysterical laughter.

“Winnie,” said James, “what’s wax?”

“It’s not something that comes out of your ears, James,” Winnie said. “You guys are such losers.”
“Evie missed all the fun,” Maria said. “You should have stuck with the girls, girl.”

“So you could complain about my breasts?” Evie said.

“But we love your breasts, Evie,” Winnie said. “Even if they are fake.”

“Better fake than lactate,” Evie said.

“I loooove your breasts,” Tyler said reaching across the table.

“Get your hands off her, you pig!” Maria said slapping his arm.

“Yeah—haven’t you caused enough trouble?” Winnie said. “You nearly killed my husband.”

“He was fine.”

“Was not,” Dane said.

“I have to admit, I’m not 18 anymore,” James said.

"You’re all a bunch of old farts,” Tyler said.

“Oh, Tyler, come on,” Winnie said coquettishly. “We’re married.”

“You boys are only fun when your mommies here aren’t around,” said Tyler.

“You’re damaging my whole family,” Maria said. “Little Sting is always going to remember his father puking in the sink. Lovely.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“You know, you’ve got a lot of attitude, man, but no real heart,” Dane said. “I’ve been wanting to tell you that for a long time.”

“So in the end, who cares, Tyler?” Evie said. “How do you even know if you’ve had good sex or not? You’ve slept with so many girls, how can one even stand out?”

“Oh, I could give you some tips on your technique,” Tyler said.

“Hey, c’mon, man,” James said. “You’re talking to my sister-in-law.’

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tyler said. “I forgot this was a family discussion. No monkeys allowed—just skeletons. I’m a monkeeeyyy…”

And then, at last, the party was over, and James and Winnie were back in their own kitchen. Winnie was pouring herself half a glass of wine. “Well, thank God that’s over,” she said. “I hope Tyler doesn’t come back for years. That he stays in L.A., screwing dumb actresses and making them miserable instead of us and our friends.” She took a sip and turned and looked at James. She moved toward him. She slid her hand down his pants front. “Let’s…go…to…bed.”

“O.K.,” James said, suddenly happy, remembering that he was getting more sex in the last two days than he’d gotten in months.

Years, maybe.

The phone rang. “I’m not going to answer it,” Winnie said.

“Don’t answer it,” James said.

“I won’t,” Winnie said, picking up the phone. “Helloooo?” she said. “Oh, of course. Yes, doctor. Hold on.”

She put her hand over the receiver and handed the phone to James. “It’s your old shrink,” she whispered. “Now why one earth is he calling?”

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.

Tyler Kydd enters the Ziegfeld movie theater three minutes before his new film, Gagged, begins. The lights are still on, but everybody is seated, and, as usual, the audience turns to stare at him as he follows his manager and the movie studio publicist down the aisle to his seats. Tyler sits on the aisle, next to the publicist, whom he knows he will not remember if he meets her in a different context. She puts her elbow on the armrest and leans toward him, turning her head in profile, as if to shield him from the audience.

“People magazine is here,” she says.

“Mmmm,” he says. “What about the critic from The New Yorker?” He says this knowing that movie critics do not usually attend premiers, knowing that the movie critic from The New Yorker has already seen the film two weeks or even a month earlier.

“I’ll find out,” the publicist says.

The film starts. Tyler Kydd excuses himself to go to the men’s room.

A few minutes later, in row 4, the sculptor Dane Peen is getting bored—even though he is married to Tyler’s sister, Maria Kydd-Peen. Dane noisily gets up just as the Tyler Kydd character, playing the role of a gentleman cop, finds a mutilated body. Dane’s wife gives him a dirty look.

James Dieke, serious journalist and “best nonindustry friend” to Tyler Kydd, is staring at the screen, on which there is a close-up of a severed foot. James wonders where his wife Winnie’s sister, Evie, is sitting. He catches the eye of his wife, who’s sitting three seats away. She gives him a dirty look.

DANE PEEN STANDS in front of the urinal and unzips his pants. “Tyler?” he says.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, snorting coke off the back of his hand. “How is everything?” He flushes the toilet with his left foot.

“If you want to know the truth,” Dane says, “your sister is driving me crazy.”

“Somebody should have put her out of her misery a long time ago,” Tyler says. He bursts out of the stall with his hand in the shape of a gun. “Boom.” He straightens up and tugs the lapels of his jacket. “Ladies and gentlemen," he says. “I-I-it’s showtime!”

‘Everybody Loves Us’

Tyler Kydd is on. He is sitting in the back corner of the V.I.P. room at Chaos, a room that can only be reached by private elevator that can only be accessed by a separate entrance, guarded by two bouncers and a young lady with a list. Tyler Kydd is chain-smoking Marlboro reds and drinking martinis. Tyler Kydd is laughing. Tyler Kydd is frowning. Tyler Kydd is nodding, his eyes wide with surprise, mouth open. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, yes, I do remember meeting you on the set of Switchblade, how have you been since then? You had a dog, right, and something happened to the dog, something with an elephant? Oh, a cat, a cat,” and then to somebody else: “Hey, that night, that was pretty hot, huh, stick around you going someplace let’s talk later after all this but you’re doing well, right? You look great.”

“Jimmy!” Tyler says, spotting James Dieke, who is squeezing through the crowd followed by Winnie, both still wearing their coats. “Jimmy my boy. Jimmy baby." Tyler grabs James Dieke around the neck, swaying him from side to side, then he pushes James away and puts his hands on each side of Winnie’s face and pulls her toward him and kisses her on the lips. “I love you guys.”

“Everybody loves us,” Winnie says.

“I especially love you,” Tyler says. “Did you have any trouble getting in? Those people at the door are such assholes. I keep telling the publicity people…Jimmy, where’s your drink? Somebody get this man a cocktail.” Tyler pulls Winnie onto his lap. “Watch out, Jimmy boy, I’m going to steal her from you one of these days.”

I wish you would, James thinks. But instead he says, “I like the movie.” No one pays any attention to him.

Winnie giggles and takes the martini glass out of Tyler’s hand and take a large gulp. “Whoa. Go easy baby, easy,” Tyler says, taking his glass back and patting her on the butt. He slides his hand underneath the back of her coat.

“How are you?” Winnie asks. “I mean really?”

“I’ll be right back,” James says.

“Hold on bro,” Tyler says. He tosses James a vial of cocaine and turns back to Winnie. “So, where’s my future wife?”

James bumps into Dane in the bathroom. “Christ. I’m trying to get away from my wife,” Dane says.

Just then Evie, Winnie’s sister, comes barging in. The three of them crowd a stall. “I never do this,” James says, and Evie says, “Oh, James, shut up.”

“Don’t tell Winnie,” James says.

“I’m going to tell the whole fucking world. Including my wife. Fuck her.”

Tyler enters the bathroom, James leaves and goes to the bar. In the stall, Tyler presses up against Evie. “How come you weren’t at the wedding?” he asks.

“Rehab,” Evie says.

Back at the table, Maria Kydd-Peen is saying, “I’d just like some appreciation sometimes. When I met Dane, he was living in an apartment with no bathroom.”

“James is either working or watching TV,” Winnie says.

“I mean, could he listen? To me? His latest thing is bad investments.”

“They have time for everything except you. Well, now I don’t have time for him.”

“And does he even notice? And now,” Maria says, “they’re all on coke. Look at them all jabbering away like monkeys. It’s disgusting.”

James, Tyler, Dane and Evie lurch back to the table. “James is doing a piece on chimpanzees,” Evie says.

“Oh, James, don’t talk about it. It’s so dull,” Winnie says.

“We believe the government is illegally importing chimpanzees for secret medical research,” James says. “They’re stashing them in a warehouse in lower Manhattan.”

“Why would anybody bring monkeys into Manhattan? I mean, please!” Winnie says.

“Did you know that in some chimp tribes, the females are lesbians? And they let the males watch?” Dane asks, leaning over Evie.

“Dane, we’re going,” Maria says.

“Hold on,” Dane says. “I haven’t finished my drink.”

“Who wants another drink?” James shouts.

“That’s enough,” Winnie says.

“Tyler’s ordering another drink,” James says.

“Tyler’s leaving,” Maria says. And, in fact, Tyler is leaving, moving toward the elevator, kissing and squeezing people along the way.

“We’ll give you a ride uptown, Evie,” Winnie says.

“That’s O.K. I don’t have to get up in the morning,” Evie says, and at the last minute manages to squeeze herself into the elevator with Tyler, just before the doors shut.

“Good girl,” Tyler says in the elevator. “Just promise me one thing. Don’t give me any of that marriage shit. It ain’t me babe,” he starts singing. “It ain’t me you’re looking for babe.”

On the street, Tyler’s driver is holding open the door of the limo. “Maestro!” Tyler screams. He pulls Evie into the limo and starts singing again, It ain’t me babe. He shoves his hand down her shirt and Evie puts her hand in his pants. “Don’t be too sure about that,” she says. “Babe.”

Coupledom

The two couples—Dane and Maria, James and Winnie—are standing on the corner. Trying to get a cab.

“If you want to kill yourself, like Deano Barry, go right ahead,” Maria says. “I really don’t give a flying fuck anymore.”

“What are you talking about?” Dane asks.

“For Christ’s sake, Dane. How stupid do you think I am.”
“Let’s get a drink,” James says.

“You’ve both been doing coke.” Winnie says.

“I haven’t been doing coke,” James says.

“You are such a loser, James,” Winnie says. “Let’s go home.”

“I’m not getting in a cab,” James says. “I’m getting a drink. Tyler sits there snorting up a gram of coke, and no one gets on his case.”

“Tyler makes 10 million a picture,” Winnie says.

“So it’s all about money," Dane says, pointing at Winnie. “He makes 10 million a year and that makes it O.K.”
“Picture. Ten million a picture.”

“I want to get a drink,” says James.

Tyler’s limo pulls up to the corner. Tyler rolls down the window. “Anybody need a lift?”

“I’m with you, Tyler,” Dane says.

“Me, too,” James says. He doesn’t look at Winnie.

“Don’t get in that limo, Dane.”

“Hey, Maria, back off,” Tyler says. “Me and the boys are going to have a few pops.”

Dane and James get into the limo, climbing over Evie, who’s sprawled across the seat, laughing. “Hello boys,” she says.

Dane cranes his head out of the window and shouts, “Deano Barry lives!”
James sneaks a look back at his wife. Her mouth is open, but for once nothing is coming out.

Sex and Darwin

Four A.M. James standing next to his bed, looking at Winnie, who appears to be sleeping. He doesn’t know what to do, then he starts removing his clothes. Then he starts talking.

“It’s the giant government plot, Winnie. Winnie, are you awake? It’s the overcrowding of the niche structures but instead of using rats, they’re using monkeys, and they’re finding that the same behavior occurs in primates, which means that it goes all the way to the heart of the housing crisis. Of course, Stephen Jay Gould discovered the same construct in his snail studies…”

“Go…to…the…couch,” Winnie says.

“…which he then applied to primates and Darwin never read Mendel. Do you know what that means? Darwin never read Mendel!”

“I don’t give a fuck about Darwin. You’re an idiot,” Winnie says. “You’re revolting. And you smell.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” James says. He sits on the edge of the bed. “You’re so wonderful. You’re such a wonderful wife. I always want to tell you how much I love you, but you never give me a chance.”

“What are you talking about?” Winnie says. She sits up in bed and crosses her arms.

“Everybody admires you so much. Tyler is crazy about you.”

“Is he.”

James puts his arms around Winnie and starts to kiss her. He climbs on top of her. “James,” she says.

“You’re so…pretty,” James says.

“James, go to sleep…James, stop it…Oh, for Christ’s sake..all right, but just do it fast, honey…ummm. O.K., James, that’s enough…that’s enough…that’s enough…James, will you please just come! James, come now. Come, or get off me. Thank God.”

James rolls onto his back and moans.

“We’re going to have a long talk tomorrow,” Winnie says. “About your behavior. We’re going to be making some changes around here.”

“Winnie.”

“I mean it, James. We have a child. You have responsibilities. Where the hell, and I really want to know this, where the hell do you and Dane get the idea that you can run around and act like 6-year-olds? Do you see Maria and I going out and drinking and doing drugs and staying out until 4 in the morning? How would you like it? How would you like it if I went out and stuck my hand down some guy’s pants and did drugs in the bathroom and God knows what else. Maybe I’m going to do that some night. Because you know what, James, I don’t care anymore. I’ve had it.”

“Winnie?”

“I’m beginning to think that maybe you’re an alcoholic. Your mother was an alcoholic. Oh, of course, nobody wanted to admit it in your pseudo-WASP family. But normal people don’t have every kind of liquor in their bar. Wine, vodka, a bottle of tequila—I can understand, but…peach schnapps?”

“Winnie?”

“Shut up, James. It’s my turn. Now you listen. I’ve had to listen to your bullshit all evening. And what is this business with Evie? Pardon me, but does she think we don’t know what she’s up to? Does she think we didn’t see her hiding in the limo? Hiding! She’s 35! She’s obviously trying to fuck Dane. And God knows what she’s trying to do with Tyler.”

“Dane? She wants to sleep with Dane?” James asks.

“Yes. Dane. A married man.”

“Winnie, I…”

“What?”

“I…I…”

“Spit it out.”

“Winnie, I think I’m having a heart attack. I’m going to die, Winnie. I’m going to diiiiiie.”

“Oh James. You’re such a baby. You can’t even do coke right.”

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.

Tyler Kidd is in town and James Dieke is afraid. And excited.

To hear his wife, Winnie, tell it, James and the Famous Movie Star are old friends. “Tyler Kidd? Don’t even ask,” Winnie will say if somebody does ask (and they do, since Winnie makes sure of it by dropping Tyler Kydd’s name at every opportune moment). “Tyler and James used to be bartenders together. On Martha’s Vineyard. When they were in college. A million years ago.” And then: “He’s just a regular guy, you know.” Pause. “He was best man at our wedding.”

James has always suspected that Winnie considers his friendship with Tyler an asset. Like owning a house in the country. (Which they do, even though, as two earnest journalists, they both know they can’t really afford it—each is secretly hoping the other hits a book deal. Soon.)

The last time James spoke with Tyler (three months ago, Tyler calling from his trailer on location in Mississippi), Tyler said, “I wish hookers were girls you knew. You know, like regular girls who were your friends, but they were hookers, too. So whenever you wanted to have sex with them, you could pay them, and you wouldn’t have to get involved.”

James hadn’t known what to say. That he’d never been with a hooker? That he found prostitution repugnant for moral and feminist reasons?

“Dude?” Tyler said.

“But if you’re friends with them, aren’t you already involved?” James said. “In some manner?”

“I have to go. I’m wanted in makeup,” Tyler had said, like the whole thing was still a big joke to him and always would be.

“Tyler’s in town,” James says now, calling Winnie from his home-office, and being careful to use the fax line because he’s been audited by the I.R.S. three times.

“We should fix him up with someone,” Winnie says.

“I don’t think Tyler Kydd needs to be fixed up,” James says.

“With a normal girl,” Winnie says. “A woman in her 30’s with a real job.”

“I don’t think Tyler Kydd wants to go out with a normal girl.”

“James,” Winnie says, “Tyler is always asking me to fix him up with someone.”

“He’s just says that to make you feel good,” James says.

“Oh. So, in other words, all he really wants to do is fuck dumb, 20-year-old models for the rest of his life.”

“Probably.”

“Even when he’s 60?”

“Definitely when he’s 60.”

“He’s always telling me he wants to find the right girl and get married.”

“That’s only because he’s never been married,” James says.

There’s a pause. James hits a few keys on his computer.

“Thank you, James,” Winnie says. “I’ve been waiting for a comment like that, and you just delivered.”

“Can I get off the phone now?” James asks. He types in the word, “Chimpanzees.”

“No, you may not,” Winnie says.

“I’ve got to do an interview. With a man in customs. About the chimp story.”

“Have you ever noticed how every time Tyler Kydd comes into town, you start acting like an asshole”

“No,” James says.

“A big, fucking asshole.”

“Sorry,” James says.

“I won’t tolerate it, James. I will not tolerate what happened last time.”

“What happened last time?” James says.

Silence.

“So who are you going to fix Tyler up with?” James says. “What about your sister Evie?”

“Evie’s involved,” Winnie says.

“With who?”

“Who isn’t involved with Evie?” Winnie says.

Me, James thinks.

The Kydd Checks In

Tyler Kydd checks into the penthouse suite at Morgans hotel. Registers under the name Geronimo.

While his bags are being sent up to the suite, Tyler goes down to the bar. The waitress, short, dark-haired, pretty, nervous, if you like that type, approaches, holding a tray. “Hi?” says. “Tyler? I’m Susie?”

“Yes?”

“I met you once before?”

“Oh, please. You’re not going to try to make me remember something, are you?”

But it wasn’t that long ago. At a party in Aspen?”

“You’re going to try to make me do this.”

“No, I…”

“You’ve just got to do that woman-thing don’t you? I tell you not to do something and you don’t listen. You’ve just got to keep nagging at me.”

“I hardly even know you.”

“That’s right. And let’s keep it that way.” A beat, and then Tyler laughs on purpose. His laugh means two things: I’m Tyler Kydd and everything I say is funny; and, I was just kidding, don’t call Page Six and tell them what an asshole I am. “What’s your name?”

“Susie.”

“Oh, that’s right. You told me your name, didn’t you.”

“Hey, man, there are talking monkeys on the TV,” someone says.

Chimpanzees squatting on the ground, pounding sticks, chanting “Toga, toga toga.”

“Have you ever had a threesome?” Tyler asks. He pulls down on the brim of his baseball cap.

“Are you asking me if I want to have a threesome with you?” she shifts her weight to the other hip.

“I’m not asking you anything," Tyler says. “I just want a drink.”

“Is that how you usually ask for a drink? Asking if someone wants a threesome?”

“Hey, sweetheart.” Tyler leans in toward her. Cocks his head to the side almost as if he’s going to whisper in her hear. “Lighten up, O.K.? If you want to turn me off, just keep up the bad attitude.”

Deano’s Eight Ball

Maria Kydd-Peen, 40 years old, 20 pounds overweight, Tyler Kydd’s older sister, walks into the renovated kitchen in the renovated duplex in the brownstone on West 11^th Street. “Don’t throw out The Times, Perdita,” she says to the Portuguese “housekeeper” (laundry, cooking, cleaning, some child care, not to be confused with Sonya, the Brazilian nanny, who will not cook and clean, and won’t work weekends).

“I never throw out the paper,” Perdita says.

“No, of course you don’t,” Maria says, even though she knows it is a lie. She takes a swig from an Evian bottle. Then another. She waits for Perdita to ask the question: Why does she want to keep the paper? If Perdita is too stupid to ask the question, she will tell her. There’s no reason to discuss it with Perdita, but Maria can’t help it. She must discuss it with everybody.

“One of our friends died,” Maria says. “His obituary is in the paper.”

“That’s bad,” Perdita says.

“Yes,” Maria says. “It is. He died because he took too many drugs.”

“Drugs is bery, bery bad,” Perdita says.

“Yes,” Maria says, “Drugs are very bad,” and she wonders if she should tell the children about Deano Barry’s death, as a sort of allegory of what happens if you take drugs. But the last time they saw Deano Barry, the last time they talked to him even, her daughter Cher was just a year old, and little Sting hadn’t even been conceived yet.

If they hadn’t stopped seeing Deano Barry, in fact, if Maria hadn’t put her foot down, Sting never would have been conceived. He wouldn’t be sitting in the den, watching a Peter Pan video on a large-screen TV and crying while his older sister chewed the heads off his plastic dinosaurs.

Sting was afraid of Captain Hook.

Maria had heard over the course of the day that Deano Barry’s mother had gone to live with him in the end, but had been in the hospital for bunions. While she was gone, Deano had obviously ordered an eight ball of cocaine (three-and-a-half grams) and snorted it all up. She had heard that Deano had gained weight, ballooned up to 300 pounds. She had heard that Deano, after quitting the law firm three years ago, had worked at home, dealing with fewer and fewer clients until there were none left. Until there was no reason for him to leave his six-room Park Avenue apartment. Until there was no reason to pick up the phone.

Not that they’d tried to call him, anyway.

All day long, she kept thinking about the effects of an eight ball of cocaine on the physique of a 300-pound man.

The word was that Deano Barry was definitely not dead when he’d arrived by ambulance at Lenox Hill Hospital

At 7:43 P.M., Maria’s husband, the sculptor Dane Peen, comes home. He’s been at a parent-teacher evening at Sting’s pre-nursery school.

“Hello.” He kisses her on the cheek, his eyes staring at one of his sculptures in the corner. “Where are the children?”

“The den,” she says.

“Good Day?”

“Fine.”

“Great,” he says. He bounds out of the room, stopping on the landing for five seconds: “Oh, by the way, Sting has a girlfriend. Little French girl.”

"Lovely.”

Maria goes to the kitchen. She puts ice in a glass and pours herself a glass of San Pellegrino water. Cuts a slice of lime. Drops it in the glass. She takes the glass into the bedroom

When she’s in the shower, Dane comes in and pees. “I’m not showering,” he says. “I’m going as is.”

“Fine,” she says.

She gets out of the shower. Wraps a towel around her. Walks into the bedroom she can hear Dane laughing with Perdita in the kitchen. “You’re losing weight, Perdita,” he says, and Perdita giggles. “Pretty soon, you’ll have men chasing after you. I’m going to have to warn your husband.”

Maria puts baggy black pants, white silk shirt, pearls and an oversized black jacket. She applies lipstick. When she walks out to the kitchen, Sting is clinging to Dane’s leg, and Perdita is leaning over, wiping something off Sting’s face with her hand. “Oh yes, he’s a very good boy. Going to be a famous artist like his father.”

“You should see his finger painting,” Dane says. Sting hides his face in his father’s pant leg.

“Boo!” Perdita says.

“Boo everybody,” Maria says.

“There’s Mommy,” Dane says.

“We’re going to see you Uncle Tyler. He has a movie opening,” Maria says.

“You remember your Uncle Tyler? Uncle Tiger?” Dane says. Sting crosses one leg over the other, swaying on one foot. Perdita grabs him.

“Perdita wants Tyler’s autograph,” Maria says. “Isn’t that silly?”

“I think it’s sweet,” Dane says.

“Well, he’s going to be here for dinner on Friday night,” Maria says. She picks up her bag. “Hear that, Perdita? Then you can get all the autographs you want.”

Evie’s Big Spill

At 23^rd Street, in the cab going up Sixth Avenue, Maria says, “I have to talk to you about something.”

“Really?” Dane says.

“Deano Barry died.” Her head is turned toward him, her eyes narrowed.

He plays with the electric window button, lowering the window a quarter of an inch. “Is that my fault?” he says.

“No. But you should be grateful.”

“To?”

“To me.” She looks out the window, then back at him. “He died,” she says, pausing, “of a cocaine overdoes.”

“Well, how else did you think he was going to die?”

“You should think about it,” she says.

“I have thought about it. For Chrissake, it’s all I’ve thought about. You won’t let me think about anything else.”

“I don’t want you going out with Tyler tonight.”

“I’m not going out with Tyler tonight. We’re going to a party for his movie.”

The cab pulls up in front of the Ziegfeld Theater. There’s a throng of photographers outside. “I hate these things," she says.

“I really like them,” Dane says. He walks a few feet in front of her and when he stops to let the photographers take his picture, Maria passes him and says, “Fuck you.”

Evie, Winnie’s sister, is standing inside, her jacket open, full pale breasts spilling out of a green silk shirt unbuttoned below her bra.

“Hello, Evie,” Dane says. “It’s always such a pleasure to see you.”

“I’m looking for Winnie. She has my ticket to the party,” Evie says.

“Come with us,” Dane says. “If she doesn’t show.”

“Absolutely," Maria says. “By the way, you might want to button up your blouse.”

They leave Evie and take the escalator to the second floor. “That was nasty,” Dane says. “Telling Evie to button up her blouse.”

“She looks like a slut.”

"You embarrassed her.”

“You embarrass me.

Winnie is standing in the aisle of the theater, arguing with some woman about her seat. “They won’t let us sit in the reserved seats,” Winnie says.

“Of course we’re sitting in the reserved seats. We’ll sit wherever we want,” Maria says.

“You can’t sit here," the woman says.

“This,” Winnie says, “is Tyler Kydd’s sister.”

“I’m sorry,” Dane says. “Where would you like us to sit?”

“In the front,” the woman says, pointing.

James is already sitting there. Dane sits next to James and puts his coat on the seat next to him. Maria and Winnie sit next to the coats.

“Is Tyler here yet?” Winnie asks.

“Is Evie here?” James says.

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.

There was an afternoon in September when Carrie was going someplace or another, and there was too much traffic and she got out of the cab and walked down the middle of Madison Avenue in an expensive pantsuit. Let’s face it, she thought: You own this town.

“Listen, sweetie,” Mr. Big had said, several weeks earlier, “people don’t like you as much as you’d probably like to think they do.”

“Yeah? So what?” She got a beer out of the refrigerator.

“They think you have an agenda. But they don’t know what it is.”

“Is that supposed to be my problem?”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Who are these ‘people,’ anyway?”

“I’m just trying to give you some advice,” he said. “I’m just trying to help you. You’re too aggressive.”

Carrie felt herself slipping into that bad place again in her head. For the umpteenth time in months.

“If you want to help me, don’t regale me with the misguided, ignorant opinions of your coddled, spoiled friends, who don’t even have the guts to be single,” she screamed. “Who never had to eat hot dogs for a month because they didn’t have enough money to buy damn food. O.K.? So don’t tell me I’m too aggressive.”

That’s right: You own this town.

She hadn’t expected to break up that weekend. She was expecting to remain in a holding pattern. Hating him, loathing herself. Going through the routine motions of the relationship.

That week, she’d stayed out at the big house in East Hampton by herself. He called every evening at 11. One evening he called and said some 30-year-old soap star had been flirting with him at an event.

“Am I supposed to be impressed by this?” she said.

“You’re getting awfully cocky,” she said. “What makes you think you can be so damn cocky?”

“I don’t want to have this conversation.”

“You never want to have any conversation,” she said.

When he turned up Friday early evening, she was lying in bed, watching the progress of the hurricane on the Weather Channel. Watching the satellite pictures over and over. “It’s going to be a miss,” she said. “It’s always a damn miss.”
“Remember last year?” he said.

It had been one of their best weekends, even though she’d nearly drowned. On Sunday after the so-called hurricane, they’d gone to the beach and the waves had carved the beach in half. Everyone was swimming in the backwash and it was warm and deceptively tempting, and Carrie had gotten rolled by a wave and swept down the beach, panicking but also realizing, with that strange detachment that occurs in moments of danger, that her mouth was open and she was screaming.

It hadn’t occurred to her that when you were drowning, your mouth would be open, water rushing in.

She washed up on shore, and when she got out, Mr. Big was standing there, laughing.

She was drowning and he thought it was funny.

He didn’t get the difference.

He couldn’t read between the lines, see nuances. He didn’t have to. That wasn’t what the shareholders paid him for. It was black or white. In or out.

‘You’re a Little Crazy’

When they got home from dinner the weekend the hurricane missed, he said he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t move forward. He thought they should move on. He started crying. Not for himself, for her. He’d rescued her from her lousy life, and now he was throwing her back. He felt like a shit for doing it, for things having to be that way, for not being able to give her what she wanted. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her.

The only part that wasn’t in the manual was her response: She started to laugh. “Oh, give me a break,” she said.

“I know you’re really in love with me,” he said.

“You think I’m really in love with you,” she said.

“I know you are.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m not.”

“This is me,” he said. “You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not. How can I be in love with you if you’re not in love with me? That’s one of the rules. Don’t break the rules.”

She went into the bathroom and took off her contact lenses. This will be the last time I spend the night in this house, she thought. When she came back out, he said, " I didn’t want it to be this way.”

“Yes, you did,” she said, “because it is.”

“I just want to be with someone normal,” he said. “I just want to have a normal life.”

“Excuse me,” she s
aid.

“You’re a little crazy,” he said. “You’re too old to act the way you do. You’ve got to grow up. You’ve got take care of yourself. I’m afraid for you. You can’t think that people are going to take care of you all the time.”

“So what?” she said.

“You can’t act like you’re 12,” he said. “You can’t come home at 4 in the morning.”

“Most 12-year-olds don’t come home at 4 in the morning.”

“You know what I mean. I can’t take it. No normal man can take it. What are you always doing out until 4 in the morning?”

“Talking,” she screamed. “Talking to my friends. Talking to people who have something to say.”

Silence.

“Don’t worry about it," she said. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist. We both served a purpose for each other and now it’s over. That’s the way relationships are. Think of it as a learning experience.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said. “I believe in real love.”

Then she thought: Maybe she didn’t have all the information.

‘Where Were You’

Nico Barone had resurfaced for an obvious reason: She’d just gotten divorced. “I find marriage boring and intellectually stultifying,” she said. She was in her office, wearing tooth-bleaching trays. She was having nightmares: Bob Woodward chasing her around an underground parking garage. “I don’t ever want to go there again,” she said.

This was a couple of days after the breakup weekend. In the middle of the week, Mr. Big had called and asked Carrie if she wanted to go out to the house in East Hampton. The relationship wasn’t quite over. “I’ll have to think about it,” she had said.

Instead, Carrie and Nico went to Martha’s Vineyard, where she spent the weekend numbing herself with alcohol. On Saturday night, they went to a party where they met a guy they called “the Mr. Big of Martha’s Vineyard.”

“What is it that you do?” Nico asked him.

“I’m in natural resources development and exploration in the former Soviet Union,” he said.

“Oh, you’re in gold and oil in Russia,” Nico said. She paid for their drinks with a new hundred-dollar bill. Nico always had new hundreds.

“We’ve got to get rich,” Carrie said. “It’s the only way.”

“

When Carrie got back Monday morning, there was a message from Mr. Big. “Where were you? I didn’t hear from you all weekend.”
As if.

He called back Monday, later afternoon. His voice sounded strange, even given the circumstances. “This isn’t working for me. I can’t do this. For my own sanity … I can’t go on. It’s counterproductive … for me.”

“Thank you for calling,” Carrie said. “I can see you’ve got a lot of misery ahead of you.” She hung up the phone and called Nico Barone. “I’m free,” she said.

“Really?” Nico said.

There was something about the way she said that word, “really," and that’s when Carrie began to suspect that there might be somebody else. Because that was part of the pattern.

Eating the Oyster

Nico’s recently ex-husband was Dirk Winston, a pale, stocky novelist who was considered potentially important for about 10 minutes after his first book came out six years ago. When he moved to New York from Boston, he was taken up by the Diekes, a young married couple who were both ambitious journalists. He and Winnie Dieke had been friends at Harvard.

The two couples would have dinner at Dirk and Nico’s house in Sag Harbor. Winnie would sit at the table and poke at Nico’s cordon bleu cooking with her fork. “Well, it certainly looks interesting,” she’d say. Then she’d put her fork down and touch her mouth with her napkin. “Nico, why do you want to be on television?” she’d say. “There’s no real journalism on television. You should be a chef.”

“I like TV,” Nico would say.

Months later, Nico and Dirk were walking through Grand Central Terminal and a well-dressed young man in a suit walked up to Nico and said, “Aren’t you on ABC?” Dirk turned and walked briskly out of the station. Nico went to the Oyster Bar and ordered a Bloody Mary and six bluepoints. At 11:30 A.M.

The Private Dick

At the end of July, Carrie was sitting in a downtown studio having her picture taken for a magazine. The makeup artist was applying liquid foundation to her face with a paintbrush. The photographer was saying, “We want you naked. You don’t mind being naked. You’ve done it before, eh?” in a European accent of indeterminate origin.

“Can I just wear my underwear?” Carrie asked. I just want to be with someone normal.

“Can we have some music?” the make-up artist asked. n style="font-family: Arial">

Do you mind being naked?

In the morning, Carrie had heard from the Australian. The Australian was a female private detective, a friend of a friend’s. Carrie had met her at a dinner after a movie premier. She was standing in a corner, eating a slice of beef with her fingers off a bloody napkin.

“These guys are all the same,” she had said. “That’s why I don’t get involved.”

That morning, the Australian had things to tell Carrie. Like Mr. Big had made dozens of phone calls to a number in Palm Springs. Mostly after the 15th of July. All made to one female golf pro. Age 28. “He probably wants help with his swing. For free, you know,” the Australian said. The results were inconclusive at that time. But still.

“You can take your shirt off behind the chair,” the photographer said.

The Wrong Train

The bad day, the day they tipped the balance so to speak, occurred back in June, shortly after Mr. Big’s business dinner for the golf company, a dinner at which, Carrie was told, a female golf pro was present.

It started with a dinner at an apartment on the Upper East Side. Friends of Nico’s. Halfway through the dinner, Carrie started having fun. She left Mr. Big a message telling him she was tired and was going to go to her house that night.

She was exhausted, but after the dinner she didn’t feel like going home. She didn’t feel like making the right decision. She felt like getting on the wrong train. She went downtown. Pravda. Saw some people she knew. They went someplace else. Someplace else after that. Etc.

At 8 in the morning, she turned up at Mr. Big’s apartment.

“I’m not even going to ask,” he said.

She got into bed and began to take the long, delicious slide into hysteria. Hours were passing inside her head, but when she looked up, Mr. Big was still sitting on the chair in the bedroom, in a starched white shirt and dark socks, staring. Saying nothing. Just with that expression on his face.

“I’m not happy,” she said.

After he left to go to work, she began crying uncontrollably. The maid came in and looked horrified. At 11 A.M., Carrie called his office. “I want to go to an insane asylum.”

She wanted to put herself in someone else’s hands. She wanted no responsibility. She wanted to lie in a white room and watch TV, and maybe make potholders. You can’t act like you’re 12.

“Take a shower,” Mr. Big said.

Eating the Pickle

Sometime in the middle of September, Carrie was at a restaurant and Mr. Big was there. He came over and sat down at the table.

“I never knew what you were thinking,” he said. “You never talked about your feelings. Every time I tried to talk to you, you would go to that place in your head. You’re like a cyborg or something.”

His hand was on the table. Carrie touched his finger.

Let’s face it, Carrie thought, you ate the pickle.

“Is there someone else?”

"This is not about anyone else. This is about us.”

“That’s not answering the question.”

“This is about us.”

“It’s a yes or no question. Is…there…someone…else?”

“No.”

“Liar. You’ve been coached, haven’t you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Someone’s been coaching you on what to say.”

“This is about us. Not about anyone else.”

"See? There you go again.”

“Why do you have to make this harder.”

“I’m not making it harder. I have to get a cigarette.”

“I have to go to sleep. Why won’t you let me sleep.”

“You don't deserve to sleep.”

"I haven't done anything wrong.”

“You haven’t done anything right, either.”

“Thank you for making Mr. Big a nicer guy.”

That was in June and by then, the statement was meaningless almost to the point of being an embarrassment to the two major players.

By then, it was already over.

By then, disgust, self-loathing and hatred had set in.

By then, the female golf pro was calling, but Mr. Big had yet to say, “I want to be with someone ‘normal.’ I want to have a normal life.”

Because at that point, on the surface, everything seemed status quo. Everything except the weather.

Thieves and Bitches

“Well, I haven’t seen Nico for years,” Carrie said. She could have ended the conversation, but Mr. Big was sitting by the pool on his cellular and instead she expounded on tiny details. Like the fact that Nico was from San Antonio, Tex. “Most San Antonions are third- or fourth-generation Mexican,” she said. “Nico’s a WASP. That she ended up growing up there is a fluke.”

Mr. Big came into the villa. “Get off the phone,” he said. “I want to go into town.” She hadn’t particularly wanted to go into town, but she didn’t particularly want to stay at the villa. She didn’t particularly want to be there at all; or, she wanted to be there, but not with him.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been in this situation. There had been, with past boyfriends, the time at the Hotel du Cap in the south of France; the time in Sydney, Australia; and three years ago in St. Barts. On the last evening of that trip, while the “boyfriend” was sleeping, she’d snorted the shitty local cocaine (which came in a straw) and the next morning, she played “You Can Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac over and over again, until it was time to go to the plane.

The month had also been April.

That relationship hung on until just before Memorial Day. He was going away for a big weekend. “Are you coming or not?” he’d asked. Everyone recommended she not go, on principle. At the last minute, she didn’t go. He didn’t call for a couple of days after the weekend, then he did call. Then she found out that he’d brought someone else, a girl he’d met on a plane the week before. The new relationship didn’t last for more than a couple of months after that, and he was miserable—which was also a standard subplot in the drama. Then the attempt to be friends with Carrie: the twice-weekly phone calls, which were about his misery (why he couldn’t figure out how to make a relationship work); the new woman (why she wouldn’t be able to make it better); and what a good idea it would be if he would see a shrink.

It was coming home from the St. Barts week that Carrie allowed herself to acknowledge the fact that the relationship with Mr. Big would probably not last the summer.

Don’t ask questions.

Don’t waste time.

Do what’s right for you.

Move past it.

Get over it.

What happened between April and the middle of July was nothing. A few incidents stand out: the explosion of T.W.A. Flight 800. The hurricane. The fights.

The fights were: She wanted to talk, he didn’t. She wanted more attention; he didn’t want to make the effort. “Now you sound like all of my ex-wives,” he’d say. “Always demanding something. Don’t ask for anything and maybe you’ll get it. Don’t tell me what to do.”

Why had she thought that if they were married, she’d get the attention she wanted? Why didn’t she understand that if they did get married, she’d become more and more of an accessory? That was a pattern.

The warnings were (dropped casually by Carrie, after either one of them had made any vague reference to the future): “Well, after the summer, I’m probably not going to be around.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know.”

That was also a pattern.

One day at the beginning of July, on another lousy gray day in the house in East Hampton when Carrie had stayed out for the week, some friends dropped by.

“I’d break up with him tomorrow if I could. I’m dying to get out of here,” she said, slamming cupboard doors. She’d just hung up from yet another remote conversation on the phone, all about logistics.

Why not end it then?

That would be inconvenient.

Instead, she was doing laundry (why? They had a maid), she was making sure the kitchen was stocked with food (with things they would never eat, like packages of yellow rice), and she was watering the vegetable garden. The relationship was over before they had any vegetables, but the garden was useful because it gave her something to talk about with him and his friends. Everything was growing but nothing was ripening. No sun.

In the evenings on the weekends in the Hamptons, they’d have dinners, or go to dinners. Everyone got drunk, very fast and very early, and went to bed by 11.

Carrie found herself complaining about how the guy at the Red Horse Market never sliced the smoked salmon thin enough. Then Mr. Big would tell a story about how he’d refused to buy a six-dollar pound of butter at Thieves and Bitches.

Occasionally, she stopped herself from calling him “dad.” As in, “Yes, Dad, I will take out the garbage. Yes, Dad, I will drive carefully.”

Frantic Messages

n>There was a story circulating about how Nico Barone once went to breakfast at the Candy Kitchen in pajamas and flip-flops, which Carrie never told the reporter. Why should she?

He wouldn’t get it. He wouldn’t be able to help himself: He would feel compelled to point the finger. Because a girl who would wear pajamas to the Candy Kitchen wouldn’t be the kind of girl who would go to breakfast with him. He’d get revenge in print.

So it wasn’t strange when Nico Barone called Carrie sometime in the beginning of May. Ostensibly for advice on what to do about the reporter.

“I'll take care of it," Carrie said.

She called the reporter. “The story’s premature,” she said. “Right now, there is no story.”

So it wasn’t strange that shortly after that she and Nico began talking on the phone again. Even though they hadn’t been in touch for eight years. Even though they’d both been in New York all along.”
And it also made sense that when one of the telltale incidents took place, Nico Barone was there.

It must have been early June, in Manhattan. According to their usual daily morning routine, Carrie and Mr. Big discussed what they were doing that evening.

“I have something. I don’t know what,” he said.

“O.K.,” Carrie said. By then she’d been beaten down enough and learned to be cautious when he didn’t want to divulge information. Even though he had his daily schedule in his hand—a schedule that his secretary printed out every evening detailing the next day’s activities. Even though he was in the middle of the golf deal.

Don’t ask questions.

Thank you for making Mr. Big a nicer guy.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Seeing Nico.”

“O.K.,” he said. “So, either way, we’ll meet back here around 11.”

That afternoon, when they spoke, he said he was having dinner with Keemi Tailon, the banker from Goldman.

At 8, Carrie walked into La Goulue and saw Keemi Tailon having dinner with his girlfriend. Nico Barone was sitting outside. There was a man with her, holding her hand. It was the good-looking, formerly drug-addicted son of a U.S. Ambassador, who now worked as a lawyer for one of the telecommunications moguls.

“I know who you are,” he said to Carrie.

“He wanted to meet you,” Nico said.

“I know who you are,” he said, and he put his elbow on the table. “I’ve read your stuff.”

“That’s great,” Carrie said.

“She probably told you about me,” he said, indicating Nico.

“No,” Carrie said. “Not a word.”

“I thought you wanted to keep it a secret,” Nico said. According to him, the telecommunications mogul was in love with Nico. And jealous. According to him, the telecommunications mogul might or might not be having her followed.

According to Nico, they were both crazy.

There was an uncomfortable moment when Keemi Tailon came to the table to say hello after the formerly drug-addicted son of the U.S. Ambassador had left. He stood next to the table and put his shoe on the rung of a chair. “I just wanted to tell you,” he said. “I just remembered Mr. Big is having dinner downtown. With some people from the golf company.”

“Thank you,” Carrie said.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not important. It’s a setup,” Nico said when he had left.

Later, when Carrie arrived at Mr. Big’s apartment, there was a message on the machine. She played it, although she hadn’t played his messages for a long time, because the last time she had, he’d gotten angry. “O.K., O.K.,” she’d said. “I won’t play your damn messages. I won’t answer the phone when you’re not here.”

“You can answer the phone, but people have told me that they’ve left messages and I didn’t get them.”

She just gave him a look.

The message was, as she’d known it would be, from Keemi for Mr. Big. Frantic. “I just wanted to let you know that Carrie saw me tonight … ” She saved it. When Mr. Big arrived at 12:43, she played it for him. “Oh, that’s nothing,” he said. He was in a very good mood. “Keemi doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Carrie did not remind him about their conversation that afternoon. Two days later, she ran into someone who claimed to be in the restaurant where Mr. Big was having dinner, who claimed that it was obviously business, although there was some girl there, but she was obviously part of the business, too.

By then, Carrie wasn’t paying attention. She didn’t care. By then, she was disassociating, moving into her own space.

She still can’t remember who the person was who claimed to be in the restaurant.

On Fourth of July weekend, Mr. Big kept disappearing in Mr. Marvelous' Hummer. They claimed they were going to the store. They claimed they were going to the store six times in two days. They came back with pickles. Then they claimed they were going rollerblading. Carrie wasn’t paying attention.

As soon as Mr. Big left, she’d turn the stereo all the way up and dance around the house. K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

'You’re Out of Control'

“What are you going to do with your life?” he’d ask.

“I’m going to become famous.”

“That is so sad. You won’t like it when you get there.”

“Get off our planet.”

Then he’d go and smoke a cigar and sulk, or go to the store again with Mr. Marvelous.

In the middle of July:

“Is there somebody else?”

“This is not about anyone else. This is about us.”

“That’s not answering the question.”

“This is about us.”

“It’s a yes or no question. Is there somebody else?”

“No.”

“Liar. You’ve been coached, haven’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Someone’s been coaching you on what to say.”

“This is about us. Not about anyone else.”

“See? There you go again.”

“Why do you have to make this harder?”

“I’m not
making it harder. I have to get a cigarette.”

“I have to go to sleep. Why won’t you let me sleep?”

“You don’t deserve to sleep.”

"I haven't done anything wrong."

“You haven’t done anything right, either. I want to get to the bottom of this coaching business.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Someone’s been telling you what to say. It’s an old shrink trick. When you’re in a difficult situation, you keep repeating the same phrase over and over again. That way, you can’t have a conversation.”

One hour later:

“What are you doing? Who are you seeing? What time are you getting home?”

“Early. I’m getting home early.”

“You’re out of control.”

“I am not. I’m home at 11.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I could have you followed. How do you know that I’m not already having you followed? I’m rich enough to have you followed.”

This was several weeks after Carrie had begged to be taken to a mental institution.

To be continued…

On Winnie Dieke’s 38th birthday, her husband James Dieke wakes up scared. Winnie Dieke wakes up depressed. Not that she has anything to be depressed about—she’s hit all her life landmarks (which could have been land mines) in style: first job at 22, met future husband at 25, first assignment for a prestigious magazine at 27, married at 28 (well under the 30-year deadline she’d set for herself), established herself as a "serious journalist" by 30, co-op at 31, pregnant at 32, her own column in a national news magazine at 34. For the past few weeks, Winnie has been spending a lot of time reminding herself of everything she’s achieved. Something is wrong.

Winnie doesn’t want to admit it (she never wants to admit that there could be anything wrong with her life), but that something might be James. Lately, she’s been worried about James. Irritated, actually. James hasn’t been holding up his end of the bargain. He should have written a major, important book by now (preferably about politics, so easy considering the political climate), which would have elevated her status as his wife (she didn’t take his last name for no reason). If James had written the book by now, they would have access to more important, influential people. They would be important, influential people.

But instead, James keeps writing the same kind of pieces. And agonizing over them. Half the time now, James calls her up during the day and says, "I can’t write. I’m blocked."

"Oh please, James," she’ll say. "I’ve got a kazillion things going on. I’ve got a C.E.O. on the other line. If you’re blocked, go pick up dinner. And make sure it’s fat-free." Then she hangs up. She wishes he would just get on with it.

When Winnie tries, when she gently suggests that maybe he should really get to work on a book proposal, he sulks. He actually turns on the TV and watches some idiotic, mindless show like Hercules. Sometimes Winnie freaks out and hurls the remote at the wall. It always ends with Winnie shouting, "Do I have to do everything? Do I have to work and take care of our son [even though she doesn’t really take care of the child—the nanny does] and keep our careers on track? Do I have to make us famous?"

"We’re already famous," James shouts back (thinking, You make me sick and why did I marry you?). "We’re as famous as we’re going to get, Winnie. What else do you want me to do?"

"I’m doing more," Winnie says, calmer, because she doesn’t have the stamina to go on screaming forever (but she does, James thinks, have the stamina to do enough screaming). Then Winnie pulls out her big gun: "Why don’t we move to Washington?" she says.

"I don’t want to move to Washington. All my editors are here," James says. And then he retrieves the remote control from under a chair, and goes back to Hercules.

Winnie and James never tell their friends about these arguments. On the weekends, when they’re hiking or antiquing with their friends (everybody piles into somebody’s car and they go "poking around" western Connecticut), they present a united front: They respect and admire each other and each other’s work. They are best friends. Even when they all had that horrendous group discussion on Saturday evening (they all agreed the next morning that too much red wine had been consumed—four bottles between the eight of them—and vowed never to let that happen again) about what social class the were from and what social class they now belonged, Winnie and James’ relationship remained firmly intact on the surface.

And it might not have. While Winnie’s class background was established beyond a doubt—she came from a well-to-do Irish family, grew up in a 10-room colonial house on 20 acres in Pennsylvania where her father was a judge ("textbook, practically" James had said)—James’ was not. His father owned three dry-cleaning stores on Long Island. That night, no one could agree on whether or not the fact that he "owned three stores" elevated him from blue-collar to white-collar.

James knows what is wrong with his life and his writing. He’s been losing his drive at about the same rate he’s been losing his hard-on.

The Shoe Department

On Winnie’s birthday, James wakes up and is afraid. He’s going to do something to Winnie. Something she won’t like. And he’s excited.

At noon, James go to Bloomingdale’s to meet Winnie’s sister, Evie. As he walks toward the shoe department, he realizes his worst fear has taken place—Evie is not there.

He stands in the middle of the shoe department, not knowing what to do. Everybody is watching him. He is on display (like a shoe). He picks up a shoe and puts it down. A salesman comes over. What kind of man is a salesman in a woman’s shoe department? The man asks if he can help him. James says "No, I’m waiting for my wife. It’s her birthday."

Why has he lied to the salesman? What if the man finds out that Evie is not his wife? He will think Evie is his mistress. What if Evie were his mistress? What if he were secretly fucking his wife’s sister? (It could happen. Evie fucks everyone, has a new boyfriend every two weeks, sleeps with married men, sleeps with guys she meets in classes at the Learning Annex, at the snack bar in the Met.)

James thinks about leaving, about teaching Evie a lesson. But she might show up any minute. He sits down.

He tries to look comfortable. He’s getting angry. When he was 3 or 4, he once got separated from his mother in Bloomingdale’s. They were in the lingerie department. Pointy bras, girdles, all hanging above his head. He circled around and around, thinking he’d see his mother behind the next forest of bras. He sat down. He cried. He was more scared than he’d ever been before, or since. Angry, too. He thought his mother had ditched him on purpose.

"Hello, Jimmy," Evie had come up behind and put her hands over his eyes. He doesn’t move. He looks through her long slender fingers and he can smell her perfume.

"Dammit, Evie. I don’t have much time." (Reminding her of whom she is dealing with. Winnie would approve.)

"Deadline?" Evie asks (smartly, he thinks).

"I’m always on deadline," he says. "It’s about responsibility. Something you’re not familiar with."

"Gee, thanks," Evie says. She is a little bit crushed, he can tell. But he has to crush her. (He can’t let her flirt with him. Winnie said that Evie must learn about boundaries. Become a healthy member of society.)

"Let’s make this quick then," Evie says. She smiles. "I've got a deadline, too, I wanted it to be a surprise. I got that assignment from The New York Times! Oh, Jimmy," she says, "You’re going to have to help me. I’m going to be calling you every day."

"How’d you do that?" James asks. Evie doesn’t deserve to get an assignment from The New York Times. She’s never written a piece in her life. He wants to scream (as he so often wants to scream these days), What is the
world coming to?

"Well, good for you," he says.

Evie picks out a bunch of shoes. All high-heeled sandals. "Fuck me" shoes, Winnie would call them, without affection. He watches as Evie’s foot, with its perfectly painted toenails, slides into the shoe. She has good legs. Great legs.

"Jimmy," she says, turning her foot this way and that, watching James watch her, "I really want you to be happy for me. I’m trying to make something out of my life. Can you and Winnie be supportive, for a change?"

"We are," James says, lying.

Evie puts her hand on his shoulder as he leans down to unstrap the shoe. She looks at him suggestively, and for the first time, he looks back at her suggestively. If she can break the rules, he thinks, maybe he can too.

He spends four hours shoe shopping with Evie. They go to Barneys. Bergdorf Goodman. Saks. They go to lunch (Gino’s). Evie drinks red wine, even though it’s summer (Winnie would frown) and he does, too. (He objects at first, ordering mineral water, and then, after Evie has downed her first glass and motioned for another, he quietly orders a glass for himself.) After lunch, they decide on the perfect pair of shoes for Winnie. Manolo Blahniks. Sandals. The shoes cost $500. He pays gleefully, almost drunkenly. Then he insists on buying a pair for Evie, too, because "You looked so great in them." Evie refuses, laughing.

He and Evie part on the street corner. "I’m going to call you tomorrow," she says. "So we can discuss my article."

"It’s a piece, Evie, a piece. Not an article," he says.

He walks away. The alcohol is wearing off and he feels queasy, like a thing that’s been left out in the elements for too long. What has he done? He hails a cab. For the first time in his marriage, he wishes he didn’t have to go home.

The Gift

Winnie still considers it her job to be the good-looking one in the marriage. It’s part of mastering the world. It’s part of being perfect. She is 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighs 112 pounds. If she let herself go, let her body reach its natural weight, she’d probably weight more around 125 or 130, but she won’t let herself. Control. She runs at 7 A.M. She is very against magazines using skinny young models, she think it’s an affront to women, but she would never be fat herself. She would never even be two pounds overweight.

But there are limits. She will not wear lingerie. She will not wear overly short skirts. See-through blouses. And ridiculous shoes.

"What are these, James?" she asks, standing in the bedroom, the strappy sandal, which is so delicate it looks like it might break from simply walking across a room, dangling like an exotic sea animal from her finger.

"It’s your birthday present," James says.

"Why?" Winnie says.

"You don’t like them," James says in a hurt voice (knowing it’s the only way he might possibly get out of this horrendous situation he’s created, which he is actually beginning to enjoy).

"You know I don’t wear shoes like this. I don’t even approve of shoes like this."

"Evie got that assignment from The New York Times," he says.

"Did Evie pick out these shoes?" Winnie asks.

"The Times thing is disgusting," he says. "She got it by sleeping with … " he says, naming the famous journalist Evie picked up at the book party. "She’s still seeing him."

Winnie looks at James. When she first met him, she wanted to be him. Everybody wanted to be James then. He was going to have a big career. The kind of career that Winnie wanted.

"Do you think people still want to be you, James?" she asks, casually. He knows that when Winnie asks these questions out of left field, she is laying a trap for him, but he’s too weary to figure this one out.

"Why would anybody want to be me?" James asks.

"That’s just what I was wondering," Winnie says. She carefully packs the sandals back into their box. "This is really a pan, you know," she says. "I want to return these, but I don’t know when I’m going to have the time."

"Do it on your lunch hour."

"I don’t have a lunch hour," Winnie says.

They go to Bouley for Winnie’s birthday, where they pretend (and it really is just pretending now, James thinks) to get along. When the bill comes, they each put down their credit cards, and take their receipts, which they will turn into their magazines as a business expense.

Sunday Brunch

"Have you read it?" James asks. It’s Sunday morning. Early. Evie’s piece was scheduled to appear in The New York Times. The paper sits untouched on the coffee table.

"Read what?" Winnie asks. She’s cooking breakfast. It’s really the only time she cooks (if you can call it that, James thinks), cutting grapefruit and putting out slices of smoked salmon and smearing cream cheese on bagels.

"Evie’s piece," James says.

"Oh. Is it in this weekend?"

"She says it is."

"Really?" Winnie says. "I haven’t talked to her." She puts the plates on the dining room table. She unfolds a paper napkin and begins eating.

"Aren’t you curious?" James says.

"I’ll get to it later," Winnie says. "In the meantime, I’m thinking that maybe we should run our salon more efficiently. Maybe we should fax people a question the day before, so everyone has time to think about their answers. I think we’ll get better responses that way."

Winnie eats two bagels stuffed with cream cheese and salmon. "Be right back."

She goes into the bathroom, and, as she has been doing after almost every meal lately, sticks her finger down her throat and throws up.

When she returns, James is reading the paper.

"You’re disgusting," she says.

"What? I’m not supposed to read The Times just because Evie has a piece in it?"

"Oh, come on, James," Winnie says. She snatches up half of the paper. She begins rifling the pages, scanning bylines. Finally, she gets to the Style section. There, under the heading "Thing," is a tiny box with a story on meatloaf. Evie’s piece.

"Did you know about this?" Winnie asks.

"What?"

"Evie’s ‘piece.’" Winnie tosses the paper to him. She stands up. "Are there any more bagels left? I’m still hungry."

In the afternoon, Winnie calls Evie. "Congratulations," she says.

"Hey!" Evie says. "Thanks."

"So how does it feel to be a journalist?"

"Great," Evie says. "I’m working on another piece for them next week. See? I got t
he lingo right. I said ‘piece,’ not ‘article.’"

There is a sound of shuffling in the background and Evie laughs.

"Is someone there?" Winnie asks.

"Mmmm, yeah," Evie says, naming the important journalist.

"That’s perfect," Winnie says. "Because James and I wanted to know if you and he wanted to come to dinner next week. Our treat. We’ll work it around his schedule. Oh, and Evie?"

"Yes?" Evie says, somewhat suspiciously.

"Just remember one thing," Winnie says.

"What’s that?" Evie asks.

"You’re one of us now," Winnie says, smoothly, so that Evie won’t suspect how difficult it is for her to choke out those words.

Evie laughs and says, "Sis, it’s like you and James always say: We are the media."

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.

This is a story about two people with jobs. Two people with very important jobs. Two very important people, with two very important jobs, who are married to each other and have exactly one child.

Meet James and Winnie Dieke (“pronounced ‘deek,’ not ‘dyke’”). The perfect couple. They live in a five-room apartment on the Upper West Side. They graduated from Ivy League colleges (he, Harvard; she, Smith). Winnie is 37, and James is 42—the perfect age difference, they like to say. They’ve been married nearly 10 years. Their lives revolve around their work and their child. They love to work. Their work keeps them busy. Their work separates them from other people. Their work, in their minds, makes them superior to other people.

They are journalists. Serious journalists.

Winnie writes a politics-and-style column (“Is that an oxymoron?” James asked her) for a major news magazine. James is a well-known and highly respected journalist—he writes worthy 5,000- to 10,000-word pieces for publications like The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic and The New Yorker.

James and Winnie agree on just about everything. They have definite opinions. “There’s something wrong with people who don’t have informed opinions about things," Winnie said to James, when they met for the first time, at a party in an apartment on the Upper West Side. Everyone at the party was “in publishing” and under 35. Most of the women (like Winnie), were working at women’s magazines (something Winnie never talks about now). James had just won an American Society of Magazine Editors award for a story on fly-fishing. Everyone knew who he was. He was tall and skinny, with floppy, curly brown hair. (He’s still tall and skinny, but he’s lost most of his hair.) There were women all around him.

Here are a few of the things Winnie and James agree on: They hate anyone who isn’t like them. They hate anyone who is wealthy and gets press. They hate trendy people and things (but James just bought a pair of Dakota Smith sunglasses, and they drive a BMW). They hate anyone who has appeared on TV, with the exception of Michael Kinsley and Ted Koppel (everyone else is a “lightweight”).

They hate people who do drugs. They hate people who drink too much (unless it’s one of their friends, and even then, they complain about the person often). They hate the Hamptons (but take a house there, anyway, in Sag Harbor). They believe in the poor. (They do not know anyone who is poor, except their Jamaican nanny, who is not exactly poor.) They believe in black writers. (They know two, and Winnie is working on becoming friends with a third—whom she met at a convention.) They hate music. They think fashion is silly (but secretly identify with the people in Dewar’s ads). They believe in women writers (as long as the women do not become too successful or get too much attention or write about things the Diekes do not approve of, like sex—unless it’s lesbian sex).

James says he is a feminist, but always puts down women who are not like Winnie (including her sister). They put down women who do not have children. Who are not married. Winnie gets sick at the sight of a woman she considers a slut, a gold digger, a whore.

The Diekes don’t know people who go to clubs or who stay out late, or who have sex (except Winnie’s sister). People who stay up late cannot, by their definition, be “serious.” It takes the Diekes all day (and often well into the evening) to get their work done. Then, they are so exhausted, they can only go home and eat dinner (prepared by the Jamaican nanny) and go to sleep. (Winnie has to get up at 6 to be with her child and go running, which is becoming a real chore, ever since their son outgrew the baby jogger.) At home, they are cozy and superior, and sometimes, when they’re not working, they sit around in fuzzy flannel pajamas with their son, who is 4. Winnie and the boy wear slippers in the shape of stuffed animals, and Winnie makes their slippered, stuffed animal feet talk to each other. The child is a sweet and happy and beautiful child who never complains. “But he’s a real boy,” Winnie always says to her friends. It always shocks Winnie when she says this, it makes her a little afraid, because she does not like to admit that men and women are different. (If men and women are different, where does it leave her?)

Winnie believes (no, knows) that she is smarter than James (even though she’s not sure that he will ever admit it), and as good a journalist as he is, and as good a writer. She often thinks that she is actually better than he (in every way, not just journalism), but he (being a man) has gotten more breaks. James’ style of writing and her style of writing (which she picked up from James, who picked it up from other writers of his tall, gaunt, khakis-and-button-down ilk) was not hard to figure out how to do, once she understood the motivation. Ditto for their conversational style: pseudointellectual and desperately clever at the same time: clintellectual. (Tell me I’m smart—or I’ll wound you.)

Winnie is deeply bitter and James is deeply bitter, but they never talk about it.

'Our Salon'

James is scared about his work. Every time he finishes a piece, he’s scared he won’t get another one. When he gets another assignment (he always does, but it doesn’t make any difference), he’s scared he won’t make the deadline. When he makes the deadline, he’s scared his editor (or editors—there are always faceless editors lurking around in the dark little offices at magazines) won’t like the piece. When they like the piece, he’s scared that it won’t get published. When it does get published, he’s scared that no one will read it or talk about it. If people do talk about it (and they don’t always, do they?—in which case he’s scared that he’s not a great journalist), he’s scared that he won’t be able to pull it off again.

But most of all, James is scared of his wife. Winnie. She doesn’t seem to be scared of anything—and that scares him. When Winnie should be scared—when she has an impossible deadline, or can’t get people to cooperate on interviews, or doesn’t think she’s getting the assignments she wants, she gets angry instead of scared. She calls people and screams. She faxes, she e-mails. She marches into her editors’ offices and has “hissy fits” (his term, and he’d never too her he uses it).

“I hope you’re not implying that my work isn’t good enough,” she says to editors. “Because I’ve already done a kazillion [that’s one of her favorite words, kazillion] stories for you and they were good enough. So if suddenly you don’t want to give me the assignment …” She lets her voice trail off. She never says the word: “sexism.” But it hangs in the air, like a glass ornament, threatening to break and draw blood.

Everyone is just a tiny bit scared of Winnie, and James is scared that one of these days, she won’t get the assignment, or she’ll get fired.

But she always does get the assignment. At the potluck suppers (“our salon” they call it) they host every other Tuesday night (they invite other serious journalists like themselves, and discuss the political implications of everything from the V-chips to rent hikes, to what’s happened to the journalists who were fired from New York Newsday, to the scandal of 60 Minutes pulling its planned segment on the Clinton Whitewater book), Winnie will discuss whatever story she is working on. Everyone will be sitting with Limoges plates on their laps, and they will be eating iceberg lettuce with fat-free salad dressing and skinless chicken breasts, and maybe some rice, and then there’s fat-free frozen yogurt for dessert, and Winnie will say, “I want to know what everyone thinks about the new NBC 24-hour news channel. I’m doing my column on it this week.” When she started doing this, a few years ago, James thought it was cute. But now he gets annoyed. (He never shows it.) Why is she always asking everyone else what they think? Doesn’t she have her own thoughts? And he looks around the room to see if any of the other men (husbands) are sharing the same sentiment.

He can’t tell. He can never tell. Maybe if people got drunk—but they only drink little, wee glasses of wine. No one they know drinks hard alcohol anymore. James often wants to ask these other husbands what they think of their wives. Are they scared of them, too? Do they ever have fantasies of pushing their wives down on the bed and ripping off their underpants and … (James sort of tried something like that with Winnie, but she slapped him and wouldn’t talk to him for three days afterward.) Mostly he wants to know: Are other men scared of Winnie?

Sometimes, James thinks Winnie is scared that he’s going to leave her. But she never says she’s scared. Instead, she says something like, “We’ve been married for 10 years and have a child. I’d get half of everything if we ever got divorced and it’d be awfully hard for you to live on half of what we owned and only your income, minus child support.”

There are times when James doesn’t feel like the man in the relationship. But then he asks himself what Winnie would say if he told her that. She’d say, “What does it mean to ‘feel like a man,’ anyway? What does ‘a man’ feel like?” And since he never can answer those questions, he has to agree with Winnie.

On their second date, Winnie told James that, in the 70’s, she smoked marijuana (age 14), let boys feel her up and down (16), lost her virginity (17) to a neighborhood boy (18, very good looking). They did it in the basement of his parents' house, where he had a cot set up. After, he drove her home, and she can still remember him singing along to the radio (R.E.O. Speedwagon), oblivious to her wounded, yearning presence. He wasn’t impressed that she was going to Smith in the fall, and he didn’t care that she was No. 3 in her high school class (tolerable only because the two students above her were boys). That night, she learned that achievement and intelligence were not a guarantee against being treated badly, and vowed never to be in that situation again.

Winnie’s birthday is coming, and James is scared. And excited. Because of Winnie’s sister.

Evil

Winnie has a sister and a brother. Everybody loves Winnie’s brother. He graduated from U.C.L.A. film school, just finished a serious documentary about rice farmers in China.

Everybody “worries” about Winnie’s sister. Evie ("Evil," Winnie call her sometimes) is two years younger than Winnie. Eight summer ago, Evie had to go to Hazeldon. Since then, she’s changed her mind every six months about what she wants to do: Actress. Landscape architect. Singer. Real estate agent. Novelist. Movie director. Painter. Now she wants to be a journalist. Like Winnie.

Recently, Evie showed up at a very important, very serious party for a journalist who had just written a serious book about a right-wing politician. Evie’s blouse was unbuttoned too low and she was showing off her breasts. (She used to be fairly flat-chested, like Winnie, but a couple of years ago, her breasts mysteriously grew and Winnie thinks she had breasts implants.) Evie walked up to the important journalist and locked him in conversation. The women were fuming, but they couldn’t “take care of” Evie the way they normally would have because she was Winnie’s sister.

The next day, Winnie got a call from a female colleague who said Evie had gone to the important journalist’s hotel room. “Winnie, I just want you to know that I’m not going to judge you by your sister’s behavior,” she said.

Then Evie herself called. “I think I’m going to be get an assignment from The New York Times,” she said.

“Stay the fuck out of my life," Winnie screamed at her. “You’re ruining everything.” Then she added, “Why don’t you get a job at a fashion magazine if you want to be a journalist so much?”

“Oh, no,” Evie said. She swallowed loudly. She was drinking a Diet Coke. She drank eight Diet Cokes a day. (Just another thing to be addicted to, Winnie thought.) Evie always acts as though her behavior is that of a normal, decent person. (She is in denial, James and Winnie think.)

“I’m going to change my life," Evie said. “I’m going to be successful. Respected. Maybe even powerful. Just like my big sis.”

A Treat for James

Evie is a mess. Sometimes James wonders if he should have married her instead.

Every year, James asks her to help him pick out Winnie’s birthday present. At first, he did it “as a treat for Evie.” (It was good for Evie to spend time around a man who wasn’t a user, an asshole or a scumbag—and Winnie agreed.) But then he realized that she was attracted to him.

He calls her up. “Evie,” he says.

"Hey bro," Evie says. “Did you hear I met … ” she says, naming the important journalist. “And I might get my first assignment. With The New York Times. Pretty great, huh?” Evie is always so chipper, James thinks.

“It’s Winnie’s birthday,” James says (staying in control by getting right to the point).

“I know,” she says.

“Any suggestions?” he asks. “I think I want to get her something from Barneys. Jewelry.”

“No, Jimmy,” Evie says. She’s the only person who has ever called him Jimmy. “You can’t afford jewelry worth giving anyone.”

This is why everyone hates you, he thinks. But he says, “So what then?”

“Shoes,” she says, “Winnie needs a great pair of high-heeled sexy shoes. I’ll help you.”

High-heeled sexy shoes are the absolute last thing that Winnie would want. “O.K.,” he says. He agrees to meet Evie in the shoe department at Bloomingdale’s. He hangs up the phone and feels scared. Then he realizes he has a hard-on.

(To be continued…)

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.

Every five minutes during the Jitney ride out to the Hamptons on Memorial Day weekend, Janey Wilcox wanted to stand up and scream, “I’m Janey Wilcox, the model, and I’m spending the weekend with Zack Manners, the English billionaire record producer. So fuck you. All of you.” Just to make herself feel better.

She was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, trying to read The Sheltering Sky. But a thought kept inserting itself into her brain, like a pencil point being pushed into Silly Putty: Zack Manners was not exactly there. He was not, as Janey liked to say, completely in. His invitation had been vague—he had left instructions with his secretary that they should meet at “6-ish” for drinks at the Palm in East Hampton. Janey wasn’t sure if the invitation extended to the whole weekend or just Friday night, and the uncertainty made her more excited about Zack than she had been about any man in a long time.

Janey arrived at the Palm at 6:15 P.M. She expected Zack to be at the bar. He wasn’t. She ordered a margarita. At 6:45 P.M. there was a commotion outside. A green 1956 250 G.T. Boano/Ellena Ferrari pulled into the circular driveway. The car had right-hand drive. Zack got out. He wore old tennis shoes and walked with his hands in his front pockets of his khaki trousers. Janey became very animated, talking to two men next to her. Zack came up behind her and whispered, “Hullo there,” in the ear.

“Oh. Hi,” she said, a little coldly, and looked at her watch. “I should scold you for being late, but the car makes up for it.”

“That sounds promising.”

“It is. If you play your cards right.” He leaned towards her. “Do you have a dark side, Janey? You look like a girl who has a dark side.”

Janey laughed and so did Zack. She flipped her hair over her shoulder. Jack lit a cigarette. Filterless. In the daylight, he was not quite as attractive as she remembered. He had bad English teeth, ranging in color from a sickly yellow to a light gray. His nails were dirty. But there was the car. And the money. And the whole summer. “Let’s take things one step at a time, O.K.?” she said.

“I guess that means you want to see my house before you decide whether or not to fuck me,” Zack said.

“Come on,” Janey said. “I’m interested in you. Everyone says you’re fascinating.”

“Everyone,” Zack said, “is a fool.” And then: “You’re going to love the house.” He stood up and pulled her off the barstool. “I got the house just for you,” he said.

“Of course you did,” Janey said. She believed him, not thinking for a moment that it was unusual for a complete stranger to rent a house in the Hamptons in the hope that she would be with him.

She nodded at the valet, who held open the car door. She slid into the front seat. The car was in perfect condition. She shook out her hair. “It’s beautiful,” she said, feeling generous.

“Ah yes,” Zack said, “I suppose this is where I’m supposed to say, ‘No—you’re beautiful, Janey.’” He looked at her. “You’re a very silly girl. Don’t you know that it’s dangerous to be silly?”

“Maybe I’m not silly,” Janey said. “Maybe it’s just an act.”

“Maybe it’s all just an act,” Zack said. “But then, where does that leave you?”

He turned onto Further Lane. “I told the rental agent I wanted a house on the best road in the best town in the Hamptons. I hope she hasn’t done me wrong, Janey.” He growled a bit on the word “wrong” and Janey thought he was adorable all over again. They turned into a long gravel driveway. “I know the house,” Janey said. “It’s one of my favorites. A friend of mine rented it five years ago. Pool, tennis court.”

“Did you play tennis without your knickers on?”

“Oh, please, Zack.”

“That’s how I imagine you, all in white, without your knickers…”

Those Teeth

The house was fronted by a long green lawn that was always set up for croquet. It was a classic shingled manse, built in 1920’s for a rich family with a pack of kids and servants. Zack pulled up to the front. “Come along, come along my lovely, and we shall see,” he said, jumping out of the car and taking her hand. There was a wide porch and a balcony that ran around the second floor. “A veritable fun house,” he said, turning around. “Now, I expect you to play lot of naughty games.”

“Like what?”

Zack rustled through a paper sack. “Provisions,” he said, holding up a bottle of vodka and a plastic container of tonic water.

Janey laughed nervously.

Zack went to the kitchen and returned with two cocktails. “Chin-chin," he said, holding up his glass.

“Cheers,” Janey said. “To a great summer.”

Zack came up behind her. He put his am around her waist and pressed her to him. “I’ve never heard of anyone so obsessed with summer,” he said. “I spent my summer working in a factory. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t need an excuse," Janey said pulling away.

He shook his finger at her. “You have to answer my questions. That’s one of the rules. I get bored very easily. Right now I’m interested. Do you take coke?”

“Coca-Cola?”

“Cocaine,” Zack said with mock patience. “You’re not very bright, are you? When I first met you, I didn’t think you were, but then I thought perhaps I’d made a mistake.” He sat down on the couch in the front of a coffee table, looked up at her and smiled. “But then, one doesn’t really need intelligence in these situations. Just a sense of adventure.”

“I don’t do cocaine,” Janey said coldly.

“What a shame,” Zack said. “Figured you for a player.” He tapped some cocaine out on the coffee table, rolled up a bill, and snorted it up. He tipped his head back, inhaling deeply, the bill still sticking out of his nostril. He caught her eye. “Stop playing the good little American girl, will you?” he said.

“How do you know I’m not?”

“Oh, come off it,” Zack said. He stood up and walked to her. He touched her hair. “I didn’t invite you here to be my girlfriend,’ he said.

“Then why did you invite me?”

“I didn’t. You invited yourself. Remember?”

“Fuck off,” Janey said softly.

“Come here,” he said. “Sit down. My dear, you’re as transparent as that shirt you’re wearing. Everyone knows what your game is. You’re available. For the summer. Providing the man is rich enough. At least I want to know why.”

“I just want to have a good summer," Janey said, getting angry. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“But you don’t do anything,” Zack said. He snorted some more cocaine.

“I don’t do anything because I don’t want to. I don’t have to.”

“You don’t feel much of anything, do you?”

“No,” she said. She shrugged. “Guys don’t stick around. So why not beat men at their own game? Use them. I’m a feminist, Zack,” she said, which somehow made her feel better.

“Oh, the modern woman speaks,” Zack said. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“You look older,” he said, and laughed. “You use men, but you yourself are totally useless. You think your views are revolutionary, but they’re not. They’re just immature.”

“Yours aren’t?”

“As a matter of fact, they’re not,” Zack said. I’m what you Yanks call a self-made man. Everything I have, I got myself.” He lit a cigarette. “But along the way, I lost my emotions, my ability to feel. From having to fuck people over all the time, to get what you want.’ He smiled. Those teeth. “You and I are really quite alike.

“I have my reasons,” Janey said.

“No doubt you do. But they’re probably very mundane,” he said. Janey reached across the couch and slapped him. He grabbed her wrist. “You’re getting the idea,” he said.

“I’m not mundane,” Jayne hissed.

“Oh, but you are,” he said. He pushed her back against the couch. She didn’t struggle too much. “Degradation,” he said into her face, so she could smell his breath. “That’s all that’s left for people like us. Degradation. It’s the only way we can feel.”

“You’re nuts,” Janey said.

“Come upstairs!” he said. He grabbed her hand. He hopped up the stairs two at a time. He pulled her into the bedroom. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” He pulled off his shirt and pants. Underneath, he was wearing tatty stained briefs that were frayed in the leg holes. He turned around and pulled down his underpants. His bottom was splattered with pimples.

“Hit me, Mum!” he shouted.

“I’m not your mum,” Janey said.

“Hit me, Mum! Please!”

Janey backed toward the window, then onto the balcony. She ran to the edge and jumped onto the roof. She scrambled across that and jumped to the ground. “Owwww,” she screamed.

Harold to the Rescue

She just lay there. The front door banged open. Zack, naked and smoking a cigarette, walked towards her. “Get up, you silly cow. You’re not hurt.”

“Fuck off,” Janey said.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d leave the premises as quickly and expediently as possible,” Zack said. Then he went back in the house and snorted more cocaine.

Janey limped into the house, Zack didn’t look up. She went to the phone and dialed. “Please, please be home,” she said. Then: “Thank God.” She started sobbing into the phone. “It’s me. Something terrible has happened. I was with this English guy and he went crazy.” She gave the address. Then she limped out onto the porch.

Twenty minutes later, a Range Rover came roaring up Further Lane. The driver drove across the lawn, scattering croquet balls, mashing the wickets. Harold got out. "Your ride is here,” he said.

Zack ran out of the house with a towel around his waist. “You really fucked it up.” He said to Janey. “You had a chance. We could have spent the whole summer together. We were falling in love. You blew it.”

“Get away from her,” Harold said.

Zack followed Janey as she limped to the car. “Go back to your little old baldies. Where you feel safe.”

Harold looked at him silently, as if he were considering breaking his jaw. Then he said, “When my lawyer gets finished with you, you won’t be out of court for years.” He helped Janey into the car.

“Yeah, yeah, bugger off,” Zack shouted. “You Yanks. Take all the fun out of everything with your damn lawyers.” He dropped his towel and shook his privates at Harold. “Here’s what I think of your fuckin’ lawyers, mate!” Then he walked back into the house.

Harold backed the car across the lawn. “Jesus Christ, Janey,” he said.

“Harold,” Janey said. She put her hands over her eyes. “I can’t take any lectures right now, O.K.?”

“Who is that creep?”

“Zack Manners,” Janey said. “The English record producer.”

“Goddamn Brits,” Harold said. “Don’t worry. I’ll see to it that he’s persona non grata on the East End. He won’t be able to get a reservation anywhere.”

“You’re wonderful, Harold. You really are," Janey said.

“I know,” Harold said.

“I just wanted to have a good summer,” Janey said, an hour later, lying in a bed in a private room in Southampton Hospital. “Like when I was 16.”

“Shhhh,” said the nurse. “Everyone wants to be 16 again.”

That was the summer when Janey had gone from ugly to beautiful. She’d been the pudgy, funny-faced kid in a family of beauties. Her father was 6 feet 2 inches tall, all American, the town doctor. Her mother was French and perfect. While the rest of the family ate veal with a mushroom cream sauce, Janey’s mother served her half a head of iceberg lettuce. “If you don’t lose weight, you won’t find a man. Then you’ll have to work. There is nothing more unattractive than a woman who works.”

“I want to be a vet,” Janey said.

Every summer spent at the country club was agony. Janey’s mother, thin, tanned, in a Pucci bathing suit, drank iced tea and flirted with the lifeguards. Janey had a fat belly and fat thighs. At 14, when she got her period, her mother said, "Janey, boys like to take advantage of girls who are not pretty because the boys know the girl is desperate."

Then Janey turned 16. She grew four inches. When she walked into the country club, no one recognized her. She wore her mother’s Pucci bathing suits. She stole her lipstick. She smoked. Her mother caught her kissing a boy behind the clubhouse. She slapped Janey across the face. That was when Janey knew she’d won.

About Last Night

The next Saturday, after the scene with Zack, Janey showed up at media beach in Sagaponic with Capote Duncan. Her foot was in a cast, and Capote helped her, limping, across the sand. He settled her on a beach towel, then went to take a swim. Alison came running over. “Is it true?” she asked breathlessly.

“Which part?” Janey asked. She leaned back on her elbows.

“About last night.”

The night before, Janey and Capote had stopped at the club M-80 on their way out to the Hamptons. Zack was there. He walked by Capote and said, "Another sucker born every minute,” and Capote had taken a swing at him.

Since then, Capote had been telling everyone that Zack had been deeply in love with Janey, but she’d left him for Capote, and that’s why Zack was flipping out.

It was a small misperception that Janey had no intention of ever correcting.

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.

Harold had a stucco mansion on Gin Lane in Southampton. There was a long green lawn in front of the house; the back lawn edged down to the beach. There was a sit-down lunch with wine and two courses on both Saturday and Sunday. The grounds could only be entered through a wrought-iron gate with the letters “H" on one side and “V” on the other. Harold had a security man who dressed like a gardener but carried a gun.

At the beginning of what Janey called “the Harold Summer,” she invited Alison (who had a tiny share in a house in Bridgehampton) over for the day. “Don’t you ever worry that one of these guys is going to figure out what you’re up to?” Alison asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Using them. For their summer houses.”

“I’m a feminist,” Janey said. “It’s about the redistribution of wealth.” They were lying on chaises by the pool and Skaaden, Harold’s manservant, kept bringing them glasses of iced tea.

“Where is Harold, anyway?” Alison asked. She had bulging gray eyes—no matter how you made her up, she would never be pretty, Janey thought, but she had been waiting for Alison to ask the question. Alison was a sort of professional best friend to the rich and famous; as soon as she left Harold’s, she’d probably call everybody up and tell them she’d been lunching at Harold Vane’s house, and they were now good friends. Janey expected that after and Harold broke up at the end of the summer, Alison would continue to pursue him as a friend. When she saw him at parties, she’d put her hand on his arm and whisper in his ear to make him laugh.

“Harold’s on the crapper,” Janey said. She had soft, girlish voice, and despite her stunning face and figure, she knew her voice was really her secret weapon; it allowed her to say anything and get away with it. “He spends an hour on the crapper every evening before he goes out; on weekends, an hour in the morning and an hour in the late afternoon. It really cuts into the day. Last weekend, we missed a book party because he wouldn’t get off the can.”

“What does he do in there?”

Janey shrugged. “I don’t know. I keep telling him it’s not good for his intestines.”

“It’s probably the only time he can get away from everything.”

“Oh, no,” Janey said. “He has a phone and a fax in there.” She looked at Alison. “Forget I said that, O.K.?” She could just imagine Alison telling people that Harold Vane spent an hour on the crapper while he took faxes, and it made her feel guilty. After all, Harold had never done or said anything even remotely unpleasant to her, and she was actually a little bit in love with him.

Harry’s Willy

That was the surprising thing about Harold. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to have sex with him at first—but after they’d finally done it, the second Saturday after Memorial Day, she’d wondered why she’d waited. Harold was commanding in bed. He told her what he wanted her to do and how to position herself (later on in the summer he shaved off her pubic hair and told her to sunbathe naked), and he had a huge unmentionable. It was so large that all summer, when other women came up to her to ask her if she was really dating Harold (this seemed to happen most in the ladies’ rooms at the Hamptons restaurants they frequented), Janey would roll up her lipstick and say confidently that his willy was so enormous, the first time she saw it she told him there was no way he was going to put that thing in her. Then she would go back to lipsticking her open mouth. Janey felt she was doing him a favor. When she broke up with him, it would make it easier for him to get other women.

Not that he seemed to have any trouble. Old girlfriends were constantly calling, and Harold was always sending these women little gifts to help them get through their crises—cellular phones and computers and even paying for nursery school for the child of a woman who’d had the kid out of wedlock. On Janey’s first Hampton weekend, he had pulled her by the hand out to his garage. “I want you to have your freedom this summer,” he said. “I can tell that you’re a girl who likes her freedom.”

“You’re right,” Janey said.

“Otherwise, you’d be married by now.” He opened the side door to the garage. He was behind her, and when she was inside he jerked her around and fastened his lips on her and stuck his tongue in her mouth. It took Janey by surprise, and she sort of remembered flailing her arms around like a live insect impaled by a pin. But the kiss wasn’t bad.

“Just a little something to get your motor running,” he said. Then he pushed past her and turned on the light. “Pick the car you want to drive this summer,” he said. There was a Range Rover and two Mercedeses, one a 500 coupe and the other an SL convertible. “There’s only one rule. You can’t change your mind in the middle of the summer. I don’t want you coming to me and saying, ‘I want to drive the Rover’ when you’ve already chosen the Benz.”

“What if I don’t like any of them?” Janey asked. “What if I want a Maserati?”
“I don’t want you to get too spoiled,” Harold said. “You’ll end up hating me because no other guy is ever going to treat you as nice.”

“That’s probably true,” she said, touching him on the nose with hr index finger.

“Why don’t you marry him?” Alison kept hissing all summer.

“I couldn’t,” Janey said. “I couldn’t marry a man unless I was totally in love with him.”

“I could be in love with him in two seconds,” Alison said.

"Yes, you probably could,” Janey said, not bothering to add that Alison wasn’t anywhere near attractive enough to interest a man like Harold.

Harold took Janey a little bit seriously. “Be smart,” he said. “Do something with your life. Let me help you.”

Janey said she’d always wanted to do something important, like be a journalist or write a novel. So one Sunday, Harold invited a lady editor in chief to brunch. Harold always served cappuccino in oversize cups, and Janey remembered the lady editor, who was wearing a blue and white jacket in a swirly design, balance the large cup on her thigh while they were sitting outside.

“Janey wants to be a writer,” Harold said.

“Oh my,” said the lady editor. She raised the cup to her lips. “Why is it that pretty girls always want to do something else.”

“Come on, Maeve,” Harold roared. “You used to be pretty yourself. Before you got smart.”

Maeve said, “What is it you want to do dear?”
“I want your job,” Janey said, in that soft voice that gave no offense.

When Janey and Harold broke up at the end of September, she actually cried on the street afterward. The breakup took place in his Park Avenue apartment; they had arranged to meet there for a drink before going out to dinner. Harold was in the library. He was sipping a Scotch, staring up at his prized Renoir. “Hello, crazy kid,” he said. He led her to a red silk couch. “Something’s come up. I won’t be able to make it to dinner tonight.”

“I see,” Janey said.

“It’s not you,” said Harold. “It’s me. I don’t want to get married.”

“Please,” Janey said. She stood up. “I was going to break up with you tonight, anyway. Isn’t that funny?”

It was chilly, and she’d worn a lightweight blue silk coat. As Harold escorted her to the door, she saw Skaaden standing in the hallway with her coat over his arm. Harold had not only planned the breakup, but discussed it with Skaaden beforehand. As he helped her into her coat, she imagined what Harold would have told him: “The young lady will be arriving for drinks, but leaving shortly. She may be upset so be sure to have her coat ready.”

She made it as far as the corner, then she leaned over a garbage can and started crying. She had a dialogue with herself: “Come on," said one voice. “This has happened a million times before. You should be used to it.”

“But it still hurts,” said the other voice.

“Only a little. Harold was short and ugly and you never would have married him, anyway. Besides, he spent an hour a day on the crapper.”

“I loved him”

“Did not. You’re only upset because he was going to take you to Bouley for dinner and you wanted the foie gras.”

A cab stopped in front of Harold's building and a lanky blonde girl got out. She was clutching a cheap leather bag. "My replacement," Janey thought. The cab's yellow light came on. Janey stuck out her hand and hailed it.

Two weeks later, Harold messengered an envelope to her apartment. Inside was a note: "If you ever need anything, call," attached to a $5,000 gift certificate at Chanel.

‘A Little Crazy’

The following summer, driving on the back roads in his Porsche, after one of their horrendous fights, Peter would say, "I’m a little crazy, Janey,” like he was proud of it. “Do you think I should go to a shrink?”
“I think it would be totally useless,” Janey would say, and he’d laugh, taking it as a compliment, so by the time they arrived at the party, he’d have his hand on her leg. Then they’d walk, arms around each other, up somebody’s lawn or gravel pathway, laughing, smiling over their shoulders a the other guests. All the P.R. people knew them, so they wouldn’t even have to give their names. The weather was always green and warm.

Sometimes they bumped into Harold. One Monday, Harold called.

“I’m worried about you, Janey,” he said. “You shouldn’t be with a guy like Peter.

“Why not?” she said.

“He’s a creep.”

“Oh, Harold. You think every other guy is a creep.”

“Janey, I want to give you some advice. Maybe it’s not my place, but I’m going to. Stop this running around and get married. You’re not the kind of girl who’s going to do something with her life, so marry a man you love and have his children.”

“But I will do something, Harold.”

‘Weird Euro Sex’

Pravda again. Janey sat by herself, sipping a martini at the bar. The bartender was young. He said, “I remember you in that movie. I’m embarrassed about this, but I used to jerk off to your picture."

“Good,” Janey said. “Then I don’t need to give you a tip.”

She willing Zack Manners, the big British producer, to show up. She’d found she had this uncanny knack: If she willed something hard enough, it would happen. Instead Capote Duncan, the Southern novelist, came in. He walked all around the room to see who else was there. Then he came over.

“Where’s Zack?” she asked.

“How the hell should I know?”

“I’m hoping he’ll show up,” Janey said.

“Forget about Zack,” Capote said. “I’m the best you’re going to do tonight. Zack’s a weirdo. Really a weirdo. I’ve spent time with him in London. I know girls who have slept with him. You don’t want to get involved in that shit. It’s that weird Euro sex shit. It’s gross. It’s not American.”

Then Zack did turn up. He was with some other people. “Come to the table,” he mouthed.

Janey went over and wedged a chair in next to Zack. “You again,” he said. “You look like one of those girls who’s everywhere. Are you a socialite?"

Janey smiled and sipped her drink. She knew she didn’t have to say anything. Eventually, her looks would begin to affect him. She turned away, to the man on her other side. He was a little, eager English fellow.

“Are you going to the Hamptons, too, this summer?” she asked.

“No, but I’m fascinated by it. We don’t have anything like it in England. It sounds marvelous. All those movie starts fighting the traffic.”

“I go every summer,” Janey said. “It’s wonderful.”

Zack leaned over. “What is it with you and this good summer business?” he asked. “Are you mentally impaired in some way that I should know about?”

“Probably,” Janey said. She put down her drink. “I have to go,” she said. “Call me.”

“I don’t call girls. I ‘get in touch,'” said Zack,

“Then I’ll look forward to your ‘getting in touch,’” Janey said.

Two days later, Zack messengered an envelope to her apartment. Written on an engraved card was a brief missive: “Janey, would you like to meet for a drink? Ring my secretary, who will give you time and place. Regards, Zack.”

Burnt Toast

Janey wanted this summer—in her head she’d already started calling it her “Zack Summer,” though she usually caught herself from saying it out loud—to be better than the summer with Harold—and much better than the summer with Peter. That summer was only half over when she’d developed an alarming hatred for Peter. At the beach, he either talked on his cellular phone to clients or was criticizing other women’s bodies. His pet peeve was women over 40 who’d had kids. “Look at her,” he’d say. “Look at the belly. Why doesn’t she get off the beach?”

“Oh, Peter,” she’d say.

“Oh Peter what? It’s in a man’s nature to be attracted to beautiful young girls. It’s instinctual. A man wants to sleep with as many young women as possible. It’s all about reproduction.”
Sex with Peter remained lousy. He didn’t want to be touched, and could barely bring himself to touch her. They’d had sex once in three weeks. “Do you think maybe you’re gay?” Janey asked. She’d developed a habit of baiting him. “I’m going to find some young guy to have sex with. Men over 40 really can’t perform, you know.” Then they’d get into a screaming argument in his house. One morning, Janey burned some toast, and he stormed into the kitchen and fished the burnt toast out of the garbage, scraped it off and tried to make Janey eat it. She fed it to Choo Choo instead, who promptly threw up. Janey had fantasies of killing Peter, and wondered whether, if she accidentally threw his cellular phone recharger into the pool, he’d be electrocuted.

They’d make up because they always had parties to go to.

To be continued…

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.

Janey Wilcox spent every summer for the last 10 years in the Hamptons, and she'd never once rented a house or paid for anything, save for the occasional Jitney ticket.

In the early 80's, Janey was enough of a model to become a sort of lukewarm celebrity, and the lukewarm celebrity got her a part ("thinking man's sex symbol") in one of those action movies. She never acted again, but her lukewarm celebrity was established and she figured out pretty quickly that it could get her things.

Every spring, Janey went through the process of choosing a house for the summer. Or rather, choosing a man with a house for the summer. Janey had no money, but she'd found that was irrelevant as long as she had rich friends and could get rich men. The secret to getting rich men, which so many women never figured out, was that getting them was easy, as long as you didn't have any illusions about marrying them. There was no rich man in New York who would turn down regular blow jobs and entertaining company with no strings attached. Not that you'd want to marry any of these guys, anyway. Every rich guy she'd been with had turned out to be a freak or a pervert, so by the time Labor Day came around, she was relieved to be able to end the relationship.

In exchange, Janey got a great house and, usually, use of the man's car. She liked sports cars best, but if they were too sporty, like a Ferrari or a Porsche, that wasn't so good because the man usually had a fixation with his car and wouldn't let anyone drive it, especially a woman. The guy she had been with two summers ago, Peter, was like that.

Peter had a blond crew cut and he was a famous entertainment lawyer, but he had a body that could rival an underwear model's. They were fixed up on a blind date, even though they'd met more than a dozen times at parties over the years. He asked her to meet him at his town house in the West Village, because he was too busy during the day to decide what restaurant he wanted to go to. After she rang the buzzer, he left her waiting on the street for 15 minutes. She didn't mind, because the friend who fixed them up, a socialite type who had gone to college with Peter, kept emphasizing what a great old house he had on Parsonage Lane in Sagaponack.

After dinner, they went back to his town house, ostensibly because he had to walk his dog, Choo Choo. She spotted a photograph of him in his bathing suit on the beach tacked to the refrigerator door. He had stomach muscles that looked like the underside of a turtle. She decided to have sex with him that night.

This was the Wednesday before Memorial Day, and the next morning, while he was noisily making cappuccino, he asked her if she wanted to come out to his house for the weekend. She had known he was going to ask her, even though the sex was among the worst she'd had (some awkward kissing, then he sat on the edge of the bed, put on a condom and stuck it in), but she was grateful that he had asked her so quickly.

"You're a smart girl, you know," he said, pouring cappuccino into two enameled cups. He was wearing white French boxer shorts with buttons in the front.

"I know," she said.

"I mean, having sex with me last night."
"Much better to get it out of the way."

"Women don't understand that guys like me don't have time to chase them." He drank off the foamy coffee, then carefully washed out his cup. "It's a fucking bore. You should do all of your friends a favor and tell them to quit playing those stupid girl games. If a girl doesn't put out by the second or third date, you know what I do?"

"No."

He pointed his finger at her. "I never call her again. Fuck her."

"No. That's exactly what you don't do. Fuck her," Janey said.

He laughed. He came up to her and cupped one of her breasts.

"Maybe we'll spend the summer together. Know what I mean?" he said. He was squeezing her breast.

"Ouch," Janey said.

"Implants?" he said. "I like'em. I'll call you."

When he hadn't called by Friday, she began to have doubts. Maybe he was totally full of shit. She called up Blaire, the sort-of socialite who had fixed them up. "I'm so glad you guys hit it off," Blaire said.

"But he hasn't called. It's 12:30," Janey said.

"He'll call. He's just a little strange."

'Put a Lid on It

At 1:30, Janey called Peter's office. He was in a meeting. She called twice more, and at 2:30, his secretary said he'd left for the day. She called the town house. His machine kept picking up. Finally, he called her at 3:30. "Little anxious?" he asked. "You called 11 times. According to my caller ID."

They drove out to the Hamptons in his new Porsche Turbo. Choo Choo, a bichon frisé with blue bows in his topknot, had to sit on her lap, and kept trying to lick her face. All the way out, Peter kept making his hand into a gun shape, pretending to shoot at the other motorists. He called everyone "a fucking Polack." Janey tried to pretend she thought it was funny.

The stopped for gas at the Hess station in Southampton. That was a good sign. Janey always loved that gas station with the attendants in their white and green uniforms. There was a line of cars for gas. Peter got out of the car and went to the bathroom, leaving the engine running. After a few minutes, the people behind her started honking. She slid into the driver's seat, just as Peter came running out of the bathroom, waving his arms and screaming, "You fucking Polack, don't touch my car."

"Huh?" she said, looking around in confusion.

He yanked open the car door. "Nobody drives my fucking car but me. Got that? Nobody touches my car. It's my fucking car."
Janey slid out of the car. She was wearing high-heeled sandals (making her an inch taller than he was) and tight jeans, and her long brown hair hung straight over a man's white button down shirt. She lifted her sunglasses, aware that everyone around them was now staring, surely recognizing her as Janey Wilcox, the model, and probably beginning to recognize Peter as well. "Listen Buster," she said into his face. "Put a lid on it. Unless you want to see this little incident in the papers on Monday morning."

"Hey, where are you going?" he asked.

"Where do you think?" she said.

When she got back into the car, Peter said "Sorry about that," and rubbed her leg. "I've got a bad temper. I explode. Can't help it. You should know that about me. It's probably because my mother beat me when I was a kid."

"Don't worry about it," Janey said. She adjusted her sunglasses.

Peter roared out of the gas station. "You are so hot, baby. You should have seen all those other men looking at you."

"Men always look at me," Janey said.

"This is going to be a great summer," Peter said.

Peter's house was everything Blaire had promised. A converted farmhouse on 10 acres of pastureland, six bedrooms, decorator-perfect. As soon as they arrived, Peter got on his cellular phone and started screaming at the gardener about his apple trees. Janey ignored him. She took off her clothes, and walked naked out to the pool. She knew he was watching her through the sliding glass doors. When she got out of the water, he stuck his head out. "Hey, baby, is the heat turned on in the pool? If it isn't, I'll call the guy and scream at him."

"It's on," she said. "I think we should figure out what parties we want to go to this weekend." She took out her own cellular phone and, still naked, settled into a cushiony deck chair and started dialing.

Pravda Nights

In early May of this year, Janey went to Pravda three times on one week. The first night was a party for the artist Damien Hirst—the dead cow guy. She stood in the middle of the room with one hip pushed out, letting photographers take her picture. Joel Webb, the art collector, was there. Janey thought he was cute, even though everyone said he'd had a nose job and cheek implants and wore lifts in his shoes.

But that wasn't the problem—the problem was his house. It wasn't exactly a house yet. For the past three years, he'd been building a big house in East Hampton; in the meantime, he'd been renting what Janey considered a shack—a rundown three-bedroom cottage. "I need a girlfriend. Fix me up with one of your gorgeous friends," he said.

"How's your house coming?" Janey said.

"The contractors promised it would be done by the Fourth of July. Come on," he said, "I know you can think of someone to fix me up with."

"I thought you had a girlfriend," Janey said.

"Only by default. We break up during the year but by the time summer comes, I take her back."

Two nights later, Janey showed up at Pravda with Eddie Winters, whom everyone was calling the hottest comic actor in Hollywood. She'd met him years ago, when she was doing her movie—he was a nobody then and had a tiny part playing a lovesick busboy. They sort of became friends and sort of stayed in touch, talking on the phone about once a year, but Janey now told everyone he was a great friend of hers. Her booker at her modeling agency had told her Eddie was coming into New York on the sly, so Janey called his publicist, and Eddie called her right back. He'd just broken up with his girlfriend and was probably lonely. "Janey, Janey," he said. "I want to tear up the town."

"As long as we don't have to patch it back together when you're done," she said.

"God, I've missed you, Janey," he said.

He picked her up in the Rolls-Royce limousine. His hair had been dyed red for his last movie role and was growing out with black roots. "Whatcha doin' now kid?" he asked. "Still acting?"

Inside the club, Eddie drank three martinis in a row. Janey sat close to him and whispered in his ear and giggled a lot. She actually had no interest in Eddie, who in person was the kind of geeky guy who would work at a video store, which was exactly what he used to do before he became famous. But nobody else had to know that. It raised her status enormously to be seen with Eddie, especially if it looked like they could potentially be an item.

Eddie was drunk, sticking the plastic swords from his martinis into his frizzy hair. "What do you want out of life, Janey?"
"I want to have a good summer."

She got up to go to the bathroom. She passed Capote Duncan, the bad-boy Southern writer. "Janey," he said. "I'm so gla-yad to see yew."

"Really? You were never glad to see me before."

"I'm always glad to see you. You're one of my good friends," Capote said. There was another man at the table. Tanned. Slim. Too handsome. Just the way Janey liked them. "See, I always said Janey was a smart model," Capote said to the man.

He smiled. "Smart and a model. What could be better?"

"Dumb and a model. The way most men like them," Janey said. She smiled back, aware of the whiteness of her teeth.

"Zack Manners, meet Janey Wilcox." Capote said. "Zack just arrived from England. He's looking for a house in the Hamptons. Maybe you can help him find one."

"Only if I get to live in it," Janey said.

"Interesting proposition," Zack said.

Janey went upstairs to the bathroom. Her heart was beating. Zack Manners was the huge English record producer. She stood in line for the bathroom. Capote Duncan came up behind her. "I want him," Janey said.

"Who? Zack?" He laughed. "You and a million other women."

"I don't care," Janey said. "I want him. And he's looking for a house in the Hamptons."

"Well … you … can't … have … him," Capote said.

"Why not?" Janey stamped her foot.

Capote put his arms around her like he was going to kiss her. He could do things like that. "Ditch that geek you're with and come home with me. I don't care if he's famous. He's a geek."

"Well, being with a geek like that makes men like you more interested in me."

"Come on."

"I want to have a good summer," Janey said. "With Zack."

Janey and Eddie left half an hour later, after Eddie spilled two martinis. On their way out they passed Capote's table. Janey slipped her hand into the back pocket of Eddie's jeans. She looked over her shoulder at Zack.

"Call me later," Capote said loudly.

To be continued…

Candace Bushnell began Sex and the City as a column in The New York Observer in 1994; it subsequently became a book and a series on HBO. She is also the author of Four Blondes, Trading Up and Lipstick Jungle, which is being filmed as a pilot for NBC starring Brooke Shields. Ms. Bushnell is also the host of Sex, Success and Sensibility, a live weekly talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, New York City Ballet principal dancer Charles Askegard.