Carrie Diaries

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE The Assumption of X

“Carrie?” Missy asks.

“Wake up!” Dorrit shouts in my ear.

I moan as visions of twisting pelvises swirl through my head.

“Carrie? Are you alive?”

“Mng.” I gulp.

“Uh-oh,” Dorrit says as I throw back the covers.

“Get away.” I leap out of bed, run to the bathroom, and get sick.

When I look up, Missy and Dorrit are there. Dorrit’s lips are curled into an evil, triumphant smile, like the Grinch who thinks he’s stolen Christmas.

“Does Dad know?” I ask.

“That you got home at three a.m.? I don’t think so,” Missy whispers.

“Don’t tell him,” I say warningly, glaring at Dorrit.

“Sebastian’s downstairs,” she says sweetly.

Huh?

He’s seated at the dining room table across from my father. “If you assume that X equals minus-Y to the tenth degree,” my father says, scribbling an equation on the back of an envelope, “then it’s obvious that Z becomes a random integer.” He pushes the envelope toward Sebastian, who glances at it politely.

“Hello,” I say, with a little wave.

“Morning,” my father says. His manner indicates he’s considering questioning me about my ragged appearance, but apparently his equation is more interesting. “You see, Sebastian?” He continues tapping his pencil on the X. “The danger here is in the assumption of X...”

I skittle by and hurry into the kitchen, where I dig around for an old jar of instant coffee, dump half of it into a mug, and wait for the water to boil. The phrase “a watched pot never boils” comes into my head. But that isn’t true. With the application of proper heat, the water will boil eventually, whether someone is watching or not. Which somehow seems very relevant to this situation. Or maybe it’s just that my brain feels like its boiling.

I take my mug into the dining room and sit down. My father has moved on from calculus to grilling Sebastian about his future. “Where did you say you were going to college?” he asks in an uptight voice — a tip-off that Sebastian has failed to impress him with his knowledge of assumptive integers.

“I didn’t.” Sebastian smiles and pats my leg possessively, which is sure to make my father insane. I squeeze his hand to make him stop. “I thought I’d take a year off,” Sebastian says. “Travel the world. Check out the Himalayas — that kind of thing.”

My father looks skeptical as I take a sip of my coffee. It’s still too hot and has the consistency of sludge.

“I’m not ready to get boxed in,” Sebastian continues, as if this explains his lack of ambition.

“You must have some money, then.”

“Dad!” I exclaim.

“Actually, I do. My grandmother died and left me and my sister her estate.”

“Aha.” My father nods. “I get it. You’re a very lucky young man. I’ll bet if you’re ever in trouble, you always manage to get out of it.”

“I don’t know about that, sir,” Sebastian says politely. “But I am lucky.” He looks at me and puts his hand over mine. “I’ve been lucky enough to meet your daughter, anyway.”

I suppose this should thrill me, but it only makes me want to puke again. What new game is he playing now?

My father gives me a look, as if he can’t believe this guy, but I can only manage a sickly smile.

“So anyway,” Sebastian says, clapping his hands together. “I was wondering if you wanted to go ice skating.”

Ice skating?

“Hurry up and finish your coffee.” He stands and shakes my father’s hand. “Nice to see you, Mr. Bradshaw.”

“Nice to see you,” my father says. I can tell he doesn’t know what to make of him, because then he pats Sebastian on the shoulder.

Men are so weird.

Am I supposed to start this conversation or is he? Or are we going to pretend nothing happened last night?

“How’s Donna LaDonna? Do you think you can get her to give me my clothes back?”

The suddenness of my attack startles him. His skate slides out beneath him and for a moment, he flails. “Ha. You’re one to talk.”

He steadies himself and we glide along silently, while I mull this over.

It’s my fault?

What did I do? I pull my cap down over my ears as a boy on hockey skates hurtles toward us, laughing over his shoulder at his friends, completely unaware of the dozens of other people skating on the pond. Sebastian grabs the kid’s shoulders as we’re about to collide and pushes him off in the other direction. “Watch it!” he says.

“You watch it!” the kid growls.

I skate away to the side, where several sawhorses have been set up around a patch of dangerous ice. Black water laps at the edges of a ragged hole.

“You were the one who disappeared last night,” Sebastian points out, a note of smug triumph in his voice.

I give him a half-dirty, half-astonished look.

“I was looking for you everywhere. And then Lali told me you’d left. Really, Carrie,” he says, shaking his head. “That was rude.”

“And it wasn’t rude of you to dance with Donna LaDonna?”

“It was a dance. That’s what people do at a dance. They dance.” He takes a pack of cigarettes from inside his leather jacket.

“No kidding. But they don’t dance with their girlfriend’s worst enemy. Who also stole her clothes!”

“Carrie,” he says patiently. “Donna LaDonna did not steal your clothes.”

“Then who did?”

“Lali.”

“What?”

“I had a long talk with Lali after you left.” He holds a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger as he lights up. “She meant it as a joke.”

I suddenly feel queasy. Or queasier, as the cold air has done little to alleviate my hangover.

“Don’t be mad. She was afraid to tell you because you made such a big deal out of it. I told her I would tell you and she asked me not to because she didn’t want you to be angry.” He pauses, smokes some more, and flicks the cigarette butt into the patch of dark water, where it sizzles like a defective firecracker before floating gently under the ice. “We both know how sensitive you are.”

“So now I’m sensitive?”

“Come on. I mean, with what happened to your mother...”

“Has Lali been talking to you about my mother, too?”

“No,” he says defensively. “I mean, maybe she mentioned it a couple of times. But what’s the big deal? Everybody knows...”

I think I’m going to be sick again.

Don’t bring my mother into this. Not today. I can’t handle it. Without speaking, I pick up a splinter of wood and toss it into the watery hole.

“Are you crying?” he asks, half smirking and half sympathetic.

“Of course not.”

“You are.” He sounds almost gleeful. “You act all cool on the outside, like nothing bothers you, but inside you really care. You’re a romantic. You want someone to love you.”

Doesn’t everyone? I’m about to speak, but something about his expression stops me. There’s a flicker of hostility mixed with a searching compassion. Is he offering me love, or throwing it back in my face?

I falter, thinking I’ll always remember how he looked at that moment because I can’t fathom his intent. “Why?” I ask. “Why would Lali take my clothes?”

“Because she thought you were being a pain in the ass.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. She said you two are always playing practical jokes on each other. She said you gave her Ex-Lax gum before a meet.”

“We were twelve.”

“So?”

“So...”

“Are you going to break up with me now?” he asks suddenly.

“Oh, God.” I pull my knit cap over my face. That’s why he was at my house this morning. That’s why he took me ice skating. He wants to break up with me but he’s afraid to do it, so he wants me to break up with him. It’s why he was dancing with Donna LaDonna last night, too. He’s going to behave as badly as possible until I have no other choice.

Not that I haven’t been considering it for the past twelve hours.

While I was dancing with Walt and Randy at the club in Provincetown, the idea of “dumping the bastard” was like rocket fuel, shooting me into a stratosphere of uncaring bliss. I danced harder and harder, pounding out my aggressions, wondering why I needed Sebastian when I could have this — this carnival of sweaty bodies that flicker and flash like fireflies — this is fun.

“Fuck Sebastian,” I’d screamed, waving my arms over my head like a crazed worshiper at a revival meeting.

Randy, strutting beside me, replied, “Honey, it all happens for a reason.”

But now I’m not so sure. Do I really want to break up with him? I’ll miss him. And surely I’ll be bored without him. How can you change your feelings in a day?

And maybe — just maybe — Sebastian is the one who’s terrified. Maybe he’s scared of disappointing a girl, of not being good enough, so he pushes her away before she can find out that he’s not this incredible, special guy that he pretends to be. When he said I was cool on the outside but wanted love on the inside — maybe that wasn’t about me. Maybe he was secretly referring to himself.

“I don’t know. Do I have to decide right now?” I peel my hat back, looking up at him.

And this, apparently, is the right thing to say, because he looks at me and laughs. “You’re crazy.”

“So are you.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to break up with me?”

“Only because you’re so sure I want to. I’m not that easy, you know?”

“Oh, I know.” He takes my hand as we skate across the pond.

“I want to do it, but I can’t,” I whisper.

“Why not?”

We’re in his room. “Are you scared?” he asks.

“A little.” I roll onto my elbow. “I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t always hurt. Some girls really love it the first time they do it.”

“Yeah. Like Maggie.”

“See? All your friends are doing it. Don’t you feel stupid being the only one who isn’t?”

No. “Yes.”

“Then why can’t you do it with me?”

“Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“Of course it does,” he says, sitting up and pulling on his socks. “Otherwise you would do it.”

“But I haven’t done it with anyone.” I crawl after him and put my arms around his shoulders. “Please don’t be mad at me. I just can’t do it…today. I’ll do it another day, I promise.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“But this time I mean it.”

“Okay,” he says warningly. “But you can’t expect me to wait much longer.”

He pulls on his jeans and I flop back onto the bed, giggling.

“What’s so funny?” he demands.

I can barely get the words out. “You could always watch a porn video instead. Jugs!”

“How do you know about that?” he asks in a fury.

I cover my face with his pillow. “Haven’t you figured it out? I know everything.”