Read Online I Can't Complain by Elinor Lipman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elinor Lipman
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glittering, kindhearted New York, “the magic isle of opportunity—not ironically but with the old Gershwin spirit,” as Pauline Kael once wrote of
Saturday Night Fever.
A few hours and many over-the-top outfits from now, we will know. Yet something nags, suggested by the chilling line Big delivered last week to the Charlotte-Miranda-Samantha jury: “You’re the loves of her life. A guy’s lucky to come in fourth.”
I will be watching alone, nervously. Although my friends proposed gathering to experience the finale together, drink wine, and say goodbye, I want no distractions, no chatter, no knitting. I need my privacy. My husband, who not only hates the show but heckles it, is barred, unless he takes a vow of silence.
“Do your friends actually talk like that?” he asks.
No, they do not. Nor do they dress or party or sleep around in the manner of my best television friends. But therein lies the draw—the ticket to a distant land, the utterly unabashed, unapologetic girly-girlness of Carrie and Co., gorgeously overdressed for every occasion, in a paper-moon world sans parents or inhibitions or comfortable shoes.
I wasn’t always a
Sex and the City
watcher. I missed the first season entirely, then chanced upon a few episodes in subsequent years. What finally reeled me in was narcissism. My own. The Corner Bookstore in New York, in what I now think of as Charlotte’s neighborhood, had invited me to do a book signing. A crowd blocked my entry. The draw was not me, but
Sex and the City,
a crew filming in front of the store, whose windows were filled with piles of my hardcovers and nothing else.
Had I lucked into accidental product placement? Could the show’s famously acquisitive consumers/fans do for
The Dearly Departed
what Carrie had done for Manolo Blahniks? It wasn’t to be. I tuned in thereafter, religiously, hoping for a glimpse of my wares. Self-promotion, fruitless in the end, introduced me to four new friends.
It was the season of Charlotte’s first wedding, the engagement of Carrie to a hunky cabinetmaker, and the return of a married man named Big. I was ignorant of where he came from or why he’d left. To fill in the gaps, I rented. Here was the Chrysler Building from day one. Here was Carrie talking directly to the camera, not with her trademark voiceovers, but something else, something alien and since dropped, a direct address of the audience. Here was Charlotte unattached, Miranda a few shades less redheaded. And here was a slightly gentler Samantha before naughty words screeched at high volume substituted for punch lines.
When the marathon ended, I acknowledged what I felt: membership in the sorority. I was no longer a fly on the wall, but the virtual fifth girlfriend at the luncheonette. DVD immersion had washed me onto their shore. I forgave their excesses, the painful leads to Carrie’s columns, the rash weddings, and the rasher separations.
I still wince at many lines, and I don’t love these women equally. Where is the overlap, the reason for my devotion? I share no niche with anyone on the show, not age, not marital status, not zip code or dress code. I’ve never worn a ball gown to a Chinese restaurant, never aspired to mile-high feathered mules; never even left my house wearing a black bra under a white shirt. Yet I put my knitting down when Carrie exits her brownstone in tulle and satin, or tangled in a crazy combination of inner- and outerwear. I lean in, take note, and wish for a replay. It is fashion as spectator sport, post–Title IX, full circle back to caricature couture, perhaps applicable on a small scale to my world—a white glove, a strap, a string of pearls.
Tonight I will watch
Sex and the City: A Farewell,
the pregame special, onward till 9:40 and then no more. Fortunately, I’ve discovered within me a high tolerance for
Sex and the City
reruns. On reexamination, I hear throwaway lines and nuances that I missed, or see that Charlotte’s dress and sunglasses are
Saturday Night Fever.
A few hours and many over-the-top outfits from now, we will know. Yet something nags, suggested by the chilling line Big delivered last week to the Charlotte-Miranda-Samantha jury: “You’re the loves of her life. A guy’s lucky to come in fourth.”
I will be watching alone, nervously. Although my friends proposed gathering to experience the finale together, drink wine, and say goodbye, I want no distractions, no chatter, no knitting. I need my privacy. My husband, who not only hates the show but heckles it, is barred, unless he takes a vow of silence.
“Do your friends actually talk like that?” he asks.
No, they do not. Nor do they dress or party or sleep around in the manner of my best television friends. But therein lies the draw—the ticket to a distant land, the utterly unabashed, unapologetic girly-girlness of Carrie and Co., gorgeously overdressed for every occasion, in a paper-moon world sans parents or inhibitions or comfortable shoes.
I wasn’t always a
Sex and the City
watcher. I missed the first season entirely, then chanced upon a few episodes in subsequent years. What finally reeled me in was narcissism. My own. The Corner Bookstore in New York, in what I now think of as Charlotte’s neighborhood, had invited me to do a book signing. A crowd blocked my entry. The draw was not me, but
Sex and the City,
a crew filming in front of the store, whose windows were filled with piles of my hardcovers and nothing else.
Had I lucked into accidental product placement? Could the show’s famously acquisitive consumers/fans do for
The Dearly Departed
what Carrie had done for Manolo Blahniks? It wasn’t to be. I tuned in thereafter, religiously, hoping for a glimpse of my wares. Self-promotion, fruitless in the end, introduced me to four new friends.
It was the season of Charlotte’s first wedding, the engagement of Carrie to a hunky cabinetmaker, and the return of a married man named Big. I was ignorant of where he came from or why he’d left. To fill in the gaps, I rented. Here was the Chrysler Building from day one. Here was Carrie talking directly to the camera, not with her trademark voiceovers, but something else, something alien and since dropped, a direct address of the audience. Here was Charlotte unattached, Miranda a few shades less redheaded. And here was a slightly gentler Samantha before naughty words screeched at high volume substituted for punch lines.
When the marathon ended, I acknowledged what I felt: membership in the sorority. I was no longer a fly on the wall, but the virtual fifth girlfriend at the luncheonette. DVD immersion had washed me onto their shore. I forgave their excesses, the painful leads to Carrie’s columns, the rash weddings, and the rasher separations.
I still wince at many lines, and I don’t love these women equally. Where is the overlap, the reason for my devotion? I share no niche with anyone on the show, not age, not marital status, not zip code or dress code. I’ve never worn a ball gown to a Chinese restaurant, never aspired to mile-high feathered mules; never even left my house wearing a black bra under a white shirt. Yet I put my knitting down when Carrie exits her brownstone in tulle and satin, or tangled in a crazy combination of inner- and outerwear. I lean in, take note, and wish for a replay. It is fashion as spectator sport, post–Title IX, full circle back to caricature couture, perhaps applicable on a small scale to my world—a white glove, a strap, a string of pearls.
Tonight I will watch
Sex and the City: A Farewell,
the pregame special, onward till 9:40 and then no more. Fortunately, I’ve discovered within me a high tolerance for
Sex and the City
reruns. On reexamination, I hear throwaway lines and nuances that I missed, or see that Charlotte’s dress and sunglasses are
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