Free Summer and the City by Candace Bushnell

last thing I needed was to annoy her or her cramps.
    Now, following L’il’s neat head up the stairs to class, I’m racked with guilt. I need to start writing. I have to get serious.
    I only have fifty-six days left.
    I run after L’il and tap her on the shoulder. “Did Bernard call?”
    She shakes her head and gives me a pitying look.
    Today we’re treated to the pleasure of Capote Duncan’s work. It’s the last thing I need, considering my condition. I rest my head in my hand, wondering how I’m going to get through this class.
    “‘She held the razor between her fingers. A piece of glass. A piece of ice. A savior. The sun was a moon. The ice became snow as she slipped away, a pilgrim lost in a blizzard.’” Capote adjusts his glasses and smiles, pleased with himself.
    “Thank you, Capote,” Viktor Greene says. He’s slumped in a chair in the back of the room.
    “You’re welcome,” Capote says, as if he’s just done us an enormous favor. I study him closely in an attempt to discover what L’il and, supposedly, hundreds of other women in New York, including models, see in him. He does have surprisingly masculine hands, the kind of hands that look like they’d know how to sail a boat or hammer a nail or pull you up from the edge of a steep rock face. Too bad he doesn’t have the personality to match.
    “Any comments on Capote’s story?” Viktor asks. I turn around to give Capote a dirty look. Yes, I want to say. I have a response. It sucked. I actually feel like I might puke. There’s nothing I hate more than some cheesy romantic story about a perfect girl who every guy is in love with and then she kills herself. Because she’s so tragic. When in reality, she’s just crazy. But, of course, the guy can’t see that. All he can see is her beauty. And her sadness.
    Guys can be so stupid.
    “Who is this girl again?” Ryan asks, with a touch of skepticism that tells me I’m not alone in my thinking.
    Capote stiffens. “My sister. I thought that was pretty apparent from the beginning.”
    “I guess I missed it,” Ryan says. “I mean, the way you write about her—she doesn’t sound like your sister. She sounds like some girl you’re in love with.” Ryan’s being pretty hard on Capote, especially since they’re supposed to be friends. But that’s what it’s like in this class. When you enter the room, you’re a writer first.
    “It does sound a little . . . incestuous,” I add.
    Capote looks at me. It’s the first time he’s acknowledged my presence, but only because he has to. “That’s the point of the story. And if you didn’t get the point, I can’t help you.”
    I press on. “But is it really you ?”
    “It’s fiction,” he snaps. “Of course it’s not really me.”
    “So if it’s not really you or your sister, I guess we can criticize her after all,” Ryan says as the rest of the class titters. “I wouldn’t want to say something negative about a member of your family.”
    “A writer has to be able to look at everything in their life with a critical eye,” L’il says. “Including their own family. They do say the artist must kill the father in order to succeed.”
    “But Capote hasn’t killed anyone. Yet,” I say. The class snickers.
    “This discussion is totally stupid,” Rainbow interjects. It’s the second time she’s deigned to speak in class, and her tone is world-weary, defiant and superior, designed to put us in our place. Which seems to be somewhere far below hers. “Anyway, the sister is dead. So what difference does it make what we say about her? I thought the story was great. I identified with the sister’s pain. It seemed very real to me.”
    “Thank you,” Capote says, as if he and Rainbow are two aristocrats stranded in a crowd of peasants.
    Now I’m sure Rainbow is sleeping with him. I wonder if she knows about the model.
    Capote takes his seat, and once again I find myself staring at him with open curiosity. Studied in profile, his