Free The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

hasn’t.
     
    A week passes, and on Saturday morning, I reluctantly pack a little suitcase. I look at the clothes I’ve laid out on the bed, perplexed. They’re like the random, disjointed thoughts of a thousand strangers. What was I thinking when I bought that beaded fifties sweater? Or that pink bandanna? Or the green leggings with yellow stripes? I have nothing to wear for this interview. How can I be who I’m supposed to be with these clothes?
    Who am I supposed to be again?
    Just be yourself.
    But who am I?
    What if he calls while I’m gone? Why hasn’t he called already?
    Maybe something happened to him.
    Like what? You saw him every day at school and he was fine.
    “Carrie?” my father calls out. “Are you ready?”
    “Almost.” I fold a plaid skirt and the beaded sweater into the suitcase, add a wide belt, and throw in an old Hermès scarf that belonged to my mother. She bought it on the one trip to Paris she took with my father a few years ago.
    “Carrie?”
    “Coming.” I bang down the stairs.
    My father is always nervous before a trip. He gathers maps and estimates time and distance. He’s only comfortable with the unknown or the unexpected if it’s a number in an equation. I keep reminding him that this is not a big deal. It’s his alma mater, and Brown is only forty-five minutes away.
    But he fusses. He takes the car to the car wash. He withdraws cash. He inspects his travel comb. Dorrit rolls her eyes. “You’re going to be gone for less than twenty-four hours!”
    It rains during the drive. As we head east, I notice the leaves are already beginning to flee their branches, like flocks of birds heading south for the winter.
    “Carrie,” my father says. “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Don’t beat yourself up about things.” He can usually sense when something is wrong, although he’s rarely able to pinpoint the cause.
    “I’m not, Dad.”
    “Because when you do,” he continues, warming up to one of his favorite topics, “you lose twice. You’ve lost whatyou’ve lost, but then you also lose your perspective. Because life happens to people. Life is bigger than people. It’s all about nature. The life cycle…It’s out of our control.”
    It shouldn’t be, though. There ought to be a law that says every time a boy kisses a girl, he has to call within three days.
    “So in other words, old man, shit happens and then you die.”
    I say this in a way that makes my father laugh. Unfortunately, I can hear Sebastian in the backseat, laughing too.
     
    “Carrie Bradshaw, right?”
    The guy named George shifts my file from one arm to another and shakes my hand. “And you, sir, must be Mr. Bradshaw.”
    “That’s right,” my father says. “Class of 1958.”
    George looks at me appraisingly. “Are you nervous?”
    “A little.”
    “Don’t be.” He smiles reassuringly. “Professor Hawkins is one of the best. He has PhD’s in English literature and physics. I see on your application that you’re interested in science and writing. Here at Brown, you can do both.” He reddens a little, as if he realizes he’s being quite the salesman, and suddenly adds, “Besides, you look great.”
    “Thanks,” I murmur, feeling a bit like a lamb being led to slaughter.
    I immediately realize I’m being silly and overly dramatic. George is right: Everything about Brown is perfect, fromthe charming redbrick buildings of the Pembroke College campus, to College Green, dotted with voluptuous elms that still have their leaves, to the glorious columned John Carter Brown Library. I need only insert my mannequin self into this picture-postcard scene.
    But as the day progresses from the interview in the artfully messy professor’s office—“What are your goals, Ms. Bradshaw?” “I’d like to make an impact on society. I’d like to contribute something meaningful”—to the tour of the campus, chem labs, the computer room, a first-year dorm room, and finally to dinner with George on Thayer