The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell Read Free Book Online Page B

car,” Donna LaDonna ordered. “Stop making a scene. Do you want the cops to come?”
    I got into the car.
    “See?” Donna LaDonna said to Doug. “I told you it was useless.”
    “I’m not going to have sex with some guy just to impress you,” I said.
    “Whoa,” Roy said. “She really is a bitch.”
    “Not a bitch,” I said. “Just a woman who knows her own mind.”
    “You’re a woman now?” Doug said, sneering. “That’s a laugh.”
    I knew I should have been embarrassed, but I was so relieved it was over, I couldn’t be bothered. Surely, Doug wouldn’t dare ask me out again.
    He did though. First thing Monday morning, I found him standing by my locker. “I need to talk to you,” he said.
    “So talk.”
    “Not now. Later.”
    “I’m busy.”
    “You’re a prude,” he hissed. “You’re frigid.” When I didn’t reply, he added, “It’s okay,” in a creepy tone. “ I know what’s wrong with you. I understand .”
    “Good,” I said.
    “I’m coming by your house after school.”
    “Don’t.”
    “You don’t need to tell me what to do,” he said, spinning an imaginary basketball on his finger. “You’re not my mother .” He shot the imaginary basketball into an imaginary hoop and walked away.
    Doug did come by my house that afternoon. I looked up from my typewriter and saw the pathetic white car pull hesitantly into the driveway, like a mouse cautiously approaching a piece of cheese.
    A discordant phrase of Stravinsky came from the piano followed by the soft taps of Missy running down the stairs. “Carrie,” Missy called from below. “Someone’s here.”
    “Tell him I’m not.”
    “It’s Doug .”
     
    “Let’s go for a drive,” Doug said.
    “I can’t,” I begged. “I’m busy.”
    “Listen,” he said. “You can’t do this to me.” He was pleading, and I started to feel sorry for him. “You owe me,” he whispered. “It’s only a drive in the car.”
    “Okay,” I relented. I figured maybe I did owe him for embarrassing him in front of his friends.
    “Look,” I said when we were in the car and driving toward his house. “I’m sorry about the other night. It’s just that—”
    “Oh, I know. You’re not ready,” Doug said. “I understand. With everything you’ve been through.”
    “No. It isn’t that.” I knew it had nothing to do with my mother’s death. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell Doug the truth—that my reluctance was due to the fact that I didn’t find him the least bit attractive.
    “It’s okay,” he said. “I forgive you. I’m going to give you a chance to make it up to me.”
    “Ha,” I said, hoping he was making a joke.
    Doug drove past his house and kept going, down the dirt track that led to the river. Between his sad little street and the river were miles and miles of mud-flat farmland, deserted in November. I began to get scared.
    “Doug, stop.”
    “Why?” he asked. “We have to talk.”
    I knew then why boys hated that phrase, “We have to talk.” It gave me a tired, sick feeling. “Where are we going? There’s nothing out here.”
    “There’s the Gun Tree,” he said.
    The Gun Tree was all the way down by the river, so named because a lightning strike had split the branches into the shape of a pistol. I began calculating my chances for escape. If we got all the way to the river, I could jump out of the car and run along the narrow path that led through the trees. Doug couldn’t follow in his car, but he could certainly outrun me. And then what would he do? Rape me? He might rape me and kill me afterward. I didn’t want to lose my virginity to Doug Haskell, for Christ’s sake, and definitely not like that. I decided he’d have to kill me first.
    But maybe he did only want to talk.
    “Listen, Doug, I’m sorry about the other night.”
    “You are?”
    “Of course. I just didn’t want to have sex in a car with other people. It’s kind of gross.”
    We were about half a mile from