Carrie went to Aspen by Lear jet. She wore the white mink coat, a short dress, and white patent leather boots. It seemed like the thing to wear on a Lear jet, but it wasn't. The other people she was traveling with, the ones who owned the jet, were wearing jeans and pretty embroidered sweaters and sensible boots for snow. Carrie was very hung over. When the jet stopped for refueling in Lincoln,
Nebraska, she had to be helped down the steps by the pilot. It was slightly warm, and she wandered around in her big mink and sunglasses, smoking cigarettes and staring out at the endless, flat, yellow-dry fields.
Mr. Big was waiting at the airport in Aspen. He was sitting outside, too perfectly dressed in a brown suede coat and a brown suede hat, smoking a cigar. He walked across the tarmac and the first thing he said was, "The plane is late. I'm freezing."
"Why didn't you wait inside?" Carrie asked. They drove through the tiny town, which was like a toy town lovingly placed by a child at the base of a Christmas tree. Carrie pressed
her fingers over her eyes and sighed. "I'm going to relax. Get healthy," she said. "Cook."
Stanford Blatch also arrived by private jet. He was staying with his childhood friend Suzannah Martin. After River Wilde's party, he had told Suzannah, "I want to turn over a new leaf. We're such good friends, we should really think about getting married. That way, I can get my inheritance, and with your money and my money combined, we can hve the way we've always wanted."
Suzannah was a forty-year-old sculptress who wore dramatic makeup and large pieces of jewelry. She had never seen herself in a traditional marriage anyway. "Separate bedrooms?" she asked.
"Naturally," Stanford said.
Skipper Johnson flew in commercial, upgrading his ticket to first class using mileage. He was vacationing with his parents and his two younger sisters. I have to find a girlfriend, he thought. This is ridiculous. He envisioned the lucky woman as older, somewhere between thirty and thirty-five, smart, beautiful, and lots of fun. Someone who could keep his interest. In the last year, he'd realized that girls his age were boring. They looked up to him too much, and it was scary.
Mr. Big taught Carrie to ski. He had bought her a ski suit, gloves, hat, long underwear. Also a tiny thermometer that clipped to her ski gloves—the one thing she had begged him to buy her. He had resisted until she pouted; then he agreed to buy it in exchange for a blow job even though it only cost four dollars. In the house they rented, he zipped up her ski suit, and she held out her hands and he put on her gloves. He chpped on the mini thermometer and she said, "You're going to be so glad we have this. It's cold out there." He laughed and they kissed.
Mr. Big smoked cigars on the gondola and talked on his cellular phone. Then he would ski behind Carrie on the slopes, watching to make sure no one ran into her. "You can handle
it," he'd say, as she made turn after turn, curving slowly down the mountain. Then she'd stand at the bottom of the slope, shielding her eyes with her hand as she watched Mr. Big bounce over the moguls.
In the evenings, they would get massages and go in the hot tub. At night, when they were lying in bed together, Mr. Big said, "We're close now, aren't we?"
"Yes," Carrie said.
"Remember how you always used to say we had to be closer? You don't say that anymore."
Carrie thought, Things can't get any better.