Time passed. Mr. Big went away on business for weeks. Carrie stayed in Mr. Big's apartment. Stanford Blatch came over sometimes, and he and Carrie would act like they were two high schoolers whose parents had gone out of town: They smoked pot and drank whiskey sours and made brownies and watched stupid movies. They made a mess, and in the morning the maid would come in and clean it all up, getting down on her hands and knees to scrub the juice stains out of the white carpet.
Samantha Jones called a couple of times. She started telling Carrie about all these interesting, famous men she was meeting and all these great parties and dinners she was going to. "What are you doing?" she'd ask, and Carrie would say, "Working, just working."
"We should go out. While Big's away. . " Sam said. But she never made concrete plans and after a couple of times, Carrie didn't feel like talking to her. Then Carrie felt bad, so she called Samantha up and went to lunch with her. At first it was a good lunch. Then
Sam started talking about all these movie projects and all these big cheeses she knew whom she was going to do business with. Carrie had her own project going, and Sam said, "It's cute, you know. It's a cute idea."
Carrie said, "What's so cute about it?"
"It's cute. It's light. You know. It's not Tolstoy."
"I'm not trying to be Tolstoy," Carrie said. But of course, she was.
"So there you go," Sam said. "Hey, I've known you forever. I should be able to tell you what I really think about something without you getting upset. It doesn't have anything to do with you."
"Really?" Carrie said. "I wonder."
"Besides," Sam said. "You're probably going to marry Mr. Big and have kids. Come on. That's what everybody wants."
"Aren't I lucky?" she said, and she picked up the check.