Carrie

Carrie applies messiness like mascara. But you cannot put pig on a makeup. After all, Carrie likes to shop alone at the Container Store. She rumples her button ups before French Tucking, and then un-French Tucking, and then re-French Tucking at a new angle that hopes desperately to look like the first choice.

Carrie’s apartment is objectively chic. The eye is met by a rakish melange of MoMA store tchotchkes laid out just so, like dots in colorblind test illustrations. Somewhere in this flat mat of perfectly-clicked-in-to-place rainbow gumdrops should be a family photo.

Keep looking.

The Things are all very comfortable things, with straight lines and curved edges and matte finish and an overall sheen of “I’m cute and I’m capable.” And if you asked how they got so capable they’d explain their history of teenage service-industry jobs, and you’d nod in agreement because honestly… everyone sorta needs to have one as a kid, right?

The summer job was a good idea.

Carrie did (and does) not have as many friends as people would think. She looks good, and good implies attractive, and attractive implies that people are attracted, and that implies they actually follow through on that attraction and, you know, hang out with Carrie. But it’s never quite that easy, is it?

So her parents thought it would be a great way for Carrie to make friends. “People say ‘it’s like shooting fish in a barrel,’” Carrie’s dad said, “because ‘making friends your age at a beach town ice cream shop in August’ is a tongue-twister.” In the end, she was too tall for the kids her age, just young enough for the older boys, and too too for the older girls.

She did learn, however, to always sprinkle a little salt on her ice cream.

While Carrie hates Midnight in Paris (Owen Wilsons talking like Woody Allens represent 80% of all her exes), her ideal trip would be going back to 1920s Paris. But she wouldn’t stammer her way through it like that Texan Himbo. She would have known what was happening the second it happened. And she would have been perfect for it. She would have charmed the writers and inspired the painters and been so magnetic that the French would be embarrassed that they couldn’t speak her language. And she’s always had the body for a flapper dress.

She said as much to her therapist. They’d been talking about why she has a hard time traveling - why it makes her so tense. Her therapist had asked what her dream vacation was.

“Oh that makes sense,” Dr. Applebaum said, “that makes sense.” Carrie felt seen, and somewhat approved of. It was nice to know that her aesthetic was a fit for such a glamorous time. And honestly, it was just nice to agree with someone.

“It makes sense that you’d want to travel back in time all alone,” Dr. Applebaum said. And suddenly Carrie didn’t feel quite so seen anymore.