Sex and the City

"Miss Truvy, I promise that my personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to do good hair."
--Steel Magnolias
“Look at yourself right now and tell me you don’t feel sexy.” The order came from Captain Celia.

I turned around to face the mirror in the entryway of the hotel suite. Almost ready for bed, I had shed my dress and bra, but was still wearing heels, black and purple lace panties, and my wig. Long, dark tresses spilled halfway down my back and curled over my naked chest, covering just enough to keep the shot PG-rated. So far.


Twisting sideways, I cocked my head over my shoulder, thrust a hip out in my sultriest stance and peered out from behind wispy bangs. I’d have to work on the seductive look but I had to admit I looked pretty good. The reflection also confirmed my belief that without the designer dress borrowed from Dr. Lisa’s South Beach collection and my own good jewelry to class things up, the hair was definitely tawdry stripper material. To be sure, I twirled back around and struck a few poses for the girls. You wouldn’t think a group of straight, 40-something women would be my target audience but they were quite enthusiastic. Must have been the Moët. Or the Glenlivet.

Captain Celia, Dr. Lisa, and Hurricane Lilly, my partner in crime when I first quit city life and moved to the islands, flew in to join Ellen and me in Philadelphia for a Sex and the City sexandthecitymovie.com girls weekend. The four of us with Philly roots hadn’t all been together since before Hurricane Lilly and I moved to the Virgin Islands three and a half years ago. Our reunion had been in the works for months at my request, as it seemed a much more fun alternative to flying in for chemo treatments, which all of them had offered to do.

My real life versions of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha and Charlotte are amazing. Don’t get me wrong, I love my married girlfriends equally, and not just because most of them are also responsible parents who always answer their phones and drive reliable SUVs, making them great in-case-of-emergency contacts. But there’s a special affinity for this group of women who are smart, successful and, none of them having ever been married, know what it’s like to not go home every night to that one person who’s required to be there for you. We share what the Washington Post called “another important painful life passage—being single in a couple-centric culture.”

We laughed and cried through the entire movie outing, then spent the rest of the weekend retelling our favorite parts, like when the women, all decked out for a night on the town, piled into a cab on their way (late, of course) to the theater. One of them, spotting an old lover on the street and wanting to show how fabulous she was, leaned out the window with her glass of champagne and waved. Her well-manicured hand, unfortunately, also held the theater tickets, which blew away as she toasted, the wind, like the ex, snatching her moment of triumph and threatening to spoil her immediate future. Sex and the City-esque panic ensued. “Stop the cab!” yelled one woman while two others hopped out and ran after the errant tickets, Manolos click clacking on the sidewalk, hair and skirts flying up in the breeze, nary a drop of Veuve Clicquot spilled.

This, incidentally, was not a scene from the movie but rather something that happened on the way to the movie, made more poignant by the fact that the two women chasing paper down Walnut Street had nearly come to e-mail fisticuffs the week before, squabbling over who was more competent to procure, in advance, what were sure to be coveted tickets for a sold-out show. (They were, and it was.) This is what happens when too many Type-A women try to plan too short a trip home after too long an absence. As a footnote, I will add that the brouhaha delayed the entire entourage getting to the theater, necessitating that our pregnant and married friend—the only one meeting us there—hold two rows of seats until almost-showtime, fending off a mob of over-excited, seat-hungry girl groups, all the while desperately needing to pee. (See props, above, regarding responsible married friends.)

Fashion was also as much a part of the real fun as the movie fun, and I had an edge there, not only because I had all the good hair accessories (strawberry blonde curls on Saturday to match my Pebbles—as in Pebbles and Bam Bam—T-shirt, brunette with bangs Sunday) but also because I was the only one with cancer, and cancer is very trendy. Just last week Katie, Brian and Charlie were all on Good Morning America, talking about the big three networks’ joint prime time cancer special. They were chatting with GMA host Robin Roberts, who, undergoing treatment for breast cancer, had whipped her wig off live and on the air a few weeks earlier, announcing that from then on, she’d be going without. huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/22/robin-roberts-sheds-her-w_n_97920.html Poor Diane Sawyer. Her fair blonde hair and classic look suddenly seemed… so last year.

The rest of the weekend was filled with ab-firming laughter and guess-you-had-to-be-there moments. We caught up on new flirtations and analyzed the shortcomings of old boyfriends like we were talking about them for the first time. For 48 straight hours, my girlfriends told me how fabulous I am, and how gorgeous I looked. Surrounded by so much love, I slept like a baby and woke up, for the first time in ages, without my chronic hangover, previous night’s parties notwithstanding.

We laughed and ate and drank and laughed some more and then I blinked and it was over which, as the Haverford grad in the group so eloquently put it, “sucks ass.” If only life in Philly wrapped up as neatly as it does in Hollywood. We’d need a lot more cash to live the big screen lifestyle every day. Among the five of us, there’s not a relationship in sight. But we’ve got the friendship thing nailed. Monday morning came and the bravest, most beautiful women I know all got on their respective planes to head home to… whatever’s next. Flying solo, but not alone.
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