Y’all, let’s talk about Carrie. Carrie is wonderful and I wish we could have stories where she survives too. (Ahem) Carrie compares herself so endlessly to Cathy, which would be an empty endeavor even without things like her height getting in the way. She’s beautiful and clever and takes such good care of Jory, and Chris is moping around wanting Cathy to move out with him so he can act as Jory’s father and Paul is competing with Chris and in this maelstrom of male bickering is our sweet Carrie. Cathy is furious with how sad and lost she knows her sister is, given that she blames this, as all things, on Corrine.
Speaking of Corrine, Cathy is well into her revenge planning now. She’s going to use what she was taught by Paul and Julian about sex and how to treat men and use those wiles to seduce Bart Winslow. She’s in a lot of debt–Julian spent and spent, and their insurance won’t pay up since Julian committed suicide, despite her knowing that they should. Chris tells her she needs a lawyer. HOW CONVENIENT. Chris tells her he almost wishes they were still locked up so that he wouldn’t have to compete for her affections. How healthy! Chris leaves for a residency and Cathy tries to stay on with Paul at his house and work for Madame M, but realizes that she needs to be her own boss. And in order to do that, she needs her own house and her own business, and for that she needs her money. And a lawyer.
She rents a little house and tries to blackmail Corrine, which doesn’t work, so she makes an appointment with Bart. He tells her that he’s seen her dance, that, in fact his wife dragged him to every one of Cathy’s performances. This information throws Cathy for a loop–at first she’s happy and excited, then she turns sad and confused, realizing that despite it all some part of her still loves Corrine. Bart doesn’t know that Julian has been dead for almost three years, and he immediately agrees to help Cathy with the insurance issue once he finds out. He mentions offhand that he’s a good lawyer when his wife lets them be at home, Cathy’s like “Must suck to follow your rich wife around like a poodle”. Daaaaaaang. Bart is not super enthusiastic about this sort of talk but hey, turns out he’s right: ten days later he brings Cathy her insurance check. His fee? Dinner with him, and she needs to wear blue, and then they can discuss their fee. Ew.
Time for a little showdown with Madame Marisha. She wants to know who Bart was (he brought the check to the ballet school) and when Cathy tells her she’s gotten the money, Madame M correctly infers that this means Cathy is going to move away and try to start her own school. She says she’d leave her school to Cathy, but not if she leaves and takes Jory away, and when Cathy’s like “Too bad because that’s what’s happening, and besides, Jory might not want to be a dancer” Madame M loses it. Of COURSE he will, dancing is part of him and there’s nothing Cathy can do to stop it. Cathy has had about enough of this and tells her mother-in-law that she screwed up her son, that she convinced Julian that he was nothing if he couldn’t dance, and that even though the fact he was able to move his arm in order to cut the IV means that there was hope, his mother’s words made him hopeless and he killed himself. She’s not going to have the opportunity to mess up Jory as well. Madame M tells Cathy that if all she wants from life is to be a mommy and a “wifey” to Paul, then she can go ahead and try, but that Jory will die if he’s not on the stage. Oh and she can go and ruin Paul’s life too. She can tell that Cathy has something gnawing at her, something that drives her and makes her bitter, makes her destroy everyone who loves her. Cathy pulls a Corrine and coldly and untouchably tells Madame M that they won’t be seeing each other again. But she’s maybe not entirely wrong, Catherine. Just a thought? A little thought.
Cathy and Bart have dinner (she wears blue) and they’re basically nasty to each other the whole time. She makes a comment about Corrine, he snaps back, it’s so romantic. He mentions that he’s leaving soon to set up offices in Virginia, as his wife’s mother (!) isn’t well and needs help.
So guess who’s also moving to Virginia! Carrie is none too thrilled about this–she wants Cathy to marry Paul and for all of them to stay in South Carolina, but Cathy is on a mission and soon enough she, Carrie, and Jory are headed north. Carrie doesn’t realize exactly where they’re going at first and is none too pleased when she finds out, but they buy a little house and Cathy buys a ballet school, and Carrie settles into running the house and caring for Jory. And Carrie meets a boy! His name is Alex, and he comes to install their new oven and asks Carrie out. She’s too anxious to go, but Cathy encourages her to invite him to their house for dinner, and she’ll ask Paul to come visit just to show Alex that she’s taken (that part is Carrie’s idea, she’s understandably a little nervous about her glamorous, gorgeous older sister). Dinner is great, and while Alex and Carrie go to the movies, Paul and Cathy reconnect (WINK WINK). And then…Chris calls.
He wants to know why, exactly, Cathy has moved to Virginia. What is she planning to on doing, and can Paul maybe talk her out of it? (no) He doesn’t want her to hurt Corrine any more than their mother already hurts (eh) but, most importantly, he doesn’t want Cathy to get hurt, and he knows that she will. In the middle of that night, Cathy wakes up thinking that she can hear the mountains yelling “Devil’s spawn!”. She runs to Carrie’s room and crouches beside her sleeping sister, fearing that the wind will blow Carrie away.
Next time: the wind takes Carrie away.
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