Cha, cha cha, cha cha! Splashy bus! For the last time this year.
The girls sit at small tables, dressed up, with huge smiles on their faces. They're beaming, enraptured, glowing, all because they're basking in the starlight of Bobby Fine, "satellite friend" to Carrie (or so she VOs) and piano bar legend. Bobby, played by Nathan Lane, is a per-for-mah. He tickles those ivories and they laugh. Or something. It actually sounds like ragtime -- very oom-pah-pah, if pianos could do that. "Is That All There Is?" is the number. He usually does it "at home in a pink caftan and Peggy Lee wig." Hasn't everyone, he poses, "after three daiquiris?" Well, if you must know, I...won't admit to anything of the kind. He gives Carrie a shout-out as "a person who writes books...the primitive version of the DVD." People laugh wildly, as if on cue. Oh, right. A few bars of oom-pah-pah piano later, and we're out.
Nathan Lane stands by Carrie and the girls' table, saying how long he's known Carrie ("since Cats was kittens!"), and reminiscing about nothing at all. Back in those early days, Carrie "did aerobics and Stanford had hair." An elegantly dressed well-to-do lady glides up and says "hello, hello, hello, hello!" to everyone. Bitsy Von Muffling is her name. She's a player. Sorry, "playa." Samantha remembers her from doing PR for one of her museum benefits. And how is Bitsy doing? Just fabulous. She's getting married, "big, big Hamptons wedding." And "who's the lucky stud?" Why, Bobby Fine, piano bar wit. Carrie barks out a "ha." Then she lets them fly like bullets from a machine gun. Ha! Ha! Ha! Bobby wrinkles up his forehead a la Brandon Walsh at his puppy-doggiest, and Carrie gets her millionth comeuppance for being presumptuous this season. "Oh. Oh! You're getting married?" Yes, yes he is. He "finally found the right girl." He and Bitsy kiss in the most disingenuous display of heterosexuality since Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie "so I married an Elvis impersonator with his own Oscar" Presley kissed at the MTV VMAs. Everyone at the table pretends not to barf. Bitsy is off like a prom dress, and invites Samantha to attend. Bobby says, "Mr. Broadway has to go tinkle before he can tinkle," and takes off too.
The girls lean in to discuss: Char thought Bobby was, she says sotto voce, gay. No. Noooo! Nathan Lane? I mean, the character he's playing? Not at all. Miranda says his parting phrase was "the gayest sentence ever uttered." Heh. Perhaps he's marrying Bitsy for the money? Oh, no, Bobby "was one of the original investors in A Chorus Line." Miranda says, "Just when you thought you'd never hear a phrase gayer than 'Mr. Broadway has to go tinkle.'" Carrie remembers that Bobby used to say he wanted to help orphans from Nicaragua, and that they're still waiting to this day. "This wedding will never. Happen."














