The Chamberlain Look

When Chris and Billy dumped pigs blood on her at her prom queen inauguration, many assumed Carrie White got her revenge via the fire and electricity and telekinesis. She did, naturally. But that wasn't her only revenge. By all accounts, it wasn't even her best.

The best revenge, they say, is to live well, to succeed in spite of others. It was too late to live well—her mother had seen to that—but that did not mean she couldn't still succeed after everything that happened.

After all, Carrie was prom queen, and everyone wants to be a prom queen. Soon it was considered the height of fashion to wear fine gowns drenched in blood. Even animal rights activists, who didn't care for the slaughter of their furry friends, found ways to ride the trend, often showing up at PETA rallies in fake fur and waiting to be doused in red paint.

The Chamberlain Look as it came to be called (so named for the small town in Maine Carrie destroyed) became an institution with its own rules. Cow's blood for winter, chicken for summer. Never wear heels. Hair down. And of course, one couldn't dump the blood on herself, for the Chamberlain look historically was not something you did, but something done to you. Blooding salons popped up all across the country, each offering their own styles and methods. The Classic Bucket, the Pollack, the Hose, the Shower, the Sprinkler.

It was a better revenge than Carrie could have hoped for, if only she were alive to enjoy it.

- Originally mailed to H. Kay of Portsmouth, England

Jealousy

To say Rebecca was a jealous woman was to say the ocean had a little water in it. Where others had to walk on eggshells, her boyfriend Richard's life felt much more like waking up in the middle of a minefield.

"Your professor is cute. Are you seeing her behind my back?"

"Who is this 'Mom' you've been calling?"

"Like I'm supposed to believe that man is only here to deliver our pizza."

He had to take a job working from home because she was suspicious of the women in his office, even eighty-four year old Edna Greene, and didn't feel too comfortable with him around men just in case he turned out to be gay.

Soon there was literally no one else in his life but her, but still her fears were not eased. "Who is that I see following you around all the time?" she asked.

"No one!" he swore. "I never even leave the apartment! No one has been in or out but you!"

"Then who is THAT?" she said, thrusting an accusing finger behind him.

He turned to look and saw nothing but his shadow. He looked back to her, confused. Her finger still insisted he explain his non-existent friend, so he turned back again to look. Nothing but...

"You can't be serious."

But she was. And since then, every time Richard heard her familiar knock at his door, he opened his window and had his shadow hide outside until she left again.

- Originally mailed to J. Joyner of Kannapolis, North Carolina