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