The Spinster Sisters

by Ballis, Stacey

  “Shhh. I’m working. Stop talking to me.” Jill tries to be serious.

  We laugh and then settle back down to work. While Jill edits the latest chapter and I draft new copy for the blog, I try not to think about how right she may be about my marriage simply having been an error in judgment. A pure and simple mistake. And I take a minute to send a little prayer to the universe that I am the only one of us who will ever make that particular mistake.

  Good Tidings We Bring

  The first rule of dating more than one person is to be sure that none of the people you are dating think they are the only one in your life. It isn’t necessary to announce that you are going on a date when they ask you for plans on a day you have committed to someone else, but don’t treat any of your relationships as illicit or secret. There is nothing wrong with not being in a place to engage in a serious and exclusive relationship, and it only becomes shameful if you are ashamed.

  —From Living Twenty-five by Jill and Jodi Spingold

  “So, I think the good news is that the engagement backlash is settling down a little bit,” Kim says. “The e-mails have decreased by about twenty-two percent, and the phone traffic by about thirty-four percent.”

  “That’s great news,” I say, relieved that some of the hoopla is dying down.

  “Not necessarily,” Kim says. “I think it’s a lull connected to the holidays. We should be prepared for a flurry of activity mid-January when people are stuck inside and bored.”

  “Great,” Jill says.

  “And People wants to cover the wedding,” Kim throws in.

  “Not in ten million fucking years or for a hundred million fucking dollars,” Jill says.

  “Duly noted,” Kim says. “That’s all I have.”

  “Benna?” I turn to her.

  “Okay, holiday calendars.” Benna looks at her notes. “I have Jill leaving the twenty-third and returning the twenty-eighth. Jodi, I have you out of the office on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth, but not out of town. Paige, I have you leaving the twenty-second and returning the second of January. I leave the twenty-third and return the twenty-sixth. The office is closed Christmas Eve and Day and New Year’s Eve and Day. Kim, you’ll get me the marketing team’s dates?”

  Kim nods.

  “Great. That’s all I have.” Benna checks something off on her notepad.

  “Sounds good. Everyone, don’t forget to remind your staff that the reason we don’t roll over vacation days is that we want you all to take a break now and again. So if they haven’t used up all their days, be sure that they make plans to do so before the grace period is up at the end of February, okay?” I look around the table at a circle of nodding heads. Jill and I fought about the issue when we started hiring employees; she wanted to let people accumulate days indefinitely, and I thought it set a bad precedent. The compromise was to allow a two-month grace period into the new fiscal year for people to use up any days they might have missed.

  “Okay, everything sounds like it’s falling into place for holiday craziness,” Jill jumps in. She rubs her eyes and yawns. “Is anyone else ridiculously hungover today?” She reaches for a Krispy Kreme, courtesy of darling Benna, who knew that after the office holiday bash last night, we’d all need the sugar and grease.

  “I’m not too bad, actually,” Kim says. “But Eileen, Maddy, and Cleo all look green around the gills.” Poor Kim manages a trio of twenty-somethings: Eileen the press assistant, Maddy the graphic designer slash website manager, and Cleo, who is the assistant marketing director. All three got way into the wine at the party last night, making them vivacious and entertaining company, but I’m not surprised they’re slightly under the weather today.

  “Poor things.” I can’t help chuckling. “Benna, let’s order in pizzas for lunch for everyone . . . and get Bill over at the White Hen to send up a case of that Glaceau Vitamin Water stuff. I think they have a hangover cure version.”

  “Good idea,” Paige says. “A little recovery won’t hurt me either.”

  “At the risk of being insensitive to everyone’s day-after pain, what are you guys doing tonight?” Benna asks with a tone in her voice that tells us it doesn’t matter what was on the agenda, she needs our support.

  “Hunter is out of town, so I don’t have plans,” Jill says.

  “I’m supposed to hang out with Ben, but nothing serious,” I say.

  “I’m having a quiet night at home with my long-suffering husband,” says Kim.

  “I got nothing,” Paige says. “Why, what’s up?”

  “It’s Gino’s birthday. He has a busy day, so we are technically celebrating this weekend, but I talked to his neighbor yesterday, and he agreed to help me surprise him with a wee cake and champagne party when he gets home. Can you guys come? Around nine? You can bring Ben, no problem.” Benna looks at us hopefully.

  “Of course, just give us the address,” Jill says.

  “We’ll be there,” I say. Ben has been clamoring to meet my friends, and I suppose I should oblige him. Although I’m nervous to hear their opinions about him.

  “Sorry, kiddo, no can do,” says Kim. “Marc will kill me if I bail on our date night.”

  “Will there be any single guys there?” Paige asks.

  “I’ve invited a few of his friends, some nice guys he works with, but I can’t really vouch for them!” Benna laughs. “You guys are the best. I’ll e-mail everyone directions.”

  We all file out of the conference room, and Jill and I head back to our office.

  “Do you want to come to this thing tonight with me and Ben, or do you want to meet there?” I ask.

  “I’ll meet you there. Paige and I can grab dinner or something before. You really are going to bring him?”

  “Might as well. He’ll be good in a party situation; he’s very personable.” I hope.

  “Isn’t it past his curfew?” Jill loves to tease me about the age difference.

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Has he ever been to a birthday party that wasn’t at Chuck E. Cheese?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Gesundheit.”

  “Very funny.” She cracks me up.

  “Well, I’m looking forward to meeting him.” She has an evil twinkle in her eye.

  “You have to promise to be nice. He’s a sweet guy, and it isn’t his fault he happens to be slightly less aged than myself. No teasing him.”

  “I promise,” she says in a tone that makes me very skeptical indeed. “Do you think we should have told Benna this party wasn’t a good idea?”

  “I was just thinking that,” I say. “I mean, three months, way too early to do this sort of thing. She’s going to come off desperate.”

  “Maybe not,” Jill says, chewing on the end of a pen. “Maybe he’ll think she’s just really sweet.”

  “Come on, let’s be real. He’s a guy. None of us have met him, and she doesn’t appear to have met many of his friends. A party is a really shitty idea.”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re right. But she’s so excited, we can’t tell her. And maybe it will be okay.” She turns to her computer. “So what are you going to do with me gone over Christmas?” she asks, scanning her e-mails.

  “Well, the aunts and I are going to keep the movie/Chinese food/movie tradition alive in your absence on Christmas Day. Abbot leaves the same day you do to go home but is coming back on the twenty-ninth and has requested that he be able to come straight to my place when he lands, which means I’m getting an airport holiday gift for sure. Ben’s folks are taking the annual family vacation to Hawaii, so he will be out of my hair from the twenty-first to the thirtieth. And Connor has put in a request that I join him, his brothers, and their assorted wives and girlfriends for their annual Christmas Eve party.” I tell you, anyone who thinks it might be fun to have three beaus never tried to juggle them over the holidays.

  “Sounds like you have plenty on your plate without me! More important, what are we going to do for New Year’s?”

  Jill and I
always spend New Year’s Eve together, and in the last few years have eschewed big parties in favor of quiet get-togethers with small groups of friends.

  “I dunno.” I think for a minute. “What about a retro thing? Like Mom and Dad used to do. Do you remember their New Year’s parties at all?”

  “You mean like with the cheese fondue and sweet and sour meatballs and stuff?”

  “Totally. And then a standing rib roast with the double-baked potatoes and steamed asparagus with hollandaise! We can party like it’s 1979!”

  Jill gets a serious look on her face. “No rumaki! I always hated the smell of the chicken livers.”

  “Deal. Who should we have?”

  “Well, the aunts, of course. Me and Hunter. You and . . .” She trails off expectantly.

  “Me and someone.”

  “Which someone will draw the short straw on this one?”

  “Well, Ben and Abbot have both asked, and I’ve put them off, blaming you for not deciding yet. Connor hasn’t asked, but I think he will.”

  “And clearly Connor is the one you’d like to come; otherwise you would have said yes to one of the others already.”

  “I guess. Frankly, I’m nervous about either Ben or Abbot meeting the family. Ben will get all hyper trying to impress everyone, and Abbot will get smug like it means I’m making some sort of commitment to him. At least Connor would just be normal. But it’s early to be thinking New Year’s. I mean, we’ve only had two dates, we haven’t slept together yet, and New Year’s is a big deal. He might not want to go there.”

  “Except it isn’t a big deal to bring you home on Christmas Eve to meet all his brothers? Come on. And sex or no sex, you do have obvious chemistry.”

  Last weekend he took me to dinner at the Eleven City Diner, loads of amazing comfort food, one malted with two straws, and then we drove up Michigan Avenue to look at the holiday lights. Then we came back to my place and made out on the couch like a couple of teenagers for about two hours. Totally delicious. He’s the best kisser and never tried to push things too far or pressure me to take him to bed. Just seemed to really enjoy necking. Which of course made me want to tear his clothes off.

  “Yes, it’s pretty clear that there is some chemistry, but I’m not sure what to do. I mean, my relationship with Ben isn’t passionate, but things with Abbot are pretty great in that department, so I’m not totally inclined to give him up quite yet. But I do really like Connor, and I am very physically attracted to him.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll find that the more you want him, the less you’ll want Abbot.”

  “Yeah, that is sort of what I’m thinking.” Actually, what I’m thinking is that Friday night I may take things the teensiest bit further, just to test the waters. We’re going to see The Santaland Diaries, which is supposed to be one of the funniest nonsectarian holiday events around. Anything written by David Sedaris has got to be good. I might let him get to third base.

  “And he’s the one you’d rather be with,” she clucks.

  “Stop analyzing it, sister dearest. Just put me down as a plus-one, and it will be determined soonish.” Yeesh.

  “All right. If you insist. Who else?”

  “Paige is out of town. How about Hunter’s friend Matt and his girlfriend? They’re fun.” Matt, a friend of Hunter’s from architect school, is going to be the best man at the wedding, and his girlfriend Shelly is really sweet. “It would be good to get to know them better before the wedding, don’t you think?”

  “That’s a great idea. And then what about Raj and Tim to fill out the party?” Raj is a friend of ours from college. He worked on the newspaper with me. Now he works for Chicago magazine writing features. His partner Tim is a personal stylist, and the two of them are hilariously funny.

  “Perfect. Ten’s a party, twelve’s a nightmare.” One of Aunt Shirley’s sayings. She thinks the ideal dinner party is between six and ten people, no more.

  “We can tell them about it at cocktail hour tomorrow.” Jill stands, heads over to the coat rack in the corner, and slips on her coat. “You ready?”

  We have a meeting with a designer to see a couple of prototypes of the new lunch kits. I get up and get my coat on. “Let’s go.”

  We stop by Benna’s desk to tell her to order the pizza for twelve thirty, since we should be back by then, and head out into the snow to see if my little kit vision has become a marketable reality.

  “So then the guy says that he thinks we should have known what he meant and ignored what he said! Can you fucking believe it?” Ben is railing about work, in between bites of his burger. We are having dinner, before Gino’s surprise party, at the Athenian Room. Ben seems to survive almost entirely on hummus and burgers. He is the least adventurous eater I’ve ever met, and while he reluctantly accepted a bite of my delicious skirt steak and grudgingly pronounced it tasty, I know that he will still order a burger the next time he is here. I also know that I may not be with him the next time he is here. Ben is beginning to bore me a weensy bit. Even if he does look like Zach Braff and makes me laugh a lot.

  “Well, isn’t some of what you do intuiting what your clients really want and need?” I ask, nibbling on a vinegary steak fry.

  “Okay, yeah, some of it. I mean, when they say they want their website to be sexy, I have to figure out what they mean by sexy. Is their sexy Pamela Anderson or is their sexy Maggie Gyllenhaal?”

  I laugh. “Sophia Loren or Audrey Hepburn.”

  His face is a blank.

  “You know, the actresses. One was earthy and voluptuous, and the other was gamine and elegant. Both sexy, but different. Pam and Maggie of their time. Actually, Sophia still has the juice—”

  “You and your black-and-white babes.”

  “Yes, honey. But some color stuff, too.”

  Ben refuses to watch black-and-white movies. They bother him. He likes bright colors. And car chases. I like William Powell. He likes Will Ferrell. I like Cary Grant. He likes Carey Hart. ’Nough said.

  “Anyway. Enough of my whining about work. How was your week?” One thing about Ben, he is always genuinely interested in me, which is enormously flattering.

  I look across the table into his liquid brown eyes. They look back, full of hope and longing. What a muffin.

  “Good, really. We met with the product development designers today and saw some good mock-ups for the new lunch kit, so looks like we may move forward on that. The merchandising folks seem pleased, so they are crunching the numbers as we speak.”

  “That is so cool. What a great idea. You’ll sell a bundle.”

  “Well, I hope so.”

  “You’re such a genius.”

  Sigh. Whenever I wonder what the hell I am doing hanging out with this guy, he looks at me like that, and then I remember.

  “Thank you. I do try.”

  He kisses my hand. There is a giggle behind us. Ben turns around to see a little girl of four or five, who is watching us and laughing.

  “Hello, there,” Ben says to her.

  “Hi,” she replies.

  “Carly, don’t bother the nice people,” her mother admonishes. “Let them eat in peace.”

  “She’s no bother,” I say.

  “Carly, that’s a nice name,” Ben says. He is amazing with kids. Probably because he still is one.

  The two of them talk very seriously for a few minutes. I watch Carly develop her first crush. Ben is a very charming fellow. But they are interrupted when Carly’s parents receive the check and get up to leave.

  “Say good-bye, sweetheart.”

  “Good-bye, sweetheart,” Carly says to Ben solemnly, clearly sad to be leaving.

  “Good-bye, princess.” Ben kisses her hand dramatically. They leave, Carly looking back over her shoulder all the way out the door.

  “Careful, tiger, I’m liable to get jealous, you fawning all over that younger woman right in front of me!”

  “Wasn’t she a doll? I can’t wait to have a couple of my own!”

  “
You’ll make a wonderful father.” Which he will.

  “And you’ll make a wonderful mother.” He leans in to kiss me again. I stop him.

  “I’ll make a wonderful godmother. A helluva aunt. But not a mother, not me.”

  “Stop that, you’ll be fantastic.”

  “Ben, I didn’t mean that I questioned my own ability to be a good mother; I meant that I have no intention of being one. I don’t want kids.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “No, darlin’, I don’t.”

  “But you’re a woman.” For Ben, this is all the logic he needs.

  “Yes, I am.”

  Ben pauses, obviously confused. Then a strange look comes over his face, and he tilts his head at me. “You know, there’s always adoption.”

  Oy vey. “Ben, don’t look at me like that. I’m not barren. At least I don’t think I am. I just don’t want to have kids. I like my life, I like my vision for my future. And it doesn’t include children of my own, natural or adopted.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” He is looking at me like I’m an alien life-form.

  “You don’t have to say anything; it is just who I am.”

  “But what if your husband wants children?”

  “Ben, if I get married again, and that is a big if, I would never marry someone who wanted kids. I would marry someone who already had kids. Frankly, I think I’d make an adorable step-mother. But this is sort of a deal-breaker for me.”

  “So you’re saying I have to choose between you and my desire to be a dad or I have to get married to someone else, have kids, get divorced, and then come back to you.”

  “Oh, Benji. I’m flattered that you would even think of me as the possible mother of your future children, but we have only known each other for a couple of months . . .”

  And a dark cloud moves across his features. “Are you seeing other people?” He looks wounded.

  “Well, yes. I mean, I told you when we first started going out that I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship. Aren’t you dating other women?”

  “No. I’m not. I thought, I mean, it was one thing in the very beginning, but I can’t, I mean, splitting focus and all, and . . .” He can’t seem to get a coherent sentence out.