Did I mention how grateful I was that Lisa was a coddler?)
I couldn’t have a roommate. I would already have a built-in roommate in seven months. It was time to find my own place.
But the cheapest studio apartment in the dinkiest section of the Upper East Side, which was both the most inexpensive and the most expensive neighborhood (cheap if you lived way east on a side street and a million miles from the subway), was twelve hundred bucks. I couldn’t afford that on my current salary.
Anyway, could I live in a studio with a baby? And how was I supposed to pay a rent like that and raise a baby, even if I did get most of the starter stuff I’d need at my baby shower? Was someone going to give me diapers for life as a gift?
Like it or not (not) I had two choices. Ally or my father.
Given that Ally came with a commute on the Long Island railroad and the smarmster of a husband, she immediately had two strikes against her. She also knew I was pregnant and would nominate and declare herself captain of the pregnancy police. Don’t eat that! Did youtake your prenatal vitamin? You already had one cup of coffee this month! What would Mom say if she saw you doing that? Living with Ally was out of the question. From birth to when Ally left for college when I was twelve, I had shared a bedroom with her in a small two-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, which had been an inexpensive neighborhood in those days (apparently my father had offered to pay for a bigger, more luxurious apartment, but my mother wanted to be self-supporting). Sharing a bedroom with a teenaged Ally, as snappish as she was now, had turned me off the idea of overnight visits to her house forever, despite the swimming pool and hot tub. So there was no way I could stay with her indefinitely or until I found a new place, whichever came sooner.
That left my father, who did conveniently live in a penthouse with a few extra bedrooms. One had been converted into a bedroom for Madeline, his fiancée’s toddler, but there were two other guest bedrooms. I tried to imagine myself waking up every morning in my father’s house.
Good morning, Dad.
Morning, honey.
Silence.
Bye, Dad.
Bye, honey.
I wasn’t exaggerating. Here was most of the last conversation I’d had with my father, a month ago, when I’d called to congratulate him on his engagement, which of course I’d heard about via the mailed announcement:
Me: “It’s a women’s magazine, Dad. I’ve been working there for four years.”
Dad: “Ah, that’s right. For some reason, I thought you were working for a publishing house, on books.”
Me: “No, it’s a magazine.”
Dad: “Well that’s great, Sarah. Just great. Have you been working there long?”
Silence.
Me: “Uh, four years, Dad.”
Dad: “That’s great, Sarah. Just great.”
Silence.
Me: “Well, congrats again on your engagement.”
Dad: “Thanks, honey. And come for dinner any time, Sarah. Giselle and I would love to have you.”
That was another plus for Dad. He was free and easy with the invites and he lived in his own private Idaho, a place that didn’t include noticing subtleties, like other people’s problems. Which meant a rent-free, hassle-free, pry-free, very nice place to live until Griffen either called and proposed marriage and carried me over the threshold of that two-bedroom high-rise on the Upper West Side, or I figured out how to manage my new life-to-be on my own.
For reasons I couldn’t fathom, my two sisters were A) in my father’s apartment, B) sitting next to each other on one of the four butterscotch leather loveseats in the living room, and C) staring at six identical photographs pushpinned into a bulletin board on an easel.
As I trailed after Zalla, who insisted on taking my suitcase (was my secret out or was I just not used to a housekeeper greeting me at a front door?), I peered around her down the long, narrow hallway to get a glimpse of the photographs that held everyone rapt.
“Take your time, girls,” my father was saying. He stood to the side of the easel and examined the photographs with the fascination one might devote to Mona Lisa in the Louvre. “Really look at each one and let me know which you think rocks.”
My father’s vocabulary needed work.
“Dad, they’re cummerbunds,” Ally said, examining her nails. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“Oh, but it is, Ally,” my father said, pinching her cheek. “I want every detail of this wedding to be perfecto. What do you think, Zoe? Really look at them. Do you see the ruched effect of the second one on the top? I think it adds a really hip touch.”
Bartholomew Solomon was obsessed with hip.
“I like them all, Dad. Really,” Zoe said.
Zalla came to a stop under the archway of the living room. “Mr. Bart,” she said, “Miss Sarah is here.”
My father and sisters turned around, each one looking more surprised than the next.
“Sar!” My father pulled me into a hug. “All my girls in the same room. Fabulous!” He eyed the suitcase. “Zalla, add another cot in the guest room, please.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a major phone call coming in. We just might land Leonardo DiCaprio for the coal miner film. A year we’ve been in negotiations to make this film, and we still don’t have even a working title. You gals like Leo? Of course you do. What woman doesn’t? Okay—” he clapped his hands “—dinner’s at seven, so why don’t we all meet here for cocktails at six-thirty. Giselle should be home about then.” He picked up the easel. “We’ll take another look at the cummerbunds after dinner. You can really make a look with just the right one.” He leaned the easel against a wall. “All rightie! I’ll see you girls in a little while.”
Gee, Sarah, what brings you here? And with a suitcase, no less. Is something wrong? Tell Dad all about it and if I can fix it, I will.
I’d stopped expecting anything from my father a long, long time ago. Then again, at least I didn’t feel the need to call first to let him know a small detail like the fact that I was moving in for who knew how long. Whether I said I was staying overnight or for a few years, it would be just great, sweetheart! And, no, that wasn’t fatherly mi casa es su casa stuff. He simply didn’t listen, didn’t hear. A few weeks from now, he’d notice me having a bowl of cereal in the kitchen or brushing my teeth in the bathroom, and he’d say, Nice of you to spend a few days, Sarah. Wonderful to have you. Pat on the shoulder. Exit scene stage left.
Like I said, my father wasn’t one to notice that you were a nervous wreck. He didn’t really see you, so when you didn’t want him to know something major about you, like that you were pregnant, homeless and that the father of your baby was digesting, you didn’t have to add his awareness of you to your list of worries.
“Sarah, you look terrific,” he said, cupping my chin in his palm for an instant. “Just terrific.” He smiled, blew a kiss in each of our directions, and then disappeared into his study.
“You don’t look terrific,” Ally contradicted, raking me up and down with those never-miss-a-thing blue eyes. “You look exhausted. Are you getting enough rest?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” I said. “I’m fine. Hi, Zoe. When did you fly in?”
“Almost a week ago,” Zoe said. “I arrived the day after Ally, and we’ve been bunking together ever since.”
If anyone looked exhausted, it was Zoe, and now I understood why. Sharing a room with Ally could be very taxing. I’d never seen Zoe look anything but perfect. She was one of those natural beauties you saw in soap commercials, women who looked amazing while splashing water on their face in slow motion. She had longish light brown hair, silky and slightly wavy, and a long, lanky body. She even had a beauty mark next to her lip, like Cindy Crawford. But she did look really wiped. Dark circles under her eyes, no makeup and the expression of someone who’d been worrying.
I knew a lot about that expression. I’d seen it every time I looked in the mirror these past two weeks.
“So what brings both of you here?�
�� I asked. “For a week already.”
“Where’s the third cot going to go?” Ally asked no one in particular, completely ignoring my question. She pulled a compact out of her purse and began arranging pieces of her hair, which she’d cut short and tres chic in a Meg Ryan style meets Debra Messing color. I eyed Zoe, but she started braiding and unbraiding her own Pantene commercial hair. O-kaaaaaay. “There’s barely room for the two beds in there already,” Ally added.
“So why are you two staying here?” I asked again. “And why in the same room?”
“I’m just here for another few days,” Zoe said. “Maybe another week.”
“Me too,” Ally said.
“Why?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
Zoe began braiding her hair again. “I thought I’d help out with the wedding plans.”
That was crap. According to Ally, who heard a brief version of the story from Dad a few months ago, Zoe wasn’t exactly hunky-dory with her new stepmother-to-be.
“And you?” I asked Ally.
Ally looked away. “Same reason.”
Yeah, right. Something was definitely up with both of them. I’d spoken to Ally during the past week; she’d asked how things went with Griffen during the big birthday conversation, she’d asked if I was taking my prenatal vitamins, she asked if I was getting enough vitamin C. But she never once said, Oh, and by the way, I’m staying at Dad’s and sharing a room with Zoe.
“What brings you here, Sarah?” Zoe asked me.
“Same reason,” I said.
The three of us eyed each other with very unsisterly skepticism.
I wasn’t about to let Ally know I was homeless—I’d get lectured for an hour, and then she’d insist on taking me apartment hunting on the spot. And I wasn’t sure I wanted Zoe or my father to know I was pregnant until I myself had answers to the obvious questions they’d ask.
“Well, I’m going for a walk,” I said. “See you for cocktails in the main drawing room,” I added in an English accent.
“Yeah, and I have to meet a friend,” said Ally.
“I’m going for a jog,” said Zoe.
And we all, quite uncomfortably, headed out the door in different directions.
The dining-room table was set for seven. Six, really, if you didn’t count the high chair.
“Sit wherever you want, girls,” my father said, taking the head of the table on the left.
Ally grabbed the seat farthest from him, Zoe the seat closest. I parked myself in between them.
“Sorry I missed cocktails,” Giselle said as she walked into the dining room, her two-year-old on her hip. “A certain little girl named Madeline wouldn’t put on her pants, would she?” She tickled Madeline’s stomach, and the baby started laughing. “Okay, Madeline, time to go in your high chair.” The second Madeline was seated, she grabbed the spoon from the tray and started banging. “She’ll stop when she realizes there’s a new face to study,” Giselle added, and, indeed, Madeline glanced around the table with wide eyes, examining faces, looking away, and then staring.
Her big hazel eyes landed on me, and she wouldn’t look away.
“It’s so nice that you’re all here,” Giselle said, smiling around the table. She looked at Zoe, who had ended up directly across from her, but Zoe stared at her fork, and Giselle turned to me. “It’s great to see you again, Sarah.”
I’d met Giselle once, about four months ago, when she and my father had come to New York supposedly for business but really to penthouse hunt. The happy couple and Ally and I had met for dinner at an expensive, dull restaurant. My father had dominated the conversation with movie talk and how great New York was, how happy he was to be “home,” and I hadn’t gotten to know Giselle at all. She seemed nice enough.
“The baby’s going to get overstimulated with all these people!” announced a gravelly-voiced, reed-thin woman. She stood in the doorway with a partitioned plate full of teeny-tiny pieces of food.
“Madeline’s fine, Mom,” Giselle said. “Her preschool class has more people than this. And there’s only one more person here tonight.”
“In my day, you didn’t overwhelm a baby,” Giselle’s mother muttered, and sat down next to Madeline’s high chair.
“Sarah, this is my mother, June Archweller,” Giselle said. “Mom, this is Bart’s middle daughter, Sarah.”
The mother eyed me, then began feeding Madeline. “Nice to meet you,” she said, handing the baby what looked like diced chicken.
“Well, folks, let’s dig in,” my father said. “Zalla’s quite a cook.”
It turned out that my father was on the Zone diet, which covered a good twenty minutes of conversation, and about which Giselle’s mother had quite a bit to say. Nutrition was her thing. The next twenty minutes were taken up by wedding chitchat and an overview of Wedding Fest events. My father discussed cummerbunds for another ten minutes.
Madeline began flinging peas and chicken pieces at Giselle’s mother, who was surprisingly patient with the toddler. Given her snappish conversational style, I’d pegged her as the ungrandmotherly type, but the woman was truly remarkable with Madeline. She was able to be firm and sweet at the same time; Madeline listened to her.
I had a million questions for Giselle about Madeline, from what it felt like to be much more pregnant than I was at the moment, to what the hell Lamaze class was all about, to giving birth, to changing a diaper, which I had never done in my life. I especially wanted to ask her what it was like being pregnant alone. Being a single mother. According to Ally, who heard the story from my father last year, Madeline’s father was a wanna-be rock star who’d denied the baby was his.
At least Griffen hadn’t done that.
“Giselle, how did you and Dad—” Meet, I swallowed as all eyes swung to me. “Decide which caterers and bridal boutiques, et cetera, to try,” I added fast. Idiot. I almost forgot that they’d met through Zoe at some chance meeting in a coffee bar. I glanced at Zoe; she was slicing her filet mignon into shreds.
Zoe and Giselle had been friends, and then Giselle had stolen Zoe’s father away from her mother. It was hard to remember that when you looked at Giselle. She had one of those absolutely open faces, like she’d give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. She was super pretty like Zoe, but in a different way. Zoe was almost classically beautiful because her features and her hair and body were so annoyingly perfect, but Giselle was beautiful in an exotic way. She had wildly curly light blond hair, to her shoulders, very light brown eyes, like Griffen’s, and a dusting of freckles. There was a lot of her too, but she was incredibly sexy, and she showed off her ample bod. She was wearing tight brown leather pants and a to-the-waist ruffly sheer shirt with a camisole underneath. She wasn’t a skinny-minny like my mother and Zoe’s. My father’s first two wives were so alike physically that everyone said he simply married a younger version of the same woman. Giselle was as opposite from the tall, dark, thin, regal type as you could get. She was more Anna Nicole Smith but with an Audrey Hepburn demeanor.
Every time I saw Giselle, I wanted to blurt out: What the hell are you doing with my father? She was twenty-five years old, gorgeous, smart (she was starting a master’s program in clinical psychology at Columbia in the spring), and she had a doting, if overbearing mother to baby-sit Madeline. What could she possibly have in common with Mr. Materialist himself, the king of the schmoozers, a completely superficial filmmaker partial to tanning in the winter and thick gold bracelets? My father got pedicures, for God’s sake, and Giselle didn’t even seem to wear makeup.
“So how long are all of you staying?” Giselle’s mother asked us, her shrewd eyes glancing from Solomon daughter to Solomon daughter. She turned to Ally. “You and Zoe have been here, what, a week now?”
“How long are you staying?” Ally snapped, and the woman blushed and turned her attention to Madeline.
“Everyone in this room is welcome to stay for as long as you like,” my father announced. “A toast—to my six girls!”
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br /> “I’m hardly a girl,” Giselle’s mother muttered, but she lifted her glass. I wondered what she thought of her daughter marrying a man her own age.
Ally, Zoe and I lifted our glasses as though they were weighted with bricks.
“Zal, honey, get a picture, will you,” my father said, and the housekeeper disappeared and reappeared with a camera. “First get Sarah, Ally and Zoe together, and then get a group shot.”
“Say cheesebiggers,” Zalla said.
“Cheeseburgers, Zalla,” Giselle’s mother corrected. “Burgers.”
“Burgers,” Zalla repeated, and clicked. Smiling on “burgers” didn’t exactly elicit grins.
Photos snapped, my father clapped his hands for attention, a bad habit of his.
“Sarah, I’ve got Ally and Zoe already thinking about this, and now I’d like you to join the think tank. Plaza, W, St. Regis, the Paramount? We’re thinking of a hotel wedding, but then something at the seaport might be nice too. Thoughts?”
Bartholomew Solomon carried on all conversations as though he were at an L. A. meeting.
“Dad, you’ve had two weddings already,” Ally pointed out, “so surely you know what you want and don’t want.”
If my father caught her sarcasm, he didn’t bite. “But that’s just it, Al,” he said. “I really don’t. I just want it to be spectacular. Spectacular like my Giselle.”
Giselle blushed and smiled. “I’d be fine with a small family wedding, but your dad really wants to go all-out. Ally, I heard your wedding was incredible. It was at the seaport, right?”
You had to hand it to Giselle for trying.
Ally sucked down some wine. “Yup. And what a waste of forty grand that turned out to be.”
All eyes swung to Ally.
“I mean, all that expense,” Ally continued, “all that planning, and for what? One day. Not even a day—five or six hours. The next day it’s business as usual.”
I was about to say something sarcastic, like Oh, that’s romantic, but there was a reason Ally was here, and it wasn’t to help my father pick out a cummerbund.
The Solomon Sisters Wise Up Page 10
