The Solomon Sisters Wise Up

by Melissa Senate

  “That’s what broke up your parents’ marriage?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Ah. So that’s why your mom’s on the warpath. Not about her, but about you.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You got betrayed too, Zoe.”

  God, this felt good. To feel validated. To feel like someone was taking a soothing balm and rubbing it all over my body. It felt as good as a hug. Charlie’s response to my bringing up my father and Giselle was to tell me it was just an excuse to keep him at arm’s distance, that I should get over it.

  Daniel squeezed my hand. “I think you’ve got a lot on your mind, Zoe Solomon. Good thing I left you the last bite of crumb cake.” He forked it and twirled it in the air to my mouth as though trying to feed a stubborn child. “Open up. Yum-yum.”

  I laughed and opened up.

  “So you haven’t heard from your mom?”

  I shook my head. “I went to Bloomingdale’s yesterday after we spoke and looked in every department that I might find her in, but no luck. I’ve called her cell constantly, but it’s not turned on. I don’t even know what’s got me so worried—her state of mind or what she’s going to do to my father—Ack. Enough of my melodrama. Do you—”

  “Don’t minimize what’s going on in your life, Zoe,” he said. “It’s not melodrama.”

  I smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “Thanks, Daniel. I mean that.”

  He smiled back.

  “Do you have plans to see Joy again?” I asked.

  “She invited me to a party at her school for the graduate students. I always figure that’s a good sign, since it lets the entire male population at the party know she’s taken.”

  “See, Daniel. Maybe she likes you just fine. Just as you are.”

  “Who are you, Mark Darcy?”

  “You saw Bridget Jones’s Diary?” I asked.

  “A date dragged me.”

  “Well, it’s a good line, Daniel. That’s what we’re all really looking for, right? Someone to love us just as we are.”

  “Except us neurotics with issues.”

  I laughed my head off.

  10

  Sarah

  It took Griffen two weeks to call. Two weeks.

  He phoned me at work this morning and suggested—with a lot of “ums” and pauses for a fifteen-second conversation—that we meet tonight at DT*UT “to discuss the situation.”

  What was he going to say? What did I want him to say?

  Marry me, Sarah. We’ll work it out as we go. We’re having a baby. We’re in love. Let’s make a commitment and go from there.

  Was that how it worked? I had no idea. I certainly didn’t have a background in marital commitment to look to. Many times over the past six days I’d wanted to ask Ally’s opinion of “the situation,” but she was still very distracted, grumpy and either not around or asleep. I had no doubt that something was wrong in her marriage, but she clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and though she was queen of the priers, she would send a killer glare if you dared ask her a personal question. Day after day, though, she sent e-mail links to every imaginable pregnancy Web site with every imaginable article: “What To Eat During Your First Trimester;” “Why Prenatal Vitamins Are A Must;” “Don’t Fight the Fatigue;” “What’s Happening in Your Body, Week Eight;” “Maternity Clothes With Style!” That last one had stopped my breath. Maternity clothes? I hadn’t figured buying a new wardrobe into the mix of my expenses. According to But I Don’t Know How To Be Pregnant!, my bible, I wouldn’t need maternity clothes until I was five months along. So I had three months before I had to worry about where that extra money was coming from.

  I thought about confiding in Giselle and asking her some of my burning questions, but she wasn’t home very often either, and when she was, she was busy with Madeline. There was also something so unreal about Giselle that I almost didn’t feel entitled to have a personal conversation with her. You saw a lot of Giselles in New York City, especially if your office was on Fifth Avenue near Union Square, like mine, but you didn’t personally know them, the megawomen who looked like actresses or models or like they skied in Aspen all winter.

  I certainly couldn’t talk to Zoe, despite how nice she’d been to me a couple of days ago. She was crankier than I’d ever seen her. I rarely did see Zoe over the years, maybe a few times at holidays, but she was always trying to talk to me and I was always trying to keep her at a distance. Now she was as distant as I usually was. She slept with her cell phone on her pillow. She was either waiting to hear from her mother or waiting to hear from a guy. It was hard to imagine Zoe waiting for a guy.

  And then there was Danielle Ann, who I usually tried to avoid at work, but who I now couldn’t get enough of. If I spotted her in the kitchen, making a pot of decaf, I stared at her belly until she stared back at me. I watched her in meetings, noting just how many minutes it took for her eyes to start drooping. And I jotted down how many times she ran to the bathroom. “Can I help you with something?” she’d snapped at me when I was standing in the doorway of her cubicle, staring at her bare feet. Her socks and ugly black shoes were next to her chair. “They swell, okay?”

  And I’d skulk back to my cubicle, wondering when my feet would start to hurt. I spent so much time listening for Danielle’s movements that twice Lisa had to touch my arm to get my attention.

  After work I’d stopped off at my father’s apartment and stuffed some of my favorite outfits into a bag, then headed to my old apartment, where I still officially lived for two more days. I was milking those days for storage time. I didn’t have much—a bed and a dresser and a ton of books and my tiny clothing collection, but penthouse or not, I doubted any of it (except the clothes and a couple of boxes of books) would fit at my dad’s. Some of my clothes had started to get a little tight, and I wanted to try a few things I’d left at the old place to find just the right outfit.

  I stood in front of the full-length mirror attached to my closet door, a small pile of clothes at my feet, which I kicked away in frustration. I tried on my always-perfect black stretch bootleg pants—too tight in the hips. I tried on my always-perfect just-past-the-knee black matte jersey skirt—too tight in the butt. My slightly tight, slightly cropped cashmere-esque black sweater with the tiny black rose on the left chest—too tight in the bust. How was it possible that nothing fit already? Oh God. Was it time for maternity clothes? I was only eight weeks pregnant!

  I settled on a black wool miniskirt that Ally had bought me in a size too large. She gave it to me last year, and it still had the tags on it. Now the skirt fit perfectly. The “boyfriend” sweater, which was naturally a little loose and my new black leather knee-high boots, and at least I didn’t look pregnant.

  “Ooooh, someone’s got a date. Where are you going?” Jennifer asked from my doorway.

  “Out somewhere,” I said. Go away. Go away.

  “You’re wearing that?” she asked.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror. “What’s wrong with this?”

  She braced her hand on the door and her diamond ring sparkled. “Sar, don’t take this the wrong way, okay, but it sort of makes you look pregnant. You just need to lay off the scones and the M&M’s. Like, last year, I wanted to lose five pounds for Jason’s company Christmas party, so I gave up frappucinos because they’re made with two percent milk and not skim. You’d be surprised how that adds up, Sarah. Ooh—phone’s ringing! Have fun, Sar!”

  “I don’t even really know you,” was what Griffen said when we sat down with our coffees, mine a decaf, and the chocolate cupcake he insisted on buying for me. If Jennifer had walked by, I was sure she’d snatch it away with a wag of her finger. “You’re going to be the mother of my child,” Griffen continued, “and I don’t even really know you.”

  “Griffen, we’ve been seeing each other for two months.” The past two weeks not included, of course. “You know me.”

  “You know what I mean, Sarah.”

  “No, I reall
y don’t,” I said. “I understand that we haven’t known each other for very long in the scheme of things, but we’ve spent a lot of time together, talked a lot, shared a lot of personal stories about ourselves. I feel like I know you.”

  He gave me one of those uh-huh looks. “What did you expect me to say, then, about the pregnancy?”

  He had me there.

  “You don’t know me, Sarah. You can’t possibly.”

  “So what are you saying? Why don’t you just say what you’re saying?”

  He glanced down, then up at me. He looked me directly in the eye. “I’m saying that I’m not ready to be a father. Sarah, I am really sorry that it took me two weeks to call you, but I’ve spent these past fourteen days walking around like a zombie because I don’t sleep at night. All I’ve been thinking about is the pregnancy. What it means. How I feel. What’s fair. What’s right. What’s wrong. And when I couldn’t not face the truth anymore, I called you.”

  “And the truth is that you’re not ready to be a father?” I asked. “I’m not ready to be a mother, Griffen. But I’m going to be.”

  “The truth, Sarah, is that I don’t want to be a father. Not yet, anyway, not by a long shot.”

  But you are a father, idiot. You are going to be a father whether you like it or not, whether you’re ready or not.

  Did I want to be a mother? Yet? Absolutely not—and to quote Griffen, not by a long shot. Did I want the baby? Absolutely yes. I already loved the baby inside me.

  Griffen took a sip of his coffee. “I’ll help you financially. I definitely will. I want you to know that you won’t have to worry about money. I don’t make a fortune at the station, but I do okay….”

  “Are you saying you don’t want anything to do with the baby?” I asked, my cupcake sludging around in my stomach.

  He looked away, then nodded, then looked back at me. “At least right now, anyway.” He covered his face with his hands and shook his head wildly. “Sarah, I can’t even deal with the fact that you’re pregnant, that you’re really going to have a baby. My baby. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’m going to be someone’s father. I’m not ready, Sarah. I can’t handle it. Not even the idea of it.”

  “Me either,” I said.

  A look of surprise lit his face. “So why do it?” he asked almost excitedly, as though he realized he might have a spark of hope talking me out of it. “I mean, you’re not ready. I’m not ready. You don’t really want a baby right now, so why do it?”

  Because I’m pregnant, I thought. You don’t know how you’re going to feel until you know you’re actually pregnant. Until you see the pink line or the doctor says Congratulations, and you touch your stomach.

  “I can’t explain it rationally, Griffen. I only know that when I found out I was pregnant, I felt joy first. Absolute joy. Then I felt fear. But I never felt ‘I don’t want this baby.’”

  “But, Sarah—”

  “You want to know what I feel? I feel extraordinarily happy and extraordinarily scared that in seven months, I’m going to have a baby. I used to think about seven months in terms of saving up to go on a trip, or losing fifteen pounds, or working my ass off for a promotion. And now, in seven months, I’m going to be a mother. I don’t know what to do with this baby or how to have a baby and I’m not even ready to think about how my life is going to change, whether the father is there or not. But I still have never once thought about not having the baby.”

  “Well, I have thought about how my life is going to change,” he said, “and I don’t want to be a father now. It’s not really fair for you to make me be one.”

  What was I supposed to say? It wasn’t really fair. But I was pregnant. If I weren’t pregnant, he wouldn’t have to be a father now.

  “I won’t be just a guy anymore,” Griffen went on. “I’ll be someone’s father. Financially, my life completely changes. I have to think of someone else first—so mentally my life changes. Spiritually, emotionally. Every way. I like my freedom right now. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  There was if the woman you were dating was pregnant.

  “You’re immature, Griffen,” I said. He was entitled to his feelings and he might have been perfectly justified, but he was immature. “I suddenly have to grow up too and accept that my life as a single woman without a care is over. But the situation is what it is and I’m accepting it. I’m not pretending it doesn’t exist by just ducking out.”

  “Abortion is legal in this country, Sarah,” he snapped. “You have something called a choice. There’s no such thing as ‘ducking out.’ It’s called making a choice. And I’m immature? I’m not the one who’s going to have a baby that I can’t even take care of. You make shit money, you have a roommate, you’re not even particularly maternal, Sarah.”

  “Is that why you haven’t fallen madly in love with me over the past two months, Griffen?” I asked through gritted teeth. “I haven’t mothered you?”

  “Forget it,” he said, and stood up. “Look, I said what I came to say. I’ll do my share financially. But this is your choice and you’re making it. I’m choosing something else.”

  “So you’re not interested in any news about the pregnancy or ultrasound results or pictures?” I asked. “You just want to know when I need half my co-payment from you?”

  “What’s an ultrasound?” he asked, his expression nervous. “Is that to test if something’s wrong with the baby?”

  So he was interested. “You see the baby on a monitor, hear the heartbeat, get a little picture. The doctor checks to see that everything’s okay. My appointment’s next Thursday at Lenox Hill Hospital. Twelve-thirty.”

  “Do you have someone to go with you?” he asked.

  “I was hoping you’d come with me,” I replied, grabbing my jacket and bag. “But I could ask my sister, I guess. Ally would kill to come with me to an ultrasound.”

  He gestured to the door and I led the way out. We stood in front of the coffee lounge, looking everywhere but at each other.

  “Well, like I said, call me if you need anything, Sarah.”

  “Like money.”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I have insurance, Griffen. There really aren’t any expenses until the baby’s born.”

  “Well, um, call me if you need anything,” he said again.

  I nodded.

  And he walked away.

  That was getting to be a habit of his.

  The moment Griffen turned the corner and disappeared, my legs gave out. Really. Right on Second Avenue. If there hadn’t been a telephone booth in front of me, I might have fallen. Hanging on to the top of the phone box for support, I dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed Lisa’s number, but of course the pay phone ate my money. I dug out my cell phone. Lisa said she’d call Sabrina and we should meet at her place right away.

  For a half hour I sat on her couch, hyperventilating, then I stared at the ceiling. I was going to be a single mother. I wasn’t just a this or a that anymore. I was a single-mother-to-be.

  I’m going to have a baby alone.

  Lisa and Sabrina calmed me down with “You don’t know what the future holds, wait and see,” but we all knew what we were really thinking: that I’d better face reality and fast.

  How did you face reality, exactly? How did you go from terrified, albeit somewhat happily, to accepting your life as it was?

  “Check this out,” Sabrina said, handing me this month’s Smart Woman magazine, which was a major competitor of Wow. “I saved it for you.”

  I opened to where she’d bookmarked: It was an Are You Ready For Motherhood? quiz.

  “Okay, question one,” I said. “It’s New Year’s Eve and your four-month-old has her first cold. Do You: A) Hire a baby-sitter and go out and party till 5:00 a.m. B) Stay home and care for the wee one. C) Ask your mom to watch the baby (after all, what were she and your father going to do anyway?). D) Bring the party to your place and ask everyone to keep it down.

  “A,” Lisa sa
id. “It’s New Year’s Eve. You can’t make the baby better just by staying home and suffering along with it. No, maybe C,” she amended. “Yeah, C. If it’s your mom, then at least you know the baby will be in capable hands.”

  “Not my mom,” Sabrina said. “She wasn’t exactly mom of the year.”

  My mother had been. God, she was wonderful.

  “But I agree,” Sabrina added. “Definitely C. Better a mom than a teenager.”

  “I think I should say B,” I said. “But I want to say C also.”

  Then again, I didn’t have a mother. The baby would have only me.

  Only me. Only me. Only me.

  We finished answering the questions and took our scores. We all scored in the Don’t Go Anywhere Without a Condom! category, but at least I came in on the high end, just a few points below You’re Ready But Need a Reality Check.

  “Speaking of a reality check,” Sabrina said, “what about Puerto Rico? We haven’t talked about it in weeks.”

  Puerto Rico. I’d forgotten all about it. Sabrina and Lisa and I had birthdays in consecutive months—Lisa was September, I was October and Sabrina was November, so we’d decided to celebrate the big twenty-nine (Sabrina was turning twenty-eight) with a fun trip to an island, if we could afford it. Before I knew I was pregnant, Ally said the plane fare could be her gift to me this year, but I’d have to take care of everything else, like the hotel and meals and drinks.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “But it’s only the first trimester,” Lisa said. “You’re allowed to fly, aren’t you?”

  I could, but hanging out on the beach and drinking virgin piña coladas had lost its thrill. All I wanted to do was read baby books and come up with articles that would wow Ms. Wow so I could get promoted.

  “It’s probably our last chance to do anything fun,” Lisa said. “Soon you won’t be able to do much at all, Sarah.”

  I glanced at Lisa. “I know, but…I just don’t think I should waste my money on a vacation when I have to price cribs and stock up on diapers and baby food. It seems like an irresponsible thing to do.”