He softened. “I’ve had a few relationships, one serious that didn’t work out a few years ago.”
I wanted to ask five more questions, but I held my tongue. He hadn’t asked me about my history, which consisted of three prior relationships, none lasting longer than six months.
Ally grabbed a tortilla chip. “It’s too soon for sex if you don’t know some basic information about his family, his prior relationships, his work and his values.”
I didn’t know anything about Griffen when I slept with him, except that I found him gorgeous, sexy, smart, funny, his own person, creative, interesting and kind. I knew he worked as a producer in television. I knew he grew up in Brooklyn. I knew he had a brother who worked in the White House as some sort of congressional aide. I knew he liked red meat. Black coffee. Violent guy movies. Pop culture. Breasts. Running. Talking about current events. Sex.
And I’d thought he liked me. The way he looked at me while we were making love seemed to say what was in his heart and head. Was I a naive idiot? Did all men look like they were in love while they were having sex? Maybe. I’d slept with four guys, the first guy only once, and the other three regularly enough for a few months. No one had ever looked at me the way Griffen did. And I had never felt about anyone else the way I felt about him.
I couldn’t describe why he overwhelmed me. I was wildly attracted to him, yes, but not just physically. Our chemistry was unlike any I’d ever felt. We could talk about anything and did. We could disagree and did. We laughed a lot. We could kiss for minutes on a street corner. We were in sync. We were friends, lovers and, I thought, on our way to becoming the mythical soul mates.
“Well, Zoe, let’s say you decided to make a play for Daniel,” I said. “Because you’re such good friends already, would you immediately sleep with him? Or would you wait until your romance was more settled first?”
“Good question,” Zoe said. “I’m not sure.”
“Because you don’t really know how you feel about him,” Ally said. “You want him, but you don’t.”
“No, she just wants him at arm’s length,” I said.
“Then it’s definitely too soon to sleep with him,” Ally said.
“I’m glad I asked,” Zoe said, winking at us.
“Speaking of you, Zoe,” I said. “I told my boss about you this morning, and her eyes lit up at the idea of you writing an article or even a column about being the Dating Diva. She wants you to call her if you’re interested.”
“You’re kidding!” Zoe practically shouted. “That sounds amazing! I will call her.”
“This Dating Diva thing is a scam,” Ally said with a wink at Zoe. “You’re making a shitload of money by telling people what they already know.”
“What they already know?” I repeated. “Who knows anything? If I knew anything about when it was too soon to have sex, I might not be pregnant.”
“Yeah, Sarah, you might not be pregnant,” Zoe said quite seriously. “Look, I know being single and pregnant might not be how you planned things, but being pregnant is quite a blessing, quite a beautiful thing.”
“I’ll second that,” Ally said. “On the one hand, in your situation, there’s a lot to work out. But on the other, you’re damned lucky, kid.”
“A toast to me, then,” I said with a smile, raising my glass. We clinked. “Okay, so how about it’s too soon to sleep with someone you’re not in love with—that takes the guesswork right out of—No, that’s unrealistic. You could be very interested, very attracted, and that could be reason enough. It takes a long time for real love to develop.”
“That’s why single people have sex and married people don’t,” Ally said. Then she blushed and hurried to say, “Not that my marriage is an example. I’m just saying. When you’re in love, you’re blinded by romance. You have sex four times a day. It’s why people who marry after two weeks end up divorced a minute later. You’re in love with newness, the mystery, the zing. Once you’re living daily life and putting up with his obnoxious friends and being nice to his overbearing mother at family functions, the in-love part tends to recede and the love part takes over.”
That did make sense.
“Take you and Griffen,” Ally went on. “Let’s say you’re living together, changing diapers, picking up his socks from the living-room floor, he’s pulling your long hairs out of the bathroom sink. The baby’s crying. When are you going to have sex then? That’s real life. Dating isn’t.”
“So are you saying it’s too soon to have sex if you’re not ready to move in with the guy?” I asked.
“If you get pregnant, then yeah,” Ally said.
When I arrived at work the next morning, Griffen had left a message. Beep: “Um, Sarah, it’s Griffen. I tried you at home, but your roommate said you moved out like four weeks ago. Where are you living? Is everything okay? Um, I have to go out of town on business for a story this week, but, uh, I told my parents the big news, and you’re invited for pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving at their house if you can make it. They’re really anxious to meet you. Uh, give me a call back when you have a chance.”
As if calling him back wasn’t the most important thing on my to-do list.
“Why is it?” Ally asked that night. “I mean, I’m happy for you that he called and that he told his parents and that they want to meet you. But you haven’t been the most important thing on his.”
“You don’t know that,” Zoe said, twisting herself into a painful-looking yoga position. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s thought of nothing else but you and the pregnancy. And telling his folks is a big deal.”
“What I’m saying is that I don’t think Sarah should count on Griffen or get all hopeful about his involvement, even if he told his parents. This isn’t a fairy tale.”
No kidding. Even Cinderella got her own room.
14
Ally
My mother-in-law wanted to know, via telephone from Cincinnati, why Andrew was bringing home another woman for Thanksgiving.
“Because he’s a lying, cheating—” I stopped when I remembered that I was talking to Andrew’s mother, not that she’d ever been particularly warm and fuzzy to me. As Mrs. Sharp went on and on about forgiving and forgetting and compromising and what Dear Abby would have said, I held my cell phone at arm’s length and seethed.
“No, there’s no chance of reconciliation,” I told her. “No, I don’t think there’s anything he could say or do.”
So Andrew was bringing someone home for Thanksgiving? Which just happened to be my birthday this year? And whom could he have possibly met in a month, five weeks, that he liked so much he was bringing her to meet his parents—for a major holiday?
“You superwomen try to do it all, and what happens?” Mrs. Sharp went on. “You implode. You try to do it all, having a high-powered career and taking care of a house and a husband, and what happens? The house falls to pot and the husband is tempted away into the arms of another woman. But don’t blame yourself, Ally, dear. I’m sure this Valerie person cooked her way into Andrew’s heart. All a man really wants is a good hot meal waiting for him at the end of the day.”
Remember that she’s seventy-four. Remember that she’s seventy-four. Remember that she’s seventy-four.
“Mrs. Sharp, with all due respect, I don’t agree with a word you just said.”
“Well, Ally, that’s your problem. You do a lot of arguing—I guess it’s that career of yours. Arguing is what you do for a living, isn’t it? Well, dear, maybe if you’d done a little less arguing and a little more agreeing, Andy wouldn’t have had to look elsewhere. He would be bringing you to our Thanksgiving celebration.”
It was too bad that cell phones didn’t have cords. I needed something to strangle and Mrs. Sharp was in Ohio. A little too far away for neck squeezing.
“Mrs. Sharp—” I had been calling her Mrs. Sharp for thirteen years. “During eleven years of marriage to your lying, cheating son, I’ve been subjected to your overcooked turkey, limp, tasteless ve
getables and ridiculously outdated views on life. So if Andrew is bringing his latest floozy to the family Thanksgiving, I can only hope they both choke on a turkey bone. Happy holidays, dear.”
I threw my cell phone against the wall and sank down on my bed. My legs were shaking. This Valerie person. This Valerie person.
And suddenly my sisters were staring at me, their mouths hanging open to the floor. My heart had been beating so fast during that little conversation that I hadn’t even heard them come in. Sarah was clutching one of those two-pound hollow chocolate turkeys you found in drugstore candy aisles during the holidays. The head had been gnawed off.
“Chocolate has traces of caffeine,” I said, and burst into tears.
Sarah zoomed to one side of me and Zoe to the other.
“Ally, what happened?” Sarah asked, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ears the way my mother used to.
“I left Andrew,” I blurted out. “That’s why I moved here. He’s been cheating on me. I caught him in the act myself.”
“Oh no,” Zoe said.
“Oh yes. In my own house,” I said. “And then I found—”
“You found what?” Sarah asked, taking my hand.
“And then I found a vasectomy bill—”
The tears came fast and furious, and I covered my face with my hands.
“Oh, Ally. I am so sorry,” Sarah said. “I know how badly you’ve been wanting a baby.”
“He had a vasectomy and didn’t tell you?” Zoe asked.
I nodded. “We’ve been trying—or so I thought—to have a baby for five years. And then I found the five-year-old claim form—”
Sarah leaned my head on her shoulder and Zoe rubbed my shoulder. I told them what happened, starting with Mary Jane jumping on Andrew’s back and ending with my flurry of nightmarish blind dates from FindAMate.com.
“I can’t even interest a man in getting past drinks and appetizers,” I said. I’d gone on three more nightmare dates from hell before I canceled the two remaining. “I’m a bitch.”
“Ally, you’re not a bitch,” Sarah said. “You’re wonderful. You’re you, and I don’t know what the hell I’d do if you didn’t exist exactly as you are.”
“Really?” I asked. “You don’t think I’m the bitch queen of the eastern seaboard?”
“Well, sometimes you are,” she said, grinning. “But someone’s gotta tell people what’s what.”
“Telling people what’s what is exactly why I’m suddenly single and unable to interest a man in a conversation,” I pointed out.
“I doubt that,” Zoe said. “Not telling people what’s what—that’s what keeps people single.”
“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.
“When you don’t lay your cards on the table,” Zoe said. “When you’re not you and the youest you, you’re holding back. And when you hold back or when you act like you think you should to make someone interested, you end up with someone you’re not comfortable with or with someone who thinks you’re one way when you’re quite another.”
“That’s true,” I said. “But how I am doesn’t seem to interest anyone.”
“Is there something in particular you think you’re doing wrong?” Zoe asked.
“Well, I guess I could stop telling everyone that I’m twenty-nine,” I said. “I was going to fess up, but the dates were all such duds that I couldn’t bear to make things even worse.”
“You could definitely pass for twenty-nine,” Zoe said. “Absolutely.”
“I think we’re going to get along fine after all,” I said to her, and she smiled.
“Are you sure you should be dating so soon, anyway?” Sarah asked. “Wow Woman would probably advise a good therapist and a painting class or a vacation.”
“I know it’s too soon, but I don’t care,” I said. “I need to do something that will make me feel attractive again, even if it’s external. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to get that crap from myself, but right now, I need a man to make me feel the opposite of how Andrew made me feel last month.”
“I can understand that, Ally,” Sarah said.
“But I’m such a total washout as a single woman that I feel worse now,” I confessed. “I met Andrew when I was twenty-one, married him at twenty-three. I don’t know how to be single.”
“Hey, you don’t know how to be single and I don’t know how to be pregnant!” Sarah said. “We’re a good match.”
I laughed and yanked her long ponytail.
“You know, Ally, I do critique dates for a living,” Zoe said. “I’d be happy to give you the Dating Diva’s best work, on the house.”
Nooooo way. “I don’t know if I could handle that,” I said. “You, sitting at the next table, watching me acting like an idiot, watching me get rejected? I don’t think so.”
“Ninety percent of my clients tell me they forget I’m even there the minute the date arrives,” Zoe assured me. “They’re too wrapped up in the date or the moment to remember me. And it’s not like I’ll be sitting there staring at you and making myself obvious. You won’t even know I’m there.”
“Go for it, Ally,” Sarah said. “If you’re dating, you’ll forget all about Andrew. Plus, you’ll be too busy with all your men to harass me about eating chocolate and learning to put on a BabyBjörn.”
I wanted to put on a BabyBjörn. And if getting a critique of my dating skills took me a step closer to wearing my child on my chest, I’d do it.
“You guys are right. I don’t have what I want, and I have to start going after it! Proactive all the way. I have no husband, no baby, and I can’t even handle a date, so—Oh God, what am I talking about. My life sucks!”
“Your life sucks?” Zoe said. “How about waiting for your client’s date to show up and it turns out to be your own boyfriend?”
Now it was my and Sarah’s turn to stare at Zoe with mouths agape.
Zoe gave us the details. “Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that my mother is missing in New York City, planning our father’s destruction.”
“Big whoop,” Sarah said. “I’m single, pregnant and, drumroll please…homeless!”
“I had a feeling that’s why you moved in here,” I said. “What happened with the roommate?”
“A big diamond ring,” she explained.
“I don’t know, sister dears,” I said. “I still think I win the life sucks award.”
“No—I do,” Zoe said.”
“No—it goes to me,” Sarah said.
“Sorry, kid,” I said. “But you’re pregnant. The baby makes anything you’re going to go through worth it. And you’re not homeless, Sarah—you’re here. And if you weren’t here, you’d come live with me. You’d never be homeless.”
Sarah bit her lip and threw her arms around me. I couldn’t remember the last time she hugged me like that.
“Actually, my life isn’t so bad either,” Zoe said. “Even though Charlie and I broke up, I couldn’t make a decision about him anyway, so life took care of it for me. And my mother will probably go home eventually. And I sort of like someone else, a little, anyway.”
“I guess mine could be worse too,” I said. “I’m going to be an aunt. I’m getting a free critique from the famed Dating Diva and I make a shitload of money for doing what I love, even though I hate who I’m doing it for.”
Sarah broke off the chocolate turkey’s plump body and gave it to me. She gave Zoe the legs and popped the neck in her own mouth. And for the next half hour, we sat on our beds, eating cheap, bad chocolate as Zoe told us all about her last phone conversation with Daniel, I told them all about finding Andrew in the hammock with the Pilates instructor and Sarah read us the page on fetal development, week eleven. Then we spent the next half hour making fun of my father and his stupid bow ties.
I’d changed my profile on FindAMate.com. I was now thirty-five, as of next week, anyway, and separated.
Neither of which seemed to have any effect on Rupert Jones, a landscape architect. Thirty-six, also separated
, and also a Westchester émigré living in a terrible, tiny sublet on the Upper West Side. Like me, there was zero chance of reconciliation with his spouse. Rupert Jones and I had a lot in common, not including his calm demeanor and love of landscapes. I could teach you to smell the roses, he’d said on the phone during one of our two conversations. And you can teach me how to send back overcooked steak in a restaurant. We both liked the same music, we both loved Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks and we both had been cheated on.
Rupert Jones wasn’t my type. But he was absolutely appealing. Tall and lanky with a professor’s beard and intelligent, warm brown eyes, he showed up on time, wearing a date outfit and a smile. He’d even brought me a little present, a blank journal with a tapestry cover, since we’d discussed the importance of writing down our feelings during a maelstrom. I liked Rupert.
But acting natural was a bit of a problem with Zoe sitting three feet away, her notebook open and pen at the ready. I was already a nervous wreck, and every time Zoe’s hand moved, it distracted me. Every time she touched pen to paper, I was tempted to run over to her, grab her notebook and read it.
I’d thought I was doing pretty well with Rupert, but Zoe’s fingers were flying. What the hell was she writing? I thought she was supposed to be invisible!
“You’re even prettier in person,” Rupert said, filling my water glass from the carafe on the table. “I didn’t think that would be possible, but here you are.”
I beamed. I’d uploaded another photo, a recent one. “Thank you,” I said.
Zoe’s hand went wild.
What was she writing? What could I possibly have said wrong? I’d accepted a compliment the perfect way, with a simple thank you. I didn’t go into a two-minute monologue about how the photo was old or awful or how un-photogenic I was.
Zoe’s hand was still going wild.
“Do you see someone you know?” Rupert asked. “You keep craning your neck to see around that big guy.”
“I thought so, but no,” I said. “I’m sorry—I hope I’m not being too rude.”
Again I craned my neck around the very large man blocking my view of Zoe’s notebook. She was sitting two tables over and had a view of us, but my view of her was partially blocked. I only saw part of her hair, her right foot and her hand.
The Solomon Sisters Wise Up Page 19
