The Solomon Sisters Wise Up

by Melissa Senate

  “I am sure of a few things, Sarah,” he said. “I’m sure that I have strong feelings. I’m sure that I can be a good father to our baby. I just think that we need to get to know each other in this new context. Before, we were just seeing each other a couple times a week, going to the movies, having fun. Now, we’re going to be someone’s parents. We have a lot of work to do, Sarah. I think we can do it together. I’m just saying that everything is different and we need to start all over again.”

  I took his hand and placed it on top of my belly. He leaned his head on my shoulder, and we sat like that for a very long time.

  17

  Ally

  “So, Ally, how about a nightcap?” Rupert asked as we left Gastronomica.

  “Sounds great,” I cooed in my Samantha Jones voice.

  He squeezed my hand. “And I just happen to have a great bottle of Chianti and some incredible smoked Brie. Unless you’d prefer to go to your place.”

  My place was a little crowded at the moment with two sisters and a dog. And after that scene with my father at the table, I doubted that he’d want to find me fooling around with a date in his living room. Do not think about your father. Do not think about family fights. Do not think about Andrew. Do not think. Just go with the flow.

  That was very good advice-to-self, especially because it was my birthday, which my father had forgotten until this morning, when Sarah had asked him if he and Giselle would like a special Zone cake made out of God knows what so he could join in the festivities for my birthday. “It’s Ally’s birthday?” I’d heard him ask. “That’s right. How could I forget? It’s always on Thanksgiving!”

  Uh, no it’s not, Dad. Unless Thanksgiving is always on November twenty-second, you turkey.

  Speaking of food, to get Rupert to agree to this second date, I’d had to promise twice on the telephone that no turkeys, cranberry sauce, stuffing or pumpkin pie would land on anyone’s head. I’d been so excited about the date, a birthday date for me, no less, that I’d spent an hour dressing two hours in advance, praying during the dinner from hell that I wouldn’t spill cranberry sauce on my sweater. I’d originally planned to wear a sexy little black dress, but Zoe had shaken her head and said jeans and a sweater, which I couldn’t imagine wearing on a date, but Zoe insisted it was after-Thanksgiving-dinner wear. I arrived at the café in my vintage Levi’s, a cream V-neck cashmere sweater, and a pair of low-heeled suede boots, and Rupert was wearing the same thing, only his boots were leather and a white T-shirt peeked out of his V-neck.

  There was something about wearing the exact same outfit that broke the ice, and in moments we were clinking to Thanksgiving and new beginnings and swapping family-dinner horror stories. (Mine won worst story, by the way.) And suddenly it was nearing midnight, pumpkin hour for no reason at all since we both had the next day off, but you couldn’t have more than two glasses of wine on a date without worrying Mr. Potential that you were a major lush. (This, per Zoe and the stupid book I was reading on hooking a man.) And so I suggested we get going, which per both again the woman was always wise to initiate. And suddenly I was invited for a nightcap. Score one for Zoe and the book. Actually, score a few for Zoe.

  Rupert’s apartment was a small one-bedroom in a Tribeca skyscraper. Decor consisted of a black leather couch, black leather chair, black, white, and red print rug and a glass coffee table. A white roller shade covered the windows. The tiny galley kitchen contained a microwave, a coffeemaker and a freezer full of frozen food (discovered during my grand tour of the apartment). In the bedroom were a bed, also black and white, a dresser and a treadmill, which took up almost as much room as the bed.

  “The furniture I collected over the years remained in the house,” Rupert said, “which remains with the wife, so I bought some guylike stuff and that was that.”

  “I like it,” I said. And I like you….

  As Rupert brought over the Brie and a plate of crackers and the wine, I knew I was going to sleep with him.

  It’s my birthday and I’ll have sex if I want to, sex if I want to, sex if I want to…

  He sat, he poured and I pounced. I put my hand directly on the zipper of his jeans and looked him in the eye.

  He jumped in his seat, spilling the glass of wine in his hand. “That was unexpected,” he said.

  I dabbed at the tiny drops of wine on his thighs with the napkins, pressing with a bit more pressure the closer I got to his zipper.

  “But not unwanted,” I cooed, leaning close.

  “Ally, why don’t we have some wine, talk a bit.”

  “Because I have a better idea,” I said, and straddled him. I felt him stiffen, in every area, and pressed my chest against his. “Was there something you wanted to say?” I breathed in his ear.

  “Actually, there is,” he said, gently pushing my shoulder away from him. “I don’t think you’re ready for this. I don’t think we’re ready for this.”

  I felt my cheeks burning. “You’re not attracted to me?”

  “That’s not it,” he replied. “I said that I don’t think we’re ready, not that I’m not interested.”

  Oh God. Why was I so bad at this? Why couldn’t I figure out how to date someone? Why did I need my twenty-six-year-old sister to dress me and tell me how to behave?

  “Maybe I should just go,” I said. You’re an idiot, Ally! An idiot!

  “Maybe you should have a glass of wine,” he said. “And a piece of this incredible cheese.”

  “Look, Rupert, maybe I’m just not ready to date, period. I’m clearly a big washout—” I grabbed my jacket and my purse and stood “—so if it’s all the same to you, which I’m sure it is, I’d really just like to slink home.”

  “Actually, it’s not all the same to me, sorry. Mmm!” he said, as he slipped a sliver of cheese in his mouth. “Deeelicious.”

  I gnawed my lower lip. Should I stay or should I go now? I started singing in my head.

  “I just don’t know how to recover from that embarrassing little episode,” I confessed.

  “So, Ally, seen any good movies lately?” he asked, patting the cushion next to him. “You don’t strike me as a sports fan, or I would have said, ‘How about those Mets!’”

  “Actually, people say that when they want to change the subject, not start a conversation,” I pointed out.

  “Well, I’m trying to do both,” he said, handing me a glass of wine.

  Oh, what the hell. Things couldn’t get any worse, could they? I took the wine and sat down. He smiled. “I did see a movie recently, Rupert. A serial horror film about a woman who caught her husband cheating on her with her Pilates instructor, right in her own backyard, literally, mind you.”

  “That does sound scary,” he said. “What happens next?”

  “Well, the day after, when she came home to confront him, she found an insurance claim form for a vasectomy in her husband’s desk, when she thought they were trying to have the baby she wanted so much.”

  “Oh, Ally,” he said with such feeling that tears welled up in my eyes.

  “And so this woman,” I continued, “her life as she knew it a lie, goes sort of temporarily insane.”

  “And dumps a plate of food on her husband’s girlfriend’s head?”

  I smiled. “You’ve seen this movie!”

  He nodded. “That part was almost funny, actually.”

  “In fact, the woman was on a first date with a wonderful man when she did that. Someone kind and smart and sweet and good-looking. Someone she could really talk to. She really regrets that this guy saw her at her worst.”

  “Well, then she can only go up from there,” he said.

  I smiled again. “Actually, the film gets scarier. Then she actually gets this wonderful man to agree to a second date, and what does she do? She forces herself on him.”

  “This is just my opinion, Ally, but I got the sense he enjoyed that little moment.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That’s what’s so great abou
t the movies. Different people see totally different things, and afterward you can discuss it all quite reasonably and passionately and logically.”

  “Jeez, what does a psycho woman have to do to get you to never want to see her again?” I asked.

  “She’d have to turn into my soon-to-be-ex-wife.”

  I laughed and he slipped a Brie-laden cracker between my lips.

  “Today’s my birthday,” I told him, mouth full.

  “Happy birthday,” he said and kissed me on the lips. “Mmm, those cracker crumbs on our lips are pretty tasty.”

  “Then maybe you should have some more,” I said.

  He tipped my chin up with his hand and kissed me again, gently, then he pulled back. “Just a sec,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He disappeared into his bedroom and returned with a short red candle on a glass dish. He lit it. “Make a wish, Ally.”

  I smiled and thought for a second and made my wish. And then I blew out the candle.

  The next morning I went to visit my house. That was Rupert’s suggestion, actually. After gorging on cheese and switching from wine to good old Coca-Cola, we talked until two in the morning about everything from marriage and separation to hopes and dreams to children to work, and in the end agreed that despite how crazy things could seem, everything would be all right.

  I was beginning to believe that. I was also beginning to believe that the reason I’d clung to my marriage, been so oblivious, was because I’d felt so alone in the world. My mother was dead, my father was clueless and didn’t know his firstborn child’s birthday, my sister Sarah lived in another universe and my half sister Zoe basically didn’t exist.

  My clueless father aside, I wasn’t alone. Sarah didn’t so much live in another universe as she was simply a different person than I was. Younger and different. And Zoe did exist—much to my benefit. I’d lost a marriage and a dream and gained two sisters I didn’t even know I had.

  “And you haven’t lost the dream to have a baby,” Rupert had said last night. “Babies, I should say. You’re still capable of having children, Ally. And if you aren’t or if having a child with a man you’re romantically involved with simply doesn’t come to be, there are alternatives.”

  Alternatives. That seemed to be the key word to the future. Alternative ways of thinking, of behaving, of being.

  It was what made me knock on my father’s den door this morning to apologize for last night. The moments the words “I’m sorry” were out of my mouth, my father pulled me into a hug.

  He sat down on the leather sofa and patted the cushion next to him. “Ally, didn’t you see the movie Love Story?” he asked, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

  Oh Lord. “Dad, you don’t really believe that, do you?” I said, sitting down next to him. “I mean, it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. In fact, I believe that’s what Can-dice Bergen said in the sequel.”

  He laughed. “I don’t believe it either. I know there are sorries to be felt and said. But I do like to just forgive and forget and put things behind me and move on. That’s what keeps a person happy, don’t you think?”

  “Honestly, Dad, I don’t know. No, I do know. And the answer is no. I don’t think that’s what keeps a person happy. I think talking things out is what keeps a person happy.”

  “Sometimes, though, Ally, talking is just talk.”

  What did that mean? “Dad, haven’t you been curious as to why your three adult daughters are living in your house?”

  “Of course, Ally. But I respect your privacy.”

  “Or you’re not really interested,” I said. “I’ll go with ‘not interested.’”

  “Sweetheart, I’m always interested. I guess I’m the type of person who figures that you’d come to me if you wanted to talk to me. If you wanted me to know why you were here, you’d tell me. If not, then I want you to feel comfortable knowing you’re always welcome, for as long as you want, and have a place to be where no one’s pestering you.”

  It was true that his lack of questions, lack of prying, had been a huge plus.

  “Honey, when you stayed longer than a week, I knew there was trouble in your marriage. I know all about that subject.”

  I stood up and walked to the window and toyed with the curtain. “You know about leaving, Dad. That’s different.”

  “Ally, I didn’t just walk out on a great marriage to your mom. It wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like?” I asked. “She loved you and you left.”

  “We did love each other, Al, that’s true. But there were still problems. There always were, from the beginning. We thought being in love would conquer all, but it didn’t.”

  I dropped down on the sofa again and leaned my head back. “I thought the same thing with Andrew. I don’t even really know when we fell out of love. I was so focused on having a baby that nothing else mattered to me. I didn’t even realize I didn’t love him until—” I took a deep breath. “I caught him cheating on me. That’s what happened.”

  He pulled me close against his side. “I’m sorry, Ally. I’m very sorry.”

  “I was too. But I’m getting over it, slowly but surely, and picking up my life.”

  “Of that I have no doubt. Your mom would be so proud of you, Ally. You do know that, don’t you?”

  I leaned my head on his shoulder for the first time since I was very little and we sat like that for a long while, until Mary Jane’s barks threatened to wake up Madeline. And as we sat, I realized that I loved my father and always had. I didn’t like him; I never had and I probably never would, but I could love him anyway.

  “I think it’s time for me to go, Dad,” I said. “I mean, go-go. Go house-hunting. I’m ready to move on.”

  He smiled. “I never liked Andrew Sharp. Not thirteen years ago and not now.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You always acted like you adored him. Slapping him on the back, engaging him in conversations about the stock market.”

  “For you, Ally. Because you liked him, and that was enough for me.”

  “But why pretend?” I asked. “Why not just avoid him? Why the act?”

  “How would you have felt then?”

  “I probably would have been angry,” I said.

  “And you wouldn’t call or come visit,” he said. “And then how would I have felt?”

  “Honestly, Dad, I wouldn’t have thought you’d notice or care.”

  “You really think I’m a shit, don’t you?” he asked.

  “I used to think you were a shit,” I corrected. “Now, I see everything differently. Including myself. Being here these past six weeks has done me a world of good.”

  “I’m glad, Ally. Because no matter what, if I forget your birthday, if I don’t ask questions, if I don’t know the first thing about what’s going on with you, I love you.”

  I still wasn’t sure how to reconcile the three, but I was beginning to realize that it didn’t have to be a condition. “I love you too, Dad,” I said.

  The drive from the city to Great Neck had been bumper-to-bumper as usual, but for once I hadn’t been in a rush. I listened to the radio and sang along. I thought about Rupert. I thought about Sarah, about Zoe. I thought about the conversation with my father. I thought about work, about that idiot Funwell. And instead of filling with rage, I laughed as the image of Funwell, his jowly neck and roly-poly body, came into mind. To hell with Funwell. To hell with Andrew. And to hell with rushing.

  Now, as I pulled into the driveway of the house I had shared with Andrew for eleven years, Tara and her husband and baby Allison were just coming out their front door.

  “I’ve been gone for what, six weeks?” I called out as I headed over to say hello. “And Allison has already changed so much!” Allison smiled wide to reveal a sharp-looking little tooth in her lower gums. “I’ve missed you, sweetie.”

  “Oh, shoot,” Tara said. “Ally, would you mind holding her for a second?
I forgot her bottle.”

  The moment Allison was in my arms, I knew without a doubt that I would have a child. That I wanted a precious bundle in my arms for the rest of my life. Whether that bundle was my own baby or a five-year-old from a foster home or another country didn’t seem to matter. What I wanted had been put into perspective, somehow.

  It was what I’d wished for last night, before I’d blown out the candle. A child of my own.

  “I’ll take her, Ally,” Allison’s father said. “I want to get her settled in the car seat so we can take off.”

  And as he took the baby, I realized that my heart was still full instead of feeling hollow with the emptiness that usually followed whenever it was time to give Allison back.

  And then I went into the house, happy with the knowledge that Andrew and This Valerie Person were probably stuck on Mrs. Sharp’s green plastic-covered couch in Cincinnati, clutching their stomachs in pain over her awful cooking and personality.

  And then I began to pack what was mine.

  18

  Zoe

  “I completely disagree with you,” Astrid O’Connor said, handing me back my article with a snap of her wrist. “I’ve starred in the margins where I think you’re quite wrong.”

  My article was covered in little red stars.

  “First of all, Zoe, the title is awful,” she said, leaning back in her leather chair behind her desk. “‘The Dating Diva Was a Dating Dope’? I don’t think so. All wrong.” She shook her head, so delicately it barely moved, and folded her hands on the desk in front of her. She reminded me of the teacher’s pet in elementary school.

  “But it’s the truth,” I said. “I was a dating dope and I gave dopey advice.”

  “That’s where we disagree,” she said. “You gave excellent advice. You’d like to tell our readership, however, that you’re going to give them dopey advice.”