The Solomon Sisters Wise Up

by Melissa Senate

  “Funny? Why? It’s great news, sweetheart.”

  “I guess because I didn’t exactly plan it this way, to be pregnant and single, and…” I trailed off.

  “And what, Sarah? What?”

  He was looking at me, really looking at me, and waiting for an answer. I could either tell him the truth or I could just say I didn’t know or that I was embarrassed or something, which wasn’t true.

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d respond the way I wanted you to.”

  He flinched. “And did I respond okay?”

  “You responded the way I thought you would,” I said. “By saying that it was great news.”

  “Okay, now I’m confused. What did you want me to say?”

  All of a sudden, I realized how stupid what I was about to say was, how ridiculous it sounded. Did I really want my father to go ape on me about being pregnant and unable to take care of myself?

  “I guess I wanted you to be scared for me,” I said. “Instead of happy—Oh God, that’s so backwards.”

  “Sarah, I’m not scared for you. I never would be. Because no matter what, I know you’ll be fine. And I know that because you’re a strong, smart person, and because you’ve got me as backup. How could you ever go wrong?”

  “But, Dad—”

  “But Dad what? Am I wrong?”

  “Well, no, but—” He wasn’t wrong, but—

  But he was who he was. And I did have him as backup. And the pregnancy was great news.

  “I’m due in mid-May,” I said.

  May. Four months away.

  He pulled me into a hug. “Congratulations, sweetheart. May, huh?” he said, tipping my chin up to look at him. “Your mom was a May baby.”

  I smiled. “I know.”

  “That’s just terrific, Sarah. Really terrific. Congratulations, honey.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I said.

  “Your mom would be thrilled to know that you’re expecting, Sarah. She always used to talk about you and Ally having children some day, all the grandchildren she would have. She liked to talk about sitting in a rocker on a porch and knitting while her grandchildren scampered around the yard.”

  “You don’t think she’d feel funny about me not being married?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Your mom raised you and Ally to be strong, independent women. I think your mom would be overjoyed for you. And I think she would know that anything you needed, you’d only have to ask me for and you would have it. Anything, Sarah.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “Do you?” he asked. “Do you, really?”

  I looked at him, at this almost-stranger who was my father, and I realized that I did know. He wasn’t there the way I wanted him to be, he never had been, but when I did have a need, it was fulfilled. He’d opened his home to me, no questions asked. Allowed me my privacy.

  “You just need to ask, Sarah. If you need anything. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to anticipating needs. But I’m pretty good at giving.”

  “You are, Dad,” I said, and I meant it. “Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ve really appreciated living here for the past few months. I know I haven’t told you so. I guess I don’t know how you’d know if I didn’t tell you.”

  “Fathers have a way of knowing, Sarah. You don’t have to thank me for giving you what you need. That’s my job.”

  I threw my arms around him. I was so in need of a hug, of strong arms around me.

  “Just ask, sweetheart,” he said. “That’s all you need to do. And if you don’t feel comfortable talking to me, you can always go to Giselle. You know that, don’t you?”

  That I did know. Since Thanksgiving, I’d gone to Giselle countless times, to ask questions about strange sensations in my body, to ask questions about the books I was reading, to ask how exactly you did suction a baby’s nose, to ask, with tears streaming down my face, how you got over your baby’s father not loving you. At that one, we went for a very long walk in Central Park, kicking up snowpiles, and when we arrived back at the penthouse, I’d felt a little better.

  Just ask. I wished Just Asking worked on Griffen. We’d gotten together twice since our Baby Bonanza bomb, but things between us had been strained. We ordered in chicken burritos, we ordered in pizza, we made ice cream sundaes. We watched television. But there was no absentminded hair stroking. No hand on my belly. No talking, really. And no hugs. I’d made the mistake of kissing him, of really kissing him, and he’d freaked.

  Or simply realized that that wasn’t how he felt about me.

  “Sarah.”

  I whirled around, and there was Griffen, in a suit and tie.

  “Dad,” I said, unable to take my eyes off him. “This is Griffen. Griffen, Dad.”

  “The proud father-to-be?” my dad asked.

  Griffen smiled, tightly of course, and nodded.

  “Can I announce it?” my father asked me, slinging an arm around me. “I want to share the great news with the entire world.”

  I laughed and nodded. “Go right ahead.”

  My father pulled his keys out of his pocket and clinked them against his glass. “Everyone, attention, please!” And everyone hushed up. “I have a very special announcement to make. I’m not only going to be a husband, I’m going to be a grandfather. My little girl is expecting in May!”

  As everyone cheered and clapped, Griffen took my hand and squeezed it.

  Maybe zapping at him with the registry gun had worked, after all.

  That night, with a half hour left of the year, I decided to test the asking and registry zapping theories. Griffen and I were sitting on his sofa, watching Dick Clark and trying out the new heartbeat monitor he’d bought me as a New Year’s gift.

  “Isn’t it great?” Griffen said. “The station taped a segment on baby products to air next week, and I ran out and got this for you. You can listen to the baby’s heartbeat all you want, and then you can also use it after the baby is born. You put one monitor in the nursery and the other wherever you are, and you can hear every peep.”

  Ask. Ask. Ask.

  “You know what I want to hear?” I said.

  “What?”

  “That you came tonight, to the engagement party, for a reason.”

  He glanced at me, then began fiddling with the heartbeat monitor. “I came because you asked me to. Because it was a special occasion for your family and I knew it was important to you that I meet your dad and his fiancée and your sisters.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sarah, I have no idea what you’re getting at. It was important to you that I come, meet your family, so I came. End of story.”

  End of story. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be it, what our relationship was going to be like.

  “Griffen, what I need to hear from you is that this isn’t enough for you, that you want more,” I said. “You seem to go back and forth, but you seem to want to be here, to be with me. I need you to take that leap, Griffen.”

  “Sarah—”

  Oh God. There it was again. The same Sarah in the same nervous tone with the same Lord, Help Me expression as in the restaurant on my birthday almost three months ago.

  “I want more, Griffen,” I said. “This nameless thing we’re doing, it’s not enough. The mixed signals are killing me. We sleep spooned together, but don’t kiss. We hug, but not too tightly. We’re seeing each other, but not dating. I want more. I need more.”

  “But—”

  “No, Griffen. No buts. If you’re going to commit to me, then commit to me. But I can’t handle this limbo or whatever we’re doing.”

  “This so-called limbo thing we’re doing is working very well,” he said. “Things are really nice just as they are.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. “What kind of guy mumbo-jumbo is that? No, I take that back—I won’t generalize. What kind of Griffen crap is that?”

  “Crap? It’s crap to say that I’m happy with things as they are? That our relationship is
going well and let’s just keep going?”

  “Doesn’t this remind you of another conversation we had back in October?”

  He looked at me and shook his head. “What do you want? A marriage proposal?”

  I stood up and walked to the window and played with the curtain. Was that what I wanted?

  “I don’t want you to propose to me because I’m pregnant, Griffen.”

  “So what do you want?” he asked. “What exactly are you asking me for?”

  I want you to propose because you love me.

  But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t ask for that. Either he did or he didn’t, but you didn’t ask someone to love you. Did you?

  “See, you don’t even know,” he said.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

  “I’m sorry, Griffen, but this whatever that we’re doing, it’s just not good enough.”

  And it wasn’t. For me or for the baby. There was no such thing as a part-time father and I wouldn’t let there be a part-time boyfriend.

  “I’m going to go,” I said, taking my coat.

  “Sarah, c’mom,” he said. “Can’t we just—”

  “Just what? Be friends who sometimes kiss? Be friends even though I’m in love with you?”

  He bit his lip. “Sarah—”

  “Goodbye, Griffen.”

  He froze. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m leaving now,” I said.

  “But—”

  “Ah, it’s not so much fun to not know what someone means, huh?” I interrupted. “To not know where you stand.”

  “Sarah, things have been so nice,” he said. “Can’t we just keep on the way we’ve been going?”

  “We could if I didn’t want more than friendship,” I said. “If I didn’t love you. Do you hear me? I’m telling you I love you.”

  He took both my hands. “I hear you,” he said. “And it means a lot—”

  “If you say thank you, I’ll punch you in the nose, Griffen, I swear I will.”

  “I wasn’t going to say thank you. I just don’t know what to say right now.”

  “You never do,” I said. “And that’s why I’m leaving. We can be friendly, Griffen. But not friends, not like this. Not this buddyship where we fall asleep curled around each other. Where we spend practically every spare moment together. Where we spend hours discussing baby names. I can’t handle it. I need what I need.”

  “Sarah, please.”

  “Goodbye, Griffen,” I said. “I’ll let you know when my thirty-week ultrasound appointment is.”

  I walked away, fast, and made myself not look back to see if he was still standing there, if he was about to say something, if he was going to come after me.

  The moment I was outside I burst into tears. And in between sobs, I called Ally, but got her machine. Then I called Zoe and got her machine. Same for Lisa, Sabrina and even Giselle.

  And then I called my father, who answered on the first ring with a cheerful “Solomon here!” as he always did.

  The large two-bedroom apartment on E. Ninety-second Street was a tiny one-bedroom with a walk-in closet and a dead cockroach in the kitchen sink.

  The spacious, airy loftlike apartment with high ceilings and “park views” was small and claustrophobic and had a view of a garbage-strewn tree plot.

  The “must see” on E. Seventy-ninth was a fifth-floor walk-up, despite the words elevator-building in the ad.

  I’d been apartment hunting with Lisa and Sabrina for the past three weekends, and every apartment I saw was either all wrong or perfect—except for the rent. And the fact that it would be only me and the Sweetpea moving in.

  Griffen called every day, sometimes two or three times a day. And every time, despite how much I wanted that voice of his in my ear, I was polite, succinct, everything was fine, my prenatal appointment went well, no I don’t need anything, you take care too.

  And each time, Griffen would ask if he could come over, see me, listen to the baby’s heartbeat at least, and every time I would say no. And then there would be silence, and then he’d say, okay, I guess I brought this on myself, and I would say I’m sorry, and then there would be silence and then we’d hang up, and I’d cry and wonder what he was doing.

  I’d promised myself and the Sweetpea that we’d be in our new apartment by Valentine’s Day. But at this rate, we’d be celebrating Mother’s Day in the guest bedroom of my father’s house. At least we’d have room to accommodate my getting-huge belly; Ally had moved into her new house a few weeks ago, and Giselle had helped Zoe find an apartment share via a Columbia University bulletin board with a student studying in the same psychology program to which Zoe was hoping to be admitted in September.

  “I don’t think you could fit in this kitchen,” Lisa said, looking around the tiny narrow room. “Call the news stations—discrimination against pregnant women!”

  “Just don’t call Griffen’s station,” I said with a smile. And then his name did what it always did when I heard it: made me very sad.

  “Hey, turn that frown upside down,” Sabrina said, placing her two index fingers on opposite sides of my lips. “Sarah, you’ll find a great place. We just have to keep looking.”

  “She’s right, sweetie,” Lisa said. “It took me and George two months to find our place.”

  I sighed and grabbed the New York Times Real Estate section. There was one circled ad left. “Okay, hand me my cell.”

  The moment Sabrina gave me my phone, it rang. The number of a real estate agency I was using but couldn’t afford appeared on the tiny screen. There was no way I was asking my father to borrow money for the agency’s fee, but perhaps I could talk the agent into a one month’s rent fee instead of fifteen percent of the first year’s rent. I was having zero luck on my own.

  At my hello, someone who sounded exactly like Griffen said, “Don’t hang up, Sarah. I’m standing in the nursery of the perfect apartment for you. I’m with a real estate agent from CitiHabitats. Can you come see it?”

  “Griffen—”

  “It’s on Eighty-fifth and Third. Can you come?”

  “I can find my own apartment, but thanks.”

  “According to your father,” he said, “you’ve been apartment hunting for weeks.”

  “So now you’re talking to my father?” I asked.

  “I happened to catch him on the phone today when I called for you,” he explained. “He said you won’t accept any financial help from him or let his agent set you up and that he was afraid you’d take a walk-up.”

  A walk-up, even on my new salary, was about all I could afford. But at five months pregnant I couldn’t manage one flight of stairs, let alone two or three or four. And there was no way I could lug the stroller I’d registered for up any flights of stairs, even when I got my old body back. If I got my old body back.

  “Sarah, please come see this place,” he said. “I have a feeling it’s exactly what you’re looking for.”

  After telling him no for a few more minutes, I wrote down the address he gave me.

  “Just go see it,” Lisa said. “Maybe it will be the one.”

  “Yeah, go,” Sabrina said. “You have nothing to lose.”

  Yeah, nothing except standing in an empty apartment with Griffen and wishing we would be moving in together.

  He was standing in front of the building when I arrived. A doorman in uniform with tassels gallantly opened the door, Griffen introduced me to the real estate agent, who’d been sitting on a black leather settee under a huge chandelier, and then we took the elevator to the twenty-second floor. A small health club was on the second floor, along with a playroom and a meeting room. A large laundry room was on the third. A pool was on the roof.

  “Yeah, like I can afford this,” I whispered to Griffen as the lights took us up and up. “What’s the point of my seeing it?”

  “Just see it,” he said.

  The second I walked into the apartment, I wanted to live there. The living room was huge, and there were
two walls of windows, including a set of sliding glass doors to a good-sized terrace. The floors were shiny hardwood, parquet, and the long kitchen was shiny white with new appliances. The bathroom was marble and had Hollywood lights around the huge mirror.

  The bedroom was huge. Too huge for one.

  “This is where we could build the nursery,” Griffen said, spreading out his arms in a corner of the bedroom. “Either a ten by ten in here, or we could do it in the living room. There’s room either way.”

  “Griffen, I might be a well-paid senior editor now, but I still can’t afford this place. I don’t even need to know the rent to know that.”

  “It is pricey,” he said. “But you’d only have to pay half the rent.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think the super is going to be interested in weekly pay-off sex with a pregnant woman,” I joked.

  He laughed. “No, Sarah, I meant you’d only have to pay half the rent because I’ll be paying the other half.”

  “That’s really generous of you,” I said, “but how are you going to afford your place and half of this?”

  “Silly, I’m planning to give up my place and live here, with you and the baby.”

  I slipped on my coat and headed to the front door. “Griffen, unless this is a feel-good movie or you’re suddenly gay, living platonically with the father of my baby is a little too weird for me. And it’s not good enough for me. It’s not what I want. I explained this.”

  He ran after me and took my hand. “Sarah, calm down.”

  I yanked my hand away. “No, Griffen, I’m done calming down. And I’m getting really sick and tired of you suggesting things that you know I not only don’t want, but hurt me to even hear.”

  “Sarah, I’m not talking about living here platonically.”

  I looked up at him.

  He dropped down on one knee, reached into his pocket and held up a diamond ring.

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

  “Will you marry me, Sarah?” he asked.

  I gasped. Actually gasped. The man of my dreams, the man I loved, the father of my child was kneeling before me, offering me an engagement ring, asking me to marry him.

  “No, Griffen,” I said.

  He paled. “No?”