The Solomon Sisters Wise Up (33 page)

“I don’t know what I would have done without them these past few months,” I said. “I’m not sure how I survived all these years without my sisters as my best friends. That’s what they’ve become.”

“Well, maybe when I come visit you,” she said, “I can spend some time with them too. If they’ll let me.”

I smiled. Sarah and Ally had both changed so much over the past few months that I had a feeling they’d add forgiving my mother to their Why The Hell Not lists.

“You’ll be okay in California without me?” I asked.

“Silly girl,” she said, grabbing my hand and placing it flat over her heart. “You’re always
here.
Distance means nothing.”

I threw my arms around her. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, Zoe.”

“Aw, shucks,” Daniel said. “I love you guys too. Actually,” he added, looking at me, “you, I just
like.
I don’t love you at all. Not one bit. Not one single iota.”

“I love you too, Daniel,” I said.

His smile filled my heart. “Did you hear that, Mrs. Solomon?” Daniel said. “She loves me.”

“I raised a smart girl,” my mother said. “And you can call me Judith or
Ms. Gold
from now on. I’m taking back my maiden name.”

My mouth dropped open. For my entire life, my mother’s identity had been wrapped up in being Bartholomew Solomon’s wife. Tonight, or tomorrow at the engagement party, I would make sure my father knew that I was done holding his love for Giselle over his head.

“I think Ms. Gold sounds sexy, don’t you?” my mother asked.

Daniel and I both clapped.

22

Sarah

S
ixty or seventy of my father’s and Giselle’s closest friends and relatives were packed into the apartment, celebrating the occasion of their engagement and New Year’s Eve. Giselle looked amazing in a long, slinky ivory dress, her wild blond curls flowing down her shoulders, and my father, tanned and decked out in a tuxedo, was clinking champagne glasses and beaming from room to room.

Zoe and Daniel were holding hands and making out when they thought no one was looking, and Ally and Rupert were feeding each other cake and fingering dots of icing off the sides of each other’s mouths and looking into each other’s eyes and arguing the finer points of the Atkins diet versus the Zone.

“Speaking of the Zone, Sarah,” my father said, taking my hand and leading me to a quiet corner by the window, “you’re either way out of the Zone or pregnant. And I’ll bank on pregnant.”

“I guess it’s pretty obvious now, huh?” I said.

He nodded. “I wasn’t sure whether or not I should say anything until you chose to tell me yourself, but it was getting obvious and you weren’t telling me, so…”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said. “I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I guess I felt funny.”

“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 friend
ly,
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.