The Solomon Sisters Wise Up

by Melissa Senate

  “Very impressive,” I agreed. “I remember you used to draw buildings all the time. Tall, New York buildings.”

  His eyes lit up. “Zoe Solomon remembers anything about me? Unbelievable. Next you’ll tell me you always had a secret crush on me in high school.”

  “No such luck,” I said, grinning. “I remember the drawings because I always dreamed of moving to New York one day, and you used to draw New York.”

  “Well, fancy that,” he said as we followed a throng of people toward the exit. “And here you are.”

  “Well, I’m not really here. I’m chasing after my mother. Ah, it’s a long story.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Well, my friend’s flight is delayed a half hour, so I’ve got time for a long story.”

  “My parents got divorced last year,” I said. “Another woman.”

  Daniel nodded. “That’s what got my parents. A long time ago, though.”

  “Well, now my father’s marrying that other woman, and my mother flipped when she saw the engagement announcement. My father actually sent her one. He was married to the woman for twenty-five years and didn’t know her well enough not to do that?”

  “Sounds like he just got caught up in his own excitement,” Daniel said. “It was pretty insensitive, though.”

  “My mother thought so too. And she flew out yesterday to destroy his life. Or so she said.”

  Daniel laughed. “I always liked your mother. Very theatrical.”

  “How do you know my mom?” I asked.

  “Are you forgetting that I was an esteemed member of the Desmond Hills High School’s thespian group?”

  Ah. My mother had been a little too involved in my school. She was assistant director and head set designer for the drama club, which I had never joined for that reason. Couldn’t act, sing, dance or memorize lines, for that matter. I’d graduated from Desmond Hills eight years ago, yet she still donated her time to the school.

  “Do you know where she’s staying?” he asked. “I’m sure you’ll be able to talk some sense into her. I remember Mrs. Solomon as being very dramatic but ultimately reasonable. One year we did Romeo and Juliet, and your mother spent an hour trying to convince the head director to let them live at the end. She’s just a romantic, Zoe. Maybe once she sees that your dad is happy, she’ll back off.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “My father’s happiness isn’t number one with her. And I don’t know where she’s staying. I don’t even know where to look.”

  “I’d look in your father’s closets,” Daniel said.

  I laughed. “That’s probably exactly where she is.”

  “Hey, can I hire you while you’re in town?” he asked.

  “Hire me? I thought you said you were taken.”

  “Well, I am, sort of,” he said. “She’s on the way to becoming my girlfriend, but she’s not there yet.”

  “And what’s stopping her?”

  “A lack of serious interest in me,” Daniel said.

  I laughed again. “Well, that would stop her, yes.”

  “We’ve gone out a few times and I really like her,” he said, “but you know when someone’s being halfhearted and ambivalent. Even a dolt like me knows.”

  “Your ambivalence isn’t exactly confidence-building, Zoe,” Charlie had said a few times. “You’re halfhearted about us.”

  “I’m not,” I would tell him. “This is just how I am. I’m not Miss Burst of Enthusiasm.”

  “I’ve seen you enthusiastic, Zoe. I’ve seen you bursting with enthusiasm.”

  Oh.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” Daniel continued. “Once or twice—okay, more than once or twice, I’ve seen her eyes glaze over. You could accuse me of a lot, but being a killer bore isn’t one of them.”

  I bit back my smile. I could imagine Daniel on a date, trying to impress a woman, going a bit overboard with his shtick.

  “How long have you been seeing her?” I asked.

  “We’ve gone out five or six times. I think she’s at the point where she’s gonna dump me or commit—to sleeping with me, at least.”

  I glanced at him. Sex and Danny Marx didn’t seem to belong in the same sentence. I couldn’t imagine even kissing him on the lips.

  He shifted my suitcase to his other hand as we headed outside to the taxi line. “And once we’re, shall we say, intimate, I can work on her from there. It’s easier to make a woman fall in love with you once she’s slept with you.”

  My eyebrow shot up. “Where’d you read that crap?”

  “It’s a known fact,” he said with a grin. “You see why I need your help?”

  “Oh, I see, all right.” I grinned back at him and punched him on the arm as I untied my sweater from around my hips and slipped it on. “You need a lot of help, Mr. Marx. So what exactly do you want—a critique of your relationship?”

  “Not the relationship, just my skills at relating. I want the Dating Diva’s gentle brutality.”

  I laughed, which I’d been doing a lot of since running into him. “Sounds like you relate just fine, Daniel.”

  “I would have gotten her into bed by now if that were the case.”

  He got another punch on the arm. “Maybe she’s just the wrong woman for you. Did you ever think of that?”

  “Nah, no chance,” he said. “I really like this woman. A lot. She’s special, you know?”

  I stopped and looked at him. “You really like her, huh.”

  He nodded.

  “I’ll tell you what, then, Daniel. I’m not too sure what my schedule will be over the next few days or how long I’ll be staying in New York, but if I find some spare hours, you’ve got a critique on me, for old times’ sake.”

  He grimaced. “Ack, don’t say that. Old times’ sake. I was every girl’s best friend. ‘You’re so nice, Danny. I wouldn’t want to ruin our friendship. I just like you as a friend, Danny. You’re such a sweetie.’ Well, screw that horseshit. I’m trying to perfect my inner jerk.”

  “For that, you get the Dating Diva’s private cell phone number.” I handed him my card. “Really, though, Daniel, I’m not sure if I’ll even have time. I’m not too sure of anything right now.”

  He looked at me. “Are you all right? I didn’t want to pry before, but I figure your parents divorcing when you’re twenty-six ain’t too much fun, and I don’t know what happened to the boyfriend, but I’m sure you’ll be snatched up in about five minutes.”

  “Well, thanks,” I said. “But I think I’m going to concentrate on stopping my mother from maiming my father.” I was next in line for a taxi. “Thanks for waiting with me, Daniel. And if I don’t talk to you, good luck with the girlfriend-to-be. I really hope it works out.”

  A moment later I was in a yellow taxicab. Danny leaned down and made a funny face against the window, then waved as the cab sped away. I turned around to look back, and Daniel was standing there, watching.

  My father had one of those amazing New York apartments you only saw in old Woody Allen movies like Hannah and Her Sisters. It was a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue in the low nineties. There was even a maid’s room, where Zalla, housekeeper and Zone chef, did indeed live.

  Zalla took my suitcase and disappeared down the hall. A moment later, my father appeared, looking a lot like Ralph Lauren.

  My father always looked as if he just returned from vacationing on a Caribbean island. He was tall, tanned, had silver-brown thick hair and was a very good-looking man. As he came toward me, big smile, I half expected my mother to jump out from a corner with an electric razor and buzz his hair off. “He’s all hair and tanned skin and flash,” my mother had taken to saying recently. “You cut the hair, lose the tan and the Rolex, and he’s just an old man. A dirty old man.”

  My mother’s therapist managed to do some very good work, but it lasted only a day or so. Then my mother would be back to, “He’s the only man I’ll ever love. He just needs to see that she’s a teenager and he belongs with a woman.
We have history! A child together! A child older than the baby he’s marrying!”

  My father pulled me into a hug. “You look great for someone who’s been on a plane all night.”

  Actually, I looked like shit. I was surprised Daniel had even recognized me. My crying jag had obliterated my makeup, I had dark circles under my eyes and my hair was in a ponytail under a baseball cap. I wasn’t sure if my father always thought I looked beautiful because he was my father or if he just never really saw me.

  “Giselle was thrilled when I told her you were coming,” he said, putting on his suit jacket. “She already left for school, but she can’t wait to see you tonight.”

  I could wait to see her.

  He grabbed his briefcase from a gorgeous secretary desk in the hallway. “I wish I didn’t have to head out, Zo, but it’s 8:00 a.m., which means I’ve got to hit the office. Dinner’s at seven.” He kissed the top of my head, then slipped on his sunglasses, despite how overcast it was. “We’ll catch up then. Oh—there’s a surprise for you in the guest room.”

  The surprise turned out to be my sister Ally and a second bed, a cot. Ally was sitting on the edge of the full-size bed, next to an open suitcase, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. She was crying.

  I stood in the doorway, unsure if I should go in or not. “Ally?”

  Her hands dashed to her eyes and she shot up, busying herself in her suitcase. She started unfolding and folding a red sweater. “Dad mentioned you were coming.”

  Was that why she was crying? I knew she wasn’t crazy about me, but I wouldn’t think my presence could reduce her to tears.

  I stepped into the room, unsure where to stand. I sat down on my bed. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” she said, unfolding the same sweater and then folding it again.

  “Are you staying for a while?” I asked.

  “Look, Zoe, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m really not in the mood for Twenty Questions, okay?”

  O-kay. I wanted nothing more than to conk out for a couple of hours, but I could see that Ally needed some privacy. “I’m going for a walk around the neighborhood. Can I bring you back anything?”

  “That’s another question,” she said, and unfolded a pair of black pants, then refolded them.

  “Righto,” I said, and left the room.

  Ally tried to come across like an intimidating bitch, but it was a facade. She was a marshmallow, like most cranky, bitchy people. I found that out on Thanksgiving, ten years ago, when she’d blown my head off for saying something about her mom, who’d died earlier that year of a brain aneurysm. I was trying to say something nice, about us being a family, but she told me to “mind your own fucking business.”

  “You’re such a bitch!” Sarah had snapped at Ally from across the table, and both Ally and I had stared at Sarah, surprised.

  And then I noticed the tears well up in Ally’s eyes for just a second, before she blinked them back and asked my aunt Ramona to pass the cranberry sauce. Then Ally slipped her hand inside her husband’s and he squeezed it, and I realized that she was hurt.

  Ally had always scared me to death. But from that minute on, I saw her as vulnerable. I’d tried to develop a relationship with her and with Sarah, who was closer to my age, but neither of them would bite. Not for invitations to hang out at the house for the summer, or for a week at the holidays or for skiing trips. Nothing.

  “Why do my sisters hate me?” I’d ask my father, and he’d say they didn’t hate me but that they were victims of divorce.

  “But then aren’t you to blame?” I’d ask.

  In answer he’d pat me on the head, hand me his credit card and send me off to the mall with Zalla.

  “Why do my sisters hate me?” I’d ask my mother, and she’d say it was because they were jealous of me. Because I had their father, whom they wanted.

  “But shouldn’t they have him too?” I’d ask.

  “They need to grow up,” my mother would say. “They’re immature and spiteful. They don’t even have a civil word for me when they visit.”

  Maybe because you’re mean to them, I always thought. And you broke up their family.

  I’d grown up being aware that another woman could swoop off with my father, take him two thousand miles away to another family, a new daughter, a new stepmother who wouldn’t like me. But it never happened.

  And then I met Charlie, the king of commitment, and I started to think marriage could mean something. That it wasn’t just two people bound by a legal piece of paper and pretty vows to love, honor and cherish.

  But then my own parents contributed to the fifty percent divorce rate.

  “Stop making excuses about divorce rates, Zoe,” Charlie would say. “Marriage is about commitment. Love. Respect. And a willingness to grow with another person. It’s the wantto do it with a certain person. It’s not about other people and their marriages.”

  And now it wasn’t even about Charlie.

  Hear ye, hear ye, the famed Dating Diva of L.A. is a failure at relationships, including with her own family.

  I waited a few minutes to see if Ally would come after me, to apologize or say she’d go out with me, but she didn’t.

  7

  Sarah

  I used to be able to climb the stairs of my fifth-floor walk-up apartment building in about three minutes. Now, at only seven weeks pregnant, I was taking about a minute per step. How was I supposed to make this hike when I was seven months pregnant? And with a baby stroller? Mothers couldn’t even manage to get a stroller through a door. I was going to lug it up four flights of stairs?

  And given that tomorrow marked one week since Griffen had said, “I’ll call you,” I could pretty much count on carrying that stroller all by myself.

  “You are so out of shape, Sarah!” announced my roommate, Jennifer, when I opened the door. She was sitting on the couch in one of her teeny-tiny stretch tank tops and yoga pants; her boyfriend and constant guest was sprawled out, his head in her lap. He was staring at the TV—vintage Star Trek. “You’re totally out of breath!” She tsk-tsked.

  I wasn’t about to tell her why, not yet anyway.

  I’d been living with Jennifer Futterman for six months, ever since Lisa, my former roommate, moved in with her boyfriend. I’d heard about Jennifer and her need for a roommate through an acquaintance at Wow; she had a real two-bedroom (the apartment I’d shared with Lisa was a one-bedroom convertible, which meant two fake walls and zero sound privacy), and I managed to afford my share of the higher rent and utilities by cutting back on food and walking to work more often. Jennifer and I had never become friends. Maybe because she left her dirty underwear on the bathroom floor, her dirty cereal bowls on the coffee table, and her dirty boyfriend all over the couch.

  “Did you stay over at Griffen’s last night?” she asked. “I ran into your bedroom to see you first thing this morning, and you weren’t there.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I lied. I’d been unable to sleep and had gone out at the crack of dawn to stare at the East River for a couple of hours before heading to work.

  “I can’t believe you’ve been standing there for, like, five minutes, and you still haven’t noticed my rock!” she said, wiggling her left hand.

  My gaze immediately went to her hand, and there on her ring finger was indeed a rock. It sparkled in the dimly lit living room.

  She held up her hand and waved her fingers. “That’s what I wanted to show you this morning. We got engaged last night!”

  As she related the tale of her engagement, complete with hansom cab ride in Central Park and a one-point-five-carat marquise-shaped diamond, I almost burst into tears.

  “Oh, and Sar? I’m really sorry, but, um, now that we’re engaged, I finally said okay to living with Jason, so, um, he’s going to move in at the end of the month. Officially, I mean. He’s basically going to live here starting today.” She started stroking his stomach and kissing his neck. “Isn’t that right, Pooh bear?”

  I wond
ered if my sudden queasy stomach was the result of morning sickness, impending homelessness or Pooh bear. “But—” There really isn’t room for him. There’s barely room for the two of us as it is.

  “Jesus, I’m trying to watch this,” Jason complained and pushed Jennifer’s hand away.

  She played with his hair instead. “I’m really sorry, Sarah, but it is my apartment, and I’m sure you’ll find another place fast. You have two whole weeks. Omigod, I have to call my friend Julia. I can’t believe I forgot to tell her that I’m an engaged woman!” She grabbed the phone from the coffee table.

  “Hey, quit moving around and keep it down!” Jason snapped. “This is the classic ‘Trouble with Tribbles’ episode.”

  Enjoy your prince, I thought, and went into my bedroom.

  I flung myself on my bed. Don’t freak out, I told myself. Don’t burst into tears. Everything will be okay.

  I thought about my options. Sabrina had two cats, to which I was allergic. Lisa lived with her boyfriend. Ally was both insufferable and a major commute away and had the smarmy husband besides. Griffen was digesting. And besides, we weren’t at that stage in our relationship.

  How pathetic was that?

  I was not spending another night under this roof with that idiot Jason. I’d suffered through enough embarrassing episodes of waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom only to find him masturbating in the living room to the Robyn Byrd Show. If he was living here, I wasn’t, two weeks to go or not.

  Where could I go? Where would I find another roommate?

  Oh, hi, I’m looking for an apartment to share for me and my baby. Yeah, he or she will wake up wailing at 2:00 a.m. every day for months and will spit up on all the furniture and rugs, but you can add the cost of earplugs and cleaning supplies to my portion of the rent.

  Which I might not be able to pay, anyway, if I don’t get that promotion.

  Which I might not get if I sleep through my alarm again. (Actually, I’d only done that once during the past two weeks, and Lisa was sure it was psychosomatic exhaustion due to reading about the symptoms of pregnancy.