The Solomon Sisters Wise Up (16 page)

“Whatever,” Zoe said. And then she stood up, took off her clothes (except for her underwear), put on a T-shirt and low-rise yoga pants, slipped into bed and faced the wall. “Good night,” she added after a moment.

“Good night, Zoe,” Sarah said, shooting me a look.

I shrugged and turned back to my laptop but my hands were trembling and I couldn’t use the keyboard.

I had no idea how the three of us were supposed to share a room without strangling each other. Sarah and I kicked and screamed, but we were able to have a relationship. I’d never been able to get along with Zoe. She was perfectly nice, but her very being bothered me. Her very being had bothered me from the moment she was born when I was nine.

Amazing. When Zoe was born, Giselle, our stepmother-to-be, hadn’t even been a twinkle.

According to FindAMate’s matching system, 226 men met my criteria. While Zoe tossed and turned, and Sarah snored (she’d fallen asleep with her cheek mashed into page 178 of
But I Don’t Know How To Be Pregnant!
), I chose men to potentially meet. Talk about distracting. FindAMate. com was almost too much fun. In a matter of minutes, I’d forgotten all about angry little girls and terrible summers and marriages gone wrong and sisters who most likely wanted to wring my neck. I’d spent a half hour familiarizing myself with the site, then began clicking on everything I wanted in a man, from hair color to salary range to how often he visited a house of worship, and seconds later, 226 thumbnail photos and lengthy profiles appeared before my eyes. You didn’t like the looks of someone, you simply scrolled past him. You liked someone’s face, you clicked on his picture and it became bigger. And then you read his profile, his questionnaire, his likes and dislikes and his personal essay—what he was looking for in a woman, in a relationship.

I whittled down the two-hundred-plus men to fifty, based on who I was attracted to, physically and mentally—at least as mentally as their personal statements and little essays allowed me to get a glimpse of who they were. And then I scrolled through those. At least twenty-five men interested me, some ruggedly blond, others the always delicious tall, dark and handsome, and some David Caruso red. There were lawyers, doctors, journalists, investment bankers and real estate developers.

The only problem was that most of the men I was interested in were interested in women aged twenty-one to thirty-four. Out of the twenty-five whose profiles and pictures reeled me in, twenty-two of those men wanted women younger than me, despite the fact that they were my age or older.

Twenty-one years old? What would a thirty-seven-year-old man want with a twenty-one-year-old kid? Honestly. I didn’t get it. Yeah, yeah, they were young and inexperienced and lithe and beautiful. Whoo-hoo. You could have great sex with a lithe and beautiful and experienced thirty-five-year-old, a woman your own age, a woman who got your references, who grew up when you grew up, who knew what you were talking about, why you found something funny or nostaglic. Why date a woman you had nothing in common with? Why date a woman who was playing spin the bottle when you were climbing the corporate ladder? What would you really talk about? Perhaps I should nip down the hall and ask my father.

So now what? Did I forget about those men I was interested in and look for ones whose age range I met? They were jerks anyway, weren’t they?

Or were they? I myself had scrolled past every man with a receding hairline, anyone who clicked on
husky
to describe his body type, anyone without an advanced degree and anyone who misspelled a single word or used numbers to represent words, like
Looking 4 U.
Taste in the opposite sex, types, was very individual. If Sarah were picking
her
FindAMate preferences, she’d ignore the Andrew Sharp types, the financial geniuses who made fortunes on Wall Street and owned sailboats and houses in the Hamptons, and she’d go straight for the writers and painters who were really waiters—the more silly facial hair, the better.

So what to do? My taste was the twenty-five men I’d carefully selected. Their taste was a woman younger than myself.

I decided to come back to that dilemma and create my own profile so that whoever I did e-mail could check me out, decide if he liked the look and sound of me.

Click here to create your profile and you could have a hot date tonight!
I clicked.
Name (no last names please. ):
Ally.
Age:
34—I deleted the thirty-four and typed in thirty-five, since I would be thirty-five next month, on Thanksgiving Day.

Thirty-four looked better than thirty-five.

Twenty-nine sounded better than thirty-four.

I tapped the
2
key with my nail. What to put, what to put?

I deleted the thirty-five and typed thirty-four. Then I deleted the thirty-four and typed twenty-nine.

I stared at the number. It looked ridiculous. I’d been twenty-nine a long time ago, and it had been a fine year. My baby sister was twenty-nine, for heaven’s sake.

Yet all the men you selected want a woman under thirty-four, Ally. Perhaps once they see you, see that you could pass for twenty-nine (barely, perhaps), they won’t mind when they find out you’re really six years older than that.

After all, surely there were little white lies involved in the online dating biz.

I deleted the twenty-nine and typed thirty-four, which was technically true for an entire month. I was still in the youth demographic, dammit!

I stared at the blinking cursor and deleted the thirty-four.

Age:
29.

I moved on before I could change it back. At the foot of my bed, Mary Jane cocked her head at me.
Tsk-tsk,
she seemed to be saying. I patted her head with my foot, and she closed her eyes and dropped her little head on her paws.

Marital Status…
Now that was another toughie. There was a box to click on for
Separated,
but whose business was that? Then again, I couldn’t click on
Married,
since that would suggest that I was married and looking for an affair. I couldn’t click on
Divorced,
since I wasn’t. Then again, I wasn’t twenty-nine, either. Oh Lord.

But I wasn’t divorced. And I wasn’t ready to apply that word to myself.

I clicked on
Single.
I considered myself single, and that was what mattered.

For
Job
and
Salary Range,
I was tempted to click on
Clerical
and
$25-$50,000,
since some men were intimidated by high-powered women. But did I want to meet one of those men? No. I clicked on
Professional
and
Over 200K.

Use the space below to describe the kind of man you’re looking for in forty words or less:

My fingers typed before my brain even had a chance:
I’m looking for a man to make me feel like a woman.

Huh? Was that what I was looking for? What was I looking for? I didn’t even know. I wasn’t looking for a relationship. I wasn’t looking for a friend. I wasn’t looking for sex.

So what the hell was I doing?

I set the laptop on my bed and lay back and stared up at the ceiling. What
was
I doing?

You’re looking to distract yourself, Ally, I told myself, running my toes along Mary Jane’s silky fur. You’re looking for someone to make you feel special again. You’re looking to sit at a table for two with an attractive man who’s flirting with you, interested in you. And if you should be inclined to have sex, then so be it. Your marriage is over.

I sat back up and pulled the computer back onto my lap.

Upload a recent photo of yourself.
I scrolled through the photos I had online and chose my very favorite, which was taken five years ago. I’d been sunbathing in Central Park with Mary Jane when Sarah happened to settle down on the Great Lawn with a blanket and a girlfriend. She’d recognized Mary Jane and sneaked over with a camera, catching me unaware. She told me she’d never seen me look so relaxed, so at peace, as I did lying there on my side, reading a book.

The book, which you couldn’t see in the photo, was
Get Pregnant Now.
The night before, Andrew had said yes to having a baby.
You can finally stop asking me if I’m ready, Ally-cakes,
he’d said,
because the answer is yes. Baby, let’s have a baby!

And so I’d thrown out my birth control pills and bought a basal thermometer. I’d bought the bikini I was wearing in the photo. Andrew couldn’t get enough of me then. We had sex morning and night. No protection. I’d thought we were making a baby. But month after month, I got my period.

A man had made a fool out of me for the past five years. It would never, ever happen again. From now on, I would be in control.

Five minutes later, all clicked and uploaded and my twenty-five-dollar monthly fee taken care of, I was a member of FindAMate.com.

9

Zoa

M
y cell phone rang, and I snatched it off my bedside table. “Mom?”

“No, it’s Daniel. But I saw your mom a few minutes ago.”

Daniel? Ah, Danny Marx. “You did? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said. “It was only for a few seconds, and when I ran over, she was gone. Bloomingdale’s is pretty crowded for a Wednesday morning. I looked for her for a while, but I couldn’t find her.”

My mom was alive and well and in Bloomingdale’s. I let out a deep breath and lay down on my bed, but then a wet-haired Sarah wearing a robe and slippers came into the bedroom. I figured she wanted some privacy to dress for work, so I took the phone into the living room.

“Bloomingdale’s,” I repeated, dropping down on the loveseat by the window. I should have figured I’d find her in an upscale department store.

“She was in the cosmetics department,” he said. “Bobbi Brown, to be exact.”

“What were
you
doing in the cosmetics department?” I asked.

“Well, now that you’re in town, I thought I should spruce up a little.”

Was he serious?

“Kidding, Zoe.”

“Sorry,” I said, parting the filmy drape and peering out the window. “My sense of humor is definitely off.”

“The woman I’m dating works there,” Daniel explained. “Joy. That’s her name. She works behind the Estée Lauder counter.”

“Ah,” I said, distracted by the wedding bulletin board in front of the fireplace. Seven eight-by-ten glossies of wedding gowns.

“I use Estée Lauder,” I said absently.

“I could get her to give you a discount.”

“That’s all right, Danny.”

“Daniel,” he reminded me. “And not that you need any makeup.”

“Well, thanks for letting me know about my mom, Daniel. At least I know she’s in the range of normal for her if she’s getting makeovers at Bloomie’s. It’s one of her favorite things to do.”

“She looked good, too, by the way,” Daniel said. “You’d never know she was fifty. Like Morgan Fairchild.”

“Well, thanks a lot for letting me know,” I said again, itching to get off the telephone and run to Bloomingdale’s to look for Mom. “I definitely owe you one.”

“Glad to hear you say that, because if you can swing it, I have a date tomorrow night with Joy, and I could really use your expertise, Zoe. I’ve seen her a couple of times since I ran into you at the airport, and it’s been eye-glaze both times. I’m worried this might be my last chance before she gives me the big brush-off.”

“Sounds like a job for the Dating Diva,” I said. “Okay, Daniel. It’s a deal.”

“Oh, and Zoe—be brutal.”

I had a feeling that Danny Marx on a date would indeed require brutality.

Someone was hogging the bathroom. I was about to knock when I heard the distinct sounds of retching. Someone was throwing up.

I knocked. “Are you okay in there?”

Sarah opened the door. She looked positively ill. She didn’t say anything.

“I guess I’m not supposed to know, Sarah, but I didn’t miss the allusion Ally made the other night, and I did see
What To Expect When You’re Expecting
peeking out from under your pillow. Morning sickness?”

She nodded and ran back in and leaned over the bowl. I collected her hair and held it up for her.

“I’m okay now,” she said, moving to the sink. She brushed her teeth and splashed cold water on her face. “Thanks,” she added, then headed back to the bedroom.

I followed her. “Are you sure, Sarah? Can I get you a cracker or something?”

“I’m okay.” She dropped down on her bed and took a deep breath. “That was the first time I’ve gotten sick. I have a feeling it was the half pound of fudge I ate in the middle of the night, though, and not morning sickness. God, I crave fudge.”

Our father was a fudgeaholic and always kept a pound of the best fudge in the world in the kitchen.

“Well, you’ll never go without here,” I said. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water or tea?”

“No, really, I’m okay.” She glanced at the little alarm clock on Ally’s bedside table. “Oh shit, I am so late for work, and there’s a staff meeting this afternoon that I haven’t even prepared for. I’d better go.”

“Can I call in for you? Let them know you’ll be late?”

Relief lit Sarah’s face. “Oh God, would you? I’d be so grateful. Don’t say I’ve been hurling though. Just that there was a family emergency, okay?”

“No problem. And, Sarah, if you need anything or I could help in any way, you’ll ask, right?”

She smiled. “Thanks, Zoe. I appreciate that. Oh, and Zoe? I hope Ally didn’t get to you too much the other night, about your mom.”

I shook my head. “There’s a lot of history there. She has a right to her feelings.”

She nodded and smiled, and I waited to see if she wanted to talk more, say something else the way people did when they wanted to talk but felt inhibited, but she just took some clothes out of her suitcase and began pulling on a pair of black tights.

“Do they even make maternity tights?” she asked.

“I’m sure they do,” I said. She glanced at her skirt and sweater next to her on the bed and I realized she wanted some privacy. “Well, I’ll see you tonight, then, Sarah.”