The Solomon Sisters Wise Up (25 page)

“Chocolate has traces of caffeine,” I said, and burst into tears.

Sarah zoomed to one side of me and Zoe to the other.

“Ally, what happened?” Sarah asked, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ears the way my mother used to.

“I left Andrew,” I blurted out. “That’s why I moved here. He’s been cheating on me. I caught him in the act myself.”

“Oh no,” Zoe said.

“Oh yes. In my own house,” I said. “And then I found—”

“You found what?” Sarah asked, taking my hand.

“And then I found a vasectomy bill—”

The tears came fast and furious, and I covered my face with my hands.

“Oh, Ally. I am so sorry,” Sarah said. “I know how badly you’ve been wanting a baby.”

“He had a vasectomy and didn’t tell you?” Zoe asked.

I nodded. “We’ve been trying—or so I thought—to have a baby for
five
years. And then I found the five-year-old claim form—”

Sarah leaned my head on her shoulder and Zoe rubbed my shoulder. I told them what happened, starting with Mary Jane jumping on Andrew’s back and ending with my flurry of nightmarish blind dates from FindAMate.com.

“I can’t even interest a man in getting past drinks and appetizers,” I said. I’d gone on three more nightmare dates from hell before I canceled the two remaining. “I’m a bitch.”

“Ally, you’re not a bitch,” Sarah said. “You’re wonderful. You’re you, and I don’t know what the hell I’d do if you didn’t exist exactly as you are.”

“Really?” I asked. “You don’t think I’m the bitch queen of the eastern seaboard?”

“Well, sometimes you are,” she said, grinning. “But someone’s gotta tell people what’s what.”

“Telling people what’s what is exactly why I’m suddenly single
and
unable to interest a man in a conversation,” I pointed out.

“I doubt that,” Zoe said. “
Not
telling people what’s what—that’s what keeps people single.”

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

“When you don’t lay your cards on the table,” Zoe said. “When you’re not you and the
youest
you, you’re holding back. And when you hold back or when you act like you think you should to make someone interested, you end up with someone you’re not comfortable with or with someone who thinks you’re one way when you’re quite another.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But how I
am
doesn’t seem to interest anyone.”

“Is there something in particular you think you’re doing wrong?” Zoe asked.

“Well, I guess I could stop telling everyone that I’m twenty-nine,” I said. “I was going to fess up, but the dates were all such duds that I couldn’t bear to make things even worse.”

“You could definitely pass for twenty-nine,” Zoe said. “Absolutely.”

“I think we’re going to get along fine after all,” I said to her, and she smiled.

“Are you sure you should be dating so soon, anyway?” Sarah asked. “
Wow Woman
would probably advise a good therapist and a painting class or a vacation.”

“I know it’s too soon, but I don’t care,” I said. “I need to do something that will make me feel attractive again, even if it’s external. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to get that crap from myself, but right now, I need a man to make me feel the opposite of how Andrew made me feel last month.”

“I can understand that, Ally,” Sarah said.

“But I’m such a total washout as a single woman that I feel worse now,” I confessed. “I met Andrew when I was twenty-one, married him at twenty-three. I don’t know how to be single.”

“Hey, you don’t know how to be single and I don’t know how to be pregnant!” Sarah said. “We’re a good match.”

I laughed and yanked her long ponytail.

“You know, Ally, I
do
critique dates for a living,” Zoe said. “I’d be happy to give you the Dating Diva’s best work, on the house.”

Nooooo way. “I don’t know if I could handle that,” I said. “You, sitting at the next table, watching me acting like an idiot, watching me get rejected? I don’t think so.”

“Ninety percent of my clients tell me they forget I’m even there the minute the date arrives,” Zoe assured me. “They’re too wrapped up in the date or the moment to remember me. And it’s not like I’ll be sitting there staring at you and making myself obvious. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“Go for it, Ally,” Sarah said. “If you’re dating, you’ll forget all about Andrew. Plus, you’ll be too busy with all your men to harass me about eating chocolate and learning to put on a BabyBjörn.”

I
wanted to put on a BabyBjörn. And if getting a critique of my dating skills took me a step closer to wearing my child on my chest, I’d do it.

“You guys are right. I don’t have what I want, and I have to start going after it! Proactive all the way. I have no husband, no baby, and I can’t even handle a date, so—Oh God, what am I talking about. My life sucks!”

“
Your
life sucks?” Zoe said. “How about waiting for your client’s date to show up and it turns out to be your own boyfriend?”

Now it was my and Sarah’s turn to stare at Zoe with mouths agape.

Zoe gave us the details. “Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that my mother is missing in New York City, planning our father’s destruction.”

“Big whoop,” Sarah said. “I’m single, pregnant and, drumroll please…homeless!”

“I had a feeling that’s why you moved in here,” I said. “What happened with the roommate?”

“A big diamond ring,” she explained.

“I don’t know, sister dears,” I said. “I still think I win the life sucks award.”

“No—I do,” Zoe said.”

“No—it goes to me,” Sarah said.

“Sorry, kid,” I said. “But you’re pregnant. The baby makes anything you’re going to go through worth it. And you’re not homeless, Sarah—you’re here. And if you weren’t here, you’d come live with me. You’d never be homeless.”

Sarah bit her lip and threw her arms around me. I couldn’t remember the last time she hugged me like that.

“Actually, my life isn’t so bad either,” Zoe said. “Even though Charlie and I broke up, I couldn’t make a decision about him anyway, so life took care of it for me.
And
my mother will probably go home eventually. And I sort of like someone else, a little, anyway.”

“I guess mine could be worse too,” I said. “I’m going to be an aunt. I’m getting a free critique from the famed Dating Diva and I make a shitload of money for doing what I love, even though I hate who I’m doing it for.”

Sarah broke off the chocolate turkey’s plump body and gave it to me. She gave Zoe the legs and popped the neck in her own mouth. And for the next half hour, we sat on our beds, eating cheap, bad chocolate as Zoe told us all about her last phone conversation with Daniel, I told them all about finding Andrew in the hammock with the Pilates instructor and Sarah read us the page on fetal development, week eleven. Then we spent the next half hour making fun of my father and his stupid bow ties.

I’d changed my profile on FindAMate.com. I was now thirty-five, as of next week, anyway, and separated.

Neither of which seemed to have any effect on Rupert Jones, a landscape architect. Thirty-six, also separated, and also a Westchester émigré living in a terrible, tiny sublet on the Upper West Side. Like me, there was zero chance of reconciliation with his spouse. Rupert Jones and I had a lot in common, not including his calm demeanor and love of landscapes.
I could teach you to smell the roses,
he’d said on the phone during one of our two conversations.
And you can teach me how to send back overcooked steak in a restaurant.
We both liked the same music, we both loved Arnold Schwarzenegger flicks and we both had been cheated on.

Rupert Jones wasn’t my type. But he was absolutely appealing. Tall and lanky with a professor’s beard and intelligent, warm brown eyes, he showed up on time, wearing a date outfit and a smile. He’d even brought me a little present, a blank journal with a tapestry cover, since we’d discussed the importance of writing down our feelings during a maelstrom. I liked Rupert.

But acting natural was a bit of a problem with Zoe sitting three feet away, her notebook open and pen at the ready. I was already a nervous wreck, and every time Zoe’s hand moved, it distracted me. Every time she touched pen to paper, I was tempted to run over to her, grab her notebook and read it.

I’d thought I was doing pretty well with Rupert, but Zoe’s fingers were flying. What the hell was she writing? I thought she was supposed to be invisible!

“You’re even prettier in person,” Rupert said, filling my water glass from the carafe on the table. “I didn’t think that would be possible, but here you are.”

I beamed. I’d uploaded another photo, a recent one. “Thank you,” I said.

Zoe’s hand went wild.

What was she writing? What could I possibly have said wrong? I’d accepted a compliment the perfect way, with a simple
thank you.
I didn’t go into a two-minute monologue about how the photo was old or awful or how un-photogenic I was.

Zoe’s hand was still going wild.

“Do you see someone you know?” Rupert asked. “You keep craning your neck to see around that big guy.”

“I thought so, but no,” I said. “I’m sorry—I hope I’m not being too rude.”

Again I craned my neck around the very large man blocking my view of Zoe’s notebook. She was sitting two tables over and had a view of us, but my view of her was partially blocked. I only saw part of her hair, her right foot and her hand.

Rupert leaned back and looked in the direction I was staring.

“Rupert, I really am sorry,” I said. “It’s just uncanny how familiar she looks. Maybe it
is
who I think it is.” What, what, what was she writing!

Our drinks were served, and we settled into a conversation about where we grew up. Rupert was also a native New Yorker. And he’d also gone to Stanford for graduate school. That gave us quite a bit to talk about. And despite the lack of conversation about marriage, separation, cheaters and other dating no-no’s according to
How to Find a Good Man: A Three-Month Plan
and Zoe, her hand was still whizzing over her notebook!

“Would you mind if I did go over and see if she is who I think she is?” I asked Rupert.

Excused, I went over to Zoe. “What are you writing!” I whispered. “I haven’t broken one dating dictum! Let me see that pad!”

“Ally,” she whispered back, “I’m writing all the
great
things you’re doing. Not all critiques are negative. Some are reflective of how well a date is going. I thought it would be nice to write down just how well you
are
doing, so you’d know just how absolutely fine you are on a date.”

Oh.

“Why don’t you head back to Rupert?” Zoe said. “He seems to like you so much he probably misses you.”

I smiled. “I like him too. Isn’t he nice-looking? And he’s so smart and soft-spoken. Not like the opinionated loudmouth I was married to for—”

I froze. The opinionated loudmouth I was married to for eleven years was sitting across the restaurant, feeding soup to a blonde who used a little too much hair spray.

That lying, cheating—

“Ally? What’s wrong?” Zoe asked. She looked in the direction of my glare. “What’s the matter?”

“Do you see that man in the navy shirt and navy tie?” I gestured with my chin. “The one with the ugly blonde?”

Actually, the blonde was quite pretty.

“Who is he?” Zoe asked.

“My husband,” I said.

“Oh shit,” Zoe said. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be okay after I march over to his table, dump his plate on his head, punch the woman he’s with and mash his face into the floor!”

“Ally, lower your voice!” Zoe hissed as gently as she could. “Rupert will hear you.”

I’d forgotten Rupert. And the more I stared at Andrew cutting bites of something that looked like ravioli or gnocchi and sliding his fork into Blondie’s mouth, I forgot Rupert again. By the time Andrew took his finger and dabbed away some red sauce on the side of Sluttie’s mouth, then stuck his finger in her mouth and she licked it, I’d forgotten where I was.

“I’m going over there,” I said. “I’m going to mash his face in his goddamn dinner!”

“Ally, calm down this second!” Zoe hiss-whispered. “There’s an alternative.”

“Oh yeah? What?” I asked, watching Blondie’s shoeless foot slip up Andrew’s pant leg. “Punch the slut first, then rub his face in his dinner?”

“You could simply ignore them and enjoy your date,” Zoe pointed out. “Ally, this is a guy you’ve been very excited about meeting. A guy you spoke to for two hours on the phone twice. A guy who made you feel that there’s a whole new world open to you if you want it. And that’s before you even met him. And now that you have
met
him, you’ve been having a great time. Are you going to let Andrew take this away from you too?”

Damn. Damn. Damn. She was right.

“Okay. You’re right, Zoe,” I said. Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep breath. “You’re absolutely right. He took away my marriage, my dreams for a baby, everything. Why should I let him ruin a very good date, too? My first good date after six duds.”

Zoe nodded. “That’s right. So forget about Andrew, go back to Rupert and give great date!”

Of course I had to take one last look before I turned to go. I was rewarded with watching Andrew offering his date a long velvet box.

My blood boiled. And before Zoe could grab my arm, I stomped over to Andrew’s table.

“If I were you, Andrew,” I said, “I’d save my money for what you’re going to owe me in the divorce, you lying, cheating scum!”

Andrew and the blonde stared at me, mouths agape for a moment, then Andrew shook his head as though I were Mary Jane jumping on the dinner table.

“
Excuse
me,” Blondie said. “We’re having a nice dinner. Why don’t you go back to wherever you came from.”

“Why don’t you mind your own business,” I retorted.

“Oh, but I am,” she said. “And you’re interrupting my dinner with my boyfriend.”

My husband was someone’s boyfriend.

“Andy’s told me all about you and your bad attitude,” she continued. “It’s no wonder he left you for a woman like—”