The Spinster Sisters (26 page)

Just because I give sage advice for a living doesn’t make me remotely sane when it comes to my own insecurities.

“And you’re still sure that you aren’t all in a snit because he isn’t jumping through hoops like Abbot and Ben?” Jill asks, slurping her coffee.

“I’d like to think not.”

“Well, look, you did spend most of the weekend together, and you said yourself things are really busy for him at work. And it is only nine thirty in the morning.”

“I know,” I say. Paige knocks on the door, and Jill waves her in.

She flops down on the couch. “I fucking hate Valentine’s Day,” she says, eyebrows in a sad, straight line.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?” I ask.

“Everyone everywhere has someone, even irritating some-ones, acknowledging the day for them. I got a fucking card from
my grandmother.
I mean, no offense to Nana, I love that she sends me valentines, but it is my
only
one. I’m a fucking pariah.”

“But at least you’re not dramatic,” Jill says.

“Fuck you, and your perfect guy, and that perfect fucking rock that is blinding me from here,” Paige says.

“If it’s any consolation, I haven’t had any valentines either,” I say.

“Whatever. You have three boyfriends. I’m sure at least one of them will do something incredible today. I, on the other hand, have no boyfriends.” Paige is smiling through her misery.

“Having a guy does not mean having a great Valentine’s Day, I can promise you that,” I say.

“Tell her the story,” Jill prompts.

I take a deep breath. I share this tale at least once every Valentine’s Day to some forlorn young thing. “Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved Valentine’s Day. From the time she was old enough to be aware of the special nature of February 14, she thought the idea of a day devoted to love and romance was the best idea ever. But she never seemed to manage to have a boyfriend for the holiday. Every year, she would end up alone on Valentine’s Day, including one year in high school when she started dating a guy on February 15, and he broke up with her the following February 13. Then one day she met a man, and they fell in love. And as their first February came around, she started to let herself get excited to finally celebrate the day with everyone else. She bought him several little presents, food and champagne, invested in sassy new undergarments. Her boyfriend announced the day before that he had accepted an invitation to a poker night with his friends. He gave her a silly card. She gave the presents to her sister to give to her boyfriend instead. The following year, the same boyfriend, now fiancé, gave her a card and spent the night assembling a new computer desk for a pal. She canceled the dinner reservations and gave the impossible-to-get theater tickets to her aunts. They got married, and the first Valentine’s Day of their married life, she made big plans. Bought the fixings for his favorite meal, a bottle of wine way out of her price range. He came home from work, announced that he was going to work on a project in the basement for a bit, and disappeared. No card. No acknowledgment at all that it was a holiday. She cooked the dinner, sure the scent would lure him upstairs. He didn’t come. She was too proud to call for him, and ate alone. He didn’t come upstairs till after nine, asking if she had eaten yet, and did she want to order in. She unleashed a stream of venom encompassing nearly twenty years of pent-up Valentine’s Day frustration. She ranted and raved and threw things and wept and got all snotty. And at the end his only response was that he was sorry she felt badly, but didn’t she know from his previous behavior that he didn’t believe in the holiday and wasn’t inclined to celebrate? And when she suggested that he get excited about it for her sake, he asked why she couldn’t get unexcited about it for his sake. And she couldn’t argue with his logic.”

Paige listens intently to the tale of my former woe. “Did he ever get with the program?” she asks.

“Nope. I gave up. Started making my own Valentine’s joy. I refuse all datelike invitations and spend the evening with my favorite sister and our aunts, getting drunk on fluffy girl drinks, eating crap food, and watching old movies. And since you are so blue, my little peach crumb, tonight you will come join us for our estrogen festival of love.” I walk over and sit next to her on the couch and put an arm around her shoulder. “Will you come? Bring your jammies, and we’ll make it a sleepover.”

Paige looks up gratefully. “Really? I won’t be an intrusion?”

“Nonsense,” Jill says. “You’ll be a very welcome addition.”

“Don’t you have plans with Hunter?” she asks Jill.

“Nope. I’m sending him to Dave and Buster’s with some of his single guy friends.” Which was Hunter’s idea, insisting that she keep her tradition with us, and took her for a romantic dinner last night to celebrate “on Australian time.” If I didn’t have it on authority from Jill that Hunter leaves whiskers in the sink after shaving, has some sort of annoying morning phlegm issue, and an unnatural obsession with the Phillies, I would suspect he was too perfect to live.

“Thanks, you guys, you’re the best,” Paige says. “Meeting in fifteen?”

“We’ll be there,” Jill says, and the two of us start getting our stuff together.

 
After the meeting we return to our office to find that Hunter has sent two dozen roses in a shade of deep lavender that I’ve never seen before. I don’t have so much as a card.

And the day doesn’t get much better. Every hour and a half or so, all day long, something arrives for Jill. An iPod nano loaded with a playlist of romantic songs. A huge chocolate chip cookie with I Heart Jill in red buttercream. I get a text message from Ben wishing me a happy day. He’s still pouting that I turned him down for a date tonight. A masseuse shows up at three with orders to give Jill a twenty-minute chair massage and then to work her way through the office, one girl at a time. I get one of Abbot’s famous floral arrangements, which have started to be less romantic than they are an easy choice and an offering devoid of thought or heart. At four thirty, she gets a box with a comfy lounging pajama set and a pair of sassy slippers from Cheeky with a card encouraging her to cuddle up and enjoy our evening. Connor is still profoundly missing in action.

I’m trying so hard not to be resentful. I love that Jill found someone so thoughtful and creative and so crazy about her that it inspires him to keep trying to sweep her off her feet. I’m certainly not jealous of the commitment or the natural sacrifices that Jill has to make in order to be a good partner. But I am wondering what it is in me that doesn’t inspire the same in someone. I am wondering what I lack that none of the men in my life have ever been driven to consistent demonstrations of romantic love. I am wondering what is so broken in me that I either continue to choose men who won’t be romantic or that subconsciously I refuse to let go of the thought that it means that I’m just not good enough.

“Hey,” Jill pulls me out of my self-loathing reverie.

“Yeah?” I say.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I know you’re disappointed.”

“Oh, honey, it isn’t your fault my boys are letting me down.”

“I know, but I also know that Hunter’s attempts to enter himself into the pantheon of most romantic men ever has done nothing but rub it in your face all day.”

“I’m not that obviously bitter, am I?”

“Not bitter, Sis. Just human. And having bad V-Day luck.”

“Not karma?” I ask.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve done nothing bad to require punishment from the universe . . . unless . . .” she trails off.

“What?”

“Well, maybe in your past life you were involved in the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre!” she says, her face a mask of faux horror.

“Oh, sweet Frito bandito. Can we go home, Helen of Troy, before Hunter wins a war in your honor?”

“Absolutely.”

We gather our stuff, say good night to the girls, tell Paige to come over anytime after seven, and head home. I go up to my apartment to change into my comfy clothes and check my mail and messages. A card from Raj and Tim, handcrafted, of course. An e-card from a college friend. A couple of telemarketing calls, a message letting me know my prescription is ready. Nothing from Connor at all.

I might not have been a Mafia hit man in my past life, but clearly, something about me and Valentine’s Day is not a match made in heaven. I shake off the lump in my throat, mentally scolding myself for such silly girlie foolishness, get into my pajamas, and remind myself how lucky I am to have four amazing and supportive women to spend the evening with.

At the same time, ladies, remember to support your girlfriends, especially
your single girlfriends, on Valentine’s Day. It’s a great time to
send a treat or a card, make that phone call you’ve been putting off.
The day hits us all in different ways, but no one is sad to be acknowledged
by someone. Just remember not to call to regale them with how
great your guy did at buying the right present or how bitter you are
about not having someone to be with. Keep the conversation light and
about being happy to know them, and you’ll bring a smile to their day.

 
 
 
 
“Okay, Shirley, your turn!” Paige says.

Our viewing of a documentary about a guy who filmed all of his dates on his search for a wife has prompted the sharing of everyone’s worst dates. We’ve heard about the time Jill was fixed up by a friend from the marketing firm she worked with, and at dinner he continually popped pills for his anxiety problems and made lewd gestures with the loaf of bread. I shared the sad tale of my first date after the divorce. A charming advertising executive I’d interviewed for an article for the
Trib
, who liked the way he came off so much that he asked me to dinner. He took me to Green Dolphin Street. Where we ran into his wife.

Aunt Ruth has declined to participate, saying that she immediately deletes bad dates from her memory.

“Well, let’s see now,” Shirley says, squinching up her nose the way she does when she is thinking hard.

“I think you should tell them about Junior,” Ruth says slyly.

Shirley blushes. “Oh, Ruthie. I don’t think . . .”

“Oooohhhh!” Jill says. “Who’s Junior?”

“Yeah, I never heard about a Junior,” I say.

“Fine,” Aunt Shirley says, shaking her head. “In 1956 . . .”

“Fifty-seven, dear heart,” Ruth interrupts.

“You’re right, it was fifty-seven. At any rate, I had broken off the engagement with Michael, and frankly, none of the boys in the neighborhood were much interested in me.”

“It was widely assumed she might be a lesbian,” Ruth says matter-of-factly.

“Ruthie, please,” Shirley says.

“What? It’s true! Any young woman who broke off an engagement to as good a catch as Michael Rueven Goldfarb was definitely assumed to be of the Sapphic persuasion,” Ruth offers as explanation. “Plus you and that Himmelman girl were attached at the hip, and she did have a certain androgynous quality—”

“Oh, Lord, can we please not have that discussion again!” Shirley is clearly exasperated, and Paige, Jill, and I are holding back laughter.

“I wanna hear about Junior,” I say, faking petulant to get us back on track.

“Me, too,” Jill pipes up.

“Me, three,” says Paige, never one to be left out.

“Fine.” Shirley settles back in her chair a bit. “In 1957, after breaking off my engagement, I wasn’t dating much. At the time I was working the register at Manny’s delicatessen four days a week. One day a young man whom I had seen a few times before complimented me on my eyes and asked if he might have the pleasure of my company one evening for dinner. He seemed nice, polite, clean-cut, so I accepted. We made a date for the following Saturday night. He picked me up and took me to the Billy Goat Tavern for burgers, the first time I’d been there, and then asked if I wanted to hear some blues. I agreed, and he took me to a place called Club Zanzibar, which was at Fourteenth and Ashland. We went in, got a table—there weren’t very many white people there—and my date, Marty, fetched us drinks. The music was amazing, but Marty drank more and more and became, shall we say, rather unpleasant. He asked me to dance and then was less than a gentleman with his hands. When I sat back down, he accused me of being a square. When I said I was leaving, he grabbed my arm and pushed me back into the chair. I didn’t notice, but the music had stopped. And suddenly Marty just disappeared into the air. One of the young men who had been onstage had come down into the crowd, grabbed Marty by the scruff of his neck, and simply picked him up and threw him across the dance floor. Marty got up and took a swing at the nearest man, a tall African American gentleman in an exquisite suit, and the man simply reached out and almost gently tapped Marty under the chin. Marty’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell backward onto the table of another couple. Drinks everywhere. Before I knew what was happening, the place erupted in fighting! The man who had grabbed Marty first reached forward and took my hand, very gently, and said, ‘Miss, I think I’d better get you home.’ And he led me through the club and around the corner to a car. I was so flustered I didn’t know what to say or do. He opened the car door, and I just looked at it. ‘It’s okay, miss,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to get you home safe now.’ So I got in the car. He was very sweet and made some jokes, and pretty soon we were laughing and getting along like a house afire. I told him how much I liked his music, and this seemed to make him pleased. As we got close to home, I suddenly got very quiet. Because, you know, as liberal as your grandparents were, I wasn’t so sure they would be happy to have this particular young man escorting me home. And as if he could read my mind, he asked me, ‘Would you like me to leave you at the corner, Miss Shirley, for your folks’ sake?’ This, of course, made me very embarrassed, so I worked up my courage and said that no, in fact he could leave me at the door. When we got to the house, he stopped the car, walked around to let me out, and escorted me to the gate. He kissed my hand, and thanked me for coming to hear him play, and said he hoped he might see me in the audience again one night, and then he left.”