Melissa Senate - The Solomon Sisters Wise Up (Red Dress Ink)

B etween the reality of being six weeks pregnant by a guy Id been dating for two months and the fantasy of pushing a baby stroller down Columbus Avenue with a wedding ring on my finger were a lot of possibilities. All having much to do with Griffen Maxwells reaction to the news.

The Ideal Conversation:

Me: Griffen, Im pregnant!

Him: Youve made me the happiest guy in the world. (Drops down on one knee.) Will you marry me?

The problem with that scenario was that Griffen had yet to throw around words like exclusivity, let alone phrases like I love you. And according to my older sister, Ally, that was a good thing; it meant he was normal. You cant love someone youve known for eight weeks, shed told me.

But you could.

Ally saw things going more like this:

The Realistic Conversation:

Me: Griffen, Im pregnant!

Him: Waitercheck, please!(Runs out of restaurant, never to be seen or heard from again.)

I wanted to have more faith in Griffen than that, but as my sister had pointed out with another piece of unsolicited Ally-wisdom, I didnt really know-know the guy. Not in the way you knew your husband, shed said, or someone youd been with a long time. Ordering in Chow Fun for two and tipsily watching Fear Factor or a Yankees game before sex one night during the week and one night of the weekend does not knowing a man make, Sarah.

Which explained why Id been stalling for the past half hour. At this very moment, the man in question was sitting across from me in Juliens Brasserie, where hed taken me to celebrate my twenty-ninth birthday. But instead of my throwing around words like zygote and phrases like Diaphragms arent one hundred percent effective, I was talking about the food.

The Actual Conversation:

Me: Griffen, hows your salmon?

Him: Delicious. (Forks a bite and leans across the table to slip it between my lips. Smiles that amazing smile.) Arent you going to try the champagne, birthday girl?

There was my in. Hed unwittingly provided me with my segue into whydespite our knowing each other for only eight weekshe would be tied to me for the rest of his life.

What makes you think he wouldnt want to be? friend and co-worker Lisa had asked a few days ago on our lunch hour as we sat on a park bench, staring at pigeons and tossing them most of our sandwiches. Maybe hes more crazy about you than you think.

Ah, the support of a best friend.

Sarah doesnt need bullshit, our friend Sabrina had cut in. He hasnt exactly been acting like a guy whos madly in love.

I repeat: Ah, the support of a best friend. In Lisa and Sabrina, I had exactly what I needed: one who coddled and one who told the truth.

Mmm Griffen murmured as he sipped his champagne, closing his eyes for a moment. Good stuff.

Tell him, I ordered myself. Tell him!

Wish I could chug the entire bottle, Griffen, but, alas, no bubbly for me for the next seven and a half monthsIm pregnant!

Thing was, as Griffen Maxwell of the dimples and pale brown eyes went on to tell me a funny story about an idiot news anchor (hes a television news producer)She forgot to say allegedly murdered and now the station and network are being sued for millions!and stabbed his spinach salad and sipped his champagne and grimaced at the escargots I thought I had a craving for but now couldnt bear the smell of, I wasnt quite ready to change his entire life.

Which was exactly what one quarter-inch, horizontal pink line on the stick of a home pregnancy test did to me four mornings ago in a bathroom stall at work on an ordinary October Monday. Before that pink line, I was the usual me, fretting over whether my story ideas for Wow Woman magazinewhere I was a junior editorwere good enough for the weekly staff meeting and my bosss overplucked eyebrow, which rose whenever she liked an idea, as though she couldnt believe a member of the underappreciated junior editorial staff had thought of it. Id spent the previous evening coming up with five good concepts, including Thirty Things To Do Before Youre Thirty. Id been particularly attached to that one, since I was about to turn twenty-nine and had done absolutely nothing on my list. But I couldtake that solo trip to Paris! Go to a movie alone on a Saturday night! Read Middlemarch! Open a Roth IRA! Have sex in a naughty locale!

What wasnt on the list? Have a baby!

Because five nights ago, when I made up that list, I couldnt have a baby. I couldnt even fathom it, not even in the abstractnot yet, anyway. My salary, my roommate, my penchant for vodka and cranberry juice every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, my lack of a serious relationship, let alone a husband, my distaste for milk, green vegetables, flabby abs, doctors with rubber gloves, pain and the unknown all negated the concept of baby.

Jesus, Sarah, ever heard of birth control? What the hell is wrong with you? What are you, seventeen? If you need money, just ask, okay? Where would you put a crib in that shoebox of an apartmentin the kitchen next to the litter box? Do you want to move in with me and Andrew? How could you be so careless? What did your gyno say? Is she an OB too? Do you feel pregnant? How come youre so goddamned fertile, anyway?

Those were my sister Allys rush of questions, which followed a long silence when I told her the news at three oclock this morning. I hadnt meant to call Ally, hadnt meant to tell her at all, at least not right away, not before I had a handle on it myself. But after tossing and turning for hours last night, with Griffens potential reactions getting scarier and scarier, Id grabbed the phone and sobbed into it. After two hours, Ally had gotten me to stop crying and extracted a promise to call her the minute I decided what I was going to do. I knew what I was going to do, but you didnt tell a lawyer that. You told a lawyer, one like Ally, anyway, that youd think over your options very carefully.