Page 22 of Sunny Side Up
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I used to think Valentine’s Day in Manhattan could make even the cynics fall in love.
Valentine’s Day in Manhattan, fresh after a divorce?
Different story. This was my first single Valentine’s Day since before I’d met Zack, almost seven years ago, and while I’d been on top of the world ever since the Bahamas and then SONNY, I suddenly felt like Daria, MTV’s iconic sardonic cartoon character, come to life—I rolled my eyes at the men buying last-minute bodega bouquets; mumbled sarcastic quips about all the egregious street-corner PDA; avoided Duane Reade, in all their cupid-and-hearts decked-out glory, like a volleyball in PE class. I was not in the mood today.
My annual Valentine’s Day care package from my parents.
“It’s a Sunny Valentine’s Day now!” my dad greeted me, his voice so warm and happy and caring it was like being wrapped up in a hug.
“Did you get our gift?” my mom asked, her head poking over my father’s shoulder.
“Yes! That’s why I’m calling. I love the PJs and cute little teddy bear, thank you guys. So sweet.”
“We were going to send chocolates, but I know you’re trying to lose weight.”
I looked around my apartment to see whether anyone else heard that shot fired and then replied with a tight smile, “Thank you.”
“Well, we just wanted to check in on our Valentine,” my dad continued quickly. “You were the first love of our life, you know! Our very first Valentine!”
“Any fun plans for the evening? Maybe a mystery date?” my mom asked, while my dad started singing “My Funny Valentine” Sinatra-style, in the background.
“Dinner with the Bahamas crew,” I said.
“Sunny, they sound lovely, but is that really healthy , on today of all days?” my mom asked. There it was.
“You should join one of those online dating sites! I’d be happy to pay for a Match.com subscription for you. You know, your cousin Marina met her wife on there.”
“I do know that, Mom. I gave a reading at their wedding.”
I could hear the annoyance growing in my voice and decided to wrap this up.
(Why couldn’t I make it through a phone call with her these days without getting all defensive?) “Well, I better head to the office. Thank you again for the package. Love you!” I blew my parents an air kiss through the phone and ended the call. It was sweet of them to check in on me.
The office would be a nice change of pace. It was a place where I felt loved, even if it was purely in a professional sense.
Unfortunately, it seemed that everyone else was having trouble focusing on work this holiday.
The lobby had been decorated to the nines, and I even passed a singing telegram by the elevators.
I hadn’t seen a singing telegram since fraternity boys at college would sing for pledge initiation points.
It was like I’d fallen into some type of Nora Ephron remake, where the entire city had been cast except for me.
“Valentine’s date tonight?” I asked Avery, seeing the gorgeous bouquet of bright-colored flowers resting on her desk.
“Something like that.” Her cheeks turned pink. “Okay if I leave a little early? Kayla could only get a reservation for an early seating.”
“Of course!” I smiled at her, hoping my voice didn’t give off any of the bitter energy I was trying to push down deep to my toes.
I normally loved gossiping with Avery, especially about the Tisch graduate she’d met while browsing the Whitney a few weeks ago.
Avery and Kayla’s was the type of young NYC romance I usually couldn’t get enough of, but not today.
I feigned interest in my computer screen, tapping away at a “reply.”
Thankfully, the rest of the workday went by in a blip, and soon Avery was off, promising she’d be on her phone if anything work-related came up.
I told her to please throw her phone in the river if I called her, and to enjoy her night in love with her new girlfriend (to which she insisted, “We haven’t defined the relationship yet!
”) while opening my own phone to dating apps the second I was alone.
Online dating had been, in one word, complicated.
Some messages were fun: I got to flex my bantering skills and punch lines.
Others were a lot less fun. Where did guys get the idea that it was okay to propose sex after three lines of zero-effort, boring dialogue on an app?
The comfort and safety men feel behind a screen is unreal.
Today, the marketplace was more dire than usual.
I swiped through strange requests (surely the internet has reached its quota of feet photos by now, right?
!), all the thirstier because of the holiday.
Reading some of the messages, it was hard to imagine the Hallmark corporation had this in mind when they turned Valentine’s Day into commercial gold.
By 5:45, I’d given up on dating apps for the day. Dinner with Noor and Brooke was at 7:45, and there was no way I could meet them dressed like a grumpy beige Cronut. I left for home, where I’d change my outfit and try to change my attitude.
Both took a little more time than I thought, so I was running a few minutes late. By 8 p.m., I was rushing into the Polo Bar, a notoriously impossible reservation made possible, once again, by Noor. (And I thought my job had perks.)
Outfit-wise, I’d decided to really go for it: I wore this insanely sexy, slinky, heavy-stretch-silk leopard-print dress with a swishy skirt that hit about mid-calf and had a slit that went up to mid-thigh.
I added my leopard-print faux fur coat for maximum effect, and the highest pair of heels I owned.
In red. My nod of surrender to the holiday at hand.
I’d parted my blonde hair in the middle and pulled it back into a tight, low bun.
In my earlobes I wore a pair of thick gold abstract ovals—one of my jewelry clients’ designs.
I looked like the Nanny Named Fran after she became Mrs. Sheffield.
You know what? If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em, I always say.
Brooke and Noor applauded when I walked toward the table.
We were sat right in the belly of the handsome, low-lit, lacquered-wood-paneled restaurant lined with equestrian paintings on the walls and humming with whispers about the famous news anchor eating a cheeseburger with four other notable faces.
“Me- ow ,” said Brooke as I sat down. The girls were decked out, too.
Noor wore a white smoking jacket without anything underneath, it appeared (as was later confirmed when she flashed me in the bathroom) and a pair of skintight leather pants with super pointy black stilettos.
Brooke was in a hot-pink boxy mini shift dress with sky-high yellow satin platform heels.
“Brooke, are you in a full Miu Miu look right now?”
“I am. Bought it today. Whoops.” She grinned. “I officially signed a big-deal commercial client today and two women on the Upper East Side looking for personal stylists earlier this week.”
“That’s amazing!” I said, taking the martini they must have already ordered for me, sighing an inaudible breath of relief. These two women were like human Xanax for my soul.
“Tell me everything. And sorry for making you repeat after I’m sure you just told Noor.”
She was happy to. She was buzzing.
We’d covered an impressive amount of territory by the time dinner arrived: Brooke’s latest career development; more weird things Ezra had done recently; Noor’s proposed press marathon for her imminent cookbook; the current SONNY status (though they were both practically board members at this point, they’d been so looped in); how Noor was metabolizing her therapist’s recent tough-love speech about her continued lack of boundaries in regard to Sam and Paul.
“ Sunny Side Up is on fire,” said Brooke. “I keep seeing your newsletter recommended in others I subscribe to, and just saw The Cut’s raving piece about it.”
“It’s wild,” I said, still in disbelief myself. The subscription list was growing so fast, I had trouble monitoring it.
Publications had started reaching out to me for quotes about my stance on body acceptance versus body positivity (I felt the former was more realistic; my go-to line was that I’d honestly just prefer to think about things other than my body, that I was so sick of it consuming me, that I had more important things to talk about and accomplish than worry about the circumference of my thighs).
A recent newsletter I’d written had just gone viral, and one quote in particular was receiving a lot of pickup: A reader had written in asking for advice about what to say to well-meaning loved ones who kept ragging on her about her weight and sending her unsolicited articles about how a woman’s weight and appearance had direct correlations to getting hired for jobs, getting raises—all under the thinly veiled ruse that they were “concerned” about her health.
“I walk everywhere,” she’d written. “I practice yoga, I eat healthfully. I drink green juice. I take my vitamins. I don’t eat red meat.
I don’t smoke. I barely drink. (My family does!
All they eat is steak. They drink more wine than water.
My brother smokes like a chimney.) They just happen to have an easier time naturally staying thin.
It’s so hypocritical. I even went to my doctor at one point, specifically about my weight, and she told me to ‘keep doing what I’m doing,’ that so long as I stayed consistently active, with no major fluctuations, she was fine with my weight. How do I get them to back off?”