by Sarah Dunn
I have not yet been able to get this particular feeling when I’m involved with somebody. I’ve just never been able to manage it. I mean, I do things when I’m involved with somebody—I go shopping and I cook things, I take trips and I read books—but somehow the enterprise is never fueled by the sense that my life could, at any moment, turn out to be something entirely different than I had anticipated. It is a problem. It is one of the major problems of my life. I’m sure there’s a reason for it—an explanation for why life opens up and closes down around a person—and I started to develop a theory about it, but then I stopped. And I’ve simply decided to fight it. To stop shrinking down. To keep on unfolding, no matter what.
A few months after I moved into my new apartment, something quite unexpected happened. I remember thinking at the time that I wasn’t sure if it was the ending of this story or the beginning of a new one. It was late on a Sunday afternoon, and I was poking around in the map store on Chestnut Street, looking at travel books. I heard a voice behind me.
“Alison?”
I turned around. It was Henry.
“Hello,” I said.
He leaned forward and gave me an awkward kiss on the cheek.
“How are you?” said Henry.
“I’m good,” I said. “How are you?”
“Hanging in there,” said Henry.
“I heard you quit the paper.”
“Quit. Got fired,” said Henry. “I think the distinction becomes meaningless when both parties are screaming profanities down a long hallway.”
“You yelled at Sid?” I said.
“I did.”
“I wish I’d yelled,” I said.
“We got a bunch of letters about you,” said Henry. “Protesting your departure.”
I looked at him. “Define a bunch.”
“Okay,” said Henry. “Six. But you have six extremely loyal, angry fans.”
“Tell me about what’s-her-face,” I said, “that girl who stole my job.”
“Mary Ellen?” said Henry. “What do you want to know?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Just say some bad things about her.”
“Well, she can’t write,” said Henry.
“Yeah. Stuff like that.”
“And she bites the heads off of kittens.”
“Give me one more,” I said.
“Deep down, she’s an insecure, unhappy person,” said Henry. “It’s sad, really.”
“You know, I hate that sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“The idea that being insecure and unhappy is an excuse for anything,” I said. “I mean, I’m insecure and unhappy. Everybody I know is insecure and unhappy.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Henry. “She’s just a plain old bad person.”
“And untalented,” I said.
“Hugely untalented.”
Henry smiled.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing,” said Henry.
“Why are you smiling?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry. “I’m just smiling.”
“What are you going to do now?” I said.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Take a break. Reassess things.”
He showed me the stack of Lonely Planet guidebooks he was holding—Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia, and Tibet.
“I told the guy behind the counter that I wanted to go someplace cheap, where people wear long orange robes,” said Henry. “Apparently I need to narrow it down further.”
“Do you want mountains and trekking or beaches and whores?” I said.
He sighed a big mock sigh. “I guess trekking.”
I took the Thailand and Cambodia guides out of his stack and put them back on the shelf. “There,” I said. “You’re narrowed.”
“Are you going someplace?”
I nodded. “Italy. In two weeks.”
“Why Italy?” said Henry.
I decided to tell him the truth. “It’s a reward for not sleeping with my Italian teacher.”
Henry laughed.
“He was, I don’t know,” I said. “Creepy sexy. And I was intrigued. But then I realized that the sexy part was the Italian part, and the creepy part was just him.”
Henry asked if I wanted to get a cup of coffee. I said yes. We each bought our books, and then we went around the corner to a tiny café. We sat for a long time, talking.
By the time we left, it was dark outside. Henry grabbed my hand as we crossed the street against the light, and when we got to the other side, he didn’t let go.
It was a clear night, and the moon was full and bright and low in the sky. I didn’t know where we were going, but it didn’t matter, because the cherry blossoms were finally out, and the air smelled of the last fire in somebody’s fireplace. I just wanted to stare at the moon. I just wanted to lift my face to that moon, unashamed, like a sunflower to the sun.
About the Author
Sarah Dunn lives in New York City. The Big Love is her first novel.
A preview of
The Secrets to Happiness by Sarah Dunn
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A Happy Marriage
Do you want to know the secret to a happy marriage?”
“Tell me.”
“Put your wife on Paxil.”
People told Holly all sorts of things. She didn’t know why, really. Maybe it had something to do with her face, which was wide open and promised kindness. Holly’s face was much kinder than she actually was. She had big green eyes and extremely pale skin and an easy, forgiving smile, but the real problem was probably her dimples. Holly was one of the seven grown women left in Manhattan who still had them, dimples, which meant that strangers were always asking her for change for a twenty or to watch their laptops in Starbucks. Once, a woman she’d never met before asked her to hold her baby while she strapped a car seat into the back of a taxi. Part of the reason Holly had trouble with men was they mistook her face for the truth, they felt she had vast untapped reservoirs of understanding and ended up telling her all of the sordid and shameful bits of their histories, and when they saw not so much as a flicker of judgment pass over her features, they kept right on going. It was, Holly found, a great thing for a writer, to have people tell you things, but it could wreak havoc on relationships.
“Amanda’s taking Paxil?” said Holly.
Mark nodded yes and lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “She’s a completely different person. It’s like I woke up one morning and suddenly found myself married to this sweet and lovely woman. She’s always been a bit of a, well, I don’t want to say ‘bitch’ but —” He looked up in the air for a second, searching for the word. “Let’s just go with difficult. I mean that in the best possible way, she’s really intelligent and impressive and opinionated and I love her, I really do, but it was getting pretty tough to live with her.”
“Yeah, but, isn’t that kind of alarming? I mean, that a pill could make that much of a difference?”
“Alarming? Are you kidding? It’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Amanda came in from the kitchen carrying a small bowl of black olives. Amanda was one of those women who start out thin and spend their thirties getting progressively thinner. Holly couldn’t figure out how she did it. It was almost like she’d discovered a magic pill, or was involved with some sort of spooky voodoo that she insisted on keeping to herself. Amanda kept getting thinner, and her hair kept getting shorter and spikier, and her eyes, defying all known laws of human biology, kept getting bigger. Amanda was beautiful, Holly had to admit, but she was in danger of turning into a bony, bug-eyed elf.
“I didn’t know you started taking Paxil,” said Holly.
“I love it,” said Amanda. “You should try it.”
“Why? I’m not depressed.”
Amanda and Mark just looked at her.
“Why is everyone convinced there’s something wrong with me?” said Holly. “Last night I was on the phone with my stepmoth
er, and I told her I was thinking about getting a dog, and she said, ‘Oh, good, that means you’re ready to receive love again.’ ”
“She said that?” said Amanda.
“She did. And I said to her, Oh, Ellen, don’t you worry about me. I’ve been receiving love,” said Holly. She popped an olive into her mouth. “I’ve been receiving love in, you know, multiple orifices.”
“You did not,” said Amanda.
“I wanted to.”
“What’s she even talking about?” said Amanda. “You’ve been ready to receive love.”
Mark was sitting on the edge of the couch with the bottle of Pinot Noir Holly had brought and one of those rabbit-ear wine openers. “What kind of dog?” he asked.
“I haven’t got that far,” said Holly. “I’ll probably just go to a shelter.”
“When we rescued Peppo,” said Amanda, “I did all sorts of research about dogs that are happy in apartments and breeds that do well in New York, but when it came down to it, I wanted the kind of dog I grew up with.”
Holly gave Amanda a look.
“What?” said Amanda.
“He’s a pedigreed Portuguese Water Dog. You had to fly to Oregon to pick him up from the breeder. How is that a rescue?”
“That’s how it works with purebreds. People who adopt them have to sign a contract that they’ll return them to the breeder if they don’t want the dog anymore. Then the breeder finds a rescue home for it.”
“Yeah, but that’s not really a rescue. I mean, you didn’t ‘rescue’ him from anything. That’s just a used dog.”
“Peppo’s a rescue, Holly.”
Holly looked over at Mark to get some backup — he’d spent a thousand bucks plus airfare on the dog, Holly knew for a fact, because he’d complained quite loudly about it at the time — but he was hunched over the coffee table, fussing with the wine opener, oblivious. She knew from experience that pursuing this line of reasoning with Amanda was futile, so she decided to change the subject. “What exactly is your husband wearing on his feet?”
“Oh. You noticed Mark’s slipper socks. Attractive, aren’t they?”
Mark’s slipper socks were just that: oatmeal-colored wool socks with a brown leather outsole stitched onto the bottom, like feetie pajamas without the pajamas.
“I mean, I know I’m like family,” said Holly, “but I don’t think you should inflict those things on family.”
“The astronauts wear these,” said Mark. “These are astronaut’s slippers, standard issue since nineteen eighty-two.”
“Have you become an astronaut?” said Amanda. “Did I miss something? Have you given up investment banking in order to explore outer space?”
“Hey, I love these slippers,” said Mark. “I want to be buried in these slippers.”
Amanda looked at Holly and gave a little marital “what can you do” shrug of her shoulders.
“Oh. I almost forgot,” said Holly. “I have to show you something. Can I borrow your laptop?”
“Of course.”
Holly sat down on the couch with Amanda’s computer and managed to open up her email. “Listen to this,” she said. “ ‘Dear Holly. This is going to sound strange, but I’m writing regarding Spence Samuelson. I have been dating him for about eight months, talking about a serious future together, and now something catastrophic has happened. I don’t know how you might feel about talking with me about this, but I would love to hear your perspective. Thank you. Cathleen Wheeler.’ And then she leaves her phone number, with a Colorado area code.”
“Oh my god,” said Amanda.
“Who is Spence Samuelson?” asked Mark.
“He was the ex before the ex,” Amanda explained. “The guy before the ex-husband. He was before your time.”
“Wait.” Mark turned to Holly. “He’s the shitty guy in your book?”
“Exactly,” said Amanda.
Holly said, a tad formally, “The character of Palmer was fictional, but sort of loosely, in the broadest possible way, based on Spence.”
Amanda rolled her eyes at this. She knew the truth, which was that Holly had changed exactly two details about Spence when turning him into Palmer, his name and the color of his eyes.
“Did you call her?” said Mark.
“Not yet.”
“Are you crazy? Do it now,” said Amanda. “Put her on speakerphone.”
“The woman said something catastrophic happened,” said Mark. “I don’t think we should put her on our speakerphone.”
“You know, after I got this email, I had an epiphany,” said Holly. “This is why I wrote a novel. For this exact experience. To have girlfriends of men I used to date track me down and ask me for advice. It’ll be like being a therapist without having to get a degree.”
“Lord,” said Mark.
“What?” said Holly.
“That poor, sad schmuck,” said Mark. “He has no idea what he’s in for.”
Holly Frick had had the worst kind of divorce: the kind where you’re still in love with the person who is divorcing you. Not “fond of,” not “still attached to,” not “building a life together” — hopelessly in love with. And it was a year ago exactly that Alex had left her, a fact that had somehow slipped her notice up until earlier that evening, when she went to hail a cab and saw the dried-out Christmas trees heaped in sad piles along the sidewalk. Alex had left her on January third. Kind of like a benevolent CEO who holds off on the pink slips until after the holidays.
Alex had left Holly abruptly, more or less out of the blue, not for another woman, not even for another man, but for, it would seem, women. As many as he could get his hands on. The rumors came back to her throughout the spring and summer, trickling in from various gossipy sources, stories about his fling with the frosty Thai hostess at Tao; a graduate student who worked in the basement of Shakespeare & Company; the “model” who sold lingerie at Barneys. Holly’s therapist claimed she’d metabolized the breakup of her marriage like a trauma victim, that it happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly it was like she’d been in a car accident, or the subject of a violent crime, which Holly figured was as good an explanation as any as to why she’d spent the past year of her life feeling like she was underwater.
She knew that what she was going through was nothing special, just garden-variety heartbreak, the sort of thing that poets and novelists had been writing about for hundreds of years, but she also knew, from those same books, that there were people who never recover from it, ones who go on through life beset by a dim and painful longing. It wasn’t until that day, when she saw the Christmas trees littering the street and was shocked to realize a full year had gone by, that she started to fear she might be one of them.
Amanda and Mark had a baby, a thirteen-month-old named Jacob, who was asleep in his room for most of the evening but made a brief cameo appearance around the time of the last moo shu pancake. Jacob was huge. At his six-month birthday party he was the size of a small two-year-old, but seeing as he had only about a thirty percent chance of transferring his pacifier from his fist to his mouth on any given try, he seemed vaguely retarded. He wasn’t, though — he was just too big. Holly and Amanda had, years earlier, come up with a name for just this sort of baby — blond blob (because, and you’ll see that this is true, these enormous blobby babies are invariably blond) — but that was before Amanda had gone and given birth to one.
After Jacob went back down, Holly and Amanda settled in on the couch with a fresh bottle of wine while Mark dozed in his chair.
“Talk,” said Amanda.
“What? I’m good.”
“Good!”
“Not that good,” said Holly. “But better.”
“That’s still good.”
“It’s weird,” said Holly. “A couple of weeks ago, I woke up on a Saturday morning, and I hadn’t made plans with anybody, so the whole day was sitting there, stretched out in front of me, this big blank, which usually makes me feel all panicky and anxious and bad about myself —”
“You should have called,” Amanda interrupted. “You could have come over.”
“Yeah, I know. Thanks. Anyhow, I got dressed and I made my way downtown, and I did some Christmas shopping, and then at around four I went to see a movie I’d been wanting to see at the Film Forum, and then I came home and made a nice dinner for myself with real cooking involved and I ate off the good plates and, you know, in the end, I had this really great day. And the whole time I was aware of the fact that I was by myself, but I wasn’t bothered by it the way I would have been in the past,” said Holly. She reached for the bottle of wine and refilled both of their glasses. “I got married. I tried that. It didn’t work out for me. And maybe I’m just one of those people who are meant to be alone.”
“You’re going to meet someone, Holly.”
“I don’t know if I even want to. Honestly. I’m fine alone. I feel like this is the first time in my life I’ve been able to say that and have it be completely true,” said Holly. “I’m. Fine. Alone.”
“Of course you’re fine.”
“And it feels good, you know, to finally be in a good place with all of this.”
“And you’re not really alone.”
“I’m pretty alone.” Holly took a big swallow of wine and closed her eyes. “I miss Alex.”