The Big Love

by Sarah Dunn

  “No you don’t,” said Amanda.

  “I do. I miss him,” said Holly. Her voice got small. “I think I’m still in love with him.”

  “You’re not in love with Alex.”

  “Okay, so what is it then, when you walk by a restaurant you used to go to together, you get tears in your eyes and your chest feels like there’s a huge hole in it and you have to go straight home and crawl into bed and get under the covers? What can that possibly mean, other than I still love him?”

  “That’s grief. That’s healthy.”

  “I don’t know,” said Holly. “It feels like love.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Amanda. “You guys weren’t happy together.”

  “I think maybe we were.”

  “You were miserable, Holly.”

  “So? I’m miserable now. And I’m not sure it’s all that much better to be miserable alone than to be miserable with another person,” said Holly. She thrust her forefinger in the air as the thought came to her: “Misery loves company.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “I do like to drink.”

  “You can sleep over if you want.”

  “No. That’ll just make me feel more pathetic,” said Holly. She flopped back against the cushions and stared up at the ceiling, which was flickering in the candlelight. “God, I’ve fucked up my life. My novel was a spectacular failure, I’m back writing for TV — for the world’s crappiest TV show if anyone’s keeping score — I’m thirty-five years old, utterly alone, and the outer walls of my eggs are taking on the consistency of tissue paper as we speak. Meanwhile, Alex leaves me and his life is going great. I think he’s dating someone pretty seriously.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Nothing, really,” said Holly. “I’m just pretty sure he is.”

  Amanda put down her wineglass and looked hard at Hollss“Are you still checking his email?”

  “No.”

  “Holly.”

  “I’m not. I promise,” said Holly. “He changed his code.”

  Mark opened one eye and piped in from his recliner. “You were checking your ex-husband’s email?”

  “I’m not proud of it.”

  Amanda got off the couch and headed towards the kitchen with a few dirty glasses. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you should really seriously consider getting a new therapist.”

  “Hey, you can’t blame this on her,” Holly called after her. “I don’t tell her things like this. Trust me. She’d be appalled.”

  A few minutes later, Holly rolled off the couch and joined Amanda in the kitchen. After briefly rallying, just long enough to suggest that Holly (a) consider Internet dating, because a forty-three-year-old at his office met a guy from Teaneck that way, and she was pretty fat, or (b) maybe take a salsa dancing class, Mark had fallen back into a slipper-socked slumber. Amanda was at the sink with the rubber gloves on. Holly picked up a sponge and went to work on the countertops.

  “Your husband thinks all my problems would be solved if I signed up for a salsa dancing class.”

  “That’s not the worst idea,” said Amanda. “You like to dance.”

  “My friend Betsy took a salsa dancing class, and when she went out to the hallway during the break, one of the guys from the class was just standing there, leaning against the wall, perfectly normal, with his hand down his pants.”

  “Was he, like, doing things to himself ?”

  “Does it matter?” said Holly. “Really, with that story, does it matter why his hand was in his pants?”

  “I see your point,” Amanda said, and then she turned off the faucet. “I have to talk to you about something.”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s kind of complicated.”

  “Did I do something wrong?” said Holly.

  “No, no. Of course not. It’s not about you.”

  “Well, then, what is it?”

  “It’s — now this is going to seem like a bigger thing than I meant it to be, and it’s really nothing.”

  “Okay . . . ?”

  “About a month ago, I met a guy at this benefit thing I went to.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “His name is Jack, and he knows my old boss Theresa. We talked about Theresa a lot at first — the woman is out of her mind — and we just got into this dynamic with each other. Then we had lunch, and, you know, a few emails back and forth. Nothing big.”

  “I’m missing the part that’s complicated.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s just it,” said Amanda. “It’s getting complicated.”

  “Spell it out for me,” said Holly. “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “God, no. No. Nothing like that.”

  “Good. Then what is it?”

  “I don’t know what it is. I’m a little confused,” said Amanda. “Feelings are getting involved.”

  “Does Mark know about it?”

  “No,” said Amanda. “I mean, he knows there’s a guy out there named Jack, I’ve mentioned his name a few times, but he doesn’t know.”

  Holly put the sponge down. “So what you’re telling me is, you’re dating somebody.”

  “Of course not,” said Amanda. “We’ve had a couple of innocent lunches.”

  “You shouldn’t talk to me about this,” said Holly. “I’m no good with infidelity. I always overidentify with the cuckolded party.”

  “This isn’t infidelity, Holly.”

  “Then why are we whispering in the kitchen?”

  Amanda opened the cabinet and took out three coffee mugs.

  “What are you telling me this for?”

  “I want you to meet him.”

  “What?” said Holly. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” said Amanda. “You’ll like him. You’ll like each other.”

  “I don’t think I want to meet him,” said Holly. “I’ll feel complicit. I feel guilty even having this conversation.”

  “Why should you feel guilty?”

  “I don’t know,” said Holly. “Somebody should feel guilty, and I tend to feel all the feelings in the room.”

  “Just meet us for lunch next week, will you, please?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “It’s a ‘we’ll see.’ ”