Page 86 of Hers for the Weekend

She was holed up in a motel outside Madison at the end of February, because she’d run out of gas while driving aimlessly around the Midwest, when she realized she needed to talk to someone who would tell her the absolute, unvarnished, ugly truth about herself.

So she called her ex-wife.

The heavy, cigarette smoke–laden curtains that maybe used to be baby-puke green gave the room an oppressive gloom, so Holly went out to sit in the pale midmorning sunlight on a crumbling lounge chair by the pool. Maybe she would buy and renovate a vintage motel, she thought idly while the phone rang, like Stevie Budd. Hannah would probably help her with a business plan, if the Carrigan’s crew ever talked to her again.

“Sio? Is someone dead?” was how Ivy answered the phone, which was fair. They hadn’t spoken on the phone in… probably five years, since Holly had called to say that her grandfather had died and to invite Ivy to the funeral.

“Everything’s fine. Well. Everything’s not fine, but no one’s dead. I have to ask you a favor.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. One of the things they’d fought about most, in their marriage, was that Holly never asked for help. It felt like a sort of dull cruelty to now, so many years later, be asking for help when their marriage was not only dead but also long buried, and no longer even mourned.

Ivy cleared her throat. “Who is she?”

Against her will, Holly’s eyes welled up. “You will never believe this, but she’s a debutante lawyer…”

She poured all of it out, the whole story, warts, wounds, terrible behavior and all. To her immense credit, Ivy gasped in horror at Aunt Cricket, got indignant about Tara trying to make Holly into someone else, and defended Holly’s reaction even though it was kind of indefensible.

Even though Ernie had been incredibly generous to her, pretty much everyone in Advent (and certainly at Carrigan’s) had been Team Tara. Hell, even Holly was Team Tara. And she wanted that for Tara. Tara needed a team. She’d never had one, all her life, just Cole, and she deserved it. But it was nice to have someone be fully, irrationally on Team Holly, even if it was perhaps the least likely person on earth.

“So, what do you need from me?” Ivy asked. “Do you need help with a plan to win her back? You know I’m good with a diabolical scheme.”

Holly smiled. She’d forgotten that about Ivy, but it was true. In high school, she’d had the same wild child streak that Tara must have had. She would have gone right along with burning down a golf course. “I think I should probably step away from schemes, after the whole fake dating fiasco. I’m obviously not skilled at them.”

“Shoulda stayed friends with me, like every other lesbian with their starter wife,” Ivy told her, munching on something in the background. She was like Danny Ocean, always snacking. And she was right. Holly probably should have.

“I feel like I can’t… I can’t remember how to be in love. All I remember is how bad I was at it, at the end, and I’m terrified I’m not built for it,” Holly said, all in a rush.

She shifted, trying to unstick her legs from the plastic of the chair, not sure if her emotions or the sagging seat were more uncomfortable. “Will you, like… I know this is such a shitty thing to ask, but will you post-game our marriage with me? Can we just talk about what the fuck happened, so I can actually figure out what to do this time? You’re the only person who really knew me during that time. The only person who’s known me all along.”

Ivy laughed. “I actually think it’s a pretty normal thing to ask, at least for us. We were each other’s Day Ones, and even though we needed some space, who is going to unpack that time with us, if not each other?”

They talked for hours, through most of a day and into the night, like Max sailing to where the wild things are. Or, maybe back home, because at the end of the journey, Holly found her best friendship, like Max’s supper, waiting for her, and it was still warm. Somewhere in the middle, Holly moved back into the motel room to avoid getting sunburned and lay on her back, sideways on the bed, her eyes closed, listening to the sound of Ivy’s voice over the speaker.

Ivy’s version of why they’d broken up was kinder than Holly’s and had more room for nuance. The story she told—that they were two kids who married the first person they ever found themselves in, and then found themselves both totally incompatible and way too young to handle it well—left so much space for them both to grow, to make new and better choices. It wasn’t that Ivy was unaffected by their divorce—she’d been dating the same wonderful person for several years and wanted to propose to them, but hadn’t, and she couldn’t quite explain why.

“You should maybe call more often,” Ivy said as they were hanging up.

“Eh,” Holly said, “maybe we can start by texting some GIFs? You know, ease back into it? I’m out of the habit of having friends.”

The next time Shoshana Rosenstein called to offer her a job, as she’d been doing every week, Holly didn’t politely put her off.

“Are you ready to come back to Davenport?!” Shoshana asked, pitching her voice like a movie announcer. “Beautiful scenery, Quad City–style pizza, and we were once voted the ninth queerest city in America!”

“That was almost ten years ago, Shoshana,” Holly reminded her.

Shoshana laughed. “And it’s only gotten gayer!”

“Well,” Holly said, “as much as I… appreciate… the lure of my hometown, I’m not ready to move home. It turns out I like to visit but staying for more than a few weeks makes me kind of volatile. However, I have an idea. You all have been expanding into new territories, but that’s a big monetary commitment, even with market data, right?”

Shoshana hmmed, sounding surprised that Holly had a brain for business as well as baking. It was the red hair, Holly thought. People were always expecting Anne Shirley, or Ariel, and were surprised when they got, well, a foul-mouthed blue-collar socialist with both feet firmly on the ground.

“What if you had a traveling storefront, with an accomplished baker, who could take Rosenstein’s into places that had only ever experienced it pre-packaged and shipped?”

“So, a food truck?” Shoshana asked. “I don’t hate it, but I gotta ask, how is cooking for our food truck going to help you build your own business?”

“Why would I want to?” Holly asked. “I don’t want to be a business owner. There’s so many taxes.”

This brought more laughter. “There are. But I still would like your work, as a baker, to be recognized. Not for churning out Rosenstein recipes—that’s not what I want to bring you on board for. I want your imagination.”

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