OUT OF ALL the restaurants in town, my least favorite had to be Olive Branch Italian Bistro. But that’s where we went for dinner Tuesday night.

I’d been sitting in the basement, and I guess Amanda was going a little stir-crazy, because she walked downstairs and wanted to talk to me. Amanda never liked going down there. I think it had something to do with her having bad experiences with basements. I heard her coming down and thought I had two options: pull up my Hoosier blanket and pretend to be asleep or turn up SportsCenter and ignore her. Knowing neither of these options would work, I prepared myself to be irritated while Amanda talked about her day.

“Hey,” Amanda said, sticking her head into the room. “You got a minute?”

“Sure.” I muted SportsCenter instead of turning it off. I figured if I had to listen to her talk, I might as well have something to look at. “What’s up?”

I was sitting in my lounge chair, and Amanda sat down on the couch.

“I was just thinking,” she said. “We haven’t had a date night in a while.”

“We went out the other night.” My phone sat on the end table, next to my glass of mandarin orange-flavored sparkling water. I had texted Jennifer and was expecting a text back. I had to sit on my hand to control the urge to check my phone.

“What night?”

“Sunday.”

“You mean when Harry’s house burned down? You think watching my old house burn counts as date night?”

I was going to say it was good enough for me or something like that, but looking at Amanda sitting on the couch with her arms crossed, I thought I’d better say something else.

“What did you have in mind for tonight?” I lowered the footrest on my recliner.

“Let’s go out to dinner. Someplace nice.”

I hadn’t had any alcohol since Sunday, and the thought of being sober in public scared me. What if I saw someone from work or one of my customers tried to talk to me? How would I act? I’d be all awkward, stumbling all over myself.

Someone would say, “Hey, Dennis, that car I bought from you just hit 150,000 miles.”

And where I’d normally say something like, “Of course it did. All our cars are quality cars,” I’d probably say something like, “Uh, cars go fast. Me likey fast,” something that would make everyone around me think I’d suffered some head trauma.

This wasn’t a joke. I’d been really agitated at work lately. Any little thing was likely to set me off. My body was all out of whack. I kept having these sugar cravings, and I tasted beer in my mouth all day. Just that morning, one of my salesmen, Marty, came up to me with a question about this sale he was trying to close.

“The Franklins are in my office asking if they can use the trade-in value of their 2010 Saturn to prorate a lease on a new Durango—”

“I’m not really in the mood for this,” I’d said, but Marty didn’t hear me and kept going.

“…and how that will affect next year’s taxes. What should I tell them?”

“I really don’t care, Marty. You figure it out.” I walked him to the door and closed it on him while he was still asking me questions. He didn’t close the deal, and the couple walked away frustrated.

Stuff like this had been happening a lot lately, ever since I stopped drinking, and the staff had started to notice. They’d all stopped swinging by my office to ask for advice, which was fine by me, because I didn’t give a shit about what they had to say.

So yeah, I was worried about what would happen if we went out. I was worried I wouldn’t know how to act in public. I’d worked really hard to build up this professional persona—Dennis Drysdale, car salesman extraordinaire. I had a reputation to live up to. People expected me to be a certain way. Everyone except Jennifer. She didn’t know me from my commercials or anything like that. With her, I could be myself. It also helped that, right now, she was just a picture on a screen. If she were someone I saw around town, I don’t know if I’d be so desperate to talk to her. For starters, I’d probably be too nervous, thinking she still thought of me as the kid in Spanish class who was too chickenshit to talk to her.

“What do you think about that?” Amanda asked.

“About what?” I said, glancing at my phone but resisting the urge to pick it up.

“About going out to dinner? Let’s go to a nice sit-down restaurant, like Olive Branch. They have those bottomless breadsticks you like.”

I didn’t want to go out, but who could argue with bottomless breadsticks?

The whole way there, I waged a war with myself around whether or not I’d have a drink and under what circumstances it’d be acceptable for me to do that.

Okay, if some asshole starts talking to you about cars or some shit and starts stressing you out, you can have a drink. (This was the voice in my head talking as I drove.)

Drinking used to help me when I’d get all awkward around people, sure, but I can’t do that anymore. (And this was me trying to reason with myself.)

What’s one drink? It’ll loosen you up, make you not care about anything.

I need something in my life to care about, because I obviously don’t care about myself.

How long have you been drinking?

Since my first high school party. I saw the guys on varsity drinking and wanted to be like them, but honestly, I was just trying to silence that voice in my head that was always telling me I wasn’t good enough.

You know what you need to do to make me shut up.

What I need to do is accept the fact that I’m good just as I am.

We both know that will never happen.

And part of that is me testing myself by being in public on my own—pass or fail.

You know you’ll fail. You’re terrible with people. But think about this: when you drink, you’re more outgoing, more likeable.

That’s why I need to do this, so I’ll learn how to act around people on my own, without getting liquored up.

Are you going to do that phony car salesman routine? You know people can see right through that, right? At least if you have a drink, you won’t care when they do.

Jennifer wouldn’t want to be with someone who’s an alcoholic.

That’s what this is about, that girl from the internet?

Like I said, I need something to care about.

You know once she sees you’re still a fat piece of shit, she’s going to realize she made a huge mistake, especially if you’re sober. You’re boring when you’re sober.

I have to try to be the type of person she deserves. If I don’t, what’s the point of all this?

This was just a small part of the endless argument I had with myself every moment of every day. It was exhausting. I wanted it to end. I hoped if I stayed strong, one day, that voice would go away. But right then, I had to settle for it quieting down a little.

The Olive Branch smelled like a garlic air freshener. There was something fake about it, from the plastic vines running up the walls to the fake stucco. But what should I have expected? They were trying to make everyone think there was an Italian villa in the middle of an Indiana shopping center.

The hostess—some high school kid who was probably saving up for her first car (my guess: a Hyundai Accent)—seated us in the middle of the room. We were surrounded by families out for dinner. A couple of them had babies. At a couple of tables, some high school kids were on dates. No college kids though. College kids were a little too stuck up for Olive Branch; just ask Sarah.

When the waiter came around, I ordered a sparkling water. Amanda had one as well.

“In solidarity,” she said.

This couple sitting at the table next to us ordered a bottle of wine, and my mouth started to water.

“How has everything been at work?” Amanda asked me.

“You know, the same.” I could smell the wine as the waiter popped the cork.

“Well, you’ll never guess who called me to ask about listing her home. Melissa Schultz.”

“Yeah?” I didn’t know who Melissa Schultz was, but obviously, the name was supposed to mean something to me.

“She wants to set her asking price too high. She has unrealistic expectations of her home’s worth.”

My phone vibrated. I slipped it out of my pocket and held it in my lap. Jennifer had texted me back.

“You got to be able to recognize the value of what you got and know when it’s time to move on,” I said.

“I imagine people get just as attached to their cars as they do their homes.”

“People are different with cars. Cars are about dreams of freedom, of hitting the open road without any responsibility.”

I wanted to get out of there and read Jennifer’s text, but Amanda kept on talking.

“Houses are like dreams too, but dreams of stability. Home buyers want a place where they can put down roots. They think long term, opting for thirty-year mortgages.”

“Most leases run for two years, then you get an upgrade.”

The guy next to us refilled his date’s glass of wine; I could smell the tartness of it.

“When a homeowner wants to upgrade—add equity—they build additions, decks, sunrooms, even put in a swimming pool. But most people keep it simple and just redo the bathrooms and kitchen.”

“No matter what you add to a car, the minute you drive it off the lot, it loses value.”

“Buyers form a sentimental attachment to a house, usually before they move in.”

“People buy cars because they think it’ll get them laid.”

I excused myself, went to the restroom, and sat on the toilet before trying to read Jennifer’s message, but it wouldn’t load. No bars. The cement and ceramics of the bathroom, designed to make it look like a public restroom in Venice, complete with a mural of Mount Vesuvius, blocked any cell signal from getting in. Dumbass interior decorators. Everyone knew the only reason you used a public restroom was to check your phone someplace where your dinner date wouldn’t ask what you were looking at.

I returned to the table wondering what Jennifer might have to say, hoping she’d sent me a picture of her naked. I didn’t ask her to do this, and it wasn’t the type of thing she’d do, but I was still hoping.

Our meal came, and all I could think about was Jennifer’s message. I shoveled my pasta primavera into my mouth, barely chewing. Amanda’s plate of ravioli was half-finished when the waiter took mine. I nibbled on a breadstick as the guy next to us emptied the last drops of wine into his date’s glass.

“I think I know what’s going on,” Amanda said. “Why you’re being so weird tonight.”

Shit. She was going to ask for my phone.

“I just really liked my veggie pasta is all,” I said.

Or maybe she’d check it while I was sleeping. I’d have to change the password, but then she’d ask why I’d done that. So I’d have to delete all of Jennifer’s texts—all our wonderful conversations lost because of my nosy girlfriend.

The man’s date took a picture of the empty bottle and said she’d have to look for it at the grocery store.

“I’m very proud of you, by the way,” Amanda said.

I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, so I kept quiet.

“You keep looking at that couple’s bottle of wine. You think I didn’t notice? You don’t need to come up with excuses to leave the room if you’re uncomfortable. You can just step out if you need to.”

Relief hit me like a blast of air-conditioning on a one hundred-degree day, and I leaned back in my chair. “The past couple of days have been really hard, especially at work.”

“That’s because your salespeople drink on the job.”

“The hardest part has been trying to figure out how to act around people.”

“You’re making a conscious effort to change your life for the better. There will be challenges, but you can do it.”

“I have a lot of motivation right now.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know.”

“Just be patient with me.”

Driving out of the Olive Branch parking lot, I felt light, airy, like a breadstick fresh from the oven. I stepped on the gas and hurried home so I could check my phone.