The Heart of the Deal Quotes

“Looking again at Dustin’s text, she wondered what the difference was between listening to her gut and listening to her heart.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Rae was learning, or perhaps remembering, that poetry was less an act of writing and more a way of seeing the world and reflecting on neglected details and textures.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Sarah: CAN’T WAIT FOR THE WEDDING (and for you to meet Nell!!!) “Sarah’s getting a plus-one?” Rae asked. “Guess she is now,” Ellen said with an unconcerned laugh. “I’m not having assigned seating.” “What kind of cupcakes will there be?” Rae asked, cutting to the important questions. “Not sure yet. Maybe my maid of honor could take the lead on that?” “Yes, please,” Rae said, already dreaming up Karat Cake and S’more Love. “We’ll call them ‘couple cakes.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“The Scramblette group chat had been nearly dormant for a while, but there was nothing like a wedding dress to gather old friends back into its fold. Rae sent three photos of Ellen, all equally perfect.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Rae changed into her bathrobe too. Over the gap in her bedroom wall, she called out, “What’re you trying to butter me up for?” She was the one who should’ve been cooking an Elle-belle scramblette. “Have I been replaced as maid of honor by Comedian Courtney?” The couple of times Rae had tried to make plans with Ellen recently, Ellen had been out with a woman from work named Courtney, who was apparently “the most hilarious human in the history of humanity.” Rae had mentally tallied the ways in which she was no doubt funnier than Courtney before coming to the conclusion that, given that her core competency was her heart, not her humor, she should lean into her differentiation rather than conforming to the competition’s friendship model. Would Courtney wipe Ellen’s vomit from the toilet seat or put poems on her pillows? Rae didn’t think so. “Maid-of-honor duties are safe,” Ellen said, handing her a plate of Rae-bae scramblette. “It’s just …” “What?” Ellen said the next sentence very quickly, as if it were a single ten-syllable word. “Aaron wants us to move in together.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Then she and Dustin walked back inside, holding each other’s hurt but not each other’s hands.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“I know the poem,” Dustin cut in, voice hardening out of the blue. “Stand against the wall and let love murder you with a round of careless bullets.” “Yes,” Rae said. “Too dark for Valentine’s Day, so I put a new spin on it.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“And you say you want a new job, but something keeps you holding on to the old one, justifying why he’ll get better this year,” Mina added, holding her iced almond-milk latte in one hand as she swiped through a dating app with the other. “And he’s so clingy and expects you to be there for him twenty-four seven,” Ellen added. “And when you do finally get another offer, you get cold feet because you can’t even remember who you were without Mr. Wall Street in your life.” “You’ve got to get out,” Mina said, tilting her head to evaluate a digital suitor on her phone. “It’s time,” Ellen agreed. “Sarah agrees with us.” Rae felt the panicked sensation of a door that had closed before she’d managed to reach it, but she avoided interpreting their words as truth. She just went into defensive mode, disliking how the rest of the Scramblettes had apparently started a separate group chat to stage an intervention. “Things have been getting better,” Rae said. “I think I’ll be able to present my market size analysis to a client at a pitch meeting next week.” “You’re doing that thing,” Ellen said, “where the shitty boyfriend does one mediocre thing, but relative to everything else he’s done it’s amazing, and so you think this means he’s really changed.” The glare from Ellen’s engagement ring felt very bright, and Rae didn’t like the sight of it.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Trying to break up with a Wall Street job is like trying to break up with a toxic boyfriend,” Ellen told Rae. “They give you a nice present—aka a massive bonus—right before Valentine’s Day, and it makes you overlook all the glaring problems in the relationship.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Dustin had apologized for skipping Ellen’s party, citing that Bellini quote—I like to be with people, just not up close. “Except for you,” he’d added.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Don’t insult my intelligence,” Dustin said, almost sneering now. “I know you have your little scheme to get married by thirty.” Rae felt like she’d been slapped. She wanted to slap back, but that would just be cruel, hitting someone who was already down, so she turned the fury inward. She must’ve set some of the marriage pressure on Dustin’s sunken shoulders, making him feel like being her boyfriend wasn’t enough for her. Or maybe it had been her mom’s tactless hints that she wanted to be around to see her grandkids grow up, or even his own mom’s comments over New Year’s about how it was about time Dustin brought home a nice girl and settled down like his brothers.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“It wasn’t exactly a surprise—Rae had known it was coming—but seeing the rock on her best friend’s hand made it real in a way she hadn’t expected, a way that made Rae miss something she hadn’t lost yet but now knew she was going to lose very soon.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“But love wasn’t just the lightness in the air and sunny days with mountain views that stretched for miles. It was the clouds and the weights and the fog that blocked even your own feet sometimes. Real love required finding a way, not walking away.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Though it wasn’t yet forgiveness, an uncomfortable sort of empathy was wriggling in through the holes in her heart so that she could start to see him as an aching soul who was emotionally stunted by his shattered past rather than an immoral man who’d so carelessly abandoned his family.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Better to get hurt from being overinvested than underinvested,” Rae said. She wasn’t sure if she’d heard that aphorism at the office or if it had sprung to her fresh from this corner table.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“It’s not a bubble,” Rae said. “Our relationship fundamentals support the high valuation.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Her left brain processed a swift sense of victory at getting one step closer to her married-by-thirty vision, but her right brain waved away those forward-looking thoughts, too busy basking in the beauty of this very moment with the person she could finally call her boyfriend.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Rae held Dustin with everything she had and everything she’d lost and everything she was finding again. “Of course you are,” she said, willing him to feel his worthiness.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“In a matter of seconds, she unblocked, then resaved Dustin’s number. Cell phone companies should make the process of retrieving blocked numbers more difficult, she thought, though she was glad they didn’t.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“She ran the marriage math in her head, finding it equal parts soothing and anxiety inducing. She was two years behind her original forecast, which wasn’t ideal, but she could condense the timeline and still be okay. If she met someone soon, she could still date them for two years, skip over the living-together step, then have a six-month engagement and close the marriage deal before her thirtieth birthday to allow enough time to have all her kids before she turned thirty-five.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“No one ever sees my underwear,” Rae told Ellen now. “So what does it matter what it looks like?” “No one ever sees your underwear because you don’t expect them to see it,” Ellen retorted. “It’s like the chicken-and-the-egg phenomenon. Which came first, the sex or the thong?” “Clever,” Rae scowled. “Dress for the boyfriend you want, not the boyfriend you have,” Ellen went on.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“I spent most of last year living with my parents in Connecticut,” he said, speaking as evenly as ever. “Which is why I hadn’t seen a lot of my friends in a while until the Christmas party.” It was a departure from the linear narrative she’d crafted. “Why?” “I was getting treatment.” Rae’s stomach scrunched as her heart was punched with regret about every assumption she’d made. When she finally found her voice and ditched her pride, she gritted out, “Not cancer?” Two women shoved their way onto the stools next to them, and the baristas shouted about macchiatos and matcha and oat milk. Manhattan was intruding, like it did best.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“She redid her bun twice more to optimize the careless effect, then changed from one pair of black jeans into another and pulled on her coat, one with a hood that she used as a cocoon on crowded subway trains.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“She hated the text, but more than she hated it, she loved it, and even more than she loved it, she hated that she loved it.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“She just wanted to sit on the couch with someone and eat pizza and talk about poetry and deep shit and be held through the night.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“She didn’t even have Ellen proofread it. She wasn’t scared about double texting him or getting a word wrong, and if that wasn’t the feeling of falling in love in the twenty-first century, she didn’t know what was.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Dustin hasn’t replied to my text from this morning,” Rae said, switching the subject. “But I’m not worried. Remember how dramatic we were about everything last year?” She said last year as if it weren’t synonymous with last night.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“Breathtaking was the word that popped into Rae’s head as they walked onto the rooftop, rectangular and empty. Breathgiving, she corrected, earmarking the word for some future use.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“This is a Rockaway Parkway–bound L train,” the automated voice announced as the urine-and-pickle-scented subway train jolted to a violent stop, as if on a mission to send as many passengers careening into the walls as possible. Rae managed to avoid toppling over only because she was sitting down and wedged tightly in a man-sprawler sandwich.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal

“But did he say, ‘This is Rae’ or ‘This is Rae’?” Mina clarified. “Or ‘This is Rae’?” Ellen added, unable to keep from jumping in on the analysis. Rae racked her brain. “Just ‘This is Rae,’ I think.” “Oh,” Mina and Sarah said in unison.”
― Lindsay MacMillan, The Heart of the Deal