GUEST OF A GUEST OF A GUEST — CHRISTINE KWON
/I was happy to hear from her, especially like that—desperate, lonely. Zahid wasn’t supposed to come for another two weeks and I was getting bored, even with the water and the fog and the abundance of berries. I invited her up. Holly came and everything looked different.
‘Housesitting?’ she cried, ‘You couldn’t pay for a view like this.’ It all seemed suddenly glamorous. Instinctively, Holly sniffed out the right stores; she hired a boat; she found a lobster shack where people like her were picking at their fries.
Waitresses lingered, salespeople smiled.
That’s what Holly is like.
Somehow, she made the time go so quickly that Zahid arrived before I had a chance to kick her out. I had not planned on them meeting. Looking tanned, Amira and Ismail got out of the car. Zahid waved to me and smiled as he walked up the hill to his house. Then he waved again and I turned and saw that Holly had emerged, dressed in a bright blue dress that matched the curtains, a dress I had never seen before.
It was as if she had fashioned it during the night.
“You’ve brought a friend, how wonderful,” Zahid beamed, and his children filed past us into the house. While I busied myself finding the appropriate linens and towels, like I was mistress of the house, Zahid and Holly remained outside, talking with the children.
I heard their voices mingling.
With the kids and Zahid safely installed in their own rooms, Holly and I had to sleep together on that final night. I turned my back to her and began to silently weep. I knew she was awake because I felt her stiffen.
“Just go,” I whispered. “Just go.” Then a million different grievances poured from my mouth; real vitriol; I scared myself, the kind of things I said. “You steal everything from me,” I said between sobs. Holly didn’t turn or make a sound. I said these things to the abyss. In the morning, my eyes were swollen shut, and I studied myself in the bright morning mirror, listening to Holly laughing in the kitchen.
Christine Kwon lives in New Orleans, née Budapest, née Trieste, née Borrego Springs, née Los Angeles, née Iowa City, née New York City, née Fort Lee, née Flushing, Queens. Find more of her work on christinekwonwrites.com or follow her on insta @theschooloflonging.
