Guests

Edie is sitting in a liquor store parking lot when her passenger door wrenches open and a figure drops into the seat beside her.

“You’re fucking him,” the woman says. “I know you are.”

Edie gropes for the handle, then stops. “What? What? Fucking who?”

“My husband, bitch!” the woman spits.

Edie has pictured this moment, has rehearsed it a thousand ways. She’s lived in fear of it for so long that it almost comes as a relief—finally! Sweet release!—except for one thing. This woman isn’t Anna.

“I know you’re fucking him,” the woman repeats. “He acts like I don’t know, but I know. The two of you, you didn’t think I’d figure it out?”

The woman might be high or off her meds, Edie thinks. That’s the tradeoff you make, living in the city, her mother’s voice says. The woman’s eyes have the wild, slightly dangerous glint of someone with a tenuous grip on reality. Edie’s gaze slides from the woman’s face, down her runner-thin arms, to see if she has a weapon. A knife or gun.

No. Nothing. Relief gushes through Edie’s chest, like ice water trickling down the eaves of her parents’ lake house.

“Listen, lady,” she says, releasing the handle at last. “I don’t know who your husband is. I don’t know who you are—”

The woman lunges toward her, so close that Edie can see the silver fillings in the back of her mouth. “Come near my husband again? I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

With that, she clunks out the passenger door and is gone.

Edie waits. Several minutes pass before she’s able to open the door. On the seat where the woman sat, like a talisman, is a black hair tie wreathed in hair. She stares at it a moment, then rips the hair away and shimmies it onto her wrist.

Edie walks toward the buzzing neon lights of the store as fast as she can. She goes straight to the wine section and snatches the first bottle of white she sees. A line four-customers deep winds from the nearest register. The second her eyes close, the woman’s sallow face appears like a movie projected on a screen. Deep breath. In, out. I’m fine, Edie tells herself. But when she rouses her phone, she sees less than a minute has passed since the last time she checked.

A memory ambushes her: Anna’s wet hair dangling from the top bunk, her voice wafting through the darkness. All at once, Edie is eighteen again, a frightened, deeply lonely girl from the suburbs on a lumpy dorm-room mattress. Somehow, she feels closer with that younger, more vulnerable version of herself than she does with the person she is now. She never planned to be that woman, the kind every woman drew thick, clear lines between. It just sort of…happened, almost without her consent. No, that’s not true. Because she did want it to happen. Because, if she were a stronger person or a better friend to Anna, it wouldn’t have happened. Of that, she has no doubt.

On the heels of the first memory comes a second, an entire decade collapsed to nothing. It’s summer. Sweltering, even in the shade. She can hear laughter, the tinny blast of an outdoor speaker. She’s been drinking, heavily, and she has to meet Anna’s new boyfriend, she just has to—

The bottle in Edie’s hand slips and explodes at her feet. Her whole body seems to flush at once.

“I’m—sorry,” she stammers. But who is she apologizing to? And for what?

She flees the store without paying. Outside, she drops her back against the decal-laden glass. A minute passes, then another. Her purse begins to vibrate. She digs her phone out and presses it to her ear.

“Edie, hey.” A man’s voice. “Where are you?”

“Picking up the wine. Look, I’m sorry. I can’t make it tonight.”

“But you’re picking up wine?” Kevin asks. “Is everything all right?”

“No—I mean, yes. It’s just my plans changed. Last minute,” she adds lamely.

“Oh.” Disappointment now.

“I’ll text Anna. To apologize,” Edie manages. “I know she was looking forward to us catching up.”

Someone exits the store, bundled in a scarf.

“Okay,” says Kevin uncertainly. Then his voice, low, gravelly. Edie pictures Anna in the next room. “You’re sure everything’s all right?”

“Just tell Anna I’m sorry,” she says, then taps the red end-call button.

Despite the chill, a light rain begins to fall, the sky spitting rain across the vast lake of blacktop. She wedges two fingers between the hair tie and her flesh—it’s too tight, leaving an angry red circle—and recalls a question her mother asked her after she dropped out of art school, lost a job, or returned home, discarded by yet another man.

“Are you the host, Edith?” she asked, touching her mug to her lips. “Or are you the guest?”