The Guest List

by Lucy Foley

There’s this image in my brain. Red on white. All the blood.

Reminding me to keep the secret.

I know who it is. “Get the fuck away from me,” I whisper. Then I try a different way: “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t think—”

I could ask you the same about Hannah.” “That’s very different—” “Really? How so?”

I’m sure of it: he’s jealous.

Seeing in their reactions to us how good we look together.

I have a sudden frightening urge to pick up the hardback on the nightstand and hit him over the head with it.

The thing that most worries me is the thought of anything happening to my loved ones.

She had lost about a third of her body weight.

the island they all speak about as the dead place, the haunted isle, as though it only exists as history. If I do my job right, this wedding will make sure they’ll be talking about it in the present again.

Still so interested, so charming. It makes me feel a little uneasy. I wonder exactly what he wants to know.

I am suddenly very aware that it is just the two of us in this big echoing space.

I suppose a man like him is very sure of his sexual power.

There are real dangers out here, the landscape unfamiliar and treacherous in the dark. They are only now beginning to realize it fully. To understand just how unprepared they are.

It was like stumbling into an echo chamber of my own worst thoughts about myself.

Someone could have died … someone did die, actually. And the school let it carry on—”

It made me remember the blood, all those months ago. I hadn’t known there would be so much. I shut my eyes. But I can see it there, beneath my eyelids.

I look out through the window at the boats approaching: closer now. It feels like they are bringing something bad with them to this island. But that’s silly. Because it’s here already, isn’t it? It’s me. I’m the bad thing. What I’ve done.

She gives the impression of someone trying to hide herself away, even within her own clothes.

Instinctively, I do not like him.

even I can see that it doesn’t look good.

not much use in being vain.

playing the fool like always.

“Like butter wouldn’t fucking melt.”

?

“You got away with murder.

More than anyone else’s, I have always sought my dad’s approval.

Everything feels a little clearer, calmer, on the other side.

I feel like a warrior queen, walking into battle.

He smiles at me and it is like the sun, now warm upon my cheeks.

I wonder what it must be like to have the money to do exactly what you want.

Out to sea there are white horses on the caps of the waves now.

“By the way. You can probably take that thing off your head now.” He means the fascinator. I feel my cheeks grow hot as I lift it off. Is he ashamed of me?

Butter wouldn’t melt.

And then my husband turns to me and hisses, between his teeth, that nasty little trace of something—someone—else creeping into his words. “I don’t want to fucking talk about it, Hannah.” There it is. Oh God. Charlie has been drinking.

It’s like none of it affected him, none of it held him back. Whereas I’ve always felt, I don’t know, like I don’t deserve to be happy.

I stand here feeling stupid, feeling like I don’t belong. I never really have.

Christ and that poor bloke! We really did a number on him.

“You haven’t changed one bit.” He doesn’t mean this as a compliment.

he was the one that once saved my bacon, really.

“I know there must have been something very worthwhile keeping you busy.”

“Yeah, but you couldn’t actually do it. You know … because of what happened.” “That was a million years ago,” he said. “And it was an accident, remember?” And then, when I didn’t respond: “Remember?”

I suppose at least our loss is whiskey’s gain.” Our loss? But it wasn’t their loss: they didn’t want me, full stop. I take a big swig of my drink. “Piers,” I say. “You didn’t want me on the show. So, with the greatest possible respect, what the fuck are you talking about?”

I had to suck the little drops of blood from my palms while no one was watching.

You're in the wedding ceremony! At no point was no one watching.

I’m not all right, not at all.

I’m not the Olivia I remember. I’m not sure if or how I’ll ever get back to her. And I can’t act out a role for them.

I suppose that it’s all quite beautiful, what I am looking at, but I can’t feel it being beautiful. I can’t properly feel any good things anymore: like the taste of food, or the sun on my face or a song I like on the radio. Looking out at the sea all I feel is a dull pain, somewhere under my ribs, like an old injury.

I want to cry like a kid as I stumble down to the beach, because it should hurt, my whole body should hurt, but no tears will come—I haven’t been able to make them come for a long time. If I could cry it might all be better, but I can’t. It’s like an ability I’ve lost, like a language I’ve forgotten.

Even though I can feel the pain it doesn’t feel like my blood, my leg. So I squeeze the cut, bringing more blood to the surface, waiting to feel like it belongs to me.

I remember the blood after the “procedure,” which is what they called it.

!!!

My body didn’t feel like mine. All this time it had been doing this secret, strange thing … without me knowing about it.