Holding Pattern


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Riverhead Books
 An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
 penguinrandomhouse.com
 
 Copyright © 2023 by Jenny Xie
 Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
 Riverhead and the R colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
 Several chapters previously appeared in slightly different form in the following:
 chapter 1 as “The Fitting” in Hyphen Magazine (August 23, 2016); chapter 5 as “Villa Palms” in Narrative (February 2016); chapter 10 as “Rehearsal” in Gulf Coast Online (Summer/Fall 2016); and chapter 14 as “Lucky Frank” in Joyland (April 2017).
 library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
 Names: Xie, Jenny, author.
 Title: Holding pattern : a novel / Jenny Xie.
 Description: New York : Riverhead Books, [2023]
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022043854 (print) | LCCN 2022043855 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593539705 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593539729 (ebook)
 Classification: LCC PS3624.I4 H65 2023 (print) | LCC PS3624.I4 (ebook) |DDC 811.3—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022043854
 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022043855
 Cover design: Grace Han
 Cover art: Mubai / iStock / Getty Images Plus
 Book design by Alexis Farabaugh, adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 pid_prh_6.0_143817171_c0_r0
 
 
 
 For my parents
 
 
 1.
 Heartbreak was its own kind of incandescence that morning, scrubbing the world raw with its floodlight. I felt acutely out of place among Marin’s pristine streets and quaint signage, its veneer of health and wealth an insult I couldn’t answer. As we entered the bridal shop, my mother wrapped a hand around my biceps and squeaked her excitement, and this grated on me, too: Not so many years ago, she might have clung to me like this, her breath a lank cloud of vomit and liquor.
 Inside the shop, a series of alcoves illuminated a froth of white dresses. The other clients were expensively dressed, model-esque women with the exception of a boy in a basketball jersey who was slumped on a clear acrylic bench, frowning at the handheld Nintendo between his knees. I cast a line of hope in his direction, seeking an acknowledgment of our mutual misery, but he kept his eyes trained on the game.
 “Good morning, ladies!” A bridal consultant tottered toward us, legs bound by a black pencil skirt. “Welcome to Francesca’s,” she said in chirping tones.
 My mother fitted her sunglasses onto the crown of her head, removing her hand from my arm. My grief swelled again to the boundary of skin. “Hi, I’m Marissa—we have ten o’clock meeting.” Her halting English, which I’d grown accustomed to, newly rankled in the marmoreal perfection of the shop. “This my daughter, Kathleen. Today she find the dress for wedding.”
 The consultant, who introduced herself as Greta, pumped my hand. “So exciting! Congratulations on the engagement, Kathleen.”
 “Actually, she’s the one getting married. I’m her maid of honor,” I said.
 Greta’s smile froze. “Oh, that’s wonderful. Why don’t you girls come back with me?”
 As we followed her, my mother whispered in Mandarin, “Let’s have fun. Don’t worry about how much it is.”
 This excursion, and the Big Sur wedding that was three months away, was being financed by her fiancé. Brian Lin owned a software company called Wayfindr that, as far as I could understand it, leveraged personal data and real-time location to herd people into buying lattes or visiting the zoo. When they had started dating a little more than two years ago, my mother had said “I’m going to love him” in the same tone she might have used for “I’ll finally be able to redo the kitchen.”
 Money had always been elusive for us. We were diligent with our frugality, elevating it to a kind of morality—especially after my parents’ divorce. Birthday parties I attended caused agonizing negotiations over the spending limit, and inevitable shame when the kid unwrapped a mountain of presents more titillating than mine. Trips to the movies were tolerated only if we strung together three back-to-back screenings. I learned the strange pleasure of self-denial, of trying on a pair of jeans I’d lusted after for weeks only to slough them off and leave the would-be version of myself hanging in the dressing room. In that way, everything in my adolescence was calculated against assimilation, every precious dollar diverted from the frivolity of fitting in bringing us closer to the middle class. At the grocery store, my mother paused in each aisle as she sifted through the stack of coupons she’d dutifully harvested from the mail. Often, by a trick of sales and double coupons, the store owed her cash at the register. It had seemed like a triumph, however measly, over the system.
 Now we entered a cavern of dresses arranged by color, the fabrics a rustling hedge of satin and silk. I had never liked frills, to my mother’s frustration. Warmth crept up my cheeks. I felt as though I were choosing lingerie in front of an audience.
 “My bridemaid wearing pink, purple,” my mother told Greta. She tapped her phone, enlarged the Pinterest image—Brian must have shown her how to use the app—and held the screen aloft. “I think long dress. My daughter like a size six.”
 “Ten,” I amended.
 “So pretty,” said Greta, nodding at the screen. “Any preference in neckline?”
 “Not strapless,” I said, my words colliding with my mother’s, “No straps.”
 Greta laughed, exposing a long incisor. “Opinionated women! Okay, let me just grab a couple