Page 5 of Here for a Good Time

THREE

“I don’t know how else to put it: we are not arriving at the airport three hours early. We’re just… not.”

“You’re right, we’re not. We’re arriving two hours and fifty minutes early,” Zwe says matter-of-factly, not a trace of sarcasm to be found. When I let out an exasperated “Ugh!” accompanied by an inadvertent stomp of my foot, he simply rolls his eyes in response. “Real mature.”

“You know the three hours early rule is extra padding, right? Two, fine. But three is—”

“Taking into account any check-in malfunctions or ridiculous queues at security and/or immigration.”

It’s the night before we fly out, and we’ve been talking in circles on this topic for nearly half an hour. It’s been years since we flew together, and it wasn’t until now that I remember him being this strict then as well. I can now also recall that we had this same argument last time.

“Clearly, we’re at a stalemate. Why don’t we… leave at different times?” I offer. “I’ll meet you at the airport.”

“No,” he says, not even taking a beat to consider it.

“Why not?”

“Because what if you miss the flight? How the hell do I find my way to an island resort where everything is in your name?”

“Wow!” I scoff. “Why are you so certain I’ll miss the flight? Just because I want to leave an hour later doesn’t mean I’m going to miss the whole flight. I’m not a child.”

“I don’t think you’re a child.”

I give a dry laugh. “You just think I’m incapable of making an international flight on time.”

“It’s not you personally, and I know it’s just an hour, but a lot can change within an hour. There could be traffic.” He starts counting on his fingers. “Immigration and security could take ages. You could have trouble getting a taxi. There could—”

“Fine!” I huff, throwing my arms in the air. Zwe is as stubborn as me, and just like with me, there’s always a point in the conversation where you know he’s locking down and nothing anyone says or does will change his mind. “You win. We’ll leave at your time.”

“Good,” he says, but the atmosphere in the room has become anything but. “Thank you,” he adds.

“Sure. I’m going to finish packing,” I mumble as I stalk off to my room.

I don’t want to start off our big fun best-friend trip like this, especially when it’s partially a trip for me to make amends and redeem myself as a good friend, but I can’t stand being in the same space as him right now.

I know erring on the side of caution is his thing, but take a survey of one hundred people and I guarantee the majority of them would agree that my time is the more reasonable one.

But that’s Zwe for you. By the book, to the extent that at times I want to hit him over the head with it.

It’s fine, I remind myself through long, calming breaths as I prepare my toiletries kit. It’s one tiny inconvenience.

At the airport the next morning, we’re done with check-in, immigration, and security in under forty minutes.

“Don’t say it,” he says when he catches me checking my watch. “Better safe than sorry.”

I bite my tongue so that I don’t retort with a snarky quip.

We want good vibes on this trip. “What now?” I ask.

“We have nearly two hours to go.” I wouldn’t have minded getting to the airport early if we lived in Singapore or Bangkok, but the entirety of Yangon International Airport can be covered in half an hour, and that’s if you walk at a snail’s pace.

“Head to the lounge?” Picking up on my underlying irritation, he adds, “We could clean them out on finger sandwiches.”

“I do like a good finger sandwich. It’s like a sandwich, but in one bite.”

“There you go.” He swings an arm around my shoulders, and I melt. I’ve never been good at staying mad at Zwe.

After constructing a finger sandwich mountain on our plates, we settle into two large plush sofas facing each other in one corner of the lounge.

“Did you check out that activities brochure?” I ask.

“I did.” He looks up from his Kindle, popping an egg sandwich in his mouth. “And all of that is free?”

“All-inclusive, baby,” I say, pulling up my feet to settle cross-legged into the soft, scratched leather. I know Zwe’s right about the airline industry’s class system being literally classist, but I could get used to this. “You know what the first thing I’m going to do there is?”

“What?”

“Book a four-hour massage.”

He arches one bemused brow. “Can a masseuse even massage for four hours?”

“Okay, fine, I’ll split it up into two two-hour massages then. Stop letting logistics get in the way of my dream holiday,” I huff.

Zwe’s brow raises again, this time pulling the corners of his lip northward as well. “As long as it doesn’t cut into your writing time.”

“Okay, Dad,” I say through a pout, already knowing I’m going to regret making him my human daily word-count tracker. “I’m still allowed to have fun, though.”

“You are, as long as it—”

“I will cut into you, ” I hiss, and his mouth opens into a full grin.

“Save some of the sweet talk for the honeymoon, my love.”

When we were in university, Zwe and I would regularly email each other our essays to hold the other accountable for upcoming deadlines.

When Zwe eventually declared his major and started taking exclusively maths-related classes, I stopped being able to help out, but he’d still offer to read my English essays.

You don’t have to pretend to care about Balzac and The Human Comedy your whole life , I’d told him once.

I don’t care about Balzac and The Human Comedy, he’d said. I care about what you have to say about it.

I’d studied English because it’d seemed like a safer bet than creative writing; if things didn’t work out for me as a writer, my degree would at least help me get a job as an English teacher.

I worked hard for my good grades, partly because I loved books, and partly because I knew that if I wanted to be a good writer, I needed to be a good reader first. I was also the first in my family to get a degree from a foreign university—“Oxford!” my mother had gasped when the acceptance email arrived; when I looked up from my computer screen, my father was already crying—so there was that extra pressure.

University had been fun. Growing up, we didn’t have enough money to take many foreign holidays, so when I flew out to the UK for my first year, it was the third time in my life that I had ever flown internationally.

I cried the whole plane ride, feeling like I was being taken to the first day of kindergarten all over again, except this time I didn’t even have my parents beside me to reassure me that everyone would be nice, and yes, I would make friends and soon enough I’d actually come to enjoy it.

I was certain everyone would be more fun, more attractive, richer, smarter; and a lot of them were one of those, or some combination of the four.

I had graduated at the top of our class back in Yangon, but at Oxford, everyone had graduated at the top of their class.

I feel stupid, I’d sobbed on the phone to my mom when I saw the grade on my first essay.

I’d be surprised if you felt smart at Oxford, she’d told me.

What if I don’t get better? I said.

Then I’ll file a missing person’s report, she chuckled. Because that sure as hell wouldn’t be my daughter .

I know the boring outdated trope is that Asian parents aren’t supportive of children who want to go into the arts, but my parents had never tried to dissuade me from becoming a writer, not once.

They knew the teaching route was a backup, and that writing was what it’d always been about for me.

When it came time, there was never any question about whom I’d dedicate my first book to.

Pangs of love and longing poke at my heart. Uncle Arkar was right—I needed to make time to see my parents soon.

Of course, Mom had turned out to be right (as she always is), and I ended up loving Oxford—both the university and the town—and the community I’d built there so much that I stayed another year to do my MA.

Soraya and I got a place off-campus in our final year, and we stayed there until we were both done with our master’s degrees.

And through it all, Zwe remained a constant, reading my essays, staying on the phone until the early hours of the morning, he and Soraya vetting my Tinder dates together.

I pick a raisin off of one of the muffins on my plate and throw it at him. “Speaking of love—”

“Oh boy—”

“How’s the dating going?”

“How’s your dating going?”

I give a Yeah, right scoff. “I asked first.”

He holds my gaze in a cowboy stare-off. Finally, still not breaking eye contact: “I’ve… been texting someone.”

I move backward in my seat, clutching the sides for exaggerated effect. “And I’m hearing about this now ? Who is she? Oooh, is it that Brazilian video producer you brought back the other week? She was really pretty. Like, out of your league pretty.”

“Okay, first off, that felt unnecessary,” he says, face scrunching up with offendedness. “And second, no, she left town the next day.”

“So who is it?” I ask in a singsong voice, only jokingly prying—until his features shift, millimeter by millimeter.

He begins to look… uncomfortable. I sit up, tucking my feet tighter under me.

“Oh my god, who is it? Is it, like, a second cousin? I don’t care what some people say, I still consider that incest.”

“No, it’s…”

For an inexplicable reason, my gut gets queasy, the five consecutive mini tuna sandwiches I had threatening to come back up. “Yes?” I prompt.

He turns his head away, toward the glass walls with the view of the runway where a plane is currently taking off, another already lined up behind it. “Julia.”

Stunned, I watch him watching the second plane. “Julia,” I echo at last.

“Julia,” he says.

“Zwe.”

“What?”

“Is this a… different Julia?”

He inhales, one, two, three, then exhales, one, two, three . When he looks at me once more, his jaw is set, and I know two things: one, it’s not a different Julia, and two, he’s not asking for my opinion.