The Honor of Your Presence

Excerpt

Helen heard a swish and a crackle from beyond her window, and knew her Uncle Peter had arrived. Always he showed up like this, like a restless child, racing to her house on a bicycle, dropping it carelessly into the juniper bush. He was sixty-two years old.

“Hellie?” he called.

“Back here,” she answered, and saw his bald head glide past her lemon tree.

He opened the screen door and flew in. He was wearing madras shorts, an oversized polo shirt, and canvas boat shoes. The loose skin around his knees jiggled as he swept his eyes around Helen’s office and finally collapsed on the futon. “Too hot out there to be biking,” he said.

Helen regarded him. Uncle Peter was pale, pink, built like a tennis player, and covered in brown freckles. His chest was just short of concave, his back the slightest bit bent. He walked with a loping gait that brought to mind a shaggy hippie with no particular place to be.

“I don’t know how you stand it out here in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “Especially with you being so young and vibrant.”

Helen did not usually consider herself so young and vibrant—she was thirty-one and had not exercised meaningfully in eighteen months—but she took the compliment, stored it away, knew she would visit it often.

She saw few people, and those she knew, professional acquaintances and distant cousins, were reserved and disinclined to make such pronouncements. She’d grown up in this town, Tres Pinos, between Killey Alley and Quien Sabes Road. It was scarcely a town, more of a stopover, but as soon as she could walk she’d found, among its few children, three friends, and they’d stayed together for the next few decades, a tight pentagon of unquestioning loyalty. But in the last few years, they’d both moved away, Maria married and dragged to Connecticut, and Leonor gone to nursing school days before the pandemic. Helen was alone, in a suddenly silent world. Then came Peter.

Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is the author of many books, including The Eyes and the Impossible, The Every, The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, and the National Book Award finalist A Hologram for the King, as well as numerous books for young readers, including Her Right Foot, Faraway Things, and The Lifters. He is the founder of the independent publishing company McSweeney’s and the college-access nonprofit ScholarMatch, and the co-founder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center that has inspired dozens of other centers worldwide. He is the winner of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Hannah Tinti on “The Honor of Your Presence”

When One Story’s Literary Debutante Ball returned in spring of 2022 after a two-year hiatus, we hired extra security to check vaccination cards, requested rapid Covid tests, and designated a “masks on” area, but we were still nervous about hosting a giant party. Would people feel safe enough to attend? Did any of us even remember how to socialize? It turned out to be a joyous evening, heightened with emotion, and more meaningful for what it represented—a return to community and connection.

Our new issue, “The Honor of Your Presence” by Dave Eggers, peers through this window of time when lockdown was lifted and the world began cautiously sending out invitations again. Refraining from the revelry is Helen, an introverted graphic designer settled in the hills of Central California, while Uncle Peter, a refugee from the shuttered London theater scene (now living in Helen’s garage), is eager to start venturing out. He convinces his niece to print an extra copy of an invitation she’s created for a lavish fundraiser, and before she realizes it, Helen is dressed as a whale shark, circling the dance floor of an aquatic costume party. She wants to go home—she’s comfortable at home—but through a series of increasingly dramatic events (and disguises) all orchestrated by her gate-crashing uncle, Helen begins to step outside the zone of self-protection she’s built and into a more messy, wild, and exuberant life.

Dave Eggers is a distinguished author, humanitarian, and supporter of the literary arts, and it’s a treat to welcome him to the pages of One Story, especially with a piece this fun. “The Honor of Your Presence” recognizes the struggle many have faced in the aftermath of isolation, and it makes an argument for opening doors instead of barricading them. It’s a celebration of excess and chaos—and an important reminder that sometimes, it’s best not to leave the party early.