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Other People’s Houses

In these moments, it feels like anything is possible. Anything at all

FICTION / DECEMBER 2026

Other People’s Houses

In these moments, it feels like anything is possible. Anything at all

ILLUSTRATION BY NICOLE ZARIDZE

Published 6:30, OCTOBER 29, 2026

THESE DAYS, NO one can host a good party because everyone lives in someone else’s house. Julia lives in a condo that belongs to her dentist; she negotiated the lease between fillings. Connor lives in a windowless basement underneath his landlords. When he turns off his TV, he can hear their infant son learning how to walk. Deborah lives at home, and Tyler S.’s apartment belongs to a disembodied organization that emails him exclusively between nine and eleven in the evening. Maizie rents her apartment from university professors who have two teenage daughters. In about three years, she expects the professors will take the apartment back, and one of the daughters will live in her water closet–sized bedroom. Maybe she can sell them her twin bed.

Maizie and her friends live in other people’s houses and assume they will always live in someone else’s house and sometimes the world passes by in a fog. It doesn’t feel like anything can ever become serious, not when you’re tripping over your roommate’s shoes or trying not to fuck too loudly because your landlords are having dinner right above you. And even if something did become serious, Maizie doesn’t know how anyone ever commits. She’s never been able to practise with smaller decisions, like painting a wall.

“Everything is impermanent,” Maizie opines to her friends. “We used to have events and now we just have activities, feeds.” It’s because of society, really, that nothing she says or does matters. Connor winces whenever she makes this point, but Maizie doesn’t think it’s so bad. It’s nice, in a way, knowing nothing is ever really your fault and that even if you don’t have a future, no one else does either, and in that way, you’re all in it together. And maybe that’s what people mean when they discuss solidarity.

Because Maizie will never own a home, she likes to house-sit. She loves sleeping in other people’s oversized beds and using their L’Occitane shampoo and expensive moisturizers, the hallmarks of being properly grown up. Mostly she house-sits for her aunt Bernice, who is always flying across the country to sell people essential oils or leggings or leggings that smell like essential oils. It’s almost certainly an MLM, but Bernice is successful. She pays Maizie $177 flat to water the plants and look after the cat. Her apartment has five whole rooms and a balcony. Everything is rose scented. Nothing about Bernice’s apartment is notable, nor is anything ugly. To Maizie, this is the height of luxury.

The downside of house sitting for Bernice is the cat, an old toothless black tom. The cat eats only wet food and sometimes you have to watch him do it, to make sure he’s swallowing. Still, Bernice tells her to use anything, invite anyone over. Even just that, invite anyone over, is thrilling. Invite anyone over! Sometimes, while house sitting, Maizie turns on all the lights in Bernice’s apartment and lies on her queen bed. The crown moulding along the ceiling stares encouragingly back at her. In these moments, it feels like anything is possible. Anything at all.

CONNOR COMES OVER at 5 to help Maizie prepare for the party. He leaves at 5:15, after Maizie offers him something to drink, and he says, “Just water thanks,” and she says, “Sure, no problem. Bernice only has wine glasses, weirdly. Is that okay?”

“Oh God,” says Connor. “Oh God. This is all way too nice.” And then he jams his heels back into his worn orange Salomons. He comes back at 5:45, after Maizie has vacuumed, with a plastic cup from the Salvation Army. It cost $2.59 and has Hello Kitty’s face on both sides. It was the least breakable-looking cup he could find. “Sorry,” Connor says, waving his hand under the tap until the water is the perfect temperature. He fills up his new cup. “It’s just if I broke anything, I would, like—”

“You would feel bad,” Maizie says. Connor feels bad about everything. He’s told Maizie it’s because he’s Catholic or Protestant or Jewish. One of those big ones. It’s the one that thinks they invented the concept of guilt, and maybe they did, because Connor feels bad with an almost overzealous devotion. He feels bad about being a man, and bad about having money, and bad about grad school. He feels bad when he doesn’t help set up, which Maizie suspects is 60 percent of the reason he’s come early, although he’s usually drunk enough at the end of the night that teardown never sits heavy on his conscience. Sometimes Connor thinks he does too much, which is bad, and other times he thinks he doesn’t do enough, which is also bad. None of this makes Connor change his behaviour in any way. The badness is cosmic, predestined. It exists for Connor to stress over and stress over until he worries he’s losing his hair, which would be the worst, most awful feeling of all. It’s not exactly charming, but it is incredibly consistent.

“I would feel so fucking bad,” Connor says, perfectly serious.

At Connor’s insistence, they put all the expensive, breakable things in the ensuite bathroom. They insulate the bathtub with pillows and sheets, and then pile in the vases, the weird rich-people sculptures, the really nice crystal goblets, and the two Tiffany lampshades.

“Like a modern Egyptian tomb. Oh wait.” Connor stands up and walks back into the bedroom. When he returns, the cat is making sad, toothless sounds. The cat, who has a surprisingly deep voice for an animal with no teeth, is clearly upset, but also deeply compliant. Maizie and Connor lock him in the bathroom and leave a Post-it on the door instructing their guests to use the other bathroom.

Connor raps twice on the door. The cat calls back. “Now it’s really sarcophagi approved.”

“Yeah, okay.” Maizie tries to think of a correct and charming reference. “Nice work . . . Indiana Jones.” She smiles while internally berating herself for never having taken an avid interest in embalming. The smile is closed-mouth and, she hopes, elegant, although sometimes it comes out passive-aggressive. Maizie doesn’t mean to be passive-aggressive; she’s just extremely self-conscious of her teeth.

Connor also feels bad when he and Maizie have sex, but not enough to stop having sex. Maizie starts to imagine the sex while they chop up vegetables and pour the chips into the house’s medium-nice rather than nice-nice bowls. People will come and stay until 2, maybe 3, and have a perfect time, and then they’ll go home and Connor will be sprawled out on the soft queen-size bed. They’ll scroll on his feed together and Maizie will explain which celebrities have had plastic surgery, because it makes Connor nervous that he can’t tell. They’ll probably look at Sydney Sweeney’s breasts. Maizie can probably........

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