“Can I come with you?” Hannah looks up at me with her baby blue eyes killing me.
“Sorry Hannah Banana, Auntie has to go to the store alone. Lots of people have a bad cold and I don’t want you to get it, okay.” I soften the reality, no need to scare her.
“Okay. Make sure you put on your safety costume.” She skips off to the sofa and continues watching her cartoons. I’m waiting for her school to close. One more thing Lavender will inevitably dump on my lap saying I’m a better teacher. I’d be a better mother sometimes except for the whole birth part. I hate downplaying the seriousness of what’s going on, but Hannah is seven and maybe on the autism spectrum. She’s super smart but has trouble with other concepts and I don’t want her upset. It takes forever to calm her back down and I’m barely hanging on as it is.
I grab my purse, jacket, and a mask I made from a scarf thinking the walk will do me good. I haven’t heard from my Text guy yet, and after last night, I don’t know if I will. We were supposed to meet for the first at a posh bar in midtown. He texted to cancel without an apology. Rejection hurts, but after talking to him online for the last three months this almost hurt worse.
I wish I never messaged VWkingston.
4
Van
I’m pretty sure I’m catching feelings for Laurel.
Big words considering what a jackass I’ve been this week. Ignoring her during the video calls and rushing through the assignments with staff. I should have told her from the start it was me, but that would have quashed the last three months all together.
When I finally figured out that my online girlfriend, thank you IT was Laurel, I hung onto her every word since she pinged me. I stopped dating and fooling around. Last night I was supposed to meet her and finally disclose my identity to her, but I flaked with no apology. My best friend got into it at a bar near my place and I had to bail him out when he called me. He was a shit friend who ruined last night.
I surmise that Laurel is shy and skittish. She’s smoking hot behind her thick rimmed glasses which she hides behind. Under normal circumstances, I would have never approached her, but her witty comebacks and sensitive soul bled through the phone screen giving me more joy than any woman I’d ever been with.
Now I’m stuck clear across the city for the foreseeable future. If I told her now, she’d be hurt and angry and I wouldn’t get to talk to her which given the current state of things I couldn’t bear to lose her too. I look down at the message I sent her last night cancelling and contemplate messaging her. The longer I wait, the worse it will be. I bite my lip and hunker down to craft another more suitable apology text. I write three times and erase it just as quickly. She probably thinks I’m flaky as shit. I don’t blame her, but I’ve been dancing to her tune for three months letting her pull the strings on how fast this thing progresses or doesn’t, and now we’re here, stuck, and I can’t even face time her.
Finally, I compose my message to her.
VWkingston: Hey sweetheart, I’m really sorry about last night. My buddy got into something and called me to bail him out. It took longer than I realized and I missed you. I really missed you.
So much for not sounding like an idiot and a tad creepy. I might as well tell her how my heart speeds up when I know she’s in the office and how I’ve stalked her camera roll since IT told me how to remotely check company phones. The phone goes through the motion of showing me several dots popping up. My heart beats in time with the dots.
FlowerGirl23: What kind of trouble?
VWkingston: The kind that has me bailing him out.
I cringe telling her this. She’ll think I’m a deadbeat or a loser. I’m going to kill him once he sobers up.
FlowerGirl23: I can’t talk long but maybe we could face time since we missed our date?
Shit.
She wants to face time. At first, we both avoided it because it was too soon, and then she got skittish and once I realized it was Laurel, I got chickenshit because then she’d know it was me.
VWkingston: Sure. If that’s what you want.
I don’t want. At least not yet. Shit. Shit. Shit.
FlowerGirl23: You don’t sound like you want to. Forget it.
VWkingston: No! That’s not it. I was hoping we could have met in person that’s all.
FlowerGirl23: There’s always two weeks from now…
Yeah, if the order is lifted and if not, then who knows when.
VWkingston: I get it, you’re mad. Let’s do it. I’m just afraid I won’t meet your expectations that’s all.
FlowerGirl23: I guess we’ll find out.
VWkingston: I’ll ping you at 7pm.
And that’s when my world will truly end.
5
Laurel
Ma is busy cooking something in one pan. Whatever it is, it smells like burnt sauce and pasta. My stomach rolls. Ma hasn’t cared much for cooking and Lavender is whirling between the kitchen and her bedroom. She’s dressed up suspiciously in date clothes.
“Where are you going?” I pop a cherry tomato into my mouth from the salad. Ma slaps my hand smiling and I grab a second one. The salad is safer than whatever is in her one pan dish, but I’ll eat it anyway.
“Date.” She fluffs her hair in the mirror.
“No?”
Lavender pop out her compact and ignores me applying another layer of bright lipstick that will stain anything it touches.
“Lav, there’s a stay at home order in place. You can’t go out.”
“Laurel, I’m meeting Jimmy at his place. It’s no big deal.”
I corner her in the hall away from little ears. I’m mad. She’s the reason why whatever is happening out there is getting worse plus endangering all of us.
“You can’t go.” I argue.
“Oh come on. He ordered take out and he’s lonely.”
“Yeah, and Ma has early stage COPD, are you crazy?”
“You’re jealous.” She snaps her lips at me and I scowl back. I’m not jealous, I’m pissed and she’s ignorant. Arguing won’t help, but I don’t know what to do.
“Are you sure he hasn’t been out?” I don’t know how worried to get about this situation, but the news has been on non-stop.
“I don’t need you to mother me.” Her hands are on her hips as she tries backing me into the corner where we keep our coats hanging by the door.
“I’m trying to keep us afloat and you’re ignoring the rules completely. What about Hannah’s asthma.”
“She has an inhaler.” My older selfish sister dismisses me completely. Hannah hasn’t had an attack in over a year, but I attribute that to me being careful not to her stellar mothering skills.
“Do me a favor and stay there then. We don’t need you coming home with this thing.”