Anyway, work’s big positive spin is that, as a sports and fitness company, they expect to be busy if people have to adjust to at-home exercise on a long-term basis. Our yoga mats have been selling like hot cakes in the last week or so, but I still think that’s mostly due to them getting a nice little review in Cosmopolitan recently. But, still, it’s scary, and things have been a little slow lately as we wait to be told what’s going to happen with our jobs.
Danny, on the other hand, seems to be busier than ever in his job at the local council. Which was his argument for me doing all the housework-style chores this week. I’d protested against that on principle, but you know, he had a point: my six hours a day versus his nine or ten didn’t really hold up in that debate.
We hash out a couple more things for our new schedule—like the fact that Danny likes to listen to audiobooks before bed, and I like to keep the window open at night, that he hates the idea of watching TV while eating dinner.
It’s all the kind of stuff we don’t notice, spending just a night or two with each other. It’s all the kind of stuff that is thrown into sharp relief now that we can’t avoid each other.
And we have only been dating for a month or so. That’s barely any time at all. Surely we have to cut ourselves some slack for that?
Danny belches, and gets up to make another coffee.
I’m not sure it’s a good sign that there’s a part of me that’s counting the days until he can leave, and we can spend a little time apart again.
Maybe, I realize, my stomach giving a sickening lurch, our honeymoon period is officially over.
Maybe if we can’t even hack it this week, while we still have a honeymoon period, it’s never going to work out with us.
No. No, I can’t think like that—I won’t. It’s a much too defeatist attitude, and it’ll get me—us, our relationship—nowhere. I push the thought away, hopefully for good.
We’re all finished with the rota for the week, and I take it with me, following Danny to the kitchen. I tack it to the fridge with an I Heart Rome magnet I got from my holiday there with Maisie last year.
The doorbell buzzer sounds.
“That’ll be the grocery delivery,” I say quietly.
“I’ve got a meeting in five minutes.”
“It’s all right. I’ll sort it.”
I grab my keys, slip on some sneakers and head downstairs to collect our delivery. Well, Danny’s, mostly.
Oh, no, I’m not being fair to him, I’m really not.
“Hey!” a voice barks at me, snapping me out of my thoughts as I reach the bottom of the staircase. “Six feet!”
I jump, realizing I’ve almost bumped into another girl, and that the caretaker, Mr. Harris, is glowering at me. Despite the lower half of his face being covered by a surgical mask, he still manages to look furious, and deeply stressed out.
I feel like I’m in trouble with the headmaster at school. Mr. Harris has always scared me a bit, though I’ve never been able to put my finger on why, exactly. Now, I gulp and raise a finger timidly toward the door.
“I just—um—we have a food delivery, and—”
“Yeah, yeah, you and everyone else. I’ve got a process. Nothing’s—”
“Nothing’s getting in or out of this building,” adds the girl in front of me, reciting right along with him, “without it being adequately sanitized first.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Harris says, with an approving nod at her. I notice the table he’s set up near the door then: a box of disposable latex gloves, an open bin, a jumbo pack of Dettol wipes, some store-brand antibacterial spray, a large pump bottle of hand sanitizer. I wonder if he started preparing for this as soon as the words highly contagious virus were mentioned on the news. (Smart guy; I’m wishing I’d done the same.) He goes outside to talk to my delivery driver; it looks like he’s halfway through cleaning someone else’s groceries.
The tall, curvy girl in front of me turns around with a halfhearted smile and a shrug, which is when I recognize her. It’s Serena, from next door. Her thick, dark hair is concealed under a towel turban, and she’s in a guy’s hoodie. She’s wearing a pair of fluffy pink socks and slippers. It makes me feel dressed up, in my cotton dress and cardigan. For once, I feel more insecure wearing makeup than if I weren’t.
“Better settle in,” she tells me, leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms. “You’re going to be here a while. He’s thorough.”
“Just as well I don’t have any meetings this afternoon.”
She laughs. “Tell me about it.”
“Have you got the week off, for lockdown?” I ask, with a glance at the towel wrapped around her head.
“Oh! No. God, no. I wish! I’m just finding it hard to focus, so taking a shower seemed like a great way to procrastinate.”
“Better than waiting for the shopping,” I offer. I could tell her I completely understand, and tell her how difficult it is trying to work from home with Danny doing the same, and I’m sure she’d empathize—but something stops me.
If she notices I’m holding something back, though, she lets it slide.
“I actually should be doing some work right now. Zach—you know, my boyfriend—he was supposed to be down here doing this because he obviously can’t get to the hospital for his shifts, but then his boss called, so . . . ” She gestures at the hair and the hoodie, and then her slippers. “Bloody pain in the ass.”
“His boss?”
“No, Zach.”
She’s obviously trying to sound like she’s joking, but her voice is tight when she says his name, and something flickers across her face.
I have to bite my tongue. It’s not as though we’re close neighbors—we follow each other on Instagram, pick up each other’s mail if we’re away for more than a few days—but I have noticed the way the two of them snipe at each other, if I see them around. And, sometimes, if I’m out on the balcony, I hear them arguing with each other.
Danny and I definitely heard them yelling at each other this morning. Danny had joked, “They’re really going at it, aren’t they? Bloody hell. Well, that fight’s either going on all day, or they’re going to have really loud make-up sex later.”
It sounded like a pretty horrible fight, about kids and marriage and things like that. I think one—or maybe both of them—cried, but if she’s not going to bring it up . . . well, we’re definitely not close enough that I can outright ask her what happened.
I know that if I’d had a blazing row with Danny, I wouldn’t want her asking me about it.
“How’re you finding it?” she asks me, slightly more upbeat. I’m not sure if she’s just being friendly or if she’s finding the silence too awkward—or worse, if she knows I overheard their argument—but either way, I don’t mind it. It’s nice to talk to someone that’s not Danny. “Your new boyfriend’s here, right? I saw on your Insta Story.
That must be nice for you guys.”
“Oh! Yeah. Yes, he’s . . . well, he’s a bit short on clothes,” I find myself admitting. “He was only supposed to be here for the weekend, and it’s not like, um—not . . . ”