Maybe it was the new normal.
Nearly comatose from my early morning news intake, I finished the bag of Cheetos and washed it down with the bottle of champagne. While I considered getting up from the sunken couch cushion, my phone pinged.
I had no idea where it was.
Following a frantic 10-minute long search, I found it in the kitchen amidst the previous night’s Milano cookie wrappers and a weeks’ worth of empty orange juice cartons.
A message from Braxton illuminated the screen. Beyond frustrated with him, but eager to see what he had to say, I tapped the text with the tip of my finger and opened it.
Sorry about how things unfolded the other night. I’d like to extend an olive branch. No games. No BS. Only a heartfelt apology. Let me know.
I quickly typed my response. Before I pressed send, I read the message to make sure I didn’t sound like an asshole.
I’m not opposed to an in-person heartfelt apology, but I’ll only accept it after you’ve been home for 14 days. I can’t take any chances on being infected. I doubt you’ll be up for that, considering that you come and go like nothing’s going on. lmk
I changed “lmk” to “let me know” and pressed send.
Satisfied that I’d made my point about my beliefs regarding his lack of compliance with the stay at home order, I clutched my phone and paced the floor. After an hour passed with no reply, I took a shower.
The next two hours passed at the pace of a foreign language documentary.
I checked my watch every five minutes, for an hour. Then, every ten minutes or so for the following hour.
The remaining thirty minutes passed one moment at a time, with me staring mindlessly at my phone as the seconds ticked away. Finally, four o’clock arrived.
Well, almost.
To prevent myself from going completely bonkers, I stepped outside at ten minutes before the hour.
I walked to the middle of the drive and peered across the street. Marge was down on her hands and knees, digging beside an Agave. Dressed in a pair of lime green pants and a short sleeved white blouse, she looked better than she did the day before.
I was dressed in sweatpants, an old tee shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. My sweats were clean, but it was obvious that I needed to step up my late afternoon outfit game if I was going to compete with Marge.
“Good afternoon,” I shouted.
She glanced over her shoulder. Upon seeing me, she stood. “Good afternoon.” She gestured toward the cactus with the small shovel she held. “I was just killing some time. This agave needed some attention.”
“This place is so weird,” I said. “Nobody has grass in their yards. Only rocks and cactus.”
“Grass won’t grow,” she said with a laugh. “It needs rain.” She gazed up at the cloudless sky. “It never rains here.”
“My mother said this place is the land of drought and dreams.”
She smiled. “In other words, sunshine and happiness.”
Although it was late afternoon, the sun felt brutal. I shielded my eyes from it and peered at Marge. “How long have you been out here?”
She looked at her watch. “Oh, I don’t know.” She removed her gloves and tucked them into her armpit. “Maybe an hour.”
I felt cheated. It was an hour that I could have had some resemblance of normalcy in my life. Talking to someone—anyone—was the only thing that was going to keep me sane throughout the pandemic.
I was convinced of it.
“An hour?” I tried to hide my disappointment. “Oh. I’ve been…” I paused, not knowing whether to reveal the entire truth of what I did with my time or give an abbreviated not-so-true version. I decided the truth wasn’t anything I wanted to share. “I’ve been picking up the house,” I said, smiling as I spoke. “The afternoon almost got away from me. It was just by a stroke of luck that I happened to notice what time it was.”
“It seems that time stands still anymore.” She walked to the end of her yard and stepped into the edge of the street. “It’s not that I did all that much before any of this started, but now all I do is watch the news. I can’t stop.”
I was relieved that I wasn’t alone.
“I can’t, either,” I admitted. “Everything they say is frustrating, but I’m fascinated with it at the same time.”
“I don’t think I’m fascinated too awful much.” She lowered herself to the curb and sat down. “I feel like I need to know everything they know. I’m afraid they don’t know too much, though. At least not yet. They sure seem to contradict themselves a lot.”
“I don’t think they know, either,” I said in agreement. “One day it’s this, the next day it’s that.”
She gazed in my direction, not seeming to focus on much of anything. I wondered if she heard me. I walked across my yard, paused, and then sauntered the width of Braxton’s lot. I sat down at the near edge of his drive. Instead of being two hundred feet apart, we were now within talking distance.
“I like your outfit,” I said.
“Thank you.” She smiled and nodded in my direction. “Yours looks comfortable.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you have family here?”
“No,” I replied. “My parents came here on a whim after my father retired. We lived in Oklahoma.”
“You’re married? Or, no?”
“No.”
“Do you work? Back home?”
“I own a car dealership,” I replied in a pride-filled tone. “It’s a small one, but it’s all mine. I really like it.”
“That sounds like fun. Was your father a car guy? Raymond was.” She grinned. “Corvettes.”
“My father loved cars. He rebuilt them. He owned a body shop. He loved to make old cars look new again. Better than new. That’s what he always said.”
She smiled. “That’s fascinating.”
“I always thought so.”
She nodded toward Braxton’s home, which was right behind me. “Have you met him yet? Braxton?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I said very little.
I forced a smile. “I have.”
“He’s easy on the eyes, isn’t he?”
I laughed just a little. “He is.”
“He works with the movie stars. Did he tell you that?”
“He mentioned it.”
The corners of her mouth curled up. “I’d sure like to see him end up with someone nice. A nice loyal woman.”
I almost laughed out loud at the irony of her statement. I didn’t want to say anything to change her opinion of Braxton, so I refrained from making snide comments about loyalty.
“I think he’s married to his work,” I said, giving Braxton the benefit of the doubt. “He probably doesn’t have time for a woman in his life.”
She inched along the curb, stopping when she reached her driveway. “Did he tell you about that awful woman he was married to?” she asked. “It’s no wonder he hasn’t remarried.”
I didn’t know about Braxton’s ex-wife, but I sure wanted to. I glanced over my shoulder, toward his front door. After seeing no movement inside the home, I looked at Marge.