Then Everything Happens at Once, page 24
I wave to Dawn when she comes at night, and she asks me how I’m doing. I don’t tell the truth.
The amount of shittery currently existing in my life is pretty spectacular. It’s past next-level. It’s whatever level there is after that.
There is nothing to do, and there is no end in sight.
On TikTok, people are trying to sew their own masks because suddenly masks are the latest craze and shelves are empty.
We don’t really know what’s going on, so we wait. People are getting sick, so we have to stay home.
Staying home like this is its own sickness.
I can’t even hang out with my sister. Does she notice she hasn’t seen me in days? I’m always around and suddenly I’m gone—she must realize, right?
“Mom?” I call from my doorway.
“What?” she says.
“Can I come say hi to Beck?”
“After fourteen days,” she says. “And it’s barely been four.”
“Please?”
“You should’ve thought about that before you put us all in this situation.”
In my room, I cry while enjoying the last of my sour cream and onion chips.
Soon, my phone rings with a video chat from my mother. I wipe my face clean and answer. Rebecca’s face appears.
“Ew, Beck,” I say. “Your hair looks like crap.”
She goes still, and although her eyes don’t focus on the phone, she’s quiet and definitely listening.
“What are you doing? What music are you listening to? Probably something super shitty, right?”
Her eyes move to the side, a serious look on her face as she seems to consider what I’ve said. Then she smiles wide, reaching with her good hand to swat at the phone.
“Your music is the worst,” I say. “I hate it! Ewwwwwww!”
The screen shakes with my sister’s whacks to our mom’s phone. For the next twenty minutes, I read a chapter of my English book out loud to her, which is the longest I’ve been able to read something and pay attention. This quarantine, house-arrest thing might be a little less miserable if I could at least hang out around my sister.
Late that night, my phone buzzes. At first I think it’s past midnight, but my eyes focus and it’s actually past two in the morning. I wonder if this is what time is like for my sister, having no real concern for what happens when, time having no meaning, and just going with the flow.
[Freddie] Are we just not talking anymore?
[Baylee] It wasn’t intentional.
[Freddie] I got my car and the garage back.
[Baylee] Don’t tell me that! ☹
He sends me a photo of himself, lying sideways on the couch, a stupid expression on his face.
[Baylee] 😭
I want to tell him I miss him but without it sounding all romantic. I just miss being around him, talking to him, but with the added bonus of having our bodies touch. Is that romantic? I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care. I just miss him and everything that linked us together.
I miss myself, too.
[Freddie] It’s not much fun without you hanging out with me.
[Baylee] 🥺
I think that’s him saying he misses me, which makes me smile.
Forty-One
Nothing interesting happened today. I’m not sure what day it is anymore. Every day is like a really long Sunday, except there’s never any school the next day. There’s school every moment of the day, because I can’t seem to catch up.
[Alex] Can I tell u something?
[Baylee] Yes, totally.
[Alex] I feel like ur different lately.
[Baylee] I feel like I’m different, too.
[Alex] What does that mean?
[Baylee] I don’t know. I’m confused.
[Alex] Is it me?
[Baylee] No. Not at all. It’s literally all me.
[Alex] What’s wrong?
[Baylee] It’s prison life. It’s changing me. 😋
[Alex] . . .
[Baylee] I’ll try snapping out of it. Sorry.
[Alex] U don’t have to be sorry.
[Baylee] I’m not sure why you’re even talking to me, to be honest.
[Alex] ☹
I haven’t showered yet today. What’s the point when I’m going to bed later?
The red on my right index finger is chipped. Normally, this would grab all my focus, driving me up the wall until I could get home and fix it. Right now, I’m feeling nothing about it. It’s just a chip, and it isn’t worth the hassle and effort to set my station up. And if I’m going to redo one nail, I might as well do them all—even more effort when there is no point. No one is going to see those nails anyway.
Social, physical, and sexual distancing are still in effect.
There are more than six feet between me and everyone.
There are 180 meters between Freddie and me, according to Google Maps.
That’s 590 feet.
Forty-Two
It has been eight days of house arrest now. Room arrest, really. I am still alive. A lot of people aren’t. So many people are wiped out from the earth, like the virus is a little demon just jumping from person to person. Someone my mom’s age from the next town over dies, a man who was just working at the grocery store, putting food on the shelves. They’re saying fat people are more likely to die if they get the virus. I’ve stopped eating chips.
My window is open a crack, letting in some cool mid-April air. It’s almost like I’m outside.
“Baylee?” Mom calls from the hallway.
I open the door. Mom is calling from her own bedroom doorway. “Do you need more groceries?”
“No.”
“Are you doing your schoolwork?”
“Yes.”
These are the kinds of conversations we have. I thought it would’ve progressed to her letting me out of my room, to us going back to talking to each other normally. During the day, nurses are with Rebecca, and I hear Mom leave for a few hours to go to work. At night, Mom seems to time her trips up the stairs when I’m in the bathroom or otherwise unaware.
The smell of spaghetti makes it up to my room through the vents.
A few hours later, there is a knock, and I find a bowl of spaghetti at my door when I open it. I text a thank-you for the warm dinner.
[Freddie] Today I am very thankful for the fact that we do not live in the United States.
He sends me a link for an article on the US president’s latest moves, moves that are described as criminal and led to the deaths of thousands and thousands of people. There are dead bodies loaded in refrigerated trucks outside hospitals because there’s no place to put them.
[Baylee] How is this even allowed? How come no one is stepping in to stop this?
[Freddie] When things are just allowed to happen while we all watch is exactly how humanity gets fucked.
[Baylee] This is the apocalypse.
[Freddie] Let’s change the subject, OK?
[Baylee] OK.
[Freddie] Pretend you were here right now. What would we be doing?
The next several texts fill me with something I haven’t felt in a while.
[Baylee] Wait! I need to go shower real quick. Can you wait for me?
[Freddie] OK but hurry.
I stare at my disgusting, filmy, crusty self in the mirror, ashamed. The shower helps. I throw on a red dress I’d never wear in real life, because the shape of my legs and their pasty whiteness has created a rule that legs must always be covered by a pair of stylish and well-fitting pants. If I’m going to be wearing a dress that is never to see the light of day, the black peep-toe pumps I got from a consignment shop for eight dollars last summer seem like a good match. They fit, so I bought them, but when I got home, it became apparent I couldn’t actually walk in them. But that doesn’t matter when you’re confined to a bedroom at all times.
I head for my closet, making a big cushion out of my pillows, and I settle myself in the dark.
[Baylee] I’m back.
Freddie sends me words that make my cheeks hot. When I go to type back, my phone buzzes with a video-chat request from Alex, right on time, except I totally forgot we planned this call.
Alex is all smiles. I am hoping the surprise on my face registers as excitement. I am excited, because talking to her is one of the only things to look forward to. But Freddie . . . my head is in his garage right now.
“Hey, you,” she says. “Why are you in the dark?”
“Oh, oops, hang on.” I push the closet door with my toe, and my face appears on camera. “I’m in my closet.”
“Just hanging out in your closet, in the dark?” Alex says, and I shrug. “How’s it going today? Better?”
“Better, but I’m still just stuck in this room.”
“I wish I could be stuck in your room with you,” she says.
I wonder if this would make everything better, her being here right now. I don’t know, if given the chance, who I’d choose to see right now, if the universe allowed me to pick one person to be next to. Freddie . . . Alex. I think I want them both but differently, at different times, for different reasons.
I’m about to respond when there is a loud knock on my bedroom door before it opens. The shock of it makes me drop my phone, hanging up on Alex. I crawl out of my closet, ditching the pumps and tucking my phone in the place between my left boob and bra strap.
“What is this, Baylee?” Mom holds her phone screen up. I haven’t seen my mother up close in over a week. She’s wearing a medical mask. I rush to my desk to throw my own on.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Why is there a charge for a hundred and thirteen dollars on my credit card?”
“Oh.” I place the palms of my hands against my temples. “Oh my god. I forgot to tell you.”
“Forgot to tell me you were going to spend a hundred dollars, just for the hell of it?”
“It was my birthday, and I really wanted the wallet. I forgot to give you my birthday money for it,” I say. I fish for the wallet and pull out the bills tucked inside. Then I walk to my piggy bank, grabbing for whatever might be in there. It’s not enough, but I hadn’t planned on telling my mother about the wallet like this. There’s no way she’ll just accept covering the remaining forty dollars. “Isn’t it nice? It matches the purse I already have, too. It’s from a little boutique in Toronto.”
“In Toronto? What were you doing in Toronto?”
I lose feeling to my head for a moment. “I wasn’t. I ordered it online.”
Mom doesn’t look impressed. “I might not even have enough this week to buy us toilet paper, and you’re buying yourself a new wallet? Really, Boss?”
“It was a while ago. I didn’t mean to forget to tell you about it,” I say, counting quarters and dimes, hoping to scrounge a couple more dollars.
Mom shakes her head, a heavy sigh puffing out her mask. “It’s not the wallet, Boss. It’s that I don’t really recognize you anymore. You’re doing things and saying things that are so unlike you.”
“You don’t really know what I’m like, Mom.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not like you really know what’s going on in my life,” I say.
“Look, I know your sister requires most of my attention, but that doesn’t mean I won’t find the time to be here for you. You know that, right? You can talk to me.”
“I don’t really want to talk to you about this, though. It’s weird.”
“Well, you’re going to have to, because things have changed. Everything is a lot more serious, more dangerous. I need to be involved in the decisions you make,” Mom says. “Your little escapade with Freddie put us all at risk. Has that sunk in yet?”
“I feel bad, okay? I’m glad no one’s sick,” I say. “But I just . . . I don’t know.”
How do I tell her that I still don’t think what I did was the worst thing ever? That I understand, but at the same time, I don’t totally understand.
“I don’t know what it is you and he were doing, but I hope you used protection. Just because everything is about coronavirus these days doesn’t mean there aren’t still other viruses to worry about.”
“I was careful. I’m always careful, Mom.”
I extend my hand, which is filled with all the money I have.
“Can I come out of my room yet?” I ask as Mom grabs the money and puts it into a pocket of her housecoat.
“With a mask,” Mom says.
She leaves, and I sigh with full-body relief. This could’ve turned into a big fight at several points of the conversation, but I managed to steer clear of saying or doing anything stupid.
I grab my phone.
Alex is still on the screen, and I forget how to breathe.
Forty-Three
Alex is so still that at first, I think she’s frozen. But then her eyes move downward. She’s heard everything. She was right below my head, tucked in my bra, right in perfect earshot. There is silence for too long. There are words in my head, but they all sound frantic, guilty, pathetic.
“I shouldn’t have stayed on, listening. I thought maybe it was intentional, that you were going to come back or tell me you had to go.”
“I, um. This is bad. I’m sorry—I’m so sorry. I should’ve talked to you before.”
“I guess I should’ve asked if you wanted to be exclusive,” she says finally. “I shouldn’t have assumed we were both feeling the same.”
“We were, though.”
“Well, then what happened?”
“It’s like a separate thing that happened at the same time.”
“That’s called being poly—dating more than one person at the same time—and I just . . . I wasn’t signing up for that.”
“I wasn’t either. I’m not poly.”
“I knew something was up,” she says. “I could tell, but I just wanted to believe it was the pandemic and your quarantine.”
“It’s all of that. I’m just . . . confused.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re just into guys? Because you can go ahead and tell me that. It’s not like that would be the first time that’s happened to me.”
“That’s not it at all. I swear that has nothing to do with it.”
“So you like him more than me, then.”
“No. It’s not even that.”
I can’t explain it to her. There are no words that don’t sound wrong. That don’t sound like I was secretly committed to two people at the same time, and I chose Freddie over her. When really, I chose myself—or more like, my sex-crazed self chose for me.
“I feel like you’re far away, and I don’t know when I’ll get to see you again,” I say.
“Well, you shouldn’t have been seeing him either.”
“I know! But I did. And you didn’t end up asking me to be your girlfriend, so I thought . . .”
Her gaze ices over. “Me asking would’ve stopped you from wanting someone else?”
“No, I just mean . . .”
Her face gets closer to the camera, and I cradle it in both my hands, directly at eye level. “I gave you every opportunity to tell me about him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, me too.” She lets out a long sigh, then seems to have made her mind up about something. “Okay, well, I’m going to go.” She looks up at the screen. “Take care, Baylee.”
The chat cuts out.
“Wait,” I say to no one.
She’s gone.
I send her a message, asking her to DM, because I think the words might come out better this way.
I send apologies.
But I get no reply. I’m left on read.
I bounce up and slip my feet into a different pair of peep-toe heels, ones I won’t fall over and crack my skull in. I grab my purse and pleather jacket.
I’ve done nothing in this room but wait. Now is the time for action.
Mom’s in her bathroom upstairs, taking a shower. I stand in the doorway, wearing my mask. The baby monitor sits on the bathroom counter, the volume turned up all the way. Rebecca is swatting at the rails of her crib.
“Mom, can I please go for a little walk?”
“A walk? Outside?”
“Yes,” I say. “I haven’t left the house in over a week.” She doesn’t respond, so I add, “I’ll wear my mask.”
“Don’t be long, Boss.”
I head down the stairs and stop over to see my sister, who is in her crib, making herself roll back and forth like it’s some kind of sport. I place a hand against her chest to give it a little wiggle. She immediately stops rolling, out of breath.
“Hi,” I say. “What are you doing?”
She makes this gibberish sound that we assume is her talking back. I give her another little wiggle and she smiles at me. She starts up with the back-and-forth exercise thing, and I head for the door.
Within about eight minutes, the realization sets in about how far of a walk this actually is going to be. Google Maps says thirty-six minutes, and that’s regular-person speed—not fat-girl-in-ridiculous-heels speed.
I keep walking.
It’s cool and sunny out, perfect walking weather. Even though it’s definitely not normal times out there, there are still people outside. There are people standing at the bus stop, no masks on, laughing, standing close. I see a couple of people my age walking down the sidewalk. I see a group of men leaning against their cars as they drink coffee in the parking lot of a coffee place that’s closed to indoor seating.
I wonder if the police just drive around, questioning people about who they’re with, where they’re going. I’m not even sure what’s a real law, or bylaw, or guideline. It’s all so confusing, so my mom’s words are all I have to go by, and she seems a lot more strict about stuff than other people are.
