RATS

 

This morning, still in bed, she has a quick exchange with Vince, which begins with him apologizing for his lurid text.
“What do you mean, Text? That was a fucking s e x t,” she says, loving the sound of the word, even as she pretends to despise the thing itself. She’s become a fucking Puritan.
“So I guess there’s no phone sex for us,” he says with a laugh. “Was a silly idea.”
“Oh, I don’t know. We’ll see how things develop. Don’t work too hard today.”
“Fat chance. I’m too old for this, Pina. We haven’t even seen the surge yet, but it’s coming. It’s on its way. I knew one day I’d meet my match. Maybe we all have.”
“You’ll be okay, Vinnie,” she says, using her sweet name for him. “Have you been eating? I wish I could cook for you.”
“I can cook fine, but I don’t.”
“What are you eating?”
“Frozen pot pies, junk.”
“Don’t eat junk, Vince.”
“Whatever you say. Listen, I gotta go.”
“Talk with you tonight.”

Out of bed, Pina blasts the heat high and does a half hour circuit in the nude, sucking coffee from her sippy cup because she’s moving too quickly to use her mug. Nobody can see her in the big room. She counts that as one of the features of the place.

Today, she decides to do something for somebody else. It’s a cold morning, but she’s out on the deck with an actual cup of coffee and her phone. She has her Zia Giulia, her mother’s older sister in Rodondo Beach, on speed dial even though she hasn’t spoken to her since she’s arrived in Sonoma.

“So it’s you, Pina.”
Her octogenarian zia has good days and bad ones with her memory; it’s cheering that she recognizes Pina without her having to identify herself.
“I was going to call you, honey, but I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Nonsense.”
“You live such a busy life, Pina.”
“Not now. I’m not busy at all. We could talk everyday.”
“Talk everyday. What would we talk about?”
“We could talk about something different every day.”
“Ah, you were always a funny one, Pina.” Her aunt giggles again. What was once a round musical laugh—her trademark in the family—has begun, in her dotage, to take on the rust of a cackle.
“So how are you, Zia Giulia?”
“I have everything I need. Enzo looks after me very well.”

A widow for thirty-five years, Zia Giulia lives with her son Enzo, a captain in the Torrance Fire Department, and his wife.
“Except he won’t let me out of the house anymore. What’s the point of living by the beach if I can’t walk on it? How am I going to get my exercise? It’s just a flu, Pina. I’ve had the flu before many times and always recovered. The fake news is blowing it out of proportion.”

This is why she hasn’t called Zia Giulia. Her zia, along with the whole clan of them in Rodondo Beach, are Trumpites, even the grown kids. They have Fox News on from morning to night.

“On the other hand, I’ve heard people on the news say that the old people like me should sacrifice ourselves, you know, for the sake of the economy. We’ve lived a good life, which is true, so now we should go on our merry way. They say we should have chicken pox parties. Sounds like fun. What do you think, Pina?”
“I think it’s a terrible idea.”
“Well, you should know, Pina.”
She’s can’t decide if her Zia Giulia can possibly be speaking sarcastically.
“So, how’s that handsome husband of yours? What’s his name? I’ve forgotten his name.”
“Vince. He’s very busy now.”
“And how about the other one, the one before, the one who died? What was his name?”
“Marcello.”
“Right, Marcello, a real Paisano. What did you call him?”
“Marco.”

Once the questions start they can go on forever.

“Right, Marco. And where did he come from?”
“Padua.”
“Oh, Padua, a beautiful city. Enzo took me there when we visited Venice. It’s one of the oldest cities, you know.”
“Yes, I visited several times with Marco.”
“Marco, that’s right. And what did he die of?”
“Cancer.”
“So young for cancer. How old did you say he was?”
“Forty-one.” She needs to stop the conversation before she begins weeping. “It’s been good to talk with you, Zia Giulia. Please stay well.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Pina.”
“You haven’t bothered me.”
“No need to call tomorrow, Pina. You take care of yourself. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

She decides that it wasn’t a good thing she did, because she suspects that the call didn’t make either her or Zia Giulia feel better.

 

Pina decides not to transform her shimmering white mound of crabmeat into crab cakes, but makes a lovely crab salad instead, with celery, red onion, a hardy dash of cumin, and mayo. She toasts two slices of sourdough that she took from the freezer this morning and whips up a sandwich, wrapping it in wax paper just as her mother used to do. She wants to bring something for Charlie and settles on a three-pound sack of mandarins—she has two bags. They are not enough as a return gift for the magnificent crab, but he may not accept the gift anyway, for fear of transmission. She packs a big spray bottle of alcohol in her bag and heads to the bike trail.

At the entrance to the trail, a sign banning bikes. Pedestrians only, and they are reminded to keep at least six feet of social distance. The language of the plague depresses her. She’d like to turn the blasted phrases into cocktails. The Social Distance could be made in a variety of ways but always includes onion and garlic; the Flatten the Curve calls for a martini glass hosting a long pour of gin or vodka, a shimmer of Chartreuse, and a lengthy coil of lime peel; the Sacrifice Yourself, a very tall cocktail, features four jiggers of tequila, four of rum, gin, vodka, and grappa—it must be ingested in one long swallow. The Super Spreader is, of course, a party drink, served in a tall pitcher with eight long straws. The Hoarder is a very dirty martini with three toothpicks filled with olives, the stem of its glass decorated in a filigree of toilet paper. The Shelter in Place, a clear potion with a single hazel nut, to represent our isolation, comes with a lid, that can only be flipped after use of hand sanitizer, which itself might become a cocktail.

There’s not a single soul on the trail today and Pina only sees three people strolling around the square. She notices signs posted at the park entrances: The park is closed.

The news hits her hard. It’s not that she’s going to miss the ducks or weaving through the few paths. Each day something else, every little thing, is being taken away. The park is sacred ground in Sonoma, the soul of the place, where diverse groups have gathered for generations. She and Vince often come up for the Tuesday night market during the season. All the picnic tables are filled and families lay out on blankets, with amazing spreads. Everybody is drinking wine out of actual glasses. Vendors are loaded with beautiful produce. The food trucks hum, good bands play. On weekends throughout the year, there’s a full calendar of festivals in the park

Pina’s disturbed by something else about the closure: Charlie. She’s alarmed to realize how much she’s been looking forward to sitting on a bench with him and eating her crab salad sandwich. She doesn’t even know which unit in the complex he lives in. She’s almost at the point of crying when something from the bushes dashes right past her. “A rat!” she shrieks. In broad daylight, a rat. She looks around to see if anybody’s heard her. Not a soul. She’s shaking a bit. A rat right next to her. And then she hears her name: Pina, Pina Pina. It’s like a sweet bell ringing in the distance. She sees him, Charlie, in a mask and with his purple gloves, coming toward her down the West side of the square. She does start crying now.

“What’s the matter, Pina?” he calls from ten feet away. He comes closer, but not too close.
“I just saw a rat,” she says, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “In broad daylight.”
“So sorry. It gave you a scare. Funny, at the market the other day, I overheard this nasty woman in the bread line talking about the ‘Chinese virus,’ like Trump calls it. She said, ‘It’s no coincidence that the Chinese started this plague in the Year of the Rat. Pretty soon we’re going to start seeing the rats.’ She really said that.”
“And I saw a rat.”
“Which doesn’t confirm that woman’s racist conspiracy theory.”

Somehow she’s calmed down. Charlie’s calmed her down. She smiles at him and lets herself look him over. He dressed in jeans, a wool coat, maybe a Pendleton, and a gray felt hat. Rather dashing, really, for a man in a facemask with purple hands. He notices her looking at his mask.

“I saw it in the Times today. They think everybody might do well to wear a mask. A scarf will probably do.”
“Women have started making masks out of their old bras.”
“I heard that,” Charlie says, without affect.
“Maybe all the women in America should stop wearing bras until they have a vaccine.” She doesn’t know why she said that, and can’t tell whether Charlie’s blushing behind his mask or suppressing a laugh. She’s gone a bit daft being in company. “I brought my lunch,” she says, and shakes her bag as if he requires evidence.
“Oh, good.”
“But they’ve closed the park.”
“It’s okay. Follow me, Pina, I know a place where we can both eat safely.”