This has got to be the strangest party I’ve ever attended.  There are bottles of Purell and wipe dispensers on tables scattered throughout the back yard.  A big basket of brand new masks sits outside the back gate, for anyone who forgot to wear their own.  Though how could we forget?  Fairfax had bombarded us with the requirement: on the invitation (both print and email), the multiple group texts.  (Not to mention the phone calls.)

 

As it turns out, I remembered my mask but forgot my bathing suit.  It’s probably for the best, though.  Will, Jack, and Evan (Angela and Nate’s son) have monopolized the pool, splashing through every square inch of it.  I’m not sure if chlorine kills the coronavirus—you’d think it would—but it’s probably good practice to stay away from shared water.

And kudos to me for leaving Chum at home too.  Though he was none too pleased when I walked out the door.  I still could hear his howls from the bottom step of my building.  It’s for the best—he would have been in that water with those boys, and I’m still not convinced that pets can’t catch this plague.  Though my vet assured me otherwise, I’ve done some research that says it very much could happen.  The virus seems to be in every cell of every substance coming off every affected creature in the world.  It’s unstoppable, apparently.

The gentlest breeze could fan a neighbor’s fluid into your face, and there you’d be—no longer COVID-free.

Regardless, Fairfax is determined that no one will spread disease in her backyard. “It is absolutely possible to have a socially distant party!” she has claimed at least a dozen times this week alone and has placed ten chairs, evenly spaced, in a large circle in her backyard.  I sat down in a seat nearest the river, thinking I would catch the best breeze there, which would blow my flakes and follicles on everyone else, instead of the other way around.

Even with a good gust of air off the St. Johns, it is remarkably humid this afternoon; my t-shirt is already plastered to my back.  My sunglasses keep fogging up, probably due in large part to the mask trapping and funneling my breath upward.

Mike’s brother Max claimed the chair next to me as soon as I sat down.  Well, you couldn’t really call it “next”—it was nearby.  Six and half feet away.  Fairfax had called me this morning, assuring me that she measured all distances and had Mike verify them.

“An extra half foot for good measure,” she’d exclaimed, meaning she’d added another .17 yard to the CDC’s measure of social distance.  “We can control this sucker.  All it takes is careful planning!  Doing a little extra and being vigilant!”

Methinks she doth protest too much.

It’s almost like Fairfax has identified the virus as her own personal enemy.  I want to tell her that she’s outmatched, through no fault of her own.  She’s a human being, a vulnerable collection of nerve and cell and bone with a muddied agenda of survival, and the coronavirus is a different kind of being altogether.

A mutating gene with a singular purpose: to replicate itself over and over with no thought of consequence to those creatures it infects.

But I’ve said nothing to her, kept my mouth shut about this ill-advised party.  It was planned, it was happening.  Heck, the party itself was Memorial Day. A memorial to the way things used to be, not so long ago.  I couldn’t stop it.  I couldn’t stop Fairfax.

If you don’t think it’s safe, why are you here?  I keep asking myself.  I always answer the same way.

I couldn’t not attend. 

I’d already canceled the biggest event of my life, the wedding, which broke Fairfax’s heart, I know.  She’d planned it, down to the last bow on my bouquet.  I had welcomed her assistance, was sick of event planning from work and happy to let someone else take the wheel on this one, as my old co-worker Martha used to say.

When Adam and I decided to postpone the nuptials, you’d have thought someone had died, by Fairfax’s reaction.  I gave her the news over the phone, and I could swear she started crying, which got me all teary-eyed. But she soon rallied, tried to dissuade me from cancelling.  Said she’d make sure the Garden Club was clean, spic and span; she’d provide goody bags of sanitizer and wipes, special “wedding masks”—a dove print fabric comes to mind—for guests.  It would be fun, unique, a design challenge!

I still said “no.” It was too much of a risk.  Of everyone’s health.  And most important, it felt wrong. Mercutio’s line from Romeo and Juliet played timpani in my temples, giving me a headache: A plague o’ both your houses!

A plague.

Just think about it. If ever there was a sign from God that you shouldn’t do something, that it was perfectly understandable, preferable in terms of safety, even, to cancel, it was COVID-19 pervading the United States of America.  To wit, the “powers that be” at work had squashed the May Annual Meeting.  “I’m not having anyone getting sick on my watch,” Capper had pontificated.  This statement only after a young Board member threatened to go to the press if Rod insisted on holding a meeting during the pandemic. The local NFMS story is writ large nationally: face to face events all across the U.S. have been cancelled.

It’s just not smart (from a health, or now even a legal standpoint) to be in close quarters with fellow humans.

With this message coming at me from all directions, it’s no surprise that my gut told me in no uncertain terms: do not marry Adam Ainsley on April 25th!

So, I heeded this instinct and persuaded Adam to do the same.  It was a mutual decision to postpone.  He was just as wary as I was, I think, about having a wedding in the middle of a pandemic.  Besides, I’d Googled his condition and found articles to support my hunch that the bipolar population was at greater risk of infection during this time.

So there was no need to risk everyone’s health, to force a gathering, just to exchange a few vows.  It could all wait for a calmer, safer time.  A date in the future when things were back to normal, when we had certainty within our grasp again.

Since my initial “freak-out” in March, when we were first quarantined, I’d calmed down.  We had time to get through this craziness.  Two months in now, I know we’ll make it through this weird time, a chapter straight out of a science fiction novel.  There was no need to get rash now—to insist on a perfect wedding when it was impossible.

And honestly, I cannot imagine wearing a mask on my wedding day.

So, Adam and I are waiting for normalcy to return.  For constancy.  For when things can’t slip through our fingers easily like they do now.  I mean, someone’s throat gets scratchy or can’t smell their sandwich one day, and every plan they made for two weeks gets scrapped.

But, there’s only so much cancel culture a certain kind of person (the outgoing kind) can be expected to take.  Fairfax lives for the errand, the pop-in, the face-to-face sharing of life.  So, with COVID and the wedding cancellation, she’s had a hard time of it lately.  For that reason, I agreed to continue our weekly walks around the neighborhood where we are definitely closer than six feet from each other.  I don’t think Mike knows about our strolls.  He hasn’t wanted his family to mix closely with outside parties, was trying to follow the CDC rules as well as city guidance.

“He’s taking it all so seriously,” Fairfax said to me at least once a week.

But apparently, she must have worn Mike down in order for him to agree to host an old school Memorial Day party. Well, to be honest, not completely old school.  More “new school,” I guess you could say.

For instance, Fairfax is now giving Max the stink eye above her geometrically patterned mask because he’d shifted his camp chair a bit in my direction—probably a half-foot (.17 yard!).  Now she’s fluttering her arms at me, like she’s shooing me away.

“What?” I ask, but it comes out sounding more like Whhfft?  I think my mask is too tight.

“Move your chair back,” Fairfax commands.  Very clearly—she’s lowered her mask to enunciate, then pops it back into place.

So, I do the same—that is, speak up.  I pull down my NFMS-issued coverage to clearly state that I’m going to fall in the river if I move in that direction.  It’s true—my director’s chair is at the bulkhead.

Then Max pipes up, through his alligator patterned mask, “It’s okay, I’ll move back.” He shifts his chair back into its original divots, which seems to satisfy his sister-in-law.  Fairfax moves off to scout the next infraction, Nate Sykes’ mask hanging off his ear.

“What’s with all the mini-coolers?” Max asks.  He’s pointing around the yard at what look like strategically positioned baby Yetis, those pricy, super-insulated drink cocoons.  I note that there appear to be five of them, each within easy reach of a pair of chairs.

“Oh, that’s what she meant.” It dawns on me then that Fairfax must have spent a bundle on this “casual get-together.”  Yeti coolers! My Lord.

“What?” Max’s brown eyes peer at me above a gator’s green snout.

“Her drink dispersal system” I say.  Yes, that’s what it is.  Fairfax had not wanted everyone’s hands reaching into a common cooler for drinks, so she allotted each family their own alcohol, waters, and soft drinks in individual containers.

“Is that one ours, dear?” Max asks, gesturing at a silver box a few feet away.  I bet if I could see his mouth, it would in a wide grin. He is such a flirt, but totally harmless. You can never take Max’s charm too seriously because it’s just his way.  He’s a born ladies’ man, texting me one day, calling me the next, along with thirty other females, I imagine.

“S’pose so,” I reply to his question about the cooler, so he stands up and starts moving toward it.

“Maxxxx!” That familiar screech from across the yard.  “Don’t do that!”

Max’s head jerks up, mouth open. “What’d I do?”

Fairfax is on him like a mama bear.  I’ve never seen her move so fast, even during our walking sprints.  “That’s Nancy’s! Don’t touch it.”  She bends down, whips out a wipe from a pack crammed in her pocket and rubs down the cooler’s outside surface.

Max plops onto his bottom, the frayed threads from his cut-offs blending into the green grass.

“Back up, Max.” Fairfax waves the used wipe at him.  “Go back to your chair.  You’re too close to Nancy.”

“You’re too close to Nancy too,” he retorts, but nevertheless starts crab crawling back to his camp chair.  He lifts himself up dejectedly, and drops onto the seat with a thud.  “Where’s my cooler?” I can’t believe it, but there’s some meekness in Max’s voice.  Well, who can blame him?  It’s easy to be cowed by this side of Fairfax.  Her party fierceness.

“You’re with us, Max, you know that!  I went over the plan this morning, remember?” Fairfax rolls her eyes when he gives her a look of confusion.  “Our drinks are in the fridge.  In the house. We’re in the same bubble, right?”

“What?” Max is confused, either by her mask-covered speech or choice of vocabulary.  Or both.

Fairfax sighs, takes a deep breath as she lowers her mask.  “You, me, your brother, your nephews—we are one bubble.” Fairfax makes a wide circle with her other hand.  “One living group, get it?  Nancy is one, then there’s the Sykeses, the Balzercaks, you know Beth Anne’s family, Janey Fetner and her partner…”

“Yeah, okay, okay, I remember,” Max interrupts.

“Ten adults, associated children. Five bubbles. We don’t want our germs to mix, although it would probably be fine because everyone here is healthy.”

I bite my tongue.  I’d done my research about Fairfax too; she fell into the immuno-compromised group—yes, she was healthy at present, but she sure didn’t need to be around anyone who might harbor a virus.

Fairfax continues, “Just stick to your own chair, Max, and if you need a beer or the bathroom, you’re to go into the house to your usual spot.” She turns to me.  “Plumb, if you need to use the bathroom, I’ve designated you for the downstairs powder room.  Go in the 2nd set of French doors, then you know the way.” She pops her mask back on her face. “Just remember to take a wipe with you, and clean door handles, faucets, et al, before and after use.”  She looks from Max back to me.  “Got it?”

“Got it,” he and I respond in unison.

“I can’t believe how messed-up this party is,” Max says once Fairfax has walked away.

“I can’t believe she said ‘et al,’” I add, and we both start to laugh.  “She’s like the CDC come to life.”

“Do you think she’ll let me have one of the Yetis after this is over?”

I don’t blame him for wondering.  I wouldn’t mind claiming one myself. “I can’t believe Mike was okay with her buying all those Yetis,” I add.

“Oh, I can assure you Nancy,” Max replies with a wink, long lashes nearly touching the top of his mask. “He doesn’t know.” His gaze lowers, alights on my left hand. “Speaking of money, that’s quite a diamond you’ve got there.”

I look at my ring finger and feel the usual snapback of surprise.  I can’t seem to get used to seeing it on my hand.  It’s been five months—you would have thought I’d have grown accustomed.

Five months since Adam turned up on my doorstep, unexpected, out of the blue.  I hadn’t seen him since October, since that terrible weekend in Atlanta when he ended up in the hospital.  When his father advised me to give up on his son, let him go.  And my own father advised me to be open, to look for unforeseen forks in the road.  Adam at my door—healthy, bright-eyed, healed by the Holy Spirit and the hospital to be yours (his words, not mine)—was the path not taken.

Yet.

“The nurses there in the hospital, they made me see the light, the point, of the medicine,” he had said, eyes an ember of the fire I knew.  “The point of it all is you, Nancy!”

So, on Christmas Eve 2019, I said yes to Adam’s proposed path of him and me.  He was healthy, and his renewal stirred my resolve to be with him.  To start down this new road together; we’d been through a bad patch, but there was too much history between us, and the promise of future happiness, to throw it all away.

“Yeah, it was my mother’s,” I say to Max now, about the engagement ring.  My father had offered it to us on Christmas Day.  Ruth had hardly worn it—I mostly remember seeing just a simple gold band on her hand.  Dad said she thought the ring was too ostentatious—two carat emerald cut, Art Deco design.  It had originally belonged to my grandmother, so Dad was eager for me to have it, to let it see the light of day.  For the ring to be worn every day, not saved for a special occasion.

“Ooh, I’ve got to see the ring!” A voice squeals from across the yard.

I look up and there is Beth Anne Balcerzak, marching to the middle of the circle, standard issue mask pulled beneath her chin, leaving her mouth uncovered.  Suddenly, she stops short and throws up her hands.  “Wait. I can’t get close, can I? Fairfax said not to. But how am I supposed to get a look at it?  Fairfax told me it was spectacular! Oh, Nancy, I so excited for you!” Her words tumble out, piggybacking one over the other.

Good old Beth Anne, her high spirits haven’t changed since middle school, where our paths first crossed.   We see each other infrequently now, mainly because one of her brood of children is always sick.  I smile and say to her, “We’ll figure out a way” and scan the yard for her husband and pack of kids. “Where is everyone else? Did they come?”

Beth Anne has plopped into the chair on the other side of me, a social distance away.  “No, Bailey has a mild fever.” She gulps, then adds quickly, “But below 100.4, so it’s okay for me to be here.  At least, I think it is.” Beth Anne leans back in the padded rattan chair from Fairfax’s patio set.  “Oh, this feels so good, to get out of the house. By the way, don’t mention Bailey’s temperature to Fairfax, okay?”

As I reflexively nod, I notice Max raising his eyebrows.  Fairfax would not be pleased.  I’m just glad Beth Anne had the sense not to bring her children—they’re a wild crew and would have been difficult to quarantine in a “bubble” out here.  They would have popped it in record time.

“I still cannot believe this Corona thing! It’s like Spring Break never ended, you know? Honestly, I’m going crazy trying to entertain everyone.” Beth Anne stretches her legs out in front of her; her rubber flip flops barely contain her wide feet bare of polish. “I’ve been making them go outside and run laps around the backyard.  I even dug out my old hula hoop.  Can you imagine?”  All of sudden, she scrunches up her face, which turns it plum-colored, and sneezes.  Her nose is still mask-free.

Max raises his eyebrows again.

“What if you put it on the ground, like right there?” Beth Anne, wiping her nose, points to a spot on the grass midway between us.

Puzzled, I stare at her, my warm masked breath further fogging my lenses.  What is Beth Anne talking about?  Her hula hoop?  And she’d better hope Fairfax didn’t hear that sneeze.

Yet it seems Beth Anne is unconcerned about germ spreading; instead, she’s off and running with some kind of game plan. “Like grab a wipe….” I see a Lysol canister on what must be my designated table.  “Clean it and place it halfway between us. Right there.”  She points again, then wiggles her left hand, the narrow platinum band there digging into a chubby finger.

Oh, of course, she’s talking about my ring.  Again, I’d forgotten about it.  “Erm, okay,” I say slowly.  “If we’re really careful.”  I reach forward and grab a wipe, then remove the diamond, swabbing the band as best I can.  I move cautiously, placing the wipe with the ring on top a few feet away from my chair, but Beth Anne is already there, beside me.  I scuttle away from her, back to my chair. When I look up again, she’s holding the sanitized jewel aloft, letting the soft afternoon sun catch its gleam.

“Oh, it’s gorgeous!” She walks backward to her chair, trying to ease the jewelry onto a finger.  Any finger, it seems.  The only one it fits is her pinky, so there the ring comes to rest.  “Oh, Nancy, aren’t you just so thrilled?”

Beth Anne has such a look of bliss on her face, I’m not sure how to answer. I’m assuming she’s referring to my engagement, but she could be talking about the ring.   It’s that kind of rock.   In any case, I’m saved from a response because of an announcement blaring from someone near the pool.

“Attention, everyone!” It’s Angela.  “Our host, the venerable F. Figueroa, asked me to tell y’all to put on a mask if you don’t have one on, and…” She pauses for a moment, I imagine, to take a breath to project even louder.  (As a fifth grade teacher, Angela’s used to projecting.)  “…if you are wearing one but it’s not covering your mouth, for the sake of all that is good and holy, pull it up!”

The irony of this announcement is, of course, that Angela has made it with her own mask lowered. However, now finished, she masks up again.

With a guilty look, Beth Anne follows suit and yanks her mask up over her nose.  Finally, I think. I wish she would have done that from the beginning.   I notice her hand is still raised, her eyes admiring my grandmother’s ring.

“Now, how is someone supposed to drink a beer with a mask covering his mouth?” A voice as rich as maple syrup rises above the titter which followed Angela’s mask announcement.  Nate, her psychotherapist husband, is a good foil to his wife’s temperament.  A calming Zen to her lively Chi, or something like that. I’m not that versed in Buddhism.

“You take a sip, you cover back up. I have students smarter than you.” Angela’s voice grows louder, diction crisp and clear, even when mask-covered.  She’s walking over to our socially distanced trio.  “I don’t want to get too close to you Nancy, but I’ve got to see the ring,” she remarks, Nate trailing behind her with mask now in place.

“Yes, you do, Ange!” Beth Anne crows.  “I’ll wipe it off and toss it over to you.”

“Toss it?” I can’t help squawking.

Max leans toward me.  “Don’t let them lose that thing,” he whispers sotto voce. “It’s one of the best Art Deco presentations I’ve seen.”

“WHAT IS EVERYONE DOING HERE? YOU’RE TOO CLOSE?”

All of us jump at the sound of Fairfax’s voice.  She’s daringly near to us—at a remove much less than six feet, I must say.

“You’re too close to each other!  Move back!” Fairfax continues screaming. She starts using the shooing motion, waving her arms to get us to disperse.  Angela and Nate back up at least ten feet to get out of her way.

Fairfax takes a breath, swallows. “Beth Anne,” she continues in a quieter tone.  “You’ve moved that chair. Scoot it back a few feet.”

“I didn’t move it.  I swear.” Beth Anne’s voice sounds like a child’s.

“It’s best not to argue,” Max chimes in and moves his chair a foot further away from me, to please Fairfax, I guessing.

His sister-in-law approves. “Good, Max,” she says and gives him a thumb’s up. “Sykes family, your chairs are there by the pool, since Evan’s over there.” Fairfax points to a trio of chairs several yards away, within shouting distance.

I see Angela and Nate shoot each other bemused looks.  “Um,” Nate ventures, “Okay.  So, let me ask you this, Fairfax…hmm. How do we get food?” He glances around.  “Or where?”

I had been wondering that too; the large grill Mike usually employs to cook out was pushed against a wall of the house, topped with its black cover, so apparently this party had no hamburgers or hotdogs on the menu. There weren’t any of the usual chip baskets or vegetable platters scattered about either.

Fairfax takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.  I see the twin apostrophes between her eyes deepen to craggy wrinkles  “I thought I said, didn’t I say? Oh well, anyway…” She shakes her head.  “To repeat: it’s all in your cooler.  Everything you’ll need for sandwiches. Mike and I both wore gloves, wiped down the packaging, so you know it’s clean.”

Fairfax is about to say more, but a dog has started barking near the back gate, and the sound stops her momentum. She turns in that direction, hands on hips.  “Is that Janey?” she muses aloud. “Mike, I think that’s Janey,” Fairfax then yells out to her husband.  She starts walking across the yard toward him.

Mike had been sitting in the lone chair left on the patio, apparently checking his phone.  I smile to myself—perhaps he’s staying socially distant times ten in order to escape his wife’s rules enforcement.  At the sound of her call, though, he stands up immediately and starts walking toward the deep green bushes and iron aperture.

As Mike walks to the yard’s edge, I see his pink polo shirt fade to blush.  Dusk is coming; the time of day which softens colors and features.  Also the time of day for mosquitos.

“Ouch,” I hiss, smacking one off my forearm.

“I wonder if there’s bug spray in the coolers too,” Max quips.

“Maybe `Deep Woods Off’ kills Corona,” Beth Anne chimes in.  We all start chuckling, and I thankfully spot my ring, still on her pinky finger.

I remove my sunglasses, restoring more clarity to the blues and greens of the backyard. Mike is venturing through the open gate, greeting not Janey Fetner but a man in a white t-shirt, his black mask a contrast to his pale forehead and red hair.

Peter. Peter Redmond.  With his dog.

I feel a pang of something I can’t quite define.  Guilt, maybe. Mixed with sadness and a smidge of regret.  A tiny bit of loss. I’m surprised Peter’s here.  Fairfax clearly didn’t include him in one of her guest list “bubbles.”

I hear a yap and recognize it as belonging to his dog, Lana.  Such a sweet dog—I think Chum still misses her.  Her tiny bark is followed by a solitary whoop, odd-sounding because it’s not canine.  More like a loon. Sometimes these birds gather on the river in the afternoon, so that’s what my brain assumes it is.

Until a wall of sounds intrudes into our space: high and low pitched screeches and bellows. Like a pack of wild birds and wolves has come to Mallory Street to party.

Beth Anne’s face scrunches up.  “Uh oh,” she says. I hope she’s not about to sneeze again, but that’s not the case.  “Look.” She points in the direction of the pool. “Fairfax is going to hate this.”

I look that way, squinting my eyes and can see what looks like bodies crawling through the thick hedge which divides the pool from the dead end of Mallory Street.  Orange and blue-clad bodies, which turn into a group of scraped-up teenage boys.  Maskless.  Some wear cut-off jeans like Max’s. Jorts, I think they’re called.  Fairfax said they were popular at UF, an ironic nod, tongue-in-cheek pushback to a redneck reputation.  One boy jackknifes into the pool with no preamble whatsoever.

“Yo, man,” he calls out to Will when he surfaces.  “We’re here!” Fairfax’s oldest son sits on the edge of the pool, his expression frozen in the perfect midpoint between elation and fear, the latter doomed to dominate.

Because his mother now stands near the open back gate, still as a statue.  Hands on hips, one thumb stroking the nearly empty pack of wipes in her pocket.

There is a momentary lull, a quick silence in which I hear the evening crickets start up.  Fairfax lowers her mask and opens her mouth to shout something at Will, but one wild yell after another drowns out anything she could have said.

The boys, the uninvited guests, have jumped in the pool, drenching anyone nearby.