Well, it’s raining.  Good, Fairfax decides.  The backyard needs to be mowed, and this rain will only encourage the dollar weed and grass seed growth, but who cares?  They’ve got nothing planned for today back there, or anywhere, in fact.  The boys are up in their rooms, haven’t ventured out, come to think of it, except to make slap-dash sandwiches, grab a couple of waters in the kitchen, then hole up again.

She wants to tell them that they can loosen up a bit now.  They aren’t under quarantine anymore, but the habit of seclusion, once rooted, is hard to break.  Not so much for their Uncle Max, whose motorcycle jaunts have increased of late, based on his claim that fresh air blasts the virus away.

“Nothing fresher on the face than a ride.  Wanna come?” Max had offered to Fairfax yesterday.  For a split second, she was tempted, almost said yes, but ended up giving him a curt shake of her head. After all, nobody in her family has any business on a motorcycle.

What’s most disturbing about these crazy times is that she would even consider for a split-second hopping onto Max’s death machine.  What has happened to her sense of reason?  Nothing seems normal, what it used to be.  The new rules govern their lives, which makes Fairfax wriggle at the restraint, want to break free, like some rebellious teenager. And Lord knows, that kind of party-crashing mentality is the wrong impulse in this day and age.

So Fairfax battles back her rule-breaking imps.  She set them free once, with disastrous results.

That dang Memorial Day party. She should have known better.  What was she thinking?

That people could be expected to stay six feet away from each other at all times?  That everyone would wear their mask, like obedient adults, not loop it under their chin, hook it over one ear, tie it around their neck like a bandanna? (Leaving their mucous membranes open to give and receive.)

Still, how could she have known that a group of her son’s friends from college would show up mask-less and wild?

Fairfax never saw that one coming–a wild pack of teenage boys invading her backyard.

How could her oldest boy not understand that telling a group of adolescents about a party at his house would be interpreted as an invitation?  Come on, Will! You post a picture of a swimming pool and a bottle of beer?  It’s waving a red flag in front of a herd of bulls!

Will claimed he had no idea those boys would come over.  He even showed Fairfax his phone, all the unseen text messages sent to him earlier during the party, while he was swimming with Jack and Evan.

“I didn’t know they were coming, I swear, Mom!” he’d said to her, when the party ended; well, technically, after she’d kicked the hoodlums out, and apologized to her retreating friends, while they gathered up belongings and fled.

“But you did know that Ben had tested positive?” Fairfax volleyed this question to Will. She still found this unbelievable.  That his friend, a smart boy, just graduated from the University of Florida, for goodness’ sake, would get a positive COVID test and not quarantine himself.  That he would instead corral his buddies and go jump in a healthy family’s pool.

“Yes, he posted it yesterday on Insta’, so everyone knew.” Will had sighed then, and Fairfax’s heart relented a bit.  He was pretty broken up about the whole incident.  And Fairfax felt sure that Will would never be as thoughtless as Ben Whatshisname, so cavalier about the health of others.

In fact, Fairfax knew Will would never be so rude, because he hadn’t been—instead, he had been the perfect potential COVID-19 patient—after they all ended up quarantined post-party.  He and Jack both kept their distance from everyone within the house, used Lysol wipes and sprayed disinfectant regularly, wore masks when they were even in the vicinity of another family member.  Had no physical interaction with any of their friends. Even when the Figueroas’ tests all finally came back negative, after a lengthy delay, her boys still kept to themselves, stayed safe.

Respectful of the health of others.

Still, the whole party fiasco was the Figueroas’ fault, no matter anybody’s intentions or lack thereof or behavior afterwards.  Well, specifically it was her fault.  Fairfax took the blame.

She was the one who organized the party, against her husband’s advice.  She was the one who assured everyone that her interpretation of the CDC and community health rules would create a safe environment in which to socialize.

Fairfax had been so sure that she could pull off a party in the midst of a pandemic.  She had been proud of her plans, her chair arrangement, mask provisions, food and drink delivery with the Yetis and Yeti-look alike mini coolers.

And pride comes before a fall.

It crushed her when two of the guests ended up with the virus.  Well, one of them wasn’t technically a guest—Forrest Balcerzak, Beth Anne’s husband, hadn’t been at the party, but where else would he have gotten it?  Beth Anne herself developed the sniffles which she passed onto her husband, who ended up hacking and coughing with what most surely was COVID, though neither Beth Anne or Forrest got tested.  Beth Anne claimed that going to a test site was foolish, a sure-fire way to expose yourself to the virus which you could do nothing about anyway, even if you already had it.  Sometimes Beth Anne’s convoluted reasoning taxed Fairfax’s last nerve.

Evan Sykes was the other party guest who turned up sick. Not deathly ill by any means, but COVID-positive nonetheless, confirmed by a test, the Sykes being careful to do things the right way. To mitigate risk after the social gathering.  The dangerous shindig.

Fairfax cringes at the memory.  Poor Evan in the pool, Ben the carrier jumping in, practically on top of him, splashing COVID on anyone in six foot plus radius.  Two of the other party crashers screaming in hilarity like a crazed Greek chorus about Ben’s positive COVID status, “Keep away, keep away from him, dude!” It also didn’t help matters that their entrance through the large azalea hedge had scratched their arms and faces.  One of them was bleeding into the pool.  Fairfax cringes at the memory: chlorinated water by his elbow turning dusky pink.

But the worst, the most humiliating moment for Fairfax—was Angela’s reaction.  Her face screwing up in anger as an uninvited virus-positive human crashed into and splashed her child.  Endangering him.  And Fairfax was to blame.

Oh, Lord, how could this have happened on my watch?  I promised safety, and I served up danger.

The scene keeps playing in her mind now like a horror movie. Nate, trying to calm his wife down.  Fairfax can still hear his voice (“Now, now, angel”) rising in a soft swell behind her as she charged to the pool, demanding to know why a Corona-positive person would come to a party.

Though, Angela, in typical fashion, was more blunt than that.  “What kind of damn fool jumps in a pool when he has the plague?” was what she’d screamed at the boys.

Fairfax’s own sons had stunned looks on their faces, gazes jumping from Fairfax to Angela and back.  Ben, the agent of doom, only made things worse when he drawled, “It’s no big deal, lady.” To which Angela let loose a string of curses that Fairfax had not heard since the eighties, sack of this, scum of that. Judging by the stunned looks from the other adults present, neither had they.

“Chlorine kills it, that’s what I heard.” Ben continued, but his frat boy diction had devolved into a whine.  It was apparent Angela’s maternal anger had crushed his bravado.  Fairfax remembers praying that the boy would just give up, shut up, and crawl back through the bushes.

No such luck.

In what Mike would later darkly refer to as the pièce de résistance of the whole afternoon, Ben’s face started to contort—Fairfax at first thought he was going to cry—squeezing and scrunching like moldable wax, tilting his nose to the sky.

Then there was a high-pitched wheeze, and COVID Ben sneezed right into Evan Sykes’ face.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Angela yelled, “Hell, no!” and was at the pool’s edge in a blur of motion, bending down to grab her son’s upper body.  “No amount of chlorine’s gonna to kill that!” she screamed while Evan kept slipping out of her grasp.  She kept grappling for him, shouting “Get out! Get out right now, son!”

Fairfax was sure Angela was going to end up in the pool with her child, but by some miracle that didn’t happen. What did happen next, though, turns into a kind of mish-mash in Fairfax’s mind.  Somehow, Angela managed to extract Evan from the pool but lost a sandal to the water in the process.  Max ran into the fray, offering to retrieve the shoe for her, but she screeched she wanted no part of that pool on her person, just to leave it.  Meanwhile, Ben sneezed several more times, and the rest of the boys all jumped out of the pool, like the water had turned to fire.

Fairfax recalls herself shouting something like, “For God’s sake, scram!”  And also something like “Shoo!” to the party crashers as if they were dogs.  She feels bad about it now, but, then again, they hadn’t been invited.  They were a danger to everyone around them.

Still, Fairfax shouldn’t have yelled at them like that. Now that she thinks about it, she’s pretty sure her language went further south than that.  Yep, it did–she dropped the “F” bomb once or twice, maybe even threatened to call the police.  She definitely said she was going to call the sheriff. Or the “f-ing sheriff.”

Fairfax feels her face turn pink at the memory.

Still, maybe as a result of her total meltdown, the UF crowd did leave.  They fled barefoot out the back gate, almost mowing down Beth Anne and Nancy who must have been trying to escape then too.  Someone on the other side of the hedge started shouting “Watch out, slow down!” like a traffic cop.

Fairfax later realized it was Peter Redmond, because he gave her a talking-to that evening about endangering her health by socializing so closely with people.  She was on the schedule for another bone marrow test the following week and should not be taking any risks. Dr. Redmond later canceled the appointment due to her COVID exposure.  She cringes now just thinking about the disappointed look on her physician’s face.

That terrible afternoon of the COVID crashers there followed more shouting and screeching, of tires and voices, out on Mallory Street.  Angela had chased the boys to their car and continued to chastise them.

“I’m going to tell your mothers about this!” she screamed so loudly, distant neighbors on St. John’s Avenue probably wondered what in the world was going on.

Fairfax heard one of the boys yell back, “You don’t know who we are!” to which Angela replied, “Are you serious? I’ll find out!”

And she sure did.  Angela tracked Ben’s mother down on Facebook and messaged her.  Fairfax isn’t sure what the latest is on that correspondence; she’s not sure she wants to know.

Lord, forgive me for hurling profanities at someone else’s child.

Fairfax sighs. This July 4th afternoon, rain continues its steady drumbeat on the roof.  The pool is alive with the intake of new water—fat droplets form divot after divot in the dancing blue.

There is a scrap of fabric stuck in the hedge—it’s been there since May, a mask abandoned during the party.  Fairfax has not removed it; she’s not sure who it belongs to, though the red and black grid pattern does seem similar to one Angela was wearing that day.  University of Georgia colors, her friend’s alma mater.

So it could be Angela’s.  Fairfax really should call her to ask—she hasn’t spoken to her in about two weeks, when she learned that Evan was COVID-positive.  Which was no surprise, given that Patient Zero had sneezed on him.

That conversation had been brief, yet candid and eye-opening in a way that Fairfax is still processing.  Maybe that’s why she hasn’t called Angela about the mask.  She was still feeding upon their last conversation.

“I feel I should just lay in on the line, Fairfax,” Angela had said, a softness in her voice belying the pointedness of her words. “You may not be aware of this, but my family’s medical history puts us at risk.”

“What?” Fairfax had squeaked out, confused.  Was Nate sick, or Evan? “Is someone sick?” she finally asked, thick-tongued, bumbling her words. “I mean, other than COVID-exposure, of course.”

There was a pause.  “Well, not yet, but we’ve got diabetes and heart disease coming to us from all branches of the family.” Angela sighed. “Nate’s numbers are borderline. We’re not alone, you know.  African Americans, in general, battle this stuff more than the white population.” There was a slight pause.  “We’re black if you hadn’t noticed.” She chuckled.

“Really?” Fairfax croaked, with a little hope in her voice. The slightest hint of amusement in Angela’s voice lifted her spirits a notch.  Maybe they could still be good friends, even after a fiasco like the party.

There was another chuckle on the other end of the line, then a full-throated laugh.  “What am I going to do with you?” Angela sang out.  “Oh my!  Well, I know we can agree on one thing: the party was a mistake.”

“I was just trying…”

“Yeah, I know what you were trying to do.  To be normal.  And I was trying to support you in that, which was against my better judgment, going to a party during a pandemic.”

“But…”

“Hold on, let me finish. So, I made a mistake too, put my family at risk by just showing up, never mind that boy jumping on Evan.  I should have been smarter.” Angela paused. Fairfax could hear a newscaster rambling on in the background. “So, I didn’t keep us safe…”

“Angela, it’s my fault! You followed all my rules…”

“Hold on, Ms. Fig!” Angela interrupted. “I did wrong simply by venturing into the company of others.  And so did you!”

“I know,” Fairfax had replied, almost in a whisper.

Angela’s voice dropped a notch in response. “Hey, you had cancer, you are having these bone marrow tests, Mike has high blood pressure—neither of you should be partying right now. No rules or protocol can keep you as safe as staying away from other people.”

“Of course, but…” Fairfax’s voice broke off.  She swallowed and continued.  “Are you mad at me?”

Angela cleared her throat, paused. “I’m mad at all of us.”  She sighed. “But I still love you and your family. None of you meant any harm.”

“Thank you, Angela.”

“Now, I just hope I don’t get it.”

“Or Nate.”

Angela laughed then.  A pleasant cackle that tickled Fairfax’s ear. “That man is as tough as shoe leather!  Nothing’s gonna get him!”

Fairfax certainly hopes not.  She wonders idly what, if anything, their friends have planned for the 4th.  There will surely be some fireworks; the Figueroa’s backyard was always a good vantage point from which to watch the Downtown display.  Even with COVID-19 first and foremost in her mind, she has to stop herself from reaching for her phone to invite people over to watch the spectacle.

Old impulses die hard.  Do not socialize.

Perhaps it would be okay to ask Nancy to come over, though. Just Nancy.

Nancy who, even though she had tested negative for the virus after the party, has not gone to see Adam in Atlanta nor has asked him to travel to Jacksonville.  She said she didn’t want to take the chance of exposing him to her.  Or her to him.  He’s healthy, she remarked, and she wants to keep him that way.

Nancy, who stood up for Fairfax, when some random woman on Facebook made a derogatory comment about “a large house party on Mallory Street” during Memorial Day acting as a “super spreader” event.  Jack told her about the post, which apparently had been shared and reshared into notoriety, and about Nancy’s defense of her.  Fairfax didn’t have a clue who the disgruntled poster was.

Though, in her deepest suspicions at zero dark thirty, she wonders if it was a mother of one of the party crashers.  That would make a kind of sense in today’s nutty world.

Fairfax does not want to research who the woman might be; in fact, she’s been staying off social media lately; she doesn’t want to venture into that terrain.  It puts a sour taste in her soul. With the virus resurgence and the election looming, it’s just too much to take in.  The division, the absoluteness.

The shame of her role in spreading disease. Endangering her family.  Herself.

Still, Fairfax will never forget her glimpse of Jack’s cell phone—the screen positioned solely on Nancy’s Facebook response to the outraged lady.

“Seek first to understand,” Nancy had written.

Oh, how true!

At some point Fairfax must have said those words to Nancy.  Or maybe her friend had read the The Seven Habits book too.  With all this time on her hands now, Fairfax should get a Kindle copy and reread it.  Once upon a time Fairfax had cared about being a “highly effective” person. Right now, though, it’s all she can do to make it through a homebound day.  Her old goals and pursuits have no place in the current world.  Parties and patterns and the perfect flower arrangement seem like bygone relics from a dead century, not passions from six months ago.

“Hey, Mom!” Jack’s voice interrupts Fairfax’s reverie, its new depth grabbing her attention. A definite bass range now. Could this be the puberty’s final push?  She shakes her head to clear away this thought, lest she voice it out loud and embarrass her youngest.

“Hey, Jack,” she responds and turns to get a good look at her son. Yes, he’s definitely matured since the spring.  He’s taller, more filled out.  Well, that could be because he’s been stuck in the house, not getting much exercise.  Come to think of it, neither of her boys have gone for runs lately.  It was their daily habit in high school.

“Have you heard?” Jack asks.  His face is somewhat pale.  Maybe Fairfax should ask him to mow the back yard once the rain stops.  A little outside activity would be good for him, put the rose back in his cheeks.

“No, what?” Fairfax expects another hurricane horror story, or, almost as bad, an election one.  What he says next shouldn’t surprise her, yet it does. It can’t help but make her blood run cold.

“Mrs. Sykes has COVID!”

Fairfax feels her shoulders slump down, her head sag forward.  No, she thinks.  Just no.  How much more should they be expected to take?

Poor Angela.  And it was Fairfax’s fault.  All of it.

Seek first to understand, indeed.

And the first one you should seek to understand is yourself.

Like how you could be such a fool?