These days Cora works from home. Informational exchanges and the handing out of assignments occurs during online meetings. She has fun moving her laptop from place to place so the background changes. One morning the counters of the kitchen will shine behind her. The next day she’ll aim the screen out the front window, showcasing the tumbleweeds as they blow by. This is called being creative.
After showing up at an office in a building for all her adult life, doing a job without actually going to a job has been an adjustment. At first it was frustrating because she had to learn new processes regarding communication by computer—and with her computer she has a love/hate relationship. But after she got beyond the tricky part, she found that not being constantly accountable was freeing in that she gave less time to picking out her wardrobe and she could breeze through the day on her own schedule.
She works for the Caprock Chronicle, so it’s not like she’s been chained to a desk all these years. She’s been out conducting interviews and chasing stories over at the courthouse or at the various committee meetings, though having a desk and chair in a professional space made her feel more engaged than she does now. She misses the people she used to see every day.
Notification of an email from work pops up in the corner of her screen. She clicks.
Caprock Chronicle Staff,
The change in all our lifestyles over this last year has taught us that our newspaper is needed now more than ever. During this time of confusion, fear, and distress, the entire staff has been diligent in keeping our community informed and involved. As the pandemic winds down and we put away our masks, it is time to consider where we, as a company, stand. One adjustment that has proven to be successful has been our complete shift to online publishing. Because of this, the board has decided to permanently suspend paper copy. The printing presses will be put out to pasture and our downtown building will be put up for sale. In no way will this hinder our regular daily publication.
Yours most sincerely,
Edward Burnham
Editor, Caprock Chronicle
Ed. Her ex-husband. What an asshole. She would never do to another human being what he did to her.
In no way will this hinder our regular daily publication.
Well no, she supposes it won’t. But she estimates that it’ll put at least thirty people out of work—maintenance, reception, the operations and distribution crew. Out of the thirty-seven people The Chronicle employs, only advertising and the writers will remain. That’s thirteen people. And what about their face-to-face gabfests? Will there be no reason for colleagues to get together anymore? No more interpreting body language? No more klatches in the breakroom? No more nuances that can only be picked up when you’re standing with someone, breathing the same air?
Ben, sports; Marilyn, society and events; Greg, commerce and business; and Cora, local government. They’ve worked together for years. They have picnics, see movies, and enjoy intellectual discussions about world issues. Now they’ll all cruise around town in their protective private vehicles, return to their private residences, type up their pieces in their home offices, and press send.
And Larry, the gruff funny-smelling guy who designed and maintains the website, will have all the power.
Ed’s group email is followed by another, this one only sent to her.
What do you think? Did I strike the right tone?
His vanity yearns for positive feedback on his written word. But he lost his right to her opinions when he decided that he’d rather quarantine with Bethany. Bethany with her strawberry hair, full lips, perky boobs, and twenty-five years younger than he is.
Bizarrely, he doesn’t seem to understand why he no longer has Cora to turn to for support.
Cora puts a brake on her thoughts. If she allows the rage in, it will soon overtake.
Ten months ago she couldn’t communicate with him in anything other than a bitchy shriek. But she’s evolved. She deletes his email. Silence is also a form of communication.
Her phone sings out—Ride of the Valkyries—and a picture of her mother appears on the screen. Mom checks in most mornings.
“The paper’s going a hundred percent online,” Cora tells her—no greeting.
“I haven’t touched a newspaper in years,” Mom says. “Yicky on my fingers.”
“It was bound to happen. End of an era.”
“How long is an era?”
“A long time.”
There’s cheering in the background. A gameshow channel. Cora glances at the clock. Nine-fifteen. Jeopardy. Mom’s eighty and she spends her days in front of the television.
“You should go on one of those singles’ cruises,” Mom says.
A cruise advertisement must’ve come on.
“They might call it a singles’ cruise,” Cora tells her. “But believe me, no one goes by themselves.”
“So find yourself a wingman.”
Who would be her wingman? Does Mom think she’s surrounded by friends? Some might presume Mom’s lost touch with reality because she’s getting older, but she’s always been this way—seeing what she wants to see, making a rosy picture out of a colorless one.
“You doing okay?” from Cora.
“What’s your plan for the day?”
“An interview with Johnny Cantu.” Johnny’s the mayor. “Speaking of which, I need to go brush my hair and slap on some lipstick.”
“A lackluster student,” Mom says. “Tell him hello from me.”
They say their byes and end the call.
Johnny was in Mom’s AP English class. She says the bit about him being a lackluster student every time his name’s mentioned, as though she possesses a singular insight. He was a couple of years ahead of Cora at High Plains High, so she has no idea what kind of student he was, but slackers didn’t take advanced classes. She remembers thinking that he was a cutie. She had a crush.
This won’t be an actual in-person conversation. It’ll be online, which is a source of angst because everybody she interviews uses a different server. Over the course of the last year she’s been forced to download all these different communication apps. At first it was overwhelming, but then it just became annoying.
Preoccupied, she meanders back to the bedroom to get ready to face the day.
Her thick hair went its own way when her hairdresser closed. By the time the salon reopened she’d gone gray and grown it long, which isn’t a bad look for her. These days all she does is give it a vigorous brushing and fasten it back. Though she’s in her fifties, her skin is clear and she’s got good cheek bones. Small wrinkles threaten, but for now she falls into the “looks good for her age” category. In preparation for the interview, she applies moisturizer, lipstick, and mascara, and puts on a colorful top. Studying the mirror, she tilts her head and tries a flirtatious smile. Her old interest in Johnny lingers.
Then she returns to her kitchen table, arranges her laptop so that it gives a cheerful view of Bombolini, her cat, asleep on the couch, and contacts the mayor.
“Hey Cora,” he greets as his face appears. “Nice cat. Is it alive?”
Johnny’s been mayor for six years. He’s always well-groomed—every hair in place, the perfect amount of stubble shadowing his jaw, and sleeve creases starched. He is, however, noticeably short. The top of his head comes to her nose. In her opinion, he’s a perfect compact package. When visiting his office she’s noticed that his chair is adjusted to a high level. But this pretension is easy to ignore because his eyes are so compassionate and wise that they can turn the most immutable resolve into goo.
He, too, has given thought to his background; but he’s quotidian in his efforts, setting himself up in front of a neatly arranged bookshelf with a few Yuval Harari titles prominent beyond his left ear.
She sent him the questions yesterday, so he’s had time to prepare.
“Have you actually read Sapiens?” she asks.
“That question’s not on your list,” is his answer.
“Answer it anyway. Your constituents want to know.”
“Off the record—yes, I’ve read it.”
“Why off the record?”
“Because the only book my constituents want to know I’ve read is the Bible.”
“Fair enough.”
They turn their attention to the topics.
Masks, distancing, and vaccine requirements in school? He refers her to Ken March, head of the school board.
Plans for economic recovery? He refers her to Abigail Christopoulos, Commerce Chair.
Vaccine mandate for city workers? Waiting for the Town Council to weigh in.
Mom may have thought him an uninspired student, but he’s got a gift when it comes to delegating and deferring.
About halfway through their conversation her phone gives a ding. She glances at the screen—a text from Ed. It only takes a second to read it.
You didn’t respond to my email.
This, too, she deletes.
“How’re you doing?” she asks Johnny, switching to a concerned tone.
His wife, Marylou, died of lymphoma about a year ago—come to think of it, around the same time Ed decided that he’d prefer to endure the lockdown with someone else.
“Oh, you know.” Wistfully. “The kids keep tabs.”
He and Marylou had four children, two of them now minding his law practice. She imagines they’re close—and this makes her kind of sad because her kids live far away.
“They bring me food,” he continues, “and they call every day and last week they hired someone to come mow and put out weed killer and fertilizer without even checking with me first. They’re making decisions for me like I’m a child.”
“They care about you.”
“It’s exhausting and intrusive. How’re your kids doing?”
“Same-same. Sally’s in Edinburg and Derek’s in San Francisco. They call every week or two.”
Sally took a college year in Scotland, married a guy named Hamish who looks like Jamie in The Outlander, and hasn’t been back to the states since. No kids yet. And Derek is moving up the corporate ladder in a financial consulting company. He’s living with someone, Lisa, who works for the same company, whom Cora likes but doesn’t know well.
Since the divorce her conversations with the kids have become so stilted that she dreads their calls. Somehow Ed cheating on her with someone younger than they are translated into them no longer being able to talk freely with her. Maybe they’re afraid she’ll cry if they ask how she’s doing. Or maybe they feel guilty because they weren’t here to support her through the crisis. It’s fraught and they’ll have to navigate their own way.
Shaking off the gloomy thoughts, she straightens and smiles.
“Thanks for your time. Anything else I should know?”
He takes a few seconds to answer.
“Have you given thought to dating or is it too soon?” he asks.
The personal question is surprising. Is he looking for advice on the appropriate amount of time to mourn? This makes sense. In his position, the town is always watching and judging.
“Are you worried about what people will think?”
“Not really, no.”
“Dating,” she says thoughtfully. “Realistically speaking, you had time to prepare, so you did some of your mourning before Marylou actually passed—but should time even be a factor?”
Passed is one of those euphemisms that she ordinarily hates, but in this circumstance she can’t bring herself to say straight out that his wife died. It’s too blunt, too harsh.
“That’s one way to look at it. But I was asking about you dating, not me dating.”
“Oh, well our situations are different. You lost your wife in a tragic way that touches hearts, while I was publicly humiliated and I still work with my ex-husband and I run into his whore at the grocery store.”
Central Foods is a public hub, and though the vaccine has been out for a while, people are finding it difficult to let go of their fear; so best friends still squinch their eyes into smiles above their masks and wave at a distance. Last week she saw Bethany studying the bread. Her pink mask matched her pink yoga outfit. The sight of her made Cora furious and she headed to the cash register without several of the items on her list. The town’s just not big enough.
“Bitter much?”
“I try not to be.”
“Either way, both our marriages ended painfully.”
He must be lonely.
“Nobody would think less of you if you started dating,” she tells him “The notion that a person should wait a year is archaic.”
“Okay, then. Will you go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
A nervous flutter in her stomach, an anxious tightening in her chest.
“I’d like that,” she tells him.
“Excellent,” he says with a grin. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
And he disappears from the screen.
She has a date. She’s been asked out.
It’s been ages since she’s worn anything but jeans. Going out in public for a meal was unheard of a couple of months ago. Oddly, though the covid spread in this area is the lowest it’s been in a year, public events and places like restaurants are still sticking with restrictions. It’ll be interesting to see how much progress has been made in getting things reopened.
While she’s working on the article Ed texts three times, emails twice, and calls once, leaving a message—she deletes every one of his attempts at contact. He’s got this idea that they can be friends. He can be pretty stupid.
When the doorbell rings she assumes he’s become desperate enough to drive over here, so she peeks out between the blinds in the dining room.
But it’s not Ed, it’s Derek. She hasn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks; and here he is, slumped against the wall of the house with a disposable mask dangling from an ear. A rental car sits out by the curb.
Pleased that he’s here, she moves quickly to let him in.
She doesn’t have a second to look at him filling her doorway before he throws his arms around her and pulls her close. She returns the hug but is surprised because they’ve never been a demonstrative family and their embraces have always been perfunctory. But here he is, gripping tightly with his face tucked into her neck.
And then she feels a tremor run through his body.
Her grown son is crying in her arms.
She pulls away and, pushing him to arms’ length, searches his face for a clue as to what’s brought him here. He’s red and snotty and his eyes are bloodshot and full of pain. Her boy is devastated.
“Derek,” she says. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?”
“I just—” and he says no more.
Brushing past her he shuffles down the few steps into the living room and collapses on the couch. She follows and, sitting next to him, waits for him to pull himself together.
“Lisa killed herself,” he tells her with a sniff.
Her tears are immediate.
They’d lived together for three years. She only met Lisa that one time when she and Ed flew out for a visit. She didn’t know her well enough to love her. But she planned to love her. She assumed marriage was in their future.
“Oh hon, I’m so sorry.”
So many questions—how and why? Had she been depressed? If she was bipolar or something, Derek never mentioned it. Oh dear God, did he find her lifeless body? What had she been going through that would lead her to take her own life?
“I wasn’t enough,” he says, wiping his sleeve across his nose like a six-year-old.
He held his misery inside through the ride to the airport, the flight, the rental car counter—all so he could burst into tears on her shoulder.
He needs some pampering.
“Go take a hot shower,” she tells him. “Then wine and spaghetti.”
Comfort food at two o’clock in the afternoon.
For a minute he stares at the floor. Then he rises with the stiffness of an old man and drags his feet toward the stairs.
