by L. P. Guleva
"The last thing you need right now is me coming over with all the germs. It already sucks that they might make you wear a mask in the delivery room."
"Yeah, but you lost your job. How are you going to pay rent?"
"I don't know. No one is getting evicted for the next three months." After that was a whole other issue. "Besides isn't Ed working in the hotel industry? They aren't doing well right now."
"We're fine, trust me. And you know you can always ask me for help if you need it."
"I know." But hopefully it won't come to that. "I have to go get some schoolwork done. I'll talk to you another day."
As soon as I hung up, my phone rang with a video chat request from Matt. I accepted and plastered on a smile. At least he might distract me from my problems, because nothing else was helping, so far.
“Hey, gorgeous. Guess what, I hit a jackpot. There’s this small mom and pop store about a half an hour drive from Brooklyn that has everything. They aren’t even setting limits on any of the items. So, what are we cooking?”
“Let me see what you’ve got, and we can figure it out from there.”
Matt pointed the camera at the pile of food on the table. Rice, oil, meat, carrots, onions, and a whole bunch of other staples.
“We can make pilaf, but it’ll take a while.”
“Teach me your magic ways.”
“Well, first you need to put everything you won’t cook right now in the fridge before it spoils. Just leave that stew meat, onions, carrots, and the bag of rice.”
While Matt put everything away, I took my ingredients out. I didn’t want to make too much, preferring freshly made meals to leftovers. Pilaf for one felt strange.
“Alrighty, where do I start?” Matt asked.
“With onions.” I set the phone in the opened kitchen cabinet, so Matt could see what I was doing without me holding it. “You need to chop it into semicircles. Oh, wait, show me what you have to cook in.”
Matt pulled out a couple of pots, a saucepan, and two frying pans. Not ideal, but if he was making a meal only for himself then it would have to do.
“That bad, huh?” he asked.
“It’ll work. Normally, you’d need something else. Take the larger frying pan and pour oil in it.” I never measured anything, so I eyeballed my own. “While it’s heating up, you can dice your onions.”
Matt got to work, cutting slowly but thinly. I was done with mine before he got to the second half of his.
“I see what all the fuss is about. I’m not even done chopping one, and I’m crying.” He wiped his eyes, bringing the knife dangerously close to his face.
“You just got a mean onion. It wants you to suffer.” I emptied the cutting board into the braiser pan. “Keep it cooking until it’s brown. After that, you’ll need to add meat.” I took out a chicken thigh. “Traditionally, it’s made with lamb, but any meat would work.”
Matt followed my lead. “You just remember all of the steps?”
“I’ve been making this since I was fourteen. My parents had to work a lot, so I ended up making all the meals.”
“You have siblings?” Matt picked up a large carrot and a vegetable peeler.
“Two younger brothers and an older sister. My sister went to Japan as an exchange student, so she wasn't around for a few years. My brothers helped out though. By now, I bet they make better pilaf than I can.”
“Impossible. You look like you were born with a knife.”
“That’s a very disturbing image. What kind of dystopia do you think this is?”
“I don’t know, but a zombie apocalypse would’ve been cooler than a pandemic.”
I smiled. “I think this is a zombie apocalypse. My landlord sent everyone a notice not to throw shredded tees into the toilet, so there’s at least one brain dead in my building.”
“No kidding.” He frowned at the phone. “How the hell do you cut it like that?”
“I’m used to it. If you don’t get perfect strips, it’s no big deal. You just need the carrots to be thin enough to cook through, but thick enough not to fall apart.”
Matt got back to work, his brows drawn together, his knife making slow progress, carving perfectly even slivers. “Cooking is hard.”
“It’s not. You’re just a perfectionist. The food is going to get chewed up anyway.”
“But it’s going to look right until then. That’s a nice dress by the way. Aren’t you supposed to wear an apron so you don’t get your clothes messy?”
“I never wear those.” I brushed my hand against the red fabric. Not my usual cooking attire, but I had felt the need to dress up for this not-a-date thing we were doing.
“Alright, what awful thing are you gonna have me do now?”
“Wash the rice. Just keep rinsing it until the water is clear.” I did the same. “Now show me what spices you’ve got.”
There wasn’t much, but he had the most important one.
“Take cumin, salt, and red pepper.”
“It already smells good.” Matt put the rice over the meat, added the spices, then poured enough water to cover it all. “What’s next?”
“Now we just have to wait for it to be done.” I picked up the phone and moved it to the table.
Matt rubbed his neck. “I was thinking about trying snail mail. Any chance I could have your mailing address? I swear, I’m not trying to be creepy.”
“It’s not creepy.” I sent it to him as a text. “What do you want to send?”
“It’s a surprise.” He smirked at the camera. “I guess it means you like me. Most of the time that’s the only difference between creepy and charming.”
“That’s a strange theory.”
“It’s true, though. A guy walking a girl home can be sweet or stalkerish, depending on if the girl likes him. Getting, I don’t know, a love letter, for example, can be hella creepy too.”
“I think it depends more on how well the girl knows the sender.”
Matt shook his head. “You can know the guy for years and it would be the same. Imagine if one of your classmates kept sending you something and following you around every single day. Every time you go to college, he tries to sit with you and talk. You go to the library to study, and he’s right there, talking about his hobbies, which involve writing you love poems.”
“Alright, that’s creepy.”
“Not if you like him. Then it’s romantic. Being a man is hard work. We keep having to figure out what’s creepy.” He grinned and winked at me. “Glad you think I’m charming.”
“You’re impossible.” I couldn’t help answering his smile. “Do you want to play backgammon while we wait?”
“Hell no. I’m never playing against you again.”
“Alright, how about battleships? It’s easy.”
Matt picked up his phone and sent me a request to join the game. “You’ll figure out a way to kick my ass.”
I accepted and started placing my ships. “You can go first, if you’d like.”
“Ladies first.”
“Alright, E5.”
“Sorry, you missed. A1.”
“Missed. F6. What do you usually do when you’re not busy with your art?”
“Missed. Hang out with my friends, go to the beach. There’s a nice park about an hour drive outside the city. A small beach on one side, woods on the other, and a bunch of picnic tables all over. Whenever the weather is decent and I have enough time, that’s a good hangout spot. B5.”
“Missed. G7. So, you like having barbecues and you like nature. Maybe next time I can tell you how I marinate meat.”
Matt grinned at the camera. “You’re drawing a diagonal line through the board. Hit.”
“You’re actually happy about it?” The game allowed me to guess again. “G8.”
“Missed. Just happy I figured out your strategy and that I guessed correctly that you’ll kick my ass. “I2”
“Hit. You never know. There’s always hope that your strategy is better than mine.”
“My strategy is to call out random numbers and hope I get lucky. “I3.”
“Sunk.”
He was right. By drawing diagonal lines, I reduced my guesses in half. Before I knew it, I got his last ship and our food was done.
“Do you cook every day?” Matt asked.
“A few times a day. It’s not the same if I have to warm the food up, but if I have leftovers, I try to turn them into something new for breakfast.”
“Like what?” He tried the first forkful of pilaf.
“If I have any of this left, I’ll throw it in the frying pan with a couple of eggs.”
“I can tell you right now that I won’t have anything left. This is good. What are we cooking tomorrow?”
“Do you like soups?”
“Most of them, yeah, but I thought you need broth to make those.”
“We can make shurpa. Just make sure you have some meat ready for it, and we’ll make the broth ourselves. Buying it in cardboard boxes is disgusting.”
“You’re the chef here, so I’m not gonna argue.”
Chapter 6
Matt
AN UGLY FEELING SWIRLED in my stomach as I filled out the online form. Unemployment. Damn. As much as I hated it, there was no choice. Worse than that, my lease was expiring this month. I doubted that the no evictions for the next three months would apply to me, and if I couldn’t renew the lease then I’d have to pay three months’ rent upfront when I get a new place.
I logged into my bank account to check the balance. At least I got my stimulus check, but that wouldn’t even cover one month’s worth of bills. My email stayed silent. No gigs available, with everyone looking at their own dwindling savings. What was the point of living in New York if I couldn’t get a decent-paying job? Or any job, for that matter. All I was doing was throwing what little money I had left down the drain.
My phone looked at me from the table, beckoning, offering an easy solution. My pride was taking one hell of a plunge as it was. I didn’t need to add another failure to the list by asking my parents if I could move back in. I could still at least call my parents and ask them how they were doing.
I put the phone on speaker and sat back in my drafting chair. It took two rings.
“Hi, Matty,” Mom said, her voice strained. “How are you? I’m so glad you called.”
“I’m good, Mom. How are you and dad doing? Keeping safe?”
“Of course. We’re trying to enjoy ourselves as much as we can. Jake came over today, so we had breakfast together and watched a couple of movies.”
I shut my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Why didn’t they ever learn? “Did he order takeout?”
“Yes. We got pizza for lunch. You know how much your brother loves it.”
“Please, tell me you paid for it yourself and didn’t give him the card.”
“You know I can’t see those tiny numbers.”
I groaned. “Can you call your bank and ask them to send you a new card? Tell them you lost your wallet, or something.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t and he empties your account again, I won’t be able to bail you out. I have no work right now. I don’t even know if I can pay my own rent.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. Jake wouldn’t do that again.” She stopped to take a few breaths before asking, “How are you doing? Have you met anyone yet?”
“We’re in lockdown. Where could I meet a girl, with all this?” My eyes moved up the drafting table, where my latest sketch waited for me. Zamira’s face just kept crawling into my head, and not letting go. Our virtual dates weren’t helping. “And you’re changing the topic. Of course, he’ll do it again. How many times did you have to change your cards because of him? You even got a new bank account because he stole your checkbook.”
“He never stole the checkbook. He just took a picture of it and used the account number. Your dad had a nice long talk with him and it won’t happen again.”
I should’ve learned by now how useless my attempts to make them see the light really were. My parents loved their kids way too much to admit that one of them was a scumbag.
“Alright. I guess I better try to find some gig before I end up on the street. Call me if you need anything.”
I hung up and moved my sketch closer. Zamira’s eyes sparkled at me the way they did while we played battleship. She was the one person that didn’t stress me out. Every time we talked, the world faded away and none of my problems seemed like a big deal. We had cooked together a few times already, so even my diet had improved.
Pushing off the desk, I got to the file cabinet, took out an envelope, and put the sketch inside. Maybe, when this whole lockdown madness was over, I could reconsider dating. What was the worst that could happen?
I grabbed my bandana, secured it over my face, and went out to the nearest mailbox. It shouldn’t take long for the letter to get to her.
As soon as I got home, I set my phone up on the table and requested a video chat with Zamira. She rejected, then called back with just the audio.
“Let me guess, you’re not wearing makeup,” I said.
“I’m not even dressed. You didn’t tell me you’d call today.”
“I don’t mind seeing you undressed.” Was I coming on too strong? Crap. I probably was.
“I don’t mean like that. It’s just an old shirt and pajama pants. I was laying around reading all day and didn’t feel like getting up.”
“Speaking of reading, I started Master and Margarita. I think a lot of it is flying right over my head though. Woland is the devil, right?”
“Yes, and the cat can also be a human.”
“So, that’s why his name is Behemoth. Makes sense.”
“No, that’s a mistranslation. His name is Hippopotamus. It’s just that in Russian behemoth means hippopotamus and it rhymes with cat.”
I let out a long breath. “That’s confusing.”
“It makes a lot more sense in Russian, especially if you know the culture. Did you have a problem with anything else?”
“Yeah, with the jumps to Yeshua Ha-Nostri. That was a little jarring.”
“Bulgakov went all out on religion in that book. There’s a lot of philosophy there that people don’t think about when they talk about religion. I mean, the devil isn’t exactly the bad guy in this book.”
“I don’t know about that. Berlioz got KOed, and Homeless ended up in the psych ward.”
“But Woland didn’t actually kill Berlioz, he just predicted his death. And Homeless basically told the devil that the devil doesn’t exist. Other than that, Woland is only punishing people who deserved it. He obviously doesn’t like forgiving, but he’s not going after people who aren’t doing anything wrong.”
“He’s setting them up though. The whole magic act thing, where they rained money on the audience and then the money turned into bees? That’s entrapment.”
“The devil didn’t make them greedy, he just exposed it. And, it wasn’t him, it was the cat and Koroviev.”
“I guess I see your point, but I don’t know, I feel like if you don’t want people to be assholes, don’t tempt them.”
“Hold on. I’ll call you right back.” Zamira disconnected and immediately requested a video chat. As always, she looked perfect. The violet dress highlighted her pale pink lipstick and the cooler tones of the eyeshadow.
“Hi, gorgeous. You know you don’t have to wear makeup, right?”
“You told me that already.” She sat down on the couch and left the phone on the coffee table. “It won’t happen.”
I shrugged. “Just saying. So, what are we cooking today, or are you not in the mood for it?”
Zamira reached to her left, just out of camera view then showed me a fabric mask. “I was going to make a few of these today and just eat leftovers, but if you want to cook, we can do that instead.”
“I’ve been using a bandana. It’s kinda crazy that I can’t buy a mask unless I already have one bec
ause I’m not even allowed outside unless I cover my mug.”
Zamira smiled at me, her eyes sparkling. “I have a friend that drives trucks. He said that all of the truck drivers became fashionistas. Everyone is accessorizing with scarves and bandanas. They can’t even get a cup of coffee without covering their faces with something.”
“That sucks.” But at least they still had their jobs. “We’re in the wrong city for this thing. One of the most expensive places to live, with most of the businesses shut down and no jobs. But we’re getting slammed by this virus.”
Zamira’s smile vanished. “I know. I don’t think restaurants will open for at least a few months. My waitressing job probably won’t be waiting for me even after this is over.”
“Let’s bail.” As always, my mouth worked faster than common sense. “I mean, we can probably find some cabin in the middle of nowhere for half the price of the apartments in Brooklyn, and we won’t be locked up indoors all day. I’m going nuts here. I know it’s stupid, but I keep going out to buy food because it’s something other than the same four walls.”
“I don’t think it’ll be as cheap as you think. A lot of people probably have the same idea.”
“I can at least try. So, wanna go with me, if I do find something? It’ll be more fun than doing it alone.” Her being smoking hot had nothing to do with it. “We can just play backgammon and battleship all day if you want. I swear, I won’t try anything.”
“Maybe. I don’t have much. The apartment was furnished, so it’s mostly just my clothes, but I don’t have a car.”
“I do.” Screw rent. The same money could last me much longer somewhere else. It didn’t matter where I spent my unemployment, but it would take time to get it, time I didn’t have.
“Alright, but I want my own bedroom.”
“Definitely. I’ll get to it then. I’ll let you know if I find something.”
Chapter 7
Zamira
TWO LUGGAGE BAGS SAT by the door. The food stayed in the fridge. Matt had promised to bring a few coolers and a bag of ice, but he wasn’t here yet. I drummed my fingers on the kitchen table, unsure what to do with myself. My phone stared at me, its screen dark.
