But despite all the warnings, hearing it was different. It felt like the plot to a book I hadn’t realised I was reading.
“We’ll be alright,” Mum said calmly.
I wanted her to be right, but wanting anything right now felt like asking for too much.
Chapter 9
March 26th
“Say that again?” I said incredulously, watching Becka rub moisturiser into her neck. She rolled her eyes before answering.
“It seemed logical. Ben was planning on moving back to the city, but his landlady told him last minute that she needed the apartment back so her daughter could isolate there. Apparently, she works in a hospital. What was I supposed to say?”
“I get that,” I said, trying to keep my tone measured, “but couldn’t he find somewhere else to stay?”
Becka put the little pot of cream down with more force than was necessary.
“Everyone is hiking their rental prices up. It’s nuts! The moment the word ‘lockdown’ hit the media, landlords suddenly decided they need an extra five hundred bucks a month? Even all the short-term rentals are mysteriously twice the cost. It’s bullshit!”
“So, Ben lives with you now?”
“You’re making it sound like we’re back together again,” she said defensively.
“Are you?” I asked, evenly.
Becka was silent for a few moments, chewing her lip.
“No,” she said, but she drew the word out like a question. “I mean, it was on the table. He was supposed to be ‘wooing’ me,” she chuckled.
“’Wooing’ you?”
“Don’t laugh,” she chided me, even though she, herself, laughed. “I know how it sounds. But we were…. We were going to see how it went, with him being back in the city.” She sighed. “But then this all happened.”
It had only been a couple of days since ‘lockdown’ had become reality, but already we lived in a very different world.
The media was flooded with pictures of empty streets that probably hadn’t been empty for decades. Clear blue skies, free of air plane trails. Unconcerned urban wildlife cheerfully strolling up empty streets.
The world had evacuated.
“Where is he, then?” I asked, scanning the screen behind her, looking for evidence of the man who would ‘woo’ my best friend.
“In bed, probably.”
“Yours?” I suppressed a grin.
“For fucks sake, Ky,” she sighed. “No. In your old bed.”
“First of all, ew, second… no, actually, my first point stands.”
“I’m hanging up.” Becka reached for the phone.
“No! Stop, stop, I’m sorry,” I laughed. “Look, with the amount of shit you gave me over ‘the idol’, I think I’m entitled to a few, light jabs about ‘the ex’.”
“Yeah yeah, yuk it up, chuckles,” Becka grouched.
The state of the world had us all in a heightened state of, well, everything. This slice of normalcy with Becka was exactly what I needed.
“Speaking of the idol, how is that going?”
