Michele, a pretty, thirty-four-year-old redhead, and semi-retired special-ed teacher took a closer look at her seven-year-old daughter Jannie. She doesn't look good she thought as she stuck yesterday's dirty clothes into the mesh bag that hung in their 27 ft. sailboat for just such purposes. Not like a perky kid out for a 3-day getaway with her parents, far away from homeschooling. Asthma attack coming on? Always a worry. A cold? COVID-19?
“Jannie are you Ok? Feeling all right?”
"Yes, Mama. Just tired and my throat hurts a little."
Her throat hurts. Michele’s mind raced through COVID-19 symptoms. This was not good. But COVID-19 was rare in children. Wasn’t it? She’d been homeschooling Jannie all spring. But there was that outing for her cousin’s birthday a week and a half ago where everyone was supposed to be wearing masks and social distancing. But were they? Michele didn’t want to overreact and scare her daughter, but…but what? Ignore the sore throat and take a risk?
This getaway, this sail, was supposed to be a break for them. A break from being in the house, the part-time roofing gig her husband Jake had taken while waiting for a go-ahead from his last remaining client from his regular job as a software engineer, (It seems no one wants to upgrade their companies' office software when there really were no offices anymore.) and the constant drumbeat of COVID-19. It would also be a break from her mother’s COVID-19 hospitalization, her sister's death from malignant melanoma last winter, and everything else. Jake had said maybe they'd all be able to relax and sleep better on the boat, so she said she'd try, but one of the scarier parts of everything else was her own recent diagnosis of a malignant melanoma right in the middle of her forehead, and until after the Mohr's surgery she didn't think she would ever sleep through the night again. They wouldn't be keeping the boat much longer at any rate.
Jake stuck his head below deck. He was good looking, tall, and long-legged. And thanks to that gig he was even in pretty good shape, which was nice since they would have had to cancel their gym membership even if COVID-19 hadn't canceled it for them.
“Ready to go Honey?” he asked his daughter.
“Yes, but do you have our masks Mom?” Jannie answered.
“Of course. Three of them right here in my shoulder bag.” It crossed Michele’s mind that wearing a facemask shouldn’t be so natural to a nine-year-old. But if wearing masks helped why not be sure she knew enough to wear one?
“Got your sunscreen?” Already Jannie was in tune with the new layer of fear and tension in the house and Michele had only gotten the diagnosis a few days ago.
Michele checked her back pocket for the tube. “Right here. Let’s go.”
As they climbed in the dingy, Michele whispered to her husband. “Jannie has a sore throat.” He gave her a look and a quick nod no. They’d talk later. Sag Harbor was beautiful as usual and likewise full of beautiful people. Thin, trim. Lululemon-ed women with flat bellies and a casually confident style. Both men and women looked sleek and athletic and were dressed in expensive weekend clothes. The men were standing down after a hard week of making sure they were sufficiently achieving, and the women were moving front and center to advertise all that achievement. The streets were tree-lined, the sidewalks wide, the shops overpriced but nice to browse in. Even in Jake’s and Michele’s best years, when they were both working, these were not shops Michele and Jake could really afford to shop in. But both blended in on the surface and they could afford to eat an expensive lunch here once in a while. Maybe Michele could even afford a t-shirt on a sidewalk sale outside one of the shops, but that is where the blending in stopped.
They walked down the main street. Jake and Michele kept a few steps behind Jannie, giving them a chance to talk. They tried to keep their voices down but masks made that almost impossible."I think she'll be fine," Jake said. "Did you look at her throat?"
“I don’t know what to look for. I’m a teacher, not a doctor.”
“Well let’s not get crazy. Let’s wait a couple of hours."
Michele and Jannie weaved in and out of the shops while Jake followed two steps behind, occasionally sitting on one of the benches along the sidewalk, ready to supply a few dollars for a soda, or an ice-cream. If Jannie wanted to eat or drink something he would take that as a good sign.
The morning passed fairly pleasantly and you could almost forget the world was in the middle of a pandemic. Michele even bought a t-shirt. Jannie had several opportunities to ask for something to eat or drink but remained quiet. Both of them knew quiet is never good in a nine-year-old.
They decided a simple lunch was in order. Egg salad like Jannie liked. They'd get take-out from a deli. Then back to the boat for a nap for Jannie. If she wasn't better by later that afternoon they'd go directly home. They found a picnic table at the far end of the public park that ran behind Main Street and settled down to eat.
“Time to re-sunscreen Mom.” The first words Jannie had spoken in half an hour.
Michele nodded. “Right you are.” She took her time before reaching into her back pocket.
“Hurry Mom! Reapply every few hours like the doctor said!”
“OK, OK Jannie.”
But there was no sunscreen there. She checked her front pockets. Not there either. Quickly she stood up from the picnic table and searched the ground around her."It's gone," she said. "It must have fallen out of my pocket in the dingy."
Jake started gathering up their lunch. “We’re heading back to the boat.”
“But Mom needs it now! Now! The dingy is way over in another part of town!” "OK! Calm down," said Jake. "Your mom will be ok till we get back to the dingy!"
He bent down and felt Jannie’s forehead."Warm." He mouthed to Michele. They'd left the thermometer at home but even without it, he could tell she was definitely hot. His mind raced. That God damn party. They weren't all in masks. Please just a cold, not COVID-19 on top of asthma.
“No, she won’t!” Jannie began to wheeze. “Mom needs sunscreen right now!" she continued wheezing, “Get her some sunscreen or she’ll die like Aunt Irene.”
"Jannie, please. Your asthma." Michele said. "Here's your inhaler."
Jannie took a couple of inhales and started to breathe easier.
“How do you feel Honey. How’s the throat?"
“Sore.”
“Let's get you to the boat and then right home.” Michele took her hand and began to walk back to Main Street.
“No! Daddy- go get Momma some sunscreen! Please! Hurry up! The boat is way at the other end of town."Michele and Jake stared at each other for a moment."Alright," Jake said. "There's a convenience store about a block away. Right down the street, I'll go get some sunscreen. I'll be back in five minutes, just stay here and promise to stay calm. We'll all go back to the dingy together.”
Jake took off at a slow jog. When he was about a hundred yards from the convenience store, The Quickie, (a stupid name that at any other time he would have laughed at) his iPhone rang. It took a second for Jake to recognize it was the number he'd been waiting for, the number of his last semi-active client, but when he did, he thanked God. After much sidewalk pacing, arm-waving, and in general over-animated conversation, he ended the call.
“Yes. Got it!” He said out loud. “Finally!” He could have cried with happiness. Then he glanced at his watch. When he realized twenty-five minutes had passed not five his mood quickly changed. He pulled open the door to The Quickie anxious and mad at himself.
He scanned the first few shelves. “Where’s the sunscreen?” he asked no one in particular. When no one answered immediately, he walked toward the center of the store and asked again, this time very loudly. A female voice from the other side of the store answered him calmly. “The last aisle at the end.”
He found a small overpriced bottle of off-brand sunscreen and brought it to the counter where he met the source of the female voice. She was young, with red-rimmed eyes, probably high Jake thought, and she wasn't wearing a mask."Hey, where's your mask?".
The girl just stared at him.
“You know you could be spreading COVID-19.” Jake tossed the sunscreen on the counter along with a twenty. A second later a big guy with a Quickie logo on his shirt, that strained over his stomach, stepped up to the counter next to the girl."Sorry, sir. You're right. She should be wearing a mask. We all wear one here. Normally." He made a point of readjusting the one on his face.
Then he pushed the girl aside, finished the sale, and steered the girl by the elbow away from the counter.
Jake left the Quickie and before he could even leave the parking lot his cell phone rang again.
He knew it had to be Michele. He quickly took the call. And when he looked down the street, he knew what the call was about. An ambulance was pulling up next to the picnic table.
After assuring Michele he would meet her at the hospital as fast as he could, he called an Uber and dropped down on the curb to wait. When he glanced to his left, he saw the girl from behind the counter. She was also sitting on the curb about a dozen feet away. And she looked like she was crying.
Jake turned his gaze away quickly. He couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. He knew he'd gotten her fired. He knew her pain was his fault.
At any other time in his life, if he'd said something that had gotten someone fired in a situation like that, he would have intervened. Gone to the manager. Told him or her he'd overreacted. Asked the boss to give the employee a break, another chance. And if that hadn't work, he would have apologized to the employee and tried to make things right. Somehow. In this case, he would tell the young woman he never wanted to get her fired. That he wasn't rich and entitled like lots of the people he supposed she rang up in the summer. That wasn't him. It was just that right now he was so worried about his daughter's health, she has asthma and maybe COVID-19. And he was worried about his wife's health, she may have a bad cancer. And he was hanging onto their house by the smallest thread. But all he could bear to do was stare in the opposite direction, wait for the Uber and say nothing. And that brought him to tears.
So they both sat on the curb in front of The Quickie and cried.
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