…wants my number.
BASTIAN VS. HAND BUTTER
“Oscar, come on,” I chide. “Out of the way, this pot is heavy.”
And it is, especially since I’m carrying it with only my uncasted arm. It’s full of melted cocoa butter and shea butter, after all, which feels like liquid lead. I set it down on the kitchen table in a way that I hope is gentle. It’s not. Liquid butter sloshes out of the top and splatters onto the table.
“Oh god,” I breathe, slinging newspapers and a sweatshirt I left lying around all over it to wipe it up before it dries and turns into something as stubborn to remove as candle wax. I check my phone time. Four hours left till five p.m., which is the twenty-four-hour deadline. I ladle the butters into the little round flower molds and sprinkle the herbs over the top.
The lavender—my favorite scent—won’t be ready for another few weeks. But the others—the sage, the rosemary, and the oregano—are all fragrant and ready to be turned into soap. Or, in this case, bath melts. I gently stir a plastic spoon through the mostly clear liquid, pushing some of the herbs deeper down to distribute the scent evenly.
Oscar lets out a long whine that I can actually hear through the torrent of drums pounding through my headphones, and I slip them off my head and around my shoulders.
“What’s up, kiddo?” I ask him. But then I hear what he’s freaking out about. A high-pitched, screaming beeping sound like a smoke detector. Except it’s not ours. In fact, it sounds like it’s coming from outside. Out of curiosity, I set the spoon back in the bowl and make my way over to the window, cracking it open to the incessant beeping that’s amplified to an unignorable level. I look across the alley to Billie’s window. She’s nowhere to be seen, at first, but the lights are clearly on. Then, suddenly, Billie appears behind the glass in a flash and flings open the window, releasing a gentle haze of smoke out into the evening air.
“You okay?” I call up to her, but I don’t think she hears me, because she immediately turns to address whatever’s burning in there. Oscar looks up at me from the cushion to my left.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I say, fluffing his fur. “I’m sure she’s fine, whatever she’s making in there.”
But as I turn to leave, Oscar barks at me, beckoning me back to the window.
“What, you want me to just stare up there like a weirdo? She already caught me staring before. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”
He barks again.
“Of course a dog would tell me to do that. Y’all be sniffin’ each other’s butts and stuff.”
He whines.
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a fact, okay? I’m sure she’s fine. Besides, I’ve gotta get these in the fridge so they can set.”
I take the pan and slide it into the fridge, realizing that I never figured out a way to get this to her. With the pandemic, this is feeling a little implausible. Couldn’t we have just met at the window at five and waxed poetic about how wonderful our own concoctions are?
Nah, I think, not my style.
Pandemic or not, quarantine or not, I’ve got to find a way to get this to her.
In person.
BILLIE VS. THE SWAP
I knew I should’ve taken up juggling instead.
This gardening hobby got me creeping out the front door of our apartment cradling a baking dish of lasagna under my arm like a masked, hooded Black Santa Claus, just so I can prove I’m the better gardener, which should be obvious at this point. I’ve spent three weeks reading books on soil types, ideal sunlight and water conditions, and everything else a good plant parent should do. I’ve got this.
I sanitized the outside of the container, lid and all, so I smell like sanitizer and tomato sauce. But the air out here smells fresh and clear. On days like today, I’m glad I live in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by mountains and trees in the distance, which share their fresh air with us, even deep in the city. I turn and walk to the next building over—the complex where Bastian lives.
“Hi,” I say to the front desk woman, who’s wearing a mask and surrounded by all kinds of sanitation wipes, sprays, cloths, extra masks, and hand sanitizer. Without a word, she picks up the latter and holds it out to me. Since I’m holding the tray of lasagna, I set it gently on the counter and use the sanitizer, even though I’m going back out the front door in about twenty seconds.
“I, um,” I begin. How do I explain that I’m leaving this lasagna for a resident whose apartment number I don’t know, whose last name I don’t know, and who I’ve technically never met in person? I clear my throat and try to organize my thoughts. “I made this for a resident—”
“Name?”
“Billie,” I answer, and then realize she may be asking for his name. “Oh, uh, his name is Bastian. Sebastian.”
She looks up at me now, her blue eyes weighed down by her dark, thick eyebrows. “The takeout kid.”
A pang of sadness and shock hits me. The takeout kid? Does she commonly refer to residents by how much food they have to order because they may not know how to cook for themselves?
“Yeah,” I say, unable to hide my disgust.
“He’s been a bit quiet lately. Thought he mighta got the virus.”
My heart skips. What a callous, cruel thing to say. This virus may be everywhere, but Mom comes home with horror stories of the symptoms every day. Visions of ever-weakening patients with
