My Funny Quarantine

by Rachel Abugov

  Freddie was about to bite her nails, then she realized she didn’t have the safety net of her acrylics. This was so scary. What if it was just a fling? Would she and Mike be able to sustain a relationship over the long haul? The odds were against them. What if Mike never understood her ambition? Would he resent her for it? When her masks became a status symbol, and it was definitely a ‘when’ and not an ‘if’, Freddie would be catapulted back into the spotlight. This time, she’d be the star, not a supporting character.

  The thought gave Freddie comfort as she devoured the last onion ring. Wiping her fingers delicately on a napkin, she started going over her to-do list, then she realized that if she took the garbage over to the can, she’d have a minute to clear her head. It couldn’t hurt. Being organized was a Good Thing.

  Organization came more naturally to Mike, though. He already had a plan.

  “Logistically speaking, I think I’ll drop you off first,” he said. “We can unload your stuff. It won’t take more than a few minutes, and then we can pick up the Grannies. You want to come along for the ride, right?”

  “Sure! That would be great!” Oh, this was beyond wonderful. Mike still wanted to hang out with her, even though they’d been together non-stop for 24.5 days, if you counted the trip to Plattsburgh. Maybe he just wanted to thank Freddie for including Nana Fran in her circle. No. He would have said that outright. If there was one thing she knew about Mike Moskowitz, it was that he would be always straight with her. No bull, no waffling, and above all, no hypocrisy. She’d had enough of that with The Family Who Would Not Be Mentioned. Nice to your face, and then…

  Freddie rummaged in her purse for the envelope that held the key to the house. What weirdness, to have to mail a key, disguised in a greeting card, because of the lockdown. She opened the envelope, then saw that the card had a cartoon of Cinderella. “Happy Birthday to My Little Princess”, it read.

  “I guess that was the only thing she could get,” mused Freddie. “They have a gift shop, but it’s pretty random.” Then she opened the card and read the message, in Bubbie Rose’s distinctive handwriting. Penmanship and cursive writing had fallen by the wayside for the younger generation, but for Rose and her contemporaries, it remained a standard to be upheld.

  The cold metal of the key warmed in Freddie’s hand as she read the note. Her luminous eyes were tearing up, and Mike reached over and placed his hand gently on her thigh.

  “Maybe you want to take a minute,” he said, his tone gentle. Amazing how at the beginning of their relationship, he would have snarked at Freddie, making her cry even harder. But that was then, and this most definitely was now. A new normal.

  “N-no. I’m okay,” Freddie said. “But you should read what Bubbie wrote.” She handed the card to Mike.

  “My dearest Freydaleh,” he read. “I’m so proud of you and everything you’ve accomplished. This is only the beginning. You’ll have the world at your feet by the end of the month, if I know you. And since you’re my carbon copy, I do know you! The one thing you don’t have is a home of your own, so I’m giving you this one. Use it in good health, make masks and then make memories. All my love, Bubbie Rose. P.S.: Don’t forget to feed the plants.”

  “Your grandmother gave you her house.” Mike couldn’t say anything else. There was nothing really to say.

  “She always said stuff about not wanting to leave me anything in her will because she wanted to see me enjoy it when she was still alive. I figured she was talking about her china collection. She has an entire china cabinet filled with odd cups and saucers. They belonged to my grandmother. The one I’m named after. Nobody ever dreamed of having tea in them. It would be like taking an action figure out of the box and playing with it.”

  “I get that,” said Mike, thinking of his shelf of collectibles. “We should head over to your house,” he said, emphasizing the word ‘your’. “You can give me a tour before we go to the King Solomon.”

  “I’ll let Bubbie lead the tour. She’s texted me three times already. Who knew she would become a texting person?” Freddie smiled through her tears, then busied herself slipping the key onto her keychain.

  “I’m not homeless,” she said under her breath. “I have a home.” She smoothed her hair, angling the mirror to get a better look. Mike said nothing and readjusted the mirror for the thousandth time. But not until he said, “You look beautiful. Just relax and enjoy the moment. This is a new beginning for you.”

  Several hours later…

  “Welcome home,” said Freddie as she ushered Nana Fran into the house. Her house. She did a happy dance that was only partly a twerk, because she didn’t want to create a scandal in her new neighbourhood.

  Bubbie Rose was schlepping a rollaway bag up the walkway that was practically taller than she was, arguing strenuously with Mike that she was perfectly capable of carrying her own luggage, thank you very much!

  It didn’t take long for The Grannies to settle in. Rose had the unpacking skills of Marie Kondo, and Fran just opened the suitcase and asked Mike to leave it on the dresser. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here, so I don’t want to get too comfortable,” she said.

  “Well, you may be here till things open up again, so you might as well do a little nesting,” said Mike, reaching into the suitcase and pulling out a bottle of purple shampoo.

  “Purple Haze shampoo? Since when are you a Hendrix fan? I thought you liked Peter, Paul and Mary.”

  “I do. I watched that special on PBS half a dozen times,” said Fran. “I need the shampoo to keep my hair from yellowing,” she explained.

  “So, no Blonde Ambition tour for you. Glad we settled that.” Under his watchful eye, Fran reluctantly unpacked her clothes, and allowed Mike to hang the garments in the closet. He had to push items out of the way to make space, and he wondered whether Freddie would want to trash them or delight in the fact that they were vintage.

  “Sooooo….” Fran patted the bed, motioning her grandson to sit down next to her. He knew what was coming, and he took a deep breath before facing the inevitable.

  “So, Mikey. How’s it going with Fredelle? That was a very long first date, wasn’t it?”

  “Don’t smirk, Nana. It’s not your look. And things are going very well. At least I think they are. But I’ve been known to be wrong before, so don’t take my word for it.” Mike grabbed a china doll from the shelf and placed it in the bottom drawer of the dresser. “That thing stares right through you,” he explained. “It’s like something off of Seinfeld.”

  You could never go wrong with a Seinfeld comparison. Mike lived by this credo, and it had gotten him out of many an awkward situation. Watching his grandmother unpack actual granny panties in his possible girlfriend’s new/old home? This may have been the most awkward situation in the history of the world. There was no rulebook for this. By the time the housecoats were neatly arranged, Mike was cracking like an egg. On the one hand, he’d just spent two weeks in the company of the most maddening person on the planet. On the other hand, she was also the most endearing person on the planet. Mike didn’t know whether his Inner Child was tall enough to ride this emotional roller coaster.

  Freddie was in the room next door, presumably helping her grandmother unpack. Mike didn’t know where Freddie was going to sleep, and he hoped to hell there was a wing of the house that he hadn’t seen, because at this very second, he wanted nothing more than to properly welcome Freddie to her new home. If this were a romance novel, the appropriate word would have been “ravish.” “Jumping her bones” would have also worked, although the truth of the matter was that he wanted to make love to her slowly, deliberately, and intensely.

  “Knock, knock! It’s me! Am I interrupting anything?” Oh, shit. There she was. Freddie in all her Freddieness, draped in a colourful gypsy shawl which contrasted with her gray yoga gear.

  “I thought you might like to see the downstairs, Mike,” she said invitingly. “Where all the magic’s gonna happen.”

  “The sewing room
is down there,” said Rose helpfully.

  “That too,” Freddie giggled. “But we’re also setting up Mom’s quilting stuff. She has a super-high-tech machine and a fabric cutter, so we’ll have two cutters to work with and Dad knows someone who’s going to have special dies made. Maybe you can help me unfold the ping-pong table. It weighs a ton.”

  “Absolutely,” said Mike, jumping up. “Stay here, Nana. I don’t want you going down any stairs until we see how bright the lighting is,” he said to Fran, kissing her on top of her head. “Once we’re sure it’s safe, then you can come check it out.”

  “How considerate,” said Rose, trying not to smirk. Ladies of their generation didn’t usually high-five, but they did the next best thing and exchanged knowing glances. Many of them. Then they adjourned to the kitchen and started to put the food order away, after a long discussion about why they put an egg holder in the fridge when everybody knew that eggs should stay in the carton to stay fresh.

  Chapter 14

  To Mike’s great disappointment, ‘unfold the ping-pong table’ was not a cute euphemism. Mike and Freddie dragged a full-sized ping-pong table from the furnace room to the den, sprayed it with cleanser, dried it off, disposed of the half-roll of paper towels the job had required and, as a grand finale, moved the industrial sewing machine into position before cleaning and dusting it till it gleamed a dull gray in the oak fake-paneled room.

  “That’s built to last,” said Freddie with satisfaction. “This machine is as strong as a tank.”

  “Probably because it weighs almost as much,” said Mike, panting from the exertion. “What’s behind that door?”

  “That’s the bathroom,” said Freddie, leading Mike by the hand. “And there’s something else you should see.”

  “You’ve already showed me the laundry room, the bar that you’re converting into a cutting station, your grandfather’s boxing trophies, the extra fridge and the stash of fabric. The only thing I haven’t seen is where you’re going to sleep. I hope you’re not going to be working all day and then crashing on this so-called couch.” Mike side-eyed the vintage brown plaid two-seater with wooden arms that matched the paneling. If Wayne and Garth would have shown up, Mike wouldn’t have blinked an eyelash.

  “No, there’s a bed. Will you grab that set of sheets over there?”

  Mike hoped he wouldn’t have to engage in mortal combat with a duvet cover as he followed Freddie into the nether regions of the basement. There he found a small, blissfully uncluttered bedroom with a double bed, covered with a tarp.

  “We should get the room ready for you,” said Mike. “Let me help.” It took him a minute to make the bed and during that time, Freddie had logged most of her daily quota of steps pacing up and down while wedging the pillows into their cases.

  “You don’t think they’re going to think something’s going on, do you?” Freddie pointed upwards.

  “I assume you’re thinking about The Grannies.”

  Freddie nodded in confirmation.

  “As in, The Grannies who set us up on a date.”

  Freddie was smiling.

  “They’re two of a kind, aren’t they? I know they’re probably curious about what we’re doing,” she said with a wicked grin.

  “We should give them something to talk about,” said Mike, moving in close.

  Twenty-three minutes later….

  Freddie ruffled her hair as she climbed upstairs. Mike patted her on her butt playfully. He couldn’t stop smiling. Neither could Freddie.

  The Grannies were in the dining room, working on what appeared to be a menu plan.

  “I think we should have sole on Tuesday,” said Rose. “I’m not such a fan of tilapia. It tastes muddy to me.”

  Fran crossed out “Tilapia” on the sheet of paper and wrote in “Sole” with a heavy sigh.

  “What’s for dinner tonight,” asked Mike, leaning over his grandmother. “We can order up. Maybe chicken. What do you think, Freddie?”

  “Chicken’s fine,” she said, sidling over beside Mike. “We should settle on the order before we get sidetracked. What do you want, ladies? Mike, I know you’re a leg man.”

  On cue, Mike smiled. He was a leg man, even if the legs he was interested had nothing to do with fowl but with a hot chick he’d gotten close to. And now would be a good time to stop that line of thinking because Borscht Belt-style humour was not his style.

  “We should order a Family Pak. Maybe two. I’m planning for leftovers,” concluded Freddie. “It’ll be here at six. Is that okay?”

  Nobody could argue with that, not when the actual focus was the Family Pak. They had coalesced into a family, far beyond The Grannies being neighbours or Mike and Freddie dating. This was easy, comfortable, and sustainable.

  Sustainable.

  That was a word that Mike had never thought to attach to any of his past relationships. He had gotten comfortable with Melanie and her family, even though he’d had heavy discussions with her brother Gabe about the merits of the CFL versus the NFL. But that was fueled by too much sunshine and perhaps too many IPAs. If he’d been able to stay a part of the family without having to factor Melanie into the equation, that would have been perfect. But such was not the case. He couldn’t imagine Melanie going through the marathon of wedding planning, let alone any of the other milestones of adulting.

  Freddie, on the other hand… Mike suppressed a sigh. He could see himself growing old with Freddie, in this very house, once a few changes had been made and a few years had passed, of course. Mike had never done anything impulsively. Even choosing toppings on his pizza required deliberation and forethought, unless he was going for the tried-and-true. Melanie had accused him of being rigid, which wasn’t a bad thing under the proper circumstances. Right? That’s how traditions were built, and memories made. If you went too far outside the lines, you ended up…

  Where did you end up, exactly? How about stuck in your apartment under quarantine for fourteen days with the most exasperating person you’d ever encountered? Or coming out the other end with a new appreciation for exasperating. There was something to be said for being too predictable.

  Freddie was rummaging through the cutlery drawers, looking for matching knives and forks. She located a small pair of tongs that they could use for the coleslaw and went to the sink to wash everything since who knew how long it had been since they’d been used. (Bubbie’s suggestion – Freddie would have ordered compostable bamboo cutlery for everyone.)

  Nana Fran was fiddling with the old clock radio, trying to get CJAD, the AM radio station whose talk shows were so beloved among her set. Without saying anything, Mike grabbed a dishtowel from the drawer, went to the sink, kissed Freddie on the top of her head and started drying. It was so natural the way they worked together, thought Freddie. Mike was unlike any man she’d ever met. Certainly, there was nobody like him in Los Angeles. At least not in her circles. Maybe she’d been in the wrong circles, she thought for the five millionth time. She’d been chasing a dream of fame and fortune, on other peoples’ coattails. Which was crazy, because she had enough star power of her own. Everybody said so. And she could probably even sew her own coat, with tails, of course. Mike would be perfectly happy to see her go after her dreams. Right?

  “Mike, where can I get a whiteboard?” She squeezed the kitchen sponge dry and wiped her hands on the dishtowel that Mike was still holding.

  “Why don’t I just bring over the one from my place? No point in you wasting time rewriting everything.”

  “That would be great,” said Freddie, turning so she could give Mike a hug. They would have continued hugging, and maybe more, in a discreet Granny-friendly way, if the doorbell hadn’t rung.

  Mike glanced at his watch. “It’s five past six. That must be the chicken,” he said. “I’ll get it. I don’t want you carrying heavy things.”

  Considering they’d schlepped an industrial sewing machine and a ping-pong table from the furnace room, not to mention her luggage, it wasn’t like Fre
ddie hadn’t done any heavy lifting of late. She said nothing. Chivalry wasn’t common these days, and she didn’t want to say or do anything to discourage Mike. She’d been on the other end, when he’d snarked at her for using the rear-view mirror to fix her makeup, or the time when she’d used his razor to shave her legs without saying anything. It wasn’t till twenty-four hours afterwards, when he’d cut himself shaving, that he’d realized what was going on. There had been words. Not very nice ones. But that was in the past. There were only good things ahead.

  Freddie sniffed, hoping to get a whiff of the rotisserie chicken as Mike carried the bag to the table. This restaurant had been around since the 1940s, and absolutely everyone loved it. Everyone who counted, anyway.

  “Is everything all right, babe? Do you need some cash for the tip?” Freddie rummaged in her wallet and found a five-dollar bill. She hadn’t spent any cash in the past few weeks. She’d even read that cash was not being accepted in certain places, because of the pandemic. The newscaster had even made a corny joke about money laundering.

  “Babe? Did you hear that, Fran? She called him ‘babe’!” Bubbie Rose was triumphant. Their devious plan was working. If Mike and Freddie ended up together, this would be beyond wonderful. A silver lining in the clouds at each end of the rainbow in the drawing that every kid seemed to be making and posting in the front window as a sign of optimism in these uncertain times.

  After a minute, Mike came into the kitchen, empty-handed.

  “Was there something wrong with the order? Do you need me to call them?”

  “No, Nana. That’s not it.” He motioned behind him. There was an unexpected visitor. Six feet and four inches of hockey greatness, his shoulders filling the frame of the front door. The infamous dark blue eyes that had enticed Quebeckers to buy the triple decker fast-food burger named after him were staring directly at Freddie. She shrank. Her eyes darted around the kitchen, looking for help.