Rich Fuckers

LEDA COULDN’T TELL if Matt was acting weird or if it was just the global pandemic.

He wouldn’t see her; he said it was social distancing, but none of the other couples she knew were distancing from each other.

She would text him, like, Could we get together?

And he would text back, Not leaving my apartment.

So she would text, Can I come over there?

And he would text, No one allowed in.

After a few of those, she decided he might be losing his mind.  Just last week, she’d been scared he was about to propose to her. He’d invited her to a special dinner, his words. It would be just like him to propose after only eight months dating. So conventional, so concerned with being a grown-up even though he was only twenty-six. It was one of the things about him that made her nervous. Sometimes she felt like he was fitting her into a pre-set slot in his life, a girlfriend slot, a pre-wife slot. Then she wondered if she was fitting him into a slot as well: a he’s-cute-and-my-friends-like-him slot, a good-enough-for-now slot.

Matt suggested they meet up to talk in the park by the lake. It had lots of good air circulation, but he still kept six feet away from Leda. Considering everyone was supposed to be sheltering in place, there were a lot of people out enjoying the beautiful spring weather: parents with kids, teenaged couples engaging in scandalous levels of hand-holding, clusters of friends debating politics or cursing out the president. Matt placed himself in the grass, as far as he could get from the path, N95 mask fitted snugly over his mouth.

“I’ve just had a lot of time to think about life,” he said. “You know, I started meditating.”

Leda had tried to get him to meditate a bunch of times. She thought it might help him relax and not be so angry about his job. He was a carpenter, which Leda had always thought was a sexy job, but he hated everyone he worked for. He was always grumbling about rich fuckers. How much he hated rich fuckers, how rich fuckers thought they knew everything about everything, including how to make cabinets, because they were rich. How they would stand over him, nag him about design elements they couldn’t possibly understand, how they’d ask him to change the details after the cabinets were done: “Couldn’t you just remove that bevel along the side? I know I asked for it, but—” It made Leda appreciate her own job at the office, which was often annoying and usually boring, but more than anything it was fine, just fine, like pretty much everything else in her life.

“This whole situation has really taught me a lot.” Matt’s eyes were intense and excited above the mask. “It’s like I’m finally starting to understand who I am.” 

A woman in designer sweats stepped onto the grass, chasing a Toto-looking dog. Matt jumped out of the way like she was a careening big rig. Leda wasn’t so worried about people; she was mostly worried about touching her face. She stood with her hands behind her back, fingers intertwined.

“That’s cool,” Leda said. “So who are you?”’

“Well, that’s the thing,” Matt said. “My whole life is sort of a sham. Well, like, to start with, there’s my career.”

“I thought you liked your career.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “Anyway, I can’t go into people’s houses for like a year or two now, so that’s pretty much over. But I have this other great idea of what I can do.”

“What is it?”

“A motivational speaker,” he said.

Leda blinked. Then she blinked again, so hard that an eyelash or piece of pollen slid into her eye. She started to lift her finger, then gasped and yanked her hand back into position.

“Yeah, I mean,” Matt said. “I think it would be a really fulfilling job.”

“Um, what—” Leda blinked her eye hard as she tried to figure out how to phrase the question. “What would be, like, your subject matter?”

“Oh, you know,” Matt said. “Staying true to yourself, not giving up. Following your dreams.”

“Okay,” Leda said. “Try it on me.”

“What?”

“Motivate me. Let’s see it. Go.”

“Okay.” He clasped his hands in front of him, kind of like how Leda’s were behind her, and cleared his throat a couple times. “So, this is a really hard time we’re all going through right now. And it’s really easy to think of it as a loss. A loss of routine and identity. But actually, if you think about it, did you really need those things? Were they something you chose, or did they choose you? Now that you’re forced to stop and take stock, don’t you think you could do better?”

“Hmm,” Leda said. “That was okay I guess.”

“Thanks,” Matt said. “I think I have kind of a natural talent for it.”

“So.” Clouds were drifting in over the sun, and Leda was starting to get chilly. “Does this mean you’re breaking up with me?”

Matt didn’t answer, just made a face behind his mask as if to say, I’m sorry.

“All right,” Leda said. And then, since they couldn’t hug, she waved from six feet away. “Well, goodbye then.”

“Bye.” Matt waved back, his hand folding across the middle like a puppet. “You take care, okay?”

Back in her apartment, Leda took off all her clothes and placed them in her laundry bag. She sprayed hand sanitizer on her phone and left it to air dry. Then she took a shower, using the old hotel shower cap she’d found at the back of her bathroom drawer, because her hair couldn’t really hold up to all the showering she’d been doing this week.

After she was dried off and back in her sweats and t-shirt and no underwear, she sat down on the couch next to her cat, Lenny, and took stock of her life.

“This is a lesson, right, Lenny?” She petted the orange ridge of his back. “Like, why was I with somebody who I didn’t really appreciate me, or, you know, vice-versa?”

Lenny stretched and yawned.

“Maybe I need to rethink my whole life,” Leda said. “Maybe I can do better.”

There was a new feeling in her gut, something she hadn’t felt since the shelter-in-place began. She wanted to clean her apartment, to throw out all the clutter, to cook something nourishing and flavorful. Maybe she’d work on her resume, so that once this was all over, she could look for a better job.

She got up, dusted her bookshelf, rearranged the disorganized stacks into neat alphabetical rows. She wondered if this burst of hopefulness would pass, if the clouds of malaise would drift back in to block out the warm Spring sunlight.

Maybe. There was no way to know what would happen tomorrow. At the very least, it was a relief not to have to get married.

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