May 09, 2020:
Reviewed and edited this morning. Some additions and improved sentence structure provide more clarity and detail. Any typos were fixed. (I did notice that Dez's hair colour is auburn in this episode and black in at least one other episode. Had she dyed her hair? I'll have to think about that before I make any change.)
Togethering
Emelina waffled about getting dressed before she went out to have breakfast. Because of the late hour, it was not really breakfast, merely breakfast food. She vaguely remembered being woken up from a sound sleep at 3:30 or was it 4:30? Driving into the city and picking her sister up? Her mind finally cleared while, strangely, still in Digby's room. She realized that her sister really was here. All of her staff, including her butler Digby, had deserted her because of some Invisible Menace. Digby was not given to such darkly poetic descriptions, so Emelina had to learn what he may have meant. Would that explain why Emelina was in her butler’s suite of rooms? Shrugging her long, ice blue satin robe on over rumbled, but matching silk pyjamas, she slipped her feet into her ice blue slippers. Emelina stopped. No. I can’t do it. I must be dressed, even if I have to do it myself. Quickly picking up the clothes from her night time rescue mission, she went into Digby’s ensuite bathroom, washed her face and tied up her hair. Her jogging suit, steel grey with a white stripe up the side, would have to do. even if she had already worn it once. A quick rinse with mouthwash and she was ready to face what was left of the day. Smiling at herself in the mirror and pinching roses into her cheeks she said aloud to her mirrored reflection. “There. Done”
“Good morning Dez. Where did you say my breakfast was? There’s nothing on the table.”
“Good morning, Emmie. Oh I meant that table right over there by the door to the hallway.”
Desperanza smiled and pointed to a little desk by the entrance to the hallway. She had pulled it out from the wall and moved its chair behind it. Dez washed her hands before picking up and handing Emmie her breakfast. Emmie was puzzled. Not only did she seem to have a ‘little kids table’, but there was green masking tape on the floor. The long kitchen table had green masking tape across the centre of it as well.
“What’s going on, Desperanza? Why are you at such an arm’s length? Why do I have a separate table? I won’t bite you. Just because our conversation was a bit, shall we say, unpleasant last night doesn’t mean we have to keep separate.” Dez held up her hands.
“Stop, Emmie. Just set your plate down on your table and let me explain. You don’t know much about this pandemic do you? We are basically strangers to each other. You don’t know where I’ve been and I don’t know where you’ve been. You only know that I was in jail last night. How many people have been in and out of the cell, I have no idea. We haven’t seen each other a very long time - what is it? - ten years? At dad’s funeral? So, I only know that you live in this big house.We might as well have come from different planets. But the cops - I mean police officers - insisted that I stay with family or they would send me up island to a dinky hotel in a town I’ve never been in with a lot more than one stranger taking care of the place.”
Dez took a deep breath. She hadn’t planned that little speech but the words just fired out of her mouth before she could even think. Emmie returned to the green line of tape, accepted the mug of coffee Dez handed her and back to the 'little kids table' where her breakfast was cooling..
“You’re scared, aren’t you, Dez?”
“Of course I’m scared. There’s lock downs everywhere. The politicians are all agreeing with each other. Not just local politicians but all over the world! I suppose not all of them, but most of them. Sick people, dying people…….”
Dez’s brave exterior crumbled as she talked. She really was frightened. Having no place to go, she was dependent on the good graces of her sister. Her belongings from her last apartment were still locked up there. One person in her apartment had tested positive for Covid19. She couldn’t go back until that building was free of the virus. A virus that had spread rampantly all over the world. Emelina may not have known much about the real running of her house and nothing about the pandemic, but she did know how to diffuse tension in a situation. A skill she had learned by osmosis from Digby, a master of diffusion of tension. Her sister was in the midst of a very tense situation.
“Dez, you’ve really done a lot of work in here, haven’t you? I’m just going to sit here and have my breakfast while you explain what the purpose of all this separation is. Am I to assume that you’ve done all of this for good reason? The kitchen does look a little strange with tape on the floor but at least it’s colourful. So go ahead and tell me what is going on.”
“Thank you, Emmie. You’re right. I am scared. No. Terrified. The only thing I can control are my surroundings. I’m in your house, they're still not my surroundings. Nothing belongs to me. And you could ask me to leave at any time. But I’m tired of being scared, so I’m going to ask you right now: How long can I stay here?”
“Dez you can stay as long as you want or need to. Just tell me what the tape is all about? And this ‘little kids table’?” Emmie glanced up and saw Dez starting to smile. She smiled back at her younger sister, Dez’s face all flushed and her curly auburn hair frizzing around her face.
Little smiles led to giggles and then they both burst out laughing. The laughter of the two sisters taking them back to their childhood home. Between great gulps of air, Dez said “I’ve……got……..a little……kids ……table tooo!! Look! Look! Over ….there…..beside…beside........the ....the…..pantry door!”
“But what…..about……that horrid…..green…….tape…..! It’s..it's…….a ……..good…….thing……I haven’t ………..got mascara………..on. It….would be……..all ……over….my face…..!
The laughter finally subsided. Emmie’s half eaten breakfast was cold but she finished it anyway. “So what do I do with my dishes. Do I keep them over here too? On the ‘little kids table’?” That just about set them laughing again, but Emmie was a master of control. She regained her composure with only a little bit of effort. Dez was still stifling her laughter. Their different and distant worlds had collided, leaving them breathless. They both knew that they had once been good friends that would help each other out of any difficulty or, as Dez would put it, out of any jam. They shared their dreams, their clothes and their laughter. And they would do so again.
Because it was so late in the day, practically supper time, Dez and Emmie, spent the evening talking about the games they played in childhood, the scrapes they got into as teenagers and why there was green masking tape all over the kitchen floor. Dez had decided, if they had to share a house they would do it as safely as possible. She would teach Emmie about the precautions they needed to take. She would create separate living spaces for them in this huge kitchen. They were up late that day and into the evening ~ well past midnight. Emmie had in fact been on a holiday, so had been out of touch with the changes taking place in the world. She did wonder at the number of masks she saw people wearing, but dismissed it as none of her business. Once Dez made her aware that it really was her business, she had many more questions for Dez. Although she was not very computer literate at all, Dez apparently was. Emelina suggested that they set up one computer ~ either from Martha's or Digby’s room ~ somewhere in the kitchen so they could both see and work on it. That movement alone would challenge their togetherness. One to move the computer, one to supervise. As the newly organized house grew quiet that late night, both girls ~ and they felt like girls again ~ slipped into their separate dreamlands. Only the tick of the big kitchen clock could be heard.
