The Days of Wine and Covid

The Days of Wine and Covid

By Elizabeth Berg

SCRIBD ORIGINALS

Copyright © 2020 by Elizabeth Berg

All rights reserved

Cover design by Catherine Casalino

ISBN: 9781094415765

First e-book edition: December 2020

Scribd, Inc.

San Francisco, California

Scribd.com

For more, visit www.scribd.com and follow @Scribd on Twitter and Facebook.

IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES, it was the worst of times. It just kept on being the worst of times.

Two weeks into the stay-at-home order, Martin searches Nan’s face as she comes into the kitchen. You okay? he asks.

Good morning, she answers.

You okay? he asks again. Since this all began, Nan has been suffering from vertigo. At first they were afraid it was a symptom of you-know-what. But no, Nan gets vertigo now and again, and attributes it to dehydration, stress, and bad luck. Every time an episode happens and the room tilts, she gasps and says, Oh my God! She is embarrassed to call out this way, but she can’t help it; it’s so weird and scary to have your internal compass go berserk. After the acute phase passes, she stares steely-eyed straight ahead to show vertigo who’s boss, even though she knows full well that it is boss, and will leave when it feels like it. It’s like an incredibly bad houseguest.

I’m okay, she says. For now.

She sits at the table with her coffee, then leaps up. I forgot! Trader Joe’s croissants. She turns on the oven to preheat it for the pastry she thawed overnight. I love those things, she says. I hope the insides don’t leak out like they sometimes do.

Martin shrugs. You can eat the insides when they’re out, he says.

I know, but I like when they stay in, so they’re nice and evenly spread.

You can spread them, Martin says, like he just won The Great British Bake Off. Just cut it in half lengthwise and spread it.

It’s the lengthwise that irritates Nan most. As if she didn’t know that. But never mind, no point in starting an argument. They’ve agreed they should try very hard not to argue, stuck with each other the way they are now. They must not argue, they must not cut themselves with a knife in a way that requires stitches, they must not have heart attacks or stomach pain or God forbid a bad headache or a cough. Everything seems balanced on such a thin line. Everyone must think so hard about everything. Disinfecting groceries. How to handle mail. If you wash your hands and then use your hand to shut off the spigot, don’t you have to wash your hands again? It’s Sisyphean!

I was thinking, Nan says. "I want to make a prediction to our grandchildren about what they’ll be. I’m going to tell Ron he’ll open a restaurant, called Pigsty, and it will