I didn't finish the presentation and I'm already late for work. I take the car and the guy in yellow tells me "Tu tag no pasa güera", fuck, I continue down the Periferico and Waze tells me I'll be there in 1 hour 23 minutes, and I think, "ok, 13 minutes late is not so much", I put on the OV7 tour songs, I go calmly while I call Fer, my assistant.
“Hi dear, how are you? Look, I’m late, please take out the graphics of the last presentation and put them 2 slides before the last one, pull the budget of Wednesday’s presentation and put it at the end, thanks baby!”, I keep calm, I’m going at a good speed and the best thing is that the Waze is down 2 minutes, that tells me that I have to turn up Shabadabada and sing.
From one moment to another the Waze goes crazy, it tells me that I will arrive in 2 hours and 1 minute, fucking shitty technology, good thing I’m not on the second floor of Periférico to be able to try to go around.
After 1 hour and 47 minutes wandering around and Waze recalculating more than 10 times, a call comes in and it turns out it’s not my boss, it’s Fer; “what happened chula? “Fer tells me “Hi boss, well nothing just to let you know that we just had a general meeting and it turns out that because of the Coronavirus or that COVID-19 thing, the office is going to close and they told us that we will do home office starting today”, at that moment I think “Fuck my life, I’m killing myself to get there and it turns out that I get an early vacation”, well ok.
I don’t have to get home early, who knows what is going on in Mau’s office, Romi is at school and the baby is with Carmela. At that moment I call Nina, always with my hands-free system of course, I am very careful and cautious when driving; my friend answers me: “yes” I say “what do you mean yes?” “what did some Andalusian dick or some Madrilenian girl swallow your tongue? haha” I tell her with my bad Spanish imitation, “pinche Nadia, how are you?” she answers me, while I really want her to tell me about it, I tell her “How can I be so pissed off, here waiting for the gossip, how was your therapeutic divorce trip in the mother country? “Nina laughs while she tells me: “everything was fine my friend, great, the truth is that you know, Spain is beautiful, but at the end a little tense because of this Coronavirus shit, I will tell you when we have time but…”, without letting her finish I interrupt her, “nananana, no buts, I have time now, I will pick you up and we will have breakfast, ok? Well, let’s have brunch, it’s already a little late”.
We spent hours talking, brunch turned into lunch, lunch turned into dinner and dinner turned into I don’t remember, although the next day Mauricio made me remember, but the discussion with him ended with a truce to be quiet for the girls.
The following days were chaotic at home with the chamacas, husband and work, the only thing that comforted me was that Carmela, my cleaning lady, was there to help me with everything, my soldier, my heroine.
I lost count of the days and suddenly Romina shouted to me, “Mamaaaaaa, the yogurt tastes bad”, I said to myself “it’s Saturday girl, it’s too early to complain”, the reality is that it was Tuesday. I go to the kitchen and it turns out that the ham, the milk, the cheese and almost everything was spoiled, “fuck it, to do the supermarket again” I thought, because I am one of those people who cannot distinguish when the car breaks down or just need to get some gas, so I set out to fill the fridge.
We were in contingency so I dressed up as the heroine who would go to the supermarket, with a mask, gloves, clothes I could throw away and with all the attitude to rob half a supermarket, after all, everything is needed at some point. But it turns out that after 2 days we realize that it was not the expiration date, it was the fridge “shit” I thought, “it is quarantine and the fridge broke”, I talk to Mauricio and he tells me, “hey, my dad knows about something about this”, without filtering what I thought I answered him “no way in hell Mauricio, we have girls, your parents are out, they cannot come and I will not let a fridge repairman into my house, talk to the fucking fridge company and check the guarantee! suddenly Carmela seeing me like this tells me: “ma’am, my cousin can fix the fridge and right now he is out of work”, I ask her a little reluctantly “But you don’t have the flu or anything, do you Carmelita?
The next day Ramiro arrives at the house, he goes in but not before leaving his shoes at the entrance, changing his clothes in the garage and putting on a mask and gloves; he checks the fridge, I am always attentive, not because I am suspicious, just to make sure he doesn’t touch anything, he very kindly tells me that fortunately it is a very easy part to get, he leaves the house and after a couple of hours he returns doing the same ritual, Romina opens the door for him to enter and change the part.
In the early morning of the next day, Romina has a fever, a bad cough and cannot breathe, we do not know what it is, only that she cannot breathe; we rush to the hospital and being there the hours are long, 3 hours passed before they gave us a diagnosis, Romi has symptoms of COVID-19 the doctor tells us, at that moment the world crashes over us.
That night and the next one went by, during those days I kept repeating to Mau “surely it was Carmela’s cousin, what was his name, he infected her, surely we are infected too”, while I was thinking, maybe we are asymptomatic as the doctor says; and my baby, let’s wait for the results of the tests.
We were tired, several days in the hospital usually have that effect, while my lethargic head was thinking about a thousand things, Mau and a doctor were talking about the most affected countries and suddenly when I hear the word Spain, I come back to myself and think “Nina was in Spain”; I freeze, everything is clearer and the only thing I think at that moment is: “and I thought it was the guy who fixed the fridge for us”.
