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FOUR
Alethea never imagined so much could change in a week. National borders were closed. State borders were closed. She wasn't even allowed to leave the city. Restaurants and pubs and libraries closed, and there was caution tape around the children's playground in every park. Oh, and everyone's hands were raw with the overuse of hand sanitiser, like people had forgotten how to moisturise.
The best part was how you were supposed to stay two metres away from everybody, so you couldn't catch the virus. The one that had killed so many people in Italy and China and she couldn't remember where else, but she'd seen coffins on the news, all lined up, waiting to be buried.
As if she didn't see enough coffins at work. Well, coffin fragments, as the ones she was digging up had been there for more than a century, compacted under first a tennis court and then a car park. Her work, being outside and easy to avoid people while doing it, didn't change. Well, someone had stuck a bottle of hand sanitiser in the lunchroom, but everyone preferred to wash their hands thoroughly instead. Because when you were dealing with human remains, a squirt of sanitiser just didn't cut it.
Actually going on a date was looking to be about as hard as buying toilet paper from the suddenly empty supermarket shelves.
So she did what she always did when she needed help – she asked the girls in Bell House.
"Well, there's always online dating," Callie said. "You can get to know the guy, chatting online, before you actually meet him."
"Yeah, but there's so many ways he could fool you online," Octavia argued. "Fake profiles, fake pictures...seriously, some guys create dozens of them so they can persuade girls to send them naked pictures. And don't forget dick pics. So many guys want to send you a picture of their hairy sausage because they think you'll actually find it attractive..." She shuddered.
"There's no hurry, is there? I mean, this pandemic should be over in a few months, like the SARS and MERS scares. Or swine flu or bird flu...it'll all be a distant memory, come Christmas," Tacey said.
"It's nearly Christmas?" Rory asked, five-year-old eyes shining as only a little girl's can.
"No, sweetheart, it isn't until December. When it's summer," Tacey said. She checked her watch. "Actually, it's nearly bedtime, so you should go brush your teeth and wash your face, then put your pjs on, ready for bed."
Rory frowned, but she did as her mother said.
Alethea missed living with them all. In Bell House, there was always someone to talk to, no matter what the hour. Unlike her parents' place, where she was alone all the time. And there was talk of locking people down in their homes, like had happened in other countries, so she wouldn't even be able to visit them. Alethea shuddered. Surely the pandemic wouldn't get that bad in Australia.
"We'll help you set up your profile," Tacey said. "With Callie and Octavia here to advise you, you won't make any of the same mistakes they made."
Octavia coughed. "Mistakes Callie made, not me. I've never bothered with online dating. Online gaming, well...what else am I supposed to do in a camp in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a decent internet connection? But this isn't about me. It's about Alethea and her quest for love. First, she'll need a good photo." She surveyed the room. "Stand here, in front of the bookcase. That'll show how much you like to read."
"What are those things on the shelf?" Alethea asked.
Everyone else laughed.
"Rory's obsessed with the Mandalorian, so she wants everything Baby Yoda. She set them all up along the bookcase so they can watch the show with her." Tacey reached for the nearest green figurine. "I'll move them out of the way."
"No! Leave them. Between the books and the figurines, it shows Alethea's into books and pop culture. Geek girls definitely get attention," Octavia said.
"But I don't even know what the green thing is," Alethea protested. "I like my aliens hot and muscled and well endowed. Not small, green and wrinkly."
"That's all right. You can mention your passion for knobbly alien peen in your profile," Callie said.
"God, no! That'll get you triple the number of dick pics, I swear, because they think you're asking to see the goods. Do not mention penises anywhere in your profile or preferences."
"Not even if that's the only part of him you're really interested in?" Callie asked.
"Callie!" Alethea protested. "I'm supposed to be looking for love, not a hookup!"
"Well, yeah, but you have to start somewhere. A first date, your first fuck...I mean, how can you know he gives good dick unless you've sampled the goods?"
"And that is why Callie is still single, because she only dates guys who are as into first date sex as she is, which is why she never gives them a second date," Tacey said.
"Hey, good dick is an increasingly rare commodity. It's not my fault most guys don't know what to do with their dangly bits. Or any part of a woman's body, really."
"And we're back to why Alethia is looking for love, because the perfect man doesn't exist outside the pages of a book," Octavia said.
A chorus of agreement greeted that statement, which made Alethia miss living with them all the more. Sure, they bickered like siblings instead of cousins (except Octavia and Tacey, who actually were sisters), but they were family who always had each other's backs. Or dating profile, like the one Octavia had already managed to bring up on her tablet screen. Complete with a photo of Alethia in front of the bookcase that didn't look half bad.
"Right, let's get this filled out," Octavia said. "Interests?"
