_My husband had been dead for nearly a year when the quarantine started. His death had left me all alone in our apartment, and then the pandemic hit and I felt all alone in the world. My neighbor, Robin, and her baby were the only two people I had regular contact with face to face. Robin said I needed to start dating again, but how do you date in the middle of a pandemic? I tried the online thing, did a few virtual dates. I found several men to sext with. Some of them wanted to use FaceTime or Skype. I declined. Nonnegotiable. It was the texting and the voice calls, or else it was nothing. For the remainder of that spring and into the summer, I followed a nightly routine. First, I’d wash my dinner plate and glass. Then, I’d return one or two of the guys’ texts. Finally, I’d put in my earbuds and chat with one for a while.

Two called me regularly. One was a fiftyish white guy who said he was Minnesotan. He got off on chatting with me because I’m Black. He first said he was married, though I eventually doubted that because he always volunteered lame excuses for why the wife was out of town. (There were only so many weeks she could possibly be visiting family.) He thought I was petite, though I’m nearly six foot tall. I also told him I’m dark-skinned, though I’m actually quite light, and because he asked me that first night, “How small are your boobs?” I knew he wanted them small, so I deducted a couple of cup sizes. He said he’s Norwegian, and he once bragged about his blond hair and blue eyes. I’ve never favored those features.

“I love Black girls,” the Norwegian Minnesotan said. “I been with Black girls. My last girl was Black.”

I rolled my eyes. Most of the white guys who talked to me eventually said something like, “I’ve never been with a Black girl” or “I heard Black girls give the best head.”

Pretty soon, my conversations with the Norwegian Minnesotan grew tiresome. He asked to tie me up, grunted like a sow for about three minutes while asking me to reaffirm how good he made me feel, how big he was, and how I was his bad girl who needed pounding. There were so many guys like him. Too many to count, really.

The other guy who called me regularly was Anthony, a thirty-something-year-old, like me. He traveled a lot for work and would call from various hotel rooms. Once, he put me on hold for a minute, during which I heard a woman saying something like, “Hi, Mr. Ventura. You’ll be in Room 402.” Then she called for a man to help him with his bags. All of those little details made me believe pretty much everything this guy said.

Anthony did everyday things when we chatted. Sometimes I heard the TV in the background. Chewing. The tab on a can of Coke popping open. He just had Ethiopian food for the first time. He’s shocked by the level of violence in a new HBO show he’s watching. I liked our conversations. He never wanted me to pretend. When we first started talking, I felt so instantly comfortable with him that when he asked what I had on, I told him the truth: Pink cotton shorts and a white tank top. “Any bra or panties?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Sweet.”

He said he was from New York City, and I could hear the city in his voice, that distinct way of pronouncing his “a” sounds. He also used both double and triple negatives, said things like, “Ain’t never got no,” which made me judge him as uneducated, though he’d attended an Ivy League business school. He was sexier than the Norwegian Minnesotan, and he had this loud, spontaneous laugh—ha! ha! ha!—that endeared him to me. Anthony called me “sweetheart,” but because he omitted the R it sounded like sweethot.

Whenever I answered his calls, Anthony was breathless, like he was right at the brink. It amazed me how he could be at the brink for ten minutes, finish, and then chat for five minutes and be suddenly at the brink again. I imagined he had a penis he could pump up at will. Like a blowup doll.

One night, he hung around after he’d finished. “What’d you do today, sweethot?” he asked. I could hear water running, and I imagined him washing himself off at the sink.

“Just another day in quarantine,” I told him.

He chuckled. “I’m so sick of this shit. Atlanta ain’t New York, but at least I’d have stuff to do if I wasn’t quarantined.”

“Atlanta?” I said. I’d thought he lived out of state, which was one reason I’d chosen to chat with him on the dating site.

“Yeh. I’m in Atlanta now,” he said. “Moved here a couple weeks ago. Business is slow ’cause of all this COVID stuff. Where do you live?” he asked.

“Muscadine,” I said.

“Ah, okay. Never heard of that. I’m in Cobb County.” He sighed and I imagined him sinking into the cushions of his couch. “Do you go out for groceries?” he asked. “With your little mask on?” he said and tittered. In a quieter voice, he said, “You ever meet up with guys from the site?”

“Well,” I said, drawing the word out as I searched for an answer. The truth was, of course, that I’d never met anyone from the site and never wanted to. Half the guys who contacted me were creepy. The other half, the ones who just seemed like ordinary guys suffering loneliness, didn’t interest me. Plus, I didn’t think it responsible to go on any unnecessary outings during a pandemic.

“No,” I said. “Sounds like a good way to catch corona, or get your liver eaten with some fava beans and Chianti.”

He gave me that ha! ha! ha! laugh and gasped out: “Silence of the Lambs. I love that movie. What else you watch?”

“Eighties teen movies. I used to watch those with my husband…,” I said, my voice trailing off.

“Alyssa? You there?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. “I’m here.”

“So you’re married?”

“I’m not married.”

“You just said husband,” he said, his voice sharp on the last word.

I let out an annoyed sigh. “Yeah,” I said. “I was married. He passed away.”

He went quiet a few seconds. “Sorry to hear that,” he said.

After that, we went several nights without talking. I assumed he was either busy or found someone else.

_Around March of that year, three of my coworkers at the plastics factory got sick. The company did two big layoffs in March and April and put the rest of us on furlough until, as our supervisor said, “Only God knows when.”

After the plant shut down, I had too much time on my hands. I watched movies. I learned how to cornrow after watching half a dozen YouTube videos. For one long afternoon, I practiced on myself, sitting on a barstool in front of the bathroom mirror and pulling my hair tight against my scalp. Then, I stood on the back porch and looked out to the park. It was nearly empty, just as it had been for weeks. I liked to admire crowds, but only from a distance. When amidst one, I felt nervous, like I couldn’t breathe. From my back porch, I could keep a good fifty yards from the park and still enjoy the squeals of young kids laughing as they ran or swung. The park was never full in those days, though, and delightful squeals were nonexistent.

Every day, there was more talk of the virus. New symptoms. A growing number of both deaths and confirmed positive cases. Somewhere, after days of living in isolation, a man killed himself.

_“You have a boyfriend over there?” Anthony asked the next time he called.

“Why?”

“’Cause when I meet you in person, I don’t want nobody else in the way.”

I smiled. A genuine smile. This rarely happened while on the phone with a guy. Usually I smiled outwardly as a way of putting cheeriness in my voice. Fake.

“Boyfriend or no?”

“No boyfriend,” I said, realizing that I did want to meet him. My curiosity was getting the better of me.

“Good. As I said before, no woman here. No kids. You could come over anytime. Be as loud as you want. We could do—ha! ha! ha!—whatever.”

I peeled off my socks and threw them toward the laundry hamper. “Is Anthony your real name?”

“Sure is, sweethot,” he said. “Text me anytime you want. I don’t like things so one-sided, with me calling you every time. Just text, Alyssa. I know you would like me,” he said, his voice oozing confidence.

A short silence followed, and I worried he’d hung up.

“Anthony?”

“I’m here,” he said, and then, “Tell me how your husband died.”

I swallowed.

“Tell me.”

A dull ache began to form in my temple. “A work accident in a factory,” I said, rubbing my head.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he said.

There was a scraping noise on the front porch, like someone or something bumping up against the chair out there.

I drew in a quick breath, and Anthony asked, “What is it?”

I whispered, “I think someone’s on my porch.”

The clock on my cell phone said 10:48.

“Go to the door and check,” he said.

I took a deep breath and went out into the hall.

At the front door, I switched on the porch light and peeked through the blinds. The clay pot lay on its side, cracked in half, the geranium and a gob of dirt spilled out on the porch slats.

“See anything?” Anthony asked, and I startled at the sound of his voice.

“Someone knocked over the plant I keep outside.”

“Probably just the wind. Is it gusting?’

I listened for my wind chimes but heard nothing. I summoned my courage, opened the front door, and glimpsed a man’s retreating figure moving into the shadows. It was my husband. I blinked and squinted to no avail. He was gone in a split second, but the streetlight had illuminated his wide shoulders, the dark brown skin of his bald head, and the red-and-black flannel jacket my husband had often worn.

“Everything good?” Anthony asked.

“No,” I croaked out. I closed the door and fastened both locks. “I saw someone walking away from my porch.”

“Call the cops,” he said. “They can patrol your neighborhood more, keep people like that away.”

There was a pause on the line and then he said, “Are you okay? Shaken up?”

I walked back to my bedroom, my heart beating faster than usual, and I realized I was breathing heavily.

“Baby,” he said. “I’m here. I want you to keep me on the line with you until you’re comfortable enough to sleep.”

“That’s not necessary—”

“Do it,” he said.

I pulled open the bedroom closet door and pushed hangers left and right as I searched for my husband’s flannel jacket. There. There it was, pushed all the way over to the left-hand side of the closet rod. I pulled the red-and-black jacket from its hanger, clumsily unbuttoned it, and pulled it on over my tank top. I climbed into bed and lay on my side. One earbud began to make my ear sore, so I disconnected the earbuds, tossed them on the dresser, and put Anthony on speaker phone. I hugged myself. When my husband was here, he’d lie behind me and sling an arm around me. That arm and that big, solid body made me feel so safe. I closed my eyes, imagining the weight of him.

With the exception of sitting on my porch or going to the swing sets with Robin and her baby, I hadn’t been out of the apartment for days. Because Robin is a germophobe, she side-eyed me when I tried to hug her last time. I should’ve hugged her anyway, a nice, long hug to carry me over for a day or two. I remembered the good touches—my mother smoothing down my hair after carefully combing it out, the feel of a bouquet of daisies resting in my hands on my wedding day, and a memory of holding the hand of my sister Lucy as we walked through a field of grass. Lucy drowned in the shoals when I was a preschooler, so I have only that one memory of her.

I rolled over on my tummy and pushed my face into a pillow. I would have given anything to touch someone just then. George had made a habit of tracing my lower lip with his thumb, and I craved that touch. On the day George passed away, a man on his shift came to the house, his shoes still spotted with my husband’s blood. Since then, I’d flashed back in my mind’s eye, inserted myself into that factory, imagined holding my husband’s head on my lap as he passed. Gladly. I’d gladly accept the touch of his blood on my fingertips.

“Hello?” Anthony said. “You still there?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but a wounded sound came out. I considered hanging up.

“Alyssa?”

“Yes.”

“Everything okay?”

I nodded a moment before realizing, dumbly, that he couldn’t see me. “Yeah,” I told him.

“I’m so lonely during this quarantine,” he said. “Have hardly been outside the past two weeks. Today, I was just staring out the window for almost an hour.”

“I understand.”

“You lonely? I remember you said you don’t have many friends.”

Had I told him that? Yes, at some point I must have. I also remembered telling him which mystery books were on my nightstand, how frustrating this furlough is, and that untrustworthiness is the worst character trait for a friend. But I also lied about things. He thinks I wear short skirts and high heels. In reality, all my clothes are modest. Nothing remotely trashy ever touches this thirty-six-year-old body of mine.

Anthony said, “You’re like me. I can just tell. You’re a homebody. Only sometimes you like to be out with a friend, doing quiet stuff. Walking in a park or seeing a movie.”

How would this man know I enjoy parks? I vaguely remembered a conversation I’d had with him about the humongous Chattahoochee River National Forest. I’d told him that I prefer smaller parks to the large wilderness areas. It had been just a passing comment, and now I couldn’t decide if I should be flattered or creeped out that he seemed to remember every little thing I mentioned to him.

“Do you know the Dekalb Farmers Market?” he asked suddenly.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard of it.”

“I been there a few times and loved it. Don’t know if it’s open or even safe to go there right now. But when this whole mess is over, I wanna take you there. We’ll spend an hour or two reading food labels, browsing produce. Then I’ll bring you back here, pick you up, mmm. God, I want that so bad, Alyssa.” Anthony gave me the minute details about what he would do to my body. Put his hand gently at my throat. Say my name. Men like him are the best lovers. No lie. You don’t want a man who rushes. You want someone who will take his time, do it right. Plus, Anthony wasn’t desperate for compliments like the Norwegian Minnesotan. Instead, Anthony demanded compliments. Tell me, he said. Tell me now. And then later, Let it go. Let it all out.

Surprisingly, by the time he cried out, I was trembling, too, my muscles down there pulsing and quaking. A wet mess.

_I didn’t call Anthony. It would’ve been unhealthy for me to hit him up, to get attached and act needy. Still, I checked my phone for the next few nights, anticipating a call from him. I could always block him later if he got too creepy. I once saw on the news where a guy was able to track his ex-girlfriend by her phone. Would Anthony be able to do that? And what about the sex? If he was one iota as good in person as he was on the phone, my eyes would roll back more than once. It had been nearly a year since George had died, and it was too hard to meet someone. Who knew when the world would be normal again? I wanted a change, some excitement, the way I used to feel so young back in my teens and twenties. Going out with friends. Laughing. Trysts in the backseats of cars.

I did end up texting him first one night. We exchanged pics, fully clothed. He had a kind smile. A sharp, pointed nose. Small, straight teeth. Slight belly.

One night, he confessed, “I’m not really eight inches.”

“I figured you weren’t. Guys have a tendency to embellish.” I paused a moment and then asked, “Anything else I should be aware of?”

He said, “Have you always been honest with me? Is Alyssa even your real name?”

There was a long pause, and I could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

“We don’t know everything about each other, and I like it that way,” I said. “It’s less complicated.”

He began to admit other things. He hadn’t had sex in a while. The last woman dumped him because she wanted exclusivity and he did not.

_Days and weeks crawled by. I occasionally sat out on the porch with Robin and the baby, but Robin eventually drove them to Macon to shelter in place with her parents, leaving me all alone in the duplex for weeks. I played online Scrabble and baked and ate more desserts than should be allowed by law.

Somehow all of this has led me to the Dekalb Farmers Market on a warm day in spring of 2021. I sit in my car with the air conditioner running. Adele sings on the radio. I let my car seat back. People walk by. Families with small children. One couple holding hands and laughing. After letting all the car windows down, I close my eyes and feel the sunshine on my cheeks and forehead. I feel a light burn on my skin.

Inside the market, colors explode. Produce bins brim in every color from dark eggplant to bright pumpkins and squashes. What a day! The scent of savory soup, maybe tomato-based, wafts out from a kitchen. I haven’t eaten lunch, and the fresh-baked bread makes me lightheaded as I walk to the coffee section to meet Anthony for the first time.

I lean close to a shelf, reading the label on a package of Colombian coffee and wondering why it’s so high-priced.

“Alyssa?” his voice asks from behind me.

I take a small breath and turn.

He wears a red-and-black flannel shirt, an identical pattern to the jacket George often wore. My breath catches in my throat a little, and for a second I feel like I’ll scream. Every time it looks like I’ve turned the corner away from George’s death, some little thing—a snippet of a blues song, the smell of cut grass—pops up to remind me that he’s gone, and the pain clutches just as strong as it did that first day. Would it ever stop?

My hands shake a little, so I clasp them behind my back. He’s staring at me with his head cocked to the side, as if he’s about to ask what’s wrong. I give him a half smile, but with my mask on he probably can’t see it.

Anthony steps closer to me. He’s wearing a surgical mask, so I can only see half of his face. I’d offer him my hand, just to feel how his would envelop it, but I don’t know if it’s okay to shake hands now, even though we’ve both been vaccinated. He wears dark denim jeans and neon-colored sneakers. As we walk the market together, I can tell he thinks I’m attractive, because his eyes run up and down my body. I decide that he’s not a creeper. A creeper would stare at my breasts unabashedly, but at least this man has the decency to avert his eyes when I catch him looking.

Whenever he points out something he likes—goat cheese, enormous cucumbers, a special brand of wine—he raises his eyebrows and studies me, like he’s awaiting my approval. I smile a lot, sometimes nervously.

In the parking lot, we see that we’ve parked on different sides. As I’m setting my Colombian coffee and package of cashews onto the seat beside me, he pulls up and asks if I want to ride to his house or follow him. “I’ll follow you,” I tell him.

There’s so much traffic on the roads around metro Atlanta, I’m afraid I’ll lose him between the stoplights. He texts his address to me just in case.

He’s a careful driver, going just below the speed limit. I want to push the gas and race him down I-285. After months of being cooped up, coming out into the world again makes me feel like all those COVID days were painted gray and today is blood orange or ruby red. My fingers tap against the steering wheel. I let my window down and smile when the air swooshes across my face and shoulders. Today my hair stands in a wild Afro, so there’s no need to worry about it being windblown.

On the stoop outside his large, brick house, I pause as he holds the door open for me. “My friend Robin knows where I am. She has your cell number and name. If I’m not home in a few hours, she’ll have the law after you,” I say, just in case.

“Sounds fair,” he says, grinning.

Upstairs, we lie together, stripped down to our underwear, and watch the first of the three John Hughes movies he has. I cannot remember which film it is, but in one of them a character says, “A Black guy?” in horrified repulsion when she thinks her friend is open to dating interracially. I instantly hate her, whatever her name is. I must have a disgusted look on my face because Anthony says, “You okay?”

“This movie was better when I was a kid.”

We lie together for most of that film, and he doesn’t do more than kiss me, probably because he senses my nervousness. I haven’t kissed anyone but George for so many years that at first it feels strange to have this new set of lips on mine. We fumble, trying to decide when to open and close our mouths. Anthony has soft lips, which soothes me. I let my shoulders down and sink farther into the mattress. He doesn’t dart too much with his tongue. I like that. Without warning, Anthony moves his lips down to my neck. Ahh. This man is good. He pulls me tighter against him. Finally, I make the move and run a hand down his body and rub him gently below the waist. He does a lot of sighing. Still no erection, though.

Quietly, he asks, “Is this just a sex thing for you, Alyssa?” He takes a deep breath. “I’m impotent. I haven’t been able to get hard since that first night we talked on the phone.”

“That first night? You mean you faked it the whole time, pretended to orgasm?”

He says, “I’m sorry, baby. Let me help you finish.”

I shake my head.

What had I come here for? Yes, I wanted sex. But what I really wanted was some emotionally tactile thing—the elation you get after a warm hug from someone you care about, the postcoital moment when your lover lays his head against you and you rub his head.

“Hold me,” I say.

I lie on my side, my back to him, and he puts an arm over me. Later, I hold my palm out flat to measure it against his, and I marvel that each of his fingers is an inch longer than mine. His plaid flannel shirt lies on the floor beside the bed. I resist the urge to pick it up and pull it on. As we hold hands, I close my eyes and think of the park behind my house. Though there are people in it now and have been for weeks, I pretend otherwise. Imagine otherwise. See all that wide open space. All that expanse of green with no bodies to break it up. I’m falling. Falling. Going into it. Being swallowed up.

Excerpted from Daughters of Muscadine: Stories, which will be published in November 2023 by Fireside Industries, an imprint of the University Press of Kentucky.