Love in a Time of Coronavirus #1

The meeting was scheduled for 9 am. At 8:50, I straightened my tie, smoothed back my hair and hit the link to join. Soon my screen was populating with faces in boxes. My heart pounded as I waited for the black box titled John Sprague to appear. The anticipation reminded me of seventh grade when I’d sit forward in my desk, watching for the football player I had a crush on walk through the door.

I knew the feeling was ridiculous. I barely knew anything about John Sprague, other than he had gotten trapped in a remote area of Northern Wisconsin and was now stuck in a place with spotty internet. And yet, I could feel myself flush every time I saw his name in that little black box on the daily video call.

Maybe it was the mystery of a man without a face. The first week he explained that the signal was strongest when he turned off his video. Which meant he could see me, but I couldn’t see him. I tried to picture what he looked like from his voice, a voice that sent shivers up my spine when he spoke. There was a kindness in the way he talked that got me every time.

Being alone all day did strange things to my head. My only outside contact was the daily video call with work colleagues, many of whom I met for the first time on that first call between all the managers. Most of us worked in different offices but we’d been organized into teams based on our duties, not on our location because location didn’t matter anymore. The rest of the time I was alone in my studio apartment. I worked a lot, because what else was there to do?

When I wasn’t working, and even when I was, I fantasized about John Sprague. Was he fair or dark? Tall or short? And most importantly, gay or straight? My infatuation was a crazy dream, but nothing was normal anymore, so anything seemed possible.

In the second week, we were asked to pair up to work on small parts of a larger project. I stared at John’s black box, summoning the courage to ask. A chat from him popped up on my screen.

“Would you like to work together?”

I almost broke my keyboard in the rush to say yes. Exchanging contact information felt like a miracle.

Our first exchanges couldn’t have been more mundane, but the ballet of sent and received emails thrilled me. Each time I sent him some boring bit of work, I’d get a little shiver as I hit send, and another when his name popped into my inbox. I scanned his emails for secret messages and hidden meanings even though I knew they weren’t there.

On the third day, I signed off an email with a personal note, telling him I hoped he was doing okay where he was.

His reply began, “A cabin in the woods isn’t a bad place to be stuck, but I’ll be happy to get back to civilization when this thing is over.”

After that, the conversation grew with each exchange. I told him how quiet the city looked outside my window. He sent me a picture of a herd of deer strolling past his. We talked about how our families were doing and ruminated on politics. His father had passed a few years back, but his mother was doing fine, staying safe. He had a sister who was going crazy at home with three kids, and another who worked in an E.R. and he worried about her. The more I learned about John Sprague, the more I liked him.

Each day I carefully dressed for the video conference and impatiently waited for his little black box to appear. Knowing he could see me I had a hard time concentrating on the call. I stared at his black box, willing his image to flicker on for just a second. But it never did.

On the seventh day he asked if I wanted to have a beer after work. By phone. His internet could handle emails and texts and phone calls well, but video-chatting was out of the question. Even so, I dressed carefully for our date. He couldn’t see, but it made me feel better.

The phone rang at six exactly. The blood rushed to my face as I answered. My voice caught as I said hello.

“This is John Sprague. Thank you for this. I’m going a little crazy up here. My mother always warned me that if I didn’t shut up, I’d get tired of the sound of my own voice. She was right.”

I laughed, feeling my shoulders relax. “I know what you mean. I’ve talked to my cat so much I’m afraid she might start answering.”

There was nothing scary about talking with John. The more we talked, the more I wanted. It felt like talking to someone I’d known forever, and I wanted to know everything about him. One beer together turned into two. Then we heated up our respective dinners and ate together. By the time we hung up it was midnight and my head buzzed with his voice, his wonderful, beautiful voice.

I started my next email to him by telling him what a great time I’d had the night before and asked if he wanted to do it all over again.

“Yes. Absolutely.”

We fell into a rhythm, with our days spent working on our piece of the project and our nights on the phone talking about our lives, our dreams, our hopes. We came out to each other in our second phone call and it just got better after that.

Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never seen? I’m beginning to think so. I still don’t know what John looks like, but it doesn’t matter. I could ask him for a photograph, but this is better. I’m getting to know him from the inside out. I know he loves playing basketball even though he’s terrible at it. And that as a kid he had a spectacular toy car collection that he only gave away last year. Like me he loves old movies and knows all the words to Broadway tunes. His favorite holiday is Halloween. And when his father died, he went into a deep depression that only lightened after he started taking long walks deep into the night. That experience left him grateful for every positive day.

I know when I finally do see John, what I’ll see is his true self shining out through his eyes. And that will be beautiful.

When his little black box comes onscreen, I smile. Our new feelings are our secret. Getting to know John is making time fly. Someday we’ll be able to be together in person. That will be amazing. In the meantime, we’re sequestered together in our hearts and that’s enough for now.

The end