Pathogen

Wednesday Night

Turns out there are foods to harvest in Central Park: mugwort, garlic mustard, dandelions, cattails, blackberries, and wild leeks. Did you know dandelions are good for bladder infections? Dave told me about it on our walk back. Dave's an odd guy. In the same sentence, he'll flirt with you and tell you how to be UTI-free in the apocalypse. But he's not crazy. We met three others (Sarah, Steve, and Mike) at the park—other freelancers Dave knows from a shared workspace he rents on Delancey Street.

Anyway, we got back to our building at half past five, right before curfew. Dave asked if I wanted to have salad together from what we'd harvested. I agreed because other than this journal and my work, contact with humans has been hard to come by lately. I was determined though to sit across from Dave and not next to him. I invited him to my place because, well, I've never been in his and what if it's creepy? This is a guy who decided to harvest moss to wipe his ass in the wake of an outbreak. I mean, I used the moss too but it wasn't my idea.

So Dave came over for dinner. I cooked up a Lean Cuisine roasted turkey dish and we made a salad from some of our Central Park pickings.

"How'd you get into foraging? I mean, it seems like you've done it before. What with knowing which plants won't kill you," I said as I mixed a vinaigrette to go on our salad.

Dave smiled. His teeth are swoon-worthy, if teeth can be that. But I mean, so is everyone's these days, you know? If their parents could afford an orthodontist, at least. Dave looks like the kind of kid who wore his retainer every day and might still wear it when he sleeps. Maybe it's just nice to see someone smile.

"My ex got me into mushroom foraging, and it went from there. I'm not one of those apocalypse people."

Like my boss. "Apocalypse people?" I played dumb because I wanted to find out what the term meant to him. I dipped my pinky into the vinaigrette and tasted the dressing.

"You'll wash for twenty seconds before you do that again?"

"Um, not necessary. It tastes great. But yeah, I would have."

Dave nodded in a glad-we-got-that-out-of-the-way fashion. "Those people who hope for the end of the world. I'm not one of them. I don't even read dystopian stories."

"I don't either, unless it's for work."

"It's been done, right?"

"Right. Though I bet if there were a zombie outbreak, those people would be the ones who make it through."

Dave shook his head. "Nope. First to die. They think they'll be the hero and they take one too many chances."

I laughed. It wasn't put-on. I laughed at something food-foraging, retainer-wearing, moss-ass-wiping Dave said. I tossed the salad. "So to pair with this, I have water. Or water. Or, you know, water."

Dave laughed. It seemed ages since I heard myself or anyone else laugh. Longer than the three-plus weeks of my work-induced quarantine. Not that my office insisted I remain at home, but I just had too much work to do to leave, until today.

Over dinner and glasses of still-flowing city water, Dave and I talked about work. He tried to bring up the outbreak more than once, and the recession at least once, but I dodged. I am so sick of those topics. Here's what I learned about Dave:

He studied philosophy in college, but then, unable to find a job because he didn't want to go for a PhD and teach, he took an online coding class. He'd already known some coding from a website he built in college about philosophy (snore fest for me, I think), and wanted to fill the gaps. During this time, he worked as a bartender even though he doesn't drink. He slept with a lot of women and two men. The first man was to experiment and the second man was so pretty he couldn't resist, he told me. The reasons why didn't matter to me though; I'm an ally. Anyway, after he got sick of bartending, he started making websites for people and had been freelancing ever since. He liked it alright, but one time he had to take a client to court because they kept saying they lost his invoice and refused to pay him the three grand they owed.

He asked about my career. English major at Brown. Internship at a literary agency during undergrad. Externship afterward that led to a job at a small publishing house. Then moved from there to a big publishing house, several imprints, now editing a book I hate to placate the publisher.

"That sucks," Dave said.

"Yeah, but what can you do?" I said. "More water?"

"A fine vintage such as this? Hell yes."

I'd like to say Dave stayed the night because we were drunk, but I didn't have any booze and he didn't like to drink anyway. He told me then that his father had been an alcoholic. I'd said I was sorry. He'd said it wasn't my fault. Then we'd kissed. So Dave stayed in my bed and we had sex. The next morning, he left to go and work and I took a shower, scrubbed each part of my body for twenty Mississippis.