The Waiting Game

She opened the first e-mail in her inbox with a bolded subject line and silently read it to herself.

Date: Saturday March 14^th, 2020

From: admin@uoft.ca

To: Kazuki.Edwina@uoft.ca

Dear students,

The recent situation regarding the developing global pandemic has been nothing short of unprecedented, and we believe that we must remain flexible to best fulfill our academic mission while also preserving the health and safety of our…

She skimmed the rest of the e-mail; most of it was the typical trite wording that people threw in for no reason she could discern. Her eyes danced over the penultimate sentence as she prepared to click onto the next unread e-mail, when her subconscious told her that she might have missed something. Her gaze darted back to the beginning of the concluding paragraph.

To ensure the safety of all our staff and students, we will be moving all learning to online modules effective immediately. Your professors will be in touch with you shortly for more details.

What!!?!? And I even had plans to grab lunch with Alan on Monday after our morning class!

She leaned back on her chair and let out a groan. When she sat up again, she immediately switched tabs to her messaging site. The group chat that hosted her program’s students was already exploding with activity, although with mixed reactions; some were happy that they would not have to wake up at 6:00 AM tomorrow while some were upset because the upcoming conferences were cancelled. Some were opportunistic enough to already be soliciting signatures for a petition to partially refund tuition. She noticed that Alan had yet to contribute his thoughts. She messaged him directly.

“Hey have you seen the new e-mail?”

“No, whatsup?”

“Read it, they’re cancelling in-person classes.”

“What??? Are you kidding me?”

Edwina did not reply and waited a few minutes for Alan to presumably read the e-mail.

“Man, and I was so excited to see everyone in class too,” Alan finally replied.

“Yeah me too, but hey no more waking up before the sun rises amiright?”

“Silver lining, I guess.”

Neither of them said anything for a while.

“You still down to grab lunch together on Monday? Cafe’s closed but we can take a hike and grab something at Eaton’s or whatever,” said Edwina.

“I still had like $400 in meal credits left,” said Alan. A frowning emoji.  “But yeah I’m down to chill.”

Online classes began on Monday as per the e-mail. After class, Edwina walked to the Eaton Center with Alan to find something to eat. They easily found a spot in the basement food court, atypical considering how it was usually packed. She looked around and noticed that pockets of empty seats were distributed around the food court.

“… all the clubs were cancelled too, which means that I won’t be able to see my peeps again at the investment club. Or the other swimmers on the swim team. Or the guys in my jazz ensemble,” said Alan.

Edwina straightened her shoulders and put on a supportive smile. “Alan, you’ll be able to see them again once school starts in September. Everything will be over soon!”

Alan continued poking his food without eating it, eyes staring down at his Pad Thai.

“anyways,” continued Edwina, “don’t you have your pension fund internship to be excited about?”

Alan’s attention piqued slightly, and some energy returned to his eyes.

“Yeah, that’ll be fun. Actually, with classes being online now, I was thinking of going to the States and settling down now!” Alan looked back up at Edwina. “I’ll have to spend a few nights in a hotel and pay an extra month of rent, but I’m super excited to tour New York before I get locked into work.”

“That sounds like a great idea! When are you planning on leaving?”

“I think the earliest I can go is Friday.” Alan’s usual smile returned.

“Oh my gosh that’s so exciting, you have to show me pictures of New York!”

“For sure! And hey, while we’re here at Eaton’s, do you mind doing some shopping with me?”

“Of course! Are you looking to buy anything?”

“Actually yeah, I wanted to get a more diverse wardrobe before my internship started, so I got a new pair of brown shoes, which means I’ll need a brown belt to match.”

Edwina and Alan finished up their lunches and went looking for a new belt. With fewer store patrons than usual, shelves were fully stocked, so they quickly found what Alan was looking for. The pair walked back home together until they reached the intersection that separated their paths.

Every morning, Edwina would wake up, scroll through the news, message Alan, and attend her classes. On Friday, Alan flew out to New York. Throughout the weekend, Edwina’s schedule was largely unchanged, aside from a flood of pictures of beautiful skylines and majestic office buildings every morning when Alan knew for sure Edwina would check her messages. Downtown Manhattan was a lot emptier than either of them had expected.

On Monday morning, Edwina woke up, and as usual, scrolled through the news, silently reading headlines to herself.

City of Toronto Enforces a State of Emergency

Wait… what??!?

Her thumb quickly tapped the news article, her heartbeat betraying her impatience as the article loaded.

Due to the rapid spread of the pandemic, the City of Toronto has enforced a state of emergency. All residents are advised to stay at home and all non-essential businesses are to be closed…

She read the article, her eyes growing in horror as she continued. When she was done, she quickly messaged Alan.

“Hey did you see that Toronto is quarantining all of us?”

“Yeah, they did the same thing to New York too.”

“What? That’s crazy!”

“They closed the borders too, until all of this is over, which they said will be until the end of April.”

“Well, we only have a month and a bit. We can get through this.”

“Ugh, and I was really hoping to go to a bar today and meet some new people here too since I’m getting a little lonely. But I guess that’s illegal now.”

“Just a month and a bit Alan, and you can meet lots of new people! Not to mention, your internship will start so you’ll get to have fun with your coworkers too!”

Edwina could feel that he was unconvinced.

“Look, you wanna videocall? I miss ya,” she said.

Alan video called her.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, half-heartedly.

“Wow where’d you even find a place like this?”

The room looked stuffy; she noted that it was the lack of windows. The walls were bare and uncovered trestles lined the ceiling.

“It’s a basement to an apartment, the existing tenants suddenly left so I got it at a pretty cheap price,” he said, “well, as cheap as it gets in Manhattan anyways.”

They spoke for half an hour until they both had to watch their classes for the day. Their days continued in that order until the end of the semester: wake-up, check the news, talk, watch lectures. Once class ended mid-April, there was nothing left to do for most of the day but to read the ever worsening news of the pandemic and wait for their respective internships to start. Their conversations continued, but Edwina could sense Alan’s gradual disheartening.

The morning of the Monday before May, while Edwina was perusing the news on her phone as per usual, she noticed that she had an unread e-mail.

That’s unusual, she thought, I don’t get many e-mails now that everything’s shut down.

She read it to herself.

From: hr@saputo.com

Dear incoming interns,

The recent situation…, she skipped the parts that she felt must have been verbatim in all the other e-mails she had been getting and scanned for the salient details.

To care for the safety of our staff and incoming interns, we will be hosting our internship in a virtual manner.

She stopped reading to digest the sentence. She frowned, but was interrupted by a video call request from Alan. She accepted it. Before he could start speaking, Edwina blurted out her end of the news.

“My internship is online now.”

“Yeah, well, mine just got cancelled.”

“What?! They can’t do that.”

“Yeah, well, they just did.”

A sombre silence filled the air. Alan was hunched over, but Edwina could still see that his eyes were glazed and empty.

“Aw man, and you worked so hard for it too.”

“Yeah.”

Edwina’s eyes darted around Alan’s room looking for something to switch the topic too.

“Hey, what’s that behind you?”

Alan looked behind him.

“Oh, that? Oh. I just ironed my shirts last night to prepare for the internship. I didn’t,” a sombre pause, “expect this to happen, I guess.”

With Alan moved to the side of the screen Edwina could take a closer look at Alan’s laundry. The dress shirts were put on clothing hangers, which were then hooked onto the holes in the trestles supporting the ceiling.

“Do you think there’s any chance that the internship might be restarted?” Asked Edwina. She put on a hopeful smile.

“I really hope so but like let’s be real. The pension that I was going to work in has a heavy holding in retail real estate assets across the country, and with nobody allowed to go shopping right now, the stores will be trying to get out of paying rent,”

Edwina knew that Alan was right.

He continued, “which will obliterate the fund’s cash flows. With the pension already being underfunded before all of this, the new conditions will most definitely cash crunch the fund, and not paying interns is probably the lowest hanging fruit to save on costs.”

Alan took a deep breath and placed his forehead on his table. Edwina felt sorry, but put on her bravest smile.

“Don’t worry Alan, the quarantine will be over by the end of the week! Then everything will be back to normal.” She emphasized her last words as if it might make those days come sooner.

On the Monday that quarantine ended, Edwina broke her normal routine and instead messaged Alan immediately after waking up.

“Good morning!!! You know what you should do? Take the next plane back to Toronto so we can hang out at my place,” she messaged. She was genuinely smiling. “Six feet apart of course, I’ll have a ruler!” She added, jokingly.

“Can’t. Borders are still closed.”

“What?? But I thought this was supposed to end today?”

“Check the news.”

She flipped to today’s news and read the top headline.

State of Emergency Extended Until End of May

What!?

She flipped back to her messaging tab.

“Our state of emergency just got extended until the end of May. Is the same thing happening in New York?”

“Yep.”

Her fingers stopped typing, as if even the ever-cheerful Edwina did not know what to say. She looked at the phone pensively, then began typing again.

“Hey, another month’s not a big deal. It’ll just be a bit of a waiting game, that’s all.” She threw in a smiley face.

“I guess.” Neither of them found anything to continue their conversation.

Every morning, Edwina would continue talking to Alan before she had to log on to her laptop at nine. Typically, she would just talk about the work she did the day before. Alan would have nothing to add, but Edwina was determined to get a smile out of her friend.

“Did you get to go outside today?”

“Yeah”

“How was it?”

“Nothing much. Very few people on the streets.” A pause. “Never thought I’d feel lonely going out in the busiest city in the world,” he added.

“You’ll be able to come back and see everyone soon,” she said, throwing in a series of smiley faces, “it’s just a waiting game.”

“I guess.” And that was how their conversations would typically end.

On the first day of June, Edwina instantly checked her phone upon waking up. This time, she checked the news first.

State of Emergency Extended until End of June

She fell back into her bed, turned over to bury her face in her pillow, and let out a groan. She turned back and sent a message to Alan.

“You too?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna call? I miss ya.”

“Sure.”

Alan sent a video call request; Edwina accepted it.

“Heya look I know this sucks but it’s just one more month.”

“They said that one month ago too, and the month before that.”

“Look, this has to end eventually”

“Why?”

Edwina was taken aback. She had no answer. Again, she peered into her friend’s room to look for something to ask about, anything to distract him from the immediate concern.

“Wait, is that alcohol in your room?”

Alan glanced back, incidentally freeing the view for Edwina to see. She could count seven or eight bottles, most of which were empty. Aside from that, Edwina finally noticed how lonely the rest of the apartment seemed.

Alan turned back. “Well, it’s one of the only stores that are open right now,” he said sheepishly, “and honestly, speaking with the store clerk has been the only in-person interaction I’ve been having this past couple of months.”

“Really missing people, huh.”

His face turned serious again.

“Yeah.”

Edwina’s mind spun to find other ways to distract her friend. She started talking.

“Hey let’s stop worrying about now and figure out the future.” She paused for a minute; she had the perfect idea and grinned uncontrollably at her own brilliance. “Can you promise me that you’ll come back the first day the borders open? Then, we can hang out for the rest of the day and we’ll have a lot of fun together!”

“Sure.” A weak smile returned to Alan’s face.

“Good. As of now that’s July 1^st so you better be packing the night before! Anyways I gotta get to work, talk tomorrow?”

“Yeah”

As the days dragged on, their morning routine continued. Edwina noticed that she had been getting on her laptop earlier every day.

One morning, Edwina noticed that Alan had messaged him overnight. She checked when the message was sent: 2:47 AM. She read the message.

“Hey, sorry about that time I spilt coffee all over your Canada Goose jacket, I just e-transferred you some money to pay for the dry cleaning fee.”

What, that was months ago?

“Don’t worry about it, it’s not a big deal,” she replied. She thought for a bit, and continued typing again, “just curious, why’re you doing this now?”

“Just wanted to get some things out of the way.” A smiley face. “By the way, I’m feeling a lot better now.”

“That’s fantastic! I’m so happy for you!”

“I’m happy too.” Another smiley face.

On July 1^st, she woke up before her alarm and after a few seconds of being confused as to why she was awake so early her mind snapped back to clarity. She lunged for her phone barely a foot away and immediately flipped to the news page. Her eyes rushed to the top headline.

U.S.-Canada Border Opens Up for Non-essential… she didn’t need to read the rest. She immediately flipped to her messages and her fingers scurried over her keyboard. Her eyes gleamed with excitement and a smile was creeping onto her face.

“Hey, check the news!”

There was no reply. She was taken aback; normally, Alan responded immediately. She checked the clock.

Oh. Right. I woke up early today. He must still be asleep.

She put her phone back down and went back to sleep. When she woke up again, she noticed that there was still no reply from Alan.

Packing everything in one night and planning a move across countries is hard, he’s probably just really busy right now and doesn’t want to get dragged into a half hour conversation, I don’t blame him.

She set her phone down, logged onto her computer, and began her workday. Halfway through her first task of the morning she thought better of it and attached her mouse to rotating fan to trick the activity tracker on her computer. She smiled at her ingenuity. She marched out of her apartment, got into her car, and drove to the airport.

Alan has never gone back on a promise, ever. And he made a promise he’ll be here.

She hurried to Terminal 1, sat down on the first bench she saw, and impatiently checked her phone every couple of minutes.

It’s just another waiting game, like the one we’ve been playing for the past few months, she told herself. A passerby might have observed that her facial expressions seemed to resemble excitement, then relax, then excite again, before relaxing.

I’ve waited so long for this, what’s a few more hours?

She sat there waiting for a long, long time.