There's a lady named Linda

There’s a lady named Linda at the Luxe Nail salon who doesn’t yet know her favorite customer from Grande Vista Retirement Home is never coming back. There’s the grandson of that retiree, a high school geometry whiz, who is bored and wondering if he can download Porn Hub and not get caught by his parents. There’s his neighbor down the block who reads two newspapers front to back and listens to NPR, and another guy who only knows what his Facebook feed tells him. There’s a woman who just moved to their block who has no private yoga clients now, and her three kids are fighting over Pokémon cards and it’s driving her crazy. There’s her husband, who thinks mind-over-matter will make the difference and hand-washing is over rated. There’s a man who lives behind them who shoots deer in Los Padres National Forest in the fall and has a huge locker of meat all ready to cook up, but he’s afraid if he does someone will smell the stew and break his door down and steal everything. There’s his sister, who lives across town, who went to the grocery store at 7:30 AM - because that’s when old people can go - and she almost slipped when her walker wheels skidded as she was reaching for the last can of evaporated milk. There’s her friend the cashier who doesn’t know she is positive. There’s the cashier’s mother, who has been quarantined for weeks, and can’t sleep, so she picks her hair and now her eyebrows and front hairline are gone. There’s her neighbor who left few days ago for her country get-away place. There’s her daughter who is trying to get her kids to be quiet while she has a Zoom meeting with her team at a local bank. There’s her friend at the bank who is hoarding soap. There’s their boss who is thankful he has money in his 401K. There’s his cousin whose girlfriend abuses her. There’s the campus security guard who is called about this but doesn’t want to go into the apartment because it smells like boiled cabbage and that reminds him of his time in foster care with a family that beat him. There’s his dispatcher who just ordered pizza from Woodstock pizza and now doesn’t know if she can touch the box it came in. There’s her co-worker who could solve the dilemma with the hand-sanitizer she has in her drawer but she doesn’t want anyone to know so she won’t have to share. There’s her 14-year-old at home who is tired of playing League of Legends and wants to go to Metro Entertainment to play War Hammer with his friends. There’s the clerk who works at Metro whose laptop broke just as the quarantine began and it is sitting in the repair shop, which is closed, for as long this goes on. There’s the owner of that shop who took his two daughters away to a friend’s cabin around Big Bear and is teaching them Whist, which his grandfather taught him. There’s his wife who is a nurse who has been working at the hospital on 24 hour shifts and sleeps in a motel since she can’t go home and touch her family. There’s her sister, who is pregnant, and terrified. There’s the baby’s father who is a guard in the local jail who knows prisoners are testing positive but is forbidden to tell anyone. There’s his aunt who lives in San Diego and has been taking food and clothes across the border to families stuck in refugee camps but now Mexico doesn’t want Americans crossing the border. There’s her roommate who keeps watching “Outbreak” and “Contagion” and it’s driving her crazy. There’s their other roommate who has been putting up cheerful messages on Instagram but who now can’t stop crying because her grandpa died in his bed because the hospitals are not resuscitating anyone with the virus who has a heart attack. There’s his widow who is terrified after creatures in Hazmat suits came into her bedroom and took her husband. There’s the mortician in one of the suits who wishes she could give the poor widow some words of comfort but when she tries to say something it sounds like Darth Vader and scares the old woman more. There’s the manager of the funeral home who has a refrigerator truck adjacent to his business because the bodies are coming in so fast. There’s the mechanic who worked on the truck who is a single parent with three kids and he hopes they are safe at home alone. There’s the oldest girl in the family who is watching her siblings and also a kid from across the street because their mom and dad are doing private grocery shopping for folks who can’t go to the store. There’s the customer the husband is trying to please who is asking him if they have active yeast which she needs to make bread. There’s the lady in Missouri who put up her bread recipe on the internet and now it has 182 likes. There’s a woman who hit the blue thumbs-up button on the bread recipe who wishes her boyfriend could come over but since he can’t she will spend this afternoon with her two favorite vibrators and a joint. There’s her boyfriend who hasn’t told her he wants to separate. There’s the guy he has a crush on who works at the 7-11 which for some reason is considered essential and is open. There’s the homeless woman who camps behind its dumpsters. There’s the cleaning crew who tried to get her to move but who now don’t want to be close to her so they leave quickly after tossing black plastic bags in the trash bin. There’s the garbage truck driver, husband of Linda at the Luxe nail salon, who lifts the giant dumpster and empties it upside down into his truck. He’s noticed he isn’t smelling anything today. There’s the broadcaster on CNN who tells him on the 6:00 news that is one of the symptoms of Coronavirus.