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Ruth held out her gloved hands to Clarisse, wiggled her latex-coated fingers ‘No risk,’ she said, pointing to the paper mask she’d found at a hardware store She felt like an astronaut She waved a hand in the air as entreaty to the standoff, but Clarisse stood still behind her screen door, a certain determination glowing in her eyes   ‘You’re my one friend on the planet,’ Clarisse said ‘But social distancing means social distancing’   Ruth might have expected as much Clarisse was the kind of germ freak who never allowed shoes in her house, who tucked hand sanitiser in her bra at bars It was on all the news channels now, the way they were all supposed to shelter in place, and Ruth should have known She felt corrected, as a small child might have She heard a noise from her stomach that sounded like a plunger being forced down a clog   And the truth she’d keep in her own body: her throat tickled in a way she hoped was simply the manifestation of seasonal allergies, and she was holding a cough that so desperately wanted out She envisioned her bronchial tubes as tiny balloons, tied by clowns into the shapes of bulbous dogs She breathed deeply, willing them into good behaviour ‘Just one last Saturday coffee?’   Clarisse stepped aside from the door and back into her house, then reappeared holding the kind of folding chair she might have taken to a tailgate party ‘How ’bout we do this,’ she said, handing it through the door, and as Ruth unfolded the chair onto the porch, Clarisse sat down in her own hardwood foyer, criss-cross applesauce Ruth tried hard, so hard, not to look at Clarisse’s legs, because they were orange Ruth couldn’t decide whether it was a mistake – the wrong shade of pantyhose clashing with Clarisse’s natural skin colour, or a sudden inability on Clarisse’s part to match her stockings to any other element of clothing Either way, it was an indicator of some sort of slippage, which might be a problem, since Clarisse was just coming off a two-week stint of