Anne-Marie Kinney - Radio Iris

On the days she hears nothing, she imagines that he has packed up and disappeared. She checks every morning to make sure the white van is still in the parking lot, but it could be a different white van, there are other white vans— she never did take note of the license plate number. Or maybe he is still asleep, she tells herself, maybe he is asleep and dreaming of air, his body slumped over in the green chair or conked out on the floor, his consciousness floating just outside, between the thin, viscous clouds.

It’s not enough.

On a Friday morning at eight o’clock, Iris decides to knock on his door. She convinces herself to do it by imagining the worst that could happen. The worst that could happen is that he won’t answer, she decides, and she already knows what that’s like. She does not think about the best thing that could happen. She doesn’t get that far.

So she steps out into the hallway, taking care not to lock her own door behind her as she does not bring her keys. She reaches out her hand and knocks one time, pauses, then three quick knocks, like a stuttered exclamation point. And then she waits.

She counts thirty seconds and knocks again. She hears a thump and what sounds like a rustling of fabric. He is in there, somebody is. Or he has escaped out the window, letting the drapes fly in the breeze, knocking blunt objects off of tables. But still no answer.

“Hello?” she finally says. The rustling stops.

“Hello?” she repeats, having again arrived at thirty-Mississippi in her head.

When he fails, still, to respond, she talks to the door.

“Was the note I got— the one in the box— was it you?” She thinks then that she should have brought it as some kind of visual aid, but it is at home, on top of her dresser. She could slide it under the door to jog his memory, but then she might not get it back.

“Hello,” she tries again, more quietly this time, “I answered it. Did you see that I wrote back?”

She knocks again, just two quick taps, and before she has even retracted her fist, the door opens a crack. The man brings his face forward into the opening and looks at Iris. His eyes are half closed, with puffy bags underneath. She takes a step back.

“Hmm?” he whimpers. She understands now that she has woken him and she can’t remember, suddenly, what was so urgent, what she expects him to do or say.

“Um…” she starts, “I was just asking if… I just wanted to… to introduce myself.” She reaches out a limp hand, and they both look down at it wavering slightly in the dim light of the hallway.

He pauses before opening the door a little wider, his posture protective. His feet are bare, and he is wrapped in a white quilt, thick black hair exposed on his shins.

“Pleased to meet you,” he says, his hands clasped inside the quilt so he is cocooned.

Iris drops her hand down to her side.

“So…” she says.

“What?”

“So… I asked you something, and I was just curious, I guess.”

“I’m sorry— I don’t follow,” he says, his eyes darting between her face and the hallway behind her.

“I asked, and then you said don’t ask.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he says.

“And then I said— it was you, wasn’t it? Isn’t that your van outside?”

“Uh…”

“I’m sorry, I should just go,” Iris stammers. “I don’t know what I’m asking you for. Forget I said anything, just forget…” she trails off, watches the man’s face as he sucks in his cheeks and looks up at the stucco ceiling. She takes a moment to look past him and into the room. There are boxes overflowing with papers, furniture half assembled, metal scraps laid out on a tarp. He is busy, she thinks. There is a new addition, too, a Murphy bed, its thin white sheets softly rumpled, like little milky waves she can imagine sinking into, sinking until she disappears. Flip a switch and into the wall she would go.

“No, I’m sorry,” he says, and she re-focuses on his face, his cloudy eyes and greasy hair. “Sorry I couldn’t be of any help.”

He begins to shut the door then, but stops. He reaches a hand out and touches Iris’s arm, startling her. His hand is warm, his long knobby fingers light against her bare skin.

“Please don’t mention this to anyone. Not for now, all right?”

He pulls his hand away and Iris folds her arms.

“Mention what?”

He smiles and nods slowly, then shuts the door, and she hears the click of a lock turning.

She stands paralyzed for a long moment before slipping down the hall to the ladies’ room. She places her hands on either side of the white porcelain sink. The greenish overhead light makes her hands appear old, veiny, and dry. Or maybe it is the softer light in other rooms that makes them appear young and soft. She runs her left hand over the back of her right and it feels neither rough nor soft. It is too familiar. It is just her skin.

She looks into her reflection. The circles under her eyes are dark, maybe even darker than usual. She looks into her own eyes and tries to determine her expression. What is her face saying? Like her skin, it is too familiar for her to know, for her to even see it.

She thinks about the original note. I am very busy. Don’t ask. Ask me later. I’m not here. If not him, then who? Is he lying, or is there something that escapes her? Is there any reason, she wonders, for her to think anything she thinks? What makes her decide anything? What is it that she thinks she knows? She washes her hands in cold water, running them around and around and around each other in pink liquid soap, and when she rinses them, she turns the faucet to warm. She holds her hands there until she stops feeling the water, and dries them under the air dryer. She watches the water droplets scatter across the backs of her hands.

When she returns from the bathroom, the door is open, and her boss is standing in the doorway, briefcase in hand.

“I just walked in and there was nobody here. The door was unlocked. I just walked in. That doesn’t seem right to me, does it seem right to you?” he says.

“I’m sorry,” she starts, “I just stepped out for a second.”

“What time is it? When did you get here anyway?” She notices then that he is blocking her way in.

“I just… I woke up early. I thought I’d come in and just, get a head start…”

“Oh,” he says. “Huh.” He squints at her. Then he turns and enters the office. She follows.

“Listen, I have some things I need you to do for me,” he calls over his shoulder. “I’ve got a big, big, big meeting in the conference room in one hour. I need bottled water, pens, coffee, the works.”

He stops at his office door and turns back to her. “Hold on. Hold on a sec.” He steps inside and closes the door behind him. She stands there for a minute, poised and ready, before finally giving up and returning to her desk.

Iris begins a data entry project left over from the day before. Transferring numbers from one spreadsheet to another, she falls into a rhythm. Twos and eights and fives lose meaning, becoming shapes, configurations of curves and lines. She holds a pen between her teeth as she moves her mouse back and forth across the mouse pad. The taste of plastic in her mouth helps her focus.

Then her computer makes a twinkling sound. Mail. She sits up straight. She opens her email box and a new message from her boss sits in bold at the top of the list. She glances back in the direction of his office and clicks it open:

Please don’t come in before 9:00am. And please don’t stay after 5:00pm. There is a way things are supposed to look. Surprises aren’t good. This is corporate talking. This isn’t me talking.

As she finishes reading, a new message twinkles from the computer’s small speakers. Again, from the boss, no subject: