Anne-Marie Kinney - Radio Iris

“Hello?” he mutters softly this time, and Iris is close enough to hear it.

“Are you leaving now?” she answers, then covers her mouth.

“Who said that?”

“…me.”

“Where are— ”

Iris doesn’t have to answer, because he quickly figures it out himself. He lowers himself to the floor, and his eyes lock onto her one.

“What did you say?”

“I asked if you were… leaving.”

“I’m trying something,” he says, after a moment.

“What?”

“I’m just trying something. You’ll see.”

“Have… have you really been living here?”

He sits up then, so her view stops at the bend of his waist, the tuck of his white shirt.

“You don’t have to worry about it.”

“I know I don’t have to.”

“I’ve got it under control.”

She watches his breath move the thin fabric of his shirt.

“This is my wall, you know,” he says.

“Only that side is,” she says. “This side is mine.”

He laughs then, a quiet, raspy laugh.

“True enou— ”

“— Where are you going?” she interrupts.

“Nowhere. Not just yet.”

“Oh.”

For all the times she’s longed to talk to him like this, her mind is racing, clawing for anything to say.

“Where did you come from?” she asks, finally.

There’s a pause between the rooms.

“What are you after?” he asks.

“I…” she begins. She can’t remember when she noticed the office next door was empty. She only noticed when it filled again, an anchor materialized, as though formed out of the air, for her to grab onto. But there was someone there before him, before her even, and another before that. When did she start needing an anchor? Walls lined with closed doors have trained her after all this time to perceive the weight of things she can’t see. She closes her eyes and feels his weight on the carpet fibers on the other side of the wall.

“What are you after?” she counters.

His face is right there, though he doesn’t look at her— she sees only the corner of his mouth and his rough chin.

“I can’t explain it to you.”

“Try.”

“I’ve been trying to figure it out for a long time.”

“If you tell me who you are, and what you’ve come here for,” Iris begins carefully, “I’ll listen.”

“I know,” he whispers, and Iris watches his mouth.

“Can I come over there?” she whispers back.

And before he can answer, the phone rings, and it triggers a reflex in her, snapping her out of the smallness they’ve created.

“Hold on,” she says, “hold on— ” her heart beating fast.

She jerks her head back from the wall. She takes a deep breath and scrambles to her feet to get to the phone.

“Larmax, Inc., how can I help you?”

“Um, hi. I don’t know if this is the right number,” a woman says.

“Um,” Iris echoes, “how can I help you?”

“I’m calling about the job? The opening for a receptionist?”

“I’m the receptionist.”

“Oh. Huh. What number is this?”

“487-2359.”

“Hold on.”

Iris listens to the rustling of paper.

“Oh,” the woman comes back on the line, “my mistake,” and hangs up.

Iris hangs up in turn and goes back to her water, but it goes down the wrong way when she takes a sip and leaves her coughing, a knot unfurling in her chest. Another phone rings somewhere else on the second floor, then another somewhere closer, but hers stays silent. She sits, shoulders hunched, on the edge of her desk for a long moment; her throat is raw again.

She returns to the storage room and kneels down at the hole.

“Hello? Are you there?”

There’s no answer. She brings her eye down to the hole, but she doesn’t need to look to know he’s not in there anymore.

But still, she steps out into the hallway and knocks on the door. She waits. She rattles the doorknob, then rattles it harder. She rests her forehead on the door for a moment. She doesn’t recognize herself suddenly. She’s on the verge of tears, but powerless to explain them. Her mouth feels dry and clumsy, incapable of forming words.

Why was she unable to let the phone ring? I’m not even technically here, Iris marvels, as she gathers her things and locks up. She must be programmed like a machine at this point, she thinks, an answering machine, but answering no call of any consequence. She jogs down the stairs and across the lot, hoping to get out quick and forget what she’s done, distance pulling out the threads of her memory like she knows it can. She’ll keep the windows down so speed can fill her ears with wind.

She can’t imagine what time it is as she breathes hard. She focuses on her car in the distance, in the trajectory of the sprinklers that have started up to drown the hedges. Water sprays across the hood, and from here, she thinks she can make out a folded piece of paper nestled against the windshield. She runs faster, wisps of her hair fluttering against her mouth, and when she reaches the car, she pulls the damp paper very carefully out from under the windshield wiper, and unfolds it slowly so it won’t come apart in her hands. Her eyes dart up and down the page hungrily, and she’s thrown by the sheer volume of text and colorful images, little boxes in a vertical row. The ink is smeared, and she can’t seem to catch hold of any meaning to the words, and the pictures are too small to make out— until gradually each element slides into place, and she realizes it’s a flyer, for a new Jamaican restaurant down the street. She looks behind her and sees that there’s one on every car in the lot. Feeling vulnerable, feeling stupid, she heaves herself into the car and throws the damp piece of paper onto the floor. She backs out quickly, careening down the driveway while another part of her, a part she is embarrassed to acknowledge even in secret, looks out the back, palms pressed to the window.

When she gets home, she sits in her car for a moment and listens to the cough of the engine— her poor, weak car, her dank garage, her small, tunnel-like world. She squeezes her eyes shut, grabs the flesh of her left forearm and pinches hard for as long as she can stand the sharp, rising throb of it, until her whole arm begins to pulse, gangrenous and foggy. Finally, she lets go, opening her eyes, and watches as the blotchy white skin regains its color.

When she is inside, it feels so warm and muggy, she opens all the windows, unsealing the apartment. The air outside sends the curtains floating inward lackadaisically. She sits on the sofa, a hand-me-down from her parents, threadbare now but soft and smelling of pencil shavings and fireplaces. She plunges her face into the cushion and takes a deep whiff.

She should be tired but she isn’t. Not at all. Her eyes are wide open and dry as chalk. She pops up onto her feet again and grabs the phone out of her purse. She dials Mallory.

“Hey,” Mallory answers.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’ve been cooking all day. I never cook, that’s just how fucking bored I am. I made eggplant parmesan, spaghetti, bruschetta— do you wanna come over? We’re never gonna be able to eat all of this ourselves. You should come help us eat— I don’t want to get fat too on top of everything.”

“Um, okay. What time? Should I bring something?”

“I don’t know, seven? You don’t have to bring shit.”

“I probably will anyway.”

“Fine, bring booze. Wait, hold on a second.”

Iris hears the clack of the phone being placed on a hard surface. She waits there.

“Sorry sorry,” Mallory returns with a clatter. “Listen, make it seven-thirty, okay?

“Okay, see you.”