Anne-Marie Kinney - Radio Iris

She wanders out to the backyard, and as she gets close to the fig tree, she can hear a faint humming sound, and see the way the branches are moving with it. She looks up, and there, from one of the higher branches, she sees two small feet dangling, the rest of the body hidden by leaves.

She comes closer and a voice calls down, “Do you see me up here?”

“Yes,” she says, “I see you.”

“Do you dare me to jump?”

Iris tries to answer, but no sound comes out. She moves her lips soundlessly, over and over again, saying no, but not saying it.

She sees that the tree is buzzing with energy again, its edges blurred in vibration.

“Do you?” the boy says again, and Iris just stands there, watching the tree hum. The feet tuck back up under the leaves then, and Iris backs away.

When she gets back out to the driveway, the car is running and her father is in the driver’s seat, her mother beside him.

He rolls down his window and yells out, “Neil!”

Iris looks and sees her brother standing in the middle of the road, far out ahead of them.

“Neil!” he yells again, to his son’s back.

“Get in the car,” her mother whispers to Iris without looking at her; she complies.

Her father switches on the headlights then, and Neil is illuminated, a towering figure far out in the distance. Iris squints, but can’t tell if he is walking forward or standing still.

“We’ll catch up to him,” her mother says now, and her father nods to her and eases out of the driveway.

From the backseat, Iris looks back at the house, at the horses they are leaving behind, asleep on their feet, at the great tree shaking in the night, but she can’t see the boy. She faces forward as the car rolls slowly down the road, Neil’s figure still glowing up ahead, under the many watchful eyes, shielded behind glass.

* * *

Outside of Iris’s sleeping body, her apartment sparkles whiter than white. She wiped down every surface with bleach-infused cleaners, their chemical scents masked with florals, vacuumed the carpet, washed the windows, mopped the kitchen floor, did all the dishes, hung all her clothes neatly in the closet, everything lined right up and stripped of germs, of dead skin cells and perspiration, of every trace of her body’s occupation. She breathes it all in, this freshness, and this emptiness too.

And in the early morning, before she wakes, a new picture forms in her sleeping cells: a pine tree alone in a field, then suddenly, two trees, then three, multiplying faster than she can track until her consciousness is floating above a rapidly growing forest, new trees shoving themselves up out of the earth one by one, faster and faster, with a sound like a deck of cards, shuffling.

Iris’s alarm goes off at seven forty-five. She sits up quickly, the sheets suspended stiffly around her. She stares, grimacing at the clock, then suddenly realizes that the sound she’s hearing isn’t the beep of her alarm, but rather the sound of radio static, coming from inside her dresser.

She hops out of bed and pulls open the top drawer to find the little radio screaming its crackle and hiss and she presses the off button hard with her thumb. She checks the back and finds it loaded with batteries. She pats her hand around amid her socks and panties— no batteries there. She tries to remember taking them out. She can’t remember. She sets the little radio down and rubs her eyes with her fists. Something is wrong here, but she can’t remember.

She opens the bedroom window to let out the stuffiness, but it is stuffy outside too, another hot, stagnant day approaching. There is no airflow between inside and out. She pushes the screen aside and sticks her head out the window. It feels like just another room out there.

She turns on her radio to Motown Tuesday, which used to be Motown Monday, an arrangement that made a lot more sense, phonetically speaking. She gets in the shower just as “Heat Wave” is fading out, Martha Reeves wailing yeah yeah, yeah ya-hah, while the Vandellas sing quietly, burnin’, burnin’, burnin’ just underneath. While she closes her eyes and lets the water pummel her face, the morning DJ comes on.

“That was a little Martha and the Vandellas— we all know something about heat waves around here, am I right? Well, it’s only getting hotter, ladies and gentlemen. Our own meteorologist, Jenny “Sunshine” Samson tells me this is only the beginning. Stay inside with your head in the freezer today, kids, and don’t come out until October! Jenny will join us with the full weather report in just a little while. Let’s start our next block of Motown hits with a little more Martha— there’s nowhere to run, kids, so stay right here!”

The bass and horns kick in, and Iris tries to separate Martha’s song from the Vandellas’. This is what she always does with the girl groups. If she listens only to the background vocals, it’s a different song. This one becomes more mournful, just the two voices in unison, repeating softly, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, ooooooohhh. She opens up and lets the water fill her mouth. She swallows, though the water is considered poison here, provoking natives and transplants alike to fill their shopping carts with the bottled kind. It tastes all right to her. She turns the shower off and bends over in a quick jerking motion to wring out her hair; her jaw feels loosened from her skull.

She blow dries her hair and combs it smooth, puts on a dark green shift that zips up the back and has a straight neckline that makes her head and neck appear suspended above her body. It is a severe look that suits her today. Before she leaves the apartment, she stops at her dresser and picks up the little radio. It doesn’t belong to her, she thinks, so she slips it into her bag, thinking it might be time she gave it back.

On the way into work, she stops for gas. She swipes her debit card, shielding her eyes from the already oppressive sun to make out the words on the screen. She enters her pin and waits, until the word “Declined” appears. Unsure if she’s read it right, she brings her face in closer, cupping her hands between her temples and the edge of the screen. Her check hasn’t cleared yet. She cancels the transaction and uses her credit card instead, a too-often-used standby whenever she’s short. She tries not to think about what new heights her minimum payment due might reach next month.

When she pulls into the office parking lot, she is immediately struck by the number of cars, one next to another and another. She has to circle around to find a spot for the first time in as long as she can remember. She jerks the parking brake back too forcefully and turns the car off. She sits for a long minute, until it is too hot, before getting out, sliding sideways between her car and the black pickup truck next to it, parked on a diagonal, just over the line.

Inside and up the stairs, Iris sets her hand on the doorknob and fiddles with her keychain. She unwittingly turns the knob slightly while still isolating the office key, and the door opens, swinging slowly inward. She freezes. Her eyes dart to the lock, which doesn’t appear to be broken. Still, her breath is caught in her throat. She gives the door the smallest push with her index finger, and it swings all the way to the wall and bounces lightly on the doorstop. She sets her left foot inside, then her right, one step at a time, the lavender carpet fibers bending under her weight. The lights are on, as she left them. She closes the door, sets her things beside her desk and sees her computer in screen saver mode, a red ball traveling slowly across the screen and bouncing lightly against each edge. She breaks up this serene tableau with a slide of the mouse and her desktop appears, adorned with the usual files and folders. The phone is where it is.