“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.
DIGGING OUT
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.”
“Yeah, mmhhmm,” Mallory says, hanging up quickly.
Iris looks at the clock on the stove. 5:48. She changes into jeans, ballet flats, and a bronze tank top. She drags her bag into the closet and dumps everything on the floor to switch her belongings into a smaller purse. The power drill falls out with a metallic thunk, her billfold and makeup clacking out along with it onto the closet’s peeling hardwood. She picks up the drill and pushes it underneath a pile of sweaters on the closet floor.
Once dressed, she walks down to the corner store to buy a bottle of wine. It is still light out, but it’s a tentative lightness. Dry leaves float past her down the sidewalk in the lazy breeze. She walks through the automatic doors and an electronic chime sounds, alerting the elderly man behind the counter to her arrival. She glances over at him, but he doesn’t look up from his paper. The wine selection is extensive, one side of the store filled with random grocery items and miniature bottles of detergent, all emblazoned with faded orange price tags, the other side hooch heaven, the selection ranging from dusty bottles of Old Grand-Dad to Dom Pérignon locked in a glass case perched up high behind the counter. She paces sideways across the wine aisle, craning her neck to peruse the top shelves. She doesn’t know anything about wine, so this perusal is for show, though no one is watching but the blinking red security camera behind the counter. The real decision is between the three cheapest cabernets, on the bottom shelf, each one under nine dollars. She chooses the one with the most austere gold lettering on its label.
Iris steps outside onto the sidewalk carrying the bottle by its neck in a paper bag and turns the corner back onto her street. The moment she turns, she is met by a giant Great Dane, leonine almost in its grace, its gray fur glowing in the not-yet moonlight. Sitting up straight on the sidewalk before her, its head practically reaches her chest. She stops and looks into its droopy brown eyes.
“Hi,” she says.
The dog stares back at her. Slowly, she reaches out a hand.
“Here,” she whispers, “here.” The dog looks at her hand but makes no move to sniff it. She inches closer and slowly moves her hand from in front of the dog’s face to the top of its head.
“Okay?” she asks, lightly touching the soft fur on the top of the dog’s head with her fingertips. She feels the outline of its skull. The dog doesn’t react, but allows her to continue petting. She rubs her whole hand on its head, then smoothes its ears back. At this, the dog closes its eyes in pleasure.
“Who are you?” she asks. The dog has a tag, and she leans down to read it.
“You have a very sophisticated name, Federico.” She looks back into the dog’s eyes. His ears have perked up at the uttering of his name.
Still petting his head, Iris looks around for a possible owner, someone running, frantic, dragging an empty leash, slack against the pavement. There is no one, anywhere.
“I guess you’d better come with me,” she says, “and we can call that phone number on your tag.”
She pauses then, wondering how exactly she will coax Federico into following her. There is no way that she could pull him, so he needs to follow of his own volition. She takes a few steps toward home and looks back. The dog has turned his head to watch her, but he hasn’t stood up.
“Are you coming?” she asks. “Are you coming, Federico?” He tilts his head to the left.
She takes another few steps and stops. When she turns, Federico is standing, still facing her. She locks her eyes onto his.
“Yeah,” she says, “like that. Keep going like that.”
She takes another few steps, and when she turns, Federico is just a few feet behind her, following with a worried look on his face, brows pinched and watery brown eyes wide.