“Yeah?” I half-expect Iris’s best friend to issue some kind of warning of her own.
Instead, I hear her sniffle. “Thanks for looking out for her.”
My smile spreads slowly. “Anytime, Sally.”
Iris and her friends say their goodbyes, and she ends the call, her watchful eyes on me.
“What do—”
But she’s interrupted when her phone goes off again. This time, the name across the screen is her director’s.
“Shit,” she hisses. “Moira got to him. I’d better take this.”
She puts the phone to her ear, and I rise, wanting to give her privacy if she needs it. When she doesn’t look up at my departure, I know she’s got this under control.
“Hi Jonathan… I figured she did… No—no, I’m fine. She doesn’t represent me anymore…”
I step into the kitchen, but I feel my shoulders ease because she sounds more confident than she has since I showed up. Talking to her friends probably steeled her conviction that this is the right move.
I can still hear her voice in the kitchen, but I try to tune out her words and instead assess what we have to work with. The range is gas, which means we can cook without power. The fridge and the freezer aren’t exactly stocked, but there’s food. The freezer holds individually sealed salmon steaks, broccoli, and mixed berries. In the fridge I find eggs, two bags of kale, a head of cauliflower, romaine lettuce, a bag of organic apples, some Havarti cheese, deli sliced turkey, and milk.
I open the pantry to find a box of something called keto couscous—whatever the hell that is—two jars of marinara sauce, Mediterranean olives, marinated mushrooms, packets of tuna, coconut oil, applesauce, two bars of ninety-nine percent cocoa dark chocolate, and liters and liters of Perrier.
So the girl doesn’t own a single carb, but we won’t starve.
On the top shelf of the pantry, I hit the jackpot and find a working flashlight and a packet of tea candles. I open and close cabinets until I find a decent-sized pitcher, and I fill it with water. I store it in the fridge and go in search of the bathroom.
Iris finds me filling the tub. “What are you doing?”
“Just a precaution,” I say, straightening up. “In case the storm contaminates the water supply and they shut it off.”
She looks at the bathtub and wrinkles her nose. “We’re going to drink that?”
Sputtering a laugh, I shake my head. “No, it’s for flushing the toilet.”
She jerks her head back, surprise in her eyes. “I was not expecting you to say that.”
“Hurricanes are educational.”
She crosses her arms, leans against the bathroom door sill. “If you have the right teacher,” she quips, chafing her hands up and down her arms. “What else do we need to do?”
I nod toward her arms where her goosebumps are clearly visible. “Change into dry clothes, charge our phones, and make lunch.”
* * *
It’s onlyafter we eat lunch and clean up the kitchen that I start to worry. Not about the storm. There’s no point in worrying about that. We’ve done everything we can do at this point, and now we just have to wait and watch.
But it’s what to do during the waiting and watching that has me concerned.
I should probably find a way to give Iris some space. And get some space for myself. I held her in my arms. I comforted her while she cried. But I can’t fool myself into thinking this is something it isn’t.
After I load the last dish from our cheese omelets into her dishwasher, I grab my bag that I set in the hall after I changed. “Where should I put my stuff?”
Drying her hands, Iris turns to me like I’ve taken her off guard. “Oh… um… Ramon’s room I guess.” She hangs the towel on a decorative hook over the sink. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”
I follow her to the front hall. She leads me to a bedroom at the front of the house. On a nice day, the windows would overlook her yard, but today, wet screens and driving rain obscure the view.
The double bed is made and other than a few hand weights in one corner, the room doesn’t look like it belongs to anyone.
