The Dead Key Part 2

Brad pulled a nickel out of his pocket and put it in the coffee machine. Iris's jaw dropped when it spit out a Styrofoam cup and began to fill it with a black liquid that must have been sitting inside the machine for years.

"Want some coffee?"

"Oh, I'm good!"

Iris backed away. Her eyes darted from the tables to the cup dispensers to the half-full trash cans. "It's like a nuclear holocaust came through here and left all of the furniture." She peered down at the red and green floor tiles and saw her footprints in the dust. They were the only sign of life past the year 1978 in the whole room.

CHAPTER 4.

It was 5:00 p.m. when Brad finally packed up the tape measure. "I think we'll call it a night."

"Sounds good." Iris nearly took off running for the loading dock. They'd only managed to finish laying out the floor plans for two levels, but she couldn't care less.

"I'll meet you back here tomorrow bright and early."

Iris nearly tripped over her feet. She hadn't agreed to work Sunday too. d.a.m.n it. "Uh, okay. What time?"

"Oh, nothing crazy. Let's say 9:00 a.m. again. Okay?"

"Sure," she said through gritted teeth. Brad sucked.

On the way home, Iris decided she needed a drink. It was a Sat.u.r.day night after all, and she'd earned it. Just one drink. There was nothing waiting for her at home but dirty laundry and dirty dishes anyway.

The red walls and stained ceiling of her favorite bar, Club Illusion, were just as she'd left them two nights before. Ellie was still behind the bar, as if she'd slept there. With her dyed-black hair, nose ring, and tattoos, she couldn't have been more different than Iris, but Ellie was the closest thing she had to a best friend, even though they rarely saw each other outside the bar. They had met at Club I two years earlier when Iris applied for a weekend job.

Besides beer and cigarettes, they didn't have much else in common. It was kind of sad when Iris stopped to think about it, which she didn't like to do. She didn't have many girl friends. Any, really. The other women in engineering school were few and far between and tended to be high-strung or painfully quiet or both. Worse, they were boring. They came from nice families. They had nice manners. They were nice girls. They didn't swear or smoke or spit. As much as she hated to admit it, Iris was just another one of them. She attended every cla.s.s, turned in every a.s.signment, and did exactly what she was supposed to do.

Iris plopped down on her usual bar stool. Ellie poured two whiskey sours and grabbed an ashtray. The regulars hadn't trickled in yet, and the frat boys were still on summer vacation. They had the place to themselves.

"How goes life in the salt mines?"

Ellie must have thought it was hilarious that Iris had to sit in an office every day. She didn't give a s.h.i.+t what the world thought she was supposed to do. Ellie was a sixth-year art student with no plans of graduating. Pleasing the parents or the teachers wasn't even a thought. She was free. At least, that was the way it seemed.

Iris forced a smile and took a huge swig of whiskey. "Just peachy. How's tips?"

"s.h.i.+tty. If things don't pick up, I'm going to have to get a real job."

Ellie would never get a real job.

"Nice tattoo. Is that new?"

The new addition to the intricate mural running down her left arm was a black-and-white image of two dice sitting in a skeleton hand.

"Yes, ma'am. Just took the bandage off this morning. It comes from this Nietzsche quote I read once. 'The devotion of the greatest is to encounter risk and danger and play dice for death.'"

"Wow." Iris nodded, trying not to stare at the angry red skin surrounding the bones. She'd never had the guts to write something on herself she couldn't erase. It looked like it hurt.

"So what's new with you?" Ellie asked.

Iris was thrilled to have something fun to say for once. She often wondered if Ellie found her remotely interesting, or if she was merely tolerating the engineering nerd who kept coming around. "You won't believe where I was today. I spent the whole day surveying this weird bombed-out building downtown. It was f.u.c.king crazy in there."

Iris filled her in on the post-apocalyptic scene in the cafeteria.

"Tell me you drank that coffee," Ellie said, laughing. "Which building was it?"

"First Bank of Cleveland. It closed down in the '70s. Ever heard of it?"

"Nope."

"I guess it closed down around the time the city went bankrupt. How does a city go bankrupt anyway?" Iris polished off her drink in one large gulp.

"Eh. Everyone's got their theories on that one. My old man thinks it was some conspiracy down at city hall. Of course, he thinks the river catching fire was a conspiracy too."

Iris nodded. In the five years she'd lived there, she'd heard her share of Cleveland underdog conspiracy theories.

"Want another one?"

Iris could see the whole night play out as she stared into the bottom of her gla.s.s. She and Ellie would tie on a buzz. The bar would fill up. Some random guy would sit down next to Iris and strike up a conversation. For a few fleeting hours, Iris would be the most fascinating woman he'd ever met. He would laugh at all of her jokes and hang on her every word. They'd be the closest of friends until the end of the night, when she'd mutter some excuse and stagger home alone. She never let them take her home. She sighed, thinking of Nick.

"Not tonight. I have to work tomorrow, if you can believe that s.h.i.+t."

"What's up with that?" Ellie went ahead and poured herself another c.o.c.ktail.

"They asked me to take on this weird a.s.signment at that bank I was telling you about. It's after-hours."

"And you said yes?"

Iris shook her head. "I didn't really have a choice. The head of the department asked me to do it."

"What, was he going to fire you or something if you said no?"

"I don't know. Probably not. But it's supposed to be this great opportunity to show my worth and maybe get better a.s.signments."

"Your worth? Christ, Iris! Never look to a job for that, okay? You can't trust these corporate types. They'll chew you up and spit you out without a second thought if it makes them more money. f.u.c.k 'em! Do what you want."

Iris nodded in agreement as she stood up to leave.

CHAPTER 5.

The evening sun hung over the east side of town like an orange heat lamp. As Iris climbed back into her car, Ellie's words still stung. She couldn't just tell her boss to take her job and shove it. She lived in the real world, where people went to work and didn't just sit in a bar all day picking out new tattoos. "Play dice for death." What the h.e.l.l does that even mean?

Her father would agree. She could almost hear him say the words. Iris lit a cigarette in protest. She didn't want to grow up to be like her parents, whittling away the time, eating bran cereal and watching Wheel of Fortune. She didn't want to be her mother, reading her grocery-store romance novels, pan-frying steaks for a husband who ignored her, and muttering her opinions into the clothes dryer. She didn't know what she wanted, but it sure as s.h.i.+t wasn't that. It all seemed so d.a.m.ned pointless.

Iris took the back roads home from Club Illusion to her run-down apartment in Little Italy. Up Mayfield Road, the tiny shops were playing Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin at full volume. She turned down her block. Her street sign read "Random Road," and it was fitting. It had been hilarious in college; now it was just sad. The rent was cheap, and that's all that mattered when she was sc.r.a.ping by on $500 a month in school. Now that she was gainfully employed with a salary of $33,000 a year, she could do better.

Iris parked her car on the street and headed up the driveway, where three crumbling houses were stacked one behind the other on a narrow lot. Each shoddy house had been converted into shoddier apartments. Her neighbor was camped out on her front porch, guarding the sidewalk as usual.

"Hi, Mrs. Capretta," Iris said cheerfully as she hurried past. It was a lame attempt to avoid the inevitable. The old woman's face puckered no matter what she said. The nose pads of her thick gla.s.ses had sunk into her puffy skin decades earlier, and Iris secretly speculated whether Mrs. Capretta could even lift them off her face anymore.

"Pharmacist tried to cheat me today," she growled. "Don't go shop down the street. They'll rob you blind!"

"I'll be careful. Thanks!" After three years living behind Mrs. Capretta, Iris knew better than to argue or ask questions.

Iris didn't know the names of her other neighbors. There were a couple grad students in the house in the rear, and an Indian family of four lived in the apartment below hers. They didn't speak much English, but they smiled and gave her a little bow whenever they met in the driveway.

She grabbed the mail and climbed the crooked stairs up to the second floor of the collapsing house that she called home. She was greeted by a small puddle on the floor just inside her front door. The roof was leaking again. She stepped over it and made a mental note to call her slumlord in the morning.

The light blinked on her dusty answering machine.

"Iris? Iris, are you there? This is your mother. Give me a call, okay? It's been too long, honey. I'm starting to get worried. Love you! Bye."

It had only been a week since they'd last talked. Iris sighed and picked up the phone.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Hi, Mom."

"Honey! It's so nice to hear your voice. How are you doing?"

"Just fine. I'm kind of tired." Iris was already tapping her foot. Her mother had no life of her own. She'd been a stay-at-home mom, and ever since Iris had moved away, she didn't know what to do with herself.

"How's the job going?"

"Pretty busy. I just got a special a.s.signment, so that's good." Iris shuffled through the mail-junk, junk, student loan bill.

"How exciting! Well, it's about time they took some notice of you, honey! You're so brilliant. I was just telling your father the other day that it's high time someone put you to good use. All this paperwork they've got you doing is ridiculous-"

"Mom! Stop. I'm being put to good use, okay? My job is not ridiculous."

Iris tried to ignore the thinly veiled insult. Both of her parents were mildly disappointed in her chosen career. Her father felt civil engineering was reserved for the duller students, who couldn't handle organic chemistry. In truth, Iris had no problem with any of her cla.s.ses. Science, math, and finding the correct answers to complicated equations came easily to her. The problem was the questions were so painfully pointless. She didn't really care about the diffusion rate of this gas through that liquid or whatever. Determining whether or not a building would fall down, on the other hand, actually seemed meaningful. Iris had tried to argue that constructing bridges and dams was a h.e.l.l of a lot more important than working for some chemical company developing new house-paint formulations. It wasn't enough that she had taken his advice and majored in engineering. He expected more.

"Of course, sweetie. It's just that when someone graduates valedictorian around here, people want to know what they're up to. I ran into Mrs. Johnson just the other day. She was convinced you'd become a brain surgeon."

"Mrs. Johnson taught Home Ec, Mom." Iris rolled her eyes. She tore open the loan bill that stated $574.73 was due every month for the next fifteen years. It was a prison sentence. "Everything's fine. Listen, I have to go. I worked all day, and I'm beat."

"Okay, honey. Thanks for calling. I just need to hear your voice every once in a while."

"I know. Give my love to Dad, okay?"

"Okay, I love you, honey. Bye-bye."

The line went dead.

"Who gives a s.h.i.+t what Mrs. Johnson thinks, Mom? Jesus!" Iris yelled at the dead receiver.

Sweatpants, a couple slices of cold pizza, and a beer later, she plopped down onto her secondhand couch. The VCR blinked 8:30 p.m. She chewed a fingernail. Her eyes scanned her tiny apartment for something to do. A bookshelf stuffed with college textbooks was wedged in one corner. On the other side of the room, a blank canvas was sitting on a dusty easel. It had been sitting there, along with her paints and brushes, ever since she moved in and decided that corner would be her art studio. That was three years ago.

Iris stood up and walked over to it. She poked the canvas with a finger and surveyed her neglected tools. They looked ridiculous to her now. Who was she kidding? She was no artist. While she was in school, she never had time to paint. But now she did. She didn't have homework. She didn't work nights. Outside of drinking with Ellie, she didn't even have a social life. Most of her college friends had left town after graduation. Some went back home, and the others had gone on to bigger and better cities for bigger and better jobs.

Iris grabbed her lighter off of the coffee table and lit a cigarette. Why hadn't she left too? She blew out the smoke and glanced back at the blank canvas. She didn't have a good answer.

It's temporary, she told herself. She might go to grad school next year. In a few years, she might send a resume to a top-rate engineering firm in New York. She was being smart, taking it slow, and working in the industry for a few years before making any sudden moves. It was what her adviser had suggested when she confessed she wasn't sure what she wanted to do after graduation. It had made sense at the time, especially since she didn't have the guts to say out loud what she'd secretly suspected for over a year-she didn't want to be an engineer at all.

The thought was ridiculous. Five years of school, and now she just wanted to give up? It had only been three months. How could she possibly know if she liked it yet? Iris grabbed another beer from the fridge. It would take time. She had to give it a chance. It was her father talking in her head now. Besides, that student loan bill wasn't going to pay itself.

Sometime around midnight she dragged herself to bed.

CHAPTER 6.

Iris was still half-asleep when she pulled up to the rolling garage door behind the old bank. She was ten minutes late, but she was too tired to care. Brad could kiss her grits if he decided to give her any grief. No sane person works on Sunday. It didn't help that she kept hearing Ellie say "f.u.c.k 'em" in the back of her head.

"You feeling okay?" he asked as she slumped out of her car.

"I'm fine." Iris forced a smile. This was a big career opportunity, she reminded herself. Brad recommended her for the job; she should act excited. It could lead to bigger and better things, but the only emotion she could muster was mild annoyance.

She grabbed her duffel bag from the backseat. At least she had managed to cobble together a field bag. She even had her own tape measure.

"Thanks for coming early. I just got news we're fast-tracking the project, starting Monday."

"Oh? Were we slow-tracking it before?" Iris asked with mild sarcasm.

"Not exactly. Mr. Wheeler wants schematics of the foundations by the end of the day. Then we need to give them at least a floor a day to keep up with the design development team."

Brad led her up the loading dock and through the service corridor behind the elevator shaft. They pa.s.sed the entrance to the main lobby and continued down a hallway that was beige from top to bottom. Fluorescent bulbs hummed overhead.