by Taya DeVere
She blows her nose again, gets up, and tosses the paper in the trash. The booth door swooshes open smoothly. Iris walks to the glowing wall behind a giant mirror with invisible speakers playing soothing forest sounds. After rinsing her face, she leaves the bathroom and heads back to the restaurant.
The tables are all empty. She walks to peek in at the bar, only to find that space empty as well. If there is anyone still drinking their worries away, they must be in the bar up on the roof level. Iris glances at the digital clock above the bar.
01:58
“Fuck me sideways…” she mumbles and quickens her step. She needs to be feeding morning hay and grain in just three short hours. She hurries to the hotel lobby, but a strange feeling stops her just as she’s about to leave the hotel and fetch her bike from the courtyard. Her hand on the front door’s open button, Iris freezes in place to listen. But she hears nothing. No music. No talking. Nothing. Yet, she can’t help feeling she’s being watched.
She turns around to stare at a huge house plant sitting in the corner of the lobby. Something moves in the shadows. Then, from behind the plant, someone steps out into the dim light of the corridor. Her white lab shoes stop where the corridor and the lobby’s entryway meet. Holding a martini glass in one hand, a blond woman with clear, striking eyes crosses her free arm over her stomach. She tilts her head, investigating Iris’s face.
“You know how to pick a lock?”
Iris lowers her hand and steps back from the door. Frowning, she does her best to process the strange conversation opener. Her eyes sting from crying in the bathroom, and the memory of her mother’s disappointed face makes her sick to her stomach. She should go home. Just… leave. But something about this lady and her strange confidence inspires Iris to take another step away from the front door. “What kind of lock?”
“Oh, you know.” The woman, whose white doctor’s coat is puzzling given the hour and her present occupation, lifts her full glass at Iris, then walks over, passes Iris, and continues to a door at the side of the lobby. She nods at the door, then turns to talk to Iris. “The old-fashioned kind. But a sturdy one. Made in Finland, you see.”
Iris stares at the door and the woman standing next to it, but she doesn’t move closer. “What does Finland have to do with it? Did they invent the world’s first lock or something?”
Her dry, brief laughter fills the lobby. Staring at the lock, the woman mumbles, “Sisu, sauna, Sibelius, and locks…” She seems to have momentarily forgotten that Iris is in the room. “Doesn’t really rhyme as nicely.”
Iris frowns and takes a step closer. “What’s that?”
“Nothing… dear.” The endearment sounds off, as if she’s trying on a pair of new shoes that don’t quite fit but she’s decided to stick with them anyway. She turns to face Iris. “The morons who moved in the equipment forgot to remove the hardware lock when they placed the CS-key on the door.” She knocks on the door twice. “The damn thing double-locks, and I can only open the digital one.”
“What’s down there?” Iris asks, immediately biting her tongue. She should just leave. Leave this odd stranger alone and bike back home. But her feet won’t move. She can’t stop admiring the woman’s calm, confident movements, the way she stands tall and strong as if she’s some kind of an indestructible force. And that force pulls Iris in like a magnet. It’s easy to be near her. Tempting. Almost as if Iris could absorb some of that radiating power and keep it for herself.
“My life’s work,” the woman says. She lifts the martini glass in her hand, as if it has suddenly started to bug her. “That’s what’s down there.” Drops of martini spill on the lobby floor as the woman's light gait takes her away from the door. “Or, I guess not just my life’s work,” she continues, this time her voice taking on a darker tone. “But my mother’s as well.”
“Your mother invented the lock?” Iris tries a joke, then scolds herself for such a poor attempt at humor. “Is she from Finland?” she asks quickly, as if to scratch her first question.
“She invented something, alright. The great Marjaana Salonen…” With slow, light steps, she walks back to the house plant in the corner and stops to stare at it. She leans over and pours the drink into the soil, then drops the empty martini glass into the dirt in the plant pot. “And her healing powers.”
Iris stares at the plant, then at the woman who now leans her back against the lobby wall, scoffing silently at her own thoughts.
This woman is clearly insane, her inner voice appears out of nowhere, as it so often does. Just leave her crazy ass here and go home.
Iris takes a step back toward the front door, but the woman’s voice stops her.
“What difference does it make,” she says slowly, still staring at the ceiling and leaning against the wall, “what kind of a lock?”
“What?”
Her hands folded behind her back, the woman peers at Iris, giving her a small smile. She starts walking around the lobby slowly, ghostly, like the draft that travels through Iris’s room at night. “I asked you if you can pick a lock…”
“Right,” Iris says, hesitation in her voice. “And?”
“And you asked what kind of a lock. Why?”
“If it was a biometric lock or a digital one, I could open it.” Iris frowns at her own words. Why is she still here, explaining herself to this weird stranger?
“Huh,” the woman says. She stops her relaxed strolling around the lobby, her back turned to Iris. When she turns around and tilts her head, something new twinkles in her blue eyes: curiosity. “You can hack into things?”
Iris shifts her weight from one foot to another. When her words get stuck in her throat, all she can do is nod.
“Want a job?” the woman asks then, her facial expression far from motherly or authoritative, but… approving.
Iris scoffs and glances at the front door. “Doing what? Breaking into hotels?”
“Is it really breaking in,” she asks and walks back to the double-locked door. “If what’s inside is already yours?”
She points at a small sign made of cardboard next to the door. A piece of duct tape holds it up. The hand-written text is hard to read. Iris squints her eyes but struggles to read the text because of the distance and dim lighting. She can’t help it—she walks over to read what it says.
“Doctor Laura Solomon,” Iris reads aloud. “ICE Laboratory.”
She takes an immediate step back from Doctor Solomon. Eyes wide, Iris stares at the woman. “I’ve, um…”
“Let me guess,” Laura says with a dry smile. “You’ve heard things. About me. Rumors.”
“I have…” Iris says slowly. “But that’s not what I was about to say.”
“What, then?”
Thoughts twirl in Iris’s mind. This woman is a world-renowned scientist. A genius. But she’s also known to be an egotistical maniac with a vision of some kind of a cult where people would all live, act, and think in one way and one way only.
Doctor Solomon’s way.
“I’ve got to go.” Iris turns around and storms out the hotel’s front door. She runs down the courtyard and off to the driveway—only to remember that she’s forgotten her bike. She turns around and runs back, her frantic thoughts stopping her from seeing clearly. Finally, she stops, realizing she’s somehow taken a wrong turn while running back for her bike. A sight she’s never seen at the resort before opens in front of her. A familiar sight. Very familiar.
Hay bales.
Grain bags.
Horses.
How did she not see them when biking in tonight? How far away in her own world had she been?
The silhouette of a woman with a bicycle appears from around the corner. With steady, easy steps, Doctor Solomon walks Iris’s bike over to her. As she gestures for Iris to grab the bars, she digs out something from her white coat pocket.
A business card.
“It doesn’t have to be a breaking into stuff kind of a job,” Laura says, pronouncing the end of her sentence car
efully. “There’s a lot to do around here, now that I’ve taken over. Tasks that need a person with a special set of skills.”
Startled by the sight of horses in the moonlight, Iris accepts the business card. She stares at it for a while, then looks up at Laura. “Like barn work?”
“Among other things.” She shrugs a shoulder. “Sure.”
What the fuck is wrong with you? Iris’s inner voice interrupts her staring into those ice-cold, compelling eyes. No. You are not considering her offer. World Cup. Retirement. Fortune and fame. That’s the plan. That’s what you need to focus on. Not working for some maniac who hides martini glasses in houseplants.
“I got to go,” Iris breathes out. As she grabs the bike with both hands, Laura’s business card lands on the courtyard’s cobblestone ground. Hastily, she rides off, never looking back to see if Laura Solomon stares after her with resentment in her eyes, like her mother would.
***
A pitchfork in her hand, Iris fast-walks through the arena, wincing at the sound of Timothy’s scream. Foaming and puffing, Alfred canters toward Iris. She stops, waits for the horse to go around her, and then continues to the steaming manure pile she’s about to pick up. Tina’s face is red, Iris notices. Redder than usual. And that’s not the only anomaly, she thinks as she picks the poop up and shakes the pitchfork slightly to rid it of any sand and rubber footing stuck on the droppings.
Timothy never screams at Tina.
With quick steps, Iris heads to the bucket at the corner of the arena. After dumping the poop in the bucket, she hangs the pitchfork back on the wall's metal hook. Just as she’s about to walk back into the aisle to finish the night check, she hears Tim yell her name.
Shit.
She freezes in the doorway and takes a few seconds before turning around.
“What the hell are you standing there for?” his booming voice fills the arena. Alfred has stopped moving around. “Get your ass over here.”
Iris turns. Hesitantly, she starts toward the horse and the two people in the middle of the arena. Tina is out of breath, and her face lacks its usual smirking confidence. When the stallion moves under her seat without asking, she hisses at him and kicks him with her left foot. Iris winces in sync with the horse.
Timothy turns to stare at Tina. “And why, in the name of all untalented, crappy, fuckturd riders in this world, are you kicking him? You think it’s the horse’s fault you can’t get this right?!” He moves closer to the horse and takes the reins. “Get off.”
“Tim, I can do it,” Tina says. “Just let me try one more time.”
His head jerks back at Tina’s words. For a moment, all he does is stare at the rider up in the saddle. Iris stops at a safe distance, unsure of what to do. So she stands, twisting her hands uncomfortably. Timothy takes a breath, pats the horse’s neck, and steps back. In a seemingly relaxed manner, he nods at Tina repeatedly as if to tell her that he’s considering her request.
“Let me get this straight,” he continues in a calmer voice. “You have been running around in a twenty-meter circle for forty minutes straight,” he pauses as his voice starts to rise. “Trying, and trying, and trying to get your two tempis right. While I’m standing here…” he pauses again, grabbing onto both ends of the dressage whip in his hands, “Like some worthless asshole, doing my best to figure out why it’s so goddamn hard to perform this simple as fuck task without fucking it up every single fucking time!”
Timothy’s moved closer to Tina. If she wasn’t sitting so high up on the horse, Tim’s spit would land on her red, terrified face.
“And now you…” he stops talking to shake his head and scoff, “You want to try… again?!” He squeezes the whip in his hands, bending it like a twig until it snaps in two. “Get! The fuck! Off!”
Tina kicks off the stirrups, swings her right leg over, and lands smoothly on two feet next to Alfred. The horse has evened out his breath, and not even the sound of the whip breaking has startled him. He must be used to Timothy acting this way, his nerves cool as can be.
Unlike Tina.
Unlike Iris.
Timothy turns his back on Tina and the horse. He starts walking back toward his coach’s chair by the arena entryway. As he passes Iris, he waves the whip pieces at her half-heartedly. “Twenty-meter circle,” he murmurs. “Two tempis. Left lead.”
Iris wants to point out that she’s not dressed to ride; She’s wearing jeans, a sweater-jacket, and a pair of sneakers. She doesn’t even have a helmet. Legs now full-on shaking, she takes the few steps that separate her from the stallion. Tina takes off her helmet, her thick brown hair soaked in sweat. She pushes the helmet into Iris’s hands, then the reins.
“Congratulations,” she hisses at Iris in a voice low enough that Timothy can’t hear. “I hope you have what it takes to follow through.”
Iris puts the wet helmet on and throws the reins over Alfred’s neck. Though she’s nervous and shaky, Tina’s snarky comment gives her a second wind. “It’s like he said,” Iris says back to Tina without looking at her. She places her left foot in the stirrup and swings herself up on the saddle with ease. “It should be easy. How are you going to do your ones at the Cup, if you can’t do your twos at home?”
The red in Tina’s face deepens. She takes a step closer and pretends to scratch Alfred’s neck. When she lifts her gaze to look at Iris, tears of rage glimmer in her eyes. “I’m not talking about the fucking tempis.” She side-eyes the trainer standing by his chair, arms crossed and tapping his boot in the sand. “I’m talking about him.”
***
The barn fills with the sound of horses munching on their late-night hay. Tina has finished night check for Iris and left the barn, probably to lick her wounds and collect her shattered ego up in her heated apartment. Iris closes Alfred’s stall door and double checks the latch. She’s done perfectly. Better than she’s ever ridden before. Maybe it was the stallion, maybe her once-in-a-lifetime chance to prove her worth to Timothy. Whatever it was that drove her tonight, it worked. Even Tim had nodded approvingly at her, once she let the stallion walk with a long rein around the arena.
“Come here for a second.”
His voice gives Iris a start. She thought Tim had left the barn already, followed Tina inside to have his nightly glass of whisky. But as Iris turns toward the sound, she sees Tim leaning against the viewing room doorframe, his arms crossed on his chest. No smile. But something about his face has changed. The way he looks at Iris now is new.
Iris walks over and follows Tim into the viewing room. On the table, her laptop is turned on, the lid open, her notes open on the screen.
“Walk me through this again,” he says, sits down at the table, then pats a spot next to him on the wooden bench. “I don’t care about Germany or France or any of the other barns. Just show me Van Dijk’s stuff again.”
“The algorithm?” Iris asks. She tries not to hold her breath as she walks over and sits next to the man. She reaches for the laptop so she can move it closer to her, but Tim grabs onto it and places it right in front of him, forcing Iris to lean close to him to reach the keyboard.
“Just…” he says and scratches his balding head, “Just the training program. And the test scores.” He chuckles a bit, then leans his head against his palm, looking at Iris with eyes that could almost be described as… friendly.
She taps on the keyboard, very aware of how close to her trainer she has to lean. Her need—and right—to move her own laptop in whatever direction she wants shouldn’t make her self-conscious—but it does. Whenever she’s close to Timothy, all her confidence and smarts seem to vanish.
“This is the latest score for Jetta…” Iris mumbles, keeping her gaze on the screen. She feels Timothy moving even closer, his shoulder brushing hers.
“Who’s the rider again?”
“Luuk Visser,” Iris says, her eyes scanning the information on the screen. “His average on the test is forty…”
Iris stops talking and freezes when Tim’s h
and brushes a loose lock of blue hair off Iris’s face and tucks it behind her ear. She swallows, then holds her breath.
What the fuck is this?
“Go on,” Timothy says, his voice raspy. “What was the latest score?”
Iris swallows again, trying to ignore his hand that now rests on her shoulder. She forces a shallow breath and types in a command. Then she copy-pastes the information to her notes and continues reading, “The latest training session was today. Jetta and Visser, forty-five minutes, three sets of test programs…”
“The scores?” Timothy asks and drops his hand to Iris’s thigh.
Frozen, struggling to keep her breathing even, Iris closes her eyes for two seconds. She forces herself to ignore the weight of Timothy’s hand against her leg. All she wants to do is let her mind enter her mental vessel, so she can travel far away from here. But then she’d lose her chance.
“Thirty-eight,” she hears her surprisingly steady voice saying, “Second round, thirty-nine. Third round…”
His hand moves away. Iris can’t help it: she lets out a sigh of relief.
“What did you think of Alfred?” Timothy asks, investigating Iris’s face as she stares at the screen.
She leans back and pulls her hands from the keyboard to gain some distance from the man. “I, um… I adore him.”
“Impressive, isn’t he?”
Iris nods.
“There’s nothing like a powerful stallion that wants to please you. People think they are aggressive, straight up dangerous, even. But the truth is that they’re sensitive. Just so fucking…” he pauses to find the right word, his hand circling in the air and eyes shining with admiration, “Delicate.” He nods at his choice of word, then turns toward Iris a bit more. “Have you ever sat on one before?”
Iris forces a breath, then glances at the computer screen again, just to take a break from Timothy’s intense stare. “A stallion?” she asks. When Tim doesn’t answer but just keeps watching her with gleaming eyes, she hurries to say, “Not that I can remember. I used to come in for clinics and shows and warm up people’s horses for money. One of them could have been a stallion, but…”
