by Karis Walsh
“We could move Trixie over here. She’ll have more privacy in the corner. Or maybe she’d be okay with Duncan next to her. I think they got along fine when they first came here…”
Casey had her palms on the desk, near Iris’s forearm, and she leaned over to watch Iris pencil in names and then erase them again as she completed the new kennel schematic. They had finished two of the new kennel configurations, and Casey was happy to see that she had been correct about how much money and repair time the new clusters would save.
She had come to realize that Iris had been right, too. Casey had expected the process to be a simple one—switch the panels, pop some dogs in, and voila. Done. But some dogs had spent the morning barking, some pacing, and others hiding in their shelters and refusing to come out.
Casey glanced toward the run nearest to the office, where a svelte hound was baying loudly. “Will the dogs be all right? I shouldn’t have tried to mess with your system.”
“They’ll settle quickly, once we have them in their new places and give them some food,” Iris said, her voice slightly raised to be heard over the hound’s woeful song. She patted Casey’s hand where it rested on the table. “Your plan works, and I think it will make feeding time go more smoothly as well. The process of change is difficult, but it will be worth it once we’re done.”
Casey wrenched her attention away from the feel of Iris’s hand on hers long enough to see the surprised expression on Iris’s face as she made her last statement. “I thought you were just being stubborn this morning, when I brought up my idea,” Casey said. “But now I completely understand why you didn’t want to upset the status quo.”
Iris stopped writing. “That was part of it. I guess I’m not used to someone telling me what to do.” She held up her hand to stop Casey’s protests before she could interrupt. “I know you didn’t mean it that way. It was just a trigger for me.”
She looked like she was struggling to find the right words to say, so Casey kept silent and waited for Iris to speak again.
“I had parents who were overprotective and tried to control everything I did—mostly to keep me safe and close to them, but still…And then girlfriends who never seemed to approve of the way I lived my life.” Iris paused and stared out the window toward the path leading to her house. “I’ve sort of isolated myself here. I’m not alone, but Agatha and Leo are happy to keep everything the same. Or to make changes, if I suggest them. I don’t have anyone here who tries to tell me what to do.”
“And when I made it sound as if you had the kennels set up the wrong way, you went into self-defense mode.” Casey nodded. “I get it. I’d have reacted the same way if you had told me a different way to deploy my seismometers.”
Iris laughed. “Well, I’ve been meaning to bring it up…”
“I figured you were going to work on a schematic for them as soon as you finished this one for the kennels.” Casey’s grin faded. “I understand what you mean about isolating yourself from any chance of being told how to run your life. My dad and grandparents had definite ideas about what I needed to study, where I should go to college, and everything else. I’ve spent my life either trying to please them or trying to get away and make my own decisions. It’s exhausting to be on that particular seesaw.”
“It is,” Iris said with a nod. “I don’t want my past to keep me from recognizing good suggestions when I hear them, though, so thank you for bringing this up.”
Casey reached over and smoothed back a loose strand of Iris’s hair, pulling away before she let her index finger follow the gentle curve of Iris’s ear. “I’ll be more sensitive about this trigger when I make suggestions in the future.”
Iris turned to face her, shifting out of reach as she did so. “Don’t tell me you have more suggestions,” she said with a look of exaggerated horror.
“Tons of them. But let’s get this project finished first. I know it’s a lot to take on, especially when you have so much other work to do.”
And when Casey had work of her own. She had helped set this course in motion, and she would have to leave Iris in the middle of it. She’d have Agatha and Leo to help, of course, and they were already working on the third set of kennels, but Casey decided she’d stay at the shelter longer than she’d planned and help them finish.
“You need to go,” Iris said in a distracted sounding voice. She looked back at her paper and made a shooing motion, as if she had heard Casey’s thoughts. “I’ll be able to think this through better if you aren’t so close…”
Iris paused, but still avoided eye contact. “I mean, Agatha and I are accustomed to shifting the dogs around whenever we get a new one. We’ll be able to figure this out pretty quickly, and by the time you get back tonight, the place should be back to normal and quiet. Relatively quiet.”
Casey backed up a step, not bothering to hide the smile she felt tugging against her mouth since Iris was staring at her paper. Casey saw a hint of a blush on the back of Iris’s neck and she had an overwhelming urge to kiss her and feel the heat of it burn against her lips. She had been mesmerized by the feel of Iris’s skin this morning, and had sought any excuse to touch her and see if the connection she felt dissipated or got stronger. Scientific inquiry, and nothing more. Although caressing Iris’s cheek hadn’t exactly been a scientific move.
She had been concerned only with her response to Iris, wondering how it could keep increasing with each featherlight touch, and she hadn’t stopped to consider that she might be affecting Iris, too. Although she wanted to stay and explore this new theory, she knew Iris was about to have a chaotic and loud morning as she got her dogs settled. Casey would probably be more help if she left her in peace than if she remained and couldn’t control her wandering hands.
“We’ll go, then,” Casey said, laying her hand on Chert’s head. “But I’ll check in later. If you need me to help, I’ll come back.”
Iris looked at her then. “All right. Be safe out there, you two.”
Casey nodded and left before her scientific experiment extended to include kissing. Her mind was still on the morning’s conversation with Iris as she got in her truck, and she changed her itinerary at the last minute and drove to the ferry dock instead of into the interior of San Juan.
She and Chert waited in the cab since the ride to Lopez Island took less than an hour, and she took the opportunity to review the notes she had made so far. She had collected pages of information for her report to the lab, but she also had two spiral notebooks filled with less professional scribblings about the geology of the islands and her appreciation of them. These ramblings weren’t useful for her job, but she had felt compelled to write down some of the conversations she had with Chert while in the field, as well as the silent ones she had when she imagined playing tour guide for Iris and showing her the fascinating layers beneath her home.
Casey tossed those notes into the glove compartment before she drove off the ferry and onto the island where she had first gotten a glimpse of Iris and her string of animals. If she had known then that she would be staying at Iris’s place while she was on San Juan, she might not have been too surprised—until she found out that she wasn’t going to be staying in Iris’s bed, but in the cottage next door, with animals and a part-time job as kennel volunteer. That part would have made her past self laugh in disbelief.
Casey patted Chert. Here she was, no matter how unexpectedly. She drove along the small, paved road that was heavily encroached by fir trees and ferns until she saw a decrepit sign pointing toward a pothole-filled gravel road. She bumped along in her poor truck, and Chert hopped onto the passenger-side floor in protest against the rough ride. Fifteen minutes of slow going got her to the UW satellite station.
She sat in her truck for a moment, marveling at the difference between this substation and the university’s huge cement and steel lab that covered an entire city block. Iris’s kennel looked more state-of-the-art than this place. In fact, Casey was surprised it hadn’t been one of the first buildings
to fall during the earthquake.
She got out of the truck with Chert and walked to the small tan metal building. The front door was propped open with a wedge-shaped piece of plastic, but she stood on the porch and knocked. The structure looked like nothing more important than a garden shed from the outside, but inside it was full of clutter, chattering data-collection machines, and haphazardly strewn instruments. Muddy boots were lined up near the door, and the three desks that were in use were covered with as many personal items as work-related ones—photos, piles of nondescript-looking rocks, and action figures from comics and science fiction series.
A young man came out of one of the back rooms—presumably a kitchen or break room since he was carrying a cup of coffee and a doughnut. He put them down on a desk and walked over to her. Casey smiled and shook his hand, wondering if he was one of the people she had emailed in the past. She and her teammates would occasionally send instructions to the satellites, asking them to move instruments or double-check suspicious readings.
Sort of the same thing she had done with Iris this morning—hand her a schematic, and then leave her to do the actual work. Iris was hands-on with everything in her shelter, just like this man was on the island. He was dressed for working outdoors, in a red plaid flannel shirt, tan waterproof jacket, and brown duck boots. He bent down to pet Chert, not seeming surprised that she had brought a dog to the station.
“I’m Casey Radnor,” she said, “and this is Chert.”
“Great name for a dog! I’m Ian. You’re the fieldworker from the big lab, aren’t you? C’mon back. Do you want some coffee? A doughnut?”
“Yes, and yes, please. I can get them if you point the way.”
“Right back here.”
She followed him to a surprisingly tidy kitchen where she poured cream and sugar in a cup of coffee and chose a maple bar out of a bakery box while Ian gave Chert a piece of glazed doughnut. Then they went back to his desk in the far corner of the main room. He took a stack of books off a chair and indicated for her to sit.
She gestured at the several empty desks. “I thought there would be more of you working here. We must keep you busy with all the requests for readings and field notes we send.”
Ian shrugged. “We’re short staffed, as always. We’re part-time most of the year, and overtime after a big event like this one. I’d ask in a hopeful voice if you were here to fill in, but I know you’re on assignment. We’re under orders to help you, but not to put you to work for us.”
Casey laughed and leaned back in her chair, letting the relaxed vibe of the station seep inside her. She hadn’t realized how little fieldwork she really did now, until she had talked to Iris about it this morning. She had intentionally chosen jobs that took her deep into stainless-steel labs instead of deep into the forest.
She shook her head to get her father’s voice out of it. He had been derisive when she told him she was planning to study geology. Her frequent appearance in respected journals and her jobs in high-tech, high-profile labs had mollified him a little. But he wasn’t here now. And even if he were here, she’d have the same thing to say to Ian.
“I’d like to see more of this island, so if you don’t mind, maybe I can tag along with someone today. And if that person happens to need an extra pair of hands to work…well, I won’t tell the big lab if you won’t.”
Ian joined in Casey’s laughter. “I’m not going to refuse an offer like that. I wanted to walk a fault line at Aleck Bay, and if we hurry, we’ll be there for low tide. Do the two of you mind getting a little muddy?”
Casey translated his fieldwork-speak to mean that by the end of the day, she and Chert would probably be covered in mud and slime from head to toe. Or paw. She grinned. “We don’t mind at all.”
Chapter Ten
Iris wrapped her scarf more snugly around her neck and turned to a fresh page in her notebook. She had a tidy and well-appointed office in her house, complete with a spacious desk, handy reference books, and an ergonomically designed and very cushy chair, but she did most of her work out here, on the small patch of lawn behind the shelter’s office. Her office was where she went when she needed to organize things, whether it was her color-coded files or the huge calendar tacked to the wall. When she needed inspiration for her work, she came outside.
She pulled her bright yellow knit cap lower over her ears and wondered if Casey was keeping warm wherever she was. She didn’t seem to have a lot of cold-weather clothes with her and she had left this morning wearing only jeans and a sweatshirt, but she seemed unfazed by the elements. She seemed at home out in the world, comfortable with whatever Mother Nature presented to her.
Iris blew on her fingers to warm them and tried to turn her thoughts inward, off Casey and onto an imagined spring morning. She sketched an Easter basket overflowing with candy and plastic grass—picturing the bright, clear colors she would use in the final drawing—and started to list words alongside it. Eventually, the words tangled with each other and traded places until they became a poem. She wrote it down quickly, before it vanished from her mind, and then she turned to a new page. On this one, she drew a cartoon rabbit searching under furniture and in clothes drawers for Easter eggs. A humorous verse about not forgetting where one had hidden the eggs was quickly formed and captured on paper.
She felt a tug on the end of her scarf and she absently reached down to pet one of the Twins and pull the fringe out of its mouth while she moved to the next blank page. She had the outline of a couple walking hand in hand along a rocky shoreline and a romantic poem splashed across the paper before she realized what she was doing. Easter. The elaborate chart hanging in her office said this month was the time to create greeting cards for Easter.
The romantic card was a good one, even though it wasn’t on today’s agenda. She tried to refocus on spring, but another image came to her and she drew it quickly. Another couple—too far away to identify—stood close together on a ferry, with a backdrop of wheeling gulls and fir-covered islands. A free verse poem about traveling together through life flowed from her pencil as if the lead had turned to running water. A third card idea came just as easily. Why not? She usually sent her cards in batches, anyway.
Three was enough of a diversion. She wished the inspiration had struck two months ago, when she had struggled to write cards for Valentine’s Day. She usually loved the regularity of her work, with seasons and holidays mapped out and marching in regimented order through her days. She rarely was tempted to stray from her schedule, but she couldn’t stop the ideas from popping into her thoughts.
She paused with a soothingly empty page in front of her and watched the two goats jumping on a series of stumps and planks that she and Leo had set out for them. She loved the little creatures because they were able to force smiles and laughter from her, even when she didn’t think she had them in her. Casey had done the same thing, bringing a sense of playfulness into Iris’s life, but she wasn’t sure how welcome Casey’s influence was. Nice while it lasted, but not something to rely on.
Iris let her thoughts settle on Casey for a brief time because she was tired of fighting them. Casey had only been here for a few days, and Iris had no idea what she did or where she went during the daylight hours, but she had somehow become part of the shelter. With her help, the property was nearly back to its pre-earthquake state. She had somehow managed to minimize the number of destroyed panels they needed to replace because of her inspired rearrangement of the kennels.
Iris had been hesitant to switch from her orderly and linear rows of dog runs to Casey’s vision of clustered kennels, but the change had worked. The new layout would save them money and it even opened up more space for new animals. Leo couldn’t stop talking about Casey’s ingenuity, and even the normally recalcitrant Agatha seemed enamored of her. The dogs agreed, too, and they clamored for Casey’s attention whenever she walked into the shelter.
Iris wasn’t sure how she felt. Casey was distractingly attractive and undeniably helpful. She wasn�
�t as coldly scientific and distant as Iris had originally thought, although she sometimes wished Casey was more disappointing as a human being. Then Iris would have been glad to see her go. Now she knew there would be a void when Casey left.
One of the Twins trotted over to her and butted her in the thigh before trying to grab her pencil. Iris laughed and held it out of reach until he gave up and ran back to his sister. Iris loved the peace of her shelter and the predictability of her work, but would it seem as adequate once Casey had left?
Casey was changing more than the kennels around here. She was interesting and energetic, daring and confident. Every quality Iris lacked. She had managed to keep from feeling that something was missing from her life—from her—and focus instead on her writing and caring for the animals, but Casey was so deeply and vibrantly everything that Iris wasn’t that she couldn’t ignore what she was missing anymore.
She started writing again, with no illustrations this time. She wanted to censor what was falling onto the page, to stop the movement of her pencil across the rough sketchpad, but she could no more have halted the earth’s movement during the quake. She gave up and set the poem free. It wasn’t suitable for her greeting cards, but maybe it would leave her alone if she put it down on paper.
When she finally stopped, she looked up and saw Casey watching her. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey, back,” Casey said with a smile. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. You looked very intense.”
“Work,” Iris said, holding up her notepad. What she had just been writing had nothing to do with her job, but she didn’t mention that. “I write greeting cards.”
“Really?” Casey came over and crouched down beside Iris’s folding chair. “I’ve never met a greeting card writer before. Do you like it?”
Iris paused. She liked the routine nature of the job and the easy way the poetry flowed when required to do so. The companies she worked with had very specific requirements, and it was easy for her to meet them. There were no surprises, no unexpected holidays or sudden changes in the expectations for a Christmas or birthday card. Would any of those aspects of her job sound appealing to Casey? Probably not.