by Taya DeVere
“Because you turn your nose up at any intelligent suggestion ever brought in front of you. You always have. Even as a child, you would put up your fists at any given opportunity, instead of hearing and learning from those who know better than you.”
Iris takes another breath, then counts to six. “I’ve made progress with my riding,” she says, fully aware how clumsily she tries to offer her mother something to be proud of.
“Yeah?” her lipstick-covered mouth mumbles halfheartedly. She checks the time on her wristwatch.
“Yeah, if there were still national competitions going, I would score best in any class.”
“Pff…”
Iris opens her mouth, but then sucks in her lips. The offer hasn’t gone through. It won’t go through. Anything that is actually, genuinely her, will never be good enough for her mother. That fist-fighting young Iris now screams inside her, waving her hands, jumping, stomping. “I’m not worthless!” she cries with tears and snot streaking her little face. “You just can’t see me! Look at me! The real me! Open your eyes… See me!”
To give her nervous hands something to do, she gulps down the glass of sparkling water in front of her, then sets the empty glass on the table, staring at it instead of meeting her mother’s irritated gaze. Iris already knows how the rest of the conversation will go. She knows how it’ll end, too. Both of them do. After years of pushing each other’s buttons, trying to change each other’s point of view, all they’ve managed is to create a battlefield with no winners or losers. To save them both some time, Iris decides to jump forward and push her mother’s biggest button and skip the rest.
“So I should just find a man to support me? Is that it?”
“Oh, stop that. You make it sound like I’m sending you to a butcher.”
“Marriage?” Iris continues, ignoring her mother’s words. “Isn’t that a thing of the past now? Everybody and their mother have gotten divorced a long time ago. If people are brave enough to meet a stranger, they’d rather do that online and never meet face to face.”
“Not everyone,” her mother says sulkily. “Not the inner circle.”
“Oh, so the yacht club is like, what? A pimp for traditional values and expired concepts?”
“Call it whatever you want, Iris.” Her mother fixes her hair, puffing the hairspray-covered chignon. “Intelligent people know that sticking with the old ways is the way to survive in today’s ludicrous world.”
“What if I don’t need a man to take care of me?” Iris is proud that her voice isn’t shivering, even though her skin feels inflamed by the rage she’s trying to press down. “Just because you used Olav’s connections to get ahead in life, doesn’t mean I have to do the same.”
Her mother stops chewing, her face momentarily frozen in a strange expression. Soon, she attacks her shrimp salad with her fork, as though it’s the salad being rude to her, not Iris. “Would it kill you to call him dad?” she says slowly, her voice filled with hurt and bottled-up feelings. “Just because he’s no longer with us doesn’t change things.”
Without looking up, Iris works on her steak. It changes everything, she thinks. For the better. Hands shaking, she swallows painfully, trying to ignore the nauseating feeling in her guts.
“My coworker has a bachelor son,” her mother continues, completely oblivious to Iris’s nausea. “He works for the big four and will relocate to Switzerland in a few months. If you’d put on a dress and come—"
“I don’t own a dress.”
“Then we’ll buy you one. With the right attitude, you might even convince him to overlook some of your… shortcomings and give it a shot.”
Iris looks up from her plate, grinding her teeth. She doesn’t need to ask what shortcomings it is her mother is talking about. Because if she did, the woman would only halfheartedly wave in the general direction of Iris’s whole damn life. “I appreciate the offer,” she says between her teeth, “But I think I’ll pass.”
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Embarrass me. Go against my word.”
“No I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. I told you not to go work for that Yankee with the ridiculous mustache, and what do you do? You go work for the Yankee with the ridiculous mustache. I tell you to wear more make-up now that I’ve finally fixed your hair and made you somewhat decent-looking. And what do you do? You show up here with a clean, pale face. I tell you to apply for a real job with one of the big four. And what do you know—you trash all the applications I was kind enough to send your way.”
Iris nods a few times, pointing at her full mouth, then lifting a finger to gesture she needs a moment to finish her bite. Her frustration level is rising dangerously high. She still has a big ask to present, and even without giving her mother any attitude whatsoever, it’ll be fool’s luck if her mother agrees to give her more money.
A waiter with a sly smile walks over to fill Iris’s water glass. He glances at Iris’s trembling hands but doesn’t comment on them. After the finest bow, he backs away, leaving Iris to gulp down the bubbly water.
“Well,” her mother huffs while pushing a piece of shrimp back and forth on her plate. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Iris wipes her mouth on the back of her palm, reaches for the napkin on her lap, and theatrically lets it drop on her plate. She crosses her arms on the table and leans in closer to her mom, giving her a quick smile. Every time she looks at the woman, defiance lifts its ugly head, pushing her further and further away from leaving this dinner with any money in her pockets.
“Well,” she says with a low voice. Then she clears her throat and leans back in her chair, throwing her arm over the backrest. “I mean…” She spreads her hands once, then lets them relax again. “If you want me to fuck a sailor,” she says, her voice loud and clear, “I’ll fuck a sailor. No problem.”
A pink flush appears at the top of her mother’s cheeks, radiating through the thick layer of make-up. Her eyes widening in shock, she stares at Iris. Something other than embarrassment shadows her face.
Hurt.
Iris winces at the look on her face. Though her mother and Iris hardly see eye to eye—and not just on who she dates or doesn’t date, but on most things in life—it also turns her stomach to see her mother hurting. Why can’t she just play along? Do as she’s told? Maybe then—just once—her mother would look at her with something other than resentfulness and embarrassment in her eyes.
Iris sucks her lower lip in, glancing around the restaurant. The people around them are seemingly focused on their tablets and phones, but Iris catches a few of them side-eyeing their table. Her little scene hasn’t gone unnoticed by anyone.
She takes a deep breath and picks up her silverware, releasing the steak from the fork’s tines. “How’s the cruise ship treating you?” she asks in a softer voice. “Business good as usual?”
Again playing with the shrimp on her plate, Iris’s mother peers up at her. She’s clearly eager to speak about her hair and make-up business that is—in her words—booming among the VRP’s, the very rich persons. She’s hoping to retire in one of the billionaire villages at one of the classified locations. Her specialty is real-life make-up that resembles your Avatar on the new VR simulations the VRP’s are spending more and more of their time in. Iris doesn’t understand much of it, but she’s relieved that, unlike most older people, her mother hadn’t needed to quit working when the unemployment rates skyrocketed, leaving most people completely dependent on their failing government and their negligible aid programs.
“Business is good,” her mother replies, trying to keep her voice cool. She’s not one to let Iris go easy once she’s crossed a boundary as extreme as shouting obscenities. Reputation comes first in her mother’s world, and that includes her no-good, manure-smelling, pale-faced daughter. “I’m only fifteen credits from the retirement fund, actually.”
“Oh yeah?”
Her mother can’t help a quick grin. “Yes. No
thing’s confirmed, but the cruise ship CEO let me understand that I’ll be retiring somewhere warm. With cocktails and a swimming pool.”
“Sounds very posh, Mamma.”
Her burgundy painted eyelids blink rapidly as she looks at Iris, resentment in her gaze. “Mother,” she corrects Iris. “We speak English in this family. And English only.” She pauses to scoff. “You should know better.”
The anger that has simmered somewhere beneath her skin now starts to boil. “You’re right.” Iris drops her fork and knife on the plate, then pushes the plate forward on the table. “Let me add that to my list of shortcomings and fuck ups. Is this priority number one? Hm? Poor language skills over occupation and lack of retirement plan?”
“Don’t be so… so vulgar.”
Iris fails to stifle the giggle provoked by her mother’s words. “That’s vulgar to you?” She pauses, this time sucking her lower lip in to stop the mocking laughter bubbling at the back of her throat. She takes a quick sip of water, leans back, and crosses her arms on her chest, casting a longing glance at the door that leads to the hotel lobby and out of the building. “And here I thought you limited vulgar to rinsing and cleaning Alfred’s sheath and balls. Is that an okay conversation topic now? Horse junk? I mean, as long as the conversation happens in the grammatically correct English language?”
Way out of line, she thinks, closing her eyes, regret washing over her. Way, way out.
Her mother blinks at Iris rapidly, her mouth popping open. Iris notices a smudge of pink lipstick on her mother’s slightly protruding upper teeth.
Iris closes her eyes and breathes in. “I’m sorry, mother,” she says without opening her eyes. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She breathes out and opens her eyes, staring at her mother, who avoids her gaze. “Things are… tough around the barn. I’m under a lot of stress. And you know that’s hard for me to admit.”
Her mother wipes an invisible tear from the corner of her eye. After a faint sniff, she turns to look at Iris, her usual stern expression once again covering her face. “Of course it’s stressful. It’s abuse, not a job. What did you expect? I told you not to work for that man. He’s bad news.”
Her heart missing a beat, Iris opens her mouth to disagree, then clamps it shut in confusion. Why does she have such a strong urge to defend Timothy? Her mother knows nothing of the way the man talks to Iris. She doesn’t know about the threats of violence if she doesn’t get her tempi changes right. She’s never seen the inappropriate way he looks at Tina, or the way his thumbs travel down her collarbones…
“Iris?”
She shakes her head to get rid of the images. “Yeah, yeah. He’s an egoistic asshole with a god complex. I know. But he’s also the best of the best. If I get to ride for him in the World Cup, I’ll make enough money to stay in Iceland, and I won’t have to immigrate…”
“I’m sorry,” her mother interrupts Iris’s sentence. “What do you mean if you get to ride in the World Cup?” She gasps for air dramatically. “You’re saying it’s not a done deal?!”
Shit. Balls. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“No, of course it’s a done deal. I just meant…”
“Oh my heavens. He’s going to give that Yankee chick your spot, isn’t he?”
“No…”
After another loud gasp for air, Iris’s mother cups her mouth and looks away. “A whole year wasted.” She lets out a sob which could be fake or real. “My only daughter, shoveling manure. Living in a filthy, rat-infested barn when she could use the education I so generously paid for to become a productive member of society. But no… Instead, she insists on working for a foreign sadist who marches into Reykjavik like he owns the place. And for what? Just to play with ponies while undermining and belittling the good people who have lived here long before he was ever born.”
“Mother…”
“And all this time I thought,” she pauses for another sob, “At least it’ll all come to an end once this World Cup takes place and she wins herself a decent amount of money. Maybe then I won’t have to worry about her inhaling black mold all day long, working nine hours a day and getting paid for six.”
Man, oh man, she thinks. I wish her math was right.
“About that…” Iris starts, then pauses to take a slow sip of water. It’ll be her mother’s turn to cause a scene. She knows that already. Maybe she shouldn’t ask… but the rent is due tomorrow. And if Timothy doesn’t get his money on time, Iris’s life will become intolerable. More so than it already is. “I could use… a loan.” She bites her lower lip before continuing with a weak voice. “A small one, and just for a month… or two.”
Her chest heaving, her mother takes a deep breath. With a robust but shaky voice, she asks, “But your stipend? What could you possibly need money for when you work nine hours a day and never leave the barn? You don’t buy new clothes. You don’t go out with friends. Take vacations. You are skin and bones, so you barely eat. Where does all your money go?”
Iris holds her breath. She’s never told her mother that she pays to ride Timothy’s horses, not the other way around. One forty-five-minute lesson with one of the world’s best trainers isn’t cheap either. And it’s not just that. It’s been two months since Timothy decided to raise the rent on her room, making it so that Iris’s stipend didn’t cover the cost of training and living at the barn.
“I’ll pay it back,” she says, dodging her mother’s questioning gaze. Finally, she waves her mother off with a hostile hand movement. “Never mind. It’s not a big deal. I can always just come here late Friday and Saturday night and sell my ass. Not that there are many tourists left to whore out to…”
Iris’s mother bounces up from her seat, her chair clattering backward. Her pink lips open, then close, making her look like a fish left to die by the Reykjavik harbor fishing docks. Iris’s whole body goes stiff as she waits for what’s about to come. People stare at them, no longer bothering to be discreet.
Now you’ve gone and done it, ass-face. If she slaps you around, it’s well-deserved. What kind of a person acts like this, especially when you know very well that she suffers from high blood pressure…
Iris swallows as her mother takes a step closer to the table. But instead of attacking Iris, she reaches for her purse, takes out a strange-looking set of what must be VR glasses. As she puts them on, the sly waiter hurries to their table, mirroring Iris’s mother by shoving an identical pair of glasses on his face.
“Paying in Chip-Currency?”
“Yes, please,” her mother answers the waiter, her voice more high-pitched and shaky than usual.
After a moment of tapping the glasses, the two of them nod at each other approvingly, ending their odd exchange. The waiter clears his throat and gives Iris a polite smile. “All done with this, madam?” he asks, gesturing at Iris’s plate and the pierced steak. All she can do is nod.
Her mother takes off the strange glasses, shoves them into her purse, and turns to look at Iris. Her eyes ice-cold, she says, “You want money? Get a job. A real job. If you apply for a position with one of the big four, we can talk about a loan. Until then, I don’t care what you do. I don’t want to see you, hear you, remember you. Not until you come to your senses and start acting like an actual human being, and not some filthy barn rat that is shaming her whole family.”
Iris wants to ask “what family” as she and her mother are the only ones left in Iceland. Everyone else, aunt Lilja and her husband Gunnar, as well as Iris’s forever-bachelor uncle Björn, have moved to random places somewhere in central Europe to live off of the united government—the same government that is quickly running out of housing and losing the ability to relocate so many people who have lost their jobs, houses, and any hope to excel in life. The relocation hubs they’ve been sent to sound beyond shady to Iris—as does the fact that no-one is allowed to contact people outside the hubs—but she seems to be the only one filled with questions and skepticism.
Iris exhales and stands up from her seat. “Mam
ma…” Against her usual ways, she walks to her mother and reaches for her hands. The long, plastic nails dig slightly into Iris’s palms as she cups her mother’s hands in hers. “Mamma, please. It’s only temporary. The Cup is only two months away. Once I win…”
“Once you win,” her mother says, then blows a raspberry. She pulls her hands away from Iris’s touch as if she’s carrying a deadly virus. “Even if you did go to your little competition and somehow managed to win. So what? You’ll still be what you are today. A person with no real skills. No retirement plan. No place in the new society. You think people will look at you differently after you’ve won some silly sporting event in the Netherlands?” Her mother blows another raspberry. “Please. Anyone who’s anything knows that sports are a thing of the past. Nothing important. A waste of resources and people’s time. If it ever was anything else in the first place.”
“Mamma,” Iris whispers again and closes her eyes, willing herself to keep it together. The back of her eyes burn, partly out of anger, partly out of the hurt of her own mother disowning her in the middle of a public restaurant. “Please.”
Her pink lips open, then shut again. Her chin lifted, Iris’s mother narrows her eyes and whispers back at Iris. “Get yourself together, woman. Find yourself a man to support you, or go find a real job. Until you do one or the other, you are as good as dead to me.”
***
The bathroom light changes from neon blue to neon green. Iris blows her nose and hugs her arms around her knees on the toilet seat. Leaning her forehead against her knees, she tries another deep breath. How long has she been sitting here? Since her mother paid for dinner—but not her rent—and then turned around and walked out of Iris’s life?
Thirty minutes?
An hour?
Four?
The resort and its hotel are open twenty-four-seven. The tourists who come here are either taking the cruise Iris’s mother works for or they are regular VRP’s traveling around the last few safe destinations in Europe. Yet no one has entered the women’s room for the whole time Iris has been here. She should head back to the barn. It may be her only day off, but come five a.m., she needs to be back at it.