Read Online The Man in the Window by Jon Cohen, Nancy Pearl - Free Book Online Page B

than death.
    The cars from the funeral drove past and Iris looked up. She recognized the man in the hat and scarf in the window of one of them. Without thinking, she nodded ever so slightly as he wentby. And did he nod back, or had the car window reflected the passing road? Why had she done such a thing? The last of the cars in the procession disappeared into the glare of the afternoon sun.

CHAPTER TWO
    H ERB, THE ancient security guard, held open the door to the employees’ entrance for her.
    “Iris, my love,” he said.
    Iris pushed past him to the time clock. “If I’m your love then you’re a desperate man, Herb.”
    They’d had variations on this dialogue for two years. Herb sidled over to her. He always got close enough to touch, but never did. He knew better. “A man my age knows a thing or two about love,” he said.
    Iris looked him over with a nurse’s eye. “A man your age knows a thing or two about blindness and senility. You got to be afflicted with both to love me.”
    “You’re a peach.” Herb tried a smile, and his dentures dropped down about a quarter inch.
    “Herb, take a deep breath and get some oxygen to your atrophied brain, then squint your cloudy eyes in my direction. I’m four foot seven, weigh one hundred and fifty-five very poorly distributed pounds, have a nose like a boxer’s, and the complexion of a corpse.”
    “I’m in the market for a woman like that.” Herb let out a wheezy laugh.
    “You don’t sound so good, Herb.”
    “If I collapse, you’re the one I want doing mouth-to-mouth.”
    Iris started off down the hall. “If you collapse, I’ll help put you in the body bag.”
    “You’re a peach!” he shouted after her. “You’re my love!”
    Iris stopped at the soda machine to get her two Pepsis, which she always drank regardless of which shift she was working. Then she put forty cents in the candy machine for her candybar. She was working evening shift so she got a Mars bar. On nights she bought a Goldenberg’s Peanut Chew because it didn’t matter that her breath smelled of peanuts, since all the patients were asleep. On day shift she bought a Three Musketeers, which she immediately washed down with her first Pepsi for the double sugar kick that would get her through the morning craziness. She caught a glimpse of herself in the vending-machine glass. Like peering in a fun-house mirror—she looked stepped on, like she should pop back to her normal shape, lithe and long. Nope, she thought, that’s me. Sometimes her unattractiveness surprised her. The only thing I haven’t got is bad breath. Except on nights with my Peanut Chew. She had her body odor under pretty good control, too. So what? Who’d answer a personal ad that read: “Short, dumpy, thoroughly unappealing woman, who bathes regularly and flosses nightly, seeks mate, preferably not Herb.”
    Iris walked down the back steps to the Intensive Care Unit, absently devouring the Mars bar she usually managed to save until just before dinner.
    “Ooh. Calories, calories,” came an all-too-familiar voice.
    Iris looked down at Leona Richards, the hospital dietitian, prancing up the stairs. Shit, she thought, here we go. Leona obviously had never partaken of a Mars bar in her life. She packed her petite frame into the tightest white slacks in the hospital, and the only male Iris had never seen react to her was the Tube Man. Even Iris always turned her head to watch Leona’s ass move down the hall, with a feeling of one part awe and two parts despair.
    Iris bit into her Mars bar defiantly, and said, “How’s it going, Leona?”
    “You should at least be eating a granola bar,” said Leona.
    “Not enough sugar.” Iris sucked a piece of caramel off her front teeth.
    Leona winced at the sight. “I’m giving a talk on alternative carbohydrates tonight at seven in classroom B if you’d like to come.”
    “Sweet of you to offer… get it, sweet? But I’ll be too busy.”
    Leona pressed. “Don’t you care