Are You Going to Kiss Me Now? (12 page)

“Did you eat them?” I asked, horrified.

“I couldn’t resist. Just a few. They are really juicy and sweet. Here,” she said, offering me a berry.

“But Jonah said we should wait,” I protested.

“Jonah? What does he know? Trust me, they are sublime.”

I knew better, but I was so thirsty that I cautiously ate one berry. It exploded in my mouth like a sweet, ripe grape. Heaven. I felt instantly revived. My instinct was to inhale them all, but I resisted. Instead, I managed to convince Eve that we should take them back to the shore for the others. We could collect more with the coconut shells after we’d figured out a way to crack them open. Her mood was manic and giddy, and she greedily shoved about ten more berries in her mouth before she gave me a juicy kiss on the cheek and started singing “What a Difference a Day Makes.” Side by side, we triumphantly trotted back to the beach with the coconuts and the remainder of the berries.

I told you not to eat anything,” Jonah yelled at me.

“She wouldn’t listen to me,” I cried. “I told her to wait.”

“What is it with you that you can’t just follow simple instructions?”

“What am I, her nanny?”

“You’re useless!”

“I am?” I shrieked, remembering the Polaris episode but holding my tongue. I’d been accused of a lot of things in my life, but being useless wasn’t one of them. And besides, I’d found the coconuts. How about that attitude of gratitude, buddy?

“Don’t yell at her, man,” Cisco shouted.

“Was it too much to ask that they wait before eating anything? You couldn’t sacrifice your short-term discomfort for your long-term safety?”

“Nobody elected you our leader, Jonah,” Cisco continued in my defense. “Like Ayn Rand says, ‘The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters and intends to be the master.’ We don’t need any masters here.”

“Really, Cisco? Can I tell you what we don’t need here?”

“What’s that?”

“Literary quotes.”

“I’m just saying, man,” Cisco said, saying nothing at all.

“Would you look at Eve?” Jonah motioned to her. “Look at her!”

We did. Eve’s white skin was now the color of marinara sauce. Little yellow blisters were forming circular colonies all over her face and neck. The mosquito bites weren’t even visible anymore. And it looked like the rash was spreading. I prayed my only having eaten one berry would spare me this ghastly fate. And it was ghastly. I started to feel itchy.

“How bad is it?” Eve asked, looking at me.

“Not too bad,” I lied.

“Get me Milan’s compact. I need to see,” she ordered to the group.

Milan nodded, motioning for Chaz to grab her bag, which was behind him. He slung it over his shoulder.

“No!” Jonah snapped, as Chaz reached for the purse.

“Listen, you fairy,” Jonah went on, “you get that mirror and I’ll knock your head off. It will just upset her.”

“Jonah!” Joe said, shocked.

“What did you call me?” Chaz asked, hand pressed to his chest dramatically. “Did you hear what he called me?” He looked around at all of our astonished faces. It was pretty shameful, but we were too busy with Eve to address it.

“Am I going to die?” Eve asked Cisco, who was sitting vigil on the sand next to Eve. She opened her eyes as she spoke.

“No way, babe, it’s just an allergic reaction.”

“Compact!” she ordered, squinting her eyes at me. I looked at Milan.

“It’s gone,” Milan lied, making a pretense of digging through her purse. “I can’t find it.”

Jonah sent Milan an appreciative glance.

“Here it is!” Chaz announced, triumphantly retrieving it from Milan’s bag and smiling at Jonah. I thought I saw Joe smile a little.

In one swift motion, Jonah snatched the compact out of Chaz’s hand and threw it angrily into the ocean.

“Oh that’s just
great!
” shouted Milan, white with rage. Her teeth were clenched. Chaz was momentarily silenced by the violence of Jonah’s action.

“Please, Francesca,” Eve softly begged, reaching for my hand. “Take a picture and show it to me. Use your phone. I want to see. I really do.” She sounded so desperate.

“I can’t,” I said, looking at Jonah with uncertainty.

“You look fine, Eve,” Joe consoled her.

“I’ll do it,” Chaz volunteered, glaring at Jonah while swiping my phone out of my grasp. He positioned himself above Eve. “Say cheese!”

“Chaz!” Jonah yelled, grabbing the phone out of his hand—but not before I heard it click. “Put it away or I’ll toss it too!” he threatened, handing the phone back to me with a grave expression.

“Sorry,” I whispered to Eve, taking my phone and quickly putting it in my back pocket for safety.

She looked defeated.

“Are you sure you should sit so close?” Chaz asked Cisco. “I mean, it could be contagious.”

“Shut up, man,” Cisco said as he casually let go of Eve’s hand. “I’ve worked with poor people in New Delhi, Thailand, and New Orleans. I’ve been exposed to way worse than this.”

“Um, poverty isn’t contagious.” Chaz said. “I, for one, would rather die alone on the other side of the island than be discovered looking like that,” Chaz added looking down at Eve.

“Oh my God,” Eve moaned.

“You’re dying alone one way or the other,” Joe said to Chaz. “Don’t be such a prick.”

“Really,” I said, “you’d think going bald in your teens would make you empathic.”

“Pardon me, Pippi,” Chaz said and moved back a few steps. “I didn’t realize you and Eve Larkin were BFFs.”

“We’re not!”

Eve burst out crying, but the tears stung her face, so she stopped and just whinnied like a dying pony. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to cry in front of this group. I banked up against a rock and took out my phone.

J:

Eve looks like a hot pizza.

F.

“I’m not sure now’s the time to be sending imaginary letters to your friends back home,” Jonah said, frowning up at me.

He was being mean.

“Well, I’m not sure it’s the time for praying either.”

“Give me one of those coconuts,” he snapped, standing up. Why was everyone ordering me around in this group? It was getting on my nerves. So what if they were famous? They weren’t my chaperones. Most of them weren’t even that much older than me.

“Hey, I don’t work for you!” I shouted, holding back my own tears.

“Not now, Francesca. Just give it to me,” he demanded. God, it was so obvious nobody took me seriously. I handed over my hard-won coconuts as a sort of peace offering. He snatched them away and studied it for a minute.

“I hid more under a tree,” I said sulkily. “So we’ll have more later.”

“Good.” Jonah looked at me for a minute and then nodded. “Thanks.”

“Where did you find them anyway?” Chaz asked. “Did you climb up a tree or something?”

“Yes.”

“Where’d you learn to do that?” he asked. “Astronomy school?”

“Piss off.”

“Uh-oh,” Chaz said, mocking me in a little boy’s voice, “Big Red’s weally, weally mad!”

“Just ignore him,” Jonah said. I wasn’t sure, but I think he felt badly about calling me useless.

He tossed the other coconut to Cisco. “We have to open it. Maybe if Eve has some food and liquid it will slow the process down.” Cisco looked at Jonah like he’d just asked him for some antibiotics and an iced tea with a slice of lemon.

“What are you waiting for?” Jonah looked at Cisco impatiently.

“I don’t know how to get this thing open. Do you have a knife?”

“Of course I don’t have a knife, Cisco! Figure something out,” he shouted. “Maybe Ayn Rand has some ideas?”

Cisco looked at Jonah like a scolded five-year-old boy. He was cradling the coconut like a teddy bear. I didn’t get the sense he got yelled at too often.

“Let me have it,” Joe said kindly. Cisco threw him the coconut like it was on fire.

I went back to my phone because everyone seemed to sort of let me alone when I was typing. I knew they thought I was a freak, but I needed to check out. It was pretty obvious none of these people ever needed or wanted alone time. In fact, I think they were afraid of it.

J:

1) Joe is trying to crack a coconut open with a rock.

2) Now he’s banging said coconut against a tree.

3) Now he’s banging his head against the tree.

F.

“If I had a video camera, I’d be a rich, rich man,” Chaz sighed ruefully as he watched Joe sobbing and slobbering all over the pristine coconut.

“It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault,” Joe was saying repeatedly as he now hit his head with the coconut repeatedly. When we saw blood, Milan pushed Jonah over to Joe.

“Make him stop!” she pleaded.

“It’s good for him to take responsibility for his actions.”

“Get over yourself, Jesus Jr., he’s hurting himself!”

“Joe,” Jonah said, halfheartedly trying to stop him. Joe shrugged him off and continued his Bellevue audition.

“She’s going to die, and it’s all my fault,” Joe shouted before collapsing on the sand, hugging the coconut like a baby and weeping. “She played my daughter in
Afternoon Rain
. She was just a baby. She’s still a baby. Look at her. This is my fault.”

“You’re not helping,” Eve whispered, eyes bulging out of her head in panic. Jonah had a perverted look of self-satisfaction on his face.

Cisco got up and tried to pry the coconut away from Joe while simultaneously pulling him in for a hug. Sweet.

“It’s not your fault, dude. It’s not your fault.”

“It’s kind of his fault,” Milan said.

I retreated to the nearest rock.

J:

Remember when your dad cried at the end of that Vanessa Hudgens movie we saw in sixth grade and you couldn’t look at him for a week? This is worse.

Cisco is man-spooning Joe. I am so uncomfortable.

F.

“Stop doing that, you freak!” Milan shouted at me. “This is totally out of control. Is Eve going to die?”

I laid the phone down in the sand.

“I can hear you,” Eve whispered from behind us. We all turned and saw that the rash was now all over her body. Her face was swollen to the size of a soccer ball. She’d go ballistic. It was good Jonah tossed the mirror.

“Holy shit!” Chaz screamed.

“Oh my God,” Eve cried, touching to feel her face. “What? Fuck, Jonah. Where the hell is that camera, Francesca? Jesus Christ!”

“There’s no need to take the Lord’s name in vain,” Jonah said, kneeling over Eve and stroking her hair. “Or mine. You’re going to be OK. Just relax.”

Eve adopted her gentle “I’m talking to a cute guy” tone and pleadingly asked Jonah for a “dribble” of water. Everyone was gathered around Eve, and our collective fear smelled like bad breath.

“Close your eyes, Eve,” Jonah said soothingly. “We’ll get you water.”

“Oh, Jonah,” she cried, clutching his leg with one hand and Cisco’s arm with the other. “Please.”

Jonah motioned for us to walk a few feet away from where Eve was splayed out in the sand.

“We have to carry her to the water,” Jonah whispered. “Until we can figure out how to transport water here, we have to move her there.”

“But what about the rescue team?” Chaz asked on the verge of hysteria. “What if somebody comes and they don’t see us in the jungle?”

“I’ll wait here,” Joe said. “Just bring me water as soon as you can.”

“Yeah, right.” Jonah snapped. “You think any of us trust you to keep the fire going after what happened?” We all glared at Joe.

“It won’t happen again. Just go,” Joe pleaded. “I can’t bear the sight of you all anymore.”

It was obvious Jonah thought leaving his deranged father alone on the beach was a smashing idea. I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t say anything.

Joe’s eyes were bloodshot, and his posture was bent. He looked like he’d been beaten. He looked depleted. He looked like my dad after another failed “date night” with my mom.

Do you even know where you’re going, Jonah?” Cisco asked again. “’Cause it doesn’t seem like you do. And while I get that you’re doing your Christopher Columbus routine, we’re the ones carrying an extra 120 pounds back here.”

“One hundred six,” Eve gasped. It was the first thing she’d said in hours. I took this as a good sign.

“I can’t even see straight, I’m so tired,” Milan complained. “My eyes are all blurry.”

It was getting late. The sun pierced the treetops like orange laser beams. We’d been walking for what felt like miles, carrying Eve’s red, blistered body along for the ride. The jungle was without scenic variety. It was just a lot of trees. Jonah had said the fresh water was only a couple of miles from the beach, so I think we were all beginning to wonder if he was lost. What was taking so long? The tension between Cisco and Jonah had been mounting since we began to suspect that Jonah didn’t know where he was going. We all had foot blisters and were thirsty and hungry in ways none of us could have ever imagined. There hadn’t been a lot of conversation. Mostly just quiet resignation. The burden of Milan’s exhaustion was dampening her spirits. Cisco was holding Eve’s feet, Milan and I had her middle, and Chaz had her head.

“Why do I have to carry her head?” Chaz whined for the hundredth time. “It’s sooooo heavy.”

“My thighs are totally chafing,” Milan said. “How is it possible that I am getting fat on a starvation diet? Does sleep deprivation make you retain water?”

“You look scrumptious,” Chaz said.

“Oh my God,” Milan moaned. “What if I’m getting my period? Do you have tampons, Francesca?”

“No,” I whispered, mortified. This was just not a conversation I could have in the presence of Cisco Parker.

“Well, what am I supposed to use if I get my period? Tree bark? God, I hate my period,” she continued on her menstruation monologue. “And don’t you love the way they never gave away any
useful
information on
Lost
? I know exactly what to do should we happen upon a polar bear or a locked hatch, but what the hell did Kate and Juliet do when it was Tammy time?”

“Open the hatch, cork the snatch,” Chaz laughed.

“But with
what?
” Milan asked in all seriousness. Chaz shook his head.

The fact that Milan spoke of her period with such candor, aloud, in front of cute boys, spoke volumes about the emotional distance between us. I’d have been horrified to even utter the word
tampon
in front of anybody but Jordan. Even my mother and I didn’t discuss such things.

“Well, look at that, girls,” Jonah said quietly to all of us, pointing to what looked like a striped hyena bred with an aardvark standing under a tree and eating bunches of small, pumpkin-shaped fruit.

“Oh my God, that is so cool,” Milan whispered, dropping her end of Eve and nearly knocking me over with the surprise of Eve’s full body weight.

“Hey, watch it!” Eve said.

The animal looked up at us momentarily before continuing with its feast.

“Oh God. Sorry.” She reclaimed her half of Eve. “What should we do?”

“Get the fruit,” Jonah said. “If he can eat it, it’s probably not poisonous.”

“This is awesome,” Cisco said, motioning for us to gently lay Eve down. “I killed a walrus with my bare hands in
White Death
. I played Sir John Franklin’s son.”

“Yeah,
played
is the operative word in that sentence,” Jonah laughed as he began toward the animal.

Cisco stopped him with a firm grip on the shoulder. “I’ll do it,” he said, pushing Jonah back a bit. “This is what I do.”

“Do where? In Malibu?” Milan asked.

“This should be entertaining if nothing else,” Jonah said, making way for Cisco. “You don’t have to kill it, Polar Boy, just scare it away so we can get the fruit.”

Cisco nodded before running to the tree, doing the very best imitation of Bugs Bunny’s Tasmanian Devil I’d ever seen. He was screaming, shaking his body, kicking his legs, waving his arms, and baring his teeth. Absolutely ridiculous looking.

The animal stopped eating and looked up at Cisco before letting out a long, loud, guttural snort. I think it was his version of a laugh. Then it started digging a narrow trench with alternate strokes of its forepaws, crouched close to the ground, and deposited the biggest piece of poop I’d ever seen. Seriously, it was like half the size of Eve.

“Oh duuude!” Cisco shrieked. “No way dude. Do you smell that?” Cisco ran back and hid behind Chaz.

“That’s right, Sir John.
She’ll
protect you!” Jonah laughed.

“You’re lucky I find your shameless homophobia titillating,” Chaz said. “Insulting, yet oddly refreshing.”

Jonah chortled as he patted Cisco on the back and walked right up to the hyena/aardvark. As he got close, the animal puffed up like a scared cat before it casually disappeared into the wilderness. Jonah bowed. We applauded.

“Jonah’s got bigger yam bags than Cisco!” Milan sang.

Cisco shrugged and smiled. His ego was made of Kevlar.

Despite the ghastly poop stench, we all ran to grab some of the fruit. Watermelon it wasn’t. It had a tough purplish skin and a layer of bitter green fruit surrounding a large seed.

“This is disguhhsting,” Chaz garbled, mouth half open and stuffed full of fruit.

“Slow down, man” Jonah said. Chaz was frantically popping them in his mouth like kernels of popcorn.

“Holy shit,” I said, dropping my fruit as I looked up at Chaz, who had a fleet of black insects marching out of his open mouth. “There are freakin’ bugs coming out of your freakin’ mouth.”

“Omagawd, omagawd, omagawd!” he crowed, looking down at his share of fruit, which was riddled with insects. He started doing a crazy Jimmy dance: slapping his face, spitting out the fruit, and then running behind a tree to retch.

We were laughing our heads off. It sounds mean, but it was funny as hell.

We took care to make sure the remaining fruit was bug-free before we continued eating. We didn’t exactly have a lot of options. Jonah tried to squeeze some of the bitter juice into Eve’s mouth, but she turned her head away. He begged her to take a little, but she refused.

“Good for me, bad for you,” Chaz said to Eve, snatching the fruit from Jonah’s hand and popping it in his mouth. He wasn’t one to get hung up on a bad experience. We collected the remaining fruit before standing up.

“Can we please switch positions?” Chaz asked us, looking down at Eve in preparation to start moving again. “I’m telling you, her head is like a seventy-five pound bowling ball.”

“I think this end is even heavier,” Cisco countered. Eve squirmed.

“You’re really some kind of pussy,” Milan snapped at Cisco. “Weren’t you like Spider-Man or something?”

“Captain Marvel,” Cisco said, readjusting Eve’s feet over his shoulders. He didn’t seem embarrassed at all.

“Well, that’s even worse,” Chaz laughed. “But let’s do a switcheroo, ’cause I think watching you walk from behind may give me the strength to carry on.”

Cisco laughed, and they switched places. I guessed the bitter plum juice had everyone feeling better.

“Now, make it worth my while,” Chaz told Cisco. “Do a li’l swishing.”

Cisco complied with a little jig, and the effect was comic. So he wasn’t a real superhero. What a stupid expectation anyway. At least he could laugh at himself. I sort of loved that he didn’t take himself so seriously. I mean, he was just an actor, right? Why should we expect him to be a real superhero, for God’s sake? How stupid.

“Look at that ass,” Chaz whispered to himself. “He must be gay. Nobody straight looks like that. It’s painful to look at him, he’s so gorgeous.”

“Keep it to yourself,” Jonah said. “You’re making me sick.”

“
Ja
,
ja
, Adolf.”

“How you doin’?” Cisco asked Eve tenderly, as he cradled her head in his hands. Eve opened her eyes and looked up at Cisco and tried to smile. The effect was grotesque. Cisco winced and smiled back.

“You OK?” he asked again.

Eve shook her head and closed her eyes again. She really did not look good.

“The water! I hear it! I found it!” Jonah announced a half hour or so later. He sounded suspiciously surprised, considering he’d been acting like he knew exactly where he was going all along. The stream ran through a little clearing of trees. It was almost dark now, but I sensed we’d have some sunshine here in the morning.

“Praise the Lord!” Chaz chimed facetiously.

“Amen,” Jonah replied.

J:

We found water! I love water! I went swimming with them! I know this is weird, but Jonah looked so awesome all wet you would have died. He’s so tall, and I have to say his ability to get shit done is kind of sexy. If he weren’t a gay-bashing Christian he’d be almost as cute as Cisco. Almost.

Milan’s boobs are different sizes. She’s ogling Jonah. She actually looks like she’s gaining weight, which is odd considering we haven’t really eaten. What’s up with that?

On the downside, Eve won’t drink. I think she’s in some sort of a coma.

F.

“Maybe we should Purell her?” Chaz suggested, staring down at Eve and eyeballing my Droid. “I think she needs disinfecting.”

“That’s a shit idea,” I said.

“Why’s that, Professor Freckle?”

“The rash is just a sign of something going on inside her body. All Purell will do is sting the hell out of her. If anything, she needs some kind of soothing oil or aloe.”

“Mmmm, unfortunately my Crème-de-la-Mer is back in L.A. with my cigarettes,” Chaz rejoined.

“Hey, do you still have that tapioca pudding in your bag?” I asked Milan.

She nodded.

“Tapioca?” Chaz lit up. “You’ve been hoarding tapioca?”

“I forgot about it,” Milan shrugged.

“Forgot about it?”

“It’s not to eat,” I interrupted, taking the pudding pack Milan unearthed from the bowels of her bag.

I drooled as I slowly unpeeled the top off the little plastic cup.

“Can I at least lick the lid?” Chaz begged. I gave him the foil top and dumped the tapioca all over Eve’s lumpy, crusty face and chest. Then I massaged it around, trying not to make a face. Not a good sensation.

“Now she
really
looks hot,” Chaz laughed.

“What does it do?” Jonah asked.

“It’s an anti-inflammatory. My dad used to put it on us when we got poison ivy. Not pudding, but a tapioca starch. It’s homeopathic.”

“Tree climber, star navigator, Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman. You’re like our own little Daniel Boone,” Chaz said, chewing on the foil.

I could feel Jonah cast an appreciative eye on me, but I pretended not to notice.

“Who’s Daniel Boone?” Milan asked innocently.

“You got to love Hollywood,” Jonah said. “Where else does a preschool education pay the bills?”

“Yeah, like the music business is so ripe with intellectuals,” Chaz said.

“My point,” Milan continued, “is at least I don’t pretend to be anyone I’m not.”

“What does
that
mean?” Jonah asked in a clipped, shrill voice. His face was all wound up.

“All your bullshit ‘boy of the wilderness’ crap. Francesca knows more than you do.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Jonah shrugged, looking oddly relieved.

“She’s beyond depressing,” Milan moaned, standing over Eve, soaking wet.

“I think you’re dripping on her,” I said.

She stepped back a bit.

“I think my thighs are touching. Do I look fat?”

***

I carefully arranged some tinder and kindling in the shape of a cone. When I was done, I asked Jonah for the lighter and lit the center. It was a good fire. I was feeling more confident now, and building a good fire was another skill my dad had forced me to learn
before
shipping me off to Outward Bound. He believed going into every situation with an advantage over others was good for one’s self-esteem. He was right. My fire was manly. It
was
way better than Jonah’s. “Useless,” my ass.

We all decided we should try to get some sleep. Jonah insisted we take shifts sitting with Eve. Chaz was assigned the first two hours.

When I woke up about four hours later, he was sound asleep. Lucky for him, Eve was still breathing. I was staring at her big face in the darkness when I realized Jonah was behind me.

“She’s OK,” I said, as if he’d asked.

“Yes,” Jonah said, clapping dirt off his hands.

“What are you doing? Why’s Chaz sleeping?”

“I guess
she’s
tired.
She
can’t do anything for Eve anyway,” Jonah snickered. “It’s in God’s hands now.”

I couldn’t help but notice that Jonah’s tone was a little cool.

“You know,” I said, tiring of Jonah’s brand of humor, “All that
he
/
she
pronoun stuff is really insulting. I know Chaz acts like he doesn’t care, but I can’t imagine it makes him feel very good. And honestly, it’s not funny, and it doesn’t seem very Christian.”

Jonah turned away from me and resumed stacking branches into a big pile.

“What are you doing?” I asked him again, changing the subject.

There were about thirty long branches assembled. He must have been up all night.

“I’m building a debris shelter. It’s crude, but I can’t think of anything else. As soon as Chaz and Cisco wake up, they can help me prop it up.”

“Why don’t we build dugout shelters instead?” I asked.

Jonah turned to look at me.

“You know,” I added nervously, “like sniper holes.”

“I know what a dugout shelter is, Francesca. It’s too wet here. It won’t work.”

“You just cover them,” I said, “with branches and dirt and debris. You make a kind of sandwich roof,” I explained, remembering the way we did it on Outward Bound.

“Please, Francesca, just trust me.”

This from the guy who was traipsing after the North Star in the Southern Hemisphere. Anyway, I decided to let it go. Maybe he was right about it being too wet.

“All right. Why can’t Milan and I help you?” I asked, looking over at Milan who was flat on her belly with her head turned to the left and her eyes wide open. “She’s always awake. Might as well make use of her. We can help too.”