Finders Keepers

by Karin Kallmaker

  No one here looks like Tallulah Bankhead, with or without her panties.

  Love, Marissa

  P.S. Still waiting to hear from you about how heaven really feels about homosexuals.

  P.P.S. Think I’ll tell Mom. I expect it to go about as well as when you told her that you were gay.

  The sound of her backpack zipper turned heads. A lot of people had either backpacks or small cases but she was the first to seriously open up. She took out the paperback she’d finished on the plane. People were looking daggers at her, as if trying to distract herself was letting the team down.

  She read. Nothing in the book seemed familiar but then the flight seemed months ago instead of yesterday. She turned the page, could recall nothing from the previous one but kept going anyway.

  After the water and food rations had been shared, the men demonstrated how much easier it was for them to pee—discreetly, of course. Around ten-thirty they thought they saw another lifeboat on the horizon but there was no answer to the flash of their signaling mirror. Their boat had drifted substantially closer to the low, white cloud. It must be a land mass of some kind, Marissa thought. After all, New Zealand was the “land of the long white cloud.” It said so in her paperback. She wished now she’d gone to New Zealand instead of Tahiti.

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  Gregorio, surrounded by the Muscle Guys that had all moved to the front of the boat, continued to insist that rowing was not in their best interests. Marissa was inclined to agree—for now. But if they were still here by nightfall she was going to have to pee and she really didn’t want to use the Emergency Latrine. The E.L. was a Tupperware bowl and it would be just her luck to drop it over-board when she emptied it out. They’d vote her off the lifeboat for sure. She suspected, given that only one woman had used the facilities so far, she wasn’t the only one hoping to make it to the privacy of darkness.

  The island didn’t seem to get any closer, until, by early afternoon, it was clear they were in a current and being drawn that direction. Gregorio insisted that rescue planes and boats would have been dispatched. They would be found. They were only nine hours of sailing out of Papeete, after all.

  Muscle Guy Number One, who seemed to think his English was easier to understand if he added an Italian accent, insisted, then, that the island was likely to be populated. It could even be Huahine.

  A heated argument ensued. Marissa thought she heard the Gilligan’s Island Woman in front of her say, “It’s the same the world over,” but she wasn’t sure.

  Finally, Gregorio shrugged and didn’t protest when Number One directed Numbers Two through Four to get out the oars.

  Marissa had nothing against guys with muscles—obviously, they had their uses and she would be eternally grateful to them if they found solid ground and a place for her to pee. Marissa thought it wise to re-buckle her vest and she zipped her book inside her pack again where it was hopefully safer. If they were stuck on a deserted island for long, a paperback might be a valuable commodity for barter.

  The woman next to her smelled of suntan lotion and sweat.

  Marissa imagined she didn’t smell much better but she was glad of the long pants she’d struggled into and the light long-sleeved denim shirt she had smashed into her backpack after arriving in Papeete.

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  Now that they were doing something other than waiting, couples that had previously only murmured between themselves began to talk to those around them as if the energy could finally be spared. The man with the camera took photos of the rowers and the approaching land. Most people didn’t speak English, something she’d figured out at dinner the night before. That could devalue her paperback should she need to trade it for chewing gum, she thought dizzily. The boat made its first directed surge through the waves and Marissa put her head down on the backpack again, letting the voices swirl around her.

  “So,” someone said nearby, “Did you have friends who made you watch the Poseidon Adventure before you left home?”

  She glanced up and realized that Gilligan’s Island Woman had turned around on her bench so they were knee-to-knee. Recalling her bon voyage party, Marissa admitted, “I have a friend that warped but she chose Titanic.”

  “I have the weirdest urge to sing—”

  “Oh, please, not that song. Any song but that.”

  The other woman’s lopsided smile made Marissa feel oddly better. “What’s it worth to you?”

  “Depends on if you sound at all like Celine Dion.”

  “I sound more like Celine Dion’s chain-smoking brother.”

  Marissa laughed and then felt a rush of tears.

  “It’s okay,” the other woman said. She brushed the front of her pale green T-shirt, which sported a cute cartoon dog wearing snorkeling gear. “It’s just tension.”

  Nodding, Marissa struggled for composure. She shifted in her place and was glad that the vest blunted Whippet-Face’s pointy elbows. “I’m Marissa Chabot. California.”

  “Linda Bartok, Boston, Massachusetts. What part of California?”

  “Danville, San Ramon, Pleasanton?” Linda looked blank so Marissa added, “About forty minutes from San Francisco, to the east.”

  Linda nodded. “I was out that way a few years ago. It’s a great place to live.”

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  “I’ve never been to New England.”

  “Full of history. Right now, full of ice and snow, so I prefer this.” Linda seemed unfazed by the surge-falter rhythm of the boat as their pace increased toward the island.

  “So why the wacky castaways for your bon voyage?”

  Linda shrugged. “It’s a guilty pleasure. Goofy show.”

  “Well, the Professor can make a radio, refrigerator and bunk beds out of palm leaves. That why you’d prefer it to Lost?”

  “Nah.” Linda gave her another lopsided smile. “Ginger.”

  Marissa blinked and wondered what she ought to read into that remark. “Ginger? Over Evangeline Lilly?”

  The charming lopsided smile balanced out to a broad grin.

  “I’ve always liked a curvy redhead.”

  “Oh.” Marissa took a deep breath and tried for a confident snicker. “I can’t disagree with your priorities.”

  Linda winked conspiratorially and Marissa grinned back.

  Dear Mom,

  The impromptu cruise toward an uncharted desert isle has clarified certain of my preferences. For future purposes of arranging blind dates for me, please note that I prefer Ginger, Mary Ann, or even Mrs. Howell, to the Professor or the Skipper and most certainly to Gilligan. Mr. Howell is more your type, don’t you think?

  Love, Marissa

  P.S. Sorry about the Mr. Howell remark. I’m a little bit stressed at the moment.

  The life boat lurched on a wave and her thoughts came back to the real world.

  “Do you think we’re caught in a current?”

  Linda shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”

  They were quiet for a while, listening to the broken English conversations of the rowers. Marissa wanted to ask Linda lots of questions but Linda’s attention was on the rower nearest her.

  “I can spell you,” she said to him when they all paused to take a 23

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  rest. There were other offers, so a change of shift was imple-mented. Only when Linda stood up did Marissa realize she had to be only an inch or two short of six feet. From the back, with tanned, wide shoulders and dark hair down her back, she could have been mistaken for any number of tall, well-muscled models or actresses. She had the physique of a cartoon heroine—Batwoman or Wonder Woman. Even Xena.

  And, Marissa asked herself, how relevant is this line of thought?

  Linda had full red lips, tawny brown eyes, yes, but she wasn’t exactly gorgeous. Good-looking, okay, but . . . not a movie star. />
  Not quite. Okay, she was gorgeous, but not because Marissa had some sort of crush on Xena, which she didn’t. At least not since the show went off the air. Besides, Linda was a real thirty-something woman, not some ageless creation of fantasy.

  She watched Linda’s muscles ripple and decided the entire situation was freakish enough without hallucinatory ramblings.

  Dear Ocky:

  I want to thank you for the bon voyage party. It was a lot of fun. As it turns out, watching a movie about a shipwreck wasn’t perhaps the highlight of the party, but I know you were trying to give everybody a laugh. So far, this vacation has had adventure! adventure! adventure! just like the brochure promised. There’s even a raven-haired warrior princess. I’d introduce you to her but she’s busy saving the world, which, for the moment, is this life boat.

  Love, Marissa

  P.S. There may be some delay before I can enhance the data-base refresh speeds.

  P.P.S. I am thinking over our questionnaire item about “What would you bring to a desert island?” Answer forthcoming.

  Their approach to the island was like the ball dropping in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Wait, wait, wait, then suddenly 24

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  everything seemed to be happening at once. Far to their left they could see a long, inviting beach dotted with palm trees but their boat seemed magnetically drawn toward worn, dark gray cliffs studded with green plants. Marissa had only taken in how sheer the cliff face seemed when she saw that the ocean below it was broken by big rocks. Pointed rocks. Certain Death kinds of rocks.

  Linda, who had moved to the bow with Gregorio, gave a shout and pointed. “There’s a little beach.” Gregorio added a shout of his own and the rowers turned the boat into the current.

  Dear Aunt Rill:

  Let me apologize for being such a pain about going to church when we visited with you. I felt silly praying, since I never seemed to get an answer. However, I think had I learned to pray I might be better able to cope with—

  Something submerged scraped the side of the boat as it crested a swell then dropped hard. Marissa fully expected sharp teeth of rock to pierce the hull. The rowers made little headway against the current. There were several people talking at once, then Gregorio and Linda joined the two rowers on the left, pulling hard.

  —stressful situations. I’d pray right now if I knew how.

  In fact, I’m going to forget my lack of expertise and go for it. If I end up in heaven with you, I’ll let you know how it turned out.

  Love, Marissa.

  P.S. I’m a lesbian but you knew that, didn’t you?

  There was a loud crunch that shocked a scream out of Marissa and she wasn’t alone. Fear, like whining, sounded the same, regardless of language. The man in the bow leapt to solid footing on the shallow beach and turned to pull hard on the boat. It nosed firmly into a bit of sand not much wider than it was.

  The tide, Marissa wondered, was it high or low? As if in answer, 25

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  a new swell threatened to lift them off their nano-spit of safety toward yet more rocks on their right.

  There wasn’t enough room for all of them on that little bit of semi-solid land. Above was a pitted cliff face. Some of them, Marissa thought wildly, could climb that. But there was no way she could.

  It seemed she was expected to. Linda, with a muscled agility that had Marissa once again thinking about warrior amazons, scaled the cliff face easily, pausing along the way to mark handholds on the cliff face. Where Linda had found a very large indeli-ble marker, Marissa didn’t know. It was the kind of thing a butch could be counted on to have in her pockets but Linda wasn’t so much butch as she was outdoorsy survivor warrior gal who probably looked fabulous in silk and diamonds.

  Trying to decide how she’d describe Linda kept Marissa from thinking about the obvious fact that everyone expected her to be able to climb that cliff. Had they looked at her butt? Had they realized her arms were good only for moving computer equipment?

  Old people were going up the cliff face. Okay, not quickly, except they looked to be octogenarians so any speed was fast. Any speed was faster than she would ever achieve.

  From the top of the cliff, where Linda leaned over expectantly, came the decree.

  With a smile that seemed intelligent but masked completely unrealistic powers of judgment, Linda said, “Marissa, your turn.”

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  Chapter 3

  Marissa didn’t say “You must be joking.”

  Linda read her mind anyway. “You can do this. Take off the life jacket. I’ll talk you through it.”

  The boat shifted under her. The tide seemed to be getting more violent. Still on the boat were a few of the more fit people and they were all waiting for her.

  If I refuse, Marissa thought, someone will stay with me. We’ll both drown and I’ll have that on my conscience for the rest of my life.

  Her involuntary laugh at her own idiocy was edged with hyste-ria.

  Again, Linda said, “You can do this.”

  Marissa unbuckled the life jacket and was out of the boat without consciously making her legs move. After tucking her sneaker-clad foot into the spot Linda had marked “F1,” she reached up for the pit in the rock marked “H1.” Then she sighted “F2” and “H2.”

  She’d have to pull herself up about two feet to reach either.

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  “Pretend you’re a frog and keep your knees apart.”

  There were a dozen ribald replies she could have made, she was sure of that, but she couldn’t think of any of the right words.

  Hands and feet braced, she pulled, pushed, lifted, grunted, scraped her cheek, squashed her boobs into the rock and managed to get good grips on the second set of holds. Men, she thought savagely, did not have to deal with boobs.

  Looking up, she sighted the next reach.

  I can’t do this.

  “You’re right, you can’t,” her mother said. “There’s no point in you taking advanced algebra, Marissa. Girls have different brains.

  I think home economics is much more sensible.”

  Great, what a time for a conversation with her mother. She eyed the next handhold, already feeling a suspicious trembling in her arms.

  “It’s all fine and well to learn to type. You’ll always have work, though you won’t ever really need to be serious about a career as I’m sure you’ll get married. But learning this gibberish—”

  “It’s called hypertext.”

  “Whatever it’s called, it’s useless. If you have to learn a second language, try French. You’ll know how to order in a fine restaurant.”

  “I’m twenty-four, wait. I’m thirty-four . . . and I can make my own choices in life, Mother!”

  “You can’t possibly think that you and that Octavia girl can run a business together. You both should be looking for husbands. I can’t tell my friends my daughter runs a dating service. They’ll think you’re . . . you’re . . .”

  “A madam? A pimp? But Mother, you told me once you’d rather I was a whore than any kind of sexual deviant, because Jesus forgave whores. That was after dad left, remember? I understand you’re bitter about that but it’s not an escort service. It’s a complicated, intensive program that scores individual likes and dislikes then ranks the comparative intensity against that of other—”

  “You should use the service yourself, but look at you! You’re 28

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  overweight, you work eighty hours a week, you have no friends, no social life. You can’t live that way!”

  “Don’t tell me . . .” Marissa took a deep breath and heaved herself up the cliff face to the next handhold. With a frightening scrabble, she got her foot into the right spot. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”

  “Next ti
me,” Linda called down, “set your foot first if you can.

  You can use both legs to push that way. That was great, though.

  You’ve got fantastic upper body strength.”

  “It’s from knocking back Krispy Kremes.” She didn’t know until Linda laughed that she’d spoken aloud.

  “Told you that you could do this.”

  I can’t, Marissa wanted to say. I really can’t.

  “You can’t do this to me!” Her mother stood between Marissa and the door, outside which a cab was waiting to take her to the airport.

  “He’s still my father and I’m going to spend Christmas with him. Him and Phillip.”

  “What will I tell people? How can you have anything to do with him? He walked out on us—”

  “No, he walked out on you!” Marissa glared across the foyer with the echo of a hundred overheard fights in her ears.

  “If you’d been anything like a real daughter he could have been proud of, he’d have never left—”

  “He walked out on you. He couldn’t wait to get away from you.

  He’s gay because of you!”

  Marissa dug her fingers into the rock as she thought, “Okay, you knew that was a lie and you can’t ever take that back and you never should have said it.”

  She braced both legs then grunted with the stress of stretching for the next handhold. “But she deserved it.”

  “Who deserved what?” Linda stared down at her in concern.

  “Tell you later.”

  “Climbing takes glutes,” Linda volunteered. “So you’ve got

  ’em.”

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  Marissa realized everyone below her was looking at her butt.

  Prime view of the cottage cheese thighs too. It wasn’t fair, having to do this. It wasn’t fair being stared at, evaluated and always found physically inadequate.

  Oh, please, she chided herself. Don’t whine about being chosen last for sides in basketball. You can’t be a cliché. Besides, when the staring started it wasn’t because you were inadequate.

  “You got milk in those jugs?”

  She’d gazed at Ricky Skilecky without understanding. His snicker, quickly joined by those of his traveling pack of ferret companions, brought a blush nevertheless. It had to be about sex but she didn’t get it. She didn’t know which was worse, not getting it or how she’d feel when she finally did.