by Sloane Tanen
“Or that it was the wrong runway, on the wrong freakin’ island,” Milan added, snapping her fingers an inch away from Joe’s dazed face. He startled before she continued, “You’ll excuse us if we don’t applaud your instincts with lots of hugs and kisses.”
Joe rubbed his temples.
“You should stick to acting, friend,” Cisco said to Joe. “Do one thing and do it well.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Milan said, opening and closing her hand like a puppet. “So now what?”
“I don’t know.” Joe said. “I guess we wait. I’ve got such a headache.”
“I’d offer you an Advil, but they were in my suitcase!” Milan said.
“I can take a look at the tower,” I said, desperate to change the subject. “I can sometimes fix stuff.”
Milan gave me a dismissive once over.
“It’s not fixable,” Joe said. “It’s dead.”
“That’s just great, man.” Cisco was examining the T-shirt for evidence of blood. There was none.
“Am I bleeding?” he asked the group, ignoring the drying blood caking on Joe’s knee.
“No,” we all answered.
“We need to channel Sayid,” Chaz added theatrically. I could tell that there was a small part of him that was thrilling at being part of this weird charade.
“Yeah,” Milan laughed. “He’s so hot.”
Chaz winked at Milan with a sinister smile.
“Who’s Sayid?” Eve asked. Milan turned her head around and looked at Eve like a troll.
“Are you kidding?”
“He was a character on Lost. He played a former Iraqi soldier who could fix anything,” I explained nicely, grateful to have something to contribute to this absurd conversation.
“I don’t own a television.” Eve said snottily.
“Boy, things are that bad for you, huh?” Milan asked. “Maybe your agent could buy you one? I’m sure he’s got free time. You know what? I’ll have my publicist send you one. You don’t have to pay me back.”
Eve smirked, not taking the bait.
“You should Netflix it,” I said. “It’s was a great show.”
“Who are you?” Milan asked, as if she were both seeing me for the first time and totally irritated by my constant presence. Her eyes settled on the blank rectangle where my name tag used to be.
“Francesca.”
“Not your name. I mean, who are you? What are you doing here? Are you somebody?” she asked in all seriousness. Chaz laughed. Was she kidding? I was really not in the mood for celebrity attitude at the moment. She was a bitch.
“Lay off, Milan,” Cisco said. “Who are you? Are you somebody?”
Eve laughed. “Is that an existential question, Mr. Roark?” Eve asked with a flirting wink. Cisco smiled at Eve with obvious approval.
“What the hell are you guys talking about? What’s a Roark?” Milan asked, looking totally annoyed as she rotated onto her back, revealing a perfectly tan, flat stomach.
“The Fountainhead,” Eve said triumphantly, taking in every inch of Milan’s perfect body. “It’s a book.”
Blank stare.
“By Ayn Rand…” Eve continued, waiting for a glimmer of recognition on Milan’s face but knowing happily that she’d get none. “I noticed Cisco was reading it on the plane.”
“Whatever,” Milan responded. Cisco smiled at Eve, and she giggled to herself. It was obvious she thought she’d really hit it out of the park with the literary knowledge. Like we didn’t all read Ayn Rand the summer after ninth grade.
“Well, isn’t somebody going to call someone or do something?” Milan asked, looking at Joe. “Radio control or something? I mean, enjoyable as this diversion from civilization has been, I can’t stay. I assume they’re still going to make us do this stupid charity benefit, and I have to be back in L.A. for my birthday on the fifteenth.”
“There is no radio, Milan,” Joe said. “That’s the problem.”
“No, Joe,” Milan said, sitting up coolly and pulling her shirt down over her big boobs. “The problem is that you landed our plane on the wrong island, before dumping it in the water, and then made us get off the plane without our stuff. Despite the fact that there was plenty of time to get everything out. If I had my BlackBerry they could find us faster. It has a built-in GPS. It was brand new, man,” she said angrily, kicking up some dust with her foot.
“There’s no wireless here. This isn’t Starbucks, Milan.” Cisco said. Eve, Joe, and I all laughed, but for some reason I got the death glare.
“You think I’m funny, Bozo? ” Milan shouted, turning her full attention on me and looking at my air-dried hair with disgust. I didn’t say anything, but the “Bozo” comment, combined with her asking if I thought she was funny, immediately brought to mind my favorite scene in Goodfellas. I burst out laughing.
“Uh-oh,” Chaz squealed.
“I’m here to amuse you?” she asked again, totally oblivious to the fact that she was now reciting the scene almost verbatim.
“Well, you are now,” I cried with laughter. The Goodfellas reference was just too funny. Even Joe started laughing, but he buried his face in his shirt to stifle the sound.
“Sorry,” I said. “It’s a line from Goodfellas.”
She gave me a blank stare.
“The mafia movie? You know, ‘I amuse you? I’m here to make you laugh?’” I said again, throwing in a slight Italian American accent and hoping she’d see the humor. Nothing.
“Joe Pesci?” Joe said, looking at Milan beseechingly.
“What the hell is a Joe Petchi?” Milan snapped with an uncanny Valley girl twang.
“He’s an actor.” Joe said. “A great actor.”
“Look, if it makes you all feel better to make me feel stupid then go right ahead. But let’s face it, I mean, who’s the stupid one?” She paused for dramatic effect. “You, who can’t land a plane…on land?” she said, looking at Joe. “You, who move your lips when you read The Fountainpen?” she said, looking at Cisco. “Or you,” she said, pointing at Eve, “who set an apartment building on fire with a patchouli incense stick?”
“It was a candle,” Eve responded dryly. I prayed to God Milan was done, but no such luck.
“Or you two parasites,” she said, waving her long, tan hand at Chaz and me, “who have nothing better to do than follow famous people around so that your own lives don’t seem so dull and empty!” She was trembling now.
Did I deserve this? She was starting to get on my nerves.
“Or you,” I heard myself say, “who can afford a closet full of two-thousand-dollar Balenciaga bags but can’t remember to put on underwear when you leave the house.”
“Snap!” Cisco roared with laughter, and everyone else started clapping, except Milan, of course. I had just told Milan Amberson off. I suddenly felt great. I was dying to tell Jordan. Bozo my ass, bitch!
Just as she turned to unleash her wrath on me, Jonah came trotting back from the other side of the island.
“There’s nothing around,” he said breathlessly. “I don’t know where you were supposed to have landed, Dad, but this ain’t it.” He emphasized the word dad to the point where it sounded like he was being facetious.
“And,” Jonah continued, “there’s nobody waiting for us except some sand crabs on a small beach on the other side. You really screwed this up.” His hostile tone suggested he was almost enjoying humiliating his father.
“Did you cover the whole area already?” Joe asked, wiping sweat off his balding brow.
“Of course not. We can take a better look around tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Milan balked.
“Anyway, it’s good you sent the ELT,” Jonah finished up, looking at Joe with a perverse smile on his face.
“I didn’t send it. You know I didn’t. You told me to get out of the cockpit before I had a chance.”
“What?” we all said, none of us knowing what an ELT was, but it sounded like a really bad thing for Joe not to have done
.
“I told you?” Jonah screeched. “I’m seventeen. And since when have you ever listened to me?”
“Oh, tell it to Jesus, Jonah,” Joe shouted. “I can’t listen to this shit from you right now.”
Jonah smiled smugly—as though he was satisfied he had gotten the reaction he was looking for. Personally, I thought what Joe said was super harsh. And it was so not something that either Squiggy Small or Detective Matt Spacey would say. All actors are frauds and fakers. None of them are nice…except Cisco Parker, maybe.
“Look,” Milan said, getting up and pacing frantically around her dead fur pillow, “can you two work out the father/son issues on somebody else’s time?”
Jonah looked at Milan and smiled. Joe took a deep breath and reassured us that it didn’t matter about the ELT.
“They will be here soon,” he said. “The radar track wasn’t out that long.”
“What radar track?” Jonah asked, having missed our earlier conversation. “How long isn’t that long?” he asked. “Five minutes? Ten?”
“It was a little longer than that.”
“How much longer? And why didn’t you tell me it was out?”
Joe rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t want to scare you,” he sighed.
“So how long was it out?” Jonah asked again.
“I told you I don’t know. I wasn’t watching the clock, Jonah. I was preoccupied with landing the plane safely.”
“Or maybe,” Jonah asked in a challenging voice, “you were preoccupied with visions of being a hero?” He nodded at Joe encouragingly. “Is that it? I mean, you lost contact and didn’t send a distress signal? What kind of bullshit is that?”
“I told you we weren’t in distress. I could see the runway just below us, I just assumed…” Joe trailed off.
“I need a cigarette,” Milan announced, pulling a ruined wet stick out of her purse. “You guys are boring me, and I’m cold.” The sky was getting darker now.
“And how are you planning on lighting it, Ms. Amberson?” Jonah asked, still glaring at Joe.
Milan then pulled a lighter out of her little wet stash of stuff. She tricked it back with her thumb. It worked. “A little gift from God,” Milan said, smiling at full movie star wattage. Jonah looked at the lighter and smiled back. I couldn’t help but think they’d make a great-looking, albeit odd, couple.
“Can I have that, please?” he asked, extending his hand.
“No way, Virgin Mobile.”
“It’s Jonah,” he corrected her, still grinning. “We might need it to light a fire later.”
“Later?” Milan asked. “How long do you think I’m staying here, Captain Miracle? I mean, the world might not notice that you guys are gone, but they’ll be looking for me.”
“It’s true,” Eve said. “What will In Touch write about if you don’t get arrested Saturday night for drunk driving north on the 101 south?”
“Somebody’s been following my press, I see,” Milan retorted in a fake British accent that rivaled Eve’s.
“Well, you are ubiquitous, Milan,” Cisco said.
“Oh, daddy got a dictionary!” Chaz clapped. He obviously remembered the David Letterman thing too. I was stunned that he was calling out Cisco Parker. Ballsy.
“What’s that you said?” Cisco asked, really looking at Chaz for the first time. Chaz suddenly looked like a Chihuahua who’d been barking at a pit bull and just realized there was no car window (or computer screen) between them.
“I’m so sorry,” he squeaked pathetically.
“Look,” Jonah interrupted, “I’m sure a rescue team will be here soon, but considering he forgot to send an SOS, they may not have figured out what’s happened yet. And it’ll be dark in a few hours, so give me the lighter, please.”
Milan handed Jonah the lighter reluctantly, brushing his palm with her fingertips flirtatiously.
“Well, I’m not staying here overnight,” she said with the bat of an obscenely long set of eyelashes.
“Whatever you say,” Jonah answered, slipping the lighter in his back pocket.
How Do You Spell SOS?
With no cell phones or watches, it was impossible to know what time it was. The only indication that time was even passing was the slow lengthening of the midday shadows. Cisco, Eve, and I were still sitting on the runway waiting for the rescue team. Jonah had gone off to survey the island with an eager Milan trailing him like an enthusiastic apostle. Joe and Chaz had gone looking for fresh water.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. Since Eve didn’t seem to recognize me as a human being (i.e., anybody famous), she was taking advantage of her alone time with Cisco. I was a third wheel on a deserted island. How perfect. Really, I might as well have been invisible. She was one of those girls. And she made that awful model mouth expression to accompany her constant whining.
J:
Eve Larkin sucks. Remember the hair gel diet rumor about her? I can totally see it.
F.
“What are you doing?” Eve suddenly asked me, snatching my phone out of my hand mid-text. “Does your phone work?”
“Hey,” I yelled, trying to grab it back. “Give it to me.”
“Yvette? Hello? Hello? Yvette?” She cried into the phone after frantically dialing a number and turning away from us.
Cisco and I stared at her.
“It’s dead,” she snarled, uselessly pressing the send button. Her back was turned to me. “What are you doing with it then?”
“Texting a friend. Give it back.”
“An imaginary friend?”
“Whatever, it’s a habit.” I was relieved that she didn’t read what I wrote about her. Though she certainly would have had it coming. She was beastly.
“Sorry,” Eve whined as she turned and handed me my phone back. “I thought maybe you were getting reception. I really need to talk to my manager so I can fill her in on the hundred and twelve humiliating ways I’m going to destroy her career for getting me into this mess.” Just like that, she turned her attention back on Cisco and emitted a little guinea pig giggle. She reached up to the dark bruise on Cisco’s face with a phony look of concern.
“It really hurts,” he winced.
“I think it’s just bruised.” Eve was fingering Cisco’s cheek and sitting as close to him as was humanly possible without being swallowed. I wanted to scratch her big fish eyes out. I was staring at my phone but listening to every word.
“Anyway,” Eve said in her faux accent, “it can be camouflaged before you start shooting. When I got that nasty case of poison ivy before the ’01 Academy Awards, my skin looked absolutely flawless during my acceptance speech.” Eve paused, seemingly waiting for some sort of a response from Cisco. He didn’t say anything and just continued rubbing his cheek with a worried expression on his face. Eve took this as a cue to keep talking.
“Thank God for Gina. She’s a makeup magician. I mean, I almost committed suicide after those pictures of me taking out the trash without makeup showed up all over the tabloids. The press was ruthless.” She laughed self-consciously. “But isn’t it always.”
“You were like twelve when you won the Academy Award, right?” I asked, even though she wasn’t talking to me. “You wore foundation when you were twelve?”
“I did when I had poison ivy all over my face! Maybe it sounds superficial to people like you,” she paused, looking at my hair with horror and searching for my name, “but skin is the essential ingredient for an actor. I just don’t feel myself with even a small blemish.”
“But this freckle is cute,” Cisco said, pointing flirtatiously to an itsy bitsy mole on Eve’s upper lip.
“Oh my Gaawd,” Eve shrieked, momentarily forgetting she was supposed to be British as she pulled away, buying her face in her hands dramatically. “I tried to have it removed, but all the doctors said it would leave a scar!”
“Chill, it’s cute. Freckles are cute,” he said.
She looked over at me and win
ced sympathetically. Freckles are not cute. I was the evidence.
“Freckles are fine for others, but I won’t permit them.”
“Anyway,” Cisco continued, “I totally hear you. That’s why I’m worried about this,” he said, caressing his cheek. “I mean, I don’t really care about the way I look, but everyone else does, right? And I can’t exactly wear makeup for the World Environmental Conference I’m hosting with Gore on the twentieth.” Cisco stroked his face thoughtfully. “Oh man, and I’ve got the Operation Smile rally with Reese on the twenty-third.”
“What’s that?” I asked
“It raises money for kids with facial disfigurement. I definitely can’t wear makeup there. Right? That would be weird?”
“Um, yeah, that would be weird,” I answered.
“Wearing makeup is never weird,” Eve pronounced.
Were these two kidding? I was buying that Cisco didn’t care about the way he looked about as much as I bought that Jessica Biel was “awkward” in high school and that everyone made fun of her. Please. I hate celebrities. And BTW: I saw those pictures of Eve taking out the trash in OK! and it was so not poison ivy. Pimple face. If I had to listen to this conversation for five more seconds I was gonna lose it.
“Do you guys think maybe we should do something useful while we wait?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Like what?” Eve yawned, leaning against Cisco’s shoulder. Yuck.
“I don’t know, maybe we should write SOS in the dirt really big in case a plane comes by? I saw a documentary on the History Channel where some people were stranded in North Carolina a long time ago, and I think they did something like that.” This may have been a totally lame suggestion, but it sounded more productive than listening to these two discuss the fine points of good skin care.
“North Carolina?” Eve squawked.
“That’s a good idea, Francesca,” Cisco said, clapping his big hands together and standing up. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. He had the arrogance of somebody who was used to being worshipped and could treat the less blessed like used tissue paper. Not that it detracted from his utter gorgeousness in any way. And besides, my plan got Eve off his lap, so that was something.
