by Sloane Tanen
“Well, think how great the PR will be now—once they find us.”
“If they find us, you mean,” she said, grimacing as she squeezed the water out of the blister.
“They’ll find us eventually.”
“But will we be alive?” Eve asked, voice rising.
“Not if we don’t figure out the food and water problem. And once we do that, think of this experience as a good opportunity to get to know Cisco better. That’ll drive your ex crazy. Plus, if we are stuck a couple more days, we’ll get to see what happens to Milan’s figure without her metabolism pills. Whatever those are. That’s something to look forward to in and of itself.”
“And once all of her fake hair falls out,” Eve said, really cracking herself up over the prospect of a bald Milan.
An abrupt snort aborted her laughter as she suddenly turned to me with a sense of urgency.
“I don’t like him, like him,” she announced, referring to Cisco and sounding like a defensive seventh grader.
“I know, I’m just saying.”
Eve paused.
“OK,” she said, looking into the jungle, “but you go in first. I’ll follow you.”
The woods were very thick and green. The trees made such a dense canopy that the sun barely peeked through. It was hard to make out what was two feet in front or behind. I whacked the leaves with my stick the way they do in the movies, but they just whacked me right back. Eve was so busy protecting her precious face that I found I was spending more time making sure the trees were parted for her than I did looking for anything edible. Suddenly I heard a chattering sound above.
“I think I hear monkeys!”
“Omigawd,” Eve said.
“What?”
“I hate monkeys!”
“Why? Who hates monkeys?”
“Monkeys eat people.”
“They do not.”
“They do!” Eve assured me.
“No, they don’t.” I said, suddenly questioning myself. “But they do eat fruits, so that’s a good sign. There must be food around.”
“Didn’t you hear about that monkey that bit off that woman’s finger and her husband’s penis?”
“No, I can’t say that I did, Eve. No.”
“It was all over the news.”
“What news?” I obviously wasn’t above reading the National Enquirer, but the monkey story certainly hadn’t made the cover of the New York Times.
“Monkeys are dangerous animals. Don’t be fooled by the cute exterior,” Eve said like she was imparting some sage wisdom.
“Look,” I explained, “I’m sure those monkeys were just mad about something like being trapped in a cage or being forced to wear velvet vests and dance to accordion music.”
“I can’t deal with monkeys!” she yelled up into the trees. We heard a scurrying sound and some rustling of leaves.
“Oh, bloody hell!”
“C’mon, Eve.”
“My feet really, really hurt,” she complained, staring up at the trees anxiously.
“So do mine, Eve,” I said, pulling a pebble out of my shoeless heel.
“I have to stop and process,” she whined, ignoring me and plopping herself against a big tree. “I’m not like you. I don’t have the constitution for this. I hate monkeys. I hate the outdoors. I loathe the beach. I hate the mountains. I don’t even like convertibles. I hate picnics.”
“Then wait here while I look around,” I said. She was exhausting.
“Alone?” she asked, grabbing my hand.
“You’re not alone. The monkeys will keep you company.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Look, Eve,” I said, shaking my hand loose, “I get that being uncomfortable isn’t your thing, and I get that you’ve been famous for so long that you don’t know how to breathe without a staff of six and a chilled Pellegrino, but you have to help me out. You’re the only one here who seems mildly normal,” that was me lying again, “and I need you to make an effort. I know eating isn’t your thing, but starving to death seems like an extreme diet…even for you.”
She paused in order to consider.
I kept talking, as she wasn’t interrupting me.
“Seriously, if we don’t get food, then we don’t eat, get it? What if you pretend this is research for a movie or something?”
“That’s stupid.” She paused. “What kind of movie?”
For an actress, she certainly didn’t have a lot of imagination. I was really beginning to feel like a preschool teacher. I was trying to come up with a compelling improv proposition when she interrupted me.
“I can cry on cue,” she announced proudly.
“Wow.”
“Want to see?”
“Um...”
Suddenly she was bawling, rolled up in her weird little animal ball and convulsing with sobs. I settled in for what looked like another useless hour or so. And that’s when it happened.
“Ouch!” Eve whined, covering her head. A huge, coconut-looking fruit had fallen from the tree above and landed right on her big head.
“Look!” I shouted. “It’s food! You did it!” I looked up and saw about four animals that didn’t actually look like monkeys, but close enough. They had big, bat-like ears, and their faces looked almost bear-like. They sounded like they were laughing.
“Oh my God, look at the baby monkey-things,” I said, pointing up to the tree. Three little gray and white monkeys were staring down at us playfully swishing their long, striped tails. Lemurs? Bush babies? I had no idea. “God, they are awesome!” I cried. “They’re incredible.”
“Run!” Eve shouted, taking off before I had a chance to stop her. If the girl really thought monkeys were akin to lions, she certainly didn’t seem that concerned with my welfare. Though why I should have found this surprising, I have no idea.
I considered how I was going to scale the tree for more coconuts when another one fell down. I think the monkeys were making a gift. I felt very Jane Goodall.
“Thanks!” I shouted up into the tree.
I stood there for another few minutes waiting for either another coconut or the first civilized conversation I’d had in two days, but nothing happened. I was able to climb pretty high up onto one of the trees and knock about four more coconuts down. They were huge and heavy. I could only carry a couple so I hid the rest under some branches and leaves. We could come back for them later. I picked up two coconuts and headed off to find Eve.
When I finally exited the woods I saw her waiting for me and smiling. She was wearing her pants and a bra. The contrast between her tired face and her doll-like torso was almost freakish. Her skin was white as snow, and her body, unlike Milan’s, looked like it belonged to a twelve-year-old girl. Her breasts were smaller than mine. So much for the implants rumor.
“Where’s your shirt?” I asked, unconsciously holding the coconuts to my chest like two big, fake boobs.
“Sorry I took off,” she said sheepishly.
“That’s all right. Look what I got.”
“Look what I got,” she countered enthusiastically. She offered me her T-shirt out of which she’d fashioned a sort of makeshift basket filled with what looked like cranberries. She looked deeply satisfied with herself.
“Ohhh!” I cried and we both started jumping up and down and hugging each other like two fools. The berries were flying around everywhere.
“I wonder if they’re any good. Let’s get back to the beach and find out.”
“They are,” Eve said, smiling. That’s when I noticed that her lips were stained red.
“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 in
stantly 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.
That’s One Hell of a Rash
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 t
hought 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.
