by Sloane Tanen
“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.
I Can Do Anything You Can Do Better
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: sla
pping 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.”
“The guys can do it.”
“Sexist much?”
“You girls should look after Eve.”
“But you just said there’s nothing anybody can do.”
“Maybe you can fetch some more coconuts, Francesca. Or why not write in your diary. I don’t care,” he snapped, suddenly sounding really irritated with me as he returned to his branch gathering.
“What’s your problem?”
“There’s no problem.”
“It sure sounds like there is.”
He abruptly turned around to face me.
“Well?” I stood up straight and put my hands on my hips in a posture that I hoped suggested strength and indifference.
“You want to know what my problem is?” he asked violently, moving in really close and bending his head down so he could look me in the eyes.
Ummm, not really, I thought, suddenly feeling anything but strong and indifferent. I felt the blood rush to my face. I was grateful it was dark out.
“The turtle rescue was bad enough,” he started, “but I specifically asked you not to eat the berries or let Eve eat them. And then making me look like an idiot in front of everyone with that Big Dipper crap. I may have been wrong, but do you think it helps us work together if they have no faith in me? And now you’re giving me shelter tips? How are we going to dig seven trenches, Francesca? With our stainless steel shovels? Do you have any idea how long it would take to dig by hand, and how hard it would be? Does it ever occur to you that you’re not always right? It’s like you’re sabotaging my efforts here. It’s pissing me off.”
