The Island of Ted

by Jason Cunningham

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Where did you learn Tagalog?” said Rene.

  “Manny was teaching me. I think I just said that to Lanie. Maybe twice.”

  Several of them gave me a sharp look. Silence. Then an eruption of laughter from the group.

  “Man, he got you good!” Rene cackled.

  “That little punk.”

  “You know, Manny has a crush on Dr. Lanie. He’s a smart one.”

  “I just wanted to introduce myself,” I admitted.

  “Ah… then you say ‘Kamusta ka?’”

  “What’s that mean?” I asked. “I want to punch your mother?”

  “No, that is the proper greeting in our language. It means ‘How are you?’”

  “Kamusta ka?” I repeated.

  “You got it now, Romeo.”

  I gave a light knock this time before entering the medical tent. Lanie’s eyes darted around to see if I was alone. She appeared very uncomfortable.

  “Kamusta ka?” I said.

  Lanie’s eyes then locked on me. She sprang to life and stood up with a sweet smile, speaking very rapidly.

  “Ah, mabuti! Ikaw?”

  “Oh… uh… I don’t really…”

  She then began a flurry of conversation that took me by surprise. She was talking a mile a minute and I had no idea how to respond to all of that. From the look on her face, she must have been sharing an inside joke with me. Her voice was soft and feminine, almost child-like. Combined with her flowing words of mystery, I was held captive, afraid to interrupt and prove myself an even bigger idiot.

  I offered my hand and she gave me a gentle shake with her fingertips. Standing this close to her made my heart leap. Her scent was that of lavender and coconut oil. Oh no. Now I was loath to respond for fear of making her quiet again.

  “Ok lang? Ano?” she said.

  “Um… one second,” I stalled.

  Lanie looked puzzled as I fled from the tent in a hurry. Rene and the others at the campfire looked back at me. In my days of producing movies, I had grown very accustomed to pressure. At times, I thrived on it. Yet, for some reason, at this moment in time… I panicked. And ran. Memories of Heather and Teresa bombarded my mind and I ran, all the way home. A single thought remained with me.

  History doth repeat itself.

  Even on this island so far from civilization, this nest of tranquility, I once again felt the rush of infatuation and knew exactly how it would end. Badly.

  I spent a few days resting. Due to heavy amounts of unforeseen running during the past week, I developed a serious case of soreness in my lower body. Something else was bothering me.

  Since that first interaction with Lanie, life at the mansion felt different. Perhaps it was knowing that I was no longer alone on the island, or maybe it was the fact that my embarrassing history with women had followed me here, but I felt anxious all the time now. I watched movies on television and laughed at stupid cats on YouTube, but the quiet moments were the worst. She was all I thought about.

  Back in Chicago and LA things were easy. I was a fast-talking, successful movie producer with a fancy house and a customized luxury car. Women also threw themselves at me – the wrong kind of women. My father used to say, “Never marry a girl your mother wouldn’t want as a daughter.”

  That narrowed the search quite a bit. But there was a problem: I only knew how to talk to Hollywood girls. The normal, down-to-earth types, scared me. The ones who actually had something interesting to say, or an educated view of the world, left me speechless and clumsy. I had no idea if any of that applied to Lanie but it sure seemed like I was back to being a bumbling idiot. The moment the girl engaged me, I ran.

  Who does that?

  Romantic pain was no stranger to me, and neither was a bottle of expensive wine. I uncorked and went to town, getting blitzed. Ordinarily, getting hammered for the sake of getting hammered was only a societal compulsion. These days, it really took the edge off. A danger, however, did present itself in times of drunken stupor. You do not want to talk to the woman of your dreams in this state, despite the false courage brought on by fermented grapes. I knew this well and bolted the doors, just in case. While drunk, I had a devil of a time opening doors – especially locked ones. In a way, it was much like engaging your car’s child locks to prevent sudden escape. So with six glasses of pinot noir behind me, I reclined on plush leather in the den.

  Then I slept.

  Part Two

  “One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.”

  -James Earl Jones

  1

  A tattered baseball, which had clearly seen better days, sailed over mature rice stalks and landed in Ted’s mitt. In no time, he snatched it with his free hand and sent the ball sailing across the field, where his smiling companion braced for a catch. Nako was still reeling from an earlier moment of levity.

  “Man, that kid got you good!” he said. “I want to meet him!”

  “Not only that but I was stupid enough to walk back into the tent for more abuse,” Ted shouted to him. “My experience with American women should have trained me for this. It’s just not meant to be.”

  “Some things follow you around, huh?”

  Ted caught the ball and held it.

  “What’s wrong?” Nako wondered out loud.

  Ted was quiet, caught in a moment of reflection.

  “This girl,” he said. “This girl is something else. I’ve been around A-list actresses and not one of them, in their finest hour, could match this girl’s charm. I’d sell my kidneys to be with a woman like that.”

  “Both of them?” Nako curiously asked.

  “I’m telling you, she’s different.”

  “Your five-second conversation tell you so much,” he said with heavy skepticism. “I thought you want to be alone?”

  Ted took a moment of pause and said, “I do. Of course I do. It’s just… I can’t explain it. I’m confused.”

  “You know, there’s a saying in my country.”

  Ted, knowing his friend’s lack of poetic skill, braced for the worst.

  “What’s that?”

  “Try and try until you die.”

  Ted smiled.

  “That’s incredibly depressing. Thank you.”

  “It doesn’t rhyme like that in Japanese,” Nako admitted.

  “You’re like the Japanese Yoda, man.”

  Nako caught the ball and sent it back.

  “This Yoda? Is good thing?”

  “Yeah,” Ted told him. “It’s a compliment.”

  Ted spent that evening pacing in front of the television while biting his nails, which, by that point, were more like nubs. The words of Japanese Yoda bounced around in his head until Ted decided to give it another shot.

  “If I’m going to fail,” he reasoned, “at least I can say I gave it a shot.”

  Ted knew that he’d spent time swooning over Teresa only to find out that the road was a dead end. He figured that Lanie would surely reject him, and may have already done so, but this time it wouldn’t take months or years to find out the truth. He would just deal with the hurt and move on. After all, he’d chosen a life of solitude for a reason – and he had not forgotten it.

  • • •

  Ted moved through the darkness as he approached the village. Kerosene lamps lit a few of the houses and some of the kids were still playing on the beach. Relaxing, Ted watched them for a moment. He then turned his attention to the medical tent; the journey made him feel tense, but alive.

  He knocked his fist against the fragile door. Lanie looked up and recognized him through the plastic window. Ted faked a couple of coughs and Lanie lifted the door’s latch to allow him entrance. He noticed that her medical coat was torn on one side.

  Speaking more slowly than usual, he said, “Do you always wear that thing?”

  Ted pointed to her coat and her eyes followed. She actually understood him this time. Lanie looked back up at him wit
h eyes beautiful and searching, still filled with mystery.

  “Mosquitoes,” she said in a soft, controlled tone.

  “Oh, so it protects your arms?”

  “Yes.”

  Ted was out of ideas so he smiled. Lanie smiled back, still uncertain.

  “I just came by because I have this cough,” he told her. “It’s pretty bad sometimes.”

  Ted pointed to his throat.

  Lanie removed a stethoscope from her pocket and circled to his back. She lifted his shirt up while turning her head away innocently.

  “Malameg na?” she asked.

  Ted looked back over his shoulder.

  “Is cold?” she repeated in English.

  Ted let out an embarrassed laugh.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  Lanie lowered his shirt and moved the stethoscope to his chest.

  “Make deep your breath,” she said.

  Ted drew in a deep breath. Then another.

  “Salamat,” she said. “Oh… that’s ‘Thank you.’”

  She put the stethoscope on the table and wrote something in her notepad.

  “Is it bad?” Ted began to actually wonder.

  Although he’d faked his cough to see her, he had not forgotten a certain incident involving blood that had sent him to a clinic in Cebu.

  Lanie turned around and motioned for him to stick his tongue out. She then stuck a wooden spoon in his mouth to suppress his tongue and clicked on a small flashlight while looking inside.

  “We’re moving a little fast here,” he tried to say without moving his tongue.

  The joke was dead on arrival. No response.

  Lanie clicked the flashlight off and scribbled something on her tablet.

  “You have the malaria,” she said in a serious tone.

  Ted’s jaw dropped to the floor.

  “Holy hell,” he thought.

  “But I…,” he sputtered. “How can…”

  Ted then noticed Lanie smiling at him.

  “It’s joke,” she said. “Ted, you have some allergy?”

  Ted exhaled and let his shoulders drop.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s it. Thanks for taking a look. What do I owe you for your trouble?”

  Lanie looked at him as if she didn’t understand.

  “I want to pay you,” he enunciated. “How much?”

  She waved her hand at him dismissively.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Take this.”

  Lanie handed him a can of Deep Woods Off spray.

  “To protect you.”

  Ted was moved. He took the can from her.

  “Listen,” he began. “Is it okay if I ask you a personal question?”

  “What you mean?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “As in… do you have a special person in your life? Like a … boyfriend, I mean.”

  Ted felt strange saying the word boyfriend to her. He had already studied her hand for a ring and hadn’t found one.

  “I don’t belong to anyone,” she said with a hint of caution, eyes growing less friendly by the second.

  “It’s hard to believe that someone like you is not married.”

  “Ano? Like what?” she said fast.

  “I mean… because you’re very pretty.”

  Lanie looked away from him. Her eyes were back to the bottom corner of the tent. She pushed her hair back over her left ear. Ted didn’t know if she was embarrassed or upset with him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You are kano, yeah?” she pressed.

  “That’s right.”

  “American guy is so forward.”

  Her tone sounded irritated.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his face turning three shades of red. “Listen, I didn’t mean to bother you. I don’t even know why I…”

  Ted’s voice trailed off and he felt ashamed.Lanie saw that he was embarrassed and said, “Filipinos not like that. It’s a more… how you say… timing thing.”

  “Timing?”

  Now Ted was the one confused. He saw that she was struggling to find the right words to use.

  “I mean… it’s hard to translate into English.”

  “I’m sorry?” Ted offered.

  “Relationship here is delicate.”

  Lanie looked down with a loud sigh.

  “I’m not using right words. Ted, you are nice guy. The kids like you. But I’m not American girl.”

  “You’re not interested,” Ted said, almost to himself. “And now I feel stupid for bothering you.”

  “What you mean?” she said with a bit of frustration in her voice.

  Ted sought cover now. He inched toward the door. He had walked into this girl’s world and forced her into an awkward moment.

  He opened the door halfway and said, “I just wanted to give you a compliment. I don’t even know why. I just… saw you and… felt something, like I needed to talk to you. But that’s… not… I’m sorry to bother you. I really am.”

  He saw that Lanie was trying to comprehend what he was saying but his mouth wouldn’t stop moving.

  “I mean – I came here because I wanted to be alone. It’s not like… even if you… never mind. I’m a mess and if I keep talking like this I’ll sound even dumber. Not that you can understand any of this but… well… goodnight.”

  “Bye, Ted,” she said in a soft, confused voice as Ted was already halfway out of the medical tent.

  Standing alone, she sighed to herself.

  “Ay naku.”

  • • •

  Ted sat at his computer in the bedroom, typing up a frenzy. A sudden spark of creativity had caused him to fire up the screenwriting program once more. After two hours, he had already churned out thirty pages. On the screen now sat:

  Warren’s advances toward Lanie were thwarted when she picked up a steak knife and rammed it through his chest.

  Ted smiled a bit, then deleted the sentence, replacing it with:

  Warren knew that winning the girl’s heart would take an investment. Then again, she would be gone soon. He had nothing to lose.

  Ted then underlined nothing to lose.

  • • •

  The rain had petered out by the time Ted left for his early-morning jog. Along the trail he found Manny, sitting alone on a log and playing with his Nintendo DS. Manny looked up from his game and began running alongside Ted, wearing a big smile.

  “What’s up, Manny? You know I told my friend Nako how you burned me.”

  “I’m sorry, Ted. I just don’t want her to like you. She’s my girl.”

  “Dr. Lanie is your girl?”

  “Yeah,” Manny said. “But she’s maldita.”

  “What’s that?”

  “In English it’s like… snob, I guess.”

  “Really? She doesn’t seem like a snob to me. A little hard to read, perhaps.”

  “Oh, she nice. But maldita too.”

  Ted laughed at the kid. He found him amusing and blunt, like himself.

  “But I’m not stupid, Mr. Ted. I know she’s so very old for me.”

  “What are you saying here?”

  “I know how Filipino girl thinks.”

  “You’re going to help me gain the interest of Dr. Lanie? I’m pretty sure she hates me just a little bit.”

  “Maybe, but I can help with that. There’s a condition,” he said. “I want some more game for my Nintendo.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Ted offered his hand and Manny gave him a grown-up shake. It was cute.

  “So how do you plan to court her?” Manny asked.

  “Court? Who am I, Bill Bixby?”

  “You must court a Filipina. You can’t just ask them for a date because they think it makes them cheap.”

  “So what do I do?”

  Ted’s interest was piqued. He knew well the irony of taking relationship advice from an eleven-year-old but these were desperate times.

  “Before you ask a girl out you have to court her for a while. Giv
e to her flower, gift, letter… things like that, until she accept you for a date.”

  “Oh, so that’s what she meant,” Ted said out loud. “Um… look, I’ll bring you some more games next week. Thanks for your help.”

  “But hey,” he said. “If it don’t work out between you and Dr. Lanie can you put in a word for me?”

  “You’re a wild one, Manny.”

  Manny gave him a sly wink. Ted began to turn back, then stopped.

  “You want to watch TV?”

  Manny’s face lit up.

  “Go ask your dad. Hurry up.”

  2

  Ted and his young friend munched on junk food as Cartoon Network blared from expensive surround sound speakers. Ted’s house was like Disneyland for a kid.

  “So how long is this courtship thing supposed to go on?” Ted asked during a commercial break.

  Manny guzzled his soda.

  “Depends. Father said he court my nanay for more than one year before she accept a date.”

  Ted’s eyes grew into grapefruits.

  “What? That’s crazy. A year?”

  “I guess it’s normal for courtship.”

  Ted reclined back on the leather sofa, knowing he didn’t have that kind of stamina. Besides, he thought, Lanie might not be on the island much longer.

  “So what kept your father going? I mean, what if, after all that time, your mother had rejected his offer?”

  “I ask him that. He say that love is sacrifice.”

  “Tell me about it,” he thought.

  Ted’s intense, and sudden, feelings for Lanie made him cautious. Being an introspective man, he knew well the dangers of intense attraction whether physical, emotional or both. The only safe bet, though painful, would be to let her know soon that she was being courted. He made the mistake of waiting with Teresa and would not do so again. However, he also knew that coming on too strong would be a bad move so this would be a dance of subtlety and finesse. If it still ended badly, he reasoned, at least it would end quickly and Lanie could head back to Manila not giving him a second thought.

  • • •

  Lanie sat down at her makeshift desk with a roasted banana. She had just finished hanging a mosquito net over the block of wood she called a bed. She was a woman of simplicity and had an innocent beauty that almost caused her to glow. Her father, equal parts Japanese and Filipino, had also practiced medicine among the poor in Manila before he died in a random stabbing. Her mother was a Filipino dressmaker with Scottish and German blood. The result of their union was a girl who could have easily enjoyed a career in modeling but, rather, decided to follow in her father’s humanitarian footsteps.