by Sara Forbes
I turn and start the run back.
My pace is faster than she can manage with her shorter stride, but at least she’s making an effort. Her breath comes in audible rasps behind me.
She catches up as we round the cove with the fallen tree and I pick up my discarded boots. The plane will be visible very soon; I relax my stride to walking pace so she can catch up. I may forgive her one day, but today’s not that day.
“What the hell were you playing at?” I call over my shoulder to her.
“Going for a dip,” she pants. “It’s ten…isn’t it?”
“It’s eight,” I growl.
“But Cara—”
A droning noise blocks out the rest. I halt. There’s a whump against my spine as Mia crashes into me from behind. I whirl around and hold her shoulders to steady her. Her eyes widen as she stares up into my face.
“That sounds like—” she says, dropping the conch.
“The plane.”
It can’t be.
But the drone intensifies—the crescendo of an engine starting up. It turns into a roar then a putputput of propellers that speed up until there’s no gaps between the sound. It’s just a blanket of noise.
OK, they’re just warming up, circling the runway. Waiting for me. Us.
But the plane sounds like it means business.
I sprint again, leaping over grassroots and sand hills. The soles of my bare feet crash down on jagged shells and squish jellyfish. I don’t feel anything.
The plane is speeding down the runway at a hundred-something miles an hour; My organs liquefy as it takes off.
“No, no, nooooo!” I howl.
I’m waving my arms like a lunatic “Come back, come back,” I yell. Surely the pilot can see me? And the passengers? They know we’re not on the plane, so they must be searching for us. Rita wouldn’t abandon her niece, would she? But the plane keeps flying away from the island, farther and farther…
I stare at the straight, white line it traces against the deep blue sky. It’s not making a turn to circle. Even when it’s some miles away, I’m still expecting it to circle around and come back, but it doesn’t. Soon it’s just a tiny speck beside a cloud and then it vanishes, swallowed by the vast sky stretching above us. And I’m still standing here, staring. It’s quiet again. Nothing to be heard but the tide, washing calmly in and out.
13
MIA
JACK’S JUST STANDING HERE, squinting against the sun, scanning the sky as if he’s sure the plane will reappear any moment. But it’s mighty quiet. I feel I have to say something. Anything.
“I sure hope your hobbies include geology, reading jungle survival books, and binge-watching Survivor.”
From his look of sheer confusion and rage, his hobbies are none of those things.
“OK, seriously, how long do you reckon we have to wait for the next plane?” I ask.
“Mia, seriously, didn’t you hear a word I said in the briefing? There is no next plane, no regular service. We have to wait for this guy to come back… in two days.”
“Two days?” I shriek. “But we’ll miss the plane home. I can’t stay here. I-I need to get home.”
“You need to get home?” Jack leans over, hands on his knees as if about to throw up. “Well, guess what? I need to get home too because I have a sixty-million-dollar production team hanging in the balance. But instead, I’m here with you because you had the stupid notion of going off shell collecting while everyone else was boarding the plane.”
I wince at his harsh tone. This is probably one of those times when I should keep my mouth shut.
He straightens, shielding the sun from his eyes so as to better glare at me. “Why did you listen to Cara anyway? Don’t you have a brain of your own?”
“She sounded so sure about ten o’clock,” I yell. I can’t explain why I let Cara and Scarlett persuade me that the north point was paradise and that I’d regret it if I didn’t check it out. I must have got blinded by stardom. I’ll admit I was in a distracted, day-dreamy mood, but why shouldn’t I listen to them?
I hang my head. Droplets of seawater fall onto my bare toes in the sand. I feel small and naked and stupid before him, and I hate that. I hate him for making me feel like this. I’d rather be left here on my own than with this bossy, overbearing, high-strung—
“How?” he asks, thumping his fist against his forehead. “How could this be happening?”
He turns to me, but I sure as hell don’t have any answers.
He pulls out his phone, but even as he punches a number I know it’ll do us no good. Propeller phones don’t have phones or Wi-Fi. They’re out of contact for the next two hours.
“They’ll turn back once they realize you’re not on board, won’t they?” My voice sounds small and pitiful.
“Cara mustn’t have been able to persuade the pilot. For some reason, keeping his schedule was more important to him than the money she probably offered him. My guess is, he was smuggling something. He must have given her the ultimatum—leave now or everyone gets off the plane. I shouldn’t have even put her in that position.”
“I’m the one who made a mistake,” I pipe up because he’s starting to sound like one of those people who always have to assume responsibility for everything. “I should have double-checked the time. I shouldn’t have left the group in the first place. I was just trying to stay…” I glance at him. What the hell, he may as well hear the truth. “Away from you.”
He takes a deep, pained breath and closes his eyes. Now would be a good time for him to apologize for butting into my scene yesterday and kissing me so hard that my head is completely screwed up and I barely know who I am anymore. This is the kind of shit that happens when men lose control of themselves, and they all do at some point. Yeah, maybe it is all his fault.
“Mia, we can’t just stand here. We have to plan.”
I round on him, pointing my finger at his chest. “Plan? No, do something. You’ve got money. You’ve got power. Call someone. Get a new plane out here. Fix this!”
He shakes his head. “No commercial carrier will send a plane here without landing permission. That’s the only service. Like I said, Cara did right in getting Scarlett and everyone else back home. At least Rita will continue the movie and keep everything on schedule.”
“The schedule? Is that all you care about?”
He steps closer. “Am I supposed to care about your crummy life? What? You’ll miss a night out dancing with your friends? You have to cancel on a Tinder date? You’ll miss an episode of The Gilmore Girls? Woe is me.”
My fist is curled tight, ready to inflict more damage right on top of the bruise that’s developing nicely on his jaw. Eh, he’s not worth it. I back away from him and head back to the bags, anger so thick in my veins, it’s slowing down my ability to think. Aaaagh!
If I have to stay here for two days, I’ll bunk down in the shack and he can fend for himself. I just have to sit and conserve energy and wait. How hard can it be? I’m good at survival. And I’m really good at hating men.
We’ve been out in the sun so long that we both automatically make our way toward the hut. It’s basic inside—a stripped bed, a clean table, a shelf with some fraying books in Spanish.
No power generator. Nothing of any use. This caretaker guy lives very simply indeed, and he’s taken all perishables with him, unfortunately.
“Why’s he gone?” I ask.
“He has two days off per week and goes to Aruba to visit his son. He’ll come back in the next cycle...in two days.”
“Doesn’t he know we’re stuck here?”
“He must. But he couldn’t have changed the plane’s schedule in any case.”
“Well, he could have left us with a little more,” I grumble.
“I know,” Jack says quietly. “Water would have been good. How much have you got?”
“Sixteen ounce bottle for the journey.”
“Yeah, same here.”
He slumps on the bed, untying his r
ucksack as I rummage around the books, looking for what exactly I have no idea. It’s just something to do in this stuffy little cabin that smells of stale sweat and fish.
“So, you ever been marooned before?” he asks in a more conversational tone.
“Nope. You?”
“Nope.”
After a pause he asks, “Seen Castaway?”
I roll my eyes. “Long time ago. All I can remember is a gruesome tooth-pulling scene, which doesn’t help us much. What’s in your rucksack?” I prod it. It’s bulging promisingly.
“Joe’s camera, mainly.” He sighs. “Didn’t want to put it in the hold.”
“Well, that’s …useful.”
We silently contemplate each other. His chest rises and falls in a slow rhythm, his sweat drenched T-shirt clinging to every sculpted contour. I don’t quite forgive him, but I’ve definitely calmed down. We’re in this together. There’s no point playing the blame game.
“Look,” he says, pushing his rucksack aside. “How about you set up base camp here. I’ll gather brushwood for a fire. We will need one tonight, especially if I manage to catch some fish.”
“Robinson Crusoe, my hero.” I’ll be surprised if Mr. Hot Shot Producer comes back with a couple of juicy carp swinging from a hook. Really surprised.
He slathers on some sunscreen. He misses a patch on his jaw, and I feel a sudden and stupid impetus to rub it in for him and to do his back while I’m at it. But I stay right where I am.
He’s all efficiency, stopping only to give me a brief, awkward wave before he pushes open the door to brave the sun. When the door swings shut behind him, I sit back on the bed and open my own backpack.
What did Tom Hanks do in Castaway? What should I be doing? Why did Jack have to mention that movie anyway? I suppose I started it though by mentioning Survivor. And for the life of me, I can’t remember a single episode of that either.
My rucksack is pretty much as I remembered packing it. Nobody has slipped weapons or drugs in there. Pity. Looks like we’re going to have to do this peacefully and totally sober.
I may as well check out Jack’s backpack, too. It’s not snooping. It’s survival.
The contents tumble out onto the mattress: one protein bar. Packed full with raisins. Ugh, how can he even eat those?
One apple with a dent in it. Better eat that up soon.
Factor 40 Sunscreen. Lime scent. That’s what I smelled when he kissed me.
Mint chewing gum. How many calories in each? Two calories?
Hand sanitizer. That’ll sanitize the wound when one of us has to amputate the other’s leg. Because that always happens in the movies.
A Kindle. Hallelujah. When it gets pitch dark, we’ll have light. The battery’s at three quarters. Good, that’ll last a while. Nice. Let’s see what reading he gets up to.
My heart quickens as it switches on. I’m so hoping it’s something light and fluffy. Or hardcore violence. Or fantasy…with dragons. Something to tease him about. My breath hitches as the starting screen fills up.
OK, what have we here…
The Great Movies, by Roger Ebert. Gotta love Roger, best movie critic ever, may he rest in peace.
Bleak House and Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.
Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open Blockchain. And The Internet of Money.
Lovely.
Nothing worth making a joke about.
I root further in the rucksack. Inexplicably, he’s got a pack of playing cards. I flick them. They’ve seen a lot of action. I wouldn’t have pegged him as the cards type. Well, if we get bored tonight…
Oh my God, tonight. I’m going to be alone here tonight. With him.
No, no, no. That can’t happen.
I have to get out of this shed. It’s getting to me—the heat, the smell. I hurriedly repack his backpack. My foot hits against something on the floor. A tent. Fantastic. I’d prefer sleeping in a tent to this hut. And it gives us the option of separate sleeping spaces. Because it will be separate spaces. I’m saved.
OK, what don’t we have?
Matches. How are we going to light this fire he’s stockpiling to cook our fish, and yes, I’m starting to like the idea of Fisherman Jack a whole lot more now that lunchtime’s approaching. I’m starving.
Ten minutes later, the tent is up, its gray surface shining like silver, almost camouflaged against the white sand. I’m proud of my handiwork. I had to use some large rocks to belt in the poles. By my rough calculations, the netted doorway is in a position that’ll face the sun as it sets in the west, so it’ll stay warm until past sundown. Enough to allow us to fall asleep.
I mean me. I’ll sleep here and he’ll have the hut.
I slump down to rest against the trunk of the old palm tree, exactly where Cara was sitting yesterday, and stretch my face to the sky, willing myself to relax and be all Zen-like and unconcerned about the past or the future because only the present matters. The thirst I’m feeling is just my weak body. The hunger is the devil tempting me…
I think I nod off because the next glance at my watch tells me I’ve been sitting here for an hour and a half. The shadows are falling in a slightly different direction. I’m hot and sticky. I ration out a single gulp of water from my bottle. It’s warm.
Slapping my knees, I rise. If Jack is toiling away hunting and gathering, I should be helping him. But as I scan the horizon there’s no sign of him. Just the usual panorama of sea, sand, sky. What should be paradise now feels threatening. I miss the concrete walls of home.
I swallow in my dry throat. Now is definitely not a good time to cry. Ain’t nobody got the spare water for that. Come back, Jack. All is forgiven. Where is he anyway, and what’s he doing?
I know I’m working myself up needlessly, but I can’t help it. If anything happens to him, I’m going to be alone here. “Oh God, oh God,” I’m whispering, doing laps of the tree.
Unfortunately, that’s how Jack finds me.
He drops the branches. “Are you all right?”
I shake my head. “Yeah, yeah, fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’re worried.”
“Guess my acting skills are not that good after all.”
“That’s because this is real,” he says softly. His forehead crinkles. Sweat beads in every groove of his face. “Come on, Mia, anyone would be worried.”
“I’m OK. Really.” I even manage to crack a smile that hurts my parched lips.
He reaches for my shoulder and slides a hand down my upper arm but withdraws it just as quickly.
“Get in the shade,” he says.
“Yeah. Good call.”
We retreat to the shadow of the same tree and stare out to sea, watching the waves slanting, white-foamed, against the sand with a regularity that’s almost hypotonic. I’m just inches apart from this man I hardly know, and my survival may very well depend on him.
Neither of us says anything for the longest time. I watch him out of the corner of my eye as he takes a stick and slowly draws geometric shapes in the sand. If he’s not worried, maybe I don’t need to be either.
“So, tell me about the kids you performed to,” he says, as if continuing a jovial conversation on a normal day in a normal environment and not stuck on a desert island with no food. “That was an interesting aspect to your résumé.”
“Uh, is this the bit where we share our life stories because we’re going to die?”
He stops drawing. “We’re not going to die, Mia.”
His voice is so reassuring, it lifts my mood from hopeless to hopeful. “OK, well, it’s not that big a deal,” I say. “My mom worked as a nurse in Shriners Hospital for Children. She used to come home and tell me about these terminal kids. Well, me being the precocious fourteen-year-old that I was, I figured I had to go in and…I don’t know, cheer them up with pantomimes and stuff.” I pause. It’s not easy to dig up these memories. “I was a child star then, don’t you know, and the hospital thought it was fabulous.”
“Of cou
rse, after High School Monkey. And did the kids like you?”
“Guess so.” They’d give me hugs and thumbs up and then lose their fight with cancer twenty-four hours later. “But I noticed after a while that they more were interested in learning how to act rather than simply being entertained. So, I started teaching drama to them. I mean, I was crap. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing. But after all the craziness of High School Monkey, it helped me remember why I got into acting in the first place.”
“And why was that?” His tone is urgent, earnest, like he really wants to know. I glance at him to make sure this isn’t some trick employer question. But in his sweat-drenched T-shirt and crumpled shorts, he seems miles away from the hotshot producer in a designer suit.
“Well, I’ve always loved being on stage. It can be nerve-racking and terrifying, but the thrill of performing in front of an audience is like nothing else.”
His head bobs enthusiastically.
“I love getting into another person’s head, you know? Especially those different to my own personality.”
“Like Sola, the ruby-skinned Revain princess?” he asks.
We both laugh.
“Yeah, I love acting out situations I’d never get into in real life. And that’s how I got into teaching kids too. I reckoned that if anyone needs something like this, it’s terminally ill children, because who knows what they’re going to experience in their lifetimes, right? I wanted to give them that—a chance to explore and to express themselves before…” I let out a long sigh.
“That’s wonderful,” he says. “Why give it up?”
It would be easy to tell him it was too heavy, investing my feelings into such tragic little souls, but it wouldn’t be the truth.
“Well, I milked that High School Monkey experience for three years, you could say. I had my hospital club, and I was attending drama classes after school, working it hard and looking for new auditions. Needless to say, I was Miss Popular in school.”
“Popular with girls or with boys?”
“Both.”
“And then?”
“Well, nothing was biting. I got disillusioned. I suppose I hadn’t been concentrating on grades or school because I was convinced I’d be rising to stardom any day now. But another two years slipped by and I had zip to show for it. At sixteen, I stopped acting altogether and started spending the money I’d earned on High School Monkey on all the wrong things. Instant gratification.”