The Wandering Island Factory

by TR Nowry

  Chapter 5

  The weeks flew by fast and he found himself in a rented room on the mainland again, waiting for that special girl. Yet, as exciting as it was to think of Gina, he found his thoughts dwelling on that massive ship, slowly being built within view of the decks, but out of reach.

  Employment had swelled to the point where it required true personnel carriers to transport the crew out to the floating island. The last six extruded pieces would be finished by the end of the month, and the behemoth would start mass-producing the solid base slabs again. Until then, the island was still anchored inside the construction netting and within sight.

  He desperately wanted to explore such an island and was jealous of everyone who worked on it.

  His understanding was that, because of the remoteness and the difficulty in shipping finely machined parts to Hawaii, it was actually cheaper, by far, to tug the entire island to California to have the interiors, the painting, paneling, doors, offices, and landscaping done stateside.

  He didn't envy the tugs that would try to wrestle an island across the ocean, but someone said they intended to sail it across. That seemed ridiculous, like it was a total joke, but, perhaps no stranger an idea than making an island out of floating lava.

  Gina finally showed. She sat at their normal café table by the shore.

  "So, how was finals?" he asked.

  "They haven't posted the results yet, but I feel confident." She looked back at the surf. "I really could have used some good waves today. But, no such luck." She held his hand at the table. "Ok, not confident. I'm— this is costing me a fortune, you know. I worked all year to save up for these classes, and all the efforts of an entire year can be rendered worthless by a single paper, on a single day. One test for thousands of dollars, the price of a car. It hardly seems fair. It makes me a nervous wreck." She looked at his concerned face, "I could really use a hug right now."

  He slid his chair next to hers and gratefully complied, "Hugs are always free." He patted her shoulder with his hand. "You did fine, I'm sure of it." And to prove it, they ordered exclusively off the dessert menu in celebration of pending good grades.

  He woke in the room, still in a hug with the girl he loved, empty bottle of vodka by the bed.

  She drank way too much, and smoked too much. It was the way she dealt with things. As young as they were, she could probably handle drinking at this pace for years. But it wouldn't last forever.

  One problem at a time.

  He didn't want to fix her, he wanted to help her. But it seemed like the same thing most of the time, and she didn't take meddling kindly.

  He suddenly had doubts about what he was even doing with her.

  She was damaged. She came with baggage he might never be able to lift.

  But the heart loves who it loves. And right now, that was her.

  He hugged her a little closer. Just a few months ago, this would have been impossible. Just being comfortable with being touched on the hand was a major milestone for her.

  It didn't seem possible to sail an island— why was he suddenly thinking about that? The mast alone would have to be as big as a hundred-story building— the dimensions of it all just seemed laughable. Yet, there was another side to physics taken to that extreme.

  A dozen propellers seemed laughably small to push such a thing, either. With sails, at least it had some real surface area to leverage against. It was all new science that had never been done before. Nobody had ever built, let alone tried to move such a large structure before. This project was front-page news every week. The owner was probably getting a billion in free advertising, easily.

  He closed his eyes and forced the unimportant from his mind.

  Her position in bed suggested that they had started the night out spooning, then at some point they each rolled back. His back was on the mattress, hers was pressed into his side.

  What was so attractive about her was her moral conflicts. She lived at home with her divorced mom, a sister, and a brother. None of them made enough to be able to afford to live on their own, yet pooled together, they continued to scrape by.

  That's why her classes were such a big deal to her. Fail, and she morally would feel like she was taking food from the mouths of her family. Pass, and it would feel like a well-placed gamble on her future.

  He rested his hand on her stomach. If she lost fifteen pounds, she could have the waist of a model. Yet, he had always found a little extra weight made a woman just that much more attractive. It made her real. Tangible. Solid. Comfortable.

  Gina would disagree. She hated the extra weight. They even argued about it once, briefly. Since then, he simply made an effort to tell her she was beautiful more often. She was a long way from anyone's definition of fat.

  Actually, telling her she was beautiful took no effort at all.

  He smiled as he faced the back of her head.

  He wanted very badly to kiss her over every inch of her body. But that would destroy the fragile physical relationship they had. Besides, he could wait. A year without sex sounded like a torturous impossibility, but it wasn't that difficult. He survived it in high school twice and at least once since then.

  He remembered reading somewhere that the average man gets six to twelve erections a day, between sixty and a hundred or so a week. Most for no real reason at all. Yet the average man doesn't have sex even a tiny fraction of that many times a week. They all survive each one without dieing, crippling over in pain, or pieces and cherished parts falling off.

  A year seemed like much to do about nothing, especially with as many months as he had already put in.

  She adjusted herself slightly, her hand resting together with his on her stomach as she settled in for more slumber.

  She had put the hurting on the vodka bottle. She could drink him under the table, if she chose. She drank almost every day. A stiff glass or two after work. Another before bed. It all added up to a bottle or two a week. When she felt like 'letting loose', she could drink most of a bottle on her own, like she did last night.

  He partied hard when he was a teenager. Then woke up one morning in his car, buried in bark and branches back in the woods, with a tree growing where the passenger seat should be. The back half of the car was gone.

  It was a miracle he wasn't killed. Even more miraculously, the police never discovered the accident, and what would have been a DWI that could have destroyed his life forever, left him completely unscathed. That was the last time he drank everything that was put in front of him. He measured and calculated every drink after that, like a professional player counts cards at a casino.

  He tried to cut her back, but failed.

  She got angry when she was drunk, and it was best not to provoke.

  He understood the drinking anyway. Tonight's binge was the aftermath of inviting him to dinner with her family.

  "Jason," Gina said, "This is my little sister, Ava, and my little brother, Nathan."

  He shook the appropriate hands.

  "And, of course, the woman cussing as she comes from the kitchen is my mom, Makayla."

  "What the hell did I say about your damned cussing in my house?" Makayla said, punctuated with two hands on her hips and a huff for added comedic effect.

  "I'm F-ing sorry, mom," Gina yelled with rolled eyes, staring down at her feet.

  "So, Jason," Makayla said, "you don't look like your profile."

  "Yeah, well, it's the size of a thumbnail."

  A timer went off in the kitchen to lure the woman back, "We're having fish and rice with some mixed vegetables on the side," she yelled over the squeaking oven door and the sounds of steamy pots being moved around.

  "Sounds great," Jason said.

  "Really?" the mother said, sticking her head back out of the kitchen, "I didn't really make enough for five. Hmm. . . I don't know, maybe we can squeeze you in." She returned to the kitchen.

  Jason lightly put his arm around Gina, "I like your mom."

  Gina quietly joined in with
her siblings as they whispered, "She's crazy, you know."

  The fish wasn't restaurant caliber, but it was way better than anything he could do, and was quite enjoyable. The conversations took a turn to the strange when Gina's mom started talking about how a family of sasquatchs used to bring her fresh fish when she was an army brat, living in Colorado. It ended in a trip in a UFO when she was 'abducted' at age eight and had a chip implanted, and then pointed out a mole on her neck where it was supposedly buried.

  He took it all as an elaborate joke or an overactive imagination, but her children seemed mortified.

  They drank coffee and sodas and played a very friendly game of UNO while watching cable TV for the rest of the night.

  Without a car of his own, he stayed the night, on the couch, and watched a local news report about how the island was going to be decked out in the states. It was a prestigious thing, a first of its kind, and Hawaii politicians were happy to take full credit for it, though they supplied little more than lava and had to be bribed with huge campaign contributions to stop road-blocking the project at every turn. It was hard not to be cynical about politicians, they caused six problems for every one they solved. In fact, it seemed like they created problems for businesses solely as a way of extorting campaign contributions from those same deep pockets.

  It was a shame that the biggest story of Hawaii was happening within sight of his job, yet he had to learn most of the cool stuff from a show on TV.

  Nobody cared about the behemoth anymore. It was old news and barely got mentioned.

  Startled, he quickly woke to a full sit.

  "So, you're dating my oldest," the mother said.

  It was still dark outside, she seemed to be the only one up. "Yes Ma'am."

  "You know, she's been—"

  "Yes Ma'am, I know. She's a great girl— I've been friends with her for years before we had a face to face. Look, I don't know if— I'm sure I don't know it all, but I know enough about what's in her past. She's special to me too.

  Dating her may look casual, from the outside, but I've made some real commitments even to get here. It's not at all like dating someone who lives around the corner."

  She stared at him like he had stolen the silverware and she was contemplating a strip search.

  He felt uncomfortable. "Honestly."

  She poked him in the chest with her finger. "I'm too young to be a grandmother," she said, then went to the kitchen and started the coffee.