Текст книги "On the island"
Автор книги: Tracey garvis graves
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We walked back to the house. T.J. made a fire, and I cleaned and cooked our lunch. We ate all the fish, stuffing ourselves after going without them for so long. T.J. started pacing as soon as he finished his last bite.
“I can’t believe you were in the water with that thing.” He stopped, turning to look at me. “You don’t have to worry about me standing in the ocean anymore. I’ll fish from the raft. I just hope it doesn’t decide to take a bite out of it.”
“Here’s the problem, T.J. We can’t keep re-inflating the life raft every time we take it in, or out, of the house. I don’t how much CO2 we have left. As long as you use the raft for fishing, we’ll have to keep it outside. We’ll have the canopy overhead, but that’s it. No protection from the mosquitoes without the nylon sides.” T.J. already had multiple bites from being in the woods all the time.
“So the shark gets to decide if we eat and where we sleep?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s bullshit. The shark can call the shots in the water, but not on land. We’ll have to kill it.”
He’s got to be kidding. Taking on a known man-eater didn’t seem very realistic, and I thought it might also get us killed. T.J. went into the house and returned with the toolbox. He removed the rope, unraveled it, and separated it into individual strands.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, afraid of what his answer might be.
“If I can bend a few nails, and attach them to this rope, maybe we can hook the shark and pull it out of the water.”
“You want to try and catch it?”
“Yes.”
“From the raft?”
“No, from the beach. If we’re on land, we might actually have a chance. We’ll have to get the shark into shallow water,” he said.
“Well, we know that’s possible. I was surprised how close it got to shore.”
T.J. nodded. Neither of us mentioned that the shark had been perfectly capable of swimming in waist-deep water.
T.J hammered three nails halfway into the side of the house and then used the claw end of the hammer to bend them before pulling them back out. He tied the individual strands of the rope around the head of each nail, making a three-pronged hook.
“I’m not sure what to use for bait,” T.J. said.
“You want to try and catch the shark today?”
“I want our lagoon back, Anna.” He had a determined look in his eye, and I figured there was no talking him out of it.
“I know what we need.” I couldn’t believe I was about to contribute to this insane plan.
“What?”
“A chicken. If we put it on the hook alive, it’ll thrash around and attract the shark.”
He patted me on the back. “Glad to see you’re on board.”
“Reluctantly.” But I agreed with T.J. that we had to try. Despite the shark, and the jellyfish, and the other dangers we probably didn’t even know about, the lagoon was ours, and I could understand why T.J. wanted to fight for it. I only hoped we didn’t pay for it with our lives.
We had caught and eaten two more chickens since the one we’d found on our first Christmas. We thought there was at least one left, two if we were lucky. We hadn’t heard or seen one for a while though. It was like they knew we were picking them off one by one.
We scoured the island and had almost given up when we heard the flapping. It took another half hour to catch it. I looked away when T.J. put it on the hook.
He waded into chest deep water, threw the chicken as far as he could, and got the hell back out, taking the slack out of the rope so he could feel any change in the tension.
The chicken flapped on the surface, trying to escape. We watched, horrified, as the shark launched itself out of the water and engulfed the chicken in its mouth. T.J. yanked on the rope as hard as he could to set the hook. “I think it worked, Anna. I can feel it pulling.”
He took several steps backward and dug his heels in, holding the rope with both hands.
Suddenly, the rope jerked and T.J. flew forward, landing face down as the shark swam in the opposite direction from shore. I threw myself onto his back and clawed at the sand, snapping back two of my fingernails. The shark dragged us both as if we weighed nothing at all. When we managed to regain our footing and stand, we were knee deep in the water.
“Get behind me,” T.J. said. He wrapped the rope around his forearm twice. I grabbed onto the end. We took a few steps backward and held our ground. The shark thrashed back and forth, trying to simultaneously eat the chicken and dislodge our hook.
It jerked us forward again. T.J. pulled back on the rope as hard as he could, forearms bulging. Sweat poured down my face as we continued our tug-of-war, the water now up to our thighs.
My arms burned and as the minutes passed, I knew with absolute certainty that T.J. and I could never land it. I thought the only reason we’d held any ground at all was because the shark let us. It would have taken three grown men to have any kind of fighting chance, and it was time to give up.
“Drop the rope, T.J. We need to get out now.”
He didn’t argue, but the rope was wrapped so tight around his forearm he couldn’t unwind it. He struggled to free himself as the shark pulled him into deeper water, and he was in well over his head when the rope went slack. Relieved, I thought it had snapped, but then I realized the shark was swimming toward us.
“Get out of the water, Anna!”
I froze, watching T.J. frantically untangle his arm from the rope. The fin slipped below the surface, and I knew he’d never make it to shore in time.
I screamed. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed more fins, moving so fast they sped by in a blur. The dolphins had arrived, two or three of them swimming close together in a group.
I scrambled out of the water and watched as they surrounded T.J., protecting him while he swam toward the shore. When he joined me on the sand, I threw my arms around him, sobbing.
Four more dolphins joined the others and now there were at least seven. They charged the shark, battering it with their snouts, pushing it into shallow water.
T.J. spotted the end of the rope floating next to the school of dolphins. He waded in and quickly grabbed it. We pulled, and with some help from the dolphins, the shark ended up on the beach shaking its head back and forth, a few chicken feathers protruding from its mouth.
T.J. scooped me up in a bear hug. I wrapped my legs around his waist and we screamed and cheered.
The dolphins swam back and forth excitedly. T.J. and I ran into the water and though hugging dolphins wasn’t an easy thing to do, we managed. They dispersed a few minutes later. T.J. and I left the water and stood next to the shark, which lay still on the sand.
“I don’t know what would have happened if the dolphins hadn’t shown up,” I said.
“We were getting our asses kicked, that’s for sure.”
“I’ve never been so scared in my life. I thought that shark was going to eat you.”
T.J. hugged me, resting his chin on the top of my head. “It didn’t, though.”
“We’re going to eat him now, aren’t we?” I asked.
“Oh, hell yes,” he said, a big grin on his face.
T.J. cut the shark apart with the handsaw, and it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. I carved chunks of it into steaks with the knife. The saw and the knife weren’t ideal implements for filleting a shark and the blood covered us, soaking my yellow bikini and his shorts in an oily residue. The smell overpowered me, a sharp metallic assault every time I inhaled. We’d have to bury the carcass somewhere, but we decided to worry about that later.
I surveyed our work. We had more shark steaks than we could eat and we’d have to throw most of it out, but dinner would be a feast.
Blood streaked T.J.’s chest. “Do you want to get cleaned up first?” he asked, after we walked back to the house.
“No, you go ahead. I’m going to make mashed breadfruit. I’ll go after you.” It had been days since I felt truly clean. I looked forward to using soap and taking a long bath in more than one foot of water.
He went into the house and came out carrying his clothes and the soap and shampoo.
“Just leave your shorts down there. I’ll try to wash them out later.”
“Okay,” he said over his shoulder.
I made mashed breadfruit. I’d invented the recipe one long, boring day, first grating coconut on a rock and then squeezing it through a T-shirt to make coconut milk. I roasted the breadfruit and grated that too, adding the coconut milk and heating it near the fire in an empty coconut shell. T.J. loved it.
I impaled the shark on sticks, so we could cook it over the fire.
“Your turn,” T.J. said when he returned, smelling a lot better than I did. “I’ll start cooking while you’re gone. We can eat as soon as you get back.”
“Okay.” I pointed at T.J. “Hands off that breadfruit.”
I went inside the house and reached into my suitcase for my clothes. Something blue caught my eye.
Why not?
I had every reason to dress up. Dinner was always special when you killed it, instead of the other way around.
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Chapter 26 – T.J.
I spread the blanket out next to the fire and checked the shark, making sure it wasn’t burning. Not that it mattered because we had plenty, but my stomach growled, and I couldn’t wait for it to be done so we could eat.
Anna walked up wearing the blue dress, her wet hair combed back. She smelled like vanilla. I smiled and raised my eyebrows at her when she sat down beside me, and she blushed.
“You look very nice,” I said.
“Thanks. I thought I should dress up. Since we’re celebrating.”
We ate as much shark as we could hold. The texture of the steaks reminded me of beef, and the flavor was stronger than the small fish we usually ate.
“Do you want some more breadfruit?” I asked. Instead of answering me, she burped. “Anna, I’m shocked,” I teased. “I have never heard you burp.”
“That’s because I’m a lady. And I never have enough food in my stomach to make me burp.” She grinned. “Wow. That felt really good.”
“So, do you want some? It’s almost gone.”
“Sure,” she said, laughing. “I have room now.”
I had already scooped some of the breadfruit onto my fingers. Without thinking, I held them out to her. She stopped laughing, and looked at me like she wasn’t quite sure what I meant. I waited, and she leaned toward me and opened her mouth. I slid my fingers inside, wondering if my eyes were as big as hers. When she sucked the breadfruit off, my breathing got all messed up.
“More?”
She nodded, just barely, and her breathing didn’t sound right either. I scooped up some breadfruit and this time, when I put my fingers in her mouth, she put her hand on my wrist.
I waited for her to swallow and then I lost my shit completely.
I grabbed her face with both hands, and I kissed her, hard. She opened her mouth and I slipped my tongue inside. I could have kissed her for days, and if she told me to stop I wasn’t sure I’d be able to.
But she didn’t tell me stop. She put her arms around my neck, pressed herself against me, and kissed me back just as hard. I pulled her onto my lap so she straddled me, and I moaned into her mouth when she sat down on my hard-on, her dress pushed up to her waist.
She kissed my neck, licking and sucking her way down to my shoulder. It felt incredible. I pulled her dress over her head, and lifted her off me, easing her onto her back. I hooked my fingers under the waistband of her underwear, and she raised her hips so I could take them off. I kissed her frantically, my hands roaming because I couldn’t decide where I wanted to touch her most.
“Slow down, T.J.” she whispered.
“I can’t.”
She reached between us and tugged on my shorts. I pulled them off and as soon as I was naked, she wrapped her hand around me. I came twenty seconds later, surprised it took that long.
When my head cleared I kissed her and ran my hands over every inch of her, slowly this time. I touched her in places I never thought I would and listening to the noises she made, I guess it must have felt pretty good.
When I was ready again, which was very soon, I pulled her on top of me. Being inside her was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Emma had been nervous and tense, and I’d worried about hurting her, but Anna seemed relaxed, like she knew what she was doing. She sat straight up, her hands flat on my stomach, moving at her own pace. The view was amazing. I watched as she closed her eyes and arched her back, and a few minutes later, when her expression changed and she cried out, I held her hips tight and came harder than I ever had in my life.
Afterward, I put my arms around her and whispered, “Was this just a one-time thing, you and me?”
“No.”
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Chapter 27 – Anna
We went into the house when darkness fell and the mosquitoes descended. T.J. lay down beside me and covered us with the blanket. He wrapped his naked body around mine and fell asleep seconds later.
I was wide awake.
When he kissed me, I hadn’t stopped to think before I kissed him back. We were two consenting adults, but no matter how I spun it in my head I knew if we ever got off the island, and people found out what we’d done, there would be repercussions for my actions. As I lay there in the dark with T.J. spooning me I justified that what we had done felt good, and if anyone deserved that, it was us. What we did was our business and no one else’s.
At least that’s what I told myself.
***
I knelt on one knee wearing T.J.’s baseball cap, my hair pulled back so it wouldn’t get in my way. The curved stick T.J. used to start fires, two small chunks of wood, and a dry nest of coconut husks and grass were spread out on the ground in front of me.
A week or so after we killed the shark, T.J. pointed out that there was one thing I didn’t know how to do. He always made our fires, and he wanted to make sure I could make one, too. He’d been teaching me, and I was starting to get the hang of it, although I had yet to produce anything other than a lot of smoke and my own sweat.
“Are you ready?” T.J. asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
I picked up a stick, threaded it through the loop in the shoelace, and used the bow to spin it. After ten minutes, I had smoke.
“Keep going,” he said. “You’re getting close. You have to spin the stick as fast as you can.”
I spun my stick faster and twenty minutes later, arms aching and sweat running down my face, I noticed a glowing ember. Digging it out, I nudged it into the flammable nest beside me. I picked up the nest, held it in front of my face, and blew gently into it.
It burst into flames, and I dropped it. “Oh my God!”
T.J. high-fived me. “You did it!”
“I know! How long do you think it took?”
“Not too long. I don’t care how fast you can make one, though. I just want to know that you can.” He took my hat off and kissed me. “Good job.”
“Thanks.”
The accomplishment was bittersweet, because even though I could start a fire by myself, the only reason I’d ever need to was if something happened to T.J.
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Chapter 28 – T.J.
We were eating lunch when a chicken walked out of the woods.
“Anna, look behind you.”
She turned around. “What the heck?”
We watched as the chicken came closer. It pecked the ground, not in any kind of hurry.
“There was one more after all,” I said.
“Yeah, the stupid one,” Anna pointed out. “Although it’s the last one standing, so it’s done something right.”
It came right up to Anna and she said, “Oh, hi. Do you not know what we did to the rest of your kind?”
It tilted its head and looked up at her as if it were trying to figure out what she said. My mouth watered. I thought about the chicken dinner Anna and I would have. But then she said, “Let’s not kill this one, T.J. Let’s see if it lays eggs.”
I built a small pen. Anna picked the chicken up and put it inside. It sat down and looked at both of us like it was happy with its new house. Anna put some water in an empty coconut shell. “What do chickens eat?” she asked.
“I don’t know. You’re the teacher. You tell me.”
“I taught English. In a major metropolitan area.”
That cracked me up. “Well, I don’t know what it eats.” I bent down by the pen and said, “You better lay eggs because right now you’re just another mouth to feed, and if you don’t like coconut, breadfruit, and fish, you may not like it here.”
I swear to God that chicken nodded its head.
It laid an egg the next day. Anna cracked it into an empty coconut shell and scrambled it with her finger. She put the coconut shell near the flames and waited for the egg to cook. When it looked done, she divided it between us.
“This is fantastic,” Anna said.
“I know.” I finished my share in two bites. “I haven’t had a scrambled egg in so long. It tastes just like I remember.”
The chicken laid another egg two days later. “That was a good idea you had, Anna.”
“Chicken probably thinks so, too,” she said.
“You named the chicken, Chicken?”
She looked embarrassed. “When we decided not to kill it, I got attached.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “Something tells me Chicken probably likes you, too.”
***
Anna and I walked down to the water to take a bath. When we reached the shore, I dropped my shorts and waded in, turning around to watch her undress.
She took her time, first taking off her tank top and then slowly pulling down her shorts and underwear.
I wish she could do that to music.
She joined me in the water, and I washed her hair.
“We are dangerously low on shampoo,” she said, ducking under the water to rinse.
“How much do we have?”
“I don’t know, maybe enough for a few more months. Our soap supply isn’t much better.”
We switched places, and she washed my hair. I soaped up my hands and rubbed them all over her and she did the same for me. After we rinsed, we sat on the sand letting the breeze dry our skin. Anna settled in front of me and leaned back on my chest, relaxing as the sun sank lower on the horizon.
“I watched you take a bath once,” I admitted. “I was out looking for firewood, and I wasn’t paying attention. You walked into the ocean naked, and I hid behind a tree and watched you. I shouldn’t have. You trusted me, and I did it anyway.
“Did you ever watch me again?”
“No. I wanted to, lots of times, but I didn’t.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Are you mad?”
“No. I always wondered if you would try to watch. Did I, um…”
“Yes.” I stood up and took her by the hand. We went back to the house and lay down in the life raft, and afterward she told me I was so much better than baby oil and her hand.
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Chapter 29 – Anna
I sat near the shore painting my toenails pink. It was silly, considering our circumstances, but I had the polish in my suitcase, and I definitely had the time, so I painted them anyway.
T.J. walked up. “Nice toes.”
“Thanks,” I said, starting another coat. “Did I ever tell you about Lucy, my manicurist?”
He laughed. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“The girl who does my nails.”
“Oh. No, you never told me about her.”
“I used to go to Lucy every other Saturday.”
T.J. raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, I might have been slightly more high maintenance in Chicago than I am here. Anyway, English wasn’t Lucy’s first language, and I never knew what was, only that I couldn’t speak it. But that didn’t stop us from having these long conversations, even though neither of us understood all of what the other said.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I don’t know, just stuff. She knew I taught school and that I had a boyfriend named John. I learned she had a thirteen-year-old daughter and loved reality TV. She was so nice. She called me honey and always hugged me hello and goodbye. Every single visit, she asked me when John and I were getting married. One time we had a huge communication breakdown and, apparently, I promised her she could do my bridesmaid’s manicures for the wedding.”
I screwed the cap back on the nail polish and checked out my toes. I hadn’t done the greatest job. “Lucy would shit if she saw my feet right now.” I looked up at T.J. He had a strange expression on his face, one I couldn’t read. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m gonna go fishing. You better let those toes dry.”
“Okay.”
He seemed back to normal by the time he returned with the fish, so whatever had bothered him, he got over it fast.
***
“Why aren’t you naked all the time?” T.J. asked. “Why even get dressed?”
“I’m naked right now.”
“I know. That’s what made me think of it.”
T.J. and I stood near the shore attempting to wash our dirty clothes, including the ones we’d been wearing.
“Does this still smell?” T.J. asked, holding out a T-shirt for me to sniff.
“Eh, maybe a little.” It was hard to get anything clean, considering we ran out of Woolite over a year ago. Now we swished everything back and forth in the water and called it good.
“If we were naked all the time we wouldn’t have to do any laundry, Anna,” he said with a big smile on his face. We walked out of the water, throwing the clothes over the rope we’d strung between two trees.
“If I was naked all the time you wouldn’t even notice after a while.”
He snorted. “Oh, I’d notice.”
“You think that now, but in time, you might not.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. When we got back to the house, he stretched out on the blanket.
I didn’t get dressed either because everything we owned was wet. I lay on my side facing him, propped up on my elbow.
“Oh, now that’s a nice pose,” he said. “I like that.”
“It would be like eating your favorite food all the time,” I said. At first, it would be great but after a while, you wouldn’t want it anymore. It wouldn’t taste as good.”
“Anna. You will always taste good.” He leaned over and kissed my neck.
“But eventually you’d get tired of it,” I insisted.
“Never.” By then he had moved a little lower with his kisses.
“It could happen,” I said, but by then even I didn’t believe it.
“Nope,” he said, moving lower still until finally he stopped answering me because it was almost impossible to talk when you were doing what he was doing.
***
Chicken walked over and plopped down in my lap.
T.J. laughed, reached over, and ruffled her feathers. “It cracks me up when she does that,” he said.
We didn’t have to keep Chicken penned up anymore. I let her out once and forgot to put her back in, and she wandered around but didn’t try to leave.
“I know, it’s so weird. She really likes me for some reason.” I gave Chicken a gentle pet on the head.
“It’s because you take care of her.”
“I love animals. I always wanted a dog, but John was allergic.”
“Maybe you can get one when we get home,” T.J. said.
“A golden retriever.”
“That’s the kind of dog you want?”
“Yes. One that’s full-grown, that nobody wants. From a shelter. I’m going to get my own apartment, and I’ll adopt it and bring it home.”
“You’ve thought about this.”
“I’ve had time to think about a lot of things, T.J.”
A few nights later when we were in bed, T.J. groaned and collapsed on top of me, breathing hard.
“Wow,” I said, feeling his body relax.
He kissed my neck and whispered, “Did that feel good?”
“Yes. Where did you learn that?”
T.J. laughed, still trying to catch his breath. “I have an excellent teacher. She lets me practice all the time until I get it just right.”
He rolled off me, pulling me toward him so I could lay my head on his chest. I snuggled closer, content and drowsy. He rubbed my back.
It wasn’t until I was twenty-six or twenty-seven that I even figured out what I wanted in bed. When I tried to tell John, he didn’t seem all that thrilled about taking direction. T.J. hadn’t been shy about asking what I liked, though, so I decided not to be shy about telling him, which was working out spectacularly.
I sighed. “You’ll make a woman very happy someday, T.J.”
His body tensed and he stopped rubbing my back. “I only want to make you happy, Anna.” The way he said it, and the rejection I heard in his voice made me wish I could take it back.
“Oh you do, T.J.” I said, quickly. “You do.”
He didn’t talk much the next day. I waded into the water while he fished and stood next to him. “I’m sorry. I hurt your feelings and that’s the last thing I wanted to do.”
He kept his eyes on the fishing line. “I know this never would have happened between us in Chicago, but please don’t talk about saying goodbye to me while we’re still here.”
I put my hand on his arm. “When I said that, about you making another woman happy, it wasn’t because I was the one who said goodbye, T.J. You were.”
He turned to me, confused. “Why would I say goodbye?”
“Because I’m thirteen years older than you are. This might be our world, but it isn’t the real world. You still have a lot of things you haven’t experienced. You won’t want to be tied down to anyone.”
“You don’t know what I want, Anna. Besides, I don’t think about the future anymore, and I haven’t since that plane didn’t come back. All I know is that you make me happy, and I want to be with you. Can’t you just be with me, too?
“Yes,” I whispered. “I can do that.”
I wanted to tell him I’d never do anything to hurt him again. But I was afraid it was a promise I might not be able to keep.
***
T.J. turned nineteen in September. “Happy birthday,” I said. “I made you mashed breadfruit.” I handed him the bowl and leaned in to give him a kiss. He pulled me onto his lap and insisted on sharing.
“Why don’t we ever celebrate your birthday?” He gave me a sheepish look and said, “And when is it, again?”
“It’s May twenty-second. I’m just not into birthdays, I guess.”
I used to love celebrating my birthday until John ruined it for me. When I turned twenty-seven I was convinced he was going to propose because he’d made reservations, told me to dress up, and invited our friends to join us for drinks before dinner. I pictured him down on one knee holding a ring, and I could hardly contain my excitement when the cab dropped us off in front of the restaurant. We went inside and everyone was already there, almost like a surprise party. When the champagne came, John pulled the Tiffany box out of his jacket and presented me with a pair of diamond stud earrings. I kept a smile on my face for the rest of the night, but Stefani pulled me into the bathroom later and hugged me. I set my expectations as low as possible after that which turned out to be a smart move because for the next three birthdays he didn’t even buy me jewelry.
“I want to celebrate your next birthday, Anna.”
“Okay.”
***
The rainy season ended in November. Thanksgiving came and went like any other day, but on Christmas T.J. found a huge crab near the shore. My mouth watered as he poked and prodded it toward the fire, one giant claw pinching the end of his stick, the other snapping at him the whole way. He dropped it onto the flames and soon we were gorging ourselves, cracking the legs with the pliers and pulling the meat out with our fingers.
“This reminds me of our first Christmas, when we caught the chicken and celebrated with something other than fish,” T.J. said.
“That seems like such a long time ago,” I said, blinking back tears.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just thought we might be home for Christmas this year.”
T.J. put his arm around me. “Maybe next year, Anna.”
In February, I woke up from a nap. A bouquet of flowers gathered from the various bushes and shrubs scattered around the island lay on the blanket beside me, a small length of rope wound around their stems.
I found T.J. down at the shore. “Someone’s been checking the calendar.”
He grinned. “I didn’t want to miss Valentine’s Day.”
I kissed him. “You’re sweet to me.”
Pulling me closer, he said, “It’s not hard, Anna.”
I stared into T.J.’s eyes, and he started to sway. My arms went around his neck and we danced, moving in a circle, the sand soft and warm under our feet.
“You don’t need music, do you?”
“No,” T.J. said. “But I do need you.”
A few days later, T.J. and I walked along the shore at sunset. “I miss my mom and dad. I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately. My sister and brother-in-law, too. And Joe and Chloe. I hope you get to meet them all someday, T.J. They’d like you.”
“I hope so, too.”
By then, I knew if we were ever rescued, T.J. would have to be a part of my life in Chicago. In what capacity, I didn’t know. He’d missed so much, and it wouldn’t be fair of me to take up too much of his time. The selfish part of me, however, couldn’t fathom not falling asleep in his arms or being with him every day. I needed T.J., and the thought of being away from him bothered me more than I wanted to admit.
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