On the Island Read online

  That night in bed she whispered, “I’m thankful we have each other, T.J.”

  “So am I.”

  If Anna had died after the plane crash, and I’d been alone all this time, I wondered if I would have made it.

  ***

  We spent Christmas Day chasing a chicken.

  Early that morning, when I bent down to gather some sticks for the woodpile, I screamed like a girl when a chicken shot out of a nearby bush and scared the shit out of me.

  I took off after it, but it disappeared into another bush. I thrust my hand in and felt around, but couldn’t reach it.

  “Anna, that flapping sound we keep hearing is from a chicken,” I said, when I returned with the firewood.

  “There are chickens here?”

  “Yes. I chased one into the bushes but it got away. Lace up your tennis shoes. We’re gonna have chicken for our Christmas dinner.”

  ***

  “It’s over there. I heard it. I’m going to kick the bush so get ready to catch it when it runs out the other side,” Anna said, as Operation Catch a Chicken went into overdrive. We’d been tracking it for over an hour, from one end of the island to the other, and we were finally closing in.

  “There it is,” she yelled, when it came flapping out of the bush next to me.

  I tried to tackle it and came away with nothing but a handful of feathers. “Goddammit, you motherfucker!”

  I chased after it. Anna caught up to me and we cornered it in a cluster of bushes. It started to wiggle through a gap in the leaves, but Anna lunged and held onto it. I grabbed its legs, pulled it out of the bush, and slammed it down on the ground.

  Anna didn’t miss a beat. “Good job, T.J.” She patted me on the back.

  I slit its throat and hung it upside down until most of the blood drained out, then pulled the feathers off, trying not to look at its head.

  Anna cut it apart with the knife.

  “This is not at all what it looks like at the grocery store,” she said.

  “It looks fine,” I said. She totally mangled it, but we put the pieces on several rocks and placed them close to the fire.

  She sniffed the air. “Smell that,” she said, as the chicken cooked.

  When it looked done, we let it cool and then pulled the meat apart with our fingers. It was burned in some spots, and a little under-cooked in others, but it tasted awesome.

  “This chicken rocks,” I said, licking my fingers.

  Anna finished her drumstick and said, “Yes, it does.” She threw her chicken bone in the growing pile next to the fire, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and said, “I wonder how many more chickens there are.”

  “I don’t know. But we’re going to find every one of them.”

  “This is the best chicken I’ve ever eaten, T.J.”

  I burped and laughed. “No doubt.”

  We picked the bones clean and spread our blanket on the ground, away from the fire.

  “Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day?” I asked her.

  “Christmas Eve. What about you?”

  “Same. Sometimes Grace and Alexis beg to open them on the twenty-third, but my mom makes them wait.”

  We lay side by side, relaxing. I thought of Grace and Alexis, and my mom and dad. They were probably having a hard time, celebrating their first Christmas without me.

  If they only knew that Anna and I were alive and holding our own.

  ***

  The rain returned in May, and Anna and I relaxed a little. But it stormed more often, and we couldn’t do anything but huddle in the life raft, listening to the crash of thunder while we waited for it to stop.

  We had a bad one that brought down a tree, so I cut it into firewood with the handsaw. It took me two days, but by the time I finished, the woodpile filled the lean-to.

  I went down to the beach afterward to cool off. Anna splashed in the water, playing with six dolphins. Wading in, I petted one of them on the head, and I swear it smiled at me.

  “Six, wow. That’s a record,” I said.

  “I know. They all came at once today.” The dolphins swam into the lagoon like clockwork, late morning and late afternoon. There were always at least two, but this was the first time there had been so many at once.

  “You’re sweating,” she said. “Were you sawing again?”

  I ducked my head under and shook like a dog when I came back up. “Yeah, it’s all done though. We won’t have to gather wood for a while.” I stretched, my arms aching. “Rub my shoulders, Anna. Please?”

  “Come on.” She led me out of the water. “I’ll give you a back rub. Mine are world-famous.”

  I sat in front of her and almost groaned when she touched my shoulders. She wasn’t kidding about being good at it, and I wondered if she rubbed the boyfriend down a lot. Her hands were stronger than I would have guessed, and she massaged my neck and back for a long time. I thought about her hands touching me other places, and if she’d been able to read my mind she probably would have freaked.

  “There,” she said when she finished. “Did that feel good?”

  “You have no idea,” I said. “Thanks.”

  We walked back to the lean-to. Anna poured a capful of Woolite into the rainwater she collected in the life raft container, and swished it around with her hand.

  “Laundry time, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  I had offered to split laundry duty, but she said she’d do it. She probably didn’t want me messing with her underwear.

  She put our dirty clothes in the container and washed them. When she took them out one at a time and set them aside for rinsing, she said, “Hey T.J., where’s all your underwear?”

  Speaking of underwear.

  ”It doesn’t fit anymore, and it mostly fell apart.”

  “So you don’t have any?”

  “No. I didn’t have a whole suitcase full like some people.”

  “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

  “It was at first, but now I’m used to it.” I grinned and pointed at my shorts. “Totally commando here, Anna.”

  She laughed. “Whatever, T.J.”

  Chapter 17 – Anna

  We had been on the island a little over a year when the plane flew over.

  I was gathering coconuts that afternoon, and the roar of the engines, so loud and unexpected, startled me. I dropped everything and ran to the beach.

  T.J. exploded out of the trees. He raced toward me, and we waved our arms back and forth, watching as the plane flew right over our heads.

  We screamed and hugged and jumped up and down, but the plane banked to the right and kept flying. We stood there, listening to the sound of the engines fading away.

  “Did it tip its wings?” I asked T.J.

  “I’m not sure. Did it?”

  “I couldn’t tell. Maybe it did.”

  “It had floats, right?”

  “It was a seaplane,” I confirmed.

  “So, it could have landed out there?” he asked, motioning toward the lagoon.

  “I think so.”

  “Did they see us?” he asked.

  T.J. wore gray athletic shorts with a thin blue stripe down each side and no shirt, but I was wearing my black bikini which should have been visible against the white sand.

  “Sure, I mean, wouldn’t you notice two people waving their arms?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “They wouldn’t have seen our fire, though,” I pointed out. We hadn’t knocked down the lean-to, or thrown any green leaves on the flames to create extra smoke. I wasn’t sure we even had any green leaves in the lean-to.

  We sat on the beach for the next two hours, not talking, straining to hear the sound of approaching airplane engines.

  Finally, T.J. stood up. “I’m gonna go fishing.” His voice sounded flat.

  “Okay,” I said.

  After he left, I walked to the coconut tree and gathered the ones I’d dropped on the ground. I stopped at the breadfruit
tree on my way back, and scooped up two, then put everything in the lean-to. I stoked the fire and waited for T.J.

  When he returned, I cleaned and cooked the fish for our dinner, but neither of us ate. I blinked back tears and sighed in relief when T.J. wandered off toward the woods.

  I lay down in the life raft, curled myself into a ball, and cried.

  All the hope I’d clung to since our plane went down splintered into a million tiny shards that day, like a glass block someone pounded with a sledgehammer. I thought that if we could manage to be on the beach when the next plane flew over, we’d be rescued. Maybe they didn’t see us. Maybe they did, but they didn’t know we were missing. It didn’t matter now because they weren’t coming back.

  My tears ended, and I wondered if I’d finally run out of them.

  I crawled out of the life raft. The sun had gone down, and T.J. was sitting by the fire, his right hand resting limply on his thigh.

  I took a closer look. “Oh, T.J. Is it broken?”

  “Probably.”

  Whatever his fist connected with – my guess would be the trunk of a tree – had left his knuckles bloody and his hand horribly swollen.

  I went to the first-aid kit and brought back two Tylenol and some water.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not making eye contact. “The last thing you need is another broken bone to take care of.”

  “Listen,” I said, kneeling down in front of him. “I will never criticize anything you do if it helps you cope, okay?”

  He finally looked at me, nodded, and took the Tylenol from my outstretched hand. I handed him the water bottle, and he swallowed them down. I sat cross-legged next to him, staring at the sparks that drifted into the air when I dropped a log on the fire.

  “How do you cope, Anna?”

  “I cry.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Sometimes.”

  I stared at his broken hand and fought the urge to wash the blood off and hold it in my own. “I give up, T.J. You once said, ‘It’s easier if you don’t think they’re coming back’ and you were right. This one’s not coming back either. A plane will have to land in the lagoon for me to believe we might actually get off this island. Until then, it’s just you and me. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”

  “I give up, too,” he whispered.

  I looked at him, so broken, both physically and mentally, and it turned out I had some tears left after all.

  I checked his hand the next morning. The swelling had doubled the size of it.

  “It needs to be immobilized,” I said. I grabbed a short stick from the woodpile and rummaged in my suitcase for something to wrap around it. “I won’t put it on tight, but it’s going to hurt a little, T.J.”

  “That’s okay.”

  I put the stick under his palm, and gently pulled the black fabric over the back of his hand, winding it around twice, and tucking it underneath.

  “What did you wrap my hand with?” he asked.

  “My thong.” I looked up at him. “You were right; it’s totally uncomfortable. Awesome for first-aid though.”

  The corners of T.J.’s mouth turned up slightly. He looked at me, his brown eyes showing a trace of the spark that had been missing the night before. “It’ll make for a funny story someday,” I said.

  “You know what, Anna? It’s kinda funny now.”

  ***

  T.J. turned eighteen in September of 2002. He didn’t look like the same boy I crash-landed in the ocean with fifteen months ago.

  For one thing, he really needed to shave. The hair was much longer than a five o’clock shadow but shorter than a full beard and moustache. It looked good on him, actually. I wasn’t sure if he liked the facial hair, or if he just didn’t want to bother with shaving.

  The hair on his head was almost long enough to pull back in one of my ponytail holders, and the sun had bleached it light brown. My hair had grown, too. It hung past the middle of my back and drove me nuts. I tried to cut it with our knife but the blade – dull and non-serrated – wouldn’t saw through hair.

  Although very lean, T.J. had grown at least two inches taller, bringing him to about six feet.

  He looked older. Having turned thirty-one in May, I probably did, too. I wouldn’t know; the only mirror I had was in the makeup bag in my purse, which was floating around in the ocean somewhere.

  I forced myself not to ask him how he felt, or if he had any cancer symptoms, but I watched him closely. He seemed to be doing okay, growing and thriving, even under our less than desirable conditions.

  ***

  The man in my dream moaned when I kissed his neck. I slid my leg between his and then kissed my way from his jaw down to his chest. He put his arms around me and rolled me onto my back, bringing his mouth down to mine. Something about his kiss startled me, and I woke up.

  T.J. was on top of me. We were on the blanket under the coconut tree where we’d laid down to take a nap. I realized what I’d done and wriggled out from underneath him, my face on fire. “I was dreaming.”

  He flipped onto his back, breathing hard.

  I scrambled to my feet, then went down to the water’s edge and sat cross-legged on the sand. Way to go, Anna. Attack him while he’s asleep.

  T.J. joined me a few minutes later.

  “I am completely mortified,” I said.

  He sat down. “Don’t be.”

  “You must have wondered what the hell I was doing.”

  “Well, yeah, but then I just rolled with it.”

  I looked over at him, my mouth hanging open. “Are you insane?”

  “What? You’re the one that said I was adaptable.”

  Yes, and apparently quite opportunistic.

  ”Besides,” T.J. said. “You like to cuddle. How am I supposed to know what it means? It’s confusing.”

  My humiliation level kicked up another notch. I often woke up in the middle of the night way too close to T.J., my body curled around his, and I had assumed he slept right through it.

  “I’m sorry. This was completely my fault. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea.”

  “That’s okay, Anna. It’s no big deal.”

  I kept my distance for the rest of the day, but that night, in bed, I said, “It’s true. What you said about the cuddling. It’s just that I’m used to sleeping with someone. I slept next to him for a really long time.”

  “Is that who you were dreaming about?”

  “No. It was one of those weird dreams that didn’t make sense. I don’t know who it was, actually. But I’m really sorry.”

  “You don’t have to keep apologizing, Anna. I said it confused me. I never once said I didn’t like it.”

  The next day, when I came back from the lagoon, I discovered T.J. sitting beside the lean-to prying his braces off with the knife.

  “Do you need help with that?”

  He spit a piece of metal out of his mouth. It landed on the ground next to several more.

  “Nope.”

  “When were you supposed to get them off?”

  “Six months ago. I kinda forgot about it until yesterday.”

  That’s when I realized what woke me up, during the dream. A boy with braces hadn’t kissed me since high school.

  Chapter 18 – T.J.

  I was standing in front of Bones’ shack when Anna found me. Sweat ran down her face.

  “I chased a chicken all over the island, but it ran too fast. I will catch it if it’s the last thing I do.” She leaned over and put her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. She looked up at me. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to tear down this shack, then bring the wood back to the beach to build us a house.”

  “Do you have any idea how to build a house?”

  “No, but I’ve got plenty of time to figure it out. If I’m careful, I can re-use all the wood and nails. I can make an awning with the tarp so the fire won’t go out.” I examined the hinges on the door, wondering if they were salvageable. �
�I need something to do, Anna.”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” she said.

  It took us three days to knock down the shack and carry the pieces back to the beach. I pulled all the old nails out and put them in the toolbox with the others.

  “I don’t want to be too near the woods,” Anna said. “Because of the rats.”

  “Ok.” I couldn’t build on the beach, though, because the sand was too unstable. We chose a spot between the two, where the sand ended and the dirt began. We dug a foundation, which sucked because we didn’t have a shovel. I used the claw end of the hammer to pull chunks of dirt out of the ground, and Anna followed along behind me, scooping it up in one of our plastic containers.

  I used the rusty saw to cut the wood into the right size. Anna held the boards while I pounded in the nails.

  “I’m glad you decided to do this,” she said.

  “It’s going to take me a while to finish it.”

  “That’s okay.”

  She walked to the toolbox to get me some more nails. After she handed them to me she said, “Let me know if you need more help.”

  She stretched out on the blanket nearby and closed her eyes. I watched her for a minute, my eyes moving from her legs to her stomach to her boobs, wondering if her skin felt as soft as it looked. I thought about the other day, when she kissed my neck under the coconut tree. I remembered how good it felt. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and turned her head toward me. I looked away quickly. I’d lost track of how many times she’d caught me staring at her. She never said anything about it, or told me to knock it off, which was just one more reason why I liked her so much.

  ***

  It would have been my senior year, and Anna hated that I missed so much school.

  “You’re probably going to have to get a GED. I wouldn’t blame you at all if that’s what you wanted to do, instead of going back and finishing high school.”