Wreckage (14 page)

No, Genevieve Randall had no children, Lillian was certain. A mom has enough day-to-day familiarity with grossness that she could relate to the hilarity of potty humor. But as entertaining as it was messing with her, Lillian was ready get on with the interview—get it over with.

“Okay, personal hygiene?” Lillian rubbed her hands together, ready to get down to business. “That’s easy. We all kept our own hygiene schedules, which spanned from never to once a week.”

Genevieve’s nose wrinkled up minutely, like she could smell them even now. In the background, Jerry loped down the stairs and settled into an open chair behind Genevieve Randall right in Lillian’s line of vision. He’d changed his shirt, this one pinstriped. He caught her eyes and mouthed, “Robot.” Lillian covered her mouth and faked a cough to hide her laugh.

“You mean bathing?” she asked hopefully, apparently finding this a more comfortable topic than poop ditches. “In the ocean or in fresh water?”

“Mostly the small freshwater pond we found near the lagoon. It was fed by an underwater spring so the water was surprisingly fresh. We were careful to keep it away from any contaminants.” Lillian couldn’t resist raising her eyebrows suggestively. “Once a week, on Sundays, I’d take any laundry to the pond and wash it the best I could, then I’d bathe. For a while I used some soaps from Margaret’s toiletry bag but after a while I only used them on special occasions, like a holiday.”

Is this when they’d show the CGI map of the island? There would be a red dotted line to show the path to and from the lagoon, the freshwater pond, the sandy graveyard peninsula by the old beach.

Or did they go there? Did they send a camera crew to film the remains of their home? The thought made her shiver, as if she was witnessing a cat burglar creeping around her dark house at night, touching all her things, searching lustily for anything of value.

“And the men?”

Lillian shrugged. “I know they washed, well Dave did, I’m not certain about Kent. He always had that manly stench about him. They both spent a lot of time in the water fishing and I think they counted that. We all smelled nasty most of the time.”

“I guess you’d know since you all slept together every night.” Genevieve raised her eyebrows and Lillian couldn’t tell if she was trying to be lewd.

Those nights, dark, silent, sandwiched between the two men, body heat radiating from each side, a hand creeping toward her, darting under the hem of her shirt, tracing up her vertebrae, around her rib cage . . . Lillian blinked slowly, deliberately.

“Yes, every night,” she responded.

CHAPTER 14

LILY-DAY 65

An island in the South Pacific

Laundry day. After a week of on-and-off rain, this morning the sun came up in a cloudless sky. It quickly evaporated the rainwater puddles pooled inside large divots in the sand. Finally. I can get my chores done.

The men have been up for a while. I can tell by the height of the fire and chilly bare mats on either side of me. For some reason they’ve decided to let me sleep in. I’m not complaining, but I doubt there’s enough food left in our fruit basket to tide me over till lunchtime.

Dusting dry sand off my feet the best I can, I slide on my dingy gray Nikes. The once-blue Nike swoosh is now a murky black and the laces on my right foot are one hard tug from snapping. Standing in the sand I work out all the kinks in my muscles from where they went numb on our bamboo floor.

Even with the sun, there’s still a rainy chill in the air. I pull on Margaret’s sports coat and pretend like I don’t notice the rusty brown stain crawling down one side. But I do notice. I always notice. I’ve washed it repeatedly the past six weeks and I’ll do it again today. I hate being wrapped in her blood every night just to stay warm.

Slinking around the outskirts of the fire circle, I rummage through the woven bag of fruit I collected during dry days throughout the week. Two green bananas and one overripe mango is all that’s left after the locusts I live with had their breakfast. I shrug and toss them in the coat’s pockets, saving the meager meal till I’m alone by the freshwater pond where I do my washing. It’s a twenty-minute walk from camp but in the stillness of the trees, green hues reflecting off the still water, the food always tastes better when seasoned with a few moments of rare privacy.

That pool’s our salvation. Without it, the only source of fresh water would be rain. That sounds like a good idea but rain is much harder to collect than movies would lead you to believe. The first two days on the island were dry. We drank coconut milk and mango juice to stay alive, but we were always thirsty and the fruit juice did a horrible number on our digestive systems. Then Kent showed up with real, clean, cool water. It was like liquid heaven.

We chugged down the first bottle insatiably, not even thinking to ask where it came from or if it was safe. Once the bottle was empty, Dave demanded that Kent show us the source but he refused. That’s so him.

The next day we hid and followed Kent halfway around the island through a complicated maze of jungle. Then the trees parted and we saw it: a dark body of water about the size of a hotel pool. Kent drank straight from the pond, filling the bottle when he was done, then marched off into the jungle, presumably to hunt. We waited, probably longer than necessary, until we were sure he was gone. Then Dave and I lost our minds, jumping into the water fully clothed.

At first I drank large mouthfuls, bringing my cupped hands to my mouth as fast as my half-starved body would allow. It was gritty and tasted a little like algae but we decided it must be tolerably clean since we didn’t get sick from what we downed the day before. Finally, I gave in and put my face in the water and sucked in the revitalizing liquid straight from the spring. Ever since that day, that pool of heaven is my refuge.

I take off Margaret’s jacket and lay it on the ground, flattening it out with the shiny, off-white satin lining facing up. In the rear corner of the shelter is a small pile of laundry Kent and Dave left heaped, at my request, the night before. Dave’s shirt, Kent’s boxers, a pair of once white, now dark brown socks. I drop the items into the waiting coat, adding the grayish-white bra and underwear I’d been hiding in my back pocket for a day and a half.

Crossing the corners of the jacket, I expertly create a makeshift sack, careful not to dislodge my breakfast. Throwing the sack over my shoulder with the skill of a hobo, I head out toward the beach. Glancing up and down the shore I try to make out the shape of either man, squinting out across the water in case one of the guys is fishing, but I seem to be alone.

Alone. As much as the idea frightened me after the crash, now I have very little time by myself. In fact, the only time I have alone is in my dreams. I’m not even alone in my bed, because I share that with Dave and Kent.

They sleep on either side of me, Dave on my left and Kent on my right. I’m not completely sure how the sleeping order developed, but both men have enough of a dislike for one another that they silently consented to sleep as far away from each other as possible. Some nights, usually during or after a storm, we press together, creating a chain of warmth that can’t be surpassed by woven palm fronds or beach grass.

In the middle I never have to worry about being cold, because both men move in close and act as human space heaters. When it’s hot they roll in the other direction, letting the refreshing tropical breezes that caress our island cycle through the shelter.

Sleeping together has its downfalls too. The mosquitos are nasty little vampires that never seem to be full. We’ve cut apart the busted life raft, which was popped by coral on the way into the lagoon, and try to roll sections of it down over our little shack at night to keep the bugs out, but most of the time it’s too hot and smelly. Even with the breeze, the smell of two active men sleeping beside me in an enclosed area is overpowering. For a long time I’d fall asleep with my arm across my nose and mouth to keep from gagging.

Kent’s the worst. I think he’s relishing the opportunity to skip bathing, as though he’s a stubborn six-year-old who’s too busy playing to take a bath. At least the stench seems to keep the mosquitos away. I guess it’s true that over time you can become desensitized to anything, but lately it’s more than body odor that’s unbearable.

In the darkest part of the night, the fire dies down to embers and the breeze from the ocean crosses the line from refreshing to chilling. We sleep nestled close to each other and I’ve learned to keep my nose toward Dave, definitely the less smelly of the two men. Dave’s an easy person to sleep by. He never encroaches on my space, seeming to anticipate my twists and turns, and when it’s cold he’s always there with a warm, safe spot to settle against.

That leaves Kent behind me, his deadweight making it impossible to move even an inch in his direction. More and more often I’ve woken to find him lying uncomfortably near me, his entire body pressed against mine. And now there’s this “dreaming” thing.

It started with the intolerable closeness but that’s not what woke me up. Over the past few days I’ve sometimes woken to find his heavy arm draped across my body under the woven mat I made for us. We don’t cross that invisible line during sleeping time, it’s an unspoken rule—no touching besides the necessary keeping-warm kind.

The first time it happened, he was talking to himself in a strange way, mumbling things I couldn’t hear, his acrid breath steaming in my ear, making it clammy. Then his fingers moved, a little at a time, starting at the back of my coat, twisting noiselessly forward. Half-awake, I thought it was a bug or rat, but when his callused fingertips slid beneath my shirt and caressed my bare skin, the world came into hyper-focus.

“Kent, Kent, wake up,” I whispered urgently, sure he’d be mortified when he woke and realized what he’d done. His hand went limp and slithered away, almost like he wasn’t asleep.

I tried to shake that idea, using every method of thought control I’d ever learned. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of that night, worried I might feel that hand moving toward me again or even worse, that I
wouldn’t
feel it until he’d gone too far.

Climbing out of the shelter the next morning I was tired and blurry-eyed, and Dave asked if I was feeling all right. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t ask to switch spots. Part of it was embarrassment, part denial, but mostly I was worried he’d blow this way out of proportion and Dave vs. Kent would always end with Kent in the winner’s circle.

For the next two nights I slept in a twilight state, waiting for it to happen again. On the third night, avoiding sleep was impossible. We’d been out nutting all day, climbing trees, tossing coconuts, husking, shelling. Being the lightest, I was always hoisted into the trees. I’d wrap my arms around the slender trunk and climb with my feet flat against the smooth bark. By the end of the day I was sore and exhausted.

The moment my head hit the padded bamboo, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, unaware of boards shifting as Dave settled in front of me or Kent behind. I didn’t notice a flash of cool air as they slipped under our makeshift covers. I didn’t hear Dave’s sleepy breathing or Kent’s shaking snores. And, at some point during the night, I didn’t feel Kent’s hand crawl under my shirt, around my ribs, over my bare belly. It wasn’t until the sun was about to break over the ocean, right when the sky turned from black to shades of gray, that my exhaustion lifted and I knew. Something was wrong.

His hand made a path across my body that I’ll never know, but its resting place was on the front curve of my shoulder, over the collarbone, under my shirt, resting between my breasts. His arm with its thick curly hair lay heavy on my chest, making me want to scream. Wiggling up, inches at a time, I maneuvered out of his grasp, his fingers sliding down my skin like sandpaper. Free, I scampered to the rear wall of our shelter wrapping my arms around my legs, taking short, uneasy breaths. Even with all my clothes on I felt naked and wanted to run away into the jungle so no one could see me. But running was useless; I’d still end up on the other side of the island, surrounded by the same ocean. I could never escape. Cold and defeated, I rested my heavy head on my knees and cried quietly.

If Kent was aware of what happened in the darkness, he didn’t let on. The first two nights after Kent’s nightmare, or whatever it was, I slept by the fire. I know Dave probably wasn’t happy snuggling up to Kent but neither of them said anything about my relocation.

Then the rains moved in and I had to sleep with them again. Most nights I stayed awake, curled in the fetal position, a fierce grip keeping me coiled tight, pressed unusually close to Dave. I’m guessing it’s because of the rain that he didn’t notice the change, or maybe he just had the decency to not mention it.

A few times, when I’d somehow drifted off, I thought I felt it again—the slinking fingers grasping at the hem of my shirt or the waistband of my shorts, searching for skin. I soon learned if I turned a little farther to my left, or coughed or made any type of human noise, he’d stop.