Are You Going to Kiss Me Now? (8 page)

“So how long was it out?” Jonah asked again.

“I told you I don’t know. I wasn’t watching the clock, Jonah. I was preoccupied with landing the plane safely.”

“Or
maybe
,” Jonah asked in a challenging voice, “you were preoccupied with visions of being a hero?” He nodded at Joe encouragingly. “Is that it? I mean, you lost contact and didn’t send a distress signal? What kind of bullshit is that?”

“I told you we weren’t in distress. I could see the runway just below us, I just assumed…” Joe trailed off.

“I need a cigarette,” Milan announced, pulling a ruined wet stick out of her purse. “You guys are boring me, and I’m cold.” The sky was getting darker now.

“And how are you planning on lighting it, Ms. Amberson?” Jonah asked, still glaring at Joe.

Milan then pulled a lighter out of her little wet stash of stuff. She tricked it back with her thumb. It worked. “A little gift from God,” Milan said, smiling at full movie star wattage. Jonah looked at the lighter and smiled back. I couldn’t help but think they’d make a great-looking, albeit odd, couple.

“Can I have that, please?” he asked, extending his hand.

“No way, Virgin Mobile.”

“It’s Jonah,” he corrected her, still grinning. “We might need it to light a fire later.”

“Later?” Milan asked. “How long do you think I’m staying here, Captain Miracle? I mean, the world might not notice that you guys are gone, but they’ll be looking for me.”

“It’s true,” Eve said. “What will
In Touch
write about if you don’t get arrested Saturday night for drunk driving north on the 101 south?”

“Somebody’s been following my press, I see,” Milan retorted in a fake British accent that rivaled Eve’s.

“Well, you are ubiquitous, Milan,” Cisco said.

“Oh, daddy got a dictionary!” Chaz clapped. He obviously remembered the David Letterman thing too. I was stunned that he was calling out Cisco Parker. Ballsy.

“What’s that you said?” Cisco asked, really looking at Chaz for the first time. Chaz suddenly looked like a Chihuahua who’d been barking at a pit bull and just realized there was no car window (or computer screen) between them.

“I’m so sorry,” he squeaked pathetically.

“Look,” Jonah interrupted, “I’m sure a rescue team will be here soon, but considering he forgot to send an SOS, they may not have figured out what’s happened yet. And it’ll be dark in a few hours, so give me the lighter, please.”

Milan handed Jonah the lighter reluctantly, brushing his palm with her fingertips flirtatiously.

“Well, I’m not staying here overnight,” she said with the bat of an obscenely long set of eyelashes.

“Whatever you say,” Jonah answered, slipping the lighter in his back pocket.

With no cell phones or watches, it was impossible to know what time it was. The only indication that time was even passing was the slow lengthening of the midday shadows. Cisco, Eve, and I were still sitting on the runway waiting for the rescue team. Jonah had gone off to survey the island with an eager Milan trailing him like an enthusiastic apostle. Joe and Chaz had gone looking for fresh water.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. Since Eve didn’t seem to recognize me as a human being (i.e., anybody famous), she was taking advantage of her alone time with Cisco. I was a third wheel on a deserted island. How perfect. Really, I might as well have been invisible. She was one of
those
girls. And she made that awful model mouth expression to accompany her constant whining.

J:

Eve Larkin sucks. Remember the hair gel diet rumor about her? I can totally see it.

F.

“What are you doing?” Eve suddenly asked me, snatching my phone out of my hand mid-text. “Does your phone work?”

“Hey,” I yelled, trying to grab it back. “Give it to me.”

“Yvette? Hello? Hello? Yvette?” She cried into the phone after frantically dialing a number and turning away from us.

Cisco and I stared at her.

“It’s dead,” she snarled, uselessly pressing the send button. Her back was turned to me. “What are you doing with it then?”

“Texting a friend. Give it back.”

“An imaginary friend?”

“Whatever, it’s a habit.” I was relieved that she didn’t read what I wrote about her. Though she certainly would have had it coming. She was beastly.

“Sorry,” Eve whined as she turned and handed me my phone back. “I thought maybe you were getting reception. I really need to talk to my manager so I can fill her in on the hundred and twelve humiliating ways I’m going to destroy her career for getting me into this mess.” Just like that, she turned her attention back on Cisco and emitted a little guinea pig giggle. She reached up to the dark bruise on Cisco’s face with a phony look of concern.

“It really hurts,” he winced.

“I think it’s just bruised.” Eve was fingering Cisco’s cheek and sitting as close to him as was humanly possible without being swallowed. I wanted to scratch her big fish eyes out. I was staring at my phone but listening to every word.

“Anyway,” Eve said in her faux accent, “it can be camouflaged before you start shooting. When I got that nasty case of poison ivy before the ’01 Academy Awards, my skin looked absolutely flawless during my acceptance speech.” Eve paused, seemingly waiting for some sort of a response from Cisco. He didn’t say anything and just continued rubbing his cheek with a worried expression on his face. Eve took this as a cue to keep talking.

“Thank God for Gina. She’s a makeup magician. I mean, I almost committed suicide after those pictures of me taking out the trash without makeup showed up all over the tabloids. The press was ruthless.” She laughed self-consciously. “But isn’t it always.”

“You were like twelve when you won the Academy Award, right?” I asked, even though she wasn’t talking to me. “You wore foundation when you were twelve?”

“I did when I had poison ivy all over my face! Maybe it sounds superficial to people like
you
,” she paused, looking at my hair with horror and searching for my name, “but skin is the essential ingredient for an actor. I just don’t feel myself with even a small blemish.”

“But this freckle is cute,” Cisco said, pointing flirtatiously to an itsy bitsy mole on Eve’s upper lip.

“Oh my Gaawd,” Eve shrieked, momentarily forgetting she was supposed to be British as she pulled away, buying her face in her hands dramatically. “I tried to have it removed, but all the doctors said it would leave a scar!”

“Chill, it’s cute. Freckles are cute,” he said.

She looked over at me and winced sympathetically. Freckles are not cute. I was the evidence.

“Freckles are fine for
others
, but I won’t permit them.”

“Anyway,” Cisco continued, “I totally hear you. That’s why I’m worried about this,” he said, caressing his cheek. “I mean, I don’t really care about the way I look, but everyone else does, right? And I can’t exactly wear makeup for the World Environmental Conference I’m hosting with Gore on the twentieth.” Cisco stroked his face thoughtfully. “Oh man, and I’ve got the Operation Smile rally with Reese on the twenty-third.”

“What’s that?” I asked

“It raises money for kids with facial disfigurement. I definitely can’t wear makeup there. Right? That would be weird?”

“Um, yeah, that would be weird,” I answered.

“Wearing makeup is never weird,” Eve pronounced.

Were these two kidding? I was buying that Cisco didn’t care about the way he looked about as much as I bought that Jessica Biel was “awkward” in high school and that everyone made fun of her. Please. I hate celebrities. And BTW: I saw those pictures of Eve taking out the trash in
OK!
and it was so not poison ivy. Pimple face. If I had to listen to this conversation for five more seconds I was gonna lose it.

“Do you guys think maybe we should do something useful while we wait?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

“Like what?” Eve yawned, leaning against Cisco’s shoulder. Yuck.

“I don’t know, maybe we should write SOS in the dirt really big in case a plane comes by? I saw a documentary on the History Channel where some people were stranded in North Carolina a long time ago, and I think they did something like that.” This may have been a totally lame suggestion, but it sounded more productive than listening to these two discuss the fine points of good skin care.

“North Carolina?” Eve squawked.

“That’s a good idea, Francesca,” Cisco said, clapping his big hands together and standing up. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic. He had the arrogance of somebody who was used to being worshipped and could treat the less blessed like used tissue paper. Not that it detracted from his utter gorgeousness in any way. And besides, my plan got Eve off his lap, so that was something.

“Let’s do it!” Cisco cried enthusiastically. “Good thinking.” He brushed Eve Larkin and the dirt off his jeans.

Although I was trying to stay focused, his body was unreal. I’ll never forget the way the sun trickled off the bleached hair on his muscular arms. It was just too much. And his wavy dark hair was so damn shiny it looked like it was still wet. I desperately wanted to touch it. That the wires growing out of my head were also called hair is a testament to the inequality of all things.

“Oh, come on! Please. SOS? Are you serious?” Eve asked us from the ground, shielding her eyes from the sun. “We’ll be here another few hours, max.”

“How do you know, Eve? We could be here for a week. Jonah Baron seems to think we are here for the night at the very least.”

“Jonah Baron is a dramatist,” Eve said.

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black.” Cisco laughed.

“What does that mean?” she whined, sticking out her lower lip like a little girl. I would have liked to kick her back over the cliff. I loathe girly girls.

Cisco didn’t answer but turned to me and asked what we should do, like I was the camp counselor or something. Again, I tried not to notice that his tone was a little patronizing. It was almost as if he thought I was suggesting a fun role-playing game. I couldn’t tell if his puppy dog enthusiasm was charming or annoying, sort of like Owen Wilson. In any event, I was starting to get that Jonah and I were the only ones taking this whole “our plane landed in the water and nobody seems to be coming for
us” thing seriously.

“OK,” I said patiently, like I was talking to slow children, “Why don’t you and I go find some sticks to write with,” I said to Eve, “and you start laying out the letter points with these rocks,” I told Cisco, pointing to some stones along the runway. “The letters will have to be big when we start working on it, so make sure the points are at least twenty feet from top to bottom. We’ll have to push the sticks into the dirt so the sign doesn’t wash away if it rains.”

“Rains?” Eve asked, looking up at the cloudless sky.

“Just in case,” I said. Eve rolled her eyes.

“OK?” I asked Cisco, pointing to the stones. He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language and then nodded. I knew if I had suggested that I stay and help Cisco, Eve would have protested. To my utter surprise, they both agreed. I made a mental note that actors like and need a director.

Eve and I left Cisco busy on the landing strip while we went our way in search of sticks. She sauntered behind me, dragging her feet and hunching her shoulders like Eeyore. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t going to be putting her all into this…especially since there were no cameras documenting the momentous occasion when Eve Larkin was forced to do something other than wait for somebody else to do it for her.

If I’d actually gone into the jungle, it would have been easier to find branches, but Eve wouldn’t go, and she didn’t want to be left alone. I tried to ease her in slowly, but she insisted that her tick allergy prevented her from entering grassy, wooded areas. I tried explaining that Lyme disease wasn’t an allergy, but she wasn’t having it.

“Look, I’ll just wait here alone,” she moped, plopping down on the dirt.

“Fine,” I finally agreed. I was already sick of her. I was fairly certain she’d take advantage of my absence to “regroup” with Cisco ASAP. Whatever. No wonder she hadn’t made a good movie in five years.

There was a little transitional wooded area that had a pretty good collection of fallen branches. The shade was an enormous relief. It was also strangely peaceful not listening to everyone snapping at one another for five minutes. I spotted a big piece of wood that I thought I could break apart pretty easily, but my left shoe was now falling apart from the water, so I had to break the wood with my hands while weighing it down with my knees. I got a massive splinter in between my thumb and forefinger. I hadn’t had a splinter since the summer my dad made me do Outward Bound after sixth grade. I’d forgotten how much they hurt.

The pain in my hand slowed things down. As I continued snapping twigs off the wood, I convinced myself that a band of starving cannibals was watching me. All kinds of strange noises soon had me absolutely obsessing on cannibals.
Were there still cannibals in Africa
, I asked myself, as sweat started dripping off my nose,
or had they all eaten one another?
I couldn’t remember a single detail about Africa, but I was having vivid flashbacks from a gory documentary I’d seen about Easter Island a few years ago.

Though I was sure the Red Cross would show up soon, I still couldn’t help wondering which of us would get eaten first if it actually came down to that. I decided quickly on Chaz, as he was both meaty and dispensable. Then I realized that with those criteria, I’d be dinner the following night. I tried not to think about it and had gotten back to breaking the wood into strips when I heard a definitive rustling of leaves. Enough jungle time for me.

The sun was a blaze of cotton candy pink by the time I was in the clearing. I realized I must have been gone longer than I’d thought. Naturally, Eve wasn’t there. I half hoped she’d be a little worried and feeling guilty about ditching me. Anyway, that’s how I justified my four-hundred-meter mad sprint back.

I saw Cisco—and, of course, Eve—as I approached the landing strip. Chaz and Joe were back too. I waved the sticks in the air to announce my return. Like anybody cared.

“I told you she’d get them,” I heard Eve say to the group. “What’s her name again?”

“Here,” I said, tossing the last two hours of work on the ground.

“Did you find water?” I asked Joe.

He shook his head.

That’s when I noticed that Cisco’s SOS rock points were written backward. Well, at least the S’s were—the O looked OK, obviously. Cisco looked really satisfied with his work as he stared down at the markers with his hands on his hips. He looked at me for approval.

“Um, it’s backwa—” I started to say.

“Let’s get started,” Joe interrupted.

“But, we have to…”

“Franny, you and Joe write out the first S, and Chaz will do this one. Cisco, you do the O,” Eve ordered. Did she just call me Franny?

“But,” I said, trying to point out that we needed to fix it before we started to write, but everyone seemed to be dead set on shutting me up. Chaz looked at me and mouthed, “He’s dyslexic,” like Cisco had a life-threatening disease they didn’t want him to know about yet. And that’s when I realized how totally coddled somebody like Cisco Parker was. Screw that! I mean, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice being rescued because nobody had the balls to tell Cisco that he’d written out 202 instead of SOS. Forget it. That wasn’t my style, and I wasn’t in the ass-kissing business. What had he ever done for me? This wasn’t finger painting for your self-esteem class. This was serious, even if I was the only one who thought so. Plus, this guy got over five million dollars a picture. He could use a dose of reality.

“Cisco,” I said, looking at him with all the conviction of a school guidance counselor, “we need to turn the S’s around because… because…” as he looked at me with his wavy dark hair and his huge, liquid green eyes, I found that I, too, was a big, fat, yellow chicken. “Because when the planes come, they will be getting an aerial view, and it’s almost like a mirror effect, so we have to write the letters backward.”

I could hear the collective sigh of relief. “Of course,” Cisco said. “That totally makes sense. You’re really smart, Francesca.”

Eve seethed as I sent her my best smile. He didn’t like me, but I liked that she thought he did.

The five of us spent the next half hour correcting Cisco’s points. Everybody blew off my suggestion about pushing the sticks into the dirt. “Not a cloud in the sky,” Chaz hummed as he started directing everyone on how to best engrave the letters into the soft dirt.

When we were done, we had an impressive SOS sign. It would definitely be visible from a plane. Then the pink sky suddenly turned steely, and a rainstorm the likes of which I’d never seen poured down on us. The transition was supernatural. I could almost hear God laughing as our SOS turned to mud. Chaz stopped singing. On the upside, it was raining so hard nobody heard me say “I told you so.”