Left on Paradise (27 page)

“He’s not a woman.”

“That shouldn’t matter.”

“We all know it does,” Linh said, “and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. How can they know about the need for babies? For sons and daughters born of our own womb? They’re only men. The whole lot of them don’t share a single ovary. I’ve never met a single man who wanted to give birth.”

Linh gave Kit a hug before the actress slipped behind the tree to change back to work clothes. The women then added two strips to the grass skirt and set it aside before designing a matching grass top and a bridal wreath of shells and feathers. When their work was done, they collected their tools and returned to the supply tent—where they chose food rations and a bottle of liquor to stock the honeymoon tent that Viet had pitched between the camp and the beach. After carrying the food and clothing to the tent, they took a break that involved several swigs of peach schnapps.

When she returned home, Kit made Ryan promise to keep from the tent until they’d married since she didn’t want him to see her dress before the wedding—only two days away.

21

Love Lost—and Found

On Sunday morning, several neighbors sat in the mess hall watching Tiffany prepare a breakfast of pancakes and omelets—served with juice and biscuits dripping with toppings from the remaining bottles of honey and maple syrup. After first helpings were eaten, villagers hurried back for seconds. Even Ursula had a healthy appetite and drank an extra glass of goat milk. While their wives assisted Kit with wedding preparations, Brent and Viet talked with Ryan. Only Maria sat alone, frequently looking toward Ryan as she sipped her coffee and listened to the men talk.

“My second wedding,” Brent said, “was over before it began. No exaggeration. I said I do before I knew what I’d done.”

“Kit wanted the same,” Ryan said, “a quick fix she called it. But I insisted on giving her a proper wedding; it’s the only theater available on the island.”

“You ready for the big day?”

“I’ve got my best clothes pressed and Deidra’s giving me a haircut and shave after I finish here. Sean said he’d fetch my last bottle of champagne.”

“One bottle for all of us?” Brent groaned. “Is Paradise a dry county? We might as well be in the Bible Belt.”

“Not to worry,” Ryan said. “The champagne’s for me and Kit. We’ve saved vodka and rum for the rest of you. Along with half a bottle of good scotch. From my personal supply.”

“That’s more like it,” Brent said. “By the way, Tiff says Kit’s honeymoon dress is stunning. She says you’re marrying a goddess.”

“It won’t be the first time.”

“Are you taking a honeymoon?” Viet asked.

“John’s gone to bring a sailboat so we can cross to one of the motu for a little surf and sun.”

“How long?”

“A couple days. We can use the rest. And the privacy.”

“Very nice,” Brent said.

Ryan sipped his coffee—as did Brent and Viet.

“You nervous?” Viet asked after a time.

“Not really. I’m marrying my own wife.”

“Good point,” Viet said with a grin. “It’s like kissing a pregnant girl.”

Now Maria moved a little closer to the men.

“Technically,” Maria said as she looked at Ryan, “you’re not marrying your own wife.”

“Whose wife is she?” Ryan asked with a laugh.

“She’s single,” Maria answered, “and so are you. Your marriage is already dissolved.”

“No,” Ryan looked puzzled. “Today is the last day for renewals.”

“Actually,” Maria said, “yesterday was.”

“Kit and I went over this twice,” Ryan said, his voice a little strained, “and the decree was ratified Sunday afternoon. The fourteenth day comes between lunch and dinner today. That’s why we’re marrying before noon. To be sure.”

Maria turned to a circle of neighbors scattered around the campfire, most of them eating. She motioned toward two women. “Come here, Hilary,” she shouted. “Lisa, you too.”

Now the two single women joined the conversation.

“We’re talking,” Maria said, “about the marriage decree. To decide whether or not Ryan and Kit are making new vows or renewing old ones.”

“Of course they’re married,” Lisa said. “The renewal period is still in effect.”

“Is it?” Maria said. “That’s the point.”

“Let’s see,” Hilary said, “counting calendar days ... Sunday was the first day ... and Saturday makes day seven ... times two is fourteen.”

Hilary let out a little shriek.

“She’s right,” Hilary said, looking at Ryan. “I’m afraid you’ve been living in sin since midnight.”

Several villagers laughed, though Ryan wasn’t one of them.

“No,” Ryan said. “We passed the law Sunday afternoon and it’s still Sunday morning.”

Hilary shook her head. “Don’t you remember the by-law vote on committee service? We agreed to use calendar days for enforcing laws. That’s how we send delegates to committees. We couldn’t really have terms of service end at 2:58 p.m. on the mark, could we?”

Ryan’s eyes opened wide.

“Legally,” Hilary said, “your marriage dissolved at midnight. Last night.”

“That means we can’t marry for a month.”

The laughter stopped.

“Kit will be heart-broken,” Tiffany said.

“I’ve already announced we’re married,” Ryan said as his face reddened. “This wedding is just the celebration.”

“You announced,” Hilary noted, “your intent to marry. You made future promises, not present vows.”

Ryan threw his drink to the ground. Hot coffee hissed as it splashed against cool earth.

“Everyone,” Ryan declared, “knows our intent. We can’t get tripped up on a technicality.”

“The will of the people is not a technicality,” Hilary protested.

“But you don’t understand?” Ryan said. “Kit refused to live with me before we married. Some damned promise to her dying grandma.”

“She’ll understand,” Maria said, “we all know you’re married in the States and you’ll be married here in a month. No one’s going to judge her.”

Perspiration beaded on Ryan’s face and he ran his hands through his hair. He looked panicked.

“If we don’t tell her,” Ryan said, “she won’t know. I’ll have a month to explain. We have to go through the ceremony today. Nobody says a word.”

“Secret adultery with your own wife?” Hilary said with a scowl. “I don’t think so. You’re free to do anything you wish with her. Nobody cares. But the law is binding—you can’t call yourself married for the next thirty days.”

“And what if we do?” Ryan said.

“Probably nothing,” Hilary said with an edge to her voice, “but it’d need to go to Executive Council for adjudication.”

“And perhaps the General Will of the People,” Lisa added.

“You helped to set the rules,” Hilary continued, “and you need to be a good model of sticking with them even when they’re inconvenient. If you of all people don’t, who will? The rules have to be played out. No changing horses midstream.”

“Listen to the girl,” Lisa said. “She’s become Katherine Harris.”

Almost everyone laughed.

Ryan took a straw poll of those at breakfast and found that the majority accepted Hilary’s interpretation of the law. Leaving an uneaten omelet at the table, he set out for his own tent.

“Wish me well,” Ryan said with a wince, “or I’ll be sleeping with one of you. I mean, in one of your tents.”

A couple men told him it’d go well, though none of the women spoke. Maria folded her hands in her lap and said nothing.

It didn’t go well. Within ten minutes, anger echoed through the camp. Neither Ryan nor Kit shouted too loud, but both pressed their case without fear of being overheard. Kit complained Ryan was stalling and Ryan protested his only motive was to provide a nice ceremony. His now ex-wife wasn’t placated and the distraught ex-husband soon returned to the campfire alone, announcing Kit intended to go away for a couple days and asking for help pitching a spare tent since he couldn’t live with her until they remarried. Sean volunteered to help, though he also asked if the party was still on. When Ryan agreed the food shouldn’t be wasted, Sean quipped that he’d sponsor Ryan’s bachelor party that night—though he was the only one to laugh at his joke.

Within the hour, Tiffany and John had loaded Kit’s sailboat with a few day’s supplies and pushed the craft seaward. The canvas filled with a mild breeze and Kit tacked toward an islet less than five minutes away. Her friends watched from afar as she landed along a strip of sand and pulled the craft ashore. Though Tiffany begged Ryan to pay his wife an early morning visit to make amends—even if he had to swim through sharks to do so—Ryan believed it best to wait.

After brunch, Jason slipped into his tent to check his stash of weed, sorting through a dozen brick-sized blocks of marijuana and a pouch of loose leaves. He even unwrapped several packets to taste the dope and eventually chose a brick of Columbia Gold for the party. Pinching two ounces of the dope into a plastic bag, he also picked through the weed to save several dozen seeds for future planting. After choosing his favorite pipe and finding a packet of rolling papers, Jason set his party favors to the front of his tent, restacked the bricks of marijuana beside his bed, and covered them with canvas. It wasn’t possible to be too careful. There were no connections on the island and he alone had an abundant supply of dope. Jason shook his head at the lack of foresight of those who came without necessities and meditated on the benefits his stash already had provided. Northern women were especially appreciative of his tangible wealth in commodities and futures.

Now Jason lay on his bed to rest, pushing a pile of mud-covered laundry to one side and tossing a blackened banana peel out his front door. When he tried to drink from his dry canteen, he struggled to decide whether to walk to the stream to quench his thirst or stay in bed to rest his eyes. He chose the latter and an hour passed before he rose from his nap—at which time he collected his bag of dope and moved toward the mess area, where he found both a loaf of stale bread and a jug of warm water. After eating and drinking, Jason walked to a field located near the lagoon: a trailer-sized patch of flat ground on which was staked the entire legalized drug industry of the west village. There, Jason sowed the seeds he’d selected into a shallow trench running across the field and found a hand shovel to fill in the trench. After covering the seeds with dirt and mulch, he watered the seeds with a spouted canister and surveyed his garden. He also secured several dozen seeds he planned to use to plant in the forest as a reserve.

Already, most plants stood several inches high and had been secured to five-foot stakes. The plants were circled by wet rings of overturned earth from which fish guts, scraps of toilet paper, and bits of bone protruded—and one fish head lay atop the fresh earth, a single eye staring heavenward, without life and without hope. Jason spent several minutes deciding whether the scene was more reminiscent of Bosch or Dali, but couldn’t make up his mind, so he opened his dope pouch and rolled a joint. Within a few minutes, he stood at the dope garden, a smile on his face and a smoking joint pinched between his forefinger and thumb. While he still couldn’t decide which artist was more likely to have painted the scene, he no longer really cared.

“Can I have a hit?”

Jason turned around and saw that Ilyana now stood behind him wearing a tan halter top that blended with her olive-toned chest and black shorts that draped the narrow hips of a girl still in her puberty.

Jason handed her the joint.

“I didn’t know you partied,” Jason said. “I thought you still played with dolls.”

“I babysit,” Ilyana said, “but this is more fun.”

Ilyana took a drag of the dope—and coughed as she exhaled—while Jason did the same without coughing.

“A day with those kids makes me tense,” Ilyana said. “Do you have a stash of this stuff?”

“Enough,” Jason said.

Ilyana drew more smoke.

“This,” Ilyana said after she exhaled, “would get you a couple years for contributing to the delinquency of a minor back in the States.”

“But you were delinquent before you ever came here. Right?”

“Maybe.”

“Then I’ve contributed nothing but the dope.”

“My mama would have your hide.”

“She doesn’t know?”

“She knows I party,” Ilyana said, “but I promised to keep it to our own tent till I graduate.”

“Why so strict?”

“She doesn’t trust anyone.”

“How long have you smoked?”

“Maybe a year. A couple times a week when I can get the stuff. We ran out in Sodom.”

“Sodom?”

“That’s what the east village calls itself. It’s majority gay.”

“That’s really funny,” Jason said.

“You got anything to eat? I missed dinner.”

“There’s bread and jelly over there,” Jason said, pointing to a shadowed area near the trail.

As Ilyana walked toward the food, Jason warned her to be careful not to step on his plants—so the girl tiptoed around the tender shoots, though she caught one with her foot and uprooted it a little. Jason immediately cut back a broken branch and marked the spot for fertilization before sharing with Ilyana the pleasures of good dope and good food—feasting from a loaf of flat bread and a jar of pineapple jelly. After the dope was burned and the food eaten, Jason napped near his garden while Ilyana sauntered home to an empty tent (where a note explained Olivia had gone to curl Maria’s hair).

Ryan ate alone at his bachelor party. Several partiers offered condolences and Sean congratulated him for a narrow escape, but the actor said little. After an hour of polite conversation, Ryan took a bottle of champagne and an empty flute monogrammed with two sets of initials and an anniversary date and walked down the beach toward a quiet place beside some coconut palms. He had stared at the horizon for an hour when a voice sounded from the dark.

“Is that champagne for show or drink?”

Maria had quietly crossed the sand and stood nearby—her auburn hair set in a bun, long dangling curls falling in front of her ears. She wore a satin sweater and a white skirt wrapped tight around her hips and golden earrings that jingled when she moved. Her face shined from cosmetics and sun lotion and the fragrance of perfume drifted before her.