Left on Paradise (11 page)

“Viet and Linh,” Alan declared, “are with their daughters; they apparently enjoy their children.”

“So do we,” Tiffany snapped as she stood to her feet and brushed sand from her hips, “but we haven’t had a night out for weeks and we aren’t likely to get another one for months. This is our night. Tend your chores, please.”

Alan told the boys to sit fast and started to walk away, but Tiffany cut him off—shouting to Lisa as she did so. As Alan also called out for help, Lisa staggered from the circle of singles to the place where Tiffany and Alan were quarreling. Though the chief neighbor’s eyes were red and her smile unceasing, neither of them heeded her condition.

“Lisa,” Tiffany asked, “what are the childcare rules for the weekend?”

“Domestic duty. Parents are off till bedtime. Why?”

“Alan doesn’t want to finish his shift.”

“You,” Lisa turned toward Alan, “don’t have a choice. No one enslaved by parenthood. Remember? But don’t worry, when you’ve got kids it’ll help you too. It’s for everyone.”

Lisa giggled and wandered in the direction of her friends, balancing herself with outstretched arms and wiggling her fingers as she tiptoed across the sand while Alan and Tiffany disputed several minutes more. She had reached her own circle of friends long before Alan finally returned the boys to the village as Viet and Linh taught Steve to play three-handed euchre.

Two women sat with toes in the tide. One was a slender Latino wearing white shorts and an unbuttoned shirt (a white bikini underneath) and the other was a thin African-American woman sporting a yellow tube top and gray jogging sweats. Maria and Ursula talked quietly—far from the bonfire down the beach.

“There weren’t any tampons in the medical tent,” Ursula said, “and I’m almost out.”

“I need more for next month,” Maria said, “I’ve only got a couple left.”

“My period’s due soon,” Ursula groaned. “Hence the pants.”

“Afraid to swim?”

“I can’t waste tampons and I’m not risking an accident.”

“I’m low too. We need to pick up a box or two at New Plymouth.”

“You want to walk for supplies tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” Maria said. “I need the pill too. I left a pack on the ship and I’m down to my last week.”

“I’ve got a box of condoms,” Ursula said. “Want a few?”

“Not for me.”

“Why not?”

“Paradise hasn’t exactly been filled with romance.”

“Just in case?”

“That’s why I’m on the pill. Besides, I don’t like them.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s not really a man.”

“Maybe not,” Ursula said, “but the pill makes me bloat.”

“Dieting,” Maria replied, “takes care of that.”

“So does carrying logs.”

Maria looked toward her toes. “Tell me about it,” she said. “I was on tree duty all week. With Ryan.”

“He’s got that Hollywood look,” Ursula said. “The best catch on the island.”

“You do remember Sean, your boyfriend?”

Ursula scooted from the tide, which now lapped her ankles. “I remember we’re not married.”

“Ryan is.”

“But he’s so hot.”

“He’s more than that,” Maria said as she dropped her voice. “He’s sweet and has a great sense of humor. And he listens when I talk. He’s the prize.”

“Yeah,” Ursula said as her teasing suddenly ceased and she looked straight at her friend, “and Kit won him.”

Maria nodded.

“She’s very nice,” Ursula said as she continued to look at Maria. “She’d never hurt a flea.”

Maria said nothing.

“You ever sleep with a married man?” Ursula asked.

“It’s not right,” Maria said as she shook her head. “I’d never do it.”

“Me neither. I don’t know about the rightness of it, but it brings too many complications: like babies and carriages as little girls sing. And more often than not, baby carriages without marriages.”

Both women laughed as they stood. Maria flicked wet sand from her toes and Ursula tugged at her tube top.

“I’m going to the party,” Ursula said. “How about you?”

“I’d rather get some sleep. It’s been a long week.”

“Suit yourself.”

While Ursula walked toward her friends, Maria picked up her shoes and started home. On the way she passed several of the couples sitting in the sand. When she came to Ryan and Kit holding hands and talking in whispers, she kept her face forward and hastened her step until she passed into shadows.

“What is marriage?”

It was Hilary who spoke. She sat cross-legged amidst a ragged line of the younger neighbors. Jason handed her a joint and she drew deep before passing it to Lisa—who took a hit before handing it to Jose and Sean. Only Heather (sitting on folded legs at the end of the line) refused the joint.

“Slavery,” Lisa giggled.

“Sex,” Jason said.

“I’m serious,” Hilary said. “It’s more than sex and slavery, even if it includes them. What is marriage?”

“The love of a man and woman for each other,” Jose replied. “That’s what I think.”

“Boo,” Lisa cried out. “Homophobe.”

“Yeah,” Jason noted, pointing to several shadows silhouetted in the sand down the shoreline, “think of Steve and Alan. What do they lack that Tiff and Brent have?”

Jose pulled the joint from his lips. “Children,” he declared, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head as he spoke.

“Ooooo, point scored,” Sean said as he reclined to his back, knees up and head lying on the sand.

Hilary shook her head. “That’s pure catechism,” she said. “Almost papal.”

“Maybe,” Jose said with a shrug, “the Popes had it right.”

“Not in a thousand years,” Hilary said. “They’re mere men—and males at that. Do you actually believe traditional religion can get anything right?”

“I was born Catholic,” Jose said, “so I suppose I have doubts about the doctrine of complete Papal fallibility. Even Popes have to be right every century or two.”

Hilary groaned.

Sean now asked a serious question. “What about Deidra and John? They don’t have kids.”

“Yeah,” Jason smirked, “tell us how Deidra and John differ from Alan and Steve?”

“Deidra has bigger breasts?” Jose said with a shrug.

“But what if Deidra was a 32A?” Hilary asked.

“Are you blind?”

“What if?” Hilary pressed the point.

“It’s not what you see,” Jose said, “but what can’t be seen.”

“Like what?”

“Milk-making mammary glands.”

“She’s dry as any man,” Hilary quipped.

“There are other differences,” Jose replied.

“Such as?”

“Didn’t your parents tell you about the facts of life: complementary equipment and all that?”

Everyone laughed.

“Don’t be crass,” Hilary scowled. “The real issue is whether or not marriage should even exist on this island.”

“To be, or not to be ... married,” Sean shouted as he jumped to his feet and waved his arms, “is that the question?”

Everyone laughed and another joint was lit. Again, everyone but Heather took a hit and Jason took two.

“I think people should marry,” Heather said after she sipped from a glass of red wine, “if they want to. Why not? As long as they choose freely. Freedom of choice. Isn’t that our motto?”

“And exactly why marriage must be abolished,” Hilary said. “It forbids choice. Even getting beyond Jose’s homophobia.”

“I don’t think it forbids anything,” Jose said, “as long as it’s between consenting adults.”

“Look at the couples,” Hilary replied with a scowl. “What are they doing but drawing into themselves? There’s Ryan and Kit sitting alone and Tiffany and Brent. Viet and Linh are with Steve, but that’s only because Alan is tied up with the kids. And look at us. Not one of us is married, so we’re all here together. Marriage divides the neighborhood. For the sake of one decision, every other choice—all choosing—is forbidden. For the love of one, many are left unloved.”

Heather thought about Hilary’s words before answering. “You can’t make people share love,” she eventually observed. “That’s rape.”

“Freedom and love are our only law,” Hilary said, “and that’s why marriage must be abolished. Let every relationship test love with freedom. It’d mean more too.”

“I’d like to test Kit if she weren’t married,” Sean said a little too loud. When no one laughed, he just shrugged.

“You wouldn’t be talking like that,” Jose said after a short pause, “if Ursula was here.”

“She’s neither my wife,” Sean replied, “nor my mother.”

“She’ll scold you like a mother,” Jose said, “till you cry like a baby.”

“Well,” Sean smirked, “then she would be a wife. My mother never yelled at me.”

This time laughter was loud and Hilary stood up to speak.

“Sex is only part of the equation,” Hilary said. “We’re also talking about love. I think almost everyone on this island agrees social conservatism needs to be abolished. We don’t practice the traditional virtues of chastity and monogamy, yet we still marry. Why? Because we want to lock someone else up like a slave. Because we want to control them with the old-fashioned fears of adultery or infidelity.”

Heather shook her head—the scarlet ribbon tied into her hair waving like a banner.

“Don’t you think,” the teenager asked, “that marriage protects our deepest feelings? That there’s something in us that truly desires marriage? One man for the rest of my life? That’s what I hope for.”

“Ahhh,” Hilary sighed, “the girl is a true romantic.”

“What she is,” Sean said out loud, “is one vow from a nun.”

“Maybe,” Heather laughed.

“What you need,” Hilary said with a laugh, “is some good sex. That’ll clear fantasies from your mind.”

“What I want is deeper than sex,” Heather said, looking first to her toes and then toward the stars.

No one spoke for a time.

“What can be deeper than sex?” Hilary said after a pause, realizing a moment too late that she’d set herself up for a series of raucous jokes that followed.

“This is getting vile,” Hilary said after several minutes of distraction. “Back to the subject. You have to admit it’s our nature to want many rather than few.”

“I don’t think that’s true at all,” Heather protested. “Most women desire one husband.”

“I’ll bet,” Hilary pressed her argument, “even you’ve desired more than a single man since we came to this island.”

“So, you think she wants a married man or a single woman?” Sean asked and everybody catcalled while Heather blushed.

“I’m speaking of love that’s more than a tumble,” Heather said.

“You don’t deny,” Hilary asked, “you’ve wanted more than one of the men on this island, at least for a moment?”

“If you mean to say there are attractive men among us, I guess I admit to having eyes,” Heather replied. “But seeing isn’t willing. Desire isn’t love.”

“What is love?” Hilary asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Heather said, “but my parents have it. And I want it too. Someday. With one man—the right man.”

“Or woman,” Lisa added.

“I don’t know about that. I want a man to love me all my life.”

“Fine,” Hilary noted. “Let’s agree love is more than sex, though that’s far from proven. Don’t you admit infatuation—or romantic love if you will—is polygamous? We fall in love with many men. Or women.”

“I’m not so sure,” Heather said. “Just as we sleep with one man at a time, so we desire one man at a time. When I crushed on three guys in the fifth grade, I thought of them one at a time, not all at once. I dreamed of which one I’d marry—and never once thought about marrying all three. I mean, don’t our hearts hate the orgy?”

“Mine doesn’t,” Jason declared, “who wants to play?”

“You’re sick,” Lisa said as she punched him in the shoulder.

“It’s been that way, I’ll admit,” Hilary replied, “in a monogamous, conservative culture. But not here. Why should it be? If we abolish marriage, won’t each of us love many rather than one? Won’t everyone be included? Wouldn’t that be the best way to build a truly loving community? Why should some people be left out of the celebrations?”

“And why should everyone be included in private moments?” Heather objected. “Does love have to be a public thing?”

“Right now,” Jason quipped, “I feel left out by Lisa: both publicly and privately.”

“Philosophy doesn’t pertain to perverts,” Lisa responded and everyone laughed hard.

“Can a woman love five men,” Heather asked after the laughter died down, “as well as she loves one man or can five men love her as well as one is able to?”

Hilary thought about her answer while Jason rolled another joint.

“Maybe each love burns a little less passionate,” Hilary observed, “but each man can fulfill different needs at different times. And she’d never be faced with the inconsolable grief of the monogamous widow or the loneliness of an unloved wife—or the fury of a jealous lover.”