Left on Paradise (25 page)

The two absentee ballots deadlocked the vote and traditional parental rights remained the custom. Lisa thought to ask for another round of debate until Linh and Tiffany threatened to bring their four children to vote—noting that most advocates of communal households also wished to establish voting rights for children. Knowing the children would vote as instructed by their parents, Hilary spoke privately with Alan and then appealed to Executive Council for redress. The necessary eight votes to bring the matter to the higher authority were garnered and the issue was sent to the adjudication of the central government.

In the meantime, Kit asked that Alan not be assigned childcare obligations given his impatience and Ryan suggested the staff psychologist be brought to the village to address simmering tensions. Kit announced that work details would be assigned at breakfast and scheduled the next village election for Sunday. After the meeting adjourned, Steve spoke to Ryan for an hour.

20

Old Cuts and Fresh Blooms

Saturday was spent cleaning the forest and rebuilding latrines. Almost everyone helped with the messy work and it wasn’t long before recycling and sewage areas were tidier than before and the vegetation thicker and greener from the flood of fertilizer. Sunday was devoted to a half-day of rest and the holding of elections in which Heather was voted Chief Neighbor and Ryan appointed to the Executive Council. By Monday, the village mostly had recovered from its environmental disaster and returned to normal production.

Heather assigned villagers their work details early Monday morning, selecting Charles and Jose for woodcutting detail and Jason and John for fishing. She gave Lisa and Hilary food collection responsibilities and Joan and Deidra environmental cleanup. When Lisa protested what she claimed was a sexist arrangement of duty stations, Heather switched some of the responsibilities—with Lisa and Hilary consequently tasked to cut trees (which pleased both women). For their part, Kit and Linh didn’t object to washing and sewing. Nor did Steve and Alan complain about gardening and planting. Sean was made to shovel compost while Maria cleared trails. Tiffany cooked meals and Ursula watched children. Since villagers had come to realize that mere tents wouldn’t suffice year-round, they decided to start building permanent shelters—with Brent and Viet assigned construction duties.

Work started well. Lisa and Hilary felled three large palms along the village’s south perimeter while Charles and Jose gathered bags of half-ripened fruit and pistachio nuts from trees growing on the slopes of Mount Zion (enough food, in fact, to help feed the village for weeks). Jason and John built salt flats along the beach, made racks for drying fish, and filleted a few dozen ill-fated perch. Kit and Linh scrubbed and mended dirty laundry while Steve and Alan planted a field of corn—placing generous scoops of compost around each valuable seed. As for construction, Brent and Viet rebuilt the bridge, then sawed palm trees as timber for the frame and siding of a mess hall. Maria cleared two trails of vine overgrowth and Heather explored the forests, discovering fruit trees along the northern territorial border, including three lemon, two kiwi, two pomegranate, three lime, and two banana trees. Ursula helped the children milk goats and deliver boxed lunches of roasted breadfruit, homemade jam, fresh pistachio nuts, and peanut butter toast to villagers working outside the main camp. In the evening, she taught the girls how to roast kebobs made from useful portions of an unproductive hen.

Nearly everyone rose at dawn and retired after dinner, not simply because Heather mercilessly woke everyone at first light, but also because villagers understood that the rains had set back production quotas such that lost hours required repayment—especially since the sewage backflow cleanup also had made for a short day and little overtime. As a result of the redoubled effort, storage tents soon filled with dried fruit and bagged salt to supplement existing stores of flour, spices, and dried goods. Heather even discovered a small gull nesting ground on Mount Zion and collected twenty-four eggs—being careful to leave a few eggs in each nest in order to conserve the bird population. Culled eggs were sealed in plastic bags and stored in the stream for next week’s wedding brunch. Even Lisa didn’t object to Heather’s judicious harvesting of natural resources.

Executive Council met Monday afternoon in New Plymouth as prescribed by law. It was a short meeting with little discussion and even less controversy. Hilary’s concerns about village parenting were presented by Ryan, but voted down by a committee staffed with two middle-aged mothers, a wrinkled grandmother with bleached blond hair, and staff sociologist Dr. Scott Law. It was, however, decided to advise villages to adopt socially acceptable codes of conduct for the education and discipline of the young. Dr. Law petitioned to bring the matter before the General Will of the People, but couldn’t garner the requisite two votes from his fellow councilors to do so. Consequently, the communal government of children was judged a politically dead issue (since charter regulations specified that defeated proposals must be tabled three months before being revisited). Laws to mandate vegetarian diets and reorganize neighborhoods by racial criteria likewise were tabled for future consideration. Executive Council spent a full hour discussing supply shortages before deciding to conduct an inventory of public and private property.

Late in the afternoon, Ryan made a final motion.

“We have,” Ryan said, “a homosexual couple—married—who are in need of social support. One husband is widely liked, but the other feels isolated in what is a mostly heterosexual community, not that we sought such a lifestyle or seek to impose it. But the two men have petitioned to move to the east village.”

The delegate from the east neighborhood sat up—a wide-featured Latino woman not quite forty years old, with dark hair and white teeth.

It was, however, Dr. Law who spoke first. “That raises,” he said, “the same issues we just voted down regarding racial segregation.”

“Not quite,” Ryan replied. “Not only is this not a racial issue, but it’s a private request rather than public policy. Alan and Steve understand they have no right to redress the situation, but simply ask for the clemency of this body in accord with their constitutional right to free association.”

“That seems inconsistent,” the sociologist said.

“It’s like private education,” Ryan explained. “Al Gore sent his kids to private schools while opposing vouchers for the country as a whole. As long as the public policy is clear, private whims can be indulged.”

Dr. Law nodded.

“Ryan,” the Latino woman said, “if I may?”

Ryan gave up the floor and the woman spoke.

“I agree,” the Latino woman said, “with our friend from the east that Alan’s request normally should be denied. Changing neighborhoods will open a Pandora’s box of petitions and protests. We’d need moving vans to make all the switches that’d follow. There’d be integrated and segregated neighborhoods: white, black, brown, red, yellow, male, female, straight, and gay. Divisions and subdivisions and blocks and parties. Soon, we’d all be living in cliques of two or three—each house a home unto itself. But I have a personal problem whose resolution would assist your neighbors.”

Ryan leaned forward.

“The trouble is,” the woman said, “I have a fifteen-year old daughter who hasn’t a single friend in our village. She’s the only child in the neighborhood. Moving west would provide her with friends nearer her age and bring her closer to the teenagers of the north. The only kids even close are the Epstein twins in the south village and they play only with each other. We could justify the move for Ilyana’s sake—something no one would object to. My daughter and I could move west while the two gay men moved east. To a camp that already has four gay couples and several singles.”

“I’d vote for that,” Ryan said.

“So would I,” the north village’s delegate said—a fortyish single mother who was raising two teenaged sons.

The southern grandmother with blond hair also voted yes. Dr. Law at first objected that the decision appeared to play favorites, but eventually he was persuaded to vote with the majority to present a unanimous ruling. After the meeting adjourned, the customary dinner was served and Ryan spent the night alone in one of the hospital’s unoccupied beds while other delegates returned home.

The next morning, Ryan rose early and hiked to the east village—where he helped Olivia (the Latino councilor) and Ilyana (her daughter) collect their personal possessions and a day’s provisions. The three of them carried the belongings along the eastern shore until they rounded the north shore and turned south to Turtle Beach. After arriving at the west village, Olivia and Ilyana ate a late lunch while Ryan announced the swap to Steve and Alan. While the gay couple packed their belongings and said farewell, Ryan provided the new arrivals with a tour of the west neighborhood.

Later that evening, while the newcomers pitched their tent on the lot vacated by Alan and Steve, Heather discussed work schedules with them—placing Olivia on environmental detail and assigning Ilyana to childcare.

Maria sat on the bridge, her feet dangling in the cool rush of the stream as she watched the sun’s last rays shining through treetops. It was dusk and the heat of the day had dissipated as she pressed a hand to her side. Her tee shirt remained moist: the sweat of the day’s hard toil still soaked into the cotton.

When the sound of boots echoed from the trail, Maria turned to see Ryan walking toward her.

“Early dinner tonight,” Ryan announced as he approached.

Maria nodded.

“You look tired,” Ryan said.

“I worked hard today.”

“I counted supplies.”

Maria said nothing, but stretched her arms in a long yawn, her back arched and chest thrust out as her legs straightened and toes curled.

“That’s quite a yawn,” Ryan said.

“I’ll bet Kit stretches better.”

“Married people,” Ryan said with a grin, “don’t discuss their physical exercises.”

“You’re not married.”

“Close enough.”

“When exactly,” Maria asked, “do you plan to get around to remarrying your wife?”

“We’ve decided upon Sunday, but to tell the truth, I haven’t had much time to think about it. The whole village has been playing catch-up for a week.”

“Marriage is worth considering.”

“I already did,” Ryan said. “Long before we moved to this island. And I’ve never changed my mind.”

“I was thinking of washing off in the falls,” Maria said as she stood. “You up for a swim?”

“Do you have a suit with you?”

“I’m wearing things beneath. Like before. Does it matter?”

“Not to me.”

Maria raised her eyebrows.

“Kit doesn’t like it,” Ryan explained.

“What’s the difference,” Maria said as she blushed a little, “between a bikini and a bra?”

“Respectability.”

“That’s nothing you can see.”

“Kit can.”

“That’s silly.”

“That’s marriage.”

“Some women,” Maria said as she put her hands to her hips, “swim topless.”

“Those women aren’t you.”

“I haven’t that much to behold.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ryan said. “Besides, it’s not what’s being held as much as who be holding it.”

Maria glanced at her chest and shrugged. “Why does she hate me?”

“Kit doesn’t hate anyone.”

“She doesn’t like me.”

“She fears you.”

“Why?”

“Maybe because you’re just as pretty as she is—and ten years younger.”

“She isn’t competing for men, is she?”

Ryan said nothing.

“You should tell her,” Maria continued, “I don’t do married men. I never have. Not once. That’s a line I choose not to cross. For myself.”

“I respect that,” Ryan said.

“So,” Maria said after a time, “we can’t swim any more?”

“Not quite,” Ryan said. “I just can’t swim with you dressed in underwear.”

Maria tossed her hair behind her shoulders with a flick of her neck.

“What if,” she said as she started to pull the tee shirt over her head, “I’m not wearing a bra?”

Ryan grabbed her wrists. “You are.”

“I can take it off.”

“I don’t think skinny-dipping is exactly what she intended.”

“Like I said,” Maria said with a laugh, “I respect marriage. But I had you worried.”

“You had me,” Ryan said, letting her wrists fall away as he stepped back and Maria inched forward.

“But if you weren’t married?”

“If I weren’t married, what?”

“Would you take a skinny-dip with me?”

Ryan let his eyes fall to Maria’s ankles.

“It’d be hard to just say no,” Ryan said after a long pause, “if I were still single.”

“Is that a promise?”

“I’m not sure what it is,” Ryan whispered.

“If Kit doesn’t marry you,” Maria said, “maybe I’ll make you father my children.”

Ryan glanced toward camp, then turned back toward Maria.

“Don’t even joke,” Ryan said with an exaggerated grimace to his face, “like that or Kit will castrate me herself.”

Maria laughed.

“She’d leave me for an affair,” Ryan continued, “but a baby ... well, you can be sure I’d make only one.”

“Can’t she have babies?” Maria asked.

“Not any more,” Ryan said, “and the brood of children on this island has stirred up regrets.”

“I see that,” Maria said, “when she plays with the twins.”

Ryan said nothing.

“I won’t make jokes,” Maria said, “that’ll cost you anything a woman might want … if you swear to keep your promise.”

“I guess I do,” Ryan said, “but it’s a promise I’m not likely to honor. I’m married for the rest of the week by the old law and Sunday by the new one. Kit’s a loving wife and we’ve been through much tougher times than this. Anyway, I’m hungry and dinner’s being served. You returning to camp?”