Are You Going to Kiss Me Now? (19 page)

By the time Ned came out of the house that morning we were aching to leave. We were all hungover, and nobody had slept well. Whatever affections we’d developed for one another over the last few days suddenly didn’t feel so binding. We were leaving, and our former intimacy had a stench of embarrassment about it.

Ned sauntered outside wearing a robe, carrying a mug of coffee, and smoking a cigar. He had curly gray hair on his chest.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” Chaz asked him anxiously.

Ned didn’t say anything. He studied our eager faces with a sinister smile on his face.

“Oh God, can I have one?” Milan asked.

“What, a cigar?”

She almost nodded her head right off her neck.

He took a slow, deliberate puff and exhaled.

“It’s a Gurkha, honey, $750 a smoke.”

“Just a puff? I’ll give you a BJ. That’s gotta be worth half?”

“Jesus, Milan!” Cisco yelled. “Knock it off.”

Ned shivered in disgust.

“When are we leaving, Ned?” Joe asked.

“We’re not,” Ned answered, exhaling again. He didn’t look like he was kidding. “The plane needs a little tuning up. Just a few days and we should be good to go.”

“A few days?” Joe balked. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“No joke,” he said, bringing the coffee mug to his lips.

“I thought you hated us?” Milan asked. “I thought we were in your space?”

“I do and you are,” he answered. “But now that you’re here, I see no reason to dash off so quickly. And you should enjoy these last few days of anonymity. You have no idea the craziness your disappearance has caused. It’s all anybody talks about.”

“Really?” Milan squealed with delight.

“Mm-hmm,” he nodded. “Getting you all back to Tambo is going to be a media mess.”

“Then radio in, Ned,” Joe demanded.

“I can’t do that, Joe. I don’t want anyone here. It’s out of the question.”

Milan immediately began yanking her hair out.

“What is this about, Ned?” Joe asked. “Are you telling me you’re going to hold us hostage here because you’re press shy?”

“I’m not holding you hostage,” Ned shook his head. “Like I said, I need to work on the plane.”

“And?”

“And,” he continued, “I think I may have overlooked an opportunity here. I may have misjudged you. I’d like to get to know you all better. I’d like to observe your species out of its natural habitat. And what better way? I mean, there has got to be a reason you are here, right? I don’t believe in random events. I think you were sent to me.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Joe asked. “I’ll have you arrested, Ned. Where’s the goddamn plane?”

“You think I’m letting
you
fly
my
plane?” Ned asked Joe, laughing. “You’re responsible for all of this,” he said, looking at us and opening his arms. “When the FAA figures out what you’ve done, you’ll never see the inside of a cockpit again. And then not sending an ELT. And then letting the signal fire die out. And you were supposed to be the chaperone here? It won’t look good, Joe.”

“Who told you all of that?” Joe asked, his eyes darting around to each of us before landing on his son. “You little prick!”

“I didn’t say a word!” Jonah protested.

“Well, I wouldn’t believe anything he says,” Ned laughed. “All those pharmaceuticals addle the young brain.” He took a short puff on his cigar and exhaled.

“You told him about the drugs?” Jonah asked. I thought his face was going to explode, it was so red.

Joe shook his head.

“Well, somebody did. Who?” he asked, staring at Milan.

“Oh, please, like I care enough to remember anything about you.”

“Now, don’t fight,” Ned interrupted. “It won’t be too long. Just until I find my angle and get some more texture. I definitely think it will be worthwhile.”

Texture? What the hell was he talking about? There was no way. Now that we knew we could get off, we were desperate to leave. It was like when you have to pee and you can hold it for only so long as you know there isn’t a bathroom within sprinting distance.

“Look, I’m going to prepare a nice brunch.” Ned was heading back into the house. “You just relax. I picked some scallions from the garden, and I collected a bunch of eggs,” he sang cheerfully.

“Jesus, he’s like Annie Wilkes in
Misery
,” I said loud enough for him to hear. “What’s he going to do to us?”

“You’re a reader and a writer, Francesca,” Ned laughed. “I like that. I think you also cook, right? Why don’t you help me prep?”

Everyone turned and glared at me.

“How does he know you write…and cook?” Eve asked me. Her accent was back. “What’s going on?”

I shrugged. “Don’t look at me.”

“Where are you from?” Ned asked Eve.

“La Jolla.”

“Ahh,” he chuckled into his mug.

“I demand to be taken off this island!” Eve ordered, in high Queen Elizabethan form.

“Sweetheart,” Ned said, “unless you want this image on the cover of the
New York Times
,” he said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his robe pocket, “I don’t think you’re in a position to be making a lot of demands.”

He threw the paper at Eve. She scrambled to open it.

“Oh God!” she gasped, covering her mouth in horror.

It was the photograph I’d taken of Eve’s rash with my phone. She looked like a monster.

I instinctively reached in my back pocket and felt that my phone was gone. Oh my God. All of my “texts” to Jordan. And it wasn’t just their secrets I’d recorded—Milan being prostituted out by her father, Eve and Peter McArthy, Jonah’s drug addiction, Joe’s infidelity. It was all the horrible things I’d said about every one of them…about Jonah! Ned must have read everything. I was dead meat.

“Who are you?” Eve shouted at Ned. “How did you get this picture?”

Ned started humming “Saturday Woman,” Peter McArthy’s most popular song, as he headed back inside.

“You said I could trust you!” she screamed at Joe. “How could you?”

“Eve,” Joe said calmly. “I didn’t say a word. You have to calm down.”

“
Liar!
” she shouted. “I hate you!”

“Francesca?” Ned said. I jumped. “Would you care to help me in the kitchen?”

***

“Who’s Jordan?” Ned whispered, casually massaging my Droid between his thumb and forefinger as he ushered me into the cabin. There was a small printer on the kitchen table along with a Ziploc bag filled with electronic cords and plugs.

“Give it to me, please,” I begged.

“Who is she?”

“She’s my best friend.”

“So you’re the girl who wrote the winning essay, right? You don’t look like your picture in the paper, Francesca. Your hair is much redder.”

“You stole my phone.”

“I did, indeed.”

“But it was dead. How did you read my texts?”

“I recharged it,” he laughed, holding up a battery pack. “It’s amazing how these things work.”

“But it was damaged.”

“Eminently fixable,” he smiled.

“So you recharged my phone and then read my private correspondence?”

“Francesca,” he said, ignoring my accusation, “you’ll be surprised at the media attention you’ve gotten. AOL home page and everything. You’re a celebrity, too, now, you know. It’s the biggest story since Michael Jackson died. It’s all anybody’s talking about.”

I looked at my feet. I didn’t want to be a celebrity. Not this way. I wanted to ask about my dad, if everyone knew my winning essay was a sham, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. It seemed so selfish after I’d inadvertently exposed everybody’s secrets.

He waved my phone in front of my face like bait. “This is deliciously good,” he said.

“Please,” I begged.

“Why did you write all of this down?” he asked, scrolling through my phone. “There are hundreds of pages of material here.”

“Material?”

“Why write it down?” he asked again.

“I just did it to chill out. It calmed me down. It wasn’t meant to be read. Please!” I pleaded.

“You wrote it down because it made you feel better to see their flaws. It’s the same reason you read tabloids. To judge them and relish your own sense of superiority.” Ned shook the phone at me. “Really, it smacks of condescension and judgment. It’s great stuff.”

“You’re wrong! I’d never let anybody see what I wrote. I would never betray them.”

“But you already have, Francesca. Don’t you see that?”

“Don’t do this.”

“It’s perfect,” he laughed to himself. “You’re a good writer. You do an excellent job of capturing their pettiness, their complete lack of spiritual generosity.”

“But you’re taking things I wrote out of context. You don’t understand.”

“It’s perfect.”

“Perfect for what?” I asked, hearing my voice vibrating with panic as I sensed him coming to his point.

“My next book,” he said with a laconic shrug. “A sort of
Lord of the Flies
meets
The National Enquirer
.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“No good?” he questioned himself with absent concern. “Well, something along those lines anyway.”

“You stole that girl’s diary to write
A Pair of Small Hands
!” I accused. “You’re a fraud.”

“I’m an artist,” Ned corrected me calmly. “I turn the mundane into the spectacular. Experiences aren’t owned; they’re simply interpreted. Some people do it better than others. I take what’s in front of me and turn it into art.”

“You’re a thief and a plagiarist.”

“You say tomato…”

I looked down at my feet, as Ned’s face was making me sick.

“You know, Francesca,” he smiled, lifting my chin with his finger, “you’re tied to an important circle of people by their secrets now. That’s something you should treasure. Don’t take it flippantly.”

“Why would I treasure it? I didn’t plan it. I’m not doing anything with the information.” I paused. “And neither are you.” My last statement came out sounding more like a question than a command.

“They really should have known better,” Ned crowed, ignoring my attempt at authority. “You’re not one of them. It’s never safe to confide in outsiders. No matter the circumstances. Outsiders find it impossible not to hint, if not reveal, secrets and the sources. It makes them feel special.”

“But I’m not like that. I would never do that!”

“You say that because you think you’re friends with them. That you’re a group. But you’re not. Once you leave this place, you’ll feel differently. They don’t care about you.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Aside from a certain point of view, I want details,” he answered. “What happened with the plane? Why didn’t Joe radio for help? What were you all surviving on before you found my cabin? I’m also confused about the hostility between Joe and his son. Why is Jonah so angry? His character doesn’t come across clearly.”

“That’s because he’s not a character, he’s a
person
,” I cried, stunned by Ned’s unapologetic malevolence.

“I’ll need more on Jonah’s drug abuse. Milan’s too,” he went on. “And, my God,” he laughed, “that business about McArthy is deliciously salacious. And your fibbing about your dad’s death is enchanting. And I love a virgin narrator. It’s all so right. It takes me right where I need to be.”

I crawled inside myself and died a little. Everyone back home knew about my essay, then.

“Also, Francesca,” Ned said after a minute. “The last entry is from yesterday. Then your phone kicked off.”

“And?”

“And I need to know what happened after,” he said. “Did the great Squiggy Small and little Eve Larkin get together? So scandalous! I got the feeling things were going that way. What happened with you and that, that boy?”

I recoiled in horror as he continued.

“The sooner you help me, the sooner I can fly you and your
friends
out of here.”

“Give me my phone, Mr. Harrison,” I demanded.

“Sure,” he said, tossing it to me. “Call me Ned.”

“Thank you,” I said, washed in relief. “Ned.”

“It’s all backed up on my laptop. And I sent a copy to my email account in the States, so don’t get any funny ideas about messing with my computer. I won’t take kindly to that.”

“You have Wi-Fi here?” I asked, panicked.

“Satellite. So,” he said, knocking on his laptop. “Let’s have it.”

“Why would I tell you anything?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Please.”

“There’s a great novel here, and you’re going to help me tell it,” he sighed as he took off his glasses and began cleaning them with his robe.

“But you’re a famous novelist. What do you need me for? Just make it up.”

“Nah,” he belched. “I haven’t written anything worthwhile in twenty years. I’m all dried up. Revealing the events through
your
eyes, in
your
voice, is what’s going to make this book work. It’ll have a dash of Tom Wolfe about it.” He had a faraway look. “My agent’s going to go b-a-n-a-n-a-s.”

“Your
agent?
Are you for real? I’m not telling you anything.”

“Then let’s share your little journal with your friends and see how much they really like you after all, shall we?” Ned said, standing up. “Nobody likes a mole, Francesca.”

“But I’m not a mole! You stole my phone.”

Ned laughed. “I’ll give you an hour to think about it. You either help me out and your secret’s safe with me, or we tell them what you’ve done.”

I stared down at my phone as I spoke. “I don’t need an hour to think about it,” I said flatly, surprised at the conviction in my own voice. “I’m not helping you.”

“You’ll find I’m not a very patient man, Francesca,” he said, grabbing my phone right out of my hand and walking out front. I was chasing after him, pleading with him to stop. He tossed the phone to Cisco. Naturally, he dropped it.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“It’s Francesca’s phone,” Milan answered.

“I think you’ll find the contents interesting,” Ned said, stopping to look at us before heading back inside. “I know I did.”

Cisco was holding the phone up to his face.

“Read it!” Milan said.

“I am,” Cisco said.