Not entirely sure what this is, but here it is. o.O
During "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow." (I tried to come up with a pun-filled hairy title for this, but to no avail).
Forever Young
She watched him from the doorway. His back was to her, white hair almost glowing in the moonlight, mocking her. He sat in his rocking chair, that hideous shawl around his shoulders, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
Like an old man.
Mary Ann closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. She smoothed down her dress and tried to remember everything Ginger had told her. Once she remembered the movie star's advice, she reminded herself to ignore most of it.
When Mary Ann had first asked what it was that made a man feel young, Ginger's perfectly sculpted eyebrows shot up under her bangs and, after only a brief incredulous pause, she sprang into action. Mary Ann had never seen the redhead move so quickly as she fawned over her like a proud mother. As Ginger prepared to present an abridged lecture on the art of the vamp, she didn't seem to realize that these tactics had always failed with Gilligan and didn't listen as Mary Ann insisted that this was not what she had in mind.
Mary Ann wasn't going to back him into a corner and scare the living daylights out of him. She wasn't going to stand too close to him and recite all the clichés Ginger made her memorize.
She was going to tell him the truth.
What did she have to lose, after all? Her best friend already thought he was ninety years old. She was desperate, so she had to try. She had already lost him partway, vanished into his delusion, so if there was a chance of snapping him out of it, she had to take it. He'd probably think she was making it up anyway. He'd assume this was a standard run-of-the-mill sneaky girl maneuver to get him to do what they wanted or to think what they wanted. But she'd still tell him the truth, even if he wouldn't believe her and would never bring it up again.
She once played a carrot in a school play about nutrition where her one line was a bad pun about "karats" that Mr. Howell wouldn't even appreciate. The whole audience groaned, except for Uncle George, who roared like she was Lucille Ball herself and bragged that his niece was the funniest carrot in the whole county.
Mary Ann remembered what the director, who was really the gym teacher, had told her class. Don't turn your back on the audience. Project. Run five laps. Become the carrot. Put your heart and soul into every word.
She wasn't acting today, so maybe she'd just remember that last part.
Mary Ann exhaled slowly and opened her eyes, her mascara weighing heavily on her lashes, sticking them together. Her nose twitched. It itched. Ginger had put way too much makeup on her. She also insisted that she let her hair down and put on a dress that she never wore.
She watched Gilligan rocking slowly in his chair. Normally he would have turned around and acknowledged her by now, but he probably thought he was becoming hard of hearing. Mary Ann swallowed hard, heels shifting in the sand, and smoothed her dress again.
"Gilligan?"
He jumped and turned, but stopped himself when he was halfway around. Like he suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be old. Gilligan settled back into his chair and shook his head.
"Don't sneak up on an old man like that," he croaked, one hand over his heart, and Mary Ann winced. "You're liable to give him a heart attack."
"Gilligan?"
She wanted him to turn around, to smile and greet her the way he always did when she came to visit him, maybe even comment on how ridiculous she looked. But he stared at the wall, shaking his head, laughing a little, kind of wheezy, and Mary Ann fought the urge to flat-out yell at him to snap out of it.
"Did you remember to look both ways before you crossed the street, dearie?"
Mary Ann felt her hands involuntarily clench into fists at her side. She took another deep breath. "We don't have a street."
Gilligan chuckled. "I keep forgetting. You see, my memory isn't what it used to be."
Mary Ann willed her feet forward. As she approached his patchwork quilt came into view, still spread over his legs. He was staring down at the pattern, smiling a little bit, distantly. She paused next to him and he finally turned toward her. As she knelt down beside his chair, his eyes swept over her dress, her hair, and finally moved to her face, just inches from his. His head cocked ever-so-slightly to one side and she saw a twinkle of confusion in his eyes. It disappeared quickly and he looked down at his quilt, shaking his head again.
"You young people, always dressing up for a special occasion. Have fun at the party and don't worry about an old man sitting alone in his chair. I'll manage."
Gilligan sighed and Mary Ann tried not to roll her eyes. "There's no party, Gilligan. I came to see you. But I ... I guess it could be considered a special occasion." She laid her hand over his, resting on the arm of his rocking chair. It was warm, not cold like a feeble old man's.
Gilligan was nodding. "That's true. It could be special. Could be the last time you see me."
"Gilligan!" Mary Ann's hand had tightened over his, her other hand clutching his arm. She gaped at him, horrified, her heart slamming against her ribs and threatening to leap from her body and bounce away. "Don't say that!"
"Well, you know, at my age..."
"Be quiet, Gilligan," she insisted. Mary Ann sat back on her heels, gazing out across the hut as she breathed deeply, trying to center herself. It was absurd to even entertain the notion of him dying of old age, but it still turned her stomach inside out to hear him say it. He had himself convinced. He had already bequeathed all of his most valuable possessions to them.
"Gilligan, I ... I have to tell you something."
"How's that?" he asked, leaning toward her a little.
"I have to tell you something," she repeated.
"Go ahead." The rocking chair stilled.
Mary Ann leaned against the side of his chair, her hand still resting on top of his. How to go about this? Ginger would just come out with it. Lay one on him. Probably hop in his lap. Mary Ann frowned. That was not a mental image she wanted. But it would probably get him out of his rocking chair pretty fast.
No. Ignore everything Ginger told you.
"Gilligan, it's going to be spring soon. Do you know what that means?"
"All the bugs'll come out," he grumbled.
"No. It's –. Never mind." Mary Ann sighed. She was sure he would understand what she was talking about even less than Ginger had at first. "Do you know why I like spending time with you?" she ventured.
"Because I have a lot of grandfatherly wisdom?"
"No."
"Because I tell good war stories?"
"No."
"You know, I had to walk ten miles to school when I was a boy. Uphill. In the snow."
"Gilligan, stop! It's not any of those things. It's because you are still a boy." Mary Ann settled next to his chair and looked away from him. "But in a good way. You're imaginative and energetic and I love going on adventures with you." Mary Ann rested her head on his arm and stared at the wall, absently running her fingers over his hand. "You're the kindest, most gentle boy I've ever known."
Now what?
Things Ginger had told her kept popping into her head and she faltered, trying to push them out again. These were things she'd never say in a million years. Things that didn't sound like her at all.
"You're my best friend. And I –." Mary Ann heard him shift and could tell that he was looking down at her now. She could feel his eyes on the back of her head. "I ... It's love," she finally blurted and immediately felt a weight lift from her shoulders. She smiled. She felt twenty pounds lighter. "I've known it from the first," she added, her fingertips sliding between his knuckles.
Gilligan didn't say anything. He hadn't moved. She didn't even hear him breathing and she suddenly had the overwhelming urge to see the look on his face. "Every time I look at you my heart goes pitter patter."
"No, that's the Manny Moose watch I gave you ticking."
Mary Ann rose up onto her knees beside his chair. He was looking at her intently, his expression almost unreadable. She slipped her left arm across his shoulders, his class ring from Girls' High on her finger catching in the yarn of his shawl.
"No. It's you. You make me feel young and alive. You know why?" she asked in a voice that was completely unlike her own.
Mary Ann came to the sudden realization that she was giving him The Look, as Ginger called it, and she couldn't stop. She was staring directly into his eyes, unapologetically, and he was staring back at her.
"Because I remind you of your father?" Gilligan squeaked. He looked far more confused and intrigued than frightened.
"No, silly."
That didn't sound like her at all. Ginger's words, which had been puddled in her subconscious, were now bubbling to the surface and flowing freely. She didn't like it. She was hiding behind them. She was scared and she was disappearing into Ginger's act and she couldn't stop.
Mary Ann ran her right hand up over his shirt. "It's because you're young and alive like me."
All of Ginger's lines were spewing from her faster than she could process them. Inside, her mind was reeling, but she couldn't look away from him. Gilligan was watching her in curious anticipation, everything under his white hair looking almost like his old self. She couldn't stop now. She was so close, she could tell.
Forget everything Ginger told you. Be truthful.
In a split second Mary Ann made a snap decision. It was something that Ginger would have threatened to do, yet Mary Ann knew that she never went quite this far.
Mary Ann looked at him sitting there wearing that ratty shawl, his young blue-green eyes twinkling at her from under the shock of white hair falling over his forehead, and suddenly leaned forward and kissed him.
She hadn't planned it – although Ginger's lecture had brought it up multiple times – but she couldn't stop herself.
She pressed her lips to his with the exuberance of a young woman in the throes of her first love. Fervently. You are not old. Desperately. Don't disappear. Lovingly. From the first.
Steadily, until he let her in and she gripped a handful of his shirt, the hand across his shoulders slipping up the back of his neck and into that obtrusive white hair. It felt just the same as his brown hair. If she kept her eyes closed she'd never know the difference.
He didn't resist and when Mary Ann pulled back, Gilligan was looking past her, eyes wide as saucers. She felt his heart pounding beneath her palm.
Forget everything Ginger told you. Don't say anything stupid.
"Don't you feel anything surging through your blood?"
No! She winced internally. She sounded even less like herself than she had before. But Gilligan didn't seem to notice. He was still staring past her, unblinking through slightly glassy eyes.
"Oh, I do," he said and his eyes widened even further. "I do!" he exclaimed and Mary Ann allowed herself a brief moment of hope. "I think my arteries are hardening!"
Mary Ann deflated against the arm of the rocking chair, sighing gustily. "Oh, Gilligan! Is that all you have to say?"
He blinked at her. What was wrong with that? He had meant it as a compliment. Sort of. He wasn't sure why. His chest felt funny. That's what happened to hearts when they got old, wasn't it?
"Stop thinking about yourself as an old man! You're still young."
"Young at heart. Until just now." He smiled a little and Mary Ann eyed him suspiciously. He was trying to make a joke. Was he making fun of her?
Mary Ann felt a glimmer of hope flicker inside her. She watched him closely. Gilligan blinked and his eyes looked clearer than they had all day.
But then he straightened his quilt across his lap, hands once again shaking in his exaggerated elderly way, so she kissed him again. She was gentle this time, consciously doing the exact opposite of what Ginger would, but he was just as surprised.
"I think my rheumatism's acting up," he muttered, staring at her, his lips parted in wonder. This sentence hadn't come out in his old man croak and so she kissed him again.
Mary Ann couldn't believe it was working. He almost seemed normal. She had doubted herself at first, especially once Ginger so readily agreed to the plan. Ginger plans were notorious failures and always made Mary Ann uncomfortable in a way she couldn't quite pinpoint. But this wasn't scary anymore. Had Ginger been on to something this whole time? The image of Ginger's approach suddenly flashed in Mary Ann's mind again – how she'd probably hop in his lap and lay one on him, no reservations.
Before she could consciously make the decision, Mary Ann had picked herself up off of the ground and slid sideways into his lap, crossing her legs over one of the arms of his rocking chair. The chair pitched once under the shift in weight, but soon settled into an easy rolling like the Minnow as it bobbed in the waves before the storm clouds moved in.
Mary Ann gripped a handful of his shirt, desperately trying to bring him back, to show him what it was like to be young and free and alive. There was no discernable reaction from Gilligan. He didn't get up and run away, but he didn't jump up suddenly cured either.
Had she gone too far?
Of course she had gone too far. Ugh. Ginger.
Just as Mary Ann was beginning to second-guess herself, as she was getting ready to pull away and scramble out of his lap and run for the door, she felt the light pressure of Gilligan's hand on her back. He placed it there very gently, but she felt each of his fingertips as acutely as if she were being stabbed with five knives.
Mary Ann's fingers tangled in his shirt collar and she settled closer to him. Then, so softly that she thought she was imagining it, she felt his lips push back against hers. Then they disappeared, leaving with the quiet satisfying smacking sound of a real, mutual kiss.
He had kissed her back, just once, for less than five seconds, but that was enough.
Mary Ann opened her eyes to find him watching her serenely, his face devoid of any expression. He wasn't young and he wasn't old.
Mary Ann was suddenly embarrassed and tore her gaze away from his eyes. "Gilligan, there are so many things to look forward to." She brushed his white hair off of his forehead. She didn't even notice it anymore. "Like the sandcastle you've been talking about building. We won't just build the castle, but the whole sand city. Okay?"
Gilligan's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "I can't lift those heavy sand pails."
Mary Ann froze. Her heart stopped beating and plummeted into the pit of her stomach.
What? What happened?
She was no good at this.
"Not with this arthritis," Gilligan continued and raised his perfectly young and non-arthritic hand as if to prove his point.
"What about the butterflies, Gilligan?" Mary Ann asked more urgently. "They're coming out of their cocoons this week and it's always so magical. Why don't we go watch?"
"Climbing up to the tree is too much for an old body."
"No. No! You have so many things to do yet, Gilligan, so many years ahead of you. You can have a career and have more adventures and then settle down and get married and have a family. Don't you want to do that? Don't you want someone to grow old with you – at the same time? Someone to sit in her rocking chair next to you?"
Subtle.
But Gilligan was already shaking his head. "Those are the dreams of a young man. I'm afraid my time has passed."
Mary Ann took his face in her hands and forced him to look her in the eye. "Gilligan, no. Your time is now. You're twenty-three years old, you have your whole life ahead of you. Do you remember when we went to the top of the mountain to watch the meteor shower? No one else wanted to climb all the way up there, so they had to watch from camp. But we had the best seat in the house."
Mary Ann tightened her hands on his cheeks. "You told me that it was the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen," she continued, an edge of panic creeping into her voice. "You said it made you feel tiny and alive. You watched it with the most wonderful look of awe on your face, I almost forgot to look up at the sky. And then when it was over you laughed so hard and you grabbed my hand and you started jumping up and down and we spun around until we got dizzy and fell over. Look, I still have the bruise." Mary Ann pulled up the sleeve of her dress and shoved her arm in front of his face.
Gilligan's eyes traveled slowly down her arm. His gaze lingered on the faded purple spot above her elbow before returning to her face. Mary Ann pulled down her sleeve and her hands unconsciously found his shirt again as she spoke. "You looked up at the sky all the way back to camp because you were afraid another one would start and you'd miss it. You fell down nine times." Mary Ann searched his face for any sign of recollection. She blinked, beads of moisture clinging to her lashes. "Don't you remember?"
Gilligan shook his head fondly. "That was a long time ago."
"That was four days ago!"
He wasn't listening. "That must've been at least fifty years ago..."
Mary Ann tugged on the front of his shirt indignantly. "Do I look seventy years old to you?"
"You're not the one with the rare tropical aging disease."
"Neither are you!"
Gilligan reached out and pat her hand gently, looking away across the hut. "I won't be there to see it, but I bet you'll look just as lovely when you're seventy years old."
Mary Ann stared at him. She blinked rapidly pushing back the tears that always burst from her when she tried to be strong, but she felt one escape and roll down her cheek. Mary Ann gripped Gilligan's shirt so hard her fingers ached. She almost thought that if she let go he actually might disappear. He was so sure, he almost had her convinced, too.
Mary Ann couldn't bring herself to move, not just yet. She couldn't leave and she couldn't drop her head the six inches to his shoulder and cling to him to keep him in this world, even though that's exactly what she wanted to do.
Gilligan didn't move, either. He didn't wipe away her tears and he didn't push her away and he didn't pull her close. He didn't move, except to press his hand just a little bit harder against her back and that was enough.
####
Two days later, Gilligan stood over a basin of water, razor in one hand, peering at himself in the mirror. Mary Ann was kneeling on his rocking chair and watching him, her arms hooked over the back of the chair.
"You sure you don't like me with a beard?"
He peeked at Mary Ann from the corner of his eye. She was shaking her head vigorously. "Nope."
Gilligan turned his head this way and that, inspecting himself in the glass. He narrowed his eyes, tilted his head at different angles, slid his hat jauntily down over one eye, exposing his hair, brown again. "You sure?"
"Uh huh."
"Ginger likes it."
Mary Ann narrowed her eyes at him. "Gilligan..."
"Okay, okay..." Gilligan grinned, pushed his hat back and dipped his razor in the water.
"Maybe I better start doing the laundry again," Mary Ann said, "Before you turn yourself purple or something."
Gilligan smiled at his reflection in the mirror. She knew he was picturing himself purple. "You should wait until the Professor finds a new formula for the bleach. You'd look pretty goofy bald. Or with a beard." His face lit up as an idea hit him. "But you could probably get a job in the circus!"
Gilligan whirled around, the razor clutched in his hand dripping great globs of shaving cream onto his shirt. Mary Ann could see one of his dimples, visible again on the side that he had finished shaving, as he grinned at her. "No, thanks." He giggled and Mary Ann frowned. "Stop thinking about it," she scolded, hiding her face. She tucked her chin against her chest, concealing her smile.
Gilligan turned back to the mirror. "Okay. But I bet those people make a lot of money."
"Forget it, Gilligan." Mary Ann listened to the sounds coming from the other side of the hut – the razor clinking against the basin as he rinsed it off, the low pitched squeaking as he rubbed away the condensation formed on the mirror from his breath with his sleeve. Mary Ann watched the shadows play on the ground through the bamboo poles on the back of the rocking chair as it swayed gently. Gilligan yelped and muttered something under his breath – he must have cut himself. When Mary Ann looked up he had a small bit of palm leaf stuck to his face like a tissue where he had hurt himself and she laughed.
"Gilligan. Do you remember things from when you thought you were old?"
"Uh huh," he murmured, his face an inch from the glass. Gilligan paused to stick another piece of leaf to a cut on the opposite side of his face. "You came to visit me."
Mary Ann froze, her eyes widening. Gilligan turned and flashed her a grin from amidst a partial beard and then turned back to the mirror.
"I meant everything I said," she said finally.
Gilligan turned his head away from her, leaning so close to the mirror Mary Ann thought he might disappear through it and end up in Wonderland. Although with Gilligan's luck he'd most likely just smack his head on the glass. "Everything?" he asked as he concentrated on not nicking himself with the razor, running the blade slowly over his cheek. "So did I," he added and Mary Ann's head snapped up from where she was watching a spider slowly pick its way across the sand. She stared at his back, but he didn't elaborate.
Mary Ann folded her arms across the back of the rocking chair and laid her cheek down on her forearms, peering at him sideways. "Gilligan, what's going to happen if we're never rescued and we grow old on this island? For real."
Gilligan turned thoughtfully from the mirror. Mary Ann watched him closely, the rocking chair swaying slightly under her. She still had on his Girls' High ring and the stone looked massive on her finger as her hand rested beside her head.
"What's going to happen?" he asked and she nodded. Gilligan grinned proudly. "I'm going to build you your own rocking chair. We'll sit around and argue with each other all day. That's what my grandparents did when they got old."
Mary Ann laughed. "I can't wait."
Gilligan rinsed the last of the shaving cream away and wiped his face with a towel. "Better?" he asked and Mary Ann nodded.
"Much."
Gilligan peered at his clean shaven self in the mirror, turning his head from side to side. "I kinda miss it. It kept my face warm."
"You only had it for one day!" Mary Ann appeared next to him in the mirror, assessing the change thoughtfully. "You look much younger this way." Mary Ann reached up and lightly ran her fingers over his cheek. "Smooth as a baby's bottom," she informed him and his nose wrinkled in distaste.
Gilligan grew serious then, staring into the mirror and studying their reflections. "We don't even look as old as we really are."
"I'll be thankful for that when I'm seventy."
"I bet you'll look the same. But that's a long way away. We have a lot of things to look forward to. A lot of things to do before then." Gilligan pulled his gaze from the mirror and looked down at Mary Ann sincerely. "Mary Ann. I hope we still know each other when we're really old. I hope we're best friends for forty years. Even after we get rescued."
"So do I."
They smiled at each other for a long moment until Mary Ann felt her cheeks getting warm and she looked away. Gilligan began wiping up around the basin and grinned down into the water.
"So do my arteries."
"Gilligan!"