Summer 1979.
Sequel to "Hurricane George" and "Tornado Gilligan." Read those first – there are a lot of connections. I can't believe it's been three years since I wrote them!
Same backstory as those two stories, as well as "The Night Before Christmas," "At The End of The World," and some of my other stories.
I'm out of practice, but it feels good to be back. :)
# # # #
Mary Ann squirms uncomfortably in her chair.
She coughs. Drops her napkin.
A pair of big blue eyes is peering at her from the other side of the table. They're barely visible over their owner's plate, but they're unblinking. If the boy's bottom wasn't perched on top of three fat phone books he'd be completely invisible.
Gilligan reaches down and retrieves her napkin. He hands it back to her without looking up from his plate.
Earlier that day, Mary Ann stood on the front porch, sweating in the sweltering summer heat. The Pennsylvania humidity settled on them like a scratchy wool blanket and heat sizzled up from the blacktop in waves. She didn't want to meet Gilligan's family for the first time in her shorts, but the cute sundress she had on still seemed too stifling.
Gilligan was in front of her, fighting with suitcases, trying to free just one finger to push the doorbell without dropping any of the bags. She watched him struggle for a second, fanning herself with her purse, until he decided to bend down and ring the doorbell with his nose. He straightened up as the chimes echoed inside the house and grinned proudly at her.
But he instantly dropped all the bags into a deafening heap as soon as the door opened and his mother Kathleen screamed with happiness and pulled him into her arms and his father tried in vain to get a word in edgewise. His brother and sister grinned from inside the living room and the little boy with the bright blue eyes appeared in the doorway to peer at Mary Ann.
When Kathleen finally released him from her clutches, she turned on Mary Ann. Gilligan's brother Michael pounced on him, poking him in the ribs and pulling him into an affectionate headlock, demanding that he finally give him back his shirt.
Gilligan's mother suddenly squealed and Mary Ann flinched. "Where is it? Let me see it!" She pulled away from Mary Ann and held her by the shoulders before grabbing at her left hand. She went silent and her eyes widened as she stared at the girl's engagement ring – the four pearls Gilligan had found in the oyster bed on the island fused to a woven band. "William!" she gasped.
"He made it," Mary Ann offered as she watched Gilligan squirming under his brother's gaze.
Gilligan's sister linked her arms around his neck and leaned her cheek against his. "Willy always was the sentimental one. That's why he's Mom's favorite."
"Bridget, don't say that," their mother chided, holding Mary Ann's hand up so she could inspect the ring from different angles. "But it's true," she whispered and Mary Ann smiled.
At the table, the boy stares at her as he robotically pulls potatoes into his mouth. He eats with his fingers and his grandmother is constantly trying to shove a fork into his hand. He drops the fork onto the floor where it clatters against the others he rejected before it.
Gilligan is grinning inanely at his brother's loud babble as he eats. Gilligan's sister and her mother are ignoring Michael, preferring instead to pepper Mary Ann with questions about the island, the weather, Ginger's berry makeup, Gilligan's dating prowess, his uncharacteristically romantic proposal, the upcoming wedding, and everything else. Mary Ann could barely comprehend each question, much less answer it, before the next one descended upon her.
"I don't know how a little pipsqueak like you could land a babe like that!" Michael hollers and flashes Mary Ann his biggest grin from across the table. Gilligan looks mildly embarrassed, but smiles into his plate anyway and Michael laughs. "I'm proud of you, Will."
"Michael, stop it," his wife chides before turning to Mary Ann. "I'm sorry."
"What's a babe?" the little boy asks and his grandmother shushes him.
It's the first time Mary Ann has heard him speak all day.
# # # #
Mary Ann's voice penetrates the darkness. "Gilligan?" He grunts in reply and she smiles. "Why are you so quiet tonight?" Usually he talks a mile a minute and Mary Ann has learned to sleep through most of it.
"Sleeping," he murmurs. "My bed."
Mary Ann peers through the darkness at Gilligan, curled up in his childhood bed in his childhood room, which, like her own, was left relatively untouched. Mothers – or aunts – seem to have a sixth sense about their children's safety and Kathleen wouldn't let Michael take over the entire room or let her husband turn it into his Man Cave. Whatever that was. She was sure her son would be coming back.
The heat barely broke when the sun went down and the window is flung open as far as it will go. The room is stifling, air thick like cotton and soaked with humidity, but Gilligan doesn't seem to notice.
Mary Ann listens to the fan whirring in vain for a moment, straining against the abnormally high temperature, before she speaks again. "I don't think he likes me."
She hears Gilligan move and can faintly see him propped up on one elbow in the moonlight streaming in the open window. "Are you kidding? He likes you too much. Just wait until he starts telling everyone that you spent the night in his bed tomorrow."
Mary Ann throws a pillow at him, but laughs anyway. "No, not your brother!" Gilligan's staring at her from three feet away, propped up in his own old twin bed, but he's not laughing and Mary Ann knows that his brother has always made him a little nervous. "He's sweet, though." Mary Ann hears Gilligan harrumph as she kicks off the sheet, which in this weather feels like a heavy comforter, and flops down on her back on Michael's old bed. "I mean your nephew, Patrick."
"He takes after his father."
"He keeps looking at me funny."
"He thinks you're pretty."
"Gilligan, he's four years old."
"He told me that you're his girlfriend."
Mary Ann can't help smiling at the ceiling. "He did not."
"We're gonna have a duel about it at high noon."
"Gilligan." Mary Ann puts that edge into her voice that she knows he hates and is usually accompanied by planting her hands on her hips. "He's got that same look that you get sometimes," she continues after a moment. "Like he's trying to figure you out. It's unnerving."
"Relax, Mary Ann. You're like the Baby Whisperer."
"I am not. You are." Mary Ann sits up and peels her hair off of her neck. She pulls it into a bun and flops back down again. "What about Rebecca?" she asks, thinking of her cousin's baby girl. "She didn't leave your side the whole time we were in Kansas."
"Do you remember when we were in the grocery store a few months ago and that baby was screaming so loud the entire store could hear him?" Mary Ann nods, even though she knows he can't see her. She hears him stand up and approach her bed. "And the second you smiled at him, he stopped."
Mary Ann looks up at Gilligan; he's peering down at her and holding her pillow. "He was distracted by watching you try to balance that watermelon on your head," she says. Gilligan frowns and drops Mary Ann's pillow on her face and retreats back to his own bed. He jumps in like he's five years old, the mattress springs groaning in protest. "Don't do that," she scolds him, "You're going to break it and end up sleeping on the floor."
"Yes, Mother." Gilligan rolls his eyes and gets comfortable on the mattress. After a moment he speaks up. "Seriously, though, if we were real people and not castaways, you would've been a swell kindergarten teacher."
Mary Ann gazes across the room at Gilligan's Mosquitoes Live at Carnegie Hall poster, the white background glowing in the moonlight. It's the same as the one on her wall in Kansas thousands of miles away. They must've hung them up around the same time, long before they even met.
"Your sister's the oldest, right, Gilligan?"
"Yeah."
"But she doesn't have any kids."
"Nope."
"Your mom's been eyeing me up and down all day and Mike's wife never stopped talking about how badly Patrick needs someone to play with."
"After we get married we're gonna have two to three kids and a dog, remember?"
"Yeah. I remember."
Mary Ann hears him roll over in the darkness and his voice sounds closer now, like it's directed straight at her and not the ceiling. "Then what's the matter?"
Mary Ann sighs and the few bangs that aren't stuck to her forehead rise into the air. "I don't know. I guess I'm just worried."
"About what? Kids are fun." Gilligan sits up on the edge of the bed and watches her.
"I don't know. What if it's hard or what if something happens or what if I can't?"
Gilligan shrugs. "We haven't tried." He says it so innocently and Mary Ann's heart swells for a moment. "Why are you so upset about it all of a sudden?" When she doesn't say anything in response, Gilligan gets up and wanders to the window. He kneels down on the floor and rests his arms on the sill. The moonlight bathes his face in a dull yellow glow and the breeze ruffles his hair. "I think it's hotter in here than it is outside," he says and leans forward to stick his head out the window.
After a moment he feels Mary Ann come up behind him. She kneels down beside him and nudges him with her shoulder. "Shove over, sailor." Mary Ann crosses her arms on the windowsill next to him. She gazes out over the backyard, at the perfectly manicured lawn, at the flowering shrubs lining the property. The old metal swing set with a fresh coat of red paint disappears in the darkness, save but for the dull creak of the swing chains as they sway in the breeze.
"Is that why your sister doesn't have any kids?" she asks, closing her eyes to the breeze.
Mary Ann feels Gilligan shrug beside her. "I don't know."
They're quiet for a long time, listening to the breeze and the bats in the woods behind the house and the swing chain moving in the darkness. Gilligan is suddenly on his feet, squeezing himself through the open window and is gone in an instant.
"What are you doing?!"
"Come up!" His voice floats down from above, but he's out of sight. Mary Ann leans out the window and twists around. Gilligan is on the roof, peering down at her as he grips the metal gutter in both hands. "Come on."
"Gilligan, get back in here!"
"No, you come up here!"
"I will not!"
"Come on, it's easy. It's like when we'd climb trees on the island. I'll pull you up."
Mary Ann glares at him. "No." She disappears back inside Gilligan's bedroom.
"Okay, fine." He grins. "Chicken."
Gilligan counts to three and right on cue, Mary Ann's head reappears. She turns around and slides out onto the windowsill. She grabs the gutter and stands, her bare feet gripping the painted wood. Gilligan grabs her under the arms and effortlessly lifts her onto the roof beside him.
She plops down next to him and pushes her hair out of her eyes. "You used to do this a lot, didn't you?"
Gilligan grins. "Yeah. I came up here to look at the stars." He looks up and cranes his neck, peering into the sky. "There's a lot more light pollution now. I can barely see anything."
Gilligan and Mary Ann sit in silence. Despite the heat radiating off the shingles beneath them, it's much cooler on the roof, the breeze much stronger, and the moonlight much prettier. Mary Ann scoots closer to Gilligan and links her arm through his. "You really think I'd be a good kindergarten teacher?"
"Uh huh. 'Cause you're nice and patient and you'd get to wear those crazy sweaters for every holiday." Mary Ann lays her head on his shoulder is almost asleep when he suddenly speaks again. "How am I supposed to beat a four year old in a duel?"
Mary Ann laughs. "You can't."
Gilligan puffs his chest out. "But I have to defend my woman's honor. After all, she's kind of a babe."
