By the time Mary Ann returned with the second coconut crème pie, Gilligan had singlehandedly polished off the first one. She watched from the doorway as he licked his sticky fingers, considered the empty pie plate for a moment, and then dove in to lick up the tiny crumbs that were too little for his fork to pick up.
Gilligan heard Mary Ann laugh behind him and shot up straight in his chair, pushing the plate away and glancing around innocently.
Mary Ann shook her head and entered the hut as he continued casually surveying the room as if he'd never seen it before. "Here's the second pie I promised you."
"Oh, boy!" Gilligan's eyes lit up and he forgot that he was trying to act inconspicuous. "Thanks, Mary Ann. You're the best."
Mary Ann sighed. "I just wish I could do something more for you. Pie seems so impersonal."
The instant the pie was on the table, Gilligan tucked in and practically drowned himself in it. After a moment he looked up and shook his head. "It's perfect," he mumbled around a mouthful of crust and dropped back to the plate again.
Astonished, Mary Ann stared at the top of his head. "I don't know where you put it."
His garbled response sounded faintly like, "Put what?"
"All the pie you eat. You're going to get another stomachache."
Gilligan shrugged. "Your pie is the best pie in the whole world. Even better than Pumpkin Patty's. That wasn't her real name. She worked at the diner in my hometown in Pennsylvania. All she did was make the pies, all day every day. Apple, peach, lemon meringue, rhubarb. She even won an award for her pumpkin pie. That's how she got her nickname. People came from all over for her pie. Even other states. She was the best pie maker I ever met until I met you."
He hadn't stopped eating during this story. In fact, it almost seemed like he was speeding up, shoveling a forkful into his mouth after every other word.
"Gilligan!" Mary Ann exclaimed, eyes wide and completely missing his compliment. "Slow down! It's not like this is your last meal!"
Gilligan froze and looked up at her, fork hovering halfway to his mouth. Mary Ann gasped and dropped her gaze apologetically to the table.
They had almost succeeded in forgetting about their fate.
The Professor had explained it very bluntly and concisely before peeling the petrified movie star from his arm and marching stoically to his hut.
The whistle and roar of the approaching rocket. A crash. A flash of light. And then nothing.
Mary Ann studied the grain of the driftwood planks in the table until a perfectly cut piece of coconut crème pie on a wooden plate slid into her line of vision. She glanced up at Gilligan. He had cut her a slice from the side he hadn't demolished yet and was now sitting quietly, staring blankly into the pie plate.
"Thanks."
Gilligan waited like a perfect gentleman for her to sit down at the table beside him before picking up his fork again. He distractedly pushed a piece of pie crust around the plate.
"Gilligan? Are you scared?"
It was barely a whisper, but it momentarily knocked the wind out of him.
Gilligan knew she wanted him to say "no," so he straightened his shoulders and arranged his face into its most confident expression. "Nope." But he deflated as soon as he saw her, brown eyes wider than he'd ever seen them before. "Yes." Gilligan sighed and turned away again.
"Imagine surviving the storm and the shipwreck and that Japanese sailor only to be done in by a missile programmed to head straight for this tiny island." Mary Ann actually laughed a little. "What are the odds?"
Gilligan's lips twitched in a small smile. "Yeah. We have all the luck, don't we?"
"There are so many things I wanted to do. But I guess I have to forget about them now."
Gilligan's attention was piqued and he pushed his hat back on his head. "Like what?" He pulled his feet up onto the chair in front of him and leaned forward to listen.
But Mary Ann just shrugged. "It doesn't matter now. I can't do any of them."
"You might." Gilligan gave her the eager innocent smile that he recently learned could get her to agree to accompany him on almost any Gilligan adventure. "Tell me."
"Well. Like ..." Mary Ann blushed a little before taking a deep breath and plowing ahead. "Like get married and experience true love and have a baby."
Mortified, Mary Ann stared down at the table. Gilligan tilted his head, smiled thoughtfully. "You'd be a good mom." Mary Ann lowered her eyes to her hands clasped in her lap. "But we probably won't have time for that. What else?"
Mary Ann was quiet for a moment. "I want to witness a miracle."
"What else?" he whispered, spellbound.
"Anything in the world?" she asked and he nodded. "I want to fly."
Gilligan grinned. "What else?"
Mary Ann smirked mischievously. "Hold hands with a boy." She was trying to tease him for being so nosey and she expected to hear him laugh nervously and then abruptly change the subject. But he was quiet and when Mary Ann glanced up, he had his arm stretched out across the table, palm up, and was giving her his most endearing smile. "Gilligan, be serious," she replied, frowning a little. "It can't be random. It has to mean something."
Gilligan's fingers twitched and he withdrew his arm, wrapping it around his legs and resting his chin on his knees. "What else?"
"What about you?" Mary Ann countered a little indignantly. "Don't you have a list?"
"Yeah, but its goofy stuff. I like yours better."
"And I like your goofy stuff." Mary Ann leaned forward on the table and cradled her chin in her palm. "Tell me one."
Gilligan shifted in his chair. "Okay. Don't make fun of me." The sailor turned a pale shade of red and stifled a giggle in his knees. "I want to tame a lion." He hid his whole face in his jeans and Mary Ann burst out laughing. Gilligan's blue eyes appeared over his bent knees and glared at her.
"Don't give me that look." Mary Ann reached out and swatted his legs before crossing her arms on the table and laying her head down on her forearm. She made herself comfortable and grinned up at him. "I like it. What else?"
For the briefest moment, it looked like he was going to tell her something important, but at the last second he grinned. "I want to go on a safari."
"You do that every day!"
"Not with the machetes and the guys who sit on the front of the Jeep with guns just in case the hippos charge and the funny hats like Mr. Howell wears."
"He might let you borrow his."
"Nah. He'd make me pay rent on it." Gilligan's face suddenly lit up with realization. "Hey, since we started talking about all these things we want to do, we haven't once thought about how we're gonna die!"
Mary Ann frowned. "Oh, Gilligan!"
"I'm sorry." Gilligan rested his chin on his knees again.
On the table, Mary Ann closed her eyes. He watched as her thoughts played themselves out on her face, eyes darting beneath their lids, brow furrowing slightly. She squeezed her eyes closed even tighter and turned so her forehead rested on her forearms, brown hair falling to obscure her face.
"Mary Ann?" he finally whispered. "What if we try to do all these things?"
She raised her head and opened her eyes, which sparkled with moisture. "On the island?"
"Sure. If we're busy maybe we won't think about what's gonna happen. I know I can't think about two things at once." Mary Ann frowned disbelievingly. "Come on, Mary Ann, it might even be fun. What else is on your list?"
"Well ... I did always want to see the most beautiful place on earth."
"Where's that?"
"I'm not sure," she answered truthfully. After a second, she looked up and smiled. "It might be here."
Gilligan grinned in triumph. "See, there's one thing to cross off already."
# # # #
That night, Gilligan and Mary Ann sat outside at the communal table, each hovering over a piece of paper. Gilligan shielded his with his arm like he was forced to do in grammar school when Skinny Mulligan would try to cheat off of his math tests, which is probably why they both always flunked. He inched away each time Mary Ann tried to take a peek, even sliding off the bench and onto the ground once.
Tiki torches surrounded camp like crackling, glowing sentries, vainly guarding those whose fates were already determined. A lantern sat in the center of the table, providing a warm pool of light just big enough to write by.
At dinner they told the others about their idea and were met with absolute silence. A fresco of frozen expressions stared at them across the table – confusion, disbelief, patronization.
Finally, Lovey Howell waved them away, muttering something about "the children," and her husband blustered incoherently, stomping off to his hut to resume editing his new will. The Skipper hadn't heard them at all, still hovering over the radio trying to hear the news at "dinner volume" – a rule the women had insisted upon after one too many meals was interrupted by Mr. Howell having a tantrum after a bad stock market report or the Skipper loudly assistant coaching a football game taking place thousands of miles away.
The Professor regarded them strangely for a moment and then shook his head and went back to scribbling on a piece of paper beside his napkin. Ginger actually looked supportive at first, but her smile quickly turned sad and she lowered her eyes to her plate.
The rest of the meal passed in silence.
Gilligan's face was an inch from the paper as he scratched his final thought onto the end of his list. He peeked out from under the brim of his hat and saw that Mary Ann was already finished, her paper neatly folded on the table with her hands neatly folded on top.
"Are you ready?"
"Uh huh."
"You go first."
"No, you go first."
They eyed each other stubbornly until Mary Ann's eyes lit up with an idea. "Why don't we switch papers?" Mary Ann grinned and handed him her list without waiting for him to agree. She took hold of his paper, but he held fast to the other side. "Gilligan," she giggled, "let go."
He relented and she eagerly took the list, eyes raking over the page. She smiled as she read, each item scrawled in his messy handwriting more endearing than the last.
Go on a safari.
Mary Ann knew that Gilligan was sometimes embarrassed and thought that his ideas and interests were goofy or childish, especially since the other men on the island always flat-out told him so. To the other men, his ideas were usually ridiculous or harebrained or a waste of time. But to Mary Ann, they were adventures, the interests of someone with a pure heart and a free soul.
But as she read, Mary Ann grew concerned about her own list. She hadn't taken the practical approach to this like Gilligan. She listed hopes and dreams that would be impossible for him to fulfill. Aside from the already confessed true love, which she hadn't even bothered to write down, her list was much more abstract and intangible and downright unattainable. Things that people would do if they could do anything in the world, if laws and physics and gravity didn't exist.
Witness a miracle.
What does that even mean? What constitutes a miracle?
What if Gilligan's idea of a miracle is the Skipper not finishing his dinner and he expected her to be satisfied with that?
Mary Ann couldn't stay frowning for long as she continued reading. Gilligan's list was filled with simple pleasures. It read more like a list of things that he just hadn't gotten around to doing yet, not a list of someone's greatest dreams.
Go camping.
But these were his greatest dreams.
They were all attainable and, better yet, she could make them happen.
Gilligan could never make her greatest dreams come true. No one could.
Mary Ann sighed and continued reading, her brow furrowing thoughtfully as she reached the bottom of the page. He had saved his more serious thoughts for last.
As serious as Gilligan could get, anyway.
"Gilligan? Who's –?" But he was gone when she looked up. Mary Ann twisted around on the bench just in time to see him reach the hut, almost crash into the doorframe as he walked and read her list at the same time, and disappear inside.
Mary Ann carefully folded his list and slid it into the back pocket of her shorts. She blew out the lantern and headed to bed, resigned to the fact that she would get to accomplish nothing on her list, but satisfied with knowing that she could help Gilligan accomplish everything on his. Almost everything – until she figured out what the last item meant.
She sighed again. What was she thinking?
Fly.
Ridiculous.