223 changed her clothes. The shorts had not worked- the men on this island certainly did not respond to womanly curves the way she had expected them to. She chose instead a pair of snug fitting jeans and selected a sleeveless green top that would conceal her communicator device better than the tiny little thing she had been wearing before.
She tied a scarf around her head and spent the rest of the afternoon being demure and doing chores. While she worked, she had the vague sense that she was being watched. Three times she looked up, but didn't see anyone. Shrugging, she went back to sweeping out the hut, but the nagging, uneasy feeling remained.
Ginger sailed in. She went straight over to the vanity and picked up her hand mirror. "This heat is playing havoc with my skin," she sighed.
"Your skin is perfect," 223 laughed, adopting Mary Ann's fun and friendly demeanour, even though she herself thought Ginger was an extremely vain and shallow creature. Typical of 222 to chase after her, she thought. There is no accounting for taste.
"If I stay here any longer, my face will look like a leather pouch," Ginger moaned.
"Maybe you won't be here much longer," 223 smiled mysteriously.
Ginger looked round. "If you're implying we might get rescued, I'm starting to give up hope."
"Never give up hope. Surprising things happen when you least expect them." 223 shook her head as the actress continued to examine her skin in minute detail. How anyone could stare at themselves as much as Ginger did was beyond her comprehension.
There was a sudden flash of red and white, and Gilligan appeared at the window. "Hi, girls!" he announced.
"Hi, Gilligan!" chimed Ginger, then stared in puzzlement at 223. "Why didn't you join in, Mary Ann?"
223 looked from Ginger to Gilligan, who stood with his hands on the sill and his head poking through. "What do you mean?"
"Well, we always say 'hi, Gilligan!' together. Don't we, Gilligan?" Ginger appealed to the First Mate.
"Uh-huh," he nodded, gravely. "Always."
"Well, maybe I didn't feel like saying it together this time. Maybe I wanted to greet Gilligan differently. Maybe I was going to wave at him. Like this. Hi Gilligan!" She waved at Gilligan with her fingers, and he repeated the gesture back to her.
"Like this morning, when I asked you about my best side and you gave me a different answer?" Ginger pressed.
"Yes," said 223. "Like that."
"Well, you're here now, Gilligan. You may as well come in," Ginger sighed.
"It's okay, Ginger," Gilligan said, cheerfully. "I just stopped by to tell Mary Ann that Skipper says it's okay if we go butterfly hunting tomorrow instead of Thursday." He looked straight at 223- rather too intently, she thought. "Seeing as you were so keen to go, and all."
Ginger raised her delicate eyebrows in 223's direction.
223 coughed, politely. "Thanks, Gilligan. I look forward to it, and I appreciate you asking the Skipper's permission."
Gilligan tapped his forehead with his index finger in a mock salute. "S'what I'm here for," he grinned, then disappeared.
"Well!" said Ginger. "Our Gilligan is turning into quite the lothario, asking you out like that."
223 blushed, and she couldn't tell whether it was a Mary Ann blush, or one of her own.
After the day's chores were done, 223 began preparing the castaways' dinner. Ginger was helping, or rather Ginger was swanning around the Supply Hut looking into cupboards and examining fruits and vegetables for spoilage, declaring that this tomato had gone soft, or that carrot was too droopy. 223 chopped and diced and sliced and moved swiftly around the room, thankful for a spartan upbringing that taught her how to cook with the barest of ingredients.
She had spoken to the Commandant earlier, not long after Gilligan had come to the hut. She told him of their impending 'date', only she didn't call it a date, she called it a mission.
"Butterfly hunting." His tone was flat. 223 could picture his big, saggy face creased in a frown, his bushy eyebrows drawn together over his mottled nose, the result of too much vodka. "You think they are there because of flying insects?"
"It is more than that, Commandant. Is quite possibly key to whole reason why they are here. In fact," she lowered her voice, even though she was alone, "I believe a discovery will be made. My instincts are strong on this."
"Very well." The Commandant sighed gustily and 223 imagined a wave of sour breath washing over 222. "You came highly recommended, 223. Please prove, to me at least, that you are not as useless as this dolt sitting beside me. Who will soon be heading for Siberia with one way ticket."
223 heard the sound of 222's chair creaking back and forth.
"And will you stop that infernal rocking!" the Commandant shouted away from the receiver. "You are driving me insane!"
223 listened to the Commandant berating her fellow agent, and for a moment she had almost felt sorry for him. 222 had not always been a failure, it was just that he let his heart rule his head. He got angry quickly, and he had too much of an eye for the ladies- the wrong ladies. But he kept going. She could not fault him for that. It was not easy for him, to sit there and watch someone else succeed where he had failed.
Gilligan poked his head around the Supply Hut door, breaking 223 out of her reverie. "Hi, girls!" he said.
This time, 223 was ready. "Hi, Gilligan!" she chimed along with Ginger, but she rolled her eyes when neither of them was looking.
Gilligan sauntered in, smiling broadly. "What's cookin'? Smells great, whatever it is!"
"I thought I'd try a new recipe. Well. It's an old recipe, but it's new to us," 223 replied. "Borscht."
"What's Borsh?" Gilligan inquired, wandering over to see what she was stirring.
"Beetroot soup."
"Beet-root soo-oup?" Gilligan said the words slowly, drawing out the syllables in his mouth as though each one tasted of beetroot. He pulled a grimace of disgust and leaned over to peer at the contents of the cooking pot. As he did so, he glanced sideways and 223 realised with a start that he was trying to sneak a look down her top.
Her cheeks flushed almost as red as the borscht and she moved away from him, turning her back slightly. "What's the matter, Gilligan? Don't you like beetroot?"
"It tastes like mud," he declared. "And it looks like blood. Hey, that rhymes!"
"I'm happy to say there's no mud or blood in my recipe," 223 said, firmly. "It was handed down to me by my mother, and her mother before her."
"'Borscht' doesn't sound very Kansan," said Ginger, exchanging a glance with Gilligan.
"Oh...well, we didn't call it 'Borscht' in Kansas. We just called it 'beet soup'." 223 dipped the ladle into the deep red concoction. The warm smell of beets and onions wafted into the air, and 223 was suddenly reminded of home. Her home.
"Who calls it Borsh?" asked Gilligan. He was still standing disconcertingly close to her.
Everyone in the world except you, 223 wanted to say, but she bit her tongue. "That's its proper name. It originates from Eastern Europe."
Gilligan's eyes widened. "Eastern Europe? Is that near Pennsylvania? That's where my Mom lives. She makes cabbage soup. I don't like that, either."
"You'll enjoy this," 223 asserted. "Besides. Like everything else we eat around here, it will end up tasting of coconut."
Just before the sun went down, 223 told Ginger she was going to the hut for something. She quickly gathered a small container of borscht and a fresh gourd of water and ran through the jungle to the cave where Mary Ann was hidden. When she went inside the cave Mary Ann was on her side, sleeping fitfully. She shook the girl awake and helped her to sit up. She was groggy and disoriented.
223 pulled away the gag. "You must eat," she said.
"Go away," Mary Ann mumbled. "I hate you. Whoever you are."
"Eat," 223 repeated. She held the container up to Mary Ann's mouth and attempted to pour in some of the soup.
Mary Ann spluttered as the unfamiliar red liquid touched her lips.
"It is okay, it is borscht. Beet soup. There is no poison." Yet, she added in her mind.
"I want to go home," Mary Ann said, her voice small and broken.
"You cannot, just yet. I have work to do. But come. Eat, and we shall see what happens in the morning. Rest assured that no-one has come to any harm." 223 brushed a strand of hair out of Mary Ann's eyes. "Gilligan is safe. He is making fun of borscht even as we speak." Her attempt to engage Mary Ann in some light-hearted humour fell flat, but Mary Ann swallowed the soup and admitted that it was nice.
"Thank you," said 223. "Is old recipe, from Ukraine. Handed down through generations of women in my family."
"I'd like to have the recipe," Mary Ann said, softly. "That is, if I ever get the chance to use it."
"You can have recipe," 223 promised. "I will write it down and leave in Supply Hut."
Mary Ann drank more of the soup. "What do you plan on doing with us?" she asked. "Are you following orders from someone higher up?"
"That is not your concern."
"If me and my friends are going to die because your superiors think we're up to no good, then it is my concern. Don't we get a chance to defend ourselves against your accusations? You talk of hardship and struggles, what about justice?"
"I knew it was mistake to take off gag," 223 scowled.
Mary Ann shook her head. "I never thought I'd see my own face looking back at me with such hatred."
223 reached for the gag. "Enough!" she said. "You have eaten. You will be safe tonight."
"What about the dark?" Mary Ann whispered.
223 sighed loudly. "Wait there." She left the cave and found her knapsack in the nearby bush. Inside was a small flashlight, and hooked to the bottom of the knapsack was a rolled up blanket. She took them both into the cave. "Do not say I do not look after my prisoners," she said, tersely. She shook the blanket out and draped it over Mary Ann's shoulders, then she switched on the flashlight and perched it on a rocky ledge. It cast a mid-strength beam of light on the far wall, with Mary Ann in the periphery, still sitting in semi-darkness. "That is better, da? No spiders or snakes will come to you now."
"No snakes except Russian snakes," Mary Ann retorted, as the gag returned to her mouth.
The borscht was a success. The castaways loved it, especially Gilligan, who had second helpings, then third, and then wiped the pot clean with flatbread. He said it was one of the nicest things he had ever tasted.
For dessert, 223 attempted her first coconut crème pie. She watched with her heart in her mouth as Gilligan carved himself a huge slice. As he plowed his way through the pie without looking up, she silently thanked her mother for teaching her how to bake. Gilligan ate the whole slice and dabbed up all the crumbs with his finger, and when he was finished he leaned back and rubbed his stomach contentedly. He looked over and smiled gratefully at her, his cheeks flushed with sugar. 223 smiled back, warmly. She found it touching that someone could appreciated another's efforts as much as Gilligan did, but there was another, darker reason why she was pleased he hadn't noticed anything was different.
It meant things were looking good for Phase Four.
After an evening of relaxation during which everyone seemed to pay special attention to her (especially the Professor and the Skipper), 223 lay in bed with her arms folded across her stomach and listened to the gentle sounds of the island at night. Whistling frogs and other insects peeped and chirped, and Ginger Grant breathed softly in her sleep.
Across the way in the Crew Hut, she knew that Gilligan would be laying in the top hammock, leafing through a comic book, his belly full and his mind sated. She wondered if he and Mary Ann thought about each other as they lay in their separate beds in the quiet of the night, and if they wondered whether things would ever change between them.
223 turned over and hugged her pillow. In the other cot Ginger murmured fitfully, her dream voice small and vulnerable, her cot creaking as she settled on her side and pulled her blanket up around her shoulders. 223 watched a firefly go past the window, winking like a tiny distant lighthouse. The night air was still and the vast arc of the universe hummed its timeless song around them, and the scent of some tropical flower whispered past her face and then was gone.
There were approximately 24 hours left of her assignment, but Phase Four was not something 223 wanted to think about right now. With her communicator switched off for the night and a soft, warm bed to sleep in, 223 could almost feel like she belonged.