Ginger was doing her best to act normal at dinner, to not let her eyes wander too often to Gilligan's mouth, to not let her mind wander too often to her possible plans for the third date. Then suddenly the Skipper asked, "So, Gilligan, what dances have you learned so far?"
"Uh, I don't know what they're called."
Why did the Skipper have to ask that in front of everyone? It wasn't like he couldn't have asked his friend in their hut. Now everybody but Gilligan was looking at her expectantly. He could play dumb and go back to filling his face, but she would be expected to know the names of the dances she was teaching.
"Well." She dabbed her mouth with her napkin, one of the cloth napkins that Mary Ann had taught her to sew from scraps of old clothing. "We started with the box step. And then the spin. And tonight it'll be the dip."
"So," said the Skipper, "it's more like pieces of dancing than actual dances?"
"That's right. Then when he's mastered those, we'll put them all together."
"I was imagining something terribly more modern," Mrs. Howell said.
"Yes," said Mr. Howell, "like when you taught him the Whatever."
"The Watusi?" Ginger said, trying not to laugh.
"Well, I don't want to split my pants again."
Everyone laughed except Gilligan. He'd actually split his tight trousers trying to pick up a drumstick he dropped when the fellas had formed a rock group. The trousers had stood up to the Watusing. But his recollection of this embarrassing memory had distracted everyone from Ginger's current dance lessons.
And then Mary Ann asked the Professor about his snake research, and the conversation moved away from Gilligan. (The Professor, not surprisingly, hadn't come across any other snakes that slithered off cliffs.). To Ginger's surprise, Gilligan gave her a quick grin across the table. She hoped no one else saw it. She felt like winking herself.
She'd never had a secret with just Gilligan before. With Mary Ann of course, and sometimes with both of the other women. With the Professor sometimes. And sometimes with Mr. Howell, especially in the early days. She might've even shared some secrets with the Skipper, but none immediately came to mind.
She and Gilligan were an unlikely team, not just romantically. They didn't have much in common, and they often had opposing interests.
But that added a certain zest to their secret. The very unlikeliness of these lessons made them even more delightful.
And last night had taken Ginger back to her adolescence, the fun and safe naughtiness of necking. Only now she knew what was beyond it, and not just in the sense of her mother's vague warnings of what it might lead to, giving boys ideas, as if the boys who took Ginger out didn't have those ideas anyway. And Ginger had had ideas of her own, although she kept her reputation before running away to become a movie star.
In Hollywood, you were in as much danger of getting a reputation for not fooling around as you were for fooling around. It was a tightrope, especially for someone who was a classy sex symbol.
And she steered clear of the casting couch. She wanted to succeed because of her acting and singing ability. She watched herself on dates with producers, directors, and influential actors. Writers were OK. They were pretty powerless, and some of them were cute.
She thought of the last actor she met. It was just last winter and she hadn't known at first he was an actor. She and the others had thought Tongo was a real ape man, not someone practicing for the role. She'd remarked that she'd dated swingers in Hollywood, but not like that. She wondered sometimes what it would've been like if they'd met back home. He was a tall, muscular blond, the Duke Williams type. She was attracted to that type, and of course dated such men in Hollywood, but it never lasted long. She'd get bored and move on.
In contrast, Gilligan had always fascinated her, sometimes as an unusual specimen and sometimes as a cute, quirky boy. She'd try to figure out how his mind worked. And of course he was a challenge to her. He wasn't like other men, but he was very intriguing. And now there was this whole other side to him, which she loved discovering. And there was still so much to reveal.
However, if this was to continue, she was going to have to reveal more of herself. And that was a delicate balance for a girl who'd spent half a lifetime raising teasing to an art form.
Mary Ann asked her to pass a napkin, since Gilligan had just accidentally spilled his coconut milk onto Mary Ann's plate. Ginger pulled her attention back to the dinner table. She'd wait till tonight's date to decide where it would lead. And for all she knew, Gilligan might have his own ideas about that. All she would determine for now was the right outfit for date number three.