I must have had a clueless look on my face because Kenzie felt the need to clarify. “If you must know, it rains a lot where I live and I work all day.”
“In a sweatshop?”
“No,” she laughed. “My dad and I run a rental business. You know, party supplies, tools, equipment, pretty much anything.”
“That sounds fun,” I replied, trying hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“It pays the bills. Something tells me you’re not a nine-to-five kind of guy.”
“Definitely not,” I replied. “So, back to your lack of a tan…”
“You’re really fascinated by that, aren’t you?” She smiled.
“I am. So, okay, just for arguments sake, do you think that if your skin saw the light of day, it might actually turn brown?”
I wasn’t asking this to be an ass. I genuinely wanted an answer to my question.
Kenzie sighed when she realized I wasn’t going to stop. “I imagine I’d just turn a darker shade of white, or bright red. I guess we’ll see by tomorrow.”
“Is it weird that I’m excited for tomorrow to come?”
“Yeah, it’s weird.”
TV Confessional
“With that snowy skin, Kenzie’s an SPF100 girl all the way.”
—Kyle
14
Kenzie: The Sleep Train
The first nighton the island was just a matter of surviving. No water. No fire. No food. Minimal shelter. And bugs, at times so thick in numbers it felt as if I were swiping my hand through water. Yes, misery was in full swing in our no-frills camp, and that was before the rain started.
Because there were no blankets or pillows, or any items of comfort at all, it was necessary to use each other for warmth. Gene’s Fab Five had the section of the shelter with the sturdiest flooring and the least amount of dripping water. Although certainly not comfortable, they were clearly drier and warmer than the four of us.
As we huddled together to ward off hypothermia, our little group of oddballs bonded. Dale, a married father of three in his mid-forties, was a curious fellow. He seemed in a perpetual state of paranoia, his eyes constantly scanning the area. What he was looking for I wasn’t sure, but I wondered how a guy could maneuver his way through life with that amount of anxiety. A self-described computer geek with a love of pop culture, Dale owned a software company. For years he’d been running algorithms on the show, crunching numbers and tallying statistics in an attempt to predict the winners and losers. When the opportunity arose to put his theories to work by competing himself, he reluctantly agreed. Obviously, this was a guy who preferred to live vicariously through others. One look at Dale and you could tell his brilliant mind was always working, always scheming. I realized straightaway that I was lucky to have him on my side. There might be more to the bundle of nerves than met the eye. Dale certainly wasn’t the worst ally to have in this game.
And Marsha. What to say about Marsha? She was in her mid-fifties, and without a doubt, the most eccentric person I’d ever met. Although she was in respectable physical shape and seemed strong and fit, I seriously questioned her mental state. Was she one of those contestants that the producers threw in to bring the crazy? And was sheactuallycrazy, or was it her way of flying under the radar? Yet everything I’d seen of her smacked of authenticity. She really was certifiable.
What was interesting about Marsha was she seemed to know a little about everything, but her considerable knowledge came out at the most unusual times. It was hard not to react to her antics. Kyle didn’t even try. He openly laughed at the odd things she said, and Marsha loved it.
As for my first ally, Kyle had settled himself nicely within the group. Clearly he was the most well-liked. We all fed off his energy. My initial attraction from earlier in the day was only growing, though, and that worried me. Distractions like that could derail my whole game. I had to remember what was important. The money. My family. My future. This was hardly the time or place to become emotionally invested in a guy who had no investment in me.
That pesky self-doubt I’d been struggling with all day again reared its ugly head. Since arriving on the island I’d been studying my tribe mates, trying to figure out what made them tick. And what I had discovered was that everyone here seemed to have some label that set them apart and made them fascinating characters to follow: crazy, beautiful, funny, smart. And then there was me. What was my claim to fame? While all my teammates had legitimate reasons for being here, I was feeling like a pale, frizzy-haired fraud.
* * *
At some pointlate into the evening, with thunder crackling through the night sky and lightning piercing the darkness, we were huddled in a freezing little mass. Moments earlier, we’d taken advantage of the rain dumping down on us. Lying on our backs, our mouths open like baby birds, we accepted every drop that made it into our dehydrated bodies. But it wasn’t until Dale came up with the idea to use a rolled leaf to funnel the water that we actually managed to quench our thirst.
Unfortunately, the prolonged time in the rain drenched us, and we were shivering fiercely when Dale came to the rescue once again.
“I think to stay warm we should try a choo-choo train style sleeping position.”
“Are you talking about spooning?” Kyle replied conversationally.
“Is that what spooning means?” Dale asked in surprise. “I had no idea.”
