Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend

[...] It was the blond woman from the amphitheatre yesterday, the one who’d asked about priority boarding if planes ever reached the island. She was in immaculate shape for her age, her skin like leather stretched over a drum, but not gross leather, full-grain leather. She was in yoga leggings and a snug tank top, and Dan was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be attracted to visitants from Building A [the top-end section of the resort] anymore, but goddamn she looked like she stepped from the back third of a John Lewis catalogue, which is the hottest part of a John Lewis catalogue.

There’d been other girls throughout Dan’s life, of course, but not really. Not like Mara. He enjoyed himself when he was with those other girls – sometimes tremendously – but he always knew something didn’t fit quite right. His shoulders were too broad, so she couldn’t lay her head comfortably, or her hipbones came to too fine a point, digging into his thighs. When he quit holding the other girls, he still felt the weight of them there, the imprint of their bodies like divots in a mattress. But not Mara. She fit so perfectly into him that when they held each other, he heard the sound of a LEGO clicking into place. And when she left, he didn’t feel her absence in his thighs, or his shoulders, his groin. He felt it somewhere else. Deeper down.

That’s what love is. The LEGO clicking sound.

‘You called me a miserable dick,’ Dan said after a while.

‘I did.’

‘I don’t want to be a miserable dick. I’m working on it.’

Mara looked up at him. ‘You’re my miserable dick.’

‘Would you like to have and to hold this dick forever?’

She laughed. ‘I’m not sure I understand the question.’

‘I don’t have a ring.’

Mara propped herself up. ‘Wait. What are you doing?’

‘I’ve been thinking about what Mrs. Betty said. Obviously this wasn’t the setting I had in mind, and I know I said I wanted to wait until I got another job. But – my plan was to get our wedding bands made out of the rock with waves on it. I’m not even sure if that’s possible, I’ve been doing some googling—’

‘What rock?’

‘Our first date rock. The one you wouldn’t let me throw back into the lake. But—’

‘You kept that rock?’

Dan scratched his head. ‘Well, I did, yeah. Up until a week ago. Here’s the thing. I lost it in the ocean. I’m so sorry. Maybe I can find it. Maybe it washed up.’

Mara slapped his shoulder, mouth agape. ‘You kept the rock from our first date for two years?’

Dan was beginning to feel stupid. ‘Yeah. And I wanted to take you back to the lake, you know, and I was going to bring some carrot cake. And I was going to hold your hands and say something like, I never want to throw you back in the lake either. And I know that line needs some work. I was workshopping it. But that was the idea.’

She collapsed on top of him, his ribs on fire. She kissed his neck, his face, his lips. She clutched the sides of his head with both hands and said, ‘Of course I’ll marry you, Danny. I don’t want to die without having been your wife. I want to marry you on this island.’ And Dan felt like he could prise open the bars of their cell, like he could lift the island and carry it home, like he could reignite the sun with a couple of matches.

‘Mara Usra Foster,’ she said proudly, slipping next to Dan. Usra was a family name, one Mara had never been particularly fond of.

‘M-U-F,’ Dan said. ‘Muff.’

They looked at each other.

After a pause, she said, ‘Mara Nichols Foster.’

‘M-N-F. Monday Night Football.’

‘Better.’

‘Way better.’

She squeezed him, and he squeezed back, and her left hand was on his tummy, and on her wrist the word happy was tattooed in Helvetica.