It was the place where I went after Todd, the place where I decided to try not to let someone else’s actions define me, the place I returned to each time I felt shame and knew I’d failed.
I’ll go back there again when I get home; the sand will feel the same on my toes, but I’ll know I’m different now.
I’m still here.
And as Ray falls out of sight, I feel so deeply at peace for once that I barely hear the horrified screams—like dolphins being slaughtered—coming from the deck below.
EXT. CRUISE SHIP -- BALCONY -- DAY
A teenage girl--this is NATALIE--stands at the balcony rail. The door to the cabin opens and she turns. It’s MICHAEL, looking distraught.
MICHAEL
Oh, Natalie. What have you done?
NATALIE
Only the thing you couldn’t.
NOTES ON DISEMBARKATION
ALL PASSENGERS MUST VACATE THE SHIP BY 9 A.M.
Luggage must be left outside staterooms by 10 p.m. tonight in order to be carried off the ship by crew.
Bags not put outside tonight must be carried off by passengers.
Please remember to check all drawers and closets and safes before disembarking!
THANKS FOR SAILING WITH US! AND BE SURE TO BOOK YOUR NEXT STARLITE CRUISE LINE VACATION SOON!
I wake up happy when my phone’s alarm goes off. Nora turns over in her bed. Lexi doesn’t move. Charlotte is snoring almost imperceptibly, and the combination of the sound, and her soft features, and the delicate tendrils of braids that stretch out on her pillow make her seem just so content.
They’re good friends and that means everything. I should have leaned on them more when Todd Hendricks did what he did to me at that party. They would have had my back, and I should have let them.
We would have talked about how hard it is to figure out what you want when you don’t even know what the what is before you’ve done it.
Maybe we would have talked about feeling bad for saying no to guys, because what the hell is that even about? Maybe we should have talked about the kinds of guys we knew we should steer clear of. The ones who behave more like boys than men.
In regular life you don’t get to see all sides of a person. You don’t get to watch them sleep that way my mother says she used to watch me sleep when I was a baby. I think I finally understand that impulse now in a way I never did before. When you watch someone sleep—even if it’s your friend who fell in love with your boyfriend, or your friend who probably would have cheated on her boyfriend if she could have, or your friend who struggles quietly, without fuss, with who she is—you see them at their most vulnerable and peaceful self.
This is why we all try so hard—to be smart or pretty or popular or different or the same.
This is why we go to school and get jobs and learn to play instruments and swim with dolphins.
This is why we build ridiculous things like cruise ships in the first place.
It’s because we’re scared out of our minds.
We’re always just inches from death and we know it.
I’m meeting Michael to watch the sunrise.
He’s there, on our deck, with a blanket and two cups of hot tea.
I slide under the blanket with him, and we watch the sky turn white then pink then blue. With each shift, it seems to change not at all, then all of a sudden.
I’m not sure what there is left to say, so I don’t say anything.
“Well, there’s one thing I learned on this cruise for sure,” he says, after a while.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Always get the room with the interior balcony,” he says.
I laugh, even though it’s sort of a horrible thing to laugh at.
Ray fell two stories from Michael’s balcony before landing on the soft canvas of the Boardwalk carousel. He didn’t end up with so much as a scratch—or at least none in addition to the ones Michael already gave him.
While people rushed to assist him, I left the cabin and went back to mine and I didn’t say a word about my involvement to anyone and he, apparently, didn’t either. Except to Michael, who’d then found me in my cabin.
“What are you going to do about him?” I asked.
“Get him some kind of help,” he said. “He finally said he’ll do it. He said he gets that now it’s time.”
“You believe him?” I asked.
“I have to,” he said.
Then I introduced him to all the girls and we all—even my parents—went to the big buffet together since we missed our official dinner sitting and it was a better sort of birthday dinner than the original birthday dinner had been for sure.
Now, he sweeps my hair out from the back of my neck admiringly, kisses me on the head, and says, “I could come visit you, you know? Like soon.”
“Maybe,” I say, thinking about Paul and how I let it all happen without ever making it happen and thinking that I won’t be doing that again.
“It’s not that far at all.”
“Maybe,” I say, not convinced I see us together back in real life, and that seems like one of the most important things in life to be convinced of—whether you want to spend time with a person.
“I should kiss you. I mean, if you want.”
“Definitely,” I say. Because that is one thing I’m sure of, even if it’s just for right this second. “Want.”
I close my eyes and the world around me is a circle of soft light that starts to shrink until it’s no bigger than the hole a thumbtack makes on a map and then it’s gone and I’m somehow on the other side of it.
“What’s with the numbers anyway?” He is looking at my necklace.
“Map coordinates.”
“Of …?”
“A special place.”
He nods and he doesn’t ask any more. A seagull lands on the railing about ten feet from us. Then another. And then another.
“You ever see the Hitchcock movie The Birds?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “A bunch of years ago. Why?”
“Why do you think they did it?”
“Why did the birds attack, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t that seem like a cop-out?”
“Not really.” He shifts his position and I have to shift, too. “I mean it’s sort of the whole point, right? It’s this dark force in nature we’ll never understand.”
“I guess I like happy endings better.” I stand. “I need your help with something before I go.”
Then I explain as I get my phone propped up at just the right angle.
“Wait,” he says. “You’re only going to pretend to choke me. Right?”
“Of course.”
“Well, for the record, you’ve got a pretty weird definition of a happy ending.”
INT. CRUISE SHIP CABIN -- DAY
A girl--this is NATALIE--is sitting with her eyes closed on the bed. A boy--this is RAY--is holding a pendant, waving it in front of her face.
RAY
You are getting very sleepy.
Natalie’s eyes shoot open, and she goes to choke him.
NATALIE
No, I’m not.
Back in the cabin the girls are looking in closets and drawers, making sure we’re not leaving anything behind. We take damp swimsuits down from the line in the shower. We slip our beachy paintings into side pockets of suitcases, though honestly, I’d be happy to just ditch mine and maybe I will when we get home. None of us could get our act together to put bags out last night and when I’m zipping mine closed I find the box the necklace from Nora came in and I grab it and something inside it shakes. I open it and the necklace is back in there.
I take a final look at the art on the wall, of the crowd waving to the ship—the backs of those eye-less faces I dreamed about. It’s such a remarkably mediocre piece of art that it feels hard to imagine how it triggered such a vivid nightmare.
“I had a dream the other night that all these p
eople in this drawing turned around and had black holes for eyes,” I say.
“Cool,” Lexi says as she zips up her suitcase and sets it to standing position. She stayed out late last night, later than the rest of us. With Nate. I’ve already resolved not to ask her what she did or didn’t do.
“None of you ever ended up making a movie,” Nora says.
Charlotte says, “Oh, I shot one with Shaun.”
Lexi says, “I shot one with Bonny.”
I say, “I’ll show you guys mine later.”
Ray’s in the hall when we go out. “I was just about to knock,” he says.
They’re not even twins anymore. Something behind the eyes, some core difference I can see as easily as I can their skin, their hair. Like identical necklaces except one’s silver and the other gold.
The girls flank me and, for once, I want them there.
“I wanted to apologize,” he says. “For all of it. But I also wanted to say …” He looks at my friends. “Actually can we talk in private for a second?”
I say, “No, we can’t.”
I don’t believe that Ray actually hypnotized Bill. I don’t believe that one day, something as simple as a song could cause a man to lose his mind. I choose to believe that Ray will get help, move on, and that sanity will prevail. That doesn’t mean I want to be alone with him.
“Fine, then I just wanted to say that that first night was really fun and special. I liked you. I still do. I can’t think of the last time I felt like I clicked that way with someone. I’m sorry I messed it up. I’m sorry I messed everything up.”
“Why did you even get me involved?” I ask.
“I don’t know. I had this feeling that you could, like, use a diversion. I thought maybe in the end you’d think it was all sort of fun. When you said you liked Hitchcock, it was just all too perfect. For a second I imagined us as these partners in crime. When I realized I shouldn’t get you involved it was too late, I’d already gotten you involved.”
I nod and think back to that first night. How dazzling he’d seemed. How charming. How new. But I don’t see movie-star dashing anymore. I don’t see a future. I only see what he’s not. His negative. His opposite.
He hasn’t actually messed up everything, though.
At least, not for me.
I’m the writer/director of my life.
EXT -- HIGH SCHOOL -- DAY
A group of girls are gathered on the front steps. Talking, laughing. A group of guys are drawn to them, walk over. One of the girls, NATALIE, is the first to see them. She moves out of the group and steps up to one of the guys. He’s smiling in a predatory sort of way.
NATALIE
You don’t even remember me, do you?
The guys all laugh, uncomfortable.
NATALIE
You sexually assaulted me at a party.
Michael wanted to walk off the ship together, so he’s waiting for us all by the midship disembarkation point. A couple is struggling with their children, one of whom is crying, “But I don’t want to go home.” People are smiling at them sympathetically; not Lexi, though. Lexi looks tired—and ready to go home. She’ll probably go right back to life with Jason, and it’s none of my business, really.
What happens on a cruise stays on a cruise.
Charlotte looks sort of sad; like this was a place where she could just be. She’ll take the braids out and go back to straightening and ponytails, and people in school will keep looking at her like she’s two different people instead of the one she really is.
“I have one more question,” I say to Michael, taking a final look around the Atrium with its glass elevators and balconies and that massive crystal anchor that never got the best of us. I watch the people who are lined up nicely to leave and feel a weird sort of camaraderie with them. We all chose this crazy thing to do together, and we all survived it. No one jumped, turns out. No one with some horrible plague skipped out on the antibacterial wipes and spread misery. Maybe it’s true that we’re all the worst kind of tourists, but I feel a certain kind of awe anyway.
“What’s the question?”
“At the B and B, the doctor said something weird. He said he never intended to hurt anyone, which was more than Ray could say. What did he mean?”
“I really don’t want to tell you that.”
“All the more reason for me to know.”
“I’m sorry, folks,” a cruise person says. ”We need to keep moving.”
Then I’m with my group and he’s in another line and he says, “I’ll text you or call or something.”
And we’re like the lead couple in some old movie involving train platforms—steam and whistles and hats and newspapers—and the crowd carries us away from each other and we’re powerless to do anything about it.
Star-crossed.
Doomed.
Roll credits.
I want to kiss the ground, but of course don’t.
The bus is a greenhouse. My mother wilts against my father’s shoulder in the seats in front of me, and I think about my room, my tiny dangling dancer above my bed with a ribbon swirl above her head.
I think about what it’ll feel like to walk into school on Monday, carrying what feels like a secret.
I close my eyes and lean my head against the window and look forward to the end of the bus ride and the end of the whole journey home, the end of all this motion. I plan on standing still for a good long while.
I consider what I’m going to say to Nora’s brother the next time I see him—about that night, about the friends he keeps.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Lexi beside me, opening my eyes. “About Nora and Paul?”
“I only figured it out after he died,” she says. “I guess I thought it might be best swept under the carpet.”
“You were wrong.” I elbow her.
“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe not. I mean, what would it have changed?”
“It’s not about that,” I say. “It’s about it being, you know, the truth.”
My phone buzzes texts from Michael at me.
I don’t even want to read them.
The cruise was a spell that life cast over me, and it’s broken.
I wonder if there are movies I haven’t seen that have falling-out-of-love montages.
Mr. Cassidy had been right about The Poseidon Adventure. I went back to it. It was an itch I had to scratch. I needed to know how many of them, if any, survived, and how. Because it couldn’t just be that everyone died at the end. There had to be more to it—and to life—than that.
I watched alone on my phone in bed one night, the lights out, blankets pulled up tight, and I cried when the handful of survivors reached the hull of the ship and heard a tapping sound. A rescue team was cutting through metal to pull them out to safety. I closed my eyes and wondered what it would feel like—to see, for the first time in days, the brilliant white light of the sun.
Ray’s on a travel soccer team.
Hypnotized some guys in the locker room as a joke.
Thought one guy on the other team was a jerk; he was like bragging about cheating on his girlfriend or something.
Ray told him the world would be a better place without him and that he should just go kill himself.
The guy died like the next day.
Ray saw it in the paper or something.
I see it for what it is. A crazy coincidence.
But Ray was a mess.
I don’t know how the doctor would know that except he still has family in town and there were some rumors.
But hypnosis isn’t real.
You know that, right?
Right?
I drop my phone. The smack is decisive. I don’t have to pick it up to know the glass has shattered. I picture water pouring out from that human aquarium, flooding everything around.
It’s for the best.
I’ll get a new one.
I’ll have a new number.
I’ll pretend none of it ever happened. I’ll pre
tend it was all a dream. Something I must have imagined—a movie I wrote and can rewrite.
If I tell myself that enough times, I will start to believe it.
“I’ll say one thing about those twins,” Lexi says. “They sure snapped you out of whatever you were in.”
I’m starting a new draft right now—a page-one rewrite.
“Natalie?” Lexi asks. “You okay?”
I close my eyes again—“Never been better”—and let the unrelenting sun warm my eyelids and then the rest of me, too.
This is Natalie.
INT. BUS -- DAY
Two identical twin teenage boys, MICHAEL and RAY, are sitting next to each other. Michael, on the right, has just put his phone down.
RAY
I think I could have fallen in love with her.
MICHAEL
I think I did.
INT. BASEMENT -- DAY
A teenage boy, PAUL, and girl, NORA, are making out on a plaid couch.
NORA
We really shouldn’t.
PAUL
She never has to know.
EXT. CRUISE SHIP DECK -- NIGHT
Two teenage girls, LEXI and NORA, stand beside each other. Light wind. Clear skies.
LEXI
Where do you think you heard about that hypnosis thing anyway?
NORA
It was something Paul said after a soccer game, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.
The ship coughs gray exhaust from its chimney into the night sky. They both look up as the smoke briefly obscures the stars, then, just as quickly, disappears.
FADE OUT
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS •
David Dunton at Harvey Klinger Agency has been helping to direct the cruise of my career for a good long while now. Getting Sarah Shumway at Bloomsbury to come on board with us was a smart move for sure. Both of you have earned stateroom upgrades a hundred times over.
Thanks to the rest of the incredible Bloomsbury team for making this whole endeavor feel like smooth sailing: Erica Barmash, Anna Bernard, Bethany Buck, Alexis Castellanos, Nicholas Church, Beth Eller, Alona Fryman, Emily Gerbner, Cristina Gilbert, Courtney Griffin, Melissa Kavonic, Cindy Loh, Lizzy Mason, Shae McDaniel, Patricia McHugh, Brittany Mitchell, Oona Patrick, Emily Ritter, Claire Stetzer, and Ellen Whitaker.
The Opposite of Here Page 18
