“He’s very specifically trying to get back at me and my parents for something.”
“For what?”
“I can’t get into it.” He strides over to the door, opens it.
“That’s it?”
He gives me a long look and I think for a second that he’s going to tell me everything but then he just shakes his head, steps out into the hall, and lets the door close, leaving me in his cabin.
I catch the door before it latches, open it, follow him down the hall.
He’s walking impossibly fast. I almost lose him when he slides into the glass elevator, but I’m able to stick an arm out. The doors beep and bounce open.
I get in and just stare at him as we start to go up and up and up.
He says, “Do you ever wish that this was all just over with?”
“The cruise you mean?”
“No,” he says. “I mean, yes, no, all of it. All of this just not knowing what your actual life is going to be like, where you’ll end up, whether you’ll ever be happy.”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “All the time. Doesn’t everybody?”
“Not everybody I know,” he says. “Not anybody I know, honestly.”
“I’m going to find him.” I step up to him, and even though he’s so very tall I don’t feel small.
He reaches out and puts a hand on each of my upper arms and squeezes the tiniest bit. He says, “I’m asking you not to.”
“Why can’t we just find him together?” I ask.
He shakes his head no, and it’s a no that seems to be answering more, bigger questions than the one I’ve asked. It’s a nod full of regret. The kind of no that he wishes were a yes. He lets go of me.
The doors open and he shows no signs of movement.
I’m done here.
I step into the hall and say, “You know how to find me if you change your mind.”
On the Aquarius Deck, I duck at a flash of color. A beach ball soars past. A dripping man chases after it—“Sorry!”—picks it up, and sends it flying back to the pool. For a second I’m surprised you’re allowed to have beach balls on a cruise ship. What if it had flown too far and gone in, maybe ended up in the belly of a whale or choking a sea turtle?
Ah.
Of course the woman who went overboard was blond.
And naked.
It was Ray’s girlfriend.
She’s inflatable.
The Starlite Room—the last of the four we’ll see before we rotate back to the beginning—has a roaring-twenties-swing-club vibe. It’s all black and white and gray and mirrored, and there are art deco posters on the walls. A swing band in a far corner is playing standards. I imagine this is what dining rooms looked like on some of the first luxury cruise liners—ones named after queens and that crossed the Atlantic in epic fashion—and I guess that’s the point.
The food and drinks are all retro stylized, too. Oysters Rockefeller. Waldorf salad. Bathtub punch.
Across the room I spot the woman who’d seen the floating glass, and she looks perfectly, well, sane.
A new kind of peace and confidence settles over me, like a shawl.
I know his name; I know his cabin number—Michael’s minus two.
I have a few tricks up my sleeve, as well.
I head for the flower shop. I buy a single rose. I go back to the cabin and, sure enough, Bonny is there with his cart, doing turn-down service. I go into my stateroom and write my note on the small Starlite notebook on the desk.
Back out in the hall, I approach Bonny. “Hey, can you do something for me?”
“Of course!”
“That guy who left the rose for me? I want to return the favor. I have a note for him, and this? If I give you his stateroom number, can you get it to his stateroom?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” he says.
We shoot a two-line movie. One written by Nora, who has ditched her other idea. She directs. Lexi and I star. We’re two friends stuck in an elevator.
The problem with shooting it is that people keep calling the elevator so the doors close and we move, so we have to stand up and pretend we’re not doing what we’re doing.
We need one clean take with no other people needing the elevator for maybe thirty seconds.
After a couple of old people ride down exactly one floor—“How lazy can you get?” Lexi says—we try again.
Charlotte holds the elevator’s door-open button, keeping watch.
Lexi and I sit on the floor and scatter some candy wrappers, like we’ve been here a while.
Nora holds up her phone and says, “Action.”
I stare up at the ceiling while Lexi roots around through her purse. I deliver my line—“No one’s coming, and we’re both going to die in here.”
Then Lexi stands and says, “You idiot, you just forgot to press the button.” She hits a button.
“And cut!” Nora says, just as some perplexed-looking people arrive to use the elevator.
Lexi and I stand and collect our props. We all pile out into the hall, giggling.
I imagine, again and again, what his face will look like when he sees my note.
He’ll read it, and it’ll take him a moment to get the reference. But if he’s familiar enough with Hitchcock TV shows to quote one, he’s surely seen Rear Window. He’ll know that the words I wrote were the same as the note the main character, Jeff, has delivered to the man across the courtyard. Jeff is convinced his neighbor has killed his own wife and disposed of her in pieces.
It says:
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HER?”
I picture her floating toward a tiny island with a single palm tree. She’ll make a nice life for herself there, maybe with a quirky crab for company.
EXT. CRUISE SHIP DECK -- NIGHT
Calm seas. A teenage girl--this is NATALIE--stands looking out at the water, her dress flapping lightly in the breeze. Behind her, a teenage boy--MICHAEL--comes through a set of doors. He steps up behind her. She senses him there but doesn’t move.
MICHAEL
I’ve been looking everywhere for you.
NATALIE (turning)
Well, you found me.
Karaoke has never been my thing. Shocker. Tonight, I don’t mind being able to hide in a room where it’s happening. I listen. I clap. I know the drill.
One girl sings “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid, and she’s excellent, but I imagine those mom whales rolling their big whale eyes and thinking, Not this one again.
Charlotte decides to get up and sing the theme from Ghostbusters. Lexi and Nate and Leo join in, and it’s hilariously bad.
At the entrance, Michael appears. My body is a first responder and places an urgent call out for backup from my brain.
I’m way too happy to see him.
I hadn’t been expecting that.
I’m not even sure what it means that he’s here.
He’s wearing shorts and a hoodie, with his hands in his pocket, and comes in looking shy. I wave and he waves, then he looks at the karaoke action and I get the feeling he’s going to turn around and walk right out; maybe, like his brother, try to find the opposite of here.
I point toward a more tucked-away lounge area, and he nods and starts off in that direction. I go that way, too, and we meet by a set of red leather chairs. The music is more muted here, at least.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey,” he says.
“Any sign of Ray?” I ask, not sure whether I’m ready to share my inflatable doll theory yet.
“Can we talk about something else?” he says, with a sort of weary desperation. “Literally anything else? Just for a little while?”
“Of course,” I say. “Sure.” We’re both quiet, looking over to the karaoke stage, and then I laugh and say, “Um, like what?” right as he says, “Sure is nice weather we’re having.”
A smile drifts between us.
“I got nothing,” I say.
He goes to stand up and says, “Guess I’ll go,�
� then smiles and sits back down again.
“Have you ever been on a cruise before?” I ask.
“Nice,” he says. “A good conversational softball.” He nods and says, “As a matter of fact, I have. And it was a much more interesting one than this. I mean, well, never mind. It was just more … educational … for lack of a better word.”
“Educational is better?”
“Well, I mean, it was to cooler places. Colombia and Costa Rica—these crazy islands called the San Blas Islands. And the ship actually went through the Panama Canal locks. So that was cool.”
“If you say so,” I say.
“I got to hold a sloth,” he says.
“What was that like?” I ask.
“It was, er, damp.” He smiles. “I basically never wore the shirt again because it reeked of sloth.”
I laugh.
“Not a metaphor. It literally reeked of sloth. I washed it a bunch of times but then just threw it out.”
“I got you.”
“The people of San Blas make their living mostly through tourism, which is depressing. Like, sure, take a picture of me with my sloth but give me a dollar, you know? But the place is incredible. They have different islands for different needs. Like there’s an island that’s sort of designated for … see now, I’ve talked myself into an awkward corner.”
“You can say it,” I say when I get his meaning.
“I’m not sure I can.” He makes a funny wincing face.
“Sex,” I say. “It’s okay. I’ve, you know, heard of it.”
“Maybe we should talk about Ray,” he says.
“Too late,” I say, though I feel the awkwardness, too. If this were a screenplay, Mr. Cassidy would tell me that the scene is boring, that it needs action. We should be playing Ping-Pong or, at least, walking or eating, so that there’d be room for subtext and symbolism. But even with the strangeness of it—of us just sitting and talking; no phones, nothing to do with our bodies, our hands—I don’t want it to stop. I say, “So you travel a lot?”
“I do, I guess, yeah. My parents. It’s sort of like their thing.” He seems to start to relax.
“Where are you even from?”
“Florida,” he says.
“Where in Florida?”
“Brandon,” he says. “You?”
“Clearwater,” I say.
It’s weird to think they live close enough that our schools’ sports teams probably compete with one another in regional tournaments.
I ask, “What’s your favorite place you’ve been?”
“Hawaii,” he says without blinking.
“You didn’t even have to think,” I say.
“It’s like you’ve gone to a different planet entirely. I loved that. We took a helicopter ride over an active volcano. I mean, I also loved Italy—the food was just ridiculous, and I mean, riding a gondola in Venice is a trip. And I love Ireland—just all that green and the music and the people. But still, Hawaii.”
“You’re so lucky,” I say. “My parents are not remotely adventurous. At all.”
“Well, pretty soon you can go wherever you want to.”
I smile. “You paying?”
“You’ll have your own money eventually. Where will you go?”
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
He leans toward me and says, “What about college? Staying in state?”
“That’s the plan,” I say.
“Don’t sound so excited,” he says. “Isn’t there somewhere else you want to go?”
I say, “There’s always somewhere else I want to go, but when I get there I always want to leave.”
“That can’t be true.” He laughs.
“It is!” I laugh back.
“You just haven’t been to the right place yet.”
“So I spin a globe and stick a finger out and see where I land?”
“There’s no place calling you? No inkling?”
“I don’t know.” I think hard. “I’ve always thought I’d like New Orleans, but I have no basis in reality.”
“It’s such a great place.”
“Have you been everywhere?”
“Working on it,” he says.
“Where do you want to go to school?”
“DC, if all goes according to plan. I want to study international relations, and there are some great programs.”
That’s the difference. If Ray comes off as some kind of reincarnated movie star, his brother is maybe some kind of war hero taking another turn. He’s probably spent his whole life as a kind of diplomat, maybe apologizing for his brother, covering his tracks, cleaning up messes.
Over on the stage, a kid who looks a lot like Justin Bieber gets up and actually sings a Bieber song. I say, “Cruises are weird.”
He says, “Can we get out of here?”
This time, with this brother, I don’t hesitate.
I say yes.
“Cruises remove everything that’s actually cool about traveling,” Michael says as we walk out of Supernova and down the corridor that leads you out and up to the Boardwalk Deck.
“What do you mean?” I ask as we step out into hot wind.
“Being a tourist is a little bit uncomfortable, you know?” He’s careful to hold the door for me. “You have to navigate a new place and try to fit in with local customs. You eat different foods. So you learn something about how to be, like, in the world, right? But on a cruise, everyone’s a tourist. So in a way no one’s a tourist. You know what I mean?”
“I never thought of it that way, but yeah, I see it. Because it feels like we’re away but also like we’re not.”
“Exactly. Of course, you have your friends with you.”
I nod. “Yes, I do.”
“Seems like a lot of togetherness,” he says. “I can’t imagine doing that with my friends.”
“It is. A lot. But it’s good. Everyone’s, you know, trying so hard. For me. For my sake, you know?” It sinks in closer to my core how hard my parents have worked to try to make things better for me. “My parents—” I trail off and shake my head.
“They lost something, too.”
I nod, not sure of his meaning but not able to speak.
He says, “They lost a version of you that hadn’t lived through it.”
I nod and push back tears.
It hasn’t been hard because he, Paul, wasn’t next in line to die. It’s been hard because when he died the world changed and I changed with it.
We’re walking past the balloon water gun race, and the guy running it says, “Step on up! Everyone’s a winner.”
I look at Michael and raise my eyebrows, and he shrugs. We each slide onto a small stool and pick up a water gun. Right then a young girl and her mom also grab guns down at the other end of the stall.
“And a ready-set, and here we go!” the guy says, and a bell rings and the guns in our hands come alive.
I find my clown’s mouth and shoot water right in. “I wasn’t sure I was going to see you again.”
I maybe hadn’t realized how badly I wanted to.
“I wasn’t sure either.” He sounds superserious for a second; his aim isn’t as good as mine. “Can I be honest with you?”
“I expect you to be.”
He turns away from his clown to look at me—I can see him in my periphery—when he says, “I sort of can’t stop thinking about you.” The water from his gun is going all the wrong places.
“Why?” I half laugh; a defense mechanism; my gun dips and I have to find the clown mouth again.
“Can’t explain it,” he says, and he turns back to the game and aims his gun at my clown.
“Quit it,” I say, and I nudge him and lose my own aim again.
Me. Neither.
The mom wins. Of course she does. Her daughter picks a stuffed stingray—purple wing-fins with details in gold thread—and Michael says, “Excellent choice.”
We find chairs and sit without talking. Michael’s leaning forward, with his el
bows on his knees, and he’s playing with his string bracelet with his right hand. He’s just spinning it around on his wrist, and I realize I very much want to reach out and hold his hand. There’s no point denying something is happening.
“Did you make it?” I ask. “The bracelet?”
“No,” he says, and he stands. “How is it still so hot out?”
I hadn’t noticed.
He unzips his hoodie and peels it off. Beneath it, a white linen shirt. Short sleeves.
My expression must shift because he says, “What’s wrong?”
I say, “Your brother was wearing a shirt just like that when I met him.”
“We share similar taste in clothes if nothing else.” He sits back down.
“Take it off,” I say, with an edge.
“What?” He looks at me like I must be crazy or joking. “No.”
“Take it off,” I repeat, questioning everything about bracelets and facial hair and the straightness of teeth and every way I thought I could tell them apart. “I want to make sure you don’t have an Amelia tattoo. I need to look at the shirt and see if my lip gloss is on it.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am.”
He has the nerve to look mad at me. “Why would your lip gloss be on my brother’s shirt?”
The deck seems to be slipping away from me, like a wave receding at my feet. He’s starting to unbutton his shirt, and I feel sick with anticipation. I say, “I’m not even sure there are two of you at this point.”
He stops unbuttoning and shoots me this look of disappointment, then stands. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“What was?”
“Liking you.” He shakes his head, as if disapproving of himself or maybe just me. “Because if you honestly can’t tell the difference between me and my brother, then I don’t want to be here anyway.”
“You’d rather just leave than prove to me who you are?”
He answers by walking away and not looking back.
I struggle to tame confusion, pulling it into some manageable shape, like cotton candy on a stick.
One shirt, or two?
One boy, or two?
How can I be sure?
I head for the guest services desk—four floors down, midship.
The Opposite of Here Page 11