The Opposite of Here

by Tara Altebrando

  I went to the beach. My beach. So in a way, maybe I told the ocean. And I told myself I wouldn’t let it change me or define me. I told myself I wouldn’t feel shame, even as I felt it.

  “Oh my god,” Nora said to me that afternoon. “You made out with Todd?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “My brother said he saw you.”

  “What else did he say?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Why?”

  “No reason,” I said.

  “But it doesn’t sound like Todd’s, you know, interested, if you’re wondering.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Good. Me neither.”

  I started being really good at finding reasons to not go over to Nora’s house. I couldn’t handle the idea of looking her brother in the eye. Our school was big enough that I didn’t see Todd for weeks, and when I did, I wasn’t even sure he remembered who I was. It was better that way.

  All in all, I’d gotten off easy.

  I resolved to never be that dumb again.

  Only when Paul came along could I finally let my guard down. He was so sweet, so cautious, so funny, so like me, it was obvious he was the guy for me. Except that maybe comfort is not the whole of love. Except that maybe I’d never really let him in at all. Didn’t want him there, or anyone. Not yet.

  I google “Hitchcock TV show cruise.”

  Because maybe it will somehow help me figure out the why.

  It’s the first hit:

  “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” Dip in the Pool (TV Episode 1958) - IMDb

  He’d called it that, a dip in the pool, when he suggested the hot tub.

  What an arrogant, manipulative jerk.

  I’m too impatient to watch the episode, so I read a summary. A passenger on a cruise ship wants to slow down the boat in order to win a bet about how many miles it will travel in a certain number of hours. He figures they will have to stop to rescue him. He chooses a woman he finds on one of the decks to witness his jump into the sea—“Hearing good. Eyesight adequate. You’re it, lady,” he thinks—expecting her to report it. But the woman he picks is mentally ill. She doesn’t say a word to anyone, except to the camera at the end of the episode. She says, after he jumps, “Such a nice man. He waved to me.”

  It doesn’t explain anything and certainly not how he could be so cruel to his parents, how he could justify terrorizing a whole ship.

  I click away to Instagram and find Nora’s feed, because the Paul thing is still bugging me. I scroll back to a photo of her and Paul I remember her posting. It doesn’t take long to find it; she hasn’t posted much lately.

  I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. Now I see it all differently.

  I see their physical ease with each other. I see light in their eyes.

  Did they cheat? Go behind my back in some real, physical way?

  It doesn’t matter.

  I don’t love Elvis Moriello.

  I wasn’t madly in love with Paul. Not anymore, not really, if I ever was.

  I google Michael Haines, but nothing looks right. I just want to know what kind of tracks his life might have left on the Internet. Because of course he didn’t just spring to life here, on the boat.

  I add “Florida,” but still nothing pops out.

  I add “Ray,” then I add “Amelia,” and I click to refresh and feel like I’ve just gone overboard, too, and bet my whole life on a game of chance.

  “They just started dying”: anger lingers over teens who died after …

  Florida Therapist Settles with Parents of Teens Who Died after Hypnosis …

  Civil court okays settlement over therapist who hypnotized students with deadly results …

  Florida Doctor Lied about Hypnotizing Patients Who …

  Cozy B and B offers luxury accommodations in historic district …

  My brain’s batteries are dying; it’s malfunctioning, grinding to a halt while spewing out nonsense blips and bleeps. It gets stuck on the word “what” as I frantically click and scan articles.

  A local therapist hypnotized teenage patients who were stressed out about tests or sports …

  What?

  He had been reprimanded by at least one family and warned that hypnosis was not a sanctioned treatment …

  What?

  They would report him to a medical board.

  But he just kept doing it …

  Then kids started dying—taking their own lives.

  And the one thing they had in common was that they’d had sessions with him.

  What?

  There was talk of a civil trial, but with no scientific proof that hypnosis is real or can be used to incite self-harm, the odds of a guilty verdict were not good.

  The details of the size of the settlements were not made public.

  It must be some kind of urban legend or a new Netflix show with an elaborate publicity campaign.

  I look it up on Snopes, but it’s not there.

  The sources are legit. NPR legit.

  They all point out how bizarre the story is.

  And a part of it feels vaguely familiar? Someone maybe mentioned it in passing once at school?

  But I still don’t see the connection to Michael and Ray until—

  A fifth victim, Amelia Haines, drowned in her family’s swimming pool after a session with the same therapist. First responders said she was found with a glass floating beside her, so alcohol was suspected as a factor, but during an autopsy her blood alcohol tested at zero. She was believed to be a strong swimmer.

  She’s their sister. That’s her deal.

  Two boys.

  Two brothers.

  Two tattoos.

  I head out, wishing for a way off the boat, some kind of magical portal to land or a bridge built on the backs of sea creatures who’d surface for me if I tapped out an SOS on the sea. I scan the water for an island I might swim to, and for a second I think I actually see one, but of course not, no.

  It doesn’t make sense.

  At least not to me, not yet.

  Their sister died.

  Because of hypnosis?

  I turn it all around in my head, study the revelation like an object. First, from this side, then from that.

  “He didn’t make you do anything you didn’t want to do, did he?”

  “You didn’t see him talking to anyone else, did you?”

  “There is no floating glass, miss.”

  I pound on Michael’s door. So loudly that a woman across the hall comes to answer her door and sun pours out into the hall.

  “Sorry,” I say, while looking straight past her at the blinding sea through her balcony doors.

  Michael’s voice comes from behind me. “Sorry, Mom,” he says. “She’s looking for me.”

  She lets her door close.

  My heart is a sinking anchor when I turn to him. “Why didn’t you tell me about your sister?”

  He’s sinking with me. “Because I didn’t want you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now.”

  “Which is how?”

  “Like I’m crazy or damaged. Like I’m someone you want to run from like you did last night.”

  He’s shirtless; the tattoo is right there. But I know without question that it’s Michael. The way I did last night before doubting myself. “You both have tattoos,” I say.

  He nods.

  “I don’t understand, though. All the questions about Ray.” A theory forms, like the crest of a wave. “Is he hypnotizing people?”

  Michael nods again and lets me in. “I think so, yes. Or he’s making it seem like he is. Like he probably didn’t even take that guy’s wallet, just made the guy say that. And the floating glass thing; he must have talked to her. I’m still trying to piece it all together myself. I guess you got on the Internet?”

  I nod and say, “I thought my life was crazy.”

  He is standing, looking out the sliding doors. “Yeah, sorry, I think I take the cake.”

  “Why is he doing all this?
”

  “He just hasn’t been able to accept it, you know, when the guy walked. He’s mad that my parents took the settlement and furious they wanted to go on a cruise, considering how she died. Also, he feels responsible.”

  “Why would he feel responsible?”

  “We were on a trip once. Vegas. Bunch of years ago now. And there was a hypnosis show at the hotel and he begged my parents to take us all, and then he got really interested in hypnosis and tried it sometimes. Like with Amelia. For fun. Then last year, he started doing this thing at parties. Like one time he hypnotized people at a party and got them to take their shirts off. It was all funny stuff, and everyone thought it was hilarious. But everyone also thought, like I did, that it was just people playing along. It wasn’t real. But I don’t know. He felt like maybe he normalized it. For Amelia. Like she went along with it with the doctor because she thought it wasn’t a big deal, couldn’t hurt her.”

  He shakes his head. “My poor mother honestly thought he made somebody jump. I actually believed for a minute, too. But now I think he just convinced someone to say that someone had jumped. He’s officially out of control.”

  “He threw an inflatable doll overboard.”

  “What?”

  “He made a joke about having an inflatable girlfriend. Everyone says the person who went overboard was blond and naked.” I don’t mention my note or the reply note that confirms it.

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” he says. “And now this is happening.” He hands me a copy of the Stargazer and points.

  Passengers show off their mad skills: everything from juggling to singing and dancing to hypnosis demonstrations and more.

  “What would be the point?” I ask.

  “I honestly don’t know. But I have to try to stop him.”

  “Do you even believe in hypnosis?”

  “I didn’t think so before all this. But now it’s hard for me not to believe.”

  “Because if you didn’t believe, that would mean that your sister—”

  “Yeah,” he says sadly. “And I mean it’s possible … but …”

  “I’ll go with you,” I say.

  “I want to ask you not to,” he says. “Except that I really want you there.”

  “I’m really sorry about your sister,” I say, and we fall into a sideways hug and sit with it for a good long while.

  We go down to my parents’ cabin and I knock; Michael stays a bit farther down the hall, waits.

  My father answers. “The girls just left for breakfast in the Aquarius Room. They were looking for you. Where were you?”

  “I woke up early, so I went for a walk,” I say. “Anyway, I sort of need a break from the girls, so I’m going to do my own thing today, but don’t worry, okay?”

  “But, Natalie—” he says.

  I look over to Michael, not like there’s anything he could even do to help. My mom appears and steps out into the hall.

  “This is Michael,” I say, and she nods. “Michael, this is my mom.”

  She meets eyes with me and takes my hand and gives it a squeeze and says, “Have fun.”

  I squeeze back.

  I go to my cabin and grab a few things: a swimsuit, a cover-up, sunglasses, hat, sunscreen.

  “What’s this?” Michael picks up the lightbox.

  “Was a birthday present,” I say, and I think about things I might spell out on it. Things like ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

  Or YOU’RE IT, LADY!

  Or I FORGIVE YOU, NORA.

  INT. CRUISE SHIP RESTAURANT -- DAY

  Three teenage girls--LEXI, NORA, and CHARLOTTE--are eating breakfast. Lexi wears sunglasses even though they’re inside. She’s buttering a bagel.

  NORA

  How are we going to get through the rest of the cruise?

  LEXI

  She’ll come around.

  I change into my swimsuit and cover-up in a bathroom stall on the Pisces Deck after we eat breakfast. It’s early enough that there still aren’t a lot of people by the pools. The sun’s fire still needs to be stoked.

  “Come on,” Michael says. “There’s like zero line.”

  “For what?” I say.

  “The tube thing,” he says.

  “Eh,” I say. “I’m not really in the mood.”

  “Well, there’s only one way to fix that,” he says. “You do it anyway.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good life strategy.” I give him a look. “And anyway, you can’t make me do it if I don’t want to.”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” he says.

  He peels off his shirt and walks off across the deck, and in my mind’s eye I see myself follow. I see myself stand and let my cover-up fall to the ground. I kick off my flip-flops and put my hair in a ponytail with the tie on my wrist and I call out, “Hey, wait for me.” I see him turn and smile. I see him hold a hand out. I see myself taking it.

  It could be so easy.

  EXT. CRUISE SHIP -- DAY

  A teenage boy--this is MICHAEL--is heading for the waterslide. A teenage girl--this is NATALIE--is watching him go. Looking at him with longing but also with hesitation. She looks up at the tube ride; the people riding it let out happy screams.

  NATALIE (calling out)

  Hey, wait for me.

  MICHAEL

  That’s more like it.

  He doesn’t hold a hand out for me, though. Instead, I take his. It feels almost too bold, so I let go.

  There are maybe ten people ahead of us. We wait on the stairs and move up slowly when the line shifts, all without talking. Then it’s our turn. We share a tube. Me in front; him behind. His feet tucked around me.

  “Well, this is awkward,” he says, and I laugh.

  Not as awkward as it should be.

  We’re on a conveyor belt that pulls us out of the loading pool, and the attendant says, “Arms crossed on your chest.”

  And we’re off.

  EXT. CRUISE SHIP -- DAY

  A teenage girl--this is NATALIE--and a boy, MICHAEL, are on a tube waterslide. We follow them down a chute, and they fly and scream and whoop. It’s a breakneck ride with white foam and sun and the tube is clear so colors whirl by as they pass the main deck, then they are plunged into relative darkness, and then back out into the blazing sun, where they come to a halt. The ride is over.

  MICHAEL

  Well …?

  NATALIE

  Let’s go again.

  We’re back at our chairs after a second run when I say, “You know what’s funny?”

  “You’re not that upset about your boyfriend and your friend?”

  “How’d you know?” I ask.

  He shrugs.

  The fact that he gets it makes me feel less awful about it. “I feel, I don’t know … released?”

  I have not, it turns out, already lost the greatest love of my life before age seventeen. What we had was special, sure, but there’s more coming.

  “Well, that’s good, right?” he says carefully.

  “It’s weird,” I say, wrapping a towel around my waist. “I mean, it was there. Right in front of me, but I didn’t see it. I think because this other thing happened that sort of strained things with Nora, I thought it was that making things weird and causing us to drift apart. But it wasn’t. Or it wasn’t just that.”

  “What was the other thing?”

  “This thing happened,” I say. “At a party at her house. With this guy. I never told her. I never told anybody. Instead … I don’t know. I sort of blamed her?”

  “Natalie.” He looks at me so seriously that it hurts. He lowers his voice and says, “Were you raped?”

  I shake my head. “No,” I say. “But I could’ve been if things had played out differently. Someone interrupted us. Him, I mean. I got off easy is how I’ve been thinking about it. But I realize now that’s a bad way to look at it.”

  “My sister,” he says, and I just wait. “I was always telling her to tell me if guys were bothering her, stuff like that, and she was always
saying, just stop, nobody’s bothering me. But I worried. I think I worried about her more than even my parents did, you know? I feel like they have these blinders on, like they don’t realize how bad it is out there.”

  “I think I had blinders on, too. Or maybe I put them on. After it happened. I just picked this other type of guy entirely, and that made me feel safe. But I was hiding, you know? Hiding in this sort of safe relationship because it was less scary than dealing with the unknown. Paul was a great guy, but I think we were both kind of bored together after a while.”

  “We’re not all assholes,” Michael says.

  “I know,” I say.

  “It probably doesn’t feel that way right now,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more up-front at the beginning. It’s just all so crazy. It’s this thing that happened to me in my life and I don’t even believe it. How could I expect you to?”

  Mr. Cassidy wouldn’t like what happens next at all. Or maybe he’d say, “It’s not the worst one I’ve ever seen.”

  BEGIN MONTAGE.

  One more trip down the tube ride, laughing. Climbing out at the end and sharing an intense look, his hand landing on her bare hip. A kiss is inevitable but not yet.

  Wrapped in a towel, NATALIE is at a soft-serve machine, filling a sugar cone with precision and care. When she’s done she turns--too quickly--and her cone rams right into MICHAEL’s bare chest. He winces in shock and they laugh. Natalie grabs napkins, starts to help clean him up. Their bodies are so close.

  Rock climbing. Natalie is climbing with Michael on belay. She races up the wall and rings the bell. Then she scales the wall back down and faces him, and they unhook from each other.

  Riding a carousel; her on a dolphin; him on a sea horse; reaching out hands to close the gap between them.

  At the front of the ship. Natalie doesn’t want to go too close. But Michael inches forward, arms spread out à la Titanic. His heart will go on. Natalie reaches for him, pulls him back from the railings. They are forehead to forehead, touching. He takes her hand, tips his head, they leave together.