The Opposite of Here

by Tara Altebrando

  I catch up to him at the entrance to the crowded Atrium. As I catch my breath, I try to find Ray in the crowd.

  “Are you okay?” Michael asks.

  I nod and continue to scan the crowd.

  “Do you see him?” Michael asks.

  “No,” I say. “Come on,” and we continue down the hall.

  We pass a small theater he may have ducked into. I step in and scan the crowd for movement. There’s a female comic on stage wearing a T-shirt that says .

  I dated this guy once who liked to have sex in hotels.

  Probably we’re not supposed to be here.

  But he was broke and couldn’t afford that, so he put two double beds in his bedroom at his apartment and hung some bad paintings on the walls.

  Chuckles.

  He’s not here.

  A bouncer type is heading our way.

  So I was fine with it, but then one night he hands me a bucket and asks me to go down the hall and get some ice.

  More chuckles.

  We need to leave, but now I want to hear the punch line.

  So I dumped him …

  “Can I see some ID?”

  … and when I left I stole some towels and shampoo.

  Back out in the corridor, there is no obvious choice for where to go. We end up in the Atrium. I scan the crowd, but he’s not there.

  Then I see the glass elevator spring into action and I see Ray in it, going up and up and looking down at me and his brother, and he gives me a tiny wave—a flick of the wrist, really—before I say, “Look. There.” I point. “He’s in the elevator.”

  Michael looks up just at the exact point where the glass elevator disappears into the belly of the ship.

  We’ve lost him.

  “Are you okay?” Michael asks, turning to me.

  “I heard everything,” I say. “I’m fine. I wasn’t hypnotized. I was pretending.”

  “Anyway, at least it was just party-trick nonsense,” he says. “I don’t think he’s actually out to harm anyone.”

  We head back down the long corridor.

  The room where the talent show had been is now empty; dimly lit. “Come in here,” he says.

  I say, “Why?”

  “Just bear with me,” he says, and he sits down at the piano and indicates the bench, so I sit next to him. He raises his hands so they hover above the keys, their bones somehow newly prominent, and he starts to play. It’s classical, lovely. I’ve never heard it before.

  After he finishes, I say, “You should have signed up.”

  “Not my kind of thing,” he says.

  And the silence of the room feels different. He’s shown me this secret part of him, trusted me with it.

  “What’s the piece?” I ask, and when he goes to answer, I say, “You know what? Never mind. I like not knowing.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. What if I went to listen to it and didn’t like it as much as I liked it just now?”

  I take his hand and lead him out of the room and head for his cabin. The bones in his hand feel warm and alive as we wind our way down corridors and under the anchor in the Atrium and up the elevators to his floor.

  A steward is in the hall by his stateroom and says, “Did you get a replacement card, sir?”

  Michael stops abruptly. “Excuse me?”

  “For your lost card, sir.”

  “I didn’t lose my card. It must have been my brother.” Michael goes to open his stateroom door.

  “You are Mister Ray, yes?”

  “No, I’m Michael.”

  “But … he said he was you, sir.” The steward looks nervous now. “I was working in your stateroom earlier. I let him in.”

  Nothing seems out of order. Michael tells the steward so and says not to worry.

  “What could he have wanted in here?” I ask when we’re alone.

  “I have no idea,” Michael says. “But he must have known I’d fall for his talent show trap, so he knew I wouldn’t be here.”

  We go inch by inch, looking for anything that might be some kind of clue to what he’s up to. I peek into the closet and see the safe. “Is there anything in the safe?”

  “My wallet and passport.” Michael comes over and punches in four numbers.

  His wallet is there but no passport; he takes the wallet out and looks through it. “He took my license, too.”

  “Why would he …?”

  “I have no photo ID. It means I can’t get off the ship in Key West.”

  His brother’s words from days ago pop up like a newly sprung buoy. “He said he had business to attend to in Key West.”

  “What?”

  “That first night. What does it mean?”

  “Well,” he says. “I don’t know. But remember I said he was really resistant to the cruise idea?”

  “Yes.”

  “My parents dragged their heels booking it because he was being difficult, but when they decided that they really wanted us to go somewhere, the itineraries for what was available changed. And he wasn’t that opposed anymore. The first cruise they were looking at didn’t go to Key West at all.”

  “What’s so special about Key West?”

  “I don’t know. But even if we figure it out it doesn’t matter if I can’t get off the boat,” he says. “I need to talk to my parents. Maybe they brought photocopies or something? I have no idea. I have to go to guest services, I guess.”

  “You really have no idea what he’s up to?” I say, feeling like he wants to be rid of me.

  “I really have no idea what he’s up to,” he says as he opens the door. “But I need to find my parents.”

  “You’ll let me know as soon as you find out anything?”

  “Of course.”

  “Hey,” I say, in the hall. “Our phones will work once we’re in port.”

  We exchange numbers, and that small thing feels at least a little bit normal.

  The girls are up; they’re waiting for me.

  Our four paintings are perched up against the wall on top of the long cabinet. It’s not hard to tell whose is whose. Like Shaun’s, Charlotte’s came out near perfect; an exact replica of the instructor’s. Lexi’s is more loosey-goosey—a good impression of someone who wants to stay in the lines but can’t. And Nora’s is somehow brighter, somehow sunnier. Mine is proficient but somehow muted.

  “Tell us everything,” Lexi says.

  “Promise me you won’t look at me like I’m crazy.”

  “Okay,” Lexi says. “Promise.”

  When I’m done telling them about Amelia and the other students who died, about the doctor, about Ray’s guilt and attempt to make his parents miserable, Charlotte says, “That is messed up.”

  “I think I remember hearing about that at school,” Nora says, with a strange tone. “I mean, someone said something? I don’t know.”

  “I had that feeling, too,” I say.

  Lexi says, “But hypnosis isn’t real.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “It didn’t work for me, but maybe it does for some people?”

  “He needs professional help,” Lexi says. “I mean, they both do. Ray and the doctor.”

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s true.”

  “So that’s it, then,” Lexi says. “You got your answers.”

  “Well …?” I say.

  “What?” she asks.

  “He told me he had business to attend to in Key West. And he stole Michael’s IDs, so now Michael can’t get off there.”

  “Why would he do that?” Charlotte asks with genuine curiosity.

  We get ready for bed; there’s a fluid rhythm to it by now; the Greek chorus perfectly in sync.

  In the dim light of the room I look at the people waving good-bye to the boat in the illustration on the wall. I close my eyes and try to picture them turning and being just normal happy people; I want very badly to create an antidote to my dream.

  But every time, no matter how hard I try to imagine a better scene, a better
dream, the black eyes are still there, and now they belong to skeletons.

  Natalie. Natalie.

  A hand on my shoulder.

  “We have to talk.”

  I must be dreaming but no. Awake.

  I look up at Nora, then at the clock: 3:07 a.m. I whisper, “What’s wrong?”

  “Follow me.” She puts my hoodie beside me and slips out onto the balcony. I peel out of bed, pull on my hoodie, and follow.

  She sits in one of the two chairs with her legs tucked up under her oversized sleep T-shirt. “I talked to him the other day on the island. Ray. On the island.”

  “You said you saw him, not that you talked to him.”

  “I didn’t want you to know. But I was curious about this guy you’re so crazy for, so I talked to him.”

  “About what?”

  “I asked him why he blew you off.”

  “Ugh. Why did you do that?”

  “I wanted to know what his deal was.”

  “What did he say? How did you know which one it even was?”

  “He told me which one. And he said he felt like he was going to tell you things he shouldn’t tell you if he saw you again, so he left.”

  “I don’t know what that means or how to feel about it.”

  “He said he thought he would get too close or something. And he didn’t want you to know what he was doing.”

  “What is he doing?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Did he make you do anything weird?”

  “No,” she says. “But he did this thing where he cupped his hand to his ear and he said, ‘Do you hear that?’ And I said, ‘Hear what?’ And he said, ‘The siren’s song.’ ”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I thought you might know,” she says. “That’s why I’m telling you.” Then she shivers. “The whole thing gave me the creeps.”

  “And why are you only telling me this now?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to tell you at all,” she says. “But not telling you stuff hasn’t exactly worked out great before. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “We should get back to bed,” I say, and she stands.

  “I’ll be right in,” I say.

  The sky is pocked with stars, each one a tiny burning wound.

  EXT. CRUISE SHIP BALCONY -- NIGHT

  A teenage girl--this is NATALIE--sits alone, staring at the night sky. Her hand goes to her necklace, like she just wants to be sure it’s still there.

  She stands and steps closer to the railing, cautiously looking over and down. Waves crash against the ship’s hull.

  She closes her eyes, like she is listening so very hard, and the sound of the waves gets louder and mixes with a piano song and when she opens her eyes, the piano fades and the waves soften and she turns and goes inside.

  Pisces Day 7!

  Port of Call: Key West, Florida

  7:00 a.m. — Wake-Up Jazzercise

  11:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. — Mahjong in the Saturn Room

  1:00 p.m. — Matinee movie DOUBLE FEATURE: The Spanish Prisoner (shot on Key West!) and Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls

  3:00–5:00 p.m. — Live music in the Atrium—family friendly!—Judy and the Blooms play kids’ classics!

  6:00–8:00 p.m. — Pop-Up Key Lime Pie station—Boardwalk

  7:00 p.m. — Supernova Foosball tournament

  8:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. — Magic of the Movies cabaret—The Starlite Theater

  I text him but he doesn’t text back.

  I call but he doesn’t pick up.

  Then my parents are there and we’re all getting off the boat and I’m in a van on my way to Hemingway’s house before I can figure out a way to do anything else.

  The day feels like a ticking time bomb, like a countdown to disaster.

  I listen hard, for some siren’s song, but I don’t hear a thing.

  Hemingway’s house is verandas and wooden shutters. Palm trees and flowering bushes. Grand staircases and high windows.

  “I’d rather be at Judy Blume’s house,” Lexi says as we begin our tour.

  “What?” I laugh.

  “She lives down here, too. And I mean, just in terms of influence on my life, I’m pretty sure Judy has Ernest beat.”

  The same may be true for me but still, I like it here.

  When we read The Great Gatsby last year I felt like maybe I’d been born during the wrong era. Or maybe just born without the right amount of money. I dressed up as a flapper that Halloween—straight black dress and long white pearls, hair in sculpted waves finished with a bedazzled headband, the kind that runs across your forehead—and everyone said it suited me.

  The tour guide is droning on. The takeaways are that Hemingway was a manly man and had many wives and mistresses and tragedies and loved fishing and Cuba and adventure. I perk up when he mentions that Hitchcock asked Hemingway to write the screenplay for Lifeboat. I spot, inside a glass case next to me, a copy of the 1943 telegram that Hemingway sent in reply to the offer, politely declining to take the job.

  I take a picture of it for Mr. Cassidy.

  Charlotte and I end up sitting by Hemingway’s pool alone when the tour winds down. A few of the house’s famous cats are skulking around and could not be less interested in us.

  “I can’t imagine turning down working with Hitchcock,” I say.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Didn’t it come out recently that he was accused of being a sexual predator?”

  “Really?”

  “I think so,” she says, and she gets her phone out. “The actress from The Birds?”

  She goes to look it up, but I’m just happy watching the cats.

  There’s a screenwriting book Mr. Cassidy refers to sometimes called Save the Cat. The title comes from the idea that when you introduce the hero of a story, he (or she) should do something nice, like save a cat that is about to meet its demise, so that the audience likes him or her. We talked through some examples once, but at the end of the discussion it still felt to me like a sort of dumb device that audiences would see right through.

  “Yeah, Tippi Hedren says he ruined her career,” Charlotte says.

  I say, “That sucks,” and I wonder whether Mr. Cassidy knows about that and cares.

  She says, “Did you know Hitchcock made a movie called Lifeboat about a group of people stuck on a boat together?”

  “In fact I did,” I say. “Just like us!”

  One of the garden cats finds a spot of interest on the ground and starts digging at it with its front paws, frantically.

  “What do you think that’s about?” I say.

  “Dead body,” Charlotte deadpans, as the cat stops, stretches, moves on. “Has to be.”

  We head for a bar that the tour guide said Hemingway used to frequent, which seems sort of silly since we can’t drink, but my parents are determined so we tag along.

  At the bar we order Cokes, and then we find a high table near the windows looking out on the street.

  My phone rings. I pick up.

  “Finally,” I say.

  “Hey,” he says. “So they won’t let me off the boat. Promise me you won’t try to find him.”

  I say, “Does the phrase ‘siren’s song’ mean anything to you?”

  “No, why?” His voice sounds small.

  Through the window, I see the man with the Mets cap—the one who I guess accused Michael of stealing his wallet.

  “Never mind,” I say, “I have to go.”

  “Natalie, promise me you won’t—”

  I walk out to the sidewalk but somewhere between the table and here I’ve lost him and I’m not sure I would have had the nerve to ask him about Ray, whether it’s possible he was also hypnotized.

  Charlotte has followed me out and says, “Who are you talking to?”

  “Michael. He says they won’t let him off the boat,” I say to her.

  She scrunches up her face. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask
.

  “You don’t need ID to get off the boat. Just a key card, which they replace if you lose it. So he could just walk off. He might not be able to get back on, but that’s different.”

  “So he’s lying to me?” I say.

  “Why would he do that?” she says.

  “He’s already figured it out,” I say.

  “Figured what out?” she says, shaking her head.

  “Ray said he had business in Key West. He’s got something planned.”

  Nate and Ben and Leo appear out of the crowded street. We tell them about the Hemingway tour and they tell us about their trolley ride and then Ben turns to me and says, “I figured out what we missed in the escape room.”

  “Yeah? What?” I honestly haven’t given it another thought.

  “We got too focused on greed,” he says. “Or I did anyway. The killer wasn’t there to steal the money. It was a payment for the killer. He’d been hired to kill Ava. We would have figured it out if we turned the lights off and turned the flashlights on. There was a note written in black-light ink on the front desk with instructions for the killer, who was the owner, by the way. He’d been hired by the ex-husband because Ava had cheated on him. So it was a different popular motive for murder … Not greed but …”

  I watch Ben’s mouth about to form the word. Life grinds to slow motion as the reel starts to melt: “Revenge.”

  My phone feels weird in my hands, as the boys continue on their way. A trolley rolls past, leaving the muffled voice of a tour guide talking through a megaphone in its wake.

  “I missed something,” I say.

  “You’re not making sense,” Charlotte says.

  I say, “Nora said she talked to Ray and he asked her if she heard the siren’s song.”

  I open Safari. I put in the twins’ names and Amelia’s name, and this time I add Key West.

  The results are different from last time by a bit, with the listing about a B and B that seemed out of place last time now popping up in the first slot.

  Cozy B and B offers luxury accommodations in historic district …

  I click the link and end up on the B and B’s site.

  The Siren and Crocodile Inn is a charming old Key West building that has been updated with all modern amenities in a stylish fashion …