Vicarious

by Paula Stokes

  Sam starts to explain the bigger pieces of scuba equipment and I ask if there’s any way for me to get decent recordings without going through the whole multiday scuba training first. Sam and Eli offer to teach me to SNUBA, which is like a cross between snorkeling and scuba diving but takes only a couple of hours to learn.

  Jesse already has his diving certification, so he observes as I go through all of the basic SNUBA training in a pool. The regulator is similar to a scuba-diving apparatus, but instead of breathing air from a tank on my back, I breathe it through a hose that links to a tank in a raft on the surface of the water. I can’t go as deep as a diver, but I can go deep enough that Gideon will never know the difference.

  After I’m finished, we gear up and board Sam and Eli’s boat. Jesse stands next to me at the railing, the wind whipping our hair back from our faces. Above our heads, the sky is a mass of thick storm clouds, its deep gray color disturbed only by the flight of an occasional seagull.

  “Sunny Florida,” I grumble.

  “At least it’s not snowing.” He rests a hand on my lower back.

  We’re heading for a spot only a few hundred yards offshore that Sam and Eli claim is a good place to find hammerhead sharks. The graceful creatures often travel in large groups that will look impressive on a ViSE but according to Eli are generally not dangerous.

  Generally not? As I stand at the edge of the boat, I feel like I’m swallowing my own heart. The water is clear enough that I can see the sharks waiting for me. Lured by a mix of chum, the hammerheads have come right up to the side of the boat. They’re only about six to eight feet long, but there’s something so lethal about the sinuous way they cut through the water, their T-shaped heads tracking the movement around them.

  Jesse falls gracefully backward off the edge of the boat in full scuba gear and then accepts a metallic prod from Eli. His main job is going to be to protect me, should I need it, but he’s also recording a ViSE.

  Not wanting to be outdone, I make a big show of sliding backward into the ocean and then doing a quick check of the SNUBA gear. I’m ready … except for the sharks.

  Luckily, they’ve backed away from the boat because of the splashing we made entering the water. I sink slowly beneath the surface, focusing on the lightness of my body. At first it’s just me, Jesse, and the clear turquoise ocean. Then a flash of silver—a bright school of fish. Curious. Hungry. Their mouths snap up bits of chum residue. I forget to breathe and the pressure builds up around my head. As I exhale slowly through my mouth, the hammerheads begin to return. One of them swims close enough to bump me, but he’s not interested in trying to eat something that’s almost as large as he is. Still, his sleek body hits me with a surprising amount of force.

  Jesse pokes at the shark with his prod and it swims off. My fear starts to wane. The shark seemed more curious than menacing. I drift deeper in the water, exploring the far reaches of my breathing tether. Below me the ocean fades into blackness.

  I explore the various angles the buoyancy of the water affords my body. I float, swim, sink, circle. The sharks grow used to my presence and accept me as part of the ocean. I chase after a bright red-and-blue fish and have a couple close encounters with an impressive tuna who comes to investigate us.

  Off in the distance a dark shape rockets past like a torpedo—a bigger shark, a tiger or maybe a bull shark. Both species have been known to attack humans. My heart punches against my breastbone. Embracing my fear, for the sake of the ViSE, I stay submerged for another minute, scanning the water methodically for the bigger shark. Then I slowly float to the surface and signal that I’m ready to reboard the boat.

  Jesse rises alongside me. He hauls himself up the boat’s ladder and then helps me back onto the deck. Water streams from his wet hair. “What did you think?”

  “It was amazing,” I say. “Did you see the bigger shark go by?”

  “What?” He points at his ear. He must have taken his hearing aid out to dive. “Sorry. I’m half-deaf today.”

  I decide there’s no point in worrying him now that I’m safely back on board. “I said it was amazing!” A smile spreads across my face.

  He wraps me in a wet hug, lifting me off the deck for a moment. “You did great. I knew you would rock.”

  I cling to him for a couple of extra seconds, thinking about how the worst is yet to come. Our next dive is farther offshore, where we’re going to actually seek out bigger sharks. But Jesse’s right. I can survive this. He brushes his lips against my forehead when I finally pull back, and I hang on to him long enough to go in for a kiss on the cheek. He’s not expecting it so he turns at the last second and I end up getting a mouthful of beard stubble.

  Looking down at me, he says, “Let’s try that again.” He turns his head so that his cheek is facing me, but when I lean in to kiss him, he turns back so our lips touch. Quick. Painless. So fast I might have imagined it. But then he presses me against the boat’s railing. One hand cradles my face while the other caresses the back of my neck.

  “Jess—” I start to say. But his lips swallow up my words, and this kiss is not quick. Jesse’s mouth is warm, wanting. I wrap my arms around his neck and feel our bodies fold against each other as I lean into the embrace. His tongue tastes my bottom lip and my knees start to buckle. He reaches out to steady me.

  And then a seagull caws, reminding us of where we are. Jesse releases his grip on me. He glances toward the boat’s cabin, where Sam is studying the controls and Eli is looking off into the distance. “Sorry. I guess we shouldn’t do this at work.”

  He looks anything but sorry.

  I flash him a shaky smile and turn away into the wind. My insides are spinning and twisting like runaway carnival rides, but once again, guilt brings them to a screeching halt. I shouldn’t be feeling this way when my sister is dead.

  * * *

  After we eat a light lunch, Sam and Eli take the boat farther out from the shore, trailing turtle decoys and looking for tiger sharks as they head toward the Gulf of Mexico. People have swum with tiger sharks outside of a cage, but neither Jesse nor I have any wish to die today, so we will be recording our ViSEs from behind bars.

  There’s a reef area a few miles offshore that draws lots of diverse wildlife. As we approach them, I see a fin slicing across the water’s surface. Once again my heart lodges neatly in my throat. Unlike the smaller hammerheads, these sharks can weigh more than a car and have been known to attack everything in their paths.

  Jesse wraps an arm around my shoulder as I stand at the boat’s railing staring out at the ocean. “I’ll be right there with you,” he reminds me.

  “I know. I’m fine.”

  Sam and Eli drop a cage and secure the SNUBA set-up to the top of it. Then Jesse and I enter the cage together. The water is cooler out here, the wind nipping at the exposed skin on my face as I sink beneath the surface. When I open my eyes, I see that a pair of tiger sharks have come to investigate the cage. Their monstrous bodies, the length of Cadillacs, cut through the water like huge circling torpedoes. I won’t need to do any neural amplifying. The rows of serrated teeth, the dead black eyes—there is nothing scarier than a giant shark.

  On cue, the larger of the two sharks rockets up toward the surface. Sand swirls in the turbulent water. When it clears, tendrils of red curl before me. Looking up I see the blood spreading out on the surface. Pieces of … something fall through the cage bars. A turtle maybe, or a big fish.

  A third shark appears, a mako, smaller but no less deadly. A few brave fish venture close to nibble on the leftover scraps of food. The largest shark swims by, dragging a fin against the cage. The bars rattle sharply. The sharks disappear as quickly as they arrived, and for a few moments Jesse and I float in the water alone.

  Or are we?

  Shadows fade in and out in the distance. Slow. Fast. Waves? Sharks? I can’t tell. I glance over at Jesse. He’s spinning lazy circles in the water around me, seemingly unconcerned by the sharks’ behavior.

  We floa
t upward, away from the bottom of the cage. The metal groans under the weight of the water. The smaller tiger shark is back. I can tell them all apart. The bigger tiger is a monster, fifteen feet long at least. It’s the stuff of nightmares and horror movies. The other one is maybe ten feet and has a fin that flops to the side as it swims. And then there’s the mako, its giant black eyes receding into its head as it slices through the water. Floppy Fin races directly at the cage but then swerves away from the collision at the last moment.

  I feel like food. Like a mouse dropped into a snake’s enclosure. My heart rattles in my chest. I’m fairly certain I’m sweating inside of my wet suit. Can the sharks sense my fear? I want to close my eyes, but I don’t. That would cheat the visers out of one of my senses.

  I kick my fins up and down to hover in the center of the cage, being careful to keep all of my extremities away from the bars. The tigers swim in patterns. They circle around. They circle below. I wonder if this is what it’s like for their prey, if they toy with it for a while before striking the killing blow. Slowly I exhale and then take in another breath of air.

  And then the cage ricochets against the side of the boat with a deafening clang and hard metal slams into me. One of the sharks must have rammed us.

  The world goes dark for a second as I instinctively close my eyes. When I open them, Jesse signals me to surface. About time. I kick my feet and reach skyward, but I don’t go anywhere. My diving boot is caught on the cage.

  I tug hard. Still stuck. I imagine the shark returning for another hit.

  Its teeth closing around my ankle.

  Bones snapping like raw spaghetti.

  Bending down, I fumble with one hand, trying to free the loop of neoprene that has snagged itself on the bar. The mako swims by, leaving behind a wake that pushes my body away from the side of the cage. I flail in the water, yanking with all of my strength. And then I see the monster tiger shark glide past, its mouth wide enough to swallow me whole, its jagged teeth eager to tear me to pieces.

  It fades into the distance.

  Reappears.

  Circles out away from me.

  Dives low.

  It rushes the cage, all dead eyes and sharp teeth.

  I open my mouth to scream as the shark slams into the bars.

  And my foot.

  But there’s no piercing pain, no curls of blood in the water. Struggling to remain calm, I try once more to free myself, this time by removing my fin and the boot that is snagged. But the boot has no zipper and the stretchiness of the material makes it cling to my ankle. Pressure builds up in my face and head again.

  Frantic, I wave my arms, hoping Sam or Eli can see me from above the water. Where is Jesse? Why did he surface without me? Why hasn’t he seen that I’m trapped? A cluster of bubbles escape my lips. My head feels like someone is crushing it in a trash compactor. I can’t remember what to do to make the pain go away. The water fades from blue to black as I start to pass out. The last thing I see is a blur of gray as big as a bus, a set of knifelike fins heading for the cage again.

  CHAPTER 30

  I wake up on the beach, lying on my side. The memory of the sharks rushes back, assaulting me like snapping teeth. Biting back a scream, I test my limbs, one at a time. Left hand. Right hand. Left foot. Right foot. Everything seems to be attached. I exhale, slow and shaky, as I look up at the sky.

  The night sky.

  I blink rapidly, but the stars are still there. How is that possible? We did the second dive right after lunch. I sit up, glancing around me for my phone. The beach is dotted with bursts of activity—a couple walking along the water, the flickering light of a bonfire just down the way. Above my head, palm trees sway in a gentle breeze, their thick waxy leaves blotting out part of the moon. A chill runs up my spine as I realize I’m wearing the warm-up pants and hooded sweatshirt I wore over my swimsuit, but I don’t remember putting them back on.

  “Winter?” Jesse is staring at me like he’s not quite sure I’m real.

  “What happened? What time is it?” I grab the gear bag between us and work the buckle with trembling fingers.

  “The sharks decided to try to eat the cage,” Jesse says. “Your boot was stuck. Don’t you remember?”

  “Yes. Sharks. Teeth. What happened after that?”

  “You cut yourself loose and I fished you out of the water. Sam and Eli were a little freaked out. They made me promise not to sue.”

  I remember the crushing feeling in my head as I struggled to escape. I got so scared I forgot to breathe. “I cut myself loose? But I passed out. Did I almost drown?” My voice is shrill with panic.

  Jesse furrows his brow. “You never passed out, did you? I surfaced and expected you to follow. When you didn’t, I thought you were being a hotshot and staying to get the perfect footage for the ViSE. A couple of minutes passed but I didn’t see a lot of bubbles from your breathing. Then I noticed the line being jerked from below. I got worried, so I went down to get you and saw you trying to take off your boot.”

  My hands finally manage to loosen the plastic buckle on the gear bag and I begin to unroll the waterproof Velcro seal. A small group of boys pass by us, chattering and laughing. “But I remember passing out.” I shudder.

  “Maybe just for a few seconds,” Jesse says. “But you were conscious when I pulled you out of the water. And also for the ride back to the pier. I thought maybe you were in shock, but then you seemed to snap out of it. When we docked, you said you wanted to rest on the beach. I was going to take you to the hospital if you didn’t wake up soon.”

  Jesse’s memory makes sense, but it’s completely foreign to me. “Did I hit my head or something?” I do a cursory check of my skull, looking for sore spots. Sand rains down from my hair.

  Jesse looks concerned. “Not that I know of. I suppose you could have hit it on the cage bars.”

  I finally fish my phone out of the bag and see it’s almost seven o’clock. “I’ve been lying on this beach for four hours?”

  “Yeah. Diving tends to take a lot out of someone. Especially your first trip…”

  Another chill ripples through me and I’m not sure if it’s from the lost time or ocean breeze. “The last thing I remember is the biggest shark hitting the cage. Maybe if I play the ViSE I’ll be able to put everything back together.”

  “You can try,” Jesse says. “But you took your headset off once we got you out of the water.”

  “Let me see what’s recorded.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that right now?” he asks. “Maybe we should get some food first. Go back to the hotel where we can relax.”

  “It won’t take that long.” I’m not going to be able to relax until I know what happened. I slip on my headset and play the ViSE from the beginning. At the part where I expect to lose consciousness, pressure builds up inside my head. And then:

  Around me, the water is churning. A dark shape circles. My throat goes tight. Then suddenly, violently, the shark slams into the cage. I try to inhale, but I can’t. It’s like my lungs are closing up inside me. I tug at my boot again. It’s stuck. Everything goes dark for a second. And then I reach down and manage to free my knife from where it’s strapped to my leg. Quickly, I cut away the neoprene material and swim toward the surface.

  Jesse appears in front of me. One arm encircles me from waist to shoulder in a rescue hold. Together we rise. Eli hauls me out of the ocean and I scramble over the edge of the boat and end up on the hard deck looking up at the sky. The brothers begin to argue. Jesse looks down at me, water dripping from the ends of his brown hair.

  “Winter Kim, you have got to stop scaring the shit out of me,” he says.

  I cough but don’t speak. With one hand I reach up to remove my headset.

  The ViSE goes dark, a slight shock moving through me.

  “I don’t remember anything after my boot got stuck,” I say.

  “Haven’t you repressed bad memories before?” Jesse asks gently. “I’m sure you were really scared.
Maybe this is just one of those times.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “I did that back in L.A. But I was hoping those times were over.”

  * * *

  We take a taxi from the beach back to the hotel. I recline my seat and try to get comfortable as our driver dodges in and out of the South Florida traffic. Grabbing my phone, I get online and attempt to book us the next flight home. No seats are available tonight so I make us a reservation for tomorrow. By the time we make it back to the hotel, my head has cleared and I feel mostly recovered from my ordeal.

  “What do you want to do for food?” Jesse asks.

  We pass the check-in desk and turn the corner toward the stairwell. “I’m not sure my stomach is settled enough to eat anything,” I say. “Maybe some room service later.”

  “That’ll work.”

  Jesse glances back at me over his shoulder as we head for our room on the second floor. “We can watch bad TV together. Maybe Jaws is on.”

  “Not funny,” I say, but I like the idea of relaxing for once.

  But then he slides his key into the slot and pushes open our door, and the evening’s plans rapidly change.

  Someone has ransacked our hotel room.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jesse says.

  The sheets from both beds are balled up on the floor and the mattresses hang askew from the box springs. Our duffel bags have been emptied onto the floor. Even the Bible has been pulled from the top drawer of the nightstand. I scan the wrinkled linens and the pile of clothes strewn around my bag. It doesn’t take long to figure out what the thief was after.

  Rose’s music box lies open on the carpet. It’s empty.

  The ViSEs are missing.

  CHAPTER 31

  “Damn it.” I retrieve the empty music box and set it on the nightstand. “I never should have let those out of my sight.”

  Jesse pounds one fist lightly against the wall of the hotel room. “I can’t even believe this.”

  “What are we going to do? Clearly there’s something crucial on one of those.” Desperation creeps into my voice.