An Unparalleled Vision

            by Rebecca Creger

 

            Cadence Wilson was floating upright, in an amoeba-like cluster of people. The group was drifting lightly on the waves over what was supposed to be some first-rate snorkeling. Their tiny snorkeling boat bobbed up and down a few feet away, anchored to the spot. The shore was just visible beyond a ragged line of rocks. Clear skies and miles of ocean stretched endlessly. The crystal water carried the group over wave after wave, up and down, in a comfortable rhythm. Cadence was barely fifteen and short, with a clear face and arrogant, cherubic features.

            About an hour ago, she had been forced by her parents to join the group of three annoying little kids, one slightly obese woman and her nearly identical but slightly smaller husband, on a tiny aluminum boat on their first snorkeling adventure. They were traveling with an agency and because it was part of the itinerary, her parents were determined to make Cadence get their money’s worth for visiting a foreign country.

            Her parents, she imagined, were on the beach tanning their pale bodies in the tropical sun. They were probably complaining about what a spoiled kid she was for not wanting to be dragged along on a group trip that seemed to strictly recruit a crowd made up of screaming kids, the miserable middle-aged, the elderly, and the very unattractive.

            “I know you folks are all super advanced swimmers,” chuckled the guide, gesturing wildly as he treaded water, “and you totally rocked back on those baby reefs, but we’re going deeper now and you still gotta remember because it’s super important: Be aware of your surroundings, don’t touch marine life, and above all, use the buddy system and stick to your buddy. I don’t want to have to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on anyone today!”

            Ew. Cadence grimaced at the thought.  Pale and anemic looking, with a lanky, Gollum-esque physique, and tiny squinty eyes, he hardly excited any of her adolescent fantasies.

            Cadence ignored the rambling instructor and she wished she were back on the beach. She had only eaten half a mango and a very teeny tiny sip of a milkshake that day and felt very proud of herself. She definitely deserved some time of her own for her self-restraint, and the fact that she’d been deprived of the company of people her age for almost a week.

            She could have gone back to their hotel room and complained over the phone to her friends about how lame this trip was, or put her towel somewhere on the sand where she would have a decent view of the lifeguard’s tower. The tan and positively godly lifeguard Jose was always stationed there, scanning the horizon, the sun gleaming on his powerful shoulders and curly brown hair.  She also could have hung out with Aurelia, a girl she had struck up a conversation with at the hotel pool after she had had an argument with her parents on the phone about how she deserved more funds to buy a pair of designer sunglasses. Aurelia wasn’t on a stupid group vacation; she came here every summer to visit family and friends. She had also invited Cadence to her fifteenth birthday party on her enormous blue yacht, the S.S. Serranave, that night.

            The guide continued his sermon, “Remember, there are at least 253 different varieties of fish in these crystal-clear waters--you don’t want to miss anything, arrr!” he tried to imitate pirate speech, his mouth stretched wide in a toothy grin.

            Cadence glanced around at the group, treading water. The large woman in her life jacket looked like a huge buoy, bobbing there stupidly, and already seemed a little exhausted from the first fifteen minutes on the shallow reef. Her husband looked bored and a little worried, probably about the possibility that a shark would find his wife’s hefty figure very appealing. The kids were a little fidgety and some were already dipping their snorkeling masks into the water, peeking at the landscape beneath them.

            “Hey--Gus, did you hear that?” The guide said, tapping her assigned “buddy” on the back as he floated on his stomach, mask in the water.

            Gus resurfaced, wiping his mouth as he removed his mouthpiece to talk. “Oh, sorry, use the buddy system, right?”

       “Absolutely! Great job Gus. Now, we do this fast and clean people!”

            There was no response, but the guide shouted in an incredibly bad GI Joe imitation, “Lock and load!”

            What a freak, Cadence thought as she pulled the strap over her head, slipped in the mouthpiece and dunked her face in the waves. Her assigned “buddy,” Gus, wasn’t a great swimmer; she could see him trying to keep up with her, but she ignored him and kicked out slightly ahead of him, floating on the surface. The waves rocked her from side to side, lapping gently against the sides of her head. She blocked the mouthpiece with her tongue so water couldn’t get into her mouth and dove straight down towards the reef.

            The water closed over her. She was completely immersed, and the silence of the reef pressed in on her from all sides. It was much nicer down here, not having to hear that guide’s voice and she could almost forget the general unsatisfactory nature of the trip. The water around her didn’t feel like water, but like a cool breeze. She was flying, over multicolored coral forests and cliffs, fish flashing past her like rainbow darts. Her auburn hair billowed beautifully in clouds around her, and the weightlessness filled her with a sort of euphoria. She remembered that her parents had said that she could go to Aurelia’s birthday party after the snorkeling trip. 

                        She kicked up towards the surface, rising towards light and air, until her head broke the surface. She blew the water out of her snorkel, paddled over to the ladder on the side of their boat and climbed up. She took off her snorkeling gear and spat over the side a couple times because her mouth was a little dry and pasty from the salt.  The rest of the group was still in the water. Cadence watched the fat couple floating there for a second, and that knowing anxiety about missing Aurelia’s party returned in full force. She fumed, thinking about how Aurelia had told her that if she wanted to come to her birthday party, she had to show up at Pier 13 at four o’clock to be picked up. It was an hour trip by yacht to some private cove down the coast where they would be anchored for the evening and it looked like she wasn’t going to make it. Cadence tried not to think about the birthday party she would miss, sitting on the wet bench, and instead focused on her last conversation with her best friend Lana before she had left for her family vacation.

           

            “Kyle likes you, you know,” Lana said, sniggering, as they wandered aimlessly around the drug store. “He was so drooling over you at P.E. I think he’s going to ask you out this summer.” Cadence felt like gagging. “Ew, not pizza face! What a freak.”

            “Oh come on,” Lana giggled coaxingly. “He’s actually really nice and funny. God knows what he sees in you.”

            “Shut up!” Cadence hissed. She held up two identical nail polish bottles to Lana. “Do you think I need pink nail polish?”

            “No, seeing as you already have like, a hundred of them.” Lana grinned at her. Cadence shrugged and let the one with the torn-off label fall into her sleeve and put the other one back on the shelf. The nail polish in her sleeve slid down and clinked quietly against a tiny box of breath-mints and an eyeliner pencil.

            After they left, Lana pulled out a pack of candy from her sleeve and started munching on it, mumbling, “That’s a real bitch that your parents wouldn’t let you go to Rio with me. And they wouldn’t get you those jeans either.”

            Cadence sighed, shrugging “I know, they’re pretty much depriving me of everything a normal person should have.” When Cadence’s mother’s enormous car picked her up she got in, rolled down the window and screeched at Lana,

            “LOVE YOU!”

            Lana waved, braces flashing in the sun  

           

            Cadence was shaken out of her reverie when the boat suddenly rocked from side to side as the guide appeared at the top of the ladder. He took off his snorkeling mask.

            “Cadence, you’re missing out, we just saw a wicked sting-ray!” He grinned at her. Cadence said nothing, though her mouth curled into a sneer. The guide continued,

            “But seriously, you should tell me if you’re going to just L. What about your buddy Gus? We absolutely can’t forget the buddy system now.” Cadence blew a huffy breath out of the side of her mouth.

            “I think I’m just going to stay up here,” she said, quite rudely. The guide’s smile faltered a little.

            “Um…okay—I’ll be back up in a minute. Are you sure you want to miss out on an awesome snorkeling experience?” He asked, with a stab as his usual gusto.

            “Absolutely!” Cadence said, mocking the guide’s over-enthusiastic tone, and not bothering to hide the glare of disgust she had reserved especially for him since she laid eyes on him.

            The guide stuttered a little, “Well…um...it’s 3:30 now, we’ll, uh--go back soon…” He lowered himself awkwardly into the water, splashing towards the group. There was a yacht in the distance, and it reminded Cadence of how pissed she was to be stuck there. Screw him and his stupid buddy system, Cadence thought. It’s fucking 3:30. And I’m missing Aureila’s birthday party for this. She thought angrily about her parents, and how they seemed determined to take out any fun from this trip.

 

            “Cadence, when you’re in another country you have to take advantage of being in a different culture!” Her father had mumbled through a mouthful of his hamburger.

             “Stop moping around the pool and watching TV, you’re on vacation!” He looked at her meaningfully, sesame seeds scattered in his beard.  “It’s not about living a life of luxury either, these spoiled kids who live at the hotel aren’t normal. It’s not like everyone’s entitled to that.”

            He pulled up the hem of his flowered button-down to scratch his pale beer-belly. They were eating breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Her mother turned around from snapping photos of the dirty beach beside the hotel, making the wicker deck chair creak.

            “Look at those vendors down there. I’m sick of every man woman and child trying to sell me something,” she complained, adjusting her visor on her bleached blonde head. “They could just have some common decency, and leave us alone. Cadence, I hope you realize you have to be down at the beach in ten minutes!”

 

            Cadence shivered a little as the wind blew against with her damp wetsuit. She was sick of snorkeling. She would have swum back to shore herself if that wasn’t a totally stupid thing to do. The yacht in the distance was closer now, so close, that she could read the name painted on the side: S.S. Serranave.

            Her heart leaped. It was Aurelia’s huge blue yacht, heading towards the shore to pick up other partygoers and she was going to miss it. The yacht was close and moving pretty slowly, so she could see the lower open deck on the back from here, which was full of people. Even at its speed, it sent considerable waves her way, so that the tiny boat rocked on the heaving waves.

            When Aurelia had pointed out her yacht on the horizon, it hadn’t seemed so remarkable, but as it sailed closer, Cadence realized just how enormous it was. It seemed like a floating palace, closer in resemblance to sleek and pointed cruise ship, and seemed to have at least five floors.

            Then she saw Aurelia. A girl standing on the open deck at the stern turned around and Cadence recognized Aurelia and her long mane of blonde hair. A feeling of desperation and panic flooded Cadence. She snatched up an orange life jacket and started waving it furiously over her head at Aurelia, shouting across the water.

            Aurelia looked up. She saw Cadence, and a huge grin of recognition spread across her face. She started waving madly back at her. The yacht was about fifty feet away, and Cadence could see her speaking to a tall guy next to her. He nodded and started running down the side of the yacht and up some stairs, to a room at the top. A few seconds later Cadence heard the churning engine noises of the yacht cease and waves stopped rippling out from behind it.

            Cadence glanced at her snorkeling group. They were still immersed and the guide had just dived into the water after the kids. The yacht was nearly stationary, and a little closer now. Cadence could hear Aurelia yelling, and caught words like “come” and “party.” Cadence looked once more at the group, and without much encouragement, threw herself into the water.

           

            The waves were rougher now, and she was dipping and climbing up and down heaving valleys of water shifting around her. The wind was picking up. Some of her hair got into her mouth and she spat it out, spluttering. There was a ladder leading up to the deck that was just above the water and she knew she could climb on. Aurelia was crouching over the edge, calling,

            “You can make it Cadence! You’re almost here!”

            A minute later two strong lifeguard types had helped Cadence out of the water. Aurelia squealed and clapped her hands in delight as Cadence emerged, dripping and shivering, over the side. She was standing on a huge, warm, wooden deck with a railing around it.  There was a huge, hexagonal hot tub on the left and several deck chairs under umbrellas and a mini-bar on the right.

            “Oh god I love you, you crazy girl!” Aurelia shouted, and hugged Cadence, her blonde ponytail swinging madly. “But seriously, we need to get you into something better than that hideous wetsuit.”

            Cadence felt her face heat up at these words and she felt embarrassed in front of Aurelia’s friends and Aurelia, whose bikini seemed to worship her willowy, bronzed frame, which had an antelope-like sort of grace and litheness. Aurelia continued, “But I have a Missoni upstairs that was made for you.” Cadence’s heart almost stopped for a second.

             “Are you serious?” Cadence breathed, as Aurelia wrapped a soft towel around her and started steering her away across the back deck.

            “Of course silly,” Aurelia said, “you can have it if you want; I think you deserve it anyways, for having the guts to ditch that snorkeling group!”

             “I’m going to be in so much trouble, but what the hell. Thanks for letting me hitchhike,” Cadence said, as she felt a happy, wriggly sort of sensation in her stomach. She thought she might actually float a few inches off the ground. She was exhausted from the swim, but felt a certain euphoria and light-headedness at her daring and laughed as Aurelia’s two friends patted her on the back and cheered at her for making it to the boat. A few more boys and girls came around the corner of the deck, watching the scene curiously. They were all as beautiful, if not more so, than the two guys that had pulled Cadence out of the water.

            Aurelia and Cadence went across the deck and up some wooden stairs to a long deck with doors on one side and railing on the other. The narrow deck wrapped around that entire floor of the vessel and each door in the wall had a boy’s or a girl’s name on it.

                        Aurelia’s cabin was the third door down the hall. It was spacious enough, but there wasn’t much floor space because a big round bed, two mini-fridges, several overflowing chest of drawers, a large dresser with a light-bulb mirror above it, and a massive TV and sound system were crammed into the room. The floor wasn’t even visible because of all the clothes and shoes  strewn across it. It was almost completely dark in the cave-like cabin until Aurelia turned the light on because there was only one small port window, set high in the wall.

            “Sorry about the mess,” Aurelia said casually, “I kind of have a shoe, clothing and lingerie fetish. But you should see Evandro’s room, he’s seriously into rare fish, and has a lionfish fetish.” Aurelia fished around in her overflowing drawers, extracted a tiny white bikini and made Cadence change into it.

            “Don’t you let me catch you in that thing again, “ She said warningly to Cadence, picking up the wet and tangled wetsuit as if it had fallen in a puddle of mud. She threw it unceremoniously into the laundry chute in the wall. “You won’t be needing that here.” Cadence was too stunned to protest, and became distracted as Aurelia started blow-drying her hair. She even brushed some make up on her.

            “Don’t worry about that lame snorkeling group, I told my Dad to call that boat and the hotel and leave a message about where you went,” Aurelia told her.

            As they walked back to the lower deck Cadence could hardly believe that this wasn’t a dream.  Aurelia had given her a Chopard necklace and applied liberal amounts of La Mer to her face and it felt like something out of someone’s else’s life.  But somehow, this environment felt natural for her and Cadence accepted it and embraced the novelty without much of a struggle.

            From the second floor railing Cadence could see that more breath-taking girls and boys had converged on the wide deck.

            “Aurelia,” she breathed, restraining herself from squealing with excitement, “how is every one of your friends so ridiculously gorgeous?” Aurelia smirked, giving Cadence’s shoulder a little squeeze.

            “I know, we have quite the selection here, don’t we? They can’t wait to get their hands on you, so just take your pick!” Cadence’s whole throat seemed to seize up at the thought and she could hardly breathe for a moment.

            Even in the cute bikini, Cadence felt extremely self-conscious as she and Aurelia stood before the ravishing crowd. The rest of the girls on the boat who were all sporting the kind of bikinis you could fit in dime-bags, and all the guys were visions of statuesque perfection in swimming trunks. There were a large variety of different ethnicities on the yacht, but each and every beautiful youth had the same perfect proportions. No one seemed to be under fourteen or over eighteen, and everyone was staring at her in a blank sort of way.           

            “So what do you think people?” Aurelia asked to the crowd standing around them, “Do we want her to come and stay for the party?”

            “HELL YEAH!” they all roared, ogling her with promiscuous curiosity, flashing her dazzlingly white-toothed smiles. Cadence blushed furiously. The sun was gloriously warm on her back and her heart seemed to hop ecstatically in her chest. 

            “So basically, I’m going to tell you the most important rule here,” Aurelia began, throwing an arm around Cadence’s shoulder and leading her over to a large hot tub full of strapping young men and women, who were chatting loudly and throwing curious glances her way. “There are other rules, and you’ll come to learn them, but all you really have to know is: Indulge. Just ask my dad for anything. Absinthe, custom-made Manolos, birth control, your own designer wardrobe, a Vespa, a car, anything. You wouldn’t believe how many pairs of La Perlas I have. We have any form of entertainment you could want here: a movie theater, Wiis and Guitar Hero for everyone, a roller-skating rink and ice rink, a pool, a hot tub in every bedroom, an arcade, jello wrestling, a gourmet chef, and a rave every night. And any way you want to be intoxicated, we have it available on the yacht and encourage you to use it.”

            “And you’re dad’s okay with that?” said Cadence incredulously, relaxing in the warm, churning water.

            “Of course!” Aurelia cried, waving her hands around, an enormous cocktail ring glittering on her finger. “He’d do anything for our party. You’d never want to leave this yacht. It’s impossible to get bored. We travel all over the world, visiting resorts and such, so we can go on shore and do anything we want as long as we come back,” Aurelia said, gesturing at the place, a huge grin stretching her mouth.

            “Aurelia, this is insane, I don’t think you’ll be able to make me leave this yacht after tonight!” said Cadence, staring around the luxurious boat with a hungry look in her eyes.

            “You’ll stay then,” Aurelia said, leaning her head on the shoulder of a guy next to her who looked like he’d been snatched off a runway during Fashion Week.

            “I wish! I know my parents—“ Cadence began.

            “Oh, don’t worry about them. My dad will take care of that. You should be really happy, because this boat has a limited capacity. We definitely rejected some people on that dock now that we have you. Todd had his eighteenth birthday last week. You can have his cabin.”

            “What about Todd? That’s his room—right?” asked Cadence.

            Aurelia smiled a little sadly, “I don’t know where he went…my dad just didn’t get along with him after a while...” She changed tact at the speed of light. “But all you have to know is that there are really no rules here except for the one I told you, and you’ll learn the rest while you’re here.”

           

            Cadence could see the tiny snorkeling boat from behind the yacht’s railing, a dull gray dot in the great expanse of water. Aurelia seemed incredibly happy, her eyes huge with enthusiasm. She rambled on, “I’m just so happy I found you, you’re perfect for this place, I knew it when I met you. My Dad’ll be so happy to meet you, and it’ll make me look really good because I just got promoted. We’re going to have so much fun!” Cadence looked at Aurelia, confused.

            “Promoted?”

            “I knew I had a thing for finding cool people like you to come stay, I’m just so glad to know I rescued you from that lame group vacation. I don’t think you’ll miss your parents much either.” Aurelia accepted a bright neon blue drink with a cherry in it from a waiter who resembled the statue of David.

            “Miss them?” Cadence said. She couldn’t really feel her limbs anymore in the hot water. Aurelia drank from the glass of deeply, and her face changed into a beautiful expression of blissful relaxation.

            “I though you understood…” Aurelia said dreamily, her eyelids drooping slightly. ”You can’t leave, now that you’re in the fold. I never missed mine. We were going to go back to shore to pick up some other candidates but now that we already had conclusive…votes on your and Jose’s staying power we don’t need to go back for anyone else. We only needed two,” Aurelia explained as though this was obvious. She started to regain her composure at little, shaking her blonde head as though she had water in her ears.

            “Wait—I don’t get it. Only two? I’m really confused,” Cadence said, brushing her hair out of her eyes uncertainly, in the cold breeze that was blowing across the deck. Aurelia sighed and smiled at her, shaking her head.

            “Really, it’s okay, you’ll get it soon.” Aurelia exchanged exasperated glances with the adolescents crowded in the edge seats of the hot tub. She was acting like she was about to embark on a tedious routine for about the hundredth time. The yacht was moving now and the blue liquid in Aurelia’s drink sloshed a little. Aurelia seemed to understand Cadence’s confusion. She pulled the cocktail ring off her finger and slapped it into Cadence’s hand, saying casually,

            “Here, you can have it. I have about five more in my room.”

            Cadence took a drink from the waiter and sipped it, grimacing, and set it down. She shook her head a little, saying,

            “I’m sorry, I really have no idea what this is about—was I in a competition? Why is your dad so cool about just letting any friend of yours stay on his yacht?”

            Aurelia laughed, spilling her drink into the bubbling water, and the dozens of perfectly toned adolescents echoed her laughter simultaneously. They nodded at her and nudged each other in the bubbling water, giggling at her ignorance, all sharing the same expression of untroubled relaxation. Cadence noticed Aurelia’s eyes for the first time. They weren’t totally in focus and that the pupils were enormously dilated.

            “I know,” said Aurelia, putting her hand on Cadence’s arm. “It’s really hard to believe it at first, because you wouldn’t think that the world could work this way. We’re always on the lookout for newbies.”

            “Wait, what?”

            “You’ll catch on fast. Life is so sweet here. And it’s not like indulge, indulge, indulge every night, I’ve had to train so hard to be able to go on shore by myself as an elite,” said Aurelia, flicking her long blond tresses confidently over her shoulder.

            Cadence couldn’t seem to speak. She glanced over at Jose the lifeguard, who was sitting across from her. He looked a little confused, as she was, but seemed content to be snuggling up to the leggy girl with a Boticelli face next to him, who had draped a pimp chain around his neck and was massaging his broad shoulders. Aurelia went on,

            “And, the party will be in your and Jose’s honor tonight! You guys are going to have so much fun at The Cave!”

            “But what about your birthday? And what’s The Cave?” Cadence asked. Aurelia giggled, sipping her martini.

            “Oh sorry, I lied. Mine’s not til December. And the Cave is at the belly of the boat. That’s where we have our raves—they’re amazing. Welcome to Paradise.” Aurelia smirked, and bit the cherry from her drink. Everyone was staring hungrily at her and Jose.

            Cadence was utterly confused, but she was distracted when she saw, from behind the railing, the gray shape in the distance that was the snorkeling boat being joined by a larger white boat. They were quite far from the two boats by now, but she could hear the faint wail of a siren on the wind, coming from the white boat.

            ‘What’s up with you?” Aurelia asked, now sitting in the lap of the boy next to her.

            “Um--I think there’s a water ambulance back there with my snorkeling boat,” Cadence said. Aurelia glanced toward the two boats and said casually,

            “They must be looking for you. God, that was fast.” Aurelia turned to the guy in whose lap she was sitting, and whispered into his ear,

             “I think you need to go tell Dad to step on it a little more.” He nodded, and after Aurelia got out of his lap, he left the hot tub. Cadence felt a prickle of fear start to spread over her skin in the hot water, suddenly remembering how Gus had seemed a little groggy before she had left him behind, and that he had been wheezing a little and having a hard time swimming. She hadn’t really thought about it at the time and hadn’t mentioned it to the guide either. She said desperately to Aurelia,

            “Look, maybe I shouldn’t come. I think I know someone got hurt back there, and it’s not just there because I’m gone. I don’t think I can leave my parents either, they’ll be so…I’m really sorry I can’t come to your party--but could you ask your dad to take me back?” Cadence had started babbling, and fear had caused her hands to start shaking. Aurelia flashed her that same beautiful, empty smile and put an understanding arm around her.

            “I know, this is the hardest part for everyone,” she said sympathetically. “But you’ll get over it. I mean, why would you want to go back anyway? But it’s okay, Dad is always really understanding, you’ll love him. But you have to know, he’s not just my dad, he’s everyone’s dad here, and you’ll have to remember to call him that.”    

            It was an odd sensation for Cadence, feeling the scalding water relax and weaken her limbs, but and at the same time, feeling her heart hammering and beating madly against her rib cage. She shivered as the cold breeze blew hard against her wet skin, and she clenched her fist hard around Aurelia’s cocktail ring. She looked out towards where the shore had been. It might have been that blurry line on the horizon of the open sea.