“Fuck.”
“What?” Dace is standing over my shoulder. I flip the power button on and off again, but the screen’s still blank. I open the tiny door that holds the data card. It’s empty.
“He even stole my data card! I’m screwed.”
26 HOURS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT
Everything’s so messed up that I even arrive late to my 10 a.m. Vantage Point review session with Mrs. Edmonson. She’s booked each of us into 15-minute slots to individually show her our Vantage Point entries and give us feedback before the big day. When I get to the photocopy room, Ben’s inside and I can hear Mrs. Edmonson gushing over his photos. The metal lockers are cold against my T-shirted back as I slide down to sit on the tile floor. When he opens the door, I stand up and rush over to him. He looks away.
“Ben—my data card. Please, just give it back.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, not even stopping. And he’s around the corner.
“Pippa?” Mrs. Edmonson calls from inside the photocopy room. I swallow hard. Push the door open.
She pats to the chair beside her. “Everything OK? You’re late—I let Ben go ahead of you because he was waiting.”
“Sorry,” I say, plugging my USB key into the computer. Focus on the photos.
Which are fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Breathe.
“My theme is Memories,” I explain half-heartedly, opening the folder with the photos I’d backed up to my laptop—ones that never made it into the folder he deleted because they weren’t my best shots. The gazebo in Hannover Park, the single photo on the yellowed album page, room 334 at the hospital, the steps leading up to St. Christopher’s, my dad’s Nikon.
As I walk Mrs. Edmonson through the photos, I feel better. Sure, I know I can do better, but these are still pretty good shots. But when I reach the end, she’s silent. Not the reaction I was going for. She clasps her hands, resting them in her lap, and studies me. “Pippa, what’s going on?”
“What do you mean?”
“I just saw an almost identical slideshow from Ben. What gives?”
He not only stole my photos but used them? “How could he use the same photos? What was his theme?”
“Same theme. Most of the same photos. Maybe slightly different angles, but very, very close.”
“But how could they be his memories? Mrs. Edmonson, these are my memories. The room my dad stayed in at the hospital, his old camera he gave me, which is right here”—I pull the Nikon out of my bag. “This is insane. Ben stole my data card, he swapped cameras with me. He stole my Vantage Point photos off my computer.”
She looks alarmed. Neither of us speaks. She has to believe me. Who would make that up?
“Pippa, this doesn’t reflect well on either one of you. It’s your word against his. Why would he take your photos?” She crosses her legs. “If the Vantage Point judges think either one of you is using photos that aren’t your own, you’ll both be disqualified. Not to mention how badly it’ll reflect on the school.” She thinks for a moment, wringing her hands. “I could tell both of you you’re not going to Vantage Point at all for this—clearly one of you is lying—but you’re both very talented photographers and I don’t want to deny you this opportunity. And I know how much going to the Tisch camp means to you.” Her tone softens. “So here’s what I’m going to ask. You’re going to have to come up with brand new photos for the competition. I don’t want to see a single photograph even remotely similar to Ben’s. I suggest you start from scratch, to be sure.”
“Start from scratch? Are you kidding? I’ve been working on my entry for months! How am I going to come up with six good new photos by tomorrow? And what about Ben?”
“I’ll tell him the same thing. Now I suggest you get out there and start shooting. You don’t have much time.”
24 HOURS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT
So many headstones. Tall ones, ominous ones. Flat stones, nestled in the grass, that have probably been there for hundreds of years. Which one is his? It’s only been three months, but the last day I was here was so crazy, there were so many people and so many cars, that the cemetery where my dad is buried seems like a different place today. Coming out of the meeting with Mrs. Edmonson I just wanted to talk to my dad about what to do, and my first instinct was to go see him in my room. But Mom’ll be home by 1. The last thing I want to do is have to relive the morning.
It seems easier to bear, this place, from behind my camera. It’s a clear day that we get only rarely in October, and I set up a couple of headstone shots, but my lens keeps getting drawn to the signs of life all around here. Someone’s spent the summer going nuts with the Miracle-Gro. Red impatiens contrast with the green of the lawns and the gray of the headstones. Strange how the thing that pops out of cemetery photos are images of life. I’m so distracted, so in the frame, that I’m taken by surprise when I recognize my dad’s name on a monument.
I kneel down in the grass, keeping the camera to my face and focus on the headstone. I zoom in on the pebbled texture of the stone, snap some photos, then slowly zoom out, taking in the headstone against the grass. Then I rest the camera in my lap and fold my legs over so I’m sitting cross-legged on the ground.
“Hi,” I say finally. “So . . . this is weird, huh? We never talk here. Which uh, OK, kinda my fault. It’s not like you have much choice in the matter. But I just . . . I don’t know. I have no good excuse. Pain to get here on the bus? Lame, I know! Like, you died, and you’re stuck out here by yourself—or I guess there’s other people around but it’s not like you know them, right? And I can’t be bothered to get on a bus? It’s totally not that. I guess it’s just . . . Mom comes all the time and I thought, like, maybe in the same way she doesn’t know how we talk in my room, maybe she doesn’t want me here? Like it’s her place to be with you, alone? So don’t tell her I came, OK?”
My camera is resting in the space between my crossed legs, and I keep my eyes on the grass that’s, I guess, six feet above him.
“You know what I hate?” I continue, grabbing my camera again, and shooting around the headstone. “When we’re in my room I can just pretend you’re in New York for work. That you got a studio there like you always wanted and you’re living the dream. And I’m—just at Dace’s or school or whatever when you come home. Like I just missed you. When I go to Tisch camp, we’ll hang out for the whole two weeks, just like we used to. I know it’s crazy but it’s part of why I want to win so badly. But then what? I get there and where are you?”
I wait for Dad to answer, to tell me that it’s normal what I’m feeling, or that he’s glad I’m here, or that yes, he is actually in New York and we’re going to have so much fun when I’m there. If I’m there. But he doesn’t say anything. I lower the camera again.
Silence. Not my dad’s voice, solving my problems for me. Not like I was hoping. I stand up to take it all in. The grass that tops my dad’s final resting place. The annual flowers decorating his headstone. Everything but the words.
“I don’t think I’m going to Tisch camp, Dad. Remember Vantage Point? The photo contest that was going to be my in to get into Tisch? Memories—that was going to be my theme, but it can’t be, not anymore.”
I focus on the front of the headstone now, on the words visible above the tall grass, inscribed in stone.
Evan Alexander Greene
July 24, 1976–June 18, 2012
Loving husband of Holly, father of Philadelphia
Gone but not—
The rest is a blur through my tears.
• • •
There’s no hurry. If you can’t cry in a cemetery, where can you cry? The tears finally stop their steady stream maybe 20 minutes later. There’s a soft white cloth in my satchel, the one I use to wipe my lenses, and it serves as a Kleenex. It’s only as I give myself one last blow that I notice it, partially obscured by taller grass around the headstone:
a tulip, Easter yellow, still in full bloom. An impossible sight in October. Isn’t it? The flower stands out among the grass, bright petals against the gray stone.
It looks so beautiful, this vibrant symbol of life against so many symbols of death. Uplifting. A lightness in a dark place. I snap a shot that frames the tulip against the backdrop created by my dad’s headstone. And all at once, I have my Vantage Point theme. I grab the Nikon from my bag and snap one more.
22 HOURS UNTIL VANTAGE POINT
“Yes,” Glenys says, when I pitch her on my idea for the theme. “I think it’s wonderful, Pippa.”
And I’m off to capture in a few hours what my dad never got the chance to do in his lifetime. Documenting the hospital, chronicling its stories, the symbols of hope made all the more powerful because they’re set against a backdrop of pain.
Lightness in a dark place. Light in dark.
Glenys has given me free rein to shoot wherever in the hospital I’d like. At first I just wander the halls, looking for inspiration. Then I get an idea—the pond. The hidden oasis for those who are sick. A retreat where they can forget about their illness, if even for only a few minutes. Framed against the tall reeds, the empty bench at first seems like a symbol of death. The way I first saw it. But now, I see it as possibility, as hope. As good will. A perch that offers respite to those who are sick, and those who are here visiting, loving them, for as long as they possibly can.
The crunch of gravel startles me.
“What are you doing?”
It’s Ashley. You’d think the two cameras around my neck might be a dead giveaway. But I stifle a sarcastic response when I notice the green tint to her face.
“Are you OK?”
“No. Pretty much the opposite of OK. My friend had a party last night. Epic. But now I’m epically hungover. Can you take Mr. Winters to chemo?”
“I thought you loved doing chemo trips.”
“Any day but today.” She thrusts a clipboard at me then grabs her stomach with both hands and rushes down the hall.
Mr. Winters. Chemo. Again. Seriously? But I kinda owe Ashley for the panic-attack-in-storage-closet-with-Dylan day.
Mr. Winters is waiting in the chair at the end of his bed. I help him stand, making sure his tubes don’t tangle, and we set off on the long walk from his room to the cancer center. I try to ask him questions as we’re walking, to take my mind off things.
“Do you hate going for treatments?”
“No,” he puffs. “It’s not so bad. Only twice a week. And so far my white blood cell count has been pretty good. Only missed one treatment. At this rate I’ll be done in two more weeks.” His courage reminds me of Dad’s. I guess he has to believe. What other choice is there?
The cancer center is eventually inevitable, a mere 10 steps away. The place I’ve managed to avoid for the past two weeks. Until now. Breathe in one, two, three, four, five. Out, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Close my eyes. Then open them. That’s when I notice how different the room looks. Not dark and cold and depressing, the way it used to be when Dad would come here, the few small windows on one wall the only source of natural light. Now, the room is bright, almost cheerful. I look up. Sunlight streams through three skylights, making the room come alive.
“Hang on here for a second.” I put the clipboard down on the table inside the door to free up my hands, then aim the camera up, focusing on the bands of light streaming into the room, the background a haze. The perfect transition between light and dark. I come out from behind the viewfinder to appraise the rest of the room. Soft music plays. Not Pachelbel’s Canon. Some music I’d expect to hear in a spa. Still totally inappropriate—since they’ve probably ruined aromatherapy massages for everyone in here for life. But at least it’s not Pachelbel.
Oversized leather chairs still line the walls, their occupants hooked up to IV tubes, some of them with hands and feet in ice—to prevent their fingernails from falling out, I know. Lots of blankets, toques and scarves to keep their bodies warm. And an arrow at the end of the hall: radiation. That’s all familiar. But the mood feels different. Or maybe it’s just me. A new perspective? Who knows.
The nurse points us toward an empty chair near the back and Mr. Winters settles in. He mumbles something, and I have to lean close to hear him. “The knitting basket,” he says. “Can you get something for me?”
“The knitting basket?” I say, then try to mask my surprise by coughing.
“Yes, I know how to knit. My wife taught me years ago—she wanted us to knit each other slippers as a Christmas gift. I don’t think she ever wore the pair I made her—making a pair of anything the same size is harder than it seems.” He looks off in the distance for a moment, then snaps back to the present. “Never thought this would be the reason I picked it up again. Anyway,” he sighs. “It’s a communal basket. You just pick up where someone left off.”
“Like, when they die?”
He just looks at me, the way people who say insensitive things tend to get looked at.
“Between treatments,” he says. “Everyone shares in making the items—scarves, mittens, hats. Everything we make goes to help homeless people. Lets them know that someone’s looking out for them.”
Come on. Seriously? People who might not even make it themselves, sitting here, shooting up with near-lethal chemicals trying to kill the cancer that’s killing them, worried about people who don’t have enough money for warm clothes?
“I was working on an orange scarf. Can you see if it’s there?” On the way back from the these-people-are-way-better-people-than-me basket, I remember the clipboard I left at the intake desk. As I’m grabbing it, a chart on the wall catches my eye, a list of patients’ names in erasable marker. Under Sunday 12:30 p.m. is the name Dylan McCutter. And an asterisk.
I scan the board, looking for a clue, something, anything to tell me what’s going on. In the bottom right-hand corner, the words are written like a death sentence: final treatment.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6 ONE HOUR UNTIL VANTAGE POINT
Dace and Mom are in the front seat of the Honda, chattering about the latest issue of Vogue.
“Are you OK?” Mom calls back to me, where I’m trying to focus on holding onto my display board to make sure it doesn’t get jostled on the ride—but it’s impossible to keep my mind off Dylan. He still hasn’t replied to any of my texts. Cancer? Why wouldn’t he tell me? Of course it makes sense. Why he hangs out in the atrium with the other cancer patients. How he probably really did fall asleep that night he stood me up. The bruises on his arms from being poked and prodded with needles. Why he deferred Harvard. How I never clued in to any of the signs. But the thing that keeps running through my head are the words final treatment. What does that mean?
When we get to the hall in Niagara Falls where the competition is being held, there’s a lineup of cars outside the door and kids unloading their unwieldy displays from the back seats. “I’ll park and see you two in there,” Mom says as she takes her place in the queue so I can unload. “Don’t worry,” she adds. “You’re going to do great.” They both think I’m nervous about my photos. They have no idea about Dylan.
How I just want to get back to the hospital in time to see him. But first, I have to focus on the competition. I head inside. Jeffrey is already setting up his display. Six mittens: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. The rainbow effect is impressive.
I pull my board out of the protective plastic bag and set it up on the easel beside him.
“I heard what happened,” Jeffrey says. “You OK?”
“Ask me in an hour,” I say.
“You’ll kick ass, Pippa,” Jeffrey says, eyeing my photos. “You always do.”
Ben saunters in, fancy black portfolio case in one hand, a coffee in the other. He pulls his foam board out of the case and mounts it on the other side of me.
I stare in disbelief at my photos.
>
“What are you doing?” My face hot. “Mrs. Edmonson said we had to start from scratch. That we couldn’t use any of the photos she saw. That you couldn’t use my photos.”
“She also said she didn’t want the judges to find out. So there’s no way she’ll say anything. And I knew you’d be too chicken shit to take a chance.” He glances at my photos. “You must’ve been busy, starting over. Besides, who do you think she’s going to believe the photos really belong to? Me, who stood by the photos right to the end, or you, who gave them up so easily?”
I remember what Mrs. Edmonson said. If the judges find out about this, we might both be disqualified. And if I rat him out, what’s to stop him from saying I smashed the window of his SUV? “Why would you do this?” I whisper.
“Easy,” Ben says. “The five grand.” But there’s something about his answer that makes me think it’s not actually about the money at all. But I definitely don’t care enough about Ben Baxter to find out.
A voice booms over the loudspeakers. “Welcome to the 15th Annual Vantage Point Competition.” Cheers sound throughout the room, but I feel a million miles away. I look at the stage, where a man in a brown tweed suit and skinny tie is standing at the podium on stage.
“I’m Saul Ramm, dean of the school of photography at Tisch University at NYU. I’ll also be one of three judges today, along with Gabrielle Brady and Lars Lindegaard, both of whom are professors in the program, and will be instructors at our prestigious camp. I’m thrilled to see what looks like our largest turnout yet from the Western New York region—and I look forward to seeing all of the talent in the room. Now for a bit of housekeeping. We’ll be starting the judging process in 10 minutes, so if you’re a contestant and you haven’t set up your display yet, please make sure you do so,” he says, scratches the top of his head, then turns the mic off.
I fidget nervously as the judges start to make their way around. They reach Ben, and I watch as he explains the meaning behind his photos. The Nikon camera his grandfather gave him for his 13th birthday. The yellowed photo of his father as a young boy. The door to the hospital room he was in for six months after a near-fatal car accident last year . . .
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