The View from Here

by Hannah McKinnon

  Resigned, she reached for the canvas cover and draped it over the sculpture. If only her life could be shaped as such.

  Emma

  Her life was over. Not only was she a social pariah, but her parents were never going to let her out of their sight. Assuming they could stand to look at her to begin with.

  The morning after Amanda Hastings’s party, she awoke with a pounding skull. Her mouth was a desert. Emma reached for the glass of water by her bed and gulped it down. The sunlight streaming in the window was blinding, and she winced, pulling the pillow over her head. But something else was causing her head to pound; something that gnawed at the edges of her memory.

  In small flashes, the night came back to her. She and Alicia had gone to Amanda’s. As soon as they arrived, she’d felt uneasy. They’d stood, just the two of them, outside on the deck, sipping cans of beer. It got better when they went inside. Some of the other sophomore guys from her class were playing cards at the kitchen island. It was there Alicia had discovered margaritas. Boy, had she. At first Emma was glad, because Alicia was being such a bore.

  After one margarita, she loosened up. After two, she got downright silly, and that’s when the party started to get interesting. Then Chet arrived. Emma wasn’t sure if her buzz came from the beer, or from Chet’s arrival and the moment Amanda walked in and saw him talking to Emma and Alicia in her living room. Finally, Emma had some social credibility. And then, later, there was the moment, with Sully. Emma’s insides went fuzzy when she recalled sitting with him on the deck. How close he was. The way he looked at her under the floodlights. It was different, different in a way that felt right and good. Until Alicia threw up over the deck railing.

  After that, Emma’s memory got disjointed. She remembered Sully had helped. Chet had not been happy, and at some point in the night he ended up picking Alicia up and carrying her to his car over his shoulder. Emma was embarrassed by the scene, but also invigorated. She was with Chet, a beloved graduate and college student. He would take care of Alicia. And handling it alongside him made it all seem okay.

  But this was where things got dicey. Instead of going home with Chet and Alicia, Emma had decided to stay. That was where she had a feeling something went wrong.

  After Chet and Alicia left, she’d headed back to the party. But it was winding down. She found Sully and Kyle with some of the others inside. The keg was kicked. Someone had broken out the hard alcohol from Mr. Hastings’s bar and they’d started a poker game. Strip poker.

  Emma’s buzz had largely worn off at that point, and she knew she shouldn’t press her luck. She’d guzzled a glass of water and tried to eat some pretzels. But then Sully invited her to play. Next to him, on the couch. His hand on her knee.

  And then someone passed a bottle of Jägermeister around the table. Everyone was drinking from it. Why not? she’d thought. Emma tipped it back, then wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. It tasted like crap, and she’d had to force the nasty licorice-tasting liquid down. But the hot buzz that followed came fast, and when the bottle came back around the table she found herself taking another swig. The rest was all a haze.

  As she lay in bed, trying to remember how she got home and what time it had been, there was a knock at her bedroom door. Emma sat up. Too fast, and the bed started to spin. “What?” she managed. She really hoped she wouldn’t throw up.

  Her mother poked her head in. “Hey, honey. It’s eleven thirty. You feeling okay?”

  Emma lay back down, shielding her eyes. “Sorry. Slept in.”

  Amelia pushed the door ajar and glanced around the room. She looked concerned. “What time did you get in last night?”

  Emma closed her eyes. Was it lying if you really had no idea?

  “Sorry, I think I was a little late.”

  “What happened to Alicia staying over?”

  Her stomach roiled and she rolled over to face the wall. “She was really tired and Chet was there, so she went home with him.”

  “Oh.” This seemed to make her mother more concerned. “Did you two have a fight or something?”

  “Mom. We’re fine.” Emma really wished her mom would stop asking questions. As it was, her head throbbed every time she had to speak. Lying, it turned out, hurt even more. “I’ll text her later,” she added for good measure.

  “All right. Well, why don’t you come down and have some breakfast. Or lunch, I suppose.”

  The mere mention of food made her head spin harder. Emma waited until her mother left. She did not, as Emma had hoped, close the door. Emma groaned and reached for her phone.

  The second she turned her phone on, notifications filled the screen. One after the other, it vibrated and dinged in her hand. Emma sat up, squinting.

  Her Instagram account was ablaze with notifications. Same with Snapchat. “Nice work” someone commented. Some of the names were kids from school, some she didn’t even recognize. “Girls gone wild,” someone else said. A comment from Kyle: “Taking it off.” Emma felt her stomach lurch.

  There, at the top of her story was a picture. A picture of her, in just her bra and panties. With Sully on one side and Kyle on the other. Her eyes were half-closed and she held a beer in her hand. To her horror, there were 368 likes and 42 comments. As she scrolled through them, a wave of nausea washed through her. Hands shaking, she checked her Snapchat. Her photo was everywhere. But the one she noticed first: Amanda Hastings. Posted at one thirty-three a.m. On Amanda’s story was the picture of Emma.

  Then came the texts. One group text with so many people that the contacts alone filled her screen. “Who is that?” someone texted. “She looks like shit,” another said. “Slut.” Emma dropped her phone, ran to the bathroom, and threw up all over the tile floor.

  She was still vomiting when her mother burst into the room, whimpering and holding her cell phone out in front of her as if it were radioactive.

  “What is this?” she howled. “A parent from the Club sent this to me!” Then, seeing her daughter crumpled on the bathroom floor, she snapped back to mother mode and sank to her knees beside her. “Oh, honey.”

  Worse was her father. He came home early, clearly summoned. And then he paced. Around the kitchen. Up and down the stairs. Along the hall outside her room, while she lay in bed and nursed her hangover with glasses of water and Tylenol and toast, which her mother delivered every fifteen minutes. Emma listened to their strained conversations on the other side of her door. “How could this happen?” was all her father could ask. As though this was something that had been done to her by some outside force, and not something Emma was capable of doing herself.

  She understood her parents were scared. But she was also offended. Was she so dull and meek in their estimation that it was unimaginable she could have made these bad choices herself? On some twisted level, though, it made her feel better. At least now she felt seen.

  For once, her mother was the one who asked the questions. “Did you do anything other than drink? Were drugs involved? Did anything happen with a boy?”

  Emma answered each one honestly. No, no, no.

  The worst thing was Alicia hadn’t called or texted once. Emma had tried to reach her: “Are you okay? I’m sorry I didn’t come home with you.” But there was no reply. She thought of texting Chet, but she was too humiliated. She cringed at the thought of him seeing the picture. She wanted to die when she imagined all the adults who might have: Her camp director. Her father’s friends at the clubhouse. The neighbors she babysat for. Her parents must have realized the extent of her suffering because they finally stopped asking questions and left her alone. Since really, what more could anyone say?

  Sometime later, her parents called her down to the kitchen. Dinner had been made, and it seemed they expected her to sit down and join them. She took her seat at the table and stared at her plate. “I’m sorry.” It was all she could say. And it was the truth.

  The look on her mother’s face was mixed. “We know you are, honey. But all those posts, those comments�
� why do kids do that? I hate the internet. I just hate it.”

  As she looked at her parents’ expressions, the fallout crystallized. Emma hadn’t just scared them; she had disappointed them. She’d lied, she’d gotten drunk, she’d left her best friend and chosen to stay at a party with people who didn’t even care about her. Now she was the punchline of a joke. Emma pushed her plate away.

  Her mother picked up her fork. “What is going on with the drinking this summer, Emma? This is not who you are.”

  Emma turned to her father. This was his terrain: managing crisis. Coming up with a plan. Onward! But he had deflated to the point he’d become one with his chair. His glasses were smudged, his hair mussed, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. Then she speared a forkful of salad and popped it in her mouth. It was bitter on her tongue, but she took another bite and forced it down. Chewing and swallowing. That much she could manage. She was working her way up to trying a bite of chicken when her father finally cleared his throat.

  “Emma.” His voice was muted with sadness. When she looked up at him, he couldn’t meet her gaze. “What happened?”

  It was the question of the summer. What happened on the boat? What happened to their perfect daughter, the one with the good grades and the nice manners—the kid every neighbor asked to babysit their own kids?

  That was the problem. Everyone in her parents’ world saw that girl. They even adored her. But no one in Emma’s world did. In her world, at high school—at camp—at the beach—that girl didn’t matter. That girl was invisible.

  It was the one thing she’d wanted that summer; she’d wanted to be noticed. Look at her now. She’d made her wish come true.

  Perry

  Crisis was Perry’s professional specialty. It was what he did. And he did it better than anyone else.

  Two summers ago, when a country-western concert had gone awry due to drunk and disorderly behavior that turned into a mob brawl, Perry’s firm handled the fallout. They didn’t just handle the insurance. They hired a legal team. And a publicity team. They managed the news reporters, the investigation, and the following medical claims. All of it. Though he was, of course, sorry for the injured, especially two children, and the property damage, Perry had compartmentalized his emotions and gotten to work. He relished the challenge of walking into his company boardroom and coming up with a strategy that addressed everything from lawsuits to financial damages to image refurbishment.

  Just as he had during a crane collapse outside a minor-league baseball game three years earlier. There had been construction outside the stadium, and though it was shut down during the game and the spectators were partitioned off from the entrances in that location, the collapse had resulted in several injuries and the death of a security worker that day. As the news flashed on screens across the city, Perry was already in his office with his shirtsleeves rolled up. That was Perry Goodwin’s relationship to crisis. It was tragic, but he had a job to do.

  Now, however, when it came to his own flesh and blood, he was useless. The fallout had found them. He could thank social media for getting word out across the miles. All he could do now was attempt to manage the damage.

  The first call came in on Monday morning. It was so early, Perry hadn’t left the house yet for the train. “Mr. Goodwin, it’s Jeff, the director at the clubhouse camp.”

  Perry set down his coffee. “Good morning, Jeff. I’m glad you called.” Perry was ready for this call. “We appreciate the time off you gave Emma after the accident, but I’m afraid she may need to take another day or two. She’s not feeling well.” Perry hated lying. But he didn’t want to get into the details with the camp if he didn’t have to. Emma was great at her job, and the community families loved her.

  “That’s actually why I’m calling. As you know, the board of directors runs the summer camp. I’m not entirely sure what happened over the weekend, but they called to tell me there was some kind of incident. They would like Emma to take a few days off until it’s sorted out.”

  Perry caught his breath. He was on the board. Hell, he was president. There was a regular board meeting scheduled but it wasn’t until later that night. Which meant they’d called an emergency meeting, about his daughter, without him? He cut to the chase. “Is Emma losing her job?”

  “I sure hope not. She’s the best counselor I’ve got. But it’s not up to me, Mr. Goodwin. I hope you understand.” He paused, then added, “I’m hopeful this will all work out. Please tell Emma I’ll be in touch when they reach a decision.”

  A decision. Meaning the Club was reviewing the incident at Ted Hastings’s house and Emma’s behavior there. Both things that had nothing to do with the Club itself. Perry thanked Jeff and hung up. Emma hadn’t been relishing the thought of going to work and facing everyone at camp. But this was far worse.

  The second call came later in the day, when he was at work. It was the admissions office at George Washington University. Amelia, who was working from home to be with Emma, had received it. She called Perry, hysterical. “Somehow they found out about the photo. Perry, they kicked her out of the summer leadership program!”

  Perry’s stomach fell. “What? How did they even know?”

  “I don’t know—it’s out there. The simplest search can cause it to pop up.”

  “There must be something we can do. Emma should call them back and try to talk to them. Surely they’ve had kids make dumb mistakes before.”

  “I spoke to the woman for almost half an hour. She was sympathetic, but firm. I believe her exact words were, ‘At this time Emma’s actions don’t represent the mission of our program.’ ”

  Perry wanted to throw his phone at the wall. GW was his alma mater, where some of the best memories of his life had been. The summer leadership program was something he’d told Emma about two years earlier, and she’d worked her tail off to get in. All those honors and AP classes since freshman year. All the clubs and extracurricular activities. It was what she’d talked about all year: going to Washington, DC, in August. Perry had already arranged time off from work to drive her down there. They were going to make a family trip of it. Best of all, Emma would get college credit for the program. Just a few weeks ago Emma had connected with the girl who would be her roommate: an international student from Korea whom she’d Face-Timed with to talk about what to bring. It was going to be the highlight of her summer. Now she wouldn’t be going at all.

  “How did she take it?” Perry asked his wife. He imagined Emma would be crushed. But then again, he’d been wrong about so much lately…

  “She’s numb, Perry. She’s getting it from all sides. From friends. From us. The Wilders called from up the street and canceled her babysitting gig. They told her that the kids were sick. But then Emma heard that Mrs. Wilder asked another counselor at camp if she was free for the same night.” Amelia let out her breath. “I’m so worried about her.”

  Perry was worried, too. But most of all he was angry. “I need to follow up with you later, honey. I have a call to make.”

  Ted Hastings’s number was in his contacts, and he pulled it up now. Perry had been biding his time before placing this call, wanting to plan his words. He dialed. To his surprise, Ted picked up on the first ring.

  “Perry, how are you?” If Ted understood the nature of the call, he gave nothing away.

  “Ted, I wish I were calling under different circumstances, to be honest.”

  Perry waited for him to say something, to give some indication of empathy or camaraderie, but there was only silence.

  “I’m calling about the party at your house this past weekend.”

  To his credit, Ted didn’t deny it. “I heard about it. Janie and I were on the Vineyard visiting her sister. I want you to know we weren’t aware of any party until after the fact, and it’s not something we would ever allow.”

  Perry sat back in his chair. He was relieved to hear the acknowledgment. “Yes, well, I don’t know if you
heard, but my daughter, Emma, was at that party. And a photo of her in a rather compromising position was taken.” Perry struggled to keep his voice steady. “Emma is not the kind of kid who finds herself in such positions. Ever. And unfortunately, this photo has had far-reaching consequences.”

  Ted paused, and Perry imagined him listening, father-to-father.

  “What is it you’re asking of me?” Ted asked.

  The question threw him. Perry wasn’t sure. He was asking for empathy, perhaps. For acceptance of responsibility, as well. But the sudden businesslike shift irked him. “Ted, Emma has lost admittance to a prestigious summer program as a result. And perhaps her job at the clubhouse camp.”

  “I was sorry to hear it.”

  Past tense. So, Ted had heard about the Club’s review of Emma’s camp job. Ted Hastings was in tight with the Club, a legacy member, in fact. And yet he hadn’t reached out to either Perry or Amelia once.

  “Ted. I don’t know if you’re aware that your daughter had a direct role in this, but the sharing of that photo has been very damaging. It continues to go on, and Amelia and I are reaching out to ask parents to talk to their kids and get this to stop. It’s bullying.”

  “Perry. Come on. Kids will be kids.”

  Perry sputtered. “Yes, which is why adults need to be adults.”

  “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that Amanda is a good kid.”