The Daughters Join the Party

by Joanna Philbin

  “And Afghanistan,” Shanks chimed in. “Some of these kids could have older sibs or parents serving.”

  “And don’t forget the riff on a new brand of politics,” Tom said. “Brand is a big word. These kids’ll respond to that.”

  “Do you think so?” Emma interjected.

  Tom and Shanks just stared at her. “What do you mean, Emma?” her father asked.

  “I just think they’ll catch on to that,” she said. “Young people are sick of hearing about brands.”

  “You’re probably right,” said her dad. “Scratch that, Tom.”

  Emma caught Tom and Shanks exchanging a peeved look.

  “Okay, we’re on in about five,” Marcy said, coming up to them. “Emma, I’m going to bring you back first. Remember, you have just a minute to speak. Does the prompter have the speech?”

  Emma gave her a thumbs-up and stood.

  “Good luck, honey,” her father said.

  “You, too,” she said back to him.

  He gave her a high five, the kind that she’d only ever seen him give to Remington, when he’d gotten straight A’s or scored another victory in the pool. She followed Marcy out to the stage, beaming. She wished that her mom and Remington were here. She wanted them to see her like this—in control, useful, needed. But she was also happy Remington wasn’t there. He’d been so moody lately. He stayed in his room at night, and came home from school only right before dinner. Swim practice had started, which ate up a lot of his time, but she still got the distinct feeling that he was avoiding her.

  Now, as they walked toward the stage, she could hear the echoes of people in the bleachers. “How many people are here again?” she asked.

  “About five thousand,” Marcy replied.

  Emma shook out the cricks in her neck and cracked her knuckles. A Journey song came over the loudspeaker to fire up the crowd. Finally they walked out of a hall and into the basketball stadium and Emma gulped. Red, white, and blue bunting had been draped over the stage, along with a gigantic sign that read CONWAY FOR AMERICA. A press pen crammed with photographers and cameramen faced the stage. And on all sides were bleachers of people, rising up above the stage.

  “Okay, I’m going to give you your cue in a few seconds,” Marcy said as soon as she’d led Emma to a backstage area. “You ready?”

  Emma nodded. A makeup woman came out of nowhere and dotted her face with a powder puff.

  “Remember, you only have a minute,” Marcy said. “And address the crowd, but keep an eye on the prompter. And there’ll be a clock counting you down. Don’t go over time.”

  “I won’t,” Emma said, feeling the blood start to beat in her ears.

  “Okay, ten seconds,” Marcy said, holding a headset to her ear. “And five, four, three, two…”

  A booming voice that sounded a little like Mr. Barlow’s came over the loudspeaker. “And now to introduce Senator Conway,” it rang out, “please welcome his daughter, Emma Conway!”

  The crowd cheered, but it was a slightly less enthusiastic reaction than she remembered from Central Park. She strode out onto the stage, feeling incredibly tiny surrounded by so many bodies under one roof. At the last minute, she remembered to wave.

  She went to the podium and found the mic. In front of her was the teleprompter, hovering over the crowd. The words of her speech were illuminated against the glass, but looking at them made her anxious. She didn’t need them, anyway.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m here today because my dad has decided to run for president.” Her voice echoed around the stadium, distracting her for a moment. “But I want to be honest about something,” she went on. “I didn’t want him to run. I really didn’t.”

  These weren’t the words that had been written for her, but she didn’t care. And she knew that nobody could really stop her now. She looked down at the fleet of cameras in the pit below the stage and tried to stay focused.

  “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had to share my dad with this country,” she continued. “And sometimes it’s not that easy. He’s so passionate about his job that sometimes, well… I get kind of jealous. So when my dad told me that he was going to run in this next election,” she said, “I was less than thrilled. But then I realized that I needed to get my head out of my butt and stop being selfish. Because if I truly wanted change, if I truly wanted to stop being scared about my future, if I wanted to have someone to look up to, then I would need to think of what was best for everyone else. And I would do everything I could to support a man who has always taught me right from wrong, to turn the other cheek, to think of people less fortunate than me, and to never stop trying to be better.”

  She remembered to keep turning to face different sections of the stadium.

  “So here he is, everyone. Let’s give him a big hand. My dad. Adam Conway.”

  She looked over and saw Marcy waving for her to walk off. And behind her, waiting to go on, stood her father, looking slightly startled, and then pleased, by the thunderous applause shaking the stadium.

  A staffer led him past her to the stage.

  “Thanks, honey,” he said as he passed by.

  Then he was up on the stage and the noise was so loud she thought the roof might cave in.

  She walked over to where Marcy stood with a few staffers. “How’d that go?” she asked.

  “What was that?” Marcy said, her brow furrowed. “Did you write that yourself?”

  Emma nodded.

  “You’ve got guts, kid.” Marcy pressed her earpiece farther into her ear and listened for a moment. “Okay. They want you to go back out at the end, with your dad. Stay here.” She gave Emma a rueful look. “You’re lucky. Normally they would have freaked. But I guess they liked it.”

  Emma gave the air beside her leg a discreet fist pump. The speech had been a risk, she knew. But it had worked. She was actually doing something right.

  chapter 22

  It was almost eleven o’clock when she staggered through the front door of her apartment. The drive back to the city had taken almost seven hours, thanks to all the New Yorkers who’d driven upstate to pick apples and look at fall foliage, and she’d fallen into a sound sleep for the last hour. She dumped her bag on the floor and felt her stomach gurgle. She was starving.

  “Honey! I’m in here!” her mom called from the kitchen.

  Emma found her mom seated at the kitchen table amid a sea of legal briefs. “Hi, Mom,” she said.

  Her mom stood up and threw her arms around her. “Did you see MSNBC?” she asked excitedly. Her face was devoid of makeup, and to Emma she finally looked normal again.

  “No, I haven’t seen anything. I’ve been in a car.”

  “They couldn’t stop talking about it,” her mom said, pulling out a plate of chicken breast and roasted potatoes from the refrigerator. “I taped it for you. They had a panel on, talking about how your speech upended all the rules, and then CNN spent about ten minutes talking about your ‘refreshing honesty.’ Even Fox News said that you were a role model for other teens.” She put the plate in the microwave and shut the door.

  “Are you kidding?” Emma asked. “I’m a role model?”

  “I spoke to Dad,” she said, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear. “He was a little surprised. They didn’t know you’d changed the speech. Or done this,” she said, touching the blue-painted lock of Emma’s hair. “But he was very impressed all the same. And so was I.”

  Before Emma could answer, the front door opened and shut.

  “Remington?” her mom called out. “Emma’s home!”

  There was no reply. Emma listened to her brother’s footsteps in the hall.

  “Remington?” her mom called out again. “Come in here!”

  “Just a second,” he yelled back, and then they heard his bedroom door close.

  “Is everything okay with him?” Emma asked.

  Her mother took her plate out of the microwave. “I think so. Why?”

  “Just… he’s been ac
ting a little weird to me,” she said. She didn’t want to say any more; it was an understood rule that she and her brother didn’t complain about each other to their parents.

  “He seems fine to me,” her mom said, putting the plate down on the table in front of her.

  “Be right back,” Emma said. She walked to Remington’s bedroom. “Hey,” she said through the door. “Can I come in? Remington?” After waiting a moment and not getting an answer, she finally opened the door.

  He sat at his desk, playing Red Dead Redemption on his desktop computer.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Working on my Harvard application,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “What does it look like?”

  Emma couldn’t tell for sure, but his words sounded slightly slurred. And there was a familiar smell wafting through the room, the same odor she’d smelled coming out of his room that night in Washington. She couldn’t quite place it.

  “Where were you tonight?” she asked carefully.

  “Out,” he said, keeping his eyes on the screen.

  “With who?”

  “What are you, Mom?” he asked, pausing the game and swiveling in his chair to face her. “Just focus on your new political career, okay?”

  “Don’t be a jerk,” she said.

  “Just get out, okay?” he yelled.

  “Fine!” She left his room without closing the door. A moment later she heard it slam so loud that the walls shook. Remington never slammed doors.

  “What was that?” her mom called from the kitchen.

  “Nothing!” she yelled out. She stood in the hall, perfectly still, and felt a solitary, angry tear well up and fall down her cheek.

  He’s jealous, she thought. She’d always wondered what that would feel like. But it felt nothing like what she’d imagined. It only made her feel lonely.

  In the kitchen, her mom was back at the table and absorbed in her work. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Everything’s fine,” she said, and sat back down to her dinner. But when she picked up her fork, she found that she’d lost her appetite.

  chapter 23

  “So, can we talk about the fact that you’re a nationwide sensation?” Lizzie asked Emma on Monday morning as they walked up the block to Chadwick. It was the first cold morning of the fall, and the steel-gray sky seemed to threaten rain. Lizzie wore an adorable black fedora and a vintage-looking olive-green suede coat. Emma wondered if she’d ever be able to pull off a hat. She’d tried many times, but they always looked contrived on her.

  “I’m so not a sensation,” Emma said, pulling her black vinyl motorcycle jacket tighter around her.

  “My dad wants to write about you in his column for the Times, okay?” Lizzie said. “That equals sensation. And Manic Panic Shocking Blue is sold out at the Ricky’s on Seventy-second and Columbus,” Lizzie said, touching Emma’s blue-painted strands. “I’m just saying.”

  “I’m just trying to help out my dad. And be honest at the same time.”

  “Maybe you’ll inspire everyone else,” Lizzie said. “If you can make a political speech and be yourself, then there’s hope for adults.”

  They walked into the lobby, where Dori the receptionist launched herself out of her chair. “Oh, Emma!” she cried, throwing down her headset. “I saw the clip on CNN. You were just spectacular!”

  “Thanks, Dori,” Emma said as she and Lizzie quickly mounted the stairs. “This is starting to get a little embarrassing,” she said to Lizzie under her breath.

  “Just enjoy it,” Lizzie said.

  They climbed the stairs to the Upper School and walked to the lockers, where Todd was getting out his books.

  “Hey, stranger,” Lizzie said, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “Where were you last night? I called you. And texted.”

  “Oh,” Todd said, looking vaguely guilty, Emma thought. His floppy brown hair was long over the back of his collar and needed a cut. His blue eyes looked puffy. “I was downtown with my brother.” He fumbled with his lock.

  “Well, how is he? How’s everyone?”

  “I’m fine,” he said hurriedly, darting a glance at Emma. “Can you guys save me a seat? I’ll be there in a sec.” He slung his book bag over his shoulder and took off toward the bathroom.

  “What’s with him?” Emma asked.

  Lizzie sighed as she dialed her combination. “It’s gotten worse. The prosecution found all these receipts from a hotel in Grand Cayman.” She lowered her voice. “Turns out Todd’s dad took over the top floor to throw his girlfriend a party. And charged it to the company. It’s all so mortifying for everyone.”

  “But he’s being weird with you?” Emma asked.

  “I wish I knew what to do. Leave him alone? Give him space? Be a shoulder to cry on? I have no idea.” She pulled off her patchwork-style scarf and stuffed it into her locker.

  “Huh,” Emma said. “I don’t know. This really isn’t my area of expertise.”

  “Hey, guys,” Carina said, walking up to them. “Okay. What’s going on?” She looked from one to the other of them. “I’m sensing drama.”

  “Todd is being weird,” Emma said.

  “Oh,” Carina said. “What else is new?”

  “Hey!” Lizzie said, playfully giving her a jab on the shoulder.

  “No, he’s really being weird,” Emma supplied. “We think it’s the trial. It has to be, Lizzie.”

  Just then Remington walked past them. Emma gave him a wave but her brother only glowered at her.

  “Yikes,” Lizzie said. “I thought Todd was being weird.”

  “He just has something up his butt, as usual,” Emma said. “Forget it.”

  “Actually, I heard kind of a weird story about him just now,” Carina said.

  Emma felt the hairs on her arm suddenly stand up. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I didn’t want to say anything, but I’d rather you hear it from me than from some other kid.” Carina cast her eyes down. “He supposedly got kind of wasted at a Brearley party Saturday night. With Steven and Chris. The three of them were totally out of control. Some of the other guys there had to ask them to leave.”

  Emma felt a knot form in the center of her chest. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive,” Carina said. “At least, that’s what I heard.”

  “Wow,” Lizzie said. “He’s always been, like, the model student.”

  “He is a model student,” Emma said. “He’s going to get into Harvard early. I don’t know what that’s about.” But she remembered the weird smell in his room Saturday night. And how he couldn’t look her in the eye.

  “Well, it probably has more to do with the Cro-Magnon twins than it does with your brother,” Carina said, waving it off.

  Emma let it drop as they walked into homeroom, but the story gnawed at her for the rest of the day. It made her think of other things that didn’t quite make sense: That night in Washington, when Remington got so ill, for no real reason… Seeing Steven and Chris the following Monday, and hearing Chris talking about someone being a “maniac” at Georgetown… How Remington’s words had sounded slurred in his room the other night. Maybe there was some truth to the Brearley party story. But how could there be? Remington had never gotten in trouble for anything, ever. He’d never even gotten detention. And now he was getting thrown out of parties? How?

  There was only one person who could possibly help her figure this all out. When she walked down to the library for speech team, she saw him standing at one of the seemingly always broken vending machines.

  “Hi,” Walker said, banging the side of the machine. “How’s the campaign trail?”

  “There’s always room for improvement,” she said, coming to stand next to him.

  “I’m starting to think you don’t need much,” he said, hitting the machine again. “You’re doing great. Really. I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks,” she said, letting the compliment sink in.

  He smiled at her f
or a moment, and then he turned back to the vending machine. “Is this thing ever not broken? Jeez.” He banged it again and a granola bar dropped into the tray. “Finally.” He reached down to grab it.

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” she said. “Why aren’t you friends with my brother anymore?”

  Walker carefully unwrapped the bar. “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because it’s obvious you’re not. You’re never around each other anymore. Did you guys have a fight about something?”

  Walker frowned. “No.”

  “Well, what was it? Can you tell me?”

  “Sometimes people just stop being friends,” he said. “There doesn’t have to be a reason.”

  “Come on. Was it something about school? Or speech team?”

  “Emma, it’s between me and him. Sorry, but it is.” They began to walk toward the library.

  “So there was something that happened,” she observed.

  “Why do you care?” he asked.

  “Because he seems to be acting kind of weird, and I heard this bizarre story today. I don’t know. You were his best friend for so long. You’re the only other person who knows him like I do.”

  Walker sighed and studied the ground. “Look, your brother’s in a different scene now. And it’s just not one that I really want to be part of.”

  Before he could speak there were footsteps behind them. She turned to see Remington coming toward them. “What are you guys doing?” His blue-green eyes darted from her to Walker and back again. His voice was friendly, but there was a ripple of tension underneath it. He heard, Emma thought. He totally heard us.

  “Nothing,” she said, as innocently as she could muster.

  “Hey, Walker,” Rem said, in a way that was a little too friendly.

  “Hi, Rem,” Walker replied.

  “You guys going to the library?” Remington asked.

  “Where else?” Walker answered.

  The three of them walked silently into the room, the air so thick with tension that Emma couldn’t speak. It was obvious now that the two of them were in a fight. But she didn’t know whose side of the fight she was on.