The View from Here

by Hannah McKinnon

  Perry

  It had finally happened. His whole family had lost their minds. First over Grandma Elsie, whom they let roam unsupervised throughout the house and gardens like some kind of aged toddler on the loose. Who could at any minute roll one of her well-heeled feet on the edge of an over-mulched rosebed and topple to her death. Well, more likely to a broken hip. Followed by indeterminate bedrest, followed by subsequent pneumonia, thereby guaranteeing convalescence. Same thing as death, really. It was all there in the insurance statistics, documented warnings available to millions. But not his family. They kept to a strict diet of euphoric ignorance.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, now Jake was engaged. To a woman from another country whose citizenship was a complete mystery. Who was a single parent of a child who did not speak, yet another puzzle that his family seemed perfectly happy to add to their flourishing do-not-ask list. A child who may or may not have a father lurking in the wings, and for whom Jake would now be financially responsible. There was a term for this in Perry’s line of work: damage offset. There was still time for Jake to employ it.

  Their mother, Jane, had called that morning as Perry rode the train to work. The family knew better than to bother him on weekdays. So he’d taken the call, wondering if something had happened to Elsie. “Can you believe it?” his mother had cried.

  Perry had slapped his laptop shut, straining to understand her through the tears and hiccups. “What is it? What happened?”

  “Jake and Olivia. What else would I be talking about?”

  Leave it to his mother to start the conversation with a greeting inducing cardiac arrhythmia. “No, Mom. No, I cannot believe it.”

  Jane paused. “Now, Perry. This is good news.”

  “Is it?” Then, “What do we even know about her? For that matter, what does Jake know? Haven’t they been dating mere months?”

  “Six months. I’ll grant you that. It’s not long. But Daddy and I knew each other less than a year.”

  “That was another time,” Perry reminded her.

  “Oh, please. It was hardly the Dark Ages.”

  “Mom, my train is approaching a low-signal area. I’m afraid I’m going to lose the call.”

  “Hang on, I just need a moment.” As if Perry could signal the conductor and slow the train. “I’d like to host a party for them. Just a little engagement shindig this weekend. Are you and Amelia free?”

  Perry did not understand the posthaste urge to celebrate a union, one half of whom his family had met only twice. Himself, just once. But he understood all too well the nature of his mother’s invitations. They didn’t require RSVPs. The fact was, they didn’t allow for them. You were summoned: if you weren’t dead, you came.

  “I’m working on the Super Bowl contract, and it’s due that following Monday. But I’m sure Emma and Amelia will go.”

  “Perry. You work too much. It’s a Saturday. Spend time with your family.”

  “I know, Mother, but you see…” Perry hesitated. There was no winning this conversation. “I’ll do my best to make it.”

  “Wonderful. And Perry—a simple request, darling.”

  Perry sighed. “Yes?”

  “Jake is excited. He’s finally come home. He’s landed a job, and he’s got a great girl. Let’s not shit on his parade.”

  Perry was used to his mother’s profanity, if he tended to avoid it himself. A cultured and elegant woman, she was also not afraid to be direct. She’d recently emailed him an article from the New York Times that claimed people who cursed with gusto were intelligent. He’d not bothered to read beyond the headline. According to that criterion, Jane was pure genius. “All right, Mother. I’ll fetter the urge.”

  “Thank you. And honey? Try and be fun. It’d be good for you.”

  Didn’t she mean have fun? As the train hurtled south toward the city, Perry stared out the window. Fun was well and good, but it did not make a successful man. Just look at him and Jake. Perry was stable, accomplished, productive. Jake was immature and given to wanderlust and impulse. A victim of his own inertia who still rented an apartment and probably had less than one hundred dollars in his bank account. And yet people flocked to him. Soaked up his silly stories about ridiculous trips he took, like the one Perry must’ve heard a hundred times about hitchhiking across the Australian outback by car and camel, a two-day trip that turned into two weeks because he had not yet captured the perfect shot of a red desert sunrise. A place where he had to inspect the tent for snakes at night and shake scorpions out of his boots in the morning, but it was all worth it to see the Southern Cross constellation rising over the ebony horizon. The words were lost on Perry, who excused himself from the telling each time, but not before noting the expressions on people’s faces. Jake drew people as effortlessly as Perry seemed to bore them. It was a fact that irked him today as much as it had when they were kids.

  Still, he would do as his mother asked and show up at the party. Hell, he’d even bring a good wine. That was the kind of man Perry was. He still had a gorgeous bottle of Three Rivers Shiraz from his and Amelia’s Barossa Valley trip last year to South Australia. But he would not put a cork in voicing his opinions or trying to protect Jake. Because that was also the kind of man Perry was.

  What he needed was to get Jake alone. Had he any thought of adopting the child once they were married? Had he even consulted a lawyer? What if Olivia was just using Jake for a green card? Perry did not concern himself with where this woman heralded from, or what the estranged father’s status was. That was her concern. What was his concern was the legal and financial responsibility for his brother that came with marriage and a child. And in that vein, what on earth did his little brother know about parenting? Jake was no more than a large kid himself. Who after years of wandering about the country, working as a bike messenger in LA, then a ranger in Yosemite, then an IT consultant for a friend’s startup, had finally stood still in one geographic location long enough to land a real job. If you counted working for a nonprofit nature center as real work. Even so, he’d barely sat down at his new desk at the Audubon and was already talking about squandering his limited vacation time on a honeymoon.

  Perry sniffed. What Jake needed was a girl in finance who was allergic to pets and exotic travel. The kind of girl to squelch the worst of his impulses and keep him on the straight and narrow. And what did he do but dig up a woman with a young child. A starving artist who rescued even hungrier dogs. (Come to think of it, perhaps Olivia fancied herself as rescuing Jake? Perry had read once that people who rescued strays identified with the urge to be rescued themselves. Sort of like hoarders trying to fill a void. He’d have to share this with Amelia later.)

  And what did their family do upon being gobsmacked with the news? Why, throw another party! Perry could not abide it. But that would have to wait. His train was pulling into Grand Central, and he headed to the 6 train.

  At exactly 8:55 Perry strode through the front doors of McElroy, Greenspan, and Luxe. In his tenth-floor corner office he flipped through the folders on his desk that Maura must have left for him to review before she went home for the night. First, the World Figure Skating Championships at TD Garden in Boston. He grabbed a green Post-it off his desk. Green was the color for “green light”: file progressing as expected. Next was the country summer concert series held at Foxwoods Casino. Perry grabbed a yellow Post-it. He’d reviewed the expected ticket sales and show details. But country-western events were famous for high intoxication numbers and arrests. He needed to go over those figures again. Last was his baby, the gig Perry had helped to secure for the firm three years ago and helmed ever since: the halftime show for the Super Bowl. No one but he and his select team had worked on it this year. He ran his hand across the folder front. Super Bowl shows were the crème de la crème of risk analysis. Pyrotechnic accidents. Drunk and disorderlys. Inclement weather. Ticket fraud. Crowd control. Perry had amassed a team of talent in the firm to cover all the bases. They were still in the process of writing
up the final draft.

  By the time Maura arrived, Perry had reviewed the music festival file and emailed the others his updates. “Good morning, Mr. Goodwin.”

  Despite their having worked together for eleven years, Maura had never taken him up on his repeated invitation to call him by his first name. Others in the office, even higher-ups, she referred to as such. Like his manager, Charles Glenelg, whom Maura mystifyingly called Chuck. As if they were neighbors!

  When they first started working together, Perry had considered Maura a rather formal person. Indeed, she was older than him by at least fifteen years. She was fond of tailored suits and sensible square-heeled shoes, unlike some of the other assistants who dressed far more casually. Some of the younger ones in jeans!

  She maintained a sense of order that extended beyond her wardrobe and desktop. She didn’t flinch over $50 million umbrella clauses or the grainy naked image of a drunken pop star who’d fallen offstage during his after-party. Maura was as unflappable as the starched collar on her blouse. Perry sometimes wished he could take her home to talk to Emma. He imagined Maura setting a piece of Bundt cake between them on the dining room table and leaning in conspiratorially to dissect the dresses worn at the homecoming dance, like a grandmother would.

  Now she set his cup of tea on his desk, another thing he knew none of the other assistants did, and waited for him to run through the morning schedule. “Thank you, Maura,” he said. “I emailed you that draft I was working on yesterday for De Beers, if you’d please give it a once-over before finalizing. And I’ve got a claim from underwriting I’d like you to review before mailing out.”

  “Certainly. You have a ten o’clock conference upstairs, don’t forget.”

  He reached for the file on his desk to hand her, then hesitated. Her dignified air was what he’d always liked about Maura, in addition to her no-nonsense attitude and the lemon she added to his herbal tea. But lately he’d begun to wonder if it was something about him that had triggered the formality between them.

  “May I ask you something, Maura?”

  She nodded curtly.

  Perry was not accustomed to asking Maura anything outside of the realm of office business. But he realized he spent more time with her than he did his own family. And he trusted her judgment. “Am I fun?”

  Maura blinked. After a moment, she recovered. “Mr. Goodwin, I have enjoyed working with you for many years. You are always punctual and fair.”

  Perry considered these two traits. Both positive. “Anything else?”

  This time she did not hesitate. “You are predictable.”

  Perry sat back in his chair. “So, no to fun?”

  Maura gave a brisk shake of her head before sweeping the file from his hand.

  Perry waited until she had left to spin his chair around to the large plated windows. His office afforded him a sliver of a view.

  Perry worked hard in the city so his family could live well in the countryside. He thought of his lake club, where Emma could have a wholesome childhood. There he knew all the members and their kids. He knew where Emma was, and who she was with, and what she was doing. How often did he hear his colleagues complain about their teenagers; how distant they were, how mixed up. Theirs were at boarding schools, unseen and doing God knows what. Or they were loose in this city of strangers, free to roam the boroughs like little adults; riding subways, sneaking into nightclubs, and growing up too fast. The world was a crazy place to be raising a young girl. Thank God Emma didn’t have access to that nonsense. Despite the fact they were only a little oa little under a two-hour drive from New York City, his life back home on the lake might as well have been a world away. Sure, he had little free time to enjoy much of it. Or the Chris-Craft he’d finally bought last year that his family liked to tease him about. He couldn’t remember the last Club event he’d attended outside of a board meeting. But you couldn’t put a price on peace of mind, and he’d happily make those sacrifices all over again, no matter what his family thought.

  Outside the sky was a vigorous blue between the buildings. Cars crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. Perry let his gaze rest upon the bridge. Over the years he’d heard it referenced in different respects: A symbol of unity. An engineering masterpiece. The longest journey in the world. But at the end of the day, Roebling’s creation was just that: a bridge. An unshakable structure built to span obstacles. Perry sat back in his chair and sighed. No one expected it to be fun.

  Phoebe

  The cool recess of the dimmed Fairfield Designs interior was a balm to the hot summer day outside and the trail of perspiration snaking its way down her back. Phoebe entered the foyer and breathed in relief. The sound of rippling water emanated softly through the showroom, though she could not locate the source of it even as she meandered through the sleek displays. Dave, her general contractor, had sent her there on a mission to get kitchen design ideas. He’d called her that morning to say he’d scheduled the kitchen design guy to come out to the cottage later that week. Phoebe had balked. “But we don’t know what we want to do with the kitchen yet! Rob and I haven’t agreed on anything beyond the fact there will be one.”

  Dave let her finish, pausing for her to catch her breath. “Well, it’s time. I suggest you visit some local showrooms.”

  Immediately she’d thought of Fairfield Designs. Her best friend, Anna Beth, had redone her master bath with many of their fixtures, and the finished product was jaw-dropping. But Phoebe didn’t have that kind of money to spend on just one room; she had an entire house to renovate. Dave concurred. “You’re just there for ideas! I know you. You’re going to drool when you see the displays, but remember we’re on more of a big-box-store budget.”

  Phoebe was up for the challenge. Her aesthetic may have been out of proportion to her budget, but she’d watched enough HGTV to have a few tricks up her sleeve.

  She passed through a farmhouse kitchen, slowing to admire a deep apron sink. Oh, the dirty pots and pans she could hide in its ceramic depths. The backsplash over the Viking range caught her eye: a wall of creamy subway tile dotted with diminutive square bas-relief tiles. Phoebe leaned in for closer inspection. Dragonflies and bumblebees! She traced their glazed wings with her finger and something inside her fluttered like the winged creatures themselves. When the twins were babies, she’d decorated their nursery in bumblebees. This had to be a sign. She snapped a photo.

  A small display rack on the counter showed the different glaze finishes with which the insect tiles could be customized. They probably cost a small fortune, but the charm was irresistible. She picked up a crackle-finish bee tile and continued on.

  The quaint farmhouse display spilled into a gleaming contemporary in absolute black. Phoebe snorted to herself. The tiny handprints that would show! She continued on into a spacious commercial-grade kitchen with stark industrial contrasts. Here she could breathe. Phoebe meandered between the alabaster-white cabinetry and towering appliances, seduced momentarily by the gleam of stainless steel. At the Calcutta island Phoebe halted, running the palms of her hands over its veined surface. So inviting, so clean. So un-lived-in! She considered the sweeping island top, and her Friday night family routine flashed in her mind like a small detonation: How could anyone in their right mind deign to roll out sticky pizza dough and splatter this pristine surface with marinara sauce? But she did like the commercial-grade faucet atop the sink. She was about to snap another photo when a salesperson appeared.

  “May I help you?” Phoebe hadn’t noticed her coming, but the salesperson had already noticed the bumblebee tile in Phoebe’s hand. “Ah. The Summer Flight series. One of my favorite custom pieces.”

  Phoebe examined the tile in her hand. Custom was good. Personal. Meaningful. More expensive, probably, but this was where Rob failed to understand her approach. Everyone was doing the white subway tile he favored, and she was happy to go that route, too. But it needed something unique to make it hers. Theirs, rather. Poor Rob. She had to stop doing that. “So, these are custom til
es?”

  The woman nodded. “It’s one of our best sellers.” She was pencil thin, dressed head to toe in black. Even her hair was dark, pulled into a sleek low ponytail. The effect was monochromatic. Phoebe wondered if the store had a dress code: “Dress like a curator in a gallery. Blend in so that the custom tiles stand out. Let their tiny ceramic voices be heard!”

  “Would you like to step into our design center?”

  Phoebe glanced at her watch. She didn’t have much time, but she also didn’t want to leave the showroom. The lighting was dim and sexy, and that waterfall sound was as lulling as an Ambien. Surely they had some kind of leather chaise she could curl up on while she perused finishes. But she had to focus. “Well, I’m on a tight time frame.”

  The woman tilted her head and extended her hand. “My name is Thérèse. Would you like a cappuccino?”

  Would she like? Phoebe scurried after Thérèse like a lamb to slaughter.

  An hour, thirty minutes, and two cappuccinos later, Phoebe was sated. Thérèse had skipped right over granite and gone straight for her jugular with gorgeous samples of hazy gray marble. Rob had already weighed in on marble: Too porous. Too pricey. Too easily stained. Well, now she had three squares to bring home and show him.

  In addition, Thérèse had steered Phoebe away from the traditional subway tile they’d had in mind and suggested a crackled glaze. “Much more textural interest.”

  Phoebe nodded. Indeed.

  “What you also need to think about is finishes. Since you’re going for more of a contemporary farmhouse kitchen, I’d suggest more stainless steel.”

  This time Phoebe hesitated. Was contemporary what she was going for? No, they’d decided on a more rustic look. The cottage was lakeside, after all. And her family was… well, messy. An image of a thousand grimy fingerprints flashed in her mind. Followed by an image of her on her knees with a bottle of stainless steel spray and a rag. But before she could protest, Thérèse thrust a brochure across the table.