The View from Here

by Hannah McKinnon

  Over the course of those many phone conversations, Phoebe felt like she and Rose had gotten to know each other. During their first call, she learned that Rose had a grandson named Peter who played soccer. During another, when Phoebe lamented the late night she’d spent with two sickly throwing-up toddlers, Rose had clucked her tongue sympathetically into the receiver and said, “Oh, I don’t miss those days. But you’ll get through it.” Commiseration had taken place. A few laughs had been shared. Rose knew that Phoebe was a real person. And surely that would help her to make her case today when she met with Rose to ask for an increase in funding. Besides, Phoebe had always pictured what Rose looked like and was looking forward to seeing how close her imagination had been.

  Now, as she sat on the other side of Rose’s desk, she realized that her imagination sucked. Rose did not have a soft grandmotherly expression or a sympathetic ear. Phoebe’s imagined kinship with the woman vaporized under the harsh bank lighting as soon as Rose opened a file and turned it around to face Phoebe.

  “Remember the appraisal report?”

  Phoebe did.

  Rose pointed to a number at the bottom of a column. “This is what we base your loan amount on. The combination of proposed building improvements with the current value of the building and the value of the land.”

  She looked at Phoebe. “Have you made any upgrades or additions to the building design?”

  Phoebe shook her head.

  “And the lot size remains the same.”

  It was not a question. But Phoebe nodded.

  “Then I’m afraid we can’t increase the funding allotted since it matches the appraised value of the proposed work to be done.” She let out her breath. “If anything, the market has struggled and lakefronts have been slow to recover. This appraisal from over a year ago is higher than what it might evaluate at today. In that case, you’re lucky.”

  “Lucky.” Phoebe stared at the chart. What she felt was poor. House poor, to be exact. She fiddled with the collar of her shirt and looked around. Why was it so hot in the bank?

  “Well, if we can’t increase the amount of the construction loan, there must be something else we can do. Is it possible to advance an advance?”

  Rose looked at her levelly. The woman did not look like anyone who’d nursed a sick boy through a night. “As I explained at the beginning of the loan process, advances are based upon percentages of work done.” She whisked another file out of the shadowy reach behind her desk. God, there were so many files. This time she ran her finger across a spreadsheet. “See this? This is your total loan balance of the funds paid out thus far. And here is the percentage of work done. If you look carefully, you can see that on your most recent inspection he allowed for one hundred percent release of the siding funds. That includes both materials and labor.” She looked up at Phoebe to be sure she understood. “And didn’t you just tell me that the siding is only about fifty percent complete?”

  Phoebe winced. The siding was only halfway done. And yet they’d blown through all of the funds for it. Which had gone to sill beam and termite repairs. Yes, money had been misallocated. But wasn’t that exactly what Rose had also told her in one of their first phone conversations? “I remember you saying that I could allocate funds accordingly. That just because the inspector released funds for siding, for example, it didn’t mean I couldn’t apply those funds to something else.”

  Rose nodded. “Correct. How you channel those funds is ultimately up to you, because we recognize that the building process isn’t exactly linear. As you’ve discovered, there are all kinds of unknowns.”

  Phoebe sat up. “Unknowns! Yes. That is what I’ve been dealing with.” Perhaps Rose understood, after all. This was Phoebe’s opening.

  “However,” Rose interjected, “that doesn’t change the end number. When all is said and done, you still have the funds you started with. Maybe you save money on the roofing budget, but maybe the septic goes over. We allow leeway.”

  “Leeway,” Phoebe repeated. She smiled at Rose. Now they were talking.

  “But unless something major changes to the plans or property value, we don’t loan more money than the value of the project as a whole.”

  Phoebe felt herself deflate. “So, I can’t get more, and I can’t get it any sooner.”

  Rose shook her head. “Unless there is a compelling reason, some sort of crisis.” She sat back in her seat. “Is there a crisis?”

  The back of Phoebe’s neck prickled. Why else would she be sitting here practically begging for a fund increase? “I wouldn’t call it a crisis, exactly.” Phoebe paused.

  “If there is, we should review your books.”

  Books? The closest thing Phoebe had to books were a Thomas the Tank notepad stuffed with receipts, chicken-scratch numbers, and messy handwritten Post-it notes. All in different-colored ink. If she were to hand over her “books,” the bank would see it all: the budgeted line values went way over what the original construction estimate sheet allowed for. Phoebe was in crisis, but the crisis was of her making. And the bank might get nervous and step in. What was that nifty little term she’d glossed over in the loan agreement: right of seizure? Phoebe would lose control of the project. Or worse, lose the house.

  She wagged her head. “No crisis. Just a little setback with the unforeseen termite and sill structure issues.”

  “It happens,” Rose allowed. “And I’m sorry to hear you’re experiencing it. At this stage, we recommend the homeowner and general contractor discuss and try to adjust the cost estimate sheet accordingly.” She paused. “However, if it’s something you can’t seem to resolve, then you should come back to me. I can call for a review and a site visit from the bank.”

  Phoebe let out a nervous laugh, one she’d intended to sound carefree but which she realized had come more as a squawk. “Oh, no. No, thank you. There’s no need for any kind of review. My contractor has helped me adjust accordingly, and I just wanted to come in today to bring you up to speed. Really, I can’t believe how beautiful the house looks.” She glanced at the inspection file, which she knew held photo updates of the last inspection. “What’d you think of the siding color?”

  Rose did not comment on the color. Instead, she sat back and offered Phoebe a mixed look that could at best be called one of empathetic scrutiny. “New construction is a huge undertaking, and we realize that. What’s important now is to try to stay on track with the funds. Itemization is your friend.”

  Friend? Was Rose offering encouragement, or a warning? It didn’t matter. The woman was a vault. A vault of funds completely inaccessible to Phoebe. Phoebe needed to get out of there. She gathered her purse and reached across the desk with what she really hoped was a firm handshake. “Thanks, again. It was nice to catch up.”

  Outside, Phoebe scurried across the parking lot and into her car. Coming to the bank had been a terrible idea. All she’d managed to do was to confirm her fears: she was running out of money. And now she’d probably given Rose Calloway cause to scrutinize the project from here on out. Phoebe glanced around the car, at the crumpled juice boxes. At the granola bar wrappers fluttering between the seats, the uncapped Crayola markers, and a lone shin guard left by one of the boys. She was half tempted to go back inside and pluck Rose out from behind her desk. Bring her out to the car to itemize that shit show.

  Instead, she sank back in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes. Everything was turning into a mess. Her dream house. Her finances. Maybe even her marriage. She looked at the clock and cursed. She was fucking late to preschool again.

  Perry

  It was a nice enough day to be out on the lake, he’d allow that, but there were more important things to do. For starters, the lawn. The crew had done a royally shoddy job. Perry strode across the front yard inspecting the borders of the garden beds. Cedar-colored mulch was bunched around the base of his boxwoods in large uneven clumps. Perry had asked for black cedar, not this artificially charged orange variety. Worse, much of it was piled right u
p to the edging, which he had specifically stated he wanted to be well defined. He’d have to get down on his hands and knees and rearrange it.

  The front door opened and Amelia popped her head out. “What are you doing? It’s almost time to go.”

  Perry kept working. “I wish someone had asked me about the timing of this family boating excursion,” he said. “One o’clock is right in the middle of the day.”

  “Exactly,” she replied. “Which is prime for swimming. And fun,” she added. She waited until he stood up and brushed his knees off, which they both noticed at the same time were now stained orange.

  Perry sighed and followed her inside. Didn’t anyone do their job well anymore?

  Amelia handed him a wet paper towel and returned her attention to the cooler she was packing. He could see a good bottle of rosé sticking out the top. “Where’s Emma?” he asked, as he scrubbed at his knees.

  “Upstairs. In her room.”

  “Still? But why?”

  Amelia shrugged and went to the fridge for a wedge of cheese. “She’s a teenager. That’s what teenagers do.”

  “I didn’t do that. She’s spending a lot of time up there lately.”

  “You worry too much,” Amelia said.

  Perry supposed his wife was right. She was probably just tired from her long days working at the Club camp. Perry loved that she had a summer job there. He loved most of all the wholesomeness of it all: working outdoors teaching small children to swim and kayak. It was the best part of living in their private gated community, and it made all those years of holding his breath on the membership waiting list worth it.

  Getting into the Candlewood Cove Clubhouse had not been easy. It was an exclusive Club that catered not only to those living primarily in the community but also to members who had something to offer. Members included bankers and artists, philanthropists and writers. Some of them were legacy members, whose families had long established their place since its inception. In the early 1930s the Club had been a bit of a social enclave of New Yorkers seeking respite and privacy away from the hustle of the city. To this day, the membership was capped at one hundred families, and spaces did not open up with any regularity. Gaining membership required an application, sponsorship by current members, and an interview of the entire family. When he was growing up, Perry’s family had known members and had always socialized on the outskirts of the Club, but as much as he loved his parents, they weren’t membership material. Jane was too outspoken, too liberal. Edward was not impressed with the trappings of those who already belonged. But Jake had been the most perplexed. “Why on earth would you want to waste your money to blow smoke up all those conservative butts?” Perry had not bothered to explain why. If Jake didn’t understand now, he never would.

  When Perry and Amelia had finally been admitted, it was an arrival of sorts. The fruition of a dream Perry had harbored since childhood. And today, on the rare occasion he was home, was the perfect day to spend in peace and quiet at the Club. But instead Jake had insisted the whole family go boating on the lake.

  This struck Perry as highly amusing since Jake was the only member of the family who did not technically live on the lake or own a boat. Even Phoebe’s shack was on the water. “So kind of Jake to invite us out on our own lake and to use our own boat with him today,” he mused out loud.

  “Oh, stop. It’ll be nice to be out with the whole family.”

  Perry had to give his wife credit. Amelia had grown up as an only child and found his vocal and intrusive family both entertaining and comforting. Perry knew what the day held in store: everyone would argue about where to go and what to do. And once they got to wherever they finally agreed to go, they’d tie the boats together and the kids would hop between the two like forest monkeys, in and out, littering the clean carpeted floor with peanut butter and jelly and juice boxes and whatever other sticky snacks Phoebe allowed her boys to eat. Everyone would talk at once, right over the top of one another. There’d be at least one debate, one spill of something that stained, and at least one howling cry for Band-Aids. Perry cringed just imagining what awaited him.

  At least the weather was good. Perry put on his sunglasses, and they taxied out into the shoals to meet the rest of the family. The joke among lakegoers was that it was better to have friends who had boats than to own one yourself. But Perry had grown up in a boating family. When he was growing up on the lake, his parents had owned a motorboat, and all three of the Goodwin kids had learned to water-ski at an early age. It was a rite of passage at thirteen to take the Candlewood Lake water safety course and get your boater’s license. Of the three of them, Jake had been the most eager. Phoebe was lazy; she loved the idea of going out on the water with friends, but she didn’t like the hassle of the work involved. They could always tell when she’d been the one to use the boat last because the cover was never replaced correctly or the ties were done too loosely. Eventually her social life got the best of her, and she resorted to asking Perry to drive her and her friends around while they sunbathed and gossiped and sipped Bud Light from pilfered cans. For Jake, the boat was one endless summer party. Once out on the water, he’d be gone all day. But he always returned the boat with care, tying it neatly to the dock, snapping the covers tight and never leaving a trace of the fun Perry knew he’d enjoyed out there. The eleven-mile-long lake ran along several town borders, and Jake seemed to know just about everyone from the tip of Sherman’s shallow waters to New Fairfield, Brookfield, and beyond.

  Perry marveled that just about each teenage boater they passed waved and called out for his sibling. When it was just Perry alone on the water and a boat full of teenage girls drew up alongside him, he couldn’t help but feel offended by the disappointed expressions on the girls’ faces as soon as they realized it was him, and not Jake, at the helm. Perry recalled the time a group of Phoebe’s friends had gone out in the boat with him. Jake was at the wheel, but Perry didn’t mind; cute Tricia Schneider in her peach bikini had seated herself next to him. Jake was doing all the talking, pointing out the sights and waving to passersby like he owned the lake. At one point Tricia put her hand on Perry’s knee and leaned in close to whisper in his ear. Perry had blushed, eager to hear what she had to say. “Your brother is so funny,” she’d gushed. “Is he dating anyone?”

  Jake, whom Perry hadn’t even realized was listening, had turned around from his position at the wheel and winked at her. “You tell me.”

  Well, now Perry was the one out on the lake with his beautiful wife and daughter, in their beautiful boat.

  “How long are we going to be out here, anyway?” Emma shouted over the whir of the motor. Immediately Perry deflated.

  “Long enough to have fun,” he said, trying to sound convincing.

  In the distance, Perry spotted his parents’ pontoon boat creeping along the shoreline. Amelia leaned forward from where she was sitting on the bench and squeezed his elbow. In spite of himself, Perry smiled. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  When they pulled up alongside the pontoon, the first thing he noticed was Olivia’s crimson bathing suit.

  This pained him. Perry was a heterosexual man who’d appreciated the physical nature of female beauty since adolescence. It was science. But Perry had never taken that as license to ogle women. Especially as a devoted husband. Besides, one thing he’d learned in his adult life was that it was fleeting. The most obviously alluring face on a crowded sidewalk could be made ugly by a curt eye roll at the homeless man in the doorway. Just as he now appreciated a different kind of beauty; a loveliness in the hand that guided a shy child into a classroom, or in the doting look of an old man gazing at his wife on the train. As Perry aged, his perception of beauty had altered.

  He could hardly blame Olivia’s swimsuit, a faded, modest one-piece that suggested little. And yet there was the round swell of her small breasts. Just above which her wide brown eyes seemed to smile, even from a distance. Perry looked away from her smile. He busied himself with the ty
ing up of his boat to theirs, in the passing of coolers and picnic baskets. He did not redirect the kids as they scrambled into his pristine new boat. Nor did he open a beer and clink bottles with Jake and his father and Rob, who looked like he really needed his. Focus, he chastised himself, as he climbed onto the pontoon with the rest of his family.

  “How’s the house going?” Perry asked Rob.

  “What’s going are the sill beams.” He took a deep swig of beer. “Every rotten one of them.”

  Phoebe wasted no time in chiming in. “Which, as it turns out, is quite common in older houses.”

  Perry didn’t dare comment on the “old” part. The old house was already theirs. Along with its old sill.

  “Yikes. What’s that going to cost you?” Amelia asked.

  Perry shot her a look.

  “What?” she said. “We’re family.”

  “Indeed, we are,” Rob said. “And getting closer every day. Did you hear we may move in with your folks?” He held up his beer as if toasting, but his expression said otherwise.

  Perry’s gaze swiveled to his mother. “They’re moving in with you and Nana?” Jane, who was holding a mimosa, tipped it back like a spring break tequila shot and feigned interest in a distant shorebird.

  “Since it’s going to take a few more weeks than we thought. And about ten thousand more dollars,” Rob added.

  Phoebe looked wounded. “Eight,” she interjected. “Only eight. And no one is moving anywhere just yet. It’s merely a backup plan.” She slumped against the bench.

  “Do you guys need help moving stuff into Mom and Dad’s?” Jake asked. Leave it to Jake to keep things moving in the wrong direction.

  No one replied.

  “What about Nana?” Perry asked. He had a startling vision of toys scattered underfoot and his nephews thundering up and down the hall at the crack of dawn as she tried to sleep. Of the noise, the mess, the extra mouths to feed for his parents. What was Phoebe thinking?