On the Same Page

by N. D. Galland

  “You should ask town counsel,” Rachel said. “I think she’ll tell you to threaten Mr. Smith with legal action, but I’m not sure.”

  Said the Minion, “It sounds like there is no answer. Currently, the official position is that nothing will happen if Mr. Smith ignores the cease and desist order and continues to use his personal transportation device as he sees fit.”

  There was a millisecond of perfect silence in the room. Every set of eyes was staring at the lawyer. Then several grunts burbled up from the audience.

  “Are you serious?” demanded Helen, finally.

  “How can you enforce a ruling when there are no consequences for disobeying it?” he asked.

  “There are consequences,” said Helen in a forbearing tone. “We’ll find out what the consequences are and communicate them to Mr. Smith.”

  “Please communicate them to me,” he said briskly. He stood again, and held out a card. “Here is the best way to reach me.”

  After another pause, the officer directly across from him reached out and took the card. She read his name aloud, but nobody took notes. Finally, looking bemused, she offered the card to the clerk, who nodded toward her large pile of files. The officer shrugged and tossed the card onto the pile.

  “We’ll let you know,” said Helen, in a voice of bored dismissal. The suited minion nodded tersely and turned to exit, picking his way past faded Levi’s and weathered L.L.Bean. Joanna didn’t like him much but she felt bad for him anyhow, because she knew that in most parts of the East Coast he would seem relatively normal.

  After another pause, the board members all exchanged glances and rolled their eyes.

  “What an asshole,” James Sherman muttered under his breath beside Joanna, in a distinctly nonjournalistic tone.

  “Any other business?” Helen asked.

  AS SOON AS Joanna got home, she turned the oven on again and put what was left of the turkey lasagna in to heat it up. She went into the pantry to check how many Sam Adams were still left (meaning: how many Hank had gotten up to drink while she was at the ZBA meeting, and the answer was miraculously only one) and her eye fell on the spot where the coveted honey jar had been. There was now an empty spot on the dusty shelf, like a missing tooth.

  “Henry Holmes,” she said in a scolding tone, speaking over the evening news.

  “Joanna Howes,” he said in exactly the same tone.

  “Did you really think I would steal your honey?”

  “Oh, so you noticed it was gone?” he said slyly. “That means you had your eye on it, so it’s good I did something about it.”

  “You are amazing,” she grumbled. “I can’t believe Anderson Cooper puts up with you.” She crossed past him into her bedroom to get a sweater.

  Sitting on her bedside table was the honey jar.

  “Oh!” she said, and back in the living room Hank burst into his Hank Laughter.

  “Thank you,” she said, coming out of the bedroom and, of course, now feeling bad that she had pressured him to give it up, because that’s how these things work.

  “Oh, sure,” he said. “It’s going to taste even sweeter than it would have if I’d just let you have it when you first asked.”

  That evening, after feeding Hank and double-checking his meds, she exchanged a few “sitting here in limbo” jokes with Brian via text, then wrote up a brief, clear, and objective description of the meeting. She emailed it to Everett along with her notes, feeling as proud and nervous as she had after her first restaurant review.

  An hour later, he sent it back to her, not one sentence left unchanged:

  A large crowd was present this week to witness the West Tisbury Zoning Board of Appeals resoundingly reject an appeal from Orion Smith of New York City, a seasonal resident who sought to build a helipad for his personal 5-seater Bell 505 Jet Ranger helicopter on his North Road property near the much-loved protected wetlands of Beechwood Point. Mr. Smith defied a cease and desist order earlier in the month by using his helicopter on at least two unauthorized trips, and has made it clear (through a representative who appeared in his stead) that he intends to continue to do so. The ZBA is waiting for the town counsel to advise on Mr. Smith’s actions. “We don’t have to deal with scofflaws very often,” said Ms. Javier, by way of explaining why counsel was required. This is Mr. Smith’s third contentious run-in with the ZBA over the past 12 years; he had previously sought variances for a 5-hole golf course and an oversized outbuilding, neither of which were granted.

  “I didn’t know any of that,” she said to Everett the next morning in his office, trying not to sound defensive. Or pathetic.

  “I know,” he said kindly. “Sort of ironic, since Hank was chair of the ZBA for at least one of those, and I think they even got into a shouting match in public. Hank is reliable for good copy that way.”

  The next day, the Newes published James Sherman’s version: “The West Tisbury Zoning Board of Appeals did not grant an appeal by Mr. Orion Smith, who wishes to build a helipad on the North Road property where three generations of his family have summered.”

  She blinked at the sentence.

  “Susan’s gone for another couple weeks,” said Everett over her shoulder, seeing what she was reading. “I’m keeping you on the West Tisbury beat. That means selectmen’s meeting every Wednesday, and a couple of Planning Board meetings, maybe an assessors’ meeting and I think the Conservation Commission meets next week.”

  “I thought you wanted me to do features,” she said, feeling pallid. “Not news.”

  “When I said no news, I meant no investigative journalism,” he said cheerfully. “Covering town politics isn’t news, it’s just official gossip. You must deal with that all the time in the big city.”

  II

  February

  JOANNA NEEDED A ROUTINE TO FEND OFF THE ENCROACHING sense of limbo. Not exactly limbo, though. It was more a dual desire to evade and yet to claim everything around her all the time, a hybrid of claustrophobia and covetousness. It was hard to simply be, when half the time she was anxious to get back to New York and figure out her future, and the other half wondered what would make her most homesick for the Vineyard once she got back to New York. She determined to spend one afternoon per week cooking easy-to-reheat dishes—stews, casseroles, lasagnas—that she could feed Hank on short notice. His narcotically enhanced boredom both fueled and suppressed his appetite in turn, and she required a quick-fire defense against Hangry Man. This meant he would be eating the same two or three dishes for lunch and dinner all week, something he was happy to complain about.

  “You don’t have to insult my clam chowder [seafood stew, tuna casserole, turkey lasagna],” she would say, to which he would reply, the diagonal smirk on his face, “Oh, but I insist! It’s no trouble at all.” And then he’d bust out with an affectionate chortle.

  But most days found him in pain, sometimes too wobbly from the painkillers to get around safely, even for his allotted thirty minutes. Then he would sag against her as she helped him toward the bathroom or his bedroom. This is our dress rehearsal, she would think. Someday we’ll be doing this for real. She’d be filled with tenderness, and she’d see in his eyes that it was mutual.

  Then he’d make a fart joke, and things were back to normal.

  (He also managed, infuriatingly, to win every game of Scrabble they played, although it was usually because of one extraordinarily lucky play, such as “jinx” on a triple-word score.)

  She tried to talk with Brian every evening, but the unspoken question of their future weighed down the silence between their words. Especially when he asked how she would feel if he saw other people, casually, until they finally had The Talk. Both relieved and annoyed, is how she felt. “You should do what works for you,” is what she said. She tried to walk with Celia and her dog every other afternoon, weather permitting. “Weather permitting” was a subjective phrase, it turned out. It meant one thing to hardened New Englanders and something else to former New Englanders.

  “
But kiddo, this is the best time of year for walking the beach!” Celia would insist. “No tourists! No summer people! We get all the sea glass to ourselves!” And so Joanna would bundle herself in Aunt Jen’s shapeless down coat—not the one with the duct tape—and join Celia and her yellow Lab, Hops, on Lambert’s Cove Beach. Depending upon the mood of the weather gods, the beach was either soft, smooth sand, or else tumbled with stones. The water and wind displaced tons of sand, and then deposited it all hither and yon with a capriciousness even seasoned beach walkers could never predict. The sand was finer here than on the long straight stretch of the south shore, and the water marginally warmer, since it was Vineyard Sound and not the Atlantic Ocean. Not that anyone went into the water this time of year. Not even Hops. It was soothing to walk the mile stretch up to Split Rock and back, listening to Celia’s entertaining patter about the personalities she worked with at the bakery, and the unsurprising melodrama of the early morning customers: tradesmen, mostly; caretakers about to make their rounds; ER nurses getting off duty; teachers up early for a morning run before school started. Everyone’s life touched everyone else’s, usually through some liquid conduit: blood ties, or sex, or drink. This one was the brother of that one’s ex. That other one had once been this one’s landlord, or perhaps they’d tried to start a business together and wanted to gossip to the bakery girls about why their former partner was the one to blame for the failure. As a written narrative it would have been tedious and predictable, but colored with Celia’s buoyant expressions it was good distraction as they pushed against the frosty wind, leaving boot prints in the damp sand.

  “Until you’re ready to come back to New York and test-drive my new bedroom, I don’t see much point in chatting,” Brian said pleasantly one day. “I love hearing your voice, but let’s not pretend things are normal. I’ll spring for your plane fare. Come home as soon as you can, even for an overnight. Until then, have a nice February.”

  EVENINGS WEREN’T GOOD for Celia. She was a baker, and up hours before dawn. But she braced herself one week, and came to dinner. She brought a nice bottle of red wine, even though she knew Hank, a self-described Cheap Yankee Bastard, only drank beer and rum these days.

  So she also brought some beer her boyfriend Ted had just made. “Here y’go,” she said, grinning, placing an unmarked brown bottle in front of him. “This is better than cheap, it’s free.”

  Hank, sitting upright at the table, looked tickled by the gift. “And what’s this called?” he asked. He pushed the cat off the table and twisted the bottle cap off with callused hands. “Is it another Game of Thrones drug like the valerian?” He sniffed it. “Mm, smells hoppy.”

  “We call it Takemmy Brew,” said Celia, watching him take his first slug of it. “Cuz we brewed it right here in Takemmy.”

  “Isn’t that cultural appropriation?” asked Hank, mischievous. “Are you even allowed to say ‘Takemmy’ for ‘West Tisbury’ if you’re not a member of the Wampanoag tribe?”

  “Hank, you’re absolutely right,” said Celia. “That’s why white people never call it Massachusetts. Instead we say Wicked-Pissah Red Sox Nation of Asshole Drivers. Speaking of the valerian, how’d you like it?”

  He swallowed, set the bottle down, grimaced. “Haven’t tried it yet,” he confessed. “It looked murky.”

  “That’s what happens when you soak fibrous roots in vodka for a month,” Joanna said.

  His eyes widened. “Vodka? Celia, honey, you didn’t tell me it was vodka. That changes everything. Dear Celia,” he said briskly, as if dictating a letter, “I would like to order a fifth of valerian tincture, please.”

  “We have to find you something productive to do,” Joanna said, trying not to sound exasperated.

  “You mean other than drink?” He said it with a defiant but self-conscious grin. “Can’t imagine why I’m doing that. There’s such an embarrassment of riches to do while I am stuck on my ass on the couch, in the middle of the woods, in the middle of winter. Oh, look,” he said, with exaggerated glee, and picked up the remote control. “I can argue with Sanjay Gupta!”

  “I think,” said Celia, “that it is finally time for you to host a poker game.”

  Hank burst out laughing. “I’m a dreadful poker player,” he confessed proudly. “What I can do—you know what I can do? I play a mean game of Scrabble.”

  “That’s true. Let’s invite some people over for Scrabble,” Joanna said immediately.

  He gave her an incredulous look. “You don’t invite people over for Scrabble. You invite people over for dinner, and then after dinner, you play Scrabble. Maybe. If everyone else has had enough to drink.” And then conspiratorially to Celia, “That’s the best way to win.”

  She nodded. “Thank you, Hank,” she said. “I will remember that tip and use it to beat you at Scrabble sometime soon. Meanwhile, maybe you need to improve your poker game. Ted can come teach you. Show you a few tricks. He’s kind of a shark, but he’ll take good care of you.”

  “Well,” said Hank, shooting a glance in Joanna’s direction, “I’m glad somebody will.”

  “Hey,” Joanna said, more sharply than she should have. “I’ve been feeding you, doing your laundry, helping you in and out of bed—”

  “But you’re not entertaining me, Anna,” he said. “Right now, more than anything else—even more than valerian tincture—I need some fucking entertainment! Gah!” He said this to the ceiling. “There is nothing more boring! Than this! Just existing! It’s enough to make me get back into politics.”

  “God forbid,” laughed Celia.

  God forbid, thought Joanna.

  * * *

  Realizing Joanna would never rally as a sportswriter, Everett took her off basketball patrol. Now she wrote about the state Scholastic Awards. This mostly meant taking the press release from the high school and beefing it up with brief personal interviews of all the happy student winners. It was strange, almost eerie, to wander the hallways of her youth and see that some of the teachers were younger than she was.

  Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School existed in the midst of a few hundred acres that would never be featured on postcards or coffee table books: a flat expanse of fields, scrub oak, and lanky pines, straddling one of the dullest roads on the island, a narrow inland highway from Vineyard Haven to Edgartown (called, imaginatively, the Vineyard Haven–Edgartown Road by most, and the Edgartown–Vineyard Haven Road by others). Across the street was Community Services, the ice rink, the YMCA, a cement skateboard park. The youth of the island could, and many did, spend most of their waking hours in this self-contained enclave, enjoying each other and their shared activities, but indifferent to all the things that made Martha’s Vineyard the Martha’s Vineyard of the off-Island imagination. No wonder so many were so ready to fledge to America, where they’d stare dumbly at the off-Islanders who waxed rhapsodic about how lucky they were to have grown up on such a picturesque island. Having become a summer person over the years, she’d wiped all this from her memory, but it crept back in as soon as she’d parked the truck in the high school lot.

  Everett also sent her to report on a “merger” between Our Vineyard Bank and ABB, a massive off-Island financial institution. (That would be the Vineyard description of ABB. Most other humans would describe ABB as a massive international financial institution.) She interviewed old friends whose families had had accounts at Our Vineyard Bank for generations. It seemed to her that Everett skewed his editing to highlight the people who were happy about the buyout and underreport the ones who were disgruntled.

  “I’m not doing that,” he assured her with his terrier zest, when she brought this complaint to him at his unfurnished desk. “I’m not saying we don’t have a bias here, but that’s not an example of it. You don’t like the idea of the buyout, but you can’t say that in the article. You want to quote people who share your perception but are free to speak it in a way you aren’t. My allowing you to write such a piece—that would show a bias.”

  “I’m u
sed to my perception being a valued part of what I write,” she said. “That’s how I pay my bills.”

  “Maybe we’ll keep you away from business reporting, then,” he said. “I hate to think of you starting a local recession accidentally.”

  That was also Joanna’s first week writing up the news briefs. She liked these because her name was not attached to them, so if she got something wrong she didn’t have to worry about being scolded at the post office or the grocery store. Writing profiles of litigiously narcissistic celebrities wasn’t stressful. Misrepresenting the neighbor’s opinion on feral turkeys while misspelling his name—that was stressful.

  And as for the news on charming, picturesque Martha’s Vineyard, that bleak fortnight in February: A public forum was called by state wildlife rangers to discuss the merits of extending the deer-hunting season by an extra two weeks in an attempt to cull the herds, which would hopefully, in turn, rein in Lyme disease. The Vineyard had a Lyme infection rate twelve times the national average. Everyone knew deer ticks relied more on white-footed field mice than on deer, but Bambi always took the rap on this topic, possibly because Bambi was tastier than white-footed field mice.

  Also in the news:

  The hospital and Community Services were celebrating the one-year anniversary of partnership with Falmouth Halfway House, on the Cape. Everybody always wanted to see addicts getting help—as long as it wasn’t in their neighborhood.

  A new affordable-housing project was coming up for review at the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. Everybody always wanted to see affordable housing get a green light—as long as it wasn’t in their neighborhood.

  (The exception to this had been Henry Holmes, who’d cannily donated several acres to the town for such a development, with the agreement that he retain timber rights.)

  There were also a couple of updates on trials related to domestic violence, and in one case, sexual assault of a minor.