The Newes building lived on a neat little one-way Edgartown street, where all the yards had thigh-high whitewashed fences with bare-branched bushes, over which roses and hydrangeas would later gush in time for the Fourth of July parade. Unlike most of its neighbors, the Newes building had given up its white clapboard sheath. Now it boasted simple cedar shingles, long aged to a velvety gray. Inside was an eccentrically intoxicating blend of architectural reserve and knuckle-down work environment. The receptionist, in her restricted little booth that had once been the coat closet, smiled politely, not remembering Joanna from fifteen or eighteen years ago, and asked what she was there for.
“I’m here to see Paolo Croce,” she said. The receptionist nodded, informed her desk console—freakishly out of place in a nineteenth-century house—and then smiled politely up at her. “He’s down the hall to the right,” she said. “Do you know it?”
“I can get myself there, thanks,” Joanna said, and passed by. The bare floorboards—wide, painted a steely blue-gray that matched the sky on a sulky winter day—croaked in tired protest under her step. The ceiling was lower than modern buildings, and as she traveled deeper back into the house, it gradually inched even lower. She passed by two narrow thumb-latch doors, then turned right through another thumb-latch door that stood ajar, to find a slender, dark-eyed man hunched behind a desk overflowing with files. Mr. C smiled when he saw her and sat up, more resembling the lithe figure she remembered from her youth. “Joey!” he said, and got up from his creaky wooden chair.
Until the name came out of his mouth, she’d nearly forgotten about her high school nickname. And until the name came out of his mouth, she’d also forgotten that she wrote those restaurant reviews under that name. Anna Howes had never had a byline in the Newes. Due to an ephemeral obsession with her Azorean middle name, she had insisted on publishing as Joey Dias that long-ago summer.
“How are you, Joey?” Mr. C asked, patting her on the back. “What are you doing back on the rock?” His voice was wispier than it had been when he was teaching. His pomaded hair was wispier too. With his Boston accent he could have passed as a genteel barber for the mafia.
“My uncle had a spill,” she said. “Helping him to get back on his feet.”
“Oh . . . I think I heard about that.”
Of course he’d heard about it, his wife worked at the hospital.
“It could have been worse,” she said.
He nodded sagely. “Glad it wasn’t. So how long you here for?”
She shrugged. “I dunno, maybe another month, month and a half? Depends on Hank’s health. Are they looking for freelancers here?”
“You want to write for the Newes? Man, Joey, they’d be lucky to have you, go talk to Lewis . . . Oh, do you know Lewis? I don’t think he was here yet when you were here.”
“Pamela was the editor,” she said.
“Yeah, Lewis is great, he came a couple years ago,” said Mr. C. “Want me to introduce you?”
“I’d really appreciate that, but there’s just one thing . . .” She hesitated. “Have you heard about how you can’t write for both papers?”
He smirked. “Yeah, the Journal apparently has some kind of policy about that.”
“The Journal, are you sure?” she asked. “The Journal thinks the Newes is the one with the policy.”
He jutted his lower lip out thoughtfully, shook his head. “I’ve never heard that. I mean it doesn’t really affect me down here, but everyone here thinks it’s the Journal. Why? Oh!” He gave her a conspiring look. “You’re writing for the Journal? Everett hired you?”
“Just as a freelancer. Y’know, for this short time I’m here.”
“Yeah, that guy loved you,” said Mr. C with a chuckle. “We used to debate which of us would adopt you. Nothing against Jen and Hank, but we never felt like they were worthy of you.”
“That’s sweet, but I don’t need to be adopted anymore. What I need is more work.”
“I’ll get you upstairs with Lewis. Let me see if he’s free now. It’s Friday but I think the edit meeting just ended, so he might still be around.” He punched something into his phone. An indicator light went red, then green, and a soft baritone voice said, “Lewis Worthington.”
“Hi, Lewis, it’s Paolo, downstairs. There’s a young woman here, an Islander—” And he quickly explained who she was. He didn’t use her name, whether by design or accident she couldn’t tell. Lewis was willing to see her, so Mr. C brought her up the steep old stairs that had once led to the servants’ quarters, and into the room that she remembered from years earlier as the editor’s office. It was a converted bedroom—not the master bedroom, which was reserved for the publisher—and overlooked the narrow, quiet street outside. The walls were lined with bookcases, with Banks’ History of Martha’s Vineyard being given pride of place, close at hand to the desk. The shelves not filled with distinguished-looking hardcovers had duck decoys nestled on them. Resting on the mantel above the decommissioned fireplace was a framed collection of Wampanoag arrowheads.
Lewis himself was precisely what Joanna would have expected for a Newes editor: oxford shirt (over a turtleneck, as it was winter), expensive wire spectacles, well-behaved yellow Lab lying on the braided rug.
“Lewis, this is Joey,” said Mr. C, before she could introduce herself. Joey. Not Joanna.
Lewis stood. He was very tall, with the slight apologetic stoop that some tall people have. He reached across his broad oak desk to shake her hand. His hand, she saw, had the mild calluses and short nails of a day sailor’s. The dog, happy to have visitors, rose and dawdled across the rug to press its damp nose into her other hand.
“Hi, pooch,” she said.
“That’s Nevin,” said Lewis.
“Hi, Nevin.” Then, because she couldn’t help herself: “I’m a Nevin, on my mom’s side. Who’s he named for?”
“The former owners of our house were Nevins,” said Lewis.
“I thought you were a Dias on your mom’s side,” said Mr. C.
“I am,” she said. “But on my mother’s mother’s side, I’m a Nevin.”
Both men chuckled, exchanging the look that wash-ashores gave the native-born when they grew precious about family connections. She ignored this. “That house on Pease’s Point way? The little Cape? That was my great-uncle’s.”
“Yes, that’s the one,” said Lewis, looking pleased. “Okay, so you’re a real Islander.” A glance to Mr. C. “And she used to write for us?”
“She worked under Everett when he was here,” Mr. C said unhelpfully.
“High school, summers,” she said. “It’s been a while.”
“What have you been doing since then?”
“Oh, um, writing. Under various names,” she said awkwardly, trying to think if she had ever published anything else under the name Joey Dias. Nope.
“Newspapers? Magazines?”
“Both,” she said, trying not to sound jittery. If he asked for links to her work, he’d see she was actually Anna Howes. Anna Howes worked for the enemy paper.
“She wrote that article about Nina Brown,” said Mr. C proudly. “You know, that one somebody had hanging by the coffee station for—”
“Oh, boy, I do remember that,” Lewis said, and smiled with respect. “The rock-star’s-favorite-cereal thing, right? Everyone was so proud that a former intern had hit the big time, even though you wrote it under some other name, didn’t you? For some reason?”
She made a dismissive gesture. “Yeah, I got a lot of work out of that piece. Grateful for it.”
“Okay, well, that sounds good to me,” said Lewis. “You’re in.”
Good Lord, she thought, that was easy. Small-town newspapers! Where else would a bookkeeper’s recommendation score you a position as a reporter? “We’re understaffed. Let me look at some of what you wrote for us, and we’ll take it from there. Did you go to J-school?”
“No. I took some journalism classes, but I was an English major, and I’d be much more com
fortable doing features,” she said. “Or, y’know, reports. I have too much respect for investigative journalists to try to pass myself off as one.”
“Can you cover town government?” he asked, and turned his attention through his reading glasses to something on his computer screen. “Have you ever reported on, say, a committee meeting?”
“Yes, actually, I have.” Thank you, Everett.
“That’s great, we’re short next week because James Sherman just became a grandfather for the first time so he’s in Connecticut for a while—”
“She can absolutely cover James’s beat,” said Mr. C heartily.
She knew there was a problem with that. She just couldn’t rearrange the pieces in her mind to figure out what it was.
“Okay, introduce her to Laurie and see if she’s still in the system.” He gave her a patrician smile. “Thanks for stepping in. Glad we’re the ones to get you, instead of Everett and his salacious little coupon-delivery system of a paper.” He said this in such a gracious tone she almost didn’t register the meaning. “Looking forward to working with you.”
“Thanks,” she said, a little wide-eyed. “Mmm, how will I get my assignments?”
“I’ll call you directly, or else Laurie will handle it. Do you know her?” She shook her head. Her brain was trying to identify what the problem was with her taking over James Sherman’s beat.
“She’s sorta new,” said Mr. C to her. And then, almost apologetically, to Lewis: “By Joey’s standards, I mean.” He winked at her. “I’ll introduce you. Thanks, Lewis.”
“Thank you,” said Lewis. To Joanna: “And thank you.”
They let themselves out. Mr. C walked her toward the back of the building, down a narrow corridor with more thumb-latch doors along the length of it, and occasional small skylights to redeem the corridor from total darkness.
The Newes offices were spread between the antique house and its barn, connected by a breezeway with a little break room. The barn having been in disrepair, its innards had been torn apart decades ago leaving a capacious cavity—newsroom above, printing press below.
In the open newsroom, full of cubicles and whimsical found objects hanging from the walls, Mr. C directed her to an attractive blond woman in her forties named Laurie. As Joanna dutifully stared around the room, distracted by all the changes wrought over the last twenty years (spiffier computers, ergonomic chairs, a paint job), he explained—in a rapid, casual tone—who she was and what Lewis wanted of her. Laurie shook Joanna’s hand, welcomed her aboard, and got her contact information.
“So you’ll be covering James Sherman’s beat this coming week,” Laurie said. “Can you turn things around quickly? There’s a big ZBA meeting in West Tisbury on Tuesday and we need a write-up by Wednesday, early afternoon, so we can revise it if we need to. It’s the helicopter thing.”
“No problem,” Joanna said, finally grasping what the problem was. When filling in for Susan Grant on the Journal’s beat of the ZBA, she had sat with James. Now Joanna would be James, but the Journal’s usual reporter—Susan Grant—was back, so she would recognize Joanna (they’d never met, but Helen always greeted the reporters by name), and the jig would be up. Susan would out her as a two-timing journalist.
“No problem,” she said again, mechanically, now that she realized it was a problem.
Mr. C took her back down to his office. When they were alone, he grinned, winked, and chucked her on the shoulder.
“You told them I was Joey Dias, not Anna Howes. I thought it didn’t matter to the Newes.”
“It doesn’t. But since you’re already Joey Dias here, why do something that will get you in trouble with the Journal? Don’t you need both gigs? You’re on the books each place with two different names. Just simplify it and keep it that way. I want to help you out, Joey. I know you’re not in an easy situation.”
“Thank you, Mr. C,” she said.
“Hey, you’re a good kid,” he said. “One of my favorite students. Too bad you didn’t stick with math.”
“I hated math.”
“I know!” he said. “Broke my heart. So tell you what: go forth and prosper, and don’t hate math quite so much.”
* * *
It’s a bad sign when you ask for something and then cringe upon getting it. When the only thing that is going to save your butt is something that could actually just get your butt in deeper trouble.
Joanna asked Everett if she could cover the ZBA meeting on the grounds that she had covered the last two ZBA meetings. Everett was pleased. He was pleased for two reasons: Susan Grant, whose beat it was, was off-Island again, researching the regional heroin crisis; she had a reservation to come back on the 3:45 ferry, but there was a winter gale expected that would keep the boats from running, so she’d already asked to have somebody on backup. More than that, though, Everett liked the notion that Joanna was invested enough in something that she wanted to make it hers.
She almost told him the truth: if she was covering it for the Newes, she had to also cover it for the Journal, so that the regular Journal reporter couldn’t see she was working for the Newes. Perhaps she could have sat in the back of the audience and just not spoken to anyone, but most meetings had sparse attendance and everyone seemed to know her.
But now she had a new challenge: although only a single human being, she had to appear as two different individuals, because both papers would be sending a reporter. And those reporters would be nearly the only people in attendance, so neither would be getting lost in the crowd.
So she called Celia, of course.
Celia was both mortified and amused. “You want me to impersonate you while I’m with you?” she echoed, with an uncertain laugh.
“Sort of. Not really. I mean you don’t have to impersonate me exactly. I just need to be with somebody who kind of looks like me from the back. If either of my editors ever looked at the video for some reason, I can’t be the only reporter in the room—there has to be somebody else, but the somebody else has to be nondescript so that they don’t stand out—”
“I’ve been called a lot of things, kiddo, but never nondescript.”
“—and the best way for them to not stand out is to look kind of like me. So you know, wear a hat, wear loose clothes, we can dress similarly. Okay?”
“And this will accomplish what, exactly?”
“It lets me cover the meeting for both papers without drawing attention to the fact that both papers have hired the same person. There’s no reason for anyone to know that.”
“So which paper are you fleecing?” Celia asked, getting invested now.
“Neither! I get paid by the piece, not by the time it takes me to write it. I’m going to write a different article for each paper, so they will each get what they’re paying for—but it’s just simpler not to try to explain it to my bosses.”
“Yeah, those damn bosses,” Celia said. “Always keeping people from gaming the system.”
“I will pay you for your time.”
“You don’t have to pay me if I do it. But I’m not sure I want to do it.”
“Please. You’re the perfect person—you’re about my height, you don’t live in West Tisbury, and you’re the only person I can be totally honest with about this.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Celia said, and sighed heavily. “I guess I can’t turn you down.”
“Thank you! The meeting starts at five. Come over an hour before and we can figure out what to wear together.”
Celia laughed. “The last time either of us said that, we were in high school,” she said. “So let’s do it like we did it in high school. All you have are some city clothes you threw in a bag a month ago in the middle of the night, I have my entire wardrobe. You come over here. Also I don’t know that I’d fit in your stuff. You have that tight little city-gym-club butt.”
“Do I?” Joanna said incredulously.
“Come over at four,” said Celia. “And if the meeting goes late, I’ll have to leave b
ecause I’m up at three thirty in the morning.”
Celia and her boyfriend Ted rented a house in Tisbury (which is a different town from West Tisbury, but the same town as Vineyard Haven . . . never mind why. Really. You’ll never get that quarter-hour of your life back.). Like so very many houses on the island, this one was built quickly from prefab plans in the 1980s or early ’90s, without the soul of earlier houses or the style of later ones. Whoever built it and sold it made a buck; whoever flipped it made more; whoever owned it now and rented it out was also doing just fine. Celia and Ted were waiting on a lottery to buy an affordable building lot near the Tisbury School. Meanwhile, they were growing some of their own food, and other things, in an extra bedroom that they’d converted to a greenhouse, and brewing some of their own beer in the garage, which was otherwise filled with the discarded playground toys of the landlord’s now-grown children. Ted worked maintenance for the hospital and moonlighted as a private chef in summer. His clients found him exquisitely quaint and prided themselves on the street cred they got for inviting him to an occasional cocktail party. All the pants he owned were Levi’s and most of them had indelible tomato sauce stains on them. This may have been part of the reason people wanted him at their parties. Authentic culture!
But Ted wasn’t home. So once Joanna had hazarded the sleety winds of February and warmed up in the kitchen, the two women stood in front of Celia’s open winter closet in their underwear, shivering and giggling, sampling dresses and skirts and leggings and yoga pants and sweaters until they came up with two costumes that didn’t look deliberately twinnish, and yet were almost indistinguishable at a passing glance. Wrapped in inelegant but warm padded winter raincoats, they carpooled into West Tisbury, past the shuttered farmstands and empty fairgrounds, to the Town Hall, running in through the worsening wind just in time for the ZBA meeting to start.
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