And just in time for Joanna to realize the flaw in her plan: Helen Javier.
As they entered the nearly empty room, pulling their hoods back, red-cheeked from the cold rain, Helen pleasantly called out, “Hello there, Celia!” to someone she had known casually for thirty years. “What gives us the pleasure?”
Celia looked at Helen as if she’d been caught stealing something. She glanced at the MOCC camera operator; he was futzing with something, and the camera wasn’t on yet.
“She’s keeping me company,” Joanna said, somehow sounding offhand. She tried to think through the ramifications of this: Helen, as the chair, surely read both papers’ write-ups of ZBA meetings regularly. Not only would she notice that Celia Hendricks hadn’t written either of the ones about to appear, but she might also notice that both of them were written by people with names that belonged, at different times over the years, to Joanna D. Howes.
For the MV Journal, by Anna Howes:
The West Tisbury ZBA voted this week to grant a comprehensive permit for an affordable housing project, described as “desperately needed” by the Selectmen, off State Road near Ghost Island Farm. The project, called Onkokemmy Fields, has been held up for the past two years due to spirited disagreements about the architectural style of the solar-powered residences. “We are all very grateful that the board has chosen to prioritize the urgent need for year-round housing over aesthetic issues,” said Roger Patz, the developer. Abutters to the property had argued against it, which ZBA Chair Helen Javier described at the meeting as “ironic” since several of them are part owners of the solar power company that would be supplying solar for the project. “Are you so allergic to being in proximity to people from a different socioeconomic class that you will argue against your own business interests?” she asked.
In other news, the ZBA will hold a public forum March 1 at 7:30 p.m. at the West Tisbury Public Library. The forum is to discuss the unfolding situation with seasonal resident Orion Smith, who has threatened to sue the town for the right to land and operate a private helicopter on his North Road property. Mr. Smith could not be reached for comment.
THE GODS OF typography were kind to Joanna that week: somehow, despite two editors and a proofreader looking it over, the Newes accidentally used the name “James Sherman” as the writer of the ZBA report. So most of the Island thought he wrote the following:
In West Tisbury last week, the Zoning Board of Appeals moved swiftly through item after item on the docket. Chief among these was a comprehensive permit for the affordable housing project Onkokemmy Fields, named after a small freshwater pond to the north of the development. Onkokemmy Fields will offer solar-powered, year-round rental housing to five local families in a townhouse.
THE MOCC TAPES of various meetings were sometimes viewed after the fact by an overextended reporter who hadn’t been able to get to a meeting in person. So even Helen Javier might be excused for thinking James Sherman had written this, despite his absence at the meeting.
But of course there was one person who would know James Sherman hadn’t written it: James Sherman.
And as soon as he brought this error to the attention of Lewis Worthington, Joanna knew, they would have a talk that went something like this.
JAMES S: Hey, who actually wrote that piece?
LEWIS W: Joey Dias.
JS: Joey . . . Hang on, that’s the name Joanna Howes wrote under when she was an intern here . . . and Joanna Howes is actually writing for the Journal under the name Anna Howes, and she defended that no-good hypocrite Everett. She is definitely not somebody you want writing for our hallowed gazette, and furthermore, to pay her back for her scheming duplicity, you should rat her out to the Journal as well, and let Everett know of her perfidy! With no means of income available to her, she will slither back, starving, to the off-Island world that is all she now deserves!
And so, when her phone rang on Friday evening and she saw it was an Edgartown number, she braced herself. She did some dexterous calculations—Mr. C would have been proud of her, no doubt—and determined that she could afford to stay on the island without an income until Hank was better, provided she was prepared to then immediately move in with Brian once she went home to New York. It was not even a matter of whether or not she wanted to, as the choice was about to be taken away from her due to finances.
And in that moment, she realized she did not want to move in with Brian, at least not now. He was a good man and deserved honesty from her, which meant she would have to tell him the truth, which would leave her with nowhere at all to go. Without the social safety net of a place like the Vineyard, she would end up sleeping somewhere in Central Park and living off whatever pigeons she was able to catch and kill, like Hemingway in the Jardin du Luxembourg.
With all of that clear, she answered the phone.
“Hello, is this Joey?” said Lewis, gentlemanly and a little tired.
“It is,” she said, not letting on that she knew who it was, in order to postpone the inevitable another seven seconds.
“Joey, it’s Lewis Worthington. I’m sorry to be calling you on a Friday night but I got an urgent call from James Sherman.”
Of course you did, she thought.
“No problem,” she said as casually as she could. “What is it?”
“Well, first of all I want to thank you for covering for James on such short notice, you did a great job, really—”
“Thank you,” she said, willing to accept a head pat before her head rolled.
“Here’s the thing—”
Oh, God. He was hesitating. Just say it, she thought, just get it over with.
“Well, his daughter just had a baby and he’s in Minnesota with her right now, but the baby was a preemie, and things seem a little hectic out there, and I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
“Oh!” she said, with inappropriate relief.
“Yes, exactly. He’s very preoccupied, it’s his first grandchild, and since there really isn’t anything much going on with West Tisbury these days, I’d love to be able to give him a long leash in terms of family time off.”
She was going to point out that West Tisbury was probably about to be sued, but reconsidered and said nothing. Apparently that wasn’t news the Newes found interesting.
“So, my question is, would you be able to fill in for him on the West Tisbury beat until he gets back?”
“Oh,” she said, unraveling her calculations about being homeless in Central Park. “Um. If you think I’m up to it. Sure.”
“That’s great, thanks so much, Joey. I’m sure Laurie can find somebody to fill in any knowledge gaps you might have since you’ve been away for so long—”
“I’ve got people I can talk to,” she said.
“And I haven’t forgotten that your strength is writing profiles and features,” he said. “I’m looking for some good matches for you.”
“Looking forward to that as well,” she said. “So, this public forum on March first at the West Tisbury library, about the helipad lawsuit—do you want me to cover that?”
“Oh . . .” He clearly hadn’t considered this. “No. It’s not actually news, it’s just a town huddle over a topic that isn’t even very interesting. It won’t impact anything. So, no, don’t bother. Next selectmen’s meeting, though, you should go to that. I’ll have Laurie send you the schedule.”
“Thanks, Lewis,” she said. “I appreciate your reaching out to me. I don’t take it for granted.”
She would never take anyone’s trust in her for granted ever again. Because she no longer deserved it.
III
March
THE COMMUNITY ROOM OF THE WEST TISBURY FREE PUBLIC Library was crammed full of her childhood—nearly every face familiar, more lined than she remembered it. Winter skin was rendered paler by the pseudosummer of full-spectrum fluorescents above. More than half of the hundred-odd chairs were filled, and more folks were wandering in from the darkened main hall of the library, blinking in the brightness
and then seeking friends to sit with. Suddenly, she felt awkward, not sure where to set up. She crept along the left-hand wall toward the front, beginning a circumambulation of the room.
Distracted by all the familiar faces, she almost walked into a tall, broad-shouldered woman with a thick gray ponytail and bright gray eyes. Joanna knew her but blanked on her name. She’d been the high school gym teacher, and Joanna had always been terrified of her. Worse, she was talking to Jenny, now known as the manager of a popular Oak Bluffs hotel, but to Joanna she would always be the fourth-grade class bully. There were hardly two women on the Island she was more intimidated by, and here they were standing together. She decided to pass by as invisibly as possible.
“Hey, Joey!” they both said robustly, almost at the same moment, and she overcame her ingrained impulse to scamper away. She waved, trying to look purposeful as she pivoted slightly to cross past them and continue her circuit around the room. They didn’t really want to talk to her anyhow, she was sure, but she felt their cool glances on the back of her head.
She sauntered a few more rows closer to the front, and a kindlier face presented itself: this was Dr. Tavers, her family optician. He was sitting in the third row, on the end, his wife beside him. “Hello, Joanna,” he said, in the soft, reassuring tones of his profession.
“Hello, Dr. Tavers!” she said, glad to see him although suddenly mildly awkward about now having an off-Island eye doctor.
“You home for Jen’s fund-raiser?” he asked. This was an annual event held in honor of her aunt Jen, to raise scholarship money for high school seniors.
“That’s in May,” she said. “I’m home to see Hank.”
“Oh, of course you are! Sorry. Give him my best.”
“Will do.” She resumed circulating. At the front of the room, where the miked podium waited, she crossed quickly to the other side without looking around, to avoid being greeted by vaguely familiar faces she couldn’t put names to.
Nobody was greeting her as if she were a reporter, even though they had probably seen her byline in the paper over the past six weeks. Maybe they didn’t want to embarrass her by commenting on her new status as professional gossip. This thought made her so self-conscious she felt something like stage fright. She decided to eschew the chairs and settle someplace unobtrusive, to make it easy for people to pretend they didn’t know she was a reporter.
There was a long folding table at the back of the room, just to the side of the entrance. It was used for serving refreshments at more amicable library functions, like readings or memorials.
There were few people by this table. Only one was familiar, a fisherman Hank used to scallop with, with wiry hair that stood up all over the place as if caught in a perpetual nor’easter. He didn’t notice her now, any more than he’d ever noticed her in childhood, so that was safe. All the rest were strangers. There were a man and a woman about her age, both nondescript, and one bright-eyed octogenarian with the broad, humped back of a stonemason, dressed in musky work clothes but hair neatly combed. Nobody else. Nobody to distract her from her duties. She leaned back against the table, staring out over the sea of (mostly graying) heads. Leaning, without actually sitting, felt safe. It was noncommittal. If anyone she knew approached to chat with her, she could sidle away without seeming to avoid them. So here, among strangers, she could put on her reporter hat and focus.
“Nothing like direct democracy in action,” said a man’s voice, close by.
“Absolutely,” she said with gusto. It was the man about her age. His skin was pleasantly cappuccino-colored for a local in March—he might have been a Brazilian with accentless English, but something about him seemed very yacht club, so probably he was just a banker with a snowbird tan. He wore faded jeans, a heavy corduroy jacket over a down vest, and a Red Sox cap but his carriage, the closeness of his shave, the boring neatness of his coiffure, were too suburban for the clothes.
“It’s my first Town Meeting,” he said quietly, looking reverent. “It’s fascinating.”
“Ah. You a wash-ashore?”
“I’m from America. See, I know the lingo.” He grinned at her. “And you?”
“Family’s been here since 1692,” she recited. “Or maybe 1705. Depends on which great-aunt you ask.”
He chuckled. “You Islanders, man,” he said, affably. “You’re more obsessed with lineage than the British royals.”
“Our land’s more fashionable than theirs,” she said. “We cost prohibitively more per square foot.”
“Is that why you’re anti-immigrant?”
She blinked. “What?”
“You’re xenophobes. You don’t want outsiders coming in.” He had a friendly smile that took the sting out—it was just a description, one he found mildly entertaining. “In fact, you’re anti-immigrant and foolish, because most immigrants to the Vineyard bring cash into the economy instead of taking money out of it.”
She blinked again. What Vineyard did he live on? “No, a lot of people send money back to Brazil or Estonia or the Czech Republic. We’re okay with that because they work very hard for it and they’re more reliable than a lot of the college kids.”
He shook his head. “I mean the immigrants who come here to settle down and make a long-term home for themselves. The wash-ashores.”
She smiled dismissively. “That’s a misuse of the word immigrant. You’re a transplant. From one part of America to another.”
“This place really could be its own little country, and anyone moving here to make a life for themselves better be on board with that, because things get done differently here. Isn’t that why you all call the mainland America? As if you weren’t America?”
She nodded. “Okay, fair point.”
“Sounds like immigration. But it’s immigration that adds money to the economy. People who come here because they want to live here tend to have cash to sink into a nice piece of property, and they pay people to build their house and maintain their yard and teach them yoga and feed their kids.” He gestured around the room. “And subsidize their public buildings. I’ve seen photos of the old library. It was two little rooms on Music Street, for, like, a century. A few decades later and you’ve got the Club Med of bibliothèques. Wouldn’t have happened without immigrants like me.” He shrugged, and gave her an almost sycophantic smile.
She liked his eyes. She had a thing for dark eyes. Too bad he was talking nonsense.
Beyond him, eclipsed by his coat collar, she saw a crutch and the sleeve of a familiar plaid shirt in the doorway. Helen or her husband, Paul, must have picked Hank up. She’d assumed he wasn’t well enough to come. Now she felt both guilty and excluded that she was not the one he’d asked for a ride.
Paul Javier passed by Hank. His curly black hair was grayer and thinner than the last time Joanna had seen him but otherwise he was unchanged—gentle, slightly goofy Paul, the hapless Peter Pan to Helen’s Wendy. He headed quickly toward an aisle chair down front and draped his wool coat on it to save it, then gestured for Hank to notice. Hank himself was making a slow progression. People greeted him boisterously, a few with surprise but most with affectionate hard-ass Yankee ribbing. She heard them tell each other to get out of the way for the invalid, for the crazy guy, for the acrobat, and Hank took it all in with his slanted smile and occasional back talk. Nobody noticed Joanna and she decided to stay engaged with her new friend. After all, he wanted to debate.
And he was nice to look at. Nobody had been nice to look at for ages.
“You so-called immigrants make it too expensive for most Island families to continue to live here. You’ve priced me out of the market in my own hometown. I grew up on seven acres that my uncle bought in his twenties on a fisherman’s income, from a retiring farmer. If I tried to buy the smallest possible buildable lot from him, for a hundred times what he paid for the whole thing, I’d be ripping him off, that’s how insane real estate has become. I don’t think most immigrants have that kind of impact on a local population.”
&nb
sp; “Actually, most American communities do well economically when they welcome immigrants.”
“Let’s check with the Wampanoag tribe. I’m not sure they’ll be on board with that.”
“I’ll rephrase it,” he said. “The United States historically does well to welcome immigrants.”
“But you’ve already made the convincing point that we’re not like the rest of the United States,” she said triumphantly. “Whatever truisms you want to push about America are meaningless here.”
He shrugged. “You look like somebody who appreciates a good library,” he said. “You’re welcome.” And then he gave her a killer smile.
“I need a moment to process this conversation,” she said.
“Take your time,” he said, expansively. After a weighted pause: “I’m enjoying this. It’s not your usual nice-to-meet-you banter, is it?”
“Actually,” she said, with a nod toward the other side of the room where the mic awaited, “if you consider the setting, it kind of is.” She looked down toward her backpack, unzipped it, and began to pull out her laptop. “Excuse me, but I need to find a place to set up shop.”
The laptop surprised him. “You’re taking notes?”
“I’m covering the meeting for the Journal.”
“Oh, that’s the reactionary one that hates immigrants,” he said.
“That is a ridiculous statement,” she said. “We have two Brazilian columnists who write in Portuguese.”
“Well, your readers hate immigrants,” he said. “I’ve seen the online comments about Brazilians—not to mention the online comments about the wash-ashores. If you’re not a seventh-generation plumber, you’re not welcome here.”
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