“That’s not true,” she retorted. “My cousin’s a seventh-generation plumber and he offers below-market rental housing to a bunch of Brazilians.” The rental part was true, but she doubted indoor plumbing existed seven generations ago.
“Really? Good for him!” Despite the suburban blandness, his expression was incredibly agreeable when smiling. It was the kind of smile most men lost forever when they hit adolescence.
“Yes,” she said, trying not to enjoy his face quite so much. “He does it on principle, because he believes everyone who works for a living should have a place to live.” And she couldn’t help but add, “It’s a sort of passive-aggressive protest against people whose McMansions are driving the price of housing up.”
“Oh, so he likes only certain immigrants,” the fellow said, as if he’d scored a point. “The sort that match his idea of what the Vineyard should be. While disapproving of the ones that don’t match his idea of what it should be. Totally unlike what happens to immigrants in mainland America. Right.”
She saw the town moderator moving up toward the podium. She had to focus.
“That’s an interesting but specious comment,” she said. “Your parallel won’t hold up to scrutiny. I could tear it apart in fifteen seconds but I have to don my reporter’s hat now.”
She focused on her laptop but she could feel him giving her the once-over. “I’d love to hear you tear my parallel apart. How about a coffee sometime?” She darted a look at him to see the mischievous gleam in his eye.
Her mouth dropped open. She closed it quickly. A date? With a nice smile? Who lived here in March? Was she allowed to date? Brian had told her he wanted to be free to see other people, although she was pretty sure he wouldn’t do so.
She shrugged. “Okay, sure,” she said with forced nonchalance, and studied his reaction from the corner of her eye.
He looked surprised. “You don’t think I’m being inappropriate?” he asked.
“It’s a little forward,” she said. “But I don’t get hit on very often and at least you’re asking to hear my expert opinion instead of telling me I have nice eyes.”
“You do have nice eyes,” he said.
She felt herself blush, although she was not the blushing type. There was a silent moment as she tried to contain the blush, but this only made her blush more. Finally she answered, “Thanks.”
He bit his lower lip. “Oh crap. Did I just ruin the vibe here?”
“No, you just changed it a little,” she said, knowing she absolutely had to retreat from this conversation and put her reporter’s hat back on.
“Enough to make it a drink instead of coffee?”
Butterflies. Instant case of butterflies. Wow, that was fast. “Let’s start with coffee,” she said, as calmly as she could.
“Of course. And seriously, if you think I’m inappropriate, I get it.”
“I don’t think you’re inappropriate,” she said, and smiled despite herself.
“You prefer text or email?” he said, and almost before she realized what she was doing, she had recited her cell number to him.
But at this moment—thank God, she thought—Peter Cooke, the town moderator, who looked like a bearded hippie-farmer version of Richard Burton, called the meeting to order.
“If everyone could just turn your attention up here,” said Peter Cooke, “we can get started.” A pause as the buzz settled. “As all of you know, this is an informal forum. It’s not a selectmen’s meeting or a ZBA meeting or a special town meeting. We’re not here to make any decisions or to look at any language, but we want to get the sense from the town about some possibilities. Including, at the request of the selectmen, the possibility of raising and appropriating an extra one hundred thousand dollars as a war chest in case of unexpected legal action. Or not. We’re looking at all possibilities, and we’re looking for your ideas.”
“Okay, so should I text or call?” her new friend whispered. He used the excuse of whispering to lean toward her, and she felt—or imagined she felt—his breath faintly against her neck.
“Um. Text,” she whispered back. Then, pointing at her computer. “I have to work now—”
“Right, sorry,” he said, quickly righting himself.
“The warrant has closed for the Annual Town Meeting,” Peter Cooke was continuing, “but the selectmen are interested in hearing people’s thoughts on this. Tonight is mostly in the interest of maintaining transparency. Okay? So let’s get started with a presentation of the situation from ZBA chair Helen Javier.”
Joanna flexed her fingers, launched her phone’s voice recorder, and began to type. She was an Olympic-level typist; she could type faster than most people talked, as long as she didn’t get distracted by cute men trying to chat her up about local socioeconomic tensions and the like. She pushed him from her mind and focused on the voices flowing into her ears, and the words flowing out of her fingertips.
The evening was for temperature-taking. Yankee townships were famously parsimonious and nobody wanted to feel bullied into spending money that wouldn’t result in some obvious town improvements. So while it was a given that the selectmen would release legal funds, they wanted to be politically sensitive about how much money could be in play. Especially since two of them were up for reelection.
First the gathering heard from the town counsel, a sharp-voiced blond woman Joanna didn’t recognize, dressed more formally than anyone else in the room, but still a slacker compared to the Minion Lawyer. She advised them on all the legal ramifications of the situation and also cited three similar helipad cases from Edgartown over the past thirty years, all of which the plaintiffs had lost. She also pointed out that it would be unprecedented for the selectmen to decide against using the legal fund. Then the head of the Conservation Commission reminded everyone about the Wetlands Protection Act, which applied even to private property. He shared his concern about the effects of noise pollution on the local wildlife, not to mention peril to birds who might get caught in the wind disturbance. Amy Walsh (Joanna’s WASPy former kindergarten teacher) took the podium, representing a group that Joanna’s fingers typed accurately without her brain quite registering, lamenting that the spiritual soul of the town was being wounded by these gross incursions of conspicuous consumption. Joanna agreed with her, but the argument sounded reverse-snobby. As her future coffee date had pointed out, the residents only wanted their kind of transplants. People who helicoptered were not their kind of transplants. The chairman of the Board of Selectmen also spoke, asking for a straw-poll show of hands about adding a line item to the annual budget for legal spending. There was grumbling, and only four hands went up.
In between each of the speakers, hippie Richard Burton stepped in toward the podium and spoke gently into the mic, introducing each speaker almost apologetically. Could she describe his tone as “apologetic” in her write-up? Probably not. Everett wouldn’t like it and anyhow, Peter Cooke would look at her sadly the next time she crossed paths with him at the post office.
“The next speaker was not originally slated to speak,” he said. “We’re grateful that Mr. Orion Smith was able to come here on short notice and contribute his thoughts on this matter.” There was a rustle of surprise . . . The malefactor himself? Joanna was the happiest person in the room: that would make fantastic copy.
“Thank you, Mr. Moderator,” said a voice, and oh no oh no oh crap she knew that voice. She looked up, her stomach sinking. Yes, it was him. The fellow who had just asked to take her for a drink.
Clarification: Who had asked to take her for a drink as soon as he realized she wrote for the Journal.
She had just been played.
He had such nice eyes.
* * *
“Let me start out by stating,” said Mr. Orion Smith, “that even though we’re here because of a conflict, I’m really glad that we are here. I mean here in this room, talking about this in a civilized forum. I’m honored to be part of a great New England tradition, and happy that everyone has
the opportunity to practice direct democracy, and to be an activist in your immediate life. That’s pretty unusual and I hope that none of you take it for granted. Just wanted to say that. So. With that understanding, let me explain a few things about why the issue of the helicopter is headed for court. I mean ‘why’ in the big-picture sense.” He paused briefly, as if for a response, but appeared not to hear the grumbling and muttering that filled the pause. He continued: “I hope you can set aside your preconceptions for a moment and really hear what it is I’m saying. First of all, everyone here knows how bad the traffic is in summer.” Again muttering, which was again disregarded. “Whether it’s getting on and off the Cape, or ferry traffic, or getting through Five Corners or the Triangle, it’s a nightmare. I’m just one person, with one set of guests, but that’s one set of guests who won’t be adding to your traffic headaches. I know abutters have been saying it’s about noise pollution—which I don’t think is fair, by the way, and we’ll get back to that—but the noise really doesn’t last very long. Even if you’re home when the copter is landing or taking off, the period of noise pollution is very short compared to the period that you’re likely to be stuck in traffic.”
Joanna grappled with the illogical algebra of his reasoning, as an attendee closer to the podium went on the offensive:
“You’re saying you want to use your helicopter as a favor to us?” Hank demanded with a snarky laugh, and there was a collective guffaw of hostile amusement. “Wow. That sticks in my craw.”
Orion Smith smiled at him, as if he had expected the jibe and was glad everyone was playing along. “It’s my old friend Mr. Holmes, Mr. Henry Holmes. May I call you Henry?”
“You may call me Mr. Holmes,” said Hank, as if Orion Smith should have known this. More laughter from the peanut gallery.
“Mr. Holmes,” said Orion Smith, “I’m not saying I make the difference between a traffic jam and no traffic jam, but I am saying that anybody in a position to not add to the traffic problem should do so to the degree that they logistically can. So there’s that. More than that, though, moving beyond the traffic and on to a more abstract and general note, we are a nation of people free to make their own lifestyle choices.”
“That’s true,” said Hank heartily, as if holding court. “And our lifestyle choice here in West Tisbury is to eschew unexpected helicopters buzzing over our houses and violating our sense of privacy.”
Orion Smith gave him a pedantic smile. “I was talking about a given individual’s choices,” he said. “A lot of people are against my helipad, claiming it’s about noise pollution or an environmental issue, but in fact they just don’t like that an individual who lives among them has a different set of values. Vineyarders seem to take this kind of thing very personally. I wish to do something out of the conventional way of doing things. That’s true for a lot of you too! People here tend to believe that everyone can do their own thing in this town, to each his own and all that. But in fact, if people make choices that you all aren’t comfortable with, they pay for it in some way. You make sure of it. If the ZBA had allowed me to fly the helicopter in and out, then I could have demonstrated all the collateral benefits to the town itself. But they didn’t, and that leaves me with no option but legal recourse. I respect my neighbors’ privacy and their lifestyle choices, and it saddens me that they will not return the courtesy.”
“Oh, c’mon, that’s a load of crap,” said Hank. “If you respected our privacy you wouldn’t be trying to fly unencumbered over our private property.”
“I don’t moonlight for the DEA, Mr. Holmes,” said Orion Smith. “My helicopter isn’t black. And I’m not a drone. I’m not interested in invading anyone’s property, I just want to get from Point A to Point B—”
“Which takes you over Point C! My house! Or Point D! Their house!”
“There would be one established FAA-approved flight path—”
“Great, so one set of families gets the privilege of being in your flight path every time.” Hank pulled himself up straighter in his chair and looked around the room, grinning viciously. “Any volunteers? No? C’mon, Mr. Smith might give you a free ride! You can spy on all your neighbors and see who’s growing the best weed!”
“Hank,” said hippie Richard Burton, stepping toward the mic.
“It’s fine,” said Orion Smith, dismissing this with a flick of the wrist. “We’ve done this before.” People laughed at that—so, a reference to the previous tussle Everett had mentioned.
Orion Smith went on, but Joanna had to fixate on typing more than listening, because she was afraid her head would explode. Hank was surely looking for more opportunities to heckle but Joanna didn’t hear his voice again. Despite the snubs coming out of Orion Smith’s mouth, he spoke in a friendly, can’t-we-all-get-along-here voice, as if he were mediating a conflict instead of creating one.
When he finished speaking, he walked away from the podium politely, declining to answer questions. He walked calmly down the center aisle toward the back of the room, ignoring catcalls and irritated questions from the audience (some of whom were eyeing Hank hoping for an encore from him), and then kept walking, right through the door into the main hall, and then out of the building itself. As with the Minion Lawyer’s exit at the ZBA meeting, incredulous, inarticulate noises and expressions were exchanged among the tribe. Peter Cooke asked for more comments. Finally Hank used a colorful epithet that caused embarrassed laughter to ripple across the room. Someone else asked for a new straw poll, a show of hands in favor of a war chest being raised to keep that bastard from crossing anyone’s land ever again. Every hand in the room shot up. That was that. Peter Cooke gently reminded everyone that was just a straw poll, not a legally binding resolution, but the selectmen could be seen exchanging whispered words, with something approaching excitement.
Meeting over, townspeople filed out, muttering to each other. Joanna shut down her laptop, shoved it into her backpack, and moved against the human current toward the front of the room, where Hank was clumsily getting up with his crutches. The temperature in the room was dropping quickly with the abrupt loss of body heat. Outside, headlight beams swung across the room through the windows, and gravel rattled, as cars and trucks began to pull out of the parking lot.
“Want me to take you home?” she asked, offering Hank a hand.
“Nah, Paul’s car is easier to get into than the truck,” said Hank. “Anyhow, I might go over to their place for a nightcap.”
“That’s a great idea,” she said. “We just don’t have enough alcohol at home to mix with your pain meds.”
“Sagacious posterior,” he said, affectionately. “You should’ve gone to the package store and restocked.”
“Too late now.”
He gave her a private, knowing look, then rolled his eyes. “What a spoiled little jackass. Probably never had to work a day in his life.”
“He doesn’t like traffic,” said Paul Javier, affably.
“He doesn’t like . . . I don’t like traffic,” said Hank. “That doesn’t mean I feel entitled to use a helicopter.”
“You don’t go anywhere,” Paul pointed out.
Hank’s diagonal grin. “Well, there’s that,” he said, but already the helium was leaking out of his buoyancy and he looked a little fatigued. Sagging onto his crutches, he pivoted toward her. “See you back at the house,” he said. Yes, definitely fatigued. That happened fast.
“I’ll set your meds out for you,” she said. “Have fun.” She pecked him on the cheek, which embarrassed him. She pushed past him in the emptying room, to check some legal details with the town counsel.
By the time she exited into the raw night, Paul and Hank were gone and the lot was deserted. Or seemed to be.
Wherever he had been lingering to avoid the crowd, suddenly he was at her elbow, between her and the truck.
“So when are we having coffee?” he asked, with that same disarming grin. His breath misted in the streetlamp light and gave him a gossamer nimbus.
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She stopped. She was too abashed to look directly at him. “You have committed a lie by omission,” she said to the gravel of the parking lot.
“You’ve done worse,” he said blithely. “You’ve committed crappy journalism. You didn’t even ask me who I was.”
“You invited me to coffee without getting my name.”
“Of course I did, that was strategic,” he chuckled. “If I asked your name, you’d have asked me mine. But now that the cat’s out of the bag”—he held out his gloved hand toward her—“hello, I’m Orion Smith. When can I take you to coffee?”
“You can’t. Obviously. I can’t accept any gift from you since I am a journalist and you are a subject of my journalism.”
“I flirted with you before knowing you were a journalist,” he argued. “I would genuinely like to chat with you over coffee.”
She was mildly appalled with herself for wanting that as well. “I’ll pay for my own coffee, then,” she said. “If I pay for my own, it’s not a gift and you can’t be seen as trying to buy my favor.”
He laughed. “Oh, is that how it works.”
“Yes, and it’s not something to laugh about. Tomorrow. Hubert’s Bakery. Ten thirty.”
Then she rushed home to google him.
THERE WERE 384 references to the Vineyard’s Orion Smith on the entire internet. Most of them gave no real information at all.
* * *
He settled across the wooden table from her as the morning sunlight glanced off the pale blue walls. “So,” he said, fresh latte in hand. Joanna had plain coffee, black. She preferred tea at home, but a properly brewed tea while out in the world was impossible to find. “This is the famous Hubert’s I’ve heard about.”
“Not quite,” she said. “This is a satellite of the one you’ve heard about. The original Hubert’s was up-Island, not too far from your place, actually. The family that owned it had an internal feud and ended up selling the property. It was bought by someone like you, who tore it down—”
“Anyone who would tear down a landmark business is not like me,” he said, with pleasant firmness.
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