“Well, you know Helen retired—”
This could not be happening. “Of course I know Helen retired, I wrote about it,” she said. To her bemusement, Hank had expressed no curiosity about her continuing double identity. That said, he hadn’t been curious about much at all lately. Joanna was worried there was a correlation between his general indifference and his health. “And I’m the one covering the ZBA, remember?” There was more fierceness in her tone than she intended, but it didn’t matter. He was insulated in a cocoon of beer, pain, and self-absorption.
“Well,” he said, as if spelling this out for a cheeky toddler, “her retirement created a big problem. They don’t have a quorum for the ZBA, so they asked if I would step in until the selectmen could find—”
“Hank, I’m under your roof and I’m covering the story. That’s a conflict of interest.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, emerging slightly from the cocoon. “It’s not like there’s a trial or anything.”
“There’s going to be a trial!” she said, stepping out of the kitchen area toward his recliner.
“No there isn’t. That asshole Smith is going to back off, he just doesn’t know it yet.” He had briefly sat up, but now slouched back into the chair as if exhausted. “Or maybe he does. Which kind of makes him more of an asshole. He backed off five years ago when he wanted to build a fucking boatyard within shouting distance of Beechtree, on that stretch where the erosion is terrible. What an idiot. People get their Ivy League educations and they don’t even understand erosion. Christ. He backed off then. He’ll back off now.”
“Whatever he does, I’m writing about it, and you’re my immediate family so you shouldn’t be gratuitously inserting yourself into the picture.”
“It’s not gratuitous. The selectmen came to me and begged me to take over.”
It was worse than she’d thought. “Take over? You’re the chair? You went from being uninvolved to the most involved, just—when? This afternoon?” She was looming over him and forced herself to take a step back. He barely noticed.
“I went in to talk to them yesterday, but we all had a chat today and agreed I’d lead it. I’ve done it before, when there was legal action pending. I know the ropes, it just made sense to make me chair.” Finally registering her consternation, he added quickly, “It’s not like we’re going to actually do anything. It’s out of our hands now, it’s with the selectmen and the legal team. But it makes the town look incompetent if the board in question isn’t even operational because it lacks a quorum. They just need a front man who doesn’t give a rat’s ass if abominable things are quoted about him in the paper by rich presumptuous jerks. And that,” he said, grim and conclusive, “describes me.”
“When was I going to be informed of this?”
“Don’t get bent out of shape, Anna. They’ll do it formally tomorrow at the selectmen’s meeting.”
“While I’m there taking notes? And they all know me?”
“So tell the paper to send someone else.”
“It’s my beat. And I need it.”
“What is it, fifty bucks? And it’s temporary. My work for the town eclipses that.”
“How come you get to decide that, without even checking in with me?” She could hear her voice rising to an adolescent pitch.
“What was there to check in about?” he retorted. “What was I supposed to do, say, ‘Thanks but I can’t do it because Anna writes for the papers’? I bet every writer on both papers has these kinds of conflicts come up all the time.” He made a grand, dismissive gesture. “Just get yourself moved to another beat. Everett likes you, he’ll find you work.”
She rubbed a hand over her forehead. “I wish you had at least talked to me about this before it happened.”
“Well, now I’ve talked to you about it after it happened,” he said. “If you want corroboration, go to the Town Hall at four thirty tomorrow afternoon, second floor.”
In her irritation, she forgot to research Orion Smith.
IT WAS SNOWING the next day. Just as they all got used to it being a snowless winter, and the equinox was days away, it snowed. Or nearly snowed. It was more like being peppered with slush by an unfriendly weather sprite.
The Journal’s parking lot was too small even for the staff, so she’d taken to parking across the road, in front of a T-shirt boutique that was closed for the winter. She parked with the truck facing out, in case this turned into real snow and stuck, and then she trudged across the street as angry cold kisses of precipitation stung her cheeks. In the overheated Journal office, she shrugged out of her wet coat, settled into one of the free chairs around the news table, and got her marching orders from Everett: this week, as well as continuing to cover the West Tisbury beat, she’d be writing a couple of movie reviews, and a feature about the owner of an up-Island hardware store.
“Can I talk to you for a moment in private?” she asked after the meeting. He gave her a puzzled look, then gestured toward the steps. They went upstairs, where Sarah and Rosie had already commandeered the best seats at the conference table. Everett led her into his office, which always felt to her like being below deck in a wooden boat. The soft wood absorbed sound, and it was exquisitely quiet up here.
“What’s up?” he asked, closing the door behind him. It was the first time she’d ever seen the door closed. He settled into his chair.
“Hank is replacing Helen Javier as chair of the ZBA board,” she said. “Effective this afternoon.”
“Ah,” he said.
Then he looked pensive for a moment.
Then he laughed. It was a resigned laugh.
“Well . . .” And not actually having anything productive to say, he settled for, “Yeah. That happens.” He shrugged, and added rhetorically, “What can we do?”
“We can take Hank’s caretaker off the ZBA story, for starters,” she said.
He held his hands up. “Anna,” he said. “You know how few people I have here. If there were no helipad story, I wouldn’t bother covering West Tisbury at all until I got my staff back. Everyone’s already going full-tilt, and I can’t just swap you out with someone. Everyone else is in the middle of complex stories on issues that’ll be coming up at all the Annual Town Meetings, and there is no time for you to get up to speed. There’s nothing I can do.”
“When board members have family connections to an issue, they don’t vote on the issue—”
“You’re not voting, you’re reporting. Voting creates policy. You’re just describing policy. We can add a disclosure statement that you’re connected to a board member, we’ve certainly had to do that before. But in this case that makes it more of a big deal than it is.”
The chords of Django Reinhardt’s Belleville burst forth from her back pocket.
“Go ahead and take it,” said Everett, looking relieved, and made a dismissing gesture. “Really, Anna, this is fine. It’s not ideal, but it’s okay.”
“Hello,” she said. She gave Everett an unhappy look and exited his office, into the open area with the conference table.
“Hello, Joey? This is Lewis,” said the patrician voice of Everett’s rival.
“Oh, hello!” she said, too briskly. Sarah and Rosie both looked up from their laptops. She wished there were an empty room that she could meander into. Taking a call into the bathroom would be weird.
“I just wanted to tell you what a positive response we’ve been getting from your Helen Javier piece,” he said. “I don’t know if you check the website for comments, but about twenty-five readers have written nice things about it—that’s a big number. Usually we only get a lot of comments when they’re negative.”
“Thanks,” she said, adapting a casual tone to avoid continued interest from Sarah and Rosie.
“And we’re getting positive snail mail about it as well.”
“That’s so nice to hear, thank you.”
“I like your tone, it really fits the Vineyard in winter, and so I’d like to keep up this ‘On the S
ame Page’ project, if you’re good with that?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
“Great, well, you can come in to talk it over in more detail, but one idea we had was to interview some Island fishermen in the off-season.”
“Okay,” she said, carefully. She wanted to answer him without saying anything specific that the reporters here would note. “You know they work in winter too, right? It’s not like March is off-season for them.”
“No, of course,” he said, with a reserved chuckle. “I actually do know that, but some of our seasonal subscribers don’t. That’s why I think it would be affecting. We would set it off against a piece from 1943 about the Alice Wentworth, the final sail out of Vineyard Haven harbor, marking the end of coastal schooners under sail.”
“Sounds great,” she said, bemused by the notion that all seagoing vessels belonged on the same page. “Also there’s a selectmen’s meeting tonight.”
“I appreciate your being on top of the schedule, Joey, but don’t worry about it. I called about the agenda and the only thing they’re voting on is Henry Holmes being made the new chair of the ZBA. That fellow is a chronic activist board member; he’s constantly trying to get his name in the paper to get column inches for his causes. He can pull strings at the Journal but I don’t have the time for that kind of thing. So it’s not worth it.”
“Okay,” she said lamely, then arranged to come in to see him the next morning. She couldn’t stop glancing at the young women out of the corner of her eye. They took no notice of her, but the knot in her stomach at the fear that they might was itself almost too unpleasant to withstand. She would not be able to keep this up for long.
She left the office just after four, to head to the West Tisbury Town Hall. It was below freezing but the precipitating slop had not coalesced into snow, so now she was stomping through nearly three inches of the coldest slush in North America. It was almost translucent. The road had been sanded, but she was glad to have four-wheel drive getting out of the parking lot. Heading up the hill to go up-Island was like driving through a black-and-white photo. She remembered this from childhood: the end of winter into early spring was the dreariest interval of the Island year. Even those who liked quiet and solitude were climbing the walls by now. If they had actual snow, if they had the drama of it, that might have helped a little, but no, despite the bitterest of winds, most of the time they just endured grungy skies and halfhearted frozen drizzle that couldn’t commit to a texture once it landed. Sunset was later now that they’d sprung forward an hour, but it was already gloomily dark from the slush-clouds.
She drove the desolate roads past little vestiges of civilization—Cronig’s supermarket was still open, and SBS, from whence came the chicken feed and the cat food and the nesting straw and, most likely, her dead aunt’s insulated rain boots that she now wore almost daily. Once upon a time, she recalled, she had dressed well enough, her emphasis on harmonious palettes and tailored curves and tasteful makeup. Since returning home, she had slipped by degrees into wearing the same three pairs of Levi’s over high-tech long underwear, and a rotation of four sweaters, three of which almost went with the burgundy cap she had taken to wearing even indoors. She had no idea where her mascara was and had never once considered wearing blush. She realized, reflecting, that it took genuine effort to break out of this monotony, and she had only done it for Orion. “I guess he’s good for something,” she muttered to herself.
She passed the farm stand and fairgrounds, the empty fields and the graveyard with Nancy Luce’s hen-festooned gravestone. Past Alley’s General Store (“Dealers in Almost Everything”). Past the neat white Congregational church, because rural New England.
She pulled into the Town Hall parking lot facing the Grange Hall. This was rarely opened this time of year, but in summer bustled with the Farmers Market and various artisanal fairs, adored by those with disposable cash, cursed by its neighbors who could never exit their driveways due to the traffic backup. This was a peaceful little village that people flocked to see in such numbers that it was no longer peaceful. She remembered on summer visits, timing her yoga classes to avoid Antiques Fair traffic. Come to think of it, she could do with a yoga class or two as soon as possible, and those at least seemed to be in supply even in the dark of winter. She’d have to crunch the numbers and see if she could spring for one. Amazing how her mind wandered on these empty, familiar roads.
Inside the Town Hall, she settled grimly into her chair. There was nobody else present but the camera operator and Helen’s husband, Paul.
And Hank. Let’s not forget Hank, she hummed sardonically to herself. Paul Javier had driven him here. He entered moments after she did, and he was breathing as if everything took effort. Paul moved a chair into the aisle to make it easier for him to sit.
The agenda was, of course, short.
Chairman Bernie Burt picked up the gavel lying on the table, rapped it twice, and said, “I call an abbreviated meeting of the West Tisbury Selectmen to order on the evening of March 11. We have one item of business, and we’re putting off minutes and the like, and going right to the issue of filling the ZBA vacancy.” This was stated as if for the camera, as there was nobody else here but Joanna. And Paul Javier. And Hank. With his sheepish grin aimed just above her head.
“Would you like to make a motion?” the chairman asked fellow selectman Mel Sanders.
“I would like to make a motion that we elect Henry Holmes to the Zoning Board of Appeals,” said Mel.
“I’ll second that motion,” said the third selectman, whom Joanna didn’t know.
“Any discussion?” asked Chairman Burt.
No answer.
“Okay, then, all in favor,” he said. They all raised their hands and said, “Aye,” in slightly tired voices.
“All opposed?” No answer.
“Okay, that passes,” he said laconically. “Welcome back to the ZBA, Hank.”
“Thanks,” said Hank.
“Do we have any correspondence to review?”
“No correspondence,” said Rachel, the administrator, who was perkily taking minutes.
“Do we have public comments or questions?” Chairman Burt asked this, without irony, to the rows of empty chairs. “Any press comments or questions?”
She kept her mouth shut. It was fine that Hank was the chairman of the board that she was reporting on. Of course it was. Totally fucking fine.
“I make a motion that we adjourn,” said Chairman Burt.
“Seconded,” said Mel.
The chairman struck his gavel again. “Meeting adjourned at . . .” a glance to the wall clock behind Joanna’s head. “Four thirty-four. Everyone go home before we succumb to bombogenesis.” Score one for the locals, thought Joanna: their weather vocabulary rivaled the National Weather Service’s.
She glanced back at Hank. He appeared jaundiced compared to Paul’s ruddy complexion. Except the apples of his cheeks, which were redder than Paul’s. “Do you have a fever?” she asked, like a scold.
“Sure,” he said, mellow. “I’m in a delirium of joy that I get to be chairman of the ZBA again and do battle with Orion fucking Smith.”
ONCE HE WAS back home, swaddled, fed, and medicated, she took his temperature, but it was only 99. She gave him aspirin and made a note to call his doctor in the morning. He was due for his follow-up X-ray anyhow.
And she tried, again, to find more information about Orion. The databases and search engines she had learned to rely on coughed up almost nothing. His name was attached to residences in upstate New York, suburban Connecticut, and Manhattan. He had owned, and then not owned, a couple dozen companies, or possibly pieces of commercial real estate. It was all generic and unhelpful.
Which made him more intriguing.
* * *
Dinner? Finally?
She stared at the text and glanced guiltily around the beige waiting room. The table lamp beside her sported paintings of ducklings, and these were the only nonbeige things in the ro
om besides a raft of watercolors of the painted Victorian houses of Cottage City. Otherwise, all beige. Linoleum, walls, padded chairs, laminate tables—as many variations of beige as the island in winter had of gray.
She glanced again at the text. She should have already recused herself from the helipad story. She was falling sweet for the plaintiff and living with the defendant. Neither aware the other one meant a thing to her.
Maybe they canceled each other out. She didn’t want either one of them hurt even though both of them drove her a bit nuts. The scales still hung evenly. With that as a justification for continuing—at least temporarily—she texted back, Can’t accept a meal. Will bring my own. Date?<
>Yes, so glad you concur that it’s a date! How about tomorrow night? 7?
Have to cover the improv comedy show, it’s a fund-raiser for Affordable Housing<
>Next night?
The three-day Film Festival had started but she’d already done most of the research. Anna Howes would be writing up the documentaries, and Joey Dias would focus more on the dramatic films. Anna Howes needed to review the locally produced doc about the locally produced housing crisis, but the Festival staff had already sent her a link to watch it online, so she couldn’t believably use that as an excuse to back out of a dinner date. Anyhow, she didn’t really want to back out. She just wanted to want to, which was not at all the same thing.
There was a County Commission meeting the night Orion was asking about; that meant if Hank was well enough, he would get a ride there from some fellow civics junkie, and would be preoccupied. He hadn’t been on the Commission for years but he was constitutionally incapable of keeping his nose out of everything. He’d be exhausted by the outing, and therefore asleep by the time she got back.
Even as she was thinking this duplicitous thought, the inner beige door opened, revealing a darker beige within. Hank hobbled out with his aluminum crutches. She rose to her feet, instinctively hiding the phone behind her back. Hank didn’t notice.
“I’m fine,” he said in a surly voice, before she could ask. He spoke as if he were addressing someone in the next room. “I told you I was fine. The X-ray is fine and I’m fine and I’m supposed to call in if I start to feel worse but I’m not going to feel worse. What a waste of a morning. Let’s go.” He hobbled past her, without waiting.
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