On the Same Page

by N. D. Galland

  He pulled away and looked at her, the smile tentative but still there. “Well, that was pretty ducky.”

  She smiled back with a small nod. “Not bad,” she said.

  “I’m going to kiss you again, but first, that spot on your neck needs some attention.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it does. I was meaning to mention it to you.”

  “I’m going to touch you,” he said softly. His voice was pleasing. “While I’m kissing your neck, I’m going to run my hand up and down the side of your body as far as I can reach. I’ll probably pause on your hip. Then I’ll slide it up to near your breast.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “I’ll nearly touch your breast, but not quite. I will want to, and you’ll want me to, but we’ll have to wait until next time, because I am a gentleman.”

  “Does that mean I have to be a lady?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “Please don’t feel that you must be.” He patted the tip of her nose with his index finger.

  He lowered his head to her collarbone and reached under her chin with the tip of his tongue.

  They stayed on the daybed for more than an hour.

  But he remained a gentleman. A very gentle man. With a joyful smile and happy, kind eyes. So lovely to kiss and be kissed by, embrace and be embraced by.

  Hank was long asleep by the time she returned from nuzzling the enemy.

  * * *

  That week, Anna Howes wrote up the news briefs at the Journal and did a short feature for the Community section about the opening of a new breakfast café in Edgartown. April seemed a risky month, to Joanna, for starting up a new business. In summer or early autumn, there could be immediate patronage; in the winter dearth, the year-rounders would flock to any new thing for the novelty. But in April, seasonal residents had not arrived; year-rounders with disposable income went south on vacation with their offspring, since the “April = springtime” memo, already half-forgotten throughout coastal New England, perennially failed to cross Vineyard Sound at all except to some hardy perennials. The couple opening the café—she a native Edgartonian, he from Brazil—were enthusiastic, newly married, and quite adorable. The café also featured third graders’ art projects, which one could take home in exchange for a donation that went toward an animal shelter down the road. The third graders had voted on where they wanted their money to go and settled on the animal shelter after being informed by the principal that it would not be sent to help NASA with the International Space Station. This was an easy story and left her smiling for hours after she’d submitted it.

  Meanwhile, for the Newes, Joey Dias wrote a lengthy obituary for Angie Russell, a celebrated Island fishing boat captain who’d fished out of Menemsha and hadn’t been to the down-Island half of the Vineyard—including, fatally, the hospital—in fifteen years. She’d retired decades earlier to write and illustrate children’s books about life on the sea, books that were perplexingly romanticized given that she was writing from her own weather-logged life. The books were sold exclusively on the Island, and in forty years they’d never gone out of print. The most popular had been about a little girl awaiting her father’s return from the Great War, and so the obituary was presented on the same page as a story from 1918 about Armistice being observed on Martha’s Vineyard. Joanna was finally in her Newes-head groove and could write “On the Same Page” profiles quickly, with exactly the right tone to make Lewis and his readers happy. Even better, though, Angie Russell, although a dedicated reader of both pages, was no longer alive, and therefore was unavailable to comment on Anna Howes and Joey Dias being the same person.

  Of course before she parted from Orion, they’d made plans to meet again. Their hormones were shrieking as if they were in high school, but he declared they must take it slow. She wanted to do whatever he wanted to do, although she wanted to do it sooner than he seemed to. When he asked for another dinner date, she said yes. And this time, she offered to host him, for now she had a place of her own.

  Temporarily, of course. Helen and Paul Javier had left on their circumambulation of the planet, and she was in their house until Memorial Day. She’d only settled in the night before, but it was a wondrously fine thing to have a space of her own. Hank was improving, and they had agreed on a routine check-in schedule—he was still on crutches, not weight-bearing, so given the slithery mud in the yard, all chores were still hers, including meal prep. She was also helping his cousin Marie to pull together a display for the fund-raiser the following week, which meant a lot of memorabilia-sleuthing up in the unfinished attic, dodging fiberglass insulation bales. To say she was living at Helen’s mostly meant that she’d be sleeping there.

  But what a heavenly place to sleep, especially after the musty clutter in her childhood home. The Javiers’ house smelled like a greenhouse suffused with sandalwood and cedar. There were skylights and everything was clean and simple, almost Japanese in its aesthetic, compared to Hank’s heaps of papers and jumbled gallimaufry of miscellany.

  She was still settling into the house. This meant she hadn’t sorted out a lot of the electronics yet, as some of them were downright twentieth century. The washer and dryer, in the mudroom, looked like they belonged on the set of Murder, She Wrote. The microwave was possibly first generation, afflicted with that peculiar smell she remembered from earliest childhood, as if a morsel of American cheese, including the plastic wrapper, had gotten stuck somewhere out of sight and was doomed to be melted and remelted for eternity. She couldn’t fathom the workings of the answering machine or the cable box, which was separate from the modem.

  She’d bought makings for paella and pastries for dessert. In the hours before Orion arrived, she began work on the paella while rapping along to the Hamilton soundtrack. She lost track of time as she simmered and measured and seasoned and chopped.

  By the time Orion arrived, Lin-Manuel Miranda had put her so in the zone that she’d forgotten to dress or comb her hair. No coiffing, no makeup, not even a clean shirt.

  It was the first time they’d met up since they’d become on kissing terms. Briefly she wondered what would happen, and then didn’t have to wonder because he’d flung himself merrily through the door and taken her in his arms for a warm hug and quick kiss.

  “You look terrific,” he said, taking in her stained yellow apron and batik-styled pajama top. “I love your hair like that.”

  “Very funny,” she said, trying to smooth it.

  “I mean it,” he said, nudging her hand away to stroke her wayward ponytail, which had somehow migrated to the side of her head. “You must really trust me if you let me in while you’re so disordered. I’ve been looking forward to this. I was so distracted I could hardly work.”

  Work on the lawsuit? she wanted to ask, but instead she said, “Me too.”

  “Really?” He looked surprised, and pleased. Then the scent of simmering mollusks and saffron shanghaied his attention. “That smells amazing,” he said, letting his nose guide him toward the cooking area.

  “Hopefully it will taste as good as it smells.”

  “It’s a shame our secret courtship is costing you so much money,” he said.

  “You can take me out to dinner as soon as—well, you know,” she said.

  He grinned. “Motivation to get it all wrapped up as soon as possible,” he said.

  “Or motivation to just drop the whole thing,” she amended.

  “You’re a riot,” he said, and then glanced around the house. “Nice place. Sort of old-school upscale hippie. You said it’s yours on loan? Where do you live the rest of the time?”

  “Why don’t you just land at the airport?”

  He chuckled, and perused the paella. “I don’t want to discuss it. So I’m changing the fine. The fine is now that I will not kiss you each time you mention the damn helipad.”

  “Wow, hardball.”

  “Famous for it.” Finding a shrimp, he plucked it from the pan, blew on it, and bit into it. “This is fabulous. We can’t discuss the case or suddenly
this lovely meal becomes your attempt to buy access to me.”

  “Yes, I know!” she said. “I’m the one who’s been banging on about ethics.”

  “Well, then shut up about the helipad,” he said calmly.

  They sat and ate. They sipped some lovely rioja. They made witty small talk and reaffirmed that despite their socioeconomic differences, they were aligned on diverse elements of culture such as Wonder Woman, the Grammy Awards, and the death of the American novel.

  Dinner finished, they washed and dried the dishes side by side, then opened a bottle of Malbec and settled down next to each other on the couch. Helen lit this part of the house with cascades of tiny white Christmas tree lights.

  “You look enchanting in this light,” he said. That smile of his always slayed her. So when he said, “Come here to me,” she leaned toward him. Let him grab her and pull her closer, so that she was lying on top of him. “Kiss me,” he whispered, and she did.

  The couch was broad and springy. He began to roll over on top of her, which was gloriously ungraceful because there were also pillows and a throw in the way. After awkward adjustments of body parts, accompanied by giggles, sundry pillows tumbled to the floor, and the throw entwining their ankles, he more or less hovered over her, their weight making the sofa cushions sink languidly into the frame.

  “Well, this is elegant,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose.

  “Is it just exactly as you imagined it?” she asked.

  “No, when I was imagining it, the couch was lumpier and there was a draft. Also you had bad breath. This is much better.”

  He relaxed his weight on top of her, and began a kiss.

  Then, of course, the phone rang.

  It was such an ugly, retro-office sound that they both began laughing. “Can you turn it off?” he said, or something very similar to that while their lips were touching.

  “I have no idea how the damn thing works,” she said. “Give it a second and it will go to voice mail.”

  It rang a second time. “Two,” he said.

  It rang again. “Three,” they both said, giggling. And then: “Four.”

  There were some mechanical clatterings, and then Helen’s mellifluous voice saying, as if she had just come from meditating, “Hello, this is the home of Helen and Paul. I’m afraid we can’t come to the phone right now. After the tone, please leave a message including your number and we’ll call you back as soon as we can.”

  “Here comes the beep,” Orion said somberly.

  Beeeep, said the answering machine.

  “Hey, are you there? Pick up,” said Hank. Oh crap. “Anna, pick up. I’ve gotta talk to you, it’s about the fund-raiser tomorrow night, pick up if you’re there.”

  “Who’s that?” Orion asked, without moving. “You don’t need to answer it, do you?”

  “Let me get it just in case,” she said, trying not to hyperventilate. “It’ll just take a moment.”

  “He’ll have hung up by the time we get disentangled,” Orion decided, pressing himself against her.

  “He’ll call back. He’s like that,” she said. She pushed gently at his chest; he rose with a lack of urgency.

  “Who is it?” he said.

  “Okay, well, your cousins want some more memorabilia about Jen that’s up in the attic, for decoration,” Hank’s voice continued, “and obviously I can’t get up there, so I need you to go up and get it by tomorrow morning, so come home when you hear this message, okay?”

  “Fund-raiser?” asked Orion, cocking an eyebrow.

  “Yes, I do have a life outside of cooking you dinner and reporting on your helipad,” she said, more sharply than she meant to, sitting up. She had to get to the machine before Hank said something incriminating. Was there a mute button? “It’s a fund-raiser for a scholarship in my aunt’s memory.”

  “So that guy’s a relative? One of those seventeenth-century-pedigree relatives?” he said, too interested in something she needed him not to be interested in.

  “By marriage,” she said dismissively.

  “I think he’s about to hang up,” said Orion, and playfully pushed her back down on the couch.

  But Hank did not hang up. “There’s some photos of us on vacation, that time in Florida, and there’s her high school yearbook, and that video we made of her asleep that time, remember? Marie wants all that stuff. Okay, so let me know when you can get here,” he said, sounding vaguely plaintive. “I’ll be up until nine thirty tonight, and then I’ll be up again at seven. But it’ll be cold up there in the morning, so come tonight if you can. Okay. Bye.” A moment of old-school dial tone and then a clunk, and then silence.

  “Okay,” said Orion, grinning down at her. “He’s done. Let’s get back to the good stuff.”

  Then her cell phone rang. At least that went right to voice mail without them having to listen to it.

  Orion gave her a puckish look and reached his hand under her shirt. “May I be a rogue for a few moments?”

  “Not for a few moments,” she said. “I expect at least an hour of roguish behavior.”

  “That’s sexy. Why is that so sexy?” He put his fingers to her lips. She closed her mouth over his middle finger and sucked gently. He groaned.

  The phone rang again. This time, he swore as he laughed.

  “Let me get it,” she said. “Before he goes off on another monologue.”

  “Yeah, good idea,” he said grudgingly, and struggled with the throw to get off of her.

  Hank was already talking by the time she had managed to get upright. “Hi, it’s me again. I tried your cell phone and there was no answer,” he said. “So I hope you get this. Let me know if the electricity is off or something. I need you to come by before noon because I have to be at the Town Hall before noon for a briefing with the selectmen about the lawsu—”

  And then she found the mute button. Half a sentence too late.

  “Who is that?” Orion demanded, suddenly sitting upright. “That’s your uncle? His name is Hank?” He was putting the pieces together faster than his voice could change tone. “Your uncle named Hank has to be at the Town Hall tomorrow for a briefing about a lawsuit?”

  “I can explain—” she began. But she couldn’t, of course. Anyhow, he didn’t wait for her to try.

  “Hank Somebody. Who has some connection to a scholarship drive for Jen Somebody.” His iPhone had been on an end table, and he grabbed it and said, “Hey, Siri, tell me about the fund-raiser on Martha’s Vineyard for Jennifer.”

  And Siri, that heartless shrew, replied, “Okay, Orion, here’s what I’ve got for Jennifer’s fund-raiser on Martha’s Vineyard.”

  He looked at the results. “Article in the Journal. Jennifer Holmes,” he said, and pressed on the screen. The light of the screen shifted, washing all the humanity from his face. “Memorial Scholarship for student who is interested in pursuing a career in social work . . . named after Jennifer Holmes, social worker and wife of . . .” And here he looked up at her with the sundering of their intimacy deadening his face. “Wife of West Tisbury political figure Henry Holmes.” He put his phone down. His expression was angry but his eyes looked more bewildered than anything.

  “Your uncle is the chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals.”

  “He’s actually my second cousin by marriage.”

  “You grew up in his house?”

  “. . . Yes.”

  “You grew up in the house of the man who is in charge of the committee I am suing, and you are writing about all of it for the newspaper.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out before answering, trying not to sound as miserable as she felt: “That’s about the size of it. Yeah.”

  “That’s so outrageous I don’t even know what to say about it.”

  She nodded. “I’m not going to defend myself. It’s not like I was trying to screw anyone over. It was just a really unfortunate intersection of work and family and attraction.”

  “You’re defending yourself.”

&nb
sp; “I’m not defending, I’m explaining.”

  He shook his head, looking stupefied. “I can’t believe this. I mean I literally, actually can’t believe this. Please tell me how this isn’t what it looks like.”

  “I wish it wasn’t what it looks like. But it is. I want to be better than this. I was just so attracted to you.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” he demanded.

  “At what moment in time should I have done that?” she said. “Think about it, at what moment in this flirtation could I have done that without ending the flirtation?”

  “How did you think that was going to work out?!” he demanded, still looking more bewildered than anything.

  “I was hoping you’d drop the suit.”

  “Yes,” he said, anger starting to edge out the amazement. “Of course you did. I’m suing the man who raised you. No wonder.” A beat. More anger: “And you’re writing about it? For the paper? After all your precious scruples about ethical conflicts, you’re covering a story about an immediate family member whom you’re living with? Are you pulling a fast one on your editor as well?”

  “No, he knows the whole situation. It’s why he encouraged me to find somewhere else to live until the story wrapped.”

  He huffed with disbelieving, disgusted laughter. “Is he a lawyer? That’s just a slimy technicality. Tell me, where do you get your mail?”

  “Post office box?” she offered hurriedly, as if that might exonerate her.

  “Who pays your utility bills?” he asked. “Under whose roof would I find your elementary school photos?”

  She looked down.

  “Jesus,” he said. “I completely bought into that bogus nonsense about journalistic ethics. Are you playing me? Have you been playing me this whole time?”

  “No!” she said.

  “Of course you are; you have a personal interest in my dropping the suit. You have a very personal direct interest in my dropping the suit and you deliberately didn’t tell me that. You kept me in the dark. Tell me why.”