“I kept you both in the dark—he has no idea I’m seeing you. He’d hit the roof, he’d go ballistic, he would feel so betrayed.”
“That’s a feeling I relate to,” he said. “What were you thinking, Anna? What have you been thinking this whole time?”
“I wasn’t really thinking,” she said, wishing she could curl up under the sagging sofa and quietly suffocate. “I liked what was happening between us so much, I guess it was magical thinking on my part. I just wanted to be around you and banter with you and make out with you—”
“Well, that’s over,” he said harshly. “That goes without saying, right? You know that. We’re done.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
“You should be,” he said. “You have really fucked up here. I’ve been duped my fair share over the years—if you have money everyone tries to play you—but I’ve never—”
“I wasn’t trying to play you!” she said. “I haven’t accepted anything from you. I don’t want anything from you except your company.”
“And my compliance,” he said bitterly. “You were playing me so I’d be nice to your uncle.”
“That’s not true!” she said. “A condition of our courtship was that we never even talked about it.”
“Total passive-aggressiveness on your part, Anna—it was hanging in the air between us all the time. It was bad enough when we didn’t talk about it because of the paper, but wow—it’s personal, it’s been so personal this whole time and you kept that from me. How does that not make you a conniving shithead?”
Maybe she could fit under the couch. This very moment. “I wasn’t trying to play you,” she said again. “I was stupid and wrong but it’s because I wasn’t thinking straight because of pheromones.”
“Right, blame me,” he said, looking for his coat. “We are so done here.”
He huffily began to pull on his coat, heading toward the door. Then he stopped, and turned back around to face her. “You’re off the story. Tell your editor or else I will. I want confirmation by nine A.M. tomorrow that you are no longer the reporter covering this beat.”
“They don’t have another—”
“Bullshit,” he said, scornfully. “Given the alternative I can threaten them with, they will find somebody. The editor can cover it himself. If I don’t get a message by nine that you’re off the story, I’m calling the owner of the paper. Got it?”
“Yes,” she said, looking down, feeling the shame creeping up the back of her spine, over her skull, and down her front until it landed just below her sternum and began to gnaw on her soul. “I’m so sorry, I wish there was something I could do to regain your trust or my integrity—”
“That might be the most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said to me,” he said, swinging the door open. “Go to hell.” He stepped through and slammed it behind him with a billow of cold, damp air.
“Well, that went about as well as could be expected,” she said to the answering machine, and then burst into tears.
* * *
At eight the next morning, curled up miserably under one of Helen’s afghans, she called Everett.
Orion had beaten her to it.
“It’s on me,” Everett said, chagrined, on the other end of the line. “I knew everything. I let it happen.”
She curled up into an even tighter ball. “You trusted me not to mess it up. I messed it up.”
“I shouldn’t have trusted you.”
“You’re saying I’m not trustworthy?” she demanded, uncurling slightly.
“I’m saying you’re human. That’s a mark against you.”
“So do I just switch with somebody? I can sit down and go over my beat with whoever you like . . .”
“Already been through my Rolodex.” In the middle of the misery, she took a moment to appreciate his using the word Rolodex. “Only person I can put on this is Florence, so all I can give you are Florence’s pieces.”
Florence was a freelancer in her eighties and was mostly interested in things that lived at the intersection of a woman in her eighties and the local hearsay. Since it was spring, this currently meant anything to do with flowers. Since it was spring on the Vineyard, this meant not writing about much, since the Vineyard is relatively underflowered in April compared to the rest of North America, even the rest of New England.
“I can do that. At least until this thing wraps.”
“We’ll all feel better about this anyhow,” he said, trying to find a silver lining.
“I don’t see myself feeling better about anything,” she said. “Ever again.”
“Well,” he said, trying to be helpful, “at least you can corner the market on daffodil propagation. And maybe we’ll put you back on sports.”
* * *
She felt like an idiot. She felt like a bored idiot. No better a sportswriter than she’d been in January, she covered Little League games with spectacular ineptitude, confusing left field and right field at least a third of the time. Susan Grant returned from her off-Island emergency and therefore to the West Tisbury beat, but Everett kept Joanna on for news briefs. The Martha’s Vineyard Museum was preparing to open a new exhibit in late May on the evolving culinary habits of Islanders over the past 150 years; they were seeking old family recipes and kitchen items. The Coast Guard station was ramping up for summer. The piece about the DACA high school valedictorian who was going to Harvard was scrapped for a second time because of concerns about ICE reprisals.
For the Newes, Joey Dias wrote a profile of a young chanteuse, a native Islander and recent graduate of the high school, who was establishing herself off Broadway. This would be on the same page as a 1941 article about Katharine Cornell, America’s most beloved stage actress and the Vineyard’s most beloved wash-ashore. The young singer would be making her professional Vineyard debut in June singing at a private party hosted by old-money clients of her father, a plumber. According to the wife, it was a stunning coincidence that they’d hired their plumber’s daughter—really, they’d had no idea! According to the husband, they had hired her because she was their plumber’s daughter, because that’s the kind of leg up “we Vineyarders” give each other. Joey Dias put in both versions and left it to Lewis to decide which to keep, and never bothered to read it when it came out. Anna Howes was too busy researching daffodils.
V
May
SHE HAD TO STAY BECAUSE HANK WAS NOT HEALING AS quickly as he should have been. Members of various family branches, and Hank’s friends, were good about stepping in and taking care of things in her stead when necessary, but there was a bigger issue, which was that he wasn’t healing. He was uninterested in discussing this fact in person, so she doubted she could get him to engage with her remotely if she moved back off-Island. Therefore, she was staying put.
Still, after a few weeks of writing news briefs, and penning too many obituaries that could not include the word heroin even though everyone knew about it, she fantasized about running away to the big city to spend her days asking rock stars what their favorite breakfast cereal was. Even in early May, the Island felt small, gray, depressed, inbred, unwholesome, and stale. There was a dearth of twenty- and thirty-somethings. Very few of her childhood friends could afford to live here as adults; those who were here had young children and were too busy for friends who didn’t also have young children. Plus, they all now tended to treat her, their friend-the-reporter, with the uneasiness one feels about passing a cop on the highway. Even Celia’s baking schedule grew suspiciously busy, given it wasn’t yet Memorial Day.
She continued to fret about money. She wasn’t paying rent, but that was temporary. If she were to move in with Hank again after Memorial Day, when she had to move out of Helen’s, they’d probably slay each other. Because of the seasonal Vineyard rental market, she was too late to find a year-round place: landlords with vacancies were already seeking big-money summer tenants. In late September, the price would decrease for the winter, on the condition that the winter tenants
vacate again come summer. For generations this had been called the Vineyard Shuffle and it was a topic she’d covered at ZBA and selectmen’s meetings. She knew the stats and they were not in her favor. Martha’s Vineyard had more houses than it had year-round residents. But most of those were vacation homes and stood empty while thousands of residents scrambled to find proper housing. She could barely keep track of where Celia was living from year to year. So plainly it would make sense to retreat to New York as soon as possible. Until she remembered that she no longer had a place to live there either, since she’d sublet her apartment. But at least in New York there might be options.
But this was moot, because she couldn’t leave the Vineyard until she knew what was going on with Hank’s health. She stopped by twice a day. As well as carrying out her usual tasks, she perused the trash. Twice she found empty prescription pill bottles, the labels removed with an X-Acto blade, which left stab wounds on the orange plastic bottles. Hank always did that when he tossed out prescription bottles, but she was stymied that he’d not told her what he was on now. Unless there was some other hidden illness, it meant he was still on narcotic pain meds. She would not make plans to leave until she had more information, and trying to get information out of an old Yankee was . . . well, that was its own metaphor, really. It was like trying to get information out of an old Yankee.
All in all, she was in existential limbo once again when Lewis called from the Newes.
“Hi, Joey,” he said, cheerily. “How’s our best profiler?”
This time he had caught her, not in a Journal edit meeting as usual, but outside in Hank’s vegetable plot. She was kneeling on the damp earth, enjoying the sun’s wan attempt to warm her back, weeding around the seedling carrots and peas that Celia had planted for him, while Hank himself was prowling, circumambulating the yard on his crutches, reacquainting himself with the chickens, checking to see how the woodpile, the disassembled Jeeps, and the jury-rigged outdoor shower had all survived the winter.
She’d been listening to Nina Simone on her headphones, so when she took the call she stayed hands-free and continued to weed.
“Can’t complain,” she said.
“We have a piece I’d love you to do. A new ‘On the Same Page.’ One of your portrait pieces, maybe a longer one this time since it’s a big get.”
“All right, I’ll bite,” she said, as she decided the green fuzz she’d been examining was an excess of carrot seeds germinating together. “Who is it?”
“You already know a little bit about him because you covered a ZBA meeting for us, where he came up. His name is Orion Smith, he’s a seasonal—”
She started laughing, trying to turn her mouth away from the earbud mic. “No,” she said. “Sorry, I have to recuse myself from that one.”
“Why?”
She glanced in the direction Hank had gone, but he was on the far side of the house out of sight.
“Personal reasons. I’m prejudiced. You should ask somebody else.”
“I don’t have anyone else.”
“I could take somebody else’s story, then, free them up, and they could do this.”
“It’s not as if you’re all interchangeable, Joey. That’s the kind of slapdash amateur attitude they have at the Journal. Anyhow, I’m serious, I’ve got nobody. We’re not covering any meetings in Aquinnah or Oak Bluffs this week; that’s how understaffed I am. Chris has the flu, Rosemary’s at a conference, Jane’s mother is on her deathbed, and Charles is on personal leave.” She had no idea who these people were since she almost never stepped foot in the Newes office, but she understood his desperation. “It’s on the same page with a piece about building the airport as a naval training base in ’42. Can you put your prejudices aside and give him a chance?”
She calmed herself by taking in a slow, deep breath of soil-scented air. “I have to go off-Island for the next couple of weeks. Checking out a job possibility with a New York paper.”
“Oh.” A pause. “I thought you were going to be staying here.” And then, almost sheepishly, Lewis said, “I was planning to offer you a full-time staff position this summer.”
She couldn’t speak for a moment. Then she realized that wasn’t the fantastic offer she thought it was at first. “You mean full-time through the summer, right?”
“No,” he said. “I mean full-time, year-round. You’d have to bone up on news reporting, but we get so many compliments on your community coverage, and we should capitalize on that.”
“Oh!” she said. And then: “Thank you.”
“People want to be profiled by you—I mean high rollers from L.A. and New York who come here to avoid media attention. I was at a preseason cocktail party last week and three different people approached me to say, ‘Hey, I love that Joey Dias guy. When I’m here this summer, let him know I’d be available for an interview.’ They are all names you’d recognize.”
“That’s classy, how they’re suggesting your paper needs their picture in it.”
“No, you’ve got it backward,” he said. “It’s street cred for them. Everyone wants to talk to you if you’re rich and famous . . . except on Martha’s Vineyard. Here we only want to talk to you if you belong here. In less than three months, Joey Dias’s attention has become the high-water mark for belonging here.”
“I’m flattered, I really am, but I don’t think I’m the right person to do a piece on Mr. Smith,” she said, wondering if those other green things in the corner were volunteer potato plants. “Anyhow, I won’t be around for the next few weeks.” Remembering the pieces she still owed him, she hurried to add, “I’m going to be interviewing the Shelton family and Carol Lee’s backup singer by phone, so don’t worry about those.”
“Well, then you could interview Smith by phone,” he said.
She tried to think fast, and she fumbled. Lying by omission, it had turned out, was something she was regrettably adept at. Lying by commission, not so much. “I’m not comfortable taking on new projects, because if I get this job I’m interviewing for, I’ll be starting right away. Sorry. It came up suddenly.” She glanced around again, making sure Hank was not close enough to hear this invention. He was still out of sight.
A disappointed pause from Lewis. “I didn’t realize you were planning to leave the Island.”
“I wasn’t. But I can’t afford to live here as a freelance journalist.”
“Oh. Well . . .” He paused. She realized she had cornered him into something she’d had no intention of cornering him into. “What if I offered you a staff position now? Full-time? Permanent?”
She sat upright, her knees pressing damply into the earth. “Er . . . full-time? Starting right away? With, like, benefits and everything?”
“That’s what I meant, yes.”
“Wow. Well. Thanks, that’s a nice offer.” Head spinning. Couldn’t think straight. She didn’t care if the Newes painted the Island with a romantic patina, working on staff there had been her childhood fantasy. Plus: a regular paycheck? Where she could walk the beach every morning? “I don’t mean this to sound like I’m working you, but you realize that a big New York glossy is going to offer a lot more than you can.”
He must have been expecting that, because his response was immediate: “But I can offer you life on the Vineyard. That’s a mic drop, I think they call it.”
She laughed, mostly from nerves. “Wouldn’t expect you to know that lingo.”
“Stole it from my daughter,” he confessed. “Not even sure I used it correctly. So . . . can we talk about this?”
“Of course. Can we talk numbers?”
They talked numbers, and benefits—it had been years since she’d had benefits. She would not get rich. She could never afford a home in her own hometown. But she could get by, save a little, master the Vineyard Shuffle, and inhabit the place she loved most in the world. Inconveniently, yes, it was the place she loved most in the world.
“I’d like to say yes . . .” she said cautiously.
“Wonder
ful! I’m so pleased. Your first assignment is to profile Orion Smith.”
“Lewis,” she said. “Please. No.”
“You’re a reporter, being objective is part of the job. I need it for next week; that’s when the court date is expected to be announced. Put the other pieces on hold until then. Thank you, you’re terrific.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” she said, trying to sound calm. “I said I’d like to say yes. I didn’t say I am saying yes. Can I just sleep on it?”
“Sure. Of course. Call me tomorrow, we’ll take it from there. Paolo Croce will be thrilled; he asks after you at least once a week.”
She sat there for a long moment, noticing birdsong and, distantly, a car downshifting around a bend on Lambert’s Cove Road. How ludicrous to be in such a situation, as if she were the heroine of a Shakespeare comedy. Rosalind and Viola would have handled it with panache. All she could think to do was berate herself for being the author of her own misfortune.
A moment later, Hank hobbled into view, clucking to Brunhilde through the chicken wire. Joanna decided she was finished weeding for now and stood up, rolling her shoulders back and brushing the topsoil from her jeans. After kneeling so long in sunlight, it almost felt like spring. She went inside and kicked off her garden boots in the mudroom. In the kitchen she put a low flame under the chowder pot, sliced some bread Celia had dropped by earlier, and dropped it into the toaster.
“How’d it go?” she asked Hank when he entered through the back door.
“Big improvement. This time, I didn’t fall and break my ankle,” he said with a grin. “Sure takes the wind out of you, though.”
“Sit down,” she said, gesturing toward his recliner. “I’m getting dinner on for you, but I just got a new work assignment so I’ve got to head home and deal with things.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “Me and Wolf Blitzer, we’ll manage to survive without you.”
She gave him a quick, almost nervous smile. “I’ll stop by in the morning,” she promised.
On the Same Page Page 22