On the Same Page

by N. D. Galland

  BACK AT HELEN’S, as dusk gathered outside the house, Joanna stared stupidly at the tinkling white lights of the living room. They lit the room with a pale, speckled glow that illuminated her just enough that she could see herself, ghostlike, in the plate-glass windows.

  Finally, she called Everett at home.

  “Now what have you done?” he asked, tired humor in his voice.

  “You’re the only person I’ve been absolutely honest with,” she said.

  “Oh God,” he said, the humor evaporating. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing yet. But I’ve been given an offer it’s hard to turn down. I’m wondering if you can beat it.”

  “Orion Smith is paying you to relocate to Costa Rica.”

  “The Newes offered to hire Joey Dias as a full-time staffer.” She paused. “I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t see it coming, I swear. But it kind of solves several problems all at once.”

  A pause. “Aw, crap,” he said quietly, as if in self-rebuke.

  “I love working with you, Everett, and I’m so grateful to you for putting up with everything, so before I said yes, I just wanted to see if you could, you know . . .”

  “I can’t,” he said at once, funereal. “Especially now, when we have to be careful about what stories we put you on. I suppose you could just do features, but we’re not a features-driven paper like they are.” A brief pause. “Oh, I get it, that’s what they want you for? They want you for the color pieces. Your whole job will just be writing flattering profiles of people.”

  “Not flattering,” she said, bristling a bit. “Kind.”

  “Well, whatever you want to call it, that’s your strength, so, you know . . . go for it. Congratulations. Probably good to take a breather from us right now anyhow.”

  “I’ll miss you too,” she said, stung.

  “Sorry,” Everett said. “I didn’t meant to be . . . to sound . . . Look, this is coming out of nowhere, I’m just thrown, okay? My inner editor is trying to figure out how I could have avoided this. I know I didn’t handle things well, but I didn’t realize I’d handled them this badly—”

  “You didn’t, it has nothing to do with any of the messed-up stuff. I need enough money to live on, and they have it. Orion Smith isn’t even part of that equation.” An awkward pause. She stared at her eerie reflection and realized how metaphorically apt it was: she needed to be more transparent. “Except for the part about their hiring me to coerce me to write a profile of Orion Smith.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” he said. “After all these months of pretending there’s no story there, now Lewis wants to celebrate the man who’s wasting taxpayers’ money? You recused yourself, of course. Right? Please tell me—”

  “I tried to. Lewis wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “I used to not take no for an answer; look where it got us.”

  “Yes, I know. He seems pretty desperate.”

  “I wasn’t? Oldest trick in the book, an editor telling a writer I’m desperate for you to work with us. He doesn’t even get points for originality.”

  “He wants the piece done before the lawsuit is filed. He wants to give the outsider a human face.”

  “Well, do your best, whatever happens,” he said. “Are you pulling the plug on us right away? You’re still working on a few pieces; how do you want to handle that?”

  Suddenly she was terrifically tired and didn’t want to be a grown-up anymore. “Let me sleep on it,” she said. “I think as long as Joey Dias gets Lewis the Orion Smith profile, he’ll allow me some wiggle room. I suppose I should come clean to him about being Anna Howes, though.”

  “If you decide not to, I’ll keep your secret.”

  “You’ve certainly kept enough of them this winter. Thank you. And again, I’m so sorry for all my bungling.”

  “Live and learn,” he said. “There was no wreckage. Except a punctured romance.”

  She let out a deep breath. “Thanks, Everett.” She waited for him to hang up.

  Then she set the phone down. She’d call the Newes in the morning. Make it final.

  And then try to figure out a way for Joey Dias to interview Mr. Orion Smith.

  * * *

  The Newes already had Orion’s email address, and before noon the next day they’d set Joey Dias up with an in-house account: jd@mvineyardnewes.org.

  Dear Mr. Smith,

  I’m Joey Dias from the Vineyard Newes. I’m looking forward to writing about you. Unfortunately I’m traveling for a bit and won’t have very good phone or even internet reception, so it looks like we’ll have to do this mostly as a Q&A email exchange. I do mean exchange, as I’m sure to have follow-ups to my initial questions. Hope this arrangement works for you. I’ll be sending the initial questions later today. Thanks so much, looking forward to it.

  –JD

  The response came quickly.

  Hello Joey-

  Great to (virtually) meet you. I’m a fan of your writing and honored to be worthy of your journalistic attention. I understand that we need to start this as an email, but let’s connect in person, or at least by phone, some point soon. I’d love to show you around my property, since my owning it is—at present—what connects me most to the Vineyard. Plus it’s a gorgeous place and it would feel exotic to show it off. So let me know when you’re back, and I’ll have you up there for coffee? Give me dates, I can work around them. Thanks! PS: Call me Orion.

  * * *

  Hello Orion,

  Thanks for the kind words. I don’t think I’ll be back on the Island before deadline—the opportunity to interview you came up unexpectedly and I already had plans. Sorry about that. Let’s see how the email exchange works. If it proves too difficult, we can either delay the pub date or see if one of my colleagues at the Newes can do a follow-up with you. Best, JD

  * * *

  Hi Joey,

  Where are you going to be? In case you haven’t heard (ha), I have a helicopter—could come meet you almost anywhere along the northeast corridor. I can even give you an aerial tour of the estate, and get you back to America in time for dinner. Let me know!

  -Orion

  * * *

  Dear Orion,

  What an extraordinary invitation! Thanks! Unfortunately I’ll be in Peru, which is probably out of helicopter range LOL.

  Anyhow, as my editor probably mentioned, a photographer will come out separately to take a photo of you. So I think we’ve got all the bases covered even though we won’t get to meet in person. I’ve done this before, so I’m confident I can present you to our readers with a credible sense of familiarity. Thanks for understanding the situation.

  -JD

  * * *

  Hi Joey-

  Well let’s start with the email, then. But I feel pretty strongly that we should have at least a brief meeting in person. I’m sure you hear this from people a lot, but I’m enough of an extrovert that it’s hard for me to imagine anyone really grasping my personality without being in the room with me. More than that, though, I’m feeling sensitive around issues of transparency due to recent personal reasons. So call me a diva, but I consider it a necessity—even though I already know and really do admire your work—that we have a chance to connect in person. Ciao. OS

  * * *

  Joey Dias asked Orion Smith, via email, to meet at Hubert’s Bakery. It was where he’d first met Joanna one-on-one, so now it could be the last place as well. It was early May, but it wasn’t spring. There were some flowers, and maples with fat leaf buds, but it wasn’t spring. The air was fresh but still had a nip that no longer plagued the off-Island sections of New England. People still wore jackets. It was the tipping point of the year, when half the Island thought winter would never end, while the other half—caretakers and landscapers and retail or boutique owners—were already overwhelmed by summer’s approach.

  She drove Hank’s truck to the commercial cluster of shops and businesses and parked it where it wasn’t visible from the bakery windows. She cu
t the motor, took a deep breath, pulled the key from the ignition, and tossed it into her canvas bag.

  She took another deep breath.

  And another one. She realized she was chewing on her lower lip, and made herself stop. Her discomfort moved into her body and her forearms began to itch. She tried to ignore this, pulled the sleeves of her jacket down firmly over the wrists, and opened the door. Placed one foot on the ground. Then pivoted, and placed the other foot down too. She did not want to go into the bakery. If an osprey had flown past offering to carry her away if she would just do him the courtesy of turning into his favorite fish, she would have gone with him. Anything was better than this imminent humiliation. At least, since they’d be in public, there would have to be a limit to his outrage.

  Feeling as if she’d swallowed a radioactive ice pick, she willed herself to walk to the door of the bakery. She looked in through the glass panel before she entered. There were only three customers inside, and two young women hovering behind the display cases, prettifying and neatening in the post-rush-hour calm. She could see Orion, relaxing at the larger table, looking about calmly, waiting to meet the writer he already knew he was going to charm.

  She took yet another deep breath. Eventually the worst would be over, but it couldn’t be over until after it started, so she had better just start it. She reached for the handle. She opened the door.

  All heads in the room turned slightly in the direction of the opening door, and then almost immediately all but one head turned away again. She could feel Orion staring at her, without her glancing in his direction. She began to walk toward his table, not able to look up.

  As she approached, she could feel the air between them stiffen. “What are you doing? Don’t sit here,” he said.

  She sat, her eyes still nervously averted. She wished she were wearing a broad-brimmed hat to shield her entire face.

  “Go away,” he said firmly. Calm, but cold. “We have an understanding. Honor it. I’m waiting to speak to someone.”

  “My name,” she said quietly, almost a whisper, “is Joanna. Dias. Howes.” Finally she glanced up at him. How awful to see his face without a smile on it.

  He stared back with a blank expression, and then a puzzled look puckered his face. His eyes opened a little wider, his brows pulled closer together, and his jaw went slack. It was almost worth it just to see him lose his slick.

  “Yeah,” she said. “You got it.”

  He stared. She braced herself for the verbal attack, hoping he would contain himself in public. He just stared.

  Then he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he had to hold his head steady between his hands. Everyone in the bakery stared at him.

  “What,” she said. She felt almost sucker-punched.

  “This is absurd,” he said, looking up, containing himself.

  “I thought you’d be angry.”

  “I’m furious. Of course I’m furious. But it’s too absurd not to laugh at.” His eyes glittered. “Okay, we’re going for a walk,” he said, and stood up so abruptly his chair squeaked against the floorboards. The onlookers all pretended to stop looking.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Private conversation. Stand up. Let’s go.”

  He wasn’t the sort to hit anyone, but murder might not be out of the question. “Where, though? We’re surrounded by parking lot.”

  He glanced outside, seemed surprised to find that she was right, and sat down again.

  “Your ability to disorient me grows exponentially,” he said. And continued to stare, until the others in the shop lost interest and stopped paying attention for real. He shook his head slightly, although she wasn’t sure if he realized he was doing so. The effect was of somebody contemplating but then rejecting an attack tactic.

  “I wouldn’t trust you to follow me if I drove somewhere private.”

  “I don’t blame you. I mean, I would follow you, but I don’t blame you for doubting me about that.”

  “Are you evil?” he asked, as if he were asking her astrological sign. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I needed the money. I had to write for both papers. But I couldn’t openly write for them both.”

  “You couldn’t have gotten a job as a receptionist or something?”

  “Do you know what the unemployment rate is like here in the off-season?” she retorted. “And anyhow I’m not qualified to be a receptionist.”

  “You write features for national magazines, you can manage an optician’s front desk, for Pete’s sake,” he huffed.

  She was reassured by this exchange, because it showed he was calm enough to have a conversation. “There’s your privilege showing again,” she said. “You wouldn’t have learned this at your country club, but there is actually a receptionist skill set, and my interviewing rock stars about their favorite breakfast cereal doesn’t mean I have that skill set. That’s like saying, ‘You’re a nurse, why not teach kindergarten,’ or ‘You’re a real estate mogul, surely that qualifies you to be leader of the free world.’ Anyhow, like I said, the unemployment rate.”

  “You know that I am going to get you fired,” he said, pleasantly, almost giggling. “I can’t believe you’ve put yourself in this position with me. The paper might decide they don’t care, but it’s now my ambition to personally eradicate your duplicitous tendencies. So please respect my need to make the effort.” His eyes continued to bore into hers. “Man, you are a piece of work. It’s a shame, because I genuinely liked you.”

  “I’m very bad at being dishonest,” she said. “It’s not how I normally roll.”

  “I’m not even a little interested in that,” he said, with a dismissive swat of one hand. “To expect me to care shows how clueless you are. I think that’s what smarts the most.” He gave her a loaded look, as if he already anticipated her response.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

  “It’s not just that I don’t know who you really are. It’s that—if you’re running around being preoccupied by keeping all your falsehoods straight—you’re not really seeing who I am either. It’s like . . .” He paused, shook his head wonderingly. “I’m at a loss for words, which never happens, so fuck you for that too, by the way . . . It’s as if you’re playing chicken with me, without telling me. So you don’t see me as me, ever. You see me as ‘the person you have to not lose the game of chicken to.’ I don’t merely feel fooled, I feel unseen. Which is a crappy way to feel after spending weeks getting to know someone.” His jaw had been tightening as he spoke and now he leaned back in the bowback chair, nearly gritting his teeth.

  She wilted. She had not even considered that, which of course made his point strike home more.

  “So,” he continued, “why should I want to know anything about you, when you clearly don’t have any interest in me?”

  “I’m really sorry that it feels that way to you—but we can make up for that, right now, with the interview. You will have my undivided attention and I want nothing more than to see the real you.” She thought that was a pretty good recovery.

  But he looked appalled. “You’re only doing that because you’re getting paid for it. You don’t actually want to do it—you said you tried to get out of it.”

  She opened her mouth to retort—although she had no idea what she would have said—but he cut her off.

  “Here’s what needs to happen,” he said. He lowered his voice and leaned across the table toward her, gesturing her to mirror him. It unnerved her to have their heads so close together. “You will write up this profile of me,” he said, almost directly into her ear. “You’ll show it to me. You’ll show me that you’ve made the effort to know me, to see me. That’s what I will accept as an apology. Not words, but actions.”

  “Yes, fine, of course,” she said.

  “Then,” he continued quietly, “we will destroy it, and I will tell the Newes I have changed my mind and don’t want to be written about. You will not get paid for it. If you’re getting paid for it,
it’s not an apology. You don’t have to agree with me, but do you understand me?”

  He pulled back slightly so that they could look directly at each other, their faces close enough to kiss. She nodded.

  “Good,” he said, and then leaned in closer again. “If I like what you write, I won’t blow the whistle on you, and you can go ahead and write for the Newes for the rest of your life if you like, as long as you never touch a story related to me again.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “I’m not done. If I don’t like it, I will blow the whistle and you will never write for either paper about anything.”

  Now she was the one who pulled back to make eye contact. “So you’re ordering me to suck up to you,” she said in a flat tone. “I understand you’re pissed off, but really? How’s that going to make it better—knowing that you can force me to flatter you on paper? I didn’t know you were that guy. That bully.” He fidgeted in displeasure and she felt her face warm with the heat of righteous indignation. “I’ll do it if you want but please own up that that’s what you’re doing. You held the moral high ground here until you said that.”

  He looked appalled. “I’m not expecting you to flatter me.” He took a breath, let it out slowly. “I don’t mean you have to make me look good. I mean you have to show me that you see me. If you examine me and you see warts, write about the warts. But see my warts because you’re looking at me, not because you’re trying to keep me from seeing your warts. Understand?”

  “Yes,” she said, wilting again. “Then, what?”

  “Then after you write the article, that’s it. We’re done. Whether or not I reveal you to your boss, after this exercise is carried out, I never want to speak to you again. I wish that I felt otherwise but I can’t imagine how I could. I’m sure you understand that.”

  She nodded, looked down.

  “All right, now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s schedule an interview. I think you should come to the house. I have some old photos and letters I can show you.”

  Joanna held up her backpack. “Why not just talk now and get it over with?” she said. “I already know most of it.”

  He gave her a dry, disbelieving stare. “Really?” he asked.