ON THE SAME PAGE: ORION SMITH
By Joey Dias
Orion Smith has been in the news lately, due to the legal battle he is preparing to face with the town of West Tisbury. As has been previously reported in these pages, Mr. Smith is in the process of suing the town for the right to fly and land his personal Jet Ranger 505 helicopter on his North Road property overlooking Vineyard Sound.
Mr. Smith has few local friends, and is generally perceived as a wealthy seasonal resident out of touch with the Island way of life. But a closer look reveals a more complicated picture. Mr. Smith was born at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital in Oak Bluffs in the middle of a hurricane, and the circumstances of his life have hardly calmed down since. His youth resembles a novel written collaboratively by Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, with perhaps a touch of Dickens.
Mr. Smith’s mother, Miranda Pleasance, was the only child of a prosperous family in Ontario County, upstate New York. Her parents were not happy with her choice of spouse: John F. Smith, a man whose background was as unremarkable as his name. Mr. Smith, the son of a deceased mechanic from Rochester, New York, had worked as a handyman on the Pleasance Estate Orchard (Ltd) before he met Ms. Pleasance. An aspiring writer, he would spend his lunch hours with a pencil and notebook in the orchard, seeking inspiration. Here, he noticed Miranda Pleasance walking through the fields with her camera one summer, stalking butterflies and bugs for nature photographs. Fascinated with her stillness, he began to draw her likeness into his notebooks. Soon he was writing poetry about the woman in his drawings (“it was bad poetry,” says his son Orion, “but it served its purpose”). Eventually, John Smith got up the nerve to introduce himself.
A courtship developed quickly, but Ms. Pleasance’s parents were appalled when they found out. Miranda and John wed in secret in late summer, and by Christmas were expecting a child. By that time they had revealed their marriage, and were living in an outbuilding on her parents’ property, which Mr. Pleasance had grudgingly made available to them. They visited Martha’s Vineyard the following June, where her mother had grown up summering in a long-held family home off North Road. They were not welcome in that house, but childhood friends of Ms. Pleasance, who found her outlier marriage exotically countercultural, made them welcome in Oak Bluffs. Orion was born at the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital in August. That makes him a native Islander.
Unfortunately there were complications from the moment of his birth, and his mother was medevaced to Mass General, but did not survive the journey. His distraught father, trying to cope with the shock and grief, left the newborn with his in-laws. They immediately took legal action to keep primary custody of their infant grandson, fired Mr. Smith from his position, and threatened him with fictitious legal action if he attempted to contact his son. They legally changed his surname to Pleasance.
Until he was twelve, Orion Pleasance lived only with his maternal grandparents, who ensured that during this period he would be raised in a manner that befitted any member of the Pleasance family. His was a country-club upbringing, with golf, tennis, sailing, skiing, and summering on Martha’s Vineyard in the North Road house his parents had been denied access to the summer he was born. Ironically, his grandparents were well-known philanthropists in Ontario County, and gave chiefly to social welfare organizations that helped single-parent households. Orion did not even know that John Smith, who had returned to his family home in Rochester, was alive until he was ten; he was able to discover the elder Mr. Smith thanks to his relative fluency with the internet, which his grandparents were literally not plugged into yet. Once he had informed his grandparents that he knew he was not an orphan, he was allowed occasional day visits with his father. By this point his father was working as a helicopter mechanic for Skycroft Aviation in Rochester, supporting his widowed mother, who had recently retired from her job of thirty years as a bakery manager. The hours young Orion spent with her in her kitchen, baking cookies and breads, counted as some of the happiest of his young life.
If all of this sounds extraordinary, it is only the beginning. On the fourth of July after he turned twelve, Orion Pleasance ran away from his grandparents’ house during the family’s annual Independence Day party, and moved in with his father and grandmother in their small house in Rochester. He was, he explained in a letter to his grandparents, “determined not to ride the wave that would have drowned [his] father, and live a more authentic life among people who truly loved [his] mother, rather than just a romantic re-imagining of who she should have been.”
When financial bribery failed to lure their grandson back to them, his maternal grandparents—rather than create a fuss—told curious friends and relatives that they had sent him off to a private school in Europe. They ceased to have anything to do with him personally, but did create a trust fund for his college education. Young Orion began to use his father’s family name of Smith and spent his high school years in the working-class neighborhood of Rochester as an apprentice—first informally and then officially—to his father (who, in addition to working as a helicopter mechanic, had continued to write “terribly bad poetry,” and instilled in his son a love of literature). A charismatic and smooth-talking teenager, Orion charmed the owner of Skycroft Aviation to teach him how to fly, and earned his private helicopter’s license at the age of 17. He skipped his high school graduation ceremony to take the test for his commercial pilot’s license.
Orion matriculated at Columbia University, relying on the money from his grandparents. He majored in English, but spent all of his nonacademic time working as a commercial helicopter pilot. With the gift of gab and a disarming demeanor, Orion grew his acquaintanceship with his various corporate passengers into invitations to cocktail parties, and then dinner parties, and—making a comfortable income once he’d graduated and was working full-time—he invested in Skycroft Aviation, until at the age of 26 he bought the company. From then on, he continued to invest, now in real estate and occasionally small businesses.
At 28, he married Lucy Bragg, whom he had briefly dated in college, and they settled in New Haven, Connecticut. At 30, he finally reconnected with his maternal grandparents, who were so astounded by his professional success they attempted to reintegrate him into their social circles in Ontario County, with limited success. He bought their Vineyard vacation home from them—where he had spent his summers—then weatherized and upgraded it. Here he installed both his father and paternal grandmother, who lived there year-round until his grandmother’s death three years later. At that point, his father retuned to the mainland, where he now oversees the apple orchard where he met his wife (the apple orchard, too, was purchased by Orion from his grandparents).
Orion’s wife was, in his words, “an old-school socialite” who encouraged him to reconnect with his grandparents. Their relationship grew strained beyond repair when, instead of accepting an invitation to spend the summer with his grandparents, he volunteered for a two-month stint with an NGO that operated in the Congo, piloting a helicopter used to deliver humanitarian supplies. Shortly after his return, the couple separated, and eventually divorced.
“He is a magical human being in many ways,” Ms. Bragg acknowledges in a phone interview from her Connecticut home. “Unfortunately, ‘magical’ and ‘good husband’ are not phrases that go easily together. I’ve never wished him anything but the very best, although we came to realize that we had very different ideas about what that meant.” Ms. Bragg has since remarried, to Mr. Jacques Lawson-McDonald, an investment banker with Roth-Barnwell.
Orion Smith continues to oversee his various enterprises, chiefly Skycroft Aviation and some real estate projects. Belying his quick wit and conversational abilities, he is loath to speak much about his personal life. Most of the information in this story comes from archival sources, often provided by Mr. Smith himself, but with only the occasional addendum or editorial comment from Mr. Smith’s own lips. This is not due to modesty—while gracious, he doesn’t pass as modest—but rather from an almost impi
sh desire to see how people will respond to what they do know. “A stranger meeting me at a public forum forms a very different impression of me than would someone I’m dating, for instance,” he says breezily. “I’m sure that’s true of all of us, I’m just a little more aware of it. It’s interesting to see how different people respond to their different impressions of me. I’m sure I seem like a gratuitous jerk to many residents of West Tisbury, not least of them Henry Holmes [the chairman of the Zoning Board of Appeals, the committee whose rejection of Mr. Smith’s helipad permit sparked the lawsuit]. I’m not saying I’m not a jerk, but I’m not a gratuitous one, and I think Mr. Holmes might acknowledge that if he knew the whole truth about me . . .”
* * *
It went on for several more paragraphs, mostly describing Orion’s property. He read in silence, as she tried to track where he was reading on each page, and what expressions he was trying not to make. Cool jazz was playing quietly from a Bose radio in the pantry. Spring sunshine glared across the granite countertop, uplighting the reader. Outside the sky was blue and colder than it looked from in here.
He lowered the manuscript to the counter. He continued to stare at it for a long moment, almost as if he were too shy to look straight up at her.
“That’s not such a bad person you’re describing there,” he said at last, nodding with his chin to the pages.
“Not at all,” she agreed. “Spectacularly interesting. Almost too good to be true, by the standards of . . . well. By my standards,” she concluded, blushing.
“Not by mine, though,” said Orion. “You left out an important detail.”
“I couldn’t possibly have included everything,” she said. “I already blew through my word count, but there’s a limit—”
“It wouldn’t take very many words,” said Orion. “You just neglected to mention that I’m dropping the lawsuit.”
This was so unexpected that it took a moment to land. “Wait. What?”
He shrugged. “I maintain that my argument is a valid one,” he said. “But there’s something to be said for seeing things from the other person’s point of view. Context matters a lot. So. In the context of Martha’s Vineyard’s Vineyardishness, I am not contributing to the fabric of the community.” He leaned back on his stool, shrugged a little, and said, almost airily, “Mea culpa.”
Joanna blinked. “How did you just come to see that now? This article isn’t about that at all, it’s just about you. Why does this article accomplish what the ZBA, half the Island—and me—couldn’t convince you of over the course of months?”
Orion gestured to the manuscript pages lying before him. “There are many ways you could have told my story, but you told it in a way that spoke specifically to your audience. I like the guy in that story. Which, as I figure it, means I must like that audience. Which means I like these people, and what they’re made of, and what they value. So I should value it too. And that means reassessing things. A lot of things.”
For a moment she could barely breathe. Then relief flooded through her and she sighed. “Thank you,” she said. “If that is true, then I feel like slightly less of a loser.” A pause. “You won’t be reassessing me, though. I mean us.”
“Should I be?” he asked. He glanced in her direction briefly, then returned his attention to the manuscript. He’d sounded almost wistful.
“I wouldn’t, in your place,” she said. “I don’t deserve it. I might have helped you to see things in a new light, or whatever, but it doesn’t change the past, it doesn’t make me not duplicitous.”
“True,” he said. “On the other hand, if you hadn’t been duplicitous, we might never have arrived here, today, at the moment when I decide to drop the lawsuit. This moment is a good place to have ended up.”
She wanted to receive this as something positive, but was troubled by it: “You’re saying the ends justify the means.”
“No,” he said peaceably. “I’m just pointing out that you were able to forge something good out of something that wasn’t so good. In any case, shut up and be glad about it.”
She was a little glad about it. “Does this mean you won’t rat me out to my new boss?”
He put a finger to his temple and frowned, a parody of somebody in deep thought. “Hmmm. Nope, I’m not going to rat you out,” he declared. And then, the first ghost of a smile since the night of Hank’s phone call: “In fact, go ahead and run the story if you like.”
“But . . . that’s not what we agreed to. The agreement was that I would write this as an exercise—”
“Yes, but you did such a good job, I sort of want to show it off,” he said, now with a genuine grin. “Even if I drop the suit, nobody will know what a terrific native Vineyarder I am. Unless the piece runs.”
“All right then,” she said. “So, we run it, and then . . . that’s it.”
A pause.
“That’s it,” he agreed. Their gazes were locked on to each other’s like tractor beams.
A pause.
“And we never see each other again. Not deliberately,” she said.
A pause.
“That was the agreement,” he said.
A pause.
“Feels weird that’s the case,” she said finally. “Feels strange that once I get up and walk out of this house, I’m never coming back.”
He nodded. “It does. Most endings are not so mutually deliberate. We should count ourselves lucky to be so well prepared.”
She nodded, feeling sad.
“Of course,” he continued, looking away suddenly as his tone of voice changed, “we initially agreed the piece wouldn’t run, and then we changed our minds and agreed it will run. So, clearly, we are capable of changing our agreements.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we could change the agreement about never seeing each other again.”
Their eyes sought each other out again. They’d been doing a lot of staring at each other since he’d first realized who she was. A constant sizing up of each other’s intentions.
“I think we need to stick with the plan,” she said. “At least for now.”
He pouted a little. “Why is that?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I feel weird seeing someone I can’t tell Hank about,” she said. “Not telling him just perpetuates the cycle.”
“Why can’t you tell him about me? Surely he won’t disapprove after reading this, especially once I drop the suit. I mean, I still think he’s an ass, but I accept that he’s in your life, so I’d like to think that could be mutual.”
She shrugged. “Probably eventually. But I’m moving back in with him in a few weeks—nothing’s available for rent after Memorial Day, you know that if you’ve actually been reading the papers—”
“Yes, I know that, Joanna Dias Howes, please give me some credit.”
“—and we need to get into a good groove with each other. He’s not used to sharing his space anymore and I’m not used to living under someone else’s roof. It’ll be easier once he’s off crutches, but we’re going to need some time.”
“I understand that. But why does that mean you can’t date? I wouldn’t be moving in with you.”
“There’s been a little too much drama around Orion Smith lately to be able to add you back into the mix right now, even as a good guy.”
He stared out the window for a moment, assessing something. “So,” he ventured, “if I went away for a month and came back in June, maybe I could take him out for a beer.”
She grimaced. “Hank doesn’t go to bars. He prefers to drink at home, so nobody can accuse him of driving drunk.”
“I could bring him home in my helicopter.”
“Bit of a logic gap there, Mr. Smith.”
He grinned. “Good point. You’ll have to invite me over to his place for a beer.”
She wouldn’t let herself show her pleasure at this. “Don’t hold your breath. It’s kind of a catch-22. He’d have to decide he wants you in his house before it’s okay for me to inv
ite you to his house.”
He got up from his stool and walked to the window, gazing out toward Vineyard Sound. “So,” he said, musing, “I have to figure out a way for him to realize he wants me in his house.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” she said.
“I could tell him I want to get involved in town politics, but I need his advice on how best to do it.”
She laughed aloud, from nerves. “That’s a bit too hot for a first date, sonny.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Got a better suggestion?”
She thought about it. “There are a few things you have in common,” she said.
“Other than being duped by you, you mean?” He looked back out the window
“Yes. I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”
They parted moments later with a handshake, which began without eye contact—deliberately—but then slid into a handshake with eye contact, which led to a brief hug, and then a kiss on the cheek. And that was all. Even the look they were exchanging contained within it the knowledge of how limited it was. Orion watched her, with a slightly forlorn expression darkening his pretty face, as she walked out the antique front door, across the tamped-earth parking area, got into the cab of the pickup, circled slowly and then drove off. In her rearview mirror she watched him, standing in the doorway, head cocked slightly as if he were still trying to make sense of her leaving him when they were no longer enemies. That was not how he had intended to play his turn.
* * *
“You wrote this,” said Hank from his recliner, chucking the paper at the dining table. It slid across the patched oak veneer, knocking over the pepper grinder and half unfolding.
“Yes. You knew that,” she said, spooning seafood stew into a series of Tupperware containers she had opened on the counter. The cats were weaving around her ankles, hoping she’d spill some to the floor. The house was almost eerily still without the television on.
“Why don’t you write a piece about me?” he said.
On the Same Page Page 24