IV

April

JOANNA SPENT THAT DAY AND THE NEXT TRYING TO DISTRACT herself. First with a thorough cleaning and airing of Hank’s bedroom and his corner of the bathroom, which the cats protested raucously. Then by contemplating the immense project of tidying up all the junk in the yard, but it was too muddy. March on the Vineyard equaled mud, and it was only the first of April. Instead of tackling the yard, she baked piles of food to get them through the next few weeks—casseroles, lasagna, chowder.

Hank came home after forty-eight hours in the ICU. His swollen, angry shin and ankle were now exposed and haloed by a sinister-looking bit of metal scaffolding, a sort of open-air Death Star/Erector Set mash-up. It took up more room than the boot had, making locomotion even clunkier and more cumbersome. He was furious at fate, and trying not to act furious at Joanna. Or at the patient home health aides who once again paraded through. She trimmed her schedule to be at home more often, as when she’d first arrived.

Orion texted her in the middle of that Thursday morning edit meeting at the Journal while Everett was crowing about the pinkletinks.

Each spring, the two papers competed, compulsively, to report the first pinkletinks. This year, a plumber had heard the shrill chorus of spring peepers—as pinkletinks were called off-Island—on his way out of a client’s house off Lambert’s Cove Road. Being nonpartisan, he had informed both of the papers, and both had immediately posted it online. But the Journal came out the day before the Newes, so the Journal got to herald the good news in print: It’s spring! You read it here first! Everett, with close-lipped grin and terrier eyebrows raised high, was triumphant.

Hope things are better with the family emergency . . . and if so . . . dinner? Tonight?

Her happily partnered friends in New York always warned her that saying yes to a spontaneous dinner was a terrible idea. But she wasn’t in New York, and she was not enthusiastic about sharing reheated casserole with Hank while he sniped yet again about that asshole Orion Smith and then insisted upon using a Sam Adams lager to fortify the effect of his pain meds. She texted back under the table.

Will meet you but will bring my own food again.

Almost immediately, Django Reinhardt’s music began to play between her hands. All eyes at the table jerked in her direction. Reddening, she slid the ringer volume to mute and stared very deliberately in Everett’s direction to demonstrate that she was not distracted. “. . . because when the shadbush blooms, that means the shad are running,” he was explaining.

“Actually I don’t think that’s true anymore, because of climate change,” said petite Sarah.

“I saw some in bloom,” said Rosie, the Goth reporter with runic tattoos. “So I guess we could get a shot of that.” She did not sound enthusiastic. Joanna could almost hear her thoughts: This isn’t our thing. This is the Newes’ thing. Are we so pathetically short on real reporters that we have to write about flowering shrubs instead of issues?

Under the table, Joanna felt the phone shudder slightly between her hands: a voice mail message. After a brief discussion about how heroically the herring were running, the edit meeting ended and she was able to huddle in a corner and check the message.

“I know you don’t want to accept a gift from me, but I would love to cook you my grandmother’s favorite recipe. Baked scallops with mushroom and cheese. Doesn’t that sound delicious?”

She pulled her coat on and stepped outside into the sunshine, shielding herself from the harbor breeze behind the scraggly yellow of a forsythia bush. “Baked scallops with mushrooms is my favorite food group,” she said into the phone, as soon as he answered.

“So come eat them,” he cajoled.

She considered this as she watched a trio of seagulls circle, arguing, over Beach Road. “How about I pay you for the value of my share of the dinner. That way it’s like we’re going Dutch.”

“All right.” He chuckled. “I’ll even give you a bill. It can be a business expense.”

That evening she heated up a slab of tuna casserole for Hank, played a game of Scrabble with him while he ate it, and helped him to get into bed. He did not ask where she was off to. He was too dampened. It was early, but he was supposed to be horizontal most of the time anyhow. The narcotic painkillers meant he’d lost the Scrabble game, but also that he did not mind much.

She arrived at Orion’s to a kitchen so full of tantalizing scents she felt she could almost recline against the aroma. “Four more minutes till it’s out of the oven,” he said, pacing slowly before the stove. “Exactly long enough to mix you a Manhattan.” He headed toward the smaller pantry.

“Just a glass of wine,” she said. “Add it to my tab.”

“Yes, so about that tab,” he said, rerouting toward a small refrigerator that sat on the counter beside the regular icebox. “What were you planning to pay?” He opened the door of the smaller icebox and pulled out a bottle of white wine.

She improvised. “A dinner like that would run about thirty bucks at a respectable restaurant. With the wine, let’s call it forty.”

“We don’t eat at the same restaurants,” he said. “I was thinking something closer to a hundred, and that’s just for what’s on the menu.” He opened a drawer near the stove, which moved silently on its expensive runners, and retrieved a bottle opener. “When you consider the added artisanal value of an heirloom recipe . . . I think we’re talking more like two hundred.”

“Well, nice seeing you,” she said, reaching for her coat.

He grabbed her arm with his free hand. “Wait, now,” he said, soothingly. “You don’t have to pay in currency.”

“We agreed—”

“Oh, you have to pay,” he said, with a sly smile. “But not in cash.”

For one dizzy moment she thought he was pulling a Fifty Shades of Grey. And she felt something inside her clench as she admitted to herself that yes, she would allow that.

“You are transparent, Anna,” he said, releasing her. He turned his attention to opening the wine bottle. “I don’t mean anything indecent. I mean you can pay me back some other way. I would consider it fair payment for you to tell me some stories.”

“. . . what?” she said. Erotic stories? she hoped.

He gestured vaguely around. “This whole area. Before I settled in. How you used to picnic here, and all that. Give me a child’s-eye view of the North Shore, of West Tisbury, of the Vineyard for year-rounders.”

“Really?”

He nodded, twisting the corkscrew in deep. “Absolutely. I want to learn from the natives.”

“Mmmm . . . a typical Vineyard childhood is notably lacking in misadventures,” she said. “Winter’s mostly frozen mud and spring’s a lot of thawing mud. That’s when skunks come out of hibernation and the ticks start looking for blood meals.”

“If you’re attempting to disenchant me, you’ll have to try harder than that.”

He uncorked the bottle and smiled at it approvingly. She thought for a minute about comical misdemeanors but could summon nothing anecdotal. A rural childhood was more romantic in Charlotte’s Web than in real life, unless she wanted to wax poetical like a particularly soapy “On the Same Page” piece.

“Okay, how about this,” she finally offered. “When we were kids, my friend Celia and I biked everywhere, and often on the main roads, in the summer, drivers would stop and ask us for directions. One Memorial Day, a car from off-Island slows down by us on the road—”

“How did you know it was from off-Island?”

“Well, it had New York plates, but if you’re from here, you can tell an off-Island car anyhow.”

“Really? Very intriguing. How?”

She realized she had no answer. “It’s like Justice Stewart from the sixties talking about pornography. I know it when I see it. We all do. The Island gives everything a patina of some kind—oh, shut up,” she said without malice, at his mocking laughter.

“Go on with the story,” he said, as he went to the larger pantry for a wineglass. “Tell me what happened with the car that was missing a patina.” He poured her a glass of wine, then turned the oven off and opened the oven door, from which escaped such a savory new aroma that she was distracted for a moment.

“Ahem,” he said. “Patina. Bikes. Girls.”

“Right. It’s a big car, a fancy car, so automatically we don’t like it—”

“I would expect nothing less from you than knee-jerk disdain—”

“—but we mutter to each other and agree that we’re nice girls so we’re going to be good.”

“That’s very big of you, since obviously an off-Island driver has no intrinsic right to be treated respectfully.”

She glared comically at him. “So it stops, and the driver rolls down the window and asks us how to get to the Chilmark Store. We were near Priester’s Pond, where you’re sort of equidistant between North Road, South Road, and Middle Road—you can take any of them and end up at Menemsha Crossing. At the same moment, Celia points one way, and I point the other, and we both say, ‘That way!’—completely straight-faced because we’re both sincere. Then we each realize that the other one is also right, so at the same moment, we each reverse the direction we’re pointing in, and say, ‘Or that way!’ And then we burst out laughing at ourselves. The guy in the car harrumphs, rolls up his window, and drives off in a huff. We fell over on the side of the road from laughing so hard.”

She gave him a How’s that? look.

He grimaced. “Nah. I expected stories about a seriously darkened youth,” he said. “I’m not impressed. Try again.”

She could not talk about her private childhood, with failed parents who ceded her to other failed family members until finally she landed with a couple of functional alcoholics—Jen and Hank—who loved her fiercely but were cowed by her aspirations to move off-Island and live among the heathen Manhattanites. She could not reveal the terror that her own grudging attachment to the Island might entrap her like a gnat in honey and keep her as phobic of America as Hank was. She was not going to ruin a dinner date with this attractive, graceful man who did not know there were disassembled jeeps rusting by the chicken coop. Those stories were staying locked in the basement. On the Vineyard, those stories were sadly unoriginal, common as watercress in spring. She would not let them define her.

“How about the morning my high school classmate’s dealer came to the bus stop and beat him up, right in front of me?”

“Better. I’d be more impressed if you were the dealer.”

“My mom did that, it’s not really my scene.”

He sobered. “Oh. Shit. I’m sorry, Anna.”

She shook her head and went for glib. “It’s fine. I had a good childhood, grew up with salt-of-the-earth types who made sure I knew how to forage for mushrooms and milk a goat and shuck a scallop. If I’d gone with my mother, I’d have grown up in an off-Island suburb somewhere, spent my time hanging out at a mall or something. Blech.”

He laughed, grateful she’d made it a joke. “Your Island snobbery really is endless, you know that?” he said, with a cocked eyebrow. He turned to open the oven door all the way and reached for a mitt. “Dinner’s ready, but I need another story or you still owe me two hundred bucks.”

They talked as if they were kids who had met on the playground, as if there were no looming lawsuit, or at least no newspaper coverage of it. Admitting she’d been stymied in her internet sleuthing, she asked him about his professional life. “I buy things and then I keep them for a while and then I sell them,” he said. “It’s not worth a conversation, it’s the most boring thing about me. Let’s talk about interesting things.” So they discussed books and music and New York nightlife, something Joanna had nearly forgotten existed. They even perused national—not local—politics. He suggested a game of Scrabble, which she agreed to. The Scrabble box he brought out was mahogany, the board of stiffened leather, the tiles hardwood with gold-leaf embossed letters, and the tile racks brass. It probably cost as much as a plane ticket to New York. Or at least a helicopter ride. The game ended in a draw.

He was a perfect gentleman and did not make any kind of move on her. She left before it was indecorously late, needing to get home to check on Hank before lights-out. If she had stayed out as late as she wanted to, and then returned to find him face-planted in the bathroom, she would never have forgiven herself.

IT RAINED HARD overnight, and despite the dazzling blue sky come sunrise, the ground was the sort of mud that tries to suck one’s boots off one’s feet. The cats would not set paw outside. Hank, up and about for his thirty minutes of morning verticality, was confined to the back porch. His exposed shin was surrounded by its column of slender steel donuts. It looked angry, and cold. She tossed the food scraps out of their ceramic holder into the run, through the window in the chicken wire. Setting the bowl down on a hatchet-scarred oak stump, she went inside the coop, opened the yard door for the hens to go out, and scouted the nesting boxes for eggs. Three hens were hunkered down on nests of wood shavings and straw. Early spring was a broody time of year for them, and the Cochin muttered warningly at Joanna when she reached under the mottled feathers.

“Oh, stop,” she muttered back, closing her hand around one warm egg. “If you were raising chicks you wouldn’t have time to sunbathe. I know how you like to sunbathe. Really I’m doing you a favor.”

As if convinced of the perils of maternity, the hen stood and paraded out of the box with an alto warble. The other two sitting hens, both Silkies, decided to join her, giving Joanna sour looks.

“Don’t forget to check under Brunhilde!” Hank called from the porch. Brunhilde was the little red Bantam hen, Hank’s favorite. She was cuter than the others. Also, he had decided her petite eggs each only counted as half an egg, which allowed him to ingest more cholesterol than the doctors wanted him to, while convincing himself he was doing no such thing. Joanna had stopped arguing with him about it.

Brunhilde was already outside and the nesting boxes revealed no Banty egg. “Nope,” Joanna called back.

“Are you sure?” he said. “She hasn’t laid an egg in about three days, that’s not normal.”

Joanna found it touching that he was concerned about a chicken.

“I’ll check again this afternoon,” she promised.

“You might as well bring some wood in while you’re outside,” he said, and pivoted back toward the back door. “Split some kindling while you’re at it. Hang on, I’ll get the axe.”

Her inner child winced in anticipation of an earful. “I left it by the woodpile last time,” she said.

He hinged back around on the crutches, leaning against the wall for balance. “Anna! The head’s going to rust.”

“If you kept it oiled, it wouldn’t r—”

“If you brought it inside, I wouldn’t have to oil it! You know you’re supposed to bring it in, like you have been doing since the age of five!”

“If I’d been using an axe to chop kindling when I was five, social workers would have removed me from the property for my own safety,” she snapped back. “And since Jen was a social worker, I seriously doubt I was using an axe at the age of five.”

“Six then! Maybe you were six. Just put the damn thing away. I like that axe, I don’t want to have to buy another one just because you were being neglectful.” He turned and hobbled back into the house. It was nearly noon, so she guessed he was about to open his first beer.

“Who keeps an axe by the door, anyhow?” she grumbled to the chickens as she closed the coop.

After nesting the eggs in a carton inside the back door, she exited again to the woodpile, chopped an armful’s worth of kindling, and brought that—along with the axe—in, as Hank retreated into the recliner to lambast CNN. She went out again, loaded the wheelbarrow with logs. The bark and dead lichen had a mossy stink and left organic grit on her leather work gloves. She thought of how delicate she’d recently been about a smear of grime from a subway turnstile dirtying her city gloves, and laughed at herself. She pushed the wheelbarrow back to the porch. Armful by armful she carried the logs across the room and stacked them in the woodbox, leaving a trail of bark and lichen and sow bugs to commemorate her path of travel. Once she’d emptied the wheelbarrow, she vacuumed the debris with the Dust-Buster.

The house had propane heat as well, but if the wood and the woodstove were on-site, it was a cozier heat, and cheaper. Hank had culled from the undeveloped parts of his property, which had been densely wooded with young oaks when he bought it more than forty years earlier. He had also, over the decades, struck temporary acquaintanceships with the seasonal property owners he otherwise scorned, and proposed that he “open up some vistas for them” in exchange for keeping the wood he felled. Currently there were four or five long, stacked piles of split cordwood within hauling distance of the house, each a different vintage. This winter, they were mostly burning white oak that Hank had felled and split three years ago from the friendly Republicans who had razed the original Hubert’s Bakery.

After she’d brought the wood in, she went down to the post office before the lobby closed to pick up the mail. It was soothing to her, when she had occasion to go in there, that nearly always people recognized her, even if not by name. Just the face being familiar enough to warrant the kind of smile and hello that is saved for people you recognize. In the brief walk from the truck to the door to the counter and back out again, on every visit she was likely to encounter a familiar face in the lobby, even after all those years away. The lack of anonymity had been claustrophobic when she was younger. Now it felt soothing, reassuring. Now she needed it. Wondrous, how so small a thing as a neighbor at the post office could set things right again when they felt off. When she had first returned in January, the people who’d recognized her had looked startled at her presence. It had been pleasing to startle people a little. Now it was pleasing to be part of the scenery.

SHE SAW ORION the next day. They went on an impromptu muddy hike through a woody Land Bank property in Chilmark.

The scent of loam was everywhere, permeating everything. Even the moss and the sinuous, tangled roots of beech trees. Last year’s pale copper leaves still clung to the twigs, shimmering in the breeze, adding light and texture to the soggy gray woodland. Rarer than beeches was the occasional lone holly tree, usually young, eternally robust and glossy in its muted surroundings. But most of these woods were just gangling oaks with rough bark, boasting barely even any branches but their leafless canopies. Everywhere was thigh-high underbrush of scraggly, leafless huckleberry and blueberry, underlain with the russet carpet of fallen oak leaves. Endless acres of this. The arboreal monotony calmed some part of her like a visual lullaby, soft and familiar from childhood.

They trooped up and down the wooded hills, the paths strewn with a confetti of twigs. The cloudy sky and raw breeze left everything feeling damp. In a streambed, frazil ice protested the rocks. Much of the trails hugged lichen-stained stone walls that were as bland as the oaks and the sky. These marked fields, but also ran throughout woodlands that had been meadows once.

“Those are called lace walls,” Joanna said, nodding to a mossy stretch of the one to their left, half-hidden in the heap of dead oak leaves that lay along it.

“Lace, because of all the gaps.”

“Yes—the Vineyard’s stone walls are unique—”

“Of course they are,” said Orion. “Everything about the Vineyard is unique. Everything is special. Nothing is ordinary like on the mainland. You guys are relentless.”

“No, seriously, everyone knows this—”

“Everyone who’s an Islander, you mean.”

“No, even landscape historians and—”

He stopped abruptly and stared at her with a teasing expression. “You’re all so desperate to maintain your status quo as the most special place on earth that you have to stoop to calling in landscape historians for backup? What the hell is a landscape historian?”

“See how they’re made up of unshaped granite rocks?” she said. This was a recitation from her sixth-grade earth science class. “Not only is there no mortar or cement between the rocks, there’s actually deliberate gaps.”

“I’ve always assumed that’s because the earlier settlers were too cheap or lazy to build solid stone walls, but now you will tell me that I’m wrong about that.”

“You’re wrong about that.”

“Of course I am. Tell me what an ignorant wash-ashore I am. Tell me why they’re so special.”

“The Island used to be almost treeless, because the white settlers cut all the trees down for pastureland, and so the gaps are to let the winds rip across the fields unencumbered. The way big banners have holes cut in them so the wind doesn’t tear them apart.”

He considered this and shrugged agreeably. “That’s as good an excuse as any to not bother building a proper wall,” he said.

“They’ve held up for centuries without maintenance—that’s unusual for stone walls. And there’s a serious craft to building them, because they’re all relying on the pressure of their neighbors—you take away one rock and three others fall out of place. It’s all interconnected.”

He gave her a slightly mocking smile. “Let me guess, that’s a metaphor for how the Island community works, and the lace walls are your totem animals?”

“It’s an art form. Take a good look.”

He took a good look. “Okay,” he said after a meditative moment. His tone was softer. “I see it.” And then in a respectful, solemn tone: “Thank you for admitting me to the cabal of people who cavort with landscape historians.”

She’d chosen this trail, so far up-Island, because she wanted to avoid running into anyone she knew who might recognize Orion Smith. He agreed to it because he wanted to survey more of her childhood haunts. Her childhood had more of a romantic patina for him than it did for her.

They walked for an hour under bleak skies, the persistent nothingness of Vineyard spring seeping into their coats and boots and gloves. Each skirted the details of sundry memories and youthful misadventures. He described a relentlessly manicured childhood, including summers in the house he now inhabited. They were about the same age but had never met during those summers, “Because you were busily being trained to be a proper rich kid, right?” she teased.

He laughed once, softly, a smiling hmph, and said, “If you insist.”

There was a certain confidence that came of knowing how to swing tennis rackets and golf clubs by the age of eight. And that confidence could—in his case, did—extend to a glowing sense of agency and self-regard in other particulars of one’s life. She could find no way to express it that wouldn’t be rude, but the country-club gloss was his least agreeable quality. He was a handsome man, certainly, and she was taken with his particular charisma, but he would have been immeasurably more compelling were he not so Teflon-coated. She found him more alluring for having learned to bake with his grandmother, and less alluring for having learned to sail simply because that is what his kind of people did. Especially as his grandmother sounded like the most interesting person in his family: she had the public affect of a 1950s housewife, he said, but she was a card shark and smoked clandestine cigars, and generally sounded like somebody Joanna would have sold a kidney to interview, were she still among the living.

By the end of their ramble, it was drizzling hard enough to be called a proper rain, and with noses and fingertips red and nearly numb, they hied themselves back to his house for tea and biscotti to defrost and defog. Once they’d shed their soggy outerwear and the kettle was heating up, Joanna threw a couple of dollars on the smooth granite counter, her gesture of refusing to accept a gift of any size. He grinned at her and then swiped it, shoving the bills into the hip pocket of his jeans. “This friendship is costing you a lot of money,” he said. “You must really like me. How about a Scrabble rematch?”

She won. He was impressed.

Then she hurried home to take care of Hank and polish her stories for both papers. The Journal needed an update on the proposed moped ban; a profile of a Brazilian business owner; mini-features on the lacrosse and baseball coaches, whose seasons were opening at the high school. Lewis at the Newes had asked Joey Dias to write about a study of erosion at Squibnocket Beach and do an “On the Same Page” profile of a newly reinstalled local cop who had returned home after quitting his post with a federal law enforcement agency because he found their treatment of immigrants so hostile. This was on the same page as an article from the earliest years of the Newes about the salutatory economic impact of the recent wave of Azorean immigrant seamen.

The cop, she discovered when she interviewed him, was young, lived in Oak Bluffs, and never read either paper, so there was no danger of his realizing who she was.

She got her copy in to both papers by Wednesday afternoon, in time to kibitz during the floating potluck-poker game.

This was the second time it had been at Hank’s since the accident, but the first time that he could help prep for it, despite being nearly immobile—something he felt the need to point out twice. She jury-rigged a cutting board so that he could safely keep it on his lap to slice cheese, and he was pleased to be useful. He was allowed up for longer periods now, but still he could only walk with the crutches.

Celia and her soft-spoken boyfriend Ted attended, as did Helen and Paul Javier, and Everett, who had grown up with Hank. Nearly all the conversation was about either Orion Smith or the upcoming Annual Town Meeting.

The rule was always to eat and drink before playing poker, because it was easier to trick people when they were sated and tipsy. Celia set a loaf of warm corn bread on the table, a new recipe she was developing. There was appreciative cooing. The cooing grew in decibels when Ted plunked a gallon of homemade ale beside it, making the old wooden table shudder. Joanna had chowder reheating. Everett had brought signature cheeses from each of the four island dairies. The fire was blazing in the woodstove and Helen was mulling cider in a ceramic pot sitting on it. Gathered around the table, they all looked like the establishing shot for an indie home-for-Christmas-in-New-England movie. With mud outside instead of snow.

“I can never sit through a Town Meeting, because they’re four hours long,” said Celia, cutting the corn bread. “And Wednesdays are my early mornings. Why the hell are the Town Meetings always Tuesday nights?”

“Same reason Election Day is,” said Hank, who always liked to know the answer to things. He was in the recliner, with his leg up on pillows. His beer rested on the battered Scrabble box on the side table. His holding-forth tone suggested she should start to count his empties. “Back in the day, back before cars and paved roads, it gave people time to get to the meeting place, or the polling place, or whatever. You couldn’t travel on the Sabbath, right? No, you couldn’t. And this time of year, the thaw is finished but not all the mud and muck has dried up, and travel was a pain in the butt. It took a full day for some people to get to the meeting, and they couldn’t start the journey until Monday morning, so that’s why it’s a Tuesday.”

“Nice try, but that doesn’t hold up,” said Everett. “When my dad was a kid in Chilmark, they had the Town Meeting during the day, and the school kids attended. And it was always on a Monday. In fact, it’s still on Mondays.”

Hank finished his beer, tossed the can into an open grocery bag near the trash that was collecting the empties, and cheerfully opened another one. “Chilmark is full of rich Jewish folk and they all go to synagogue on Friday nights, so that means they could spend Sunday traveling to Town Meetings, so that’s why it could be on Monday,” he declared.

They all stared at him. “Hank,” Joanna finally said. “Chilmark was not full of rich Jewish folk back before there were cars.”

“Obviously,” he said. “Before there were cars, most of the Island Jews lived in Vineyard Haven near the Hebrew Center, so they could walk to Friday night services there.”

“Probably so,” she said. “And that doesn’t explain why Chilmark has their Town Meeting on a Monday instead of a Tuesday.”

Hank’s beer intake was significant enough to propel him to a new conversational track. “Hey, Celia! Your folks took me to the Fish Fry at the PA Club last week, and said they were heading off on a cruise soon. So let me ask you: Are they crazy?”

“No,” Celia assured him.

“Yes, they are,” Hank corrected her. “How crazy do you have to be to leave a place surrounded by water you’re not going to swim in to pay a ton of money so that you can be someplace else completely surrounded by water you’re not going to swim in. How is that smart? When did they become people who go on a cruise?”

“I love going on cruises,” said Celia.

“Inherited stupidity,” said Hank, somehow sounding friendly.

“Ahem,” said Helen, “Paul and I are about to go on a cruise around the world.”

“That’s different,” said Hank. “You’re going on real boats—freight boats, and schooners, and I dunno, kayaks. Not cruise ships. Cruise ships are ridiculous.”

Helen turned her patient gaze from Hank to Joanna. “Speaking of vacations, Anna, do you need one?”

The gentleness almost undid her. Before she could answer, Hank sneered at Helen: “What are you asking her for? I’m the one who’s stuck inside all day, I’m the one who needs a change of pace. She can go out and about whenever she likes, wherever she likes! She’s got it easy. Plus she’s not in pain! She’s not racking up hospital bills! She’s not bedridden! Where the fuck, Helen, where the fuck do you get off asking Anna if she needs a vacation?”

A thick blanket of silence immediately smothered all conversation. Hank did not notice or care. “She’s got it easy, she’s got a free place to live, people are practically throwing food at us, she uses my truck whenever she wants, and all she’s doing for work, if you can even call it work, is showing up every day at the Journal so Everett can tell her what gossip to hunt down for the week.”

“Hey now!” Everett barked, pulling away from the table. He was too avuncular to get angry at anyone, but he was thrown, almost puzzled, by the sudden outrage. “Hank, jeez, calm down.”

“That wasn’t kind, Hank,” said Helen.

“You don’t get to say what’s kind and what isn’t,” Hank bellowed. “You’re kowtowing to Anna about how hard her life is—her life isn’t hard, her life is so fuckin’ easy compared to mine! Who’s the widowed one? Who’s gonna get condescended to in the papers by that rich asshole playboy with the helicopter? Who deserves a vacation? Me, that’s who.” He picked up the Scrabble box and flung it into the corner, just above the television set. It tore open, wooden tiles bursting like kindergarten confetti across the corner of the room. The cats had been napping, curled up together on the couch; they leapt up howling with shock when a tile landed near them, and darted off into the darkness of Hank’s bedroom. The board smacked against the wall and then plummeted awkwardly, bent, to the floor.

The silence was so perfect, they could hear one log tumble off another within the woodstove.

“That’s true,” said Helen, effortlessly gracious. “You’re right, Hank, and I’m sorry I didn’t think of you. You both deserve vaca—”

“No,” he said. “No, that’s such bullshit. Anna doesn’t need a fucking vacation, Anna is on a fucking vacation.”

“She’s working for me—” Everett began but Hank galloped right over him: “It’s a working vacation! She likes to write, she does that in her spare time for fun, so she’s doing exactly what she would be doing anyhow except she’s managing to get paid for it!” He glowered at Joanna and then turned back to Everett. “As a matter of fact, Everett, there’s something you don’t know—”

“Hank!” Joanna and Helen both hissed.

“There’s a lot of things Everett doesn’t know,” said Celia with a too-boisterous laugh. “No offense, Everett.”

He shrugged. “I’m just the managing editor of the paper. Why should I be in the loop about anything?”

Hank tried again: “You think you have such a loyal little reporter here in Miss Anna Howes—”

“Ms. Anna Howes,” said Helen. “And by the way, stop talking, Hank. Have some more beer.”

“Here’s the truth you need to know about your favorite new reporter,” Hank sneered to Everett. “She’s actually writing—”

“Oh no, don’t tell him! It was supposed to be a surprise, Hank. She’s actually writing rock songs,” said Celia, roaring with laughter. At her beckoning, her quiet boyfriend Ted also began to laugh. Helen joined him, and because Helen laughed, so did Paul.

“Bullshit!” shouted Hank. “That’s not what—”

“Well, the lyrics anyhow,” said Celia, as if Hank had been correcting her. She assertively made eye contact with Everett and then moved toward the kitchen so that his attention was wrested from Hank. “When Hank was delirious with morphine, she took dictation on whatever he was talking about and now she’s trying to turn it into a soundtrack called The Morphine Variations. Hey, Hank, lemme pour you some more beer.”

“Shut up and listen to me!” Hank shouted, but he looked confused. Celia had distracted him enough that he couldn’t remember what he’d been just about to say, so he resorted to a generic complaint: “There is nothing about her life that makes her need a vacation. Jesus, you people.”

There was a long, horrible silence. Then: “Celia!” said Ted—not the quickest or wittiest one among them, or so Joanna would have said until that moment. “Weren’t you going to take Anna out to see a movie?”

“Yeah,” said Paul Javier, leaping in a little lamely. “I can help get Hank to bed. You ladies go paint the town red.”

“There is no town,” Celia said laughing, not getting it. “Or paint, for that matter.”

“That’s right, Celia,” said Helen. “I think there’s a late show for that new, um, comedy.”

“Right,” said Celia, switching gears instantly once she understood. “Of course, how could I forget. Come on, Anna, let’s go.”

“See!” shouted Hank. “It’s that simple for her! She wants to go do something, she just goes to do it! Never mind about me, oh, no!”

“Hank, I said I’d help you turn in tonight,” said Paul.

“Good, I hope you do it better than she does,” he sneered. “I can’t believe what I have to put up with here, I swear to God.”

“Come on, kiddo, we’re going to miss the previews,” said Celia, urgently shrugging herself into her coat. “The previews are the best part.” She grabbed Joanna’s warmest coat off the hook by the door and tossed it to her. “Let’s go, put it on in the car.”

THE MOON WAS clouded over and the platinum light was diffuse across the yard and the driveway. It was colder and damper outside than it would be in New York City. After nearly three months Joanna still hadn’t adjusted. The cold slithered into her all the way to her core. “Wow, is he an asshole,” Celia said. Mutely, shivering, Joanna got in the passenger side, holding her coat limp in her hands. “You know he doesn’t mean any of that, right?” Celia said. “He’s just venting, he’s ranting, he won’t remember any of it tomorrow and if he does he will feel like such a jerk. You know that, right?”

“I guess,” Joanna murmured. She couldn’t think where to go that would feel safe.

“Put your coat on, kiddo. We’re not really going to the movies,” Celia said. “You know that, right? It’s after nine on a Wednesday night in April, so nothing’s playing and nothing’s open and it’s forty degrees out. We’re going to my house to watch Star Trek on DVD and drink homemade beer, how’s that?”

So they did that.

Celia’s winter rental felt like a college dorm but it was proverbially warm and cozy. And the beer was excellent. Joanna almost told Celia she was somewhat dating the town’s enemy, but didn’t have the energy to get into it. It was not a theme that would go well with the preestablished drama of the evening.

A couple of hours later, she was finally completely calm. Ted came home in Hank’s truck, tapping mud off his shoes on the doorjamb.

“He’s asleep,” he said in a conspiratorial tone, handing her the truck keys. “And he was really drunk, if that wasn’t obvious. He might not even remember in the morning. But you don’t have to worry about him tonight, we got him tucked in and everything. You have a lot of work on your hands there, you know that?”

“Thanks,” she said. “I guess. But thanks. Especially for putting him to bed.”

Once home, and curled up in bed with a cat at her feet, she fantasized that it was summer and all of this had blown over. She tried to send Orion antilitigious energy waves, until she remembered she didn’t actually believe in things like “energy waves” (despite finding the idea of them cool and intriguing in junior high), so she was just wasting her time. She finally fell asleep and woke up the next morning feeling miserable.

Although not as miserable as Hank. His hangover—or pretense of one—was so extreme that it prevented even the slightest effort at apology or peacemaking. With a sulky silence between them, she stoked the woodstove embers and added wood, cooked some oatmeal, brewed herself a thermos of tea for the day, made a turkey sandwich for his lunch, and set up both the couch and the recliner with large glasses of water in easy reach. She went to let the chickens out into their run. Coming back inside, she picked up as many of the Scrabble tiles as she could find and put them back in what was left of the torn box. The board was too bent to ever be played on again. She placed it on the table and Hank ignored it. She left for the Journal office without either of them having said a thing to each other.

* * *

She parked by the boatyard, let the cry of the gulls and the marine smell of the saltwater and diesel fumes wash over her a moment, and then went inside, just in time for the start of the edit meeting. Everett gave her a kindly look but said nothing. After the roundtable, he issued her marching orders, which included covering the Annual Town Meeting, the only thing anyone in West Tisbury wanted to talk about.

And—as always—Lewis Worthington called as the edit meeting was wrapping up. As always, her stomach clenched when she saw his number on her screen; as always, her mind rushed through a dozen possible scenarios that would rip her from her Island livelihood; as always, she forced herself to count slowly to three before answering her phone. As always, she told herself this somehow had to stop immediately, she could not continue hiding in plain sight.

And as always, Lewis was merely pitching an idea for the following week’s “On the Same Page” that Joey Dias managed to agree to without letting anyone in the Journal offices know what Anna Howes was talking about. This week, it was a profile of the curator of the hospital’s art collection on the same page as a story from 1922 about construction of the original hospital.

EXCEPT FOR HER own duplicity, and especially the stress she put herself in because of it, Joanna liked that all this happened. She liked that every Thursday morning there was this meeting, with these people, and it was interrupted by that phone call, with that person. That she’d floundered into such baroque deceit was surreal to her. She could barely contemplate any steps to rectify it; being disingenuous was so alien to her that part of her refused to register that it was what she was doing daily now. She’d never been a furtive person—indeed she was generally too much of an open book, and her childhood custody chaos had unfolded so publicly that she was accustomed to erring on the side of public disclosure. Her conditioning had taught her secrecy meant shame, and all secrets should be exposed. So she didn’t like that part. But she loved the regularity and the structure of this life she was building, and above all, she liked the people themselves. She loved that she woke up in the morning with the mission to tell these stories about these people and places. Brian had been right. She wanted a live-in monogamous relationship with Martha’s Vineyard.

Too bad her landlord was being such a ninny.

* * *

When she got home, her arms freighted with canvas grocery bags, Hank was watching CNN and contesting a business-suited woman’s claims about single-payer health insurance. He was passionate and articulate, and could no longer blame his silence toward her on his hangover.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hello,” he said, managing to sound ironic. And then he said nothing else. So neither did she. He eventually resumed his debate with the television. It was a Thursday evening. If she were in New York, she’d have just spent the day on household chores and errands, and would now be about to go out with Roz and Viola, her two closest friends, to dinner and then a movie, or a play, or a concert. Every week a different restaurant somewhere in the city. Every Thursday. She’d forgotten that until this instant, and wondered what it meant that she remembered it now, so soon after confessing to herself that she wanted to set anchor here.

She put the groceries away in the pantry and refrigerator, started a load of laundry in the basement, loaded the woodstove with more logs, and then, with the talking heads of cable news as soundtrack, she fed the chickens and the cats and the birds and the grumpy invalid. She begrudged Hank not one moment of her energy, but the silence—the gruff, embarrassed, cold-shouldering silence that was only made more obvious by the television’s blathering—she could not take much more of it. When Orion texted a request for another potluck the next night, she accepted at once, and did not bother to tell Hank where she would be going. It was, she realized, a throwback to teen years under his inconsistent home rule, that she even thought she needed his permission to go out.

DINNER WAS HUMBLER this go-round: clam chowder for Joanna, hamburgers for Orion (from local cows, of course). It felt positively domestic. Following dinner, a Scrabble game on the elegant wooden board. Orion, to his overweening satisfaction, won. There was less flirtatious energy, and Joanna began to wonder if they were over the potential-romance hump, and on their way to a genuinely platonic friendship. She was disappointed at that prospect, even though she’d been in no rush for anything to evolve between them. Her life had felt in limbo and she’d been enjoying limbo with Orion too. As she was leaving, and he was standing in the door to see her off, he held up his hand.

“Before you go, I need to tell you something off the record,” he said.

She felt a dull thud in her stomach. He wasn’t looking at her.

“I thought by now it was clear everything between us is off the record,” she said.

“Everything between us is irrelevant to the record,” he corrected. “This is not. But it’s still got to be off the record. For now. Until you hear it from another source.”

That meant she wouldn’t want to hear it. “Go on,” she said and stepped back inside, pulling the door closed again against the chill.

Orion shifted his weight as if he was uncomfortable, behavior that was alien to him. He continued not looking directly at her. “The ZBA will have received a notice from my lawyer today that I have formally initiated the lawsuit.”

She checked her mental calendar. “They meet on Thursdays and today’s Friday so they might not know.”

“Well, they’ll know soon, and Curmudgeon Holmes is going to be hurling abuses on my head, and I know you’re covering that beat so you’ll hear all about it then. But it felt wrong not telling you myself.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Um. I can’t pretend I don’t have an opinion about this.”

“I realize that,” he said briskly, sounding briefly like a businessman. So this was why he hadn’t put any moves on her tonight. “But hopefully this will all get resolved pretty quickly. Then it just won’t even be an issue anymore.” He gave her a thin, polite smile.

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” she said.

He shook his head and moved slightly away from her in the vestibule, his energy kinetic and ungrounded for him. “They’ll want it all resolved before summer so it doesn’t tarnish their appeal to the summer people.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that either,” she said. “Some of them don’t care about the summer people. Some of them would actually love to give the summer folks a reason not to come.”

“Not really,” he said. “That’s just Yankee bluster. Even Henry Holmes. They want the dollars.”

She shrugged, enervated by the conversation.

“Anyhow,” he said, heaving a sigh. “I thought you should know.”

“Well, thanks,” she said. “You know I’m not happy to hear it. And you know why.”

“Yes, and I appreciate that you like me despite this reminder that I am the incarnation of everything that is despoiling your beautiful nineteenth-century sensibilities. Given those sensibilities, it’s strange you write for the Journal and not the Newes. But I know you’ll stay objective when you have to write about it,” he said. “I don’t expect preferential treatment because you like me, nor do I expect excoriation because you don’t like me.”

That last bit sounded rehearsed to her, but she simply nodded. “Agreed. Goodnight, Orion,” she said, and opened the door again. “See you after the Annual Town Meeting.”

* * *

Hank finally spoke to her for real Saturday afternoon. There was no détente or apology. He simply forgot not to speak to her, and asked if she knew where the remote was. From there it was a slippery slope for him. By dinner he had asked what was for dessert, by bedtime he had inquired how much kindling she’d split for the stove, and the next morning he started chatting gruffly at breakfast as if nothing had ever happened. And she was enough of a Yankee, herself, to let it slide. It wasn’t worth getting into.

She spent the weekend cranking out a profile about the retiring Menemsha harbormaster. Then she spent Monday morning rewriting it, after she realized she had confused her newspapers, and written it as if it were for the Newes rather than the Journal.

Tuesday morning, Hank learned about Orion’s letter.

She was never clear how this happened, since Hank could not leave the house and would have had no reason to call in to the Town Hall. Unless he was bored. Terribly, oppressively bored. All right then, yes, that would have done it.

She was reading on her bed—Love in the Time of Cholera, not for the first time—and the April chill was offset by a small space heater she’d pinched from Hank’s workshop in the basement. One of the cats was curled up against her leg.

“That asshole!” she heard him shout over the dull burr of the heater. It was loud enough that even the cat startled. Hank uttered some other colorful things, so she put down García Márquez and went, with the cat, into the main part of the house. She expected to see Hank raging at Anderson Cooper, or perhaps Wolf Blitzer. But he was glaring at a piece of paper.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Orion Smith is suing,” he said in a voice chalky with bitterness.

“You got the letter already?” she said. “But didn’t it—” And then she immediately shut up before she put her foot all the way down her throat.

“What do you mean?” he demanded, looking up at her sharply. “How did you know there’s a letter?”

She opened her lips and several generations of the syllable “um” stumbled out, before she could form a coherent thought. “I just meant, you know, the inevitable letter,” she said. “You’ve all known he was planning to sue for weeks, right? Months, even? That’s all I meant.”

“But why did you say already?” pressed Hank. “What did you know about it?”

“Did I say already?” she asked, feeling herself turn pink. “I don’t know why I said that. It was just a word that came out of my mouth.” She felt as if she were a drone moving smoothly over the person of Joanna Howes, imagining what it might be like to be her—but not quite actually being her. Just listening to her.

Hank decided to accept this. He returned his attention to the letter. “Asshole,” he grumbled again. “What does he think is going to happen?” He wasn’t talking to her. He wasn’t even talking at her. He was monologuing. He was pleased to have an audience but he’d have been just as happy to rehearse in solitude, or for the cats. She felt herself return to her body as he boomed ahead: “I mean even if he were to win this lawsuit—which isn’t going to happen, it’s an absolutely open-and-shut case—but even if he did win it, it would be meaningless because the FAA would probably shut him down. It is a gratuitous waste of taxpayer money.”

“Well, at least it gives you something to do with your spare time,” she said, hoping she sounded jovial and teasing.

He gave her an incredulous look. “No it doesn’t,” he said. “I’m not the defense attorney. I’m not on the Board of Selectmen. I’m the ZBA. I’m Exhibit A in the lawsuit. That’s all. My job is just to show up and sit in the audience and look stoic, and say no comment when the papers ask for details.”

“I promise not to ask for details,” she said quickly.

“Oh, Jesus, that’s right,” he said, with an irritated sigh. As if he’d been on the ZBA first, and she’d come along and gratuitously gotten herself assigned to write about him. “Don’t ask for details. Of me. Of anyone. He must be doing this to get attention. Don’t let him have any. Don’t give him any press.”

“Not my call,” she said.

“Of course it is. Don’t abrogate your responsibility of decent journalism. Tell Everett you refuse to write about him because there’s nothing of substance to say. The Newes has got it right this once, not the Journal—ignore the bastard. What an ignorant jerk. Why does God put people like that on the planet?”

“To give you something to talk about,” she said, in her fading attempt at playfulness. He chuckled wanly, but not the way she’d hoped he would. He often enjoyed getting irate, but he was not enjoying this.

TUESDAY NIGHT WAS the Annual Town Meeting.

Anyone who has never attended an Annual Town Meeting should head to New England and remedy that. If you’ve ever wondered who We the People really are, they’re the ones who show up every year and keep their butts in those industrial stacking chairs for four hours at a go, except for when they stand up to respectfully denigrate each other’s intelligence, morals, values, and integrity. It would take an epic poem to describe the world of a Town Meeting.

Joanna had attended every Town Meeting from birth until she went off to college, so she had never voted in one but she knew the superstructure as well as she knew her multiplication tables:

The evening’s program was spelled out in a warrant, with articles. A lot of these were rote spending articles. If the Finance Committee vetted and approved it, then generally it would get passed. The Finance Committee was made up of ordinary taxpaying residents, volunteering their time and judgment for a remuneration that would not quite cover the cost of the coffee they drank during Fin-Comm meetings. Anything involving the police or firemen or EMS or school generally passed with minimal debate. Anything involving conservation land or affordable housing was debated ad nauseam, and then generally passed. Grand, finance-free gestures of the town’s Progressive Ethos always passed, which the nonprogressive minority found blisteringly smug.

And every year, there was at least one tumultuously important Town Problem that caused a disproportionate amount of debate and angst and immediate family members not speaking to each other for days, and extended family not speaking to each other for weeks. One year the Town Problem was whether or not to allow dogs on the town beach. One year it was whether or not to allow beer and wine to be sold at restaurants. One year it was about solar energy panels being put up on town buildings. One year it was a return to the dogs-on-the-beach issue.

Hank had wanted to come. He’d never missed a meeting, in more than half a century. But Joanna convinced Helen and Paul to scold him with her, and, pouting, he’d agreed to stay home.

Nor, to her disappointment, did she see Orion. She wondered if he’d meant any of that stuff about the thrill of direct democracy in action, or if that was just a good pickup line to use at a political forum.

Hundreds of people crowded through the doors to the school gym, targeted a place to sit in the rows of chairs spread across the hardwood flooring, took off coats, waved to friends, gave political adversaries a cold shoulder, settled in with knitting or sudoku puzzles or cell phones. This was a return to a childhood ritual for her. She was here not as voter but as witness. She was over the discomfort from a few months earlier, of seeing familiar faces and fearing they knew what she was up to; now people were used to her presence, and her note-taking, and her reports. It helped that she wasn’t writing features for the Journal—that she wasn’t editorializing or inserting herself into what she wrote. She gave nobody any reason to feel defensive or self-conscious in her presence. She was here to do her job: report on the meeting for the Journal.

And also to do her other job: reporting on it for the Newes.

She walked to the side of the gym with her fellow nonvoters, property owners who were registered to vote off-Island but wanted to know where their property taxes were going; a handful of high school students probably here as a project for a civics class; resident aliens, largely Brazilians. The nonvoters numbered, in all, perhaps two dozen, and as a group they were not in the line of sight of the video camera recording the evening’s events. But she sat on the top bleacher as far back in the gym as she could, to prevent anyone looking over her shoulder, however innocently, and seeing what she was writing. She pressed her back into the wall as if she would make herself disappear into it, then pulled out her laptop, opened two different Word documents, and sized them both down to fit together in the window. She darted looks at the people closest to her, with a sour expression intended to prevent anyone from coming close, but nobody was paying attention to her. She took an approximate head count for both papers; there were about three hundred people present. That was more than enough to make a quorum, in a town of 2,600 voters.

For the Journal, she reviewed the pile of leaflets and brochures she’d been energetically handed by canvassers outside the school doors, and marked which organization was batting for which measures. Everett would take that info and have an intern figure out who was funding what, in case there was a story hiding in plain sight (her guess was there would not be, but he was a newspaperman and hope springs eternal for a scandal).

For the Newes, Joey Dias wrote an on-the-fly critique of the town’s current poet laureate Bettina Snow’s recitation of her poem “Takemmy Hills.” Joey Dias gave it a positive review, of course. Happily, Joanna genuinely liked it, but she’d have given it a glowing review in any case, because she saw Bettina not infrequently at the grocery store and occasionally even walking along the wintry beach. Even if Bettina did not clock her as Joey Dias, she’d have a visceral urge to hide if they crossed paths.

For both papers she jotted down the news of the upcoming Town Picnic, with the Newes receiving the lion’s share of information about the historical significance of the picnic and the Journal emphasizing what people should bring to it. Hippie Richard Burton, aka Moderator Peter Cooke, called the meeting to order, and the rest of the evening was a civic lovefest. It was spirited chaos at times, and at one point a debate about mending the cemetery fences became exasperating (“Dead people don’t need to be fenced in unless they become zombies, in which case these fences will not save us,” etc.). But compared to the harsh ugliness of politics off-Island, these people were practicing that slippery alchemy called democracy. As had been true since she was old enough to understand what taxes were, Joanna was enthralled by what people could make happen with a simple aye or nay.

Both papers would hear all about the budget, although the Journal readers would hear more about the proposed expansion of the light industrial district while Newes readers would get more of the skinny on monies being spent on upkeep—keeping the Ancient Ways cleared and mowed, for example—and the perennial arguments about dredging the Mill Pond.

Before they began the spending articles, Bernie Burt, as chair of the Board of Selectmen, took the floor to advise that the line item for legal services should go up because the town was being sued by Orion Smith of North Road. The town shared a collective hiss at this news—a hiss not worthy of mention in the Newes, but certain to be immortalized in the Journal. There was debate. The debate consisted mostly of Martin Howes (a relation so distant Joanna could not track it) insisting, despite town counsel assuring him he was mistaken, that if there were no money for a lawyer, the state would assign the town a district attorney, as it would for any other indigent defendant. Therefore, argued Martin (or Mr. Howes, as Anna Howes would report him in the Journal; Joey Dias knew the Newes would find it uncouth to cover this bit), not only should the town not vote to raise the funds, but it should in fact dissolve and redistribute whatever funds were currently in the legal coffers, to ensure the town would qualify for a DA. He suggested the funds be used instead to buy a new police car, at which point the chief of police stepped up to the audience microphone to politely inform Martin his department was not in need of a new vehicle.

In the end, a motion was grimly made, grimly seconded, grimly voted on, and passed: $100,000 would be raised and appropriated as a war chest for the upcoming legal battle. The town openly loathed Orion Smith. Never mind about the helicopter; now he was costing them money.

Both papers would also hear about the town’s vote to donate a thousand dollars to next month’s fund-raiser for the Jennifer Holmes Memorial Scholarship, created in honor of the departed wife of the town’s own Henry Holmes, who was not present tonight because in trying to prove he was tougher than a nor’easter, he had jumped off his roof and broken every bone in his body, hahahaha. The town formally sends condolences and hopes he is up and about again, causing new trouble, soon.

* * *

“Nice coverage,” said Everett, glancing over his shoulder when she stuck her head in. He swiveled away from the computer screen tucked in the corner, and stretched his arms up over his head with a yawn as she settled onto the visitor’s chair.

“I have to come clean,” she said.

He stopped stretching, to give her an arch look. “Something happen with Mr. Smith?” He sounded hopeful, the bastard.

“No,” she said, blushing.

“Not yet,” he corrected her with a jocular leer, and settled back into his chair. “So then, is this about Hank being the new ZBA head again?”

“Sort of,” she said. “In part. This has been bothering me for weeks, Everett—”

“Stop beating yourself up,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t plan any of this, it all happened to you. I’m the one choosing to keep you on the story, so it’s on me if you stumble. But you won’t. You’re conscientious. You have integrity.”

“No, Everett, I really don’t. That’s the reason I’m here this morning.” She hesitated. If only she could do this by email. Or telepathy. “I have to tell you something you really don’t know. And it’s the reason you should pull me.”

He gave her an encouraging shrug. “All right, lay it on me.”

“There’s a writer for the Newes, you’ve probably seen the byline a few times without the penny dropping. A new writer. Joey Dias.”

“So?”

“Everett. Think about it.”

It took him a moment. It was fifteen years since he’d been her boss at the Newes. When he realized, he made a face like a fish drowning in oxygen.

“Joanna,” he said, slowly. Then: “Why?”

“You know why—I needed the money!” she said.

“But the Newes? Really? That effete country-club newsletter? The one you referred to as the enemy?”

“They’re the only other paper here,” she said, defensive.

“You’ve got a successful freelance career in New York. Surely you could have gotten an assignment. Which would have paid a hundred times what the Newes—”

“I interview people face-to-face, that’s what I’m known for, and those are the only gigs I get. The Anna Howes brand, or mystique, or whatever nonsense you want to call it, is all about sharing personal space, so nobody even wants to Skype with me.”

“With the fees you get you could certainly fly—”

“Everett, you can’t talk me into having done something differently in the past,” she said, almost snappy. “I can only change things from this moment going forward, and I think the change should be that I back off of covering this story for you. It’s just wrong. If I’m working for both papers, I still make enough money to pay my bills, and there’s less culpability for you.”

He frowned at her. “Who knows about this?”

Sometimes she wasn’t certain of that herself. “Hank, who doesn’t seem to care. Helen Javier, who says she doesn’t care. Celia, who thinks it’s hilarious. And my former math teacher who works for the Newes, but he won’t tell them because he’s the one who got me in there. And James Sherman might have figured it out by now, but he’s distracted with his new grandchild off-Island somewhere.”

Everett sighed with aggravation and impatiently massaged the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so,” he said irritably, “. . . are you covering this story for them?”

“I covered a couple of Zoning Board meetings for them. You may have noticed, they’re not very interested in it.”

“That makes you sneaky—as if that wasn’t already clear—but if you’re not currently covering it for them, then it’s not actually a conflict of interest. I’ve got nobody else who can do this.”

“What happened to Susan Grant? It’s her beat, right? I literally have never met her and I’ve been here nearly three months.”

“She had a family crisis off-Island, and I don’t know when she’ll be back.”

“Everyone’s leaving the Island to attend to family crises.”

“Except you,” said Everett. “Your family crisis brought you back here.” He grimaced. “Look, Anna, you’re freelance so you have the right to do features somewhere else. I’m appalled that you didn’t tell me, but that’s more of a personal offense than a professional one.”

“I’m sorry, Everett, it just felt so awkward. I’ve never been in a position like this before.”

“And you’ve handled it horribly,” he said, his brows so knitted they shaded his eyes. “But, like I said, I got nobody. Make this work. If you feel bad, make it up to me by doing what I need now. This is a big story, the Newes is avoiding it, you’re what I’ve got. Do it, and do it right, and I’ll get over your . . . unfortunate choices.”

“I’d be willing to do that but I think it creates a problem for you, Everett. Even ignoring the flirtation, I’m writing a story in which one of the major parties is my housemate and closest living relative. It’ll make the paper look bad, no matter how impeccably I manage things.”

“You and Hank have different last names and you look nothing alike,” Everett countered, growing rushed and desperate-sounding, as if his brain were working barely faster than his mouth. “People who don’t know you will never catch on, even if they saw you in public together. Not only do you not look related, but I hate to break it to you—you’ve got that cosmopolitan city thing going on. Someone didn’t know you from childhood, they would never guess you grew up here. You pass as someone else now.”

“Yes, as someone Orion Smith would want to date,” she said, unhappily, under her breath.

“The people who do know you’re related, they might call me to gripe,” he went on, thinking as he spoke. “I’ll explain the situation to them, and invite them to take a crack at finding an alternative. They won’t be able to, and they’ll say, with a grumble, Well, okay then. Most people know they have to be forgiving about these things. And,” he said in conclusion, “I am the editor, and have no direct connection to any of your internal connections. So I’m keeping you on it. Just try to keep your budding romance out of sight, okay?”

“Argh,” she said.

“And one more thing. If you’re writing for both papers, you have money now. Get your own place for a couple of months. Then you’re not living with the person you’re reporting about. There’s got to be some empty houses around between now and, say, Memorial Day.”

“Everett, do you read the pieces I file? There is no housing anywhere on this Island for somebody in my position.”

“Then see if you can house-sit or sublet or something. Not to be indelicate, but after the other night, you and Hank could definitely take a breather. That’s an order.”

* * *

When she drove up the dirt drive that afternoon in the slanting, dappled sunlight, the red Rav4 was parked outside.

“Thank you, Helen,” she murmured.

Inside, Hank was on his recliner with a Sam Adams balanced on his lap. Helen Javier was sitting at the table near him, her fingers intertwined around a mug of peppermint tea that delicately mingled with the scent of wood smoke. Over all the years Joanna had known her, the majority of hours she spent in Helen’s presence included her hands wrapped around a cup of hot tea.

“Hello, Anna,” she said, with a confiding smile. “Hank and I were just having a chat about your domestic situation.” Helen glanced at Hank for confirmation; he nodded without looking at her, and definitely not looking anywhere near Joanna.

Joanna knew this, because she’d called Helen and asked her to have that very conversation with Hank. Both women understood him well enough that with very few words exchanged, they both knew how this had to happen.

“Hank, do you want to tell her?” Helen offered, and as they both knew would happen, Hank gruffly presented Joanna’s proposal to Joanna:

“It’s not like I shouldn’t have taken the ZBA position just because you write an occasional piece for the paper,” he grumbled. “But since the helipad lawsuit is about to go into high gear, it’s awkward that you’re writing about it while you’re under my roof. I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t write about it, but Helen and I have been talking, and we’ve agreed that while she and Paul are on their round-the-world tour, it would probably be a good idea if you stayed in their house.”

“Huh, okay,” said the person who had come up with the idea an hour earlier.

“We’re renting out the house for the summer, but it’s sitting vacant until Memorial Day. Want to stay there? We’d just ask you to cover utilities.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hank glance her way and then away again. She read all the emotions in that understated brief movement: guilt for wanting her out of the house, relief that she had somewhere to go, a little irritation that she was getting a free upgrade while he was now stuck at home without anyone around to do the things he claimed he wanted to do for himself but secretly enjoyed getting treated to.

And—although this was the least of it—he’d miss her.

She’d miss him too. Not his current attitude, but him.

“That sounds wonderful,” she said. “If you’re sure—”

“Of course she’s sure, we wouldn’t be talking about it if she wasn’t sure,” said Hank.

“This way we don’t need a caretaker so you’re actually saving us money,” said Helen. “One thing, though. We planted potatoes, because our renters want to be able to harvest their own potatoes, so you’d need to keep them up.”

“Twist my arm,” she said.

“Glad to, and thanks,” Helen said.

Joanna glanced at Hank. “Thanks for suggesting that, Hank. I think it’s a real win-win solution.”

He harrumphed, trying to pass as a disgruntled man pretending to be affectionate, but actually an affectionate man pretending to be disgruntled.

* * *

>Time for me to take you out to dinner

Not happening<

>We could split the bill

Can’t go out in public with you until after the story’s closed<

>That’s a long time to wait for dinner

Not if you drop the suit<

No reply.

Drat.

Joanna bent her attention back to the edit meeting. Her phone resounded with Django Reinhardt. Lewis always called Joey Dias during the edit meeting.

Everett and Sarah had been talking about an opening game of something—softball?—at the high school. “That’s a wrap,” said Everett, shooting Joanna a knowing look. “Thanks, everyone.” He rose from the table and the rest of the staff began to gather their stenopads and laptops. Joanna abandoned her gear at her chair and scooted for the side door, not bothering about a jacket.

It was calm outside, and sunny, but that deep-rooted chill of maritime spring invaded her bones. The call was not from Lewis, but Orion. He hadn’t left a message. She called him back.

“I’d really like to see you, Anna.” He spoke with simple affection, devoid of amorous overtones, but that just made it sexier. She leaned against the wall, lightheaded.

“I’d like to see you too. But not in public.”

“Well, we’re past the potluck phase and I’m done with the Orion-cooks-for-Anna-who-pays-him-for-it options. So if we’re not allowed to be seen in public, do you have any suggestions?”

“I’ll come over there and whip something up for you,” she said.

Another pause. She watched the seagulls squabble over something on the dock.

“That’s permissible?” he asked, sounding incredulous. “But that’s so . . . cozy.”

“I’m not receiving a favor from you, so you’re not buying my good regard.”

“But you’re buying access to me—you’re paying for it by making me dinner.”

“Good point. See you when the lawsuit’s over,” she said pleasantly, and hung up.

She stared at her phone. That was the right thing to do. Yes. Okay. She had done the right thing. Good. Good for her. She reached for the handle to the door.

The phone rang again and she jerked away from the door, nestling in by the scraggly forsythia bush, and tried not to grin. “All right,” he said. “Run this by your internal ethics committee: you’re providing the materials and labor, and I’m providing the tools and location. It’s a wash. Nobody is indebted or beholden to anyone else.”

“Or we could just put this on hold until after the whole thing has been resolved,” she said, gritting her teeth. Good woman, Anna. What a slightly-less-than-reprehensible journalist you are.

“Anna, let me ask you something.” The tone of his voice had shifted. It was cooler, brisker. “How much money are you going to make covering this story?”

“Wow. That’s none of your business.”

“Whatever it is, how about I make a gift to you of more than that amount, and you just don’t cover the story? Then I can take you to dinner.”

A wave of nausea swamped her for a moment and she had to squat down onto her heels, pressing her back against the sun-warmed shingles. But she also felt a rush of adrenaline: his cavalier confidence either enraged or excited her, she wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

“They don’t have anyone else to cover the story,” she said. “I already begged off and the editor begged me back on. I would be creating a problem for them if I quit.”

“But you’re a freelancer, so that’s not your problem,” he argued. “Your problem is money, and I can help you with that.”

“I can’t tell Everett, ‘I know you need me to write about this Smith guy, but I’m not going to write about him because he’s paying me not to write about him.’ I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s wrong for you to bribe me, and it would be even more wrong for me to accept! Jesus, Orion.”

“It’s not a bribe, Anna,” he said, sounding taken aback. “I’m trying to help you, in a way that also helps me. I’m not trying to control what’s said about me. I don’t care what’s said about me. I don’t care if your editor devotes an entire issue to maligning me. But I don’t want him preventing my dating you.”

“He doesn’t need to prevent my dating you, he just needs to be able to trust that I am keeping an even keel. Which, come on, we both know I’m not.”

“Are you kidding? You’re the most even-keeled journalist in this relationship. So . . . how about you come over and use my kitchen to cook your food and then let me eat some of it in turn, and that’s a totally self-contained little ecosystem of obligations and restitutions that has nothing to do with the story.”

“If you want to date me, drop the suit.” She heard her voice say the words before she’d consciously thought them.

A silence. Then, coolly: “I assume you’re speaking not as a journalist, but as a private citizen.”

“The very fact we’re having this discussion is proof that we are mutually failing to compartmentalize.”

“Nonsense. You’re speaking as a private citizen. I like you, Anna. For all the usual generic reasons that one person likes another—you’re smart and funny and cute—but mostly because you get a rise out of me like no one else, even if I don’t let on much, and I enjoy that, I enjoy the sparring.”

“. . . So do I.”

“Good. But here’s the thing. I’d really like to please you, but if the only way to please you is by my doing something against my own interest, that makes you a person I’m less interested in pleasing. Do you need to be able to manipulate me that way?”

“No, I—”

“Because that’s what you did just now, you just tried to manipulate me.”

“I thought of it as a . . . proposition.”

“A proposition where you get everything you want but I have to give up half of what I want? No thanks.”

She grimaced. “All right,” she said. “It wasn’t a proposition, it was just wishful thinking. I withdraw the statement. I would like to see you but it doesn’t feel right under the circumstance.”

“We won’t go out in public,” he said, immediately warming again. “We won’t talk about the story. We won’t talk about helicopters or zoning boards or journalism ethics. Promise.”

“That doesn’t leave much to talk about.”

“I’ll recite poetry to you,” he offered.

“Oh!” she said, failing to think of a retort. She tried standing up, still resting her back against the wall. She was over the nausea, at least. She wasn’t sure about the rest of it. “Oh. All right.”

The briefest pause. “You disagree with everything I say, so I thought you’d say no to the poetry.”

“I didn’t say no.”

“I noticed. Now I have to actually do it!” In his voice she could hear that guileless smile that had attracted her weeks earlier.

* * *

She arrived at Orion’s the next evening toting her childhood picnic basket that looked like a small black terrier was about to poke his nose out of it wondering where Kansas went. The viburnum bushes, the outliers of Orion’s ex-wife’s overwrought garden, were budding, interspersed with cheery yellow forsythias. The yard was strewn with crocus blossoms and emerging daffodils, still many days away from blooming. Spring was cruel to New Englanders, but this garden had a stiff upper lip.

Orion greeted her at the door with a white chef’s apron draped neatly over the sleeve of his wool sweater. “Come in and warm up,” he said. “Have a drink.”

She reached into the basket and retrieved a bottle of hard cider. “I will,” she said.

“You really are being ridiculous,” he said. “But I respect you for it. Come warm up.”

The fireplace in the great room was blazing, small branches snapping and popping. “Pine,” she said, pausing, and nodding her head skeptically toward the hearth. “Make sure you keep your chimney clean.”

“That’s a myth,” he said complacently, continuing toward the kitchen. He paused in the entrance and turned back to face her. “Pine resin doesn’t cause creosote buildup. I have that from a tree expert. So there.”

“It’s not the resin,” she scolded. “It’s the water content. If you burn wood with high water content, it causes creosote. Hardwoods don’t burn well when they’re still green, but pine does. The danger is in burning unseasoned pine.”

“All right, Mom, I promise to burn only seasoned pine.”

“Very seasoned,” she said. “Shame to lose such a nice house.” She brushed by him into the kitchen.

“God, you’re smug,” he muttered, following her.

“I’m smug? You’re smug!” she shot back, stopping at the counter. They stared at each other with ill-favored expressions. Then both broke into laughter.

“I didn’t know I could be so immature,” he said.

“I did.”

He offered her the apron. “Want a hand?” he asked, as she tied it on.

“I’m good, thanks,” she said. “I’ll wear this because I like the aesthetic, but really I just need to heat everything up.” She pulled out a small round loaf of honey-colored bread, another bottle of cider, and a lidded Revere-ware pot.

“Hamburger bun? Clam chowder?” He raised the lid and peeked in. “Oh,” he said in surprise, examining the glop of red stew, densely inhabited with beans, thick wilted greens, and sausage. “Not clam chowder.”

“Kale-linguica soup,” she said. “Portuguese sweet bread.”

“How exotic,” he said, happy.

“Peasant grub,” she corrected. “I grew up on vats of this in the winter. In the spirit of the evening, I’m commingling it with some more upmarket dishes.” From the depths of Toto’s basket, she revealed a bundle of asparagus, a lemon, a small package of shredded Parmesan, and a salt-and-pepper container.

He blinked rapidly, as if smacked. “I’m caught between wanting to comment on the absurdity of your bringing your own salt and pepper, and wanting to fixate on the word commingling.”

She carefully rolled the rubber band off the asparagus. “Meanwhile, you promised me something on the phone, so why don’t you get to it.”

“Pardon?”

“Poetry. Get on with it, English major.”

“Ah,” he said. “I was hoping you’d forget about that.”

“Tough luck.”

“Right. Well, I’m a man of my word. So now I have to recite poetry to an attractive female.”

“That’s correct,” she said, rinsing the asparagus under the faucet.

“I can’t wait for this stupid lawsuit to be over so I can do something less harrowing, like bungee-jumping.”

“Ground rules: no talking about the stupid lawsuit.”

“Which stupid lawsuit?”

“The stupid lawsuit that’s in your power to stop.”

“Oh, that one,” he said, frowning. “I don’t think we should talk about it.”

“Go find—”

“—find some poetry. Right,” he said, somewhat subdued, and shuffled into the great room. “What’s your pleasure?” he called out. “Sappho or Dr. Seuss?”

“Six of one,” she said. “Host’s preference.”

“I can recite The Lorax by heart,” he called back proudly. “But let’s see what else I’ve got here . . . How about excerpts from the Kama Sutra?”

“Your maturity is exceeded only by your subtlety,” she said. “Have you got a lemon zester?”

* * *

Dinner was splendid. And not just the food. Orion had laid out a table far too resplendent for kale-linguica soup. Red linen napkins, fine china, the requisite candles and candlesticks. He had constructed a winter bouquet—sprigs of holly, twigs with pine needles, copper birch leaves, the skeletons of insect-devoured dead oak leaves, dried marsh grasses.

“All of it is local,” he boasted, at the end of the meal. “Right here on the property.”

It was sweet because he wanted to please her. It was incriminating because of the marsh grass.

“I see you have wetlands,” she said, gesturing to the grass. He nodded, happy that she was interested. She gave him a meaningful look, stretching it out to intrigue him. Then: “You can’t have a helipad near wetlands; it’s very disruptive to the ecosystem.”

His eyes had started to widen with frustration before she’d finished. “Oh my God,” he said, directing this heavenward. “We agreed not to talk about it.” His attention returned to her, with a disbelieving grin. “You are just atrocious at keeping your word, you know that? I think you’re sincere in wanting to—you seem sincere—but wow, you are a failure at implementation.” As always, he sounded friendly and understanding. “I’m going to fine you the next time you break our agreement. Seriously. Stop grinning. I am actually going to fine you.”

“What’s the fine?” she asked.

“One kiss,” he said. Then he blushed so deeply she could see it in the candlelight.

A long pause.

“Is that . . . Sorry, just to clarify, is that supposed to deter me from mentioning the lawsuit?”

“You tell me,” he said.

“Pretty adroit, putting that on me,” she said. Now she was flushed too.

“You are the one who keeps violating the terms of the dining agreement,” he said. “Given the intensity of your feelings, I don’t imagine you’d want to kiss me, therefore presumably the fine would work as a deterrent.” He dabbed at his mouth with his napkin, although he’d finished eating several minutes earlier. “Let me know if I’m wrong about that.”

“The possibility of my wanting a kiss from you exists in a parallel universe from the universe in which I have opinions about your stupid lawsuit.”

“Did I mishear you, or did you just mention the thing we agreed not to mention?”

She gave him a knowing look. All right, she thought, we’re doing this. We’ve been balancing on the edge of it for weeks, might as well throw ourselves over and see how we survive.

“Do you mean the stupid lawsuit?” she said, poker-faced.

“Anna,” he said, like a kindergarten teacher warning a truculent toddler.

“Why would I bring up the stupid lawsuit?” she asked.

“I’m seri—”

“I mean, here I am at a romantic candlelit dinner with a smart, attractive, funny man whose only request is that I not refer to his stupid lawsuit—”

“Okay, that’s it,” he began, getting up from his chair.

“I would have to be such an ass to keep bringing up his stupid lawsuit,” she rushed on. He moved toward her. “I mean, such an ass that really, why would he ever want to kiss me?”

“I want to kiss you,” he said, standing over her now. “I fully intend to kiss you. Am I going to have to gag you first?”

“I’m not really into kink,” she said.

“So maybe you could just stop talking for a moment,” he suggested. His eyes examined her face. She wondered how much lipstick still clung to her lips, and if her hair was falling the right way, and how insipid it was to think of these things.

“Sure, okay, I can stop talking,” she said. “But I’m going to get a crick in my neck if I have to keep looking up at you like this.”

“All right then,” he said softly. He took one large breath and then, with a smoothness she would never have anticipated, he reached down, scooped one arm under her knees and the other behind her back and lifted her out of her chair—knocking the chair over so that it banged loudly against the granite counter, before ricocheting off and crashing to the floor.

By the time it landed, Orion had carried her straight out of the kitchen and into the great room, where he settled her onto the daybed near the fire. “All right,” he said again, as he released her. “Lean back. So your neck doesn’t get crimped when I kiss you.”

“Oh. Right,” she said, stupidly. She leaned back against the cushions of the daybed, face up toward him. “Like this?”

He hovered over her a moment, his eyes sweeping up and down her figure. “Yeah, like that,” he said almost absent-mindedly, to her ankles. Slowly his attention moved back up her body to her face. “Are you comfortable enough that you can lie there for a few minutes without needing to move much? Because I’m about to kiss you and it might take a while.”

“I think this will work.”

“Good neck support? Your head stable?”

She pressed her head back against the cushions. “Seems pretty good.”

“So when I kiss you, if there’s, y’know, a certain amount of pressure, maybe a little moving around, you’re still good.”

She shrugged recumbently. “I can’t guarantee anything, but we could give it a shot.”

His eyes were slowly scanning her again. “Hm,” he said, possibly in reply.

His gaze, suddenly, had an almost physical component to it. She could feel his eyes upon her stomach, moving up her torso—when he reached her breasts, her entire body responded, as if he had reached down and felt her with his hands. She took a sharp, deep breath, tried to be casual, tried to exhale slowly.

He seemed indifferent to her breathing. His eyes lingered over her breasts a moment and then moved up past her collarbone to her exposed neck.

“I’ll probably want to kiss there,” he said, his studious gaze entirely on a spot under her chin.

“You’re being very intrepid.”

“Thank you,” he said, and finally raised his gaze to look directly at her. “I get that a lot.”

“Not surprised,” she said.

He sat on the daybed beside her. They stared at each other in the firelight.

Finally they smiled a little.

“You all right with this?” he asked, softly.

She opened her mouth and then hesitated, to create the impression she was thinking about it. “. . . Yes,” she concluded.

“That was a fraudulent pause,” he said.

“. . . Yes.”

He grinned. The grin softened into the affectionate smile that was his signature aspect. He leaned in close to her and whispered, “All right, here we go then,” and then very gently pressed his lips to hers.

It was delectable, both safe and dangerous at the same time—safe in all the important ways, and dangerous in all the thrilling ones. He stayed there for a long moment and for most of that she could not even think clearly. She was aware of nothing but his touch.

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.”

“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.”

“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.