Newport Dreams: A Breakwater Bay Novella

by Shelley Noble

  She’d planned to start as far from Meri’s scaffolding as possible, but she ran into Carlyn, who was on her way back to her office.

  “Oh, good. Meri needs some shots of her ceiling. Just to bring you up to speed, the medallion is heavy, sagging, and creating cracks in the plaster and Doug wants to have it inspected before she starts on it. She’s like a horse at the starting gate. So please go get some identifying shots so she can start work.”

  Geordie nodded. She probably could get everything from the ground. If not, she’d just focus on her cameras until she got to the top . . . She swayed on her feet. Stop it. Stop it. She can do this. Yesterday had been an aberration.

  She’d almost overcome her fear of heights, something she’d had since childhood. “Not necessarily from a trauma,” the doctor had said. Some people are just hardwired that way.”

  She’d had the balance tests, done the shrink thing, and finally had success with behavioral therapy. Until last year, when she’d taken a nosedive, literally and figuratively, down the side of a canyon wall. Granted, it had been a little bitty canyon wall and she’d been properly harnessed. But it still had scared her spitless and undid all the therapy she’d gone through before.

  She still hadn’t gone back for the refresher course.

  She walked into the foyer. There was no sign of the workmen, just Doug and Bruce looking up at Meri, who waved from high above their heads. “This is fabulous.”

  “Yeah.” Geordie breathed and looked up long enough to feel the room begin to spin.

  “Oh, good. Carlyn found you.” Doug strode toward her.

  “Will you please climb up there and take some shots so she’ll come back down and do the work I want her to do?”

  “I can probably get it from down here. I’ve got a pretty powerful zoom lens. If Meri just points—” Shut up. Stop talking. Stay calm.

  Bruce appeared at Doug’s shoulder. “Just go up there so she can show you what she wants.”

  Jeez. Why did he have to be so nasty all the time? It was such a shame, because he was fit, good-looking, and had a brain. And also had it out for her.

  Meri looked down at them. “That’s okay. I’ll get them later. No need for both of us to be up here.”

  “That’s what she’s being paid for.” Bruce turned on Geordie. “Anytime today would be good.”

  Geordie gritted her teeth. Stepped toward the scaffolding. Her heart was thumping so hard in her chest she thought it could break bones.

  “Really, it’s unnecessary,” Meri called.

  “Now,” Bruce said. His eyes were locked on Geordie.

  Geordie stopped. She would take the chance of humiliating herself in front of an audience. “No.”

  “What?”

  “No. I can take them from down here.” She tried to look at Bruce, but she was having a hard time just staying on her feet. On the ground, on the floor. She was safe.

  “Afraid you’ll break a nail?”

  “Bruce,” Meri yelled from the platform. “She can do them from down there, now let it be.”

  “She can get them now. Get up there or get out.”

  Doug frowned at him. “What the hell—”

  That was all Geordie heard before she turned and ran from the room. She’d been stupid to think she could make a go of this.

  She couldn’t work here. Not having to climb ladders and being yelled at by a man who hated her without even knowing her. She reached the annex and threw her camera into her case, snatched up her equipment and ran not toward the kitchen but to the emergency exit at the end of the annex hall. She shot the bolt and fled into the parking lot. One of the trucks was still parked, hiding her car from view.

  She made a beeline behind the truck and ducked out of sight just as Meri opened the back door and looked out. Geordie heard the door slam and cautiously looked out from behind the truck.

  Meri had gone back inside.

  Well, at least Meri had come looking for her.

  Geordie threw her equipment into the car and climbed in after it. Fumbled desperately for her keys with shaking fingers.

  Damn Bruce. Damn this stupid fear. She finally dragged her keys out of her bag and after several tries, found the ignition. Then she backed out of the lot and drove away without looking back.

  “OKAY, WHAT THE hell was that all about?” Doug asked Bruce just as Meri ran back into the foyer.

  “She’s gone. I checked the annex, the office, the kitchen, her car is gone.” She turned on Bruce. “What the heck is wrong with you?”

  Carlyn stuck her head around the corner. “What’s all the commotion about?”

  “Bruce just fired Geordie.”

  “He can’t do that.” Carlyn turned to Doug. “He can’t do that, can he?”

  “No, he can’t. What the hell is it with you and that girl?”

  Bruce knew he had stepped way over the line. It wasn’t even Geordie’s fault. It was him. He was tired. Tired of being broke, tired of juggling too many jobs. Of driving an old car that was going to fall apart any minute. Of having to scrape and fight for everything he got. Of being attracted to a woman who wouldn’t give him the time of day.

  “She only got this assignment because her family are the Holts.

  “From the Holt Corporation?” Doug pursed his lips in a silent whisper.

  “So?” Meri said.

  “So she’s a spoiled rich girl out on a lark at our expense.”

  “That isn’t true,” Meri said.

  “She’s been useless and antagonistic since the get-go.”

  Carlyn raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Maybe you should try kissing her instead of insulting her. She could probably fund this whole project from her clothes allowance.”

  “Ugh.” Meri shoved her hands in her pockets.

  Probably to keep from hitting him. Bruce couldn’t blame her if she did.

  “Is that why you’ve been on her case since the get-go? Because she’s from a rich family?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Meri gave him a look.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  “So? None of us did when we started. She’s a good photographer. With a little guidance, she would know what to do.” She stopped to give him another disgusted look. “We always work with newbies.”

  “But we don’t pay them, or at least not a full salary.”

  “Oh, my Lord.” Carlyn threw up her hands and disappeared from the doorway.

  “We’re budgeted so much for start-up. And her fee is coming out of that.” He stopped. “Unless Mommy and Daddy are paying for her to work.”

  This time Meri threw up her hands. “What does it matter? Now we don’t have a photographer. And that puts us behind schedule. And we’ve barely started. Unless you want to run after her and throw yourself on her mercy, you dummkopf.”

  “She wouldn’t even climb the damn scaffolding.”

  “She’s afraid of heights. Yeesh. Where is your brain? No don’t answer that.” She marched off down the hallway.

  Bruce turned to Doug. “Did you know she was afraid of heights?”

  Doug shook his head. “But that would explain why she didn’t want to climb up the scaffolding.”

  Bruce shot his hands through his hair. Forced them down by his sides. “Why didn’t she say so?”

  “Um, you didn’t really give her a chance.”

  “Still it doesn’t change the fact that she’s a dabbling little rich girl and doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  “Maybe not, but Meri and Carlyn like her, and so far they’re the only full-time staff I’m budgeted for. And unless you want to get down on your hands and knees and start stripping wallpaper in between documenting the project and overseeing the repairs and reconstructions, I’d say, we probably want to try and get her back.”

 
Bruce sighed. There was no question as to who Doug thought should beg Geordie to come back. He rubbed a hand across his face. “Doug, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ll go apologize. Ask her to come back.”

  Doug just gave him one of those man-to-man, thank-God-I’m-not-in-your-shoes looks, before he turned and left the room. It didn’t make Bruce feel any better that he could hear him muttering to himself as he walked down the hall.

  Bruce had jeopardized the project and he didn’t even really know that Geordie hadn’t gotten the job herself. What was happening to him, to be so vicious?

  From the moment he saw her, he’d resented her. Because he’d seen all the things he’d ever aspired to and could never have. It wasn’t the money thing. Though who but a pampered rich brat would come to a renovation site driving an expensive sports car and wearing designer clothes?

  She was clueless about a lot of things, but not so many as Bruce wanted to accuse her of. She did take a good photo. Even though he could tell her heart wasn’t in documentation. She was creative, a free spirit. He’d recognized that, too. And was drawn to it more than he wanted to admit.

  So why wasn’t she doing what she wanted? Did she even know what she wanted? Bruce had known from high school that he wanted to study architecture. And living in Newport, he took preservation seriously.

  He’d put in his time as an intern. An admittance that made him squirm with regret. He hadn’t been much younger than Geordie when he volunteered for his first project. He’d screwed up plenty, but instead of putting him down or firing him, the project manager, the conservator and even the assistants had been patient and shown him the ropes. Gave him a chance to succeed.

  And how had he repaid their generosity? The first chance he had to do the right thing, he’d lit into a newbie, insulted her every chance he got, and fired her, even though he didn’t have the right to fire anyone. It was Doug’s project. Bruce was just one of the team.

  A team that needed a project photographer. A team that needed Geordie. And he knew it would be up to him to get her back.

  But he had no idea where to find her.

  Carlyn would have her phone number and home address. He’d start there. No he’d start with an apology to his colleagues, then he’d ask for their help.

  Chapter 7

  GEORDIE PULLED OUT of the Gilbert House parking area, barely aware of where she was going. She couldn’t believe she’d let that jerk trick her into walking out. Walking out. She’d just walked out on a job. Even in her most ridiculous attempts at working, she’d never walked out without completing the project or honoring her two-week notice.

  But she’d just run out on the most interesting job she’d ever had.

  Okay, maybe she didn’t love the documentation part. The actual, realistic details didn’t rock her world like it did Meri’s and Doug’s and even Bruce’s, damn him. But the other stuff, the photos she got after the initial photographs, the play of light, the distortion of detail, the people caught in an unsuspecting moment, their expressions frozen yet alive, the color modulated by filters or natural light.

  That was good stuff. Maybe she was a fake. And the worse kind, begrudgingly doing their work so she could have some fun with hers. But she’d gotten some dynamite shots.

  Unfortunately, dynamite shots did not constitute a career. Maybe she would be better off giving in and joining the corporate office and doing some menial job to fund her “hobby” of photography.

  Of course she wouldn’t be allowed to do some menial job. She’d be forced into corner-office stuff. Her sister Alicia, who was in marketing, had married a podiatrist just to get out of the family business.

  Somehow that seemed like a really unacceptable choice.

  About as unacceptable as not being able to climb up a ladder. Why, oh why, had she refused to go back to therapy? Even on the breakers, she’d totally forgotten the techniques that she’d used in the past.

  And now she was screwed.

  Had her parents really bribed someone to take her on? Had they donated the money for her salary? It was just like something her dad would do.

  Her mouth opened into a soundless scream, followed by an ear-piercing bellow of hurt and anger. She pulled to the curb and banged on the steering wheel. The car shuddered in response.

  When she finally looked up, she realized she was on Bellevue Avenue, a block from Marble House. One of her favorites. She couldn’t imagine it ever being half as neglected as poor Gilbert House.

  Gilbert House had fallen on dire times, had been misused and disrespected for decades. And frankly, Geordie didn’t see how they would even get it halfway back to where it might have been a century ago.

  Well, to hell with it. It was no longer her concern. Let them do their own documentation. Let Bruce climb up that scaffolding and snap a few shots with his phone. Then he’d be sorry.

  The thought totally deflated her. They didn’t need her. They didn’t even want her. Neither Meri nor Carlyn had stood up for her.

  Made excuses for me.

  “Oh, stop whining.” She huffed out the last—hopefully the last—of her anger and hurt. She pulled into the Marble House parking lot, took a camera out of her bag, put the rest of her equipment in the trunk, and struck off across the street to do her own kind of pictures.

  She didn’t even slow down at the gate of Marble House, just strode up the circular drive, showed her membership card and went inside. She knew she wouldn’t be able to take any shots, not with her camera anyway. But she could in her mind. Implanting it on her brain, playing with it in her thoughts. It was a way to train the eye so you didn’t miss opportunity when you suddenly came upon a shot.

  She walked through the foyer, passing the guided tour offer. She’d been here plenty of times. Loved the steadiness of the architecture, the security of the thick, hard walls tempered by ridiculously ornate decorations.

  She tried to imagine the people who had once lived here, died here during the height of the Gilded Age with their reckless making and spending of money. Up and down the avenue year after year, moving between Manhattan and Newport, chasing entertainment, attention, power.

  She could almost see them moving around the rooms, ghostly and restless, trapped in a gilded cage, replaying their scandals, their power plays, their triumphs, their failures over and over and over into eternity. The famous and the infamous.

  Those people were trapped as surely as if they had been locked inside, dependent on their wealth to make them feel secure. She didn’t really want to consider whether she, too, was trapped by her family’s wealth. Oh, she could travel and be semi-independent, but she could never get free. Not really. Not yet anyway.

  And suddenly she wanted to be free. Break the bonds, breathe fresh ocean air. She retraced her steps and walked straight out the door, earning a strange look from the docent and leaving the old rooms behind. Leaving the ghosts behind. They would still be there the next time she came.

  But today she’d had enough of mansions, even beautiful ones. What made them special were the people who’d inhabited them. That’s what interested her. Not the ceiling paintings or the Siena marble, not even the tiles hidden beneath the paint layers on the old front steps of Gilbert House.

  They didn’t speak to her like they did to Meri and Doug and Bruce, even Carlyn, with her background in finance.

  So what ignited her passion? Not the hot, hunky guy kind of passion but the soul-deep kind, the kind that would make her spend her life struggling to make ends meet just so she could keep doing what she was doing. Working long, uncomfortable hours only to come back and do it again.

  Meri had said it would take months to clean and strip the ceiling. Working through the years of paint layers in increments of inches, not just painting on some solvent and wiping the whole clean. Cataloguing each layer for color and composition, until she came to the first layer of paint. She didn�
��t want to lose one bit of the underneath layers. Because there might be something fabulous there.

  Meri couldn’t wait to get started.

  Geordie wanted to feel that, too. But she’d wrecked any chance she had of finding it at Gilbert House with Doug’s crew.

  She sat on a bench by the drive, her camera forgotten on her lap. Frowning into space. In limbo.

  A butterfly flitted by and landed on a shrub. Geordie didn’t care much for photos of butterflies, but she couldn’t just sit on a bench all day. So she took a shot. When it swooped to another bush, she stood and took another.

  And another, catching it in flight, on a branch. She walked down the path to the lawn until it finally led her to the Chinese tea pagoda, where tourists stopped for refreshments.

  It landed on the stone wall where two young girls had taken their sandwiches. Tweenies, Geordie guessed, staying as far away as possible from their parents and little brother, who were sitting at a table across the patio.

  When the butterfly landed on the lid of a soda bottle, Geordie was ready, capturing the look of delight in those faces that were trying so hard to be mature. Geordie smiled. She didn’t even have to look at the shot to know she nailed it. Had caught them at their most secret, vulnerable moment. Two girls and a butterfly.

  The butterfly flew away. The two girls, heads nearly touching, giggled over some shared secret. Four older women who had been having tea at one of the tables got up in a flurry of laughter and conversation. They moved down the path toward the sea, and Geordie moved with them.

  They walked slowly, since one of them used a cane and another was supported by the arm of her friend. Geordie could tell they had known one another for a long time.

  The four ladies came to the edge of the lawn and stopped to gaze out to the ocean. The cliff walk followed the water below them, tunneling beneath the teahouse before reappearing on the other side. Beyond the walk, the ocean spread out to the sky. Geordie moved closer, keeping the ladies between her and the drop to the cliff walk, and took a few shots of blue.