“Damon Donovan, hey, hi there. I’m Trent.” Nick of time, baby. Nick of time. “So excited to meet you. Welcome to Avocado. Can’t believe you’re standing here. You’ve met Georgia. Did she tell you it’s her first day?”
She gave what she hoped was a calmly professional look Trent’s way as he shook Damon’s hand, then stepped back to leave him to it.
“No, she did not. I thought she owned the place,” Damon said, the humour in his tone warm like privilege and just as irritating. His eyes shifted over Trent’s head, looking for her.
Trent laughed. He was a big overweight man-boy, full of enthusiasm and devilment. He was loud, quick, hugely confident, he giggled and was a little scary in a possibly manic way. Or at least that’s what she’d learned about Avocado’s senior engineer in the last hour. And Captain Vox was all his.
“I’ll be in the control room,” she muttered, but Captain Vox was loud and clear.
“Nice to meet you, Georgia. Are you going to stick around and hold my hand, make me sound like a pro?”
Oh he was good, but he had to know she’d seen him with tattoo pixie groupie so why bother? And seriously, look at him, why would he flirt with her anyway? She had Totally Boring, Socially Awkward, Forgotten What Sex Is Like, Stay the F Away, written in an easy to read thought bubble over her head. And for good measure, Back Off marked on her forehead. She gave him a nod, turned to go and heard, “Have I just beaten my all time record for offending someone without knowing it?”
She turned back and both men were looking her way, Trent with a big grin. But Damon wasn’t meeting her eyes, as though he did think he’d offended her. Why couldn’t she simply spend the day getting familiar with the gear and the way the studio functioned? And what was she supposed to say to that anyway?
“Can I get you something?”
“No. Thank you, Georgia.”
Lucky. If he’d have asked for something, she’d have needed help to organise it. Being the new girl sucked methane. She left them and went to the control room to wait for Trent, watching through the window as he briefed Damon, provided the scripts, turned on the light above the standing lectern, adjusted it so that it was chest height for Damon, sorted out a headset and repositioned the mic.
When he came back in he was buzzing, made from twitchy facial expressions and bouncing knees. “That’s Damon freaking Donovan in there. Captain Vox. The Voice.” He lifted his arms and rattled his hands at his sides, eyes skyward. “Lord, take me now.”
It was so nerdy she had to laugh, but only after she’d done a quick nervous scan of the panel to make sure Damon couldn’t hear them.
Trent got busy setting levels. He turned the intercom on and asked Damon to read the script and in minutes they were ready to record.
They got the first sixty done in one take. Not unheard of. Then Damon read the second without fault. At the end he said, “How we doing?” and Trent flicked the intercom to say, “Great, great. I think we’ve got it.”
Damon gave them a thumbs up through the glass. Then he said, “Can I lay a variation on that last sixty, there was one hell of a clunking sentence in there.”
Trent said, “That’s the script we were given to record.”
“What client doesn’t like a free option?”
Trent shrugged. “Sure, why not. Can we get the new script on paper for you?”
“No need, I’ve got it.”
Damon laid an entirely new sixty-second spot without glancing at a note. Oh God. He could make his voice smile, make you feel happy and smile with him. He could make you salivate to hear the insider story on household insurance, the minutia of bird lice.
The man could narrate a parking ticket and it’d be a pleasure to listen to.
Trent did his jazz hands again, “Freaky Friday, he’s good.”
Damon wasn’t drunk, he wasn’t stoned, he was into public displays of affection and he was a flirt. But he knew what he was doing in the booth. Not that what they had him doing was difficult, but you could see what he was made of professionally.
The two ads done, they moved on to the narration for a government workers’ compensation scheme. At this rate, he’d be done today, there’d be no reason for him to come back tomorrow, which would make day two on the job easier to handle.
Trent handed her a second USB. “Get that up on his tablet. He likes weird huge print.”
She left the control room and went through to the booth. Damon’s head came around when he heard the door. He wore his cans around his neck. “Hey.”
“I’ve got your next script.”
“Georgia?”
He said her name as thought he was questioning it. “Did you want to talk to Trent?”
“No, I’m good. Give me five minutes to set this up and we can go live.”
“We’ll project the visual on this screen.” She pointed to the monitor they’d use to get the timing for the read right.”
He frowned at the monitor. “Do you have a bigger screen, by any chance?”
“I’ll check with Trent.”
He turned back to her. “Sorry, I forgot, first day. Crap, right. That out of depth in the bathtub feeling.”
Okay that wasn’t flirty, that was just being, well, nice. Trying to make her feel at ease. Harder to think he was a jerk if he was going to be nice, and really, no doubt: rich, a babe magnet, and a flirt, so he had to be a jerk. Law of averages. She held out the USB, but he didn’t take it.
Definitely a jerk.
“Ah, the script is on here. Would you like me to set it up for you?”
He lifted a hand and turned it palm up. “No, I’ve got it.”
She put the USB in his palm and left him to get it on his tablet screen. In the control room she asked Trent about a bigger monitor.
“Oh shit. He’s used to working with a big screen like they do for movies. We don’t have that gear here.” He toggled the intercom. “Damon, we’re just one little Avocado, not a whole tree, and we only have that monitor you’re looking at. I’m really sorry. If you want to take a break while we hire one in, or…” Trent smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Or call it a day and I’ll have a bigger screen set for you tomorrow?”
There was a silence and they both watched Damon consider that. He rubbed his eyes with the thumb and finger of his right hand. “It’ll be fine. Ready when you are.”
But it wasn’t fine. The job was a simple narration about workplace safety procedures, but there were timing implications, where the voice needed to fit with the vision. Captain Vox should’ve been able to do it with his eyes closed, but Damon Donovan was struggling. He mistimed over and over again, scowling at the monitor and getting increasingly frustrated. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the words, he barely looked at his script on the tablet.
Trent had the twitches for real now. He kept swearing under his breath and eventually said, “Let’s take a break, Damon.” Then he looked at her. “You go in there.”
“Me?”
“He likes you.”
Work experience girls didn’t argue if they wanted to grow up and be proper wage slaves. “Any tips?”
“Dazzle him with good old Aussie she’ll be rightness.”
Georgia stood. She pulled her shirt down so it sat flat around her hips and wiped her hands on her jeans. “I’m going in there.” It sounded like a line from any number of action movies of which she would never be the heroine.
Trent giggled. He put his hands over his ears as pretend announcer earphones. “In a world of confusion and despair, where a famous professional hacks it up, one woman goes up against,” he dropped his hands and his mock announcer voice. “I’ve no idea what’s gone wrong. Good luck.”
She took another look at Damon through the glass. He was rubbing his eyes still. He was in some kind of trouble. A migraine maybe. They could do savage things to your vision, especially if he was seeing auras. If he had a migraine, it was a wonder he was still upright. When Hamish got them he was practically comatose,
bedridden and unable to eat for days.
She cracked the seal on the door and he looked over, but didn’t speak.
“Hey, can I get you anything?”
“Georgia?” Her name again, like he was expecting someone else. “I could do with a coffee. Black, no sugar.”
“I’ve got headache tablets if you—”
“No. Thanks, I’m just having a moment. I’ll get it together.”
She held the door open. She was pretty sure she shouldn’t bring coffee into the booth. He didn’t move. “If you’d come this way.” There was a lounge area adjacent to the control room. She could settle him there. He went to follow her and his foot nudged the leg of the lectern. He put his hand out to steady it and knocked his tablet off the edge. She moved to try to catch it but it went down, bounced on a corner and landed face first, missing the rug and hitting the wooden floor with a clatter.
Damon put his hand over his face. “Tell me I haven’t killed it.”
She picked it up. The screen was dark. She tried to boot it and got nothing, then noticed the crack in the plastic housing. “It’s not looking good.”
Damon laughed. He held his hand out and she put the tablet in it. He tried the on button too and got nothing. “I was sure I right-sided the bed this morning.”
She’d expected anything other than humour. He’d clearly been embarrassed and tense before she came in, now that he’d necked his tech he might well be furious.
“We can print the script for you. Sixteen point?”
“Call it twenty-four and it’s a deal.”
The script would be a book printed that size. “Coffee first?”
“Makes the world go around.”
He took a step towards her; far too close, he had no respect for personal space. She went through the door and he followed. The lounge area was just outside, but she escorted him to it, looking for Trent. “Take a seat and I’ll be back.”
He kind of collapsed into the lounge, which was low to the ground, and sat with his head in his hands. If he had a headache why didn’t he take a pill, or call a break, or anything other than this martyred act? She’d had enough of the martyr routine to last a lifetime, having been taught to detest it by an expert.
She left him and made for the staff kitchen. Lauren, the receptionist was there. “Trent asked me to make coffee, and there are pastries too,” she said. “Can I take it through to him?”
“Fantastic.” Save her playing waitress. “Where is Trent?” She couldn’t leave Damon on his own or with Lauren, who was a too breathless fan girl, although maybe he’d enjoy that?
“He had to take a call.”
Lauren took the coffee and she detoured to the office area. Trent had a phone to his ear and his eyes on his screen. She didn’t want to go back into the studio. All her highly tuned helpmate instincts were on high alert. Something was wrong with Damon, but she’d left England, taken this job to avoid men with problems, to avoid the feeling she was put on earth to serve them.
Trent looked up with wild eyes. Whoever he was talking to was giving him an earful. She hovered over her own desk, knowing the right thing to do was to go and sit with Damon, knowing she was an idiot to be freaked out about it. She’d never see this guy again, what did it matter what his problem was, and it was nothing to do with her anyway.
She could at least make herself useful getting the script organised. She logged on, opened up the job file and searched for the script, then reformatted it. It would be a hundred and seventy-two pages printed. It would be easier for Damon to read it off the laptop than shuffle pages. She loaded the document to the desktop and unplugged her gear, then went to the studio, breezed past Lauren and Damon and set the laptop up on the lectern.
When she got back to the lounge area Lauren was gone and Damon nursed a mug in his hands. “I’m ready to start again.” He scooted forward and put his free hand on the glass-topped coffee table, then put the mug down and stood. He had a deliberate, almost mechanical way of moving. The opposite of the poetry you expected from a body like his. Was he always like this or should he lying down in a dark room with a cool towel over his head?
None of her business. Thank God. If the man wanted to work through illness it was nothing to her, even if she’d clenched her hands to stop the desire to feel his forehead. She did not need to get involved with this. She was detached, this was just a job, she didn’t know him, and he wasn’t her responsibility.
She opened the iso booth door for him and he went through and stood at the lectern. She went to the control room and turned the intercom on. “The printed script was more than a hundred pages. I thought this would be easier. The document is open and the print size is twenty-four. If the screensaver has gone on, the password is Password with a capital P. And I know I need to change that.”
He frowned at the laptop, a gorgeous lightweight silver machine that came with the job. He looked up at her through the glass. “I think I need you to fix the screensaver for me.”
She toggled off the intercom and groaned. But okay, maybe he wasn’t an Apple man, or he was too famous to type in a simple password. She toggled. “I’ll come in.” There was still no sign of Trent. She went into the booth.
He said, “Georgia,” in the odd, questioning way that wasn’t a question.
She moved beside him and unlocked the screen. “Now you’re ready.”
He touched her shoulder. “Thank you. Sorry to be a pain in the arse.”
She sent a quick smile his way, left the booth, and waited for Trent in the control room until Damon said. “Ready, set, go when you are.”
She frowned. He must think she’d go ahead without Trent. Of course she could, but that wasn’t the plan. “Just waiting for Trent.”
“Okay.”
They waited. The laptop would no doubt have timed out again.
“Georgia.”
“Yes, Damon. I’ll come in and redo the password when Trent gets here.”
“I’m going to need some extra help.”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to need you to give me the timing for the vision.”
What did he mean? He’d be able to see the vision on the monitor. Except he couldn’t see it well before. He held on to surfaces, he didn’t make direct eye contact, and he needed twenty-four point type. He didn’t take the USB when she offered it. He had to find that table before he put the mug down. Oh my God. Damon wasn’t clumsy, he didn’t have a migraine, he wasn’t sick.
Trent came in. He wore an expression that suggested he’d discovered the green men who worked in the bakery across the street had been systematically poisoning his daily bread. She toggled the intercom off and they stared at each other in a wild moment of mutual recognition.
5: Flying Blind
The silence from the control booth was profound. Jesus, they didn’t know. Man, he should’ve made sure they did, but he figured Ben would’ve said something and this job was such a sleepwalk he’d never thought it’d be an issue. But something was wrong, and it wasn’t the flu and it wasn’t jet lag, or exhaustion. He’d really struggled at the gym with the new gear, and it wasn’t because the control panel was a flat surface; he’d been useless on the pool table, he’d nearly fallen off the stage, and now he couldn’t see images on a decent-sized monitor clearly enough to narrate. Sure it wasn’t the big screen he was used to, but this wasn’t a complicated narration.
He wasn’t just exhausted. He’d lost more vision. A great deal more. And there wasn’t that much left to lose. But the shadows were filmier, the shapes less distinct and his close vision was beyond blurred.
He dropped his face into his hands. He’d known it and he’d been denying it; his old, don’t get too far ahead of yourself strategy, the one that prevented him being too disappointed and kept him focused on how bloody lucky he was. But the future was suddenly a little narrower in definition, a lot dimmer.
He looked towards the booth and waved a hand to make sure they were listening. “Two pilots walk
up the aisle of an aircraft. Both are wearing dark glasses, the man has a guide dog, the woman a white cane.
“Damon, um.”
That was Trent. Poor bugger. No wonder he didn’t know what to say. Damon went on. “Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin, but they enter the cockpit and the engines start up. The passengers glance around; searching for a sign this is a practical joke. Maybe they’re being punked, maybe there are cameras. When the plane starts to taxi, they begin pressing their call signs and shouting, but the attendants ignore them. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway and the people sitting in the window seats realise they’re headed straight for the water. They scream, and soon all the passengers are screaming and praying.”
He made an aeroplane out of one hand and flew it off the edge of the lectern. “At that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air.” There was no sound from the control booth. It’d be ironic if Trent and Georgia had picked now for a bathroom break.
“The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, the cabin service starts, and they retreat into their magazines and books, secure in the knowledge the plane is in good hands.” He dropped his hand. “Are you guys with me?”
“Yeah, um.” Trent again, sounding embarrassed still.
“Meanwhile, in the cockpit, one of the blind pilots turns to the other and says, ‘You know, Jane, one of these days, they’re gonna scream too late and we’re all gonna die.’”
Not a sound.
He’d been going for any chord of uneasy laughter.
“I thought you guys knew. I’m sorry to throw you for such a loop.” The door opened and he turned towards it. Two shapes, Trent and Georgia. “Hi, don’t feel bad. This is my fault. I should’ve made sure you knew.”
“It’s not in your profile,” said Trent. “We checked it when we knew Pinetti hired you.”
“You’re right. I’ve never needed it to be. I’ve got enough close vision with the right lighting to read my big print, and I use digital audio to memorise short copy. It’s my distance vision that’s shot and I generally don’t need that to work. But I do owe you an apology. I’m having a bad day. I would normally have gotten through this no problem and you’d have never needed to be any the wiser.”
Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) Page 4
