“Tell me what you know about Georgia.”
She should speak, cough, both hard to do when you were holding your breath. What was he up to? And who had the advantage now?
“She’s new. Not much to know. Keeps to herself.” Lauren lowered her voice. “A bit of a snob. Not exactly up herself, but you know, standoffish.”
“Shy?”
Lauren shrugged a suntanned shoulder. “Maybe, but this is not an industry that attracts shy people. She’s kind of dull, you know. She’s a bring leftovers for lunch, go straight home after work kind of person. Boring.”
The she in question was wishing that imaginary house would fall on her. Didn’t need to be a McMansion, a modest weatherboard would do the same amount of damage as this conversation.
Damon laughed. “Last time I tried that, I had cat food instead of tuna in my bag.”
“Oh no, what did you do?”
He shook his head. “Gullible much.”
Lauren made an exasperated gasp and Georgia took that as her entry point. “Damon.” She’d be a professional. Do her job. Keep to herself, bring her lunch from home, and she’d get though the next six days.
He stood. Looked in her direction and smiled. He had very pale, very steady blue eyes and though she knew he could barely see anything arm’s distance from his face, he seemed to look right through her to all the scars and tics, fears and phobias she was made of.
“Hey, Georgia. Good to see you again.”
“Why would you say that?” Lauren said, her words firing out in an explosion of disbelief.
He quarter turned his head towards Lauren, his dimple appearing. “Because it’s a hell of a lot politer than saying good to smell you again.”
“You kill me,” Lauren said.
Oh God, why didn’t he kill Lauren, slay her with his lazy wit, because then they’d take him away and the app developer could hire someone else to do the job. But that was about as likely as death by falling house.
“Though Georgia does smell particularly good.”
Lauren laughed. Georgia blushed hot, but at least he’d never have the satisfaction of seeing it. “We’re in Studio B again. Would you like some help to get there?” Lauren was already standing.
“Nope. If you walk in front of me and don’t lead me over any open trapdoors, I’ll be fine.”
Hmm, what she’d give for a trapdoor. She turned her back to him and went to the outer door of Studio B, holding it open so he could come through. He put one hand to the doorjamb, then trailed it along the corridor wall.
“Are you mad with me, Georgia Fairweather?”
She was furious with him because he made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. “Why would I be mad with you?”
“I think it’s because I’m breathing.”
She let the door go and it bumped against Damon’s shoulder. He stepped forward and it shut behind him, closing them in the narrow corridor to the control room.
She’d just closed a door on him. “Of course I’m not mad with you.” She walked forward and opened the second door.
“Yeah, you are. I’m sorry.”
She held the door and glanced back at him. He looked straight at her. She’d be in his blurry blob range. The only way to betray herself was with her voice, she needed to school it to be cool. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
“I’m not sure, but something tells me it’s the right thing to do.”
“The only thing we have to do is get four hours of your voice down.” She went through the door and it closed behind her. He didn’t step through. She opened it again. He hadn’t moved. “Sorry, I…” He could’ve opened the door. He’d deliberately waited.
“Georgia, I am sorry I was too familiar with you. It won’t happen again.” He’d wanted the privacy. He had no way of knowing how many people were on the other side of the door.
“Come through and let’s get started.”
“Yes, let’s start again.” He put his hand out, shake ready. She looked at it; she didn’t want to take it but she couldn’t leave him hanging there like that. “Georgia?”
She put her hand in his and let him control the shake.
“I’m Damon Donovan. You might know me as the voice of Captain Vox. I like burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel ice-cream, parasailing and long slow walks on the beach.” He held her hand steady. “Your turn.”
She sighed so he’d hear it. “I’m Georgia Fairweather, nice to meet you.”
He laughed. He might’ve been annoyed she wouldn’t play, but he laughed. He still had her hand and she’d have to make a thing of it to pull it out of his grip.
“Things to know about me. I tell bad jokes. Cats creep me out. I love music and books. I grew up in a small country town. I think Google is making us dumb, Facebook killed friendship and selfies are the beginning of the end of civilisation. Also I don’t understand adult colouring books. Your turn.”
“Um. We need to start.” She needed him in another room, separated from her by thick glass.
He opened his hand and released her. “We just did.”
He didn’t say anything more than was functional as she set him up on the iso booth. He had a new tablet and an earpiece he wanted to try out. A program that would read him the text he’d then voice for the recording. He was working on a way to eliminate the need to read text in any point size. Ah, so that’s why he’d taken on this job. He was using it to experiment with his process.
She went into the control room and air became easier to breathe. He was standing at the lectern. She got feedback. His tablet.
“Damon is there wifi on your tablet? I’m getting feedback.”
His hands moved. The interrupting signal stopped. “Better?”
She put her thumb up then grunted and turned the movement into a face palm. “Perfect. When you’re ready.”
“I need one thing.”
She looked up from the panel. “Yes.”
“Tell me one thing about you. One thing and I’ll give you the next four hours without interruption.”
One thing, what could one thing matter? She sighed. “I lived in London.”
“One thing I don’t already know.”
“You should be specific about the rules.”
“Rules are made for—”
“You don’t want people to know you’re blind.” Well hey there, that was professional. She put her head down on the edge of the panel, a slider poked her eyebrow.
“Not true, but I’m not my choroideremia either.”
She sat upright and looked at him. Mortification was a sensation a lot like nausea and revelation tasted like blood. Hamish was the fight, the injury that thwarted his ambition, and Georgia was his martyr.
“I’m sorry.”
“No need to be, but you have to tell me two things now.”
Two things that would tell him nothing; a small price for her insensitivity. “I’m an only child and my parents are dead.”
He was quiet, but his expression changed, he dropped his chin and frowned, and she knew she’d told him the wrong things. He’d expected eye colour or favourite food. He’d have taken a joke answer. She should’ve said she liked cake decorating and collected souvenir spoons. She’d lost the knack for banter a long time ago, she no longer had the words to fill in the fun bits, couldn’t join the dots between one amusing sentence and another to form a friendship.
“I’m ready when you are, Damon.”
He voiced the content, stopping often to correct his phrasing, perfect a paragraph. Working only from his memory and audio prompts from his software. She’d never seen that done before. He sipped on lemon water Lauren provided, and there was very little for Georgia to do but watch him and the voice levels and stew in the rancid juices of her own social ineptitude.
At the end of the session, Damon rubbed his neck, packed up his gear and came through the door to the control room. “Okay?”
“All good.” She stood and got the next door for him. “Do you need us to
call you a taxi?”
“No. I’m fine. See you tomorrow.”
She watched him go down the corridor, open the last door and exit into reception. As he turned, he had a ready smile for Lauren. A nicer person would’ve gone with him, held the door, insisted on helping him to a taxi. But Damon didn’t define himself as his disease and she wasn’t going to be a nice person for him. She’d engineer his sound quality, but she’d master her own self-preservation.
7: Sorting Colours
“When you’re ready, Damon.”
He was rip-snorting ready to crack the problem of Georgia. She was the single most interesting thing in his life right now. He stood at the lectern and looked out towards the control room. “I’m thinking about getting a dog.” He hadn’t been until this moment, but it must’ve been wagging the tail of his subconscious. At least it was a decent conversation opener, who didn’t like dogs?
No response.
He scratched his head. She was so walled off and he couldn’t work out whether he’d offended beyond repair with that kiss to her hand, or she simply didn’t like him. Had that happened before? Probably, inevitably, but it wasn’t something he was aware of. Most people were better fakers than Georgia. And given who he was, the way he was, the tendency to overplay polite was high. Everyone was frightened of giving offence and surprised he had a sense of humour.
But not Georgia. Not that she was offensive exactly, she didn’t tiptoe around him, but she was terminally terrible at polite social discourse. She was easier with Trent and the other Avocado people he’d met, but she was still oddly self-contained. Either Lauren was right, and Georgia was a gold class snob, in which case his developing obsession with her was a hopeless thing and he’d tire of it, or there was a thread he could pull to unwind her. He wanted to find that end, untwist it from its spool and unwrap Georgia so he could see the real her.
Or go blind trying.
“Georgia, have you ever owned a dog?”
“No. Damon, can you keep talking for a moment, please?”
“Talking, my specialty. I’m not sure how it would work for travelling, but yes, apparently I’m thinking about a dog. They’re incredibly helpful, but not right for everyone. We had them on the farm where I grew up of course, working dogs. You know, they’ve developed a washing machine that dogs can load and start with a bark. Amazing, right. I need to do my homework before it’s anything more than an idea.”
“Ready now, Damon.”
“It’s your turn.” He waited. She’d answer because it was her job to get along with him, not because she wanted to play.
“I never had pets.”
“Not even a goldfish?”
“No.”
“As a kid did you want one? Most kids want pets. Were you most kids?”
“I wanted a kitten.”
He shuddered, then laughed. That was almost witty, given he’d told her he didn’t like cats, did she realise? “Ah, kittens, they have a habit of growing into cats. Cats are creepy, slink around, minds of their own. Trip you over one minute, want your lap the next. No cat will ever sort the whites from the colours for me.”
Did she smile at that? Did he add enough fabric softener to the wash of this uneasy truce with her?
“I’m ready when you are, Damon.”
Not. Stiff towels, scratchy sheets.
He gave her an hour of straight narration. Another good hour of experimentation with his new approach. It had potential. He’d dumped the headphones. Listening to himself as he laid a track was more about security anyway, and he’d long ago refined his awareness of mouth clicks, breaths, the sound of other subtle movement like the fabric of his clothing or the movement of his hands or feet. In that aspect he was a grandmaster. The earpiece and the audio text reader gave him the next grab of copy to memorise and as long as it was phrased correctly, he didn’t need to work off print or screen text. If it wasn’t, he was learning to adapt on the run.
Twenty or more hours of narrating like this and he’d have the confidence to take his new method into his regular bookings. This job had come up at just the right time to try out a new way of working before he went back to his regular gigs, where his reputation was on the line.
What wasn’t working was his attempt to defrost Georgia. “How was that?”
“All good.”
“Not too breathy.”
“Not that I can’t easily clean up.”
“It’s fine to ask me to re-read. It’s fine to ask me anything.”
“Would you like a coffee break now?”
He dropped his head into his hands. That was it, she hated him.
“I don’t like seafood.”
He looked towards the window and grinned. She had to be looking back. “Good to know.” Not necessarily progress but a step in that direction.
After the break, when they were back on either side of the glass, he tried again. “My favourite colour is blue.”
“Mine is green.”
They were a recipe for colour blindness, but at least he got an instant answer.
She prompted him to start up where he’d left off. An hour later he needed a water jug refill. Lauren brought it in for him, and the way she was in no hurry to leave told him Georgia had left the control room.
He sat on the stool they’d provided. “How old are you?” He put a hand up to forestall her protest. He’d have to start there and work quickly to get what he really wanted from Lauren. “A range will do. Age isn’t necessarily something you can tell from someone’s voice or vocabulary. I’m guessing you’re in your twenties.”
“I’m twenty-three.”
He grinned, he’d have picked her as younger. He dug Lauren. She’d gotten over her fan girl moment. “What do you look like?”
“I’m blonde and gorgeous.”
He slapped his thigh. “Of course you are.”
“Okay, I’m a little overweight, but I am blonde and blue-eyed. I did some modelling before I took this job, catalogue stuff, not catwalk.”
“And you’re lying to me, right?”
“No.” Very definite. Slightly outraged. “Ask Georgia when she gets here.”
Oh thank you for that segue, girlfriend. “All right, I will. How old is Georgia? What does she look like?”
“Why’d you want to know what she looks like?”
He put a hand over his eyes. “Why do you think?”
She groaned. “Okay, it’s the blind thing.”
She was a trip. She wasn’t the least bit awed or anxious now. He laughed. “Yeah, it’s the blind thing.”
“She’s older than me. I’ve got the staff birthday list. She’s twenty-nine. She’s got brown hair, it’s shoulder length, curly, lots of it. She’s shorter than me.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Brown eyes.”
“And.”
“Fair skin, like she’s never ever been in the sun.”
“And.”
“I don’t know. She’d kind of ordinary. Not ugly, but nothing special. She could do so much with herself if she put a bit of effort into it.”
He rubbed his face. “Women are so cruel.”
“That’s not cruel, that’s how it is. You can’t expect men to look at you if you don’t put the effort into it.” He shook his head and Lauren said, “Well, you know what I mean.”
“Whatever happened to liking a person for who they are?”
“You would say that, it’s not like you have a choice, but for the rest of us it doesn’t work that way. It’s all about how you look. If you’re fugly you don’t stand a chance.”
He stood. “God, Lauren, you really think that’s how it works?”
“I don’t think it, babe. I know it. Sure, after you’ve hooked up, it’s about the person, if they’re, like, nice to you or a psycho, but you’re not going to get that far if you don’t look right.”
The click of the intercom and Georgia’s voice. “I’m ready to get started again.”
He hel
d a hand up. “One minute, Georgia.” He looked towards Lauren. “It has to be about more than that, you know that don’t you?”
The door swooshed as she opened it. “I only know what I see, and I see if I put on weight, even a little, I get less attention, which means fewer men want to talk to me, which means less dates, less chance to find my Mr Right. I guess if everyone was blind it would be different.” She sighed. “Lunch will be in the lounge.” The door shut and he was alone with the echo of Lauren’s definition of sexual politics.
“Jesus, Georgia, you heard all that?”
“I did.”
There was a pause. He imagined Lauren crossing the control booth and going to reception.
“Lauren is very beautiful. She has a heart-shaped face, flawless skin, great figure. All the men here are in love with her, half the clients.”
He gave the lectern a shake. “But she thinks that’s all she’s worth. That’s just wrong. Goddamn, maybe more people should be blind.”
There was nothing from the control room and he felt around for his earpiece in frustration.
“Can you still see the colour blue?”
He looked up and out towards Georgia. Her first question that wasn’t about work or forced out by his plucking at her. “Not anymore. But I’m lucky I know what blue is, what it feels like.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like the freedom of a summer sky, wide open and full of endless possibilities. Like the drama of midnight; that blue when the stars come out, before night completely falls. It’s the understated glamour of a magnificent car or an extraordinary woman’s dress. Blue is depth and strength. It’s sturdy and reliable without being boring.”
“You don’t associate it with being down, depressed?”
“The blues.” Were they actually having a conversation? What could he say to prolong it? “Not at all.”
“We should get started.”
At the end of that block, she asked him to re-read a few passages and then he let himself out of the booth to have lunch. She didn’t come to the lounge to eat with him. Trent and a couple of the other engineers did. He ended up doing their favourite lines from movies, though he absolutely refused to do Vox, and for his pain he was treated to the worst impressions.
Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) Page 6
