by Sandra Hill
Laura jarred him out of his straying thoughts by asking, “So, Ethan, do you think you’d be able to duct tape some reindeer horns on Harvey for the parade, like the Grinch did with that dog, Max, in the book?”
“What? Are you serious? What parade?”
“Just thinking out loud here, Ethan. Be a team player. Get with the program. About Harvey . . . ?”
“The only way Harv would let me near him with duct tape is if I give him endless biscuits. Even then, there better be some hoochie mama poodle with loose morals around. Harv has a thing about poodles,” he said, then suggested, “Here’s a thought. You two looney tooners with all these great ideas could get Francine to offer green spray tans, instead of that yammy orange.”
Laura and Tony missed his lame attempt at sarcastic humor, which was evident when Laura eyed Ethan in an alarming way and observed, “Good idea, Ethan,” and Tony said, with a laugh, “Or maybe our grinch could be orange.”
“You two are nuts. First, I am not going to be named this town’s Grinch of the Year, even if it costs me a thousand bucks. And second, I wouldn’t let Francine near me with a spray gun if my life depended on it.”
“You’re brilliant, Laura,” Tony said, totally ignoring what Ethan had just said. “This could be really fun.”
“I know what fun is. This is not fun,” Ethan interjected. “Excuse my language, but this a fish fuck waiting to happen.”
“I think that’s supposed to be a goat fuck,” Tony corrected.
“Since when did you become the dictionary police?” He glared at Tony, who just grinned. Obviously, friendship meant nothing when sex, or the possibility of sex, was on the line.
“So many possibilities!” Laura cooed. “But there isn’t much time. This is Wednesday. Only five days until Christmas Eve.”
“Is it possible to make this happen on such a tight time line?” Tony asked.
“We’ll make it happen,” Laura assured him. “Let’s plan on a council meeting tonight.”
Ethan groaned. He wasn’t going to any more meetings this week. It was too much, just before Christmas. He was about to say that, but Laura was off to the races.
“Tony, you call Doreen and set up the meeting, and you know what? I just decided. I’m going to put out a special issue of The Bell tomorrow. I’ll probably have to stay up all night to pull it off, but it will be worth it. Oh, man! News about the grinch events. Wendy back in town. Hunky SEALs invade Bell Cove. The forge factory update. It will be my best edition yet. Maybe even earn me a prize in the state newspaper competition this year.”
“Oh, look, he’s already there,” Tony said.
Tony was right, Ethan noted, as he drove his car into the Bell Forge parking lot, which was three-quarters empty, even on a workday. Gabriel Conti, dressed in a camel-hair overcoat over a dark suit and tie, stood staring up at the mansard roof on the brick building. Of average height—about five ten or so—he had black hair that would probably be curly if it wasn’t styled so short, what they used to call a razor cut. He was clean-shaven, but with a dark stubble already at this time of the day. Probably a twice-a-day shaver.
“Gabe, long time, no see,” Ethan said, walking forward with an extended hand.
They shook, and Gabe said, “Ethan, how you been? Holy crap, it must be fifteen years since I saw you last. It was that summer we sailed till our skin blistered from so much sun.”
“Yeah, as I recall, you were trying to impress Rita Dorset, the lifeguard over at the golf club.”
“And you had eyes only for some girl named Winnie.”
Ethan didn’t bother to tell Gabe that it had been Wendy, not Winnie. “Hey, my sympathies on your grandfather’s death. I would have attended the funeral, but my daughter was having some medical issues at the time.”
“You have a daughter?” Gabe smiled, as if that were some great achievement.
It was. To him. “I do,” he said. “How about you? Married? A family?”
“No, and no.”
“We’ll have to get together and catch up sometime soon. In the meantime . . .” Ethan motioned for Laura and Tony to join them. “This is Gabriel Conti, whose great-great-grandfather and his brothers built this place.”
“That would be three greats,” Gabe corrected with a smile. “Great-great-great-grandfather Salvadore Conti.”
“Right,” Ethan said. “And, Gabe, this is Laura Atler, editor of The Bell, the local newspaper, and Tony Bonfatto, owner of the Cracked Crab restaurant.”
They all shook hands and remarked on the weather, which was getting colder by the hour with an overcast sky. They might very well get a dusting of snow tonight.
It was clear by the way Gabe was staring at Laura, and she was stealing looks at him, that there was an instant attraction going on. Much to Tony’s chagrin.
Ethan couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that way on first meeting a woman. Well, unless you counted a woman you’d met again after a dozen-years-long separation.
I am not going there!
“I noticed you looking over the building as we drove up,” Laura remarked.
“Yeah. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? They just don’t go to this kind of trouble with factories today.”
Gabe would know, being an architect, but as a layman, Ethan could appreciate its aesthetics, too. The simple, utilitarian brick of the long, rectangular structure was softened by the gleam of old copper on the flat portion at the top of the pitched slate roof. Not to mention the leaded windows and the double doors of the entry, which were unusual arch shapes with carved wood surrounds.
“And it’s still basically sound, too. Imagine the abuse it’s taken over the past hundred years . . . wind, salt, water, storms.”
Like Ethan’s tree that just went on forever. Still standing after all this time.
Hmmm. Is it a promising sign that Gabe admires the structure?
Laura must have thought the same thing because she said, “Sounds like you don’t want to see this family heirloom torn down.”
Gabe laughed. “Family heirloom? I wouldn’t go that far. More like a family albatross. I take it you’ve read the article in the Durham paper. But wait. Ethan said you’re with the local paper. Are you the newshound responsible for that contest naming me some kind of grinch monster? My mother heard about it all the way in Italy.”
Laura blushed.
Now there was a sight, Ethan thought. Laura Atler embarrassed! She could sling arrows of sarcasm at him like a trooper, but be taken down by a mere zinger from a stranger.
Coming to her defense, like an Italian stallion warrior knight, was Tony, who said, “Laura isn’t the only one responsible. The whole town council voted to have the contest. It’s all in fun.”
Ethan would have liked to say that he never voted for any contest, and it was debatable about the fun of it, but he didn’t want to make Tony look bad.
Gabe turned to Ethan and grinned. “I hear you’re right up there near the top in terms of grinchiness. Wonder how much it would cost to put you firmly over the top?”
“Don’t you dare. Keep in mind, I might have a little extra cash handy, too, for a good cause.” Ethan pretended to give Gabe a devious look.
“Hey, hey, hey! The rules of this contest bar any ballot stuffing,” Laura said.
“There are rules?” Ethan inquired. “That’s news to me.”
“Anyhow, I was misquoted in that newspaper article.” Gabe held up a hand to prevent Laura from asking what he meant by that. “But I’m not a sentimental idiot, either. Family heirloom or not, whatever I decide about this building will be based on the bottom line. It pays its way or goes its way. Furthermore, anything I say here today is off the record. I better not be reading a twisted version of my words tomorrow in the local rag.”
Any attraction Laura might have been feeling toward Gabe immediately disappeared. The look she cast his way now was one she might give to a cockroach, or a slimy developer.
In order to soothe the rising tempers, Etha
n changed the subject. “You know, Gabe, I always wondered why your ancestors chose a remote portion of a barrier island to build their forge. The temperatures here in summer are brutal; imagine forge workers in the pre-air-conditioning days. Plus, it must have been a bitch to get all these bricks and slate tiles out here.”
Gabe nodded. “Survival, pure and simple. They originally settled in Chicago where not one, but two of their factories burned down. Arson. Keep in mind, in the early 1900s, millions of Italian immigrants entered America, and prejudice then was high against any foreigners, but especially those dark, hairy characters who were deemed natural-born criminals. There were even studies, believe it or not, that supposedly proved Italians were little more than primates genetically inclined to violence. That’s why the three brothers sought out a piece of land remote enough to build their own community, despite all the hardships in getting building materials here.”
“I didn’t know that,” Laura said, even as she typed away on an iPad Mini.
Gabe glared at the device.
“My ancestors faced the same prejudice,” Tony said, drawing Gabe’s attention away from Laura’s note-taking. “They lived in the tenements of Little Italy, fifteen people to a room sometimes. Beaten to a pulp if they went out on the streets alone at night, for no reason other than they were ‘wops.’”
Gabe nodded his understanding and looked toward Ethan.
Ethan shrugged. “My family probably came over on the Mayflower and remain dumb tree farmers to this day.”
They all laughed at that and went inside.
“I’ll show you around. My manager is out sick today.” Gabe let out a snort of disgust. “That’s a lie, actually. I fired Jackson’s ass first thing this morning after looking over the books last night. No, he didn’t embezzle money or anything like that. He just hasn’t done a damn thing to generate any cash for more than a year and a half, ever since my grandfather first got ill. He single-handedly dug a grave for this old company which had already been floundering.”
That sounded bad. Really bad for Bell Forge’s future.
“And, no, Lois Lane, that is not for publication,” Gabe added.
Laura made a low growling sound but said nothing.
“The days of sitting on a good reputation and waiting for customers to come to you are long gone,” Gabe went on. “Bell Forge doesn’t even have a frickin’ website, let alone a sales force or a salesperson to solicit new orders. Believe it or not, my ancestors who started this company—the three brothers—knew that, even back then. One of them was an artisan, designing the bells. Another was the workhorse, the guy manning the bellows of the forge. And the third, and probably most important, was out drumming up new accounts.”
Ethan understood exactly what Gabe was talking about. While he’d never had a real interest in growing trees, he’d discovered over the past twelve years that he had a knack for business. He’d managed with home study and an inborn gene for wheeling and dealing to turn his family tree farm into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, complete with a small but efficient managerial and sales staff on top of the farm workers. Thus, his contracts with several nationwide chain stores, like DixieMart, Landscape Depot, and Starr Foods. “I have a stockbroker friend on Wall Street who told me one time that his company gets tons of applicants from Harvard Business School types, but what they really want are good used-car salesmen.”
“Right. It’s all well and good to have a finely crafted product, but if no one knows about it, big deal!” Gabe was one disgusted puppy. “I blame myself for not getting involved earlier. I mean, the situation with Whitechapel closing last year is a perfect example. We should have had someone over in London, trying to pick up their accounts. For that matter, who the hell makes all those Salvation Army bells? And has anyone thought about meeting with the Pope? They’ve gotta buy a lot of bells in the Vatican, wouldn’t you think?”
It was steaming hot inside the building, even though only one of the two forges was firing; so, they all took off their coats. Laura took off her suit jacket, too, and Gabe didn’t bother to hide his appreciation of her shape in a figure-hugging white sweater. And Laura noticed Gabe noticing her, if the wink she gave him was any indication.
So, Gabe and Laura were off to the flirtation races again. Which could be a good or a bad thing in terms of their negotiations. Ethan wasn’t able to object. He’d never been attracted to Laura himself. Probably because she hated his guts. Or because he couldn’t look at her without thinking of Wendy.
Aaarrgh! Wendy again!
Gabe led the tour with more knowledge about bell making than Ethan would have expected. It wasn’t the first time Ethan had been here. In fact, all schoolkids in Bell Cove did at least one Bell Forge field trip. But he hadn’t been here in years.
“You’re lucky. They’re about to cast a large, rather ornate bell for St. Mark’s College in Atlanta,” Gabe told them. “This part is exciting and dangerous. Make sure you put on those hard hats and goggles while the molten metal is being poured. But the part I like best is when they begin to rub the ash off the cooled bell, and you see the bronze emerge with all the etched details. It’s always a surprise. Like opening a Christmas present.”
Gabe might not have gone into his family business, but he clearly loved parts of it, nonetheless. Like Ethan and the tree farming, in a convoluted reverse sort of way. Ethan had hated tree farming, but had been forced into it, and now he loved it . . . at least the business end of it.
Maybe this meeting wouldn’t be hopeless after all.
At the end of the tour, they went into the office, Gabe behind the desk and the three of them in folding chairs.
“Here’s the deal,” Gabe said. “The forge sits on a five-million-dollar property. Yeah, that’s what the Benson group has offered. It would be a teardown, for them.”
The three of them were shocked into silence for a moment. They’d known that Outer Banks property was valuable, but not that valuable. For just a brief blip of a second, Ethan wondered what his five acres would be worth. A fortune.
“Add to that a factory with a specialized product that is no longer viable in today’s market. A money pit of colossal proportions.”
Laura had tears in her eyes, which Gabe noticed. He and Tony were feeling a bit deflated, too.
“I understand your feelings,” Gabe said, pushing a box of tissues toward the edge of the desk nearest Laura, “but I can only afford to take the tax loss for so long before throwing in the towel.”
“Aren’t there any alternatives to a firm like Benson’s, which you know will subdivide and commercialize?” Laura asked, swiping at her eyes.
“There might be. I have a real estate company looking into other businesses that might fit into this space. And I haven’t given up on bell making entirely, but it would require a total refab of the company’s operation, an adaptation to today’s market.”
“What can we do?” Ethan asked.
“Your town—the council, or some redevelopment body—could put out feelers for someone interested in taking over the building.”
“But for five million dollars!” Laura exclaimed. “No one except greedy developers with plans for condos or strip malls or boardwalks would be able to come up with that kind of cash. The bloodsucking creeps!” You could tell by the glance she gave Gabe that she put him in that same sleazeball category.
Gabe glared right back at her.
So, they were back to combatants, not potential lovers.
Oh, well!
“How much time do we have?” Tony asked.
“Let’s meet again next week after you’ve all had a chance to digest what I’ve told you. I’m going to be in town through the holidays, staying in my grandparents’ place.” He groaned. “That’s another thing. I’ve got to go through that big white elephant of a place to see what can be done. What a mess!”
“You would sell Chimes?” Laura asked, aghast. Chimes was the name given to the white-shingled Conti mansion on a man-made bluff facing
the ocean, once home to the three Conti brothers, only one of whom had a wife. Probably another multimillion-dollar property.
“Why not?” Gabe asked, cocking his head to the side. “No one’s living there. It’s too big for one family. Besides, it’s kind of ugly architecturally.”
Laura inhaled sharply. “It’s beautiful, and it’s a historical treasure. I might not have a fancy degree in architecture, but I recognize beauty when I see it. Try to sell that house as a teardown, Mister Conti, and I’ll see you in court.”
Ethan wanted to warn Laura that this animosity was no way to win Gabe over to their side in saving Bell Forge.
But Gabe just grinned at Laura and said, “Game on.”
Chapter 9
Good friends, good food, booze . . .
The conversation around the dining room table that evening was wild, to say the least. Maybe it was the wine, or the bourbon in the dessert, which was aptly called Boozy Bread Pudding, or just the Christmas spirit, but everyone was feeling a little more relaxed and cheerful than usual.
Wendy and her aunt sat at either end of the long table, to which an extension had been added, with Aunt Mildred’s five houseguests on one side, and Wendy’s four Coronado friends on the other. While they ate Elmer’s delicious lasagna with a green salad and warm garlic bread, washed down with a bottle of red wine . . . or two, or was it three? . . . which Geek and K-4 had purchased after their lunch at the Cracked Crab, the subject matter went all over the place. Starting with sex. Yes, sex!
“Is it true what they say about Navy SEALs in bed?” Gloria, the longtime librarian, asked out of the blue. Aunt Mildred had warned Wendy that Gloria was in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s and had good days and bad. She was going into an assisted-living facility as soon as a room was available after the holidays.