Build Me Up

by Grouse, Lili

  Ford had been sure that a summer spent in Greenport with him would turn Annabelle around, make her see there was more to life than glitz and glamour. He was as far removed from that scene as any person could get, after all. He’d been wrong. From the moment Annabelle had set foot in Greenport, she’d complained nonstop. He finally had to confiscate her phone and laptop and force her to take a job at the grocery store to learn the value of a paycheck and hard work. Now he was down to two more weeks to turn things around. He was so screwed.

  Kristen woke up with the sun. That, and her screeching alarm. She fumbled for the off button, and slammed down hard on the alarm clock. Another would go off in a few minutes, and that one was further out of her reach.

  However, the wailing didn’t stop with Kristen’s well-aimed hit. If anything, it seemed to increase. Puzzled, Kristen rubbed the sleep from her eyes and sat up against the headboard. What was going on?

  The less than melodious sound was coming from the other side of the door. Was that a-? Frowning, Kristen swung her legs over the edge of the bed and tiptoed over to the door, putting her ear to it. She’d seen enough horror movies to know this particular maneuver would never end well, so she gave up on trying to determine the source of the racket and wrenched the door open.

  Kristen shrieked as a ball of lightning with furry exterior came through the cracked door. Putting her hand to her chest to calm her racing heart, she located the little hairball monster by the French doors.

  “Frank Sinatra, I take it?” she muttered, recognizing the cat Mrs. Breezer had fed in the kitchen. The one who only ate veal.

  The black cat scratched at the glass door in reply and Kristen tentatively approached the semi-wild creature. It looked at her with inscrutable eyes, and she extended her arm as far from her body as it would go, opening one of the French doors to let the castrated singer out. She quickly shut the door behind it, watching from a safe distance as the cat jumped up on the balcony ledge and started scouting for intruders.

  A blue jay caught Frank Sinatra’s attention, and before she knew it, the feline had pushed off the balcony and flung itself at a tree. It was all she could do but stare. Was she living in a cuckoo’s nest with these cats? She’d yet to see the elusive Humphrey Bogart, but if he took issue with guests waking him up, she was happy to have missed the encounter thus far.

  Well, she was up now, and so she might as well get dressed for the day. Today was her first official meeting with Quinlan Bankhead, and she would need to dress to impress. Closing the door to the staircase to avoid risking other felines pouncing on her and leaving their hair – or other forms of markings – on her clothes, Kristen turned on the shower and proceeded to get herself ready.

  The kitchen was empty and Kristen went straight for the cereal. In L.A., she would be going out for breakfast, not slave away at the stove, so pouring herself a bowl of milk and cereal felt like an easy enough way to put some food in her system.

  She ate at the sink, suspecting she’d find cat hairs on both chairs and table and not wanting to risk having to find a lint brush before her meeting. Her portfolio was stocked with drawings and notes and she was ready to face Mr. Bankhead.

  After returning from the restaurant last night, Kristen had pulled out her notepad and started scribbling down ideas. She could only hope Mr. Bankhead wanted his new home to reflect the spirit of Greenport.

  From the early specs she’d received, she knew he wanted to keep the lighthouse shape while creating a new structure around it. After all, what was the point in buying a lighthouse if you didn’t like the shape of it? Kristen had done her research on other lighthouse renovations and remodels, and she had some ideas on how to use the space.

  There was no getting around that the staircase would have to remain and that the only living space in the Greenport lighthouse would be the old lighthouse keeper’s office at the top, offering a 360 degree view. Heating would be an issue, and she’d need to discuss with the contractor on how to make the space livable all year round.

  Kristen had already called for a cab to bring her over to the lighthouse, where she would meet with Mr. Bankhead. He was currently living in Boston and, from what Kristen had gathered, wasn’t planning on moving to Greenport anytime soon. It was a vacation home, but he wanted year-round living conditions. It wasn’t impossible to walk to the lighthouse from Breeze Inn, but Kristen was intent on wearing her heels today, paired with her business suit which consisted of a cobalt pencil dress and a short black jacket. She’d pulled up her hair in a loose French twist and hoped the breeze coming in from the sea wasn’t going to mess it up too badly before she arrived.

  The cab driver was a different one from her ride from the airport – thank goodness – and she got to the lighthouse in a matter of minutes. She tipped the driver for his effort, which made him smile just a little bit brighter at her and promise he’d be back to pick her up if she called him directly. A business card made its way into her hand and she tucked it into her portfolio’s outer pocket as she approached the little cottage that sat a short distance from the lighthouse.

  The Greenport lighthouse had been used to mark the entrance into the Greenport harbor in its day, but the lighthouse keeper had retired years ago and none had taken his place. The lighthouse and accompanying cottage had been property of the Greenport municipality until Quinlan Bankhead had come along, maintained with a minimum of effort, as far as Kristen could see.

  The paint was peeled and the roof of the cottage bore signs of storms passing and ruffling the tiles. They could be looking at leakage and structural damage, so hopes of keeping most of the original structure intact were slim. She would know more once she got inside, and so she walked up to the door and knocked.

  There was no response. Kristen checked her watch. She was a few minutes early, so maybe Mr. Bankhead hadn’t arrived yet. She decided to walk around the house and inspect as much as she could from the outside.

  The back of the house faced the ocean, a set of rocks shielding it to a small extent. Not a lot of room for expansion on the seaside. A trodden path led to the lighthouse, and she followed it. She’d made two different sketches to present – one where they built a house that connected directly to the old lighthouse, and one where an enclosed walkway connected the house to the entrance to the lighthouse.

  The latter suggestion would require sturdy glass to withstand harsh winds, but it would let the light and view from the sea through to the harbor village, not block it like a large house would. Kristen tried the weathered door to the lighthouse and it opened. Stepping inside, she felt the chill that inch thick walls of white brick brought to a space. The spiral cast-iron staircase leading up to the lantern room and galleries looked as if it would rattle under the weight of people walking up and down it. Could it be reinforced, or should they replace it entirely?

  The sound of a car rolling to a stop on gravel made Kristen startle and leave the lighthouse. It was a black limo that had pulled up, and a uniformed driver stepped out to open the back door. The man stepping out turned his head to look at her, and his back slicked hair glistened in the sunlight. Light brown, like her own in its dyed state.

  He looked more attractive in person, she’d give him that. He also looked more arrogant. It would appear a lot of things could be done with Photoshop these days; anti-glare, anti-red-eyes, anti-smug-face.

  “Miss Barnes!” he hollered over the roof of the limo. “Glad you could make it!”

  Kristen pulled back her shoulders and walked across the gravel yard, careful not to trip. Not the best first impression if you fall flat on your face.

  “Mr. Bankhead, I assume,” she said, extending her hand as she stepped closer.

  “Shall we inspect the premises, then?” he said after shaking her hand.

  “After you,” Kristen said and stepped aside to fall into step next to him.

  “The last time I was out here there were rats,” he said, his nose pulled upward and drawn in a mask of distaste. “I assume you took c
are of that.”

  Kristen frowned. She was hired to design, not chase away rodents. Besides, he must know she’d only arrived in town yesterday. “I have a good lead on a couple of cats that could take care of that problem for you,” she joked. The look he turned on her made her smile fall.

  “I understood it as you running a full-service business, Miss Barnes,” he said, his gaze giving her a chilled once-over. Oh, if he thought she was going to- Kristen rejected the idea at once. Quinlan Bankhead knew her father, he wouldn’t dare suggest anything untoward.

  “Pest control, I’m afraid, is not on my services offered list,” she said calmly. “I will of course make sure the house is in pristine condition upon delivery.”

  “I should hope so, Miss Barnes. If not, I hope you have legal insurance.”

  Things didn’t improve after that. By the time Kristen forced a cheery wave goodbye as Quinlan Bankhead drove off, she felt like she’d run a mile. In rain. Mixed with ice. He’d rejected all of her ideas, even the ones he’d given a general approval of before the meeting, and instructed her to go back to the drawing board and ‘get it right this time’.

  He’d also set the time limit. He wanted to have the house ready for final inspection no later than August 1st the following year, giving Kristen a timetable just shy of 12 months. If she could not deliver the house at that time, or if it failed to pass the final inspection, she could expect to hear from his lawyers.

  The right thing to do would be to tell Mr. Quinlan Bankhead to stuff it, but the sad truth was that he had influence, and she couldn’t risk having her reputation dragged through the mud. It wouldn’t just reflect poorly on herself, but on her father, as well. So Kristen had smiled and nodded and signed the dotted line, determined to come out the winner.

  She pulled out her phone to call Benny the friendly taxi driver, but her battery had run out. Kristen felt like jumping up and down in frustration, but not only would that make her look like a big baby to anyone who happened to see her, it would also break the blisters she had going on after trotting around the property in her heels. She wondered if Greenport had a spa. Maybe even a fish spa, given its location and all.

  Well, she had no choice but to walk back into town and over to her temporary place of residence. She needed to get back to charge her phone so she could call the contractor that was apparently the only contractor in the state of Massachusetts that was licensed to restore and/or remodel lighthouses. She really hoped he wouldn’t give her a hard time about it, because she already had one too many difficult men in her life.

  Ford was driving home from a job just outside town when he spotted her. The crazy tourist that had been walking in the middle of the road last time he saw her. This time, she was walking on the edge of the road, but she was also limping. Did she learn her lesson about walking all over the place because someone hit her with a bike or car? Nah, she didn’t look like she’d been injured, there was no dirt on her legs. Nice legs, but they were stuffed into heels. No wonder she was limping. Evil little inventions, that.

  Should he pull over and offer her a ride? It would be the polite thing to do, but that wasn’t really his style, was it? At least not according to his daughter and her mother. Then again, maybe Annabelle had a point. He needed to set a good example if he expected her to follow it. Of course, he knew she’d been grasping at straws for reasons not to do as he said, but that didn’t change the underlying truth of her statement.

  Ford slowed and rolled down his window, poking his head out while keeping an eye on the road.

  “You look like you could use a ride,” he said. He’d meant it to be casual and friendly, but the second she turned her head he realized he wouldn’t mind offering her a different kind of ride. Damn, she was beautiful. Her hair might have been pulled up into some fancy updo at one point, but now it was dancing around her face. She would look amazing with her hair all mussed, looking down at him with those green eyes dark and sparkling…

  “You!” she said, pointing at his face accusingly, her eyebrows drawn tight together and her eyes narrowed. “You almost ran me over yesterday!”

  It was like taking a cold shower. As soon as she opened her mouth he stopped thinking about what he wanted to do with it and started thinking what a bad idea it had been to pull over in the first place.

  “Hey, lady, I wasn’t anywhere near running you over, but at least you’ve learned by now that our roads are for driving, not...” Oh, damn, what was the word for what she’d been doing yesterday? Gallivanting? That sounded like something out of some 19th century novel. Which was probably where he’d last read it.

  “What? Walking on? Well, since this little craphole of a town doesn’t know the concept of pavements…”

  “Whoa! No-one asked you to come to our little ‘craphole’, so keep your observations to yourself, will you? Tourist,” he muttered and rolled up the window, gunning the engine to leave her in his dust. Good riddance to vapid tourists.

  THREE

  Kristen was seething by the time she got back to Breeze Inn. Not only were her feet absolutely killing her, she probably had bugs in her teeth from the wind, her hair had come undone and was now a tangled mess, and she’d been insulted not once but twice in the span of an hour. And now she was starving.

  She tore at her clothes, shedding them as soon as she’d closed the door to her room behind her. The old lady had made her bed, and now Frank Sinatra was lying on it.

  “No. No way!” Kristen said and marched over to the French doors. “You – out!”

  The cat seemed to understand, but took his time getting up, stretching his back, his paws… her patience.

  “Go kill a rat!” she ordered and he finally jumped off the bed and bounded outside. She slammed the door shut behind him, setting the glass shaking. Stomping her feet, Kristen scooped her discarded clothes off the floor – Frank Sinatra had gotten a striptease out of her, the scoundrel – and marched into the bathroom to run the tap. She needed a bath more than she needed a shower right now, something to relax her. She checked the bathroom cabinet for bath salts, but there were none. Another item to add to her shopping list.

  Even though her stomach was growling at her, Kristen stopped by the grocery store first to pick up some necessities in the way of toiletries. When she got to the checkout counter, she saw the same teenager working the till as when she’d been in there last.

  “Hi,” she greeted the girl, who wore her long dark hair in a ponytail and had caked on way too much makeup for a day job.

  “Hey,” the girl beamed as she recognized her. “You’re back.”

  “I expect I’ll be a regular, given my terrible memory and all,” Kristen smiled. “I’m Kristen, by the way.”

  “Elle.”

  “Oh, like in Legally Blonde?”

  The girl shrugged.

  “We did a Legally Blonde party when I was in college.” Kristen felt she needed to explain her offhand comment and reference to a movie that was probably made before this girl started putting on makeup.

  “Where’d you go to college?”

  “UCLA.”

  “What? For real? That’s where I wanna go.”

  “Really? Your parents are cool with you moving out to California?” Kristen said as she pulled out her credit card.

  “My mom already lives there. My stepdad is a movie producer.”

  “Oh, wow. Guess you get to go to a lot of screenings, then,” Kristen said, happy to have found some kind of connection to her home state.

  “Um… not really…”

  Kristen wanted to kick herself. Good job, Kristen, embarrassing the poor girl. Maybe she’d made up that her stepfather was a movie producer, or he didn’t make the kind of movies that were played in theatres.

  “Well, they’re pretty overrated,” Kristen said, attempting to smooth over the damage her previous statement might have caused.

  “Really?” Elle lit up. “Have you gone to many?”

  “Uh… one or two,” Kristen shrugged.
“Most of the frat parties I went to were way more fun.”

  “Cool,” Elle said and Kristen gave herself another kick on the shin. Great, now she was corrupting minors. She should say something about how frat parties weren’t always fun, that you had to watch out for yourself, not drink too much… but what a hypocrite she’d be if she started moralizing. If she had a penny for every time she’d puked her guts out after a party…

  “Well, I’ll see you around,” Kristen said and grabbed her bag of toiletries.

  “See you,” Elle returned and Kristen headed over to the restaurant she’d been to the day before. She could use a drink before getting back to the drawing board.

  “Thanks for fixing the cupboard, Ford,” Hallie said and squeezed his biceps, looking up at him like she wanted to repay him personally.

  “Sure thing,” he shrugged and picked up his toolbox from where he’d left it on the bar. His buddy owned the Sea Shack and Ford was always stopping by to fix a thing or two, so he’d gotten used to seeing Hallie on a regular basis. She was attractive, but she was also his buddy’s baby sister, and there was no way he was going there with her.

  “Can I get you a beer or something?”

  “I’m going to pick Annabelle up, so I’ll have to take a rain check.”

  “Still trying to be a good role model, huh?” Hallie perched on one of the bar stools, close enough that their legs were touching.

  “Yup. I’d better get going.” Ford backed up a step before turning around so that he wouldn’t hit Hallie with his toolbox. Instead, he slammed it into another person’s leg.

  “Damn! I’m sorry,” he started, then looked up at the woman the leg in question belonged to. Double-damn.

  Kristen let out a muffled curse when the heavy box hit her leg. Who carried around a freaking toolbox in a restaurant? She’d been heading for the table she’d occupied the day before, as there was no one around to seat her when she entered, and had veered to let a couple pass her when the metal contraption slammed into her.