Flipped Out (3 page)

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Derek answered, sending me a smile across the table.

I smiled back. Melissa smiled, too, tightly, and dropped her hand from Derek’s shoulder, albeit not without a last little stroke. “Has the crew arrived?”

“I assume so. If something had happened, I’m sure Kate would have called.”

“They’ll be at the house in the morning?”

“Bright and early,” Derek said.

“Wonderful.” Melissa glanced at Tony. “We might stop by, if you don’t mind. To meet everyone.”

Her tone indicated that we’d better not. Mind.

“Sure,” Derek said. “It’s your house. Not like we want to keep you out.”

Speak for yourself,
I thought.

“Tony’s been in broadcasting for twenty years, you know. It’s quite possible he already knows some of the crew.” She used the hand with the ring to smooth her sleek, moonlight-pale hair behind one ear. By now, I was sure she was trying to draw attention to it, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of hearing me ask. And Derek, bless him, was oblivious. Of course, he’d had his back to them and hadn’t seen the champagne toast or the little velvet box.

“Television is a small world,” Tony said in his wellmodulated reporter’s voice. “I know a lot of people. Twenty-plus years in the business, a body gets around.” He passed a hand over his jet-black hair while smiling complacently at Melissa. “Are you ready to go, Missy?”

Melissa nodded. He took her elbow, and they moved away between the tables.

“I always feel like there’s a smell of sulfur in the air whenever she’s been around,” I told Derek, sotto voce, as soon as they were out of range.

His lips quirked even as he checked to make sure Melissa and Tony were too far away to have heard me. “I think that’s her perfume.”

It was my turn to smother a giggle. “They’ll be breathing down our necks for the next week, you know. Melissa might even offer to get her hands dirty, just to get more face time.”

“I’m sure Tony has better things to do than hang around our project,” Derek answered. “He’ll have to cover the news for channel eight. I’m sure something will happen this week that’ll capture the public’s imagination and keep him busy. As for Melissa, don’t worry about her. She might drop by to get her face and name on TV, but she won’t try to do any of your work. Too afraid to break a nail.”

He polished off the rest of his burger.

I looked down at my own hands. I’ve never been able to grow my nails long, and with all the manual labor that I do, no polish would last beyond a day before peeling off anyway. So I keep my nails short and natural. On my hands, anyway. I do tend to go a little crazy on my toes, however. At the moment, they were lime green with pink tips to match my sundress, which had a border of green and brown palm trees against a pink sky marching around the hem.

“Are you ready?” Derek asked.

I looked back up at him. “To go home?”

“I was thinking more of tomorrow. Are you ready to tackle the work and the TV crew? Get out in front of the cameras and get your groove on?” He grinned.

I shrugged. I was feeling a little apprehensive about appearing on TV—nobody wants to look bad or sound stupid in front of a national audience—but on the other hand, I was looking forward to doing the work, and the exposure would be good. Between our own projects, while we wait for one house to sell so we can buy another, we sometimes have to take on jobs for other people to make ends meet. A TV appearance might mean more exciting opportunities, instead of just spending our time painting other people’s walls and sanding other people’s floors.

“Always looking on the bright side,” Derek said when I pointed this out.

“It beats always expecting the worst, doesn’t it?”

“That it does. And on that note . . .” He lifted his glass. “Here’s to us, and to another great project.”

I lifted mine, too. “A great project without any skeletons in the basement, or for that matter, any hidden rooms or dark family secrets.”

“Or dead bodies,” Derek said, since we’d found one or two of those every time we’d taken on a new project.

“I’ll drink to that.”

We clinked our glasses together and did.

2

The camera crew arrived on Cabot Street bright and early the next morning. Derek and I were waiting on the porch steps, each gripping our paper cup of coffee, when the white van pulled up to the curb.

The van was unmarked. I guess I’d expected something like the Channel Eight News van, with its colorful logo and slogan and Tony and his coanchors’ faces depicted many times life size on the side, but when I thought about it, I realized that that didn’t make sense. The crew was based in California and wouldn’t have driven all the way to Maine; they had probably rented a van at the airport to haul all their gear up here.

The driver was a lean, sallow man with a narrow face, dark hair in need of a cut, and sad, droopy eyes like a bloodhound. A pair of ill-fitting khakis hung low on his hips, and on his feet were heavy boots with thick soles. Next to him in the passenger seat sat a blond woman in her early forties wearing a businesslike gray pantsuit. She looked expensive. Back in New York, I’m not sure I would have thought so, but here in Waterfield, she stood out. It was another reminder how much my life and my perceptions had changed over the past year.

The back of the van held three other people, all dressed in jeans and T-shirts: one woman, two men. The woman was barely out of her teens and had a tangle of long, black hair pulled up into two bunches, one above each ear, as well as piercings in her nose, her eyebrow, her ears, her navel, and possibly a few other places that weren’t visible at the moment. She was chewing bubblegum, and as she stepped out on the sidewalk and pivoted slowly, looking around, she blew a big, pink bubble, popped it, and did it again.

Of the two men, one was a few years younger than me, just on the underside of thirty, and the other in his midfifties at a guess. He had thinning, gray hair and a beard, plus a stomach that curved the blue T-shirt he wore under a many-pocketed safari-type vest. The younger man was unnaturally handsome, like a soap opera actor or model. His jeans were a touch too snug, and his black T-shirt clung tightly to his chest. The brown leather of his cowboy boots was a perfect match for the glossy brown curls framing a face that could have graced the cover of
People
magazine’s “most beautiful” issue.

Derek snorted derisively.

I grinned.

The well-dressed woman looked at us, then came up the walk on pointy stilettos. “You must be the talent.”

Derek got to his feet and extended a hand. “Derek Ellis.” He indicated me. “This is Avery Baker.”

“I’m Nina Andrews.” She extended her hand. Her grip was no-nonsense, and so was the look in her eyes, although I noticed what appeared to be stress lines around her mouth and across her forehead. “I’m the director. This is the rest of the crew.” She turned to the van. “Fae, our PA. That’s F-A-E, like the fairy. No
y
, in case you ever have a need to spell it. Ted, the grip and gaffer. He does the lighting and other technical set up.”

Ted was the driver, the skinny guy with the sallow complexion. He had opened the back of the van and was busy hauling plastic crates full of cords and equipment out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk, and he must have been stronger than he looked, because the big crates didn’t seem to trouble him.

“Wilson is the camera operator”—the older guy with the vest; he was helping Ted unload the van—“and this is Adam.”

Her voice changed ever so slightly when she said Adam’s name, although that could have been because Adam himself came up to stand next to her right then.

Up close, he was almost too pretty. Perfect nose, perfect skin, dark blue eyes with long lashes, pink lips that missed being too full by a hair, and white teeth so straight and even they couldn’t possibly be real.

He took my hand in both of his, just holding it and not shaking, while he gave me a melting smile and a long, appreciative look from under his lashes. “I’m Adam Ramsey. Nice to meet you.”

“Avery Baker. Likewise.” I twitched my hand out of his. I was Derek’s girlfriend and had no business holding hands with anyone else, and despite his obvious attributes, Adam didn’t appeal to me. He had this veneer of high gloss that made him look sort of waxed. And the charm was too practiced, too calculated. He reminded me of my ex-boyfriend Philippe, the reproduction furniture maker I had worked for in New York. Philippe had been all about appearances, and I was willing to bet Adam was, too. He wasn’t pleased to meet me; he was just oozing charm because I was female and that was what he did. Nina must be used to it, because she didn’t bat an eye.

Next to me, Derek flashed a grin full of teeth and warning. “I’m Derek Ellis. Avery’s boyfriend. She and I will be doing the renovating.” He gave Adam’s hand a good squeeze.

“Adam’s our runner,” Nina said as Adam stuffed his hands into his pockets. “He does a little of this and a little of that, wherever he’s needed. Right now, he should be over there with Ted and Wilson, unloading the van.” She glanced at him.

Unabashed, Adam saluted. “Sure, Neen.” He winked at me before he turned on his cowboy-booted heel and sauntered toward the van. About halfway down the garden path, he passed Fae, and he must have said something to her, because she giggled and twisted her neck to look at him over her shoulder, her cheeks almost as pink as the bubblegum.

Nina narrowed her eyes, but when Fae stopped beside her, she performed the next round of introductions without comment. “Fae, this is the talent, Derek and Avery. Fae is our PA, or production assistant. She takes care of any paperwork, legal permits, motel reservations, that sort of thing.”

“Nice to meet you, Fae,” I said. Derek just smiled. Fae lowered her eyes, blushing again. Given the many body piercings and the amount of skin showing between the low-slung jeans and cropped top, I’d have thought she’d be harder and more sophisticated, but she actually seemed like sort of a nice girl.

“Speaking of motel reservations,” Derek said, “you’re staying at the Waterfield Inn, correct?”

Nina nodded. “Mr. Carrick said we had to. That he and Mrs. Carrick stayed there when they were in town for Christmas.” She looked at me. “Rosemary Carrick is your mother, isn’t she?”

I nodded. “She and Noel got married a couple of years ago. Second marriage for both of them. He’s the one who suggested that Derek and I should do an episode of your show.”

“If Mr. Carrick suggested it, then I’m sure it’s a good idea,” Nina said loyally. “You’re familiar with the Waterfield Inn, I take it?”

Derek and I both nodded. “Kate McGillicutty is my best friend,” I said, forgetting momentarily that she was Kate Rasmussen now.

Derek added, “The Waterfield Inn is the nicest B and B in town. You’ll be comfortable there.”

“We’re already settled in. Flew into Logan last night and drove up.” Nina smiled.

The Waterfield Inn has only four guest rooms. The big suite on the third floor where Mom and Noel had stayed when they were here in December, and three regular-sized rooms on the second floor. There were five people on the TV crew. I couldn’t help wondering who was rooming with someone else. Adam and Nina? Adam and Fae?

Or maybe no one was. There were two bedrooms on the first floor of the B&B, too, behind the kitchen and dining room, in the “private” part of the house. Kate and her daughter Shannon had lived in them until Kate married Wayne and the newlyweds moved out to the renovated carriage house. Shannon was still in hers, but maybe Kate had offered the other to Fae, while Nina was in the suite and the three guys had the three second-floor rooms. The first-floor rooms weren’t outfitted as guest rooms, but Fae might not mind, and she might even enjoy being next door to Shannon, who was close to her own age.

Problem solved.

While I’d been speculating on possible Hollywood hookups, Nina and Derek had moved on to the job ahead and what the next week would bring. Nina was explaining about the production schedule and why she’d prefer that he not wear the white T-shirt he had on while the cameras were rolling (too much of a contrast to his tanned face). She also said that we should avoid fabrics with patterns, like herringbone, corduroy, and pinstripes, all of which would create a wavy rainbow-colored pattern called a moiré effect on-screen. Since it was July and hot, and since most T-shirts don’t come in those patterns, I didn’t think we needed to worry.

She turned to me. “Red and deep orange aren’t good colors for the camera, either, and it’s probably best to avoid black or really dark blue, since you’re relatively pale.”

“Sure.” I nodded obediently, although privately I thought that the list of admonitions didn’t leave me with a whole lot of options. Derek and I both wear a lot of white T-shirts to work, since they’re cheap and easy to replace when they get ruined. And they get ruined a lot. I’d have to pull out some of my nicer stuff this week. Which might not be a bad idea anyway, since I definitely wanted to look my best on TV.