Build Me Up (NaNoWriMo)

Day 1 (1,909 words)

Author’s Note: Day one of NaNoWriMo started out with a lot of procrastination on my part, but I eventually sat down and wrote for a few hours. The plan for tomorrow, though, is to use the full 24 hours of the day. I’ve never done this before, and I don’t know if I’ll succeed, but I thought it’d be fun.

Trivia: I’ve recently started using a name generator to think of names for places and people. The name of the town and the names of some of the people in this story have been constructed just so. They are not based on actual persons, living or dead, even if the names should happen to exist previously (which they undoubtedly do). If you’re looking for name ideas, try this website: http://www.namegenerator.biz/. I’ve got it bookmarked J

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Kristen Barnes hoisted her large suitcase off of the conveyer belt at Greenport local airport, rescuing it from the dark hole it was destined to fall through at the end of the line. Okay, so it was more of a latch than a hole, but same diff. Better safe than sorry, was her motto. Okay, that was so not her motto, but it sounded good in her head as she thought it.

Kristen was exhausted. The flight from LAX to JFK had been pleasant enough – she’d even allowed herself a couple of sips of champagne – hey, they were complimentary! – even though she was technically on the clock. But then came the horrendous flight from JFK to Greenport, MA. Kristen had flown to a lot of places but she’d never seen a plane this small or this rickety. She remembered an episode of The Simpsons where future-Maggie was forced to fly and the airline told its passengers to hold onto the emergency doors lest they fly off… this flight was a lot like that.

The arrival hall, which she entered after passing a customs booth that wasn’t staffed, was cramped and decorated with sea shells on the walls. Her designer-tentacles were tingling – no, cringing – and Kristen forced herself to look for the Exit sign. That had a red lobster decorating it.

Kristen spent years in college becoming an architect, and then got a second degree in interior design. Interior decorating, on the other hand, came naturally to her – and luckily didn’t require any classes. She always found this more fun to do, but combining her skills had made her sought-after. After all, that’s how she landed the job with Quinlan Bankhead.

Out of all the projects she’d been hired to work on, this one was by far the most exciting. Quinlan Bankhead, multi-billionaire and an eccentric, had acquired a lighthouse and the surrounding land from the Greenport municipality and now he wanted to turn it into a spectacular abode. His words, not hers.

Quinlan Bankhead had been difficult to pin down, so Kristen had met with his lawyers and personal assistants – she wasn’t sure how many PAs he actually had, but she’d met three of them – and done a basic sketch based on the specs she’d seen. Her real challenge started now, though. Now she was going to visit the actual location and meet with Mr. Bankhead himself.

Quinlan Bankhead had very particular ideas on how he wanted the project carried out. For one, Kristen was expected to be available 24-7, meaning she couldn’t do her work from all the way over in L.A. Instead, she’d been booked into a small Bed and Breakfast a mere stone’s throw away from the building site. She was expected to oversee the build, liaise with contractors, smooch the Greenport Historical Society – which apparently was none too happy about yet another lighthouse losing its luster – and order every last thing she needed to make his dream home.

Kristen was used to eccentric people, and to rich people – she’d grown up with a pair of them, after all – but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t hesitated in taking on a one-year contract under which she was to be almost exclusively confined to a small fishing village on the East Coast. In the end, it was a rare challenge, and Kristen wanted to test her abilities.