Picture Perfect Autumn
A Manhattan photographer finds inspiration and new possibilities in a Gothic Rhode Island beach house in this uplifting fall-set read from New York Times bestselling author Shelley Noble.
Dani Campbell is the latest darling of the Manhattan art scene. As a self-taught photographer, Dani is loving every minute of her sudden popularity, but has no idea how she got there, or a clue as to how to stay. On a shoot at an antiques barn, she discovers an envelope of old photos and sees in them what her photos are missing. Her search for their source leads Dani to a small Rhode Island town, a dilapidated American Gothic beach house--and Lawrence Sinclair.
Reclusive and bitter, the last thing eighty-year-old Lawrence wants to think about is photography—the thing that inadvertently led to his son’s death and tore his family apart. But Dani is determined and persuasive, and Lawrence can’t help but be intrigued by the girl with spiky hair who wants to learn from him, when almost everyone else just wants to relieve him of his substantial fortune.
Dani and Lawrence’s mentorship blossoms unexpectedly, but everything is put in jeopardy by the appearance of Lawrence’s estranged grandson, Peter. Peter is determined to spend some time reconnecting with his grandfather and to get rid of the supposed fortune hunter after Lawrence’s money. But Dani is not what he was expecting, and he soon discovers that they have more things in common than not.
Brought together by fortune, fate, and the ties that bind, all three embark on journeys of discovery and love.
Chapter One
Dani Campbell was headed for a gigantic fall. She knew it. She could feel it lurking close by, waiting for her to blink. So she just wouldn’t blink, not tonight anyway. Tonight she was riding high, the darling of the New York art world. Basking in the limelight of her success and celebrating her first solo photographic opening at a Hamptons art gallery.
It was exciting and fun, being the center of attention. Schmoozing with other avant artists and networking with the movers and shakers of the East Coast art world. Smiling and laughing; saying outrageous things about art, being insightful and clever, as the champagne flowed and the canapés disappeared from trays as fast as they appeared.
Across the room, her agent, Manny Rodriguez, was already talking up her next show, lining up possibilities, upping the ante.
Self-taught and only twenty-eight, Dani was the bright young star of the season. She was young, but not naive. She knew that all these friendly well-wishers could turn into enemies faster than their smiles could follow. She’d already seen careers disintegrate practically overnight. Like Jake Carras, whose rising star had burned out but who refused to let go. He was here tonight, standing just outside the action, pretending he wasn’t being ignored. His career as fleeting as the ice sculpture in the foyer already beginning to melt under the lights.
Dani turned away. That wouldn’t happen to her. She was good. Everyone said so. Still, in a stolen quiet moment she’d recite her mantra. Fake it till you make it. Because Dani had no idea what she was doing or how she’d gotten here. Or more importantly, how to stay.
She upped the wattage, stood a little more confidently; smiling, successful, her spiked hair sharper than the cutting edge her work “defined,” while quaking on her stilettos, knowing it might all come crashing down without warning.
And she couldn’t help but think she was missing something important.
The next morning on her way back to the city, she drove past a sign for Ye Olde Antiques Barn. Dani knew better than to associate with anything with “Ye Olde” attached to its name, but she was a sucker for a junk store. She loved how everything was all jumbled together regardless of period or style or use. She loved how she could photograph odd objects and turn them into something wonderful with just a few manipulations of a graphics app. She suspected that her life could use a good app right now.
She turned off the main road and pulled into the parking lot of what had actually once been a barn. She got her camera case from the mesh cargo hold of her SUV, set the alarm, and went inside.
The barn was dark and smelled of old age, with rows of shelves, stacks of magazines, boxes spilling over with the castoffs of castoffs. Cheap as dirt and just waiting for Dani to turn them all into celebrities.
She spent the morning shooting doilies and oil cans, jars of buttons and headless action figures. Then just as she decided to get back on the road, she spotted a dented metal Chinese checkers board sticking out from a box of misshapen chalkboard erasers. Just one more shot. She pushed away a moldy nine-by-twelve envelope blocking her view.
The envelope split open, revealing a tantalizing peek of photographs inside.
Enlargements, years old, probably of some forgotten family vacation. Dani looked anyway, how could she not look? It was what she did.
The first was a nest, half-hidden among the weeds, and a duck, head tucked beneath its wing in sleep or protection. A black and white shot that told everything in one perfect moment.
She felt tears well up. She blinked them away.
It’s just a duck, she told herself. But it was more than that. That one simple photo had something none of Dani’s had—ever. She recognized it right away. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew she needed it if she was going to stay on top.
She turned the photo over but found only stains, as if it had been sitting on a wet table. She looked at each photo, carefully turning each over before placing it to the side, as excitement and wonder grew inside her.
A cactus standing like a sentinel in the desert. Maple syrup dripping from a tap into a wooden bucket. A nightgown wafting from a clothesline like a ghost, like a spirit, like the soul of whoever had worn it last.
A woman standing on a rocky cliff overlooking the sea, a house several stories tall, balanced on the earth behind her, as if a breeze could send them both over the edge. The woman, thin as a wraith, her hair gossamer fine, lifted her face to the sky, as if she might take off and fly. For a moment Dani flew with her. Then an overwhelming sadness or happiness or maybe both encompassed her.
She turned it over. And on the back: “Lawrence Sinclair, 1964,” and a contact number. And she knew she had to find him. Because he had something she lacked. Something she had to get.
As soon as she got back to her Lower East Side apartment, she Googled him. And found zip. Lawrence Sinclair had dropped out of sight decades ago, leaving a smattering of incredible photographs in galleries across the country and no forwarding anything.
She closed her laptop. He might be dead. But she had to find out.
The next day, she sent out a flurry of emails, made phone call after phone call. For the next few weeks, she scoured newspaper archives, knocked on doors, interviewed several prospective Lawrence Sinclairs. None of them had panned out so far.
She was down to her last chance.
And that was why she was driving down a rutted, barely recognizable car track somewhere in Rhode Island, wearing clothes she’d had on for two days, and her heart racing like someone had spiked the milkshake she’d just had for lunch.
She’d finally traced the contact number to a photography studio in the town of Old Murphy Beach. The studio had shut its doors decades before and was now a newly opened dollar store. The clerk there didn’t remember it, but the guy at the laundry next door dropped words she wanted to hear. “Used to be a Sinclair family about a mile and a half down the road.”
She was down that road now, and it wasn’t looking good. The car track was so neglected and overgrown that she’d begun to wonder if maybe she’d just been punked. Once paved, big chunks of asphalt had heaved from the earth creating a moonscape in her path.
She reached over and touched the envelope that sat on the passenger seat beside her. The path suddenly jigged to the right; Dani yanked the wheel; the SUV spewed sand as she turned; and the envelope slid to the floor. She leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel, and crept along for another fifty feet before coming to an abrupt stop just as her GPS went blank, then a No Data Available warning popped onto the screen.
Dani stared in dismay, then dropped her forehead to the steering wheel. She’d counted on this being the right place, the right Lawrence Sinclair who would unlock the meaning of photography for her. Who would save her career while it was still a career. Who would teach her that thing she needed.
She lifted her head just enough to risk a peek. If Lawrence Sinclair was still alive, he was living in the gothic horror beach house from hell. Without a beach in sight.