Danielle Steel: Second Chance

“Hi, how are you?” He sounded relaxed and cheerful, despite a long, aggravating day at his end. But he wasn't one to complain, particularly not to someone he didn't know well. He had been fighting all afternoon to keep a major account, which was threatening to walk. He had saved it finally, but felt as though he had spent the entire day giving blood. “Is this a bad time?” Fiona chuckled at the question.

One of the models had just passed out from the heat, and another one had just thrown a bottle of Evian at Henryk Zeff for taking her out of a shot. “No, not at all. Perfect time,” Fiona said, laughing. If she'd had a gun, she would have shot them all. “My models are dropping like flies and having tantrums, one of them just threw something at the photographer, we're all about to keel over from sunstroke and heat prostration, and the photographer's twelve-year-old wife is nursing twins, both of whom have heat rash and haven't stopped crying all week. Just another ordinary day at Chic.” He laughed at her description, but to Fiona, it was all too real, even if hard for him to imagine. She was used to this. It was daily fare for her. “How was your day?”

“It's sounding a lot better now that I've heard yours. I've been running the Paris peace talks here since seven A.M. But I think we won. I just had a crazy idea and thought I'd give you a call. I was wondering if you wanted to have a hamburger with me on your way home.” This time she guffawed.

“I'd love to, except that I'm standing here up to my ass in the Atlantic in two-hundred-degree heat, somewhere on a beach on Long Island, in some godforsaken town with nothing but a bowling alley and a diner, and at this rate, we'll be here till tomorrow morning. Otherwise I'd have loved it. Thanks for asking.”

“We'll do it some other time. What time are you planning to wrap up?”

“After sunset, whenever that is. I think this is supposed to be the longest day of the year. I knew that by about noon, after two of the models slapped each other, and one of them threw up from the heat.”

“I'm glad I don't have your job. Is it always like that?”

“No. Usually, it's worse. Zeff runs a pretty tight ship. He doesn't put up with a lot. He keeps threatening to walk out and expects me to make everyone behave. Good luck on that.”

“Do you always go to the shoots?” He understood little about her job, and had somehow assumed that she sat at a desk, writing about clothes. It was considerably more complicated than that, although she did a lot of writing too, and checking over everyone else's work, for content and style. Fiona ran Chic with an iron hand. She worried about the budget and was the most fiscally responsible editor-in-chief they'd ever had. In spite of their vast expenses, the magazine had been in the black for years and turned a handsome profit, in great part thanks to her, and the quality of her product.

“I only go to shoots when I have to. Most of the time, the younger editors take care of that. But if it's dicey enough, or liable to be, I go. This one is. And Zeff is a major star, so are the girls here.”

“Are they modeling bikinis?” he asked innocently, and she laughed even harder.

“No. Fur.”

“Oh, shit.” He couldn't even imagine it in this heat.

“Precisely. We keep having to ice the girls down after they take them off. So far no one has died of the heat, so I guess we're still ahead.”

“I hope you're not wearing fur too,” he teased.

“Nope. I'm standing here in the water, in a bikini. And the photographer's wife has been walking around naked all day, holding her babies.”

“It all sounds very exotic.” Beautiful women wandering around naked or wearing fur on a beach. It was an interesting vision, as he imagined Fiona standing in the ocean in a bikini talking to him on her cell phone. “Not exactly like my workday. But I guess it sounds like fun too.”

“Sometimes it is,” she conceded as Henryk Zeff started waving his arms at her in a panic. He wanted to move for their last shot, and all but one of the girls objected, and pleaded exhaustion from the heat. He wanted Fiona to negotiate it for him, which of course she would. “Looks like I've got to go, the Indians are about to kill the chief. I'm not sure who I feel sorrier for, him or them or me. I'll call you back,” she said, sounding distracted. “Probably tomorrow.” It was already seven-fifteen, she realized, as she glanced at her watch, and she was surprised he was still in the office.

“I'll call you,” he said calmly, but she was already gone, as he sat pensively at his desk. Her life seemed light-years from his, although the art department in the agency was certainly not unfamiliar with a life like hers. But John rarely dealt with them and never went on shoots. He was far too busy soliciting new accounts, and keeping the existing ones happy, and overseeing vast amounts of money being spent on ad campaigns. The details of how those campaigns were put together were someone else's problem and not his. But he was undeniably intrigued by Fiona's world. It sounded fascinating and exotic to him, although Fiona would have disagreed with him, as she helped the assistants pack Henryk's equipment, while his wife had a tantrum, and he argued with her, and both babies cried. The models were languishing under umbrellas, drinking warm lemonade from a huge container, and threatening to quit, trying to negotiate hardship pay, and calling their agencies on their cell phones. They said no one had told them how long the shoot would be, or that it would involve fur. One of the models had already threatened to walk out on principle, and said she was going to report them to PETA, who would surely demonstrate in front of the magazine, as they had before, if they featured fur too prominently.

It was another hour before they were fully set up in the new location half a mile down the beach, and it was nearly sunset by then. They had just enough time for the last shot, and Henryk was busily shouting everyone into place. By then, his wife was asleep in the car with the twins. And Fiona realized she was exhausted as she watched the last of the shoot. It was after nine before they got everyone dressed and off the beach, all the camera equipment packed up, and the models into the limousines that Chic had hired for the day. The catering truck was already gone. Henryk and his wife and babies took off first. And Fiona was the last to leave. She had rented a Town Car for herself, and closed her eyes and put her head back against the seat as they drove away. It was nearly eleven when she got home. But from a technical standpoint, it had been a perfect day. She knew the shots would be great, and none of the problems would ever show.

But as she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she felt a hundred years old. And she smiled when she found Sir Winston snoring loudly on her bed. She envied him the life he led. She was too tired to eat dinner, or even go downstairs to the kitchen for something to drink. She had an acute case of heartburn after drinking lemonade all day. And when her cell phone rang, she stared at it for a long moment, too tired to reach out and fish it out of her bag. She knew in another two rings it would go to voice mail, and she didn't care. And then at the last second, she realized it might be Henryk, with some dire problem after the shoot. Maybe they had an accident on the way back and lost all the film, or got kidnapped by a UFO.

“Yes?” she said in a flat, nearly unrecognizable voice. She was almost too tired to care.

“God, you sound dead. Are you okay?” It was John, and she didn't recognize his voice.

“I am dead. Who is this, and why are you calling me?” At least it wasn't Henryk. The voice was American, not British, and no one normally cared if she was dead or not. Not in a long time anyway.