Linda Lael Miller Bundle by Linda Lael Miller

quietly on Shay’s couch, her legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap.
    Shay smiled and shook her head. Love was marvelous. Richard’s crew was proof positive that she was going to have to film another commercial that very day and here was Ivy, waiting to grill her about the evening with Mitch, and she still felt wonderful. “I hate to pull rank, Ivy,” she said brightly, “but get out there and take care of business. Now.”
    Ivy looked hurt but nonetheless determined as she stood up and smoothed the skirt of her blue cotton dress. “At least promise to have lunch with me,” she said with dignity. “You did say that you’d tell me all about everything, you know.”
    Shay thought about “everything” and blushed. There was no way she was going to tell everything. “We may not have time for lunch today, Ivy. There’s another commercial scheduled, isn’t there? And by the way that phone is jumping around on the desk, I’d say it’s going to be a crazy day.”
    Ivy was sulking and just reaching for the doorknob when the door itself suddenly sprang open, the chasm filled by an earnest and somewhat testy Richard. “I know we planned to wait a week before we filmed the second spot, but something has come up and—”
    Shay smiled placidly, knowing that the advertising executive had been prepared for a battle. “Come in, Richard,” she said in a sweet voice. “Don’t bother to knock.”
    Richard looked sheepish and somewhat baffled. He ran one hand through his already mussed hair and stared at Shay in speechless bewilderment.
    She laughed. “Which one are we doing today?” she prompted lightly as Ivy dashed out and began answering the calls that were lighting up all the buttons on the telephone.
    “The one you hated.”
    Shay was still unruffled. “That figures. When are they airing yesterday’s artistic triumph?”
    “Next week,” Richard answered distractedly, glancing at his watch and frowning as though it had somehow displeased him. “Do you want the makeup done here, or down on the lot, in the RV?”
    “I don’t want it done at all, but I know wishful thinking when I see it. I’ll be on down there in five or ten minutes.”
    Shay’s intercom buzzed and she picked up the telephone receiver. “Yes, Ivy?”
    “Hank’s on line two,” the secretary said pleasantly, her ire at being put off having faded away.
    Delighted, Shay punched the second button on her telephone. “Hi, tiger!” she cried. “How are you?”
    The sound of Hank’s voice was the reward, Shay supposed, for some long-forgotten good deed. “I’m great, Mom! We’re at this lake in Oregon and we caught two fish already!”
    “That’s fantastic!” Shay ignored Richard Barrett’s alternating glares of impatience and consultations with his watch and turned to the windows. The sky was gray and drops of rain were bouncing off the cars in the rear lot. It was strange, she reflected fancifully, that she hadn’t noticed the weather on her way to work. “Is it raining there?”
    The conversation with her son was sweetly mundane and when it ended, five minutes later, Shay stoically followed Richard through the outer office and down the stairs. Due to the rain, the RV had been parked close to one of the rear entrances and the showroom itself would be the set.
    Inside the roomy motor home, Shay was helped into a neck-to-toe bodysuit with metallic bolts of thunder stitched to it, and glittery cartoon superheroine makeup was applied to her face. As gooey styling mousse was poured into her hair, she tried to be philosophical. This was the silliest commercial of the lot, but it was also the easiest. She had only to say one line, and the remainder of the spot would show used cars with prices painted on their windshields.
    “I bet you hate having your friends see you like this,” commiserated Richard’s assistant, she of the fluffy bangs and ever-present clipboard, as she pulled Shay’s mousse-saturated tresses into points that stuck