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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