Third Time's a Charm (21 page)

“That’s great news, Ryan! I can’t believe she agreed to meet your family. Just wait ’til I tell Joan.”

The delight in her voice was enough to bring a smile to his face. No doubt she’d call Joan as soon as they hung up.

He shifted the phone to his other ear. “Listen, I’ve got a customer. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay, but one more thing. Her favorite dessert is lemon meringue pie. Feed her lemon meringue pie and she’ll love you forever.”

“I thought you said if I feed her mocha-flavored coffee she’d love me forever.”

“Yes, but you didn’t feed that to her,” Allie said dryly. “You dumped it on her.”

Good point. “Okay, thanks for the tip.”

He shook his head as he hung up the phone. Mom’s cobbler was her specialty, but maybe she wouldn’t mind making a pie instead.

At seven o’clock Friday morning, Tori pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall that housed Nolan’s Ark. She glanced at the three vehicles parked near the pet store. Thankfully, she didn’t recognize any of them. She’d been half afraid Mitch would show up this morning to horn in on the commercial shoot. All day yesterday she’d kept quiet about this assignment, and as far as she could tell, Phil hadn’t said a word to anyone about asking her to help out. That suited her fine. If Mitch heard about it, he would elbow his way in for sure. And if Kate had caught wind of it, she might have put the kibosh on Tori’s involvement. Why Tori thought so, she couldn’t really pinpoint, except Kate seemed like the kind of person who didn’t voluntarily share her employees. She probably hogged the crayon box when she was in kindergarten too.

Tori parked next to a small white van with the Artistic Video logo on the door. The freelance company was one of several that Connolly and Farrin hired to handle the commercial filming for their clients, but Tori had never met them. She glanced into the rearview mirror to assure herself that her makeup was okay, then got out of the car and smoothed a crease in her skirt. Phil said all she had to do was show up and watch. Surely she could handle that without looking like an amateur.

She paused for a moment to allow her nerves to settle and examined the exterior of the store. A window looked in on a display box where a litter of cuddly kittens played. She watched them for a moment, smiling when a gray-and-white striped one pounced on the fuzzy tail of another.

The door was locked, but she caught the eye of a man inside who hurried over to let her in.

“Are you Miss Sanderson?” A film of sweat glistened on his forehead as he ushered her inside and locked the door behind her.

Tori expected to step into cool air, but the store’s interior was almost as warm as outside, only stuffier. The smell that hit her was a mixture of wood shavings and wet fur. Ugh. With an effort, she didn’t wrinkle her nose as she answered. “Yes. And you’re Mr. Nolan?”

“Call me Ed.” He led her toward the back of the store. On the far left, a wall of kennels housed a dozen or more dogs. Ed raised his voice to be heard over their yapping and barking. “Can you believe it? The air conditioner went out yesterday, and the repairman can’t come until later this morning. And let me tell you, those lights are hot!”

The sales counter was situated at the rear of the store, and the two people whose T-shirts identified them as the Artistic Video team had already set up the lights and two silver-lined umbrellas. A severe-faced woman caught sight of Tori and advanced with an outstretched hand.

“Susan Murphy.” Her grip was so firm as to be almost painful. “I’m the director. And this is Hal.”

The cameraman lifted his eye from a camera mounted on a tripod long enough to nod in Tori’s direction.

“Tori Sanderson, from Connolly and Farrin.” She retrieved her hand and, by sheer willpower, didn’t massage it to rub out the sting.

“We’re almost ready,” Susan told her. “Just give us a minute to get the lighting right and we’ll get started.”

“Okay, let me know if you need me to help.” Tori had no idea what assistance she could possibly offer, since she knew absolutely nothing, but as her company’s representative, she felt the offer was expected. Thank goodness Susan and Hal seemed to know what they were doing.

Ed Nolan had gone to stand at the edge of the counter to study a typewritten page. He picked up a red handkerchief and mopped at his forehead and the back of his neck as he read. Judging from the way the paper trembled in his hand, his sweating wasn’t entirely due to the heat inside the store.

Not wanting to get in anyone’s way, Tori stood to one side, near a wall of large aquariums. Heat radiated from the spotlights angled into each one. A movement inside the nearest drew her attention. She glanced down and then recoiled, her skin crawling with revulsion. A large gray lizard scurried across the sand-covered floor of its glass home. Yuck. She crossed quickly to the other side of the store and stood near another rack of aquariums, these filled with schools of brightly colored fish. She didn’t have time to care for any kind of pet, but if she had to choose, fish seemed to be the least labor intensive. And they didn’t mistake the carpet for a toilet, either.

A little girl rounded the fishy wall. Tori watched the curly-haired child skip across the floor toward Ed, a wiggling ball of white fuzz clutched in her arms. “Daddy, Miss Muffett is hungry. Can I give her a treat?”

Daddy. Tori looked at the girl more closely. Around five, maybe, with a strong resemblance to Ed in her high, rounded forehead and thick dark hair.

“Hmm?” Ed looked up from his paper, distracted. “Not now, Zoe. Daddy’s getting ready to film the commercial. Remember we talked about how you have to stay quiet this morning?”

“I remember, but Miss Muffett is hungry.”

Ed waved a hand absently as though shooing the girl away. “Alright, but only one. And break it up for her.” He went back to his perusal of the paper.

The little girl shot a look toward the ceiling in a gesture that would have made a teenager proud. “I know the rules, Dad.”

She went to the opposite end of the counter to retrieve a treat from a cookie jar shaped like a dog, then headed back in the direction she came from. As she passed, Tori saw that the fuzz ball she held was the world’s tiniest dog. Two black eyes peered out from a cuddly, teddy bear face. In fact, this creature was more the size of a guinea pig. Now, that might be a dog Tori could handle. Unlike that monster of Ken’s. Tori watched as the girl went into another section of the store and disappeared behind a waist-high barrier where, presumably, she would feed Miss Muffett her treat.

“Are you ready, Ed?”

Ed jerked upright at Susan’s voice. “I think I’ve got it.”

Tori watched as Susan directed Ed to stand at the edge of the counter. From the angle of the camera, she guessed that would include a good shot of the colorful fish aquariums and, on the counter beside Ed, some hamsters in a plastic cage with bright yellow tubes running throughout. The pegboard behind the counter held a mishmash of items, and looked . . . well, messy. Not the best shot, in Tori’s opinion, but she didn’t want to offend the experts, so she kept her mouth shut. Susan adjusted Ed’s stance and positioned his arms so that one rested casually on the counter. Then she backed up to stand beside Hal, who watched through the camera. Tori saw him press a switch, and Susan said, “And, we’re rolling.”

Ed swallowed, and managed to look stiff in spite of his carefully casual stance. He stared at the camera and cleared his throat.
“At Nolan’s Ark, we understand that your pet is a
special member of your family.”
His voice trailed off, and he froze for a long moment, then slumped. “Uh, I’ve forgotten what comes next.”

Tori turned to Susan. “I could hold cue cards for him.”

The woman’s lips tightened. “You could, if we had any. But we were told he’d have the script memorized.”

Tori would have made some cue cards herself, if she’d known.
Next time
, she promised herself. In the meantime, she crossed to the opposite end of the counter and grabbed Ed’s script. “
We’ve been in the pet business for more than ten
years
,” she read.

Ed’s face cleared. “That’s right.
We’ve been in the pet business
for more than ten years, and we know about your pet’s
needs
.” He stopped and looked at Susan. “Should I start again from the beginning?”

Tori watched as Hal pressed a button on his camera, then straightened. Susan’s smile was thin. “Yes, let’s try it again from the top.”

Ed stretched his neck and ran a finger around his collar. “Okay.”

Susan waited for Hal’s nod, and then told Ed, “We’re rolling.”

The man’s expression became wooden, his stare fixed.
“At Nolan’s Ark, we understand that your pet is a special member
of your family. We’ve been in the pet business for more than
ten years, and we know about your pet’s needs.”
A pause. A gulp.
“We . . .”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
“Whatever you need . . .”
His shoulders slumped as he shook his head, his gaze sliding from the camera to Tori. “I’m sorry. I thought I had it.”

Susan didn’t bother to hide her heavy sigh. Tori felt sorry for the man, who’s face became a darker shade of red with every second that ticked by. Not all of his flush was due to the heat, though Tori was starting to feel a little sticky herself.

She glanced at the paper. “You do have it. That was the next line.
Whatever you need, you’ll find it at Nolan’s Ark.”

He put a hand on his forehead. “I thought so. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stopped.”

“Tell you what.” Susan took the script from Tori and handed it to Ed. “Let’s run through it a couple of times with you reading from the script. We’re going to do some panning of the store, and we can use that as a voice-over. Then maybe we can get just a few shots of you doing one line at a time. Sound good?”

Instant relief flooded Ed’s face. “I can do that.”

That sounded like a good plan to Tori. And maybe going over it once out loud would help him remember his lines.

Susan turned to face the camera, and crossed her eyes where Ed couldn’t see. Tori had to duck her head to hide a grin. The director returned to her place slightly behind Hal and spoke with a patience Tori wouldn’t have credited the stern-faced woman with.

“Alright, Ed, go ahead, read it all the way through.”

Ed nodded. He stared at the paper, his lips moving.

“Out loud, Ed.” Susan’s voice held the first hint of irritation.

“Oh!” Ed’s head jerked upward. “I was waiting for you to say, ‘We’re rolling.’ ”

Tori turned away, laughter threatening to bubble through the lips she pressed tightly together. Poor Ed. He really was trying, but his nerves were getting the best of him.

The muscles in Susan’s jaws bunched as she clenched her jaw. “We are rolling, Ed.”

“Alright.” Ed drew in a deep breath and began to read from the paper. “
At-Nolan’s-Ark-we-understand-that-your-pet-
is-a-special-member-of-your-family-we’ve-been-in-the-pet-business—“

“Stop!”

From where she stood, Tori could see the director’s hands grasp each other tightly behind her back. “Ed, the purpose of this take is to get a good reading of the script so we can use your voice while the audience looks at the interior of your store. So it’s important that your voice sound natural. It’s coming out a little stilted.”

Ed hung his head. “I’m not a very good reader. That’s why I was trying to memorize it.”

“I see.” The knuckles on her clasped hands turned white. “Let’s try it again without the script, then. I can give you verbal cues, and as long as you stand in one place, we can edit my voice out back at the studio.”

The red handkerchief appeared, and Ed wiped frantically at his forehead. “Okay.”

He’d barely begun his recitation when one of the puppies in the kennels along the far wall let out a yap, which was quickly answered by a bark from the opposite end of the line. In the next instant, every puppy in the place had joined in.

Hal clicked off the camera and lifted his head. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to filter out that noise.”

The director didn’t bother to hide a very loud and dramatic sigh. “Ed, can you do anything to shut them up?”

Tori covered her grin with a hand. Did all commercial shoots have this many problems, or was she just lucky enough to get a weird one on her first assignment?

Ed looked around blankly for a moment, as though he hadn’t noticed the Bark Fest. “They must want attention. I usually let them out of their kennels to play while I’m getting the store ready to open.”

Tori heard a low giggle coming from the other side of the wall of fish, where Zoe and Miss Muffett played. “Can your daughter keep them busy for a few minutes?”

Ed’s expression cleared. “Yes! But she can’t safely reach the upper kennels. If you could . . .”

Great. And get dog hair and puppy stench all over her clothes? But the protest died on her lips at the pleading look on Susan’s face. She pasted on a resigned smile. “Sure.”

“Here. Take these.” Ed snatched the cookie jar off the counter and thrust it into her hands. “They’re puppy approved. Just break them up for the smaller breeds.”