Free Final Arrangements by Nia Ryan Page B

special. She had to admit that.
    "Sorry, Stretch," she said. "There was a
spark ... in another lifetime, perhaps."
    "Ma'am?" the driver said. "Did you say
something?"
    "Nothing. Nothing at all."

    Chapter 6

    The jet wasn't ready. It was supposed to be
but it wasn't. Because by law there had to be a sky marshall on
board and they didn't have one available. They would have one soon,
one who was coming in on a flight from Salt Lake City. But it
wouldn't be for at least an another hour. To pass the time, she
stood at the counter and argued.
    "Even though I'm the only passenger on the
jet," Shannon said, "I have to have a sky marshall. Why? So in case
I whip out a nail clipper or try to light my shoes, he can blow my
head clean off?"
    She was making a scene. Because she hated
waiting in airports and the Burbank Airport was one of the more
depressing ones to have to wait in. To start with, there was no
lounge to speak of, nothing to cushion the shock, the nakedness one
felt in an airport.
    There was a somewhat seedy little snack bar,
the sort of place where you had to brush the crumbs off the table
yourself. She could have waited in the limo, which had it's own
color satellite TV and killer stereo system. But she'd foolishly
dismissed the limo at the curb, so confident was she the jet would
be ready and waiting.
    "I'm sorry," the guy who took the tickets and
explained patiently the lateness of things said. "But we have
strict Federal regulations."
    "Do I look like a suicide bomber to you? I'm
going to be late for my meeting and lose a commission of two and a
half million dollars," she said. "Does that mean anything to
you?"
    "I'm very sorry. The sky marshall we planned
on using ran out of available hours."
    "What's that mean? Ran out of available
hours. That isn't something someone can do unless they're dead.
Until that happens, until we die, there are always hours
available."
    He handed her a coupon. Good for a free
alcoholic beverage at the bar.
    "This is going to make up for my delayed
flight? A complimentary drink? I want to see your supervisor. No,
never mind. I'm too tired to fight with you people. When the jet is
ready, page me in the snack bar. No wait. Here's my cell phone
number. Call me instead. I don't want my name blared out all over
this airport. I'll be waiting for the call. If the entire Western
Hemisphere doesn't run out of available hours meanwhile."
    "Yes ma'am."
    She managed to get a Coke with her
complimentary drink coupon and sat in the corner, near the overhead
TV, General Hospital, with Claire behind her desk in her fabulous
office, bantering with her newest love interest, a middle-aged
gopher with the street smarts of a bookie and the looks of a Greek
god. A guy who in real life would never be a gopher, would be
instead what he actually was--an actor who got paid countless
thousands of dollars just for learning a few lines and looking
better than anybody else in the world while delivering them.
    She couldn't keep her mind on the plot, found
herself instead counting the number of Cheshire Cat grins Claire
delivered during the scene. It was
Claire's favorite facial response, and Shannon spent the better
part of five minutes counting them, before the game collapsed under
its own pointlessness.
    Then it happened. The local area commercial
which caught her complete interest. There he was. Stretch Murphy.
Wearing a tuxedo, swimming underwater in a swimming pool, a huge
block of volcanic stone in hand, pumicing the heavy, thick skin of
an extremely large hippopotamus. A very funny commercial. The whole
thing done tongue in cheek, the hippo obviously totally fake, with
eyes rolling crazily and ears wiggling sideways flippity flip, the
way hippos do. Along the bottom of the screen, a scrolling marquee:
THE POOL GUY ... BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT'S IN THE WATER
...1-800-POOL GUY.
    Stretch Murphy was real. The thought
staggered her, filled her insides to overflowing, opening her up to
an enormity of possibilities, as