Episode 51: Writers' Block Jill Campbell is doing double-duty -- duplicitously -- by working for Cummings Footwear, the agency's client, off the books. She has lied and told Agnes that she's going out of town to a family funeral, when in reality she's flying to Indianapolis for a meeting with Ed Grassley about the annual reports she's just written. Jill had decided to check her scruples, along with her luggage, at the ticket counter of U.S. Air at LaGuardia. She had convinced herself that she was being a goody-goody by feeling guilty. It was ridiculous, she told herself. There was absolutely no reason she shouldn't have taken on this job for a little extra money. No one would ever know. Would they? Plus, if Jim Hillyer paid her a decent salary she wouldn't have to do these things in the first place. Still, she skulked to the gate like an undercover operative, praying that she wouldn't meet anyone she knew -- or worse, someone from the agency -- in this heavily trafficked terminal packed with business travelers ... a good deal of them from the ad business. Absurdly, she kept her sunglasses on, even though the day was overcast, and, when she got to the gate, she didn't even sit next to the window. She'd bought a coach-class ticket not only to save money, but to lessen the chance that she'd meet someone she knew in Business Class ... and it had gone okay. She'd eaten the fatty but delicious sausage and egg hot breakfast omelet, reviewed her notes, downed two cups of dreadful coffee, and before she knew it they were circling Indianapolis preparing to land.

Caught in a lie. Isn't it always the way? Do ONE dishonest thing, tell ONE little white lie, and IMMEDIATELY you're found out. You can't win. But then, Jill is, after all, a writer -- what tale is she going to concoct to get herself out of THIS jam?

It'll be fine, she'd told herself as she deplaned. Walking down the jetway, she did some mental calculations. She'd be at Cummings headquarters by eleven a.m., lunch and the meeting should be over by two, three at the latest, and she could get the nonstop back to LaGuardia at 6:10 and be in Westport by the time David Letterman came on. Moments later, standing at the baggage carousel, Jill checked her watch; it was a Patek Philippe she'd bought with her Hillyer, Jones bonus two years ago, she realized, with a pang of loyalty. As she waited for the beat-up Coach briefcase she wished she'd simply carried on the plane, rather than checked, she jumped with a start as she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Jill? Jill Campbell?" a cultivated woman's voice said. Jill turned quickly around and came face to face -- this isn't happening, she thought -- with Abigail Hillyer, Jim's wife. "Mrs. Hillyer!" Jill almost screeched, her stomach sickening and her heart sinking into her shoes. "Hello!" "What a coincidence seeing you here in Indianapolis!" said her boss's wife warmly. "What brings you here? Business, of course, right? Oops, there's my bag!" Abigail reached for a tapestry-sided one-suiter -- the kind of luggage you see in the window of expensive shops on 57th Street and that no one ever seems to actually buy. It gave Jill a nanosecond to think. "Um, yes. In a way," she said vaguely. "How about you?" "Oh, I'm here to see my daughter and son-in-law. I'm staying for the week, actually." Jill noticed that Abigail was no longer smiling, and she wondered why. The copywriter was out of the loop on the office gossip about Jim and Abigail having separated. The Connecticut matron went on. "Sandy and her husband are both in dental school, you know. Can you imagine? I think I'd rather ... chew foil than be a dentist!" Jill laughed. "Oh, I'm sure they'll both be great ones," she said, aware of how lame that sounded. "Which way are you headed? Can I give you a lift? I've got a driver picking me up." Jill stared at Abigail -- frozen with fear and indecision.

An Intruder...

In London, Bernadette DaCapo had spent the morning on a Knightsbridge sidewalk, watching a parade of women picketing at the main entrance to Harrod's. What she was observing was a marketing and promotional nightmare. Several U.K.-based women's groups had mounted an organized boycott of Anson Cosmetics, in response to the Meg Townsend campaign that they said was degrading, and that glorified the abuse of women. In her own mind, Bernadette still maintained that the ads did nothing of the kind. But she had to agree that the situation had become volatile, when during a meeting with Anson executives Nicky Robertson and Vanessa Samms, a letter was shown to her. It was a personal letter, handwritten on expensive stationery stock, threatening I.R.A.-style bombings of all boutiques and department stores carrying the Anson "Descent Into Hell" line of cosmetics. And it didn't change the fact that approximately 100 women -- with picket signs depicting Anson magazine ads over which were superimposed red universal "don't" signs, alongside enlarged photographs of abused women and children -- were effectively scaring women away from buying Anson products. If Bernadette had asked Lucien Brandt, back in New York, to come up with a strategy for destroying all the work they'd done in building up Anson's image with consumers, he couldn't have done better. To make matters worse -- or at least more international -- marketing people in the London office of Hillyer, Jones had informed Bernadette that a similar group was picketing at Bloomingdale's in New York and at I. Magnin in San Francisco ... and that Entertainment Tonight was preparing a feature on the backlash and the bombing threats. As a new pop-culture icon, Meg Townsend had already entered the realm of entertainment. It was now nearing lunch time, and Bernadette walked around to a side entrance of Harrod's, near the Knightsbridge tube stop, and entered the fabled department store. She made her way over to the Anson counter and introduced herself to the beautifully coiffed sales clerk. "No, Miss DaCapo," the extremely well-mannered young woman had told Bernadette, "I'm sorry. I haven't sold a thing in three hours -- no one has even approached the counter. It's the boycott, you know. It's keeping customers away." "How about you, Guy?" Bernadette asked the makeup artist working beside her, who was on hand to offer Anson Beauty Makeovers to anyone who purchase £25 or more of Anson products. "Not a single makeover this morning, dearie," Guy said, bored. "And I'm only here 'til one o'clock, you know." "Yes, I know, Guy. You'll be paid, don't worry." Bernadette assured the makeup artist. This is a disaster, Bernadette said to herself. She'd been in the business long enough to know that no matter how effective an ad campaign might be, a well-organized consumer boycott could kill it. And that was exactly what was happening now.

Bernadette knew she had to get to a phone and get Jim Hillyer on the line fast. She quickly stepped out onto the street and hailed a taxi. Directing the driver to the London Hilton, she raced to Hyde Park, threw a £5 note at the driver, and ran into the hotel lobby as fast as she could without attracting attention, her $400 Joan-and-David pumps clicking audibly on the white and blue-black marble and labradorite floor. She called for the lift, ascended to her floor, stalked down the carpeted hallway to her room, and stuck the plastic electronic key-card into the slot. The door unlocked with a quiet click, and she pushed. With a start, Bernadette looked up and saw that there was someone in the room. Momentarily, she registered that it was the housekeeping staff, but when she looked again, she saw a tall, attractive, well-dressed woman rifling through her suitcase, which had been flung open on the bed.

Red-handed. After weeks of playing cat- and-mouse in London, Bernadette and Kovas have finally come face to face. Sloppy of Kovas to get caught that way, in Bernadette's hotel room -- isn't it? It's so unlike Kovas, in fact, that you wonder if maybe she did it on purpose?

Too shocked to be afraid, Bernadette demanded, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" It was Kovas Duane. Next Episode: Fri., 5/23. Don't dare miss it! Copyright (c)1996, 1997 Gauthier & Gilden, Inc. All rights reserved. All characters, settings, and plots are purely fictional, and intended for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to actual settings, companies, or persons living or dead is unintended and purely coincidential.