“What, and pretend you care about us, or you’re interested? You don’t even talk to us when you come home, you’re so fried from the office. And as soon as you eat, you pull out a manuscript you have to read.”
“It’s my homework.” She tried to smile at her daughter, but it didn’t work. Thalia had ruled her out as a mother around the time she had turned thirteen. It had been a hard road with her ever since.
She’d had a difficult time with both her kids for the last few years. Sometimes she felt as though they hated her as much as she hated herself for what Dan had blackmailed her into doing for ten years. She had kept her job but lost her self-respect and damaged her relationship with her children.
Thalia went to her room after that, and Francine turned off the lights, then went to her own room. She lay on her bed, thinking about them, wondering where she had gone wrong. They no longer saw their father and hadn’t for years. He wasn’t interested. He had a new family, a wife and two little girls, still the same woman he had left with ten years earlier. He lived in Detroit, was an ACLU lawyer, and had stopped sending child support years before. And she didn’t bother to fight him for it.
Francine had brought home a manuscript to read, but she couldn’t concentrate on the nights she met Dan on Central Park West. She used to cry on those nights, but she no longer did. She had no tears left. For herself, or anyone else. Somewhere deep within her there was rage for what she let Dan do to her. But she couldn’t connect with that either. She really was dead. And her kids knew it too. That was the worst part. She had died when she met Dan Fletcher, the first time they’d had sex. She could fake it at work and pretend she was still a human being. But she and her children knew it wasn’t true.
Jane and Benjie watched a movie on TV. She had so much new information floating around in her head, she didn’t want to go out. She kept thinking of all the people she had met at the agency, particularly Allie, Francine, and Hailey. She wondered what their home lives were like, if they had boyfriends, and she knew from Julia that Merriwether, the CFO, was happily married. She wondered if the other three were happy. She thought Allie was, but Francine seemed profoundly depressed, and so negative about life. She didn’t say it, but it came through her pores. Julia said it was the result of her bad divorce. And Hailey seemed energetic and positive, although Jane thought she couldn’t have an easy time, widowed with three young kids.
All three women were clearly dedicated to their careers, but Jane couldn’t help wondering what the rest of their lives were like. Who were they, other than busy agents in a highly successful agency? She questioned if she’d ever get to know them beyond their professional facades. What sacrifices had they made to be where they were?
Francine seemed as though she had paid a high price for what she’d achieved. She looked as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, and Allie presented as though she was entirely carefree. Hailey was the consummate professional, businesslike, focused, and cool, despite the pressures of her job. So far all Jane could see was what they wanted to show her. She had a feeling that there was much more to each of them, and she wondered what secrets lurked behind their well-polished masks. She was curious about them.
“You didn’t hear a word of the movie, did you?” Benjie asked when it was over. He was visibly annoyed.
“I did,” she insisted, but he was right. “I was thinking about the women at the agency. My head is full of everything I’ve seen and heard so far. I’m trying to figure it all out.”
“Let me know when you’re in the mood for a real date,” he said petulantly.
“I just started a new job. I need to figure out the players, and I want to get it right,” she said as he stood up.
“You’re already changing,” he said, watching her closely, and not liking what he saw. She seemed distracted and distant and less interested in him. She had too much on her mind.
“I’m not changing. I need to focus on my job.”
“Yeah, whatever. You want to be one of them so badly, you can taste it.”
“I want to do it right, Benjie,” she said, tired of his complaints. It had been a long and very full day. He picked up his jacket and looked at her. He had the feeling that he’d already lost her, and he was right. She was a million miles away, and the movie hadn’t held her interest. She was much more interested in the agency than in Benjie or the movie she had paid no attention to at all.
He left a minute later to go back to his apartment, and Jane realized again that he was right. She was changing. And tonight she had other things on her mind, and she wasn’t sorry to see him go. He suddenly seemed like a child.
Chapter 3
T he morning after Will’s fever from the stomach flu, Felicity came to stay with him, but she arrived late, so Hailey was already rushing before she got to the office. She hated being late because of childcare issues. It always seemed unprofessional to her, and set a bad example to the other agents, and even her assistants, now that she had Jane working with Julia. Hailey believed that personal issues should never interfere in the workplace.
She took a cab to work and had just sat down at her desk when Phillip White called her. Being asked to represent him was a major coup and a feather in her cap after he had met several of her colleagues, including Francine. As the head of the literary department, Francine always got first crack at all the bestselling authors. She must have been having a bad day, because Phillip told Bob Benson he found her lifeless and disengaged, and he preferred Hailey. He liked her energy and enthusiasm, particularly about his work. She had done her homework and read his last three novels, and an earlier one to get a sense of his work and the recent direction he had taken, and she made intelligent comments about them.
Since Hailey had worked as an editor previously, although Phillip had a longtime in-house editor, he thought Hailey would make additional helpful suggestions when she read his manuscripts. His instincts about her had been right. She had been working with him for two years. He felt she was a good negotiator, and her editorial comments were superb as she came to know his work better. He was very happy with the arrangement and was quick to call her with any problem he had with his publisher.
She could hear immediately that he was upset when she answered.
His latest book was on The New York Times bestseller list, in third position, and he had done two recent interviews with The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, hoping to push the book further up the list. Instead, it had plummeted to eleventh on the list, which was not the result he’d wanted. He felt that the publisher’s publicity department had handled it badly, and he wanted Hailey to complain. The competition was still on the list the second week. And she didn’t disagree with him entirely. She thought they had managed the book poorly. They had outdated information in their bio of him, which he felt had contributed to two lackluster interviews, and he blamed the publisher for the book slipping down the list. She reminded him that the book might go back up the list. Usually his sales were solid, but she was planning to call the publisher anyway with some complaints herself about how the interviews had been handled. This was her job, to call the publisher to order and keep a close eye on what they were doing.
“Thanks for taking care of it, Hailey,” he said warmly. He’d had a long career as a successful novelist, achieved huge sales every time, and was worthy of the publisher’s close attention.