“I just realized something about you. You never talk about your personal life.”
“I try to be professional,” she said quietly.
“How many children do you have?”
“Three,” she said proudly, and he smiled.
“That’s a lot of kids. I knew you had children, but I never thought about it. I thought maybe one or two.”
“They’re good kids, and pretty easy most of the time.”
“Boys? Girls?” He was curious about her now.
“The oldest is a girl, Arianna. She’s eleven. Bentley is nine, and Will is six.”
“He looked cute on the phone.” Phillip knew she was widowed, but he didn’t know much else. “How do you manage all that, and a job too?”
She laughed. “I run my ass off all day, and then I run my ass off at night. Then everybody goes to bed, I do some work, and it’s over until the next day. I do homework with them before they go to bed.” Listening to her made him feel guilty.
“Leaving them must be complicated,” he said. “I never thought about all the organizing it must take for you to be away for two weeks. Do you have a nanny?” She shook her head.
“I’m their nanny. I have several babysitters I call on. It’s a little patchy, but I managed to get people to be there every day. I even hired a yoga teacher with a Chihuahua for next week. The kids are excited about the dog. They want one desperately, but I figure I’ve got all I can manage as it is.”
He was impressed by how she had masterminded it all, and still took care of him too. “This is actually the first time I’ve left them. I think they’re okay with it now. It’ll be good for them. They’ll be happy when I get back.” She hoped it was true and hated thinking about the performance of Annie that she was missing. “You don’t have kids, do you, Phillip?”
He shook his head as the plane took to the skies. She didn’t think he did, but he might have older ones she didn’t know about. He was forty-eight, ten years older than she was.
“No kids. That actually was what ended my marriage. Originally we were in complete agreement. No children. And then over time, she realized that she did want them, and I didn’t. I have nothing against children. I just didn’t want any of my own. I had a very painful childhood, with an alcoholic mother and a cold, hard, somewhat cruel father. My mother died in her fifties of cirrhosis. My dad wasn’t very old when he died. He was a glacial, mean person. I still remember some awful scenes from my childhood, of my mother drunk and my father verbally abusing her. I’m an only child, so I didn’t have anyone to share it with, or to comfort me. I’ve been writing about my father all my life, trying to figure him out. I’m beginning to think I never will. But I learned to live with it. I just didn’t want to take a chance that I’d turn out to be a father like him. I don’t think I would have, but I didn’t want to risk it. So eventually my wife and I got a friendly divorce, so she could have kids with someone else. It came down to that in the end, and I think our marriage had run out of gas by then.
“We were married for nine years, which is a fairly long time these days. She remarried very quickly afterwards and she has a boy and a girl now, and I think she’s happy. We had our time. It was finite, not forever, and we were pretty young when we married. I was twenty-six and Sandy was twenty-three. We’ve been divorced for thirteen years now. I think I wanted to be alone anyway. It allows me to write as much as I want, during any crazy hours. My writing’s been better since she left. I think she interfered with the airwaves somehow. She’s a writer too. She writes young adult books, they’re very good. We still talk from time to time. She’s an important piece of my history. I don’t want to lose that, even though we’re no longer married.”
“That makes sense,” Hailey responded. “I feel that way too for my children’s sake. I try to keep the memory of their father alive for them. It’s been five years now, and the memories start to fade, both good and bad. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. My husband died very suddenly at forty-three. He didn’t have life insurance or any savings to speak of. We had a nice life. We lived off his salary and spent it. So I went back to work after he died, and now here I am. He was a publisher and I was an editor. I loved it, but I couldn’t support the kids on that, so I became an agent, and they pay me decently. I try to keep the two worlds as separate as I can, so my family doesn’t interfere with my job. I need the job. And I enjoy it immensely.”
“Now that I know more, I’m touched that you left your children to be here with me. If I’d known all the responsibilities you have, I wouldn’t have asked.” She could tell he was a kind man. He had always been kind to her. “I’d like to meet them sometime,” he said as they headed toward Chicago.
“Who?” She looked distracted, thinking of the next leg of the trip.
“Your kids,” he said, and she smiled. Maybe he would one day, but for now, they had work to do. She had always liked Chicago. It was a small, cosmopolitan, lively city. They were going to be staying at the Four Seasons, and he would be doing another morning show the next day.
He read for the rest of the trip, and she dozed off for a while. They had gotten an early start and had been busy all day. He woke her gently when they were about to land. She smiled, and he carried her tote bag for her when they left the plane. She had a car and driver waiting for them, and they were both excited as they drove into the city at dusk. It was a beautiful night in a pretty city. The view was fabulous from his suite on the forty-fifth floor. They decided to have room service that night, and he invited her to join him. He told her all about his next book over dinner. It sounded fascinating, and she couldn’t wait to read the first draft, since he always wanted her to read them and make suggestions.
Francine managed to get an appointment with one of the therapists, a few days after she had been given the list of names. There had been a cancellation and she grabbed it. She came home earlier from work to take Tommy, and they were in the room together for the first session. The therapist was a woman and she was very warm and friendly. Tommy seemed to like her, and so did Francine.
He told her all about being bullied at school, and how scary and upsetting it had been. He complained about his mother coming home late from work and never being there in time to have dinner with them. Francine said it was true, and that she frequently had to stay past business hours, and the commute to and from Queens added close to another hour. There was just no way she could get home any sooner. She had a very demanding job. Tommy said he understood but didn’t like it. He wished she’d get a job where she could come home earlier. She said that wasn’t on the cards for the moment.
On the whole, nothing dramatic happened, no terrible revelations. Tommy seemed comfortable and at ease when he left, and when asked, he said he’d like to go back again. He said he felt safe there.
Francine had met Dan on Central Park West the night before. She had thanked him for the raise and he didn’t comment. There was no pretense of warmth between them. And she knew that the raise had also been to ensure that she didn’t blow the whistle on him, and tell Bob Benson about their arrangement for the past decade. Dan held threats over her head of what he could do to her, but she had the goods on him too.