Merriwether stayed after hours to work with Bob Benson, as she had promised, the night of the Whitney Museum party. It was a cocktail party for their big benefactors, with a dinner afterwards. Jeff had left the house looking very elegant and handsome in a tuxedo.
Merriwether and Bob meticulously went through their accounts and discussed what kind of bonds they should buy and how their investments were doing. Bob liked their financial discussions. She always had an intelligent, well-informed viewpoint, and a great head for finance.
He asked if she wanted to have dinner afterwards. Jeff was out anyway, and Annabelle had been put to bed hours before, so they went to a small French restaurant a few blocks from the agency. The food was excellent, and they both relaxed sharing a bottle of wine and dinner.
They talked about various problems at the agency, and Bob opened up to her about his concerns about Dan Fletcher.
“He just doesn’t get that he can’t behave that way. One of these days, one of the young women in the office is going to bring a suit against us. My wife tells me all the time about similar situations, and it can get very ugly. I’m not sure he ever follows through, but he lays hands on whoever he wants to. I’m scared to death we’re going to wind up with a Me Too situation. Martha seems to handle nothing but those cases these days.”
“She must have a very interesting practice,” Merriwether said. “Entertainment law must really be fun.”
“She enjoys it,” he commented. “And it was good for us to be in the same industry. We had a lot to talk about for a long time, until her practice grew and she never came home at night. I think she enjoyed her work a lot more than she did raising our children.” Merriwether felt guilty as soon as he said it, because sometimes she felt that way too.
“You’ve been married for a long time,” she said, intrigued by him.
“Twenty-eight years. We’re more friends than anything else now. I have great respect for her and what she’s accomplished,” but it didn’t sound like he was in love with her. He could have been talking about a close friend or a sister. “It’s hard having two big careers under one roof,” he admitted as they ate dinner and each had a second glass of wine. “You get pulled away from each other eventually. You both get busy, then one day you look up and you’re miles apart, and you have nothing in common anymore, except history.”
“I’m not sure it’s any easier having one career under one roof. We agreed early on that I would be the breadwinner. I was better equipped to do that with a Harvard MBA, and Jeff wanted to stay home and write. It seemed like the perfect arrangement, especially when our daughter was born. He didn’t have a job he loved, and I had started at the agency, which was exciting for me. And it still is.” She smiled at him.
“And now?” he asked her.
“He resents the hell out of me. He thinks I’ve become a heartless machine and only care about my job, which isn’t true. But it’s hard to go home at night, knowing you’ll be berated and criticized. I seem to stay later and later all the time. I hate going home,” she admitted, “but I have a great time with my daughter on weekends. And during the week, I love my job. I think he resents that I enjoy it so much and that I’ve done well at it.”
“Martha and I had those issues too. We both loved our jobs. She used to complain that I came home late every night, and it was even harder with the commute to Greenwich. She made a point of getting home earlier, for the boys. I never saw her or the boys during the week. Everyone was asleep when I got home. But I loved what I was doing, and so did she. But then somehow we headed in opposite directions and lost each other along the way. We’ve stayed together and I respect her enormously. She’s the best entertainment lawyer in the business. But it hasn’t been a marriage in the real sense in years.”
“I think Jeff and I might be heading there,” Merriwether said. “I have no idea how it happened or when, but all of a sudden he’s angry all the time, and he resents everything I do. He thinks I’m a terrible wife, and maybe he’s right.” It felt good to confide in Bob, and he clearly understood.
“I’m sure you’re not a terrible wife,” he said kindly, “but you may be a terrible wife for him. You got too big and too successful, and it makes him feel inadequate. In our case, with my wife and me, after a while we were like two guys living together, talking about business all the time. Her cases, my clients, the only thing we had in common were our sons. Everything else disappeared. And in my opinion, kids aren’t enough to make a marriage. You may stay together for their sake, or claim that you are, but to make a marriage work, you need more than kids, you need a little bit of magic, and a lot of love. Martha and I lost the magic years ago. I don’t know where it went, but we woke up one day and it was gone.” Merriwether looked sad as he said it.
“I think that’s what happened to me and Jeff. The crazy thing is I can’t even tell you when or why, but all of a sudden, there’s no buffer, there’s no forgiveness, there’s no compassion. He’s angry all the time, and I’m tiptoeing around feeling guilty, and I’m not even sure for what. Making too much money? Working too hard? Being successful, or a woman with a big job? I don’t know what my crime is, but I’m tired of being the bad guy, while I pay for everything and work my ass off to give us a good life.”
“I think you’re heading down a slippery slope here. If a man becomes successful and makes a lot of money, he’s a hero. If a woman does, it’s a very different thing. You have to be married to someone very solid and confident about himself to be able to tolerate that, otherwise he’ll punish you for what you are and he isn’t, and what you’ve accomplished and he hasn’t. Even some successful men can’t tolerate it, but a man who isn’t successful is liable to end up resenting you and punishing you for what you’ve achieved.”
“I think that’s where we are,” Merriwether said. In a way it felt better to say it out loud and hear the explanation for it. In another way, it just felt sad. Jeff was so angry at her now, all the time. She felt like a failure in her marriage. “I used to think we were happy. I no longer do.”
After they left the restaurant, Bob put her in a cab to go home. He had to catch the last train to Greenwich and didn’t want to miss it. He didn’t have an apartment in the city, and didn’t want to stay at a hotel. Merriwether thanked him for dinner. She’d had a lovely evening. He was smart and wise and funny and wonderful to talk to, and it sounded as though he had lived what she was going through. She wondered if it was possible for a woman to be successful and have a solid marriage. She had always believed it was, but now she wasn’t sure. Maybe one did have to choose between marriage or a career, but that seemed pathetic to her. She still believed you could have it all, with the right man.
From Chicago, which turned out to be as delightful a city as Hailey and Phillip both remembered, they went to Denver, which had its own natural beauty with the mountains around them. They spent two days there, and from Denver they flew to L.A. and spent four days there. Phillip did a morning show and a late night one. He did a book signing at Book Soup, and two radio shows. It was a whirlwind tour, and Hailey kept everything moving swiftly and smoothly, with a minimum of stress and inconvenience for Phillip. With each city, he was more impressed by her and how capable she was. She made everything easy for him, and even fun at times. She was perfectly prepared in each city. She knew where to go and who they were meeting. She averted a minor crisis at one of the TV shows when the publisher hadn’t sent the book. She sent their driver out to buy one in time for them to have it on the show. And she was good company. He loved talking to her.