“You okay, Mom?” he asked her. The anger that had characterized him for months was gone, or dissipating, and he was grateful to her for helping to stop the bullying and being supportive of him.
“Yeah, I think I am.” She smiled at him. They took the bus home to their apartment, where Thalia was looking at pictures of prom dresses. She glanced up at her mother with a smile.
Things were looking up, and Dan Fletcher was in jail for the moment. It made the world seem like a better place, for however long it lasted.
Phillip picked Hailey up promptly at eight. He was wearing a dark blue suit she had seen him wear on the tour, and he looked handsome in it. He had worn it on the late night talk show he’d been on. There was nothing trendy about him, he was more old school, although he was only forty-eight. Hailey had worn a simple black dress he hadn’t seen before. He had told her they were going someplace nice, so she had dressed accordingly. Her dark hair was in a bun and they looked great together.
The boys were happy to see him. Xena had arrived, with Pamela, as she’d promised, and the tiny white Chihuahua was barking frantically. Arianna was still a little suspicious of Phillip. There hadn’t been a man in their life since their father died five years before, so having Phillip in their midst was unfamiliar and surprising. Bentley and Will thought it interesting. Phillip talked about baseball with them until they left for dinner.
“They’re such cute kids,” he said, sounding surprised again. She could tell he wasn’t used to children, almost to the point of being afraid of them.
“They’re good kids,” Hailey confirmed. “I’m completely objective, of course.” She smiled at him and he laughed. He was ten years older than she was, and he seemed very “grown up” for his age. He was a serious person, but he did have a sense of humor she enjoyed. He had been an easy person to travel with, which said a lot about him. He was easy to please, not demanding, although they had gone first class all the way because the publisher wanted them to. Phillip was flexible and didn’t mind when something changed. With children, something was always changing. It was the nature of parenthood, having all your plans thrown out the window at a moment’s notice.
He hadn’t told her where they were going for dinner, and she was shocked when they arrived. They had taken a cab from her apartment, and he had made reservations at La Grenouille, the best French restaurant in New York. It had a gorgeous, elegant French interior, and enormous urns filled with exquisite flowers that stood seven or eight feet tall. The food was the best she’d ever tasted, with wines to match. She had been there once with a very fancy client of the agency, but never on a date. As she mulled it over when they walked into the restaurant, she wondered which this was. Had Phillip taken her to dinner to thank her as his agent, or were they on a date? She had a feeling it was the latter but didn’t want to ask. She decided not to try to figure it out and just enjoy the evening.
One of the things she liked best about Phillip, along with his fine mind and generosity and kindness, was that she could be herself with him. She made it a huge point to be businesslike at the office, and never let her personal life interfere. With Phillip, now that he knew about her children and had even met them, she could be herself. She could talk about them, or not, and he could see the other side of her that she usually tried to hide. She could be a whole person with him. At the office, it was all-important not to make a point of being a mother or having other obligations. She had to appear to be focused only on work with no other pulls on her. It was what they expected in the corporate world. She and Francine rarely discussed their children, but she wondered at times if it was stressful for her too. It was as if they had to be superhuman, and almost robotic, with no personal attachments or feelings in order to succeed. She and Phillip talked about it at dinner, and he was intrigued by what she said.
“I didn’t even know you had kids for the first few months you represented me, and then I thought maybe you had one,” he said as they made their way through the delicious meal. She was very touched that he had brought her to such a lovely restaurant, whether as his agent or his date. “My childhood was so miserable and my parents so unhappy, I could never bear the thought of doing that to someone else if I got it wrong. My mother was a nice woman before she destroyed herself with alcohol. It was the only way she could tolerate my father. I always hoped she would leave him, but she never did. It made me skittish about marriage and human relationships.
“I wasn’t a good husband. I was too scared to get attached too deeply, to hurt her or get hurt. I think I was frozen most of the time. I don’t blame her for leaving. I’m surprised she stayed as long as she did. She’s much happier now. And writing has helped me open up a lot. I’ve learned a lot through my work, but it’s taken a hell of a long time.
“I’m ready for you to read the first draft of the new book, by the way. I love your comments. They’re so succinct, to the point, and they bring me back down to earth. I get too lofty at times, and tangled up in the tops of the trees. You ground me.” She smiled as they finished the main course. They had ordered chocolate soufflés for dessert, his with sauce anglaise and hers with whipped cream. “Is it too big an imposition, asking you to read the books and give me your opinion?” he asked, looking embarrassed. “Now that I know you’ve got three people at home, needing your attention, I feel guilty giving you more work to do.”
“Don’t. That’s what agents do. They read their clients’ work. I’m honored that you give me an early look and care about what I think.”
“I care very, very much, and you share your thoughts so gently.” She smiled at that. She tried very hard to not interfere with his writing or ask him to change anything. She just suggested a few clarifications here and there to make the internal light of the work shine more brightly. Some of his books were deep, as he was, and she loved reading them. They gave the reader extraordinary insight into him, and how sensitive and caring he was. If he had been frozen when he was with his wife, as he said, he had grown a lot since. His writing was warm and inviting and very personal. He obviously felt at ease when he wrote, which was true of many writers, she had discovered. They were more comfortable hiding in their work, even if very thinly masked. You could always see the writer behind the story and the words, peeking out from their hiding places. Phillip’s voice was unmistakable. She loved that about it too. It was like listening to him speak.
“Were you happy in your marriage?” he asked her as they started on their soufflés, which were remarkable. “Or is it rude to ask you that?” He wondered if the rules were different with a widow, and it wasn’t appropriate to ask. People seemed to like thinking that their late spouses had been saints, whatever the truth had been when they were alive. She didn’t shrink at the question, and answered him as she always did, with her big honest eyes and her heart.
“Sometimes.” Her answer surprised him. “We were very different, but we meshed pretty well. I was young when we got married. Jim was a little older. I was more dynamic, he was more laid-back. I was angry at him for a long time after he died. He left everything in a mess. He was forty-three, so he didn’t expect to die. He wasn’t sick, that we knew of. He had an aneurysm, so from one minute to the next, he was gone. He had a good salary, but we had no savings. We spent everything on how we lived and the kids, nice vacations, beautiful apartment. I loved being able to stop working, but all of that meant that we didn’t have anything to speak of put aside.