Hailey’s quiet, slow-burning romance with Phillip was very different from the turmoil and passion in her coworkers’ lives, and she was grateful that Phillip was a steady, responsible person too. It helped that he was older. At twenty-six and twenty-nine, neither Eric nor Benjie was fully mature yet, although Hailey thought Allie should have known better at her age than to have drunken casual sex at an office party. She was playing with fire and someone was likely to get burned. She was leading the life of someone half her age, with very liberal views about sex and relationships.
Hailey was reading one of the manuscripts she’d brought home on Sunday night when Phillip called her. They had exchanged short text messages all day. It was ten o’clock and the children were asleep when she answered. He sounded tense, though less disoriented than he had the day before.
“Can I come over?” he asked her.
“Now?”
“Are you in bed?”
“No, I’m reading on the couch. Are you okay?” She had asked him that dozens of times since the day before when he learned of Hannah’s death.
“I think so,” he said quietly. “You’ll be busy tomorrow.” Her workdays were nonstop now, with Francine gone. “I’d like to talk to you tonight.”
“Okay. Don’t ring the buzzer. Text me when you get here and I’ll buzz you in. The kids are asleep.”
He was there ten minutes later and she buzzed him in. He came up the stairs quickly, and she was waiting for him with the door open. He kissed her lightly and followed her into the apartment. She offered him a glass of red wine, and he accepted and she poured one for herself too. Then they sat down on the couch and spoke in whispers, so they didn’t wake the children.
“I’ve been thinking about it all day,” he said after a sip of wine. He looked wide-awake and very tense and earnest. She gently touched his cheek and he smiled. She always had a way of making him feel better and reassuring him.
“It’s going to be okay, Phillip.” He had had a shock, but she knew he had all the expertise and talent he needed to go on without his longtime editor. He just didn’t know it yet. She felt maternal toward all the clients she represented, and particularly Phillip, although their relationship had deepened and changed since they’d been on the tour together and gotten to know each other as more than just writer and agent.
“Maybe this will sound crazy to you, but hear me out,” he said nervously. “I want to offer you a job.” She looked startled. It wasn’t what she had expected him to say.
“What kind of job? I’m happy to read your draft manuscripts. That is my job. You don’t have to pay me to do that. You pay the agency ten percent of what you earn from your books for my attention and support, and for anything you need me to do with your publisher.”
“I know that. I want more than that from you, Hailey. It’s unusual, but I know of several writers who’ve done what I want to suggest to you. I’d like you to become my editor and my agent, and work just for me. I know of at least one famous writer who did that with his editor, when his agent died. And from everything I’ve heard, it worked really well. The man who became his agent, whom he hired away from his publisher at the time, started his own agency, which is a big success. I’m not suggesting you do that. But I’d like you to work just for me, as my agent and my editor. I think we’d make an amazing team. You were an editor before, and you’ve had five years’ experience as an agent. Hailey, you’re perfect for it. You can work from home if you want to, or set up an office elsewhere, however you want to do it. You can decide your own hours, and you’d be at home for your kids. You wouldn’t have to deal with all the corporate bullshit, all the agents you’re responsible for now, and the writers you don’t like working with. It would be what we do now, only just the two of us, and you can hire an assistant if you feel you need one.”
“I can manage it myself,” she said quietly, trying to absorb what he had said. It was totally unexpected. “Poor Bob will go crazy if he loses me too, with Francine gone.” The agency would be on its knees with one partner gone and the two main literary agents leaving, if she left too. Jane was still very new as an agent, and young, although she was a bright girl. But she couldn’t handle the department alone. Bob needed a strong, experienced agent to run the department. He’d have to hire one from outside the agency. Allie wasn’t in great shape these days on the dramatic side, after her breakup with Eric, although she’d get over it. “I don’t know what to say,” she responded to Phillip. She wondered if it would complicate things too much now that they had started dating. What if things went wrong? It could be very awkward for both of them. Or incredibly wonderful if their relationship went well and continued to grow. It might turn into a partnership on all fronts, but it was too soon to tell. He could sense what she was thinking.
“We just have to figure things out slowly on the personal side. It seems very positive to me, and we can go at whatever pace you want.” She had a lot to deal with, with her children too. His personal life was simpler than hers. She was dedicated to her children. “On the professional side, I know this would be perfect for me. You’re already my agent, and your editing is flawless and as good as Hannah’s was. You have a younger perspective, which is good for me, and you’ve been an editor before. Hannah and I had history, but whatever I do, I’ll need a new editor now, and I don’t want to start with someone brand new. You’ve been doing it unofficially for a while. I want this to be a lucrative arrangement for you, not just the right one for me.” He quoted a number for the salary he was offering her that made her eyes open wide. It was far more than the agency was paying her, even after her recent promotion to head of the department.
“Are you serious? That’s insane!”
“I did the computation and went through my records. It’s what I paid Fletcher and Benson last year for their percentage. I’d be willing to pay you the same. Why should Bob make all the money? And you could get out of this tiny apartment, and even get one big enough to have an office for you right at home.” He wanted to make her life better, and his own too. The number he had quoted would not only restore the way she’d lived before, when Jim was alive, it would be a major step up for her. She would have a cushion for her children, and be able to provide things for them she couldn’t now, lessons and vacations and good schools as they got older. It would give her security that she’d never had before, and certainly not for the last five years once she was widowed.
“I’d feel guilty earning that much from you,” she said gently.
“Don’t. You deserve it. Will you think about it?” he asked her, and she nodded.
“I will. I would love to work for you, and just for you. It’s a big decision. And I’d have to give Bob decent notice.” She thought that Francine had been too radical, only giving Bob two weeks, but once the mess with Dan became public, it was too hard for her to be there, which even Bob understood. Hailey’s circumstances were different, and had nothing to do with Dan. It was all about Phillip’s needs now, and he was offering her an extraordinary opportunity. Bob had saved her by giving her a job five years before, and a decent salary, although she could just barely squeeze by on it with three children. Phillip was offering her a huge one, which put her in a whole different league. “I promise I’ll think about it. I just don’t want to make a hasty decision, or one that either of us will regret. If you don’t like the way I work and you fire me, I’d be in a terrible situation.”