“He’s an idiot if he does.” But people did stupid things at times, just as she had.
“Have you heard from Eric?” Hailey asked her.
“No, and I won’t. The breakup is all over the tabloids. I don’t know who told them, but someone did. Maybe he did. He’ll have every twenty-year-old actress in New York and L.A. after him soon, once the new series is on the air.”
“They’re not you, Allie,” Hailey said kindly. She was sorry for her.
“Yeah, lucky for him,” Allie said, and went back to her office with a tall glass of iced coffee, and Hailey went back to hers. She had a lot to think about, and she had made lists of the pros and cons of Phillip’s offer. The list of cons was short, and the pros list was long.
The office was settling down after all the upheavals over Dan. Francine had been right. Without her in the office there was less to talk about, and Jane wasn’t mentioning it at all. She had talked to Steve and Martha, and they had to wait now for the grand jury decision and the next court appearance while the attorneys on both sides studied the case and the assistant D.A. presented the evidence to the grand jury. Bob had been to see Dan in jail and told Merriwether he was a sorry sight, and had already aged ten years in the short time he’d been there. His wife was filing for divorce, and his daughters wouldn’t see him.
Hailey made her decision about Phillip’s offer on Tuesday night and called to tell him. She was sure and thrilled, and she was ready to move ahead. He invited her to dinner for the following night, so they could celebrate, and she told him she was going to tell Bob in the morning. She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to give him all the time he needed to replace her. He was only going to have the younger, less experienced agents on the literary side now, for a while. He needed to find someone with solid experience for her job, with Francine gone and Hailey planning to leave. She wasn’t looking forward to telling him, but she was also excited and eager to move forward with Phillip. She wanted to find an apartment and move as soon as she could, so she could set up an office at home. She hadn’t told her children that they’d be moving yet. It was still all very new. She wanted to find a place they’d love before she told them. It was all good news, but change was hard for kids, and they’d already had some big ones.
When Hailey told Bob, he looked as though he’d been shot. He stared at her for a minute without speaking, as though he didn’t understand or must have heard wrong.
“You’re leaving?” he asked her in a shaking voice. “To work for Phillip White? Christ. I never thought one of our authors would start poaching agents.” He looked angry at first.
“His longtime editor died last weekend,” she explained, “and I’ve read the manuscripts for his recent books and made comments on them. We work well together.” She looked at Bob. “And it’s a financial opportunity I just can’t pass up. I have three kids to support, and I can barely make it living in the city now, and commuting would be just too hard, trying to get home at a decent hour to have dinner with them and help with homework. I share a bedroom with my eleven-year-old daughter now, and have for the last five years. It’s been hard ever since my husband died.”
“As head of the department, we can make some more improvement on your salary and your annual bonus,” he said hopefully, but when she told him what Phillip had offered her, he looked crestfallen. “There’s no way we can come even remotely close to that,” he said bleakly. She had gotten a raise when she became head of the department, but it barely made a difference.
“I know. I didn’t make the decision lightly, Bob. And I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. I’d like to leave in a month,” she said, and he looked panicked.
“With both you and Francine gone, we really have no one to run the literary side. Jane’s a bright girl, but she’s nowhere near your or Francine’s league yet. Making her a full agent was a stretch, although she seems to have a real knack for picking talented young writers from the internet.”
“I know. Jane’s found three really good ones recently. She’s a good agent but she needs time and maturity.”
“We’re going to need someone experienced and solid.” Without saying it, he felt that Dan had put the agency at risk. With one of the two owners in jail and likely to go to prison, both their agents and their clients were feeling insecure and nervous. Francine was a direct casualty of that, and maybe Hailey too. “You know, it’s not smart to put all your eggs in one basket,” he said to her. “If things don’t go well with Phillip, you’ll be out of a job, and you may not find the right one again, and certainly nothing to match what he’s paying you.” He tried to frighten her into staying.
“Then we’ll just have to make it work,” she said brightly, unwilling to let him manipulate her into staying. He had nothing to offer her compared to what Phillip did. She could work from home and set her own schedule so she could be with her kids. She loved Phillip’s work and understood it intimately, and he was going to pay her a fortune, enough for her to have a decent life again, and not live in a West Side walk-up apartment too small for their needs, where she had to scrimp and save and count every penny. Phillip White was going to take away much of the stress that had been her lot in life for the last five years. He had suddenly become the light at the end of the tunnel, regardless of their relationship. Even without it, this was a fantastic deal.
“I want to wish you luck, Hailey, but I wish you’d stay,” he said.
“I can’t, Bob. I love it here, and I think the agency will survive the shock of Dan’s criminal activities and poor judgment, but I think this is an amazing opportunity I just can’t turn down and that will never come again.” He couldn’t deny it, and he couldn’t compete with Phillip’s offer. He knew when he was beaten. He shook her hand when she left his office and wished her well. He said he would start looking for a replacement immediately and keep her posted. He just hoped he could find good candidates in the next month.
He walked down the hall to Merriwether’s office as soon as Hailey left, and he looked sick when he sat down in a chair across from her desk. “More bad news,” he said glumly.
“Another victim of Dan’s came forward?” Merriwether asked, and Bob shook his head. He could see that she had spreadsheets all around her and was working on projects for the coming year.
“No, thank God. Hailey is leaving. She just gave me four weeks’ notice.”
“Why?” She looked shocked. “And it has nothing to do with Dan?”
“No. Phillip White’s longtime editor died. She was a brilliant editor, but the poor thing was ancient. He and Hailey seem to have a strong rapport over his books. He just offered her four times what we pay her, to become his agent and his editor. So we’re losing a client and our new head of the literary division. We no longer rep his books, and we lose her.” He looked desperate. Merriwether was thoughtful for a minute, as though she were trying to remember something.
“There’s a guy I went to Harvard with who works for ICM. I haven’t seen him in a while, but he handles their literary division in New York. Maybe we could steal him from them. That would be more in our ballpark financially than trying to compete with a crazy offer from Phillip White. Successful writers will pay anything to keep the editors they trust, so we can’t match that,” she said. “The guy at ICM is smart and a strong agent, from what I’ve heard. I think you’d like him. Why don’t we take him to lunch and see what he thinks? Some of the guys in the big agencies like the idea of moving to smaller ones so they can give their clients more personal attention, and he might bring a couple of his clients with him.” Bob liked what she was suggesting, and it gave him some hope. Merriwether always seemed to have a solution to their problems. “His name is David Bristol. I’ll give him a call,” she said as Allie showed up in the doorway of Merriwether’s office.