“Actually, I don’t, but an occasional thank-you or kind word might be nice. I work my ass off for us, while you whine about your writing and writer’s block. If you’re having such a tough time with it, then get a job. I’m tired of working insane hours in a stressful job so you can be nasty to me and lie around on your ass.” It was the bluntest she had ever been with him. He stormed out of the house and didn’t come back that night. She didn’t know where he went, and didn’t try to find out. He stayed away for three days without contacting her, and she didn’t see him before she left for L.A. She left Annabelle with the nanny—she hired her to stay at the house while Merriwether was away. But she had no idea where her husband was. She was quiet on the flight to L.A., thinking about it. Bob noticed and asked if she was all right.
“The usual.” She smiled at him. “Ivan the Terrible and I had a falling-out a few days ago, and I haven’t seen him since. I’m thinking of calling a lawyer when I go back. It’s not going to change.”
“Once things get that bad, it usually doesn’t improve. It just keeps getting worse. Martha and I seem to be reaching that point too. She blames me for not getting rid of Dan years ago, and says that everything that happened is my fault, because I didn’t. She may be right. I kept thinking he’d straighten up too. I had no idea how bad he was, or that he was doing things like he did to Francine. I do feel guilty about that.”
“You didn’t do it, he did,” Merriwether reminded him.
“True, but even the small inappropriate things he did were too much. Maybe Martha’s right. She said I failed every one of my female employees, out of friendship to Dan, and I’m as morally responsible as he is. She says she has no respect for me anymore.
“It’s a little hard to get up every day and know that’s how your wife feels about you. I think she’s felt that way about me for a long time, and this mess with Dan has just made it worse. She’s very tough, very black-and-white in all her points of view. You’re good or you’re bad, right or wrong. Somehow I slipped off the pedestal with her a long time ago, and never managed to get back up. It’s out in the open now because I didn’t fire Dan years ago. I never thought something like this could happen. I thought he just talked big. I never believed he could sink so low with women. And Martha will blame me forever for what happened to someone like Francine. There are no reprieves with her, no suspended or commuted sentences. If she doesn’t give you an acquittal, you get death row with her. That’s where I am now.”
“That sounds miserable,” Merriwether said. She was more forgiving than that, and willing to make allowances for people she loved. She had made many for Jeff.
“It doesn’t sound like a picnic with Jeff either,” he said softly. “Do you really think you’ll call a lawyer when you go back?”
“Probably. Now or soon. I can’t do this forever, hold down a serious job and be a good parent for Annabelle, with no joy between Jeff and me, and no happy moments. Instead of putting gas in my tank because he loves me, Jeff drains me and takes away the energy I have.” That was how Bob felt about Martha now. He had told himself he could live without love for the rest of his days, but he was finding it hard to do, much harder than he thought it would be.
When they landed they were going to the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Bob had booked a two-bedroom bungalow, with a big living room between the two bedrooms. It was perfectly respectable, with a patio and a private pool. The hotel had a vintage 1950s feel to it, and movie stars had stayed there for years. It had old Hollywood glamour, restaurants, and the Polo Lounge, where stars and people in the film industry hung out. Merriwether thought it sounded like fun, and she’d never stayed there before.
The plane had just landed when she got a text from David Bristol at ICM. He had a good job there, and he had been torn about the decision. His text said that he was accepting their offer to head up their literary division. Merriwether handed her phone to Bob without comment while they waited for their bags. She was smiling, and Bob was too.
“All right! Now we’re cooking.” The problems were starting to get solved. She noticed that she didn’t have a text from Jeff when she turned her phone on after the flight. She wondered if it had been one fight too many and if he’d move out while she was away. Anything was possible. He was so resentful of her job and suspicious of her that he couldn’t even be civil to her now. She tried not to think about it while they were in L.A. She had work to do. They had a free evening that night and their meetings started the next day, at Park’s office.
After Bob and Merriwether left their meeting in New York, Allie had had drinks with Quentin Park. They had worked together before on his movies, mostly on casting, with actors she represented, and they had always gotten along well. There had been an incident years before where they got a little too drunk together during the filming of a movie, and had wound up in bed one night. It had been a fun moment and a one-time occurrence, which had never been repeated. It was more of a slip than a decision, but they had ended on friendly terms, and the option was always there, if either of them wanted to open that door again. They didn’t. Quentin had been married and divorced since. She was married to her career, and preferred lightweight affairs to relationships. She accepted with pleasure his invitation to have a drink with him after Bob and Merriwether left. They went to the bar at the Sherry-Netherland, which was walking distance from the office.
“So what’s new in your life?” he asked her after they sat down and he ordered a martini and she ordered champagne.
“Nothing much. Busy, actors, movies, casting, the usual,” she answered casually. He was a very attractive man, her own age, in great shape.
“I read about you and Eric Clay for a while,” he said with a raised eyebrow, and she smiled. “What was that about? He’s a nice kid. He’s got a big show coming up. Did you get him that?”
“I did.”
“Big break for him. Big romance for you?” As he recalled, she shied away from anything long-term. It was all about her career with her, and Eric was young.
“No, just a fling,” she said with a shrug. “No big deal,” she lied.
“Sounds like you had some nasty goings-on with Dan Fletcher. That sounded like a real mess,” he commented. “I saw it on Instagram.” So did half the world.
“It was. He’s in jail, and he’ll probably go to prison,” she said. But they had breezed right past the subject of Eric, and she had dismissed him as a fling. It made her heart ache even having said it, just like having sex with Benjie had. It demeaned everything she felt for Eric. But she could hardly say to Quentin that Eric was the love of her life and he dumped her, and she let him, to “protect my career.” So she said nothing. One drink led to three for each of them. He was staying nearby at the Plaza. He invited her to have dinner with him and wanted to drop off his briefcase in the suite. She went upstairs with him. She could justify having drinks or dinner with him as a professional contact she wanted to maintain, but as soon as they got to his suite, he dropped the briefcase and kissed her. He didn’t force her or coerce her. She had a choice all along. She had forgotten how sexy he was, and he had her panting for more, and feeling more than willing to skip dinner and go straight to bed. She followed him to the bedroom of the suite. They both took their clothes off and got into bed. He was fully aroused and so was she, and he excused himself for a minute to go to the bathroom. She lay in bed waiting for him, and suddenly she had tears in her eyes, thinking of Eric. She realized that this was a turning point for her. She could try to get over him by sleeping with as many men as she could. Benjie, Quentin, and others like them, young, old, eligible or not, drunk, sober, assholes or good guys. But it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring him back. It would just make her a drunken slut who thought sex was the final solution as the substitute for love. It wasn’t. She knew that all too clearly now.