“Good, you should. Now get out, I mean it.” To illustrate the point, she walked across her living room and opened the front door wide. He realized that she actually did mean it, slunk across the room, looking like a guilty teenager, and tried to talk to her in the doorway. “There’s nothing you can say that I want to hear,” she said. “I’ll put your clothes in the garbage, that’s where they belong anyway.” She shoved him out the door and slammed it behind him. She felt stupid and used and furious. She didn’t love him, but they had an easy, fun relationship. And he had made a fool of her. She was too angry to cry. She threw away the rest of their dinner, put his ragtag cutoff jeans and torn T-shirts in a garbage bag, and dumped them in the garbage can. Then she sent Allie a text. She didn’t want to wait until Monday and create a scene in the office.
“You’re a bitch and a slut,” she wrote to her. “Benjie just told me about last Friday night at the party. You’re welcome to him. He’s all yours. He’s a shit and so are you. I hope someone tells Eric.” Allie shuddered when she read it and hoped no one would tell Eric. She had narrowly escaped sleeping with Quentin Park that night and was glad she hadn’t. She found Jane’s text when she woke up to go to the bathroom at two in the morning, and responded then.
“You’re 100% right. I was out of my mind, which is no excuse. I’m truly and profoundly sorry. It was a lesson to me. No more slut scenes. I’m sorry, Jane. Truly.” There was nothing else she could say. They had to work in the same office. Jane didn’t answer her when she read it. She was still awake. Benjie had tried to call her six times that night, and texted her five times, apologizing. It made her realize how little they cared about each other, and that it was time to end it. She was disappointed in all of them: Benjie, who was an asshole, Allie, who was a bitch and a slut, and why didn’t Hailey tell her? She thought they were friends. She felt as though all the women she knew only cared about their careers and had no morals or loyalties. It didn’t matter anymore. It was over. Benjie was history.
Chapter 12
On the first night of their trip, Bob and Merriwether had dinner at the Polo Lounge in their hotel, a famed meeting place for movie stars and anyone of any importance in show business. Many of them Merriwether didn’t know, but Bob did and pointed them out to her. Studio heads, major directors, producers, and a head of a network. He knew all the important people at the top. She recognized famous actors and actresses. It was fun having dinner there, and it was a balmy evening in the garden. The weather was beautiful.
They talked about the meeting the next day, who they would be meeting with and what they hoped to accomplish. They had other meetings set up with three different possible investors, and Merriwether had done extensive research on all of them. She was fully prepared, and as always Bob was impressed. She was incredibly bright and a pleasure to work with, and the consummate professional.
“Any news from home?” he asked her after dinner as they ambled back to their bungalow, which was more of a cottage and extremely luxurious. The suite had a living room, a dining area, three bathrooms, two huge bedrooms, and its own patio and garden. It also had a private pool for their own use, as well as the main pool of the hotel, where you could have lunch and eat and drink all day with flocks of attendants to serve you. The suite had every possible kind of drink, snack, and amenity: terrycloth robes, slippers, even a pink dog bed. The hotel was sublimely comfortable and very glamorous.
“No, no news,” she answered his question. She had thought about it constantly when they weren’t talking business. Her husband had walked out during an argument, and she had no idea where he was. If he hadn’t gone home, he didn’t even know she had left town. The babysitter had told her he still wasn’t back, when she called to say good night to Annabelle before their dinner. She really had no choice. It was time to deal with it when she got back. Jeff had gotten too venomous. It wasn’t healthy for her or their daughter to live that way. She had to put a stop to it. She wasn’t looking forward to it. Divorces were ugly. He had managed to kill everything she’d ever felt for him. She just wanted it to be over, and the fighting to stop. There would have to be a settlement, since he was financially dependent on her. She didn’t begrudge it, but it would be something else to fight about—spousal support, and the house, which belonged to her. She tried not to think about it. She would deal with it when she went back.
When they walked back into the bungalow, she saw that there was a huge bouquet of white roses in a vase on the desk and a card next to it. She opened the card, wondering if Jeff had sent them and was apologizing. They were from Bob, and the card read “Thank you for coming to L.A. with me. You’re the best. Bob.” She was touched, and she smiled at him.
“Thank you. You always make me feel special.”
“You are special, Merriwether, and you should be treated that way.” She sighed. She hadn’t felt special in a long time, and when she went to her own room, she had an idea. She had brought a bathing suit with her, and slicing through the warm water and forgetting her problems was immensely appealing. She knocked on Bob’s door a few minutes later, in her bathing suit and one of the hotel’s terrycloth robes, and he smiled when he saw her.
“Do you mind if I use the pool?” she asked him.
“Of course not. Enjoy it. I was thinking the same thing, but I’m too lazy,” he admitted. She let herself out the back door of the bungalow, the pool was lit, and it was dark around it. She slipped into the water in her trim black bathing suit that showed her perfect body, and she had her long dark hair held high with a clip. She swam laps for a while, until she started to relax, and then did the backstroke across the pool. She was a strong, graceful swimmer. Then she saw Bob in the doorway, watching her.
“Mind if I come out?” He didn’t want to intrude on her.
“Not at all.” She laughed. “It’s your pool too. Do you want to come in?”
“Maybe I will,” he said, and disappeared. He had brought a suit too, and was back in a few minutes, dove in, and swam toward her. “Not a bad life out here, is it?” he said. “I always like visiting L.A., but I can’t imagine living here. I love New York.”
“Me too.” She smiled, and then they both swam for a while, and came to sit on the steps, next to each other.
“It’s amazing how complicated life can seem at times, and it really isn’t, or it doesn’t have to be,” he said. “All that terrible shit that Dan did, and look where he is now. His wife and kids hate him, he’s going to prison. And in a less extreme version, Martha and I had everything for a happy life: good kids, a nice home, great careers. We used to get along and enjoy each other, and then we ruined it and let all the important stuff slip away from us.”
“I keep thinking that about me and Jeff too. It only took us seven years to blow everything. The perfect marriage has gone to hell in a handbasket. He keeps telling me that my career did it, but it didn’t. Careers don’t wreck marriages, people do. I think the big mistake was letting him not work, and my being the only provider. He wound up hating me for it. The truth is I don’t think he has what it takes to be a writer like Phillip White and our other clients, and he doesn’t have the balls to admit it, so he blames me for it, and is too lazy to get a job.”