Judy & Liza & Robert & Freddie & David & Sue & Me... by Stevie Phillips

Author:Stevie Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466872776
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Flying Solo

Now that Judy was gone, representing Liza was not the only thing going on with me. I loved having my own apartment and being alone. I didn’t need anyone. I was willing to pay my dues, earn my way, and make it all on my own. My mother was frightened for me. She had so wanted my marriage to be a success, but when I told her it was not, she didn’t take me on as I’d imagined she would. She quietly supported me. When the time came, she even helped me to move. I knew she was heartbroken—I could see it in her face, her sad eyes—but she did not give voice to her sorrow. There was a little resignation, yes, but otherwise she looked ahead. I would one day, not too far in the future, come to understand that a substantial part of her sorrow was due to her lack of courage to do exactly what I was doing. She quietly bore her suffering. I would not. I knew I had other options. She never thought she did.

It was 1964, and I was ready to confront the world without anything or anyone to lean on. I had toughed it out alone as a child, and I thought I had survived Judy. My experience with her had given me the armor to face the world. I wore a shield that protected me from most kinds of human emotions. I was hardened to human suffering. In any situation with complications—whether in negotiations or human relations—I figured I could clean it up and move on as I had with Judy. I gave short shrift to people who wasted my time and had nothing to contribute. I thought I was a good judge of that. I was certainly judgmental—about everything and everybody.

I persuaded myself there was nothing I couldn’t do. I decided that I couldn’t be put in the same sentence as the downtrodden women Betty Friedan was talking about because I was so far ahead of the curve. I was not only out of the house and into the workplace, I was starting to tap-dance on top of the glass ceiling. Look, world, I made it to agent! No longer the all-purpose schlep, file clerk, gopher, and babysitter.

By late 1964 I was making fifty thousand a year, which was huge compared to my friends, but then they were all women in secretarial jobs. I didn’t consider comparing my salary with those of the men in the office at that point (but that day was coming, and sooner than I would have thought). The office was growing in the number of clients being signed. My office was growing: It grew a window. My wardrobe was growing, and so were my confidence and pride. I was, for the moment, riding high, and cocksure no one could pull me down.

* * *

My job was expanding to cover all of television for the clients we represented. My immersion in this new medium started with Liza.

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