by Susan Rieger
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
MEMORANDUM
Attorney Work Product
From: David Greaves
To: Sophie Diehl
RE: Ms. Maria Meiklejohn’s Letter
Date: June 2, 1999
Attachments: Peele v. Peele Application for a TRO
Talk to Ms. Meiklejohn. I don’t know that an exclusion order will fly, but you can certainly look into it. You may remember the Peele case had one; Kahn’s client, Jason Peele, filed one against his wife, our client, and then locked her out. It didn’t fly—the judge was plainly annoyed and gave it very short shrift—and ultimately, it backfired. It put Mrs. Peele’s back up; she made it clear to her husband she was willing to have the judge, the same judge, decide everything. I have attached Peele’s affidavit here. Amazing chutzpah he had. It’s what made him the success he was in business. You should draft a letter to Kahn, talking about the incident, and threatening to have Dr. Durkheim excluded from the family residence if there’s a repeat. Then tell him to come up with a serious offer. Enough of this prancing about. Let’s get this thing over and get Ms. Meiklejohn and Jane out of there.
Ms. Meiklejohn will make an excellent lawyer. Her first impulse was to flee. She was thinking like a mother. Seconds later, she’s rallied and asks you about an eviction order. She doesn’t scare—or she doesn’t stay scared—and she’s always thinking. Play to that part of her personality. Make her feel strong, competent. Give her something to do. She and Jane may have to move out, but I don’t think that time has come; if she moves out now, she’ll lose her leverage. I wouldn’t mince words with her. Lay it out, coldly, matter-of-factly. She’ll get it.
Commonwealth of Narragansett
Family Court
County: Tyler Docket No: 99-27
Witness Protection Application for a Temporary Restraining Order
Witness’s Affidavit
My name is Jason Peele. I live at 620 St. Cloud Street in New Salem, NA. On October 2, 1996, I sued my wife, Rebecca Peele, for divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences. The marriage had been dead for years; my wife refused to perform the ordinary duties a man rightfully expects from his partner and helpmate. The divorce has stalled. My wife has been using devious, dishonest, underhanded, and dilatory tactics in order to bully me into settling. She has made blatantly unreasonable and exorbitant demands for alimony, child support, and property.
I am the Chairman of Narragansett Industries (NI), a major multi-national corporation and one of the Fortune 500. The job is an enormously demanding and responsible one, and I have been a very successful steward, widely and publicly recognized for my business acumen and leadership. I’ve been profiled in Time, Barron’s, and Forbes, and Forbes put me on the cover. I frequently work at home evenings and weekends. I also entertain at home, at least twice a week. Because the house is also a workspace, NI pays many of its expenses, including the services of a secretary, a cook, a butler, two maids, a driver, and a gardener. Additional staff are hired as needed, e.g., for large parties. The house is 20,000 square feet, of which 10,000 feet are public spaces, set aside for business and entertaining. These include three large reception rooms; two dining rooms, one large enough for a sit-down dinner for 48, the other more intimate, seating 16; a home theater; a gymnasium; a home office for me; a separate office for my secretary; a swimming pool; a greenhouse; and a professional kitchen. Norman Foster designed the house.
I am petitioning the Court for a temporary restraining order excluding my wife and children from the house until the divorce goes through. Her continued presence has created a poisonous environment. She drops into my home office when I am working there. She does this unexpectedly with the calculated purpose of upsetting me. I have asked her to communicate with me only through our attorneys, but she persists in speaking to me directly. At professional parties in the house, she makes appearances, walking through the rooms among the guests, drinking cocktails with them and having conversations. I do not know what she says about me, but I have every reason to believe that her comments are denigrating and insulting, putting me in a compromising position with my company and jeopardizing my business relationships. She is also turning the children against me. One of them called me a “deadbeat dad.”
My wife’s continued presence in the house is causing me serious emotional anguish and distress. I am having trouble sleeping and eating. I fear that unless my wife and I live separately, I will not be able to do my job. I have leased an apartment for my wife and our two children at 72 Randall Road, two blocks from where we are now all living. I have generously offered to pay the rent, all educational costs for the children, and her car payments, and to provide my wife with a monthly stipend of $2,000. Her removal with the children to this apartment will be in everyone’s best interest. The children will not have to witness their parents’ fights, and I will be able to continue to do the work that makes it possible for me to provide for their support.
Name of Witness Address of Witness
Jason Peele 620 St. Cloud Street, New Salem, NA 06556
Signed (APPLICANT) Subscribed and sworn to before me Date Signed
X Jason Peele Signed (CLERK, NOTARY) Mary Murphy 16 January 1997
_______________________ __________________________ _______________
Discretion
* * *
From: Sophie Diehl
To: Maggie Pfeiffer
Date: Wed, 2 June 1999 21:03:58
Subject: Discretion 6/2/99 9:03 PM
Dearest Mags,
You can relax. I’m sane again. I didn’t say anything to my mother. (I’m still sort of scared of her.) I don’t think she’s messing around with DG; it’s not her way. She might have slept with the chairman of my father’s department—and let word get around—but she had serious grievances against Papa. She loves me too much; and, more to the point, she loves Jake. I see that now. They were terrific together this weekend—playful, affectionate, combative (a sure sign my mother is happy). They had a huge argument about Clinton. Maman said the whole thing was ridiculous. “Americans are so afraid of sex. They think it matters too much.” Jake would have none of that. “Sex is the means of reproduction. Of course, it matters too much. And, don’t say,” he said, looking hard at Maman, “that the connection is incidental.” Maman accused him of being a Darwinian, not a Freudian. And they were off. All weekend, they kept coming back to Clinton. They argued about Hillary, why she didn’t leave him. Maman said a discreet affair was one thing, but no woman should put up with that kind of public humiliation. Jake disagreed. “We don’t know what goes on with the Clintons. They may have other, more important needs that are being met.” He then said that in many marriages, infidelity was not necessarily a death blow. After all that divorce stuff, it was so nice to see a married couple who liked each other, who interested each other, who took pleasure in each other’s company. Maman wouldn’t risk her marriage for a fling. As for Jake, whatever he said about other people’s marriages, I’m pretty sure he would find infidelity a serious threat to theirs.
When I got home, I had a message from Harry. He called to invite me to dinner this Friday. It was as though he were asking me out for the first time. He sounded unsure, diffident. Well, he should be. I don’t know if I want to start up again. Suppose I really fall in love with him? Do I want to marry someone who’s already been married? Don’t I want to be my first husband’s first wife, the standard against which all subsequent wives are measured—and fall short? I’m a firstborn, remember. I have this theory: firstborns don’t marry divorced people, or if they do, they don’t marry divorced people with children. They don’t compete. But then there’s my client, who’s a firstborn; she married a formerly married man who had a child. I may have to refine the theory.
How is Williamstown? What plays will you be doing? It must be beautiful up there, if you like
nature. Not my cup of tea. What is it Woody Allen said? I am at two with Nature. What I can’t figure out is why I stayed in New Salem after clerking. Why aren’t I in New York? My life has been ad-libbed. I need to make plans. I feel sometimes like one of those exasperating Austen heroines, Marianne or Emma, ardent and self-centered. But they turn out all right, so maybe…
I miss you. Much love,
Sophie
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
MEMORANDUM
Attorney Work Product
From: Sophie Diehl
To: David Greaves
RE: TRO
Date: June 3, 1999
Attachments:
I’ve drafted a letter to Ray Kahn threatening to file a temporary restraining order against Dr. Durkheim. I said we weren’t planning to file the TRO unless there was another incident but warned him that we would go forward if Dr. Durkheim went on the rampage again.
Ms. Meiklejohn is on board. She’s very worried about Jane, who has become, in her mother’s words, “a very sad little girl.”
Jason Peele is a pig.
TRAYNOR, HAND, WYZANSKI
222 CHURCH STREET
NEW SALEM, NARRAGANSETT 06555
(393) 876-5678
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
June 3, 1999
Ray Kahn, Esq.
Kahn & Boyle
46 Broadway
New Salem, NA 06555
RE: Dr. Daniel Durkheim
Dear Mr. Kahn:
On May 28, 1999, your client, Dr. Daniel Durkheim, had a bitter and vituperative argument with his wife, Ms. Maria Meiklejohn, which was witnessed by their daughter, Jane, age 11. The experience was deeply upsetting to Jane, and even now, a week later, she continues to show signs of extreme emotional distress. Ms. Meiklejohn is worried for her psychological well-being. While ugly arguments between divorcing couples are not unusual, when they reach a level of aggression that threatens to endanger a child’s welfare, steps need to be taken to protect the child and isolate her from their destructive effects. These steps may include a Temporary Restraining Order.
On advice of counsel, Ms. Meiklejohn has submitted a draft statement in support of a TRO excluding Dr. Durkheim from the family residence. We will not file it now, but in the event there is a second incident of the kind she describes in the affidavit, we shall recommend that she go forward with an application.
Concluding the separation agreement seems a far better solution than a TRO, an action that can only exacerbate the ill will between the parties and delay a final resolution. To that end, I urge you and your client to review our offer of May 25 and send a timely response.
We expect there will be no further incidents that endanger Jane’s safety and welfare. Moving out of the family residence is not an option Ms. Meiklejohn will entertain without a separation agreement or, in the event the parties cannot reach an accord, a divorce decree.
Yours,
Anne Sophie Diehl
cc: Maria Mather Meiklejohn
* * *
Re: Discretion
From: Maggie Pfeiffer
To: Sophie Diehl
Date: Thu, 3 June 1999 23:11:33
Subject: Re: Discretion 6/3/99 11:11PM
Dear Sophie—
I am so glad you’ve come to your senses. I had this sinking deja vu feeling of you at 16, furious at your parents for getting divorced. Who would be 16 again?
I’m having a wonderful time. Williamstown is Shangri-la, gorgeous and unreal, like a stage set. I could be superior to it all if it weren’t so fabulous and so easy to take. No visible suffering. Matt is working away in the library, when he’s not working out at the college’s gym, which is state-of-the-art. Boys and their equipment.
I’ve been cast in three plays, wonderful roles all. Julia, the cardinal’s mistress, in The Duchess of Malfi, Cecily in Stoppard’s Travesties, and, joy of joys, Hypatia in Misalliance. Rehearsing for three plays is exhausting and confusing. I’m having trouble learning my lines. Both Stoppard and Shaw are so witty and wordy, I can’t keep them straight. (Matt says I’m always like this learning lines, but I think he’s just being kind.) I die in The Duchess but no real lines.
The Travesties role is nothing to sneer at, but Hypatia is divine, Lizzie Bennet as Darcy; i.e., she’s got the wit and the money. At the end of the play, she asks her rich and doting father to give up his objections to her penniless suitor and let her marry him. “Papa,” she says cajolingly, wooing him with the confident charm of a beloved, indulged child, “buy the brute for me.” Sometimes, the line makes me want to cry—for myself, course. (And who else do we ever cry for?) My father wouldn’t buy me goldfish.
And speaking of papas, I had a John Diehl sighting. I was so surprised. We ran into him and Sally at MASS MoCA in North Adams. He didn’t look well (wrecked but still so handsome), but he was his old sweet self—funny, warm, interested in finding out everything we were doing. They were taking a long weekend in the country. Sally is always very quiet with me, but not unfriendly. They’re off to England the end of the month, or at least your dad is. It wasn’t clear that Sally was going. She seemed worried about him; she kept her hand on his arm the whole time. (I’ve become a kind of voyeur, taking in people’s movements and gestures, thinking about the ways I can use them.) When was the last time you were in touch with him? You’ve got to see him, sweetie. He misses you. He was very sorry to hear about your divorce detail. “God,” he said, “that must be torture for her. She can’t stand divorcing parents.” He’s crazy about you, in his own peculiar, Diehlian, English way. Cut him some slack, please, Sophie. He didn’t mean to hurt you. He couldn’t help himself; he’s got those demons. I know I shouldn’t lecture you. After all, who am I to talk? I haven’t spoken to my father in ten years (not that he’s noticed). But let’s be fair, there’s a huge difference between our fathers. Your father isn’t drunk all the time; your father hasn’t scrounged off your mother for the last 20 years; your father paid for your education, your braces, your bikes, your prom dresses (and some of my mine too).
I’d love you to come up for a weekend; and we’ve got room for you (and guest). Please, think about it. I want you to see me in Misalliance, but I’ll settle for Travesties. Duchess isn’t worth the detour, not if you’re coming to see me. Of course, I want your mom to come to a performance. She’s seen everything I’ve ever been in since I made my debut in 5th grade, in Iphigenia at Aulis. My first death scene. Ah, progressive education. You know, I wouldn’t have gone to Bank Street—or Brearley or Harvard, for that matter—if it weren’t for your parents. When I was little, I thought they were paying for my education. My Great Expectations fantasy. I didn’t know about scholarships. The truth is, Sophie, my love, if it weren’t for your parents, I’d probably be a drunk like the old man, living off my mother in that wretched basement apartment, sleeping with skinheads, waiting for death. They saved my life. And gave me you.
Let me know how the big date goes tomorrow.
Love,
Maggie
Papa
* * *
From: Sophie Diehl
To: Maggie Pfeiffer
Date: Fri, 4 June 1999 14:51:16
Subject: Papa 6/4/99 2:51 PM
Dear Mags,
What a hat trick. You must have wowed them. I don’t know Misalliance, but I take your word on Hypatia’s divinity. You seem to be developing a specialty in Stoppard. Of course, I’ll come see you. And Maman said she’d come, too.
I am planning to see my father before he goes off to England, but I’m dreading it. He’s been so critical of me lately, so unkind. I come away from our visits utterly demoralized. He’s interested in hearing about what you’re doing because he thinks it’s terrific you’re an actor. He’s not interested in what I do. I start telling him about a case and his eyes glaze over. He says lawyers are jackals.
He’d have preferred if I had become a cop, and I really thought about it too, to please him. But I don’t like guns or blood and it’s too hard a life. I love working with cops, but most of them are alienated, secretive, withholding, distrustful. And their most important relationships are with other cops.
I keep telling myself Papa’s disappointment with me is a proxy for his disappointment with himself. He will never be, he thinks, in the ranks of his idols, E. P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hill. When he won the Wolfson History Prize, the fact Hobsbawm had won it meant nothing to him; he called it a “prize for popularizers.”
I want things to be the way they used to be, when I was Best Girl and you were Best Girl’s Best Girl. He used to be so great, mostly. Reading me all of Laura Ingalls Wilder and Anne of Green Gables. Teaching me to sail the Swallow (which Luc and I took out last weekend) and to play cricket. Taking me to jazz concerts and insisting I listen to his old Coltrane recordings. And then we all got divorced. He became distant, irascible. He thought we all sided with Maman—which we did, of course, because she was the one who paid attention to us. I thought when he married Sally he’d warm toward us, toward me—she’s a very nice woman, kind, thoughtful, a good mother to her own kids—but I think she’s afraid of him, or afraid of criticizing or correcting him. And then Jake has been so terrific to all of us.
Jake always says a child only needs one good parent to come out all right—so long as the good parent, besides doing the good things, protects the children from the bad parent. During that terrible summer they were separating, Papa said I wasn’t worth talking to, I’d become so stupid. Maman overheard him. She said if he ever said anything like that again to one of the children, she’d hire someone to break both his legs. (In case anyone asks WWFWD, ha!) He laughed, but he knew she meant it. She of course knew people who did that for a living, as I do. I met my first with her at the West End. I was maybe 14. He didn’t look like a gangster; he looked like a dentist. He used a tire iron, Maman said. I’ve got to run. I have an evidentiary hearing in criminal court and then home to shave my legs for my big night.