“Hi! I’m Bobbie Buehl. Roberta Buehl-Denton, to be exact. A pleasure to meet you at last. Congratulations on the baby!” Bobbie pushed back her chair, sprang up, and offered her hand. Fully uncoiled, she was barely five feet tall. Karen noted her curly black hair and gold-rimmed glasses, framing dark eyes whose gaze was both penetrating and friendly. Ignoring the friendly aspect, Karen took an instant dislike to her pint-sized rival. There was no time to lose; seniority was on the line. She had the extra years at F & D; Bobbie had been in practice longer. Matching Bobbie smile for smile, she answered, “Nice to have you aboard.”

The effort was wasted. Bobbie did not pick up on the challenge. Delighted to meet this young female star of whom she had heard so much, she invited Karen to lunch.

“Let me get back to you,” Karen replied. “Right now I feel like a newcomer myself.”

“Take your time. No rush. Let me know.” Karen felt dismissed.

Three weeks later, Bobbie looked into her office. Karen still had not called her.

“Hi! Don’t forget about that lunch. I eat every day.” She waved and walked on.

Karen was having no luck at all. Either Bobbie didn’t notice she was being strung along or she didn’t mind. Two days later Karen capitulated. “Sorry. I’ve been so busy . . .”

“I know. It takes time to get the daily routine worked out. Anyway, you name the day. With the hours I’m working, I need long lunch breaks.”

“Let’s go tomorrow. Deli Belly. Down Fifteenth Street. They make the best sandwiches.”

“Great name. I like the food already.”

To Karen’s chagrin, Bobbie graciously accepted the role of guest, even though she had invited Karen. She took Karen’s suggestions on the menu, smiled approvingly when Karen was greeted as an old friend, and complimented the food. When Karen took out her wallet to pay, Bobbie did not object. Instead, they must go again, and next time she would reciprocate. They did go again two weeks later, to a different restaurant, and of course Bobbie paid. “I’m so glad you’re back!” Bobbie said. Karen didn’t know whether she was up against guile or innocence, and Bobbie’s next proposal did nothing to ease her discomfiture.

“I hope you won’t think me pushy,” Bobbie said as they walked back, “but Bruce and I’d like to have you and your husband for dinner. After our last lunch I told him how much I enjoyed your company and I thought we should all get to know each other. How about it?”

Karen had no choice but to accept. “Alan works long hours, but he can spare an evening for my professional advancement.”

“Not yours. If anyone stands to gain, it’s me. But I’d rather think of it as a social thing. And bring the baby. Bruce loves kids, and we don’t have any of our own.”

Karen laughed; Bobbie’s enthusiasm was starting to get to her.

Eden took to Bruce as though she had known him from birth. “See?” Bruce said, with Eden perched on his shoulders. “Wouldn’t this be fun?” Bobbie didn’t answer.

“Sometime,” Bruce said over dinner, “I’d like to do a piece about doctor-lawyer couples. There must be lots. Comparable intellect and cultural interests, free medical care in return for free tax advice and malpractice defense. And when the lawyer is a malpractice specialist . . .”

Bruce’s outgoing personality had already won them over, and nobody took offense.

“What I’m really interested in,” he continued, “is the strains in those marriages. Both are such demanding professions.” Bobbie’s face was expressionless.

“Just look at the positive side. Let’s say the demands aren’t burdensome, and both partners enjoy their professional lives to the full. And let’s say they’re not overly dependent on each other. So there’s no conflict. Sounds like a great partnership, right? But how much are they invested in each other? How about that mystical third person, the ‘we’ or ‘us’?”

“That question doesn’t apply only to doctors and lawyers, you know,” Karen said.

“Oh, I know. But I have a pair of sitting ducks right here, so why not take a shot?”

In the all-around laughter, only Bobbie’s seemed forced. She went into the kitchen.

“So, what determines whether such marriages are happy?” Bruce went on. “Some professional couples handle their separateness very well; others come into conflict over it.”

Karen answered. “I’d think the chief determinant in any marriage is whether the partners love each other—enough, that is, to allow for two people not always wanting the same thing.”

“True—mostly. If one likes movies and one likes stage plays, it’s easy to accommodate. If one is Catholic and the other Protestant, they can respect each other’s beliefs and get along fine. But suppose one wants children and the other doesn’t.”

The kitchen door was wide open. Obviously Bobbie had heard. As she came back with dessert, eyes turned to her in expectation. But she served in silence. After a while Alan said, “If they disagree on something that basic, they shouldn’t marry at all.”

Bobbie said, “What Bruce means is, suppose they agree on kids but one keeps putting them off, waiting for a professional milestone that never seems to come. Isn’t that what you mean, honey?” Her expression belied the term of endearment.

Bruce was unruffled. “Of course, you’re right, Alan — if they can’t agree to begin with. But the situation you describe, Bobbie, also occurs.” He did not look at Bobbie.

Alan wondered whose dirty linen was being aired here. What did the Dentons know about the Averys’ history? How close were the two women after such short acquaintance?

“I’d say,” said Karen, “that children should be postponed till both parents-to-be are happy with the idea. If either one isn’t ready, the other shouldn’t force the issue. There’s a lot we don’t know when we start out. We don’t appreciate the demands of a successful career till we’ve been at it for a while. Some people have second thoughts about children when they learn that, and those thoughts deserve to be respected. I had second thoughts, but I made my decision and that’s why we have Edie. I wouldn’t hold it against anyone to decide otherwise.”

No one offered a rebuttal, and they talked of other things until the Averys left.

“Did you have to make it so obvious?” Bobbie asked the moment they were alone.

“Oh, I’m not sure they caught on,” Bruce said. “You’re a bit oversensitive. But I suspect they have their own troubles. I mean, there may not be a happy solution. She said she made her decision. Now is she happy with that decision or just determined to live with it?”

Bobbie looked at him archly. “You sound almost as if you understand my position. I wouldn’t have guessed that from the way you talked last time.”

“I learned something. Funny thing is, it’s not what she said but what I think she meant.”

“Are you saying the truth was in your mind all along, and it took Karen to bring it out?”

“You might say that,” Bruce admitted.

Meanwhile, on the way home, Alan was asking, “Do you have any regrets about Edie?”

“I don’t think so. Anyway, we got her. But I do wonder what’s with Bobbie and Bruce. Something whispers in my ear that he wants children and she doesn’t.”

“Something screams it in mine.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The dinner broke down the barriers between Karen and Bobbie. Each had discovered the other’s vulnerability. Because it was centered on the same subject, that discovery aroused a reciprocal interest, even empathy. Karen gave up thinking of Bobbie as a competitor. As for Bobbie, she had wanted to be friends from the start, and she was relieved at Karen’s softened attitude. One day Bobbie decided it was safe to share her ambivalent feelings.

“There are times when I envy you. Your life is so much more complete. You have your baby and your career, and you compartmentalize them so there’s no conflict. I couldn’t do it.”

Karen had not expected that. “Strange, isn’t it? I look at what you’re doing, and it’s clear that you’re on the way up and I’m marking time.”

“You’ve always been one of Frank’s favorites, and I can’t imagine him abandoning you.”

“It’s not that. I once accused him of sex bias, the way the criteria for success were loaded against women. I’m sure he wants to be fair, but he feels he has no choice but to link success to productivity. Motherhood gets in the way, but any other obstacle would be the same.”

“So you really had it out with him?” Bobbie’s eyes gleamed with interest.

“We had a long talk about it early in my pregnancy. He made it out to be my choice. Even claimed that women are advantaged because they have a choice while men don’t.”

“Yeah, Frank!” Bobbie whooped loud enough to turn heads. “What did you say to that?”

“Nothing.”

“He’s right. Check the medical books. Women have uteri. They can get pregnant. Or stay nonpregnant. And men are forever condemned to nonpregnancy. What could be simpler?”

“So, suppose you were a senior partner and one of your female associates came to you pregnant and fearing for her career. What would you tell her?”

“I’d congratulate her.”

“And her job?”

“‘Come back when you’re ready, and continue where you left off.’ ”

“Meanwhile the men get ahead. Right?”

“Wrong.”

“Wouldn’t it be unfair to them not to, seeing how much more work they do for the firm?”

Bobbie put both arms flat on the table and moved her face closer to Karen’s.

“I would argue,” she said slowly, “that someone is doing the work of child bearing and rearing for them, so why should they derive added advantage from being spared that task?”

“How about women who opt not to have children?”

“Them I’d advance, because they’ve made a sacrifice for their career. The men haven’t.”

Karen paused to digest this. Bobbie must have been over that topic before.

“Your logic is pretty convincing, but I can’t quite dismiss Frank’s point of view either. Is it possible that both are right, and yet not quite right?”

Bobbie poured more coffee from the carafe the waiter had left on the table. “There is no one absolute right. That’s something you can only have on issues affecting all people the same way, which requires all people to be the same in that respect. Since the two sexes are immutably different, the one absolute right for women isn’t the one absolute right for men. Those rights come in conflict the moment women and men compete in the same arena. So each side makes rules, taking for granted that its version of absolute right ought to apply to the other as well. Once each side is forced to realize that the other has a different version, incompatible with theirs, a struggle follows. Amazingly, even though women make up half the population, except when war gives them a real majority, men still have the dominant position in just about every field of endeavor. I guess they feel entitled, because women have the power in reproduction. Somewhere in history we must have struck a deal with them. Now women are finally starting to claim their due in all these other fields, and guess what! Our absolute right—gender equity in all areas except reproduction, where we insist on absolute control—is incompatible with theirs—dominance in other areas to make up for being all but shut out of reproduction. And the struggle for total victory is on—which neither side will win.

“So what’s next?” she continued, after coming up for air. “When the dust settles, both absolutes have been downgraded to relatives, with a result popularly known as compromise.”

“What form will those relatives take? And the compromise?”

Bobbie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Where do we stand now?”

“The men still have most of the marbles. An individual woman can accept that, or she can go one on one with her boss. In her spare time, she can join the larger battle.”

“How about firms consisting of women only?”

“Not a bad idea. They’d have no shortage of clients. I’d worry about the trial judges, though. Just imagine the anxiety every time a judge—presumably of one sex or the other—presides over a case pitching a ‘male firm’ against a ‘female firm.’ ”

“They’d really need the wisdom of Solomon, wouldn’t they?” Karen suggested.

“Not good enough. Solomon was a man—”

“—judging two women!” Karen finished, laughing loud enough to turn heads again.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“What are your plans?” Karen said once they were outside. “You said you envied me, but I envy you too. I used to be ambitious. I saw myself as a judge, a law professor, a star. Now I can’t seem to see beyond the next step in Edie’s development. Full-time work seems light years away. Sometimes I wish I were in your shoes, with no responsibilities but to myself.”

“It’s not that simple,” Bobbie said. “I don’t know what role Alan had in your decision. But let me tell you, I’m not allowed to forget that I have responsibilities to my husband. You heard us when you were over for dinner. My lack of enthusiasm for children is casting a cloud on my marriage that gets darker by the month. I don’t know how it’ll turn out.”

“Were you referring to yourselves when you talked about milestones that never came?”

“Yes. Maybe you noticed that Bruce’s acknowledgment was a little impersonal. We made up later, and you’ll be pleased to know that you helped us.”

“How so? By saying that a change of mind should be respected? To most people that would sound like taking sides.”

“It wasn’t that. I don’t go in for reading other people’s minds, but Bruce isn’t shy in that respect. He wondered if you were happy with your decision. He was close, wasn’t he?”

“I’d better be careful what I say when he’s listening. But how did that help you?”

“He was putting himself in the woman’s shoes. And I called him on it. He was gracious enough to admit he’d learned something from that conversation.”

“So he’s content now with not having children?”

“That optimistic I’m not.”

“Of course, you’re only talking about postponing.”

“Yeah, but he’s afraid it might be forever.”

She looked defiantly at Karen, as if to say that forever was exactly what she had in mind.

Karen caught her breath. “Wow. That would be trouble, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed. But at least, if we get entrenched in opposite positions, he’ll be talking irreconcilable differences instead of selfishness. Sort of takes the edge off.”

“‘Irreconcilable’ sounds so ominous.”

“And ominous it would be. Right now he’s being patient, but something’s going to give sooner or later. And it’ll come in the form of an ultimatum. I don’t see jeopardizing my career at this stage. I do respect other points of view, and I’m not the least bit critical of you. Like I said, sometimes I envy you, but it still isn’t for me. So wish me luck.”

“I do. I made my decision and I’m still ambivalent. You’ll make yours, maybe the very opposite, and for that you may have to pay a steep price.”

“And there really isn’t any ‘right’ decision, is there?”

“Even for two women in the same situation,” Karen added.

They walked in silence until they reached the office. “Let’s talk again,” they agreed.

~~~~~~~~~~

Bobbie reached her bittersweet milestone five years after joining F & D. She knew that Karen had been denied the “woman’s spot” at the top of the letterhead because of Eden, and she made no attempt to hide her feelings about corporate sexism. Nonetheless, she accepted Frank’s offer of a partnership. That was the sweet part; the bitter was waiting at home. The moment he heard the news, Bruce literally swept her off her feet. Now at last he was entitled to cash in on his patience. That was when his world fell apart. For Bobbie, like Karen, had decided along the way that she was not prepared to combine motherhood with a top-flight career. Bobbie made the opposite choice, and her marriage came to an end.