Chapter Which brings me . . . #2
Though I’m reeling, there’s enough producer in me yet to realize I’ve got Maggie in the mood to spill her secrets. I want the whole story, or at least Maggie’s version.
“What happened with Jason? Not all those years ago with the car—I know that stuff already. With Sally Ann.”
“You saw it happen,” Maggie says. “He needed—he still does need—everybody to adore him. That was why Sally Ann made so much sense for him. He turned to her while I was focused on work, and she thought he was her ticket to success.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know she had a kid living back with her parents?” This is the first time the rumor has been directly confirmed.
I nod, and Maggie continues. “Apparently Jason said he would adopt it, take it on financially and raise it as his own. That’s why she first got involved with him. He was going to be her savior.”
“Seriously?”
“Well, obviously he wasn’t serious, but she thought he was, and that was enough for her. He did that kind of thing all the time. Made big promises after drinking too much and forgot all about them the next day. If she’d have asked me, I’d have told her right away not to believe him.”
I blink. “If she’d have asked you if she should sleep with your husband?”
“It’s an expression, Cassidy.” Maggie rolls her eyes.
“He told her all sorts of bullshit. That he had a job lined up to be a baseball commentator, that he’d take her to Italy.
He ran his mouth off every time he had too many beers.
But Sally Ann never knew as much as Jason thought she knew.
She didn’t know about his benders or that night with the smashed-up car.
He was so paranoid, but the only thing she’d ever have spilled was that he said he’d be a father to her daughter. ”
I realize that I’ve been unconsciously crumpling the PA’s note about the flowers. Somewhere in the house, a grandfather clock sounds two long clangs. We don’t have forever. Soon Maggie will have to return to the staging area. I’ll have to walk down the aisle.
“How do you know all this?” I ask Maggie.
“Sally Ann told me.”
“She what?”
“She was my friend.” Maggie presses her lips together.
I have trouble believing this is not one of Maggie’s delusions.
Maggie McKee, thoroughly unlucky in love and in friendship.
Or maybe not. Maybe friendship can survive illicit affairs, salacious love triangles, if both people give in to and believe it.
“Why didn’t you leave Jason right away,” I ask, “if you knew all along he was cheating?”
“I still loved him,” Maggie says simply. “I was willing to forgive him. I wanted to try. I tried as hard as I could. But he was jealous I was working, bitter that I got to do my thing and he couldn’t do his. And ultimately, I resented everything I had to do to keep him safe from himself.”
“An impressively coherent analysis.”
“Yeah, well it’s not like we didn’t try therapy.” Maggie smiles sadly. “Life doesn’t go the way you think it’s going to go. You can’t make somebody else’s choices for them. Kumbaya and all that.”
“You guys did therapy, or some woo-woo retreat?”
“Both.” Maggie removes her claw clip so her hair falls down around her face, and then sweeps it back up again.
“We did all of it, and wow, what a waste. The second we split, it was all-out media warfare. He sent the tabloids years-old pictures of me hanging out with Gabe, told his sob story all over the morning shows.”
“Wait,” I said. “Those pictures of you and Gabe weren’t real?”
“No, they were real. Just most of them were from ages ago—before the show even started, before he moved to LA. I’m surprised you, of all people, didn’t realize.”
I think back to the magazines, the shots of Gabe and Maggie in parking lots, at restaurants. I’d thought tabloids were vague about details for legal reasons. It never occurred to me that this was where I might have been conned.
“You should correct the record,” I tell Maggie. “Or at least confront Jason about it.”
“How?” Maggie laughs. “I don’t even have his number anymore. Though it’s a good thing he’s contractually obligated to stay away from me today. There’s only so much biting my tongue I can manage. If the world knew half of what I know about Jason Dean, he wouldn’t be the hero, that’s for sure.”
“Well, why don’t they? Why not tell them?” If I were Maggie, I’d be livid. Jason has been sandbagging Maggie for years, first as her husband, then as her poor, puppy dog ex. No one could begrudge her the instinct to pull him down with her, not after they realized what he’d done.
“Wait. So what you’re saying,” I say slowly. “What you’re saying right now is that Gabe Leighton had nothing to do with any of it? Not Sally Ann and Jason. Not you and him . . . ?”
“Gabe’s a good guy,” says Maggie. “He’s not a cheater. He’s a catch, and he’s disgustingly into you. You better treat him right, Baum.”
That’s the TV pitch. That’s our special.
Gabe is a good guy, and he’ll tear up when he sees me in my dress; viewers will swoon.
We’ll say I do, and he’ll kiss me and sweep me back down the aisle, dancing in the corniest way possible to Bryan Adams’s “Summer of ’69.
” He’ll pull me out of view of the cameras, to a bathroom or somewhere equally unromantic, and we’ll leave Lauren scrambling for footage, panning from Maggie’s tight smile to Jason’s fake slaphappiness while the crew waits for us to reemerge.
After putting in our time at the reception, we’ll have the rest of our lives to live off camera.
It’s so easy. I just have to find Gabe and talk to him. Gabe makes things so easy, if only I let him.
I feel immensely sad for Maggie, to not have a Gabe.
To have only a Jason, and still to be covering for him.
Jason, who actually deserves the villain edit I’ve been giving Gabe all morning in my mind.
I imagine Maggie giving it to him on-screen.
Maybe she’d come off as vindictive, but she could just as easily play it as a secret she can no longer keep.
Speak now, or forever hold her peace. She could redeem herself.
The audience could see the real Maggie McKee, how she is loyal and clever.
Sometimes ruthless, but only because she’s had to be, only because that’s what we made her.
Another edit is forming in my mind. I have three hours. I have friends on the crew. If Maggie’s up for it, I have one last bit of producing to do.
The guys’ staging room is normally a boardroom, and their untied ties and fresh-cut cigars do nothing to disabuse it of its usual role.
In here, the vibe is men’s grooming aisle at the local drugstore, strong smells of aftershave and shoe polish residue, an open pack of Q-tips, an open flask.
The groomsmen have demolished their own tray of pastries, and crumbs sit scattered across the thickly varnished table.
They’re surprised to see me, including the cameraman, who uses his zoom the second I walk through the door.
“Is Gabe in here?” I ask.
“Aren’t you not supposed to see him until the wedding?” My brother, Andrew, comes over, confused. The camera follows us, while Andrew tries to figure out how he should compose his face for public display, settling on a smile that bares his teeth like he’s mugging for the dentist.
“It’s important,” I say. “But don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong.” I raise my voice to be sure one of the boom mics catches me. A little snafu with some paperwork, maybe, or a lost earring back.
Gabe comes over in his dress shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, his suit vest unbuttoned. Impossibly suave, perfect as always. I’d marry him right here on the boardroom table. He takes my arm.
“What’s up?” he says, head close to mine. He smells like toothpaste. I shake my head almost imperceptibly. Gabe’s microphone is already on, pinned to the collar of his shirt. He follows my gaze, then raises his eyebrows. I nod.
“Have to go to the bathroom,” Gabe explains to the producer.
“That’s not a—” the producer is saying, but it doesn’t matter because Gabe has ripped off the lavalier mic and dropped it on a chair by the door. We’re out of the room and walking at a brisk pace down the hallway.
“What’s going on?” he asks again, and again I shake my head and guide him away from the production.
I’ve learned my lesson about Coyote Cams, rogue PAs hiding in dark corners.
I want to be alone with Gabe, actually alone.
I pull him out the door, across the muddy lawn, down the garden path to the lone gazebo that looks like it belongs in a WASPy New England town rather than a stone’s throw from Palisades Park.
It’s the sort of cultivated specificity that makes this place so generic—a simulacrum of what “wedding at the country club” should be.
Rain flecks Gabe’s white shirt. I can feel my makeup melting, my updo coming uncoiled. I absolutely don’t care.
“Cass, what’s happening?” Gabe and I take shelter on the gazebo bench, still open to the elements when wind blows them our way, and well in sight of the main house, but the best I can do.
The rain will hold the cameras back, at least for the time being.
If Lauren wants a long-distance shot of us cuddled up out here, so be it; we’ll give her Sound of Music chic.
“Obviously this breaks tradition,” I say. A single plump raindrop trickles down the side of my face, likely leaving streaks of foundation. Gabe puts out a finger to catch it.
“And you know how tradition is so important to us.” His face doesn’t break with the wisecrack. He wipes his hand on the side of his pants, which are already stained.
“Fuck tradition,” I say.
“Indeed,” says Gabe. “So what’s up?”