Chapter 15
Maggie’s fingers tingle as she watches Ingrid’s speech on Instagram.
To know that she’s exchanging blood with someone who’s not just pushing the envelope in the film world but making space for women of color, it makes her breathless with anticipation to finish her own story and get it published already!
She inhales, sitting down at her laptop.
Over the weekend, she read that Harper Lee was gifted a year’s salary from her friends so she could devote herself to her writing, and that was how she finished To Kill a Mockingbird.
It was the kind of tidbit that would have fascinated and infuriated Maggie before, sending her venting to Willa about the inequities of the writing industry and how, for all of publishing’s declarations to safeguard diversity, in practice it’s reserved for those who can afford to gamble with their time—mostly rich white people.
Now Maggie is one of those people. Well, not exactly, but at least she has the money to take a shot on herself. A lot of shots.
If she can only decide how to expand her novella.
So far it’s a coming-of-age story about a girl growing up in Las Vegas, whose parents work thirteen-hour days, and how she navigates being left on her own.
She knows if she’s serious about getting an agent to take it on, she’ll need to dig deeper and add another fifty thousand words.
But she’s not sure which of the many threads based on her life she’ll need to expand.
Or even want to. Because here’s the other worry: What will her parents think?
Her cheeks burn as she pictures her parents reading her pages. There are things that happened that they don’t even know about.
But they still happened. And they mattered.
And isn’t that the whole point of writing: to feel less alone?
To let the universe understand your truth and what you’ve been through?
At the same time, what if you write down all your naked truths and no one even picks up the book? Won’t you just be hurting your parents?
She thinks of how amazing it was renting her parents a new place in Pasadena after they checked out of the Hilton.
With the help of a highly motivated agent, she was able to get them a town house with bright windows and a little yard!
Her mom has her first appointment to extract her bad teeth next week.
Maggie’s finally the perfect Chinese daughter in their eyes—why mess up any of that?
Maybe she should just write a thriller. A thriller about a girl who writes under a pen name, but her parents find out and try to murder her.
Maggie laughs to herself. If her parents were the type to actually take control of the situation, she wouldn’t have to write anything. Instead, they’re the type to wallow in indecision, allowing their problems to fester.
She glances at her phone, wishing she could pick Ingrid’s brain—how did she know what kind of movie she wanted Uncharted to be?
Her eyes slide down to the tiny needle mark on her arm.
She made a point to avoid looking in any mirrors or windows the whole time she helped her parents move, terrified to confirm whether Dr. Samuels was right.
She knows it’s silly—you can’t see if you’ve aged one year.
Still, she wonders. Now, in the quiet of her apartment, she goes to the bathroom and looks at her reflection. Really looks at it.
In the soft light, she’s relieved to see her dewy skin hasn’t wrinkled. Her lips are still full. Her hair still thick and black. Her cheeks still pink. She moves her fingers from her forehead to her neck to her arms, pulling and flexing and searching for any signs. But thank God, there are none.
As she’s walking out, she notices a mug with Bryce’s razor and toothbrush in it.
There’s also a small tube of his deodorant on the counter.
She considers tossing it all in the trash, but then when she gets into her bedroom, there are signs of Bryce everywhere.
His hoodie hanging by her door, his indoor slides under her bed.
One by one, she grabs each item and throws it into an box, then reaches for her car keys.
—
She arrives at Bryce’s condo holding the box of his crap. The plan is to just drop it off with his doorman and go home. Bryce lives in one of those glittering high-rises in Beverly Hills, full of trust fund babies and doctors and lawyers who work on the Westside.
“Hey, can I just leave this with you? It’s for Bryce Lim. Apartment 15A,” she says to the doorman.
“He said for you to come up,” he tells her, walking her over to an elevator and pushing the button.
He left word with his doorman in case she came? Before Maggie has a chance to react, she’s already in the elevator.
Bryce is waiting at the door for her. He looks like fourteen days of insomnia, dragged by three miles of self-pity. He’s wearing a loose white linen shirt, unbuttoned.
“Maggie…” he says, his voice a hoarse cry. He tries to hug her.
She shoves the box at him.
“Why haven’t you returned any of my texts?” he asks.
She tries to ignore him, but he touches her arm.
“Please, can we talk?” he begs. “Can I buy you dinner?”
Maggie wants to laugh. Talk? After he butchered her heart in the name of art? She bites her tongue, reminding herself drama is what gets him off. “No. Sorry. I have a lot of writing to do.”
She walks back into the elevator. Bryce drops the box and runs over to her. He slips into the elevator with her just in time. “You’re still writing?” he asks. “I heard you quit the MFA.”
“Yes, I’m still writing,” she says, rolling her eyes as the elevator descends. She scrolls on her phone, counting the seconds until she’s out of this steel box with him.
“How many words a day?”
She gives a wildly inflated number just to piss him off.
He lets out the most obnoxious, surprised snort. “Yeah, OK,” he says. Then, a second later, he drops the news: “I got an agent.”
She feels the inside of her belly being scooped out at this information. She holds her breath as she wills herself not to say anything. Don’t react. Don’t ask him any details.
“Was it…?” she says in spite of herself.
“No! It was not someone through Estelle,” he tells her. “It was actually someone I queried a while back on a long shot. Jonathan Wyatt.”
Jonathan Wyatt is not just any literary agent; he’s a total shark, known for turning debuts into National Book Award winners.
“Anyway, he read my manuscript, and we had a call, and he wanted to know if I had any other offers, and of course, then I had to contact all the other people reading…” As Bryce yaps about the specifics of his good fortune, Maggie battles the urge to pound her head into the elevator buttons.
When at last the elevator doors open, she flies out of there.
“Don’t give up!” Bryce calls after her. “That’s all I’m saying. Don’t give up on your writing. Or on us.”
She flashes her middle finger at Bryce as she walks calmly across the lobby.
Later, in the safety of her car, she lets herself unravel.
The injustice of Bryce getting an agent before her makes her slam her hand on her horn.
She screams. If that motherfucker gets published before her, that’s it!
She wonders if she should query Jonathan Wyatt herself, right now.
Why didn’t she have the balls to reach that high?
Because she wasn’t a delusional male like Bryce!
She tried to go at this lightly, tiptoeing politely, apologetically…
now, looking back, that was clearly the wrong approach.
A thought suddenly appears—maybe Ingrid can help!
She’s got to know people. Will she think it’s weird that Maggie’s asking her, though?
She sinks her face into her hands in the hot car.
She’s so sick of wondering whether this or that is appropriate.
Whether it’s appropriate to write what she wants to write.
Whether it’s appropriate not to tell her parents.
Whether it’s appropriate to ask the most powerful woman she knows for help. Screw appropriate!
She hesitantly reaches for the phone. Before she can dial, though, she sees a video pop up on her screen. It’s of Camila Veracruz in her bedroom, and she’s sobbing.
“Hey, guys…thank you for the outpouring of love for Uncharted. But I want to be completely transparent with you about something. I just found out that I was the lowest-paid cast member of Uncharted, even though I played the lead role.”
“Holy shit,” Maggie blurts out.