Chapter 17 #2
“How do you have such confidence in your vision…?” Maggie asks, turning the book to look at the back.
“Ahhhh. That’s the million-dollar question!”
Kyle walks back in, taking a seat right next to Maggie, with two steaming-hot plates.
Maggie’s stomach rumbles at the deliciousness—caramelized carrots, green beans, and the veal piccata dressed up with slices of lemon and herbs.
She hasn’t had a feast this good since she went home with Willa one year for Thanksgiving.
Willa’s mother, a single mom who lives in a prefab home, might have a tiny oven, but she makes a shockingly good turkey.
This looks possibly even better! Maggie forgets to wait and starts digging in with her fork.
She catches herself mid-bite and mutters, “Sorry!”
“Oh, no, please, go right ahead!” Kyle insists. “It’s the finest compliment to a chef that his guests can’t wait to eat it.”
Maggie grins, then pops the veal in her mouth—it’s divine—as Dolores comes in with Kyle’s plate. As they all dig in, Ingrid circles back to what Maggie asked.
“To answer your question, how do you trust your vision? Well, it comes with experience. And it takes years,” Ingrid says. “You go with your vision; then, if it works, you trust it more the next time. And the next time.”
That sounds about right. But she wishes there were another way. A faster way.
“But how do you know to go with it the first time?” Maggie asks.
“You don’t.” Ingrid smiles. “That’s why you need to surround yourself with people who do. It’s very hard to know you have the next big thing when you’re young.”
Kyle pauses eating and points to Ingrid with his fork. “Well, that’s not true. The first book that you ever acquired was a hit! And your first movie, too!”
“That was because I’d been trained by good people,” Ingrid says, blushing. She points to Maggie’s copy of Summer Rain. “You’re going to love it. She writes with this soul-searching candor.”
“What does she call it again?” Kyle asks, taking a bite of veal. “The bank of love?”
“The debt-free mind,” Ingrid tells him.
Ingrid swirls her glass slowly, and the look is so elegant that Maggie puts her fork down, even though she’s famished, and makes herself reach for her glass, too. She doesn’t drink from it. She just holds it.
“She was talking about relationships,” Ingrid explains.
“And how every relationship has a price tag. Every time we put something in or take something out, there’s emotional interest. There’s a cost. Even when it’s just sex and we don’t talk about it with anyone, we still fret, we worry, we wonder.
And the point of the book is to free ourselves from that.
It challenges us to think: If relationships were free… what would we really want as women?”
“Wow,” Maggie says. She thinks about her own mental exhaustion, staying up, punishing herself over how she misread the red flags with Bryce.
“You should have seen how hard Ingrid worked to option this thing.” Kyle grins. “She literally sent Rebecca love notes every day.”
Maggie leans in, teasing Ingrid, “Did you slide into her DMs?”
“No.” Ingrid laughs, covering her face. “But I did send her emails. And actual letters—in the mail. But I kept it classy. I didn’t write them in blood.”
“Oh good,” Maggie says, pretending to be relieved.
“Never doused it in perfume?” Kyle teases.
“No!” Ingrid says.
“No invisible ink?” Maggie adds, sharing a smile with Kyle.
“No accompanying soundtrack?” Kyle asks.
Ingrid shoots him a look.
“Well, did any of the letters work?” Maggie asks.
“No…” Ingrid admits.
Kyle holds up his fork. “But she didn’t let that stop her. You gotta tell her the story!”
Maggie’s gaze moves between the two of them. “How’d you finally get the rights?” She’s dying of curiosity.
Ingrid shakes her head shyly. “I don’t know that we have to keep telling the story.”
“But it’s such a great story!” Kyle protests.
“Don’t tell me you went to her house,” Maggie guesses.
“No, she went to the studio,” Kyle exclaims. “She told them that she had the rights to Rebecca’s book and got the studio to make her an offer!”
Maggie almost drops her fork. Wait, she pretended to have the rights? “And did they?”
“Sure did!” Kyle says, chewing proudly as he beams at his wife.
Ingrid flushes, clenching her jaw. “I was simply doing what any man in my situation would do.”
Damn. She looks at Ingrid, impressed. She’s heard a lot of wild stories from Willa about filmmakers who’ve tried various ways to nab the rights to novels, but to her knowledge, no one’s ever gone directly to the studio first and secured a deal. It’s crazy. And kind of genius.
“You have to understand, Hollywood’s an old boys’ club,” Ingrid explains. “Literally. The other day, I had to sneak into Lakeview—”
“Which is this golf course in Burbank that only allows men to be full members. So obnoxious,” Kyle says.
“I was there to talk to an executive. About Summer Rain! Who was he there playing golf with? A male producer, of course. That’s the kind of environment we’re talking about.
So when you see an opportunity, as a woman, you can’t think.
You gotta drive it like you stole it, because if you hesitate, some underqualified guy will take it from you. ”
So true, Maggie thinks. All her fears that Ingrid won’t understand if she asks her about agents evaporate. Of course she’ll understand. “So wait, did Rebecca ever find out?”
“I mean, she must have known, because I went to her with an offer. But she was delighted. Maybe she thought I was delusional. Which I am. But you have to be, sometimes, to win.”
For some reason, the statement makes Maggie think of Bryce and his “radical risks” speech. She falls quiet. Is this why she hasn’t gotten anywhere with her writing yet—she hasn’t taken enough risks?
Kyle reaches a hand over and touches her arm.
“Hey…don’t worry,” he says. “You’re not going to have to do anything crazy. You’ll win on talent alone.”
She smiles at Kyle, grateful for his words. When she looks over, Ingrid is staring at her husband’s hand on her arm. She immediately shifts her arm away, but it’s too late. The easy, musical flow of the conversation stops.
Oh God, she hopes she hasn’t made Ingrid uncomfortable.
“Actually, Ingrid,” she says, quickly switching topics. “I’d love to show you my novella. If you have some time on the plane, maybe, to read?” She makes herself pull out her manuscript from her purse, replaying the affirming words Ingrid was saying right before they were interrupted by Kyle’s hand.
“We love novellas,” Kyle says encouragingly.
He turns to Ingrid. “Weren’t you saying the other day how much you wish there were more novellas?
” Maggie can see him itching to get back there, too, to the comfortable tempo of conversation that had them all laughing and him teasing his wife and touching Maggie’s arm in a purely fatherly way.
Ingrid must know it was innocent. She must know that.
Ingrid glances at the manuscript but doesn’t reach for it.
“You know, I think I’m going to go lie down,” she says, putting a hand to her forehead.
She’s just going to LEAVE?
“You OK, honey?” Kyle asks, reaching for her hand.
“Yeah, just tired. Maybe it’s this wine,” she says, looking at the glass in her hand. She tells Maggie to please stay, enjoy herself. The dessert’s amazing. They’ll talk about her novella some other time.
Maggie feels her heart sink as Ingrid excuses herself and goes to bed. Curiously, she notes that Ingrid takes her wine with her.
—
Maggie fidgets in her room, trying to read the Rebecca Thomas book.
She’s so mad at herself for screwing up dinner.
Everything was going so great. She shouldn’t have jumped the gun and brought up her book.
She’d been so embarrassed, she didn’t even bother taking it back with her.
It’s still just sitting on the table. Who walks around with loose printed pages anyway?
Most of all, she shouldn’t have let Kyle touch her arm.
It wasn’t her fault. Still. She should have sent Kyle more clues, more signs, more something.
And now Ingrid’s mad.
She flips the page to chapter 2.
She hates this burning feeling, like she’s just ruined a friendship and she doesn’t even know why.
It reminds her of the time in college when she tried so hard to be friends with this girl Chloe in her hall.
They worked out every day together. But when Chloe got a boyfriend, suddenly she didn’t want anything to do with Maggie.
Later, she found out it was because Chloe thought Maggie smiled too much around her boyfriend.
Smiled too much. That was her crime. Maggie wonders what she did this time.
Sat too close to Kyle? Tried too hard to be charming at dinner?
Once again, she feels the tiny invisible strings of regret pulling and wonders if the evening could have turned out any better if she’d gone at it a different way.
Ingrid’s words boom in her mind: Vision takes experience.
Why couldn’t she have had the vision to not rock the boat?
Maggie sighs heavily, turning a page. The book’s good. She likes how the protagonist unapologetically poses the question, What should we aspire to as women when our self-worth is not all wrapped up in getting a guy?
Maggie knows what she aspires to. She aspires to get back to a place where Ingrid’s happy with her again. Dishing out wisdom and looking at her in that way that makes Ingrid see herself in Maggie. Not see her as a threat. Which Maggie is so not!
The pages turn quickly. She’s almost at the end of the book when suddenly her door flies open and a petite college-age girl with braided blond hair walks in. She’s wearing a crop top and cutoff shorts. She stares at Maggie as she drops her duffel bag on the floor, annoyed.
“Who are you?” she asks.
Maggie recognizes her resemblance to Ingrid. Her high cheekbones. Her soft blue eyes. “I’m Maggie! You must be Ingrid’s daughter,” she says, extending a hand.
Cassie doesn’t take it.
“Where’s Dolores? I’ve got, like, two superheavy suitcases, and my jerk Uber driver refuses to help me!”
“I can help you!” Maggie says, jumping up.
As they’re walking out of the room, Ingrid flies down the stairs in her long navy silk robe. She’s wearing reading glasses.
“Cassie, what are you doing home?” Ingrid asks, taking off her glasses. “You’re supposed to be in school!”
“Missed you, too, Mom,” Cassie says sarcastically, hustling past Ingrid, outside. Maggie follows her. She helps Cassie lift her two ridiculously heavy suitcases out of the car. Cassie flips off the driver as he speeds off. “Zero stars, asshole!”
“But seriously, why are you here?” Ingrid asks, hugging her robe tight in the breeze.
“Because I wanted to come home, Mom! OK? This is my home, right?” Cassie asks, dragging the suitcases inside. Her eyes linger on Maggie as she walks past.
Ingrid rubs her temples. “Is this about your Amex limit?”
“No! I mean, yeah, I’d like that changed.”
“Did you quit school?”
“No, I didn’t quit. I’m just taking a break for my mental health.
You should have heard the way the professor and the dean were talking to me.
Over a stupid picture. It was so condescending.
Mom, you would have been livid.” Cassie walks into the house.
Maggie and Ingrid follow her to the kitchen, where Cassie proceeds to open the fridge.
But she doesn’t get anything out. Instead, she calls, “Dolores! Can I get a green smoothie?”
Dolores rushes over. Ingrid turns to her and instructs, “No, no smoothies.” Ingrid pushes the fridge door closed.
They all stand around in awkward silence.
Maggie thinks about what Cassie could be referring to.
She assumes this pic to be something compromising.
She wants to tell Cassie, It’s OK. This urge to dunk your head underwater… it’ll pass.
Kyle comes rushing in. “Is that my baby girl?” he asks. An enormous smile appears on his face as he runs over and embraces his daughter in a warm hug. “What a surprise!”
“Cassie just quit school,” Ingrid informs him.
Kyle turns to Cassie. “You’re joking, right?”
“I thought I’d come home and hang with my parents till I figured things out,” Cassie says. She glances at Maggie. “But I see you’ve already replaced me.”
“No!” Maggie’s face burns. “I’m just your mom’s…”
“Business associate,” Ingrid answers.
Cassie studies her suspiciously.
“I can totally leave and meet you at the airport tomorrow…” Maggie offers.
“The airport! Where are you guys going?” Cassie asks.
“New York,” Ingrid says. “And don’t be ridiculous. The driver’s going to be here at six. Stay. There’s plenty of room.”
Cassie looks to her mom, her eyes suddenly hopeful. “You’re going to New York? Can I come? Oh my God, I love New York!”
Ingrid makes a regretful noise. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. It’s a work trip.”
“Figures,” Cassie mutters.
Kyle puts his arm around Cassie and starts walking her to the stairs. “It’s late. Let’s talk in the morning. Maybe go for a walk on the beach?”
Maggie’s about to head back to her own room when Cassie calls out to her from halfway up the stairs.
“Don’t bother trying to make my mom happy. You’ll be trying forever.”