Chapter 19
“To be honest?” Maggie asks. “I didn’t really get why she had to ditch her husband and get on the plane to go to Europe to find the perfect guy to have a fling with.
Like, what? First of all, girl, you don’t need to go all the way to Europe for that.
Second of all, that can’t be what fulfills us. A fling? No way.”
Ingrid looks shocked. “You didn’t like that part?”
“I mean, it’s like you asked Charlie: What do intimacy and connection really mean if we disentangle our identity and self-worth from a man’s? I don’t think the answer should involve a man.”
“Interesting. What should it involve, then?”
Maggie thinks. She doesn’t really know where she’s going with this, but she likes that Ingrid seems captivated.
“I think the endgame is just having really great conversations as women…where we’re not competing and we’re not pretending.
There’s none of that pick-me or mean-girl energy.
That’s what I live for anyway. Like last night at dinner, when you were telling me how you learned to trust your vision.
I’ll remember that so much more than a fling! ”
Ingrid smiles.
“I’m serious!” Maggie says as the car pulls up to LAX. She follows Ingrid through security. Before they can talk more about the book, the staff at the gate surprise her with something that makes Maggie completely forget her train of thought—Ingrid booked her a seat in first class.
“First class?” Maggie squeals.
Ingrid laughs. “You didn’t think I’d let you sit back in coach while I was up here, did you?”
Maggie tries to calm her beating heart as they settle into their spacious seats.
Be cool. Let her think this is normal for you.
But it’s not normal for her. She can’t help but think about little Maggie getting hoodies from the donation bin.
Her eyes mist slightly as the flight attendant offers them glasses of champagne.
Maggie takes one, playing with the controls on the armrest. As her chair turns into a bed, she snaps a selfie and sends it to her mom and Willa.
Your girl’s flying FIRST CLASS!
Get it girl! Willa writes back.
SO expensive! Mom replies.
Maggie rolls her eyes, smiling. Don’t worry, my publisher’s paying for it!
“My mama’s losing her mind!” she says to Ingrid with a laugh.
Ingrid’s ordering an extra-spicy Bloody Mary from the flight attendant. Maggie asks for one, too.
“So how’s your mom?” Ingrid asks, turning back to Maggie after the flight attendant leaves. She stretches out in her seat and covers her legs with a travel blanket. “Does she know about the transfusions?”
“No, of course not. I know Dr. Samuels said there’s nothing to worry about. But immigrant mothers, their superpower is worrying.”
“I think that’s all mothers,” Ingrid says. “What does she think you’re doing in New York?”
“Meeting my publisher.” Maggie blushes.
“Ah!” Ingrid nods approvingly. “I think that’s what I would have told my mother, too.”
The flight attendant walks over with their drinks. The tabasco or horseradish or whatever’s in there is so strong, a squirt of tomato juice goes shooting up Maggie’s nose. She inhales sharply, her eyes stinging, but she smiles through the pain.
“You OK?” Ingrid asks.
“Yup! All good!” Maggie says, trying hard not to cough.
“It takes a little getting used to! I picked it up from my mother. She loved a strong Blood Mary with a kick.”
“What was she like?”
“Very traditional. Dinner was always at six thirty. The house was always perfect. I don’t think there was a single school event she didn’t go to. Probably why she needed such a stiff drink.”
Maggie giggles. “Mine did, too, for very different reasons.”
Ingrid takes a long sip of her drink and gazes curiously at Maggie.
“Like what?”
Maggie shrugs. “She was just always working. You know, figuring out how to survive and what to do with me.”
Ingrid puts her drink down and settles in, interested. “And what did she do?”
Maggie stares down at her blanket. As the plane takes off, she feels her insides rattling. Here’s her chance. She wanted Ingrid to read her novella, didn’t she? Maybe she can just tell her. But there’s something really terrifying about telling her story out loud.
“She had some…creative solutions.”
“Like?”
Maggie takes a gulp of her drink. “There was this woman my mom met at church. She had a nice house. Her name was Vivian,” Maggie begins.
She can’t believe she’s going there, saying the words that have been so hard for her to write.
She feels totally naked, but she can’t stop, because she’s invested in finding out how Ingrid is going to react.
“Go on.”
“She had a granddaughter, Charlotte. She was eight, with shiny blond hair and the nicest dresses I’d ever seen,” Maggie says. She closes her eyes for a brief second. She can see Charlotte. It sends a chill down her spine.
“And how old were you?”
“Twelve,” Maggie says. “Vivian asked if I could play with Charlotte after school. Charlotte’s parents were going through this nasty divorce, and her mom wouldn’t let her dad see her unsupervised, which was why Charlotte was always over at Vivian’s house.
But Vivian didn’t know what to do with her.
My mom said it would be good for me to play with another kid.
A nice white lady with a real house, offering me something to do after school. Plus, she said she’d feed me.”
“So did you go? To her house?”
“Every day.”
“But you didn’t like it?” Ingrid guesses.
“I hated it. Charlotte was so spoiled; she’d run around the house breaking everything and throwing a fit. She was obsessed with asking me why I always wore the same clothes.”
“How awful! Why didn’t you leave?”
Maggie shifts in her seat, embarrassed to say it. “Vivian told me she would get me a Coach purse if Charlotte told the judge she liked being at her grandmother’s house more than her mom’s. And I really wanted one…” She looks down, shaking her head. “Looking back, it was so dumb.”
“So they used you.”
She nods, taking a sharp breath. When she closes her eyes, she can still see the zigzag lines of light catching the blue of their pool.
Her mind flashes back to her and Charlotte in their swimsuits, sitting on the lounge chairs.
Charlotte’s dad nursing his third beer of the afternoon.
Vivian’s husband, Dodge, was reading the paper.
Vivian came out from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of strawberries. She frowned at her son.
“Will you slow down?” she asked him.
He held up the beer and took an obnoxiously big gulp. Maggie always avoided looking at him when he got like this. She turned to Charlotte and asked if they should play a game. As much of a twerp as Charlotte was, a part of Maggie still felt sorry for her that she had a drunk dad.
“Sure,” Charlotte said, sitting up. She grabbed the bowl of strawberries from her grandmother.
Maggie sat up. Strawberries were $4.56 a box at the supermarket, something her mom could never afford.
She held out her hand slowly, but a mischievous grin spread across Charlotte’s face, and she tossed the strawberry in the pool.
“Charlotte, dear,” Vivian said, trying to keep her tone nice and patient. “You can’t throw fruit in the pool.”
Charlotte grabbed another strawberry and threw that into the pool, too. “Your turn.” She elbowed Maggie, then pointed at her bowl.
Maggie stared at the soggy fruit floating on the pool surface, then at Charlotte. It made her furious that Charlotte could be so wasteful. “What are you doing? Those are so expensive!”
Giggling, Charlotte threw three more in.
Vivian’s face turned the same shade as the strawberries as she commanded Maggie to go into the pool to retrieve them.
Maggie thought about saying no. But then they’d be mad and she wouldn’t get her Coach bag.
So she jumped in the pool, got the strawberries, and tossed them back at Charlotte.
Unfortunately, one flew across the pool and landed smack in Charlotte’s dad’s beer. “The hell!” he protested.
“Sorry…” Maggie muttered. She started swimming toward the middle of the pool, away from Charlotte’s dad. “We were just playing a game. I didn’t mean to hit you.”
“A game?” Charlotte’s dad put his beer down.
He grinned, getting up. “You know what? Let’s make this interesting!
” Maggie’s eyes boggled as he dug in his pocket and retrieved his wallet.
He took coins and ten- and twenty-dollar bills out and, to Maggie’s shock, tossed the money into the pool.
“Whoever picks up more than the other wins the whole lot!”
Charlotte jumped up and ran toward the pool. There must have been at least a hundred dollars in there!
With all her might, Charlotte plunged into the water.
Maggie turned toward the wet bills, kicking her legs against the edge of the pool.
She swam past Charlotte, who was struggling to collect the shiny coins, while she went after the big bucks, grabbing twenties and thinking about all the wonderful presents she could get her parents.
Maybe she could buy herself a Coach bag and get out of this place!
She heard the adults laughing, “Look at Maggie go!”
When she snatched the last bill, she emerged at the surface of the water, triumphant.
“I did it!” she announced, showing the adults her fistful of cash. She laid out all the cash on the side of the pool to let the bills dry.
Charlotte’s dad turned to his daughter, who opened her palm to reveal a handful of shiny coins.
“That’s only $1.89. Next time, you gotta go after the big bucks, silly!” Dodge called out.
Charlotte started crying, dropping all her coins back into the pool. Before Maggie knew it, Vivian announced, “Actually, you know what I think? I think it takes much more effort to collect coins from the bottom than the bills.”
Maggie looked up from drying her dollars. Wait, what?
Charlotte’s dad nodded. “The coins have more weight, so they fall faster to the bottom! I’d say Charlotte won!”
“Agreed,” Vivian said.
As Charlotte’s dad picked up all the wet cash from the edge of the pool and stuck the bills back into his wallet, Maggie plunged her head underneath the water.
She didn’t want them to see her crying. She hated herself for believing in their stupid game.
For thrashing around their pool like a seal.
For picking up their strawberries like a janitor.
Most of all…for still wanting to swim to the bottom and get the rest of the coins when they weren’t looking.
The corners of her eyes glisten as she looks back at Ingrid. It’s the first time she’s ever told anyone that story. And from the way Ingrid’s gripping her Bloody Mary, the rage is trembling through her, too.
“Tell me you left after that!”
Maggie’s embarrassed to say it. “I should have. But then it was Christmas, and I thought for sure…”
Ingrid lunges forward. A bit of her Bloody Mary spills. “Did she not get you the bag? Because I swear!”
Maggie’s breathing hitches. She feels simultaneously gutted from the inside out, like a fish, and relieved now that the story is out.
“I’ll never forget walking into their house that Christmas. The entire living room was full of presents. I thought, these can’t possibly all be for Charlotte. There’s gotta be one thing in there for me. Ten minutes into the whole opening game, I hear my name. Maggie! Maggie!”
Ingrid puts a fist to her mouth.
“They hand me a box. I’m taking my sweet time opening it. Then I hear the words, Gee, I hope Charlotte likes it!”
“STOP,” Ingrid cries.
“It wasn’t even for me.” Maggie’s eyes start watering. “I never went back after that. I just ran. I went into a random McDonald’s. And I called my mom.”
Ingrid reaches over and gives Maggie a hug. Maggie apologizes for getting so emotional.
“God, that gives me the chills. What a story!”
“Really?” Maggie asks, feeling a rush of joy.
“I’ve just been so stuck in my own head, trying to figure out whether I should even write about this.
You know, because I’m trying to expand my novella into a novel.
And wondering whether I have what it takes to write at all because…
I’m just twenty-three.” She looks down. “I haven’t lived yet.
That’s what the chair of my MFA said, Estelle Lu—”
“I know Estelle Lu!” Ingrid announces.
Maggie sinks in her seat. Are they good friends? Should she stop talking? But the words fly out of her mouth before she can stop them: “Yeah, well, she said I can’t write a novel because I’m too young.”
Ingrid laughs. She reaches for her drink and takes a sip.
“Let me tell you something about Estelle. I optioned her books once, so I got to know her. She grew up rich. That hard immigrant story…it’s all made-up.
Her dad was a stockbroker. She and her brother grew up in Palo Alto.
They played soccer on the Stanford lawn, OK?
They’re the Vivians of the world. I think the story you just told of your life is way more interesting. ”
Maggie blinks in surprise. To hear, from Ingrid’s lips, that her life—her short twenty-three years, filled with embarrassing life decisions and terrible mistakes—is more interesting than Estelle’s, she feels like if she moves even a millimeter, she’ll break from happiness.
“She probably sensed that from reading your manuscript. So that’s why she said it. To throw you off your game. Remember, there are only two ways to get ahead in this world—you either make something or take something.”
Maggie nods vigorously at the profound statement. This is the sign she’s been waiting for. Ingrid’s just confirmed she has talent. She has what it takes! She needs to go for it! Her pulse thumps in her eardrums as she blurts out, “Will you help me get a literary agent?”