Chapter 28
Ingrid shoots off her working draft to Maggie, along with some samples of other pitches from other projects. She’s feeling pretty proud of herself for handling that so beautifully when she gets a text from Charlie.
Check Camila’s IG.
She taps on her Instagram and sees a new post. It’s a photo of Camila and Ingrid together on set. The caption reads:
Thank you so much to all the fans of Uncharted for your messages of love and encouragement.
I’m speechless with gratitude. A special thank-you to my producer, Ingrid Parker, for ALWAYS championing women, particularly women of color, for her guidance and faith in me, and for advocating for me, and to the studio for being so supportive of this movie. Much love and respect.
Cassie walks in as Ingrid’s smiling.
“Mom?” Cassie asks, plopping down on one of her chairs, in a tennis dress, sipping some sort of chocolate concoction that Ingrid assumes Dolores made for her.
Ingrid puts her phone down.
“Yes, sweetheart?” She takes her reading glasses off, getting into full mom mode. “How are you, honey? Have you talked to your professor?”
“No…” Cassie sighs, putting her chocolate drink down. “I told you, Mom, I’m not going back. I need a break. But I want you to know, I’m not just going to fuck around in LA. I’ve joined a screenwriting class.”
This is news to Ingrid. She leans over as Cassie gets out a crumpled-up flyer from her tennis dress pocket and shows it to her.
Learn the fundamentals of screenwriting!
the flyer promises. It’s being taught by someone Ingrid has never heard of.
Still, Ingrid considers it progress. It’ll get Cassie out of the house.
Plus, it’s kind of cool that Cassie’s interested in making movies.
“That’s great!” Ingrid says. “Where is this?”
“In West Hollywood. Figured it would be more fun than me just writing on my own.”
Ingrid nods. “You know you could just ask me—”
“Nope!” Cassie wags her finger. “If I’m going to do this, I’m doing it on my own or I’m not doing it at all. Contrary to what you might think, I actually learned a lot in college. I’m aware of my privilege. I don’t want people calling me a nepo baby.”
Ingrid sits back. “I’m really impressed, Cassie.” Maggie was right. Maybe Cassie’s finally waking up. Maybe this whole nude picture thing was a blessing.
Cassie looks up shyly. “It…would be pretty cool if you came by my class and talked about story sometime. I know your schedule’s probably crazy with all your projects, but—”
“No,” Ingrid quickly says. “I’ll make time.”
Her daughter’s face blooms, then falls when she notices a bit of chocolate smeared on the neck of her white dress.
“Dolores!” she yells, getting up. “My dress…can you wash it?”
Ingrid stops herself from rolling her eyes. OK, so maybe her daughter can’t change everything overnight. But this screenwriting class is a start. After Cassie leaves, Ingrid turns back to her pitch deck, positioning Camila front and center in her presentation. She sees Kyle walking by.
“Hey,” she calls out to tell him the good news. “Did you hear about Cassie’s class?”
Kyle walks into her office, holding a bulky contractor’s measuring tape.
“Yeah! I think it’s awesome!” Kyle says, glancing at the large yard out the window in her study. He starts measuring the window.
“What are you doing?” she asks, amused.
“Just taking a few measurements,” he says. “Did you know that if we build an accessory dwelling unit in the back, we could rent this place out for $28,000 a month?”
The non sequitur throws Ingrid for a second. “Yeah, and where would we stay?” she asks.
“In the ADU! It would be our little guesthouse!” he says, gesturing for her to come look out the window. “I’ve measured it. It’d be smaller, of course, and we’d lose the view, but we’d have passive income—”
Ingrid starts laughing. He’s not seriously suggesting they move into some type of backyard tiny home, is he? When Kyle doesn’t laugh back, she gawks at him. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Just think about it. Why do we need all this space? The kids are grown. Maybe it’s time we let another family live in the main house.”
“I’m not letting some other family live in my house just so we can collect passive income. I thought you were going to get a job!”
When Kyle doesn’t say anything, Ingrid narrows her eyes.
“I don’t know if that makes sense,” he finally says. “Do I want a new job at my age? I don’t know that I need all that stress.”
The privilege of his words sends shock waves through her.
“No one needs stress, Kyle,” Ingrid says. “You think I need stress?”
“Which is why I’m saying let’s let the house make some money for us!” Kyle gestures with his hands. “We’re pushing sixty. It’s time to start planning—”
“No, it’s not time to start planning anything!” Ingrid barks back.
“If we live frugally, if we’re smart, we could live off the rent—”
“I don’t want to live frugally! And I’m certainly not having my house make more money than my husband!”
Kyle tosses her a look. “That is an incredibly hurtful thing to say.”
He did not just bring up hurt. He wants to have this conversation? She’ll have this conversation.
“Is it, Kyle?” she asks. “Is it hurtful to tell you that I wish you hadn’t lost your job because you couldn’t keep it in your pants?”
Kyle sighs as he plants himself down on a chair. “Here we go again.”
“Yes, here we go again.” Ingrid’s eyes water before she can even get the words out.
She thinks of how small and pathetic she felt the whole plane ride home.
How it made her want to gag every time she thought about Dillon.
And yet. A part of her was infuriated with herself for not going through with it.
That’s how much Kyle hurt her. “It didn’t just cause me pain, Kyle. It caused me shame.”
“I was ashamed, too! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you in counseling!”
“Were you ashamed, Kyle, every time you looked at your body in the mirror? Every time a younger woman walked by you, did you think about your cellulite? Your C-section scar? Your breasts? Did you wonder which one of these made your husband look at another woman and convince himself it’s OK to forget us?
” Ingrid stabs her chest with her finger, trying so hard to hold on to all her emotions. “Because that’s what I did.”
“Ingrid…” Kyle’s voice softens.
He walks over and tries to hug her, but she warns him, “Don’t.”
“I’ve worked my whole life not to feel shame. Not to compare myself to other women. With one act, you reduced me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” he cries, his voice pained. He sits back down and peers at her, almost like a child. “But when are you going to let it go?”
She hates the neediness of his question. Even now, he’s putting this on her. When is she going to let it go? Why can’t she just forget the one time he messed up so they can get back to being happy? What’s wrong with her?
“Please…” he begs. “Just let it go. It wasn’t about you or your body.”
“Then what was it about?”
Kyle drops his gaze. He still hasn’t given her a clear answer.
“Well?”
“I don’t know. I just needed to feel bigger.
I’d lost the firm a client.” He shakes his head, clearly disgusted with himself.
“It wasn’t easy…hanging on to that job…constantly fighting off the younger guys who were trying to poach my deals.
The pressure just got to me. I know it was wrong and stupid, but I didn’t think.
I swear, it had nothing to do with you, my love. ”
She takes in his sad, gray eyes, his hollowed face, his tanned, rugged skin.
Her best friend of over thirty years. That feeling he’s describing, of losing his edge, of course she gets it.
She feels it every day. It’s why she’s getting the transfusions.
If this were a Hollywood movie, this would be the moment she goes to him.
This would be the moment they finally reconnect.
But that’s Hollywood. And real life is mired in a thousand tiny paper cuts.
She thinks of her own father. The perfume wafting from his shirt as he sat down after work to watch TV with them.
And her mother, never making a thing of it.
Always asking him at dinner with a straight face, how was his day?
Did he like his carrots? He took her dignity. And the woman still made him dinner.
She thinks of herself. How terrified she feels every time one of her friends calls her and starts asking about her and Kyle. It’s one of the reasons she has stopped going out with her girlfriends. Now she’s so lonely. All the time.
She thinks of her daughter. If Cassie ever found out what Kyle had done, it would break her.
Her daughter loves her dad too fiercely not to forgive him.
She would be forced to accept, if to nobody else but herself, that this is just what men do.
And Ingrid can never do that to her daughter, which is why she can’t tell her.
How can Kyle put that kind of distance between her and Cassie?
Finally she thinks of her son, Connor, who got cheated on himself last year, which was one of the reasons he decided to go halfway across the world to Thailand. So he could forget and process and heal. How could Kyle do this to Connor?
For all these reasons, Ingrid doesn’t go to him. Instead, she turns back to her computer.
“You’re not building the ADU,” Ingrid says.
“And if I find a job, will you forgive me?” Kyle asks.
Ingrid doesn’t answer him. The question reminds her of all the times he’s said Tell me what would make you happy after they’ve had a fight. She’s done giving him a road map back to her heart. He has to figure it out. She simply puts her reading glasses on again and gets back to her work.