Chapter 41
By Monday afternoon, Maggie’s freaking out.
Her mom is still refusing to go to her surgery.
Maggie’s still not gotten ahold of Ingrid.
They’ve been playing phone tag all weekend.
Every time Maggie texts, Ingrid writes back, Just come to the transfusion on Tuesday.
We’ll talk there. But in order for her plan to work, she’s got to see Ingrid before they trade blood again.
She reaches out on Instagram to Cassie, who tells her that her mom’s supposed to come to her screenwriting class this evening. Can I come? Maggie immediately asks. Sure, Cassie texts, and sends her the address.
Cassie’s in the front, talking to the instructor, a brunette in a formfitting black dress, when Maggie walks in.
Maggie scans the room for Ingrid but doesn’t see her.
Maybe she’s late. Cassie introduces her to Emma, the instructor, who Maggie thanks profusely for letting her sit in.
Then she turns to ask Cassie where her mom is.
“I don’t know. She’s supposed to be here!” Cassie says, looking anxiously at the door.
“All right, guys! Let’s get started,” Emma says to the class. “Ms. Parker will get here when she gets here. In the meantime, let’s work on our impassioned speeches, everyone!”
Maggie turns to Cassie, who informs her that they’ve been practicing writing motivational speeches from the POV of their characters.
“Mine’s a dancer in college who comes from a lot of privilege.
She has opportunities most people dream of.
But deep down inside, she’s really insecure and worries that she lacks authenticity.
She doesn’t know if she is capable of true passion. ”
The vulnerability of Cassie’s veiled admission takes Maggie by surprise. “I think she’s capable of it.”
“But how would she know, when so much of her life has been manufactured for her by her parents?” Cassie says timidly. “It’s the curse of privilege.”
“It’s only the curse of privilege if she lets it be,” Maggie says. “But I think her acknowledging her privilege, not letting it define her—I think that’s its own authenticity.”
Cassie smiles.
For the next half hour, they all work on writing their monologues.
Maggie keeps glancing at the door, hoping Ingrid will show up so she can deliver her own speech on why she deserves a chance to write the screenplay.
At half past seven, she’s still not there.
Emma turns to Cassie. “Is your mom on her way? Because if not, I’m going to call on volunteers to read their monologues. ”
Cassie glances at her phone, then frowns. “She just texted—she’s stuck on a Zoom and can’t leave. I’m so sorry, everyone.”
The entire class lets out a heavy sigh, but no one is more disappointed than Maggie. She really wanted Ingrid to hear her out. When Emma asks for volunteers, no one raises their hand. Maggie slowly looks up. “I’ll go.”
The instructor nods encouragingly. The whole class turns to her.
Maggie closes her eyes. She tries to put into words the fire that burns in her. The reason she signed up to trade blood with Ingrid in the first place, the one that her parents can never understand. It’s not because of the money. It’s because of story.
“Story is the thing that beats inside us,” she starts, “willing us to keep going.” She thinks of herself at nine years old, sitting in that oven of a car, waiting for her mom to dig through those donation bins.
Putting her head down every time someone walked by.
Telling herself that in ten years she’d be a famous author, and she’d wear the most gorgeous clothes, and she’d tell people this story of how her mom dug for clothes in the back of a church parking lot and they’d think it’s so cool.
“I didn’t choose this art. But it’s in my fingers. It’s in my veins. And yeah, maybe it’s a little delusional sometimes thinking I can write something when I don’t have that much experience…”
She thinks back to how she felt in Ingrid’s kitchen. A tiny beetle, staring up at this massive giraffe. Asking her to see her, please, just for a second. See what she’s taken from her, and acknowledge she can’t just take it.
“But I have to be, to fight every doubt in my head. Every little voice whispering, Maybe you shouldn’t write this.
Maybe you’re not good enough. That takes mad courage.
” Maggie thinks of the other week, when she pleaded with her mom in her kitchen to please let her write her story.
She thinks of herself at seventeen, showing Tonya her Williams essay that was about her.
The awkward silence that followed. The guilt when it hit her that maybe Tonya didn’t want Maggie writing about her.
The terror. Desperate to protect her essay, Maggie told Tonya it was just for the admissions people.
“Who does that?” Maggie says. She takes a deep breath.
“You do it because you want the world to see you, finally. Know what you’ve been through.
Walk in your shoes and see you as you see yourself—a writer.
Someone who deserves full recognition for your ideas.
For your labor. Even though story is the thing you will die for, you want others to know that this labor, like all labor, is hard and takes courage and effort…
and deserves to be affirmed, even if it comes out of passion and is something that you would do anyway. It’s still yours.”
—
“Damn,” Cassie says afterward, so overwhelmed she says she needs some air. Maggie suggests they get something to eat.
They go to a Mexican restaurant. As they wait for their food, Cassie tells Maggie how much what she said meant to her.
“The part about wanting the world to see you? Yes!” Cassie says. “I felt that so hard!” She pulls out her arm to show Maggie her goose bumps.
Maggie chuckles.
“You just inspired me to go for it,” Cassie says, smiling. “I’ve been debating whether to write a script based on my whole TA thing.” Cassie rolls her eyes. “It’s horrible, I know. Like, who even cares? But I have this idea for a horror script, and I think it might be kind of fun.”
Their food arrives. “You should totally go for it! I want to try screenwriting, too,” Maggie says. Cassie digs into her vegan jackfruit taco.
“You writing for my mom?” she asks.
“Hoping to.” Maggie takes a bite of her taco and reaches for a chip. She cocks her head to one side, admiring Cassie. “What was it like growing up with Ingrid Parker as your mom?”
“Um, terrible.”
Maggie dunks it in some salsa. “Terrible?”
“Just imagine your mom comparing everything you ever tell her to some better version of the script in her head. Every sentence. Every event. Every heartbreak.”
Maggie’s stunned.
“That’s why it took me so long to even think about writing.” Cassie reaches for a chip. “It’s impossible to make art when the art’s constantly being judged.” She pauses. “Which is why it’s kind of nice now.”
“What’s kind of nice?”
“Me being a fuckup.”
“You’re not a fuckup.”
“Mmmm, kind of am,” Cassie disagrees. “She’d have been there if I weren’t. That’s OK. I’ve come to accept it.”
Maggie puts her taco down. “I know your mom doesn’t think of you that way.”
Cassie takes a long sip of her soda and tilts her head. “How do you know my mom so well?”
Maggie hesitates.
“It’s OK, you can tell me,” Cassie says. “There’s pretty much nothing about my mom that shocks me.”
Maggie’s eyes linger on the needle marks on her arm. “We…trade blood,” she finally says. “She and I are doing a medical experiment. That’s why I’m always over at your house.”
The taco falls out of Cassie’s hand and onto the table.
“Are you fucking kidding?” Cassie asks, gasping. “What?!”
“Yeah.”
“So she takes your blood?!” Cassie exclaims. Heads turn in the restaurant.
Maggie puts a finger over her lips. “Shhh, you can’t tell anyone. It’s strictly confidential.”
“How much is she paying you for this?” Cassie whispers.
Maggie blushes. “A lot! Enough.”
Cassie shakes her head vigorously. “I don’t think there’s any amount of money that makes this OK. It’s so wrong!”
“I wanted to do it,” Maggie insists.
“Why?” Cassie stares at her like she’s full-on deranged.
Maggie thinks of her monologue today. There’s one very important part she forgot to mention.
A part that Cassie would never be able to relate to.
All those other writers in the room—the ones working two jobs, staring down the barrel of student loans—they can relate: Some of them will have to stop because it will be financially impossible to keep going.
That’s the most infuriating part about this path.
Writing is not simply a contest of who is the most talented.
It is also a contest of who is the least starved.
“Because I need the money,” she says frankly.
“Fuck,” Cassie says, nibbling the rest of her vegan nachos in astounded silence.