Chapter 42
Ingrid wasn’t ignoring Maggie’s calls. She just wanted to give the girl time to cool down, which in her experience is the best way to handle young people when they’re agitated.
Plus, she really didn’t have a moment to spare the whole weekend.
She was stuck on Zoom doing press, which is how she missed Cassie’s class.
After the news of Camila being in talks to star in Summer Rain broke, Ingrid took as many interviews as she could, saying how much fun it would be for her and Camila to team up again. Then she waited.
As Maggie’s car comes up her driveway, Ingrid watches from her window, stumped for a second when Maggie emerges with her daughter. They’re hanging out now, too?
“Cassie, I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Ingrid says, running out to greet them. She tries to give her daughter a hug. “I got caught up. There was an urgent situation with the movie—”
“Don’t touch me, Mom,” Cassie says, flinching away. She stomps up the steps.
“Guess I’m not winning Mom of the Year.” Ingrid turns to Maggie, sighing. “Thanks so much for bringing her home. And I got your messages!”
“Yes, I was hoping to talk to you about that,” Maggie says.
“Of course.” Ingrid gestures to her house. “You want to come in?”
“Actually, I can’t stay long,” Maggie says. “My mom needs me.”
“How is she?” Ingrid asks.
Maggie makes a face. “Not great. She still won’t go to her dental surgery. She’s really upset by the whole thing.”
Ingrid nods. “Of course she is. She’s a mother. I would be, too. But I thought we talked about this—you weren’t going to tell her…” Before Ingrid can remind Maggie about her NDA and the contract they signed, Maggie utters something that makes her smother her words.
“Actually, it isn’t just the transfusions that have her raging…” Maggie says.
Ingrid waits.
“That part did piss her off. A lot…She thinks it’s just awful, what we’re doing!”
The terror thrashes inside Ingrid that the girl’s going to quit. Leave her out to dry, chock-full of cancer, not even halfway through. It ought to be criminal to make someone feel this vulnerable.
“But when I told her you said I couldn’t write the Summer Rain script, that really hurt her.”
The name of her movie uttered in the same breath as their transfusions makes Ingrid’s stomach flip. How dare she? Is Maggie medically blackmailing her? It takes every ounce of Ingrid’s restraint not to shove the girl back into her car.
“I see. That would absolutely hurt, as a mother, I’d imagine,” Ingrid says carefully.
“But these are two entirely different matters. One is contractual, between two consenting adults. And the other is up to a studio, about a movie that really has nothing to do with you. Have you tried explaining that to your mother?”
“Totally. But you know my mom. She doesn’t really understand Hollywood,” Maggie says. “She just wants the best for me. You know, since she’s given so much up for me.”
“Of course.”
“And I just wish there was a way to make her see why I’m doing this for you! It’s not just because I’m contractually obligated. I also want to because we’re so close. I feel so connected with you.”
“Me, too,” Ingrid offers, nodding.
“Exactly. I mean, that’s why you would take my life and feel comfortable putting it into your movie, right? And why I should be the screenwriter?”
As Maggie blinks innocently at her, Ingrid feels the base of her stomach drop.
All her experience is telling her to walk away.
Remind her they have a contract with a stiff penalty clause, and if she tries to break it, she’d better lawyer up.
But the other part of Ingrid, the part that wants to live, pushes a smile onto her face.
“Right. Exactly,” Ingrid says. “I’ve been thinking that, too.”
“Really?” Maggie’s whole face lights up.
As Maggie throws her arms around her, Ingrid thinks of jerking back. But she reminds herself she doesn’t have the time or wherewithal to start the treatments over again with someone new. Kyle calls out to them from the second-floor balcony.
“Hey, Maggie, you staying for dinner?” he asks hopefully. “I made a macadamia-crusted halibut!”
She could make Kyle into a macadamia-crusted husband right now for inviting the little devil to dinner. Thankfully, Maggie has the good sense to say no. “Thanks so much, Ingrid. You’re not going to regret this! You have no idea what this means to me.”
“So I’ll see you at the transfusion tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there!” She smiles brightly.
Ingrid waves as Maggie drives off.
—
Back inside the house, Ingrid sinks into a chair, wedging her chin between her knees.
Did she seriously just let Maggie manipulate her into letting her write the script?
She thinks of Charlie and Bob and the whole studio’s reaction.
Then she puts her hand over the needle marks on her arm.
She fights the urge to run up the stairs and tell Kyle.
But then she thinks about the pathetic way he stuck his head out from the balcony and invited Maggie to join them for dinner, and she goes to Cassie’s room instead.
Cassie slams her laptop shut when Ingrid walks into her room. She looks at her with accusatory eyes.
“How can you do that to her, Mom?” Cassie asks, sitting up in her bed.
Ingrid rubs her temples. She doesn’t have the energy for a dramatic confrontation tonight. “Cassie, not now. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, picking up a cashmere shawl from the floor and wrapping it around herself.
“I’m talking about taking her blood!” Cassie shouts. “Maggie told me!”
Panic leaps at her throat.
“It’s so exploitative!” Cassie says. “It’s like forced organ harvesting!”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ingrid’s heart thuds in her chest. She doesn’t need this kind of judgement, from Cassie of all people!
“Just because she’s poor and she has no money, it doesn’t make it OK!” Cassie wails.
Ingrid bursts out laughing. Is that what she thinks of Maggie? Just a poor, innocent, wide-eyed girl?
“Why are you laughing?” Cassie asks. “You should be ashamed, Mom!”
“Oh, and what about you? Dolores, where’s my green smoothie? Dolores, wash my dress that I got chocolate on, right now!” she mocks.
Cassie’s face turns bright red.
“That is not the same thing.”
“How is it different?”
“Because I’m not taking her blood!”
“But you are taking her time, her labor,” Ingrid points out.
“If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t have this perfectly clean room.
All your clothes washed and folded and put away for you.
You might actually have to do something yourself, which, let’s face it, is the real reason you came home, isn’t it? ”
Cassie’s nostrils flare. “You’re right, Mom. You exploit Dolores, too.”
“Get up,” Ingrid commands.
She pulls Cassie’s comforter off her bed.
“What are you doing?” Cassie asks.
“If you find everything I provide you so fucking exploitative, you’re cleaning the house,” Ingrid says, dragging Cassie by the arm.
“What?”
“Every single corner. The windows! The floors! The lounge chairs out by the pool!”
“Mom, it’s nearly ten!” Cassie protests. “You’re being psychotic!”
Ingrid turns and walks down the hall to the cleaning supplies cabinet. She grabs every kind of cleaner and mop and feather duster she can find, brings them back to her daughter’s room, and dumps it all on Cassie’s bed. Cassie screams. Both Dolores and Kyle come running in.
“That’s enough, Ingrid!” Kyle warns.
Cassie’s squirming away from the cleaning supplies on her bed like they might bite her. Dolores tries to pull the mop off the bed.
“It’s OK, I can do it!” Dolores says.
“No,” Ingrid insists. “She’s doing it!”
That night, Cassie cleans every single room in the house as Dolores stands nervously next to her, supervising.
Ingrid can tell Kyle’s shaking mad, but he gets into bed next to her.
His hands jiggle as he tries to read his book.
As Cassie sobs, going from bathroom to bathroom, Ingrid feels awful.
But she hopes her daughter will learn she can’t just toss those words around.
The real world is a cold, brutal, unfair, and terrifying place.
Everyone is just out for themselves. And it might kill her to see it, but she must see it, must accept it: Everyone exploits others.
If the tables were turned, Maggie would do the exact same thing to her.
The girl wouldn’t hesitate for a second.
And tonight proves it.