Chapter 61
Maggie’s writing when she gets the email from Charlie.
These last few days away from Ingrid have been a godsend.
She’s back to working on her book. She’s been helping Willa with her scenes for her auditions.
Slowly but surely, she feels herself coming back to life.
Then she gets the email. The subject line is: Re: Your Script.
It’s going to be OK, she tells herself as she clicks it open.
There’s no message inside. Only a Zoom link.
Quickly, she dashes over to her bathroom mirror and grabs the root coverage powder she bought off the TikTok Shop.
It promised instant gray coverage. She dabs it onto her hairline in an attempt to cover up the stubborn white hairs that keep sprouting.
She calls out for Willa to check if she got them all, then remembers her roommate’s out at the store.
Maggie takes her laptop to the living room, which has the best lighting.
Lighting, these days, is very important, given her dry skin.
She sits down on the couch. Taking a deep breath, she clicks on the link. Charlie is in the Zoom, waiting.
“Hey, Maggie,” Charlie greets her. She gives him a nervous smile. They chat about the nice weather and their weekend plans, but Maggie can tell from his body language that he’s just as impatient as she is to get to the point. “So I’ve had a chance to read your script and I…didn’t love it.”
“Oh!” She nods, still smiling. “That’s OK, what didn’t you love about it?”
“It just didn’t quite land for me. I was hoping for something that matched the energy of the book. The book is so unapologetically honest—that’s what made it groundbreaking. But this script just felt…like it was neither here nor there.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Maggie says, sitting up. She pulls up the other version of her script. “Actually, I had this whole other—”
Charlie puts his hands up to stop her. “I don’t think we need to get into another creative conversation right now.”
Maggie nods, trying to hide her disappointment. Maybe he’ll schedule another meeting next week?
“I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed reading your work. I think you have such a huge future ahead of you,” Charlie says. Maggie furrows her brows. This is weird. This sounds like a see you later speech.
“Thanks, but this is just the first draft,” Maggie reminds him. “I get a rewrite, don’t I?”
There’s a long pause. “Listen, Maggie, you know my door’s always open to you, but on this particular project, we need to be moving on.”
“What?” Maggie blinks. “But I get a rewrite…” Her voice is suddenly desperate. “Isn’t that a part of my deal?”
“Don’t worry! We’ll still pay you for it, but we just need to take this in a different direction. I’m sorry again, Maggie,” Charlie says.
As he waves and clicks off, Maggie stares in confusion at the screen.
WTF just happened? The fury pounds in her as she stands with her computer.
Ingrid must have gotten to him. But before she can figure out what to do, she feels her vision start to fade.
Her head throbs. As everything goes black, the laptop in her hands falls.
She tries to hang on to the bureau, but her body tumbles to the ground.
—
The first person she sees when she wakes up is Willa.
“You’re awake!” Willa cries, putting her arms around her. “OMG, thank God!”
Maggie looks around her. She’s in a hospital room. The wires and beeping machines come into focus. A doctor in a white coat with red hair rushes over. She checks Maggie’s eyes.
“Maggie? Can you hear me?” the doctor asks.
“Yes,” she mutters, reaching up with a hand to rub her throbbing forehead. Her eyes flit over to her parents, who are rushing over from their chairs. Maggie reaches out a hand to her mom. “Mom…you’re here!”
“Yes, of course we here!” Mom puts her arms around her. “Willa call us! You OK? How you feel?”
“A little out of it. What happened?” Maggie asks the doctor as Dad hands her a small bag of rice crackers. “Eat,” Dad urges.
“You fainted, and a bureau crashed on top of you,” the doctor says, reaching to check her head and her pulse. “Don’t worry. Just a minor concussion. But it was good of your roommate to bring you in, just to be sure.”
Maggie gives Willa a grateful look as she eats a cracker.
“Have you ever lost consciousness before?” the doctor asks. Maggie glances at her name tag—Dr. Alvarez, Attending Physician, UCLA Ronald Reagan—and nods.
“The other day, when I was…” She avoids her mom’s gaze. “Getting a transfusion.”
“I’m sorry, a transfusion?” Dr. Alvarez asks. “For what?”
Mom informs the doctor, “This older woman take her blood every week!”
Sheepishly, Maggie tells the doctor what she and Ingrid have been doing, but is quick to add it’s almost over.
“I’ve never heard of this procedure before,” Dr. Alvarez says. “Who authorized it?”
“Ingrid’s doctor. Dr. …Hayes.” Maggie closes her eyes, remembering. “It’s new. It’s supposed to make Ingrid younger.”
“And where are you guys doing this? Which hospital?” Dr. Alvarez asks, jotting down notes.
“We get it done at her home,” Maggie says. “With a special machine. And a nurse, of course.”
“I’m going to have to look into this. I haven’t heard of blood transfusions on humans for antiaging. Let me give Dr. Hayes a call and check out the research.”
“You think this is what causing fainting?” Mom asks.
“No,” Maggie insists.
Dr. Alvarez closes her notepad. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. For now, just rest.”
After she leaves, Willa excuses herself to give Maggie and her parents a minute. Maggie looks up at Mom. She grabs her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Mom takes a damp towel and dabs Maggie’s face.
“It’s OK,” Mom says. “Me and Daddy just happy you’re OK. We thought something happen to you.”
Maggie’s throat pinches. “Something did happen to me.”
For the first time ever, she tells her parents what really happened in Vivian’s house.
Not just that Christmas morning, but all the times she went over and the way they mocked her and toyed with her.
How mad she was at her parents for sending her there and how terrified she was to tell them.
She didn’t want her mom to have to lose her job to take care of her, because then they’d be even more broke.
Bravely, she tells them the memories and worries that have been sitting in the recesses of her psyche, crushing her.
Afterward, Mom hugs Maggie, crying with her daughter. “I’m so sorry. I feel so responsible. I was just trying to give you a good life, with everything you deserve.”
“I know.” Maggie’s voice hitches. “But the thing I realized when I was at Vivian’s house? I already had everything I needed. I had two loving parents who gave me their whole hearts.”
Dad joins the hug. They’re a wet sandwich of arms and tears.
“You sure do,” Dad says.
“I’m so sorry for all the pressure on you,” Mom says. “That not fair. You were just kid.”
Maggie’s breathing quickens. Is her mom…apologizing?
“I should have listened to you more. Not just tell you how hard it was for me.”
For the first time ever, Maggie feels lightness.
She feels relief. She feels the freedom of not having to be strong all the time in front of her parents.
The joy of finally getting to be a full human!
Flawed. Messy. She tells her mom about getting fired from the movie.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time I let my stupid dream go. ”
Mom grips her daughter’s hand firmly.
“Why? Just because of one movie?” Mom asks.
“Because maybe you’re right…It is a disease,” Maggie says, her stomach twisting as she thinks of how horribly low she felt after the Zoom with Charlie.
Softly, Mom mutters, “Don’t listen to me.”
“But I do listen. You’re all I care about! Making you happy. Making you and Dad proud. Trying to erase the impossible debt…the pain you guys suffered by coming here,” Maggie says, her voice wobbling.
Mom tucks Maggie’s hair behind her ears. “But you can’t. The pain is part of my life. And it will always be there, no matter what you do.”
And there it is. The truth that Maggie didn’t know she was waiting for.
“All you can do is live your life. And if you love writing, you love the words, that’s enough.
You don’t need movie boss give you permission.
You are the permission. You carry your own power…
in your bones, in your blood, in everything you went through, every shirt you got from donation bin, every kindness a stranger gave us, every wrong.
Every long hour you had to wait for me to come home.
Every book you ever borrowed from the library.
Every time you came back from Vivian’s big house and you told us you like our tiny little apartment full of roaches better.
You know how much that meant to me? You are the story that saved my life, you know that? ”
“Oh, Mom…” Maggie clings to her mom on the hospital bed, feeling the walls, the ceiling, the sky expand, crying for all that they finally understand about each other…and all that has been set free.
—
Later that night, Dr. Alvarez walks into Maggie’s room. Mom, Dad, and Willa have already gone home for the night.
“I spoke with Dr. Hayes,” Dr. Alvarez says. “I understand this is a new, trendy procedure in Silicon Valley, based on promising research on rats.” She gives Maggie some printed papers.
Disgust crawls up Maggie’s chest. “Rats?” Ingrid never mentioned anything about rats.
“I know that Ingrid’s precancer signals were what started this, but—”
“Wait, what precancer signals?”
“They didn’t tell you?” Dr. Alvarez asks, shocked. “They were in Ingrid’s blood. She wanted to see if she could get rid of them.”
“No! She never said anything about cancer!” All of a sudden, her hospital room is spinning. “It was always about aging!”
“Well, aging is highly correlated with precancer signals. But the part that worries me is in the research. The younger rat gets older and inherits the medical problems of the older rats.”
“You mean…” Maggie swallows. She can’t even get the words out.
“No need for alarm,” Dr. Alvarez immediately says. “We ran your blood work and you don’t have any elevated markers for cancers yet.”
Yet!
“But your blood work does resemble that of someone in their late forties.” Dr. Alvarez presents her another piece of paper. “Your heart, your kidneys, your liver. I would suggest you stop the transfusions immediately. And possibly consult a lawyer.”
The sound of Jaws interrupts them. Maggie snatches her phone from the table and looks at the text.
Just heard from Charlie. I’m so sorry. I know it probably stings a lot right now. But once you’ve had a chance to process, I’m here. I hope there’s a path forward for us to keep working together and finish your contractual obligations.
The last two words send a shiver up Maggie’s spine. The bitch is still not done taking from her. She starts typing a long string of cusswords, then stops. She has another idea.