Chapter 64
TWO YEARS LATER
Maggie arrives at Vroman’s in Pasadena, a bookstore five times the size of the tiny store where Estelle Lu held her reading.
It’s packed. Some three hundred people are piling in, squeezing into snug seats to listen to Maggie read from her buzzy first novel.
She sneaks a peek from the greenroom they made for her backstage.
She sees her parents out front, snapping pictures.
She waves at them and at Willa, who’s sitting right next to them. Willa gives her a thumbs-up.
The New York Times called her book “a triumph.” Publishers Weekly called her “a new literary star, brilliantly mixing humor with a searing interrogation of race, privilege, and art.” But it was Vanity Fair’s review that made her tear up: “Wang strips away the glamorous facade of Hollywood to reveal a twisted relationship between a powerful white female producer and the ambitious young Asian American writer she exploits. It will make your blood boil.”
Yes, she wrote about herself and Ingrid and their transfusions.
She wrote with the fury of someone who was seconds away from committing murder before realizing she had something even sharper than death.
She had words. Words that could cut. Could make eyes boggle and fists shake.
Could live on past Ingrid, even if she did five more transfusions. Words that were forever.
She ran out of the stairwell and went straight to her computer, putting aside her coming-of-age novel, because this story was more urgent.
For four straight months, she pounded out the unhinged tale.
She took everything that happened and weaved it into a novel, changing all the names and all the identifying details so she could get around her NDA.
She then fired ICA as her representatives and went back to the querying trenches.
This time, the literary agents reached out immediately.
Maggie’s phone dings.
Amazing news!!! Her new agent texts about another foreign rights deal. German offer just came in! That’s 26 translations!
OMG! I’ll call u later, I’m about to go on!
GOOD LUCK!
Maggie puts her phone away as she hears her name called.
Applause fills the room, and she walks out onto the stage.
She’s in a black minidress, sleek heels, and a silk bomber jacket.
Her long, toned legs step confidently to the podium.
She takes off her jacket. A few loose strands fall from her messy bun.
Lately, she’s been wearing her hair up more, and she doesn’t bother to cover her grays any longer.
She wears them proudly, as she wears her wrinkles.
She’s ditched the Botox. Put away the serums. She’s owning her story, and she’s never looked better.
She looks out at the audience, smiling at her parents. She sees Charlie and Tasha in the back with Cassie. Cassie waves to her. Tasha’s incubator was just the thing Cassie needed to get out of her mom’s shadow. She’s writing screenplays for multiple studios now.
It was Cassie who brought Maggie’s book to Tasha and who lobbied the producer to make it into a movie, with Maggie as an executive producer and Cassie writing.
Maggie agreed to sell Charlie the rights on two conditions: that he give her and Tasha creative control and that he tell her what really happened with Summer Rain.
When Charlie told her about his conversation with Ingrid at the sushi restaurant, it confirmed what Maggie always suspected: Ingrid would betray anyone for her own gain.
Now Maggie finally gets to tell her story.
“Thank you all so much for coming,” Maggie says. “It means the world to me that you’re here!”
“Go, Maggie!” Willa calls out.
She gives her friend a big, cheesy smile.
“This book was literally my blood, sweat, and tears,” she says. Fingers shaking, she opens the book. “I want to start with a reading from chapter 17. ‘Remember, there are only two ways to get ahead in this world—you either make something or take something,’ Margaret said.”
As she reads them the moving scene inspired by the plane ride to New York with Ingrid, she feels her voice tighten.
She hasn’t spoken to Ingrid since that day in the stairwell.
She wonders what Ingrid must think of her daughter writing a movie about her ugly behavior. Of course, no one but Ingrid knows.
Well, except one person. Rebecca Thomas. Maggie sent an early copy of the book to the author, along with a note: “Still trust her?”
Rebecca never wrote back. But a few weeks later, she saw a Story by xoxohollywooddd:
Summer Rain is not moving ahead at FYC. Rumor has it Ingrid Parker lost the rights. Summer Rain was supposed to be a smash hit for FYC. The studio declined to comment, but insiders say that the studio is not extending Parker’s production deal.
Maggie looks up nervously when she’s done reading. Multiple hands shoot up.
“I gotta ask,” a woman in a blue shirtdress says. “Was any of this true? Did you actually trade blood with someone?”
Maggie smiles. Wouldn’t they like to know?
So far everyone who’s read the book has thought the transfusions were made-up.
Even Charlie and Tasha don’t believe they happened, figuring Maggie’s dyeing her hair white to help with publicity for the book and that Ingrid just found a great plastic surgeon. This is LA, after all.
“I’m afraid I can’t answer that. I wrote it as a cautionary tale as to what can happen in a world where the rich can buy youth…can snatch health and trade age…The one thing they can’t buy is our story.”
A hand goes up. She can’t make out the person, but she takes the question.
“But it’s not your story, is it?” the voice asks.
Maggie’s face drains of blood as the person moves into the light.
She sees Ingrid. The possibility briefly crossed her mind that she could be here tonight, but Maggie convinced herself, No way!
She’d be delusional to come. Not with her daughter and Tasha and her ex-boss Charlie there!
As she stares back at the woman she almost killed, she tries to stay calm.
Ingrid looks well. Her skin’s glowing. Her arms are toned.
She’s sporting a new bob. You’d never guess from looking at her that she’s a fifty-five-year-old who escaped cancer.
“What do you mean?” Maggie asks innocently.
“The novel is about both Margaret and Annie. You wrote intimate details about both their lives. Did you think of the ethics of that? How it might affect the people involved?”
Maggie grips the podium. She knows what Ingrid’s getting at—Maggie put the details of Ingrid and Kyle’s relationship in the book.
She always felt bad about that, especially after Cassie told her that her parents recently separated.
Was it because of her book? Maggie doesn’t know.
For the record, she did try to write one draft without going into Ingrid’s relationship with Kyle.
But Ingrid explicitly accused Maggie of turning her husband against her.
It was clear that was why Ingrid was so paranoid about her; therefore, it seemed inextricably linked to what happened and impossible to leave out.
Also, it just made for a better story. As Ingrid taught her, you can’t worry all the time about other people’s feelings if you want to make good art.
“If Margaret were real, I’d ask her the same thing,” Maggie says, her eyes traveling to the scars on her arms, the physical price she paid for this story, that she’s still paying.
“Did she ever consider the consequences of her actions on other people? Did she care? Or did she just think about herself?”
“I assure you, she was never thinking about just herself,” Ingrid replies.
As the audience bounces back and forth, looking from Ingrid to Maggie, Maggie’s fingers grasp the book, desperately guarding her name on the cover.
“That’s what you got wrong about her. Actually, you made a lot of mistakes,” Ingrid says. “You should have ended it with Annie pushing Margaret down the stairs. That would have been a way better ending.”
Maggie is stunned. Did Ingrid just spoil the ending at her book launch?
At the same time, she wants to laugh. Ingrid’s still doing it.
Still trying to impose her own vision on her!
But now Maggie’s stronger. She doesn’t have to accept Ingrid’s opinion, or anyone else’s, as superior just because she’s more experienced.
She knows her ending’s better. The fact that Ingrid would rather fantasize about her own death than bear the discomfort of seeing Maggie rise from the ashes proves it.
“Thank you for the note,” she says, her voice clear. “But my words, my sweat, my blood—they’re mine now. And no one will ever take them from me again.”
Ingrid’s face burns.
“Next question.” Maggie smiles.