Page 51 of Unspoken Tides
“Me neither.”
“You haven’t stayed anywhere long enough,” Hilary said.
“I’ve gone all over the world,” Ingrid admitted, “but it’s only made me feel like I belong everywhere less.”
Hilary filled her mouth with natural wine. After a pause, she asked, “Where did you meet Marty?”
“In boarding school,” Ingrid said with a smile. “She wanted to be an actress back then, too. But when she didn’t get the roles she wanted, she switched fields. She’s Asian American, and there just aren’t enough scripts about Asian American women. I’m helping her write one right now, though. I think she’s going to direct it next summer. And I’m producing.”
Hilary had put it together that Ingrid was the source of the funds to finish out A Nantucket Family.
“How long have you been interested in producing?”
“Since forever,” Ingrid said. “Since I was in my early twenties and butting heads with Dad about what projects to do next. He had so much control.” She shook her head. “I wanted to have that control. I wanted to say how I was represented and what kind of roles I took. I was so done playing the ‘girly blond who wanted the guy.’” She used air quotes. “I had watched Grandma fall from grace, you know? She had pretty meaty roles, but they were always hyper-fixated on her beauty and her body. I wanted to move into a career that allowed me to look different. That allowed me to be healthier.”
“And your father didn’t understand that?” Hilary asked. It boggled her mind that Rodrick wouldn’t want Ingrid to be healthy.
“I couldn’t explain it to him. All he cared about was the money.”
Hilary grimaced and swirled her wine. “When your father contacted me about working on A Nantucket Family, I didn’t know what to think. I was really lonely, I think. Starved for romance. And I jumped at the chance to return to something I’d previously loved.”
Ingrid stuttered. “Did anything happen between you two?”
“No! No,” Hilary said, shaking her head, then thanking her lucky stars she’d had the good sense to leave that night. “I loved your father for much longer than I should have. But I don’t love him anymore. And I don’t think he has power over me anymore.”
“That’s why he pulled the funding. He knows he lost that power,” Ingrid said. “That, on top of his recent divorce, was too much for him. He has more money than God these days. Everything is a game to him.”
“It sounds so lonely,” Hilary said.
She felt a pang of regret. Although she was frustrated with Rodrick and didn’t love him anymore, she didn’t want him to be lonely. Loneliness could kill you.
“You haven’t spoken to him at all since your early twenties?”
Ingrid raised her shoulders. “I saw him around. You know as well as anyone that the Hollywood ‘elite,’ or whatever, run in small circles. He asked me to star in a film he produced a couple of years ago, and I took the meeting but eventually turned him down. I think when I left, he was crying.”
Hilary swallowed. She knew what that was like. She’d watched Ingrid walk away like that too many times.
“Honey,” Hilary said tentatively, “if he ever apologizes, do you think you’ll be able to forgive him?”
Ingrid’s eyes glinted with the light of the dying sun. After a heavy silence, she said, “I haven’t even apologized to you yet. We hold on to grudges in this family, don’t we?”
“It’s not our best quality.”
Ingrid took a steadying breath. “Mom, I’m so sorry for how I treated you back then. Sometimes I think about what I said to you, about what happened between us, and it keeps me up at night. I know you just wanted to be near me. I know you just wanted to help. But I was so driven. I was listening to Dad, and he said horrible things about you. About how you’d destroyed Grandma’s career. I was terrified that you were jealous of my career, that you wanted to stop it before it really got started.”
Hilary was surprised at that. How had she destroyed Isabella’s career? Why would she have wanted to destroy Ingrid’s? That was some creative thinking on Rodrick’s part. But men were always apt to throw women under the bus for whatever reason came to them first.
But Hilary had wanted to protect Ingrid from the pitfalls of fame. Perhaps she really had wanted to stop it in its tracks. Who could remember anymore?
“Oh, honey. You know I forgive you. You know I’ll forgive anything. I’m sorry, too.” Hilary touched Ingrid’s shoulder, then fell into her, hugging her tightly as tears streamed down her cheeks. This was her daughter. Her greatest love. She still smelled like herself, somewhere beneath the Santal 33 perfume and the expensive shampoo. She was still the girl with scabbed knees and a blue tongue from Superman ice cream. She wasn’t a movie star. Not really.
When their hug broke, Hilary and Ingrid’s faces were blotchy, and they laughed, trying to clean themselves up. Ingrid’s smile was enormous, showing all of her teeth. It wasn’t a smile she would ever allow a paparazzi camera to see.
“So,” Ingrid began, clearing her throat. “I want to know everything about Max von Swenson. What is going on?”
Hilary laughed. Joy spilled to every part of her body. “Where should I start?”
“Start from the beginning,” Ingrid urged her. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”