Page 88 of Such a Good Couple
‘I’ll be better, Ollie,’ she promised.
‘We both will,’ he murmured into her hair, before tipping her back with panache and kissing her deeply. Even Jez was dabbing his eyes.
CHAPTER 21
On Sunday morning, in the two-storey apartment on the corner near Bowery and Delancey Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Maggie awoke to the sound of messages. From her phone she could see it was 10.30 a.m. A lie-in was practically unheard of in her life. Even during the girls’ summer recess, they were always up early at home in LA. Everyone in LA was up early.
New York, meanwhile, wasnormal, a bit more like Dublin, which was possibly why Maggie felt more at home there. It was as though because New York was geographically closer to Dublin, it meant that New York was alsospirituallycloser. Though she could see that, ironically, this was veryLAthinking.
Thinking of Dodi and Essie back in LA so far away caused a clench of anxiety in her chest. She felt a visceral pull at the thought of them, without her, watching cartoons with sleep-warmed cheeks and messy hair. She’d never left them for more than a night before. She’d been in New York all week working on the script.
I will be seeing them so soon!she reminded herself, rolling over to check her messages. She spotted that the first notification was from Brody.
Brody: Updated the family calendar. Please familiarise yourself with the new arrival times, etc.
She opened the app and peered at the schedule for the next fewdays. Fionn and the girls were flying in at lunchtime – Fionn was adamant he wouldn’t be missing the start of theDivorce Islandfinale which was going out at 7.30 p.m. in Ireland and at 2.30 p.m. their time.
The family’s time was loose until that evening when Maggie was heading to meet Drew Schwartz and a few more from the theatre company. According to Drew’s assistant who’d sent the invite it was to be a casual get-to-know-you vibe, hence the Sunday booking, but they would also no doubt talk about the development schedule forMedea in Hollywood. Fionn would probably take the girls for a pizza slice and maybe up to Times Square for a wander while she did that.
The premiere ofEndurance 2was the next day, and any time Maggie looked at the time blocked off in the schedule – seven hours for hair, make-up, red carpet, film and after-party – she felt her enthusiasm dip. It’d been a while since she’d had to be on Fionn’s arm out in public and truly there was no greater torture. All the photographs and shouting and interminable small talk – at least people would stop bothering to talk to her the second they realised she was a nobody.
She pulled her mind back to the dinner that evening. The Cookhouse Restaurant in Chelsea was a favourite and she was looking forward to meeting people who were actually interested in whatshehad to say. She just needed to decide what to wear.
She dragged herself from the bed, opened the blinds and padded across the parquet floors to the bathroom across the narrow hall. She loved this apartment – a four-bed with old sash windows that looked onto a rickety fire escape – which they were renting for a staggering eight grand a month. She cringed at the decadence, but since she would be working on the play in New York on and off for the next year, it made sense.
She pulled on cropped wide-leg jeans, a slouchy grey T-shirt and ballet pumps – it was the end of the third week of Septemberbut still mild. Next she looked through Sylvia’s options for dinner – a deconstructed suit by Yves Saint Laurent, a Marni dress and a knitted tunic by JW Anderson. Maggie was dubious. They all screamed ‘money’. Playwrights didn’t have money. She really, really didn’t want them to know that she was married to a movie star yet. Or ever, if she had the choice, though unfortunately that was entirely impossible. Maybe she could just go super casual?
She checked out the clothes she was already wearing in the mirror that hung on the inside of the wardrobe – even with the massive price tag, New York apartments were so pokey when you were used to LA, though this was a fact Maggie actually liked. Her desk space was tucked under the stairs that led up to the three other bedrooms. She’d gotten so much done at this little table, she now felt almost superstitious about trying to work on the show anywhere else.
Unfortunately, in another week she’d be on the move again. They’d be back in Dublin for a few weeks and she’d have to set up another space for her project in the Miavita house. She’d manage; she was dying to see Annie and Clara and it was Ollie’s marathon. Speaking of … She picked up her phone. Greece was ahead of New York. Clara and Ollie’s fate had already been sealed.
There were still no updates in Slags For Life, as Clara still hadn’t got her phone back. She texted Annie instead.
Maggie: Ahhhh, I’m getting nervous. What the hell is going to happen to them?
Annie: God, I know. Rach and I are already stress-eating. I hope they’re alright. Whatever’s happened. Crossing everything … for what? I don’t know.
Maggie threw in a gif of James McAvoy sweating nervously and fanning himself and headed out the door to grab breakfast in the deli on the corner – coffee, glazed donuts and grapefruit juice was her current order – then she’d come back and put in a few hours on the script before the others arrived.
At the desk, Maggie fidgeted. She was two hours into redrafting the outline of Act 1 but her focus was wandering. She was hungry again. And feeling shaky. That was the problem with getting back into her old routine. The ache from purging staved off hunger for only so long before she’d find herself thinking of food again.
She checked the time: 12.30 p.m. She was on the countdown to her family’s arrival. She opened the DoorDash app and debated her options which, in New York City, were infinite. She could have anything from oysters to banana pudding delivered right to her. She’d been a heavy user of DoorDash for the last week. Alone in the apartment, she could order as much as she wanted at any time.
As much as she wanted at any time turned out to be … quite a bit. On one particularly frenzied day she’d ordered four separate times, but her stomach had been in bits after each purge and, more and more, she was thinking about how she needed to nip it all in the bud. She’d put a loose deadline of quitting once she’d turned in the script. But just thinking of stopping instantly amped up her anxiety.
I can stop. I’ve stopped before, she’d remind herself. Then another possibility would swiftly present itself.Why do I have to stop entirely? I could just cut back. That would be fine. Just keep it in the back pocket for certain occasions.
Now she stood up and drifted into the kitchen.
There’s got to be something here.Her thoughts skittered around. She just needed anything. She found some spaghetti inthe corner press and started to boil water in a pot. She didn’t have any sauce or even cheese, but it didn’t matter, she just wanted the sensation of consuming. Minutes later, standing at the kitchen counter facing the blue tiles of the backsplash, she pushed the slightly undercooked, tacky lengths of pasta into her mouth. Over and over she did it. She refilled her bowl twice and then a third time until finally the dogged urge to eat abated and she made her way back to her desk with an efficient stop in the bathroom en route.
Once again, sitting before her notes and laptop, she felt a deep satisfaction with the whole situation. A perfect system. All thoughts of cutting back shelved for the moment.
A couple of hours later, Dodi and Essie were dashing around playing hide and seek while Fionn and Maggie were watching the deranged final episode ofDivorce Islandin the living room.
‘What the—? Aaaahhh!’ Fionn had screamed, grabbing his crotch, when a cocky-looking Derek had nonchalantly dropped his cinder block into the pool only to suddenly howl in pain and throw himself in after it seconds later.
‘I did not think Mary had it in her,’ Maggie said, stunned.
