Page 10 of The Holiday

“Thank you so much.” Marigold hits her mark under the lights as soft Christmas jazz plays in the studio. This is a much different environment—a much differentworld—than the one she knew thirty years ago.

The stylist moves in and out of the frame, exchanging one sumptuous purse for another as they discuss which angles the client really wants featured in the ads. Someone makes a joke about doing last-minute holiday shopping right there on the set, and everyone talks about their plans for Christmas in two days. It’s pleasant and easy and Marigold has completely relaxed into the moment when she hears Jagger squeal her name.

“Goldie!” Jagger calls out as he strides across the studio. He’s holding her phone aloft, and she feels a stab of anxiety in her chest. This has echoes of the last time she and Jagger worked together on that set with the motorcycle and the jerk of a photographer; the time when Cobb was in the hospital and she only found out by taking the phone call mid-shoot.

The photographer pauses to look through the digital images that are popping up on his laptop screen.

“You have a message from Cobb!” Jagger says excitedly, approaching the side of the set with her phone screen turned towards her so she can lean over and read it.

Marigold feels an anticipatory chill run through her as she squints at the message that’s displayed on her lock screen. Her heart beats wildly when she sees that it is, in fact, from Cobb:

Wear something pretty tonight,it says.I want you to come on stage with me.

Marigold smiles as her heart starts to beat normally again. Cobb is fine. This isn’t like that other photo shoot, and he’s not in the hospital somewhere, scared and alone. She thanks Jagger and walks back to her mark, turning her face up so that the hot lights hit her just right.

“You ready?” the photographer asks, aiming his lens at her.

Marigold takes a deep breath and turns on the smile that still earns her money as a model. “I’m ready,” she says calmly.

* * *

The Django is a cavernous Parisian-style jazz bar with a rounded, dome-like feel to it. The tables are small, and they’re covered in candles and small flower arrangements of red roses and holly. The bar is draped in white Christmas lights that twinkle as servers in traditional white shirts and black pants move around efficiently. They deliver seasonal martinis and heaping plates laden with juicy burgers, shrimp cocktail, oysters, and leafy green salads.

Marigold is seated right up front near the small stage, and she sips a peppermint martini with red sugar around the rim of the glass. A candy cane floats in the drink, its hook hanging over the side.

"Mind if I sit here?"

Marigold glances up and sees a woman about her age, standing there with both hands on the back of the empty chair. Recognition washes over her.

"Deanna!" Marigold shouts, setting her drink down as she stands up and wraps her old friend in a big hug. Marigold and Deanna were neighbors in the New York of the late 80s and early 90s, sharing a wall in the apartment building. They also shared many, many bottles of wine during the two years they lived next door to one another. "Oh my god--please! Sit!"

"I got an invite tonight from a gentleman friend, and when I heard it was Cobb playing, I knew I had to come. I had to see if you'd show." Deanna sits, and the slinky spaghetti strap of her green dress slips off one bronzed shoulder, revealing a smattering of freckles across her skin.

"I'm so happy to see you--it's been years!" Marigold searches for a server so that she can order a drink for her old friend. "What have you been up to?"

Deanna, a redhead with wavy hair and a body like Jessica Rabbit, lifts a shoulder casually and lets it fall. "Little of this, little of that," she says noncommittally. When they'd been neighbors, Deanna Andersen had been a famous yoga guru to the stars (truly: she was the private yoga teacher to nearly every supermodel, every Grammy-winning artist living in Manhattan, and every actor or actress in town). But Marigold hadn't heard of her or thought about her in ages.

"I married a man with a lot of money and a lot of problems," Deanna says as Marigold signals to a waiter to bring another peppermint martini to the table. She sighs deeply before going on. "I felt like I was in prison, Goldie. He didn't let me leave the house. I had everything I wanted, but I wasn't allowed to have friends, a social life, or any interests outside of his interests."

Marigold is listening intently, her hand resting on the base of her cold martini glass as she watches Deanna's surgically enhanced face. She looks gorgeous, even after all these years, but in her eyes Marigold can see pain. Regret. Anger. And on her face she can see the distinct signs of waging an uphill battle against time. In the back of her mind, Marigold makes a mental note of this as something to consider for the book she's writing--she's really and truly trying to look at every side of the story when it comes to aging as a woman in the 21st century.

"One night he came home," Deanna says, pausing to smile at the waiter as he sets down her drink, "and told me that I had just lived my last day."

"What?" Marigold's jaw drops. She can't have heard that right. "Your last day?”

Deanna purses her lips grimly. "He said I'd outlived my usefulness, and that I'd grown old and ugly. He didn't want me anymore."

Marigold is speechless. She sits there, waiting, her eyes locked on Deanna's. This conversation has taken a turn that she never could have expected.

"We fought--or rather, I fought for my life, and he ended up bleeding. I called 911, and he was arrested. Now I'm single. People who know him think he's a wonderful man and are still standing by him, while I'm over here, just the villainous ex-wife who drove him to madness." She waves a manicured hand in a lazy circle and picks up her martini. She sips. "Anyhow. I wanted to see you. I always envied your relationship with Cobb, and you have no idea how much hope it gives a girl to see an old friend still madly in love with her man after all these years."

"Well..." Marigold feels obliged to be honest with Deanna, who has essentially just told Marigold everything. "We were apart for a bit. Cobb struggled with some drug and health issues, and to be perfectly frank, it's only been in the past year or two that we've really smoothed things out. But we're happy now. Things are good."

Deanna is watching her closely. “I follow your Instagram, so I feel like I’ve been in touch with you, Goldie—that’s the magic of social media, isn’t it?”

“You should have commented on something! I would have loved to chat before now, just to hear how you were,” Marigold says. She takes another sip of her martini. “Life goes by way too quickly.”

Deanna nods. “It does. But I’ve loved seeing your posts about aging and womanhood, and I was so happy to see pictures of you and Cobb pop up again on your page. I knew that meant you two were back together, and frankly, I never doubted for a minute that you two were meant to be.”

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