“Jean!” you cry when he comes on the line. “How are you? I was just asking my assistant to set up some more interviews! We’re so excited.”

There’s a long pause. You think the connection has been lost. Finally, the exec clears his throat. “Listen, I know we haven’t known each other very long, Piper.” He sounds strange. “But . . . something’s come to my attention.”

Your veins go icy. Twice this summer, you met with Jean in swanky LA eateries to pitch your case. And both those times, you feared Flora was lurking somewhere, somehow knowing you were there, ready to spill your secrets. But it never happened. You always told yourself it was because she’d been taken care of—her hands were dirty, too. But now you wonder.

Only, you can’t let on you’re scared. So you say in a bright voice, “Is everything all right, Jean?”

He sighs. “I’ve been informed about something that is kind of . . . well, concerning.”

“Concerning?” you repeat. You’re suddenly shaking. You need to call Carson. You need to mobilize.

And then Jean says it.

And you’re so startled you drop the phone.

Jean keeps talking, but you don’t really hear him. Because it’s worse than what Flora knows. Worse than what you’ve done to the parents. It’s a bad dream. Impossible. You want to leap through the phone and shake him and say, No, you’re wrong.

Instead, all you ask is who told him. You blurt it out furiously, angrily. You don’t mean to. Jean says he doesn’t know; the tip was anonymous. But he made some calls, he says, and he was able to confirm everything.

What’s the point in denying it, then? You are on the road, you realize, driving to work. You don’t even remember starting the engine.

After another awkward pause he suggests perhaps you could be the focus of the documentary—what you’re going through. “But it would be a very different documentary,” he admits. “And I doubt you could keep your position at Silver Swans.”

“No.” You step out of the car. You feel numb. “I-I can’t do that.”

“Are you sure? Because it’s certainly intriguing. Juicy, even.”

“Fuck you, then,” you hiss. “Fuck you and fuck juicy.”

But then you feel terrible for lashing out, and you whisper a whole bunch of things you’d promised yourself you’d never say. You are standing in the parking lot now. Thank God no one is around. You make him swear not to tell anyone. You feel you might start to cry. “Fuck you,” you whisper

“Piper,” Jean says, “I’ll keep this to myself. I promise. We can say we parted ways because of creative differences. That okay with you?”