Why did it feel as if her job depended on who knew Ted better, Zanne or his wife? But it did. She had to test her hypothesis. If she was right about this photograph and the happy day he’d spent on the river with someone other than Holly, then it proved that Zanne knew him best, and that on some level Ted knew it, too, and she would allow herself to trust that the promotion was genuine and solid. But if she was wrong about the picture, then she didn’t know him half as well as she thought she did. And if she didn’t know him, then there was no telling why he’d posted that ad, and she would always be looking over her shoulder, looking for her potential replacement.

Zanne turned into the craftsman cottage and draped the dress for Gaby carefully over the back of Dawn’s chair. She looked down the hall at the screening room’s closed door. The bass gave a phantasmagoric boom.

She slipped into his office and quick-walked behind the desk. She flipped the photo over and scraped the little lever out of the channel in the frame, then lifted the backing away. She read the handwritten caption:

Goose on the Russian River, 1998

All my love, Mols xx

She was right, it wasn’t Holly’s handwriting. Zanne hadn’t scrutinized the photo before the way she was now. Nineteen ninety-eight—that was years before Ted and Holly met. Holly hadn’t taken the picture. Phoebe had.

Zanne returned the backing, closed the clasp, and set the frame back in its place next to the galaxyfinder. Then she slipped out of the office and left with Gaby’s dress.

It was Phoebe, not Holly, who Ted must have thought of whenever he looked at the photograph. Zanne felt triumphant. Exultant. Like Jason sailing home with the Golden Fleece. She did know Ted better than anyone, and if there was some small part of him that still needed her to prove it to him, then she would. Somehow.

In a moment, she was at the administrative cottage again. She found Gaby still at her cubicle, nose back in her book.

“Voilà,” Zanne said, holding the hanger high and letting the long skirt cascade to the floor with a flourish. Gaby looked up, puzzled. “Do you like it?”

“Is that Holly’s dress?”

“Not anymore.”

Gaby turned back to her book, without a word. Zanne flinched, mildly annoyed by Gaby’s petulance.

“Uh? If you hate the color or something, just tell me. We can find you something else.”

Gaby set down her book. She looked Zanne straight in the eyes and said, “I would rather die than wear that woman’s castoffs.”

Zanne could only laugh. “What?”

Gaby stood up. “You wanna go there with me?”