But just then the door opened and Phoebe fell with sickening speed into the past. There was James, as handsome as the day she met him. Then, in a flash, it was her worst afternoon, a year after they met. He was helping her out of the car. She was leaning on him, giving him all her weight but there was almost none of her left, and strong as he was, it was nothing for him to carry it.

Phoebe felt herself unraveling and then reforming—the trajectory of the last twenty years repeating itself at warp speed—shame eating away at her composure until, at her core, she was someone else entirely. The color rose to her cheeks. How did you greet someone who’d seen you at your lowest point? Get it together, she told herself.

“James,” she said, stepping forward with her hand out to shake.

He took it and held on. “It’s good to see you, Phoebe,” he said. The smooth tenor of his voice; the crinkle between his eyes when he smiled—she’d been so fond of these things. How had she forgotten them? How had she allowed James to collapse, in memory, into someone so two-dimensional, just the one who’d driven the car that day?

“I can’t believe you’re still here. You look exactly the same.”

“Yeah, well.” James let go of her hand and smiled at the floor.

Phoebe had embarrassed him. Shit. She hadn’t meant to. She knew a thing or two about frustrated expectations, about running in place. “You think time stops when you leave a place but it doesn’t, does it?” she said.

James laughed. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I know this is unusual, stopping by like this before the party. I was hoping Ted would make some time for me.”

Zanne stepped forward and the energy in the room shifted. Ah, Phoebe thought, understanding immediately how Zanne accrued and held on to power, not just here but probably forever. She was a heartbreaker, beautiful and aloof, easy to disappoint, tough to please. That’s what that look on Britney’s face had been about.

“I’m sure Ted would be thrilled to catch up, but unfortunately, he has a very busy schedule today,” Zanne said, not smiling, not frowning. “We could try to set something up in the next couple of weeks.”