“You want something to cheer you up? I’ve got something in my bag downstairs, just for emergencies. You take the tiniest little dose and it takes the edge off whatever’s bothering you.”

But Holly had never been able to tolerate the tiniest dose of anything. Pot and coke both made her anxious, and Ted was such a straight edge that she’d given up trying things. She’d heard of microdosing, of course—it sounded so gentle, so clinical, so supervised—but she felt too fragile to risk it tonight with the party about to start and the first guests due to arrive.

She shook her head. “I’m okay.”

“Want to talk about it?” Rio asked, and he put the phone in his pocket and folded his hands together. He leaned back against the wall and waited.

Rio was her favorite. He was from Barstow, which was in the desert, not the mountains, but otherwise not so different from Frazier Park. All the celebrities wanted to work with him—he had that oversize personality, that lust for life—but Holly was drawn to the childish parts of him. The fish out of water with a big heart, the boy who was afraid to leave the house some days, knowing he’d be stared at, knowing he sent tongues wagging just by showing up.

“Do you think Ted will even notice me?” she asked.

Rio looked shocked, like she’d just confessed to hating peanut butter. “Come on. For real?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“I did some of my best work today. It will definitely not go unnoticed.” He reached forward and gently lifted a lock of hair behind her shoulder, letting the beading on her collarbone and the thin column of silver dangling from her ear catch the light from the wall sconce. Sometimes his touch was the most intimate thing that happened to Holly all week. “I think you need to go find that man of yours, looking like all of this. He won’t want to share you with anyone.”

Maybe she would. She hardly ever visited Ted’s office anymore. Over the years, she’d learned it was better to let him come to her. When he initiated their time together, it meant he was available, sometimes a bit formal but primed to enjoy her. When she initiated—like this morning, when she’d invited him to lunch—he bristled automatically and she felt like an irritation. Then she overcorrected, pulling way back to prove a point, and at that distance her love soured with questions. Did he notice the space between them? Was he happier this way? How long would it be before he smiled at her again with the everyday delight he took in his children? She knew the man she’d married—a trailblazer in so many ways, but terrified of emotional risk. Their mutual caution bled into passivity.