Zanne felt hot all over. Every time she heard another story of a man taking what wasn’t his and a woman flung around like a dirty rag, she wanted a fix, an exit ramp from life.

Phoebe was right that the two titans had seemed, if not friendly, then respectful of each other’s territory and strengths. When Ted won his second directing Oscar two years ago, the camera had panned to Jerry, who stood and clapped along with the rest of the audience, beaming as if his own brother had just won. There was certainly no hint that something so ugly and so brutal had passed between them.

God, it was awful, all of it.

Zanne hung up the phone before the meeting was over. She’d heard enough. She went out onto the porch, the midafternoon sun so bright it was dizzying. She didn’t want to be buried this deep in Ted’s past. The limits of their relationship asserted themselves violently, like traffic spikes barring return. Nothing she’d learned these last eight years helped her understand what he could have been thinking, blaming Phoebe.

Phoebe had gone to Jerry for help because she felt she had to. She must have had a plan, but somewhere along the way, the plan had slipped from her control. Just as it had for Zanne when she started modeling. She was eighteen years old and new in town. Her apartment had mice, her roommate was in a cult, her credit card was maxed out, and staying in LA was becoming less and less tenable by the day. She always felt about twenty dollars away from being crushed by it all. She’d seen the modeling agency’s ad in the back of LA Weekly and imagined posing in turtlenecks for some catalogue or standing next to a Mustang at the car show. And sure, they’d sent her out on a few calls like that, but mostly they sent her to parties. What other choice did she have? Who else was going to pay her that much just to show up? Enough to survive, enough to spare her the humiliation of going to Noah for help? Not Omega. They paid their PAs in peanuts and experience.