She was shaking all over. Phoebe walked toward the pool house, looking for a place to gather herself, squeezing past faces that either smiled at her or gawked like she had a third eye. She couldn’t tell who knew she’d won the fellowship and who knew she’d turned it down and the press loose on Ted. It had taken everything in her to stay calm for the interview with Serafina, to smile at the end and act like she was having the best time. She should have been having a great time. She made a goddamn movie! And for a brief moment, a major motion picture studio had been attached to release it. She should have been on top of the world, but instead she felt like the mouse who’d been cornered, playing dead while her heart beat a mile a minute, waiting for the terror to pass. Phoebe ducked into the pool house restroom and hid.

On the toilet, she put her head in her hands. What have I done? Had she actually told a reporter that Jerry Silver blacklisted her? With Ted’s help? Well, no. She hadn’t, quite. She’d let Serafina ask the question and then Phoebe had demurred. But all anyone would hear was the question.

No one would believe her. Maybe they’d accept that Jerry had done her wrong, but Ted? Impossible. Guys like Scott out there grew up on The Starfighter. They drank out of Jack-faced sippy cups and shit-talked like the Emperor at their soccer games. They jerked off to bootleg copies of The Starfucker and lost their virginities thinking of Jack or Princess Ariana. Theodore Stabler Jr. was a legend, hallowed be thy name. If Phoebe had a dollar for every time someone had told her The Starfighter was their favorite film, she still wouldn’t be half as rich as Ted.

A million dollars. She and Malcolm could have paid off their student loans and still had enough left over for a down payment on a house. They could have said yes to the new studio without saying no to every other extravagance—a vacation once in a while, dental care, new tires. But a million dollars wouldn’t stop what was happening to Umma.

They were no worse off now than they were before.

Get up, she heard Umma tell her, just like she had after Ted left for Budapest, when Phoebe moved back home to Santa Clara and didn’t get out of bed for a week.