“Who is this girl?” they’d all asked about Phoebe’s lead. “Where did you find her?” a couple of them had said, as if a half-Asian, half-Black girl who’d done some theater were a unicorn. As if the country weren’t full of Serenas burning with ambition.

Phoebe’s body yielded to the open air. She’d been holding herself so close since she got to the Stabler estate—since she’d left Oakland this morning, really. At the bottom of the hill, she saw Zanne sitting in her truck, all her cool gone. She looked tired. Her black hair, which had been arranged earlier in jagged little peaks, flopped down over her forehead. She played with her keys like they were rosary beads.

“Waiting for me?” Phoebe asked when she reached her.

“Are you hungry? I know a diner not far from here. Burgers are just okay, but their fries are really good and they make a decent Greek salad.”

Phoebe’s stomach growled. She’d been too nervous to eat more than a bite or two at the party, and it was too late to call Umma. She’d be asleep by now. “I’m starving,” she said.

They climbed into Zanne’s pickup truck, and Phoebe smelled the cigarettes Zanne probably didn’t want anyone to know she smoked.

They found a large booth by the window, brown vinyl seats, wood veneer table, hot sauce in a caddy. Phoebe did a double take at their reflection—an odd couple surely going in opposite directions, one in her hanbok and the other in her hoody. They ordered cheeseburgers, and then Zanne handed Phoebe a stack of papers.

“What are these?” Phoebe asked.

“Proof.”

Phoebe scanned them, her eyes sticking on certain words. Heard she’s aggressive, prickly, a real Dragon Lady–type, hard to work with, troublemaker. Thought you’d want to know and better run this by you. And there were Ted’s replies, short and to the point. Thanks, Paul and I understand the hesitation and yeah, I’d think twice about that. So it hadn’t been Jerry, or at least not only him. Jerry had his army of private detectives do his dirty work; Ted had the suck-ups who were anxious to please him. And it hadn’t been about the work. All those qualms people had had about the material or Phoebe’s lack of experience behind the camera were just cover for the boys club doing business as usual.

The waitress brought their cheeseburgers and fries, and Phoebe started in.

“Yum,” she said.

“Wow,” Zanne said.

“What?”

“I just wasn’t sure you’d be able to eat after reading those.”

“Oh,” Phoebe said, looking up from the mess her burger was making in her hands. She wiped her fingers with a napkin and took a big gulp of her soda.

“I thought you’d be upset.”