Zanne flinched, then chuckled in dawning recognition. The desktop was spotless except for the computer. Inside the filing cabinet, if anyone ever looked, the folders were color coded. Zanne had tried being casual about her paperwork when she first got here, letting things settle into organic piles, remembering the locations of objects and the deadlines for projects by context and luck. But the first time she was sent into Ted’s office with just sixty seconds to clean out and refill his messenger bag, a task requiring NASCAR-like speed and precision—swapping out sharp pencils for dull, new prescription glasses for old, refilling the billfold with fresh hundreds, all before he returned from the bathroom—she understood that “winging it” would get her fired. Zanne found order then like some people find Jesus. She never knew where anything was in her apartment, but here she could put her hands on anything—from a phone charger to a plaster mold of Ted’s teeth—in an instant. The time she spent at the end of each shift putting her ongoing projects in their place, locking up her files, and shredding what was no longer needed, was at this point not only a necessary ritual, but also a spiritual one.

“Seriously,” Gaby said. “You need a plant or something.”

“That’s what I said.”

Zanne turned around to find Mark standing behind her. She hadn’t heard him coming. “I even gave her one but she killed it.”

“No, you left a dead cactus on my desk,” Zanne said.

“Hi, I’m Mark.” He offered his hand to Gaby. He was a golden boy with hair slicked into a side part that either said model or Nazi.

“This is Gabriela Paxton.”

“Ah,” Mark said, making clear he’d seen Ted’s appointment calendar for the day and knew that Gaby was interviewing for a job on staff. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Gaby said.

“Mark’s the new house manager,” Zanne said.

Mark laughed, a loud guffaw. “Zanne thinks she’s craggy and wise because she’s been here longer than me, but I’m hardly new anymore. Been here six months.”

“And look at him now, walking and talking like a big boy.” Zanne gave him a thwack on the shoulder.

Mark was from Boston, too, but that was all they had in common. He came from money—Andover, Harvard, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs—a pedigree he advertised with his suspenders and wing tips. (Even in LA, even in June.) Everyone else on staff had obvious reasons for doing this work—daddy issues, a desperate need to please, a creative agenda that was too difficult to monetize, plus tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, usually. Mark belonged in a Midtown Manhattan steak house with the rest of the bankers, not here, helping Ted and Holly organize their closets. Zanne still hadn’t figured out what was in it for him.

“Need something?” she asked him.