But did she? she wondered as she stared at her tired-looking reflection in the mirror. She’d given far more thought to what she would wear tonight at the networking parties than to what she was wearing now—dark jeans and a LOFT silk top, something that would quickly scan as professional. This outfit would have been perfect under a white lab coat. A doctor like her brother, that was what Umma and Apa had hoped their daughter would become, or a lawyer or at least a pharmacist, not an artist with no road map to follow. Lawrence was a credit to his parents, the child whose accomplishments they bragged about at holidays and at church socials. Phoebe was the family embarrassment, an enigma whose decisions no Lee could defend. Only “dancing girls” went into entertainment, and her second career was hardly much better. All that expensive education, and she was just a teacher, not even a professor. She’d hoped to prove to her parents long ago that their investment in her hadn’t been misplaced. Now, with this film, she had another chance to make Umma proud, but time was running out. The clinical trial had long odds and harsh side effects, but without it, Lawrence said the outlook was grim.

Phoebe leaned in to the mirror, licked her fingertip, and smoothed out her eyeliner. She’d come to the conference for a reason. She couldn’t get sad and distracted. Warrior Bride needed a distributor. Phoebe’s job was to get one. The plan was to hit the producers’ round-robin next, talk up the movie, see what her chances were. She should get back.

A woman entered the bathroom while Phoebe exited it. And there—sitting on the love seat in the lounge, looking at her phone—was Ted’s wife. Phoebe took a step back and then, disgusted with her impulse to hide, took a step forward.

“That was a nice speech,” Phoebe said. A second heartbeat was setting up a rhythm in her stomach. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Holly looked up. Up close like this, Phoebe could see the freckles on the bridge of Holly’s nose, evidence of a childhood spent outdoors. Had she been a swimmer? A tree climber? A runner like Phoebe?

“Thank you,” Holly said, and then looked down again.

The drumbeat stilled, leaving only the pitter-patter of Phoebe’s pulse.

So Holly didn’t recognize her. Admittedly there were few pictures in the public domain of Ted and Phoebe together. Every now and then, Phoebe caught glimpses of her old self in a red dress at The Starfighter premiere, both of them grinning like idiots—but that was twenty years ago. She was older now. She felt like a completely different person, and evidently looked like one, too.

“Good job on getting Ted to take that pledge,” Phoebe said, determined to grab Holly’s attention. “The Starfighter was a sausage party.”

Holly looked up again, her eyes big. “I’m sorry?”