“Just giving you another time check. It’s ten fifty-five. Marty’s standing by, and you’ll want to spend a couple of minutes beforehand reviewing your talking points.”

“Thanks, we’re just wrapping up,” he said. A tone sounded. “So, yeah, Lima is very good to know about. Sounds like the smaller towns don’t have the right resources, at least right now, but maybe down the line.”

Wait, what was happening? Zanne looked down at the phone. The red light was still on, and she had an open line to Ted’s office. He never used the headset, just the speaker. He’d hit the wrong button when trying to hang up, and Zanne could hear him concluding Gaby’s interview.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you,” Gaby said. “Thanks again for taking the time.”

“Not at all. I really enjoyed our conversation.”

Their voices grew louder as they neared the door to the parlor. Zanne hung up her phone. The door opened with a “bye now” from Ted and a smile from Gaby, and closed again.

Zanne held up a finger, then pointed at the empty chair at the end of the desk as she clicked send on the talking points for Ted’s call. Gaby yawned and sat down, as naturally calm after an audience with Ted as she was when she awoke, whereas Zanne’s heart was still chirruping in her chest over the divorce discovery. How different they were! Zanne was too old and too fucked up to ever feel truly at ease, and Gaby was neither, just lost in the way of everyone so recently out of college.

Zanne dialed into the conference bridge and confirmed that Marty and the producers were on the line. She put them on hold and called Ted to make sure he’d received the talking points.

“The foreign distributor’s projects are off,” he said when he answered.

“You mean Asia.”

“The projections for Korea are higher than for Japan. Where’s Marty?”

“I asked him about it this morning. He says the director married a Korean actress this spring, and she’s looking at the project seriously, so the foreign distributors project bigger receipts in South Korea.” Zanne spoke quickly, both because it was efficient, which Ted would prize, and because if she didn’t she’d be tripped up by this moment of double consciousness. Here she was, talking to one director with a (former) Korean wife about another director’s Korean wife, and acting as if she didn’t know about the first. She still couldn’t believe that Ted and Phoebe had been married, and that she hadn’t known about it, if not at the time, then at some point after joining the personal staff.

“That would have been useful information to have in a footnote,” Ted said.

“Got it.” Zanne put Ted on speaker, freeing up both hands to type. “I’m resending the email with the footnote added.”