Holly still didn’t fully understand what had happened with Phoebe. Ted had fallen under her spell at Stanford, before he’d settled into his type. His exotic phase, Holly had come to think of it—dating a Chinese girl sometimes seemed the only truly adventurous thing he’d done. They came to LA together when Ted’s script for The Starfighter won an award. Phoebe had helped behind the scenes on the first two films, and somewhere along the line they’d married in secret. Holly couldn’t fathom why you’d marry someone in secret, unless you were doing it for a green card. You were basically admitting the union was doomed to fail. Ted had come to his senses and divorced her right before he launched Stabler Studios and good thing, too, or he’d have had to split it fifty-fifty with Phoebe, given the state’s community property laws. Instead, he kept The Starfighter franchise, she kept that Caroline Herrera and whatever she’d brought with her to the marriage, and they’d parted ways forever.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” Holly had cried over clumpy cacio e pepe on the terrace of his Hollywood Hills bachelor pad, the city lights blurring through her tears.

“It’s ancient news,” Ted said, taking her hand and squeezing. “She’s not important. I love you. Only you.”

Holly believed that he loved her. But she couldn’t get over the feeling that she’d been lied to about everything else, too. That Ted hadn’t kept the truth from her because Phoebe wasn’t important, but because she was. And so, Phoebe became the gold standard she measured herself against. In Holly’s figuring, Phoebe was graceful and mysterious and commanding in bed. Phoebe was a cunning businesswoman. Phoebe knew when to speak and what to say and when to hold her face still like a beautiful mask. She knew how a galaxyfinder worked and how many light-years there were in a parsec. The only thing she did not know was how to smile for the camera. She looked like she’d just been pinched in that one grainy photo with Ted, which was why Holly didn’t recognize her this morning despite the hours she’d spent building her up in her mind.

The woman Holly met today was funny and charming. And using her, somehow. Holly didn’t know what Phoebe Lee’s agenda was, but she obviously had one. Which made it all the more annoying the things she claimed to know about Ted. Part fish? The man Holly married got in the pool exactly once a year, and every single time he groused about it. Forget about the ocean.