“I’m calling for Dawn? Dawn Carter?”

“She’s stepped away, can I take a message?” Zanne asked.

“Actually, Zanne, maybe I can speak with you. This is Zanne Klein, right?”

“Yes?”

“Hi, this is Rona Krotki from On Set. I’m working on a follow-up story on Caitlyn Alvarez—”

“I can connect you with our publicist—”

“I’m calling to see if Ted and Holly Stabler would care to comment about Caitlyn Alvarez. My reporting shows that she was expected to be one of their guests at the Getty Gala last year, but she was cut from the guest list after filing a sexual harassment complaint with the Stabler HR department. With the latest revelation in the New Yorker that Ms. Alvarez has settlements and NDAs with both Silvertown and Stabler, I thought the timing of her disinvitation from the gala was...curious.”

Zanne’s eyebrows knit together. Wait—Caitlyn Alvarez had a settlement with Stabler Studios? And one with Jerry?

Zanne, along with everyone else, had seen the video of Nick Williams cussing out Caitlyn on the set of The Bag Man. The two actors were strung up in harnesses, waiting to be hoisted midair. The angle wasn’t great and the lighting was dim, but the implication was that Nick was pretending to fuck Caitlyn from behind while the crew laughed. Caitlyn caught on, said something (muffled), and then Nick screamed at her. The words “frigid, humorless bitch” had been turned into a meme co-opted by incels far and wide.

As far as Zanne knew, that was where the story ended, which was bad enough. The video was embarrassing for Nick Williams and doomed a production that was already in trouble financially and struggling to escape the taint of its original producer, Jerry Silver. Zanne assumed Caitlyn had been involved in the release of the video, that she’d gone to the press rather than taking her complaint through the proper channels, and, given that, Zanne understood why Ted and Holly wouldn’t exactly welcome her at their table at the Getty Gala. But she’d had no idea that Caitlyn had gone to HR or that she’d signed settlements with both companies.

“Where did you say you were calling from?” Zanne asked. “On Set?”

There was a pause. “I’m actually freelance on this,” the woman admitted. “I’m also looking for someone to speak on deep background about Jerry Silver’s relationship with Phoebe Lee.”

Phoebe?

“No comment,” Zanne said. She genuinely didn’t have any information about Phoebe and Jerry Silver, but she also knew what to say to reporters.