Nearby, Bette and Tina stood schmoozing guests together – but all was not as it seemed. As well as the contretemps over the ticket, and the eyepatch fiasco, Tina had tried to tell Bette that she’d spoken to Angie and knew a lot more about her CalTech situation.

‘Not now,’ Bette had said, as she rushed to get ready.

‘Bette, this is Angie we’re talking about.’

‘I know, and I just can’t right now, I just . . . Leave it.’ 

She’d all but barged past Tina into the en suite. Tina followed. 

‘Her research proposal was rejected.’ 

Bette met Tina’s gaze in the mirror, held it a long moment, then turned round.

‘You’re telling me this now?’

‘I just found out!’

Bette turned back to the mirror. Everyone had had their make-up done by Peggy’s Angels, but Bette was still fretting about the patch, adjusting it, lifting it up to look beneath. The eye looked better, less swollen, its colour more normal, but the patch still the lesser of two evils.

‘Bette?’

‘I’m not doing this now,’ Bette said. ‘But as well as talking to Angie, at some point there’s a story I need to get from you about Karolina quitting yesterday, so can you just . . .’ 

She held up a hand as if to back Tina off. But it was hardly needed. At the mention of Karolina, Tina’s entire blood supply had drained into her feet and they’d barely spoken again until now, in this very public moment, held in the tractor beam of a movie producer who was considering the vineyard as a location for a Netflix show.

‘And, who knows, maybe we’ll write you guys in!’

‘Ooh, that would be fun!’ Tina laughed too loud. ‘Wouldn’t that be fun, Bette?’

‘Very fun,’ agreed Bette.

‘What happened to your eye?’ the man asked, with all the ease of someone whose money has made tact unnecessary.

‘Coyote attack,’ said Bette.

‘Really?!’

‘No.’

‘Oh, wow! I love your humour!’ The guy was genuinely, bizarrely, thrilled to have been joshed. ‘Tell me another one.’

Bette narrowed her eye at him, but rescue came in a call to the photo stage. Tina led the way. She was wearing a vintage teal-and-cream blockprint dress, on the knee, quite low-cut, with heeled sandals. Her hair, just below shoulder-length, was the palest blonde it’d ever been, making her hazel eyes appear darker.