“ The Unfolding ,” Anouk said. “A twelve-episode limited series. No male lead. No love interest. It’s about three women—a retired astronaut, a former war photographer, and a disgraced opera singer—who reunite after forty years to solve the murder of their best friend. They’re all over sixty. They’re angry, horny, brilliant, and physically capable. There are no scenes of them looking wistfully at photographs of their dead husbands. There are scenes of them hot-wiring a car, forging a passport, and having a threesome with a retired rugby player in Lisbon.”

She pulled a pen from her purse—a Montblanc, a gift from her late husband, who had adored her precisely because she refused to be adored—and clicked it open.

Anouk smiled. It was a slow, dangerous thing, like a door opening onto a room you’d been told was locked forever.

“I’m offering you a mirror,” Anouk said. “Look. The industry doesn’t hate older women. It’s worse than that. It’s bored by us. It thinks our stories are over the moment our skin loses its elasticity. But the truth? The most interesting part of a woman’s life is the third act. That’s when we stop performing. That’s when we start telling the truth.”

Celeste stared at the pen. Then at the script. Then at Anouk—at the deep lines around her eyes, the silver streak in her dark hair, the absolute, unapologetic solidity of her.

Celeste’s eyes widened. She picked up the script like it might burn her. “No one will finance this.”

She slid a script across the table. The cover was plain, black, no title.