The Reunion by Kayla Olson(91)
Everyone from the reunion show is here, minus one notable absence—Bob Renfro was terminated immediately after his affair came to light, and apparently he said some horrible things to Shine on his way out. Sasha-Kate came out tonight after lying low for a while, now that the gossip cycle has finally started to move on. She’s off chatting with one of the extras, not a silver fox in sight—the execs are clustered clear on the far side of the backyard. If I had to guess, they’re avoiding her every bit as much as she’s avoiding them.
Millie is surrounded by a group of interns and assistants just down the path. She looks radiant, and for good reason: her full album just dropped, and it’s already solidly at the top of the charts, which is truly saying something—Hālo conveniently dropped her latest on the exact same night.
Ransom and I are in the middle of congratulating Millie when the squeal of microphone feedback cuts us off. “Sorry about that; sorry, everyone!” Bryan says, overcompensating by holding the mic way too far from his face. “If you’ll all find your seats, we’ll begin the show in ten minutes.”
Unlike the first garden party at Dan and Xan’s, a huge screen has been hung on the back side of the house, as if the house were designed with an outdoor theater in mind. Our pink Girl on the Verge logo is bright against a teal-blue background, projected from a machine that’s been expertly hidden somewhere in the landscaping; the bright blue water of the pool suddenly dims to dark navy, and the reflection it had cast on the screen disappears.
The backyard is filled with rows of long, straight tables covered in sleek black tablecloths. Servers are delivering charcuterie boards, bowls of popcorn, and baskets of baked pretzels at regular intervals, along with plates and silverware and chilled jugs of water. I take my seat, front and center, with Ransom on one side of me and Bre on the other. I’m just about to lean over to chat with her when someone taps my shoulder. I practically leap out of my seat, barely managing to avoid a wine-related disaster.
“Oh! I’m so sorry to startle you, I’m so sorry!” says a girl with a heart-shaped face and bright amber eyes. I recognize her immediately. Her picture has been everywhere these past few weeks, right beside mine, our names together in all the articles. “I’m Clarke, Clarke Hartley—and I was wondering if I could get a picture with you?”
She gives a grin that will win over a new generation of fans as soon as they see her on-screen.
“I’d be honored,” I say, accidentally breaking my own rule of never making a pun out of my character’s name.
Clarke doesn’t notice. “That would be— Ahhh! Sorry. I’m sorry I’m not more chill about all this. It’s just that I grew up watching you, and it’s just… all of this is really, really surreal.”
I want to tell her to stop apologizing: to enjoy it all, every minute, to relish this time where people don’t know all there is to know about her—where she still feels like a fan instead of being the very center of a fandom, where she’ll no doubt end up as soon as the reboot hits Fanline this fall. I want to tell her it’ll be the adventure of a lifetime and also the hardest thing she’ll ever do.
“You’re going to be amazing,” I say instead. I hear they cut off the casting call as soon as they saw her audition; I can see why.
She gives me a tight-lipped smile, and I know right away that she’ll be okay in this business: she’s confident, but not so much it will ruin her, and she accepts my compliment without seeming at all desperate for it.
Ransom offers to take the photo for us, but I wave him off—this is selfie material. Attica has taught me well.
“Here, lean in,” I tell her, centering our faces just below the Girl logo in the background. “Mind if I post it, too?”
Her cheeks turn pink. “That would be great,” she says. “Yes, please. And thanks.”
She AirDrops it to my phone, and I spend a few quick seconds uploading it to my feed. Original Girl meets new Girl, I caption it. I tag her, adding a quick #gotvreboot to the end. Two taps later, the post is live. My official stamp of approval will go a long way with the fandom.
Clarke thanks me again, then rushes to find her seat as the garden lights dim to nearly complete darkness. Ransom squeezes my hand under the table, bringing a sudden wave of emotion.
“Doing okay?” he asks.
This is the end of an era, bittersweet and surreal, to use Clarke’s word. But then I remember, whenever an era ends, it’s time for a new one to begin.
“More than okay,” I say, and I mean it.
Our theme song fills the speakers for the very last time, our logo fading as the episode begins. I know our logo by heart, the image indelibly carved into my entire existence in neon pink. But I don’t watch the screen: Honor and Duke, as much as I love them, are fiction—their story is over.
Now it’s time for real life.
Acknowledgments
I started writing this book in March 2020, in the earliest days of the pandemic: the world was scary and stressful, and I needed somewhere fun to go in my head every day (especially when we couldn’t really leave the house).
Fortunately, my incredible literary agents didn’t bat a single eyelash when I told them I’d like to pivot from survival stories to the glitz and shine of a Hollywood romance—an all-caps THANK YOU to Holly Root and Taylor Haggerty at Root Literary for believing in me and my work for nearly a decade now, and for the razor-sharp instincts that landed this book at its most perfect home. Thank you, too, to my wonderful film agent, Mary Pender-Coplan at United Talent Agency, and to foreign rights agent extraordinaire Heather Baror-Shapiro at Baror International for all you’ve both done on my behalf over the years.