In the end, Freddie gets called up for a meeting he absolutely cannot miss or attend via Zoom, around a week before the reunion.
There's a major strike happening within the film industry, and it's getting critical. Archer Corporation, as the parent company of a minor film production company, is also involved in the negotiations in attempts to end the strike.
If you want to personally ask me, I'm definitely in favor of WGA and SAG-AFTRA—which represent American screenwriters and actors—who are fighting for better, fairer pay in the industry. Especially since my sister, Leann, is part of both unions—having worked as a background actor in a few, albeit mostly canceled, TV shows and currently working on her own screenplay, she knows the struggles all too well.
Despite not being one of the major film studios, Archer Pictures is a member of AMPTP—the association of American TV and film production companies—and Freddie's godfather/boss, Harvey, ordered him to represent the company during these meetings. Of course, Freddie couldn't say no, and he was already repacking his suitcase even before the phone call ended.
I beg and plead to tag along with him, but on the same day, Gina ambushes me in my own home, teaming up with Freddie like the traitor that they both are.
I hate that they've become really good friends. They've literally only met each other once before, and suddenly it's like they've been friends for as long as Gina and I have been friends, and their sole goal is to make my life miserable.
With my arms crossed over my chest, I grumble as Freddie waves goodbye at us from the back of the car. Why am I only allowed to tag along with him to be a pretty arm candy for the cameras? Maybe I'd love to get involved in these meetings too. Maybe I'd like the chance to tell all these rich billionaires—including my own husband, of course—to go to hell and start paying their workers with the wage they deserve.
I shake my head as I watch the car disappear in the corner, still grumbling to myself. Maybe I should call Leann and tell her Freddie's coming to LA. She's currently picketing outside of a few different major film studios right now, on rotation, and maybe I should tell her to add Archer Pictures to the list. Yeah. That'll be fun.
"You know what? It's whatever. I never RSVP'd anyway. I don't have to come," I tell Gina, who's coming over to my house to bother me two days before the reunion.
"I already did it on behalf of both of us, duh," Gina responds and I groan at that. "Oh, come on! You really wanna be an asshole and let me go to the reunion by myself? I've already paid for your ticket. No refunds," she says, making an exaggerated sad face.
"I hate you sooo much."
She follows me up to my room. Freddie's other suitcase is still here, readily packed. We were about to go on a staycation at one of the many summer homes his family owns to "celebrate" our wedding anniversary.
I proposed that I still go anyway without him and instead bring Lucy and Cole with me, but Gina manages to get into his head and convinced him to delay the staycation altogether until he's finished with work. The traitors.
I know it's bullshit. Seeing how the strikes have progressed, it doesn't seem likely that Freddie's going back to spend the rest of summer in my hometown.
So, to make up for that, he's sent me a very expensive rose bouquet this morning—like, a considerably massive arrangement that's now sitting in the corner of the living room. It looks like there's over 200 freshly cut red roses arranged beautifully in a flower box, decorated with black and silver accents, complete with an elegant, hand-lettered "Happy Anniversary" card inscribed with matching silver ink on black. Even though I'm not much of a rose kind of gal, I can admit that it's really pretty.
It makes me sick to think about how expensive that shit is, though, so I just try not to think about it. Mom, on the other hand, loves the flowers she might as well believe Freddie sent them for her.
Meanwhile, Gina's still trying to convince me to come to the reunion. "C'mooon. It's not gonna be that bad."
"I will not be having a good time and you need to understand that."
"But you'll have me. We're gonna have fun together." Gina pouts at me. "Pleaseeeee? We don't have to make it through all the way to the end of the night. We can leave early."
At her earnest face, I sigh. "Alright. But you are not allowed to leave me behind to flirt with Bey and her wife."
"Nooooo. I absolutely am not going to do that," Gina promises unconvincingly, grinning at me in excitement.
"Uh-huh."
"Pinky promise!" She holds up her pinky, and I hook mine with hers.
"You know, we could've been spending more energy into securing the Eras Tour tickets for this weekend's shows, but nooo," I grumble. "This stupid reunion."
"You literally have a billionaire husband. Who works at one of the biggest media companies in America—scratch that, who basically owns it. He has the money and the connections. If you really wanted those tickets, you literally could've gotten them already."
"Millionaire. And, yeah, but I'm already leeching off him. I'm not gonna ask for concert tickets when I'm already so indebted to him. Literally."
She shakes her head in disappointment. "He brought you to the Met Gala, and yet you're too prideful to ask him for a concert ticket."
"That was different. The Met Gala was like a job for me. I was on the clock, working all night, literally in a costume for that, too. A music concert seems so trivial."
"It's literally Taylor Swift," my best friend deadpans. "There's absolutely nothing trivial about the Taylor Swift."
"I knowww," I whine into my pillows. "I can't believe she's gonna be performing here this week. Less than an hour away from me. And I'm not even going because scalpers are reselling the tickets for tens of thousands of fucking dollars."
"There, there." Gina pats my head comfortingly. "Alright. Now. What are you gonna wear? For the reunion. Not The Eras Tour, since you're not going to ask your billionaire husband to secure a couple VVIP seats for us."
I sigh. "Can't I just go with a shirt and a pair of jeans? This isn't the Met."
She rolls her eyes at me. "A tiny part of me will always be pissed that you got to attend the Met and didn't even livestream what happens during the actual dinner for me and I'm never gonna let you forget that."
"It's just a bunch of rich and famous people eating tiny plates of food and getting shitfaced drunk, I don't know what's the appeal. All I remember is that my dress really itched, and I couldn't pee in it."
"It was so pretty though."
I sigh in agreement. "It really was."
"Okay, but you are not wearing jeans on Saturday."
"Is there even a dress code? Who the hell gives a shit what I wear?"
"C'mon. You're the wife of the future CEO of Archer Corporation. Time to flex that shit."
I glare at her. "Nobody in this town actually knows that and I'm not gonna tell anybody anytime soon."
She nudges me playfully. "You've gotta at least have some of your Jo Archer costume lying around here, right?"
Gina knows about the whole Jo Archer persona and how I switch it on and off by wearing the right clothes. She thinks the whole thing is very silly, but in a cool way. Whatever that means. "I'm not gonna dress up as a CEO's wife to our high school reunion."
"I'm not saying to go full Mrs. Archer. I'm just asking if you have any cute dresses you can wear because you are not going there in a pair of jeans," she says exasperatedly, already digging through my closet and my open suitcases on the floor.
"I don't have cute dresses. I literally don't leave the house unless it's for school or for an event with Freddie. I left all my nicer clothes at his place. All you're gonna find in my closet are sweatpants and ratty shirts."
"Ugh. Seriously? What did you even wear while you were in college? There's gotta be something." She pulls something out—a short dress that I bought while I was in LA with Leann. It's nice, but—
"There's no way I'm gonna fit into that, Gina." I throw myself back into my bed, whining again. "I'm not gonna stress about this reunion like it's prom night."
"Well, too bad." Gina gives up on my closet and starts to drag me out of bed with a grin. "We're going shopping!"
Not wanting to look too eager to be at the reunion, Gina and I arrive at our old high school building half an hour late.
I mean, I am not eager to be here at all. I still tried to bail a couple times to no avail. At this point, even my whole family is conspiring against me. I woke up this morning to find the house empty—everyone's gone to visit my grandparents while I was sleeping, leaving me with Gina who is way too overly enthusiastic about the concept of spending the evening at our old high school's gymnasium with people we barely even talked to for four years.
I'm wearing a mid-length wrap dress, soft green in color, with flared half sleeves, pairing it with white ankle straps—short but thick heeled. My hair is let down, swept back on one side with a loose half-braid that disappears behind my ear, allowing my butterfly drop earring to be visible, dangling near the side of my neck.
Despite everything, I do feel cute today, Hannah Taylors-style. It's been a while since I played dress up as myself, instead of as Freddie's date. It's pretty refreshing to have only my best friend doing my hair instead of getting whisked away to a bunch of stylists and spending whole days being poked and prodded until I'm dolled up enough to hang on Freddie's arm.
Gina hooks an arm through mine, half-dragging me toward the registration table. I don't remember the name of the woman behind the table, but vaguely recognize her face, so I just politely nod at her, since she can't see my smile under the mask.
Surprisingly, it's already pretty busy inside the gymnasium. There's a makeshift bar on one side of the room—apparently, they've got permission to serve alcohol here—a photobooth on the other, and finger foods served on tables in the middle, where people are chatting around.
I go straight for the food—this time, Gina is the one being dragged by the arm. As I sample the food, I see a few faces I recognize, and we exchange pleasantries. The whole time, Gina thankfully never leaves my side, helping me out whenever things start to get uncomfortable with all of these polite but nosey questions about how we've been doing since we all graduated high school.
We navigate through the awkward catching-ups—"How have you been? Where do you work? Are you still single or married? How many kids?"—until the lights dramatically dim and a short film is played on the projected screen in front of us. It's a slideshow of random pictures taken from our years—being mostly unknown and invisible, I only recognize my face in the blurred backgrounds on some of the pictures, but nothing more than that.
In the middle of the slideshow, we finally spot Gina's ex-girlfriend, Bey and her wife. Bey is a petite little thing, only standing at 5 foot 2, dressed in a glittery pale pink jumpsuit, while her stunning supermodel wife is in a matching long-sleeved short dress.
"Hannah! How are you?" Bey turns toward me after hugging Gina, also wrapping me in a quick hug. "This is my wife, Tabitha. Tabs, this is Hannah, Gina's best friend."
"Nice to finally meet you, Hannah," Tabitha says to me in a silky-smooth voice, and I shake her hand after a moment of starstruck. Oh. Her hand is so soft.
"Nice to finally meet you, too!" I introduce myself a bit more to her while Gina and Bey catch up with each other. Tabitha is so charming. With just one smile, she makes me feel like the two of us have been best friends, and conversations flow so easily between us. Also, there's nothing awkward among the three of them—my best friend and her ex and her ex's wife—which is pretty refreshing to see.
After that, it's dance time—the DJ starts to play some classic hits from our high school years. During WALK THE MOON's Shut Up and Dance, Bey and Tabitha excuse themselves to the dance floor, and Gina and I stare at each other, wide-eyed, after they leave.
"So, that's Tabitha," I start.
Gina simply nods. "Yep."
I breathe. "Wow. She's so..."
She nods a little more rapidly. "Yeah."
"... tall," I finish. I feel like my brain's totally short-circuited and I can't come up with any word that would do justice to how gorgeous and charming Gina's ex's wife is.
"Exactly," she sighs in agreement, almost dreamily.
I get it now, why she so badly wanted to meet Tabitha. I really do understand.
"She really upgraded, huh? Going straight from me to a freaking supermodel. Damn."
I lightly punch her in the arm. "Don't say that. You're hot, too. Maybe you can ask them to hook you up with one of Tabitha's supermodel friends?"
Gina laughs. "Yeah, right."
As we've promised each other, Gina and I go for a quick trip inside while everyone was dancing, sneaking out of the gymnasium to walk through the dimly lit hallways. We take pictures in front of our old lockers and sit at our favorite table in the cafeteria, pretending that we're seventeen again.
I have to admit that I am having fun, but it's only because I'm with my childhood best friend. It's been a long time since we got to hang out together like this. After graduating high school, we went to different universities, and since then Gina and I could only meet up for short periods of time. And then I graduated college, and almost immediately the world went into lockdown... and then I got sick. I didn't leave the house for so long in isolation that at that point I started to forget how to communicate with other human beings who were not my immediate family—and Freddie too, I guess.
Getting to hang out with her again is actually bringing me so much joy I didn't realize I was missing for so long. Thankfully, she'll be here all summer, and I'm hoping to spend even more time with her until she gets sick of me.
A while later, Tracey Nguyen, from the reunion committee, and her husband Spencer Abbott found me and Gina at the bar.
Back in high school, Spencer was initially my partner for the infamous baby project, while Tracey was Jonah's—before our teacher swapped our partners around after an incident in Chemistry class involving a game of footsie and a visit to the principal's office. Jonah and I were forced to be partners for the baby project as a punishment, leaving Spencer and Tracy paired up together. And they're now... married to each other. Funny how that worked out.
"Hannah!" Tracey exclaims. "I'm so happy you could make it."
Widening my smile while sending a snickering Gina a quick glare, I tell her, "Yes. So happy to be here." I wave my hand toward the couple. They look so happy in each other's arms. "I know it's late, but congratulations on your wedding, you two!"
"Thanks, Hannah," Spencer answers, then looks down at Tracey adoringly. "Sorry we couldn't send you an invitation. We got married in lockdown, so... you know," he says apologetically.
I understand that all too well. "It's okay. I was so happy when I heard that you two got back together and got married."
"If it's meant to be..." Tracey sing-songs, and Spencer squeezes her shoulders lovingly. Aww. They're still so cute together.
"Anyway, why didn't you tell us about you and Jonah? He's completely surrounded by fangirls. You really need to get there and save him," Spencer says in a teasing tone, but my mind has blanked out at the sudden turn in the conversation.
"I'm sorry?" I ask, needing confirmation. Who exactly is here?
"Yeah, he looks so miserable," Tracey comments, unaware of my panic. "I think he was looking for you. Why did you leave the poor guy alone?"
"I—uhhh." I look at Gina for help, but she's staring at me, wide-eyed. "You're right? I should... probably go look for him?"
Once Tracey and Spencer are gone, I turn to Gina—who's looking back at me with a mirroring surprised look. "Gina. Did you know about this?"
"No!" she swears, and from the bewildered look on her face, I believe it. "I had no idea he'd come."
"So you dragging me here has nothing to do with him? You're and Jonah didn't conspire behind my back to surprise me or do something stupid like that?"
"No, I genuinely just wanted to come and I wanted you with me 'cause I didn't wanna go alone. I haven't even talked to the guy since you guys broke up."
I pull in a long breath. "Okay. Okay. Alright."
"But you guys have been texting, right? Did he tell you he was coming?"
"No, he never said anything about the reunion. Well, I didn't say anything either. And it's been a while since we last texted."
Gina nods easily. "Alright. Okay. So, let's go find him."
"Sure," I say, drawling out the word. She turns to me in concern.
"You good?"
I nod, a bit frantically. "Yeah. I'm great."
She sees through my bullshit. "It's just Jonah. You guys are okay, right? After all the..." She gestures with her hands, mildly inappropriately. I smack her hand to the side before anybody else notices.
"Okay. No. Stop that. I'm good, you know? No big deal. Just didn't think I'd see him again after all the..." I vaguely wave my fingers around and shrug at her. "I just thought I was closing the final chapter. End of the story. Didn't think I'd ever see him again."
One of her eyebrows rises. "But you guys kept texting after that."
"Well. Yeah. I don't know. I thought... maybe he was just being polite." I'm hugging myself as my heart starts to race. I am so not prepared to meet Jonah Gibbs tonight and I'm suddenly very nervous about it, and clearly, my best friend can also see it.
"Oh, goody," Gina sighs, running an exhausted hand down her face. She is so tired of me, and I can't blame her one bit. "You're so fucking hopeless."
Author's note: *clears throat* If anybody remembers the baby project from AOP... there's a little easter egg if you connect certain dots... but I cannot say more than this... hehe
But also! Yes, I support the writers and actors strikes! I tried to summarize the strikes as best as I could. If you didn't know, Hollywood actors and writers have been striking since May 2023 to demand better wages from production companies, especially now with the disruption of AI technology and the booming of streaming services. This is why you're seeing a lot of show/movie releases being pushed back to next year, and a lot of movies even stopped filming altogether, because the workers are walking out of the job for the strike. You can read more about it on the internet!
This chapter, if I followed my own timeline correctly, is happening around July 2023, so it makes sense to include the real and happening strike, since I already made up Archer Corporation as this big media company that owns their own movie studio, along with a few magazines and stuff. Anybody here watched Succession? 😂