Page 123 of The Statistically Unlikely Reunion

Brody stands and rubs his eyes. “I should talk to Vi.”

Lucas stands and asks, “What can we do?”

Brody pulls us in for a lopsided hug. His voice is gruff. “You’ve already done it.” He takes a step back, and at the door, because Mr. Bro Dude is still in there, he says, “I mean, more Red, of course. But also, yeah, both of you.”

After the door clicks shut, Lucas turns to me. “What do you want to do today?”

“Will you judge me if I say sleep?”

Lucas’s expression is an extreme caricature of disappointment, but he doesn’t otherwise protest. I’m more tired than he is—I blame the lupus, because I always blame the lupus—which means that at some point, Lucas leaves to get his laptop so he can work beside me. We talk when we’re both awake, and he wakes me when it’s time for us to get ready for the big Gatsby party.

“That’s still happening?”

“Brody texted a reminder just now.”

Lucas goes back to his room because we’ve both got to shower and he’s got a full tux to get into. I agree to meet him downstairs, and after a scaldingly fast rinse, I get into the striped white-and-blue suit I’d prepared for this event. I scrape my newly black hair into a small bun at the nape of my neck and decide that my seventies plastic glasses almost pass, given the 1920’s gangster look I’m going for.

Perhaps unfortunately, it’s Khloe who greets me. “Even without the green hair, you like to try to make a statement, don’t you?”

She’s wearing a short, glimmering silver-and-pink flapper dress that looks nothing like the cheap knockoffs I passed over at the thrift stores. From her smoky eye makeup to her sequined headband, bangle bracelets, and dangling earrings, I have to admit she nailed the assignment.

But I don’t feel like playing her catty games today. “The thrifted male outfits were in better condition.”

“Thrifted?” Khloe says the word delicately, as if I’ve said gonorrhea and even repeating the word might be contagious.

Vera comes over in time to announce, “I adore thrifting.”

Khloe raises her perfectly penciled-in eyebrows and tells us there’s no assigned seating tonight, as Brody and Vi so wanted to make sure everyone enjoyed themselves.

I haven’t seen either Brody or Vi and can’t tell, by looking at Khloe, whether her discontented look signifies something is actually wrong . . . or whether she’s just hungry. Despite the fact that flapper dresses were often loose enough to theoretically dance—or at least move—in, Khloe’s dress is tightly fitted enough to tell there’s no bra underneath.

Because I don’t see Lucas, I let Vera lead me toward the other Techers.

My butt has just barely made contact with my seat before Wendell asks the forbidden question. “So is the wedding still on?”

He’s whispering, but not quietly enough. Underneath the table, his wife tries to nudge him silent.

“Don’t do that.” Wendell turns to her. “Someone has to ask the difficult questions.”

Everyone—Qi, Wendell, Lacey, two other Techers who must have just flown in—looks at me.

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit.”

Qi’s wife elbows him. Unlike Wendell, Qi mumbles an acknowledgment. “Sorry—baloney . . . stardust.”

I’m still laughing when we hear the feedback of a microphone being connected.

We turn to see Brody and Vi walking to the center of a raised platform, holding hands. Brody’s never been my type, but even I can admit that with his now four-day growth beautifully trimmed, in his perfectly tailored dark-navy suit molding a body that’s mostly muscle, he’s as conventionally handsome as it gets. He’s even wearing an ascot, which is as hilarious as it is on point. He towers a good four inches over Vi, who, with her hair artfully curled, in a dress that’s the golden version of Khloe’s, looks like a graceful ballerina. They’re the perfect couple. They’re Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.

There’s just something ethereal about them, something that screams Old Hollywood.

I look around, almost hoping that the paparazzi are here, that the clumsy waiter with the obviously fake beauty mark is a plant. Because this is the picture they’ve been trying to project. This is the picture that deserves to make the headlines.

Vi speaks first. “We wanted to thank you all for coming for what’s been . . . an even more exciting week than we could have predicted.” She says this all with a small, almost wistful smile. She’s the shy ingénue, succinctly communicating without words that she had no control over any of the past week’s craziness.

Brody, perfectly timed, inserts, “Speak for yourself! I always knew this was going to be a banger.”