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4. Ken Simon (Connor Smith stand-in)

5. Naomi Smith (Allison Smith), scene 103

6. Eleanor Dash (Extra), scene 103

7. Harper Dash (Extra), scene 103

CHAPTER 1

Can You Forget That You’re Wearing a Mic?

“What should we toast to?” Emma says to Fred as she leans across an intimate table at Shutters on the Beach that’s nestled into the tall palm fronds that surround the greenhouse section of its restaurant, Coast.

It’s midday, brunch things on the crisp white tablecloth, a bottle of Dom Pérignon sweating in a silver bucket, the sun dappled through the cream sailcloth providing some shade above.

“To you,” Fred says, raising his fluted Champagne glass, the bubbles sliding up the inside of it, and clinking it against Emma’s as his periwinkle eyes twinkle with mischief. “To us.”

“To Rome,” Emma says. Her chestnut mane tumbles in beachy waves to her bare, thin shoulders. She looks young, innocent, andhappy. “To the Giuseppes for bringing us together.”

“In death?”

“In life.”

Fred raises his glass and starts to take a drink—

“That’s not what happens in the book,” I say to my younger sister, Harper, under my breath. “And this dialogue is cringe.”

“And CUT!” Simone Banerjee pulls her headphones from her ears and glares at me across Video Village. She’s wearing a pairof dark blue coveralls with her name embroidered over her left breast where her heartshouldbe. “Did someone explain to The Writer that there’s no talking while we’re rolling?”

Shawna Kassel, Simone’s early-twenty-something assistant, shuffles nervously from foot to foot. She’s wearing an expression I associate with new mothers trying to keep their toddlers from having a tantrum in public. “Ididtell her, Simone. I’ll tell her again.”

“Excuse me,” I say, putting up my hand. “Are you talking about me?”

“Is The Writer talkingagain?”

“No, Simone. I’m taking care of it. Reset, everyone! We go in five.”

There’s a collective sigh from the cast and crew as Shawna beetles her way toward the table where Harper and I are sitting.

It’s the last day of filming onWhen in Rome, the movie, and when they asked us if we wanted to be extras, I jumped at the chance. Who wouldn’t want to be an extra in a movie based on a novel you wrote? The whole experience has been exciting and surreal, terrible dialogue notwithstanding, and the first day I walked on set and saw the world I’d created in my imagination made real, Icried.

I know, right? That’s not like me.

But anyway, I watched as many of the shoots as I could over the last forty-nine days, and now here Harper and I are, dressed as ladies-who-lunch in enough makeup that it feels like a Halloween mask.

“You’re introu-ble,” Harper says. They’ve swept her dark hair back into a low chignon and given her features more definition. She looks older than thirty-three, and more severe than usual.

“I don’tca-re,” I sing back, but that’s probably not true. No one likes being called out on a film set. Especially not one where Simone is in charge.

I shift my focus to her as she picks up her clipboard and writes something down. Probably a demerit point for me that I’ll hear about later.

She’s hated me since high school—LA is averysmall town—and I knew there’d be problems between us when I learned she was going to directWhen in Rome.

“Um, Eleanor?”

I look up into Shawna’s scared face. She’s got unruly strawberry blond hair and pale green eyes. I met her on day one of filming, and I swear she’s aged ten years in that time. Working for Simone will do that to you.

“What’s up, Shawna?”