Chap­ter 10 begins with the pro­tag­o­nist reflect­ing on her lav­ish wed­ding to Don at the icon­ic Bev­er­ly Hills Hotel, attend­ed by three hun­dred guests, most­ly Hol­ly­wood elites. The wed­ding is orches­trat­ed almost entire­ly by Don’s par­ents, Mary and Roger Adler, with lit­tle input from the cou­ple them­selves. The pro­tag­o­nist wears a breath­tak­ing jew­el-necked taffe­ta gown, designed by Vivian Wor­ley, the head cos­tumer at Sun­set Stu­dios, embell­ished with rose-point lace and long sleeves. Her hair is ele­gant­ly styled by Gwen­dolyn into a sim­ple yet flaw­less bun, with a del­i­cate tulle veil com­plet­ing the look. While the wed­ding is a pub­lic spec­ta­cle con­trolled by oth­ers, the pro­tag­o­nist feels a deep sense of com­mit­ment as she exchanges vows with Don, a man she believes to under­stand her bet­ter than any­one else.

After the wed­ding, as the cou­ple is bask­ing in the cel­e­bra­tion, Har­ry pulls the pro­tag­o­nist aside to check on her emo­tion­al state. Despite the over­whelm­ing excite­ment of the wed­ding and the glam­our of being Hollywood’s newest gold­en cou­ple, Har­ry asks if she is tru­ly hap­py with Don. The pro­tag­o­nist, feel­ing like the cen­ter of atten­tion, reas­sures him that she is fine, believ­ing with her youth­ful opti­mism that Don is indeed her hap­py end­ing. At just nine­teen, she feels she has found some­one who sees her, and with his reas­sur­ing pres­ence, she feels a sense of com­ple­tion. How­ev­er, as Har­ry con­tin­ues to speak to her, a hint of dis­com­fort aris­es, and she curi­ous­ly asks why he has nev­er made any roman­tic advances toward her, despite the close friend­ship they’ve shared for years.

Har­ry, always a charm­ing and lik­able man, deflects her ques­tion with humor, offer­ing to kiss her on the cheek if she desires. The pro­tag­o­nist, in her slight­ly tip­sy state, push­es fur­ther, won­der­ing if she’s been giv­ing off sig­nals that she want­ed more from their friend­ship. Har­ry, though clear­ly avoid­ing the top­ic, explains that he sim­ply doesn’t see her that way, despite her being a stun­ning woman. The pro­tag­o­nist is tak­en aback by his response, but she remains com­posed, not entire­ly sure how to process his admis­sion. The con­ver­sa­tion marks a turn­ing point for her, as she grap­ples with the real­iza­tion that the rela­tion­ships in her life often come with cer­tain expectations—some unspo­ken and some deeply root­ed in the dynam­ics of Hol­ly­wood.

As the pro­tag­o­nist looks over at Don, sway­ing with his moth­er on the dance floor, her mind drifts to the grow­ing sense of unease in their mar­riage. Don is sev­en years old­er than her, and despite their pas­sion­ate con­nec­tion, she begins to feel the weight of their dif­fer­ences. Don, a suc­cess­ful actor with a lega­cy to uphold, is deter­mined to rise above his par­ents’ shad­ow and prove him­self as a major star. Mean­while, the pro­tag­o­nist is try­ing to nav­i­gate her own desires for suc­cess while bal­anc­ing the pub­lic per­sona of being a wife in a famous mar­riage. The dif­fer­ences in their ambi­tions, as well as Don’s com­plex rela­tion­ship with fame, start to cre­ate an under­cur­rent of ten­sion in their oth­er­wise per­fect life.

Harry’s admis­sion, that he’s nev­er been attract­ed to her, leads the pro­tag­o­nist to reflect on her role in her own rela­tion­ships. She real­izes that, just like with Don, she has always played a part to meet cer­tain expec­ta­tions, whether those are roman­tic, pro­fes­sion­al, or per­son­al. Her image in the eyes of oth­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Hol­ly­wood, has been care­ful­ly cul­ti­vat­ed and con­struct­ed. The pro­tag­o­nist begins to feel the weight of con­stant­ly per­form­ing for the cam­era, even in her most per­son­al rela­tion­ships. The con­ver­sa­tion with Har­ry reveals her inner con­flict, as she strug­gles to sep­a­rate who she is from who oth­ers expect her to be. Despite the glam­orous wed­ding and her belief that she’s found her “hap­py end­ing,” she starts to ques­tion whether she can ever tru­ly escape the roles imposed on her by soci­ety, fame, and the expec­ta­tions of those around her.

As Har­ry and the pro­tag­o­nist con­tin­ue their con­ver­sa­tion, the ten­sion is pal­pa­ble. The pro­tag­o­nist, still pro­cess­ing the real­i­ty of her mar­riage and her com­plex rela­tion­ships with the men in her life, real­izes that the road to hap­pi­ness might not be as sim­ple as it once seemed. She wants to believe in the ide­al of love, but she’s begin­ning to under­stand that love, like fame, comes with its own set of rules, com­pro­mis­es, and chal­lenges. Harry’s rejec­tion, though gen­tle, serves as a reminder that even in the most glam­orous and ide­al­ized rela­tion­ships, there are lim­its. The pro­tag­o­nist, despite the facade of per­fec­tion, feels more lost than ever, caught between the desire to please oth­ers and the need to pre­serve her own sense of iden­ti­ty. The nar­ra­tive cap­tures the ten­sion between pub­lic admi­ra­tion and per­son­al ful­fill­ment, as the pro­tag­o­nist grap­ples with the com­plex­i­ties of love, fame, and self-dis­cov­ery in an indus­try that val­ues appear­ances above all else.