Fame Game 03: Infamous

  Kate watched the engineers as they played a track, shook their heads, and then tried something else. Sometimes Todd offered a few suggestions, but mostly he sat there listening. It was strange to see the process of them picking apart her song; it felt, a little bit, like watching herself be operated on.

  “Is this what you want?” Drew whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Kate asked.

  “Euro-pop sweetness—” she overhead Adam saying.

  “The vocal’s good,” Johnny said. “But we need to strip out her music. Replace it with other music.”

  Adam nodded. “Let’s make it bigger: big breakdowns, buildups, big instrumental parts.”

  “Yeah, and when she records we’ll have to use Auto-Tune,” Johnny said. “She pitches sharp sometimes.”

  “What if we loop the first half?”

  “Not sure about the synth chords—”

  Kate had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

  “It’s like I don’t even need to be here,” she whispered to Drew.

  He nodded grimly. “I know.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Drew shook his head—he didn’t want to say. So Kate pressed further. “Tell me. Tell me now.”

  “They’re turning you into someone else, Kate,” he said. “You’re never going to sound like this in real life. This is all fake.”

  “But don’t they know what they’re doing?”

  “Sure, if you want to be Katy Perry. But that’s not who you are.”

  Kate thought about the pop star: her colorful wigs, her entourage, her sold-out tours, her songs that people couldn’t get out of their heads, even if they wanted to. “It doesn’t seem so bad, though,” she said. “In fact I like the sound of it.”

  Drew crossed his arms. “I like you. The raw sound of your voice. Lucinda. The way you sometimes miss a note.”

  “I miss notes?” Kate was surprised.

  “Of course. And it’s perfect. It’s like how screwing up in the first few minutes of an open mic can actually bring an audience over to your side, so by the time you finish your songs they’re in love with you.”

  “I don’t want to be loved for my mistakes,” Kate said.

  “But that’s, like, the human condition!” Drew said. “You live, and you screw up, and you try harder, and you love people and they love you back.”

  “Are you getting metaphysical on me?” Kate asked. “And why are you so obsessed with mistakes today? Did you eat all my Froot Loops again?”

  She was trying to lighten the mood a little, but Drew seemed weirdly troubled. He shook his head. “I just think you should make your own music the way you want to do it. Not let others do it for you.”

  Kate held up a hand. “Wait—”

  She wanted to listen because they were playing her song again. But this time through the monitors came a lush sonic landscape of beats, loops, and synths. There was no trace of Lucinda. There was her voice, coming in above the heavy instrumentation, sounding the same and yet utterly different. Bigger. Better. Brighter.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “This is crazy,” Drew said quietly. “You’re not going to sound like this at the showcase.”

  Kate turned to him. “So what? They’ll see what I can do by myself—and then they’ll listen to this and see what I can do with a little help.”

  “A little help?” Drew repeated. “Is that how you’d describe totally changing everything about your music? You can’t just switch up your sound like you can switch up your hair color.”

  “I thought you liked my hair!”

  Drew sighed. “It’s great, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about how there aren’t even any real instruments in the song now.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s not you, Kate. It’s you selling out.”

  “Selling out?” She couldn’t believe he’d used that term. It infuriated her. “Oh, okay, Mr. Integrity. Maybe that should be your new tattoo. I think there’s a tiny bare spot on your right arm.”

  Drew stared at her in disbelief.

  She felt a momentary flutter of guilt, but she was too mad to stop now. He’d been acting weird this whole time, and she didn’t like it one bit. “And if that’s how you feel about it, maybe you should go.”

  Drew stood up. “Okay,” he said. “I will.” He turned to go, then came back and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head. It didn’t feel sweet or romantic, though. It felt like a big bug had landed on her hair, and then flown off.

  Kate stayed on the couch, fuming. What right did he have to question her manager and these producers? He was a college student. An intern.

  The Kate she was hearing now over the monitors? She didn’t sound like a girl who used to nearly pass out from stage fright. She didn’t sound like a girl from small-town Ohio. She didn’t sound like the Boring One. No, she sounded like a star.

  The only people who bitch about sellouts, she thought, are the people no one wants to buy.

  By the time she left, late that evening, she had demos of three songs that Todd promised to share with the A&R execs at her showcase. They sounded incredible. Not very much like the songs as she’d written them to be—but still incredible.

  When she pulled into the lot of Park Towers, she was still trying to decide how mad she was at Drew. Was he looking out for her best interests, or trying to cramp her style? Maybe he didn’t want her to succeed because he was afraid she’d leave him behind.

  17

  A LITTLE RED CARPET THING

  Madison gave a low whistle when she saw the post on D-Lish. Wow, she thought, that sucks for everyone. (But it was also sort of amusing, because who didn’t love romantic gossip?)

  The accompanying picture was a blurry cell phone shot, but the article was damning enough:

  Looks like things are getting nasty on the set of The Fame Game. Starlet Carmen Curtis, supposed BFF of indie-pop cutie Kate Hayes, is either a really bad friend or was only playing nice on TV. She is an actress after all! Well, the sometime-sweetheart of Aussie heartthrob Luke Kelly (who’s currently overseas filming) apparently couldn’t keep her hands to herself last weekend. At a scenester party in Silver Lake, she got caught making out with Kate’s boyfriend. Carmen, we thought you already had your Romeo, girl! Why are you pawing someone else’s?!! Foul play!

  Madison reached for her phone and dialed Kate. She wasn’t surprised that there was no answer. “Hey,” she said to her voice mail, “I just saw D-Lish. I hope it’s not true. Is it? Did you know? Should we start planning Mission Take Down Carmen? Call me.”

  “Hope what’s not true?” Gaby asked, wandering into the living room with one of her trademark smoothies in hand.

  Wordlessly, Madison flipped her computer screen around. Gaby leaned over, her lips moving as she read the news.

  “Yikes,” she said when she was done. “That’s the party we were at. The one where they served all those shish kebab things? Kate dropped one on her lap.” She giggled. “Then Jay picked it up off her skirt and ate it.”

  “I totally did not need to know that,” Madison said.

  She skimmed the article again. It had to be true. The writers at D-Lish usually used blind items when they couldn’t confirm their intel. This, Madison assumed, was a reaction to a lawsuit filed by a former Top Act host. D-Lish had accused him of having an affair after being photographed hugging a much younger woman, who ended up being his seventeen-year-old niece.

  Madison wondered why Kate hadn’t called her to talk about it—surely Drew, aka Mr. Nice Guy, had told her immediately after it happened. Hadn’t Madison proved herself a good confidante? A trusted friend? (Even if she’d gotten Kate in a teensy bit of trouble for the drastic haircut.) If Kate had called her, Madison could have offered helpful advice. She would have told her to lay low for a few days; would have assured her that people would stop talking about it as soon as anyone else misbehaved, which would be any second now; would have explained that
everyone kissed everyone in Hollywood, especially at parties. Madison personally knew a few starlets for whom hooking up with randoms was about as consistent as their gym routines.

  Madison almost found herself feeling a bit sorry for Carmen, too. No, the two of them had never really gotten along, but Madison imagined that Carmen was feeling pretty ashamed of herself. She’d probably had too much to drink, and she’d had a moment of possessiveness. Drew had been hers first, after all. And, without thinking, she’d tried to restake her old claim on that tattooed giant. (Madison never saw Drew’s appeal, but to each her own.)

  Since Madison had an affair or two under her Prada belt, she knew not to cast the first stone. But she didn’t excuse Carmen for her actions. Especially considering the fraught boy history Carmen already had with Kate. The world didn’t know that Kate had dated Luke first, but Madison did. So kissing Drew made Carmen seem like just another rich Daddy’s girl, one who assumed she could have whatever she wanted, and who didn’t stop to think about the consequences of her actions.

  As someone who was living daily with the consequences of her actions—or, more accurately, Charlie’s actions—Madison resented such a casual attitude.

  There were definitely some awkward silences going on down in her old apartment, provided Carmen hadn’t tucked her tail between her legs and run back to Topanga into the arms of Mommy and Daddy Curtis.

  Madison shut her laptop and resolved to push all thoughts of the situation from her mind. Publicity was publicity, after all, and most people in L.A. would kill for it. (Which was why, the moment a would-be actress saw her star dimming, the world would “discover” a “stolen” sex tape. As if people couldn’t figure out the desperate truth. Madison had vowed never to be in that position. No pun intended.)

  “You want to go down to the pool?” Gaby asked.

  “I would,” Madison said, “but I’ve got to get ready. There’s a little red carpet thing.” She saw Gaby’s eyes widen, and a hurt expression crossed her face. “Emphasis on ‘little,’” she added. “Trust me, you’re not missing anything.”

  “Okay . . . ,” Gaby said uncertainly.

  Madison blew her a kiss, then walked into her room and over to her spacious closet, with its bright, beautiful clothes hung in neat rows. She selected a scarlet dress by Alice + Olivia that ShopAddict, the designer publicity firm, had sent over the week before. Madison couldn’t help it; she liked to wear red on the red carpet. She was never one to blend in with her surroundings, but the color looked too good on her to resist.

  This evening she was heading to a dinner for social networking bigwigs. She hadn’t been lying to Gaby—the event didn’t sound amazing at all. But there would be a big media presence, insuring at least a handful of MADISON STUNS IN ALICE + OLIVIA headlines. Also, more importantly, she’d heard that an up-and-coming TV producer would be in attendance. He was quickly climbing the ranks over at the Gallery Network, PopTV’s main competitor, and Madison had certain . . . projects she wanted to discuss with him. Beautyland, Madison’s production company, had been on the back burner for months now, and it was time to start thinking about bringing it up to the front. Time to start focusing on #1: Herself.

  Since Madison wasn’t going to be running into Andrew Garfield or Liam Hemsworth at the event, she hadn’t done her usual two-and-a-half-hour pre-carpet routine. (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was the guest of honor, and while he was cute in a sort of nerdy way, he was married.) But Madison had avoided salt and had drunk gallons of water in the past few days, so the size zero dress fit her perfectly. She’d gotten her hair blown out earlier in the day, and as for the makeup—she could take care of herself. The Glam squad was good for show, but truth be told, no one knew how to do a sultry eye and a nude lip better than Madison Parker.

  As she dusted bronzer across her shoulders and décolletage, she heard Gaby turn on loud salsa music in the living room. Her roommate was probably going to spend the next three hours practicing for the Dancing with the Stars audition that she insisted Trevor was lining up for her. She’d been doing that a lot lately. She’d been talking about setting up a barre in the living room, too, so she could practice her ronde de jambes, whatever that was.

  Madison didn’t mind salsa, per se, but suddenly dinner with internet geeks seemed a lot more appealing.

  The carpet stretched a dozen yards from the sidewalk to the entrance of the Beverly Hills Cultural Center. Madison was slightly disappointed it wasn’t longer, and for a moment she wondered if—salsa avoidance aside—it had been a mistake to come. But since she was only a few weeks past her days of scrubbing out dog cages in an oversized pair of Wellies, maybe she should look on the bright side.

  She walked slowly toward the doors, stopping every few steps to pose for the photographers.

  There were plenty of them at the event, and they all wanted her picture. An older couple had climbed out of their limo at the same time as Madison, and the paparazzi yelled at them to get out of the shot. The couple were probably billionaire investors in the next big social media venture, but they were in their sixties and unphotogenic, so the paparazzi wanted nothing to do with them—and everything to do with Madison.

  She was standing with one hand on a cocked hip, a mysterious closed-lip smile on her face, when she spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Ryan Tucker.

  What in the world was he doing here? It took all of Madison’s cool to not go sprinting toward him. She made herself keep posing while she counted to ten—a respectable delay in her reaction, she thought. She’d gotten to number six when she realized what she should have known right away: It was not Ryan Tucker at all. As the figure moved closer, he came into better focus; he was just another handsome Hollywood type with sun-lightened hair and a chiseled jaw.

  Madison fought her disappointment with a brilliant smile. She decided to sign some autographs, too, and then she posed for a picture with a teenage girl who looked like she might jump out of her skin with excitement. (It never hurt to be photographed interacting with fans. It was good for her image, and so much easier than responding to their fan mail like Kate.)

  Forget Ryan Tucker. This was what life was supposed to be like, she thought. Flashbulbs. Fans. Adoration. Now if only Nick would line up some of the mega-endorsement deals he’d been talking about, she’d be back in business.

  Or: if her conversation went well with Jack Stanbro, a Gallery executive.

  She needed to find Jack before the dinner began. Because if there were awards—and there were always awards at these things—people tended to duck out for a smoke or a cell phone call and never return.

  She’d never met Jack, but she’d Google-imaged him, so she knew what to look for: a thirty-something man with hipster glasses, hair cropped close to his head, and a mole on his right cheek. In pictures, he was better than average looking, but Madison knew not to rely on publicity shots for that kind of information. She’d seen plenty of shots of Trevor Lord that made him look like a GQ model.

  After fifteen minutes of searching, Madison spotted Jack over by the bar. She swiped a glass of Champagne from a passing waiter and made her approach. He was typing into his iPhone and frowning in concentration. Madison waited as patiently as she possibly could—for five seconds—and then said, “Excuse me, aren’t you Jack Stanbro?”

  He looked up, startled. He wasn’t so powerful yet that he expected to be recognized. “Guilty as charged. And whom do I have—” Then he stopped himself. And smiled at her. “I know you. You’re the infamous Madison Parker.”

  “Guilty as charged,” Madison repeated, smiling back. “Not to steal your line.”

  Jack laughed. “I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the one to coin it.” Up close, he was at least as handsome as his pictures, if not more. (Again, why was it that she couldn’t go on dates with guys who had actual jobs?)

  “So I’ve been reading some pretty interesting things about you lately,” Madison said, leaning an elbow on the bar.

  Jack raised his eyebrows. “In the t
rade magazines?”

  “Of course. You don’t think I only read tabloids and women’s magazines, do you? I keep up on things, Jack. I like to know what’s going on in the industry. I own a production company, after all.” She took a delicate sip of Champagne. “I happen to know that you’re looking to develop some new unscripted shows, and I think we might have some ideas to talk about.”

  Jack’s eyebrows lifted even higher. “Oh really,” he said. “I’m surprised you aren’t talking to PopTV about this. You’ve done two huge shows with them.”

  “Actually, three if you include my self-produced makeover show,” she reminded him. “But I’m a planner.” She took a step closer. “I always like to know my next move. And I’ve got some big ideas that I thought you might want to hear.” She gave her hair a subtle toss. “I love the cameras, Jack, but not only being in front of them. I’m really eager to get into development.”

  Jack nodded. “This is all very interesting, Madison,” he said. “I’m not sure that now is the time”—he gestured to the event going on around them—“but I’d definitely like to hear whatever you have on your mind.”

  “Shall we set a date, then?” She lingered on the word “date,” just in case. There wasn’t a wedding ring on his finger, after all, and unlike Ryan, Jack wasn’t allergic to the camera. Though the thought of going on a real date with anyone right now didn’t actually appeal to Madison, she thought it made good business sense to keep her options open.

  Jack brought out a silver card case. “Let’s,” he said, pulling a card out and handing it to Madison. “Here’s my info. Set it up with my assistant.”

  Madison agreed to call in the morning and said a polite good-bye. When she shook his hand and made her way to her table, she did so feeling about nine feet tall. She wasn’t always going to be Trevor’s pawn. No way. Someday soon she was going to be a queen.

  18

  A SHORT COMMUNICATION BREAK

  Carmen slammed her car door and dashed up the steps to Siren Studios on Sunset. She was half an hour late to the full-cast photo shoot. Laurel was going to be furious, and Carmen’s excuse wasn’t going to cut it.