Madison rolled down the window. “I wanted to tell you . . .” She paused, knowing what she had to say but unsure she was a big enough person to say it. “I need to tell you that I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” She exhaled and the tightness in her chest released. “I spoke to Sue Beth and she told me about the letters.”
Charlie nodded, and then he patted the hood of the car.
“I didn’t know that you tried to see us or contact us.”
“I wasn’t much of a father,” Charlie said. “And I’ve got to live with that the rest of my life. I wouldn’t expect you to really ever forgive me, but I just wanted you to know I tried. It was a poor try, a weak one, but it was all I could do back then.” Charlie lifted his arm and rubbed the sleeve of his shirt across his eyes.
Madison nodded and turned on the ignition.
Charlie took a step backward. “Will I see you again?” he called. “Maybe when you aren’t filming?”
Madison smiled out the window. “Yeah,” she said. “You will.”
Chapter 17
The TV-Ready Next Big Thing
“Can I bring you something to drink while you wait for your friend?” Kate asked the woman in hot-pink yoga pants.
The woman blinked at her, smiling vaguely. She was obviously having a very hard time not looking at the PopTV cameras. No doubt Laurel was annoyed, but Kate thought it was funny: You could order people to pretend the camera crew wasn’t there; you could beg them to “act natural”—but as soon as the camera was rolling they stared into the lens like deer in headlights.
Kate wondered if people were like that everywhere, or if it was a fascination unique to Los Angeles. “Pellegrino?” she suggested helpfully.
The woman thought about this for such a long time that Kate was starting to think she hadn’t heard her. It was ten minutes before the end of her shift, and from the looks of it they were going to be the longest ten minutes of her life.
“Um, what about the lemonade? Is that sugar-free?”
“No, but it’s delicious,” Kate chirped.
The woman threw up her hands. “What the heck! It’s Friday,” she said.
Simone, one of her coworkers, sidled up to Kate as she poured a glass of lemonade. “If lemonade is her idea of letting loose on Friday, I do not even want to know what the rest of her week is like.” She smiled.
Kate noticed that Simone was blocking her line to the PopTV camera and that she kept coming up to her to make what she thought were snappy remarks. She also noticed that Simone had touched up her makeup and put her glossy black hair into a flattering updo. So, here was yet another person who couldn’t act natural in front of a camera. Because Simone’s niceness wasn’t natural in the slightest: Her true personality lay somewhere between casually snooty and downright bitchy.
Kate smiled, artificially bright. “I know, right?”
She was wondering how much longer they could pretend to like each other when she saw Gaby enter the restaurant, waving excitedly. She was wearing an extremely short skirt and a demure, long-sleeved top; the effect was nunnish above the waist and slutty below it. Kate wondered who’d thought up that bit of sartorial confusion. Gaby? Her new publicist? Or Madison, trying to be funny? Poor Gaby. Someone could tell her to go out dressed in tin foil and newspaper and she’d ask, L.A. Times or the Daily News?
“So,” Gaby said, mincing up to the bar on her platform heels. “You about ready to go for drinks?”
“Oh, gosh, I’d love to,” Kate said. “But I have to go home tonight and work on some songs. I’ve got studio time next week and I want to be prepared.”
The funny thing was, she and Gaby were going out for drinks tonight. But the PopTV producers were excellent at getting multiple scenes out of single locations, which saved them a lot of time and money and hassle.
“Oh, bummer,” Gaby said, twiddling a piece of her dark hair. “I wanted to go to that new club over on Vine.”
“We can go next week,” Kate assured her. “I’m free every night.”
This wasn’t technically true—she had made numerous half-plans with Luke—but since the PopTV people didn’t know about him, he didn’t officially exist. He’d been surprisingly agreeable about working around her shooting schedule. She smiled at the thought of cooking dinner with him in her apartment, taking another ride up into the hills on his motorcycle, or just lying around on the couch, wrapped in each other’s arms. . . .
“Next week?” Gaby looked authentically disappointed. Either she’d been working on her acting or she’d forgotten the very next shoot, in which she would ask the same question and Kate would say yes. “Well, all right,” Gaby said. “See you later, I guess.” She teetered out to the sidewalk and stood for a moment in the sun.
The camera trailed behind Kate as she headed to the kitchen to clock out. Then there was a ten-minute break while Gaby changed into different clothes, and Kate braided her hair back and changed her earrings.
She took her place behind the bar, this time only pretending to watch the clock for the end of her shift as she did some sidework. Might as well help out whoever’s on the next shift, she thought as she folded cloth napkins into perfect triangles.
She worked for another few minutes before Gaby entered again, this time in a pale yellow tank dress that clung to her thin body.
“Hey, girl,” Gaby said, “are you getting off soon? Let’s go get drinks!”
Kate acted as if this was a wonderful proposal, and one she hadn’t just turned down. “Totally,” she said, wiping her brow dramatically. “I could seriously use a cocktail.”
As her filming schedule noted, she and Gaby would be heading to Wood & Vine for happy hour. Laurel had told Gaby to ask Kate about her latest song, and Kate had been instructed to ask Gaby about her Buzz! News gig. The producers weren’t writing their words for them. They were simply suggesting a subject. And a location. And an activity. The producers, Kate had discovered, had a lot of suggestions.
Once again the camera followed Kate as she clocked out. It filmed her as she brushed her hair out and applied a bit of makeup to brighten her rather tired eyes. Like an obedient puppy, it trailed Kate as she made her way out into the seating area to get Gaby.
Gaby held out a pair of dangly gold earrings. “I brought you these,” she said.
Kate was surprised. They were lovely, with cascading tiny golden leaves. “Really? What for?”
Gaby grinned with slight embarrassment. “I bought two pairs by mistake,” she said.
Kate raised her eyebrows. Was Gaby so mentally challenged that she would buy the same pair of earrings twice? “How come?” she asked.
“Well, I thought I lost them,” Gaby explained. “And they were my favorite, so I bought a new pair. And then I found the old pair in my jewelry box.”
“Such a strange place for a pair of earrings,” Kate remarked.
“I know, right?” Gaby said, without any apparent irony.
Kate swapped her earrings once more. “I love them,” she said sincerely. “Thank you.”
“No sweat,” Gaby said. She stood and linked her arm through Kate’s. “Now let’s go get drinks and find cute guys.”
Kate and Gaby sat at the bar at Wood & Vine. Kate had ordered a French 75, and after a few sips she already felt it was going to her head, so she asked for a cheese plate, thinking that it’d help soak up some of the Champagne.
“A cheese plate?” Gaby said, after the bartender had taken the order. “You live dangerously.”
“What do you mean?” Kate asked. “What’s dangerous about cheese?” She thought of Jack, one of her coworkers at Stecco, who’d just come back from a two-week illness after eating strawberries tainted with E. coli. Had there been some cheese-related outbreak of salmonella or botulism or something?
“The saturated fat,” Gaby whispered. “That’s what’s dangerous.”
Kate couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. “God, Gaby, I thought you were talking about a food-borne illness.”
Gaby’s expression was still serious. “Obesity is a food-borne illness, Kate.” She took a sip of her cocktail and then a sip of ice water. Drinking a pint of ice water, she’d told Kate, burned fifteen calories.
Wow, Kate thought. Just wow.
Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember ever seeing Gaby eat. Certainly not at their “impromptu” dinner party for the benefit of the PopTV cameras, but not any other time, either. When the rest of the girls sat around eating popcorn or chips and salsa, Gaby drank ice water and chewed gum. No wonder she was so thin. And with those fake breasts? She looked like a twig with two cantaloupes attached to it.
Now you sound like Madison, Kate chided herself. Be nice.
“I don’t think a bite of Brie will make you—or anyone—obese,” Kate pointed out.
Gaby looked unconvinced. “I’ll stick to drinking my calories,” she said.
“Suit yourself.” Kate smeared a slab of a goat’s milk double cream onto a cracker and took a delicious, rich bite. She knew Trevor would love it if she confronted Gaby about her eating habits on-camera, but she wasn’t up for it. For one thing, it was possible Gaby ate when no one was around because she couldn’t help chewing with her mouth open or something; also, it was private business. And Kate was sensitive to that aspect of the matter, since she was involved in some private business of her own with Luke Kelly.
“So,” Gaby said, “how is that new song of yours coming? The one you played for us the other week?”
Kate had already given some thought to how she’d answer. Would she play the role of the inspired and hopeful singer-songwriter, the TV-ready Next Big Thing? Or should she confess that she’d been so turned upside down by her new life that she was having a hard time writing about anything? She hadn’t decided. Honesty came naturally to her, but in this case she was pretty sure that Trevor would prefer the fiction. (Another strike against “reality” in reality TV.)
She took a sip of her drink to buy herself a moment. Pause. “It’s coming along really well,” she heard herself say.
“I can’t wait to hear it,” Gaby said. “What’s it called again?”
“‘Lonely Doll,’” Kate said. “I think.”
“It’s just so cool what you do,” Gaby said. “I mean, I couldn’t write a song to save my life.”
No, thought Kate (not without affection), you probably couldn’t.
Her phone buzzed to life on the bar, and when she picked it up she saw that there was a message from Carmen.
WHERE ARE YOU? HAVE NEWS AND WANT TO SEE YOU. Carmen knew where she was, of course, but hey—pretending she didn’t was all part of the game.
She texted back and then told Gaby that Carmen would be joining them.
“Oh goody,” Gaby said. “It’ll be like a real party.”
“What, I’m not enough excitement for you?” Kate pretended to pout.
“More guys come up to us when Carmen’s around,” Gaby said. When she saw the look on Kate’s face she added, “Not because you’re not totally hot. It’s just that she’s—you know, famous?”
“Yeah, I know, I know,” Kate said. “I’m just a girl from Columbus, Ohio.”
“Not for much longer,” Gaby said, seemingly sincerely. She adjusted the thin straps of her dress. “Do you think this dress works? It’s a Mario Nuñez, but I kind of think it looks a little Forever 21.”
Kate laughed. It did look like it was from Forever 21, but could you say that about a nine-hundred-dollar dress? Luckily Carmen came racing up just then and planted giant kisses on both of their cheeks. Her own cheeks were flushed and her dark eyes were glittering.
“Wow,” Kate exclaimed. “You look over the moon. Did you just fall in love or something?”
Carmen settled herself onto a stool next to them. “Better,” she said. “You guys aren’t going to believe this, but . . .” She paused, biting her lip and smiling hugely at the same time.
“But you’ve finally taken my advice and booked your first Restylane treatment,” Gaby said. “I’m telling you, it’s going to change your life. Say good-bye to nasolabial folds!”
Carmen looked at Gaby as if she’d lost her mind. “What? No!” She was all but bouncing up and down on her stool. “I got the part in The End of Love.”
Kate flung her arms around her friend. “Oh my God! I knew you could do it! Congratulations!”
“That’s amazing,” Gaby said. “What part?”
“The lead,” Carmen squealed, and Gaby clapped her hands excitedly.
“This calls for a bottle of Champagne,” Gaby said, signaling the waiter. “Bring us some Dom,” she called. “We’re celebrating!”
Kate saw that Carmen’s entrance and the flurry of their excitement had brought attention their way; there was a trio of girls staring at them now, their faces revealing a mix of awe and longing. Kate gave them a little wave, even though, as far as they were concerned, she was a nobody. One of the girls raised her eyebrows in a Who the hell are you? expression. Kate smiled. Maybe, in a few weeks, after The Fame Game premiere, that girl would remember this moment and realize that Kate was someone famous, too.
Famous. She shook her head at the thought. It really was just too weird to imagine.
“—and so Colum was like, ‘You really surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to be so moved,’ and I was like, ‘You have no idea how thrilling this is,’” Carmen was saying. She was talking a mile a minute. The waiter had poured them all Champagne by then, but Carmen hadn’t even noticed.
“What about Madison?” Gaby asked hopefully. “Did she get a part?”
This stopped Carmen’s breathless monologue. She frowned lightly. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think to ask.”
Kate glanced surreptitiously in Laurel’s direction. She would know, wouldn’t she? Laurel met Kate’s eyes and shook her head.
Poor Madison, Kate thought. Wherever she was now, she was not enjoying a bottle of celebratory Champagne.
Chapter 18
Sparks
Trevor Lord was feeling very pleased with himself. This was not exactly a rare occurrence—he tried to find reasons to be pleased with himself on a daily basis—but this afternoon’s sense of self-satisfaction was a particularly sweet one.
The Fame Game premiere was a month away, and already he had the seeds for a full season’s worth of plotlines: Madison’s family drama, plus her desperate and occasionally misguided attempts to make it to the next level. Madison’s ongoing makeover of girl-next-door Kate. The blossoming friendship between Carmen and Kate, which he could complicate (at least on-screen) by playing up the tension between Carmen and Madison. Carmen’s new role in what was sure to be a hit movie. And of course there was Gaby, who was ever a source of comedy (Did she really say that?) and speculation (Has she gotten even more work done?). Although it was getting harder to fake continuity with her, since her face and body were constantly changing. He had sat her down last week and requested she hold off on any more face work until they wrapped the season.
Yes, there were many things to be happy about. “We’re missing something, though,” he said to Dana, who was typing madly on her BlackBerry and didn’t look up. He cleared his throat. “We just need one more element.”
Finally Dana looked up. “Pardon?” she asked. “We need what?”
Trevor smiled at her. She worked so damn hard. He should give her a vacation someday. But he probably wouldn’t. “Romance,” he said. “The only thing this series is lacking is a love interest.”
Dana nodded. “Right. What about that Drew guy? Carmen’s friend?”
Trevor shook his head. “I thought he’d do something for us, but he’s a nonstarter.”
“Well, Jordan said—”
“Who the hell is Jordan?” Trevor interrupted.
“He’s on the crew,” Dana said. “He’s a location assistant. Anyway, he just mentioned that he saw Carmen looking pretty chummy with that Australian actor.”
“Australian?”
“You know, what’s his name? He’s going to be in the movie with her. God, all these actors look the same to me. Nick—no, wait—Eric—no, Luke. Luke Kelly.”
“Luke Kelly, huh? Very interesting.”
In fact, it was much more than interesting. It was all Trevor could do not to rub his hands together with glee. Luke Kelly, the next It guy and the lead opposite Carmen in The End of Love. Come to think of it, Colum McEntire had mentioned that the chemistry between those two had been undeniable. He smiled wolfishly at Dana. This was brilliant. If this was true (and frankly, even if it wasn’t) he had his romance angle, complete with a charming accent.
Yes, things were going well, for him and for the girls. Kate had done great at her second open mic, and Carmen had been so good in her audition that Trevor hadn’t even needed to twist an arm for her to get cast. Gaby was Gaby; she’d always say the wrong thing at the right moment and be fine. Then his thoughts shifted to Madison, the one he’d told would be his shining star.
Her audition had been terrible, and she and everyone else knew it. He’d had to beg for her to get a role, and he really did hate begging. But he’d gotten her one. It was small, but it was enough. Enough to keep Madison happy? Probably not, especially since he had to practically twist her arm to get her to that audition. But enough to keep fueling the rivalry between Madison and her more talented castmate, Carmen? Yes. And that was all that really mattered in the end.
One way or another, Trevor would make sure that sparks would be flying on The Fame Game.
Chapter 19
Think Beautiful Thoughts
“These are almost perfect,” Madison said. She plucked a minuscule piece of lint from the charcoal wool slacks her father wore and flicked it onto the floor. “I want a cuff on them, though,” she directed.
The salesman, his mouth full of pins, nodded and began to fold up the hem. Charlie stood stock-still, but he smiled at Madison in the mirror.