Starstruck

  The MC was some Jimmy Fallon type with a cleft chin and blindingly white teeth. “And here’s the clique you’d kill to be a part of, PopTV’s own It girls,” he was saying. “The ladies of The Fame Game need no introduction! But since they tell me that’s part of my job tonight, let me introduce Kate Hayes, Gaby Garcia, Carmen Curtis, and Madison Parker!”

  The applause was deafening as they made their way onstage. Kate felt like she understood what things must be like for Justin … Justin … what was his name? Oh my God, the one who sang “Boyfriend”?

  Carmen’s fingers dug into her palm. Kate thought it might hurt, but she couldn’t actually feel anything.

  She heard Gaby chirp about getting to interview Brent Bolthouse, and Madison say something about finding pleasure in giving back to the community.

  Then she heard someone say her name and felt a microphone in her hand. She turned toward the sound, as slowly as if the air were molasses. “Wha—?” she said.

  “It’s your line,” Carmen whispered. “Your success!” She gave Kate’s arm a sharp pinch, which woke Kate up long enough to be able to mumble something along the lines of, “I’m sure you’ve heard my single, ‘Starstruck,’ and I’m working on some new songs …” So many s’s in what she just said!

  Kate could see the confusion on the host’s tanned face. Or was it horror? The air seemed to shift and wave in front of Kate. She bit her lip, hard, but she could hardly even feel it. In the fuzzed depths of her mind she felt a little prayer forming. Please, God, just let me get through this. Please just keep me standing.

  Carmen, who smiled brightly, grabbed the microphone from her. “My castmates have all been busy,” she said, “and so have I. I’ve been working on a movie with …” And then a spotlight shone on the far side of the stage and out walked Luke, gorgeous in a trim navy suit (no tie) and low Converse sneakers.

  The crowd went wild. Luke joined Carmen center stage as a screen came down from the ceiling to project the sneak peek from The End of Love. Kate’s heart would have begun to beat faster if it could. Madison put her hand in the small of Kate’s back. “Offstage,” she whispered as she pushed Kate in the right direction. “Time for us to get offstage now.”

  Kate opened her eyes and blinked rapidly as her bedroom came into focus. She was in bed, under the covers, but it wasn’t morning yet. The sky outside was dark. What time was it? What day was it? She put her hands on her stomach and felt satin … not the satin of her nightgown, though, but the warm gold satin of the Jay Godfrey dress she’d picked out for the PopTV Movie Awards.

  In a rush, the memory—distorted, hazy, horrifying—came back to her. She had taken too much Xanax. She’d gone onstage. She had said … something … and then …? Carmen and Madison had brought her home, taken off her shoes, and tucked her into bed.

  She rolled over in bed and buried her face in the pillow. What had she done?

  She wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear. An on-camera meltdown! The fact that it wasn’t really her fault meant nothing. She’d made a complete and utter fool of herself.

  With trembling fingers, she reached for her phone. Eight missed calls: from Carmen, Madison, and Laurel. Even from Natalie and her sister, Jessica. From Luke. And, most ominously, from Trevor.

  She couldn’t bear to listen to any of the messages, but she needed to hear a friendly voice. So, after downing the entire bottle of Voss water that Carmen and Madison had left by her bed, Kate called Drew. Not only was he a good friend and pretty much her favorite person right now, he’d seen her screw up publicly before. He’d be able to tell her how awful this was in comparison. He answered on the first ring, which she took to be a bad sign.

  “Did you see it?” she asked. She both hoped that he had, and that he hadn’t.

  “Yessss,” he said slowly. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

  “Oh my God, was it that terrible? You could tell I was loaded.”

  Drew’s voice was immediately reassuring. “It really wasn’t that bad.”

  “I was practically a zombie,” Kate cried.

  “It really didn’t look that bad,” he repeated. “I mean, I just thought you were tired until Carmen called me. I’m sure no one thought anything of it.”

  Considering the number of phone calls she’d gotten, Kate knew he was only trying to make her feel better. But wasn’t that why she’d called him? There was something so solid and reassuring about him. She felt like she could trust him. And in Hollywood, it seemed as if trustworthiness was something of a rare trait.

  “I wish you’d be on The Fame Game with me more,” she sighed. “You’d protect me from my own idiot self.”

  Drew laughed. “I’m fine to be a bit player now and then, but I have no interest in being the focal point of any camera. I just can’t see letting strangers into my life like that. I don’t know how you do it.”

  Kate bristled slightly at this. “But I’ve gotten so much!” She looked around at her big, well-decorated room. “You should have seen the apartment I was living in before this. And designers send me clothes, so I don’t look like the total hick I used to. And Trevor said they were going to buy me a new electric guitar....”

  She sensed that she wasn’t convincing Drew of the wonderfulness of being a reality-TV star, though, so she stopped.

  “Sure, now you have better stuff than you did before,” he said. “But you’ve got strangers taking pictures of you and gossip sites dying for you to do something embarrassing....”

  “Like I just did,” Kate said, feeling glum again.

  Drew laughed. “You’ve got to let it go! Water under the bridge. But what about all that stuff I keep seeing about Carmen? How she doesn’t like her director and how she’s a diva on set. I mean, it’s like you guys are targets now. Targets for attention, and that attention can be either good or bad.”

  “Trevor said he’d buy me a Gibson,” she said, barely registering his words. “Like one that Taylor Swift plays. And have you seen my Facebook fan page lately? Even my old social-studies teacher sent me a letter,” she added. “She said she always knew I’d go far.”

  There was a pregnant pause. “I know things are cool,” Drew said eventually. “I’m really glad you’re happy. All I’m saying is, everything comes with a cost. I’ve lived in this town for a while and I’ve seen it happen.”

  Kate was silent. She knew that Drew was right. After all, if life was so perfect, what was she doing burning through one prescription for Xanax and another for Ambien? But she wasn’t going to admit it. Not to him, and barely to herself.

  “If I weren’t on The Fame Game,” she said, “I wouldn’t know you. And if I didn’t, who would I call in a moment of desperation? Who would help me write my songs and go with me to my gigs and tell me that I didn’t make a total fool out of myself when I clearly did?”

  “Well, I am pretty awesome,” Drew said, “now that you mention it.”

  Kate giggled. He was awesome, and she was so relieved he was in her life. And if Trevor hadn’t sent her a text shortly after she and Drew had hung up, her day would have ended all right. But Trevor had texted. COME TO THE OFFICE TOMORROW. 11 A.M. IMPORTANT.

  Kate gulped, and then buried her face in the pillow again.

  23

  PICKING A WINNER

  Trevor drummed his fingers on the desk. Which should he consider first, the good news or the bad? The triumphs or the meltdowns? Because it was a Monday, and because it was still early in the morning, and because he hadn’t finished his tall half-skinny extrahot quad shot yet, he chose the former.

  The PopTV Movie Awards appearance had gone off almost without a hitch, and the response to The End of Love sneak peek had been amazing. After premiering on the awards show, the snippet had been put online; it logged a million views in less than twenty-four hours. A million! Perez Hilton immediately ran a post, speculating that The End of Love would be bigger than Romeo + Juliet, starring Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio. Ever since Perez had gone nice, and stop
ped drawing all over stars’ faces in posts, Trevor hadn’t put much stock in his opinion—but he agreed with this one. EW.com suggested that Carmen’s star would quickly and completely eclipse her mother’s. Yes, Trevor thought, the movie was going to explode; the book it was based on had already landed back on best-seller lists with all the news the movie was generating. That was a good sign.

  Filming was going to wrap in a few weeks, so he had to talk Colum into letting him shoot more behind-the-scenes footage. Carmen in her trailer, Carmen getting her makeup done, Carmen lounging around with her costars around the craft-service table: That would be TV gold. Carmen had even become friendly with her makeup person, who wasn’t bad looking. Trevor was sure he could put that developing friendship on the show if he needed to. And having Cassandra agree to film had been a pleasant surprise. Obviously there were a lot of emotions to mine in that mother/daughter dynamic—that was how it usually went with those “my mom is my best friend” relationships.

  He leaned back in his chair and congratulated himself on picking a winner. Were this whole thing really a game, and he had to put money on one of his girls, he’d bet on Carmen for the win. The fact that she’d become tabloid fodder lately, more so than she’d ever been before, proved his point: The brighter the rising star, the bigger the target.

  But there was, Trevor thought, a distant chance that Kate could give Carmen a run for the money someday. She, too, was a genuine talent.

  But she was also turning out to be a genuine problem. And it was with that particular thought that Trevor came to the end of his good news. He took another sip of his coffee and then got up to pace his office.

  Kate had made a fool of herself on national television. That was unfortunate. But in a way, he could call it an honest mistake; she had crippling stage fright. And he’d actually managed to turn it into a good story line, a map for the rest of her season: Paralyzed by performance anxiety, Kate tries all sorts of therapies and would-be cures. Then she has a big performance, which he would milk for all its will-she-screw-up-or-won’t-she potential. And then there would be the great footage of her at the El Rey, triumphant after a nearly flawless set.

  Actually, the footage from the other night could fit quite well into her story line. If he saved it for the premiere of season two, Trevor could figure out how to make it a ratings event (“Kate’s stage fright returns—see what led up to Kate freezing on live TV!”). That was Trevor’s job: taking lemons and making lemonade.

  It was the attitude of Kate’s, though, that was turning out to be the real problem. Demanding to quit Stecco. Showing up late to shoots. Complaining about the dates he sent her on. She was still basically a kid; he knew that—but he didn’t need her acting like a spoiled brat.

  That was why he was going to send her home.

  Not forever, just for a few days. For a little time-out. A reminder to Kate of where she came from (and where she could quickly be sent back to if she didn’t watch her step). And—on the more positive side—a chance for the audience to feel like they were getting to know Kate better.

  Trevor imagined the local coffee shop that Kate (and the cameras, of course) would visit, and considered scheduling her an acoustic show there. He envisioned the footage they could get at the zoo, where Kate had once worked. Should he interview the girl who used to bully Kate? Should he check in with the twins she used to babysit? (Well, he could check in with one of them, anyway; the other was in juvie after an incident with matches.)

  The possibilities were endless. Most of them would end up on the cutting-room floor, but Trevor liked the idea of showing where Kate Hayes came from. It gave hope to all those girls who saw themselves in her.

  Yes, Trevor thought as he performed a handful of deep knee bends, Kate’s trip home would provide some interesting material. He had told Laurel to pitch it to Kate as a mini vacation. He couldn’t afford to have Kate get guarded and suspicious, the way Madison had been lately; it made for dull footage.

  Speaking of Madison: There was something going on with her. Trevor didn’t know what, but whatever it was, it had put the tiniest spring in her step. Did it have to do with her deadbeat dad? She’d stopped complaining about her community service, and she hadn’t even lashed out at him when Sophia said she couldn’t film with her. Trevor had assumed such news would send her running back to him, ready to tell the truth about Charlie and begging Trevor to rehabilitate her image.

  Sophia, of course, had already spilled the beans—that girl was too easy. All he had to do was say that he’d consider making her a main cast member for the second season, and she gave up everything. It was a pretty dramatic story, but Trevor hadn’t figured out how to make it work for the show. If Madison wouldn’t admit the truth to him, he had nothing. And frankly, even if she did, he wasn’t sure what good it would do. She’d perjured herself, after all, and while Trevor wanted a great story, he didn’t want Madison to get jail time for the sake of it.

  But still. Something was going on with her. He had to find out what it was.

  Something was going on with Gaby, too, he mused. She never seemed to eat anything anymore, and she was amassing a hoard of pharmaceuticals to rival Gary Busey’s. Her boyfriend, Jay, certainly wasn’t a good influence, but since he was the only love interest who wanted to film, Trevor used what he could. The episodes that showed how manipulative he was had started to air, and people were talking about Gaby much more than they did when she was on L.A. Candy. Everyone had opinions when it came to relationships. Even Madison seemed to be worried about Gaby, judging from what he’d seen of her on-camera meltdown. Which reminded him, he still had to find a way to use that footage....

  He picked up the small weight off his desk and began a set of curls. He had a lot to work with—that was for sure.

  24

  GO IT ALONE

  “I think this would fit me perfectly,” Fawn said, holding up a Stella McCartney dress she’d plucked from Carmen’s floor. “Don’t you?”

  Carmen watched as her friend turned sideways in front of the mirror. “It’d probably fit, yeah,” she said. She was sprawled out on her bed, exhausted from a day of interviews and photo ops. The sneak peek of The End of Love had sparked a media frenzy, and suddenly Carmen found herself on a press junket for a movie that hadn’t even finished shooting yet.

  “Do you mind?” Fawn asked, already slipping off her jeans.

  “No, go ahead. Try it on,” Carmen said. There was a whole pile of clothes on the floor, and she had no doubt Fawn would work her way through them all. She’d already done a number on the items Carmen had bothered to hang up.

  “Sooo, Julia Capsen, what’s up with you and Romeo these days?” Fawn asked, shimmying into the dress. “Oh, this does look good.”

  “His character’s name is Roman,” Carmen said. “And nothing’s up. We’re friends. Coworkers. We broke up, you know.” This wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but Carmen was starting to wonder if it was smart to tell Fawn the whole truth. If she admitted to crushing on Luke a little, might she read about it on D-Lish tomorrow? Carmen didn’t like the feeling that she couldn’t trust the people around her. Growing up the daughter of Cassandra and Philip Curtis, she had learned to be slightly wary of her fellow humans. But it hadn’t made her closed off. At least not until recently.

  “Mmmhmm,” Fawn said, sounding unconvinced. “I know all about your fakeup—that’s my new term for a fake relationship breakup, by the way.”

  “You are a true genius,” Carmen said. “But really, nothing’s going on.” A memory of Luke, wet from the pool and silhouetted against the desert sky, came to her then, but she quickly brushed it away.

  “I can’t wait for your breakover.” Fawn’s eyes widened. “That’s the makeover that takes place after a breakup. Oh! Let’s get highlights!”

  “I think I’m fine, but thanks. Besides, I can’t change my hair until the film wraps,” Carmen reminded her.

  Fawn shrugged this off. “Can I wear this dress to the Susan G. Komen ben
efit next Saturday?”

  Carmen raised her eyebrows. “Are you a supporter?”

  Fawn giggled. “Please. I spend my money on myself. It’s just that my mom’s on the board, and my dad is away, and she doesn’t want to go by herself.”

  Fawn’s parents, whom Carmen had only met once, lived in Bel Air. Fawn rarely saw them, it seemed. They were just characters in the background of her life, most useful for their ability to write large checks to their daughter. Fawn had convinced them that an actual job would interfere too much with her acting career. Or perhaps “career” should be in quotation marks still, since Fawn hadn’t been doing much to pursue it lately.

  Maybe having invisible parents was better than having famous ones. Carmen hadn’t seen much of her mother in person recently—after all, she spent fifteen hours a day on the End of Love set—but she seemed to be everywhere in the news. She was hyping her new single in every outlet available: GMA, Rachael Ray, USA Today, Facebook, Twitter. There was almost a desperate quality to it, which made Carmen feel both annoyed and sad. The fact that she’d talked to Rachael about Carmen’s “love troubles” made her lean more toward annoyed.

  “Do you want to go with us?” Fawn asked, interrupting Carmen’s thoughts. “It’s always a fun party.”

  Carmen closed her eyes. “I’m too tired.”

  Fawn threw a silk scarf at her. “It’s ten days from now, silly. I think you’ll be able to sneak in a nap before then.”

  Carmen would have liked to sneak in a nap right now. But Fawn showed no signs of slowing down on her closet raid, and plus, Carmen was feeling mildly anxious. Movie publicity was one thing, but it seemed as if every time she turned around there was a new gossip item about her. (Carm: stress eating? said the latest caption, beneath a picture of her eating a candy bar—as if it were a crime to enjoy a Milky Way once in a while!)