Starstruck

  And next to their picture—of course—there was a picture of Cassandra, looking happy and radiantly beautiful. Cassandra Curtis, in Céline, comes to pick up Carmen, said the caption.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” asked Fawn. “I mean, it’s kind of a bummer that your mom’s picture is so much bigger than yours, but whatever, right? She’s been famous forever.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Carmen said, feeling vaguely annoyed—though at whom, she wasn’t quite sure. Her mother? Fawn? Herself for caring that Cassandra’s picture was at least thirty percent bigger?

  “She’s so pretty,” Fawn added. “Wouldn’t you just kill for that hair?”

  Carmen, whose hair was in fact pretty much exactly like her mother’s, didn’t say anything.

  “Do you think she’s seen these pictures?” asked Fawn.

  “Probably not, since she doesn’t read celebrity magazines,” Carmen said. She shut the magazine and tossed it onto an empty chair. “God, I have to call her. I owe her like six phone calls.”

  Thanks to her crazy shooting schedule, Carmen hadn’t spoken to her mom since the night she’d just relived in the pages of Gossip. Cassandra had probably left her messages, but Carmen had only told her about a million times that she never checked voice mail.

  Fawn nodded knowingly. “I bet she wants to talk to you about your lunch.”

  “What lunch?” Carmen asked.

  “Oh, whoops,” Fawn said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. She made an attempt to smooth it out and then handed it to Carmen. “I had coffee with Laurel and I got your shooting schedule for the week for you. You’re having lunch with your mom on Sunday.”

  Carmen read over the schedule in disbelief. Her mom? On The Fame Game? That didn’t make sense at all.

  For one thing, her parents had specifically said they didn’t want to be involved in the show, even though Trevor was dying to feature them. And for another, hadn’t Cassandra gone out of her way to talk about this as Carmen’s show, and Carmen’s chance to shine?

  And what the hell was Fawn doing having coffee with Laurel?

  “So, what are you up to tonight?” Fawn asked, interrupting Carmen’s thoughts. “Do you want to check out Whisper? I heard Girl Talk is going to do a surprise show there.”

  “Good thing they’re keeping it a surprise,” Luke joked.

  Fawn winked at him. “You can come, too, cutie.”

  “Actually, Luke and I have a date tonight,” Carmen said quickly. They didn’t, but they ought to. They hadn’t been seen in public together since their photo op, and if they didn’t hit the town soon they were as good as broken up in the blogosphere. As Trevor was always telling her, control of information was key.

  “We do?” Luke said. “Sounds fun. What are we doing? Going to a secret Girl Talk show?”

  But Carmen didn’t answer. She was still thinking about her mother. Her beautiful, talented, and media-savvy mother.

  Carmen was a rising star, but compared to Cassandra, she was still a small one that didn’t sparkle very much. And Fawn was just being Fawn, she guessed. She was grasping at her chance to shine, too. Weren’t they all?

  Carmen shook her head in wonder. Had her relationships always been this strange?

  Luke stood and held his hand out to help Carmen up. “C’mon, fake girlfriend. We’ve been summoned by his Royal Scariness.”

  Fawn waved them off. “I’ll just sit over here and wait … like a good little assistant!” Then she turned and fluttered her eyelashes at the director of photography, who was walking by. “Let me know if you need any extras,” Carmen heard her coo.

  11

  QUIET TIME

  “So I had to interview this chef guy—I forget his name, but he has this famous restaurant in New York,” Gaby said, her voice slightly muffled by the massage-table headrest. “And he was talking about cooking with foods that people don’t normally like to eat. Like sweetbreads. And I was all, ‘Duh, of course no one wants to eat sweetbreads. No one in L.A. does carbs or sugar.’ And then he looked at me like I was the crazy one.”

  Madison laughed, then gasped as her masseur dug his thumbs into her lumbar spine. His name was Sven, and he was very strong. “Ow. Sweetbreads aren’t sugary bread, Gab,” she said. “It’s the pancreas from veal.” Madison had briefly dated a well-known chef (or, more accurately, she’d been his mistress), so she knew a thing or two about foods that gourmets seemed to love and normal people wouldn’t touch. “FYI, that’s a baby cow.”

  A horrified squeak came from Gaby’s direction, followed by what sounded like a stifled laugh from Timothy, her masseur. “I think I’m going to throw up into my aromatherapy bowl,” Gaby said.

  Madison looked down at her own bowl, which Sven had positioned beneath her headrest after filling it with rosemary leaves, cedar needles, and lemon slices—the spa’s Rejuvenating Blend.

  Personally, she thought it smelled like Pine-Sol. But Madison knew she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth; this double massage was part of a whole spa day that Gaby had bought for them. “To cheer you up,” she’d said. “To get some good girl time.”

  Of course it wasn’t just girl time—it was also screen time. The PopTV camera was stationed in the corner of the room. And today was the day that Madison would give Trevor what he wanted: She’d talk about What Happened to Charlie. But only for a second. And it would be vague.

  Gaby babbled on about her job as a host of After Dark, the local late-night show that came on after the late-night shows that people actually watched, and which currently had a viewership of about twenty-five people. Madison listened, gladly welcoming the distraction.

  “So then, after the interview, he was like, ‘I’m going to get a drink at Sky Bar. Would you like to join me?’” Gaby giggled. “And I was all, ‘First of all, what is this? 2003? And second of all, how old are you? Like, forty? Do I look like I have daddy issues?’”

  Sven cleared his throat. “May I suggest,” he said gently, “a few moments of quiet time? If you focus on your breathing, I can release more of the tension I’m feeling in your muscles.”

  “Great idea,” Madison said. PopTV could just snip out these moments in the edit room. She closed her eyes and inhaled her Pine-Sol aromatherapy.

  “Breathe in for three counts and out for six,” Sven urged her. “Clear the mind. Let it all out....”

  Madison tried to do as she was told—tried to pretend, for a moment, that she was alone and relaxed—but it was impossible to shake the weight of her worry and fear. Her life had been turned upside down. Gone were the days of shopping, of sleeping late, of lounging in a cabana at the Beverly Hills Hotel (or even by the pool in her apartment complex). The invites to Hollywood parties had slowed. Club promoters were now sending her mass texts, like she was some random, semiattractive ho they’d spotted lunching at Urth Caffé. She wasn’t some club rat—she was Madison Parker! She had once been paid fifteen thousand dollars to walk into a club, and then was allowed to walk right out the back door. How dare they treat her otherwise? The other night, she’d actually had to wait in line to get into Whisper. It was only for a minute, but still!

  Free clothes were no longer arriving on her doorstep daily. She’d become the butt of Twitter jokes: Hey, designers, no need to send @MissMadParker free clothes: She’ll just take them! And the late-night monologues were even worse. She was a walking punch line. Meanwhile, Madison had noted the complimentary designer duds piling up on Kate’s couch. (It wasn’t fair: That fantastic velvet mini by Alexander Wang was wasted on that petite Midwesterner. It was one thing to be thin, but pancake butt looked good on no one.)

  Nick, her agent, wasn’t returning her calls. Avon had canceled her contract to promote GlamourGirl, their newest fragrance. And the endorsement deal for Jergens self-tanner? It had gone to some chick from America’s Got Talent.

  The only emails she’d gotten lately were new-shoe announcements from Endless.com and last-chance adoption notices from Lost Paws. As if
going there every day wasn’t enough, they’d added her to their mailing list. She suspected Ryan had done it just to mess with her after hours, too. Apparently bursting into tears in front of him hadn’t won her any sympathy points.

  It was all just so unpleasant; she could feel herself getting more agitated by the second.

  “Breathe,” Sven whispered.

  “You breathe!” Madison blurted. Then she squirmed against the six-hundred-thread-count sheets that were covering her naked body. “Sorry,” she said, contrite. “I guess there’s still a little more tension to be worked out.”

  Sven’s fingers fluttered at her neck. “People often experience emotional release as a result of bodywork. Because you can feel safe and supported here, you might be able to work through some of the feelings that are causing you tension.”

  But Madison didn’t need to listen to New Age BS from anyone besides Sophie. “What was that you said about quiet time? Let’s keep doing that.”

  “But being quiet is boring,” Gaby exclaimed. “I’m about to fall asleep over here.”

  “Then talk,” Madison said. “I just can’t guarantee I’ll listen.”

  “I saw your sister yesterday, you know. We met at Runyon for a hike.”

  Madison grimaced. Runyon was where people went to be seen in their American Apparel crop tops and full makeup while walking their tiny dogs. Then they pretended to be caught off-guard when photographed by the paparazzi who always staked out the base of the hill.

  Producers loved locations like this, but Madison knew from experience that filming a hike was usually more effort than the results were worth. The poor cameramen had to hike backward and uphill in front of their subjects, while holding heavy camera equipment and baking in the L.A. heat. Meanwhile the girls would be stopped so often to keep the cameras ahead of them that it’d be impossible to even break a sweat.

  “Runyon. How fascinating,” Madison said.

  Gaby chattered on. “She’s taking me to this new vegan place tomorrow. And she wants me to come with her to Kula Yoga. She’s going to set up a private lesson for us so PopTV can get it.”

  Madison gritted her teeth. She was reality TV’s reigning queen—and yet instead of hovering around her, the PopTV cameras were following Sophie all over town. Here’s Sophia shopping! Here’s Sophia practicing tree pose! Here’s Sophia eating a tofu burger on a sprouted spelt bun while Gaby stares into space, chewing ice! Here’s Sophia being barefoot in public!

  Now Madison, too, felt like vomiting into her aromatherapy bowl. But maybe listening to this was better than what she knew was coming. Any minute, Gaby was going to ask about Charlie so that Madison could say on-camera that he was away on business and she wasn’t sure he’d be coming back to L.A. for a while. That would satisfy Trevor’s need to wrap up the Madison’s Long-Lost Dad story. But for some reason thinking about it made her stomach feel knotted and weird.

  “Supposedly her teacher lived in Indonesia for, like, ten years and got enlightened or something,” Gaby said.

  “So he came to L.A. to teach private lessons on a reality show?” Madison asked. “Yeah, he sounds super-enlightened.” She groaned. “Yes, Sven, right there. Ow.”

  “Have you heard from your dad lately?” Gaby asked suddenly. (She was never any good at segues.)

  “Yeah,” Madison said, careful to keep her voice casual. “He has some out-of-town business interests, so he had to leave for a little while.”

  “What sort of business?”

  “Just business, Gaby. I’m sure you wouldn’t understand the details.”

  “Is he coming back?”

  “Of course. As soon as he can.”

  That was supposed to be the end of the conversation. But it wasn’t.

  “How soon will that be?” Gaby asked.

  “I don’t know,” Madison said, her voice chilly.

  Gaby sighed. “I know it must be hard, Madison,” she said. “It’s hard for me, too.”

  What did she mean by that? Madison would have liked to know. Hard to follow Trevor’s instructions to keep going on about Charlie?

  “Whatever,” Madison said. “Life’s hard.”

  “Can I interrupt to point out the irony of that statement, seeing as how you’re in the middle of a ninety-minute massage?” Sven asked.

  “No, Sven,” Madison said. “This is a private conversation. Just rub my damn shoulders.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Gaby said.

  “Well, that’s new,” Madison muttered.

  “About those diamond earrings of mine …”

  Madison tensed again. Maybe she should have expected Gaby to bring them up. But for one thing, Gaby usually stuck to her lines. And for another, what with all the missing diamonds lately, she’d sort of forgotten about Gaby’s.

  “I had them that day your dad came over, and then I didn’t anymore?” Gaby’s voice was hesitant.

  Madison said nothing, but she could feel her pulse quickening. Was this Gaby’s idea? Or had Trevor told her to push the issue?

  Gaby sighed. “I’ve turned my room upside down looking for them, and I sort of have to wonder....”

  Madison sat upright suddenly, wrapping the sheet around her body and brushing Sven’s hands away. “You know what? This isn’t what I signed up for. I give you guys everything. I ask for this one little thing to be left alone, and you can’t do it. You have like twenty fucking writers in that room every day. You really can’t come up with a better story line?”

  No one reacted to the fact that Madison had just broken the fourth wall: The unwritten rule that restricted talent from addressing crew (and vice versa) had just been violated. Still, the camera kept rolling, because everyone knew that this was where most of the best footage came from. When the talent lost their shit. Which was precisely what was happening. The always-composed Madison was about to spiral, and it was exactly what they had all been waiting for. Madison knew this, but she couldn’t stop it.

  She pointed at Laurel, who was seated in the corner. “This is the best you can do? I don’t see you guys addressing Gaby’s apparent eating disorder or dependency on pain medication that she clearly no longer needs. Her nose has healed, people! For the second time. And what about the fact that Carmen is pretending to date the guy that Kate was sleeping with? Yeah, that’s not worth talking about. Instead, let’s focus on poor Madison and her father’s disappearing act. Has it ever occurred to any of you that maybe it’s none of your business? Why won’t you just move on already?” She was screaming by now, and her fists were clenched. She could almost hear her heart pounding in the room that was otherwise utterly silent.

  Gaby reached out a hand. “Don’t get mad at Laurel. She just—”

  “Why are you standing up for her? God, Gaby, you are such an idiot. You think she’s your friend? She’s not. She’s your producer. It’s her job to get you to trust her so she can take advantage of you. So she can tell you what to do and say, and you’ll do it and say it because you are just that freakin’ stupid.”

  Madison stopped suddenly. What was she doing? She looked around the room. Everyone was staring at her like she was some sort of circus attraction. She needed to get out of there. She reached up and took the diamond studs out of her ears. “Here, just take these and shut up,” she said to Gaby.

  Then she ripped off the mike that had been taped to her chest, grabbed her clothes and bags, and marched toward the locker room, shoving her mike pack at Laurel’s chest on her way out.

  The room was silent. And then, as the door shut behind her, Madison heard Gaby say, “Ohhh … these are Cartier!”

  12

  MYSTERIOUS CONTRADICTIONS

  “I think you should write a song about working in a restaurant,” said Brad, one of Stecco’s line cooks. Then, to the tune of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” he warbled, “Now you’re just some parsley that I used to chop. SOME PARSLEY!”

  Kate laughed as she stood at the giant stainless steel sink, trying to scrub tin
y pieces of that very herb out from under her fingernails. “Oh, I’m sure that’d be a huge hit,” she said, reaching for the nailbrush. “Now you’re just some chicken that I used to roast,” she sang. “SOME CHICKEN!”

  Brad made a faux serious face. “Totally,” he said. “Girl, you can be a star.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration,” she said as the final bits of parsley swirled down the drain. “Meanwhile, I hope that you have loads of fun here. I’m done for the night.” She dried her hands and headed for the door that led to the back alley.

  “You sure you don’t want to meet up with us later?” Brad yelled to her as she left. “We’re going to Birds.”

  “I’ve got a gig,” she called back. “But thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

  Too soon, she thought. Her next shift was the day after tomorrow—a day she’d hoped to spend with Lucinda and a pad of paper, working on another new song.

  Her legs hurt from standing for six hours straight, and she’d cut her fingers twice chopping parsley. Though she liked Brad, as well as most of Stecco’s other employees, Kate did not enjoy working at the restaurant. (And that was putting it mildly.) She wished that Trevor had let her quit Stecco instead of the Coffee Bean—pulling shots was so much easier than dealing with celebrity diners and stoned busboys.

  But, come to think of it, why couldn’t she have just quit both? Why did she have to be the only person on The Fame Game who had an actual menial job? Gaby’s After Dark duties were a joke, though her endless aesthetician appointments practically counted as part-time employment. Sure, Carmen was working, but on a huge future blockbuster, so that didn’t compare. Madison had her community service, but that was court ordered.

  Kate, meanwhile, had been working steadily since she was fourteen years old. Her first gig: babysitting her next-door neighbor’s twins, who were undeniably spawns of Satan. Her second: selling hot dogs at the Columbus Zoo. Her third: delivering pizzas in her used Toyota Camry. Or was that her fourth? And then there were those ill-fated months she’d spent as a Denny’s hostess....