Starstruck

“Who knows with that girl,” Natalie said. “She lied, slept, and cheated her way to the top in the first place. Is this really so out of character for her?”

Kate looked up at the big windows of Madison’s and Gaby’s apartment. She could see the passing clouds reflected on their shiny surface. Madison hadn’t been living there for a while now, but she still thought of it as Madison’s and Gaby’s place. Maybe she hadn’t known Madison as well as she thought she had. It wasn’t like they were good friends or anything, but she’d started to like her. She’d thought everything was cool with them. So the more Madison avoided her, the more Kate began to think she really was guilty. Maybe it didn’t make sense that Madison would have stolen the necklace, but it made even less sense that she would say she’d stolen it when she hadn’t.

Kate leaned back and rearranged the Egyptian-cotton towel she was using for a pillow. She didn’t want to think about Madison anymore. Obviously the girl didn’t want to talk, and maybe she never would. “Mad’ll be fine,” Kate said. “It will do her some good to see things from the bottom for a change.”

Gaby shot her a look of surprise. “Ouch,” she said.

Kate shrugged. She knew that didn’t sound like something that the nice girl from Columbus, Ohio—the one who couldn’t bear to pack her old teddy bear in a moving box because she was afraid she’d hurt its feelings—would say. (Instead she’d carried Paddington to her new apartment in her purse, with his legs sticking out like some furry kidnapping victim.) But she had reached out to Madison and got a whole lot of nothing in return. So, moving on.

On second thought, maybe fame had made Kate feel different. But just a tiny bit—and anyway, she didn’t have much of a choice. In this business, it was kill or be killed. A girl needed to develop a thick skin or she wouldn’t get anywhere.

“I miss her,” Gaby said softly.

Kate reached out and patted her knee. “She’ll be back, Gaby,” she said. “Madison Parker will always be back.”

(#ulink_1d2b74c7-1955-586e-b560-b8ff889a6802)

“Roll that rack over to the wall, will you? And the other one can go by the doorway. You don’t need to get to your dining room anytime soon, do you, Carmen?” But Alexis Ritter, lead costume designer for The End of Love, which Carmen was due to start filming in a matter of days, didn’t wait for Carmen to answer. “Well, whatever,” she said. “Shouldn’t eat during a fitting anyway.”

Alexis clapped her hands briskly, startling her poor assistant, who nearly tripped over a pair of thigh-high leather boots decorated with fringes, buckles, and spurs. Carmen eyed them with trepidation. Was she going to have to wear those?

“Just put the rack right there,” Alexis said. “For God’s sakes, there! Come on. We’ve got a lot to do and not very much time to do it in.”

Carmen couldn’t believe the number of tunics, dresses, gowns, leggings, scarves, and capes being wheeled into her house. (Her dad was out of town, so her mom had agreed to let the PopTV cameras film for a few hours. Carmen was glad her parents didn’t see eye to eye on this whole Fame Game thing.) The costume budget for The End of Love alone must be three times what it cost to make The Long and Winding Road, the arty, indie movie that had been her first big-screen experience.

Alexis glanced at Carmen, giving her figure a once-over. “So this is you,” Alexis said. “Your size, which you plan on staying for the entire movie. No juice cleanses or carb binges, do you hear? It’s important that your weight doesn’t fluctuate, because there’s a lot of boning and corsets involved here, and they need to fit perfectly.” She ran her fingers through the white streak in her ebony hair.

“Uh, no, I mean, yes. I’m staying this size,” Carmen said, glad that the PopTV crew, which had set up in the far corner of the room, had not begun filming yet. “No crash diets in my immediate future,” she joked.

Alexis nodded, unamused. “Good. I want to get you into the ball gown from the opening scene first, because that has some complicated stitching going on. Boning, laces, whatnot. A sort of futuristic corset, with a busk front, so that your costar can tear it open in that first moment of passion… .”

Carmen blushed slightly. A moment of passion with Luke Kelly, in front of who knew how many cameras, while wearing one of these insane garments. It was going to be … interesting. But she didn’t doubt that she was up to the challenge.

Then Alexis made a series of angry-sounding phone calls as Carmen stood around, shifting her weight from foot to foot and feeling like a trespasser in her own space. Eventually Carmen plucked her own phone from its place on the mantel and tried, for what felt like the millionth time, to get Kate to text her back.

It had been over two weeks since the Fame Game premiere, and Kate and Carmen had barely spoken. It was starting to bum Carmen out. She didn’t know how she was supposed to act around Kate. Were they still friends? She’d thought everything was going to be okay, but then came the night of the premiere. Kate had been friendly when they were all on the red carpet, but by the end of the evening she was acting as if she couldn’t stand the sight of Carmen.

At first Carmen was totally confused, but then Fawn had come rushing up. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell Kate about your hookup with Luke,” she’d said breathlessly.

Carmen paled. “What?”

Fawn had put her arm around Carmen’s shoulders. “I assumed you’d told her already, so I just sort of mentioned it in passing. You know, about how cool it was of her not to mind you guys fake-dating, when you practically almost did date…. Oops!”

Carmen had wanted to ask Fawn what the hell she was thinking, but she wasn’t surprised. Fawn loved gossip of any kind and wasn’t always careful with it. She didn’t mean any harm, though, and Carmen knew that.

Remembering that night, Carmen shuddered. What a terrible way for Kate to find out. No wonder she was angry.

But what did it mean for them now? Was their conflict a problem for Trevor’s planned story line, or was this the exact sort of drama he wanted for his show? There hadn’t been a fight, exactly—but obviously there was a lot unsaid between the two of them.

Assuming her text would go unanswered like the rest, Carmen decided that she might as well ask Laurel for a bit of advice. The producer was drinking a giant mug of coffee—as usual—and staring at her BlackBerry. Carmen remembered her doing the exact same thing back at Palisades Charter High School, when Laurel was a senior and already interning at PopTV. “Hey,” she said, smiling as Carmen approached. “You ready to get into character?”

“Into the costumes, anyway,” Carmen said. “But that’s a lot of clothing. Am I supposed to try on all of that?”

“Probably not,” Laurel said. “But don’t ask me. Ask Alexis.”

“I’m scared of her,” Carmen whispered. “She has that whole Cruella de Vil thing going on.”

Laurel looked at Alexis thoughtfully. “Yes, I see it,” she said. “Definitely. Trevor will love that.”

“She’s probably going to make me wear a cape made out of puppy fur.”

“Or kittens, maybe. But seriously, you don’t get nominated for three Oscars for costume design without being tough,” Laurel said. “You know just as well as anyone, nice gets you nowhere in Hollywood.” Her phone buzzed, and she glanced down at the screen. She frowned, tapped a few keys, and then met Carmen’s eyes again. “Dana’s always telling me I need to be more of a bitch if I’m ever going to be promoted.”

“Can I talk to you about something?” Carmen blurted.

“God, yes, why am I babbling about myself?” asked Laurel, putting her BlackBerry down and turning the full brightness of her attention to Carmen. “My job is to listen to you.”

Carmen smiled wryly. She knew that Laurel’s job was to listen to her so that she could report it back to Trevor. But whatever—those were the rules of the game. What she needed right now was a sympathetic ear, even if that ear was attached to Trevor’s current protégée. Carmen took a deep breath and began to tell Laurel about the situation with Luke Kelly. But almost before she got to the end of her first sentence, Laurel put a hand on her arm.

“I know,” she said softly. “Kate told me that they were dating. That it was her on the back of that motorcycle in the Gossip magazine photo. Not you.”

Carmen looked at her in surprise. “She did?”

Laurel nodded.

“Well, the thing is, there’s more to the story. I hooked up with Luke,” she said.

Laurel’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

Carmen hurried on. “It was way before they were dating. We had a little too much wine one night at a party and we made out and it was no big deal. But Kate found out, and now she’s not talking to me.”

“Aha,” Laurel said. “I knew something else was going on between you two.”

“Kate wasn’t even a twinkle in Trevor’s eye back then!” Carmen went on. “How can she blame me for something that happened before she even existed?”

Laurel laughed. “She did in fact exist, Carmen. You just didn’t know her. And I have to say, I understand Kate’s side of things. You didn’t tell her, and you were her friend. She probably feels betrayed. Not by the kiss, but by the fact that you kept it a secret from her. Keeping a secret can turn something into a much bigger deal than it ever should have been.”

“Hello, Dr. Phil,” Carmen said drily. “I didn’t see you come in.”

Laurel smiled. “Hey, I’m a reality-TV producer. Knowing people is part of the job. Trevor knows more about interpersonal psychology than your average PhD.”

Carmen had to agree with that. Trevor did always seem to be one step ahead of them, didn’t he?

Laurel sipped her coffee, then set the cup on the windowsill near the little bonsai tree that had been a gift from Carmen’s best friend, Drew. “Kate wasn’t born into this world the way you were,” she said. “She doesn’t understand all the rules. She doesn’t know that illusion is sometimes more important than truth.”

“You’re getting really metaphysical on me,” Carmen said. “It’s too early in the morning for that.”

Laurel laughed. “It’s eleven a.m. That’s not early. But anyway, I think you should apologize to Kate. Sincerely. I’m telling you this as a friend. Trevor is very interested in what’s up with you two. Your developing friendship was giving the show its heart—he’d mapped out the rest of the season with you two as besties. So, if you can’t fix it, I’m sure that Trevor will try to orchestrate some knock-down, drag-out fight, preferably on camera.”