The Fame Game

Carmen rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’ve lived in L.A. your whole life, you pretend to play guitar, and you’ve never been to Grant’s.” She brushed past him and entered the small front room, which was packed, floor to ceiling, with stringed instruments: guitars, of course, but also mandolins, violins, banjos, and ukuleles. “You intern at Rock It! Records, for God’s sake. Hasn’t my dad made you come here for, like, research or something?”

“Nope,” Drew said, brushing over the slight about his guitar playing—he was the first to admit that he taught himself to play because girls liked guys with guitars—and seemingly unembarrassed by his ignorance. He shrugged. “He sent me to Largo last week, though.”

“Well, Grant’s is pretty famous. All kinds of amazing people have played here,” she said, making her way toward the back room where the shows took place.

Drew touched a hot-pink Gibson that hung from the wall as he followed her. “This early?” he asked.

Carmen smiled. She had to admit: 6 p.m. was not exactly party hour. But Laurel Matthews, who was a talent producer on The Fame Game (basically a production assistant, but somewhat better paid), had told her that this was where and when Trevor wanted to film—so here she was, miked and made-up and ready to be on TV.

Though actually, come to think of it, Trevor had wanted to film Carmen leaving her house in the Palisades first. Philip Curtis, however, had quickly refused. “If I wanted cameras in my face I’d live in Malibu,” he said. “Absolutely no PopTV crew on my property.”

Carmen had been surprised by his vehemence, but she wasn’t about to pick a fight with him. And as it turned out, she didn’t have to, because Drew’s dad said they could film at his Brentwood mansion. It was weird, though, driving over to his house—a place she practically never went—so she could act like she spent every Sunday night palling around with Drew and his dad, Dr. Botox.

Carmen was lucky (and a little surprised) that Drew had agreed to be on the show. After she’d officially accepted her role on The Fame Game, Dana had sat her down and run through a laundry list of questions about her life, her family, and her friends. One of the most important queries: Which of Carmen’s nearest and dearest was ready to be on-camera? Dana was obviously hoping that Carmen’s parents would be up for it; the Curtises would add a major dose of glamour (and legitimacy) to the show, even if they were middle-aged. “Uh, let me work on them,” Carmen had said, and while Dana tried to hide her disappointment so had Carmen. She had wanted to believe that Trevor had picked her because she was a rising star in her own right—he had assured her that was the case—but this exchange had made it harder to believe.

When Dana finished her questions, she folded her arms across her chest and asked Carmen if she would like to know who her fellow castmates were. Duh, thought Carmen, but because she was a nice person instead responded, “Yes, please.” And when Dana told her, she’d nodded and kept her face friendly and open, even though she was thinking less than charitable thoughts. Madison Parker: backstabber, fame whore. Gaby Garcia: sidekick, punch line. Kate Hayes: . . . who? Well, it didn’t matter, Carmen told herself; she’d make nice with all of them. She was highly skilled at the kind of friendliness that easily passed for actual warmth. It was just one of those things she’d learned being in the spotlight.

Carmen had been on her way out the door when Dana called her back. “Wait—your friend Drew—he works at Rock It!?” And when Carmen nodded, Dana’s dark eyes lit up and she looked happier than Carmen had ever seen her look. “Perfect,” she’d whispered, picking up the phone.

And that was how Drew and Carmen had ended up at tonight’s open mic, because—according to the story line—Drew had “heard some insanely talented girl plays here.” They’d even filmed a scene of Drew and Carmen watching the girl’s YouTube video. (Three different times, actually, because Drew’s dad kept wandering into the shot with a large glass of scotch in his hand.) And Carmen understood her mission: She was supposed to befriend the strawberry-blond-haired girl with the powerful voice and the unfortunate sense of style.

Carmen looked around the room at Grant’s, which was less than half full, and wondered where Laurel was. She and Laurel had gone to the same high school, and though they weren’t really friends back then (Laurel was three classes ahead), she’d always thought the older girl seemed cool. Not seeing any familiar faces except the sound guy who’d given her the mike pack earlier and the camera guy next to him, Carmen reached for Drew’s arm and gave it a little squeeze. She was feeling uncharacteristically nervous. It had only taken her about ten minutes of filming to realize that it was one thing to recite memorized lines in front of a camera and another thing to try to be yourself. She wondered, briefly, if being a trained actress was going to make reality TV harder for her.

Her BlackBerry buzzed in her purse, and she reached in to fish it out. A text from Laurel:

YOU ARE SITTING IN FRONT. COME DOWN NOW.

She turned to Drew and smiled. “We’re on,” she said. She took a deep breath and then a little louder, for the camera, said, “Let’s go sit up front.”

As they walked toward the stage, Carmen noticed how the other audience members were also being directed to sit in the closest rows. Clever Laurel, she thought, front-loading so that when the PopTV cameras did reverse-angle shots of the audience, it would look like Kate had a full house.

“Do you think she’ll be any good in person?” Drew asked.

Carmen shrugged. “Don’t know,” she said. “I hope so.”

The host took the stage to a hearty round of applause and offered up a passable cover of a Foo Fighters song before turning the stage over to a skinny guy with a Van Dyke beard and a battered twelve-string.

Carmen scanned the room for Kate and spotted her in the corner, nearly hidden behind a standing bass. Carmen would have recognized Kate even without the PopTV cameras that flanked her, their red lights blinking, because she was wearing practically the same too-big blouse and faded jeans she’d worn in her YouTube video. Kate’s hands were gripping each other and she looked almost green with fright.

Carmen nudged Drew. “There she is,” she whispered.

Drew craned his neck to see. “She’s kind of cute,” he whispered back and gave Carmen a wolfish grin.

“Pig,” Carmen returned.

As Van Dyke left the stage to polite applause and Kate took his place, Carmen had the opportunity to inspect her soon-to-be-friend (or, rather, soon-to-be-“friend”) more closely. Her strawberry-blond hair fell in soft, unstyled waves past her shoulders. She wore little visible makeup, but she had long lashes and naturally red, full lips. She had a great figure, too, which for some reason she seemed intent on hiding beneath layers of sloppy clothes.

Kate sat on the stool and leaned into the microphone. “Thanks for coming,” she whispered.

Carmen could see her long fingers trembling as they found their places on the neck of her guitar. She watched Kate take a deep breath and steel herself. The girl strummed a few chords, cursed softly, and stopped. She looked up at the audience through a lock of hair. “Sorry,” she whispered. “Starting over.”

This time, Kate’s fingers seemed to go where they were supposed to. She began to play, and after a few moments Carmen recognized the opening to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Of course PopTV had asked Kate to perform her “hit.”

I come home in the morning light, Kate sang.

Her voice was low and breathy and haunting. It sounded like she was confessing something unbearably private. Beside her, Carmen could feel Drew tense.

“What?” she whispered.

“She’s amazing,” he whispered back.

Carmen felt the tiniest twinge of jealousy, like the sudden prick of a needle. When had Drew ever thought she was amazing? But she quickly brushed this thought aside and focused on the music. The room was utterly silent, as if everyone in it was holding their breath. Kate’s voice washed over them all.

When Kate strummed the final chords, Carmen clapped as loud as she could. The girl was really, really good, but she obviously needed a lot of encouragement. She still looked ill.

Kate leaned forward again and spoke, this time a little louder than a whisper. “And now for something I wrote.” The PopTV camera zoomed in for a close-up.

The song was in a minor key, so it sounded eerie and sad, even though the lyrics were about sunshine and summertime. Carmen found herself nodding her head in time to the beat. Yes, she thought, this is really good.

She knew music because she’d grown up surrounded by song. (Sometimes literally: Once, when she was seven and sick with the chicken pox, the members of No Doubt had gathered around her bedside to sing her a get-well tune.) People called her dad “the hitmaker” because of his legendary ability to produce platinum albums, but as Philip Curtis always said, he didn’t make the hits so much as recognize them. Carmen couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but she had inherited his ear for talent. Carmen was the one who’d insisted her dad go check out Aja all those years ago. And then he’d signed her and made her a star. It was too bad Carmen didn’t want to work at Rock It! Records; she would have made a brilliant A&R exec.

“Encore,” Drew shouted when Kate’s song was over. “Encore!”

But the open mic had rules: two songs, seven minutes, and you were done. So they had to sit through the rest of the show (five more musicians, and not one of them with half of Kate’s talent) until they could make their way to the corner of the room where Kate was perched on a folding chair, biting her fingernails.

Carmen felt the eyes of the camera on her and Drew as she approached. Now was the moment that she would meet her castmate; she’d better hit her lines, whatever they would be.

“Hey,” she said, smiling. Wow, super-original, she thought.

Kate looked up, the tip of her index finger still in her mouth. “Hi.”

Carmen thought about sticking out her hand for Kate to shake but then decided against it. “I’m Carmen,” she said, “and this is Drew.” She pointed to her best friend, who grinned and said, “Dude, you were amazing.”

Kate immediately flushed and looked down at her feet. “Thanks. I wish I wouldn’t have screwed up so badly when I started, though.”

There was something so innocent about her that Carmen felt immediately protective. Her own nervousness disappeared. “You know what?” she said. “Something like that only makes the audience root harder for you. I know one guy who pretends to mess up at least one song every show. He says his fans like it because he seems more human that way.”

This appeared to cheer Kate up a little. “Really?” she said. “So there’s hope for me?”

“Of course,” Carmen said.

Kate smiled and nudged her guitar case with her foot. “You hear that, Lucinda? Carmen Curtis—the Carmen Curtis!—said I’m not completely hopeless.”

Carmen was a little surprised. She didn’t think Kate was supposed to know who she was. Weren’t they supposed to find out all about each other as the cameras rolled? As they became “friends”? It was already so confusing trying to distinguish between real truth and TV truth.

“I saw you in The Long and Winding Road,” Kate went on. “You were fantastic. When you and your sister didn’t have enough money at that gas station and you had to, like, basically beg for a fill-up? I actually cried!” She giggled. “I know, I’m lame.”

Now it was Carmen’s turn to blush. “Thanks,” she said. “But this is your time to bask in the glow of success. Let’s talk some more about how great you were.”

“Yeah,” Drew piped up. “Your bridge on that second song was totally inspired.”

But Kate, laughing, waved away their compliments. “Stop, you’re embarrassing me. Let’s talk about where you can get a burger around here. I was so nervous I couldn’t eat all day, and now I’m starving.”

Carmen slung her bag over her shoulder and nodded toward the door. “I know just the place,” she said. “Let’s all go for a drink and something to eat.”

A second location had already been cleared for them down the street, so Kate suggesting a burger was expected. Carmen was impressed by how naturally she had done it. Maybe she had underestimated this girl at first glance.

Carmen watched Kate gather up her guitar and her things, feeling optimistic about her new castmate. As they headed out into the warm Santa Monica night, it occurred to her that she might not need the quotation marks around “friend.”

Madison stretched out one long, toned leg and then the other, enjoying the feel of the warm sun on her skin. Beside her was a giant bottle of Voss water and a stack of gossip magazines. (She liked to fold down the corners of pages that mentioned her and keep them neatly stacked in her closet to flip through on lonelier nights.) But Gaby, who lounged beside her wearing a plum-colored bikini the size of a cocktail napkin, simply would not shut up.

“So the set is, like, totally amazing with all these lights and cameras and rotating stages and stuff,” she was saying. “And I met Chase Davis already. He is soooo cute, and really nice, too. And oh my God! Did you know that all the guys wear makeup?”

Gaby was on cloud nine because she’d been hired to be a correspondent for Buzz! News, covering minor events around Hollywood. Trevor had obviously gotten her the gig, Madison thought, because no sane person would hire Gaby to do anything more challenging than remember her own name.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, the way the teacher in the one and only yoga class Madison had ever attended had instructed. (Yoga burned the same amount of calories as shopping—so why not just shop?) She and Gaby were killing time by the pool until their new neighbor, Kate Whatever-her-name-was, showed up. (Though, in truth, Kate lived two floors down from Madison and Gaby. Trevor had hoped the girls would all live next door to each other—like in Melrose Place—but it turned out his powers of persuasion didn’t extend to people who weren’t on his show; the couple in the apartment next to Madison had refused to budge.) Madison brought the bottle of water to her lips. Why, oh why, couldn’t they kill time in silence?

“—so I get to go to this ribbon-cutting ceremony, and I’m supposed to talk about the history of the site, and how, like, before they built this new club there, it was a vacant lot with this huge population of, like, fearful cats—”

“I hope you won’t have any trouble reading the teleprompter,” Madison said under her breath.

But Gaby didn’t hear her. “What is a fearful cat, anyway? Is that like a certain species or what?”

“I think you mean feral. But, yes,” Madison lied. “It’s a whole new species.”

Gaby droned on while Madison wondered idly what this new Kate girl was going to be like. She already knew the basics because she’d called Trevor and bullied him into telling her Kate’s background. Madison certainly didn’t want another surprise like she’d gotten at the Togs for Tots benefit, where she’d learned that Carmen Curtis was on The Fame Game only by cleverly spotting her mike pack. But she was reassured to find out that Kate wasn’t anything like Carmen. Her mom was a teacher and she was from Ohio or Indiana or some other flyover state. She was nineteen and relatively new to L.A. In other words, she would be no threat at all to Madison when it came to competing for screen time.

“Do you want to get in the water?” Gaby’s voice broke through Madison’s thoughts. “It’s kind of hot out here.”

Madison opened her eyes and looked at her friend as if she were crazy. “Chlorine is horrible for your skin, Gab. Everyone knows that.”

“Oh,” Gaby said, sounding deflated. “Okay.”

Then Madison spotted, on the other side of the pool, a small figure wearing what looked like a boy’s ribbed tank top, a pair of (gasp) cargo pants, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Oh, and a beat-up pair of dollar store flip-flops.

Wow, Madison thought. That’s one way to stand out in L.A.

She watched as Kate Hayes approached, trailed by two TV cameras. Though there were about a dozen empty chairs on the other side of the pool, the Midwesterner—no doubt acting on the director’s blocking instructions—was heading for the one nearest them.

Kate dropped a canvas bag full of books and papers onto the cement and then sank down on the chaise longue next to Gaby. And Gaby, eager for a new audience for tales of her mind-blowingly awesome new Buzz! gig, turned toward her immediately.

“Hi,” Gaby chirped. “Hot out here today, huh?”

Kate, her face invisible under the hat (And let’s keep it that way, thought Madison), nodded.

“I’m Gaby,” Gaby said.

“Kate,” said Kate. “I just moved in.”

“Oh yeah? Awesome. Welcome to the building!”

Madison sat up, making sure to cover her stomach with one slender tan arm. If the angle of her body was too sharp, sometimes there was a little wrinkle of skin above her belly button, which made her appear less than 100 percent perfect. And less than 100 percent perfect was, of course, 100 percent not acceptable. Hence the arm—just in case. “I’m Madison,” she said. “Gaby and I live together.”

“Oh yeah? That’s cool,” Kate said. “I live by myself. Which is . . . nice.” She seemed uncertain about that.

Madison watched as Kate fumbled with a pocket, pulled out a BlackBerry, frowned, and then removed her hat and set it beside her bag on the ground. Laurel had clearly texted her something along the lines of LET’S SEE YR FACE.

Kate didn’t have sunglasses so she squinted at Madison. (It was usually a battle with the producers to wear a pair because they “shielded expression.” Clearly it was a battle she had lost.) “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I loved your show.”

“Which one?” Madison asked. “I starred in two, you know.”

“Both,” Kate said quickly.

Madison gifted her with a gleaming smile. “Thanks. My fans have meant everything to me. So tell me, what brings you to L.A.?”

Kate smiled back. “Music,” she said.

“Did you follow Mop Top out here?” Gaby asked. “I heard that when they relocated from Georgia, a whole bunch of their fans followed them.”

Kate laughed. “I’m not a groupie, I’m a musician. A singer-songwriter.”

“Oooh,” Gaby said. “Wow. Do you play an instrument?”

“Guitar,” Kate answered. “And a bit of keyboard and drums, if I need to accompany myself. And ukulele.”

“Wow. I took clarinet lessons when I was in third grade, but—”

Madison loudly cleared her throat. The world didn’t need to hear these two have a totally boring conversation. “Do you have any regular gigs lined up?” she interrupted. “A friend of mine has this club . . .” She trailed off, leaving the rest of the sentence up to Kate’s imagination. The truth was, Madison didn’t know any club owners who were looking for corn-fed indie rock girls, but she might as well seem like she was the helpful type. For now.

“Not yet,” Kate admitted. “I’ve been pretty busy working. But I, uh, recently came into a little bit of money, so I’m going to start recording pretty soon.”

“Is that your dream? To make an album?” Madison said, raising her sculpted eyebrows.

Kate nodded earnestly. “I wished for it on every single birthday candle.”

“Awwww,” Gaby crooned. “That’s so sweet.” Madison sort of felt like kicking her.

“So what are you guys doing here in L.A.?” Kate asked. “Are you from here?”

“Yes, we are,” Madison said, speaking for both of them. “Gaby was born and raised in Long Beach, and I’ve been here for five years, which makes me basically a native.” She flashed another brilliant smile at Kate (and, by extension, the cameras).

“I’m a Buzz! News correspondent,” Gaby blurted, unable to contain herself any longer. “I just started. I haven’t done any reporting yet, but I know it’s going to be so incredible and I’m going to be amazing. It’s, like, totally my dream job.”

“Wow,” said Kate as she rolled up the legs of her cargo pants to reveal china-white shins. She turned to Madison. “What about you? Are you still doing Madison’s Makeovers?”

Madison frowned lightly. Why was Kate asking her about her canceled show? “I decided to take a break from that,” she said smoothly. “I helped so many girls, you know, and it was incredibly rewarding. But I felt like it was time to focus on other things.”

“Like tanning,” Gaby giggled, and Madison shot her a death-ray look.

“I’m exploring my options,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “There are so many.”

Kate looked suitably impressed. “I’m sure you’ll be able to do whatever you want to do,” she said. “You seem like that kind of person.”

Madison rearranged herself delicately on the chaise longue. “Thank you,” she purred. She wondered if Kate might actually be an ideal castmate. For one, she was clearly too nice for her own good, and for another, she did herself no favors with that awful clothing and that carrot-top hair. The camera certainly wasn’t going to linger on her, that was for sure. Which meant, of course, more time for it to focus on Madison.

“So, uh, since I’m sort of new to this neighborhood,” Kate began, “I was wondering if you guys wanted to, like, grab a drink or something tonight. Maybe you could show me the local hotspots. Or whatever.”

Madison had known that Kate was going to propose drinks, and she was all set with her answer. “Sure, that sounds fun. I was going to go out to The Spare Room tonight, but I’m actually feeling like being more mellow. We can do The Spare Room another night.”

“Great,” Kate said. “My friend Carmen might come, too. I’ll text her now.”

Kate bent her head down to her phone, so she didn’t see the fleeting look of displeasure cloud Madison’s face. So Carmen Curtis, the Hollywood golden child, was going to tag along. That was no good, because Carmen meant competition: for the notice of any fans they might run into, for the gaze of the PopTV camera, for the attention of the paparazzo who just might—on an “anonymous” tip—happen to be lingering outside the bar Madison would take them to.

She picked up an issue of Gossip and then put it back down immediately. She was too agitated to skim its pages. Trevor Lord, their puppet master, had wasted no time figuring out an efficient way to get all four girls together. Well done, Trev. The real question was, what did he have planned to later tear them apart?

Sunlight streamed into Trevor’s office through two floor-to-ceiling windows. He paced through warm patches of it, his Bluetooth strapped to his ear. “Noah, we’re thrilled to be moving forward on this with you,” he said, nodding and giving the thumbs-up sign to Dana, who sat on his office couch, listening in on the extension.

Noah was the president of production for PopTV Films, the counterpart to PopTV, and Trevor had been working him for weeks in the hopes of convincing him to audition Carmen and Madison for The End of Love, the studio’s upcoming dystopian romance. Noah was reluctant at first but had finally agreed to allow them to audition. “It’s perfect synergy,” Trevor continued. “We’ll get the girls in for reads this week. On-camera. And I’m not telling you or the director who to pick, or that you need to give anyone the lead. Whoever you choose, and for whatever role, we’ll make it work for the show. We just really appreciate the opportunity.”

Dana was nodding in agreement and looking very pleased with her boss. This was an excellent story line, and having The Fame Game linked to what could be a blockbuster movie would only increase the series’ popularity tenfold. PopTV Films had lucked out with this one. They’d optioned the rights to the book before it was a best seller, and now they finally had the potential makings of a hit on their hands.