The Fame Game, Starstruck, Infamous: 3 book Collection

“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?

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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.

“I’m not sure I can guarantee you the on-camera part,” Noah said. “Getting McEntire in a room with your girls will be the only thing I can promise you, and even that took some persuading. He is not a huge fan of reality TV.”

“What’s not to like?” Trevor said with a forced laugh, biting his tongue so he didn’t say what he was really thinking, which was that PopTV certainly wasn’t staying afloat with money from its film division. Reality TV had saved the network and its studio, and Trevor hated when people refused to give him credit for it.

“We’ll get lunch next week,” Trevor told Noah. “At Shutters. A little celebration.”

Noah agreed and the two said good-bye.

Trevor sank down into his chair and put his feet up on the corner of his glass desk. “Well, that’s done,” he said, shaking off his frustration. “And the rest will just fall into place.”

“Do you think they’ll actually want to cast one of them?” Dana wondered.

Trevor shrugged. “Who knows? Obviously I’ll encourage Noah to push for it. Strongly. But if he doesn’t, well, the crying will make for decent TV. Either way it’s a win for us.”

He could imagine, for instance, Carmen not being cast in the lead and thus falling, grief-stricken, into the arms of that handsome Drew guy. And then maybe he could encourage Madison to develop a crush on Drew as well. And that’d make for good drama, wouldn’t it? (Madison’s type was usually older and richer, but he knew that her one true love—airtime—would have her throwing herself at Drew if Trevor asked her to.) It was something to think about should the movie roles not exactly pan out. But Trevor was seriously hoping they would, because the dailies of the girls were coming back a little boring, frankly. He had a couple weeks of not-very-exciting outings and far-from-scintillating conversations, and that wasn’t going to give him the ratings numbers he craved. Sure, Kate was the nearly perfect everygirl (although he had been meaning to speak to her about her look—she was a pretty girl but didn’t seem to even know the meaning of the word “style”), and the camera loved Carmen. Gaby was her familiar, comical, dim-bulb self, and Madison—well, Madison was a handful, which was exactly why he liked her. But still. Dailies: dull. The PopTV audience would enjoy seeing the girls struggling to make it in L.A., but they wouldn’t want them to be nice to each other all the time. If kindness and cooperation were what they were after—well, they could turn on Sesame Street. They needed a character to root for and one to hate. It didn’t matter if whoever was in which role fluctuated.

Madison had been in reasonably good form last week, though, Trevor thought, when he had maneuvered a seemingly organic way to get all four of them out together. She was saccharine-sweet to Carmen—she didn’t get where she was by not knowing how to behave for the cameras—but she couldn’t refrain from slipping in a couple choice insults, which naturally Trevor had enjoyed.

In the meantime he’d been working on a few things to ratchet up the tension and create more undercurrents of irritability and frustration. He felt confident that pretty soon it would all come together. And then fall apart perfectly. And then there was that interesting message he’d received from Madison’s sister, Sophia. . . . She’d hinted at a possible story line that would be amazing if it were true. Obviously the rehab that Madison had paid for had not cured Sophia of her addiction to fame.

Yes, Sophia Parker—she had legally changed it from Sophilyn Wardell, he now knew—was the gift that kept on giving. He had her on his calendar for tomorrow.

This was yet another thing that made Trevor smile to himself. Struggle. Drama. Meltdowns. He’d given his viewers that on L.A. Candy, and now he was going to turn it up a notch.

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Kate sipped at her vodka and Sprite and surreptitiously took in everything around her: the low, leather lounges, the red-glass tile on the walls, the dark, smoky mirrors, the DJ booth manned by some guy dressed in gold chains and a baseball cap. . . . Nope, she definitely wasn’t in Ohio anymore.

She glanced down at her outfit. It was too bad she was dressed like she still was. Had she learned nothing from her previous outings with this crew? What was she thinking, wearing a pair of worn-in Levi’s and a ruffled T-shirt she’d bought at Banana Republic three and a half years ago? And let’s not even mention the DSW shoes! Kate sighed. She was only at Whisper, one of L.A.’s hottest nightclubs, where everyone practically seemed to glitter with money and glamour. The guys were all in jeans that probably cost more than a month’s rent back at her old apartment, and the girls wore tiny, shimmery dresses that hugged every tanned, toned curve. They moved sinuously on the dance floor or lounged around on the banquettes, members of an entirely different and much more beautiful species.

It was a miracle the doorman had let Kate in, even though she’d been flanked by the famous Carmen Curtis and the infamous Madison Parker. (Wouldn’t that have set Laurel’s teeth on edge, having the doorman open the velvet rope for everyone but poor Kate Hayes?)

When they’d pulled up in their town car (Madison refused to enter a cab), the line to get in had snaked almost around the corner of the block. “Ugh,” Kate had said. “Maybe we should go somewhere else. I don’t want to wait in that line.”

Madison and Carmen had both laughed. “Wait in line?” Madison had practically sneered. “Darling, people like us don’t wait in lines.”

People like us? Kate had thought. But I’m not one bit like you.

Carmen had reached out and patted her arm. “You’ll see,” she said. “I can get in anywhere. The doormen always recognize me.”

Madison had snorted. “As a person who just finished a season of her own TV show, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be the one to get us in.”

Kate shifted uncomfortably in the backseat. She hated to watch people bicker; it made her feel itchy and claustrophobic. “I’m sure the bouncers or whatever they are will recognize both of you,” she said lamely. She’d definitely been thrust into the peacemaker role between these two. She wasn’t a child of divorce, but she could only assume this was how it felt a lot—Mommy and Mommy are fighting! Kate had opened the door then and stepped out to the sidewalk. The line was getting longer by the second. She felt sorry for the girls who had to stand so long in those high-heeled shoes.

The PopTV cameras had already been set up to film their entrance, and Laurel was there, too, drinking something from a travel mug. “Coffee,” she’d said when Carmen raised her eyebrows at her.

“I hope you put some whiskey in it then,” Carmen had said. “Because you look a little tense.”

It was true: Laurel looked as wired and nervous as Kate felt. No doubt it was hard to be in charge of a TV shoot, but at least she didn’t have to be on-camera.

“All right, girls. The cameras are set and the doorman knows to let you in. Once you’re inside, wait a moment for us to get all of the cameras in, and then you can go to your table,” Laurel said, quickly motioning toward a tall doorman dressed in a black suit and armed with an ID scanner.

In a group they’d gone to the front of the crowd, and of course the ropes had parted for them as the doorman nodded a greeting. (It had nothing to do with either Carmen or Madison being recognized. They’d have to fight about it some other night, when PopTV hadn’t set things up so they could jump the line.) The PopTV cameras followed them into the dim, crowded room.

“What do you think of this place?” Carmen asked, jolting Kate back to the present.