Dedication

To Adam DiVello, who plucked me from obscurity and gave me a career I never could have imagined. Thank you for every opportunity you gave me and for gifting me with the best video diary anyone could ever want.

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Letter to Madison

From the Desk of Madison Parker

Chapter 1 - A Step Forward

Chapter 2 - A Good Sign

Chapter 3 - Eyes Wide Open

Chapter 4 - Hardly Star Treatment

Chapter 5 - Your Rock ’n’ Roll Side

Chapter 6 - Making Nice

Chapter 7 - Basically a Native

Chapter 8 - Struggle. Drama. Meltdowns.

Chapter 9 - People Like Us Do Not Wait in Lines

Chapter 10 - More Than Just a Story arc

Chapter 11 - All Grown Up

Chapter 12 - Carmen Cupid Curtis

Chapter 13 - A Little Old for Stuffed Animals

Chapter 14 - The Best Idea You Ever Had

Chapter 15 - That Was Awkward

Chapter 16 - Walk with Me

Chapter 17 - The TV-Ready Next Big Thing

Chapter 18 - Sparks

Chapter 19 - Think Beautiful Thoughts

Chapter 20 - Secret Lovers

Chapter 21 - Little Miss Hollywood

Chapter 22 - Bad Romance

Chapter 23 - Keep Tabs on Your Costars

Chapter 24 - Talk About The End of Love

Chapter 25 - Everyone Wants to Be Famous

Chapter 26 - The Good Ol’ Days

Chapter 27 - Good Times, Good Times

Chapter 28 - Part of a Larger Plan

Chapter 29 - Lucky Girl

Chapter 30 - How This Hollywood Stuff Works

Chapter 31 - The Best of Friends

Chapter 32 - The Birth of a Star

Chapter 33 - Empty

Chapter 34 - So Damn Catchy

Chapter 35 - Nobody Loses

Acknowledgments

Books by Lauren Conrad

Copyright

About the Publisher

Dear Madison,

You must hear this all the time, but I’m your biggest fan. I’ve watched every episode of Madison’s Makeovers ten times. I didn’t think you’d ever convince Tanya to cut that hair and get her teeth done, but you did—and she looked amazing! And you were so right about that girl from Idaho: Nobody looks good in a knee-length jean skirt and athletic shoes, especially not someone with cankles—ha ha.

You were my fave on L.A. Candy. I mean, you are who you are and you proved that! Especially when your past came out. Jane sort of became the star of the show, but it should’ve been you. Girls like Jane get everything handed to them, and how is that fair?

Have you talked to Sophia? Obvs she’s your little sister and you love her, but can I just say how ungrateful she was? She was so wrong to out you the way she did. I know you love your fans and you would have told us everything when you were ready.

It is so amazing what you’ve done for yourself. You didn’t have anything growing up, and now you have it all!! You had a dream and you went for it. Seeing someone like you, who made everything happen through hard work and courage and just rocking every opportunity that you got, makes me feel like it might be possible for me. You know? You really have been an inspiration to me. So thank you and I love you. Seriously, you are my idol!

My best friend, Emma, said she heard that you’re going to star in a new show for PopTV. Is it true? I hope so!!! Please write me back and please send an autographed picture!

Love you!!!!!

Xoxoxo Becca B.

From the Desk of Madison Parker

Dear Becca,

Thanks so much for your letter. Without you and my millions of other fans, I wouldn’t enjoy my amazing life. And thank you for watching Madison’s Makeovers! I really feel like I am giving back with each makeover I do. Every girl deserves a little beauty, don’t you think?

No one expects their sister to betray them (especially not on national TV), but Sophie was in a very dark place. I am just so lucky that I was able to pay for her rehab and that she and I have each other. Thank you for loving me through all the pain and for understanding why I kept my past a secret.

As for a new show, I’m not supposed to say anything, but since you are one of my biggest fans . . . Yes, there is a new show in the works, and yes, of course, I am the star.

I hope you like the photo I’ve included. I think it’s one of my best. And don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @MissMadParker.

Love,

Madison

PS: Don’t ever give up on your dreams, and don’t ever expect anything to be handed to you. I know I didn’t—and look at me now!

Madison Parker had made Trevor Lord come to her this time. If he wanted her for his new show as badly as he said he did, what was a little Sunset Boulevard traffic between friends? Anyway, he’d just added another sleek new sports car to his collection—he might as well put it to use.

“The Fame Game needs you, Madison.” Trevor leaned forward in his chair, his eyes intent on her perfectly made-up face. “PopTV wants another hit show. And you and I know how to make that happen.” His voice was low, almost conspiratorial.

Madison took a sip of her coconut water. She’d already told her agent, Nick, she was going to say yes—the network had met her financial demands (only slightly begrudgingly), and a new TV show meant more magazine coverage and better endorsement deals—but she wanted to make Trevor work for it. He didn’t know that Madison’s Makeovers wasn’t getting picked up for a second season—no one did yet—and she wasn’t about to tell him. After all, the ratings had been totally decent by PopTV standards. Why else would Trevor Lord, the executive producer of L.A. Candy, and his cohort (aka minion) Dana be here at Soho House (which Madison had picked for its proximity to her apartment and its to-die-for seared-ahi salad, and because she liked to exercise her membership privileges as much as possible) to lure her away from it? Besides, this way she could have her publicist leak a story from “a source close to her” saying that Madison, not the network, had decided to end Madison’s Makeovers so she could film The Fame Game.

Trevor ignored the hovering waiter, who was trying to decide whether or not to refill the producer’s coffee cup. “Madison’s Makeovers is a great show, but it’s not about you. Aren’t you tired of telling people to get a haircut and lose twenty pounds? I mean, Self magazine tells them to do that every month.” Trevor finally glanced up at the waiter, but only to shoo him away. “Your talents are being wasted, Madison,” he said.

Madison raised a carefully plucked eyebrow. “Wow, Trev, you really know how to charm a girl.”

He offered the barest hint of a smile. “You know what I mean.”

Madison turned to Dana, who was, as usual, emanating super-stress vibes. Bluish bags sat below her eyes and her hair looked drier than a pile of autumn leaves. Talk about someone who could use a Madison makeover! She was such a contrast to Trevor, who always appeared effortlessly poised and polished, as if someone had taken a buffer cloth to him. Dana didn’t smile at her, and Madison swiveled back toward Trevor. “I don’t think I do know what you mean,” she said. “Why don’t you spell it out for me?” This was the best part of the process. Being wooed. And if anyone knew how to make a girl feel like the most spectacular thing that ever walked this planet it was Trevor. Unfortunately he could take it away just as quickly. So Madison was going to draw this moment out. Savor it.

“You crave drama. You love to be the center of attention. You want all eyes on you, Madison Parker.” He sat back and folded his arms across his broad chest.

Madison sniffed, unimpressed. Trevor couldn’t come up with anything better than stating the obvious and then acting as if he’d made some brilliant discovery? He thought he was so slick!

Admittedly, during the filming of L.A. Candy, Madison had needed Trevor. He was the one who had the power: He chose the story lines; he decided who got the most airtime. But now? Trevor needed her. Madison knew from Nick that without her, PopTV wouldn’t green-light The Fame Game.

Madison gazed off toward the far side of the restaurant, as if contemplating the view (the Pacific Design Center, the primary-colored structures standing out amid the surrounding white buildings and green trees), and then snapped her blue eyes back to Trevor. “I’m the star?”

“Always,” Trevor said with a smile. “Your fans want to see you.”

Madison couldn’t suppress a small return smile. Of course her fans wanted to see her. For two seasons of L.A. Candy, Madison had shared her life, her ambitions, and even her painful, once-secret past with them. At first Madison had been furious—like, almost homicidally so—at her sister for revealing the trailer-park roots that she’d worked so hard to hide. But once the tabloid storm blew over, she realized that her hardscrabble past had only made her more popular. More relatable. She hadn’t exactly forgiven Sophie (or Sophia, as she now insisted on being called), but she no longer wanted to cut off her air supply at first glance.

“It’ll be similar to L.A. Candy,” Trevor went on. “You and some other girls.”

He said this as if it hardly mattered, but immediately Madison stiffened. “What other girls?” she said coolly.

She understood that this was how these shows worked—the producers got together a group of supposed friends, or a crazy, dysfunctional family, or a bunch of outrageous coworkers at a quirky salon/construction site/tattoo parlor—but she had no interest in sharing the spotlight. She’d done that in L.A. Candy. She’d put in her time, and now it was time for Madison Parker to take center stage. It was her turn to shine.

Trevor shrugged noncommittally. “PopTV likes the format of four girls on the verge of making it.”

“Oh, Trev,” Madison sighed, as if speaking to a child who couldn’t possibly understand. “I’ve already made it. I’m no longer on the verge.”

Trevor and Dana shared a look Madison couldn’t decipher, and she felt an unpleasant jolt of anxiety. Maybe they did know about Madison’s Makeovers after all. Although she hated to admit it, Madison knew that Trevor was right: She hadn’t made it, not yet. Every time she took a step forward, something was there to knock her right back. How was she supposed to know that that innocent-seeming girl from Walnut Creek was allergic to Botox? (But not at all allergic to lawsuits? And that if someone sued the show, they were suing Madison’s production company, too?) And how was she supposed to know that the trainer the show had hired was married? He never wore a ring, and he certainly didn’t mention his wife when he was hooking up with Madison in an airplane bathroom. The network had managed to keep these things quiet so far, but various uptight executives had apparently decided that they couldn’t afford for the show to go on.

“Oh, you’re on the verge all right,” Trevor said. “The verge of hitting the next level.”

Nice save, Madison thought. “And the other three girls?” she asked. “Who are they?”

“Gaby.” Trevor touched his pointer fingers together, ticking off a list. “Plus two others, obviously. We’re still working on casting them.”

Madison nodded. Gaby made sense. She was far from the brightest candle on the cake (and that was putting it nicely), but she was good for a laugh at least. She was the only other person left standing from L.A. Candy, after Scarlett split for Columbia and Jane metamorphosed back into the boring girl next door that Madison had always known she was. So, okay, Madison and Gaby would be reunited on the small screen. Fine. But Madison didn’t believe for one millisecond that Trevor was still searching for the girls who’d play the other two parts.

“Give me a hint about the other two, at least,” she tried.

Trevor looked at Dana, who tapped her long fingers anxiously on the table. “We’re not sure yet, but we want someone in the music industry. And we need someone who is trying to be an actress,” he said. “I mean, this is L.A., after all. Every waitress has a demo reel and a head shot.”

Madison stifled a laugh. An Adele wannabe and some misguided silver-screen striver! The musician, whatever. But the actress? Madison would like to meet the poor girl who thought that a reality show was a ticket to future starring roles. Unless you were already established, a reality show was death to an acting career. That was Hollywood 101. Sure, you gained notoriety, but you spent your entire career battling the stigma of being a “reality star.” No serious producer would have you in his movie unless it was a one-line cameo during which you mocked your small-screen self. Sad.

Madison toyed with a lock of her perfectly platinum hair. “You know, Trevor, I’m not sure about this. I shared the spotlight on L.A. Candy and—”

Trevor didn’t even hold up a hand to stop her. He just interrupted with, “How about another thirty grand per episode? Will that ease your worries? But we’ll need your answer by the end of today. Or we’ll have to look for someone else. And I’m sure we won’t have any trouble finding someone who wants the job.”

Madison took a deep breath and willed her facial expression to remain neutral. (Thanks to years of Botox injections this wasn’t much of a challenge.) Suddenly they were talking money—like, real money. And Madison always needed money, because looking as good as she did didn’t come cheap. She could already imagine the expression on her agent’s face when she told him. Nick would be so proud of her.

“PopTV will send over the revised offer to your agent,” Trevor said, as if reading her mind. He was an expert at staying one step ahead of his girls and hitting them with an unforeseen twist—both on the show and off.

“And I’m the star,” Madison said firmly.

Trevor smiled. “You can’t make a star, Madison,” he said smoothly. “You can only show her off to the world.”

Madison laughed. Another thing about Trevor? He always knew just what bullshit thing to say. She loved that about him.

“And no one makes more than me?”

Trevor laughed. “After you, do you really think the network can afford it?”

She took another sip of her coconut water and then, ever so slowly, extended her hand. “Then I think,” she said, the corners of her mouth pulling up into a brilliant, ten-thousand-dollar smile, “we may have a deal.”

Kate Hayes tore off her Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf apron and pulled her strawberry-blond hair from its elastic as she raced to her car. This was her final interview for the new Trevor Lord show and she didn’t want to be late. She’d met with Dana twice already, and apparently she’d done well, because Trevor’s assistant had called that morning, telling Kate to come at two. And make sure to bring your guitar, she’d said, her voice syrupy but firm.

When Dana first approached her at the Coffee Bean, Kate didn’t know what to think. She’d noticed the tall, tired-looking woman staring at her from behind the food case long after she’d paid for her sugar-free Soy Vanilla Blended. Blank-faced, Kate had gone about grinding beans and pulling shots, pretending that nothing was unusual about having a stranger ogle her like she was some misplaced exotic animal. Finally, when Kate was beginning to feel slightly freaked out by the attention, Dana had introduced herself. She was a TV producer, she said, and she wondered if Kate was the girl who’d done that YouTube cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”

“Who hasn’t done a cover of ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’?” Kate had asked, still not trusting that Dana was the real deal. “It’s like the number-one karaoke song ever.”

Dana had run her fingers through her frazzled hair and sighed. No, she’d said, she meant the one that took Cyndi Lauper’s 1980s party anthem and transformed it into a slow, quiet, nearly heartbreaking look at class anxiety and a young girl’s longing for independence. “That was you, wasn’t it?” Dana asked, narrowing her brown eyes.

Kate was taken aback. It was one thing to be recognized in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, but in L.A.? Sure, her YouTube video had gone viral, ever since Courtney Love had tweeted something barely comprehensible about it (whos this brillient chica I found bymistake loveher!), the girls over at HelloGiggles.com had made her a pick of the day, and Rolling Stone had done a small profile of her on its website. Kate still had no idea how all that had happened, but it had made her, briefly, just a little bit famous.

But hey, this was Los Angeles, land of a thousand people who were just a little bit famous. It was a sea of Where do I know you from? faces where nearly everyone had had a brief encounter with celebrity only to have it taken away just as swiftly.

Dana had asked her to come in for a screen test, and Kate had surprised herself by agreeing. But as she sat in a small, sparely decorated room with Dana and a single camera, Kate had to fight the urge to downplay the video, which she’d made on a lark last year with her ex-boyfriend. She’d had no idea Ethan was going to upload it to the web, and they’d gotten into a huge fight once she found out he had. But then people started commenting on the video, liking it and sharing it and reposting it. Everyone had agreed that her voice was incredible, unusual. Like Lucinda Williams meets Joni Mitchell, watched over by the ghost of Nina Simone, someone wrote. (And it hadn’t hurt that as she’d strummed the last chords of the song, Ethan’s Bernese mountain dog had flat-out howled, as if he couldn’t bear to live in a world in which Kate Hayes was no longer singing. That got all the dog lovers on her team faster than you could say Purina Brand Puppy Chow.)

The problem with the video was that it wasn’t her music, which Kate had been writing obsessively ever since she was eleven years old and started teaching herself to play her dad’s old guitar. It was someone else’s. Which meant that the video was, in a way, just a glorified version of karaoke.

But it was enough to make you pack up your things and move to L.A., Kate reminded herself. It was enough to make you think you might be able to make it.

Yes, she could admit it: She’d thought her video would be the beginning of something. But ever since she’d arrived in L.A. it had seemed like more of a dead end.

Speaking of dead ends, Kate was now stuck in traffic. Again. Even though she’d been in the city for a year, she still hadn’t figured out how to get anywhere on time. She checked the clock—she had twenty minutes to get to Trevor Lord’s office, which was probably thirty minutes away at this rate. She glanced next at the little brass chime that hung from her rearview mirror, something her mother called “the bell of safe travel.” Marlene Hayes said it would protect against accidents on the crowded L.A. freeways. But as Kate sat in the exhaust cloud of a Cadillac Escalade, stopped at yet another red light, she wished her mother had given her a bell of speedy travel. That she could have used.

She figured she might as well multitask and felt around for an eyeliner in the bottom of her purse. Obviously she hoped Trevor would appreciate her talent, but it couldn’t hurt to put on some makeup. As she finished smudging the black kohl a touch, her phone buzzed beside her on the passenger seat. She picked up. “I’m late,” she said into the mouthpiece, not even caring to whom she was talking.

“Well, that’s certainly a surprise,” said the cheerful voice on the other end of the line.

“Oh, hey, Jess,” Kate said. Jessica was her sister, older by fifteen months and taller by five inches. She was calling from Durham, North Carolina, where she played center on the Duke women’s basketball team. “What’s up?”

“Just calling to check in on my favorite chanteuse. That’s French for singer, you know.”

Kate snorted. “Just because I didn’t go straight to college doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”

“I know, I’m just kidding. How are you?”

Kate thought about this for a moment before answering. She hardly talked to her sister these days (Jess was so busy with classes and basketball practice), and Kate didn’t want to sound like a bummer. On the other hand, they were best friends and blood relations, and there was no reason to lie. “Well, I’m stuck in traffic. I’m late for an interview. There are termites in my apartment building. And I went to an open mic last night and couldn’t even get on stage.”

“Oh, Katie,” Jessica said, her tone sympathetic.

“Yeah, I know. I drove all the way to Glendale for some singer-songwriter thing, and then fifteen minutes before I was supposed to get on stage my hands started to tingle and my stomach, like, grew a bowling ball inside of it. I took two tequila shots at the bar, but it only made me feel worse. So I turned around and drove home.”

Kate sighed as she finished her story. Not for the first time, she pondered the irony of a person with major stage fright hoping to make it in the entertainment business. No doubt her sister was thinking the same thing, but Jess was too nice to state the obvious. She would never, for example, bring up Kate’s sophomore year in high school, when she waited for ten hours to audition for American Idol and made it past the pre-screening round, only to panic and bomb on stage. (You might want to reconsider your career aspirations, Simon Cowell had said, not unkindly.)

“You’re in excellent company,” Jess soothed. “Think about Cat Power. She was so crippled by stage fright, she could only sing in utter darkness. But then she got over it.”

Ahead of Kate, the Escalade started inching forward. She gingerly tapped the gas pedal. “So you think there’s hope for me? Or am I just being crazy?” she asked wistfully.

“Of course there’s hope,” Jess said. “Like my coach says, you just need to keep dribbling.”

An image of herself holding a guitar in one hand and trying to dribble a basketball with the other popped into Kate’s head. She gave a little laugh as she clutched the phone tighter in her hand. (She really needed to get a headset; one of these days some cop was going to bust her.) “The thing is, I’m sort of stalled,” she admitted. “I mean, I’ve been here since graduation. That’s over a year, which means I’ve got another year to make something happen before Mom comes out here, ties me up, drags me back to Columbus, and forces me into college.”

“But you’re trying,” Jess said. “You made more awesome videos. And didn’t you write, like, ten songs in the last few months?”

“Yes, but no one hears them,” Kate wailed. “I just sing and play for myself!”

Thinking about this made Kate want to pull over to the side of the road and curl up in the backseat of her hand-me-down Saab. The thing was, she’d lied to Dana about what she’d been doing to further her music career. Oh sure, she’d told her, I do open mics all the time! And Dana had nodded, looking pleased; an open mic was pretty much a talent show, and who didn’t love a talent show? It’d be like a mini acoustic American Idol. No fancy lights, no celebrity judges, just some would-be musicians with their instruments and their songs. America would love it!

But of course Kate’s real attempts at furthering her music career consisted of playing her guitar, scribbling down lyrics and chord progressions, and recording bits of songs on her old-school four-track. And that didn’t seem like it would make for exciting TV.

“Well, you’re just going to have to get out there more,” Jess said matter-of-factly. “Like I said, keep dribbling. What about that show you emailed me about?”

“That’s the interview I’m late for,” Kate admitted. She craned her neck out the window, trying to see past the Escalade. Was there construction? An accident? “I don’t know why people insist on driving SUVs in L.A. It isn’t exactly known for its rough terrain,” she huffed.

“Stay focused,” Jess said. “Tell me about this show.”

“It’s about four girls trying to make it in Los Angeles,” Kate said. “It’s by the people who did that show L.A. Candy,” she added, slightly embarrassed. (But also kind of thrilled.)

Jess hooted. “Shut up! You didn’t tell me that.”

“Hey, you loved that show as much as I did,” Kate laughed. “So don’t pretend like you didn’t.”

“Guilty as charged,” Jess said. “I always had a soft spot for Scarlett.”

“Yeah, me too.” Kate had loved Jane Roberts, of course, but Scarlett Harp was her favorite. Scarlett was smart, sassy, and down-to-earth, and she didn’t care about hair or makeup or fame. Or so it had seemed, anyway. But in an interview after she left the show, Scarlett had complained that the producers had edited her life into something that it wasn’t. The real me got left somewhere on the cutting room floor, she’d said.

That line had stuck with Kate, especially after her first meeting with Dana, in which the seemingly perpetually stressed-out woman had grilled her about her dating life (“um, a little slow these days since I’m holding down two jobs—you know, to afford my rock ’n’ roll lifestyle”—that got a smile out of Dana at least), her exercise routine (“I wouldn’t call it a routine, exactly”), her family (“single mom, normal, nice, and almost two thousand miles away”—she hadn’t felt like bringing up her father, who had died when she was ten, but figured she might have to eventually if she made it onto the show), and a hundred other things. If the PopTV people offered her the part, would she be able to be herself in front of a camera? And if by some miracle she could, would they edit that real self into something different? It was a worrisome thought.

“But being on a TV show—that’s totally amazing,” Jess went on. “I mean, you could be a star!”

“Yeah, right,” Kate said, applying a little lip gloss touch-up in her rearview mirror. “Let’s not set our hopes too high.”

“Well, at the very least you’ll get paid well,” Jess pointed out.

Kate’s ears pricked up at this. “Paid well?”

Jess laughed. “Yes, dummy. What, you think it’s like some kind of extended open mic, where you do it for free?”

“Oh, uh, no, of course not,” Kate stammered. The truth was she hadn’t even considered the fact that she might get paid. Weren’t there millions of girls across the U.S. who’d give anything to be on a PopTV show? Trevor Lord could sell his spots to the highest bidder if he wanted to.

Suddenly she felt even more grateful that Dana had stumbled into her branch of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. What if she actually nailed the audition? Money meant being able to quit at least one of her two jobs. Money meant being able to afford an eight-track digital recorder or a new MacBook with a functioning version of GarageBand—or, even better, time in an actual studio. Money meant her mom couldn’t drag her back to Columbus.

“You’re such a nerd,” Jess said affectionately.

“I know,” Kate said. “Believe me, I know.”

Ahead of her, the Escalade began to pick up speed, and Kate was able to shift into second gear for the first time in ten minutes.

“You’re going to do great,” Jess assured her.

Kate felt her heart flutter lightly in her chest. If she could just keep moving, she’d be only five minutes late to meet Trevor Lord. She had made up her mind: Forget stage fright. She was going to rock this interview.

“I should go, Jess,” she said. “Love you. Call you later.”

As Kate sailed through the intersection, she glanced up and saw Madison Parker, probably thirty feet tall, smiling down at her from a giant billboard. It was an ad for Madison’s Makeovers. Beauty’s a bitch read the tagline.

Kate smiled in return. Madison hovered over the corner of Venice and Sepulveda like some guardian angel of reality TV.

Surely that was a good sign.

Carmen Curtis rushed around her bedroom, madly searching for her new brown leather ankle boots. Shoe boxes and shopping bags were littered across her floor, testament to an outrageous (even by Carmen’s standards) shopping extravaganza that had taken place earlier that day. Three nine-hundred-dollar sweaters dangled off the edge of her bed, and a ridiculously expensive silk dress lay, already crumpled, in a corner. Even though the amount of free clothing and accessories that were sent to her mother could fill a room in their very large, but not obscene, house, the two always spent a day demolishing Barneys before Cassandra left on tour. Cassandra would soon be leaving for ten sold-out concerts in Japan and Australia, so they had practically emptied the place out.

Plus, they were celebrating Carmen’s news: She was going to be on The Fame Game, Trevor Lord’s newest reality series. Filming began in two weeks, and now Carm had a pile of cute things to wear.

She had been worried that her mom might not want her working in “reality” TV (after all, there was nothing real about it), especially since the whole family had been the subject of a documentary about Cassandra’s comeback tour nearly a decade earlier. Cassandra had had extremely mixed feelings about Cassandra’s Back, but she said that The Fame Game sounded cute. She also agreed with their publicist, Sam, who argued that it was the perfect thing to help Carmen out of the shoplifting mess she’d gotten herself into a few months earlier.

Carmen tossed a new lacy La Perla bra on top of her dresser and flung a pretty little Lanvin handbag onto the chaise longue. Where were those damn ankle boots?

For the record, she hadn’t actually shoplifted anything. But it had been a crazy time in her life, full of ups and downs. Ups: She’d just graduated high school and was free from the tyranny of textbooks. Her role in an indie movie about estranged sisters who go on a road trip to find their mom, which she’d filmed the summer before her senior year, was getting great reviews. (She only wished the critics didn’t sound so shocked, as if they’d assumed she got the part only because of who her parents were. Which, okay, hadn’t hurt—her dad was a producer on the film, after all—but the director wouldn’t have cast her if she couldn’t act.) But there were downs, too: She’d deferred her acceptance to Sarah Lawrence because she wasn’t convinced college was for her, and her dad wasn’t thrilled about it. She’d broken up with her boyfriend of six months when she saw pictures of him on D-lish.com getting a lap dance. (Somehow “liar” and “cheater” had not been included in his photo caption when the jerk made it into People’s Most Beautiful issue; even worse, he’d managed to spin it so that Carmen was perceived as “needy” and he was oppressed in the relationship.) And she’d taken the blame for shoplifting a Phillip Lim top because her friend Fawn was still on probation from her last failed attempt at a five-finger discount, and she was afraid the judge wouldn’t be so lenient this time. Naturally the tabloids ran with it.

That particular incident had pissed off her dad even more—at first because he’d thought she’d done it (thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad!), and then because she’d taken the blame for someone he’d never really liked that much in the first place. Ever since Carmen had started hanging out with Fawn after they’d met at an acting workshop, her dad had grumbled about how he wished she’d find friends her own age. (Fawn was only two years older—no biggie.) But all of this meant that Philip Curtis was not exactly keen on his daughter’s judgment as of late, which was going to make it somewhat difficult to persuade him that a role on The Fame Game would not exploit her, goad her into getting breast implants, or otherwise ruin her life.

She had to make him understand that she knew exactly what she was getting into. She’d grown up in L.A.—around actors, writers, singers, directors, producers—and she knew how the game was played; now she wanted to officially get into it. She’d spent the past few years dabbling, taking acting classes and working hard, yeah, but dabbling nonetheless. She’d never committed to auditioning, hadn’t much cared about her “image,” and had been content to coast along as mini-Cassandra. Now she was ready to take what could so easily be hers.

But convincing Philip Curtis of anything that he didn’t think up himself—well, that could be a challenge. As he was fond of saying, I didn’t get to be the founder and president of Rock It! Records by doing what people told me to do or thinking what people wanted me to think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Carmen thought. Anyway, the point was, she was trying not to do what people told her to do. Her dad wanted her to go to college? Well, she had a better idea. She adored him, she really did, but she could do without his stubbornness sometimes. Whenever she tried to turn it around and tell him that she agreed wholeheartedly with his “think for yourself” philosophy, that it was exactly what she was trying to do, he refused to engage. He’d just look at her calmly and then wander away, as if the conversation had been a competition and he had already won it. The only person he could never pull that with was Cassandra.

“Carm,” her mother called from downstairs. “Drew is here. And dinner’s almost ready.”

“Coming,” Carmen called back. Too bad: She was going to have to eat dinner sans her fantastic new ankle boots.

Just as it was a tradition for Carmen and her mom to shop before Cassandra went on tour, it was a longstanding tradition for her family to have a big meal at home on Friday nights. Drew Scott being invited was now tradition, too. He was her best friend, and he’d been at the table at least every other week since Carmen was in tenth grade and he was in eleventh. Drew’s mom, an entertainment lawyer, and his dad, a dermatologist to the stars, had been in the midst of an ugly divorce back then, and Drew liked to avoid them as much as possible. Even now that peace (aka total avoidance) reigned between his parents and he lived on campus at UCLA during the school year, Drew still showed up at the Curtis family’s dinner table. Often he’d even wear an Oxford over his tattooed arms and his hair nicely combed.

Carmen slipped on her pink custom-made Chopard watch—her graduation present from her parents when she finished at Archer—and ran downstairs to the living room, where her dad had cornered Drew to chat him up about some band he’d just signed. (Drew was studying composing and music production at UCLA, so he liked talking shop.) Just as Carmen headed toward them, her mom floated into the room. Seriously, Cassandra Curtis never did anything as pedestrian as walk. Even in jeans and a plain white sweater, she looked amazing, her dark hair in perfect waves and her light olive skin perfectly dewy, as if she’d stepped off the cover of Vogue—which, incidentally, she had actually been on three times and counting.

“The salmon is ready, everyone,” Cassandra said. Her voice was smooth and sultry, even when she was talking about dinner. “Carm, hon, you look fabulous—I love those L’Wren Scott skinnies on you.” She leaned closer to her daughter and whispered, smilingly, “Just don’t tell your father how much they cost.” Philip Curtis didn’t actually care what they spent on clothes, but it was a running joke at their house: How many pairs of shoes and jeans could two women possibly own? Then, at a normal volume, her mom mused, “What I wouldn’t give to be able to get away with white jeans.”

Carmen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Mom, you’re huge. Better skip dinner. It’s lemon juice and cayenne pepper for you tonight.”

Drew detached himself from Carmen’s dad and walked over to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Curtis,” he said.

“Scott,” Carmen returned, then punched him gently on the arm.

“No hitting before dinner,” Drew said, laughing.

“That’s right,” Cassandra said. “We save violence for dessert.”

In the huge, French-blue dining room, Philip took his usual spot at the head of the table and Cassandra sat at hers on the other end. Carmen and Drew sat across from each other, a gigantic spray of hot-pink lilies between them. Philip cleared his throat and lifted his wineglass. “A toast to my amazing wife and daughter. May they remain forever beautiful and never grow tired of me.”

Carmen giggled—it was the same thing he said every Friday night. She raised her glass of Perrier. “And to Philip Alan Curtis, beloved husband and father. May he one day manage to come up with a new toast.”

As they ate, they bantered lightly about music (what exactly was the difference between speed metal and grindcore?) and sports (were the Lakers going to take the championship this year?). But Carmen, uncharacteristically, said little. She was waiting for the right moment to talk to her dad again about The Fame Game. The last time she’d brought it up, the conversation hadn’t gone well, and back then it was only a possibility. Now it was a done deal. Her mother had made her promise to tell him at dinner.

What her dad didn’t seem to fully comprehend for some reason was that Carmen’s life had always been in the spotlight. Heck, she’d been on the cover of Us Weekly when she was in utero (Crooner Cassandra’s Baby Bump!), and her toddler outfits had been the subject of gallons of tabloid ink (Baby CC: The World’s Littlest Fashionista?). The way Carmen saw it, the PopTV show was an opportunity to step into the limelight on her own terms. The cameras would film her because she wanted them to, not because they were manned by guys from TMZ who were itching to catch her stumbling drunkenly out of a nightclub or flashing her thong, or lack thereof, as she exited a car. Her entire life had been narrated by the media and she had had so little say. This was a chance for her to show people who she really was.

Trevor Lord’s reality series would prove to the world that Carmen wasn’t just another celebuspawn. She was a real person with real feelings, and she was an actress—and she’d have been an actress no matter who her parents were.

Carmen cleared her throat. It probably wasn’t the right moment, but maybe there was no such thing as a right moment for a conversation like this. She took a careful sip of her water. “So, remember that thing I told you about, Daddy?” she asked. “The opportunity my agent got approached with?”

Drew stifled a laugh, and Carmen kicked him under the table. Drew thought that Carmen was “above” reality TV and that “opportunity” was a euphemism for “bad idea.” She’d never been able to get him to watch L.A. Candy, so maybe it was understandable that he didn’t see the appeal of The Fame Game. Still, he’d come around to the idea eventually, though he knew her dad wouldn’t be on board.

“Tell me it wasn’t another Playboy request,” Philip half hollered. “I’ll kill Hef with my bare hands if they ask you to be naked in that magazine one more time.”

Carmen flushed. “Ick!” she said. “No, the offer from PopTV.”

“You mean PopTV Films,” Philip said.

Carmen’s stomach fluttered. Had he really forgotten the conversation they had had about it just last week? Or was he trying to pretend that it hadn’t happened? “No, Daddy,” she said. “PopTV. You know, Trevor Lord’s new show?”

Philip’s brows furrowed gently. “Trevor Lord? Why does that name sound familiar?” he asked.

“He produced L.A. Candy,” Carmen told him. (For the second time.)

“The reality show?” He said “reality show” as if they were dirty words. Kind of like Drew had when she’d first told him.

Carmen glanced through the spray of lilies at Drew. His green eyes were full of sympathy already. He just wanted what was best for her. (And sometimes Carmen couldn’t help but wonder if he simply wanted her. There had been a few moments in the last month or so—some extra-long hugs, a bit of hand holding, and one awkward, sweet kiss . . . But now wasn’t the time to think about that.) She smiled at Drew and looked back at her father.

Before Carm could respond to him, though, Philip’s cell phone buzzed and he slipped it from his pocket. He glanced at the screen and looked apologetically at Cassandra. “I have to take this.”

“The music business is twenty-four/seven.” Cassandra rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and smiled.

“Well,” Carmen said when her dad had left the room, “so far so good.”

“You think?” her mother replied.

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Give him a chance,” Cassandra said gently. “Believe it or not, he does trust you.”

Drew reached out and moved the flowers to the antique credenza behind him. “There,” he said, “now I can see the future star of The Fame Game.”

“Seriously, you guys,” Carmen said. “You have to help me out on this one. Be, like, supportive.” Help me show the world I’m not Little CC anymore, she thought but didn’t say.

In a moment, Philip returned to the table. As he tucked his phone back into his pocket, Cassandra shot him a pointed look.

Philip smiled at his only daughter. “Carm? You were saying something about PopTV?”

Carmen took a deep breath and began. Again. “Trevor Lord is doing a show about people trying to make it in Hollywood. He said he needed a talented actress, and that I was his first and only choice. He said the network probably wouldn’t even pick up the show unless I agreed to do it.” She’d felt a rush of pride when her new manager (her dad made her get a manager after she got cast in The Long and Winding Road) told her that part. She knew it probably wasn’t true; she’d seen her father stretch the truth before, hadn’t she? That’s just how it went in Hollywood. You told people what they needed to hear so they’d do what you wanted them to do. “Daddy, I said I’d take the part and I really want you to be happy for me.”

“But why on earth do you want to do a reality show?” Philip looked genuinely perplexed. He exchanged another unreadable glance with Cassandra. “Those girls have no values. No talent! You’re not like them. You’re an actress.”

“I told you,” she said, feeling herself getting upset, “it’s not like that.” She hated when her father used his I’m disappointed in you tone. “It’s about people trying to become successful doing what they love. It’s a good opportunity.” Carmen twisted her watch around her wrist.

“For what? To go to clubs and get in fistfights?”

“That’s Jersey Shore,” Drew clarified helpfully. “This will be more like catfights—open-handed combat, drinks thrown. . . . It’s completely different.”

Carmen kicked him again. “Not helping!” She turned to her dad. “There aren’t going to be any fistfights or catfights. It’s going to be about the business and how hard it is to make it—in my case, even when your parents are, y’know, you guys.”

“Famous,” Drew added, as if that were necessary. Carmen contemplated kicking him again but decided against it. It didn’t seem to make a difference.

“Are ‘us guys’ going to have to be on this show?” her dad asked. “A Very Special Meet the Curtises episode?” He was joking, but Carmen could tell he wasn’t into the idea at all.

“If they need that, they can just splice in scenes from the brilliant, amazing Cassandra’s Back documentary,” her mom offered teasingly. (Every time she mentioned the title, she shrugged and turned her head over one shoulder, mimicking what she had decided was the hilarious poster for it, what with its nod to the title’s double entendre.)

Philip took a sip of wine and sighed. “Carm, I’m not going to forbid you to do what you want. I just want you to be sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. Eyes wide open, right?”

Carmen nodded. “Eyes wide open.”

Her dad looked at her—really looked at her—and Carmen, who could usually tell when her dad was about to soften, couldn’t read his expression. “Okay,” he said finally. “Well, I guess that’s settled then.”

Carmen let out a breath she didn’t even realize she was holding. She faced forward again and found Drew staring at her, his eyes . . . wide open.

“Shut up,” she said, and kicked him once more.

“Ouch! You were supposed to save the violence for dessert, remember?”

Cassandra laughed. “Next time,” she said, “on a Very Special Episode of Meet the Curtises: Violent dinners. Savage Salmon. Brutal Broccoli. And—”

“Killer Cake!” Philip yelled. He grinned boyishly. “Chocolate, perhaps?”

“We’re not having cake, Tubs,” Cassandra said fondly, using the nickname he loved and hated in equal measure. After all, Philip Curtis wasn’t at all fat; he just had a little . . . girth.

“Nice try, Mr. Curtis,” Drew said.

“Sadistic Sorbet?” he asked hopefully.

And then everyone cracked up. Carmen breathed a sigh of relief—the worst was over now. But she really, really hoped that Trevor Lord wouldn’t angle for a Curtis family episode. They were just way too weird.

Flashes—dozens of them—exploded in bursts of brilliant light, and Madison heard her name called out over and over. “Miss Parker!” “Madison, over here!” “Mad, honey, blow me a kiss!”

Madison paused midway on the red carpet, absorbing the attention being showered upon her. She never got tired of this moment: when every eye and (much more importantly) every camera was focused on her. She offered a small, knowing smile to the bank of photographers to her left, but she made sure to avoid glancing at the PopTV camera that followed her every move. That was the one camera she had to pretend not to see.

The last two weeks had been a whirlwind. Trevor wanted to start filming immediately—clearly Madison’s fans were clamoring for her return!—and so the minute the ink was dry on her contract, four beefy moving guys had showed up at her Beverly Hills doorstep, packed up her three hundred dresses and her two hundred pairs of shoes, and hauled them over to a sleek new apartment in Park Towers. There was a balcony, a chef’s kitchen, and three large bedrooms: one for Madison; one for her new roommate, Gaby; and one for all the PopTV equipment.

“Who are you wearing?” someone called out, but Madison didn’t answer. She liked to seem a little bit aloof at first. Keep ’em guessing, she thought.

Up ahead, a giant gold banner welcomed everyone to the second annual Togs for Tots benefit. Togs for Tots was a charity that provided new (not “gently used”—gross!) clothes to foster children, group-home residents, and homeless kids all over L.A. County. Madison didn’t particularly care about the charity itself, of course, but the evening was sponsored in part by Elie Saab, one of Madison’s favorite designers, and rumor had it that Anna Wintour of Vogue would be in attendance.

She took another few steps, then gave her best over-the-shoulder smirk. Shutters clicked furiously. The paparazzi that lined red carpets were always a step up from the ones who roamed the streets. A little more polished and respectful, although there was always an aggressive few screaming over the others from behind the velvet rope barrier. But Madison knew that she needed them all, just as much as they needed her. It was a symbiotic relationship (with escalating benefits): The more famous she got, the more they would want to take her picture; the more pictures they took and published of her, the more famous she’d be . . . and onward and upward to, as Trevor put it, the “next level.”

She held her head high, pivoted her toe in her Louboutins, and smiled her picture-perfect smile.

“Madison!”

“Over here!”

“This way!”

“Beautiful, Madison!”

She locked eyes with each individual lens. Every camera contained the potential for a “Who wore it best?” (she did, always), a post on glamour.com (Madison stuns in red!), or a spot on tomorrow’s Fashion Police (being praised, not critiqued of course). Madison hadn’t quite made it out of the weeklies yet (though Life & Style, to its credit, loved her like no other), but Sasha, her publicist, swore she’d land a cover of a monthly once The Fame Game started airing. Madison was already planning her Glamour cover look. She was thinking a sort of Marlene Dietrich pose, or perhaps a Marilyn Monroe homage. . . .

She had to hand it to Trevor. He was filming The Fame Game and getting advance press for his “mysterious new project” at the same time. Already the buzz was building; she could feel it. No doubt some blogger had just uploaded a shot of her to his website (Madison Parker steps out for kids!) and mentioned the PopTV cameras capturing her every move. By tomorrow, the word would be all over town that Madison and the PopTV cameras were spotted again. Spin-off!

It was so much different from the last time around. Madison was nobody when she started filming L.A. Candy. Correction: She was somebody, all right, just not a somebody that the world knew about yet. If people noticed back then that the cameras were filming, the question on their minds was more of the Who the hell is that? variety. Now everyone was wondering what the new show was about, what it was called, and who else was on it. (Madison was still in the dark about that part.) Back when L.A. Candy had exploded and she (and Gaby and Scarlett and that annoying little Goody Two-shoes, Jane) had gotten famous, Trevor had struggled to make them seem like the regular girls they were still supposed to be. How many times had he had to reshoot because a paparazzo wandered into frame? He hated to count. But this time around, the paparazzi and the tabloids and the blogs (and the monthlies!) would play a crucial part in the show.

Madison offered a little coronation wave to a knot of starstruck fans.

“Luke!” she heard a girl cry, and Madison turned to see Luke Kelly, looking gorgeous but underdressed in a faded button-down and jeans, striding up the red carpet with that girl from that stupid show about a family who lives in a Winnebago.

“Doctor Rose,” someone else yelled, and Luke flashed a megawatt smile. He played Sebastian Rose, a young resident on Boston General, and while he wasn’t a lead, rumor had it he was on the short list to play the main character in The End of Love, a dystopian Romeo and Juliet story based on a bestselling young-adult novel.

Madison watched him and the girl, whatever her name was. They were holding hands, but Madison could see how loosely their fingers interlocked. And this told Madison, who was something of an expert in body language, that these two were either a) only pretending to be a couple, or b) five minutes away from breaking up. Which meant that Luke was, or would be, available. She gave him another once-over. He could use a shave, too, she thought, in addition to a new outfit. But he had those green eyes and that strong, broad chest, not to mention that Australian accent. Yes, she thought, she should ask Sasha to hook up a date with “Dr. Rose.” Maybe they could head to the next level together.

But it was time to turn her attention back to posing. She cocked a hip and flashed a little bit more thigh through the slit in her dress. She stayed like this for a good ten seconds, then turned for another pose. Then she saw Gaby Garcia, smiling and heading up the red carpet.

“Gaby, blow us a kiss!” one of the photographers shouted.

Gaby obliged, though Madison had told her a hundred times that no one looked good in that pose. Just then she spotted Madison.

“Mad!” Gaby rushed up to her breathlessly, as if they hadn’t seen each other for months, when in fact they had eaten breakfast together.

“Hey, Gaby.” Madison put her arm around Gaby’s shoulders (Madison and pal Gaby hit the red carpet!) and was surprised by its boniness. She took a step back and surveyed her roommate. What was she wearing? For one thing, she had donned an Elie Saab dress that she clearly hadn’t taken the time to tailor. And for another, she’d picked the one dress in the collection that looked like it came from the Goodwill sale rack. It was supposed to be an homage to 1970s Halston or something, but the rust color made Gaby look positively yellow, and the plunging back highlighted each protruding vertebrae. Madison had to force herself to smile. “Good to see you, sweetie,” she said. Gaby’s best feature was her cute little body—if she kept dieting, what would she have going for her at all?

Madison forced herself to put her arm back on Gaby’s shoulders. “Smile,” she said.

They posed for the cameras, keeping their faces mannequin-still. If they needed to talk, they’d do it only through the corners of their mouths so as not to disrupt their perfect, doll-like smiles.

“You look amazing,” Gaby said through her teeth.

“Thanks, hon,” Madison said. Of course she looked amazing. It was her job to look amazing, and she worked hard at it. She began her red-carpet regimen days beforehand—more cardio, a mini-cleanse, an oxygen facial, an airbrush tan, minimized water intake (dehydration could subtract several pounds)—and today, between hair, makeup, and wardrobe, she’d already devoted eight hours to this event.

Another small crowd of dedicated fans had gathered behind the barricade at the end of the red carpet.

“We love you, Madison!” a girl with pink hair screamed.

Madison’s smile grew wider. She hoped the photographers were capturing the total adoration her fans had for her—and her own reciprocating affection, of course. (Madison kisses fan’s new baby!) With Gaby in tow, she glided over to the pink-haired girl. The PopTV camera followed. Time for a quick autograph and photo op! But just as Madison raised the pen, she saw the photographers swing their cameras back toward the far end of the carpet. She froze. There wasn’t a bigger celebrity on the carpet. What were they—

“Is that—?” Gaby whispered, her eyes wide.

Madison maintained her smile as she tried to see who was causing this unwelcome disruption.

The pink-haired girl let out a piercing shriek. “Oh my God, it’s Carmen Curtis!” she cried, mere inches from Madison’s ear. The poster of Madison that she’d been clutching fell to the ground and was immediately replaced by a poster of Carmen’s Nylon magazine cover. How did that switcheroo happen so fast?

“Wow,” Gaby sighed, looking positively starstruck. “She’s so pretty.”

Madison clenched her fists in anger, though her face maintained its photo-ready placidity. Carmen Curtis: What had she ever done for the world? Her mother was the biggest singer since Madonna, and her father was the Quincy Jones of rap. Which meant that Carmen had that vaguely ethnic look that had no doubt helped her mother out, since her vocal range certainly hadn’t, and she had been spoon-fed money and fame from the moment she was born. She hadn’t had to work for a thing her whole life.

“I love her dress,” Gaby whispered.

Madison ignored her as she inspected Carmen. She’d obviously spent hours on her red-carpet look, too. She wore a cream bandage dress that hit just above her knee, and she was wearing a pair of YSL pumps that Madison would give a kidney for, but they were sold out everywhere. She smiled and waved like everyone she met was a potential friend. And that, Madison knew from experience, was a load of crap. They’d been introduced once at a party for the opening of sbe’s latest restaurant, and, okay, Madison hadn’t exactly oozed friendliness herself, but Carmen had simply shaken her hand, smiled briefly, and then vanished into the crowd.

“She’s a little big-boned, don’t you think?” Madison asked coolly. Then she turned away and began to walk toward the entrance to the event. Carmen had stolen her moment. It was a total injustice. The girl had accomplished practically nothing in her eighteen years of life besides bit parts on Law & Order and some indie-movie role her daddy bought her.

Madison took one final glance over her shoulder before entering the building. She’d give Carmen one thing: The girl had excellent cleavage. But then again, this was Hollywood, and anyone with a credit card could get that.

“My feet hurt,” Gaby said plaintively, shifting her weight from one leg to another. “I don’t know why ballet flats aren’t considered red-carpet worthy.”

Madison rolled her eyes. “Because you want height, Gab,” she said. “Every inch subtracts five pounds.”

“Really?” Gaby said. “How?”

But Madison didn’t have the energy to explain it to her. She was scanning the crowd, waiting for an event publicist to show them to their seats. She saw a couple of young stars from the latest HBO series and the members of The Royal We, Philip Curtis’s newest musical discovery, but so far it wasn’t exactly an A-list event. More like a B, Madison thought, or even a B minus. That was disappointing.

When, after another few moments, no publicist materialized, Madison grabbed Gaby’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll just find our own seats.” She was annoyed; this was hardly the star treatment she’d grown accustomed to.

They threaded their way through the crowd, moving toward the front row of folding chairs. At least they had front-row seats to the show, Madison thought. Maybe they’d be next to Anna Wintour.

But as they arrived at their designated spots, Madison was surprised—no, make that shocked—to see that they were taken.

By Carmen Curtis and some blonde with a botched nose job.

“Gaby,” she hissed, “go get the event coordinator!”

Gaby looked down at her ticket and then back toward their seats with a puzzled expression on her face. “I thought we were in the front row. Hey, isn’t that Carm—?”

“Gaby!” Madison whispered fiercely, while trying to maintain a smile. “Just go get the event coordinator!’

Gaby, like the good little doormat she was, did as she was told, and moments later the frazzled event coordinator appeared, a headset nestled in her updo and a clipboard clutched in her hand.

“Is there a problem?” Her tone was sharp.

Madison bristled but kept her voice low. She didn’t need the PopTV cameras, not to mention every person in the room, noting that Carmen had the nerve to steal her seat. “Yes, there is,” she said. “Those girls”—she nodded toward Carmen and her one-person entourage—“are in our seats.” Madison tilted her ticket toward the woman.

The event coordinator didn’t even look at it. “I’ve got two seats in the fifth row. We’ll move you there.”

Madison had to keep her mouth from falling open. The fifth row? “Excuse me?”

“I can place you in the fifth—”

“You mean the back row,” Madison said icily. “I don’t think you understand. I need you to ask those girls to move. Those are our seats. They were assigned to us. PopTV guaranteed us front row, and that is the only reason we are here.”

“I’m sorry, your name again?” the woman asked as she flipped through the pages on her clipboard.

Really? This glorified secretary didn’t know who she was? “Madison Parker,” she said through her teeth. A fire lit inside her.

The woman circled a name on her list and looked up. “Okay, Miss Parker, sorry for any confusion, but this isn’t a PopTV event, and those seats belong to Miss Curtis and her friend. The show is starting in three minutes. Do you want the seats in row five or not?”

Madison didn’t answer. Did she want the seats in row five? What she wanted was to take off her Louboutin and stab this woman in the eye with it. Everyone knew that where you were seated at a fashion show was in direct correlation to your celebrity status. Front row: star. Back row: nobody.

“We’ll take them.” Gaby grabbed the two new tickets from the coordinator’s hand and tried to pull Madison toward the back row. “Madison, come on. Let’s just go to our seats.”

Madison’s eyes sent daggers toward Carmen and her homely little friend. “They aren’t our seats,” she said, jerking her arm away.

The lights began to dim, but Madison stayed frozen. She watched as Luke Kelly made his way over to the place she should have been. A giant grin broke over Carmen’s face as she leapt up to hug him.

And that was when Madison saw the telltale bulge at the back of Carmen’s dress. A mike. She turned quickly toward the far end of the row. Sure enough, there was the new Dana (who’d gotten promoted, apparently) and a PopTV camera, focused not on Madison but on Carmen.

Madison took a deep breath as the information sank in. So it wasn’t going to be some sad nobody doomed for obscurity; Carmen Curtis was going to be the aspiring actress on The Fame Game. Trevor had landed himself a piece of Hollywood royalty—and she already had a film under her belt. Bully for him.

He was probably pretty happy with himself right about now, Madison thought. Well, she’d have to do what she could to change that.

Kate tossed a pile of sweaters into a cardboard box and then collapsed onto the leopard-spotted beanbag chair she’d had since junior high. She’d been packing for five hours now and her enthusiasm for the job was seriously fading.

“More coffee?” Natalie asked from the doorway.

Kate smiled up at her roommate. “Do I look like I need it?”

“You look like you need to be peeled out of that chair with a spatula,” Natalie said, coming into the room and sitting down on Kate’s bare bed.

“Yeah, well. There’s one in the kitchen, should it come to that.” She laid her head back on the faded chair and closed her eyes.

“Be more excited,” Natalie scolded her. “You’re moving to some fancy place in West Hollywood! You’re going to be on TV! It’s like my hippie grandma used to say: ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life.’”

“I am excited,” Kate said. “I’m just resting.”

But the truth was, she had begun to feel more apprehensive than anything else. She was leaving her only friend in L.A. and the shabby but totally comfortable apartment that they shared (with thanks to Craigslist for both) and heading off into unknown territory—to be followed around by TV cameras 24/7. Had she really signed up for this? Was she ready for it in the slightest?

She felt in her pocket for the BlackBerry that Dana had given her. “Keep it on you at all times,” Dana had said sternly. “Keep it charged, and keep it on.” She’d made it sound like the world would end if Kate weren’t at her beck and call. “Maybe you should just get me a radio collar,” Kate had joked. “You know, like a polar bear or something?” But Dana hadn’t found that funny.

“What I don’t get is why you have to move,” Natalie said. “I mean, if it’s reality TV, shouldn’t they film you where you actually live? As opposed to setting you up in this new place and pretending it’s where you’d live?”

“Yeah, and pretending like I could afford it.” Kate smiled. “But think about it: Do you want someone filming you while you burn your toast in the morning?”

Natalie wrinkled up her little nose, looking horrified. “No!”

“Well, that’s part of why I can’t live here.”

Natalie nodded, her dyed-black bangs falling into her eyes. “Right. Plus what else would they film me doing, studying for my textiles exams?” Natalie was in her second year at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, aka FIDM. Every piece of furniture in the place was upholstered with some amazing fabric she’d designed herself.

“Dude. Ratings fail.” Kate laughed.

“So are they going to film you at the Coffee Bean?”

“No, I only have to work one job now since this is pretty much my new second job, and they ‘suggested’ I quit that one,” Kate told her. “They want me working, but apparently they don’t want to highlight my amazing coffee talents.”

Natalie looked skeptical. “Coffee talents?”

“Yeah, you know, handing it to someone without spilling it; being able to foam a latte while making small talk with the regulars.”

“Color me impressed,” Natalie said. “Talking—while foaming! I don’t know why you want to be a famous musician when clearly your true calling is as a super-barista.” She giggled. Kate threw a T-shirt at her, which Natalie then tossed into the moving box. “Look: packed! See how helpful I am?”

“I couldn’t do it without you,” Kate said drily.

“But seriously—what’s it going to be like? Aren’t you going to be nervous? I mean, you have to wear a microphone all the time, right? And everywhere you look there’s going to be a camera. . . .”

“Hush,” Kate said, rousing herself from her beanbag to survey the room. The walls were bare now, and the closet was empty except for a tangle of wire hangers on the floor. The warm breeze fluttered the gauzy curtains she’d bought with her first Coffee Bean paycheck. They had tiny blue guitars and music notes on them.

“Mark said they were going to film you at open mics and stuff,” Natalie went on. Mark Sayers was an old friend of Natalie’s; Kate had gone on a semi-date with him once and found him charming but a little too goofy for her taste. “I guess that means you’re finally going to have to get up on stage.”

“I guess so,” Kate said. There was no doubt about it: She was going to have to get a lot braver, quickly. “Are you sitting on the packing tape?”

Natalie felt around on the bed and then held up the dispenser. “Voilà,” she said. “Have you met your costars?”

Kate shook her head. “Not yet. They’ve got an apartment in the same building, though, so I guess I’ll meet them soon enough.”

“That Madison Parker seems like a real Welcome Wagon type,” Natalie scoffed. “Bet she’ll greet you with a plate of brownies or maybe a Jell-O mold.” Then her tone changed to curiosity. “Do you think you guys will end up being friends?”

“Weren’t you going to make me some more coffee?” Kate asked, nudging her roommate with her foot. She didn’t want to answer any more questions.

The truth of the matter was, the person she really wanted to talk to was Ethan. Even though they’d broken up over a year ago, they still kept in touch. Unlike Kate, who considered her Samsung to be an extension of her body (after all, practically everyone she knew and loved was thousands of miles away), Ethan wasn’t really a phone person. But he was good with email. He liked to forward her really bad YouTube videos, like the one of the eight-year-old boy trying to channel Barry White, or the one with the high school girls absolutely murdering a Kings of Leon cover. “See?” he’d write after hearing about her latest episode of stage fright. “At least you’re not like these idiots.”

Days ago, she’d sent him a note about Dana approaching her, but strangely, she hadn’t heard from him. She told herself that he was probably taking extra shifts at the hardware store before the school year started. She glanced over at her phone and thought about calling him. It was three hours later in Ohio—almost dinnertime. She wondered if she could catch him on the way to his favorite diner, the greasy spoon across the street from the OSU campus. Kate jumped as the phone began to buzz and vibrate on her nightstand.

Speak of the devil: It was Ethan Connor himself. Maybe this, too, was a sign, she thought. A good one.

“Hey, you,” she said, suddenly feeling better. “What’s up?”

“Not much, Little Miss Hollywood,” Ethan said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Oh, please,” Kate said, flushing.

“Seriously—what’s this thing you might do? A reality TV show? That’s crazy, Kate!”

“Not might do,” she corrected. “Am doing. It’s called The Fame Game.”

“Weeeellll, holy shit, child,” he said, faking a Midwestern country drawl. “Little Kate Hayes done growed up to be a big television star.”

She laughed. “Maybe. I mean, who knows if it’ll work out. I haven’t filmed anything yet. Maybe they’ll decide I’m too boring and they’ll fire me and hire some other singer.”

“Hey, don’t start putting yourself down,” Ethan said. “Remember? Confidence is the name of the game.”

Kate laughed again. Between Ethan and her sister, the sports metaphors just kept on coming. She tucked the phone against her shoulder as she gazed out her window, which overlooked the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour Walgreens. (At least she wouldn’t miss the view from here.) She gave Ethan the lowdown on the show, everything from her costars to her own hopes to record an album on PopTV’s dime. Then she sighed. “I mean, it’s so great. But it’s all pretty overwhelming, you know? One second you’re grinding coffee beans, and next you’re signing a contract to be on national television.”

“Oh, you’re going to be fine,” Ethan assured her. “You’re just going to have to work to stand out.”

“What do you mean?” Kate asked, watching a homeless guy trying to steal a shopping cart from the parking lot.

“Well, your costars sound like pretty glitzy ladies,” Ethan said. “They’re used to the spotlight. They’re not going to want to share it.”

“Well, I’m sure—”

“Maybe you should start playing up your rock ’n’ roll side,” Ethan went on. “Get some tattoos. Consider a facial piercing or two. Maybe you could dye your hair black, with, like, a pink stripe or something.”

Kate rubbed her temples. “Um—I think they sort of liked—”

“And be prepared to wear super-tight pants. And slutty shoes—”

“Ethan!” Kate exclaimed. “You’re kind of freaking me out.”

Then came Ethan’s deep, familiar laugh. It reminded her of high school: of football games and study hall and cafeteria food and everything else, good and bad, she’d left behind.

“Oh, Kat,” he said, using his old pet name for her. “I’m just trying to help. I mean, out of all the singer-songwriters in Los Angeles, they picked you. You don’t want to disappoint them.”

“Uh, no, no, you’re right,” she stammered, tamping down the familiar feeling that Ethan’s help sometimes seemed like an insult. “Of course.”

Natalie tapped her on the shoulder and held out a mug of steaming coffee. She took it gratefully. “Well, I should go. I have to finish packing.”

“Don’t forget about me when you’re super-rich and famous,” Ethan joked.

“I won’t,” she assured him.

And she wouldn’t. But as she hung up the phone, she couldn’t help but admit that talking to Ethan had not been the reassuring experience she’d hoped it would be. In fact, it had been the opposite.

“Everything okay?” Natalie asked. “Did I put enough milk in it?”

Kate smiled at her soon-to-be-former roommate. “It’s perfect,” she said, taking a grateful sip. “Maybe you should take over my old job at Coffee Bean.”

“Oh, I’m way too surly for customer service,” Natalie said, flopping back down on the bed. “I only wait on people I like.” She stuck her bare feet up on the yellow wall. “What’s your new life going to be like? I wonder,” she said thoughtfully. “Will I be able to tell by watching you on TV? Or is that going to be just some trick—some PopTV version of reality?”

Kate shrugged. “I honestly have no idea,” she said. “All I know is that I’m due at Park Towers in two hours and I am totally screwed. Look at this mess.”

Natalie popped up, and her eyes took in the piles of clothes and bedding still scattered around the room. “I’ll help,” she said. “For real this time.”

“Thanks,” Kate said, wishing she had more of Natalie’s practicality and levelheadedness, not to mention her uncanny ability to fit fifty songbooks into a box that looked as if it should hold about five.

Fueled by caffeine and Natalie’s assistance, Kate finished packing without having a nervous breakdown. With half an hour to spare, she loaded Lucinda, her guitar (named after one of her idols, Lucinda Williams), into the back of her trusty Saab and slammed the door. She gave one last glance at the yellowing stucco walls of her apartment building and one last wave to Natalie, who was leaning out the window blowing kisses. And then she got into the car and slowly drove away, watching the Selva Vista Apartments, which she’d called home for a year, fade in her rearview mirror.

“So this is the place, huh?” Drew asked, pausing outside Grant’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. He looked skeptically at the flapping awning and the weird mid-century rock work on the building’s front. “Doesn’t seem that impressive.”

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.

“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.”

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