Infamous

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She remembered how Madison had moved in with her father but pretended to still live with Gaby. Could she do that? Live here in Topanga, where the air smelled like lavender and eucalyptus and the refrigerator was always stocked with organic salads? Everything would be so much easier.

“So, you guys,” she said, sparingly buttering a slice of baguette. “I was thinking about my . . . living arrangements.”

“Oh, I’m glad you brought that up,” Cassandra said. “Your father and I have been talking about it.”

They’re going to invite me back home, Carmen thought happily. That is so fantastic, because I am really sick of Sushi Express.

Cassandra beamed at her. (She was doing a lot of beaming tonight, wasn’t she?) “We are so proud of you for living on your own. You’re learning so much—more than you even know. Remember that both your father and I left home at seventeen.”

“Yeah, yeah, and you fell in love when you were twenty-one,” Carmen said. She knew the whole gooey, romantic story and she didn’t need to hear it again. She wanted to get to the part where her mom told her she should move back in.

“Anyway, we think that it’s exactly the right thing for you at this time in your life,” Cassandra said. “As much as we miss you, we feel that it’s important for you to be independent.”

Carmen, surprised, looked toward her father. He nodded.

“Independence,” he said. “It’s one of the greatest gifts a parent can give his child.” He paused to spear a piece of chicken. “Besides good looks. But your mother handled that, didn’t she?” He mugged for her, but Carmen couldn’t smile.

She felt like she was having trouble breathing. But she wouldn’t let them see that. “Sure,” she said. “Of course. That’s totally what I was thinking.”

She was too proud to ask them about taking the block off the credit card. She’d have to suck it up. Which meant she’d probably need to take back those Rick Owens boots she bought with Lily and Fawn a mere three hours ago.

It was ironic, Carmen thought. You spent your whole childhood wanting to be a grown-up, and then when you became one, you wished your parents would just keep on taking care of you.

And when they refused? Well, you were on your own.

She thought back to her afternoon with Fawn and Lily and felt grateful to them all over again. Thank goodness she had friends to count on.

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Kate gazed out the window of Todd P. Barrows’s office in downtown L.A. She could see the Staples Center in the near distance, its red lights flickering in the misty, late January rain.

“Carrie Underwood played there the other night,” Todd said, appearing over her shoulder. “Didn’t quite sell out, though.”

Kate turned around to face her new manager. “How could you sell that place out? It must seat, like, fifteen thousand people.” She couldn’t imagine ever playing somewhere like that.

“Try twenty,” Todd said, steering her over to a chair on the opposite side of his desk.

Kate felt too agitated to sit, but she knew she needed to give PopTV “the most felicitous camera angle,” as Stephen Marsh had put it. So she sat down before he could send her a bossy text. (Kate found the new producer totally annoying, and couldn’t for the life of her understand why Sophia thought he was cute. Sometimes she wondered if the feeling was mutual—though she was pretty sure that was a wedding band on Stephen’s finger.)

Drew was seated in the chair next to her, looking oddly relaxed. He smiled at Kate, and she knew that if she were capable of being calmed down, Drew would be the one to do it. He’d brought her breakfast in bed that morning—Froot Loops, of course—and he’d offered his opinions on all nine outfits she’d nervously tried on, attempting to find the right mix of perky and punk. (Luke never would have had the patience for that: Drew was The Best.)

“Can I get you some water?” Todd asked. “Tea? Coffee?”

Kate shook her head so quickly it hurt her brain. She really needed to chill. “No thanks.”

Todd smiled. “Don’t be so anxious. It’s not like you’ve never been here before. Also, Drew—tell her about the beverage rule.”

Kate raised her eyebrows. Beverage rule?

Drew grinned. “Basically, anytime you take a meeting with someone, they’re going to offer you something to drink. And you should always say yes, even if you have no intention of drinking it. It’s polite.”

“That’s right,” Todd said, nodding. “We have interns whose entire job description is Beverage Fetching.”

Kate looked back and forth between them. She couldn’t tell if they were kidding or not, and she didn’t want to be a dope and ask. Todd was gazing at her expectantly.

“Um, I’ll have a water?” she said.

He clapped his hands. “Excellent,” he said. He pressed a button on his phone and told the voice that answered to bring him three bottles of Pellegrino. “So,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Now we can begin. Rumor has it you’ve got a new song I should hear.”

Kate nodded as she pulled Lucinda from her case. Keep calm, she reminded herself. This is an audience of two. Well, plus the PopTV camera crew, but she was used to them by now.

She’d already warmed up in the parking lot outside, so she dove right into the song. A melodic, catchy intro, and then the words: “I never had a day like this / I dreamed about a kiss like this / Whoever said dreams can’t come true / Has never met someone like you . . .”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Drew tapping his foot. Todd’s face, though, was blank.

“All the things I should have said / When I woke up next to you in bed / They didn’t matter anymore / Just hold me close and lock the door . . .”

When she was done, she set Lucinda back in her case and took two deep breaths before she looked up at her manager.

His expression was dark. He hit a button on his phone. “Hello? The Pellegrino?” he demanded. Then he turned to Kate and smiled. “That was great,” he said. “Smart, sassy, poppy. Perfect.”

As his words sunk in, she felt her phone buzz beside her in the chair. NICE WORK, Stephen had texted, thereby breaking Laurel’s rule against unnecessary texts during shooting.

“Yes,” Todd went on, “I’ve got some good news for you, Kate.”

“You do?” Her heart fluttered hopefully in her chest.

“We’re going to have you do a showcase. You’ve got a handful of great new songs, so you’re ready for it. We’re going to give the labels who’ve expressed interest a chance to see what you can do. Up close and personal.”

Kate sucked in her breath. “Wow, that’s amazing. I think? I guess I don’t actually know what a showcase means, but it sounds good.” She glanced over at Drew. His expression was unreadable.

“That’s what I’m here to tell you,” Todd said. He snatched the waters from the flustered-looking intern who’d finally come in, and then he explained the concept of the showcase.

Kate’s mind whirled as she listened. Todd’s management company would rent a fancy rehearsal room, complete with an engineer and a full stage. They would invite A&R executives from various labels, and Kate would perform two or three songs for each group of executives. And, to hear Todd tell it, by the end of the day, she’d have a record deal.

“That sounds . . . terrifying,” Kate said. She didn’t want to be ungrateful, but “terrifying” actually didn’t even come close to describing how it sounded.

“It is,” Drew said. He sounded grave. “I’ve sat on those couches, watching bands perform.”

“You’re going to be great,” Todd said.

Kate looked to Drew. She wanted to believe Todd, but Drew knew her. He understood how she still struggled with stage fright. Even though she had come a long way, she still wasn’t always comfortable in front of a crowd.

“What do you think?” she asked him. “Does that sound good?”

Drew gazed out the window for a moment and then turned back to her. “Sure, it’s one way to do it. But there are other ways.”

“Like what?” Kate asked.

He shrugged. “I mean, personally? I think you should keep playing around town and building up your confidence. And I think you should have another handful of songs. You should have more of a demo album. Something to send to the A&R guys.”

Todd exhaled loudly. “So it can sit in a stack of four million other demo albums? No, they need to see Kate. I mean, look at her! Those blue eyes! That smile! They’re going to love her.”

Kate flushed. “I don’t know about that,” she said, then gave a nervous giggle.

“Well, you can think on it,” Todd said, looking pointedly and perhaps somewhat angrily at Drew, “but don’t think too long. In this business you have to strike while the iron’s hot!”

“I know,” Kate said. “I’d hate to miss my chance, but I also want to do this right. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

Todd said to Drew, “See? Looks and brains. I mean, come on, Drew, you think she’s the bee’s knees. Why won’t everyone else? Don’t hide her light under a bushel. Remember: Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

Kate wondered if Todd was going to bust out any more clichés. Apparently, Drew had the same thought.

“I’m more the ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ type,” he said. “She has solid interest from two mid-sized labels. I don’t know that she should chase them off by going after the big guns with a showcase. But Kate, the decision is yours. Just remember, you only get one chance at a first impression.”

Kate bit her lip and knocked her toes against the leg of Todd’s desk. Should she do the showcase? Take the risk?

Her phone buzzed again. YES YES YES, Stephen had written.

Of course PopTV would want her to agree to it—a showcase would make for a much more exciting story line. They probably already had the space scouted and cleared.

She could almost imagine Trevor rubbing his hands together in excitement. Either she’d do great and get signed to a record label, which would majorly raise her profile—or else she’d utterly bomb, and then Trevor could make it a centerpiece of a “heartbreaking, bittersweet” (or some other BS) episode of The Fame Game.

She knew she owed it to her producers to say yes. She owed it to herself to do what was right for her career.

She stared down at her feet in their new Belle by Sigerson Morrison booties. Why should those things be mutually exclusive? If Todd said she was ready, shouldn’t she listen to him? That was what she was paying him for, after all. As amazing as Drew had been, he was just an intern. He still had a lot to learn about the music business. They both did.

She set her jaw. This was her career. Her life. She couldn’t keep sitting on the sidelines. “I say we go for it.”

She smiled at her decision and turned to Drew.

He looked significantly less pleased.

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Carmen fished a leather Gucci key chain from the bottom of her oversized purse and let herself into Luke’s cozy Venice bungalow. Then she dropped down on the worn olive-green couch and exhaled a sigh of relief. She was blissfully alone.

She hadn’t exactly jumped at the opportunity to keep an eye on Luke’s house while he was filming abroad. Even though she really liked him, and kind of owed him for letting her crash there, she didn’t like the idea of driving all that way to visit an empty house. (If he’d been lying in bed, waiting for her—that would have been a different story.) But back then Carmen hadn’t known that she’d be living with a couple who were currently in the most annoyingly lovey stage of their relationship, either. So in a way, Luke’s house had become something of a refuge.

Earlier that afternoon, when Drew came in after class and went straight to the refrigerator as if he had stocked it himself, and when Kate had hurried in and wrapped herself around Drew as if she hadn’t seen him in weeks, Carmen piped up and said: See ya! Gotta check on Luke’s!

So here she was, grateful for silence and solitude.

Missing Luke. Wondering how the filming was going, and if he was thinking about her as much as she was thinking about him. . . .

And wondering if she could live here instead of at her parents’, while pretending to still live with Kate and Drew. Was there any way Trevor would go for it? If not, could she hide it from him? There was no way he could know where she was all the time. (Though with the caravan of paparazzi that routinely followed her each day he’d quickly catch on.)

Carmen got up and poured herself a glass of water in the kitchen, and then gave some to the potted succulents by the sink (miniature jade plants, a cactus with a strange red protrusion on top, and a sad-looking aloe). She remembered eating breakfast with Luke as the sun poured in through the window. How he’d smile at her, all sleepy and rumpled. How the air held the delicious smell of coffee, and how sometimes the ocean breeze came whistling through the eaves. And how she’d smile back at him, still a little bit shy, and the next thing she knew he’d be pulling her onto his lap, his warm hands finding the buttons on her shirt. . . .

Carmen took a gulp of water. Those were the days, she thought, and she wished they could have lasted longer. Maybe the two of them could have figured out what was going on between them. As things stood now, they weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, but they weren’t not boyfriend and girlfriend. They were in a weird Limbo Land, which was a fine enough place to be when they were both on the same continent, but it got lonely with him thousands of miles away.

She knew it was good for Luke’s career, but she really wished he hadn’t booked that part last minute and jetted halfway across the world.

For the next three months.

Maybe part of the problem was that she didn’t have anything to do with herself lately. Not that filming The Fame Game wasn’t work—it was—but there was nothing else on her iCal but lunch dates and salon appointments. She’d gotten used to the crazy hours of movie shoots, and now that she wasn’t on set, the days seemed long and empty. Especially with Luke gone, and with Krew in her face all the time.

But she wasn’t ready to dive into another project, especially because she wasn’t finding the perfect Next Thing. She’d turned down a role in a romantic comedy because she’d hated the director’s previous movie, as well as a part in an animated feature because she felt it was too small. After all, she’d just starred in a guaranteed blockbuster. No more supporting roles for this girl.

These were, to use her mother’s term, “Champagne problems.” Problems someone like Fawn would kill to have. Which was why Carmen didn’t talk to her about them much: Fawn would try to be supportive and understanding, but as a person whose most recent job was the voice-over for an embarrassing tampon commercial, there would be limits to her sympathy. Carmen could imagine her staring in disbelief: You turned down a role in an Actual Movie? she’d shriek.