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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.
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“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.”
