Starstruck (11 page)

Try as she might, Madison couldn’t shake a tiny glimmer of hope that Charlie would understand how badly he had screwed her over (
again!
said the little voice in her head) and would come back to make things right. But how that was going to work out, she had no idea. She hoped he knew what he was doing. But taking past experience into consideration … well, it didn’t make her feel very confident.

“I just wanna throw my phone away / Find out who is really there for me,” Katy Perry sang on the radio.

Madison almost laughed.
You and me both
, she thought.

At the end of a long and exhausting day of laundry, Madison was in the lobby, finishing off a bottle of hand sanitizer, when a woman brought in a skinny, shivering animal with dirty, matted hair and one paw wrapped in a filthy bandage.

“Oh dear,” whispered Glory. “That poor …” She shuddered.

“I found it tied up in the backyard of a house no one lives in,” said the woman. “I can’t keep it—or him, or her, or whatever it is—but I couldn’t just leave it there, right?” She shifted nervously from foot to foot, as if the good people of Lost Paws weren’t going to take this thing off her hands. “I mean, it would starve.”

“It looks starving already,” said the twin.

It was maybe the ugliest animal Madison had ever seen. If a wolverine had mated with a dirty yarn mop, and the resulting baby had mated with a giant rat—well, this dog would be the end result.

No one wanted to touch it. Not even Stan, aka Forearms, who was the person Ryan called to pull plastic bags out of Tootsie the poodle’s behind after she got into the trash.

The skinny, trembling little dog gazed up at Madison. One sad, cloudy eye met hers; the other looked off to the side. As she watched, it whined, lay down at her feet, and licked, ever so hesitantly, the tip of her shoe.

And Madison burst into tears.

“What the—” breathed Ryan. “Are you kidding me? It’s just a little dog saliva. Your shoes will survive.”

But she was already running out the door.

A few hours later, Madison was standing in the living room of Charlie’s former bungalow, with the last suitcase of toiletries by her feet. The furniture, the rugs, the throw pillows, the lamps: All of it was gone, and the rooms suddenly looked small and dark and cold. Madison’s footsteps echoed on the gleaming oak floor as she made one final check around the house. There was no trace of her now, and none of Charlie, either. She’d looked hard, but there was nothing—not even a single button or cuff link that had rolled into a corner and been forgotten.

Before she left, she sat one last time on the porch swing. The bright blooms of the bougainvillea were fading, turning brown, and dropping to the sidewalk. She picked at a fleck of paint that was peeling from the railing.

She was exhausted from her day at Lost Paws: by the laundry duties, by tension with Ryan, and by her bizarre emotional outburst. The embarrassment of being a janitor (and—ugh—having to dress like one) wasn’t getting any easier to take. She was bitter that she had to crawl back to the apartment she’d shared with Gaby in order to get airtime, save money, and get Trevor off her back. And she was mad at herself for getting into a mess like this—a mess so big that, for the first time, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to dig her way out of it.

She flung the paint chip into the yard. (Three thousand a month and they couldn’t even paint the damn porch?) But … what if she were to come clean? What if Madison decided that it wasn’t worth it to protect Charlie, and she just up and told the truth?

For a moment, her spirits lifted. Life would return to normal!

But she quickly realized that if she did tell the truth, there was no way anyone would believe her. She’d have to convince Luxe to release the security footage of Charlie taking the earrings, and then she’d have to explain that Charlie took the necklace, too. And then Luxe would have to admit they lied to get publicity. And then Madison would probably be prosecuted for perjury. And then she’d get more community service—or maybe they’d send her to jail this time.

No, it would never work. Oh God, what an incredible mess she’d created....

She shook her head fiercely. Enough of the pity party. She stood up, checked the lock one last time, then strode down toward her car. She gave a final look into the mailbox and there, along with a cable bill and a mass mailing from a roofing company, was a postcard. The front was a picture of a tree silhouetted in the setting sun. The back was addressed to her.

Madison almost crumpled it up and tossed it into the street. But then, her heart softening, she picked it up and slipped it into her purse. She had no idea how Charlie planned to make it right, and in a way, she doubted that he could. But just seeing his handwritten promise made her feel a little less alone.

The silhouette of a man, high atop the stone wall, looked small against the blue sky. A woman’s voice cried out, “No! Noooo!” as the man, teetering on the wall’s edge, lost his balance and plunged down to the ground.

Smack
. Carmen winced at the impact, and then watched as the man got up from the inflatable mat that had broken his fall and brushed his light brown hair back from his face.

“Oh for God’s sake,” Colum McEntire said. “That blasted pigeon got into the shot. It flew right in front of him. Can someone handle that? Or is that too much to ask?”

Carmen and Luke exchanged a nervous glance. Colum McEntire had a legendary temper—he’d once fired Rio Lockhart, his starring, A-list actress in
Far from Her
, midway through production for some tiny infraction that neither would discuss. (That had required some serious script rewriting!) Some days were worse than others, and today was looking like one of the bad ones. He’d already brought three different PAs to tears. And, as Luke had noted, “two of them were dudes.”

Carmen watched as Luke’s stunt double drank from a bottle of Gatorade and had his nose powdered by the makeup lady. He did not look particularly like Luke. But they shared that tanned, Hollywood handsomeness—which, if Carmen was honest, was just a little bit generic. It seemed like everyone looked like a Hemsworth these days. Was there some sort of farm that grew guys like this? Maybe somewhere down in Australia, a mad scientist was breeding a new crop of leading men.

Luke scooted his chair closer to Carmen’s. “Do you know my double did all the stunts in
Deadman’s Driveby
? He broke his leg in one of the crash scenes and cracked a rib in another.”

“Impressive. If only there were two of you in real life,” Carmen mused, “then maybe Kate wouldn’t be mad at me, because there would be enough yous to go around.”

“Let’s not talk about that,” he said.

“Does the heart heal so quickly?” she asked, smiling. It was one of her lines from the movie.

“Actually, no,” Luke said. “That’s the problem—I think about her a lot. And I start missing her. But then I stop myself, because I know I need to be focused on this role.” He gestured to the set before them, a futuristic-looking fortress pockmarked with holes and craters from the explosives that had supposedly struck it. There was a puddle of fake blood near a fake dead tree. (It seemed like only the roses under Julia’s window were real.)

“My Romeo, on-screen and off-,” Carmen said lightly.

“Romeo is traditionally unlucky in love,” Luke noted. “I don’t know if you’ve read the whole script, but … it doesn’t end well.”

Carmen clasped her hands to her heart. “‘Love is never easy—love destroys things. It breaks hearts. It tears apart families. But it is the one thing that makes everything better. Love itself is perfect—it’s just that those of us who feel it aren’t.’”

Luke laughed and put his arm around her. “If you don’t stop quoting your lines at me, I’m going to poison you.”

“Like Roman poisons himself! How perfectly in character of you,” Carmen said, laughing, too.

It wasn’t so hard to pretend to love Luke.

But Laurel, meanwhile, was contemplating candidates for Carmen’s next fake love interest—one who’d let himself be filmed for
The Fame Game
. She wanted to set Carmen up with Cayden Taylor, lead singer of The Silver Moons. Carmen had never met him, but he’d been in Laurel’s class at Palisades Charter High. He’d recently broken up with his model girlfriend and was—for the moment, anyway—still on the lower rungs of the ladder to fame. “He’s hilarious. You’ll love him,” Laurel had said. “And so will Kate.”

“And so will the camera, presumably?” Carmen had asked. “And he’ll love it right back, I’m sure.”

Laurel had shrugged noncommittally, but Carmen knew the deal. “No thanks,” she’d said. “I’m happy in my current fake relationship.”

Laurel had been undeterred. (Tenacity was important in a producer.) “Okay, well, I’ll keep thinking on it,” she’d said. “We want someone who’ll film. Do you think I should get a Venti, or will a Grande suffice?”

“Venti with an extra shot,” Carmen had said, joking. But Laurel had nodded and ordered it.

“Hey,” Luke said now, squinting toward the edge of the set. “Is that—Fawn?”

Carmen turned to follow his gaze. It was Fawn. What was she doing here? Catching sight of them, Fawn waved and hurried toward their perch on the sidelines of the set, nearly turning an ankle in her Rochas platform sandals.

“Hey, you guys,” she said, slightly out of breath.

Her cheeks were rosy. And, Carmen noted, she’d gone a little overboard with those Kate Somerville tanning towels she liked so much.

“Hey yourself,” Carmen said, hearing the surprise in her voice. “How’d you get in?”

Fawn grinned. “Like a locked set is any sort of challenge for me? I told them I was your new assistant. And look, see, I brought you a coffee! Your favorite: dry half-caf cappuccino from Joan’s on Third.” She held it out.

“Thanks,” Carmen said, touched. “That’s so sweet.” But then she took it and noted that it felt a little on the light side. “Uh, did you drink half of it?”

“I had like two sips!” Fawn said. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Oh! Um, no, of course not,” Carmen said. “Here, have a seat.”

Suddenly the air was filled with yelling, as Colum McEntire read the riot act to one of the extras for screwing up his blocking.

“Wow, he’s … intense,” Fawn noted.

“Ya think?” Carmen asked drily.

“His bark is worse than his bite,” Luke said mildly.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Carmen said. She took a sip of the coffee Fawn had brought her and then made a face. It wasn’t even that warm.

“I also brought you the latest issue of
Gossip
,” Fawn said, having lost interest in Colum’s temper tantrum. “Aren’t I thoughtful? You should check out page thirty-nine.”

“Why?” Carmen asked, already flipping to it.

Fawn smiled mysteriously. “You’ll see.”

Fawn had folded down the corner of the page—and, it seemed, spilled coffee on it.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
, read the large black headline. In the middle of the spread was a picture from the other night, when Carmen and Luke had walked off the movie set holding hands. They were smiling brightly, and they looked, Carmen thought, like an actual couple. Good for them! No one would ever guess they weren’t totally in love.

And next to their picture—of course—there was a picture of Cassandra, looking happy and radiantly beautiful.
Cassandra Curtis, in Céline, comes to pick up Carmen
, said the caption.

“Pretty cool, huh?” asked Fawn. “I mean, it’s kind of a bummer that your mom’s picture is so much bigger than yours, but whatever, right? She’s been famous forever.”

“Uh, yeah,” Carmen said, feeling vaguely annoyed—though at whom, she wasn’t quite sure. Her mother? Fawn? Herself for caring that Cassandra’s picture was at least thirty percent bigger?

“She’s so pretty,” Fawn added. “Wouldn’t you just kill for that hair?”

Carmen, whose hair was in fact pretty much exactly like her mother’s, didn’t say anything.

“Do you think she’s seen these pictures?” asked Fawn.

“Probably not, since she doesn’t read celebrity magazines,” Carmen said. She shut the magazine and tossed it onto an empty chair. “God, I have to call her. I owe her like six phone calls.”

Thanks to her crazy shooting schedule, Carmen hadn’t spoken to her mom since the night she’d just relived in the pages of
Gossip
. Cassandra had probably left her messages, but Carmen had only told her about a million times that she never checked voice mail.

Fawn nodded knowingly. “I bet she wants to talk to you about your lunch.”

“What lunch?” Carmen asked.

“Oh, whoops,” Fawn said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. She made an attempt to smooth it out and then handed it to Carmen. “I had coffee with Laurel and I got your shooting schedule for the week for you. You’re having lunch with your mom on Sunday.”

Carmen read over the schedule in disbelief. Her mom? On
The Fame Game
? That didn’t make sense at all.

For one thing, her parents had specifically said they didn’t want to be involved in the show, even though Trevor was dying to feature them. And for another, hadn’t Cassandra gone out of her way to talk about this as Carmen’s show, and Carmen’s chance to shine?