Starstruck (13 page)

The room was silent. And then, as the door shut behind her, Madison heard Gaby say, “Ohhh … these are Cartier!”

“I think you should write a song about working in a restaurant,” said Brad, one of Stecco’s line cooks. Then, to the tune of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know,” he warbled, “Now you’re just some parsley that I used to chop. SOME PARSLEY!”

Kate laughed as she stood at the giant stainless steel sink, trying to scrub tiny pieces of that very herb out from under her fingernails. “Oh, I’m sure that’d be a huge hit,” she said, reaching for the nailbrush. “Now you’re just some chicken that I used to roast,” she sang. “SOME CHICKEN!”

Brad made a faux serious face. “Totally,” he said. “Girl, you can be a star.”

“I’ll take that into consideration,” she said as the final bits of parsley swirled down the drain. “Meanwhile, I hope that you have loads of fun here. I’m done for the night.” She dried her hands and headed for the door that led to the back alley.

“You sure you don’t want to meet up with us later?” Brad yelled to her as she left. “We’re going to Birds.”

“I’ve got a gig,” she called back. “But thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

Too soon
, she thought. Her next shift was the day after tomorrow—a day she’d hoped to spend with Lucinda and a pad of paper, working on another new song.

Her legs hurt from standing for six hours straight, and she’d cut her fingers twice chopping parsley. Though she liked Brad, as well as most of Stecco’s other employees, Kate did not enjoy working at the restaurant. (And that was putting it mildly.) She wished that Trevor had let her quit Stecco instead of the Coffee Bean—pulling shots was so much easier than dealing with celebrity diners and stoned busboys.

But, come to think of it, why couldn’t she have just quit both? Why did she have to be the only person on
The Fame Game
who had an actual menial job? Gaby’s
After Dark
duties were a joke, though her endless aesthetician appointments practically counted as part-time employment. Sure, Carmen was working, but on a huge future blockbuster, so that didn’t compare. Madison had her community service, but that was court ordered.

Kate, meanwhile, had been working steadily since she was fourteen years old. Her first gig: babysitting her next-door neighbor’s twins, who were undeniably spawns of Satan. Her second: selling hot dogs at the Columbus Zoo. Her third: delivering pizzas in her used Toyota Camry. Or was that her fourth? And then there were those ill-fated months she’d spent as a Denny’s hostess....

Whatever. The point was, she’d worked a lot, while certain other people simply sat back and waited for fortune and fame to be served to them on a silver platter. (Which would match the silver spoon that Carmen was born with in her mouth …)

The last time she and Trevor had spoken, she’d told him that she was going to quit Stecco. Because where, in her
Fame Game
contract, did it say she needed to work in a restaurant? She certainly didn’t need the eight bucks an hour anymore. But Trevor had shaken his head. “You’re our ‘everygirl.’ With your story line, we’re highlighting the economic pressures faced by young people.”

“I don’t want to be your token member of the middle class,” she’d retorted.

“But you are,” Trevor had said. “And you’re going to stay that way.”

She wouldn’t let it go, though, and so, as a concession, he agreed to let her cut her shifts. Instead of working five days a week, she could work two. But she didn’t want to chop herbs any day a week, and she still didn’t see why she should have to.

She checked her voice mail as she turned into the traffic of La Brea. She was hoping she might hear from Madison, seeing as how they’d sort of bonded the other night. (Hadn’t they?) But the only message was from—surprise!—Ethan Connor, her ex-boyfriend back in Columbus. Though he and Kate still emailed now and then, they never talked on the phone anymore. What could he possibly want?

“Hey, Little Miss Hollywood,” Ethan said, and Kate could hear the smile in his voice. “I saw that video you posted on YouTube the other night. You wrote a song about me, huh? Do you miss me that much? Maybe I should come to visit.” He laughed. “I liked the line about ‘autumn’s lonely ache.’ It made me think of that fall we took a drive out to Lake Michigan.... Well, uh, yeah. Okay. I hope you’re doing good. Call me sometime.”

Kate stared at her phone as if it might have other information to impart to her. Like: Why in the world did Ethan think that song was about him when they’d broken up ages ago?

But it wasn’t a question she could worry about right now. She needed to forget Ethan, and forget Stecco, and just start focusing on her music. She hummed a few notes of “Lost in Love,” the song Ethan mistakenly thought was about him. Yes, the line about autumn was nice, and the melody was melancholy and sweet. But it needed some work still. Maybe she’d test it out as part of her set later.

Even thinking the words “set later” made her heart speed up. She wished it were with excitement, but actually it was with a combination of anxiety and dread. She took a few deep breaths and reminded herself that she had a hit song and a lot of fans. Just yesterday, Ryan Seacrest had described her as “cute as a button—a very talented button” before playing her song on his radio show.

Yes, she was going to be fine.

You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine
.

She’d been saying that like a mantra for the last three hours, so why wasn’t it working? The panic had set in the moment she arrived at the venue and saw her name in big pink letters on the promotional poster. Backstage, waiting to go on, she’d thought she was having a heart attack.

“Breathe deeply,” the nice sound guy had said, gently patting her shoulder. “You’re going to be great. As soon as you get onstage all your fear is just going to—poof!—vanish.”

But of course he didn’t know what he was talking about. The adrenaline rushed through her veins; her breath came fast and quick. Her palms were hot and clammy and she could feel the color draining from her face. Her heart literally ached with fear.

Then, all too soon, Kate was alone on the big wooden stage, almost blinded by the spotlights. Almost, but not quite. She could still see the rows and rows of expectant faces. She saw the PopTV cameras positioned about the room. She couldn’t see Drew—her lone ally—but she knew that he was somewhere in the wings, rooting for her. She wished she could turn to look. A simple smile would lift her spirits.

She offered the crowd her own faint smile, took a deep breath, and began to play “Starstruck.” Her hit, the chorus of which practically every teen girl in America could sing along with. “Lovestruck, starstruck, stuck in all those yesterdays / Holding on as tight as we can before the bright light shines our way....”

As she played, her heartbeat seemed to slow to match the beat of the melody. And—miracle of miracles!—the song went off without a hitch. When it came time for the final chords, she strummed them happily, gratefully. She’d done it. The audience applauded loudly and Kate blushed, wondering if it might be possible for her to actually enjoy a live performance. Maybe she was finally getting over her stage fright.

You’re fine
, she whispered to herself.
Just fine
.

Her next two songs went well, too. (Her playing wasn’t perfect, but it was just fine!) But then the lyrics to her fourth song, the new one about breaking up with Luke, suddenly disappeared from her mind. And unfortunately they did so right in the middle of the first verse, as if they’d been sucked up by some cosmic vacuum. “Lost in love, then lost without you / I just wonder what leaving cost you....”

Oh my God, then what?

Kate had absolutely no idea. Her heart began to pound again, harder this time. She hummed a bridge, her palms beginning to sweat in panic. How did it go? What came next? Strumming, desperately strumming, she wished for a tornado or an earthquake or a fire—anything to get her off the stage.

She glanced to the wings, as if hoping some stagehand would dash out and pull her off. And that was when she saw Drew, leaning against the backstage scaffolding. He nodded and smiled his big, goofy smile at her.
No big deal
, he seemed to be saying.
It’s going to be okay
.

It made her feel a tiny bit better. Barely.

But she still couldn’t remember the lyrics to the song.

So, not knowing what else to do, she performed a tricky little key change and began “Starstruck” again. Luckily for her, the spotlights, which seemed to have gotten even brighter, made it impossible to see the confusion that was no doubt on everybody’s faces.

When she’d strummed the final chords, she leaned toward the mike. “I had so much fun with that song the first time, I just wanted to play it again.” Then she smiled, ducked her head, and fled the stage in humiliation.

She ran right into Drew, who was standing with his arms open. She buried her head in his big, warm chest, so thankful that Laurel had wanted him to be in the audience.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she said. “That was horrible.”

Drew held her for a few moments before he said anything. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back so that he was gazing right into her eyes. “You were great on seventy-five percent of your songs,” he said. “That’s not horrible at all!”

“But I screwed up so badly,” she wailed.

“Who doesn’t screw up once in a while?” Drew asked. “And just think: At least now, no one’s ever going to accuse you of lip-synching.”

“That’s definitely looking at it glass half full,” she said, kicking glumly at a mike chord.

“Yeah. It is. And this is just part of paying your dues. Getting better. You should have seen Carmen when she did her first play. She completely blanked on her lines at one point.”

Kate didn’t say anything. She wondered why Drew had to bring up Carmen so often. Did he feel the need to remind her of the friend hierarchy—that Carmen, “his” Carmen, came first?

“You don’t want to be just a studio musician, do you?” Drew went on. “Don’t you want to connect with an audience?”

“I guess?” Kate said uncertainly. “In theory?”

Drew laughed and put his arm around her shoulders, leading her past the PopTV crew toward the safety of the green room, where Laurel was waiting for them. (Kate would likely get a sympathy pat from her, too. But it probably wouldn’t feel quite so comforting.)

“I love the fact that you’re on a huge TV show that millions of people watch every week and you don’t seem fazed by it at all,” Drew said. “Yet even thinking about being in front of a small room of people makes you break out in hives.”

Kate wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and tried to smile. Drew was trying so hard to make her feel better, and in a way, he was. And for that she was really, really grateful. “What can I say, I’m a woman of mysterious contradictions.”

He laughed and gave her a squeeze. “You know? I like the sound of that,” he said. Then he bent down and kissed the top of her hair, sort of the way a big brother would.

Madison plucked a lardon from her frisée salad and placed it gently on her unused bread plate. Lately it seemed like people were putting bacon in everything, and bacon was on Madison’s Do Not Eat list, along with white flour, processed sugar, most dairy products, and any sort of crustacean. (Ewww. She dealt with enough bottom-feeders on a daily basis.)

Across the table at Breed, the most recent of the farm-to-table restaurants taking over L.A., Sophie was slicing into what looked like a flattened piece of Silly Putty. Apparently it was something called a tempeh steak. “Fermented foods, like tempeh, kombucha, and kimchi, are excellent sources of probiotics,” Sophie said, chewing happily.

“Fascinating,” said Madison. She had no interest in Sophie’s lectures on nutrition, yoga, crystals, or whatever alternative thing she was into this week. And she was distracted by the glances she seemed to be getting from the restaurant’s servers. Madison was used to attention, but not of this particular sort. It reminded her, unpleasantly, of the looks she got after Sophie outed her on
L.A. Candy
. She kept catching the eye of one willowy brunette in particular, who was staring at her as if she ought to be wearing a prison uniform instead of a Chloé blazer.

“Healthy gut bacteria is—”

Madison held up a hand to interrupt her. “Please just stop,” she said. How come Sophie was incapable of talking about anything real? Madison needed her support! She was skipping her Lost Paws duties in the wake of her on-camera freak-out, hoping desperately for a sympathetic ear, and Sophie wanted to talk about tempeh.

Madison’s phone buzzed in her purse, but she ignored it. She was remembering how, when they were little girls, she and Sophie used to talk and giggle late into the night, tucked into the bunk beds in their tiny trailer bedroom. They’d been best friends and confidantes—for a few years, anyway. Then, more recently (thanks to Charlie’s arrival), it had seemed like they might be on their way to getting some of that closeness back.

“I just want you to be healthy, physically and spiritually,” Sophie was saying. “I mean, you’re blowing off work today. That’s not healthy behavior.”

“I called in sick,” Madison said. “What, I’m not allowed to take a day off from hair balls and kitty litter?”