Starstruck (14 page)

Sophie shrugged. “All I’m saying is that you might want to consider a change in diet—”

Madison slapped her own forehead in frustration. “Why is it impossible to have a normal conversation with you, Sophie? Can you quit with the bullshit for, like, five seconds, so that we can discuss the fact that our father betrayed us again? And that I am the only one who seems to be suffering because of it?”

Sophie visibly bristled. “You didn’t have to take the fall for him,” she said. “That was your own genius idea.”

Now that sounded a little more like the Sophie that Madison was familiar with.

Madison pushed at a piece of hard-boiled egg with her fork. “I’m just saying, I could use your support. I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this.”

“And how would you like me to support you, sister?”

Madison sighed. “You could start with some empathy,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve learned about that in your Buddhist spirituality classes or whatever. Also”—and this mattered more than empathy, frankly—“you could help me get back a little camera time.”

A small smile flickered on Sophie’s lips. “And how would I do that? It’s not like Trevor consults me when he’s drawing up the shooting schedule. He thinks about who he wants to see on-camera, and then he films that person. It’s as simple as that. I’ve just been lucky enough to be on his mind a lot lately.”

“I’m sure you are,” Madison said. “All I’m asking you to do is spread that luck around to your favorite sibling.”

“Hmm,” Sophie replied. Then she closed her eyes and breathed slowly in and out for half a minute.

Madison drummed her fingertips on the table. What the hell was Sophie doing?

Sophie opened her eyes and took one more deep breath. “I actually wanted to talk to you about that,” she said. “It’s just … well, I hate to add to your problems, Maddy. But since we’re on the subject, I think you should know that Trevor’s kind of questioning your commitment to the show right now.” She paused, frowning with concern. “He might be a little angry with you.”

Madison felt the breath catch in her throat. She knew that there would be fallout from storming out of the shoot last night. And here it was. The price for standing up for herself was Trevor’s wrath. “So I lost my temper yesterday,” she said. “I apologized to Gaby already. I mean, getting mad at her for being dumb is like getting mad at the sky for being blue.”

But Sophie didn’t laugh. “Maybe you ought to apologize to Trevor, too.”

Madison stared down at her hands. Her nail polish was beginning to chip off; she needed a manicure. Badly. And for the first time since she could remember, she couldn’t really afford one. “You know what?” she said. “Screw Trevor.”

Sophie shrugged. “It’s your funeral. I hope you like your newfound anonymity.” She held out her fork. “Are you sure you don’t want to try a bite of tempeh?”

Madison glanced around the restaurant and once again caught the eye of the brunette server. A table of young men and women also kept looking in her direction. She held her head a little bit higher. “I’m not anonymous—I’m infamous. And fame is fame. Right?”

“I don’t know, Madison.” Her sister looked up at the ceiling, then directly at her. “Listen, I hate to do this when you’re in such a low place—I can feel how negative your energy is—but … I can’t film with you anymore.”

“What?” Madison said. “What do you mean?”

“I just don’t think you’re good for my image right now,” Sophie continued. “I need to be around people who are a more positive influence.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’m in a sensitive place right now,” Sophie said. “Both in my career and in my emotional journey.”

“Your career? What exactly is that again?” Madison’s fork and knife clattered to the table. “You are so unbelievably selfish,” she whispered.

Sophie only blinked her lovely blue eyes. “I hope someday you’ll understand,” she said. Then she smiled wistfully and stuck a piece of tempeh in her mouth.

When Madison got home, the apartment was empty—and yet it was far from quiet. The next-door neighbors were having a party again. She sighed. She could hear muffled shouts and bursts of laughter through the wall, which annoyed her. Then someone turned up the stereo, and all Madison could hear was the thumping bass of Maroon 5. Even more perturbed, she retreated into her room, shutting the door behind her.

Her bedroom had always been her refuge. Even when she had to share one with Sophie in the Wardell family trailer, she’d kept her half of it perfectly neat and tidy. She’d saved her pennies in order to buy a pretty comforter from Sears, and in the spring and summer she’d always placed a vase of fresh wildflowers on her windowsill.

Her bedroom now was a decorator’s dream: walls covered with pale blue vintage wallpaper and contrasted with vibrant pink accessories (her favorites: the matching end tables on either side of her California king bed) and lacquered white accents. The color scheme was bold and glamorous—perfect for someone like Madison.

She’d missed this room, she realized. Living with Charlie had been great (while it lasted), but the furniture and décor she’d rented had never been her style.

She sank down onto the tufted chaise longue and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to let her anger and frustration diffuse. Letting the peace and cleanliness of the room calm her.
Relax
, she thought.
(That ungrateful brat.) No—stop thinking that. Relax. (That faux hippie bitch.) Relax. Like Sven said: breathe
.

Her phone buzzed again, reminding her of the various calls she’d already ignored. The screen showed an unknown number. Was it someone from Luxe, checking to make sure her next payment was coming on time? Was it Andy Marcus, Esq., wondering whether or not she was going to pay the remainder of her bill? Or was it someone from the shelter making sure she was going to show up in the morning? Whoever it was, she didn’t want to talk. She let that call go to voice mail, too.

Then she noticed, propped on her windowsill, a legal-sized envelope with her name on it. Next to it was a note from Gaby (
At The Vilige Idiot for happy hour. Come on over!!!! XOXOXO
). Madison crumpled up the note and tossed it into the silver-plated trash can in the corner. She didn’t want to go to happy hour. If she’d thought that spending time with people would make her feel better, her lunch with Sophie had proved otherwise.

She gazed at the manila envelope. Was Luxe calling her
and
sending her letters? She sighed again. (She’d been doing a lot of that lately.) As much as she’d like to vanish, she should probably just deal. With all of it.

She decided to listen to the voice mails first. There was one from Laurel, saying she needed to talk about her shooting schedule, since there were changes Trevor wanted her to be aware of.
Great
, Madison thought. Because lately, very few of the changes in her life had been good.

Then there was a message from Kate. “Hey, girl,” Kate said. “Heard about your little blowup with Gaby. If it makes you feel any better, my show sucked, too. Call me if you want to commiserate. Talk to you soon....”

The final message confused Madison at first. There was the sound of music in the background, and a murmur of voices. Then came Ryan’s voice: “Oh, hello, Madison. I guess you’re too sick to pick up the phone. Well. I just called to say that I hope you’re feeling better enough tomorrow to come do your job....”

She gritted her teeth. What, she wasn’t allowed to take a day off? Why couldn’t anyone leave her alone? She was doing the best she could.

Madison hung up the phone and set it on the windowsill beside the envelope. Might as well see what pleasure that was going to bring, she thought, and reached for it.

But inside the envelope was not a bill or a threatening letter from Luxe: It was a DVD, with a Post-it stuck to it.

Madison didn’t like to be reminded of the movie. At Trevor’s insistence, she’d auditioned for a part, bombed completely, and been pity-cast as someone who spoke one line and then died. She hadn’t heard anything about the role since, though, and she wondered if she’d been cut before she even had a chance to walk on set.

She got up, propped herself up against a bunch of pillows on her bed, and slipped the disc into the slot on her laptop. For three minutes, she was practically mesmerized.

After watching it, Madison realized two things: (1) It wasn’t going to be nearly as terrible of a movie as she had hoped it would be; and (2) Carmen Curtis was a really, really good actor.

It pained her to admit it, but Carmen’s talent was undeniable. Madison could accuse her of being a Topanga Canyon silver-spooner, a daughter of Hollywood royalty, and blah blah blah all day long—but she could no longer pretend that the girl wasn’t gifted (when it came to acting, at least).

She closed her computer and leaned back against her silk pillows. “Shit,” she whispered, as the message Trevor was trying to send dawned on her loud and clear. Carmen was amazing, and Kate was, too (the way she could just riff on melodies, the way lyrics seemed to pop into her head!).

Carmen and Kate were artists. They were devoted to a craft, and they used their gifts to give something to the world. Meanwhile, what did Madison have to offer it besides a crowd-pleasing ruthlessness and an enviable body? What skills did she possess, other than courting publicity? She didn’t like to think about the answer to those questions. She’d never had to ask them before, and that, she felt, was how it ought to be.

She closed her eyes. “Shit,” she said again.

She thought back to her days in Armpit Falls, and for the first time in years she heard her mother’s voice echoing in her mind.
Maddy isn’t good at much. Too bad she’s not pretty like her sister. Might make things easier for her
. When Sue Beth was especially drunk, she’d blame Madison for Charlie’s leaving.
You weren’t worth sticking around for. You’re just a burden. Every time I look at you, I think about all the mistakes I made in my life
.

Was it any wonder she’d cut off contact with Sue Beth? Success had a way of silencing those old, cruel voices.

And Madison had come to believe that her career would be long-lasting. She didn’t need acting talent; she would create a brand and multiple product lines (clothes! perfumes! lotions! deep-conditioning hair treatments!). Then she’d marry rich and live the life she’d always dreamed of. She had it all figured out.

Maybe now was the time to reconsider this. She was a reality-TV star. Who were the people who’d experienced stardom like hers in the past, and where were they now? Some were spokespersons for off-brand skin-care lines. Some traveled around the country, making appearances at sporting events and county fairs for a few thousand dollars, trying to capitalize on what little recognition they still had. The rest had just simply disappeared. It was sad. But in a way, it was also inevitable. How naïve she’d been to believe she would be the exception.

She sank down farther into the bed, then pulled the downy white covers over her head. No, she was not going to deal anymore. Not tonight. She wasn’t going to call Laurel, or Kate, or Ryan. She wasn’t going to go drink with Gaby. And she was calling in sick to Lost Paws again. Tonight, Madison Parker was officially out of service.

The party was up a narrow, winding road in the Hollywood Hills, and by nine p.m., Carmen could tell it was going to be what Drew liked to call a rager. Even with the crowd still relatively thin, there was a wild, excited energy in the air. Several guys had taken their shirts off—not because they’d been in the pool, but because they felt like it—and by the looks of it, a few girls were getting ready to shed theirs, too.

The truth was, Carmen hadn’t wanted to come. She was burned out from filming; her ideal plan for the evening would have involved a book and a bubble bath. And solitude. Sweet, sweet solitude.

But Trevor had arranged for—aka forced—the entire
Fame Game
cast to attend the party, which was being thrown by a friend of Fawn’s named Ned something or other. Ned’s mother was the last in a long line of Hollywood beauties who now had a skin-care line on HSN and had married the man who had invented the frozen burrito or something.... There was some backstory Fawn had mentioned, but Carmen had forgotten it. Fawn was friends with about a million rich party kids, and she was always living it up at some fancy house in the Hills or out in Malibu. It was difficult to keep them all straight.

Carmen had brought along Lily Ray, her makeup artist from
The End of Love
. They’d become friendly thanks to all the time they spent together on set. And since Lily was newly single, she was always looking for something to do.

“This place is huge,” Lily said now, looking around the room and nodding approvingly. “This is going to be fun.”

Carmen hoped Lily would have enough fun for the two of them.

Though the rest of her castmates were huddled around Laurel, waiting to be miked, Madison was MIA. Laurel, Carmen noted, did not look happy about it. Apparently Madison had had some freak-out the other day while they were filming. She hadn’t gotten the full story from Gaby, but she knew that it wasn’t very smart of Madison to keep getting on Laurel’s bad side. Not that Carmen particularly cared; Mad could dig her own grave if she wanted to. It seemed like she was knee-deep already.