Starstruck (18 page)

First, though, she would be getting a phone call from Fawn. Laurel hadn’t told her what it was about, just that it was part of the day’s filming.

She was walking toward the restaurant entrance when Fawn called. “Hey, Fawn,” Carmen said. “I’m just heading to lunch. What’s up?”

“You’ve got to check out
D-Lish
,” Fawn said, sounding even more excited than usual. “There’s a bunch of pictures from that party in the Hills we went to.”

“Really? Pictures from the party?” Carmen asked, dropping her car keys into her purse. She knew to repeat what Fawn said, since Fawn’s side of the conversation wasn’t being filmed. “On
D-Lish
?” She was interested, of course, but it wasn’t like she’d never been in party pictures before.

“Yeah, check ’em out now,” Fawn said. “Love you! Bye!”

Carmen pulled up the website on her iPhone. The pictures were right at the top of the page—and they were horrible. Carmen gasped. Who in the world had taken these pictures, and how the hell had they managed to make her look so awful?

She stared at the picture of the girl with the shiny nose and the double chin, with the cocktail in her freakishly overlarge hand. It wasn’t just the unflattering angles and unfortunate lighting, either. One photo showed her with her arm draped around Reeve Wilson, and in another she’d been caught midblink and looked wasted. If the girl in the photos hadn’t been wearing her new Kimberly Ovitz dress, Carmen never would have recognized herself.

Below the photos was a rude blurb about her looking like a hot mess, and below that were dozens of comments:
Gross! No wonder Luke dumped her
, someone wrote.
He could do so much better
. Someone else called her a cow; still another accused her of being a bloated celebutard.

Carmen felt her throat constricting. Why would Fawn tell her about this on-camera as if it were some fun thing? Why would Laurel have her do it? One of them should’ve warned her! These photos felt like an attack. Sort of the way that the “anonymous sources claim Carmen not happy with Colum” tidbits had felt like an attack. Or the way the “was the break-up really mutual?” items had. Now her bad press was part of the show?

Carmen shook her head as she hurried toward Saburo’s. She couldn’t think about this now—she had to keep filming. When she entered the restaurant, frazzled and late, she gave her lipstick a quick touch-up and fixed a smile on her face. “Reservation for Curtis?” she said to the hostess.

The woman nodded, her face a mask of lovely blankness. “Right this way, miss.”

Carmen followed the hostess (and the PopTV camera followed Carmen) past a living wall of water bamboo and into the restaurant’s quiet side room, which overlooked a courtyard full of fountains and cherry trees. There was a glare from the windows, so her mother, already seated at their table, appeared only in silhouette. Her head was turned away and Carmen saw her fingers drumming lightly on the tablecloth.

“Sorry I’m late,” Carmen said, approaching, trying not to look at the other camera that was protruding from the tree next to their table. Should she say why? Give the cameras what they wanted? Even though every lens in the world seemed to love Cassandra Curtis—for real, she’d never taken a bad photo in her life—she had, occasionally, been the subject of rude internet commentary. Maybe she’d offer some good advice. “I was looking at awful pictures of myself online,” Carmen added.

“Oh, darling,” Cassandra said, smiling up at her. “Tell me all about it. Sit, sit!” She waved for the waiter and mouthed the word “tea.”

Carmen immediately collapsed into the chair. “Someone sent in really ugly pictures of me to
D-Lish
, and they got posted.”

“Darling, you could never take an ugly picture,” her mom said, beaming at her. Cassandra was in her late forties, but she didn’t look a day over thirty-five. People who didn’t know the Curtises—people who apparently lived under rocks or in caves, with no access to a radio or television—often thought the two were sisters.

“Um, unfortunately that’s not true,” Carmen said.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a small man clutching an iPhone appeared at the edge of their table. The camera flashed in Cassandra’s face, and then he dashed away, pursued by a waiter.

Smooth
, thought Carmen, shooting eye-daggers at the man’s retreating back. But of course even
that
photo of her mother would be beautiful.

Cassandra shook her head and
tsk-tsk
ed. “Always with the flash. Don’t they know how annoying it is? Here, have some tea.”

Carmen took a sip of the warm liquid and tried to smile. Despite the timing of Fawn’s call, her job now was not to complain. She’d been given her assignment, and it was to ask her mother about her work. Plus, she didn’t really want to talk about the awful pictures. Or the fact that
D-Lish
suggested she’d hooked up with Reeve Wilson at that party, “only moments after being dumped by Luke Kelly.” Ugh!

“So how’s your new single coming?” she asked.

Cassandra flashed her trademark megawatt smile. “It’s going to be incredible,” she said. “I can’t wait for you to hear it.”

“Do I get to before it’s out and on endless repeat on Kiss FM?” Carmen teased.

Cassandra laughed. “You’re the one who never has time to talk to your old mom.”

“Sorry,” Carmen said, meaning it. “I’ve been so crazy busy.” She had a hard time not reacting to Cassandra referring to herself as her “old mom,” though. She was definitely playing to the cameras with that one.

Her mother patted her hand. “Of course you have. You’ve got a lot on your plate. And it’s all so exciting.” She leaned in close and spoke low and conspiratorially. “Speaking of exciting, let’s talk about your love life,” she said, winking.

This, clearly, was a Trevor Lord talking point. Carmen would have known it even if her mother hadn’t given such an obvious lead-in.

“I don’t know that ‘exciting’ is the right word.” Carmen, who didn’t particularly want to go down this conversational road, tried to steer the subject back. “I mean, it’s certainly not as exciting as a future number-one single.”

Her mother waved a hand dismissively. “Oh please.”

“Right—you’ve had so many of those. What’s one more?”

“That’s not what I meant, darling. I meant let’s talk about you. How are things, really? How is it working with Luke now that you guys have split? I’m sure you saw the magazines. There were so many awful puns about ‘the end of love.’ …”

Carmen had to fight the urge to roll her eyes, since Cassandra knew perfectly well that she and Luke were never actually together. But apparently Cassandra was a bit of an actress herself. This lunch/scene was starting to feel like one of those exercises in Carmen’s acting class, where two people get thrown together and each has been given a direction that conflicts with the other person’s. “Actually, I haven’t seen much of him lately. I’ve been filming scenes he’s not in, so he’s had a few days off.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay?”

Her mother looked so sincere: Was it possible it wasn’t an act? Had Cassandra (who, admittedly, could be sort of self-centered) somehow forgotten that Carmen’s relationship with Luke was fake? Had she disregarded her own rule of not believing what she read in
Life & Style
? Maybe she was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia.

“I’m fine, Mom,” Carmen said.

“Well, that’s probably for the best,” her mother said. “Playing lovers while dating—that could get complicated. So. Tell me, then. Do you have your eye on anyone else?”

“No,” Carmen said, feeling annoyed at her and Trevor both. “No. I’m way too busy.”

“You shouldn’t work too hard, honey. You’re young—you need to go out and have fun!” Cassandra tossed her ebony hair and smiled her beautiful smile, and Carmen could sense the camera moving in for a close-up.

She gritted her teeth. She was so sick of living in her mother’s shadow, so sick of having everyone think they knew her because they knew her mom. She should have changed her name, the way Nicolas Cage did; it separated him from his famous relatives, made him find his own way at least a little bit. (
But then you couldn’t cash in on your name
, a small voice whispered. Not that she had lately! But being a Curtis had definitely greased some important wheels—she couldn’t deny that.)

Cassandra reached across the table and patted Carmen’s hand. “Carm? You’ve got a thousand-yard stare. What are you thinking?”

Gently Carmen eased her hand away. But she smiled at her mother. She was not going to let her mother or Trevor back her into some weird corner that made for good TV. She was an actress, damn it, so she was going to act: act as if she was grateful to her mother for her on-camera support. Act as if she did miss Luke, but that she knew their breakup was for the best. Act as if this restaurant, which was the latest B-list celebrity hot spot, did not remind her of some tricked-out Sushi Express.

“I’m just really tired,” she said. “I’d forgotten how hard filming is. The days are so long, and you’re always running over the scheduled shooting time, and even when you’re trying to relax in your trailer someone’s always poking their head in.” Luke was one of the worst offenders on that front, and he was still calling her “ex-looooover.” Not that she minded the company (and in fact, when he didn’t stop by, she missed him).

“Look on the bright side,” Cassandra said. “At least you’re not moving from one country to the next every three nights.”

Carmen closed her menu. She was going to have the seaweed salad and that was it. “Are you saying that touring is harder than filming? Because if you’re here to support me, let me point out that you are not doing a very good job.” She laughed, but she meant what she said. She was annoyed. Clearly Cassandra was feeling like she wasn’t in the spotlight quite enough lately, so she decided to borrow a piece of her daughter’s. Album sales did require promotion, after all!

“Oh, no, silly,” Cassandra said. “I’m sure that filming is just as hard. I was only trying to think of one thing that might be easier about it.”

“Gotcha. Well, thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Do you want to talk about you and Luke? About how you’re feeling?”

Carmen took a deep breath. She’d write the lines in her head as she was saying them. “You know, Mom, I feel okay. I mean, it’s not exactly enjoyable to break up with someone. Especially not when you have to work with them every day. But sometimes it’s for the best. Luke and I are still friends. We’re committed to that.”

She sounded strong but not cold. All in all, she was happy with her response.

Her mother nodded. “You’re a wise girl,” she said. “You always have been.”

“Well, you and Dad raised me right, I guess,” Carmen said, offering a slightly forced smile.

She was playing the Good Daughter to the hilt. She deserved a SAG award for this lunch.

For the next half hour, she picked at her salad and made small talk with her mother. It felt weird. She was familiar with her mother’s behavior when she was “on,” but it had never been directed at her before. It was the Cassandra Show today, and Carmen was merely an extra. How many times had her mom managed to mention her album
Everything or Nothing
? Oh, only about five. Thousand.

And then, when it came time to leave, Cassandra took off her microphone, graciously said good-bye to the starstruck crew, and made her grand exit, hounded by paparazzi all the way to her car. Only two of them stuck around to follow Carmen.

By the time Kate found parking, she was over an hour late for shooting the latest installment of Operation Eliminate Stage Fright. She could see the PopTV van parked outside of Ocean Park Hypnotherapy, and a small knot of bystanders had gathered, trying to figure out what was being filmed. The PAs stuck with the standard “we’re shooting a mayonnaise commercial” answer to avoid crowds. She had on her new pair of sunglasses, so she was able to slip past them unrecognized.

Laurel and the PopTV crew were in the waiting room, which was decorated with giant crystals and pastel paintings of beaches at sunset. Their expressions ranged from bored to annoyed.

“Kate,” Laurel said sternly, standing up with her hands on her hips. “Your call time was an hour ago. I’ve been calling you. Do you not have your phone on you?”

Kate stopped short. When had Laurel become such a schoolmarm? “Um. It’s on silent. I had a hard time finding a parking spot.”

Laurel took a sip of coffee, grimaced, and then said, “And you expect me to believe that you were driving around for an entire hour looking for one? Why wouldn’t you just call me? I could have had a PA find you a spot.”

“Well, I might have gotten a slightly late start, and there was crazy traffic on the 10,” Kate admitted. She tried to scoot around Laurel. She hated to be reprimanded; it made her feel nervous and itchy.

Laurel stopped her. “Look, I don’t want to have to talk to you this way, but this is your job, Kate, and it costs us thousands of dollars if people don’t show up. Next time you wake up late? Call and let me know.”

Kate shrugged her off. “So I screwed up,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“The role of
Fame Game
screwup has already been taken by Gaby,” Laurel said drily. “Though being late is not actually one of her flaws. Don’t let it become one of yours.”