I know. I drove all the way to Glendale for some singer-songwriter thing, and then fifteen minutes before I was supposed to get on stage my hands started to tingle and my stomach, like, grew a bowling ball inside of it. I took two tequila shots at the bar, but it only made me feel worse. So I turned around and drove home.”
Kate sighed as she finished her story. Not for the first time, she pondered the irony of a person with major stage fright hoping to make it in the entertainment business. No doubt her sister was thinking the same thing, but Jess was too nice to state the obvious. She would never, for example, bring up Kate’s sophomore year in high school, when she waited for ten hours to audition for American Idol and made it past the pre-screening round, only to panic and bomb on stage. (You might want to reconsider your career aspirations, Simon Cowell had said, not unkindly.)
“You’re in excellent company,” Jess soothed. “Think about Cat Power. She was so crippled by stage fright, she could only sing in utter darkness. But then she got over it.”
Ahead of Kate, the Escalade started inching forward. She gingerly tapped the gas pedal. “So you think there’s hope for me? Or am I just being crazy?” she asked wistfully.
“Of course there’s hope,” Jess said. “Like my coach says, you just need to keep dribbling.”
An image of herself holding a guitar in one hand and trying to dribble a basketball with the other popped into Kate’s head. She gave a little laugh as she clutched the phone tighter in her hand. (She really needed to get a headset; one of these days some cop was going to bust her.) “The thing is, I’m sort of stalled,” she admitted. “I mean, I’ve been here since graduation. That’s over a year, which means I’ve got another year to make something happen before Mom comes out here, ties me up, drags me back to Columbus, and forces me into college.”
“But you’re trying,” Jess said. “You made more awesome videos. And didn’t you write, like, ten songs in the last few months?”
“Yes, but no one hears them,” Kate wailed. “I just sing and play for myself!”
Thinking about this made Kate want to pull over to the side of the road and curl up in the backseat of her hand-me-down Saab. The thing was, she’d lied to Dana about what she’d been doing to further her music career. Oh sure, she’d told her, I do open mics all the time! And Dana had nodded, looking pleased; an open mic was pretty much a talent show, and who didn’t love a talent show? It’d be like a mini acoustic American Idol. No fancy lights, no celebrity judges, just some would-be musicians with their instruments and their songs. America would love it!
But of course Kate’s real attempts at furthering her music career consisted of playing her guitar, scribbling down lyrics and chord progressions, and recording bits of songs on her old-school four-track. And that didn’t seem like it would make for exciting TV.
“Well, you’re just going to have to get out there more,” Jess said matter-of-factly. “Like I said, keep dribbling. What about that show you emailed me about?”
“That’s the interview I’m late for,” Kate admitted. She craned her neck out the window, trying to see past the Escalade. Was there construction? An accident? “I don’t know why people insist on driving SUVs in L.A. It isn’t exactly known for its rough terrain,” she huffed.
“Stay focused,” Jess said. “Tell me about this show.”
“It’s about four girls trying to make it in Los Angeles,” Kate said. “It’s by the people who did that show L.A. Candy,” she added, slightly embarrassed. (But also kind of thrilled.)
Jess hooted. “Shut up! You didn’t tell me that.”
“Hey, you loved that show as much as I did,” Kate laughed. “So don’t pretend like you didn’t.”
“Guilty as charged,” Jess said. “I always had a soft spot for Scarlett.”
“Yeah, me too.” Kate had loved Jane Roberts, of course, but Scarlett Harp was her favorite. Scarlett was smart, sassy, and down-to-earth, and she didn’t care about hair or makeup or fame. Or so it had seemed, anyway. But in an interview after she left the show, Scarlett had complained that the producers had edited her life into something that it wasn’t. The real me got left somewhere on the cutting room floor, she’d said.
That line had stuck with Kate, especially after her first meeting with Dana, in which the seemingly perpetually stressed-out woman had grilled her about her dating life (“um, a little slow these days since I’m holding down two jobs—you know, to afford my rock ’n’ roll lifestyle”—that got a smile out of Dana at least), her exercise routine (“I wouldn’t call it a routine, exactly”), her family (“single mom, normal, nice, and almost two thousand miles away”—she hadn’t felt like bringing up her father, who had died when she was ten, but figured she might have to eventually if she made it onto the show), and a hundred other things. If the PopTV people offered her the part, would she be able to be herself in front of a camera? And if by some miracle she could, would they edit that real self into something different? It was a worrisome thought.
“But being on a TV show—that’s totally amazing,” Jess went on. “I mean, you could be a star!”
“Yeah, right,” Kate said, applying a little lip gloss touch-up in her rearview mirror. “Let’s not set our hopes too high.”
“Well, at the very least you’ll get paid well,” Jess pointed out.
Kate’s ears pricked up at this. “Paid well?”
Jess laughed. “Yes, dummy. What, you think it’s like some kind of extended open mic, where you do it for free?”
“Oh, uh, no, of course not,” Kate stammered. The truth was she hadn’t even considered the fact that she might get paid. Weren’t there millions of girls across the U.S. who’d give anything to be on a PopTV show? Trevor Lord could sell his spots to the highest bidder if he wanted to.
Suddenly she felt even more grateful that Dana had stumbled into her branch of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. What if she actually nailed the audition? Money meant being able to quit at least one of her two jobs. Money meant being able to afford an eight-track digital recorder or a new MacBook with a functioning version of GarageBand—or, even better, time in an actual studio. Money meant her mom couldn’t drag her back to Columbus.
“You’re such a nerd,” Jess said affectionately.
“I know,” Kate said. “Believe me, I know.”
Ahead of her, the Escalade began to pick up speed, and Kate was able to shift into second gear for the first time in ten minutes.
“You’re going to do great,” Jess assured her.
Kate felt her heart flutter lightly in her chest. If she could just keep moving, she’d be only five minutes late to meet Trevor Lord. She had made up her mind: Forget stage fright. She was going to rock this interview.
“I should go, Jess,” she said. “Love you. Call you later.”
As Kate sailed through the intersection, she glanced up and saw Madison Parker, probably thirty feet tall, smiling down at her from a giant billboard. It was an ad for Madison’s Makeovers. Beauty’s a bitch read the tagline.
Kate smiled in return. Madison hovered over the corner of Venice and Sepulveda like
