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In the parking lot of Hope Medical Center, the girls were miked and directed to stand near the building’s portico awaiting Gaby’s arrival. The sun felt blazingly hot; L.A. was in the middle of a freak January heat wave, and Carmen hadn’t dressed appropriately for it.
“I wonder if Gaby’ll get some kind of diploma,” Kate said. “My cousin’s kid got a diploma from her daycare.”
Wow. Was Kate trying to sound as dense as Gaby? “I got a diploma from driving school,” Carmen offered.
“All I got was a key chain that said ‘Stay Alive—Drive Fifty-Five.’ I mean, how old do you think that thing was? The speed limit hasn’t been fifty-five since before I was born.”
Carmen laughed. “It’s vintage! Maybe it’s worth something.”
“Doubtful. Anyway, I threw it away.” Kate squinted at the rehab. “When are they releasing Gaby?” she wondered.
“They probably already did,” Carmen said drily. “And Laurel’s making her wait on the other side of the door until Sophia arrives and we can film.”
“Did I hear my name?” Sophia hurried up to them in a cloud of lavender essence and kissed them both on the cheek. “So good to see you,” she said, giving Carmen’s arm a squeeze. “I wish Madison could be here, too.”
Yeah, I’ll bet you do, thought Carmen.
“This is such an important moment,” Sophia went on, beaming at them.
“Didn’t you spend some time in this place?” Carmen asked, referring to Sophia’s own rehab stint, which had begun not long after she’d joined the cast of L.A. Candy.
“No, I went to Promises,” she said breezily. “I learned so much there. It was a fantastic experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
“Any minute now, ladies,” Laurel called.
Carmen smoothed a strand of hair away from her face. She’d forgotten how much of filming was standing around, waiting. Movies were a thousand times worse in this regard, but at least you got a trailer to hang out in.
A long black town car pulled into the lot, right next to the PopTV van. A moment later, the back door opened and Trevor emerged. He gave the girls a nod and a half smile.
“What is Trevor doing here? He never comes to shoots,” Kate said.
“Only the really big ones,” Carmen corrected her. She wasn’t surprised to see their executive producer here. Not out of concern for Gaby, of course, but for the footage. This would be a crucial scene for the show, so it made sense that he’d want to keep a close eye on how it went.
She watched him as he walked over to Stephen Marsh, the new producer, and she was about to ask him if they could start filming before all their makeup melted off when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a flash of red.
She looked back toward the town car and watched, in shock, as Madison Parker emerged from the backseat, in a fantastic scarlet Dolce, looking tan, thin, and triumphant. (A bit overdressed, but still—stunning.)
Sophia gasped.
Carmen watched with grudging admiration as Madison approached them. The girl sure knew how to make an entrance.
“Oh, shit,” Sophia whispered.
Carmen turned to her with a smile. She, for one, was glad Madison was back. They might not like each other that much, but no one could argue that Madison didn’t make things interesting. “Like my dad always says,” Carmen whispered back, “be careful what you wish for.”
“—And once, I ate thirty hot dogs in fifteen minutes,” bragged the blond, blue-eyed guy sitting across the table from Madison at Fig & Olive. “My friends were like, ‘Dude, you should take it professional.’”
Madison flagged down the waiter, who was obviously unnerved by the PopTV film crew he’d been instructed to ignore. “Vodka and soda,” she said, the instant he was within earshot. “A double—and the sooner the better.”
Trevor hadn’t wasted any time getting her back on camera, once they’d settled on terms. He’d come crawling to her in the end, appearing on her doorstep all smiles and promises; she’d simply handed him an envelope from her lawyer, which contained her new, extensive demands listed on four pages of creamy white paper.
Trevor may have put his foot down at Madison’s request for white peonies at every location (hey, it had worked for J.Lo), but she’d put that in there precisely so he would have something to refuse. It was business negotiations with a dash of psychological warfare. It helped that she knew from Kate how much Laurel and Trevor wanted her in the Gaby’s-release scene. The look of unhappy surprise on Sophie’s face when she saw her was an added bonus.
She would move in with Gaby again (in the Park Towers penthouse), do her best not to freeze out Sophie, and do a better job of tolerating the presence of Jay whenever Trevor sent him over. She’d also agreed to develop a romance story line. Not because she was searching for romance—she was done with that business (do you hear that, Ryan Tucker?)—but because she wanted screen time. There simply weren’t enough dates during season one, and both she and Trevor knew it. So: Cue the Hollywood hunks.
Such as Greg, the blond, blue-eyed surfer type, currently boring her to death with a story of the “time he hooked up with Lindsay Lohan” and a bad Jon Hamm impression. Yes, she was going to need more than patience to get through this date.
This documented date.
Madison managed to smile at the drink when it appeared, and then transferred that smile to Greg’s strong-jawed face. It was really too bad he couldn’t keep his gorgeous mouth shut.
“So,” she said, “how long have you lived in L.A.?”
“About two years now,” Greg said. “I moved here from Nebraska.”
“And what do you do here?” Madison already knew the answer. It was the same thing that almost everyone who moved to Hollywood from flyover country did. They acted—and by “acted,” they meant they bartended by night and auditioned by day.
“I’m an actor,” Greg said, putting a giant hand into the paper cone of truffle fries and pulling out a fistful.
“Really? What would I have seen you in?”
Greg paused for a moment. “A few, uh, independent shorts. I also do a little modeling on the side.”
“So, right now, you aren’t exactly a working actor?” She smiled slyly.
Again, Madison knew very well the answer to this question. If Greg had a paying acting job, he would not be sitting across the table feigning interest in dating someone he had nothing in common with, hoping to gain the exposure that
