She just wanted him to keep talking.
“Of all the things I regret in my life—and believe me, there are a lot,” Charlie said, “the biggest is not getting to watch you turn into the young woman you are.”
Madison smiled wryly to herself. From the breast augmentations to the syringes of Restylane, from the hair dye to the personal training regimens, it had taken a lot to turn her into this particular young woman. She didn’t think Charlie would have actually wanted to witness any of that.
He reached across the chipped, slightly sticky table and touched her arm. “I’m so proud of you,” he said. “You made it out of there. And what’s more, you made it here.”
Madison turned away and looked through the dirty slice of window toward the freeway. Why was she tearing up?
He left you, she reminded herself. He left you, and don’t you forget it.
But she could tell herself that a thousand times and still there would be the small, hollow part of her that cried out to forgive him. To love him and be loved by him. He had come all the way to Los Angeles, and he had not taken any money for it. He wanted a relationship with Madison and her sister, and he was willing to live in a shithole like this to prove it.
“I have to go,” Madison whispered. She stood and ran her hand over the back of her dress, smoothing out the wrinkles.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Charlie said. “It’s not a great neighborhood around here, as you may have noticed. It’s not a good idea for a young lady to walk alone.”
Against her better judgment, Madison paused to wait for him, and her heart opened a bit more. Yes, she wanted a father. She wanted a father to compliment her and protect her and worry about her and be proud of her. “Okay,” Madison said. “Walk with me. I’m just down the parking lot a little ways.”
When they got to her Lexus, Madison unlocked it and folded her legs inside. Charlie stood in front of the car, still holding his Dr Pepper can.
“I don’t suppose you have much need for a mechanic with a new thing like this,” Charlie said. He ran his fingers along the gleaming hood. “Drive careful, all right?”
Madison rolled down the window. “I wanted to tell you . . .” She paused, knowing what she had to say but unsure she was a big enough person to say it. “I need to tell you that I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.” She exhaled and the tightness in her chest released. “I spoke to Sue Beth and she told me about the letters.”
Charlie nodded, and then he patted the hood of the car.
“I didn’t know that you tried to see us or contact us.”
“I wasn’t much of a father,” Charlie said. “And I’ve got to live with that the rest of my life. I wouldn’t expect you to really ever forgive me, but I just wanted you to know I tried. It was a poor try, a weak one, but it was all I could do back then.” Charlie lifted his arm and rubbed the sleeve of his shirt across his eyes.
Madison nodded and turned on the ignition.
Charlie took a step backward. “Will I see you again?” he called. “Maybe when you aren’t filming?”
Madison smiled out the window. “Yeah,” she said. “You will.”
“Can I bring you something to drink while you wait for your friend?” Kate asked the woman in hot-pink yoga pants.
The woman blinked at her, smiling vaguely. She was obviously having a very hard time not looking at the PopTV cameras. No doubt Laurel was annoyed, but Kate thought it was funny: You could order people to pretend the camera crew wasn’t there; you could beg them to “act natural”—but as soon as the camera was rolling they stared into the lens like deer in headlights.
Kate wondered if people were like that everywhere, or if it was a fascination unique to Los Angeles. “Pellegrino?” she suggested helpfully.
The woman thought about this for such a long time that Kate was starting to think she hadn’t heard her. It was ten minutes before the end of her shift, and from the looks of it they were going to be the longest ten minutes of her life.
“Um, what about the lemonade? Is that sugar-free?”
“No, but it’s delicious,” Kate chirped.
The woman threw up her hands. “What the heck! It’s Friday,” she said.
Simone, one of her coworkers, sidled up to Kate as she poured a glass of lemonade. “If lemonade is her idea of letting loose on Friday, I do not even want to know what the rest of her week is like.” She smiled.
Kate noticed that Simone was blocking her line to the PopTV camera and that she kept coming up to her to make what she thought were snappy remarks. She also noticed that Simone had touched up her makeup and put her glossy black hair into a flattering updo. So, here was yet another person who couldn’t act natural in front of a camera. Because Simone’s niceness wasn’t natural in the slightest: Her true personality lay somewhere between casually snooty and downright bitchy.
Kate smiled, artificially bright. “I know, right?”
She was wondering how much longer they could pretend to like each other when she saw Gaby enter the restaurant, waving excitedly. She was wearing an extremely short skirt and a demure, long-sleeved top; the effect was nunnish above the waist and slutty below it. Kate wondered who’d thought up that bit of sartorial confusion. Gaby? Her new publicist? Or Madison, trying to be funny? Poor Gaby. Someone could tell her to go out dressed in tin foil and newspaper and she’d ask, L.A. Times or the Daily News?
“So,” Gaby said, mincing up to the bar on her platform heels. “You about ready to go for drinks?”
“Oh, gosh, I’d love to,” Kate said. “But I have to go home tonight and work on some songs. I’ve got studio time next week and I want to be prepared.”
The funny thing was, she and Gaby were going out for drinks tonight. But the PopTV producers were excellent at getting multiple scenes out of single locations, which saved them a lot of time and money and hassle.
“Oh, bummer,” Gaby said, twiddling a piece of her dark hair. “I wanted to go to that new club over on Vine.”
“We can go next week,” Kate assured her. “I’m free every night.”
This wasn’t technically true—she had made numerous half-plans with Luke—but since the PopTV people didn’t know about him, he didn’t officially exist. He’d been surprisingly agreeable about working around her shooting schedule. She smiled at the thought of cooking dinner with him in her apartment, taking another ride up into the hills on his motorcycle, or just lying around on the couch, wrapped in each other’s arms. . . .
“Next week?” Gaby looked authentically disappointed. Either she’d been working on her acting or she’d forgotten the very next shoot, in which she would ask the same question and Kate would say yes. “Well, all right,” Gaby said. “See you later, I guess.” She teetered out to
