LITMIR.BIZ

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nerves.

      Own it, she told herself. Own it. The perp walk is the new catwalk, after all.

      She gave the door a defiant shove, and the bright September sunlight that came pouring in nearly blinded her. Or was it the burst of what felt like a thousand flashbulbs? Madison couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that she’d never been more thankful for her superdark sunglasses.

      She walked down the steps, keeping close behind the security guard as he created a small path ahead of her. People were screaming her name. A woman in a jade-green suit pushed through the crowd toward her. “Madison Parker,” she said, holding out a microphone. “How do you feel about the outcome of today’s hearing?”

      Another reporter appeared to her right. “Miss Parker, has Lacey Hopkins offered you any words of wisdom on dressing for court appearances?”

      “Hey, Mad,” someone yelled, “what’s it like to be a convict?” (It was the TMZ guy. She didn’t even have to look to know.) The shouts from the crowd grew more deafening. Meanwhile the camera shutters kept clicking and the flash-bulbs popped like fireworks around her. It was exactly the sort of chaos that she usually loved. Usually craved. (Once a reporter had asked her where her favorite place to be was. “That’s easy,” she’d purred. “Right in the center of all the attention.”)

      But now, in this moment, she wanted to be anywhere but here.

      “Hey, Parker, nice shoes. Did you steal those, too?”

      “Madison, are you going to rehab like your sister?”

      “Madison, Madison, stealing is a sin—”

      Madison tossed her blond hair and held her head high. She took slow, defiant steps to the waiting car. She imagined that the shouts were coming from her fans, the ones who used to scream and beg for photos and autographs as she walked down the red carpet.

      The PopTV camera crew had staked out a place right near her car. On Trevor’s orders, Bret, the camera guy, moved toward her. She could practically feel the camera focusing in on her face, searching for any hint of emotion.

      Of course PopTV wanted to broadcast her humiliation, the same as everyone else did. But at least their version would be sympathetic. If Madison had to exit a courthouse on TV, she might as well have the shot color-corrected in postproduction, slowed down for dramatic effect, and set to the tune of Kelly Clarkson’s most recent hit.

      She reached up and took off her sunglasses. Let them see exactly how strong she was.

      A girl—a freckled, redheaded teenager—came running toward her. “I still love you,” she called. “I still do!” And before Madison’s driver stepped in front of the girl and cut her off, she tossed a single red tulip at Madison’s feet.

      Madison gazed at it for a moment, lying there on the pavement, and then looked up. Down but not out. And then the unblinking eye of the PopTV camera caught a tiny but resolute smile flickering around the edges of her perfect red lips.

      Kate stretched out her legs on the chaise longue by the Park Towers pool and wriggled her toes, admiring the blue polish she’d picked out at Brentwood Nail Garden.

      “I always thought blue would make a person look like they had poor circulation,” Natalie said. “Or frostbite. But you actually pull it off.”

      Kate grinned at her former roommate. “Wow, thanks. You really know how to pay a girl a compliment.”

      Natalie shrugged and popped a grape into her mouth. “What can I say,” she said, chewing. “I was raised by wolves.”

      “At least they were wolves with a sense of fashion,” Kate said, noting Natalie’s colorful ensemble, which consisted of a leopard-spotted crop sweater paired with a royal-blue chiffon dress, a wristful of gold bangles, and a pair of navy Oxford-style flats. (Kate had, with some effort, convinced Natalie to ditch her opaque black tights; the girl needed a little vitamin D.)

      “I found this sweater at a church rummage sale,” Natalie said. “Awesome, right?”

      “It looks designer,” Kate agreed.

      “It’s very Marc Jacobs,” Natalie said. (As a student at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, she knew the names of every designer.) “But it cost five bucks.” Then she poked Kate with an unmanicured toe. “Speaking of designer, are you getting free clothes now that you’re a superstar?”

      Kate laughed. “I wouldn’t say superstar. But I have been getting some things sent to me.” She thought about the box that ShopAddict, an L.A.-based PR firm that repped some of the hottest designers, had messengered to her apartment and which she hadn’t even had time to open yet. It sat next to a Rebecca Minkoff handbag, several dresses from Alice + Olivia, and a pile of shoe boxes from Kate Spade. And they were all for her. To keep. Simply because they hoped she’d be photographed or filmed wearing them.

      “Good-bye, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf apron; hello, fashion plate!” Natalie said. “I’m so incredibly jealous that I don’t even know if I can be friends with you anymore.”

      “Oh, please,” Kate said. “For one thing, you have a huge wardrobe of amazing clothes. And for another, I haven’t worked at Coffee Bean in ages.” She took a sip of Evian and reapplied a bit of sunblock to her nose. All this L.A. sunshine was threatening to bring out her freckles. “You’ll probably always be better dressed than me. I have the fashion sense of a teenage boy.”

      “Just promise to give me whatever you don’t like,” Natalie said. “I’m begging you.”

      “Sure,” Kate agreed. “Come to think of it, I did get this jumpsuit that might be right up your alley… .”

      Natalie clapped her hands in excitement. “Only the truly fashion-forward are bold enough to rock the jump-suit. Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

      “It’s all yours,” Kate said.

      “Brilliant. So tell me everything else,” Natalie said. “I saw you on D-lish.com yesterday. There was a picture of you walking down Rodeo Drive.”

      Kate’s stomach still did tiny somersaults when she heard things like this. Really? she couldn’t help thinking. A paparazzo followed me? (And did he get a decent photo?) “Oh, that’s funny,” she said, as if she weren’t dying to Google the picture immediately. She had spent three hours in front of the mirror the other day, practicing smiles and poses after seeing a few extremely unflattering photos of herself on Popsugar.com.

      Natalie nodded. “Yep. You were drinking a Starbucks and wearing those cute new brown platforms. Can I just say, it is so weird to have a famous friend!”

      Kate laughed. It was weird, weird, weird to be so suddenly well known. It seemed like only yesterday she’d been a Midwestern nobody, working two jobs and living in a run-down Los Feliz two-bedroom, fantasizing about making it in the music industry. And now here she was after three episodes of The Fame Game had aired, lounging beside a beautiful pool, freshly manicured, pedicured, and waxed, and looking at her picture splashed across the pages of Life & Style.

      The Fame Game’s producers had warned her that her life was going to change overnight, but it had never seemed real. Even though PopTV cameras had followed her around for weeks and she’d done a photo shoot and talked to reporters … the fact that she was actually going to be on TV and millions of people would watch her seemed unbelievable. And in a way, it still didn’t seem real. The attention was all around her, but it hadn’t completely sunk in that this was her life now. She didn’t even feel that different. Not yet, anyway.

      And there were even better perks of fame than good pedis and free clothes. Her single, which Trevor had chosen to be the theme song for The Fame Game, had been in the top ten on iTunes for two whole

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