LITMIR.BIZ

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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 the sidewalk and stood for a moment in the sun.

      The camera trailed behind Kate as she headed to the kitchen to clock out. Then there was a ten-minute break while Gaby changed into different clothes, and Kate braided her hair back and changed her earrings.

      She took her place behind the bar, this time only pretending to watch the clock for the end of her shift as she did some sidework. Might as well help out whoever’s on the next shift, she thought as she folded cloth napkins into perfect triangles.

      She worked for another few minutes before Gaby entered again, this time in a pale yellow tank dress that clung to her thin body.

      “Hey, girl,” Gaby said, “are you getting off soon? Let’s go get drinks!”

      Kate acted as if this was a wonderful proposal, and one she hadn’t just turned down. “Totally,” she said, wiping her brow dramatically. “I could seriously use a cocktail.”

      As her filming schedule noted, she and Gaby would be heading to Wood & Vine for happy hour. Laurel had told Gaby to ask Kate about her latest song, and Kate had been instructed to ask Gaby about her Buzz! News gig. The producers weren’t writing their words for them. They were simply suggesting a subject. And a location. And an activity. The producers, Kate had discovered, had a lot of suggestions.

      Once again the camera followed Kate as she clocked out. It filmed her as she brushed her hair out and applied a bit of makeup to brighten her rather tired eyes. Like an obedient puppy, it trailed Kate as she made her way out into the seating area to get Gaby.

      Gaby held out a pair of dangly gold earrings. “I brought you these,” she said.

      Kate was surprised. They were lovely, with cascading tiny golden leaves. “Really? What for?”

      Gaby grinned with slight embarrassment. “I bought two pairs by mistake,” she said.

      Kate raised her eyebrows. Was Gaby so mentally challenged that she would buy the same pair of earrings twice? “How come?” she asked.

      “Well, I thought I lost them,” Gaby explained. “And they were my favorite, so I bought a new pair. And then I found the old pair in my jewelry box.”

      “Such a strange place for a pair of earrings,” Kate remarked.

      “I know, right?” Gaby said, without any apparent irony.

      Kate swapped her earrings once more. “I love them,” she said sincerely. “Thank you.”

      “No sweat,” Gaby said. She stood and linked her arm through Kate’s. “Now let’s go get drinks and find cute guys.”

      Kate and Gaby sat at the bar at Wood & Vine. Kate had ordered a French 75, and after a few sips she already felt it was going to her head, so she asked for a cheese plate, thinking that it’d help soak up some of the Champagne.

      “A cheese plate?” Gaby said, after the bartender had taken the order. “You live dangerously.”

      “What do you mean?” Kate asked. “What’s dangerous about cheese?” She thought of Jack, one of her coworkers at Stecco, who’d just come back from a two-week illness after eating strawberries tainted with E. coli. Had there been some cheese-related outbreak of salmonella or botulism or something?

      “The saturated fat,” Gaby whispered. “That’s what’s dangerous.”

      Kate couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. “God, Gaby, I thought you were talking about a food-borne illness.”

      Gaby’s expression was still serious. “Obesity is a food-borne illness, Kate.” She took a sip of her cocktail and then a sip of ice water. Drinking a pint of ice water, she’d told Kate, burned fifteen calories.

      Wow, Kate thought. Just wow.

      Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember ever seeing Gaby eat. Certainly not at their “impromptu” dinner party for the benefit of the PopTV cameras, but not any other time, either. When the rest of the girls sat around eating popcorn or chips and salsa, Gaby drank ice water and chewed gum. No wonder she was so thin. And with those fake breasts? She looked like a twig with two cantaloupes attached to it.

      Now you sound like Madison, Kate chided herself. Be nice.

      “I don’t think a bite of Brie will make you—or anyone—obese,” Kate pointed out.

      Gaby looked unconvinced. “I’ll stick to drinking my calories,” she said.

      “Suit yourself.” Kate smeared a slab of a goat’s milk double cream onto a cracker and took a delicious, rich bite. She knew Trevor would love it if she confronted Gaby about her eating habits on-camera, but she wasn’t up for it. For one thing, it was possible Gaby ate when no one was around because she couldn’t help chewing with her mouth open or something; also, it was private business. And Kate was sensitive to that aspect of the matter, since she was involved in some private business of her own with Luke Kelly.

      “So,” Gaby said, “how is that new song of yours coming? The one you played for us the other week?”

      Kate had already given some thought to how she’d answer. Would she play the role of the inspired and hopeful singer-songwriter, the TV-ready Next Big Thing? Or should she confess that she’d been so turned upside down by her new life that she was having a hard time writing about anything? She hadn’t decided. Honesty came naturally to her, but in this case she was pretty sure that Trevor would prefer the fiction. (Another strike against “reality” in reality TV.)

      She took a sip of her drink to buy herself a moment. Pause. “It’s coming along really well,” she heard herself say.

      “I can’t wait to hear it,” Gaby said. “What’s it called again?”

      “‘Lonely

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