L. A. Candy (9 page)

Jane handed the blond girl a small crystal glass full of sliced limes. “Sure. Here you go!”

“Thanks!” the girl said. “We’ve been trying to get our waitress’s attention for, like, forever. She’s totally disappeared.”

“She probably fell into a black hole,” Scarlett said drily.

The brown-haired girl scrunched up her face and peered anxiously around the room. “A black hole?” she said. “Is that, like, dangerous?”

“It’s not only
not
dangerous, it’s scientifically impossible,” Scarlett assured her.

The girl looked blank. “Oh.”

The blonde extended her hand. Jane noticed that she had long, slender fingers and perfectly French-manicured
nails. She seemed very put-together, although she was wearing more makeup and hair products than clothing. Her gorgeous black minidress had a plunging neckline. Jane could smell her heavy perfume from where she was sitting.

“I’m Madison,” the blond girl said. “And this is Gaby.”

“Hey,” Gaby said, waving.

“I’m Jane and this is Scarlett.”

Scarlett nodded to the girls.

“What do you guys think of this place?” Jane asked.

Madison grinned. “It’s awesome. I practically live here. Atmosphere is great, and the DJ is prime hookup material—don’t you think?”

“Madison, you can’t say things like that!” Gaby gasped. She took a sip of her cosmo and accidentally spilled some on her pale pink silk blouse. “Oops! Oh shit, am I going to get electrocuted?” she cried out, swatting at her chest.

Jane and Scarlett looked at each other as Gaby unbuttoned her blouse and studied her boobs with a worried expression. Jane watched in confusion. What was she doing?

Then Jane saw the flash of familiar black wire and realized Gaby was wearing the same kind of microphone as they were. Was Madison miked too? Jane saw that Scarlett had also noticed.

They looked at each other, puzzled.
Did they mike everyone in the room? Or just Madison and Gaby? Were they more important than the others in the room?
Knowing that she was—that they
all
were—still on camera, Jane refrained
from voicing her questions out loud.

Madison’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Jane, I love the color of your nails. Where did you get them done?”

Jane glanced at her hand. “I did them myself.”

“Seriously?” Madison gasped. “They look so good. I can’t paint my own nails.” She held out her French acrylic nails.

“Yeah, Jane is independent like that. She totally bathes and feeds herself too,” Scarlett said.

Madison arched her eyebrows and gave Scarlett a look. Jane knew that look well…that “WTF is your problem?” look. Scarlett got it often.

But instead of saying anything, Madison just took a deep breath and squeezed a lime into her drink. “Gaby and I were talking about doing a beauty day this Saturday,” she said brightly. “You should come. Both of you. We’ll get facials, get our hair done, maybe nails. It’ll be a total glam day.”

“No, thank—” Scarlett began.

Jane stepped on Scarlett’s foot with her silver wedge. “Sounds fun!” she said quickly. “I could use a girls’ day.”

Scarlett kicked Jane’s shin under the table. Jane suppressed a cry of pain and kept smiling.

She glared at Scarlett.
These must be the other girls Trevor had mentioned. Why else would they be miked? So we’d better get to know them,
Jane thought, rubbing her shin, then reaching for her vodka soda and wondering what-the-hell kind of “reality” she’d just signed herself up for.

The next evening, Jane and Scarlett received their
L.A. Candy
contracts at home, by messenger. The two of them went through the thick documents at the kitchen table, over beers.

“Does this make sense to you?” Jane said, skimming the pages. Everything was in tiny print, and in really convoluted English.

Scarlett skimmed through the pages, too. “Uh…not really. Hey, do you know how much they’re paying us to be on this show? Trevor didn’t say anything about that.
Holy shit!
” Her eyes grew huge.

Jane’s head whipped up. “Holy shit
what
? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong! It says, ‘two thousand dollars episodic fee.’ They’re paying us two thousand dollars
per episode
!”

For a moment, Jane felt as though she couldn’t breathe. “Seriously?” she finally managed.

“Seriously. It says so right here, on page twelve.”

Jane flipped quickly to page twelve. There it was, right there at the top of the page. She didn’t understand the rest of the legal jargon, but she understood
that.
“Holy shit!” she agreed.

“Dana said they’re filming ten episodes this first season, which means—”

“Twenty…thousand…dollars,” Scarlett said slowly.

Jane said nothing. She stared at Scarlett as she took a long sip of her beer. Then they sat back in their chairs, not
speaking for a while. Jane tried to absorb this
new
reality. Twenty grand—just for being filmed doing stuff she would have done anyway, like going to work and hanging out with her friends. She couldn’t believe it. She had never made that much money in her entire life, not from all her part-time jobs put together. And of course, Fiona was paying her minimum wage, basically. Maybe now she wouldn’t need to dip into her savings as much, or she could tell her parents they didn’t need to help her out anymore.

Was this really happening?

Then she remembered what she’d promised her father. “Dad told me to send the contract to him, so he can have his lawyer take a look,” she said to Scarlett in a serious voice. “We shouldn’t sign until then.”

“Absolutely,” Scarlett said. “Let’s send these to your dad first thing tomorrow.”

“Perfect.”

“So what do you think? You wanna go out and spend our first paychecks before we get them?” Scarlett grinned.

“Hello, everyone,” Dana called out from the front of the classroom. It was Scarlett’s Wednesday-morning seminar on twentieth-century American playwrights. Scarlett had just seen Dana the night before yesterday at Les Deux. She was not particularly happy to see her now, with the
L.A. Candy
crew invading her class.

“My name is Dana,” she went on. “I’m one of the producers of a show we’re filming for PopTV. You may have noticed the cameras when you came in. We are here to film Scarlett.” She motioned toward Scarlett.

Scarlett sunk low in her seat. This was so embarrassing. She could feel the other students staring at her.

“We won’t be interrupting your class at all, and we’re going to try and stay out of your way as much as possible,” Dana continued. “That being said, Alli will pass around some releases. If you don’t wish to be on camera, please move to the back right corner of the classroom.”

The girl sitting next to Scarlett quickly rose from her seat and gathered her things. “This is bullshit,” she grumbled as she shoved past Scarlett.

You’re telling me,
Scarlett thought.
The first semester has barely begun and I’m already a social pariah.

Scarlett watched a couple more students around her relocate to the back corner of the classroom, each one giving her a disapproving glare as they passed her seat. She totally understood their frustration. She was just as annoyed by the cameras’ presence as they were. Scarlett buried her face in her laptop while Alli, the girl Dana had pointed out, made her way around the classroom, collecting signatures and snapping digital pictures of the students who were willing to be on camera. When she was done, Dana thanked the students and left the classroom.

Professor Cahill moved to the spot Dana had just vacated. “So. Can anyone tell me what Edward Albee was saying in
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
” he began.

Professor Cahill was uncharacteristically dressed up today. Decked out in a beige linen suit and bow tie, he bore an odd resemblance to the popcorn guy, Orville Redenbacher. It was better than his usual attire, which was a pair of baggy Dockers and a button-down white shirt with the inevitable coffee stain blooming across his enormous stomach. Apparently he couldn’t drink coffee without spilling it on the exact same spot every day.

Professor Cahill also seemed to be sweating a lot more than usual. He was slightly more animated in his lecture today, like he was starring in an American play of his own.
Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad English Professor?

Three camera guys had set up in the classroom, one in the back filming the professor, and one in each of the front two corners of the room. The two in front seemed mostly to keep their lenses focused on Scarlett, occasionally panning over to get shots of Professor Cahill and the other students, all of whom were trying their hardest to appear unaffected by their presence.

Scarlett’s phone started vibrating. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket and looked at the screen.

It was a text message from Dana. CAN YOU PLEASE TILT DOWN YOUR COMP SCREEN. IT’S BLOCKING YOUR FACE, she had written.

Scarlett lowered the screen of her laptop, her annoyance growing. It hadn’t really occurred to her before that being on this show was going to be such a pain in the ass. And this was only day two! She hoped it would get better, not worse. Or that she’d get used to it.

No one had answered Professor Cahill’s original question. The classroom was totally silent.

“Anyone?
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
” The professor scanned the students with narrowed eyes.

Scarlett sighed and raised her hand. Professor Cahill turned to her, beaming. “Yes, Ms.—” He glanced down
at the seating chart, as if to find her name.
Ummm…yeah, I’m the girl with the crew of fifteen that took over your classroom with stage lighting and cameras. No biggie, you probably just forgot.
“Ms. Harp.”

“Yeah, well,
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
is about one unhappily married couple getting tanked and abusive in front of another unhappily married couple,” Scarlett said loudly. “So Albee was saying that marriage basically sucks, and that when it comes right down to it, it’s impossible for people to be kind or even civil to one another.”

“Yes, yes, that’s right, isn’t it?” Professor Cahill said, nodding. He ran his hand through his nonexistent hair, in the process of smearing his bald head with blue chalk marks. A few students tittered. “With Ms. Harp’s insightful comment in mind, let us turn our attention to the scene on page…”

Scarlett was barely listening. She closed the page of notes she had been taking. She had read the play twice. She got it. She checked her emails and noticed that she had a new message from Madison, the blond chick from Les Deux the other night. Dana must have given Madison her email.
Note to self, change email immediately
, she thought.

Jane had already responded: CAN’T WAIT!

Gaby had responded, too: SO IN! HEY, DOES KATE SUMMERVILLE LET U BRING DOGS?

Awesome. I guess this means I have to go, too,
Scarlett thought. She wondered if Trevor or Dana—or both—had been blind copied on the message.

After Les Deux, Dana had confirmed that Madison and Gaby were the other two girls on
L.A. Candy. Thanks for the heads-up,
Scarlett had thought.
You could have told us before we walked into the club.

So who, exactly, were Madison Parker and Gaby Garcia? According to Dana, Trevor had “discovered” them at a posh gym in Hollywood. Madison was a socialite from out East. Gaby worked for some publicist. Scarlett wondered what Trevor’s plan was for the four of them. Were they supposed to become insta-friends? Was this what he meant when he said they should “act natural”? Because hanging out in a spa with girls like Madison and Gaby was most definitely
not
natural. She and Jane had just met
them two days ago. Not to mention Scarlett wasn’t huge on spas—or girls like Madison and Gaby.

When class finally ended at 10 a.m., Scarlett scooped up her books and laptop and made a beeline for the door. Fortunately, Dana had not scheduled her to be stalked by the cameras after this. If she remembered correctly, they were filming Jane at work next. Scarlett thought it was hilarious that this show that Trevor had guaranteed them was going to be the Next Big Thing basically had one camera crew—she guessed “reality” happened only in scheduled intervals?

“Charlotte?”

Scarlett paused in the doorway and looked down the crowded hall. It was Cammy, the blonde she had met the first week of classes. She was hugging her books against her huge, fake chest and waving frantically at Scarlett. Scarlett pretended not to see her and turned the other way. But as she headed in the other direction, she saw that one of the cameras that had been inside the classroom had been repositioned in the hall. Damn. It was blocking her exit strategy.

“Charlotte!” Cammy cried out again.

Scarlett reluctantly turned back around. “Hi, Cammy.” She forced a smile.

“How has school been going for you?” Cammy asked cheerfully.

“Um, you know.” Scarlett remembered their last
encounter ending on a not particularly friendly note. Was Cammy so blond that she’d forgotten?

Then she noticed Cammy staring past her, over her shoulder. Cammy tucked her hair behind her ears and stepped a few inches to the left. It didn’t take a genius to figure out Cammy was positioning herself to be in line with the camera.

Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m gonna be late for my next class.” She made her way through a cloud of Cammy’s desperation and toward the next camera guy she saw. She pulled her shirt up, revealing her perfectly toned tummy, and ripped the mike off her chest. She then slid the mike pack out of her back pocket and held it out to the camera operator.

“Can you give this to whoever’s doing sound? I’m late,” Scarlett said as she shoved the pack and tangled wire into his hand.

“Sure.” He pulled his eye away from the viewfinder and smiled at her. He was cute. He had a folded bandana wrapped around his forehead, holding back a full head of light brown waves. She hadn’t noticed him before. She actually hadn’t paid attention to any of the camera guys. They were always stationed behind their equipment by the time she entered a room. She glanced back over her shoulder at the camera that had been blocking her original path. Another guy in his mid-twenties was standing next to it, talking into a walkie-talkie.
He was wearing a faded black T-shirt that showed his chiseled arms.
Hmmm, eye candy…
, she thought as she turned and headed toward her next class.
Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.