Fame Game 03: Infamous by Lauren Conrad Page A

(hopefully) more interesting than Fawn and more telegenic than Lily?
    Then the blonde had smiled a familiar smile, and Trevor had done a giant double take. That little creature, that punk-rock elf , was none other than his own Kate Hayes.
    He’d about fallen out of his chair. Why hadn’t anyone warned him? It should have been the first thing he heard about the moment the crew showed up to shoot. But Stephen Marsh was apparently still too new to the job to figure that out. Or too stupid, or too intimidated, or something. Either the man lacked common sense or balls. Trevor wasn’t sure which was worse.
    Now he got up and tossed a few punches at the speed bag he’d had installed in the corner of his office. (He’d gotten into boxing lately; it was fantastic stress relief.) Kate’s new hair was going to cause a major continuity problem.
    To make a good episode of The Fame Game , Trevor relied on being able to comb through hours upon hours of scenes from different days—different weeks , even—and edit them down, shaping them into what was essentially a one-hour highlight reel, built around whatever theme or story line he’d chosen to focus on that week.
    For instance, he had a decent dinner party scene from a few days ago that lacked resolution; the Carmen-and-Kate tête-à-tête he’d just watched would have been the perfect scene to attach at the end, since they’d dished about both Madison and Sophia. But he couldn’t use it, because Kate looked like an entirely different person .
    He had to wonder: Did Kate lack all common sense, too? She was usually so predictable. Wherever had she gotten the idea to transform herself into this new Kate? A look that was, by the way, less than one hundred percent flattering. She suddenly reminded him of a Bratz doll.
    As Trevor began to breathe harder, sending bare knuckles again and again toward the speed bag, the realization came to him. Madison Parker .
    Of course it had been her idea—he was sure of it. She was thumbing her nose at him again. Reminding him of her ability to cause trouble.
    He hit the bag harder. Madison’s disappearance had already caused him huge continuity problems. Once she agreed to come back, he’d assumed he’d no longer have such issues. But apparently Madison had decided to show him how wrong he was.
    To make the next few episodes work, he was going to have to pull some major Frankenstein action: cutting here, splicing there. . . . There would have to be some hats and hairpieces involved, too.
    He turned and went back to his desk and sank into his chair. It gave him a migraine to even think about it.
    He called Laurel. “We’re going to do logs,” he said brusquely. “I want a log and photos of every single item of clothing and every accessory the girls wear to a shoot, so if we need pickup scenes we’ll have that information immediately. I even want their nail polish colors written down. This is their job, damn it. I’m not playing around.” He bent a paper clip in two, then pitched it toward the trash. “On second thought, I want the girls to pick a specific color of nail polish and stick with it for the remainder of the shoot. There will be no haircuts. No dye jobs. No visits to Dr. Botox. No more elective procedures until this season wraps. Make that clear to them.”
    Laurel assured him she would.
    “Gaby especially,” he added.
    “I’m on it,” Laurel said, and clicked off.
    Trevor wondered if he ought to make Kate get extensions and dye her hair back to its original color. Then he could film her getting it re-cut and re-dyed. Or else he could make her wear the extensions for the next few months and hope that no one noticed. . . .
    He wondered why, when his more volatile stars finally seemed to be behaving themselves—Gaby staying sober, Madison doing what he asked (with the exception of the Kate makeover)—his supposed Midwestern Good Girl had to go and screw things up.
    And while it wasn’t her fault she’d picked up