Pop Princess (14 page)

I stood inside at the front door. Security system! Aw man, the only way out would be either to trip the alarm and wake the household up, or wake up Karl the Sasquatch to help me. No, not that, please not that.

I could see the car waiting for me outside, the driver looking at his watch, annoyed. If he was annoyed, what would Tig be? Shit shit shit!

Oh. I punched 8448 into the security system, the light on the console turned green, and the door clicked open. Thank you, Liam! I un-curse you for your bedroom door slam!

I felt like a vampire when I stepped outside, the sun striking down on me so horrifically I thought my head would catch on fire. I covered my head with my arms and mumbled “Sorry” to the driver, who was holding the door of the Town Car open for me. I stepped inside. At least I could sleep on the way to the recording studio.

Think again.

Tig was sitting inside the car. He looked at his watch. “That's twenty minutes you've kept us waiting,” he said. He looked into my squinting eyes. “WONDER!” he snapped, and my hands instinctively went to my ears to drown out his thundering voice. He took my hands from my ears and was kind enough to whisper, “Are you hungover? I don't believe this! I thought you were smarter than that, thought you could hold your own with Kayla's crowd.”

I untied the sweater wrapped over my waist and placed it against the car window for a pillow. I leaned my head down against its softness as the car moved along the rough potholed street. “Please don't be mean, Tig,” I said.

“ ‘Mean'?” Tig said. “You
didn't
just say that.”

I closed my eyes. Hopefully he wouldn't mind if I took a nap while he chewed me out. I felt some papers land on my lap and I looked down. Song sheets. He wanted me to rehearse in the car! Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“ ‘Mean',” Tig repeated. “Me who arranged to pick you up here instead of at your mom's so you could have your fun night with Kayla. Me who trusted you enough to give you the day and night off yesterday to spend with your pal Kayla when the record company is banging down my door for you to finish this record by, like, tomorrow. Mean old Tig.”

Rolling my eyes at him was not possible, as doing so might possibly have popped my eyeballs out of my headache-struck head. I sighed and looked at the song sheet; I'd rehearsed these songs a million times already, but he wasn't going to let me off, he expected me to rehearse right now. I took a deep breath in preparation, surprised when my breath choked up on me. I sang,
“You and me baby, we were meant to be.”
Uh-oh. Bad bad bad. I hadn't been smoking last night but apparently the vestiges of about two hundred secondhand cigarettes were on my voice. I coughed, then tried to suppress a second cough, but that just made me cough harder. Tig handed me a water bottle; I gulped down a few swigs and tried again:
“You and me baby
 . . .” Okay, now I sounded worse.

Now it was Tig's turn to lay his head on his car seat window. Make that bang his head on the window.

“You realize what this means?” he said.

“I'll be okay!” I said, trying to sound cheerful in my raspy voice. I coughed again.

“No, your studio time today is ruined. I can't let you record today sounding like that. And who is going to have to call the record company and make up the excuses? Me. ‘Oh yeah, sorry, Mr. VP, your newest sixteen-year-old sensation couldn't make it to her recording session today because she's hungover.' No, don't think that one will go over well.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. I knew I'd screwed up bad, but Tig's words seemed harsh in comparison to the crime. Didn't everybody get hungover at some time in their life? And anyway, if I was going to get the “I'm very disappointed in you” speech, shouldn't that have been coming from, like, my dad, not my manager?

Tig tapped the shoulder of the driver and redirected him to drop me off at home instead of the studio. We rode in silence over the remaining journey, Tig sparing me a lecture until we reached the apartment building in the Theater District, a high-rise of corporate apartments from which a doorman was exiting the lobby to open the car door for me.

As I was about to get out, Tig held on to my arm to hold me back. He said, not all father-figure stern but just simple and all business, “Wonder, the car will be downstairs—HERE, not at Kayla's—at seven A.M. tomorrow. You will be down here waiting for it, on time, awake, and in prime form. You will rest today and drink lots of hot liquids. I'll cancel your dance rehearsal this evening.” I nodded, causing my head to feel like a dam was bursting through it.

Then Tig added, “And Wonder, I know you're a kid and you have to act out every now and again—I understand that. But you're a professional now; there are people depending on you. You don't have the luxury to fool around that other kids your age have. That's the price you pay for this career, for a record deal. So consider this strike one. And three strikes and you're out.”

Tig shut the car door and the Town Car sped off.

I love George Clooney as
much as anybody but I was like, “Mom! Turn off the TV already, would you?”

I was lying on the futon on the floor, a scarf over my eyes to drown out the flashing light coming from the television, trying to sleep. Did Mom care? No, she already knew that Dr. Doug Ross dawgs Nurse Hathaway through how many seasons, but God forbid Mom shouldn't relive the agony and the ecstasy again and again on the
ER
reruns all morning.

She said, “Well, I didn't expect you home this morning! I thought you were recording. Why does your hair smell like smoke? You look terrible! Were you smoking?”

I had arrived home and immediately flipped the futon mattress down and tried to slip under the covers for a nap, but no, she had to slam in my face with rapid fire interrogation: What happened last night? Why do you look so awful? Was there a party at Kayla's? Don't ignore me, Wonder Anna Blake!

I ignored her and was dead asleep within five minutes. Not two hours later—I know because the time was flashing on the cable box—she had an
ER
rerun blaring from the TV and my head was pounding pounding pounding. I just lost it: “Mom, turn that shit OFF!”

Sharing a studio apartment with Mom was not my favorite part of the almost-pop princess arrangement. I love Mom almost as much as I love George Clooney but we needed more space BAD. I needed to have a hit single just so we could afford separate bedrooms! I thought of Kayla's four levels of luxurious space and reminded myself to sing my heart out in the remaining recording sessions if I wanted to be liberated from a small cramped one-room apartment with Mom. I wouldn't wish on Mom the heart condition that kept Kayla's grandmother confined to the first floor of the brownstone—and allowed Kayla to party on the third floor to her heart's content—but a few floors of distance between myself and my mother would be highly welcome.

Mom turned the television off. She looked down at me from her perch on the couch, an open box of Frosted Flakes on her lap. “Don't you ever speak to me like that again, young lady!” Tony the Tiger stared at me in reprimand as Mom ate some dry flakes from the cereal box.

And I wanted to say, Then why don't you go out and get a job or do something instead of lazing around this apartment all day when the family breadwinner is trying to take a friggin' nap to recover from her hangover.

Instead I said, “Sorry,” because I kinda was, but when I saw tears in her eyes, I am such a mean girl that I put the scarf over my head again so I could go back to sleep instead of making nice with Mom. I added, “Can you get me some Advil, Mom?”

I heard her turn on the portable phone and hit speed dial. She spoke into the phone like I wasn't even there. “Your daughter is being horrible to me. . . . Where were you last night, I was calling until eleven
P.M.
 . . . You left Charles alone in the house to go do that? . . . Your daughter stayed at Kayla's last night—I think she was smoking!”

And I couldn't help but almost laugh underneath the covers. I wanted to say, I wasn't smoking but I did down a few drinks and I did consider having sex with Liam being I just discovered yesterday who's a GR-R-EAT kisser! Now, don't you wish I'd been smoking, Ma?

The scarf was snatched from my head. “Your father wants to have a few words with you.”

I felt bad indeed but also glad—since I had dropped out of school to pursue this career, Dad had been giving me the silent treatment, not one e-mail or letter, just polite “How are you doing” chatter when he called to check in every week, and he hadn't come to visit us once.

“Hi, Daddy,” I said into the phone. Are you going to talk to me for real?

“Were you smoking?” he said.

“No.”

“What was going on at Kayla's? Was there a party?”

“Yeah, but no biggie. Just a couple people, some of her dancers—they were showing me new moves and stuff.” That wasn't a lie, right?

“I thought you promised me that on your nights off you would be studying for the G.E.D. I'm not letting you off on your promise to take that exam. You're registered to take it in June. That leaves you two more months.”

“Okay, Daddy,” I said, but I'm like, Reality check, Pops! What am I going to do with a G.E.D. anyway? Clearly I am not college material! But this seemed to be the one issue where I could make him feel good about my future so I just lied every time and said that yes, I was studying. I hadn't cracked a single book since escaping Devonport High after the Christmas break.

“Try to sound more convincing next time, Wonder. And be nicer to Mommy. Here, someone wants to speak with you.”

Dad passed the phone and I heard Charles go, “I don't need to talk,” but he got on the phone anyway: “What's up, butthole?” His voice squeaked a little. My baby brother's voice was changing! What else had I missed?

“Same ole, frog face,” I said. “Why aren't you in school today?”

“Spring break.”

“Oh. Then why don't you come visit us. New York is really cool, you'll like it.”

“What's so cool about it?”

Honestly, I had no idea. Its original main attraction to me had been that it wasn't Devonport. The coolest thing I had seen so far had been a private dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman and the inside of Liam's room at Kayla's house.

I answered, “Well, I'm here, and I can try to be cool?”

“Good luck with that, pop princess sellout,” Charles said. He was kidding—he said it in a cute way—but also he was kinda not and the comment stung. Maybe he knew, too, because he added, “Henry came by, asking for you. I don't know why he even bothers with you, you don't even notice him. Like, are you so busy and important now that you can't even remember to stay in touch with your old buddy Science Project? Anyway, are you going to come home and visit us soon?”

“Doubt I'll have time.” I almost hung up the phone on my baby brother. Like I needed him lecturing me about Science Project. I had a full-time
career
going on now—I barely had time to check e-mails, much less make chatty phone calls back home.

“Well, stop being mean to Mom and put her back on the phone so I can talk to her.”

I handed the phone back to Mom. She started crying again. “I miss you so much, honey,” and “A girl asked you to a dance?” and then “Of course I'm coming to see you soon.” I knew she was thinking what I had been thinking—Charles's life was going on without us, and we weren't there to see it.

I swallowed the two Advils that Mom had placed on my pillow while I was talking to Dad, and dozed back to sleep. When I woke up, Mom was gone. She'd left a note on the coffee table—
Went out for a walk, back soon, Mom.
Not “Love, Mom,” just “Mom.”

My head was feeling better. It was three in the afternoon already; I'd lost almost the whole day. Except for the hangover part, it had been nice not to work all day! I took a shower, then flopped down on the couch to watch TV. I was home to watch
South Coast!
How long had it been since I'd had that simple pleasure?

But then Mom barged back in. “Turn the TV off, Wonder.” Mom said to turn the TV off? Either she'd just had a lobotomy, or something was very wrong. I clicked the TV off and Mom sat down next to me. She took a container out of a paper bag and handed it to me—hot soup.

She said, “Kayla's grandmother and I had a talk last night. They have offered for you to stay with them at Kayla's if you'd like. This apartment is obviously getting too small for the two of us, and I feel kind of useless here anyway—you're working round the clock, I barely see you, you don't seem to even want me around—”

“That's not true, Mom!” I said. I wondered why I was defending our situation—because I really did want her around, or because I felt guilty that if I was honest with myself, I knew I didn't need her here any longer?

Mom played with a strand of my wet hair in that Mom kind of way. She said, “Thank you for saying that, sweetie. But let's face facts—Tig takes care of making sure you get to dance or voice class or the studio, you'll be leaving to go on tour in less than two months, and you'll be gone all summer. I'm just dead weight here.” Mom tugged at the elastic on her pants. “And I think I've gained ten more pounds just sitting around waiting for you during your classes or waiting for you to come home from the studio.”

I said, “But you could get a job here or take classes or something! You don't need to wait around on me. You're in New York City! Rumor is there's lots of exciting things to do here. You should do something for
you.”

“Wonder, I will stay here if you want me to, if you feel like you want me here with you. But I can see that for all intents and purposes, you're a working adult now. You'll thrive with or without me.” Mom was crying now, her words came out in bursts between sobs and deep breaths. “I made a mistake—I wanted you to have this career for yourself and for Lucky, but what that's meant is that I've now lost
two
daughters. And I have a husband and another child back home—and if I'm not careful, pretty soon they're not going to need me either.”