Pop Princess (3 page)

I was just shy of my sixteenth birthday, and I still hadn't kissed—I mean
really
kissed—a guy. I didn't count the awkward and random encounter in the B-Kidz dressing room when I was twelve with Freddy Porter, a fellow B-Kid who went on to become a member in a monster popular boy band.

The Blake family had moved to the Cape to start our lives over. My resolution was that I would have a boyfriend as part of my new life by the ocean, and that boyfriend would be Doug Chase.

Lucky always said I knew how to dream big.

Tig's summer home was less
than a mile from ours. Mom stepped out of our beat-up Volvo on Monday morning and admired the new shingles on the two-story house with the spotless windows. “Wouldn't it be nice to have a house like this?” she asked.

“You mean not falling apart?” I said.

Tig came outside to greet us. The wind flapped his white suit against his dark skin. The guy was the smartest dresser I have ever seen. He had a round face that would have appeared youthfully innocent and kind were it not for those shark gray eyes framed by short spiked black braids. He said, “Thanks for dropping her off, Marie. Great seeing you. We'll call you later when she's ready to come home.” He flashed the killer smile and put his arm around my shoulders before Mom had a chance to protest. She had definitely expected to stay with me, not drop me off.

Tig's house was decorated with frilly, flowery patterns, New England quilts on the walls, and awful lace curtains, and it smelled like carpet cleaner. I guess Tig could see the look of confusion on my face because he said, “The soon-to-be ex decorated the house. Sucks, doesn't it?”

“Kind of! I guess I woulda thought you'd have like gold records lining the walls and big leather couches and electronic equipment everywhere.”

“Soon as those divorce papers are signed next month this house will be fully de-Martha Stewartized. Tell your friends they can come over and spray-paint the walls over this effin Laura Ashley wallpaper if they want.” I noted the walls' spray-painting potential and made a mental note to myself: Make friends.

We walked through to the back of the house and outside to the backyard. Tig led me to a large garage and punched a code into a security system. “My sanctuary,” he announced.

The garage door opened to reveal a recording booth with a glass wall separating it from a recording console room, and a small separate room with a big TV and stereo, a La-Z-Boy recliner, a long futon on a wooden frame, and a bookcase full of CDs.

“Cool!” I said.

Tig shrugged. “Eh, this is really just a PlayStation for a guy who thought he could be a record producer but turned out to be better at managing talent. Strictly juvenile, this spread.” As we walked inside, Tig turned to me and asked, “Wonder, before we start this, you need to tell me now: Are you in this?”

I thought of Lucky and answered for her. “Sure am!”

I sat down on the stool below the microphone.

“Got a favorite song you want to try out?” Tig asked.

I so closely associated Tig with Lucky that I didn't think before suggesting, “ ‘I'm Ready,' ” the last song my sister had written.

Tig looked at me funny. “You're sure?” I nodded. He sounded skeptical, but he said, “That's maybe not the strongest song of hers but, okay. I don't have music on it so why don't you just sing straight out.”

Tig gestured GO to me from the other side of the glass window in the studio.

I sang,

I've known you so long.

We've been friends forever.

You've always been there for me.

I'll always be there for you.

We've waited so long

Now I'm ready

I'm ready to love you.

I thought my voice was confident and sounded good, but Tig stopped me.

“Do you know how you sound?” he asked through the headset.

I said, “Pretty damn good?”

“Nope. You're singing like Lucky. Sweet and innocent, nice. Sing like Wonder.”

I wanted to tell him, But Wonder always sang backup for Lucky. Wonder doesn't know how Wonder sings. Wonder was the dancer! Didn't you watch
Beantown Kidz?

I tried again, but this time was worse. I saw my sister's face on the other side of the microphone, holding the headset to her ear with one hand. Her blond curls hung down her shoulders, and her cheeks were rosy and happy with the joy she found in singing. She was such a pretty girl, especially when she sang.

Tig announced, “I see your feet tapping and your hips rocking, Wonder. I know you have more in you.”

One more time I started,

I've known you so long.

Tig shook his head, frowning. I'd blown it. Now he knew me for the fraud I was, a pretender to my dead sister's throne.

Before I could apologize to Tig for wasting his time, I heard the music to a familiar, and favorite, song coming through the headset. Tig nodded to me and without thinking I just started singing. The song was “Like a Prayer.”

Tig must have remembered that Lucky hated Madonna songs. Lucky's face and voice effectively blocked, I started to wail the song. As I got more into it, I felt my body relax and my voice strengthen. There was an extraterrestrial cool quality coming from my voice that I hadn't known existed.

“You're showing off now, Wonder,” Tig said into my headset, but I kept singing anyway, and I saw him smiling—and smiling big, like his random instinct to bet on a dollar and a dream had just won him the lottery.

He had me sing the song several different times, trying out different beats: slow, fast, R & B, gospel style, pop cute, and finally, however the hell I wanted.

On that last take he said, “That was the one. Wonder style. Free and easy, natural.”

“I have a style?” I asked.

“Now you do,” he said. “Did you ever have vocal training?”

“Yeah, we had voice coaches on the set at
B-Kidz.
I sang on one of the B-Kidz Christmas albums. A really corny version of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.' I'm so glad they don't play the record on the radio in Boston anymore.”

“You're embarrassed to be on the radio?”

“No, I'm embarrassed to have a sucky song on the radio. It was so cheesy.”

“Welcome to the music biz, Wonder.” Tig asked me what female singers I liked. I named the usual suspects: Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Janet Jackson and Madonna. He said, “No, what pop singers do you like—you know, young ones? All these pop princesses out there and boy bands, there's gotta be one of them you like.”

“I guess I like Kayla okay. She's not as bad as most of 'em.” When Lucky died so suddenly, Trina and Kayla had decided they couldn't continue their group, Trinity, without her. Trina's mom had been against the whole pop singing career anyway, and she was grief-stricken over Lucky's death. She forbade Trina to pursue a record deal again until Trina finished college. Trina, I think, was relieved that her mother had made the decision for her. Kayla, on the other hand, had gone solo and within the last two years had skyrocketed to become the queen of the pop charts, and the skimpiest bikini-wearer the music video channel had ever seen. She was an international sensation.

“You're not gonna go all diva on me, are you, Wonder?” Tig was Kayla's manager. He would know.

“Not if you're nice to me,” I said, laughing.

“Girl,” he said, “you don't even know what a natural you are, do you?”

If being a natural meant
fumbling lyrics, tripping on dance steps, and laughing hysterically every time Tig encouraged me to croon/wail/whisper the words “yeah” and/or “baby” in a song, then I was a natural-born superstar.

I often suspected the only reason Tig kept working with me after our first session was that I kept him amused as he juggled endless pages and cell phone calls from his divorce lawyer, Kayla and other artists, and record company execs.

Because school was let out for that week in September, I spent my afternoons at Tig's house, at his invitation. I don't imagine I ever thought our work would actually lead to a singing career for me, but it made my mom so happy to drop me off and to look into my eyes with hope instead of sadness. And excuse me, but the scene at Tig's—with the huge flat-screen TV to take in Will Nieves on
South Coast
while Tig answered phone calls every two seconds—was way better than the scene back home. If I had spent the week at home, I would have been stuck hovering over a black-and-white TV with bad reception to catch my soaps while hordes of townie kids reclaimed the beach outside our windows, and I would have passed that time hoping and praying that Mom and Dad didn't start a fight that would send Charles and me hiding out in my room and eating cold pizza for dinner.

A surprise awaited me at Tig's house on the second day. When I walked to the back of the house toward the studio, Trina Little was sitting on a lawn chair.

“Girl!” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. She inspected me head to toe. “Look who seriously filled out that bikini top!”

My mom, her mom, and their sisters had passed on a distinct genetic breast code. Since growing into a C cup in the last year, I had become uncomfortably used to crossing my arms over my chest and looking down when people's eyes strayed across my new upper body. But Trina was like a long-lost sister, and I didn't care that she'd noticed that I was growing up—and out. I ran to Trina and gave her a giant hug.

She was wearing a Boston University tank top with side-button workout pants that swamped her tiny body. Trina Little
was
little—maybe five feet tall on tippy toes—but with a giant singing voice that could tear the church down. Just because Tig was her stepfather's nephew did not mean it was nepotism that had almost landed Trinity a record deal—the girl was a powerhouse singer, Whitney plus Mariah times a million. She had the most beautiful dark skin I'd ever seen, coal black eyes, and long black cornrows hanging halfway down her back. When she moved, the click of her cornrow beads seemed to have their own rhythm, so even her walk was musical. I had never understood why B-Kidz fan mail always favored Kayla. To me, Trina had always been the coolest-looking and the best singer, and Lucky the nicest and most genuine.

Trina held me tight. We hadn't seen each other since shortly after Lucky's death. I was glad Mom wasn't present. The sight of Trina—and the remembrance of Trina wailing out “Amazing Grace” at the church funeral and the entire congregation shuddering in awestruck tears—would likely have caused Mom to break down on the spot.

When Trina let go of me, we sat down on the lawn chairs, a luscious Indian summer ocean breeze filling the air. Trina said, “So, you gonna be a pop princess?”

I laughed. “Yeah, right! Nah, Tig just keeps me here for his entertainment, and I just need to get the hell outta my house! Once that divorce of his is final, Tig'll go back to his fancy Manhattan life and get lost in Kayla-ness and forget all about ole Wonder Blake singing customers' orders in the drive-thru at Dairy Queen and failing Algebra 2 at Devonport High on Cape Cod.”

Trina said, “If that were true he wouldn't have asked me to come out here today to work with you. He wants me to work on some harmonizing and vocal exercises with you, and check out your dance moves.”

This was a shock. Having Trina as voice coach was like getting Michael Jordan for a basketball teacher.

“You're so lying,” I told Trina.

“I'm so not,” she said. “C'mon, let's go get some lunch, and when we come back I am going to put you through some serious paces. Tig had to go into Boston for the day to sign some papers, but he'll be back later to check our progress.”

We hopped into her cute little Honda. I recommended the local pizza place—just guess why. Hint: serpent tattoo. On the drive over, Trina told me about life in college. Trina was a sophomore at BU, a music major, and when she fulfilled her promise to her mom to get her college degree, she was going to go after that record deal for real—only she didn't want to be a pop singer, or a gospel singer. She wanted to be a country singer.

“Shut up!” I said when she dropped that bomb.

“Watch my dust, girl, I am going to be the first black female country singing superstar this candy-ass nation has ever known. I'm gonna be Charley Pride and Esther Phillips, Patsy Cline and Ella all in one.”

“Who?”

Trina had always been like a walking encyclopedia of music history. She knew every obscure song from every important singer imaginable.
Beantown Kidz
was produced at a local public television station and did not, contrary to rumor, make any of its kid performers any kind of real dough, but Trina had invested what little B-Kidz money she earned to fund an incredible CD collection back when she was her little high school honor student self.

“Read some history sometime, Wonder. The Kaylas of today couldn't be around if not for the Petula Clarks of yesterday.”

“Who?” I repeated.

Trina rolled her eyes and said, “Never you mind. Dig this. I am moving to Austin, Texas, when I finish college. Gonna hang out with the real songwriters, quality artists, see? None of that Nashville sellout bid'ness for me.”

“I'll buy your records,” I said. I would, too.

“Looks like I might be buying yours first!”

As we walked inside the restaurant, I muttered, “Check out the guy at the counter, Treen,” using Lucky and my old nickname for her. “Major crush.”

Trina eyed Doug up and down, then her gaze wandered across the tables, inspecting the customers. “This is sure one white town you live in,” she muttered back.

“Tell me about it,” I said, embarrassed. Cambridge seemed like a United Nations town in its diversity compared with white-bread Devonport.