The Shattered Image Series (I Was a Teen Idol) (2 page)

“That was awesome!” said Mia.

“Yeah, well I just wish I knew whether or not it got me this stupid adoption thing.”

“Well, you’re cute and you sing and play the guitar. I think you’re in the running for it and if you are then this must be the right room to be in.”

“So you think we did a good job?” I asked her.

Ever the optimist, she said, “I know we did. We’re awesome and if they didn’t see that then they’re blind and stupid.”

One thing I didn’t know at the time, but later was told about, was that they had been watching us the entire time in that little room, seeing how we acted and what our personalities were like.

Two hours later, we were still in the room. Two more boys had been added to the room and Mia had run up a conversation with everyone there. I stayed quiet and listened. I was bored out of my skull. If I had known we would be there for so long, I would have brought one of the few books I owned,
Green Angel
by Alice Hoffman. It was a small book, barely a novelette. I cherished it and had memorized the entire thing… loving the main character and how she overcame her hardships, it gave me hope that I could overcome mine as well.  A Language Arts teacher who saw that I wasn’t being challenged enough gave it to me when I was ten. She said it might have been above my reading level, but she thought I could handle it. I read the entire thing by the end of lunch the same day.

Finally, the assistant came back to the room, this time she didn’t have another kid with her. First she called one of the little girls that had been in the room before we got there. Eventually, she called Luke and not long after, us. I was relieved. I thought we would never get to leave the small room. But the day wasn’t over yet. She led us back into the same room where we had done our audition. The panel of people sat there, looking as tired as ever. I wondered why we were back; I thought they had wanted us to do the song and dance again.

They ended up asking us a dozen questions each. We both had to answer each one on our own. Which was hard for me, since Mia usually spoke for both of us. They asked us things like our favorite colors, singers, foods, actors, subjects in school. I couldn’t understand why they needed or wanted to know such trivial things about us. At the end of the twenty questions, they went back into the huddle again and talked in hushed voices.

After an eternity, the man on the left spoke again, “We like you.” He pointed to Mia, “But not so much you.” He pointed to me. I took hold of Mia’s hand. I knew I had failed her. They were going to separate us, I could just feel it.

“Well, that’s all just cookies and cream, but if my sister isn’t with me then you have no deal,” said Mia.

The man looked at us both for a long second before he burst out laughing. My grip on Mia’s hand tightened. “You have spunk, kid. I like that. Fine, we’ll keep your sister too. You both need vocal lessons and dance training and you,” he pointed to me. “Need to be more outgoing and likeable.”

It took a moment for his words to sink in. Mia spoke our thoughts. “You’ll keep us? Does that mean we’re getting adopted?”

“Yes, it does,” said the woman in the middle with a smile.

Mia smiled and hugged me with joy. I hugged her back, but I wasn’t as excited.

“Get ready for your lives to change, girls,” said the man on the left.

And our lives did change. From that point on, we were ‘owned’ by the record label. Suddenly, literally overnight, everything was different.

Two weeks after they chose us, the adoption was finalized. My sister and I were now the ‘daughters’ of Richard Price. I still don’t think that’s his real name. We met him briefly during the week that everything went through. The tabloids wanted photos of him and us together. We did a set where we hugged him, another where he put matching necklaces on us and finally one where he had taken us dress shopping. We smiled and laughed in the fake way that we had been taught to.

I didn’t like him, still don’t. He reeked of money and overpriced cologne. After that photo shoot I didn’t see him again until the accident, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The weeks that followed the photo shoot and our newfound fame were some of the busiest weeks of my entire life. Everyone wanted to interview us; we were America’s new media sweethearts. Mia did most of the talking in the interviews, warming people’s hearts to us. With coaxing from her, I was able to come out of my shell when in front of the camera and become outgoing like her. She was still the one everyone loved most.

After the interview frenzy died down the lessons started: dance, vocal, public speech, education (with private tutors). Day in and day out for weeks were a slew of things that we needed to learn in order to be the perfect pop stars, the perfect idols. They wanted us to rocket to platinum stardom and for children, teens, and adults to idolize us until they went crazy with their love for us.  

It was hard to get used to the lessons and the need to be perfect when we were out. People constantly took our pictures, wanted us to say something for an article. We needed to be angels almost 24/7 in the public eye. Mia loved every second, the constant moving schedule and the people always wanting our attention… it was her version of paradise. I could have taken or left it. I was just happy to be with her, all we really had was each other. We hardly ever saw other kids during those weeks when they were grooming us. I would have gone insane if I didn’t have her to talk to. I missed the simple things though: like sneaking a sleep in on the weekends, or being able to read a book under a tree when the weather was nice.

Six months after being adopted we were ready to debut as our idol personas. I was Jazzy and Mia was Melody. I thought the names were corny, but we hadn’t gotten the choice in picking them.  They had us debut on our thirteenth birthday. The record label threw a huge party. We had over a million guests and over half of them had bought tickets in order to attend. I get butterflies even now, thinking about that first live performance we had to do for our guests.

***

My makeup artist, Trish, combed through the pink wig on my head one final time. I stared at myself in the mirror. I had sparkles on my cheeks and headphones around my neck. I looked like I had stepped out of a Japanese anime. Mia sat next to me in her blue wig and let her makeup artist, Rose, brush more powder onto her face. I gripped the chair’s arm and bit my lip. Trish lightly patted my cheek to get me to stop or I would’ve messed up the light gloss she had just caked on them.

“I can’t do this,” I said to Mia.

She was as calm as ever, taking in the chaos of people running around us, and my nerves, with ease. “You’ll do fine. We’ve practiced the songs and dances a thousand times. We could do it in our sleep.”

“That doesn’t help me. What if I trip and fall or one of the backup dancers gets in the way? I don’t think I could survive the humiliation. I’m replaceable, they like you better than me. All they would have to do is find another girl that looked similar to you and I would be out the door and back into the system. No one would know.”

“Will you calm down? Firstly, they won’t replace you, not if they want to keep me and two they can’t replace you, thousands of people know what we look like and know that we’re identical. Someone would see the difference between me and another girl and say something. They don’t want that type of controversy on their hands.”

She was right, but there were still butterflies in my stomach. Everything was riding on the first performance. If I blew it then we wouldn’t be able to ride the rocket to stardom and I knew that was something Mia and the record label wanted more than anything.

Before I knew it, it was five minutes to going live. The band before us had done a good job of energizing the crowd, making them scream and jump around. They couldn’t wait to see Mia and me perform. They already loved us and we hadn’t even performed, or proven ourselves worthy of their fan worship.

With two minutes to go before we were live, Mia and I were placed onto the stage lift and we took our opening positions. The beat to the first song began to play; I could feel the thump of it in my chest, though that could have also been the thumping of my heart.

“Smile and remember, you’ll be fine. They already love us,” said Mia. I nodded and the lift rose, taking us before the lights and the thousands of screaming fans. It hit me then, we had fans and we hadn’t even sung for them yet. People held up signs and the promotional pictures we took as Jazzy and Melody the month before. I could hear ‘Jazzy’ being called out to me from different places in the crowd. My smile grew wider, no longer faked and strained with nervousness. These people loved me, us. My nerves floated away on the wave of their cheers and all I wanted to do was perform to the best of my ability for them.

We performed four songs back to back that day. At the end of the last song, the crowd was cheering to the point that I could hardly hear Mia speak to them and thank them for being there to celebrate our birthday. I could see young girls crying and reaching out to us, wishing that one of us would come down and simply touch their hands. A year before, I would have never even guessed that I would be on a stage for my birthday let alone performing for a crowd of people.

We both acted surprised and thankful when a huge cake done in pinks and blues with music notes and sparkles was wheeled out on stage for us. Each half had thirteen candles for us both to blow out. As a present from the Record Label to us, the pop singer Brass Biggs came out to sing to us. He had been the current heartthrob of girls ten and up. I wasn’t much of a fan, but I acted like one for the crowd. Mia didn’t have to act, she loved him. Several posters of his had lined the walls of our small studio apartment that we had in the beginning. He serenaded us with one of his acoustic love songs. Mia cried, as did hundreds of girls in the audience. When the love song was over, it was my turn to say something to the audience.

Half the crowd cheered as my mic was turned on. I was nervous, but I reminded myself not to let it show. “Thank you all so much for coming out here today! Our birthday has been extra special this year because we got to share it all with you and nothing could be a better birthday present. We hope that you liked our performance today and that you will stay with us as we reach for our dreams.” Someone else had written that speech, but I seemed to deliver it well. The crowd roared as we exited the stage.

Mia took my hand when we got into the limo waiting for us. “See, I told you it would all be fine. They loved us and will continue to love us. We’re America’s sweetheart angels, after all.”

I don’t think either of us were truly ready for the life that came with being an A list pop star. Before we even debuted there had been a lot of attention on us for being the girls that were adopted by the president of the record label. But even with all that attention, it was nothing compared to the attention we got once we became Jazzy and Melody; the pink and blue haired idols of girls and boys five to sixteen. 

We couldn’t hardly go out even when we were dressed like ourselves, people still managed to recognize us and wanted either autographs or pictures from us. It all took some getting used to. One thing that didn’t take us long to get used to was all the money. We had become popular so fast that our merchandise was flying off the shelves. Our first album was sold-out within twenty-four hours. The record label was so proud and overjoyed at the revenue we were making them that they started to give us an allowance. It wasn’t your normal five dollars a week allowance either. They would give two thousand each, anytime we wanted to go and buy things.

We got bonuses whenever we made a cameo appearance on a TV show or did some charity event. We had even made a few TV movies that did well among the fan base.

I’ll admit, the money and fame went to both our heads pretty quickly. We became arrogant. There was no family or true friends around to ground us, and make us see how grateful we should be for all that we had. It wasn’t until we were a year into being pop stars and miniature divas; however, that I saw how much it had changed both of us. It was a rude wakeup call for me.

***

We sat in a burger joint, dressed as Jazzy and Melody. We had just finished a concert and the record label wanted us to shop around for a while as our alter egos. I don’t really know why, most of the time people knew who we were without the wigs and clothes that told them we were the pink and blue haired duo. It might’ve had something to do with the dolls that they planned on selling the week after that day. We had finally reached the big leagues of tween success with dolls that looked just like us.