Within three months of my Pop Life Records audition in December, I had recorded “Bubble Gum Pop” to be released as my debut single, and I was working on a full album to be released by summer. Mom and I stayed in a small studio apartment in Manhattan owned by the record company. I slept on a futon on the floor crammed between a desk and a peeling wall and Mom slept on a pullout couch that took up most of the apartment when it was converted into a bed. Mom went back to Devonport every other weekend, but I was too busy to go with her; in fact, I made sure I stayed too busy to go home. Dad had initially said absolutely no way when the record contract was offered, but soon after that proclamation, my report card arrived: 1 C, 4 Ds, and 2 Fs, proving I had bested my last worst academic performance, go me! Dad said, “You just broke my heart”—but he let Mom sign the drop-out form. Even he couldn’t deny that Devonport had been a disaster for me, that I was never gonna be the AP Everything golden girl that Lucky had been.
I was free of Devonport and the house of ghosts. Every day when I walked through the streets of New York, felt its massive whir of people and noises, excitement and danger, and its all-out living breathing vibe, I thanked Tig for having found me at the DQ, thanked Lucky for having passed on her dream to my genes. Every day when I danced and sang, I was grateful I would never have to prowl the halls of Devonport High again. A reluctant pop princess I may initially have been, but if it meant dropping out of school and leaving Devonport, I was completely on board.
In my eagerness to ditch school, however, I had not anticipated the other side of being a professional performer: work work work, all the time work. Tig and Pop Life Records had my time accounted for round the clock. Every day found me in some form of pop princess preparation: voice lessons with an actual opera singer; private dance workouts with a Broadway dancer who had choreographed videos for huge superstars; diction instruction from the acting coach who understudied some of the biggest names on Broadway; schmooze meetings with radio station program managers and publicity execs; shopping trips with wardrobe stylists; and regular visits to fancy beauty salons for hair and makeup consultations, facials, waxing, teeth whitening, you name it, all in preparation for making me over into the next teen pop star, the next Kayla. Sounds glamorous. It was—but also tiring.
Every night when I got home around ten in the evening to find Mom plopped on the pullout bed, watching Law & Order reruns and eating cookies, I asked her, “Did you remember to tape South Coast?”
If I had a dollar for every time Mom sighed and said, “Oh sweetie, I couldn’t tape your show because I was watching something on another channel.” That was the downside of sacrificing a ho-hum life in Devonport, Mass., for Manhattan, Noo Yawk. I no longer had infinite amounts of time to devote to Will Nieves and South Coast.
Tig found a way to make that up to me. He arranged for WILL NIEVES himself to be cast in my first video for “Bubble Gum Pop.” I jumped up and down in his office for about ten straight minutes, screaming, “OH MY GOD!” when Tig told me.
Tig laughed. “Hold on to that enthusiasm and use it in the video! I figured you could use an incentive of sorts after the past three straight months of nonstop work, but I had no idea you’d be this excited! It’s all good, Wonder. You’ve worked hard—now go have fun at this shoot.”
Because of my B-Kidz days, I was comfortable with being on a film set, I knew how to hit my mark, I knew how to turn on for the camera. I did not, however, know how not to act like a complete imbecile the first time I met Will Nieves.
It was a two-day shoot and the first day did not involve Will. That first day was spent at a studio in Queens, filming slumber party dance scenes of me prancing around a girlie bedroom, smacking on gum and blowing big bubbles, jumping up and down on the bed, having pillow fights with other pajama-clad girls, all while we were staring dreamily at a poster of Will Nieves hanging over the bed. It was fun—but hard! Dancing to a complicated choreographed routine of steps with five other girls who are strangers behind you is one thing; now add in smacking and blowing bubble gum pieces large enough to make you choke, and trying to breathe while not getting out of step—not so easy.
The next day—Will Day, as I called it—we were filming scenes on a boardwalk at the Jersey Shore. Could have been a glam scene—the sky was a perfect blue, the sea looked beautiful and calm—BUT . . . the temperature was about forty-five degrees on an April day, and guess which prospective pop princess was wearing a polka-dot, bubble-gum-pattern bikini in front of a film crew of about twenty guys? Because of the pop princess regimen of nonstop dance rehearsals and strict diet, I was as skinny as I’d ever been, but in that cold I had no desire to show off my new bod—especially with the wide-awake, very cold nipples under my bikini top. I kept running into the trailer between takes to throw on a robe and drink hot chocolate. I kept thinking, But I get to meet Will Nieves, this is so all worth it, better than a day of dodging Jen Burke’s bullet glances at Devonport High.
A knock came at the trailer door, I opened the door wide, and there was Will Nieves, aka Roberto Perez, Love Machine, the scheming (but misunderstood) resident at South Coast Hospital, and also the illegitimate son and bitter enemy of chief surgeon and South Coast patriarch Robert Smithington. I about drooled hot chocolate out of my mouth in awe as he shook my hand and said, “Wonder Blake? I hear you’re the next sensation. You ready to show us what you’ve got?”
My heart was beating so hard and fast I was sure Will could see its thump bursting out of my chest. My hands sprung to my mouth and I let out a small scream. Then I felt my face turning hot and red. Luckily, he laughed at my reaction rather than immediately shrugging me off as world’s biggest dork. He said, “That’s not the first time I’ve gotten that reaction from a fan, but it’s definitely the first time I’ve gotten it from the costar on a shoot.” I was all blubbery and my knees felt like mush. I couldn’t form intelligible words to him as I passed him a magazine, but he found them just fine. “What are you trying to say? Oh sure, honey, I’ll sign your Soap Opera Digest magazine. Got some extra hot chocolate in the trailer for me?”
I wanted to interrogate him: Was Roberto the father of shy Linda’s baby? Had Roberto really been a guerrilla teen warrior in the Amazon before his greedy mother Heddy brought him to South Coast to claim the fortune of Robert Smithington? Were the show’s producers looking to cast a new and improved love interest for Roberto (as Linda was too wishy-washy to ever command Roberto’s attention for longer than a one-night stand)—and would those same producers be interested to know that up-and-coming pop princess Wonder Blake with the sexy new blond streaks in her hair and the worked-out-to-death new curves had been taking voice and acting lessons?
I felt sure I would never be able to complete the day’s shoot without making a complete fool of myself in front of the camera. Tig’s casting gift to me would turn out to be the end of my budding career—no way would I be able to lip-synch in front of the camera when Will Nieves was present. I would lose it, for sure.
A Kayla song was playing from the stereo as Will stepped inside the trailer. He snatched up the CD case on the counter and said, “Oh, Kayla! I love her!” Then he turned up the stereo volume and proceeded to perform a one-minute dance routine, mimicking the exact choreography of Kayla’s latest video. He sang, too, imitating Kayla perfectly.
This was so not the behavior one would expect from haughty, macho man Roberto Perez, singing à la Kayla, “You love me, baby, you know you do. Forget about her, she ain’t one of your crew.”
Mom and I gave each other a look like, Huh?
A knock on the trailer door told us it was time to start shooting. As Will walked out of the trailer he slapped the ass of the cute production assistant guy who had come for us and asked him, “What’s your name, honey?”
Alas, my Will: swoon-height tall, black hair cascading down his shoulders, smoldering black wolf eyes, the chiseled looks of a god. Yet when he spoke, he sounded nothing like Roberto Perez of South Coast. In person, his voice was higher
and his hips danced as he went over to the set and oh . . . my . . . God—he was so hot, and he was so GAY.
Sigh. Solved that little performance problem for me.
Will Nieves was like two different people. When the cameras rolled he was all over me, mister-hot-breathing-sweaty-muscular-lean stud, but the minute the cameras turned off, he was like Jack from Will & Grace though a million times cuter, singing back the “Chew it, lick it, blow it” lines with glee, while very thoughtfully wrapping me in a blanket as I sat in a chair in my skimpy bikini, goose-pimpled.
He said, “I can see it already, Wonder—is that really your name?—you’re gonna be huge. You wanna hit the clubs with me tonight in Manhattan?”
I said, “I’m sixteen. I can’t get in.” How much would I have loved to go out with him? Maybe Will Nieves was no longer going to be a permanent fixture in my romantic fantasies (though Roberto Perez, Love Machine, would always remain my one and only), but he was—hello!—SO nice to look at, and fun and sweet, too. And after the months of hard work, I would have killed for a big night out on the town, dancing with a hot guy, away from Mom and the friggin’ millionth ep of Law & Order. Not to mention how much backstage gossip I might be able to get out of Will about the cast of South Coast.
Will said, “Sixteen? You’re ancient! I’ve been in the business since I started modeling in junior high, and trust me, you wanna go to the hot clubs in the city, you can. Your age doesn’t matter if you’re famous, if you’ve got the right look. And honey, you got it.”
Mom came from behind him and said, “She’s not famous yet. And she needs her beauty sleep.” I sighed. This Mom-as-chaperone thing could get tired quickly.
When Mom wasn’t looking, Will slipped a card with his phone number into my robe pocket, just before the director called us back to shoot. As we stood shivering in our skivvies in front of a boardwalk saltwater taffy stand, he whispered in my ear, “After the song comes out, when you’re ready to hit the town, call me. Bring Kayla! We’ll tear it up.”
My fingers reached inside the robe and touched the rim of the card he’d slipped me. Wonder Blake was ready to have some fun—now she just had to figure out how to break free from Mom.
Instinctively, I knew the answer: Kayla. My mentor pop princess had been in California working on a new album during my first few months in New York, but now she was home.
Nineteen
A prime reason why the record company signed me, apparently, was that Tig had promised them I would tour with Kayla as her opening act. In the last year, Kayla had gone through three opening acts, each of whom had dropped out of her tour due to “scheduling conflicts.” I may not have played an instrument, written my own songs, or had years of professional singing experience other than Beantown Kidz, but I had one ace in the hole no other prospective teen performer auditioning for Pop Life could claim: I had known and worked with Kayla since I was a ten-year-old B-Kid. Wonder Blake, sign here.
I also had a fallen pop princess to thank for my life. The record company had invested almost a year into building the career of a girl named Amanda Lindstrom, an apple-cheeked fifteen-year-old stunner from Minnesota who was being groomed by Pop Life Records to be the next Kayla. But when sweet little Amanda got pregnant and decided, against her parents’ and her manager’s objections, to have her baby and marry her sweetheart back on the prairie, the record company dropped her. The record company didn’t want to completely lose the album’s worth of songs and promotional work they’d put into her, however; and don’t think Tig’s arrival with my demo tape in hand at Pop Life Records’ offices just after Amanda’s dumping was a coincidence—Tig’s radar for opportunity is unsurpassed in the industry. While most albums take a year to be developed and recorded, my debut had been rushed through production. Pop Life Records was not known as a “pop factory” label for nothing.
Days after I completed shooting the video for “Bubble Gum Pop,” I was in Tig’s office going over my schedule. I had laid down most of the tracks for my debut album but I still had a few days of recording time booked, and Tig wanted to spend the afternoon with me and the vocal coach going over the remaining songs. Enter Kayla, all five-foot-two of legs, abs, boobs, hair, and charisma, bursting into Tig’s office unannounced.
“Wonder Fucking Blake!” she called out.
Tig sighed. “Kayla, we didn’t have an appointment today.”
Kayla sized him up and down with her famous almond-shaped green eyes and said, “I don’t need to make appointments with you anymore, right? Let’s see, my last album sold, ka-ching ka-ching, I believe five million copies?”
“Diva,” Tig said.
“Asshole,” Kayla responded.
Kayla and Tig both laughed like they were having fun, but I wasn’t sure they were joking.
I jumped up to give Kayla a hug. I hadn’t seen her in more than two years. The brightness of her green eyes dimmed for a moment as she looked me up and down, and I knew that, just as Mom always did, she was looking through me for a piece of Lucky.
“So Tig here pulled you into this racket, eh?” she said. She ran her fingers through a strand of my blond-streaked hair and her eyes passed over the low-cut tight shirt given me by the stylist Tig had hired. “You’re going to open for me this summer, right?”
I nodded, eager to please. It was so good to see Lucky’s best friend again—and so strange to see her live and in the flesh of her new incarnation as reigning queen of the pop charts. She was a good fifteen pounds thinner than the last time I’d seen her, wearing low-rider jeans dipped down to there, with a halter top that left her tight, tiny stomach bare. Her raven hair was let loose in its natural curls, with red and pink streaks framing her gorgeous face.
Tig said to Kayla, “Aren’t you supposed to be in rehearsal today?”
Kayla said, “Well, the music director didn’t take kindly to me telling him he didn’t know shit about my music. He threw a hissy fit and sent everyone home for the day. I expect you’ll be getting a call from him any minute now.”
You could almost see the tight little braids on Tig’s head turning gray.
Kayla patted me on the back. “Don’t worry, I got your back, sister. I’ll be watching out for you.” Her tone was nice, but I wondered if something about her message was intended for Tig, not me. “C’mon, I got the driver downstairs, let’s go play.” She tugged at my hand.
Tig snapped, “We’re working, Kayla. You two can have a play date later.”
The thought of doing something fun—as I knew it would be with Kayla—overwhelmed my need to say what I knew Tig wanted to hear, that I wanted to stay and work. And work and work and work, as I had been doing for three straight months.
I whimpered like a puppy and begged Tig, “Please please please.”
Tig shook his head, but he let me go. “Oh, just play the cute card on me, sure. Yeah, I can see I’m not going to win this one. Wonder, go ahead and play, but the driver will be around at seven A.M. sharp tomorrow morning to take you to the recording studio. We gotta bang the rest of this album out quick. The record company is getting anxious, and they want that record out now if you’re going to be touring with Kayla this summer.”
I threw my arms up in the air and sang out, “Yeah! Fun day!”
Tig pointed at Kayla. “Bad influence,” he told her as his phone line lit up from an incoming call. He slumped when his assistant buzzed in to announce Kayla’s music director holding on line one.
“You love it,” she answered, then she grabbed my hand to lead me to the door.
As we walked out Tig called out after us, “Kayla, her voice better be in prime shape tomorrow morning. You know what I mean.”
“What does he mean?” I muttered to Kayla.
She slammed his office door behind her with the back of her foot. “Oh, he’s afraid I’m going to corrupt you.”
I didn’t have a chance to beg to be corrupted before a giant ZZ Top-meets-sumo wrestler-looking dude pounced to Kayla’s side. He was about six fe
et five million inches tall, with long thinning hair pulled back into a ponytail that fell halfway down his gorillasized back. He must have weighed three hundred pounds easy, and he wore bulky blue jeans, a leather jacket, and motorcycle boots. His ear had a cord attached to it that ran down inside his jacket. With hands that looked about as large and wide as soup bowls, he handed Kayla a baseball cap and a pair of large black sunglasses.
Kayla bunched her hair up under the cap as we rode the elevator down. “Wonder, meet Karl Murphy. Karl, meet my new protégée, Wonder Blake.”
Karl the almost-sumo wrestler grunted something indistinguishable and reached to shake my hand. His handshake was so tight and strong I thought I would need an ice pack to relieve the pain when he let go.
Kayla said, “Karl is THE man. Stalkers beware!”
It was hard to tell under all that beard and mustache if Karl THE man let out a smile at Kayla’s compliment.
Karl grunted into the mouthpiece of the cord hanging from his ear, “We’re on our way down now. Outside thirty seconds, car in front.”
“Girl,” I said to Kayla, “you sure enough ain’t no B-Kid no more.”
Kayla laughed as the elevator opened at the ground floor. I started to step outside but Karl THE man motioned me back. He stepped out, scoped the area, and then gave us the okay.
We darted outside the building toward a giant SUV with darkened windows. Kayla took my hand to lead me to the car but was stopped by a pack of shrieking preteen girls who’d somehow recognized her under the hat and sunglasses.