Pop Princess (24 page)

Jules sat up, licking the rolling paper on the fat joint she'd been assembling on the table. Remembering Kayla's freak-out the night of my party at Kayla's brownstone when someone was smoking weed, I said, “Um, Jules, I don't think Kayla would approve. Her first set is going to be over in two songs. Maybe you oughta put that away.”

“Yeah right, Shirley Temple, and monkeys are flyin' outta my ass,” Jules said. “There's no off-duty NYPD cop to show off for here tonight. And doesn't the boss lady deserve a mellow-out treat, especially on the night that her protégé has knocked her off the charts? Right?”

How does someone respond to that? I couldn't! I just shook my head and walked out. I thought, Three cities down, seventeen to go.

Karl laid, his last card
onto the table, an eight of spades.

“Who wins again?” he smirked. “I believe . . . Karl does.”

“Hey Karl,” I said. “It's just Crazy Eights. Don't get too hyped on yourself. I recall a poker game yesterday afternoon in Minneapolis during Kayla's sound check that set you back, no? Remember Seattle and Portland, too?” Karl's eyes were dancing at me under those bushy eyebrows. I lifted my arm in the air and played with the five-dollar charm bracelet on my wrist. “Yeah, that's right, Wonder Blake won those games, and if you don't stop gloating, this poor bus driver who has driven us all night from Minneapolis to Chicago might have to stop the bus and kick you off. We've got three cities to go till we wrap up back in Boston, Karl, and I saw a nice locket to match this bracelet at that Wal-Mart opening last week. Watch the 'tude.” Chalk up my tirade to lack of sleep mixed with two straight cans of Starbucks double espresso drinks from the refrigerator on the bus.

Karl chuckled. “Someone needs to downgrade to decaf.”

Out the tour bus window, I could see the skyline of Chicago emerging. Karl and some of the road crew guys had promised to take me to a Cubs game—more fun for Wonder. But I was distracted from the view of the Windy City by the radio song blasting from the overhead speakers built into the tour bus. “Bubble Gum Pop” had slipped to number nine from last week's number five from the previous four straight weeks at number one, which could only mean one thing. . . .

Kayla slammed open the door from her private bedroom at the back of the bus. Her cell phone was in her hand, a mouthpiece attached to her ear, her PJs all rumpled, her hair wild and her eyes demonic. “Could you turn the radio
down
already?” She stepped back inside her room. Jules was on the chair next to the bed, also in PJs, a PlayStation console on her lap. Kayla slammed the door shut.

When was Kayla happy? When she was shut in her private bedroom in the back of the tour bus with Jules or one of her dancers, playing on her PlayStation and letting herself believe they weren't just letting her win. When was Kayla not happy? When through her bedroom door she could hear “Bubble Gum Pop” from the speakers in the front of the bus, particularly on Top 40 countdown Sundays when it turned out “Bubble Gum Pop” was number one. Again.

An appearance on
J-Pop,
constant radio play, and my much-publicized date with Freddy Porter had been enough to get “Bubble Gum Pop” into the Top 20. What had brought the song to number one—and kept it there—was a dance remix by deejay Montana that was a piece of genius, a completely remastered song that took my vocals and laid them over a dance beat that was old school funk turned into techno hip-hop. The new beat overwhelmed the fact that the song relied heavily on a catchy chorus and had minimal—and silly—lyrics. “Bubble Gum Pop” was just that fun song you can't stop singing along with and love grooving to in the clubs or on the beach or in the shower, but its summer dominance at number one was wholly the result of the musical strokes of Montana. I was just the cute girl on the record cover, the babe dancing with His Most Formidable Babeness, Will Nieves, in a new remix-version video hastily shot during an all-night filming session at a warehouse converted into a rave scene after a show in Atlanta.

But summer was officially over. We were at the tail end of September, the tail end of the tour, which meant that while “Bubble Gum Pop” was losing its chart dominance, perhaps Kayla's cross-country commentary to me as the song climbed the charts would disappear with it. Miami: “Wonder, could you drag that note out any longer? Who do you think you are, Celine Dion?” Dallas: “Excuse me, Wonder, I loved your supersincere speech to Tig about how you weren't going to diet anymore just because the record company said so, but that jumpsuit is way tight on you. Maybe next time pass on the Popeyes run with the stage crew?” Denver: “Oh my God, Wonder, did you know some horndog put up a Web site totally devoted to pictures of your boobs? It's called ‘Bubble Gum Trollop.' ”

If Kayla thought her comments could make me drop out of the tour like my opening-act predecessors had, she was mistaken. Nasty as she could be, Kayla was a very small fraction of the tour time; half the time she didn't even travel on the bus, but opted for private limo rides. She usually only took the bus when we had to travel all night between cities and she wanted to sleep in her tour bus bed. I actually liked when Kayla traveled on the bus, because that meant I could hang out and play cards with Karl.

I barely checked in with my own family; the tour crew felt more like family now. Traveling on tour was like an extended nationwide road trip, with TVs and music blaring and first-class hotels, as if I had won the deluxe camper in the Showcase Showdown on
The Price Is Right,
and set off for adventure with an all-access backstage pass. My list of adventures included: riding an alligator swamp boat in Key West, Florida;
laissez les bon temps rouler
in N'Awlins; singing the national anthem at a Texas rodeo show; hiking in the Rockies, personally escorted by a babe of a Park Ranger; helicoptering over the Grand Canyon; sneaking over to Tijuana with some of the road crew for after-hours partying following a San Diego show; and enjoying primo Cali beach time—roller-coaster rides in Santa Monica and sunbathing in Santa Barbara—with dancers from Kayla's crew. I'd had to buy another suitcase just to accommodate all the plush white robes I lifted from every posh hotel room in every city.

I no longer minded the hectic pace of the pop princess lifestyle: traveling, rehearsing, grooming, performing, appearing. This was the life, sorta, that Wonder Blake had dreamed of back when she was working the Dairy Queen counter, and she rather enjoyed it.

My time on tour was booked solid. Not like I was gonna go all Little Miss Goody-Goody, but I did take Charles up on his challenge to do charitable work, and made sure that Tig scheduled free appearances by me at the local Boys & Girls Clubs in whatever city we toured; sometimes I even managed to snare Kayla for appearances, when I could guilt-trip her out of bed—and get to her before Jules could nix any request. Then there were the daily local radio station interviews to promote my album,
Girl Wonder,
followed by sessions recording promo spots for the radio stations.
Hi, this is Wonder Blake, and you're listening to
 . . . I also had regular mall appearances where I would perform “Bubble Gum Pop” and sign autographs at a local record store. Still, I always managed to sneak in sightseeing time. Who knew when I would get to experience the world like this again?

Even opening up for the Kayla monster was enjoyable. I only performed twenty minutes' worth of songs, always ending with a “Bubble Gum Pop” finale, but it was my important job during that short period to rev up the crowd, to ignore the fact that people were just streaming into their seats, overloaded with popcorn and soft drinks, and viewed me as a performer to tolerate until the real deal, Kayla, came on. Winning over the crowd was my nightly challenge, and I was up for it. “What's up, HOUSTON?” Insert name of city and local fave deejay, mention the town's favorite dive diner where you ate breakfast, then sing sing sing. A formula, but it worked. Performance anxiety was not a problem, especially not when I looked out into the sea of faces and reminded myself, Screw this up and you have nowhere else to go. I never experienced that moment of looking out into a crowd of ten thousand-something people and panicking. I psyched myself into thinking of the crowds as one big blob of light, and once I was able to do that, I could burst into performance. By the time the light dissolved, I was halfway through the song and the kids were dancing and screaming in their seats. I remembered what Charles had said about the true loss—Lucky not getting to live out her life—and I vowed to relish the privilege of the experience for both of us. After a fourth city called me back for encores, Kayla cut my performance time to fifteen minutes, saying I needed to save my voice for all the daytime appearances I was required to do (she was too big a star for those appearances; her days were her own, and she usually spent them sleeping or on her cell phone with Dean Marconi). Kayla was not able to convince the stage manager that “Bubble Gum Pop” was the song that should be eliminated from my act.

The Windy City approached as Karl stood up to turn the radio speaker volume down and “Bubble Gum Pop” faded into a soft whisper. Then he returned to his seat opposite me. Sometimes sitting opposite Karl while we played cards was like being in a stare showdown, and not because we were each trying to gauge the other's poker face. Karl had a way of looking at my eyes, then glancing at the green flannel shirt that I constantly wore because the bus was always freezing (yeah, that's why; the smell of Liam on the shirt, even after it had been washed, had nothing to do with it), and I had a habit of hugging myself to keep warm, looking at Karl's eyes and wondering: How much do you know?

Karl's cell phone rang, and I knew Liam was on the line because Karl said, “What's up, Punk?” From overhearing plenty of their phone conversations while pretending to doze against the bus window but really doing surveillance on Liam's life, I knew that Karl always called him “Punk.” But Karl's “Punk” grunt to his son went down with great affection, like, “Hey Punk, Mom said you made dean's list. What's the matter with you—your old man is a dropout, you're making me look bad,” or “Yo, Punk, sounds like a carburetor problem. Take it to Sal's in Quincy on your way back to school. He's expecting you. No, don't worry about it, the cost has been covered. Don't say ‘Thank you,' Punk, just get it taken care of.”

If Dad called me “Punk,” would I like him more, would I be compelled to call him every few days to check in? Probably not.

Kayla was screaming for Karl from the back of the bus. He handed the phone to me. “You talk to the Punk a minute,” he said.

Yikes, why did Karl always do that?

“Hi,” I said into the phone. Why did my heart have to pound so painfully when I talked to Liam? In the time since It—three months, during which I had left two voice-mail messages on his cell that just said “Hey, it's Wonder” and he had called me back exactly ZERO times, though he never seemed to mind when Karl put me on the phone to him—I had accepted that It had just been some fluke fling for him, but It had meant a lot, lot more to me.

“So you made it to Chi-town?” Liam said. Why did even the sound of his voice have an effect on me? It so wasn't fair. “Good blues there. Make sure Dad takes you to hear some decent music, pop princess.” He spoke very quiet, and monotone-slow, like he was hungover.

“Yeah.” If I had any guts, I would have said what I really felt: You are the most interesting and smart and hot guy I'd ever want to be with, I could fall in love with you if you gave me half a chance, and I'm lucky to have been traveling and performing nonstop these months you haven't called or tried to see me, so that I could think about something other than how much you hurt me by acting like It never happened.

“I hear you're going back to Boston after the tour, no more camping out at Kayla's in Brooklyn. Maybe I'll see you there sometime—I go through Boston a lot back and forth to school.”

“Yeah.” What was that supposed to mean? Does that mean you want to see me or are you just being polite because you wish your father would stop handing his phone off to me when you call? State your point, Punk!

Should I bother to tell him I was only going home to Boston for a brief period, to check in on Mom and prepare to shoot a new video for the follow-up single to “Bubble Gum Pop,” but otherwise I had no real plans? Tig said I was in danger of overexposure and the end of the tour would be a good time for me to take a little break before shooting the video and setting out on another promotional blitz for the new single. I would be completely free for Liam to haul ass into Boston anytime and sweep me off my feet.

“WONDER!” Never did I think I would be grateful to be saved from further conversation with Liam by hearing Kayla demanding my presence.

Karl walked past me. “Your turn,” he groaned at me. He took the phone back. “Guess whose shrill voice that was, Punk. . . .”

I wandered back to Kayla's room. “Shut the door behind you,” she said.

What the? . . . I kicked the door behind me. Jules continued to play on the PlayStation, not bothering to acknowledge me.

“You have to listen to this voice mail I got last night. You're not going to believe this,” Kayla said. She took my hand and guided me to sit on the edge of her bed next to her. She pressed some numbers into her cell phone and then passed off the phone to me.

I heard Liam's voice, drunk and slurring, sounding like he was in a loud bar: “Mmmm, K, whassup? So are we gonna finish what we started anytime, or what? I know we only messed around that one time, but I think about you all the time. Like . . . all . . . the . . . time. You're . . . torturing . . . me. I know you know I have feelings for you, so why do you have to treat me like dirt, ignore me? I gotta move on. There's this other girl in Boston I like. She's no you, but she's different, cute. I don't wanna be wasting my time waiting on you, Kayla.” He started singing,
“Quit playin' games with tearin' up my heart
 . . . or what's that stupid fucking song anyway?” There was a loud clank like he'd dropped the phone on the floor, then a background voice proclaimed,
“Dude,
you are
wasted.
You got anybody to drive you home?” and then the message cut off.