Pop Princess (7 page)

I grabbed Henry's hand to drag him inside; his palm was all sweaty, so I dropped it right away. Henry and I must have made an odd sight. My getup made me look like I was about twenty-five, and Henry's awkward face and gangly height made him look like a prematurely aged twelve-year-old. How cool would it have been if Henry had worn an Opera Man cape instead of chinos and a white polo shirt.

The gymnasium was decorated with an autumn theme: Paper-cutout leaves covered the walls in golds, reds, and greens and strings of lights in fall colors hung from the ceiling. A giant banner across the stage proclaimed, “Go Devonport Lions, ROAR.”

Jen & Co. found us straightaway. Her eyes appraised me head to toe and she exclaimed, “Oh no! What, is that a B-Kidz costume rejection you're wearing?”

Henry said, “Jen, go pick on someone who cares.” My head did a double-take turn sideways at him. Go Science Project!

As they walked off, one of Jen's friends said, “Gawd, Jen, you are just gonna make the best Miss Adelaide this school has ever seen!”

Doug and his band stepped onstage, each of them wearing a black T-shirt that proclaimed “Doug's Band” in a goth Def Leppard–type print. Doug was clearly the center of their universe, so why bother to mine their brains for a clever band name when “Doug's Band” said it all? Jen forgot all about her victim to rush toward the stage and fawn over Doug. He did look awesome with his gel-spiked hair, tight black leather pants, and rock star T-shirt. Henry tugged on my arm. “Wanna dance?” he asked. I shook my head. Although if I did want to dance, I thought, wouldn't Jen Burke be blown away! I was feelin' it. But really, I just wanted to watch Doug, which was better than listening to him. He wasn't much of a singer, and the band, though technically competent, was less than inspiring, not that anybody besides me noticed. The crowd was grooving like Bon Jovi was playing Devonport's Homecoming Dance.

I could have sworn that when Doug sang a punked-out version of “Isn't She Lovely,” he was directing his leer toward me.

Hmm, I thought. Did that just happen? Weirdness. Potential.

An e-mail from Trina helped
me get a grip.
“So school sucks? Time to WAKE UP! Nobody can change the situation but YOU. Don't I remember you telling me that swoony white boy at the pizza place was in a band? Well, aren't you a singer? Do the math, Wonder, xo, Treen”

It took me a few weeks after the Homecoming Dance to get up the courage, but one evening I was walking home from dance class when I turned down a certain street where a certain Doug Chase lived. The band was rehearsing in the garage. I could hear the guitar wails halfway down the street, even over the roar of the nearby ocean. I walked right on in and said, “Hey.” I never would have been so bold if we had been at school, where my outcast badge would likely have created invisible laser beams to bounce me away from the cool people had I dared approach them.

There were four guys hanging out: Doug on electric guitar, another guy on bass, a guy on drums, and one at a keyboard. “Wanda, right?” Doug asked. I couldn't tell if he was teasing. Despite the name mistake, his tone did not suggest I was the biggest loser he'd ever encountered in his garage.

Step 1: check.

“Wonder!” I said.

The guys were all staring at my chest. I realized I was still wearing my leotard under my short skirt and that my cleavage was spilling out. I untied the cardigan sweater wrapped around my waist and put it on. The past six weeks of dance classes were slowly turning my flabby figure into a lean, mean fighting machine, but if you're gonna be flaunting a leotard and tight skirt in front of your crush, excess boobage could be considered overkill.

The guys all looked bummed. Their sound had been loud, but apparently not pleasing to them. Doug shook his head. “It's just not happening for us today, Wanda.”

“My name's Wonder,” I stated again.

“Wonder,” they all repeated. The guy on drums said, “The B-Kid, right?”

“Guess so,” I murmured, deflating.

Doug perked up. “You ready to sing, Wonder? I told the guys about you.”

“Sure. What song have you been rehearsing?”

“ ‘Take Me to the River.' You probably don't know it. It's an old song by—”

“Al Green!” I interrupted. God bless Trina for the CD burn mixes she had been sending me so that I could listen to the singers whose vocal stylings she thought I should study.

The guys all nodded enthusiastically, at least as enthusiastically as a contingent of stoner musician guys could.

Doug tossed the mike my way and without saying a word the guys started playing the song. I didn't have time to think. I just started singing the first verse, and Doug's Band, with Wonder Blake at the mike, took off from there.

Step 2: check.

For the month of November,
I forgot all about Tig and any hopes of becoming a pop princess. I even forgot about nagging Mom to take me to get a learner's permit. I was the new chick singer with Doug's Band, so good they sometimes let me sing solo along with backup for Doug, so good they even bought me my own “Doug's Band”-emblazoned T-shirt. I did have to wonder if they really thought I wore a “small” or if they just wanted to check out my rack in the wicked tight tee.

Word spread fast at Devonport High. Wonder Blake was no longer just a former summer B-Kid—she sang with Doug's Band. The revised secret memo might have read,
Wonder Blake: Okay not to treat her like a nobody. Tread carefully.

Little things changed at school. Seats opened for me at lunch. Girls complimented me on my lip gloss in the bathroom. Guys stared dreamily at me in study hall when I sat at my desk and read song sheets, mouthing the lyrics to myself. Between Doug's Band and my part-time job, I wasn't studying much (at all), so my G.P.A. wasn't improving, but I couldn't have cared less.

What did not change at school was Jen Burke. If she had disliked me before, now that Doug and I were hanging out, she hated me. She bumped into me in the cafeteria, saying, “If you think just because you're in Doug's Band that he likes you now, I know for a fact that you're wrong.”

I had my Trina moment, and I said, “I know for a fact that I don't care what you think.” That shut her up for the time being. Though she did purposely knock over my chocolate milk.

Doug was into me, I was pretty sure. How many times did I catch him smiling at me or scamming on me when I was belting out the tunes? By our tenth rehearsal, I had counted eighteen real times, though I was open to the possibility that five of those times were imagined.

But I knew I wasn't going crazy fantasizing his interest when I arrived early to rehearsal one evening and, as I approached the garage, heard the drummer say to Doug, “Man, she's got it going on. Don't fool around with her. You know that'll ruin everything. Do you realize how many gigs we could get next summer if she's with us? Dougie boy, don't do it.”

“I won't!” he said, sounding defensive.

Way to eavesdrop, Wonder. Now I just had to figure out how to get him to go back on his promise to his bandmates.

I knew this much by now about Doug: His parents were divorced and he lived with his dad, who was a car mechanic; Doug's dream was that the band would buy a van after graduation and move to L.A. and become rock stars; if he graduated from Devonport High, it would be just barely; his favorite band was Guns 'n' Roses (whatever) and his favorite artist was Bob Marley (much better); and the shorter my skirts got at rehearsal, the better his guitar played along with me.

Opportunity knocked one night soon after Thanksgiving. He was walking me home around nine in the evening after rehearsal, and we'd taken the route along the beach. It was one of those sickeningly beautiful Cape nights before winter hit hard: brisk, windy, moody. A half-moon hung over the water and if we'd cared enough to look, we probably could have seen all the way to Nantucket.

Doug lit a joint as we walked. He passed it to me. I'd never had one before. Square much?

We were about two blocks from my house; I could see it lit up in the distance. The nearby summers' houses were all dark. I plopped down on the beach and placed the joint between my index finger and thumb. I said, “Show me how. I've never . . . you know.” What I really wanted to say was, Feel free to pounce on me at any time, Dougie.

“Really?” he asked. He took the joint back from my fingers. “Let me show you a better way to learn.” He inhaled on the joint, and before I knew what he was doing, he had leaned right into my face and placed his lips on mine. I opened my mouth and he blew the smoke inside. When he pulled away, I coughed hard.

“What the hell was that?” I sputtered.

“Shotgun,” he said. “Wanna try it again?”

I said, “Let's try it without the joint.” The air was cold and the breeze whipping hard, the night sky dark and starry, but his lips managed to find mine, and mine managed not to fumble the experience too terribly worrying about nose positioning and breathing. I wouldn't say the earth moved or anything, but after a minute or two of awkward lip fumbling that was about as sexy as making out with Screech from
Saved by the Bell,
I got the hang of it. After five straight minutes of kissing, in fact, my lips were feeling quite competent. Hands, necks, hair, on to stomachs—I guess you could say we safely rounded second base, with an attempt at third. At last, I thought, Wonder Blake has her moment. It was the kind of moment so perfect that only a kid brother could ruin it.

“Wonder!” Charles yelled out in his loud Boston accent: Won-DAH! I could hear the wheels of his skateboard stumbling across the gravel road above the beach. “Ma's looking for you.” Paranoia consumed Mom ever since Lucky's death. She wanted Charles and me to call her every two minutes to tell her where we were, and when we'd be home. If we were ten minutes late she sent out a search party.

I kissed Doug one more time, fast and memorably, and he escaped across the darkened beach. I stood up on the sand and shouted, “Shut up, CHAH-les!”

Strange that hooking up with
Doug could give me a new sympathy for Jen Burke. Now I understood how she could get to be so mean. The guy could give some serious lip lock, but watch out if you tried to truly get close to him.

Rules for fooling around with Doug:

DO let him feel you up in darkened places when no one is around.

DO NOT attempt to hold his hand in public, or let on in any way, shape, or form that the two of you are an item. This fact is strictly a state secret, and the world order as we know it could topple should this secret come out.

DO fantasize about him during school, preferably during exams that will determine whether or not you pass.

DO NOT fantasize that Doug will acknowledge you as his make-out buddy to the band or at school, and for God's sake, DO NOT demonstrate any sign of affection for Doug in front of his buddies.

DO sneak out your bedroom window at night to meet him down on the beach. DO ignore Science Project's window surveillance of you sneaking out your bedroom window and climbing down the tree outside the window. DO lie down on the blanket Doug's laid out on the sand and DO let him kiss you and touch you for hours on end. DO let him beg you to give it up.

DO NOT give it up.

Doug was not exactly fulfilling my ideal of having a boyfriend as part of my new life in Devonport. He was not the kind of guy like Science Project who offered to carry your books, or opened a door for you, or who talked to your parents when he was dropping you off after rehearsal like they were real people instead of morons whom you had to bail from as quickly as possible. When Doug and I passed each other in the halls at school he mumbled “Hey” and kept walking, and during rehearsals he snapped at me if I missed a note, or he would say, “Is this Wonder's Band or is this Doug's Band?” In private, he was a different guy. All the sweet nothings this girl wanted to hear, Doug was throwing bull's-eyes: “You're so pretty,” “I want you so much,” “You fucking rock as a singer.” Yeah yeah yeah.

One evening after rehearsal we were making out in his basement while his dad was still at work. It was only about six o'clock, but the room was dark except for the flickering TV. My shirt was off and Doug was lying on top of me, his hand between my inner thighs, but not quite you-know-where. My jeans were still on, though the friction between our bodies as Doug rubbed against me told me the jeans were soon to be goners.

“Do you have, you know, something?” I whispered in his ear in that moment of heavy-breathing weakness. What the hell, I thought, why not just do it? Doug and I had gotten so close so many times in those stolen nights under the blankets on the beach late at night, maybe if we just crossed the line we could officially be boyfriend and girlfriend. But Doug's dad would be home any moment; if we were going to do this, it had to be soon.

“Yeah,” he grunted. He jumped off me and raced toward his bedroom. “Be right back,” he called out behind him.

His absence gave me time to reconsider. I thought, Is this how I want my first time to be, a quick shag in some guy's basement while Urkel pratfalls across the muted TV?

I was convinced Lucky watched me at all times. Ever aware of Lucky's spirit, I often kept naughty behavior in check—binging on Devil Dogs late at night, peeking at the smart girl's answers during chemistry, touching myself under the covers at night after groping sessions with Doug—for fear that Lucky was observing and scrutinizing me. In my mind, I could see her giving a thumbs-up when I was kickin' it at dance class, or nailing a song with Doug's Band, and when I wasn't being so good, I could see Lucky turning her blond head away from me in disgust.

I thought of how I must appear to Lucky at that moment, splayed out on a basement couch, my shirt draped over its side, my bra unhooked but not yet off, my hair tousled over a pillow. What must Lucky think? Sleazy, that's what she'd be thinking. You know better, Wonder Anna Blake, she would say. Unlike Lucky, I had no intention of waiting for some mythical “true love,” but I knew I didn't want the first time to be like this.