Shop in the Name of Love (6 page)

Mom
did
say not to use her credit card, but I don’t think she will mind, since it’s something for my room. At least that’s what I tell myself. And if she does mind, too bad. I deserve a new rug, and the stool matches, so I just have to get that, too.

I am so good at making my voice sound grown-up, the operator never asks me anything. The stool is $156, and the rug is $38. Mono better do some tricks with a banana for this kinda money, I think, giggling to myself as I place the order. “Does it come in any other color?” I ask.

“No, just blue with the red monkey design,” the operator replies.

The stool is real leather, not pleather, so I decide to go for it. But I have to have the cheetah picture frame, too, I suddenly realize. I
need
a new frame for my Confirmation picture sitting on the dresser. It is my favorite picture, not counting the one of me at my sixth-birthday party, standing with the piñata that I busted open all by myself. In it, I am making a face because I got a terrible stomachache after I ate everything that fell out of the piñata.

In the Confirmation picture, I’m wearing the holy red robe for the ceremony. This is the color that symbolizes the fire of the Holy Spirit. Abuela has her arm around me and she is smiling. My silver cross is draped across the picture frame, which is supposed to be silver, but it has changed colors and looks old. My mom picked it out. I wonder if she knew it was fake silver. Surely she’d want me to have a better one if she knew. A picture like this one deserves the best frame there is!

So I order it, along with everything else. I’m feeling dizzy from my little shopping spree—dizzy and happy, and a little bit scared. What if my mom finds out before I get enough money to pay her back?

Well, she won’t, that’s all, I tell myself. I’ll just make sure she doesn’t. I quickly shut my math notebook and put it away.

“Will that be all, ma’am?” the operator asks. Just as I’m about to say yes, I realize that I really need a new outfit to go to the recording studio, so I make the operator wait until I pick one out of the catalog. She adds it to the total, and when she reads me back a list of what I’ve bought, I almost chicken out, it’s so much money

But then, I think to myself, Why should I care if Mom gets mad? She’s always mad at me anyway. No matter what I do, it’s wrong— “Don’t talk with that witch Pamela! Don’t take the Cheetah Girls too seriously! Don’t do this, don’t do that …” Well, too bad for her. I’ll do what I want.

“Yes, that will be fine,” I tell the operator.

That’s what you get,
Mamí
, for trying to control every move I make!

I have just hung up, when Pucci comes into my room without even knocking. “Get out, Pucci!” I yell at him. I hate when he does that. We aren’t little anymore, you know? “What do I have to do to get rid of you?” I blurt out.

“Get me a dog. I want a dog!” Pucci giggles. “How come we can’t have a dog?”

“You know
Mamí
isn’t gonna let us have a dog, Pucci. Why are you bothering me?”

And then it hits me. Why
can’t
Pucci have a dog?
I
want one, too. Nothing against Snuggly-Wiggly Pooch, but a real dog would be
la dopa
! Mom’s always complaining how allergic she is, but there must be some kind of dog that doesn’t shed. Why can’t we get one of those? Yeah … now, there’s a great idea! Right away, I start to cook up how to get us a real-live dog.

Meanwhile, I don’t feel like doing my ballet exercises, but I know I’ve got to, to help keep my body strong. Changing into my pink leotard, I groan to myself. All this shopping is exhausting, but hey—a Cheetah Girl’s day is never done!

These days, the Cheetah Girls are really living
la vida loca
—the crazy life. Rehearsals, school, homework, and, for me, fighting with my mom, and spending secret nights on the Psychic Hot Line with Princess Pamela, or shopping on the phone and ordering from Oophelia’s catalog.

Thank goodness, history class is the last of the day At four o’clock, we have to meet Mr. Johnson at Snare-a-Hare Recording Studios in Times Square. He has arranged for us to have a recording session with this Big Willy producer, Pumpmaster Pooch.

We did find out about Pumpmaster’s “credits,” He did the rap remix for the Sista Fudge single, “I’ll Slice You Like a Pound Cake.” That’s something, huh? That song is one of Princess Pamela’s favorites. It makes her giggle and makes me wiggle.

Speaking of Princess Pamela, I’ve been running up the phone bill calling her 900 number. I’ve been getting some pretty strange advice, too—she’s been telling me to watch out for animals. I wonder what she means by that….

Maybe I should forget about the dog I’ve been planning to get Pucci. Or maybe it’s the Cheetahs I ought to stay away from. No, that can’t be. Maybe Princess Pamela is off the mark this time. After all, she doesn’t know who she’s talking to. I’ve been disguising my voice, so maybe that’s throwing off her predictions. Still, it’s been bothering me, and I just can’t figure it out.

I almost asked Princess Pamela about it yesterday, when I gave her the management agreement to pass on to my dad. But that would have been giving myself away, and I didn’t want it getting back to my dad that I’d been running up the phone bill to get advice I could have gotten for free!

I also wanted to tell Princess Pamela about all the money I’ve been spending, and get her advice on that, too—but I knew it would make Mom mad if she found out I’d been asking Princess Pamela for advice, let alone that I’d been using her credit card and running up her phone bill!

“How much did Mr. Johnson say it costs for an hour at the recording studio?” Do’ Re Mi asks, bringing me back to reality. We are at our lockers after school, getting ready to go over to the studio for our recording session.

“The studio? It costs a lot, but we don’t have to pay for it,” I answer.

Me, Bubbles, and Do’ Re Mi are looking
muy caliente
today—hot, hot, hot! We’re all wearing matching red velvet jeans and crushed velvet leopard T-shirts from Oophelia’s. Bubbles’s mom paid for hers. I bought mine and Do’ Re Mi’s on my mom’s credit card (surprise, surprise).

“Chuchie, you are lost in your own soap opera channel. What’s the matter,
mamacita
, Snuggly-Wiggly Pooch ate your homework?” Bubbles chides me, putting her arm around my shoulders. “What’s wrong? You’re not giggling, and that’s kinda like Toto not begging for food. Ya know what I mean, prom queen?”

I poke Bubbles in the side, because Derek Hambone and Mackerel Johnson are standing by their lockers across the hall. “Duckets in the bucket alert!” I whisper in Bubbles’s ear.

Like the Road Runner, Bubbles makes a bee-line to hit up the dynamic duo, and make them buy Kats and Kittys raffle tickets.

“Hit ’em up, Galleria!” Do’ Re Mi says, egging Bubbles on.

Derek is this new “brotha from Detroit,” as he calls himself, and the word is, he comes from a family that owns the biggest widget factory in the East—
mucho dinero, mamacita
!

“Derek, my Batman with a plan. Buy a raffle ticket for me and part with two dollars for a good cause. You, too, Mackerel Come on, I’ll let you two touch my vest—it’s national velvet. Feel the pile!” Bubbles urges them.

“Awright,” Derek says, reaching for the ticket, but then he looks at it, reads about the Prada prize, and says, “Cheetah Girl, you expect me to get jiggy in the jungle with a
Prada
bag? I’m not going out like that.”

“Oh, come on,
schemo
, you ain’t gonna win the raffle, anyway, just part with the two duckets!” Bubbles says, pouting. Derek is such a
pobrecito
—a real dummy. He doesn’t even know Bubbles is calling him a dodo bird in Italian. I
know
Derek isn’t going to win, because I
better
win. No one else deserves that Prada bag more than I do!
“Prada or nada”
is the motto I live and die by.

“Awright, I’m gonna let you hit me up this time, Cheetah Girl, Derek says, like he is a loan officer at Banco Popular, “but you owe me
big-time
for this one.” Reaching into his baggy jeans, I wonder if Derek is ever gonna find the bottom of his deep, baggy pockets. I wonder how the “Red Snapper” is gonna get his money off the hook.

See, Derek likes Bubbles—and he’s always snapping at her bait—that’s why we nicknamed him “Red Snapper”—and also because his best friend is Mackerel Johnson. Derek is the only one of his posse who is large enough to become a member of the Kats and Kittys Klub, though. It costs $650 a year.

Mackerel smiles at me while he’s bouncing to some tune in his peanut-sized head. He is so hyper, he looks like a Chihuahua bobbing his head up and down.

Oh, snapples, that’s what I could get Pucci! “My mom can’t say
nada
about a Chihuahua— they are so little, who could be allergic to them?

Meanwhile, Bubbles is still closing the deal. “Thank you,
schemo
,” she smirks to Derek and Mackerel, stuffing their duckets into her chubby Cheetah wallet.

“Shame on you, too, Cheetah Girl. Just be ready when it’s time to collect, awright?” Derek says, winking. Then he walks away with Mackerel.

“You got one of them dog books from the library, right?” I say to Do’ Re Mi. I’m on a bowwow mission now.

“Yeah, why?” Do’ Re Mi replies.

“Look up the breed Chihuahua and see if they shed hair.”

“Word. Wait, they ain’t got any hair,” Do’ Re Mi counters. She is so smart. The most book-smart of all of us.

“Look it up anyway,” I giggle. “I think Miss Cuchifrita just got lucky See, if Chihuahuas don’t shed, then I can buy Pucci one for his birthday!”

“If you buy Pucci a dog,
you’re
gonna end up at the dog pound for sure,” Bubbles quips to me. “And where you gonna get that kinda money?”

“It’s three o’clock, y’all!” Do’ Re Mi says, setting off down the hallway in her size zero velvet jeans. “We better get over to the studio, and start gettin’ down!”

“Oh, snapples, I forgot to get the agreement back from Princess Pamela,” I sigh to Bubbles.

“What’s she doing with it?” Bubbles asks me, like she’s saying, “Don’t play with fire.”

“I gave it to her so she could give it to my dad,” I said. “I didn’t have time to go all the way uptown, baby, okay? My mom is watching me like a hawk when she isn’t doing her exotic dancing!”

“Mr. Johnson won’t mind if you don’t have the agreement. Just tell him we’ll bring it to him the next time,” Bubbles says, grabbing my arm and pulling me along. “Come on,
señorita
. We’ve got some singin’ to do!”

Recording studios have more gadgets on the control board than I’ve ever seen in my life. “They got so many buttons, how do they know which ones to push?” I exclaim to Do’ Re Mi, who is
muy fascinado
with anything
electrónico
or
en la Web
.

“That’s why he’s making the duckets.” Bubbles smirks to the engineer, who is sitting at the board with headphones on.

Bubbles’s mom, Dorothea, has come with us to the studio, but the twins haven’t arrived yet.

“This is Kew, the engineer,” Mr. Johnson says, introducing us as the Cheetah Girls. No matter how many times I hear our group’s name, it sounds like
la música
to my ears. I love it!

“Mr. Johnson, can I speak to you for a minute?” Dorothea says. The two grown-ups go into another room—so they can talk business, I’m sure. Dorothea is all about the “Benjamins” and she doesn’t play. She looks
la dopa
today, too. She is wearing a big leopard hat, and leopard boots that make her look taller than “The Return of the Fifty-Foot Woman”— even though she is only six feet tall. I wish
I
was that tall.

At last, the huggy bear twins have arrived!

“You know the Cheetah Girls rule: don’t be late or we’ll gaspitate!” Bubbles says, warning the twins as they hurriedly throw their cheetah backpacks on an empty chair in the studio.

“Dag on, y’all, just when we think we know how to get somewhere, they change the subway line on us!” Aqua laments, fixing her pin curl in place. Aquanette and Anginette still haven’t learned their way around the Big Apple yet.

“You’re ‘Westies’ now like me, so you’d better get with the IRT program,” Do’ Re Mi grunts. She lives on 116th, on the Upper West Side, and last summer, the twins moved from sunny Houston to 96th Street and Riverside Drive.

Like mine, their parents are “dee-vorced” (as Angie says in her Southern drawl), and the twins live with their dad. He must be kinda cool, ’cuz he pays for them to go to the beauty parlor twice a month to get their hair
and
nails done. I think they should pay me instead because I would give them
la dopa
hairstyles instead of the “shellac attack” curls they like so much. Sometimes less is more!

Today, the twins are wearing makeup, so they look kinda cute. Aqua and Angie are
café sin leche
color, and they love that white frost lipstick on their big, juicy lips. They are screaming for a Miss Wiggy! virtual makeover.

Mr. Johnson and Dorothea come back into the room. His beeper goes off, and he looks at it nervously. “I got a situation I gotta take care of,” he says. “That is Mr. Hyena—I told you about him—he is the Big Willy at Hyena Records. Mrs. Garibaldi, Kew will look after you. And Pooch will get with you girls when he gets through,” Mr. Johnson adds chuckling, never too nervous to get a rhyme out.

Pumpmaster Pooch is in the other room on his cell phone. We can see him through the big glass partition. He waves at us with his five-carat fingers. I mean, he is wearing enough gold rings to start a gold mine. Kew is busy fiddling with the keyboard, so the five of us sit and watch the music videos on MTV, which are playing on one of the monitors over our heads.

“
Ay, Dios mío
, Krusher’s latest music video!” I whisper.

Dorothea goes into the room with Pumpmaster Pooch, so we relax a little. I feel so nervous!

“Krusher’s got it going on,” Do’ Re Mi says, looking up at the monitor and grooving to Krusher’s new single, “My Way or the Highway.”