Wishing on a Star (3 page)

“Coming!” we both yell.

“I’ll page you later,” Chuchie says as we go to join the grown-ups. “We can ‘dish and tell’ later.”

“You got it, girlita,” I say. “’Cause I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I’ll log on when I get your page, and we can hog the chat room all night long.”

It’s 10:45, and Chuchie, Pucci, Juanita, and Mr. Tycoon are long gone. Mom is cleaning up in the kitchen. My dad walked in about half an hour ago, and he’s waving a piece of corn bread in the air as he talks. Talking with his hands comes with his heritage. Signore Francobollo Garibaldi is Eye-talian—from Bologna, Italy—but he loves soul food. I guess it comes with lovin’ my mom.

Dad runs the factory in Brooklyn where the clothes are made for Mom’s store, Toto in New York, and sometimes he gets home real late. Like tonight.

I give him a kiss, or
un bacio
, as he calls it, and say, “I got school tomorrow and I gotta get my beauty sleep, okay?”

“Okay,
cara
,” my dad says, kissing me back. “Luv ya. Just make sure your skirt is longer than twelve inches!” He smiles at me and gives me a wink.
Cava
means “precious one” in Italian. That’s my dad for you: behind me all the way, as long as I keep my knees covered!

I get washed up and get into bed, knowing Mom will be coming in to say good night any minute. She never misses. Sure enough there’s a soft knock at my door, and she comes in and sits by my bed.

“You have a good time tonight?” she asks.

“Uh-huh. I guess,” I say. “Mr. Tycoon’s kinda different, though.”

Mom laughs. “I know what you mean, sugah. You and Chanel didn’t say two words the whole time, but I bet you were kicking each other under the table!” Mom knows us too well.

“Yeah.” I giggled. “Better kicking than talking—I got the feeling he wouldn’t like it if we did!”

“You’re right about that,” she says. “But Juanita’s crazy ’bout him, so we’ve just gotta play along and hope she gets what she wants—and likes it when she does.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

“You ready for school tomorrow? Just don’t roll up the waistband of your skirt!” she says.

“Okay,” I say, and fake a yawn. “G’night, Mom.”

“Good night, baby. Don’t be scared, now—stay fierce. Show ’em who you are, and they’ll love you just like I do.” She kisses me on the forehead and goes out, shutting the door behind her.

Mom is so cool. When I am rich and famous, I am going to buy her the one thing she wants more than anything else: Dorothy’s ruby slippers from
The Wizard of Oz
. Mom is a
serious
collector. She wants whatever nobody else has, or almost nobody There are only five pairs of ruby slippers in the whole world, and the last pair was auctioned off at Christie’s for 165,000 duckets. I will find the anonymous mystery person who has bought the ruby slippers and buy them for Mom as a surprise.

Mom has seen
The Wizard of Oz
more times than I care to remember. She boo-hoos like a baby every time, too. I don’t know why it makes her cry. It makes me laugh.

There is something Mom isn’t telling me about her family, but I’m not supposed to know that. She never talks about them, and I don’t have any relatives on her side.

In the living room, there is a very old, gray-looking picture of
her
mom, a brown-skinned lady who looks sad. She says her mother died a long time ago, before I was born. Chanel says my mom is a drama queen. I think she is just larger than life. Diva size.

I have a lot of ruby slipper stickers, which I have put on my school notebooks and dresser drawers and my closet doors in my bedroom—the “spotted kingdom.” I also have ruby slipper cards. I keep them in the leopard hat boxes by the bed.

Inside the ruby slipper card, it says MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. I keep one pinned on my busybody board and open it sometimes because it gives me hope that my dreams will come true, too. I don’t want to let my mother down and live in this bedroom forever.

My Miss Wiggy alarm clock reads 11:00, and suddenly, my beeper is vibrating on the night-stand. Got to be Chanel. I roll over, hop out of bed, and log on to the Internet on my swell Ladybug PC.

Toto is hunched on his front paws and staring at me with his little black beady eyes. My poor little brother can’t accept the fact that he is simply a fluffy pooch. Toto is fifteen, (which is 105 in human years), and he sleeps in my room, in his very own canopy bed, with a leopard duvet. “Oh, Toto, you always make me smile,” I tell him as I type my greeting to Chuchie.

“Chanel, Chanel, you’re so swell. What are you wearing tomorrow,
mamacita
, pleez, pleez, tell?”

No answer. Hmmmm … she beeped me, but she isn’t in the chat room. That’s strange. There is plenty of cyber action, judging by the number of on-screen entries. Everybody must need a ’Net break since it’s back-to-school “D day” for anybody under eighteen with a brain.

“Oh, if I only had a brain, I wouldn’t feel so lame, and I’d jump on the A train when it rained, because there’d be no shame in my game …” I hum aloud while plotting my next move.

“My name is Dorinda,” flashes on my computer screen. “I’m pressing my khaki boot-cut pants right now and shining my Madd Monster shoes. I’m wearing a black sweater, right. Do you think it will be too ‘that’ to wear a tube top underneath it?”

Oh, this girl is mad funny, I think, cracking up as I type a response. “Hi, my name is Galleria. September is the time for the belly button to go on vacation and the brain to come back in full effect. Unless you want Serial Mom to corner you in the girls’ room and cut off your top with a rusty pair of scissors, you’d better leave the ‘boob tube’ at home! Where are you going to school, anyway?”

“Galleria, the Joker, thanks. Tomorrow’s my first day at Fashion Industries on Twenty-fourth Street. I’m going to major in fashion design! Guess I can’t ‘cut’ class. Ha. Ha.”

Hip-hop, hooray. This girl is going to the same school I am, even though our majors are different!

“I’m gonna be checking for you, girlita. I’m there tomorrow, too, or I’ll be a T square. I’m majoring in fashion merchandising and buying—I’ve got a passion for fashion but can’t cut my way out of Barbie’s cardboard wardrobe. I leave that to my mom. She’s a majordomo dope designer. You scared about going to high school?”

“No. I’m cooler than a fan, baby. Well, okeydokey, a little,” Dorinda replies. “It’s farther away from my house than I’m used to traveling in the
A.M.
, if you know what I’m saying. And it’ll take away from the time I used to spend helping my mom get everyone ready for school.”

Another entry flashes on my screen. “Hey, Bubbles! Let’s wear our leopard miniskirts with berets, but with a different-colored turtleneck. Which do you want to wear, red or black?”

Chuchie is finally in the house. “Gucci for Chuchie! No diggity, no doubt. You’re late. This is Dorinda and she’s going to be in the house with us tomorrow. Where you been?”

“Pucci lost one of his Whacky Babies—Oscar the Ostrich. That beaten-up thing was his favorite, too.
Ay, caramba
, I was so glad that he finally fell asleep on top of Mr. Mushy. Now he’ll be crying when he wakes up tomorrow and sees he’s got a crushy Mr. Mushy, but I’m not moving him!”

Pucci is Chuchie’s younger brother. He is nine, pudgy, spoiled to death, and has the biggest collection of Whacky Babies stuffed animals in the jungle. I call him “Eight Ball” because his head is shaven clean like a pool ball.

I type back, “Ooh, that’s cold, Chanel No. 5. Dorinda is majoring in fashion design. Ain’t that dope?”

“Cool, Miss Dorinda. Where do you live?”

“116th and Lenox Ave.”

“Uptown, baby, you gets down, baby?” Chuchie writes.

“I try. I can move. I can groove. I’m gonna take dance classes at the YMCA on 135th ’cause I’m in the Junior Youth Entrepreneur Leadership Program there, so I get classes in everything for free.”

“We got skills, too. We take dance and voice classes at Drinka Champagne’s Conservatory on Saturdays. You think you got more skills than us?”

“No! I’m not flossin’.”

“Correct,
mamacita
. Me and Galleria sing, too. What you know about that?”

“Nothing. But I think I can sing, too—a little. I would like to, anyway. I’ll check for you two tomorrow and show you!”

“Bet, Dorinda. Bubbles, don’t try to get out of it. What color top are you gonna wear? ‘Cause you better not wear the same color as me,
está bien
?”

“Bubbles? That’s funny,” Dorinda types.

“Chuchie calls me Bubbles because I love to chomp on gum. Something I cannot do in public because my mom says it’s tick-tacky,” I type for Dorinda. “I’ll wear the red top with the black scribble, okay?” I type to ease Chuchie’s mind.

“Dorinda, where did you go to junior high?”

“I went to Wagner,” Dorinda types back.

“You really are a hoodie girl, huh?”

“Guess so. It was two blocks from my house. Easy breezy on the traveling tip.”

“That’s cool. It could be worse.”

“Word?”

“Word. At least you don’t live in the suburbs!” Chanel types, proud of her snaps. “Galleria is a boho because she is so ‘that,’ and I’m a Dominican bap, I guess, and proud of it. We’ll see if you can hang with us!”

What does she mean by I’m so “that”? I’ll fix her. “You’re a burp!” I type back. “Boougie, undone, ridiculoso, and princess-y to the max. Don’t deny it.”

“Don’t let me read you from cover to cover or you’ll never recover, Secret Agent Bubbles, okay,
mija
?” responds Chanel. “I’m going to wear the black turtleneck top with the leopard skirt, so you can go ahead with your red top.” I can just see her giggling. She is a majordomo gigglebox and can’t be stopped.

“Maybe we can be a crew. You never know,” I type for Dorinda’s assurance.

“Let’s meet outside the cafeteria at 12:00 sharp. But we’re not going in. I don’t want to get food poisoning my first day of school. You know what we’ll be wearing, so you can’t miss us!” Chanel signs off.

“See ya and I’m tryin’ hard to be ya!” Dorinda retorts.

This girl is quick. Maybe she
can
hang with us, I think, as I sign off, “Powder to the People!”

“Powder to the People!” is a joke between me and Chanel. I’ll tell Dorinda about it tomorrow. For now, I log off and get back into bed.

Toto is lying on the floor now with his nose pressed to the floor.

“Toto, watcha thinkin’?” Cheez whiz, I wonder what it’s like to be a dog. One thing is for sure. They don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and go to school.

In the darkness, my fears dance around like Lotto balls. So I sing out loud to all the twinkle-dinkles like me, trying to sparkle in this crazy place called the Big Apple. A real deal jungle. We don’t have the grass and trees, but we do have some of the animals.

I drift into sleep, and I’m sure the fears have all been chased away. Not by my singing, but by Toto’s snoring, which is louder than the backfire from the Cockadoodle Donuts truck that passes by our street at four
A.M.
every morning. My songs are my secret weapon, though, for shooting straight to stardom….

Mr. Drezform, our new homeroom teacher, has trouble pronouncing my last name, like all the other teachers I’ve had since kindergarten. “Galleria Gareboodi?”

“Here!” I yell out, smiling and raising my hand in the air like I just don’t care. “It’s Galleria Gar-i-bald-i.”

This boy in front of me turns around and heckles me. “Gar-i-booty!” he says, and laughs. Then
everyone
else in the class turns to look at me.

“
What
?” I ask, challenging him. “What’s your name, yo?”

“Derek,” he says, still smiling.

“Derek what?”

“Derek Hambone,” he says. “The new brotha in town—from Detroit.”

“Derek
what
?” I ask. “Did you say Hambone?” Now the class is laughing at him, not me. “Hah! You’d best not be laughing. Your last name sure ain’t no Happy Meal.”

I snarl and squint my eyes. He turns away, busted. Now I’m looking at the back of his head, which has the letters “D U H” shaved into it. “Duh?” I say to Chanel, mouthing the words without sound. “What are we on—
Sesame Street
?”

Derek is featuring a red, blue, and white Johnny BeDown shirt with matching droopy jeans covered with logos like a roadrunner map. Johnny BeDown clothes aren’t made by the Joker, if you know what I’m saying. You have to shell out serious duckets for them. They just
look
like the homeless catch of the day.

There are three things I hate. 1. Cock-a-roaches. 2. Math tests. 3. Wack-a-doodle clothes. The first I can’t avoid unless I move out of New York City. The second two are
kinda
like roaches because they’re everywhere.

I,
Galleria Garibaldi, will never dress like everybody else.
I write this in my freshman notebook using my purple pen. It’s true that I get my animal instincts from my mom, but I have my own flavor, ’cause I’ll wear cheetah prints in hot pink or lime green, and Mom sticks to the old-school ones.

I remember I was only four years old when she bought me my first furry leopard coat with a matching hat. My father nicknamed me Miss Leoparda because I wore that coat to pieces. I also had a stuffed leopard animal named Cheetah Kat, which I took with me everywhere. And Toto now has seven leopard coats, thanks to me.

As for Chuchie, her taste in fashion runs to berets. She is wearing one today, with her braids hanging down into her face.

“Gimme one of your pens,” she groans. “Mine stopped working.” Chuchie must own about fifty of these French pancakes (that’s what I call them). The beret she is wearing today is black with a gold-braided edge. Her mom brought it back from Paris. Chuchie is sitting next to me, drawing silly faces in the margins of her notebook and giggling quietly.