Woof, There It Is

by Deborah Gregory

  “Ooo, looky cookie, we even got a gift basket!” I say, running over to a big gold basket covered in gold cellophane that’s sitting on top of the bureau.

  What a swelly room. It’s decorated in royal blue, red, and gold, just like the lobby. “Ooo, look at the rooster lamps,” I say, pointing to the two matching lamps on the nightstands as I tear into the cellophane.

  Mom slaps my hand and says, “Lemme open that!” After she rips open the cellophane and pulls out the card, she reads it out loud for us. “‘To the Cheetah Girls. Best of luck tomorrow night. Paul Pett, Talent Showcase Coordinator, Def Duck Records.’”

  “That’s nice,” I respond, rubbing the copper head of the rooster lamp like it’s Aladdin’s lamp. When I turn on the switch, its tortoiseshell glass body glows with orange light.

  “Oh, that is la dopa!” Chanel coos, coming into the room.

  “Chanel, take some chocolate,” Mom says, handing her one of the chocolate eggs wrapped in gold foil from the basket.

  “Can I take the guava fruit?” Chuchie asks excitedly. Chuchie loves tropical fruits—and she knows the names of all of them. I guess that’s her Dominican heritage. “Can I take the chocolate, too, Madrina?” she asks, giggling.

  “Of course, Chanel. Now, girlinas, we have to get trussed up like turkeys, because we’re going to lunch. Then we’ll do a little sight-seeing, okay?” Mom says. Hanging up her cheetah coat in the closet, she adds, “Spacious closets—I’m in a better mood already, darling.” She looks at me with a fake grimace. “Oh, go on, Galleria, take your bath first. And don’t use up all the bubble bath!”

  I hightail it to the bathroom. It has a pretty royal blue rug, and towels with red- and gold-embroidered roosters. I love the little bottles of stuff they always have in hotel rooms—except for those “one-star bungalows,” as Mom calls the cheapie hotel rooms. Actually, we might be staying in one of those hotels right now, if the record company wasn’t paying for our rooms and airfare.

  The tub is not as big as I pictured it, but it has pretty copper faucets. I throw the cute rubber rooster in the tub, and watch it float as I pour the little shampoo bottles into the tub along with the bubble bath. I never use hotel shampoos on my hair—they’re just for girls with real straight hair, not kinks like mine.

  “Bring on the suds, bring on the suds! Don’t be a dud, ’cuz I need a rub-a-dub-dub!” I hum aloud, as I watch the tub fill up with delicious, bona fide bubbles.

  “Lemme see how big your tub is,” Chuchie says, crowding into the bathroom behind me.

  “The same as the one in your room,” I say, exasperated.

  “No it isn’t, Mamacita!” Chuchie says, flicking the bubbles at me, like we used to do when we were little. “Bubbles for bubbles!” she coos. We used to mess up the whole bathroom and make Auntie Juanita mad.

  Auntie Juanita and my mom used to be close, back when we were little and they were both models. They barely get along these days, but that’s because Auntie Juanita has turned a little “tutti frutti” now that she’s getting older. It seems like she spends most of her time worrying about getting wrinkles, or losing weight. Not like Mom. All she worries about is getting everything done, and then doing more things. She never stops till she drops.

  “Chuchie, the rooms are exactly the same. There is no shame in your game!” I say to my silly half, as I take off my grimy clothes.

  “Excuse me, but I have to go try on everything I own now, está bien?” Chuchie says, then walks out of the bathroom.

  “Yo! We’re just going to lunch, not the Sistarella ball!” I call after her.

  “Hey,” Chuchie giggles, poking her head back into the bathroom. “You never know who we’re gonna meet on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.”

  “You have no shame, Chuchie,” I mutter, sliding down into paradise. “The only thing I love more than bubbles is more bubbles!”

  “Está bien, Bubblehead!” Chuchie says, making fun of my silly nickname.

  Whispering loud enough for Chuchie to hear me, I add, “Just make sure the twins don’t wear a corny outfit today.”

  “Está bien, Secret Agent Bubbles!” Chuchie giggles, then finally leaves me in peace.

  Do’ Re Mi is upset because her clothes are wrinkled. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ll just call the valet,” Mom explains.

  “What’s a valet?” Do’ Re Mi asks, dumbfounded.

  “They take care of hotel guests, and cater to their every whim,” Mom explains patiently.

  “Well, I don’t have any whims,” Do’ Re Mi chuckles, kinda embarrassed. “But I can iron it myself, if they just give me an ironing board.”

  “No, they’ll do it, darling, don’t worry,” Mom assures her. “You know, girls, it wouldn’t hurt to dress cheetah-certified today, even though you’re not performing.” With that, she goes into the bathroom.

  “Okeydokey,” I say. “You hear that, Chuchie? Get cheetah-certified or you’re fried!” I yell into the open doorway that joins our suites.

  Then I step out onto the balcony to take in the view. The first thing I feel is the breeze. “It’s not as hot as I thought it would be in Los Angeles. It’s actually kinda chilly willy, isn’t it? I guess that means we won’t be wearing bikinis, huh?” I snicker to Do’ Re Mi.

  “Yeah. We’d better wear jackets,” Do’ Re Mi mutters, still trying to smooth out the wrinkles in her clothes.

  “You didn’t lose any undies, did you?” I whisper to her.

  “Yeah,” she whimpers. “I did. The bozo probably stuck one in his pocket. I’ll bet he’s gonna wear it on his head later!” We giggle loudly.

  “Ouch! Why can’t they make wax that doesn’t take off your skin,” Mom yells from the bathroom.

  Chuchie comes wiggling into our room, still in her underwear and undershirt. “Chuchie, get dressed!” I yell.

  “I just wanna help Madrina,” she says. “Madrina, you should let Princess Pamela wax your mustache.”

  “Mustache, Chanel? I’m not a gorilla. It’s just a little hair on my upper lip,” Mom says loudly from the bathroom. “And besides, the last time I let some beauty wizard wax my upper lip, it looked like I had a localized case of the chicken pox!”

  “Madrina, I’m telling you, Princess Pamela has the magic touch,” Chuchie continues.

  “That’s for sure, ’cuz Dodo has never seemed happier!” Mom quips, and the two of them giggle at their private joke.

  I have to agree. Chanel’s dad, Dodo, does seem happier now that he is with Princess Pamela instead of Auntie Juanita. But Juanita seems happier, too, now that she is with Mister Tycoon, this supa-gettin’-paid Arab businessman, who lives in Paris and wears a funny mustache and fancy suits.

  “Okay, girlinas, what are we wearing? I suggest the cheetah minis, and flats, ’cuz we’re gonna do a lot of walking,” Mom says, taking out notes from a pink manila folder.

  That’s my mom. She has probably scheduled everything, like a drill sergeant in the army. Hup, two, lunch! Hup, two, shopping! Hup, two, rehearsal! Hup, two, go to sleep!

  “Okeydokey,” Do’ Re Mi replies.

  “And here are our choices for lunching in the City of Angels. We could go to Porcini, for Italian peasant food,” Mom says, rifling through her papers some more. “Or we could try some gorgeous Cantonese live seafood at Chop, Chop! Or we could go to Bombay Cafe on Santa Monica Boulevard, for ‘Yuppie Indian in West L.A.’ It says here they have ‘wonderful chutneys, uttapams, and masala dosas,’” Mom repeats, looking up after she has read the review from some magazine.

  “What is a ‘Yuppie Indian’?” Aqua asks, puzzled.

  We giggle, then Mom tries to explain, but even she is stumped. “Well, I guess … oh, I don’t know—some fabulous curry cuisine, I’m sure!”

  Chanel is the first to give Mom the look that says, We’re not taking any passage to India today, Mamacita.

  Mom is never stumped by our facial expressions, especially Chuchie’s. “Humph! Adventurous as ever, are we, Cheetah Girls?” she s
ays. Then she sighs, because even she knows when she has been out-kadoodled by my crew.

  “I guess you can take the Cheetah Girls out of the jiggy jungle, but you can’t take away their animal instincts for, well, barbecued ribs. Okay. Aunt Kizzy’s Back Porch it is.”

  We chuckle up a storm, then Do’ Re Mi is the first out the door. “Bring on the BBQ!” she yells, whooping it up.

  Aqua licks her juicy lips and seconds that motion. “I know that’s right!” she says.

  Chapter

  4

  The first thing you notice about “La La Land,” as they call L.A., is that there is a whole lot of space. “Peeps are definitely not living like cockroaches out here, like we do in the Big Apple,” I comment to Chuchie as we walk down big, beautiful Hollywood Boulevard.

  The second thing you notice about La La Land is that there aren’t any people walking on the tree-lined sidewalks—not to speak of, anyway. Still, Mom insists that we walk to Aunt Kizzy’s Back Porch, even though we could’ve called a taxi.

  “Look at the mansions,” I exclaim, ogling all the dope estates nestled high up in the looming Hollywood Hills above us.

  “I bet you that’s where Kahlua lives!” Aqua says excitedly, pointing to a bright yellow mansion with white pillars at the tippy-top of a hill. “That’s real nice, ain’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Angie says, then pokes her mouth out. “I wouldn’t want to live there, though—what if they had a fire, and you had to get out in a hurry?”

  “An earthquake is more like it,” Mom says, shivering her shoulders. Mom has gotten a map of Los Angeles that looks more like an encyclopedia, and she is becoming very roadrunnerish about the whole get-around-town thing.

  “They have earthquakes here?” Do’ Re Mi asks, scrunching up her nose.

  “More of them than garage sales, it seems,” Mom replies.

  That makes all of us really quiet, and I can tell Aqua and Angie are a little spooked. When we get to this biggie-wiggie intersection at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, I can see the twins’ teeth chattering, because it seems like it’s miles to the other side of the intersection.

  “We haven’t seen one ‘blacktress’ yet,” Do’ Re Mi says to break the silence. “I bet they’re probably getting their nails done. Look at all the cars—they’re the real stars here.”

  Even though we’re afraid to cross, we finally get the nerve up (okay, Mom drags us), but we soon discover, much to our surprise, that drivers here are a lot nicer than in New York. This shiny olive-green car with a sparkling chrome jaguar on its front hood stops right in its tracks to let us cross.

  “Can you believe that?” Aqua exclaims in sheer amazement. “He let us live!”

  “Don’t worry, darling, he’s more concerned about us bumping into his prized Jaguar than the other way around,” Mom humphs.

  “Jaguar,” Do’ Re Mi says, savoring the name of the car like it was the best slice of corn bread she ever bit into. “It’s dope. I can’t wait to learn how to drive.”

  “If you lived out here, you would learn fast. Everybody out here drives—even the toddlers,” Mom explains, adjusting her cheetah shades to get a better look at what she suddenly sees before her eyes.

  In the window of Oh, Snaps! Bookstore, there is a big, framed poster of Josephine Baker. Collecting memorabilia is the only passion Mom has—other than being “large and in charge,” of course.

  “It’s boot-i-ful,” Chanel coos.

  In this poster, La Baker is wearing a pink sequined gown, and her arms are stretched upward, like she’s on top of the world—and I guess she was. Back then, she was the richest, dopest black woman in the world. “Isn’t this one gorgeous, darling?” Mom asks me, with a touch of sadness in her voice.

  “As gorge-y as the fifty other ones you own,” I coo back. Mom already owns every other Josephine Baker poster on the planet, including the only one signed by the famous French artiste Cous Cous Chemin, in which Josephine is posing with her pet leopard, LuLu.

  The leopard is in this poster, too, sure enough—off to the side, and looking like he just ate the canary. “Ooh, tan coolio. His collar is even leopard!” Chuchie says, pointing to the poster.

  “How do you know the leopard is a he, Chanel?” challenges Dorinda.

  “Guess you’ll have to go to the history books and find out,” I snicker at Do’ Re Mi, who is always reading books of one kind or another. Anything you ever want to know, that nosey-nose will go to the library and find out for you.

  I sigh wistfully at the kazillion photos of movie stars in the store window. “One day, our photo is gonna be in there,” I say to my crew.

  “That’s a cheetah-certified fact,” Mom commands. “Well, let’s see if you’re ready for the big bargaining league, Galleria.”

  “I’m ready for Freddy,” I quip back. See, the only thing Mom likes better than collecting memorabilia is getting it at a bargain price. It’s called “the fine art of snaggled-tooth haggling,” ’cuz you don’t stop until you draw blood!

  Flinging my cheetah pocketbook like I have more in it than a tube of S.N.A.P.S. lipstick and a disposable instant camera, I stroll into the bookstore.

  There are three tricks of the bargaining trade: 1. You gotta act très nonchalant, like you really don’t want the thing in the first place; 2. After you ask how much the thing costs, act very surprised that it’s so expensive; and 3. After the salesperson tells you the price, look at other stuff, so they can stew that they lost the sale, then wait for them to quote a lower price.

  “Bonjour,” I say to the salesperson, a blond woman with bifocal glasses crooked on her nose. The rest of my crew stands around, ogling the movie star photos, while I do my thing.

  “How much is the Josephine Baker poster in the window?” I say, stifling a yawn, then casually glance at a picture of some “creepy crawler” named Adam Ant.

  “Five thousand,” says the saleslady, giving me a look like I can’t afford it!

  Don’t come for me, Missy, I want to snap, but I stay cool as a fan. “Oh,” I simply respond, stifling another yawn, then continue looking at Mr. Ant’s photo.

  It seems like five years have gone by before the saleslady says, “You know, it’s a vintage 1936 photo, but I can give it to you for four thousand.”

  “Oh, that’s fabbie-poo, darling. Let me think about it—I’m off to an auction. Toodles!”

  I have to run out of the store, because I’m about to lose it, and I can see my crew trailing fast behind me.

  “Bravo, darling!” Mom says, clapping her hands when I get outside, then the rest of my crew joins in. “That was a performance worthy of an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Bookstore!”

  I curtsy and prance in front of everyone till we get to the next corner. Then I catch a glimpse of my mom, looking back toward the store, with a real sad look on her face, like she wants that poster in the worst way, but can’t afford to get it. Again, I get that guilty pang in my stomach. I wish I could shell out the duckets myself for the poster.

  “Which way to Aunt Kizzy’s?” I ask, changing the subject to get her mind off her misery.

  “Just follow the smell of corn bread!” Aqua heckles, darting forward to the quaint little door to Aunt Kizzy’s Back Porch.

  Although there are no movie stars at Aunt Kizzy’s, there really is an Aunt Kizzy, and she makes “the best macaroni and cheese and candied yams outside of Texas,” claims Aqua after we’ve finished our fabbie-poo lunch.

  “Just don’t barf it up!” quips Chuchie as we’re leaving. Everybody waves good-bye to us, too. La La Land is definitely a lot friendlier than New York. It must be all the sun and fresh air.

  “Y’all Cheetah Girls come back and see us real soon,” Aunt Kizzy says in her booming voice, waving at us from the BBQ grill. “Good luck with the showcase, too. If y’all sing as good as you eat ribs, you’ll be riding around in a Bentley in no time!”

  “Yo. We’re getting a Jaguar, right?” Dorinda asks, looking up at me.

>   “Nope. A cheetah-mobile,” I quip back, grabbing a toothpick from the stand by the door. I can feel all the gunk stuck in between my braces.

  “That was good food in the ’hood!” I say, smacking my lips, imitating the twins. Then I get busy poking at the shredded rib with the toothpick. “Look, Chuchie, even the toothpicks are red.”

  “And so is the back of your skirt, Mamacita!” Chuchie shrieks, grabbing my arm and pulling me aside.

  “Say it ain’t true, blue!” I reply without thinking, because I’m turning red. “Is it my period?”

  “Sí, Mamacita. What else!” Chuchie says, looking at me like I’m a dodo.

  Chuchie knows how much I hate getting my period. That’s why it catches me by surprise half the time. I just wish it would pouf and go away, and come back another day!

  I run inside to the ladies’ room, to check out the disaster. Walking by the table where we ate, I can’t help but look at the chair I sat in. Omigod, there is a little red stain on the plastic cushion!

  I hightail it to the bathroom, and go inside a stall, where no one can see how embarrassed I am. I sit on the toilet seat and put my face in my hands. How could I get my period today?

  Chuchie stands on the next toilet seat, leans over the top of the stall, and peers down at me. “You okay, Bubbles?”

  “No! I’m not okay, Chuchie. Get a stupid sanitary napkin or something.”

  Mom always tells me to carry tampons with me, and I don’t listen, because I hate getting my period!

  This time, Chuchie hands me a sanitary napkin under the stall. “You owe me a quarter,” she says, giggling.

  “Chuchie, you’d better sit your butt down before I make change!”

  “Don’t be mad at me,” she exclaims. “Here, you can put my sweater around your skirt. Nobody is gonna notice, está bien?”

  “Chuchie, I’m just so embarrassed, I’m never leaving this stall!”

  “Está bien, Bubbles. I’ll stay here with you all night, but let me go tell everybody not to wait for us.”

  “Very funny, bunny,” I tell Chuchie. Then I start giggling, too. It is mad funny, in a pathetic sort of way. “Don’t you hate being a girl?” I ask her.