“You better hope it ain’t the first ‘dis!’” Do’ Re Mi sighs.
“Oh, cállate la boca, Mamacita. Be quiet.” I sigh, then hum aloud, “Yo tengo un coco on Crusher.”
“What’s that mean?” Do’ Re Mi asks, smirking and squinting her eyes.
“Look it up!” I heckle. “I’m just playing with you, Dor-r-r-inda, Mamí,” I say rolling my Rs like I’m on a choo-choo train. “You won’t find it in el diccionario. It means I have a crush on Krusher.”
“Coco is cuckoo for Krusher,” Bubbles heck-les, making a play on my middle name.
“Watch out, Chuchie, this may be your last dance, last chance,” Bubbles says, pointing her finger excitedly at the monitor.
The Krusher music video has ended, and now there is a commercial for a Krusher contest. “Are you the lucky girl who will win an all-expenses-paid date with R&B’s hottest singer, and spend two fun-filled days and nights with Krusher in sunny Miami? What are you waiting for? Call 900-KRUSHER right now!”
“Ay, Dios mío! I’m gonna enter,” I squeal, jumping up and down.
“Okay, Cuckoo Coco, get over it, because here comes the man,” whispers Do’ Re Mi, secretly pointing to Pooch, who is on the move toward us.
“Ladies, ladies, I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Pumpmaster Pooch says, rushing into the engineer’s booth. He has on dark sunglasses and a hat, and a black windbreaker. I can tell he thinks he’s kinda chulo, kind of cute, too.
“Now, I got a song you are gonna love. I’ve picked out some material for you—the type of songs that will get you a record deal, so just trust me on this,” he says, talking with his five-carat hands the whole time. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Pooch tells Kew what tracks to put on, then takes us to the recording booth. The five of us stand in front of the microphones and put headphones on our heads. “We’re gonna practice it a bit, then take it from the top when we’re ready,” Pooch says.
“Where are the musicians?” Angie asks, like she’s been in a recording studio before.
“We’re just gonna lay down some lead vocals over the tracks first so you can get the hang of the song, ya dig?” Pumpmaster says, looking at Bubbles mostly, and the twins. The twins have been singing in church choirs since they’re nine, so they always seem like they know what they’re doing. “Then we lay down the background vocals and arrangements later. That’s my job. We ready, Cheetah Girls?” Pumpmaster Pooch says, flashing a grin.
“We’re ready!” we say together. I am so excited—I cannot believe that we, the Cheetah Girls, are already in the studio, recording. Okay, it’s just a song for a demo, but you know what I mean, jelly bean.
“‘I Got a Thing for Thugs’?” Bubbles says, scrunching up her nose as we read the lyrics off the sheet music that Pooch has handed out to us. “That sounds radickio!”
“Bubbles, let’s just listen to them, okay?” I say, trying to calm her down because I know we are lucky to be here in the studio and not paying for it.
But after we finish rehearsing the same song fifty thousand times, we are so tired I never want to hear that song again. Bubbles is right. The song is la wacka! Bubbles looks like she is about to explode. I guess she thought we would be doing one of her songs.
Mr. Johnson, who has returned, comes in and congratulates us. “Ladies, you did a wonderful job. Now the car service is gonna come and take all of you right to your door.”
“That song was wack-a-doodle,” Bubbles says, pouting, when we are finally in the car with Dorothea. “It just wasn’t us.”
“Maybe once we do some of their songs, they’ll let us record some of yours,” I explain to Bubbles. She is caliente mad.
“What did you think, Mom?” Bubbles says, putting her head on Dorothea’s shoulder.
“There is something about that Mr. Johnson that I don’t like,” Dorothea says, then leans back into the car seat. “I told him that I have to have the agreement looked over by a lawyer first, and that made him kind of nervous. If anything isn’t right with that agreement, I’m gonna be so shady to Mr. Jackal Johnson the sun is gonna go down on him!”
Yawning, I put my head on Dorothea’s other shoulder, and sigh. “Bubbles, you’re right— that song was wack-a-doodle!” We giggle, then get real quiet for the rest of the way home.
I can’t wait to get home and call 900-KRUSHER. I’m gonna call a hundred times if I have to, because I’m going win that date with Krusher and make my dreams come true.
That’s what me and Bubbles always said when we were little. We would follow the yellow brick road no matter where it led us. Well, Miami, here I come!
Chapter
6
It’s time for me to head uptown to Drinka Champagne’s Conservatory. All five of us are now taking vocal lessons and dance classes there. Aqua and Angie don’t need it, because they go to Laguardia Performing Arts High School and they get la dopa training all week, but it helps us to sing better together as a group. We also practice songs that Bubbles wrote—“Wanna-be Stars in the Jiggy Jungle” and “Welcome to the Glitterdome”—just in case Mr. Johnson and Pumpmaster Pooch decide to let us record them for our demo. Hey, you never know!
If I don’t leave now, I’m gonna be late. Class starts at eleven o’clock, and Drinka does not play. If you walk in one minute late, she will stop everything and read you like La Prensa, our local Spanish newspaper, right in front of everybody. Now I’m mad at myself because I wanted to get to class early today, so I could show Drinka and the Cheetah Girls how much work I’m doing on my breathing exercises.
I spritz on my favorite perfume—Fetch, by Yves Saint Bernard (Princess Pamela bought it for my thirteenth birthday last year). I also spritz some Breath-So-Fresh spray in my throat. It makes me feel better, even though Bubbles says buying that stuff its like throwing “duckets down the drain.”
I’m the one with the sensitive vocal chords, so I have to try whatever I can. Bubbles has a throat like the Tin Man. She can eat a plate of arroz con pollo with a bottle of hot sauce, sing for three hours straight, then still be able to blab her mouth on the phone till the break of dawn!
I look at the clock again. Hmmm. Maybe I can get one more call in to 900-KRUSHER before I go. I pick up my red princess phone, and start sweating as soon as I hear Krusher cooing in the background of the taped recording. I have to win this contest. My corazón would be broken if some other girl gets a date in Miami with my papí chulo, my sugar daddy No—I can’t think like this, or I will faint for real.
I listen to the recorded message for the tenth time in a row. The instructions are simple: you have to tell, in your own words, why you think you should win the date with Krusher.
I have a buen idea! I’ll sing to Krusher on the phone. One of the Cheetah Girls songs! I betcha none of the other mamacitas calling could do that. It’ll be my ace to first base.
“Hi, it’s Chanel Simmons again,” I say, giggling into the phone. Then I get kinda nervous. “I think I should win the Krusher contest because I know all the words to every song you’ve ever done. Right now, I’m gonna sing you one of the songs from my own group, the Cheetah Girls….”
My gran fantasía is fumbled, though, because all of a sudden, I hear my mother hang up the phone in the hallway and scream my name really loud. “CHANEL! Get out here! Apúrate!” I almost faint for real, and I get a knot in my stomach like when I know I’m in trouble.
“Ay dios, por favor, ayúdame—oh God, please help me!” I say, doing the trinity sign across my chest, then kissing my Confirmation picture. I look really hard at Abuela’s smiling face.
“Chanel, you better get out here!” Mom yells again.
Taking a deep breath, I walk out of my bedroom. My knees are shaking more than the Tin Man’s in The Wizard of Oz.
If looks could kill, I would be dead, judging by the pained expression on my mother’s face. Her dark brown eyes are breathing fire. She is wearing black leotards and tights, and she is sweating because she has been exercising.
“That was the credit card company on the phone. They were calling me because of the excessive charges made on my credit card. But I don’t have to tell you who’s been making them, do I?” Mom challenges me.
“No, Mamí,” I whimper. I know I am finito. It is time for my last rites, and I wish Father Nunez was here to read them.
“Why did you do it, when I told you not to?” Mom screams. “I give you an inch, and you take a mile. Por qué, Chanel? Why? Por qué?”
I start crying. I feel like such an idiot for thinking I could get away with charging all that stuff on my mom’s credit card. “I don’t know why I did it,” I stutter. “I was just mad at you.”
“You were mad at me?” she says, turning up the volume another notch. “Are you kidding me? I give you my credit card—I trust you— and you’re mad at me?”
“You wont let me be close to Pamela,” I complain, letting it all hang out. I figure at this point, que será, será, as they say in the old movie. What will be, will be. “She’s not a bruja, like you always call her. She’s nice. She’s nicer to me than you!” I’m really crying now, and so is my mom. I don’t know who is angrier at who.
“Oh, yeah? Maybe you’d like her for a mother instead of me?” she says, half sobbing. “I let you buy a new outfit, and this is how you repay me?”
“At least Pamela wouldn’t complain about me being in the Cheetah Girls!” I say, really letting the hot sauce fly. “You don’t want me to go after my dreams—you only want me to give up on them, like you did!” Years ago, Mom gave up on being a model when she got to “a certain age.” I know what I’m saying is unfair and mean, but I’m so mad now that I just can’t stop myself.
“I want you to get out of my face until I talk to your father about this, but don’t think for one second you’re gonna get away with it!” Mom screams. “You can forget about all your stupid Cheetah Girls, too. Tu entiendes? You understand?”
No way. She can’t do that! The Cheetah Girls is all I care about besides Abuela and my dad and Princess Pamela and Pucci and arroz con pollo and Prada! The Cheetah Girls and my dreams to travel all over the world are my whole life! Without them, I have nada. La odia mi mami! I hate my mother.
“I have to go to Drin-ka-ka Conservatory,” I say, so nervous I can’t even get the words out. “I promised everyone I’d be there.”
“All right. You can go to this one last class,” she says. “But you come right back afterward and wait for me here. Entiendes?”
“Sí,” I whimper, then grab my jacket and run out the door.
After vocal class, I am slobbering like a baby to my crew.
Bubbles is so mad at me, she won’t even talk to me. “You have broken a sacred rule of the Cheetah Girls, Chuchie, and I am so disgusted with you, I cannot even look at you,” she yells in front of Angie, Aqua, and Do’ Re Mi.
I do not know what sacred rule Bubbles is talking about, but I am sure she will tell me, and anyway, I’m too afraid to ask. Drinka, who runs the conservatory, has left us alone in the rehearsal space, because big mouth Bubbles has told her what happened. We are sitting on the hardwood floor in a circle.
“How come you didn’t tell me what you were doing with that credit card, Chuchie? You were always so sneaky-deaky, even when we were little!” Bubbles blurts out. She won’t stop.
“Is your mother really gonna make you leave the group?” Do’ Re Mi asks me, looking worried and scared.
“I don’t know. That’s what she says!” I cry. I am so scared of going home. I want Bubbles to help me. She’s always helped me when I get in trouble, ever since we were little.
“I have no idea why Aunt Juanita wants you to be a buyer. You would end up wearing all the clothes yourself! Like I said before, you’re a shopaholic waiting to happen!” Bubbles yells at me.
“Dag, now you’ve really given your mother a good reason not to let you stay in the group,” Angie clucks, looking down at her skirt, then pulling it past her knees.
“Yeah, and now she’s gonna say that we are a bad influence on you. You better let her know we didn’t have anything to do with this—and you can take back all those clothes you bought me. I don’t want them!” Do’ Re Mi yells at me. Her eyes are watering.
Dorinda is a big crybaby. I know because she calls me on the phone and tells me secrets that Bubbles doesn’t even know about. Like the stuff about her first foster mother, who was really mean to her and gave Dorinda up, but kept her sister. That’s how she got put in Mrs. Bosco’s house when she was almost five years old.
“Chuchie, the Cheetah Girls are all we have,” Bubbles says. “We are not like some other stupid group. We don’t just sing. We are more than just some singing group, okay?” She waves her hand at me, rolls her eyes, and pulls out her cell phone. “Let me call my mom at her shop. Auntie Juanita will be there, too, Chuchie, and my mom will know what to do.”
I cover my face with my hands. I just want this bad dream to go away. Everybody is real quiet while Bubbles talks to her mom on the phone.
“Keep Juanita there, Mom. Please help us. Think of something!” Bubbles pleads to my madrina on the phone.
She listens for a minute, then says to me, “Mom says get your compact out and powder your nose.” I know that this is madrina’s way of saying “sit tight and get ready for Freddy, ’cuz anything could go down.”
“Juanita is still in the store screaming, so Mom is gonna call me back,” Bubbles explains to all of us. “She’s gonna calm Juanita down and think of what to do. And you know my mom can think on her feet, even if she’s wearing shoes with ten-inch heels that are too tight,” she adds, flossing.
“I know that’s right,” quips Aqua.
Dorothea is no joke. She can wheel and deal and, hopefully, she will save me from being the subject of a missing person’s report.
“You’re gonna pay for this one, Chuchie. In full,” Bubbles says, putting away the cell phone. “Your mom is caliente mad!”
Angie hands me a pack of tissues out of her backpack. I take one and hand it back to her. “No, keep the whole thing, ’cuz you’re gonna need ’em by the time your mother gets through with you,” Angie clucks, then unzips her backpack and takes out a sandwich. “I’m sorry, y’all, but I’m hungry. We didn’t have time to eat breakfast.”
“I hope you’re burning a good-luck money candle, Chuchie, because you’re going to need all the luck you can get,” Bubbles says, rolling her eyes at me. “Even though those candles look like a bunch of green wax to me, I don’t see any duckets dropping from the sky to save you right now!”
It’s a good thing Bubbles’s cell phone rings, because I want to crown her like a queen for being so mean to me. Bubbles pulls up the phone antenna and hops on her Miss Wiggy StarWac Phone like it is a Batphone or something. Then she says, “Hmm, hmm,” all serious—at least ten times, and keeps us waiting in suspense like a soap opera. My godmother is obviously giving her the super ataque, the blow-by-blow report.
When Bubbles hangs up, she lets out a sigh. “You are so lucky, Chuchie,” she says, pulling one of my braids. Then she gives us a blow-by-blow of the soap opera that is filming at Toto in New York … Fun in Diva Sizes, madrina’s boutique in Soho.
“Chuchie, your mom came into the store screaming so loud that Toto ran into the dressing room and scared a poor customer who was getting undressed,” Bubbles explains.
The twins laugh, but I don’t. Neither do Bubbles nor Dorinda. “We have to go to the boutique right now. All of us,” Galleria says.
We all look at each other and swallow hard. It’s high noon. Time for the big showdown. Ready or not, here we come!
Chapter
7
Dorothea is yelling at a man outside the boutique when we get there. Toto in New York … Fun in Diva Sizes is a muy famoso boutique, and many famous divas shop there, including Jellybean Nyce, the Divas, Sista Fudge, Queen Latifah, and even Starbaby, the newscaster who wears so much gold you have to wear sunglasses when you watch
her on television. Dorothea does not play hide-and-seek with all the riffraff that comes to Soho looking to pickpocket all the tourists.
“You see what the sign says? It says, ‘Toto in New York … Fun In Diva Sizes,’” Dorothea says with her hands on her hips, drilling the man, whose clothes look rumpled and crumpled. “This is a clothing store, not a toothless-men-who-love-big-women dating service, so get outta here!”
The man grins at Dorothea, then smacks his lips like he hasn’t eaten lonchando. Then he hobbles away with his bottle in his hand, babbling like a parrot.
“He doesn’t have any teeth,” I mumble to Bubbles.
Because the door of the store is wide open, Toto comes running out. He is probably still afraid because of all the commotion. He looks so cute and fierce in the little cheetah-print suit Bubbles made for him, and he’s as fierce as a cheetah, too! He jumps on the back of the legs of the man who has never had a visit from a tooth fairy
“Toto, come here! Don’t go running after him like he has treats for you!” Bubbles yells, then grabs Toto and carries him back inside the store, rubbing his stomach. Toto likes to get attention from anybody.
“Hi, Toto,” I say, giving him a rub, too. I love him so much. I guess I’ll never get a dog of my own now, though….
“Dag, it must be hard having a store in New York, because there are a lot of crazy people here,” Angie says.
There are a lot of people in New York who are cuckoo, but maybe not as “loco as Coco,” I think, feeling sorry for myself. I climb up the stairs and inside the store, like a prisoner going to the electric chair. There is my mom, sitting on a stool with her arms crossed in front of her, and her eyes shooting bullets at me.
Luckily, my madrina takes over the situation, as usual, as soon as I get inside. “Chanel, I’m going to lay out the situation for you like the latest design collection. Juanita doesn’t want you to be in the group anymore. And in many ways I don’t think you deserve to be,” my madrina says.
Now both my mom and my madrina, who I love so much, are ganging up on me! I haven’t eaten anything all day, and I feel really dizzy, but I don’t say anything. I just stand there.
Shop in the Name of Love Page 5
