Pop Princess Read Online Free Page A

time I started,
    I’ve known you so long.
    Tig shook his head, frowning. I’d blown it. Now he knew me for the fraud I was, a pretender to my dead sister’s throne.
    Before I could apologize to Tig for wasting his time, I heard the music to a familiar, and favorite, song coming through the headset. Tig nodded to me and without thinking I just started singing. The song was “Like a Prayer.”
    Tig must have remembered that Lucky hated Madonna songs. Lucky’s face and voice effectively blocked, I started to wail the song. As I got more into it, I felt my body relax and my voice strengthen. There was an extraterrestrial cool quality coming from my voice that I hadn’t known existed.
    â€œYou’re showing off now, Wonder,” Tig said into my headset, but I kept singing anyway, and I saw him smiling—and smiling big, like his random instinct to bet on a dollar and a dream had just won him the lottery.
    He had me sing the song several different times, trying out different beats: slow, fast, R & B, gospel style, pop cute, and finally, however the hell I wanted.
    On that last take he said, “That was the one. Wonder style. Free and easy, natural.”
    â€œI have a style?” I asked.
    â€œNow you do,” he said. “Did you ever have vocal training?”
    â€œYeah, we had voice coaches on the set at B-Kidz. I sang on one of the B-Kidz Christmas albums. A really corny version of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.’ I’m so glad they don’t play the record on the radio in Boston anymore.”
    â€œYou’re embarrassed to be on the radio?”
    â€œNo, I’m embarrassed to have a sucky song on the radio. It was so cheesy.”
    â€œWelcome to the music biz, Wonder.” Tig asked me what female singers I liked. I named the usual suspects: Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Janet Jackson and Madonna. He said, “No, what pop singers do you like—you know, young ones? All these pop princesses out there and boy bands, there’s gotta be one of them you like.”
    â€œI guess I like Kayla okay. She’s not as bad as most of ’em.” When Lucky died so suddenly, Trina and Kayla had decided they couldn’t continue their group, Trinity, without her. Trina’s mom had been against the whole pop singing career anyway, and she was grief-stricken over Lucky’s death. She forbade Trina to pursue a record deal again until Trina finished college. Trina, I think, was relieved that her mother had made the decision for her. Kayla, on the other hand, had gone solo and within the last two years had skyrocketed to become the queen of the pop charts, and the skimpiest bikini-wearer the music video channel had ever seen. She was an international sensation.
    â€œYou’re not gonna go all diva on me, are you, Wonder?” Tig was Kayla’s manager. He would know.
    â€œNot if you’re nice to me,” I said, laughing.
    â€œGirl,” he said, “you don’t even know what a natural you are, do you?”

Five
    If being a natural meant fumbling lyrics, tripping on dance steps, and laughing hysterically every time Tig encouraged me to croon/wail/whisper the words “yeah” and/or “baby” in a song, then I was a natural-born superstar.
    I often suspected the only reason Tig kept working with me after our first session was that I kept him amused as he juggled endless pages and cell phone calls from his divorce lawyer, Kayla and other artists, and record company execs.
    Because school was let out for that week in September, I spent my afternoons at Tig’s house, at his invitation. I don’t imagine I ever thought our work would actually lead to a singing career for me, but it made my mom so happy to drop me off and to look into my eyes with hope instead of sadness. And excuse me, but the scene at Tig’s—with the huge flat-screen TV to take in Will Nieves on South Coast while Tig answered