Hey guys! So this story is based off of the book "Pop Princess" by Rachel Cohn, but because there was no category for that book, i put it under Gingerbread instead. As it turns out i happen to be a huge Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera fan, so when i read the book Pop Princess i couldnt help but notice the simlilarities between the character Wonder Blake and my favorite singers. So this story is kind of me combining the career paths of both Britney and Christina and rewriting into the character Wonder Blake. Although the story will have many facts from Britney and Christina's lifes such as the name of songs, albulms, and tour titles; there will be also alot of made up aspects as to Wonder's personal life based off of rumors about Christina and Britney, facts from the book, and of course, much of it will be just made up by me! Please review and tell me what you think, because i am always open to new ideas!
My life as a pop princess began at dairy queen. I could tell you that at the time I was your average fifteen-year-old girl with slacker grades, dysfunctional family, bad hair days, and a love for singing out loud to every pop song on the radio. But that was the Wonder Blake who seemed doomed to live out her junior year as a social oddity at her new high school in Cape Cod.
The other Wonder Blake, the one who slaved away at the DQ every afternoon, she sang aloud to every song on the radio to drown out customer's voices so her mind could focus on her one true ambition: escape. Sing-aloud Wonder dreamed on escape from Cape Cod, escape from high school, and escape to Somewhere, Anywhere (okay, preferably some place like New York or L.A, where a promising music career could be easily pursued). She also longed for an escape from her parents whose marriage was on a nuclear meltdown, escape from the sorrow that had overwhelmed our household ever since my sister's death; and the sorrow that had been there long before that.
And so it happened that I was discovered by Gerald Tiggs, a powerful talent manager, at a chance meeting at DQ. Tig (as he was known) walked into the DQ at the end of my late shift one Saturday evening. I was mopping the floor, using the mop as a pretend microphone as I strutted across the wet floor, a Discman on my ears as I sang out loud "All I Could Do Is Cry", one of my favorite Etta James songs. I had no idea a customer was lurking until Katie, my one friend in my new hometown and my coworker, practically knocked me over, sprung the headphones from my ears, and shouted "Wonder! The guy's trying to talk to you!"
I looked up. Labor Day had passed, taking the Dairy Queens late night customers with it. Or so I thought.
"Don't I know you? You look so familiar." He said.
Of course I recognized him. Who could forget those killer-shark eyes and the fine Italian tailored suits he wore even during 99% humidity. I told him, "Think a little harder."
He did, and then he knew. His killer eyes had a flashed of sympathy before they brightened up. "You're Lucky's kid sister."
"That's me." I twirled my long dirty-blonde hair around my finger. My older sister had been dead almost 2 years now, yet it seemed as if I would be known as "Lucky's kid sister" for the rest of my life. I wouldn't mind if that legally became my name if it meant I got only 5 extra minutes with her.
"I forgot you sang too." He paused, as if seeing me for the first time. "Yes, you were a B-Kid also."
I nodded, just a little embarrassed. That was my old life, back in Cambridge, when my sister and I trekked every Saturday to a television studio in Boston to tape Beantown Kidz, or B-Kidz as it became known, a kid's variety show that developed quite an audience across the nation. In the time since that cancellation the former stars had emerged to become major film, television, and music stars. My sister Lucky had been slated to become one of those B-Kidz alums.
"Do you have a demo tape?" Musicians struggle for years to hear a major talent scout ask them that question.
"No," I was embarrassed. Ever since Lucky's death, trying to pursue a music career didn't seem to land at the top of the to-do list. Katie, who had been watching the whole scene, was sitting at the edge of her chair, mouth open wide.
Tig raised one eyebrow at me and had a look of disbelief. "Would you like to make one?" I gasped, unsuccessfully hiding my excitement. "I've got a little recording studio set up in my summer house on the beach, and I've got a soon-to-be ex-wife back in Manhattan that my lawyer has advised me to avoid. I think it'd be fun, help an old man have a good time in this beautiful, boring town." I probably would have gone into shock right there if it wasn't for my mother, who happened to walk in just in time to hear the end of our conversation.
"Tig! How are you? It's been so long! What are you doing in this godforsaken town?" My mother's face began to glow as she took in Tig.
"Ah, Marie! Yes, it's been too long." I could see Tig's forehead crease as he assessed my mother before him. She had changed a lot in the past 2 years. She had gained about fifty pounds, three new worry lines, and seemingly permanent bags underneath her eyes. "I was just thinking Wonder here could make a demo tape, I forgot how wonderful her voice is." Tig laughed at his own play on my name. My parents had been told they were not able to conceive children. Seven years into their marriage Lucky had arrived to prove the medical system wrong. Two years later, their second unexpected wonder followed, Wonder Anna Blake, me. By the time my little brother arrived less than 18 months later, my parents no longer believed in miracles. They named him Charles and my younger sister (who was born about 3 years after that) is named Zoë. She was only 8 years old when Lucky died.
"Wonder would love to!" my mother blurted out, obviously just as excited as I was, if not more. I hadn't seen her that excited since Lucky was at the brink of signing her record deal. "Yes, she has always had an incredible voice. She used to be an amazing dancer; but she hasn't done any of that since-"she cut herself short. I know she was going to say since Lucky passed and I practically gave up all hopes of ever having a musical career.
Tig scribbled his number on a napkin and handed it to my mom. "I'll be in town through the end of September" he told her before he walked out of the DQ and into his Mercedes.
In my list of ambitions, becoming a musician was always at the top. I had been singing before I could talk and by the time I was 3 years old I would put on a show with the soundtrack to "The Sound of Music" for anyone who listen (including my stuffed animals). When I was old enough to take dance lessons I would come home only to practice the routine for another 3 hours and I would have Lucky grade my dancing A to F.
Anything music-related was a passion of mine, even before it was a hobby of Lucky's. It was my one way to escape the sorrow real life brought me. If it wasn't for my constant asking Lucky to help me make up dances and help me make perform, she probably would have never gotten into all that. But she was good at it, so it only made sense for them to take Lucky on Beantown Kidz back when we both auditioned. She had a very good voice.
The first time we auditioned I was about 6 years old. My grandmother saw an ad for it in the local newspaper and convinced my mom to drive us down to Boston and wait in line with hundreds of other kids with the same dream. They brought us in the room in groups of 20 and had we each sing a segment of any song we wanted. When it was my turn, I opened up the box of 50 cassettes I brought with me and asked the man to choose which one he wanted to hear. The man looked at me as if he didn't believe I had memorized all of them and picked a random tape. The song was an old Billy Holiday song (one of my mom's favorites). After I finished the song, everyone in the room burst into applaud and cheered. At the time, I was positive I would get the part. I was wrong.
As it turns out, the man who hears the auditions is not the man who makes up the criteria rules. Beantown Kidz was supposed to star teenagers; I was 6 and Lucky was 8. But the talent scout did not give up on us. He was sure to get all our contact information and promised that if we could audition again once we were old enough, that he could get Lucky and me on the show.
In the meantime, I filled up my résumé with performing at local weddings, parties, baseball games, and talent shows. I had become locally popular. When I was 9 years old I performed on national television on the show Star Search (a competition for all ages on who has the best talent). Although I ended up coming in second to a black boy about 2 years older than me, Lucky told me that getting that far was an amazing achievement and that competition meant sometimes you had to lose; I really didn't like that, but I thanked Lucky for the advice anyways.
All my life, everyone has told what an amazing voice I had, but to me, Lucky's opinion counted the most. She was my older sister and I wanted to be just like her. So what if I was the more musically passionate and talented one? Lucky was talented to, and when my mom got the call backs from Beantown Kidz when I was 11, they apparently thought she was special too.
Being a part of Beantown Kidz was the best feeling in the world. I was finally around other kids that understood what it was like to have a sincere passion for music. I finally had a chance to run away from the terrors of my early childhood. It was like a full-time summer camp for kids like me and Lucky. I was the youngest person on the set and I always looked up to the other kids. Lucky had made 2 best friends on the show: Kayla, and Trina. It was with those girls that Lucky would have signed her record deal with as the girl group Trinity, if she wouldn't have walked in front of the drunk driver that would lead to her death earlier that very day.
After Lucky's death, the other girls didn't think it would be right to continue the group without her. Since then, Kayla has gone on to become a popular pop singer, and Trina is signed with another R&B group called Destiny's Child. It's so weird to think about how much has changed since Beantown Kidz was cancelled only 2 and a half years ago. So many of us moved on to become famous movie stars or recording artists, one of us is dead, and me? I'm stuck here in the middle of nowhere. Why in the world would I be bitter?
Now my main focus was to get out of High School and this poor excuse of a town. My freshman year, the year Lucky had died, had flown by in a haze of C-minus grades and crying jags in the bathroom in between classes. I had no real friends; I didn't think I even knew how to make friends. Lucky was my best friend, and all my others were costars from B-Kidz that had been schooled on set with us. After the show was over, I failed to continue anything in my musical career. Money was tight in the family so I was forced to attend a public high school. My grades didn't impress my parents at all, but that year they pretty much let everything slide for a while.
Eventually I made some "friends" at school. They didn't hang out with me because they liked me, but more because I was on TV. It was with these girls that I was caught smoking in the bathroom and busted for skipping school. My mom's form of punishment was to move me away from these people and that town. To her, it didn't matter that it was the first cigarette, and that I only skipped school because it seemed completely pointless to go since it was only a half day. Dad said we had to move because we were broke; so that meant goodbye to my hometown, and hello to my once vacation-home turned permanent establishment.
"So I heard you're going to be a superstar!" said my little brother Charles as I walked into the kitchen. "Stupid fucking record people. Don't do it Wonder." To my brother, record deal meant death. I sat down on a wobbly chair in front of our cracked glass table. Our whole house was in desperate need of renovation, but the lawsuit against the drunk driver that had killed Lucky cost our family big time. Sure, the suit put the guy was put where he belonged, in jail, but it seriously dried us up financially.
"Hey, I won't have any 13 year old cursing!"My dad scolded him.
"So can I curse when I turn 14?" Charles said sarcastically. My dad almost cracked a smile.
"How about this, you can curse whenever you want as long as you have a GPA equal to 4.0, and the same goes for record deals." My dad turned to me. "you can pursue your music career only if your grades are improved tremendously this year." I rolled my eyes, obviously knowing that wasn't going to happen.
"When you're famous, can I have your autograph?" asked Zoe. I laughed.
"Sure, but only if you're not famous before me!" I told her. Zoe was one of the things that kept me from literally having a breakdown after Lucky's death. She was the only one who could bring light and happiness into our family. With Lucky's light blonde hair and my blue eyes, I would say Zoe was the perfect combination of the both of us, getting both our best features.
About an hour later, I heard a knock on my bedroom door before Katie and her twin brother, Henry, aka Science Project, walked in. Henry and Katie lived next door; I'd been hanging out with them every summer since we were babies.
Katie flopped onto my bed. "Guess what! Mom told us. Only the second week of school, and it's already cancelled all this week! They found asbestos in the locker rooms so they were forced to close down the whole school so we don't all die!"
I did a gospel Messiah jig around my room singing "Halleluiah". My initial week at Devonport High had been beyond painful. A Summer becoming a permanent townie? Who does she think she is?
Katie threw what I call her "popular kit" onto my bed. It was filled with beauty and celeb magazines, makeup samples, and hair accessories- her idea of Sunday entertainment. If there could be an award for Most Determined To Be Popular Despite Her Acne and Braces and Kmart Clothes Collection, Katie had nailed it.
Katie tossed me a soap opera magazine "Check out the cover- I brought this one special for you" I quickly turned over the magazine. There he was, my reason for living: Will Nieves. He is the star of South Coast, the one soap I never miss. Henry made a blech face. In the last year, he had grown very tall, but way gawky. His thin, dark blond hair had turned golden from the summer rays, and his usually pale skin had turned pink and healthy. He almost looked cute, except for the fact that his pants looked as if they would fall right off of his pale, skinny, white ass. Henry/Science Project looked like both his name and nickname. He had that aw shucks going with a pleasant puppy dog face, but he also had perpetually wrinkled brows with an intense stare because his head was always computing.
"If you guys are seriously going to sit here all day slobbering over Will Nieves then I think I'm going to leave."
"Charles is going to hang out with the pseudo-cool skater dudes if you wanna hang with him." I said before he left.
I turned to Katie "Have you seen Doug Chase working at that pizza restaurant? He is so hot!" I said, talking about my mega-crush. I had been crushing on him all summer, though really I had been crushing on him since the summer after fourth grade where he caught me in a game of Marco Polo at the community pool. He had crystal blue eyes, tattoos covering both his upper arms, and was practically a rock star in Devonport- everyone heard his band play at the Fourth of July festival. Even though he was the most popular senior at Devonport, I still couldn't stop fantasizing about him. I was fifteen years old I still haven't seriously kissed a guy (not counting a random encounter in the B-Kidz dressing room with Freddy Porter, a fellow B-Kid who went on to become a member in a monster-popular boy band). My resolution was that I would have a boyfriend, and that boyfriend was going to be Doug Chase. Lucky always said I knew how to dream big.
Tig's summer house was less than a mile from ours. Mom stepped out of our beat-up Volvo to admire his three-story mansion. "Wouldn't it be nice to have a house like that" she remarked.
"You mean not falling apart" I said.
Tig came outside to greet us, "Hello Marie. Thank you so much for bringing her. I'll make sure I'll call you when she's done." This confused my mom a little bit. She had definitely planned on staying rather than just dropping me off.
We walked through to the back of the house and out through the back yard. He led me to a large garage a punched in a code into the security system. "My sanctuary," he announced.
The garage door opened to reveal a booth with a glass wall separating it from a recording console room, a small separate room with a TV and a stereo, and a bookcase full of CD's. "Cool!" I said.
Tig shrugged. "Eh, this is really just a Play Station for a guy who thought he could be a record producer but turned out to be better at managing talent instead. Strictly juvenile, this spread." I sat down on the stool, below the microphone.
"Got a favorite song you wanna try out?" He asked me.
"I'm Ready" It was the last song Lucky had written.
Tig looked at me funny. "Are you sure? That's maybe not the strongest song of hers but, okay. I don't have music on it so why don't you just sing it straight out." I sang,
I've know you so long
We've been friends forever
You've always been there for me
I'll always be there for you
We've waited so long
Now I'm ready
I'm ready to love you
I thought my voice was confident and sounded good but Tig stopped me. " Do you know how you sound?" he asked.
"Pretty damn good?" I guessed.
"You sound like Lucky, sweet, innocent, and nice. Sing like Wonder." He thought for a moment. "Wonder, what were you singing that day I walked in on you in Dairy Queen?"
"I was singing Etta James." I answered. She was my all time favorite singer. Lucky didn't really like classical and R&B as much as I did.
"Okay, great. Sing me something by Etta James." I smiled. That was something I had sung enough times to know I could get it right.
At Last
My love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song
"You're showing off now, Wonder." Tig said into the microphone, but I kept singing anyways.
And I found a dream that I could speak to
A dream that I could call my own
I found a thrill to press my cheek to
A thrill that I have never known
Tig smiled big. He smiled as if he had just won the lottery. He had me sing out the song many times each with a different style and then however I wanted. He told me the natural one was the best. "What other female singer's do you like?" he asked me.
"Hmm, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Madonna, Janet Jackson"
"Do you like any pop singers? You know, like young ones?"
"Oh sure, I like the Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, and I like Kayla okay." I honestly couldn't think of that many young female singers other than those I had named. Pop music was fun and great to dance to, but there really needed to be some originality to the business.
"You're not going to go all Diva on me now, are you Wonder?" He would know, he was Kayla's manager after all.
"Not if you're nice to me." I said.
"Girl, you don't even know what a natural you are, do you?"