Chapter
6
Pucci thinks he looks tan coolio in his white starched karate outfit. “I got a yellow belt today!” Pucci exclaims to Bubbles outside of Churl, It’s You! hair salon. I don’t care what Pucci got. I just wish he was somewhere else right now instead of with me. Dorinda and I stare starry-eyed inside the salon’s box window. We could gaze at the sparkly pink neon sign with the floating brown mannequin heads covered in pink, blue, yellow, green, and purple wigs all day.
“I think your mom was right; maybe we should have gotten wigs for our act,” Dorinda says, still totally mesmerized by the window display.
“Wait till she sees me with straightened hair. Then she’ll realize we are headed ‘straight’ for a gold record,” Bubbles says, heckling. I can’t believe Bubbles. Now she’s acting like getting our hair straightened was her idea?
“I said I got a yellow belt today,” Pucci screams louder at Bubbles, pulling her sleeve.
“I know. I’m not surprised, because you’re the man, Pucci,” Bubbles says, holding the door of the salon open for him. The musical chimes go off, and a recording starts playing: “Churl, It’s You! Work the blue! Think pink like I do! Get sheen with green! We love—guess who!”
“That is so goofy,” Pucci says, making fun of the salon’s jingle.
“Look, big man, you’ll be a black belt in no time,” Bubbles says, still pumping up Pucci.
“Uh-uh. I can’t get one until I’m sixteen!” Pucci protests.
“Word?” Dorinda asks. I know she is supa curious about kung fu moves, because she is the most daring of all of us—gymnastics, Rollerblading, boxing—Dorinda digs it all.
We are standing at the receptionist’s desk waiting for Fantasia, the purple-haired receptionist to get off the phone. “You got the top and the pants? You are too Fubu for me, girl. Hmm. Hmm. I signed up for singing lessons—shoot I was Fantasia before that heffa knew how to burp. All right, but tell me quick. I got customers waiting.”
Bubbles looks at me and whispers, “Wasn’t Fantasia’s hair red the last time we were here?”
I nod my head, Sí.
It must be so coolio to be able to change your hair color whenever you want. That’s what I’m gonna do too when I have my own hair salon. Bubbles keeps smiling at Fantasia who has become very popular now because of that other Fantasia from American Idol. (Now this Fantasia wants to be a singer too.)
The door opens again and the musical chimes kick in. It’s Aqua and Angie. Pucci giggles, then tugs Bubbles by the shirt, “How come the car got a stomachache?” he asks, telling one of his stupid jokes.
“Because you were driving?’ queries Bubbles.
“No, silly, because it had too much gas!” Pucci says, snorting like a pig. The customer standing next to us looks up and smiles at him, then pulls out a checkbook and leans against the counter to write.
Pucci blurts out at Aqua and Angie, “Doesn’t loco Coco’s face look like the color of a Halloween pumpkin? Una calabazza.” Now the same customer looks up to quickly glance at me. Suddenly, I feel totally self-conscious. I wish poot-butt Pucci would just move into the Tae Kwon do Center so I would never have to see him again!
“You do have a little, well, different color, Miss Chanel. You okay?” Aqua asks, concerned. By now I know I am a different color because my cheeks are red.
“Aqua, let me show you what I learned today in karate class!” Pucci says, then kicks his leg into second position at a forty-five-degree angle, knocking over the bowl of plastic clips onto the shiny black-and-white linoleum floor.
“Oh, no. Tell me I’m not having déjà vu. Not today,” Fantasia moans, putting down the phone receiver and pointing her five-inch acrylic-tipped forefinger at us. “Girls, you’ve got to take the Bruce Lee wannabe back to the Seventies. Actually, I don’t care where you take him, just get him outta here!”
Aqua and Angie start picking up the clips. “Lord, we are so sorry.”
I start to stutter, “Pucci, deja—”
“I got this,” Bubbles says, grabbing Pucci’s arm and bending over to talk to him. “Pucci, we need you to slow your karate roll for a minute.”
“Galleria, I’m sorry. He’s got to go. But you know Toto is welcome here anytime. How is my baby boy?” Fantasia says, leaning in to Bubbles. “That cheetah coat y’all had on him was major! You should make him part of your act.”
“We are,” Bubbles says, smiling and restraining Pucci.
What does Bubbles mean, We are? I wonder.
“We’ve got puppies now too,” Dorinda chirps in. “Nobu and Ragu.”
“I can’t wait to meet them,” Fantasia says, holding a finger out to the other customer as if to say, Hold your horses, I’ll be right with you.
“So, what do you say, big man?” Bubbles says, staring down at Pucci.
“You need things. I need things,” Pucci says, grinning with his buck teeth.
“I’ll give you fifty cents for every half hour you chill against your will,” declares Bubbles, the master negotiator.
“How much is my time worth to you?” asks Pucci.
“I’ll give you an extra dollar,” I blurt out. Then I reach into my cheetah backpack to get my wallet and pull a carrot out of my baggie, chomping quickly to squash the urge to straighten Pucci instead of my hair.
Bubbles looks at Fantasia and says, “We’re cool now.”
“Ka-ching. Nice doing business with you, Cheetah Girls,” Pucci says, setting the timer on his Techno Marine watch, then sitting down to play with his Game Boy.
We sit down next to Pucci to make sure he keeps his promise. Aqua turns to look into the wall mirror and begins fussing with her hair. “I’m so glad y’all decided to come here today because my hair’s a mess!”
“If you ask me, they can’t do nada for you here—this is a beauty shop, not a magic shop!” Pucci heckles.
“Pooch, I thought we had a business arrangement,” Bubbles whispers.
“Yup, we do,” Pucci says, nodding, “but maybe it’s time to negotiate my profit participation.”
Bubbles restrains Pucci, then whispers, “Only if we negotiate how much time I keep your head under a heated dryer.”
“Okeydokey. I think I’m satisfied with our present arrangement,” Pucci says, zipping his lips.
“Good, Mr. Financial Wizard, because you’re costing me a tube of S.N.A.P.S. lipstick—and I get very grumpy without the extras,” Bubbles hisses at Pucci.
“Should I get popcorn for us?” Dorinda asks, squirming in her seat. “Or maybe cotton candy?”
“Both,” says Bubbles. “This bubble gum jones is really breaking my spirit.”
“Your jaws must miss the exercise too!” Aqua says, chuckling while Angie snickers under her breath.
That’s about the only exercise Bubbles ever gets! I want to blurt out. Even though I’m starving, I strengthen my resolve not to eat the yummy pink popcorn or sweet pink cotton candy that Dorinda brings back. Bubbles may think she knows everything about how to help the Cheetah Girls get a record deal, but she doesn’t.
“I’ll go put Kahlua in heavy rotation,” Bubbles says, jumping up and walking over to the big pink metallic jukebox to play hits from our favorite platinum pussycat. I close my eyes and imagine her working with Mouse Almighty in the recording studio. There she is giggling, playing with the headphones, going over the lyrics with her favorite producer. One day that could be us. Por favor, Dios. Por favor.
Finally, Pepto B. prances from the back of the salon. He still has a platinum blond Afro and is wearing a pink shirt. His eyes light up when he sees Bubbles. “Dorothea tells me the Cheetah Girls are gonna lose their curls today. Say it ain’t so!”
“That’s right, Pepto. B.,” Bubbles says, giving him a hug. “It’s time to take our act STRAIGHT to the top!”
We plop down in the chairs in the back and like Mini-Me robots our eyes become glued to the television monitor screens directly above our heads. Pepto B. plays music videos o
n the monitors all day—some of them are even old school ones, not just the latest ones like they show on BET, VH1, and MTV.
“Okay, girls, let’s twist again like we did last summer,” Pepto B. says, putting a pink plastic bib apron on top of Bubbles’s cheetah top.
“What?” Aqua asks, looking puzzled.
“You girls don’t know who Chubby Checker was? I thought Ms. Dorothea was schooling you on the classics,” Pepto B. says, smacking his lips. “I’m gonna have to read Ms. Dorothea, like, the Billboard Top 100 Singles Chart.”
“We do have Seventies Appreciation Night once a month and know all about the groups that were climbing the charts,” Bubbles tries to explain.
“Honey, Chubby didn’t climb the charts—he was too fat and rich. He sat his big ole butt right there at the top of the charts and looked down at everybody else trying to scramble up, okay?” Pepto B. retorts.
Aqua clears her throat and says, “I’ll make sure we watch his videos.”
“You do that,” Pepto B. says, studying Bubbles’s reflection in the mirror, then swirls her in the chair till he sees Pucci in his sight.
“And, Jim Kelly, you’d better save those karate moves for Black Belt Jones or you and I are going to have a problem, okay?” Pepto B. says, eyeballing Pucci. “Knowing Hollywood, they’re going to be filming the sequel any second, so you might want to practice those moves—at an audition.”
Aqua and Angie look at Pepto B., then snicker quietly. “You girls do know about that classic film from the Seventies, don’t you?” Pepto B. asks.
We all nod our head in unison even though I’m sure none of us has ever heard of Jim Kelly. Dorinda smiles and pulls a book out of her cheetah backpack, then notices that Pepto B. is trying to see what she is reading. “I checked it out of the library. I mean, I thought I should read it and see what is says,” she says, embarrassed, trying to hide the cover.
“Confessions of a Backup Dancer?” Pepto B. says, raising his eyes. “Y’all a little young for that, aren’t you?”
“Everybody in school is reading it,” Dorinda says in her defense.
“At our school too,” Aqua and Angie say in unison.
“It’s research—um, like, Seventies Appreciation Night—except it’s the real deal about right now,” Bubbles says, squirming in her chair. “We need to know this kinda stuff if we’re going to become stars.”
“What you need to know you’ll find out soon enough,” Pepto B. huffs, then comments on the music video showing on the monitor.
“Now that outfit is a slinkster!” he says, looking at the pink fur cape draped over the new pop singer Stone Alone.
The second thing we love about coming to Pepto B.’s salon is getting all the latest chisme—gossip about our competition. (Well, they would be our competition if we had a record deal.)
“So spill the refried beans, Mr. Pepto B.,” Bubbles says, egging him on.
Pepto B. looks around quickly, then lowers his voice. “Ms. Chutney Dallas was in here last week and she wanted me to pull a donkey out of a hat or some such miracle on her head. She went to one of them—now, excuse me, Chanel—Dominican weavers uptown behind my back and her hair was a mess. You know the type of hairstylist I’m talking about—they should be practicing brujería instead of cosmetology, because they turn a silk ear into a sow’s purse instead of the other way around.”
We all hang on to Pepto B.’s every word so we can keep up because he talks really fast. “Well, Ms. Chutney came up in here and her hair looked like a DON’T instead of a DO, so I told my key stylist Lyah to take care of Ms. Chutney because my lowly Wilfred Academy cosmetology degree can only go so far. After all, I’m a hairstylist, not a magician.”
Pucci chuckles loudly at that one. Bubbles throws him a look and whispers to him, “The clock is still ticking and I know you don’t want a licking.”
“That’s too bad her album didn’t sell—I liked that one song, “Don’t Make Me Over,” Dorinda says, looking up from her book.
“Yeah, well, don’t take her advice, honey, or you’ll end up signing nothing but bad checks!” Pepto B. quips.
Bubbles looks at Pepto B., then smiles because she finally catches his drift.
“That’s right—that check Ms. Chutney Dallas gave the salon bounced from here to Hiroshima,” Pepto B. says, taking a deep breath, “but, you know, ‘she’s special.’”
That’s Pepto B.’s way of saying “she’s cuckoo.” Aside from Madrina, Pepto B. has the most interesting way of talking of all the grown-ups we know.
Pepto B. claps his hands together and says, “Okay, your turn. Tell me, what’s going on with the Cheetah Girls?”
Bubbles tells him everything about what has been happening, including the rumors uptown about the Cheetah Girls being corny and whack ever since we lost the Apollo Amateur Hour to a couple of bozos.
“Oh, we’re not having that!” Pepto B. says, smoothing the relaxer on Bubbles head first, then mine. “You girls are gonna give those wannabe divettes something to talk about till they’re fifty, right?”
“Right!” we all say in unison.
“Does it burn?” Dorinda asks, staring at the chemical relaxer that is slobbered on top of Bubbles’s and my head.
“You never had a relaxer before?” Aqua asks, surprised.
“Nope—never did.”
“Well, you’re not missing anything,” Bubbles pipes up. I know she is still trying to make sure that Dorinda doesn’t feel bad about not getting her hair done.
“Okay, Texas Rangers—it’s your turn,” Pepto B. says, motioning for Aqua and Angie to sit in the chairs.
“Miss Dorinda, you sitting there reading. Why don’t you give us a tune?” Pepto B. says, smoothing the relaxer on my head now.
Dorinda squirms in the pink swivel chair.
“You’re not starting to believe all that nonsense, are you? Pepto B. asks, challenging Dorinda to pump it up.
Dorinda starts singing words to the song, “Bow-wow Wow!”
“Why you getting sooo sooo wicked
Just ’cuz we issued you a ticket
To the tune of forty-five RPM live
Right down to the honey beehive
And while you were trying to put the bite on our groove
We were busy making the moves
And singing Bow-wow Wow!
Yippee Ayy, Pay Day
Bow-wow Wow!
Yippee Ayy, Pay Day
That’s coming our way.
“That’s all we got so far,” Dorinda says, stopping abruptly, then grinning that impish grin, which puts dimples in her cheeks.
“How come Dorinda knows the words to the song and I don’t?” I ask, puzzled.
“We were just riffing with it on Phat Planet the other night. You know, when we were online. You pulled a Houdini, remember?” counters Bubbles.
I don’t know if it’s the chemicals or if it’s because I’m really mad at Bubbles, but now my head feels like a roof on fire.
“Chuchie, stop pouting. We can practice it at rehearsal tomorrow. You’ll love this song. All we gotta do is bark in between verses.” Bubbles starts making barking sounds like Toto.
“Está bien, Bubbles. Maybe you can teach that to Toto too,” I blurt out.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, he’s gonna be in the show on Saturday. I taught him how to dance!” Bubbles says, giggling.
“No, you didn’t,” Pepto B. says, rolling his eyes. “You are shameless. You’ll do anything to get that gold record on your wall. I’m not mad at you, though.”
Well I am! I want to scream. Bubbles is always doing things without telling me. I mean, I love Toto, but putting him on stage while we’re performing. That’s really taking growl power a bark too far if you ask me!
By the way Dorinda looks at me so-o-o sheepishly, I can tell that she already knew about this puppyfest even though she blurts out, “I just found out about it too. Bubbles says he’s a really good dancer.”
“I thought you were the
best dancer in our crew,” I say, staring at Dorinda.
“Don’t worry, Chuch, that’s what we needed in our act—a pooch. Mommy is gonna make him a little skirt for Saturday too,” Bubbles says, like she is no longer asking for my advice.
“A skirt?” Pucci says, looking up from his Game Boy. Now Angie and Aqua stare at him so he shuts up.
“Well, it’s a little tutu—like what Chuchie wears for ballet—and it’s got little leopard ribbons floating all around,” Bubbles explains. She always tries to be nonchalant when she knows I’m ready to whack her like a piñata.
I can’t stop pouting. Bubbles and Pepto B. keep chatting away and I pretend I’m not listening. Dorinda keeps reading her book and looks over at me and smiles every now and then.
“Wow, your hair looks major,” Dorinda says when Pepto B. finishes blow-drying me. I look in the mirror and I smile, but I still don’t say anything. He has parted my hair on the side and my hair is sort of covering my right eye.
“You remind me of Aaliyah with your hair like that,” one of the customer says, looking at me and smiling. I nod my head back at her because she is right. Aaliyah was one of our favorite singers. We loved Aaliyah too and used to practice some of her dance moves. We cried the whole day when she was killed in the plane crash.
“The world will never be the same without Miss A.,” Pepto B. sighs, then turns the ends of my hair under. I look in the mirror again and I can’t help smiling at my reflection. Pepto B. fusses with Bubbles’s hair some more. “The center part works for you, Miss Galleria—because it gives your face more balance,” he explains, fixing a few wisps in front. I look over quickly at Bubbles, but she isn’t looking at me. She is too busy looking at herself in the mirror.
“Are you gonna come on Saturday?” Dorinda asks Pepto B. when he bends over to give Dorinda a hug.
“Honey, if I’m not worn out from all the heads, I’ll be there or be square,” Pepto B. says, then starts twisting like Chubby Checker. “Y’all should throw that in your act. A little shimmy never hurt any career that I know of.”
“We’ll take it under consideration,” Pucci says, puffing up his chest like he’s our manager.
Bow-wow Wow! Page 6