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  “You did a dope job naming my puppy,” Dorinda says, trying to be nice.

  Yo no lo creo, I can’t believe it—even Dorinda’s foster mom said she could keep one of the puppies. So what, she let me name him Nobu after Mamí’s favorite restaurant. I hate sushi! Oh, but Nobu is sooo cute. He looks almost identical to Ragu, but he has an even cuter little nose.

  “Chanel, you can come over and play with Nobu whenever you want,” Dorinda says, trying to smoothe down my frizzies, which are all over the place. Today, I look like one of those voodoo dolls—all hair and a big tummy!

  “I know, Dorinda,” I say, whining. But who is she kidding; once she gets home, there are eleven foster brothers and sisters waiting to paw him to death. Nobu isn’t gonna need me to pet him and love him.

  Now my stomach feels like it has a whole lot of spicy cinnamon Red Hots doing the cha-cha inside to their own beat. One, two, cha-cha-cha. Three, four, hit the door. I hold my stomach, which does look like a little pouch all of a sudden, and rock back and forth. “Ay, mija, I don’t care what Dr. Reuben says, I’m going to exercise. I’m fat. Una gordita!” I say in utter distress.

  Dr. Reuben said I can’t exercise for at least one more month so my ankle can really heal. But I have to do something to slow my jelly-roll, está bien. Now, I don’t know what’s worse—walking on crutches, or being fat! At least I got more attention when I was on crutches. Now nobody cares about my feelings—especially Galleria.

  “Chuchie, could you pleez save it for the opera!” Galleria hisses under her breath so her mother, who is my godmother, doesn’t hear her being mean to me as usual.

  “Come to think of it, Chanel, you’re not eating,” Madrina says, getting really concerned.

  “I’m not hungry,” I mumble, finally getting up off my knees and going over to Madrina to get a cheetah tissue. I blow my nose.

  “That’s fabulous, darling, just like a fire engine blowing its horn,” Madrina says, her hand extended, waiting to take my cheetah tissue filled with snot.

  “I don’t think Mamí is going to call,” I whisper to Madrina so Bubbles doesn’t hear me.

  “I know, Chanel, but we don’t have to take care of this today. You have my word—I’m gonna fight for you like Martin Luther King walking forty miles in Selma, Alabama, for the Civil Rights Movement. Don’t forget, now it’s my job to see that my talent gets what they deserve,” she says, winking at me.

  Now I start to giggle. Madrina is so dramática! I sigh and take a deep breath, which makes my stomach feel a little better. Drinka Champagne would be proud of me. She always makes us focus on our breathing in vocal classes. I know Madrina will really try to talk Mamí into letting me have a puppy. The Cheetah Girls are so lucky. I mean, how many singing groups have someone like Madrina for their manager watching their back?

  “Puff may know how to huff but nobody stands in my way when I want something for my talent,” Madrina says, putting her arms around me. “Nobody—especially not Juanita. Now be on time tomorrow.”

  Now that the Christmas season is around the corner, I have to work Sundays at Madrina’s boutique in Soho near my house—Toto in New York … Fun in Diva Sizes. (See, I maxed out Mamí’s credit card when I was mad at her, so now I have to put back every single ducket in the bucket, esta bien.)

  “One little cheese ball for my Cuchifrita?” Uncle Franco says, holding one out on a fork.

  “No, thank you!” I say, my mouth watering like Niagra Falls. All I care about right now is staying on my carrot diet and helping the Cheetah Girls pounce—big-time.

  Chapter

  2

  Walking from the subway exit on Prince Street, I feel the Red Hots coming back for more cha-cha lessons in my tummy. And now my legs feel like the plate of Uncle Franco’s linguini con vongole. As I turn the corner on Wooster Street to walk to my house I start to feel dizzy too. Ay, Dios mío, now all I need is to start with the tears again—in front of all these people! This man with a tummy fatter than Santa Claus is walking in the opposite direction. I can’t help looking because he isn’t wearing a shirt. Ay, Dios, mío—it looks like he’s delivering triplets! I stop and lean against a NO PARKING sign, then stare like a rag doll into the Datz So Phat Boutique store window directly across from it. Ay, qué linda. There is a pink T-shirt with a cute pussycat outlined in rhinestone right on the front. It is so la dopa. I wish I could buy it, but I can’t. No lo puedo. I’m out of Benjies for a while. Most of the money I make from working in Madrina’s boutique I have to give to Mamí to pay her back for all the things I charged on her credit card. I hate it. Lo odio! And my allowance is not enough to buy anything nice like the Datz So Phat pussycat tee. I can just pay for stuff I need, like S.N.A.P.S. cosmetics Mango Tango glitter.

  People are walking by me but, gracias gooseness, nobody is really paying attention to me just standing here like an orphan. I keep staring into the Datz So Phat store window. Now I’m staring at the five-foot poster of Zimora Chin that’s in the store window. Zimora is the tan coolio model who owns Datz So Phat Boutique. She is so pretty She has slanty, exotic eyes and juicy lips like Aqua and Angie. Suddenly, a lightbulb goes off in my head. If I looked like Zimora, I know the Cheetah Girls would get a record deal with Def Duck Records. Fantasizing, I see the president of Def Duck Records—in my daydream he is short, bald, and wears a red suit with a yellow tie and big rhinestone-trimmed glasses—banging on my loft apartment door. He is really nervous. I open the door and I’m wearing a pink leopard dress trimmed with pink feather boa that matches the pen he pulls out of his pocket for me to sign the record contract. Por favor, Chanel, please sign. Por favor! We love you! Don’t tell Galleria, but without you, there would be no Cheetah Girls!

  I stare at Zimora’s poster some more. She is wearing a white bikini and her stomach is so flat. That’s it! I’m going to eat carrots until my stomach looks just like hers.

  “Miss, are you okay?”

  I am so startled that someone is talking to me, I lose my balance and hit the left side of my head, la mia cabeza, on the pole below the sign. No, I’m not okay, I want to scream, but I just say politely, “I’m okay,” rubbing the boo-boo on my left temple.

  “You looked like you were gonna topple over, there!” the PEZ-head lady says, letting out a squeal. She has a really high-pitched voice like a hyena. I pass by her every day. She has a card table set up on the sidewalk with stuffed animals that have PEZ candy dispensers sticking out of their heads. “You know what I do when life gets too cuckoo? I just pop some candy from a PEZ dispenser right into my big mouth. I tell ya, they’re better than vitamins! Come look. Come on, it doesn’t cost ya to look, cutie pie.”

  “No, that’s all right,” I say, embarrassed because I couldn’t buy her PEZ dispensers even if I wanted to. All I have is five dollars. Pucci calls her the PEZ-head lady.

  “I’m okay, really,” I repeat to her and start walking away quickly. I pass a few more street vendors—including my favorite, Lacey Stacey, who makes this really cool mesh jewelry from Mexican silver—but I make sure not to look at her today so I don’t get tempted. When I turn the corner on Mercer Street and walk near my building, I start coughing from all the dust. There is always a lot of construction going on in my neighborhood, but right now they are tearing down the building next door to mine and there are a lot of big men pounding with supersize drills and hammers and breathing fire from this big machine (okay, so it’s called an electrical torch). I can’t take it! I stare at the hollow half-broken building piled high with rubble inside where the Pickle Pit Stop used to be. When I was younger, Mr. Briney, the owner, who is this really big man with a twirly mustache, used to greet me the same way every time he saw me. “A pickle a day keeps the doctor away. So what can I do for you, little lady?” Sometimes Pucci would say, “Let’s go see Mr. Briney’s hiney.” (That was Pucci’s way of saying to Mamí, “Let’s go get a pickle.”) Now I feel so sad that I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to Mr. Briney. It just seemed like the store
closed overnight.

  All of a sudden, my feet start walking without me like they’re stuck on a Ouija board or something! Mamí hasn’t called me yet on my cell to see where I am. No way, José, am I going home yet. I let my feet walk me to Spring Street. Por favor, please let Princess Pamela be there. Even though her hair salon is probably closed by now, there must be a lot of people walking around who want to get their fortune told. My heart leaps when I see the red neon sign in the window of Princess Pamela’s Psychic Palace. There is no one in the front of the store, but I am sure I see shadows behind the red crystal-bead curtains that divide the store. I try to open the door, but it is locked. I tap gently on the glass, but no one answers. Disappointed, I turn to walk away, when I hear the crystal beads jingle and Princess Pamela hurries toward the front door.

  Unlocking the door, Princess Pamela whispers, “My little Chanel, I’m verrry surprised to see you.”

  By the way her big brown eyes are twinkling at me, I don’t think Princess Pamela is upset, so I coo at her, “I just wanted to see you.”

  “Astepta un moment—wait one minute. I have a verry important client inside,” Princess Pamela says, clutching her red shawl with bright blue flowers close to her chest, then shooing me inside to sit on the red velvet couch while I wait for her to finish. I look around at all the photographs of hairstyles on the wall. Boot-i-full! as Princess Pamela would say in her thick Romanian accent. I helped Princess Pamela come up with some of the hairstyles. Princess Pamela and my dad have been together since I was nine years old, and Daddy, who used to be in construction, even helped build all three of her stores himself. (The other two stores are Princess Pamela’s Pampering Palace and Princess Pamela’s Pound Cake Palace. Both of them are on 210th Street and Broadway.)

  Suddenly I hear the customer crying really loudly from behind the curtains. “He said he would take me to an island for our honeymoon. He can’t even afford Coney Island!” she says, crying really loud.

  I try not to look at the customer when she comes from behind the curtains so she won’t get embarrassed. While Princess Pamela is talking to her some more, I sneak a peek. Her eyes are very puffy and sad, but now she smiles back at me. “This is my stepdaughter, Chanel,” Princess Pamela says proudly to the lady as she ushers her out. Wow, Princess Pamela does love me. I wish she was my mother. Then I could have a puppy, be a singer, and open a hair salon right next door called Miss Cuchifrita’s Curlz.

  “My little Chanel, what are you doing here?” Princess Pamela says, grabbing my cheeks and jiggling me out of my bad thoughts.

  “There is all this construction stuff—I can’t take the nose—I mean the noise,” I moan feebly.

  Ah, yes, poor Mr. Briney, he have to go back to Mykonos,” Princess Pamela says, nodding.

  “Mykonos?”

  “In Greece,” Princess Pamela explains patiently, then lets out a troubled sigh. “I hear he had to go back home because the store rents are too high now in New York. Always here, the landlords try to suck the blood. At least in my country they are honest about it.” (Princess Pamela is from Transylvania, home of Count Dracula.)

  Stroking the long fringes on Princess Pamela’s red pashmina shawl, I can’t resist asking, “What did he do with all the pickles?”

  “He pack them in his suitcase, of course,” Princess Pamela says, her brown eyes twinkling with mischief like they always do when she is with me, but I notice they are puffy too. I know it’s really hard running three stores. Suddenly, I get another terrible thought. Her eyes are puffy because she is fighting with Daddy. I remember when Mamí’s eyes used to look like that all the time. Then Daddy moved out. But maybe that was because Mamí threw his clothes out the bedroom window. She even hit this lady over the head with a pair of his Oxford wingtipped shoes. (By accident, esta bien. The lady just happened to be walking by.)

  “I must go back home, too—to Romania,” Princess Pamela says, rubbing her eyes.

  I’m right. She doesn’t love Daddy anymore! Suddenly, my heart sinks. I don’t want her to leave. Since Daddy left, I never see him as much anymore. Please don’t let Princess Pamela leave. Por favor, Dios!

  Seeing the worried look on my face, Princess Pamela gently strokes my frizzies, then says, “Don’t worry, my little Chanel. Thousands of people—émigrés—from my country are flying to Bucharest next weekend. They will come to assemble, to lobby for property restitution laws,” Princess Pamela says slowly because she is trying to make me understand. I am too embarrassed to ask her what she is talking about, because I don’t want her to think I’m stupid.

  Princess Pamela sees the expression on my face and explains her situation some more. “We are not just fighting for what the greedy apparatchiks took from our families. How can I explain? Everywhere in Eastern Europe, the governments have already made the laws. If the Romanian government does not do the same thing, then Romania won’t stand a chance to be admitted in the European Union. Now you understand?”

  I stare blankly at Princess Pamela. “What is the Union? Is it like Western Union where you go get money somebody sends you?”

  “Well, no. It’s more like—lemme see. You know how you are in the Cheetah Girls? Well, the five of you sing better together. It is better than one, no? Well, if all the countries in Europe join the EU, then they will be more strong, and they can use the same money—no more liras, the leu, which is the currency we use in Romania.”

  “Yo entiendo. I understand. You are just watching your back, going for yours,” I say, chuckling. “That’s how we put it, anyway.”

  “Oh, I like that. I’m going for yours,” Princess Pamela says excitedly. She loves when I teach her stuff.

  “No, no—when you say it about yourself, you say, I’m going for mine,’ otherwise it sounds like you’re trying to steal something!”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Okay, beeneh, enough with my problems. Now you tell me the truth, my little Chanel, why are you really here?” Princess Pamela says, staring deeply into my eyes as if she is trying to hypnotize me without her crystal ball. “You could get into trouble if your mother knew you came to see me.”

  I tell Princess Pamela the whole story about the custody battle for Buffy’s puppies and going into the studio with Mouse Almighty to record songs for a demo and how we’re waiting forever, then all of a sudden, I break into tears and, that’s right, another birthday piñata loses its Red Hots. Now I really can’t stop crying because I feel safe with Princess Pamela.

  “Oh, my little Chanel. You have your whole life ahead of you. If the Cheetah Girls are meant to be, they will be. It does not matter about the Mouse Little. No one can stop you,” Princess Pamela says, holding me tight in her arms.

  I burst out laughing, then correct her, “Mouse Almighty!”

  “Whatever,” Princess Pamela says, waving her graceful hand, which has a sparkly ring on every finger. She has the most boot-i-full jewelry. Once she gave me diamond stud earrings from Tiffany’s which, I wear whenever Mamí is not around. “And don’t worry about the puppy either.

  You will get one,” Princess Pamela says firmly.

  Now my eyes get really wide with excitement because Princess Pamela’s predictions really come true. Es la verdad. It’s true. People come from all over the world just to get a reading from Princess Pamela. Even Papi told me she is a world-famous psychic.

  “I see a furry creature with—how do you say again?” Princess Pamela asks, scrunching up her face so I can understand.

  “Whiskers?” I ask, giggling.

  “Right, beeneh, good—little whiskers coming up to your pillow, rubbing against your face—but he is trying sooo hard to get close to your heart,” Princess Pamela says, tickling my chin with her fingers.

  “But Mamí will never let me have a puppy,” I whine, wrapping my arms tighter around Princess Pamela. “And how do you know it’s a he?”

  “Don’t you worry, my little Chanel, her heart will soften. You will have your puppy,” Princess Pamela says, kissing my cheek. �
�And to answer your question, the force in which he tries to get next to you tells me his energy is masculine.”

  “I hope you’re right. About both things,” I say, eyeballing the room that always makes me feel so warm. I feel a twinge of guilt that I am not wearing the boot-i-full Tiffany diamond stud earrings that Princess Pamela gave me, but I have hidden them in my closet for now so Mamí can’t find them. Gazing next to the vase on the coffee table, I notice a big white book for the first time, Property Restitution in Romania. I feel so proud of Princess Pamela for fighting the government to help Romania be a better place for everybody.

  “How about some shoobys?” Princess Pamela says. “I just made a fresh batch,” she said, referring to her favorite pastry.

  “No, thank you!” I say, unwrapping my arms from around Princess Pamela, who runs into the back to her kitchen. As much as I love Princess Pamela’s pastry concoctions from Romania, I have to stick to my diet. I won’t touch one if she brings them out here. Yawning, I reach into my cheetah backpack to check my Miss Wiggy cell phone.

  “Aaaay!” I let out a loud shriek when I see the 1 MISSED CALL prompt on my cell phone. I hate when an incoming call goes right into voice mail without the phone ringing. I bet you it’s Mamí. Nervously tapping my foot against the couch, I listen to the message. It is Mamí. A chill runs up my back as I listen to Mamí’s message: “Where are you? Dottie told me you already left. I’ll see you when I get home.”

  “Princess Pamela, I have to go!” I scream, shoving Miss Wiggy back into my bag.

  “What happened, Chanel?” she says, running back into the room. But by the look on my face she already knows.

  “I’ll tell your daddy you said hello. You know Pucci is spending the night.”

  Good, I think to myself. I hope he never comes home. Who needs him.

  “La reverdere!” Princess Pamela says, shoving the shoobys into my backpack.

  Chapter