Pop Princess by Rachel Cohn Page A

in rehearsing, performing, appearances, hair, and makeup. Try to ignore the look of sadness and disappointment on your dad’s face as he watches your mom sign the form. You have a high-five-figure recording contract that could be worth millions if your album is a hit. His look could signal to you that for all your newfound success, your dad considers you a failure, a high school dropout. You know better.
    See you soon in NYC!
    Love ya baby, Kayla

Eighteen
    The first single I recorded was called “Bubble Gum Pop.” The song was about two kids who are making out and the girl’s bubble gum goes into the guy’s mouth and then they’re in love. It was a pretty stupid song, if you ask me, with refrains like “Chew it, blow it, lick it, I love my bubble gum, pop pop pop” and you can imagine why all those religious groups later tried to have the song banned even though it really was just about bubble gum. It was a silly song, but a classic in that cheesy, catchy pop song way, the kind of song generations of teens would remember like they did “The Macarena,” or “Whoomp! There It Is.”
    Within three months of my Pop Life Records audition in December, I had recorded “Bubble Gum Pop” to be released as my debut single, and I was working on a full album to be released by summer. Mom and I stayed in a small studio apartment in Manhattan owned by the record company. I slept on a futon on the floor crammed between a desk and a peeling wall and Mom slept on a pullout couch that took up most of the apartment when it was converted into a bed. Mom went back to Devonport every other weekend, but I was too busy to go with her; in fact, I made sure I stayed too busy to go home. Dad had initially said absolutely no way when the record contract was offered, but soon after that proclamation, my report card arrived: 1 C, 4 Ds, and 2 Fs, proving I had bested my last worst academic performance, go me! Dad said, “You just broke my heart”—but he let Mom sign the drop-out form. Even he couldn’t deny that Devonport had been a disaster for me, that I was never gonna be the AP Everything golden girl that Lucky had been.
    I was free of Devonport and the house of ghosts. Every day when I walked through the streets of New York, felt its massive whir of people and noises, excitement and danger, and its all-out living breathing vibe, I thanked Tig for having found me at the DQ, thanked Lucky for having passed on her dream to my genes. Every day when I danced and sang, I was grateful I would never have to prowl the halls of Devonport High again. A reluctant pop princess I may initially have been, but if it meant dropping out of school and leaving Devonport, I was completely on board.
    In my eagerness to ditch school, however, I had not anticipated the other side of being a professional performer: work work work, all the time work. Tig and Pop Life Records had my time accounted for round the clock. Every day found me in some form of pop princess preparation: voice lessons with an actual opera singer; private dance workouts with a Broadway dancer who had choreographed videos for huge superstars; diction instruction from the acting coach who understudied some of the biggest names on Broadway; schmooze meetings with radio station program managers and publicity execs; shopping trips with wardrobe stylists; and regular visits to fancy beauty salons for hair and makeup consultations, facials, waxing, teeth whitening, you name it, all in preparation for making me over into the next teen pop star, the next Kayla. Sounds glamorous. It was —but also tiring.
    Every night when I got home around ten in the evening to find Mom plopped on the pullout bed, watching Law & Order reruns and eating cookies, I asked her, “Did you remember to tape South Coast?”
    If I had a dollar for every time Mom sighed and said, “Oh sweetie, I couldn’t tape your show because I was watching