CHAPTER THIRTEEN
coco
042Tuesday September 29043
044
Mac and Coco sat in the plush white chairs of Bliss spa in Westwood on Tuesday night. It was down the road from Bel-Air, near the UCLA campus. After Coco’s Café Pick Me Up disaster, Mac had insisted a double chocolate pedicure and mud mask were in order, not to mention a major agent/friend check-in.
“They hated me the second I got onstage!” Coco wailed. She took a bite of a chocolate-dipped strawberry while a woman in a baby blue T-shirt painted her toenails bubble-gum pink. Coco had been too distraught to sleep the night before. She’d stayed up until 4 a.m., writing songs about being misunderstood. All she could think was that her life as a singer-songwriter was ruined before it even began. Because of who her mother was, she would never be taken seriously. And now, even in the massage chair, she couldn’t relax. “They should call it Café Put Me Down.”
“Babe, you can’t think like that,” Mac said, nibbling on her chocolate ice cream. Her face was caked in a baby blue mask, and she looked like a Smurf. “Think of it as a learning experience.”
“Ugh,” Coco groaned. “If this is learning, I prefer to remain undereducated.”
“We knew this was not gonna be a cakewalk.” Mac sighed and wiggled her freshly painted toenails. “If it were easy, it would be called watching TV. And really, who cares what a few coffee shop losers think anyway.” Mac waved her hand dismissively.
“Those are the same losers I want to be my fans, remember?” Coco plopped her head against the plush chair and sighed. “It was like a room full of Finns.”
Mac winced. “That scrufftastic kid gave you a complex.”
“But he’s right,” Coco explained. “As long as I’m Coco Kingsley, no one is going to give me credit as an artist. ” She sighed. “What I still can’t figure out is how they recognized me. I mean, sure, I’ve been photographed with my mom before, but—”
“Well, now is probably not the best time to show you this, but you’re going to see it eventually. . . .” Mac reached into her python-printed magazine tote and pulled out a copy of Us Weekly. She opened it to a middle page and handed it to Coco.
The headline read, CARDAMMON BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER! It was a piece about Cardammon’s comeback tour, complete with a photo spread of the gaudy outfits Cardammon was planning to wear in the show. Coco’s eyes slid over to the sidebar: AND SHE’S BRINGING BABY C! The short piece talked about “rumors” that Coco would be appearing onstage with Cardammon during select shows. Above it was a photo montage of Coco through the years: the baby pictures that had appeared in People, the Halloween she and her mom both dressed as belly dancers, Coco stretching after taking a class at her father’s hotel in Casablanca. Finally there was a picture of Coco leaving Karma Café, her guitar case slung over her shoulder.
“Oh no,” Coco groaned.
“Oh yes, Baby C,” Mac winked. “We need a plan. . . .”
Coco looked at her friend dubiously. The only thing scarier than having your baby pictures in Us Weekly was getting roped into one of Mac’s crazy schemes.
“Right now you don’t have a shot—you can’t even get a song out.” Mac waved the magazine excitedly. “All we need is for people to give you a chance before they realize you’re Cardammon’s daughter.”
The woman painting Coco’s toes suddenly stopped and looked up. “You’re Cardammon’s daughter?!” she squealed. “‘Forever Blue’ was my prom song! I love her!”
Coco shot Mac a see? glance. “My mother is inescapable.”
But Mac was undeterred. ”We’ll make you unrecognizable. You’re going to be Carda-non.”
Coco crossed her arms vigilantly. Emily, the last victim of one of Mac’s schemes, had been forced to walk around school for a week as a mountain-man freak named Spazmo. “I’m not ready for any of your make overs.”
“Makeunder,” Mac corrected. “I want you to get the Ashlee Simpson look.”
Coco tilted her head, thinking of Ashlee. “You want me to dye my hair red?”
“No, I mean early Ashlee, reality show Ashlee, black hair alterna-Ashlee,” Mac explained. “We’re going for the pre-nose job, pre-Pete, pre-blond version. She had to de-Jess herself, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do with you. We’ll un-Card you and make you un-cute—not that you could ever not be cute,” she added.
Coco considered the strategy. It had worked for Ashlee. . . . She felt her willpower escaping. “But how am I supposed to be uncute in a kind of cute way?”
Mac tilted her head toward the waiting room. There, in a colorful knit dress over a purple turtleneck, was Erin, bopping to her iPod. She looked like she had been dressed by an ancient Incan.
Mac smiled a devilish grin. “Just leave it to me.”