“Your son makes sure I burn all the calories you’re feeding me.” Nola squeezed Mama’s hand. It was plump and warm. Mama wasn’t “Mommy,” but felt like one, and Nola yearned for Jenna to experience this, too. The tiny apartment on a crowded street—where during the day uncollected garbage baked in the sun and at night prostitutes greeted her at building entrances while police sirens and drunken neighbors’ fighting conspired to deprive her of sleep—was the best, most loving home she had ever had.

In the days and weeks that followed, Wade courted writers of chart-toppers to sell him something for his new protégé’s first single. Indefatigable, he also shopped around for the best home for her talent. Within a month of becoming her agent, he made a deal with Keith Schwartz, a visionary, hands-on president of a hip, up-and-coming label. Keith gambled on her, cut her first single, “Superstitions,” and marshaled his clout for buzz and the widest possible distribution.

But there were no public appearances. Not yet. “Right now, your ‘thing’ is your mystery. Not a single photograph of you is to be released until we take care of your appearance. Give you a makeover,” Wade said.

As the months wore on, Nola wished the year until graduation would never end, so she could stay with the Didonatos and hang out with her dancer friends. For the first time, she had a close girlfriend from her jazz school, Gabby, a long-legged Brazilian with whom she traded clothes and second-rate secrets. Nola never spoke of the circumstances of Jenna's accident or of her parents’ death.

She and Gabby traveled in a mixed-nationality group of cool teenage hopefuls dedicated to maintaining their taut bodies, who took acting classes and voice lessons, auditioned for off-off-Broadway musicals, vied for gigs at private parties, searched Variety for leads to summer stock—and waited tables for money. On weekends they all went out to the movies, attended experimental theater readings at student rates, listened to music in one of their shared studios, or explored the restored alleys of Tribeca and SoHo, crowded with boutiques, galleries and tattoo parlors.

Wade was away for weeks at a stretch, journeying from city to city, from radio station to radio station, to hound disc jockeys and force them to listen to his one single from this teenager. He called Nola often. “I’m running ‘Superstitions’ contests on every campus, and the DJs play your single, and everybody loves it,” he reported. “The posters with the lyrics are popular at the Student Unions. They disappear within the hour.”

She giggled. “Thanks. I want to perform it live—”

“Everything in due time.” There was warmth in his voice. And certainty. “You already have fans dying to meet the mysterious Nola.”