"Georgina, are you awake?"

"Mm...?"

"Pretty eyes. Are you awake?"

"Mmm..."

"I've been thinking."

"You think a lot."

"I've been thinking about when we're married."

"Mm...yes?"

"We could have kids. Did you ever think about what you would name them?"

"Frank and Nancy."

"Oh? Why?"

"Because your name is Frank and Frank Sinatra's daughter is named Nancy."

"Oh cuddle bun, that's perfect."

"Mhm."

I rolled over on the hotel bed and peered into the eager eyes of Frankie, looking down at me as if from heaven above. The moonlight cast a glow around us. It was flowing through the fly-aways of Frankie's boyish blonde hair.

"You've been thinking about it, too?" he whispered to me, hugging me to him. I could feel his arms bunching up the soft fabric of my nightgown around my chest and waist.

"Every day," I admitted, rolling over onto my back. He laid his head on my chest and my fingers found his beautiful golden hair. He kissed the cloth of my nightgown, then buried his face into it lovingly.

"My dad would be so happy that we'd honor his favorite singer like that. He loves Frank Sinatra," he sighed into me, the happiest boy on earth.

"Would your father know?" I asked, suddenly confused.

"What do you mean?" he breathed, totally oblivious.

"I thought you said we'd have to go away to get married. That we could only get married if people never knew I had been...you know...like this," I said quietly, staring at the ceiling now.

"He could visit us, though. In Hawaii, maybe. Would you like to live in Hawaii?" he asked, suddenly sounding so very young, naïve.

I was quiet. He heard this, and he rested his chin on my chest now, peering at my face. My hand began to massage his hair once more and he shifted his cheek against my chest, laid there again, his beautiful blue-green eyes closed.

"Yes, I'd love to live in Hawaii, Frankie, but that's not my point," I whispered to him.

"What's wrong?" he asked, catching on.

"Would your dad even know about us?" I asked.

"He already does. I told him," Frankie smiled blissfully.

My breath stopped. He felt it of course and he lifted himself up on his arms, halfway over me in sudden pose. Looking down at me, his pretty bangs framed the top of his face. It looked like a scene from a movie. I wanted to be enchanted, but I just couldn't.

"You told your father?" I breathed in.

"You don't need to look so fearful," Frankie gently smiled down to me, still in a dream.

"Frankie..." I whispered, my eyes wide in fear. My throat closed up, my body not knowing how to react to his idiotic naïveté. I loved him so much, but...what had he done?

"It's okay," he tried to assure, brushing away my long curly bangs from my face with his slender piano fingers. He was looking at me so lovingly, but I was so afraid. Afraid of him.

"No, Frankie, do you have any idea what you've done," I squeaked, suddenly overcome with my emotions, them rushing me like a crowd.

"My dad's a good guy. He won't tell anyone," he whispered to me.

"But your brother is not a good guy. What if your brother finds out? We've been...I've been so careful... What have you done?" I gasped, trying not to lose myself. My body began to squirm under his, trying to control myself.

"He won't find out," he said again, starting to make little clicking noises with his tongue, trying to calm me like one would a baby. His dear face descended to mine and his warm lips began to kiss lightly all over my cheeks, my nose, my forehead, my chin. But no amount of kisses was going to erase this information.

He didn't know. He was so young. He hadn't been through the fear I'd been through. He had no idea what could be in store if certain people found out we were together. I had to even tell him that being homosexual was illegal. I had to tell him that my going outside of these doors and outside of the club's doors dressed as myself was illegal. He had no idea. Just twenty-one years old, he had no idea. So sheltered, not knowing anything.

Beautiful little boy with the beautiful, peaceful mind. He had no idea. And now he'd told his father that he was in what looked like to everyone else a homosexual relationship. He had basically told his father that he was a homosexual. What had he done?

"My father loves you, too. He was really happy that we're in love. He won't tell anyone," Frankie repeated.

Something in my throat choked. This information hit me like a baseball to the head despite the bad consequences. Tears welled in my eyes and they overflowed over the sides of my face.

"He's happy?" I whispered, more to myself than to Frankie.

"Yes. He wants us to move to Hawaii. No one will find us there, he said," Frankie smiled. "He goes to Hawaii every year. So he could visit us and the kids."

"Oh..." I breathed, starting to cry uncontrolled. Frankie's eyebrows went up in his lovely sympathetic face that I loved so much and he slowly began to kiss the sides of my eyes, my tears.

"I love you, Georgina. He loves you, too. Everything will be alright. I told you I'd figure everything out," Frankie whispered to me in finality. His lips met mine and my hands wrapped around his head, pressing his lips to mine as I kissed him as hard as I could. I bit his lip then my tongue entered his mouth and he moaned. A beautiful little moan of love.

Coming home in the morning, I put my overnight bag down on my piano bench. I sat down on it, too, thinking still. I had laid awake all night with Frankie's darling young face slumbering on my chest. He seemed so sure. So fucking sure. But he was so young. He didn't know.

Part of me, the part that had been homeless under that bridge due to being thrown out by my mother just for showing her who I was, the part that had been grabbed by those men under that bridge, the part I had hidden, was begging me to run away. Get away from this situation. How dangerous, how naïve and negative it was. Can't you see, Georgina, this is bad. This is really bad. This could go so bad. Run away. Get as far away from him as you can. Snap out of it and run. Life is not a fairytale.

But another part was speaking up, arguing with this part of myself. The part which had watched Disney's Cinderella when I had been a little girl. When my father, peering down to me, said, "Cinderella, Cinderella, dove è il tuo principe?" when we had walked out of that movie theater hand in hand. Cinderella, Cinderella, where is your prince? He had always wanted a daughter and he had been really drunk, but still. Those words.

Where is your father now? The hurt part of me begged. Life is not a fairytale.

But could it be? I had found a place to be myself after all, and that place had led me to Frankie. I could be myself. Frankie wanted me to by myself. His father did, even asking me to dress up to sing his favorite song. They both loved me.

They could be my family, the fairytale desiring part of myself whispered like a child. I could have a family with Frankie.

But all the hurt part could see was the look of hatred on Eddie's face. It remembered Mr. Chamberlain getting shot down in front of his family in Queens. It replaced Mr. Chamberlain with Frankie and I could only stare at the wall, my eyes wide, as it showed me this.

It won't happen like that, the fairytale part assured. We'll be happy, living in Hawaii with the hula girls and the leis. We'll drink juice out of coconuts and listen to ukuleles and watch the hula girls, smell the flowers and the ocean on the air. We'll run around with little Frank and Nancy and we'll laugh and I'll cook so much Frankie will get a belly. I'll love his belly. I'll feed them all. I'll love them all. They'll love me, too, Frankie and little Frank and Nancy and his father. We'll be a happy family. You'll be happy. This life, those men under the bridge...that will have been a dream that never happened. You'll see. You'll see.

Small tears were leaking down my face and I hadn't realized. I wiped them away with my fingers, sniffling. I turned my body, and laid my hands on the piano keys. I imagined Frankie's hands on the piano keys, too.

We'll teach little Frank and Nancy to play the piano, too. Frankie will teach little Frank and I'll teach Nancy. We'll all know how to play the piano. What will their favorite things to play be? Will they like Chopin how Frankie likes Chopin? Frankie. I want them both to have his eyes, his sweet blue-green eyes. A whole family with the tropical blue-green eyes, in the tropical place, Hawaii.

Tears began to fall down on my chest, wetting my light blue cotton dress. My fingers pressed the keys, starting to play Frankie's favorite song, "Nocturne in E-flat Major, Opus no.2".

Maybe they'll have Frankie's blonde hair. I have blonde hair, too, so they'll look like they're mine. They'll look like they're mine, and no one will ever doubt I'm their mother. I'll be a mother. I'll love them so much.

"Oh..." I squeaked, at the word 'mother'.

My hands escalated upwards in the piece, coming to Frankie's favorite part, sounding so peaceful and lovely.

I'll make them sandwiches for school. I'll dress them, tying their little shoes. I'll brush Nancy's long blonde hair, and I'll tie it in cute pink bows because Frankie loves pink. She'll wear pink dresses and they'll look a picture together looking so alike. Little Frank can wear matching suits with Frankie when we go to church. And when they have their communions we'll help them practice beforehand and we'll teach them their prayers. They'll grow up Roman Catholic because Frankie is-

Wait.

My fingers paused, then escalated upwards into the happy notes again. The piano keys plinked and tinkled lovingly. Okay. My fingers alternated up the scale. Up and up and-

The sound skipped.

The next key over made a happy sound.

My middle finger pressed one of the happy keys. Then pressed it again. My face contorted into confusion. Pressed and pressed. Blank. No sound at all. My mind went blank. No comprehension. Play, I thought, play. Why isn't it playing? Swing down, little hammer, on that singing string.

But it was almost like...

My lips pressed together, and I stood up, shoving the bench behind me with a rude sound which made me jump in the quiet, scaring me. My heart raced due to the sound and I did not like the feeling that was creeping upon me like a ghostly shadow.

My hand went over my heart as my other lifted the top off of my baby grand. This beautiful baby grand that Frankie bought for me, the piano mover from the store appearing one day with it in the back of his truck.

My eyebrows creased in the middle. My eyes swept over the interior, at the strings, the hammers-

My face went dumb. Completely dumb. My mouth fell open.

The happy note. Where...where was the hammer? My hand floated down to the hammers, and started to rub the cleanly broken off stick where the hammer should have been. Then my finger stopped on the stick, the creepy feeling taking over me from my toes and grasping my heart in a cold fist.

The hammer. The fucking hammer. Where the fuck was the hammer?! The hammer was just fucking gone. GONE. Inconceivably.

My breathing started to come too quickly. Hyperventilation. I started to feel dizzy. But why was it gone? It had been here yesterday. It had been here before I had gone to the hotel to meet Frankie. I remember, because I was practicing that Connie Francis song for Frankie, the "I Will Wait For You" song that Frankie wants me to sing so much for him.

What...just what? I choked on my breath. My eyes looked around my apartment. I dropped to my knees, looking for the hammer on the floor. Maybe...but maybe... But there was no maybe, because there was no reason at all for that hammer to be missing. I'd never do that to my piano...to Frankie's piano. Then what...what...

Tears began to fall down in my panic and I tried to stop myself from panicking, but I couldn't. My body felt so uncomfortable, tingling started in my hands and toes. A fear response but I couldn't understand the response.

I crawled to my bedroom, looking around on the carpet, feeling around. My hands felt my bedpost, lifted me up by the lip of the bed. My eyes darted around the room.

My breath caught. I felt like I was going to be sick.

Because on my pillow, the one I used every night, was that hammer, pressed into the goose down pillow.

My body lost any strength at all and I fell down against the doorframe, staring at the little hammer in horror.

There was no other explanation, my body was telling me. It was telling me...there was no other explanation for that hammer to be on my pillow unless someone else had been in my apartment while I was away. While I was with Frankie.

How could it be? Why? Why?

I felt dizzy, like I was going to pass out. I held my forehead in my hands, just a few moments earlier playing the happy notes on the beautiful piano Frankie bought for me. The hammer, ripped out and placed on my pillow, where my head goes. So violent.

So unfair. So unfair. So unfair!

My body began to shake and I began to cry uncontrollably.

It was the part of me, the one from under that bridge, crying and crying, telling me. No, it told me, no, life is not a fairytale. It's not. Somebody knows about us. Somebody told, saw us, something. And now that hammer is on my pillow as a warning. They ripped it out of Frankie's gesture of love for me. They ripped out my goddamn heart. Frankie...Frankie...

I began to sob, not knowing what to do. So scared. So fucking scared. I crumpled into a ball and began to sob, my grief absolute, mourning my hope.