"Oh, lord, won't you tell me why, I love that fella so? He doesn't want me, but I'll never never never never let him go!"

The men in the audience whooped and hollered over the chorus of "nevers" totally feeling it. A well of pride filled my heart as I belted out the Connie Francis tune. Frankie was behind me playing the piano on stage left, grinning from ear to ear, proud as peaches, too.

"Sincerely! Oh you know how I love you! I'll do anything for you, please say you'll be mine?" I pressed my hands to my heart, leaning into the mic. Swaying my hips back and forth, I finished like the song was my story, "please say you'll be mine."

Raucous clapping flew up from the tables. Paulie swam around them collecting their tips in a little basket like church. He gave me a thumbs up and I curtsied to them the best I could in this pink mermaid cut gown. They cheered again and I looked behind me. Frankie was bowing, too. As I exited the stage, I gave him a kiss on the cheek, leaving a bright rose lipstick mark, and people shrieked in glee. He started laughing, a little laugh that only us two could hear at the crowd's reaction.

Paulie passed me on the stage stairs, waving at me for a set well done and I beamed at him. Making my way through the tables, about halfway through I heard Paulie take the mic from the stand and he bellowed, "that guy at table seven! Yeah, you! I've been looking at you all night! Aren't you cute? You're so tubby, aren't you? Those cherry cheeks...wait a minute. Hey Santa, didn't you know Christmas is in two weeks? It's not today! What are you doing in our club? Does Mrs. Claus know you're here?" The crowd went up in table slapping laughter. Ah, so Paulie was going to pick on the crowd. But they loved his abuse. He loved them, too. The man yelled something friendly back to him. "Oh-ho ho ho, 'I don't have no Mrs. Claus' eh? You cruisin'? You looking for a 'Santa's little helper'? Uh-huh. Yeah, I see you, Santa Claus. You do your thing, Mr. Kringle." I burst into giggles as the crowd roared. Gasping for air, I pulled open the door to the ladies' bathroom.

Inside, little Miss Cha Cha Valentine was teasing his curled pigtails with a long toothed comb, making them puff out as much as he could. "Hello, Miss Valentine. Ready for your debut?" I chuckled. A quick look in the mirror told me 'no'. Who the heck had drawn on his eyebrows, Bozo the clown? "Come here baby, you look like Howdy Doody a little bit. Who did your eyebrows? I'll do them."

"Carl," Cha Cha said proudly, turning to me.

"Honey, let me tell you. Carl can do hair, but he sure as hell can't do make up. If you need help, come to me or Paulie. Maybe even in crisis, you can go to Carl's daughter."

"Okay," he said seriously, letting me wipe off his ridiculous eyebrows. He handed me his foundation and I patted it on gently. With precision, I started to draw with tiny strokes, making defined yet pretty and natural looking brows for his young face. Thinking about it, I decided next time I'd do his entire make up for him. He had such a young face. There was no need to cake like this. He couldn't even grow facial hair yet. We'd use his real brows next time, but plucked to a nice feminine arch.

"You nervous?" I asked, staring at his new brows seriously as I worked them.

"Little," he admitted quietly.

"I can tell. You're so quiet," I smiled. A smile formed on his face, changing his face up unexpectedly.

"Oh shoot, sweetie. Please keep your face still," I gasped.

"Mm," he responded, kindly not opening his mouth which would have changed his face again.

Finally, I had tweaked them enough so I stepped back, holding him by his shoulders to look see. "That's just precious," I grinned. He really was quite beautiful, with lovely cherry red on full lips and boldly wing tipped eyes. "You look like you could be at least eighteen. I don't think anyone will notice how young you are."

"I look eighteen?" he asked, swinging around to the mirror, appearing very pleased.

"Yes," I snickered. He was so darn adorable, dressed in a shift dress that looked like a Piet Mondrian painting with different colored squares on white. One leg was bright yellow and the other was blue, his heels cherry red just like his lips. On his hands were smart looking white gloves to his wrists, very fashionable. "When I came in here it looked like you were trying to make your curls fluff," I remembered suddenly, "do you want help?"

"Hm, si," he said, raising a new eyebrow at himself as he leaned in to the mirror. "It look, hm. Hair look too small for drag."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Well, how big do you want it?" I giggled into my hand.

"I want like 'baw', 'baaaw', you know?" he asked, inflating his cheeks and making explosion sounds, displaying these on top of his head with expanding hands where his pigtails were.

I burst into a giggle fit. "Oh, Cha Cha," I laughed, "that's never going to happen without a wig or extensions or something. You look very lovely, though. Like a fashionable girl on the street. You could be from London. Like Twiggy, you know her?"

"Twiggy!" he exclaimed, staring at himself anew with adoration.

"Oh my god, you're so cute. So cute! I'd hug you, but your make-up might rub off. Come on, I bet Paulie's almost done. You're on next, darling," I giggled, taking his gloved hand in mine.

"Dios mio," he whispered, easing out of the bathroom with me.

"You know, that's how we say 'oh my god' in Italian, too. But its 'dio mio'," I smiled to him, trying to ease his nerves.

"Really?! Cool!" he exclaimed like an excited kitten.

I giggled again at his cuteness, leading him out to the main floor. Carl saw us come around the bar and grinned, raising a beckoning finger. Now in the audience, Paulie was going after somebody else.

"Whoa, sweetie," he was saying, sitting on a gentleman's lap and wrapping his arms around the guy's neck casually. The audience was looking at them like they were the two most important people in the entire world. "Don't let Santa hear you say that. He's sitting right there, come on," he laughed, gesturing to the man from earlier who indeed did look suspiciously like Santa Claus. The crowd started shrieking with merriment and the man Paulie was picking on looked sheepish with tomato red blushing.

"What do you want for Christmas, baby? You can tell me. Tell Paula," he whispered into the mic, then shoved the mic in front of the man's mouth.

"I-I want a k-kiss," the man said nervously, stuttering.

"Aww, so you're a gentleman after all," Paulie chuckled. As he planted twin kisses on the man's cheeks the crowd was a shrill mix of "aww"s and applause.

At that moment we were blinded by the flash of a camera in the semi-darkness and I blinked violently over and over, searching for the source. My eyes found the camera in the hands of Frankie who was looking towards Paulie with the camera still raised to his face. Another flash came again but I had closed my eyes in preparation.

A slow hiss startled me and I looked for its source. I gasped, and my hand rocketed for the Coca Cola bottle in Cha Cha's hand which was raising to his perfectly colored lips.

"No!" I cried out, grabbing it just in time.

"Whoa!" Carl said, looking slightly offended, "the kid's gotta drink! He's about to go sing!"

"Give him a water. With a straw," I ordered, sliding the glass Coca Cola bottle away as far as possible. "You know that sugary stuff plugs up the throat, Carl! How many times do I have to tell you that? You should know that from my routine before I go on stage already!"

"Oh right!" Carl gasped, hitting his forehead and filling a cup with water immediately.

In the audience, Paulie looked at me with questioning eyes, raising his chin in the gesture. It was a signal. Was the kid ready to go on stage? I shook my head, pointing at the new water glass that Carl was giving to Cha Cha. He nodded and went on, getting up from the man's lap and twirling once like a dancer, starting to ask the audience if they thought he looked pretty in his short, festive green dress with sparkly fluff trim. They gave a resounding "yes" and Paulie gave them an overly enthusiastic and feminine "thank you" before launching into a fake story about how he found the dress in a dumpster along with "this gentleman right over here."

Cha Cha was drinking eagerly. "Don't drink too fast, Cha Cha. I'm giving you a tip. You don't want air bubbles in your tummy when you're holding a long note. Trust me," I smiled, patting him on his cute bare shoulder. He nodded vigorously, returning the smile with the clear straw still between his lips.

Very soon he had finished his water and breathed in deeply and surely.

"You alright, kid?" Carl asked, patting him on the back.

"Si," Cha Cha beamed.

"Are you ready to go on stage? I can give Paulie the signal to announce you," I said, leaning in to him in a motherly way.

"Si, I good," Cha Cha nodded with confidence. More confidence than I thought he could have about going on stage in drag for the first time.

"Okay, darling," I said, giving him an assuring smile anyway. I raised my hand. With a turn of his head, Paulie saw it and beamed at us. Frankie saw my signal, too, and walked to us at the bar. I wanted to grab him and hug him just for a little bit, but I resisted the urge. Instead, he lifted his heavy camera from around his neck and handed it to me to hold on to momentarily.

"Come on. I'll play the piano for you, like we practiced," he said kindly, fatherly, to Cha Cha and taking his hand. My heart bloomed in my love for Frankie, thinking about him in this light.

"What are you going to sing?" I asked, stopping them as they started to walk away.

"Mary Wells," Cha Cha said proudly.

"Motown?" I said quietly to myself, thinking about the crowd. Would they like that kind of music? My thoughts went to Eddie raging at the wedding reception and my heart shriveled like a grape in fear for Cha Cha.

"You knock 'em dead," Carl called to him like a prideful dad seeing his daughter off for the first time. "They'll love ya. Just think about the music and you'll be fine. Don't worry about pleasing them, just do your thing."

My voice caught in my throat at his words. He was completely right. I waved to them and Frankie gave me an adorable thumbs up. I blushed.

Paulie was on stage now, the mic in the stand again. The band was forming behind him to stage right, coming up the stairs with their instruments and sitting in chairs just like they did for me. "I am pleased to present to you for the first time, on behalf of everyone at the Majestic, Miss Cha Cha Valentine." He smiled warmly and began clapping, trying to get the crowd to clap, too. The crowd looked confused, but not unhappy, and began clapping softly and politely.

A spotlight came on and at the same time the stage dimmed, our lighting guys working perfectly in sync. I saw Cha Cha's hand grasp over his heart at this suddenness while he walked up the stairs with Frankie. Frankie's hands immediately went to Cha Cha's back and shoulders in case he was falling. My heart pinched in love again, but for both of them. I saw him whisper something to Cha Cha in the semi-darkness and Cha Cha said something inaudible to him back. I wondered what they were saying.

Frankie sat at the piano and Cha Cha walked up to the microphone. He looked very nervous now, on stage. Maybe he hadn't realized what it would feel like to be on stage with a spotlight pointed at him and a full crowd in house staring more powerfully than the spotlight.

Frankie's fingers went up, and they started to count down silently as Cha Cha looked at him expectantly. Finally the last one formed a fist and he pointed at the band to signal they were starting.

My body went electric as Frankie started the rolling piano of the beginning of "My Guy" by Mary Wells. At this exact moment, Carl's large warm hand folded over my hand from behind and I let out a long exhale.

With the music, Cha Cha's eyes lost their deer in headlights status and his entire body relaxed visibly. With his familiar kooky grin, he began to sing and my jaw dropped.

"Nothing you can say can tear me away from my guy," he belted in the most seductively feminine and full bodied tone in perfect English, completely the opposite from his usual feathery, light and fractured speaking voice. The crowd exploded, going crazy, clapping and whistling. I turned to Carl with my mouth still open and his was hanging, too.

"Nothing you could do because I'm stuck like glue to my guy," Cha Cha charmed, swaying his hips in a manner much too old for him.

"MY GUY!" the crowd echoed him, already having the most fun time. Cha Cha looked like he was going to burst into laughter, but he controlled himself as if expert. What in the world? Where had this professional person on stage come from? My hand went over my mouth.

"I'm stickin' to my guy like a stamp to a letter, like birds of a feather we stick together! I'm tellin' you from the start, I can't be torn apart from my guy." Cha Cha smirked at them like he was twenty-six years old. Sexy whistles came up from the audience and they hollered at him with bounties of joy.

Carl leaned in to me and I glanced at his face as he did so. "I think there's some things we don't know about Cha Cha," he whispered with shocked eyes.

"I think you may be correct, Carl," I whispered back in awe.

As Cha Cha charmed them on stage with the sexiness of a burlesque dancer my mind was going a mile a minute. Paulie joined us at the bar with raised eyebrows.

"That child is pure sex on stage," he said to us in a hushed voice, "he wasn't like that in rehearsal."

"Is it a problem?" Carl asked, started to bob his head to the song.

"Is that a problem? Carl! Are you forgetting that kid is fourteen years old?!" Paulie scolded, smacking him on the shoulder. "Look at how they're responding to him! How many phone numbers do you think I'm going to get as tips for him? Huh? how many?!"

Carl's face turned into stone like he was seeing Medusa swaying her hips all over the stage instead of Cha Cha. "Oh shit," he said quietly.

"Right, 'oh shit'!" Paulie repeated after him. "Fuck. Get me a drink. We're going to have to talk to him about what is appropriate and what isn't and what that causes. Georgina doing that on stage is one thing, but Georgina is twenty-four!"

"Heyyy," I pouted, hearing him say my age.

"This is no time for joking!" Paulie hissed, smacking his hand on the bar several times to hurry Carl up with his drink.

A little ticket of green appeared in the crowd and without hesitation Cha Cha got on his knees for the patron and took the dollar bill in his mouth from the stage. Paulie let out a little shriek and clapped his hand over his face. "NO!" he cried in a stifle. My mouth had dropped open again as the crowd roared their approval.

"I don't even do that," I noted. But no matter how freaked out Paulie was getting, I couldn't help but enjoy what Cha Cha was doing. Gone was my earlier fear. I was happy now. My nervousness for him had melted away at seeing how confident he was on stage, how professional he was. Yes, what he was doing was inappropriate for his age, but look at him. I was so proud I felt like I was floating on air.

He righted himself and spun around with his mouth slightly open in a sultry manner, taking the bill which had stuck to his lips with a slip of his gloved hand. He clung to the mic stand in the next instant, his hand wrapping over the mic and releasing it, launching into the next verse.

Unintentionally, my head had started bobbing to the song just like Carl's had resumed doing.

"Georgina! Are you actually enjoying this?!" Paulie demanded like an overly protective mother.

I started giggling and Paulie smacked my shoulder, which only made me giggle more.

"He may not be a movie star, but when it comes to being happy, we are! There's not a man today who could take me away from my guy! What you say?!" Cha Cha called to the crowd, gesturing the mic at them.

"THERE'S NOT A MAN TODAY WHO COULD TAKE ME AWAY FROM MY GUY!" the crowd echoed, completely in love with him.

My face broke into sunshine as I saw Frankie start to laugh at this. This laugh was how I knew things would be completely and wonderfully alright. The crowd loved Cha Cha and that was all that mattered.

Any trace of earlier fears were washed away as Frankie's piano tones melted into the start of "Baby Love" by the Supremes to the ecstasy of the crowd's excited cheers. I felt like I was witnessing the rare and beautiful birth of a star on our ever amazing stage this evening.