appears, I still love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said, and the relief that flooded her was obvious.
“This is not a contest with an approval trophy from me, Momma, or Suzanne. It’s more like a little dream coming true. Don’t let the what-ifs eat you alive and take all the fun out of it for you. This is supposed to be fun. Remember that.”
“What if Cher’s in the audience?” Char said with a nervous laugh.
“What if Dame Edna’s in the audience?”
Realizing that the odds of their making an appearance were a billion to one, my Charlie, soon to be the world’s Char, relaxed again.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m worried about nothing.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You’re worried about nothing.”
There was one rehearsal in the actual space with the lighting manager and the sound engineer.
“How did it go?” I asked when she came in.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
The evening of the showcase arrived and we went to the club on the early side so that Char would have some time to get comfortable in the space. She wasn’t the only one performing that night. There was a ventriloquist, a magician, a vocalist, and our Charlie. Char. There would be no costume change for Char, so that minimized the stress.
“How do you feel?” I asked her.
Char said, “You know what? Strangely enough, I’m pretty calm.”
“Good!” Momma said. “You know what, Char?”
“What?”
“You’re going to be fabulous. I just know it. The costume alone should cinch it!”
She was only teasing. But can we have a word about her costumes? They were amazing. The gowns Momma made were in various stages of completion. For tonight, Char looked exactly like Cher had looked in her Sonny and Cher days. She wore vertical-striped low-rise bell-bottoms, a white shirt with billowing sleeves, a brown suede vest with long fringes, platform Kork-Ease shoes, and a headband worn Native American style over her long black wig, which was parted in the middle. She had hoop earrings, a long chain with a cross, and bangles on both arms. She wasn’t quite Cher; she was Char.
Momma had never been more supportive of Holly or of me at any moment in our lives than she was of Charlie in that one. But she knew what a chance Charlie was taking. Either Char had the talent or she didn’t. Even if there was no agent present in the audience, the club manager had been around long enough to recognize talent. He would make calls. Suzanne explained that in Las Vegas, just like in Hollywood, everybody’s in the racket for all they can get. So yes, club owners acted as managers and managers acted as agents.
Momma and I found a table and ordered iced tea. The tired waitress looked at us like we were crazy.
“Y’all never heard of iced tea?” Momma said and gave her some side eye.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
Finally, Suzanne returned and sat with us. The club began to fill up for the first set and we began to get excited.
“You know, when Charlie arrived in Las Vegas,” Suzanne said, “I thought he was a lost little lamb.”
“Not anymore,” I said.
“Not anymore is right,” Momma said.
Boy, had this family changed with the times, and Momma was all smiles, agreeing with everyone all over the place. Well, that was Suzanne’s fault.
“Your mother is a beautiful woman,” Suzanne whispered to me while the magician was pulling scarves out of audience members’ ears.
“Thanks. Suzanne? What’s your real name?”
“Buster,” she said. “Buster Henry. Retired military.”
“No shit,” I said.
Suzanne smiled like the Mona Lisa and said, “Yeah, no shit. I got sick of uniforms.”
“Okay,” I said. “I can understand that.”
“Costumes are more fun.”
What did it say that in such a short period I’d become accustomed to being with this lifestyle that was so foreign to mine? And what about Momma? Her transformation from an impossible old crank to a woman of a certain age with a reservoir of juice worthy of a squeeze was, well, nothing I ever expected. I wondered what Holly would say if she could have seen all this.
We suffered through the vocalist who tried to kill our love of music in general with her rendition of “Fascinating Rhythm,” with a truly lame tap routine interspersed between lyrics. The poor thing was out of breath and someone finally gave her a glass of water and helped her off the stage.
Then the stage went dark as the sound engineer began to play a medley of Cher’s music, one song leapfrogging to