He waved to me, went up Archie’s steps, and knocked on the door. Someone let him in. I waited. About twenty minutes later, he came out.
“Hey, Ted!” I said quietly and motioned for him to come over to my porch. He approached my steps.
“Hey there, Holly. Sure is a hot one, isn’t it?”
“Sure is. So what’s going on over there?”
“Well, Archie’s new wife says that when she went into her bathroom there were thousands of bees in there, just sitting quietly all over everywhere.”
“Did you see them?”
“Nope. Not a one. I don’t know if she sees things or what, but something’s definitely wrong over there.” He made a circle with his finger beside his head, the international sign for insanity. “She says the bees are after her, trying to make her lose her mind.”
“That’s not likely,” I said. “African bees might kill somebody, but honey bees? Not a chance.”
“I know. I looked up honey bees on the Internet. Boy, you can find out just about anything online these days, can’t you? Anyway, your little critters are just about completely benign. And they’re good for flower and vegetable garden production. And their honey should help to relieve allergies for other island residents.”
“I feel like I ought to give you a gold star, Ted!” I said and laughed.
I was relieved to have an ally in law enforcement. I had no idea how crazy Sharon might get.
“I’m off on Tuesday. Want to get some dinner?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I had a date. Damn. Oh, my God. I had a date. Yeah, but it was Ted. No reason to get nervous there.
That night, while I was having a glass of wine and making a list of things I needed to do, I got a text message from Leslie.
Send Momma’s sweats and her sneakers. She’s staying for a while and so am I. Charlie’s contest is in two weeks and he’s not ready by a long shot. News flash! Momma’s got a beau.
Next, a picture appeared in my feed. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. And then came the explanation.
That’s Momma with Suzanne Velour.
What the hell, Momma? What the hell?
I texted back, Is Suzanne Velour a woman?
No, came her reply. She’s a heterosexual man who’s a super successful female impersonator like Dame Edna.
Oh, I feel much better, I texted back.
I laughed. I hoped they both stayed in Las Vegas until they sowed all their wild oats. I had enough excitement in my life. And I had a date.
“Ever hear of a gangster named Bugsy Siegel?” Suzanne said.
“I think so,” the QB said.
“He named his casino the Flamingo after his girlfriend, because she had long legs . . .”
“Like a flamingo?” the QB said.
“Yeah, like you and me!”
You could hear them laughing in Arizona.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Char
In the morning, Charlie and I were on his tiny terrace enjoying a cup of coffee and some cinnamon rolls when Momma burst through the French doors making a very dramatic entrance.
“Good morning, possums!” she said.
“I was about to come and check for a pulse,” Charlie said. “Good morning!”
“It’s good to be alive,” Momma said and gave each of us a peck on the cheek.
“Come sit,” I said. “I’ll get you a cup.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said.
I went inside to the kitchen and got a cup and saucer, a plate and napkin, and hurried back to them.
“I’ve been giving your act a lot of thought,” the QB said to Charlie. “In fact, I’ve hardly slept a wink.”
“What are you thinking?” Charlie said.
“Well, I made it my business to watch every bit of Dame Edna on YouTube and her Web site and anything else I could dig up, and suddenly I have a much better understanding of what you’re after. Suzanne’s idea, of course,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Forgive this old bee, but I’ve never given two minutes of thought to the difference between drag queens and female impersonators. I live on Sullivan’s Island and the subject seldom comes up in conversation. But coming here and meeting Suzanne and seeing what you’re doing and then Dame Edna? Honey? That guy is the glue that put it all together for me!”
“Hallelujah!” Charlie said. “He’s making wads of money and having a ball while he’s doing it!”
“But here’s what he’s got that you don’t.”
“What?” I said.
Charlie held his breath.
“He’s got a shtick!” Momma said. “That’s Yiddish for having your own act.”
“I know that,” Charlie said.
“Actually, I knew that, too,” I said.
“Well, Suzanne explained it all to me,” the QB said. “We stayed up watching Dame Edna until I understood what it was I was watching.”
“Dame Edna is the gold standard,” Charlie said.
“Agreed,” Bee said. “Suzanne agrees, too. Here’s the thing. Dame Edna’s been entertaining family and friends by dressing up in all sorts of costumes since she was a child. She has extensive history in theater and film, which you don’t have.”
“He was our drum major with our marching band,” I said, hoping to add some credibility to Charlie’s résumé. “And we know he’s a helluva lip-syncer.”
“These are helpful, but they are not the things that will catapult our sweet Charlie to the big league. But we came up with something that might.”
“Well, for the love of all that’s good and holy, spill it!” Charlie said.
“You lip-sync Cher’s songs, and these are your favorites, correct?”
“Yes,” Charlie said.
“What if you were her identical twin sister, who actually wrote all those songs and Cher stole them, having heard you singing them in the shower?”
“What?” I said. “That’s crazy.”
“No, it isn’t. Think about it,” Momma said, stirring cream into her coffee like one of Macbeth’s witches tending the cauldron. “If you have a character that’s only yours, then you can build a shtick around it!”
“Dame Edna calls her fans possums and refers to her outrageous eyeglasses as face furniture,” Charlie said.
“So what if you compared Cher having sex with Sonny to landing on an aircraft carrier?”
“Oh, God!” Charlie said. “That’s priceless!”
“Poor Sonny,” I said, envisioning Sonny’s landing in Cher’s Netherland the way a small plane is snagged by a wire across the landing deck of an actual aircraft carrier.
“You could say you dated him first,” Momma said.
“Momma? You’re right!” I said. “There are lots of possibilities of things you could drop into a monologue, in between songs, or take little pauses.”
“Exactly!”
So, until noon, when Charlie had a block of time reserved with a theater coach, we built a character that Charlie felt comfortable enough to become. His humor surfaced along with his sense of irony and satire. It was like unlocking Pandora’s box, except there were no evils to be released, only humor, and it didn’t take long for that humor to become outrageous.
“Just imagine actually being Cher’s identical twin sister!” said Suzanne, who had come by to help, laden with pastrami sandwiches and the best half-sour pickles I’d ever had, a rare find in the Lowcountry. “You can have costumes for the Sonny stage, the Gregg Allman stage, the Hollywood stage, the Broadway stage . . . I mean, you’ve got a treasure trove. But so you know, you’d also be seventy-two if you were her twin sister.”
“Cher is immortal,” Charlie said. “I could be her twin at every stage of her life, couldn’t I?”
“Now you’re thinking like a superstar!” Suzanne said, and we all applauded.
We gathered at the kitchen barstools, Suzanne helping Momma hoist herself up.
“Wooo!” Momma squealed.
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Suzanne must’ve taken a little grab.
“Suzanne!” Charlie said. “The QB is still my mother-in-law!”
“Sorry,” Suzanne said and shook her head to mean no, she wasn’t sorry.
Momma giggled, something I had hardly ever heard her do.
“Cher was born Cherilyn. I could be born Charlene!” Charlie said. “Oh, I knew that was the right name for me!”
“I think you should go by Char,” I said. “Char! Cher’s Long-Lost Twin!”
“Agreed,” Charlie said.
“Now we’re having real fun,” Momma said. Suzanne winked at her.
“You know, Cher actually does have a half sister named Georganne,” Charlie said.
“Let’s not confuse the situation with facts,” Suzanne said. “But it’s worth noting that one of the reasons Cher has enjoyed such a long, successful career hinges on her ability to roll with the times, change with the times, you know, reinvent herself whenever it was time to do it.”
“That’s it,” Charlie said, “and her self-deprecating sense of humor. She had perfect timing, and speaking of timing, it’s time for my drama lesson.”
“I’m coming with you,” Suzanne said. “You need supervision. Let’s lay this whole concept on the coach and see where it goes.”
“Excellent idea,” Charlie said. “See y’all later.”
They left and I turned to Momma. I had questions, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted the answers.
“I think we should use this time to examine the lyrics of Cher’s top ten greatest hit songs and change them to be Char’s lyrics,” Momma said.
“That’s a stroke of brilliance, but while we have this time alone, would you like to tell me what the hell is going on between you and Suzanne?”
“Baby girl? I’m taking a walk on the wild side!” Momma was beaming from head to toe. “I’m breaking loose from all those rules and regulations and expectations. I’m a liberated woman!”
I wanted to tell her she’d done all that years ago. I wanted to say, maybe we should think this through a little better. I wasn’t convinced that Suzanne’s intentions were sincere. I didn’t even know what Suzanne’s real name was. And I wasn’t sure if Momma had a goal in mind, in terms of Suzanne. But I neither said nor asked any of those things.
Instead I said, “Momma? I’m with you, girl!”
For the next few days, while Momma sewed hippie vests and bell-bottoms, we turned Cher’s songs into Char’s music. “Bang Bang” became “Dang Dang.” “I Got You Babe” became “I’ve Got Your Babe.” “The Beat Goes On” became “The Cheat Goes On.” “Baby Don’t Go” became “Baby Please Go.” We did this until we had enough material for thirty minutes onstage. The music was interjected with monologues about what it was like to live in Cher’s shadow and all the things Cher did that were never supposed to be revealed. It was a hilarious act worthy of any small club, straight or otherwise.
Charlie worked with his coach every day, until he could recite his monologue without cue cards. Charlie was becoming so much more than a female impersonator. Charlie was a star. Not a megastar, not an icon. Not yet. But a budding star. You could smell success all around him. All he had needed was guidance and encouragement. Charlie was going places, and all of us were brimming with excitement to see where it would lead. And his confidence was growing.
Charlie had become Char. We wanted her to live in character all the time so that it would become second nature to her. And she did.
“The change in Charlie is incredible,” Momma said.
“Char is a goddess,” Suzanne said.
“Suzanne? Baby doll? That might be slightly overstating things,” Momma said.
“Bee, baby? She’s gonna be a goddess if it’s the last thing I ever do,” Suzanne said.
“Listen! I’m on the team, okay?”
While Momma sewed up a blue streak, and Suzanne and I reworked lyrics, Char and her drama coach cruised the bars and clubs and made tons of phone calls, on a mission to find out when there would be good opportunities for her to audition. Finally, they came up with a plan. Char’s first appearance would be in a club where many new artists tried out their acts. A date was set. A few solid and reputable booking agents were invited to be in the audience without Char’s knowledge.
“I don’t want her to have any more anxiety than she’s already got,” Suzanne said.
“Good call,” I said.
Suzanne suggested that when Charlie was dressed as Char, we should use feminine pronouns and that seemed right to me and to Momma. And now that she was Char all the time, she was she all the time.
The day before her showcase I said to Char, “Okay, you have to do your nails. And that includes your feet.”
“I’ve never worn nail polish,” Char said.
“I don’t know how you missed it, but now you’re going to, so let’s go.”
“I’m nervous,” Char said when we were in pedicure chairs in the salon Suzanne sent us to.
“Me, too,” I said. “But you know what? You’re going to be okay.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said.
“Look, I’ve thought about this. If the show goes well and an agent appears to book you a pile of gigs? Great! If an agent never 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.
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“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 another, growing into a crescendo until, boom! The lights came on and there was Char, back to the audience, and as she turned she looked more like Cher than Cher. People began to clap spontaneously, and Char hadn’t really done a thing. But she had that something, that special something that stars have. Presence. Stage presence.
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