Carl had looked really upset tonight, disturbed. He had passed out the drinks at the bar without a smile. He was still dressed in his black suit.

Unlike the rest of us, he had gone to Mr. Chamberlain's funeral earlier in the day. Our customers thought his black suit looked smart and snazzy, but to us it looked sad and was a constant reminder of our awful mistake.

Several times, I had to leave the floor and go into the men's bathroom, my hand pressed against the wall as I tried not to vomit. Customers knocked on the door and several shouted at me in there, wanting to use the restroom as a line formed outside, but I didn't give a fuck about them. I didn't give a fuck about any of them.

Paulie had seen my pale face and tried to joke with me that the bright lights of the stage illuminated me even under my foundation due to the reflection off of the paleness, but I told him to shut up. This made him give me a very sad look, like Carl's suit. He'd pat me on the back and go do his set as we exchanged sets all night. Between sets, I'd sit in the office, my head on the desk in my arms.

Paulie didn't understand, though he tried. There was no way he could understand the guilt I felt, how I felt like Mr. Chamberlain getting murdered was all my fault. If I hadn't been so stupid, told Mr. Caselotti "no" or "maybe another night", Mr. Chamberlain would still be alive.

Around 1 AM, Frankie drifted in. Paulie kept eyeing me from the stage, his sad eyes betraying him as he did his Toto act. Fewer people were laughing because he just did not look funny tonight. He wasn't smiling enough. Instead, his comedy act seemed almost mean. Normally light-hearted and full of delightful smiles and perfect comedic timing, his "Toto knows the way home" act was uproariously funny and even hopeful and endearing, but tonight...

Frankie and I were sitting together in a booth, our hands under the tablecloth held together tightly. We were watching Paulie on stage as Precious Paula playing Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and trying not to cry as Paulie struggled on stage.

"I think home is here or there or anywhere," Paulie ventriloquized in Toto's high pitched doggie voice. "Shut up, Toto, you suck at giving directions," Paulie then barked at Toto, too harshly and with no smile. Several people in the audience jumped at this where usually there would be table slapping laughter. Paulie forgot to throw Toto as he said it, too. Because of this, he looked momentarily confused, losing the cue to actually move across the stage.

"Uh...um..." Paulie cleared his throat and lifted Toto up in the crook of his arm. He began speaking as Toto again, through his teeth, which would normally be through a smile. "Don't you think home is anywhere? Home is in your heart. Home can be right here. It can be there. It can be anywhere." Paulie looked at the audience, but the message this time was completely lost. Several of the audience members shifted in their seats, just waiting for the embarrassment to end. Paulie looked like a deer in headlights now, absolutely aware he was bombing.

"Thank you, folks," he said, his head hung, looking completely ashamed. He looked like a little boy who had just pissed his pants in front of all of his friends.

At this, I had to bury my face into Frankie's shoulder as I started crying in tiny sobs, trying to not let my body shake. I felt so embarrassed for Paulie. Ashamed and grief filled about everything. Frankie's large hand started to rub my back, all he could do in public. I knew if we were in private he'd kiss me, tell me things would be okay, that we'd get through this, to please stop crying, Georgina. I wanted that so badly. So badly. I started to cry harder thinking about how much I wanted that. I started to hate how he couldn't comfort me intimately in public. I started to hate my life, falling apart right there in the booth.

"Georgina," I heard him whisper. "Come to the bathroom with me, okay? Come with me."

Unexpected rage filled me. It took me by so much surprise it made me gasp into him.

"No," I said quietly into his shoulder, trying not to show him I was angry.

"No?" he asked, clearly confused, maybe even hurt.

"No, I don't want to go to the bathroom with you. I don't want to hide, Frankie. I don't want..." But I couldn't go on because I started to cry again, my angry feelings melting away in the shame.

He began to rub my back harder, trying to make up for all of this. But I knew I was wrong. He had done nothing wrong, he shouldn't have felt upset. I knew he felt guilty now, and he had no reason to. For this alone, I squeezed his hand and began moving out of the booth, dragging him with me at first.

"Where are you going?" he asked, his beautiful blue-green eyes staring up at me as I stood up.

"We're going to the bathroom," I sighed, looking down at his handsome young face.

"Okay, Georgina," he said delicately to me, getting up. He unclasped his hand from mine and it made my body shake in a sob, but I couldn't cry now that we weren't in the booth. So I swallowed the feeling and we walked away separately.

Once at the bathroom, we looked around. He knocked smartly on the door, and getting no response, he swung it open. The single occupancy bathroom was empty. We looked around again, and seeing there was no one around, we ducked into the bathroom together. Frankie locked the door and I pulled on the handle to doubly make sure it was locked.

Frankie looked at me with a very worried expression. Immediately, my tears overflowed and I had to sit on the closed toilet, wiping my eyes, gasping for breath. He sat on the floor, kneeling to me, holding my hands to his chest. He began to kiss my fingers, one by one, lingeringly. Lovingly.

This made me cry harder, just like I had in the booth. How he could only do this in private, in such a scummy place. How we always had to hide our love in scummy places, especially bathrooms. It felt like we spent our entire lives in bathrooms. Frankie didn't deserve to live his entire life in a bathroom.

"Ohhh Frankie," I wailed, my entire body heaving in my grief, "Frankie, I don't know what to dooo..."

He began to rub his face slowly on the back of my hand, feeling its softness. His cheek felt beautiful. "About what?" he asked calmly, looking at me in his adoring way but with a crease between his eyebrows in worry.

"About any of this," I whimpered. "Look at us! Look at where we are. What we have to do. Why are we hiding? Why do we have to hide?"

He frowned and pressed my hand to his cheek, in deep thought.

"You know," I choked, swallowing and then going on, "the other night, I saw this couple, probably married, the wife started crying right there at the table and her husband kissed her on the cheek. I don't know what happened to them or what, but I wish we could do that. I wish you could kiss me in the booth and no one think anything of it. Except maybe for perhaps, 'how cute' or 'look at the lovebirds'. Its not fair, Frankie. Its just not fair. We've had such a hard thing happen to us and we can't...we can't even...we can't even comfort each other like normal people...I can't take it! I just can't take it!"

He sighed deeply and looked at me, a long look. Then he kissed the inside of my hand, a long kiss, and inside of me felt floaty and strange, such a shift from how I was feeling in my body. The feelings mixed and confused me, making me dizzy and slightly nauseous. Off balance.

"There is a way," he said quietly, staring at the wall.

Not thinking I heard him correctly, I leaned into him. "What did you say, baby?" I asked just as quietly.

He looked at me, his face completely sad and drained. "I've been thinking about it ever since I met you. There is a way...for..." He stopped talking, suddenly looking so nervous he seemed frozen mid-word.

I slipped off the toilet and onto the floor with him. My hands cupped his soft face, and I stared into his lovely eyes. They filled with tears right there, but I started crying first in seeing his response. His cheeks blushed pink right under my hands, my hands becoming warm.

"Tell me," I whispered to him, close to his face.

"There...there is a way for...us to be 'normal'," he said just barely audible. He looked like he wanted to disappear, afraid.

I wanted to tell him he didn't have to be nervous. That I knew what he was talking about. But I couldn't find the words. Instead, I kissed him deeply and he gave a little involuntary moan in the unexpectedness of it, the relief of it.

Our lips parted, and we were staring at each other again, adoringly.

"Darling, I know," I told him assuringly. "I know. I've dreamt of such a thing since I was a little girl. You know a way? Tell me."

Then he told me, and my heart entered a dream.