Cher by Mark Bego Read Free Book Online

The only other girl that was available was her girlfriend, who was a good looker too. Then we all went out—me and the other girl. That didn’t pan out at all” (32).
    According to Sonny in his 1991 autobiography And the Beat Goes On , the next night the foursome met again at Aldo’s. Cher was with Sonny’s fellow promotion man, Red, 1 and Sonny was paired with Melissa. After dinner and a lot of red wine, Melissa and Cher announced that they wanted to go dancing at a place that neither Red nor Sonny had heard of—it was called Club 86. However, they were game for a little dancing. After the foursome arrived at Club 86, and were escorted to a table, Sonny and Red realized that they were the only men in the whole place. The girls had taken them to a lesbian bar! Sonny was even more confused when Cher and Melissa got up and went to dance—with each other. Following a few uncomfortable minutes, the men announced to their dates that they wanted to leave. Cher obliged, but Melissa decided to stay. Sonny recalls that Cher, who was seated in the front seat of the car, kept talking to him in the backseat, while Red drove the car. Sonny simply assumed that he and Red had just had a joke played on them by the girls, and figured that he would probably never see them again anyway.
    Regardless of whose memory of their first meeting is clearer, or more accurate, it wasn’t long before their paths did indeed cross again. Oddly enough, Sonny ended up renting the apartment next door to the one that Cher and Melissa were sharing. As Cher explains it, “This was when me and my girlfriend lived on Fountain Avenue, and well, Sonny moved in next door. He didn’t know we were next door. So, I thought that was kind of neat. I went over to see him and we water-colored all day. He was really terrible too. So, that night, he asked me to go to Safeway [grocery store] with him. Yeah, real romantic” (33).
    Sonny was to recall, “I was very attracted to her” (32). Due to the Club 86 adventure, Sonny also wondered about Cher’s sexual preferences, although she denied that she was gay. He was also amazed by her use of foul language, which dotted her conversation as though she had learned English from a truck driver. Sonny chalked it up to her wanting to act more adult.
    From the very start, Cher’s affair with Sonny was unconventional at best. Yet there was a growing bond between them. Cher recalls, “I had a date with another guy that night, but I didn’t want to get involved in that so I kind of cooled it. I got home around three o’clock that night and went over to see if Sonny was up. Well . . . he was in bed with some other girl and wouldn’t even answer the door. That really pissed me off!” she remembers.
Then my girlfriend split and left me with all these bills, and I lost my job, and my mother was going to make me come home. So Sonny said, “Well, I’ll tell you something. I don’t find you particularly attractive, but you can stay in my house.” He said, “Can you cook?” I said, “No,” and he said, “All right, I’ll pay everything and you keep the house clean and we’ll do it.” So I told my mother I was living with a stewardess, and it seemed like a good thing at the time. We stayed in the same room. I remember waking up one time, I’d had a really bad dream, and I said, “Sonny can I get in bed with you?” And he said, “Yes, but don’t bother me.” And I said, “O.K.” And we just lived there together for ages. It took a long time for the relationship and if he can’t he doesn’t mess with you. It wasn’t a fiery, sexy thing with us, but rather paternal, like we were bound together, two people who needed each other, almost for protection (18).
    According to her, “It was platonic for a long while. I was more an annoyance to him, a silly kid, but I had a crush on him” (16).
    Somehow, whenever Georgia was going to visit Cher at the apartment that she supposedly shared with a stewardess, she