Nicolette.

I love my sister. She is very glamourous. She takes me to have my haircut at a Saloon. She is famous. She's been in the paper. She was on Page Three in a sexy pose with one leg up like she was waiting for a bus. She was in a bathing suit and black platform high heels. She looked really pretty. She has beautiful eyes. Everyone says she has beautiful eyes.
She is VERY glamourous.
She is a singer. She sings at 'Your father's Moustache' which is a very glamourous nightclub in Auckland. She wears Fox Furs and fur coats. She is dating a french man. She is so glamourous, she's like beyond 'Glamour', she's like 'GLA!'

She was taught singing by Dame Sister Mary Leo who taught OUR Kiri to sing opera.
She has an exquisite voice.
"She's going to be the next Kiri Te Kanawa," said Dame Sister Mary Leo to my Mum but.
She wants 'to sing Ca-ba-ret!'.
"Puhhhh!"
Mum loves telling that story... "Kiri Te Kanawa, Dame Sister Mary Leo, Cabaret!, puhhhh!"

Sing.
"Sing, sing a song. Sing out loud. Sing out strong. Sing of good things, not bad. Sing of happy, not sad. Sing, sing a song. Make it simple to last your whole life long. Don't worry that its not good enough for any one else to hear. Jus...."
"There she is," my Mum's yelling at the TV.
My very glamourous sister in all her radiant glory has just sung the last line. She oozes glamour and faux camaraderie with one of the hosts. It's a pretty hokey show, but we love it. We watch it every week.
This is the first time she's been on 'Sing'. 'Sing' has about six regular singers. Ray and Val are the only ones I remember. Val is on Play School too. She's my favourite. She has the smoothest, loveliest voice, like a Cadbury Caramello chocolate bar.
"Was that it?" Everyone watching has just asked almost at the same time.
The camera pans back and all of tonight's singers are lined up in little groups of two and three.
"There she is!" Everyone in the room has just erupted again at the view of my sister standing on one side of a regular male singer. He stands there, smiling like the 'cock of the walk', my sister's arm around him on one side, and another lady's arm around the other.
My sister's not quite as famous yet, as the others, but she's getting some good press. And she has an agent. And she's performed in nightclubs in Auckland and Rotorua. And all over the place. And my Mum has all her clippings from the newspapers. She keeps them in a scrapbook in her room. Theres a lot.
We have to wait through a couple of other people to sing before she sings a whole song. She's great but the faux camaraderie makes me want to gag. It's slick, and rehearsed, it's fake and makes me want to puke. It's all oozy, syruppy gagness.
She's much better in real life.

She dresses me up one night when I am about seven or eight and she is baby-sitting. She takes me over to her friends house. He's a Drag Queen.
They put me in a frock, a wig and lippy. I have a feather boa around my neck and we go to town.
I sit in the car with sunglasses on and I think I am just Christmas.
I am beautiful.
I am a beautiful lady.
(I must have looked like ET all dressed up and sitting in the back of that car, or a smurf)
I am a beautiful lady Smurf.

She told my father I was going to be gay when I was about three or four. She used to smoke cigars with him because he was her step-dad. She knew heaps of gay guys.
My favourite was a guy she came over with, when she was staying with us. He waited while she got changed to go out.
He was gorgeous, with dark hair and a moustache.
He played 'Heads or Tails' with me and kept losing money to me. I ended up with all his coins.
I said, "He's nice. He should be your boyfriend."
My sister just laughed and said, "He's more likely to be your boyfriend."
I couldn't understand what she meant.
I thought she was just being weird.
I wished he was my boyfriend.
He was gorgeous.
And lovely.
And he treated me like a normal child.
Lovely.