A group of six girls are sitting in the audience in an outdoor theater at Canada's Wonderland on the outskirts of Toronto. Around them, women in their late 20's and early 30's wait quietly for Deborah Cox, the Toronto-born star whose platinum single, "Nobody's Supposed to Be Here," spent a record breaking 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard R&B chart this winter. The younger girls shake with excitement.

"She's so pretty!" says Aretha, 14. "It's her voice. She's got the most beautiful voice," Graciela 13, says. Tonya 15, puts her hands together and pleads, "Can you get us backstage? I'll do anything just to touch her. I'll kiss her shoe."

Cox, the wholesome face Roots has recruited for its latest ad campaign, arrives on stage wearing a black cowboy hat and a black cape, which she throws off to reveal a black vinyl bodysuit. She plays only six or seven songs, most from her second and latest album, One Wish, stalking the stage like Catwoman.

The girls jump up. Graciela, her hair standing off her head in tiny braids, leaps to her feet. "I want to meet her, I want to be her," she says all in one breath.

"You can't meet her if you are her, stupid," Carolina 16 tells her.

"Shut up," Graciela responds, turning to me. "I just want to see you know?" she says and pokes her index finger in the air. "To see if she's real?" I ask her. "Yeah," she says and pokes the imaginary Deborah Cox again.

Graciela might know every word to Cox's soulful ballads, but to the staff of an elegant downtown Toronto spa, Cox is just another client. She walks in wearing grey slacks, a loose black sleeveless sweater, and flat black leather mules. The 25-year-old, whom Soul Train magazine recently named best female vocalist, could still be the girl she was before she moved to Los Angeles six years ago, a fashion-conscious singer living with her family in Scarborough and playing all the clubs and bars that would have her.

Without a tag identifying her as a triple Juno Award winner, no one recognizes Cox. My request that we be seated together in a quiet room appears to have become problematic. The receptionist asks us to wait in a cramped hallway; someone else attempts to separate us into different rooms. We are then shepherded into a crowded space overflowing with beauty products where two chairs are placed at odd angles to each other, angles that make it impossible to chat. I get up and try to resolve the situation. My aesthetician glares at me. "Sit down. Now."

The star, fortunately, remains unperturbed. When critics started referring to her as a diva, Cox was worried it could mean someone who is temperamental, who treats everyone badly, who is, in short, a b****. If the word were going to apply to her, she wanted it to imply confidence, yet also graciousness. Deborah Cox does have an extra-small Maltese terrier, the kind of dog one imagines a diva owning. However she travels, Minnie comes too. The Maltese is not at the spa, however. And Cox is the opposite of a b****.

In the confusion, Cox never walks up to anyone and says, "Don't you know who I am?" the way Diana Ross might. On stage she was Catwoman; in person she's 5-foot-6 of quiet unobtrusiveness. Later on, she'll say she's learned not to freak out about stupid little things." The confusion at the spa is merely one such thing, and if it bother's her, she doesn't let it show.

In the proverbial blink of any eye, the whole mood changes. A tall, blond woman whose name tag identifies her as the spa’s hostess materializes out of nowhere. She wraps her arm around Cox's shoulders and protectively leads her out of the plebes' pen.

"We didn't recognize you," she offers apologetically. Within seconds, we are safe in an elevator heading upstairs. After getting Cox's autograph, the hostess leads us father into the spa's inner sanctum, a spacious, light-filled room where we are alone with our hands and our feet and the aestheticians who will attend to them.

Cox may or may not be a diva, but she is a recipient of all the benefits of celebrity. Anyone who thinks fame can't buy happiness-at least temporarily-hasn't visited this spa.

Deborah Cox wasn't born into fame. She is the middle child in a family of three girls, her parents, Guyanese immigrants. Her mom, Jeanette, sang and played guitar, but it's more of a hobby with her," Cox says. Jeanette Cox works for Toronto's department of health. Deborah's father, Ernie, has a car dealership. A traditional man, he worried about his daughter playing in clubs late at night, particularly one Christmas Eve when she was performing at the Horseshoe Tavern. Why wasn't she at home, spending time with her family? "My mother was the mediator. She would say, "‘I’ll be at the club, I’ll pick her up,’" Cox says, laughing. She adds, "We had to play that Horseshoe gig,"

Now her father is proud and more than a little relieved. And anyway, he’s had pretty much Deborah’s whole life to get used to the idea of his daughter the singer. Cox first got on stage to perform for the Tiny Talent Time TV show at the age of 11. She hasn’t left it since.

At her audition for the Claude Watson School for the Arts, a high school program in Toronto, she sang "On My Own," Irene Cara’s showstopper from the movie Fame. While at the school, she met Lascelles Stephens, who became her creative partner (he co-wrote four tracks on her debut and two on the current CD, while Cox co-wrote three). Eventually, he became her husband. By the age of 18, Cox had played the lead role in a touring off-Broadway production called Mama, I want to Sing, which lead to a stint as backup vocalist for Celine Dion. Shortly afterward, a four-track demo caught the ear of the president of Arista Records, Clive Davis, the man who launched the career of Whitney Houston.

Davis was the executive producer for Cox’s self-titled 1995 debut. The record label gave the CD a tremendous push, and critics praised Cox’s powerful voice. Despite all that, the album took until July of this year to reach platinum in the US: A great batting average for a first release, but slower than Arista had expected.

I talked to Cox after the release of that album, during her first publicity tour. The mature thoughtfulness she projects now wasn’t there four years ago. In its place was a 21-year old’s giddiness at being taken under the wing of someone with Davis’s reputation and with the excitement of moving to Los Angeles with Stephens. Stephens remembers that, back then, she wasn’t sure if her answers were right or wrong, and he used to sit in on interviews. If she were going in the right direction, he would nod. Now, when she does radio or TV interviews, he just listens and watches like anyone else. "She knows what to say on her own now." Stephens says.

The success of One Wish- which had sold more than one million copies by early august in the US and has gone gold in Canada- must have bolstered Cox’s confidence. She now praises Davis as someone who taught her to be a professional. But at the same time, he also turned her into a perfectionist.

That’s good in the music business, I venture, but she says it’s not always. "Clive has been like a father figure to me in the music business. Sometimes with Clive it can be really demanding…not discouraging, but almost like nothing is good enough." Still she’s far from sorry to have chosen this life over the one she could have had. Staying in Toronto was never an option. The United States has far more radio stations that play R&B and dance music. Even in an urban market like Toronto, Cox can only be heard occasionally on adult contemporary pop FM stations.

"I could still be here struggling, trying to get a gig," Cox says. I never take anything for granted. This is great. I can have a manicure and a pedicure, but I’m still doing an interview….Not many people are in this position….Every little thing, every positive thing, is a blessing."

Marvin Gaye believed in two things love and Jesus. Cox admires his talent, and spiritually she is shaped from the same mould. The liner notes for One Wish start: "All glory and honor to God, the Father, and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, through Whom all my blessings flow."

A slightly older black beautician has come into the room. Holding a piece of paper and a pen, she stands next to the chair where Cox is receiving a foot massage, and watches her with motherly concern. Cox takes the pen and paper and smiles up at her. "My name’s Rosalee," she says as Cox signs another autograph.

When she was growing up, Cox didn’t have a single black Canadian to look up to as a role model, aside from her parents. Musically, she idolized Billy Holiday, Gladys Knight (whose records her mother played all the time), Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington. These days, she’s reading Patti Labelle’s autobiography. But she never wants to live the lives of these divas.

"They were crazy," I say.

"Yeah, they were crazy. It’s so sad. I used to think, gosh, do I have to live a dramatic life in order to become a legend? I think not. I think there are people who lead lives that are dramatic, and people who like peace in their lives."

Cox is one of the latter. She doesn’t smoke or drink. An alcohol company wanted to use her in its ad campaign. Though she says the cheque "would have been nice," she turned it down.

Stephens is part of Cox’s peace. When they first moved to L.A., he was her "blanket of security." If Cox looks at Stephens as her support system and partner, he sounds devoted and proud to be both. "There’s no competition between us. It’s not like she does something, and I have to do it too. I’m there 100 per cent, it’s all for one and one for all," he says later over a crackling cellphone line from Los Angeles. As he talks, he’s watching Cox perform an afternoon concert. "What I’d say about Deborah is that she always works to the last minute. She was like that in school. Her star has risen but she hasn’t changed. I’ve seen her get on stage and perform, no matter what drama might be going on with her. Only when she gets home, or back to the hotel, will she give in to the pain, or the fatigue. It bowls me over every time. You never get used to someone doing that."

If one day she has a daughter who decides to follow in her mother’s footsteps, Cox isn’t sure how much she would encourage her. Her normally calm voice rises a bit as she talks about why.

"The whole perspective of an artist is so low on the totem pole. As far as payment goes, it’s almost demeaning. The record company, the producer, the songwriter, they all get paid first. You’re the last person to get paid. As long as you understand that, you’ll be OK. But if you come into this business thinking you’re coming to power…Your power comes from your sales and from the persona you build up outside of the record."

Cox, who performed with the Lilith Fair concert tour this summer, also thinks the hype around female artists hasn’t translated into real power. "What are we getting? We’re getting more publicity," she says. "But how many female executives of record companies are there? How many women own radio station?…If I owned a record label, the whole strategy would be based on the music and the talent and not so much ‘Oh, what does she look like?’ That’s the first thing they want to know."

Worthwhile feminist sentiments aside, Cox is savvy about the rules of the music business. Or, as she put it, she works within the parameters she’s placed in. She had to decide at one point between a female and a male lawyer. "With a male lawyer, they’re very aggressive and they get the job done," she says, comparing that approach to the experience of having had a female manager. "She couldn’t get my point across to the record company, and I truly believe it’s because they weren’t intimidated by her."

The staff at the beauty salon are intimidated by the time Cox leaves. As parting words, the receptionist throws out an apologetic "I didn’t recognize you at first," Cox smiles and nods at her, graciously, but also with the slightest hint of a diva’s regality.

Before she gets into the black stretch limousine waiting outside she shakes my hand and then takes it between both of hers. I only manage to get in a quick "Nice talking to you – good luck," before she vanishes behind the car’s dark windows, but she touched me and I touched her and, girls, she’s real.

Special thanks to Malika aka Mocha for the submission of this article. All pictures contained herein are NOT a part of the Elm Street News Article, but have come from www.deborahcoxonline.com