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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 27, 2008 8:32:17 GMT -5
La, me! - thought Sally, laughing, bright-eyed, at her own foolishness, it will be a wonder if they even got my note, at the time I sent it!
Indeed, Sally had written her note to the Klub back in Berlin, and had failed to send it before parting for Paris. She had managed to convince herself that this was not a problem, and that she'd post the moment she got in France. Of course, she hadn't, and only when she'd started to dress to go down for her Grand Return, she had remembered that she still had not sent the letter to the Emcee explaining that she'd come back. So she had called up a boy on the street, paid him to run down and drop it off, and here it was, one and a half hours later, that she swanned in, the same old Sally, even if the coat was a little beaten by this point. Well, no wonder, darling, with all it'd been through!
He'll have read it, she reminded herself, primping in a hand-mirror while she waited, putting off going backstage as though she'd never been gone, fighting back nervous thoughts that they didn't need her anymore, that she'd been replaced, that some other English girl was singing all of her songs. Maybe he won't have had time to tell the line and the dancers and everyone else, but he'll have read it. Her handwriting on the envelope had to be unmistakable. She swallowed hard on the same bubbling she got before going onto the stage, outwardly as giddy as any other garconne who came in in green nail-polish and eyes that absorbed light like Christmas ornaments.
((tag: well, take a guess))
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Post by The Emcee on Oct 27, 2008 19:07:18 GMT -5
When he got the note he almost screamed with glee, Sally was returning! It was just what the club needed, it was everything the club needed, yes he had Pheonix and she was wonderful and she was beautiful and with her at the helm the club had never run smoother.
But with her as the MC they had lost their headliner, now Sally was back, Sally was returning and they'd have a real show again.
He'd keep Pheonix on of course as the manager and together the club would be as big or bigger than it ever had been in Berlin.
He had been waiting anxiously for her and when she arrived he decided to let her wait, he'd be fashionably late for their meeting, it was only right.
He touched up his makeup, hiked up his trousers and walked out in to the club "SALLY!"
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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 28, 2008 8:20:48 GMT -5
Sally wouldn't let herself get panicked as the seconds went by, and tried to occupy herself with primping carelessly, combing her short hair with her long fingernails while attempting to keep as calm and posh a posture as possible. Nonetheless, if he hadn't arrived when he did, she might have turned into a completely nervous wreck in a matter of minutes, berating herself for her idiocy in not having sent the note as soon as she had intended.
But her panic subsided in seconds and turned into radiance when she heard him shout her name. The moment in which she turned to look at him and her expression changed - the fulfillment of her hopes written all over it, her being one unable to lie, exactly why she would never amount to anything on a film set - was a rare one, completely honest and without affectation. But as these moments were with Sally, it was very brief, and she had launched herself at him in the next one.
She threw her arms around his neck in a great feat of affection, her shoulders lifted as though in a shrug, and embraced him. She felt a little like hopping in her joy, although she knew her shoes wouldn't stand for it for very long. Then she pulled back to look at him, smiling hugely, pushing her fingers through his hair without caution or thought of reprimand. "Oh, darling, where have I been? Berlin isn't home without you!" she said, the 'you' she addressed somehow larger than he was, encompassing him and the whole of the cabaret. There was a strong amount of nostalgia bordering on hysteria in her voice, but she was laughing also as she spoke. She hadn't thought a reunion would be so emotional, but the truth was that Sally had been intensely lonely and isolated in Berlin, working at clubs that didn't love her, where everyone was either too homogenously English or too German and could not appreciate her. "I suppose - I suppose I've missed so much! How is everybody? How are the dancers? Who's been singing my songs for me? I... How are you?"
She withdrew her fingers, almost like a shy child, and pressed them together almost in prayer before her chin, looking at him expectantly, biting her lip as she smiled.
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Post by The Emcee on Oct 28, 2008 13:33:35 GMT -5
He couldn't help but want to spin her around and around and tell her how much they had needed her. Oh but he didn't of course, he kept quiet and smiled as she seemingly danced through their embrace.
He rested a soft hand on her cheek and sighed with a feminine "Oh" and smiled "Sally so much has changed, but sen again nosink has changed" he grabbed her hands and began leading her toward backstage. "Our vorld has uprooted, but our songs vremaing se same, come vis me I'll explain eversink."
His eyes were dark but excited as memories of the years Sally had sang for them played gloriously through his imagination. The years when The Kit Kat Klub was the most popular cabaret in Berlin, when the girls where girls and the boys were delicious.
Oh he'd explain everything to her, whether or not she'd believe him it didn't matter.
What mattered was that he had a show again and things were starting to change.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 28, 2008 14:12:45 GMT -5
Her took her hands and tugged her along, and she followed as though doing the tango, having never needed a lot of coaxing from him to let him lead her. Even without her father in her life, she'd needed one, and found in almost every man a substitute - someone to guide her, and ultimately to fail her. He had been the only one that had lasted, and although it had never occurred to Sally consciously, and likely never would, one thing she had learned staying in Berlin by herself had been that after all these years, she relied on him more than she ever did her father.
And here he was, proving to her that she was right to place her trust in him. The only place that had ever needed her...
There was a great stillness in her chest, almost tangibly, as though the ribcage had expanded, and even though it was hardly silent in the Klub, she chattered to fill the hollow, harmlessly, not even raucously. "I'm sure just lots has happened," she said, eyes glittering with damp and from the lights as she looked around herself, shoulders tense from excitement. "I'm so glad to be back here, and I'm sure that...that everything will be like it was once, even if...Even if there have been changes." She smiled and looked back at him, oblivious as to their nature or what they might mean for her. No matter how many predators Sally had met over the years, nothing seemed to have extinguished that smile or her need for laughter and security.
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Post by The Emcee on Oct 28, 2008 14:35:17 GMT -5
As he toated her along the backstage area he began to speak, about everything in his life and the club, from Mira to loosing his club to some seedier folks.
"Seedier san us!" He excalimed, he went on to talk about those who left and those who had taken over and who was left. Sure he still had Victor, Bobby and Fritzi the rest had all gone. Run as so many others would have in their situation.
He then told her about Pheonix "Vho you vill be meetinks soon I am sure" and everything that was wonderful about her. He of course left out all of the more, disturbing details about the clubs history without her, but she'd learn that over time.
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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 28, 2008 14:54:49 GMT -5
Sally Bowles might have been a tragic failure at conventional acting, but she was always a tremendously good listener, when it occurred to her to focus on something she was listening to. She laughed hard enough to clap a hand over her mouth or she gasped and widened her eyes and looked concerned, whichever was necessary - in this case, it seemed to be the latter. She knew the story had a happy ending, of course, as it had to, whether he would say so or not. Her hands fisted in anxiety during all the squeamish parts, and she bit her lip whenever, in the narration, she began to feel concern over the outcome; but it all seemed as though things were well. And it ended on a happy note, after all, with the new Phoenix dame.
She couldn't help adding, however, "And it all has a happy ending, of course," she said, face radiant, and hopeful, expecting affirmation, "especially with me back, and we'll all be a family again, but with new additions. Phoenix! I should like to meet her, and soon - maybe we can even do a number together!" She shut her eyes, smiling, as though recalling something from the past, rather than planning for the future. It was a bit of both. She went on, "Mira too - the meeting, not the number. Meer-ah! Now that's such a classy name, don't you think? I'm sure! - you sure can pick 'em." She winked, feeling elated inside. Now how could she have doubted she'd have a place when she got back here?
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Post by The Emcee on Oct 28, 2008 15:05:44 GMT -5
<Yea Mira, who just happened to be a reanimated corpse who I'm blackmailing in to having sex with me whenever I wish so I won't call the police on her dispicable murderous husband. Oh yea, you two will totally hit it off.>
He grinned "Of you'll meet sem, ven I vent on vacation to see my, vell vone of my boyfriends, in a play Pheonix took ofer se club for me until I came back und eet's better san efer! I am sure you two vill heet it off." He spun her around and began to dance with her "Se club is alvays bright ven you are here."
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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 28, 2008 16:32:46 GMT -5
Sally was giddy and carefree, and dancing seemed more natural to her than movement of any other kind. Girlish and unripe though she often seemed to be, her dancing was practiced and natural, and she could undulate with the best of them.
"It was a fine affair...hmm, hmm, hmm..." she sang absent-mindedly, her expression one of comic seriousness, eyes glittering with happiness, fixed on his. "And it's going to be again. I have to promise, oh, I should get a contract in blood, I must promise never, ever to leave again!" Exaggerated, of course, and completely heartfelt. She laughed as she spoke, but an emotional note trembled in her voice. "You promise me you'll hold me to it?"
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Post by The Emcee on Oct 28, 2008 16:55:26 GMT -5
"Of course Sally" he glowed "I vouldn't efer vant you to leaf again!" He spun her around once more and winked "Let's go see your dressink room, ja?"
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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 28, 2008 17:02:16 GMT -5
"Yes, Mein Herr," she said, eyebrows coming down sharply with mock seriousness, red mouth in something of a pout. "I will certainly obey." Then she broke into a beaming smile, lifting a hand to press to her mouth and nose as though to hide it. She seemed almost shy, in a completely non-pretentious way.
"Yes, please!"
Her dressing room! All ready for her, even though it had been only two hours since she'd sent her letter. None of the dressing rooms since she'd left could have compared. Cold, distant. The sparkle of her sequins had seemed like ice to her. She half-danced and half-walked following him, doing some kind of a slink, humming to herself a bit loudly.
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Post by The Emcee on Oct 29, 2008 0:40:00 GMT -5
He almost skipped through the backstage waving at some of the dancers who cooed over him. Soon they came to a door with a big yellow star on it and underneath it a sign that read "Sally Bowles: The Toast of Mayfair!"
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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 29, 2008 11:13:46 GMT -5
Sally embraced him again, wrapping her arms around him in a highly-stylized fashion that would have been hardly proper on the streets, but was rather chaste at the cabaret. She kissed his cheekbone soundly and pulled back, scarcely noticing the red lip-print she'd left behind, and reached over to stroke the star on the door as though it were her oldest friend.
"Oh, lovely!"
She turned the handle with a wide white smile back at him, opening the door and stepping in, spinning herself around with her arms outstretched. "Ooh, darling, wait until you see the paste-jewel tiara I got back in Berlin, you will love it!" she went on, chattering, posing for the mirror. "It looks just like it belongs to a Russian duchess, I'm sure you won't be able to keep your hands off it!"
She patted her hair in the mirror where the tiara would go, were she to put it on now.
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Post by The Emcee on Oct 29, 2008 17:26:29 GMT -5
He leaned against the doorframe, one hand above his head and grinned "I sink it vill look delicious on you."
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Post by Sally Bowles on Oct 29, 2008 17:37:54 GMT -5
Sally pouted exaggeratedly at her reflection, hands still on her head, hips thrust out a degree to her right. "It will and it does," she said. Her eyes flickered over towards his, and she slowly removed her hands, moving them as though to music - which wasn't hard to imagine, as there was always something playing in the background here.
"And probably on you, too," she said, pointing with a long-and-green-nailed finger at him as though accusing him of something, smiling widely with her eyelids lowered, catlike. "Oooh, lovely. When can we start again? Rehearsals, performances! - I look forward to it all..."
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