Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(5)
“Oh, honey, did I.” Marshall waved his hand. “The bastards have no sense of decency. They kept us late sorting out some tragedy in the Castleman accounts. A kerfuffle that could have been averted had they done like I said and audited the shit out of Lord and Lady Castleman two years ago. You would have loved it. But Liberty would have my balls if I were late, so here I am in, in this frog suit.” He sipped his drink, his usual a gin and tonic, and gave her the once over. “But look at you, Ms. the Riveter! Are we in a time warp, or what? You’re 1945 all over! I feel like I’m in danger of being drafted. But seriously, love the hair.”
Natalie beamed. She had dug her dress out of a crowded rack at a vintage shop just last week, and it was a trifecta of a great find: it fit her petite size, cost twenty dollars, and no one else had found it first. It was classic 1940’s style, pale yellow with a purple flower pattern overlay, flowing skirt, buttons from hem to collar. She’d rolled her hair back from her face and pinned it, letting it fall in rich brown coils around her shoulders. Some black liner and red lipstick, and the reflection in her bathroom mirror had smiled at what it saw. Gone was the simple, unadorned accounting student, and in her place was someone from another time. A time where men were gentlemen, and where a woman’s silence meant mystery or allure. Natalie looked glamorous and so she let herself feel glamorous. When the waitress breezed past, she ordered a Harvey Wallbanger with a twist.
Marshall cooed. “You’re positively radiant, tonight! What gives?”
“Oh, nothing.” Natalie’s thoughts went to Julian Kova?. “Nothing,” she said again, her smile slipping, for nothing did happen with Julian the day before, and since she’d let him walk out the door with her customary reticence, nothing ever would.
“Well, if you’re this happy now, you’re going to burst when I give you your early birthday present.” Marshall patted a nondescript bag at his feet.
“What is it?”
“Tut tut, the show is starting.” The lights dimmed and the muted conversations around them quieted. “Suffice to say, if I were straight, I’d be getting lucky tonight.”
Natalie smirked. “You wish.”
Marshall had been two years ahead of her in the accounting department when they’d met. Their paths crossed regularly and they’d shared a class or two before he graduated last year. Natalie assumed they’d go their separate ways, but Marshall had insisted on a friendship. Through him, she’d met Liberty, and it was times like this, sitting in a dim little club, wearing a pretty dress and sipping a cocktail, that Natalie was grateful for her friends. Only through the sheer force of their personalities could she call them such, for had she been left to her own devices they would have abandoned her long ago. They each had loads of friends and it baffled her that they would take a plain, shy girl under their colorful wings.
There were no curtains on the stage, but a small ring of light appeared and then Liberty Chastain stepped into it. She too, was dressed in 1940’s era clothing, but it was the uniform of a showgirl in a seedy nightclub: torn fishnets, heels, a flimsy pink camisole over a black leotard. Liberty had spackled her dark hair to her head and blackened one eye for effect. Behind her, three other similarly dressed dancers struck languid, tragic poses. There was no MC, no introduction; the first strains of “Mein Herr” from Cabaret filled the tiny room and Liberty began to sing.
Marshall clapped his hands gleefully. “She dedicated this to me! It’s mine!”
Natalie smiled thinly. It was no surprise to her that Liberty had tailored her performance to Marshall. No surprise at all.
Liberty filled her performance with more angst and passion than Natalie thought the composers had initially intended. Instead of a sly, cheeky adieu from an inconstant woman to the man who should have known better, her rendition was ironic. Her Sally Bowles was chastising herself for yet another failed affair in which she had been unable to remain faithful. Every line was turned on itself, directed inward, and the result was, to Natalie’s imagination, truly spectacular. Too spectacular for the tiny venue and the tiny stage; Liberty should have been famous by now, Natalie asserted. By the time the final chorus came round, Liberty and her back up dancers were stomping their feet and bludgeoning the audience with the lyrics. The small crowd roared their approval.
“Bravissima!” Marshall cried between whistles. “I’m telling you, this girl is going to go all the way.”
Natalie agreed, dabbing at tears that always seemed to surface in her eyes when confronted with any ardent emotion.
On the stage, Liberty bowed and thanked the crowd. “You can’t get rid of me so easily. Let me wet my whistle and I’ll be back.”
She and her dancers exited the stage to thunderous applause, then the lights came up, and the crowd got down to business, smoking and drinking. A few minutes later Liberty, wearing a kimono over her Sally Bowles costume and with a cocktail in her hand appeared. She stopped to chat with other tables full of friends before finally flouncing into the chair next to Marshall.
“Hello, darlings!” she laughed, kissing Natalie’s cheek. Marshall leaned in for his kiss but Liberty smirked and gave his suit a once-over. “Who died?”
“Disco, and I’m still in mourning.”
She patted his cheek and then pinched it.
“What, no kiss?” he wailed.