XIX Luna

The clock in her apartment read 7:30, and it was already dark outside. Luna needed to get ready. The house had seemed so empty without Marco around. She hadn’t had so much as a single visitor since that hunter had come by. Not even him, she thought wistfully. She took out her bright red lipstick, applying it, and brushing some powder over her face. Grabbing her white coat, she checked her reflection and adjusted her necklace slightly.

No Marco, no parents, no remaining aunts or uncles, all she had left was herself and her job.

She hurried, just barely making it to the trolley that would take her to the midlands in time.

Emmett, the owner of the club, had given Luna, Miss Moondrop a list of twenty or so songs he approved of her to sing. She had sung each of them several hundred times by now. Her Dad had died in a workplace accident when she was five; her mother had died shortly after giving birth to her. She remembered her dad was warm. She remembered he called her “sweet pea,” she forgot his face. She had a kindly aunt who took her in and raised her alongside her own son. Her Dad’s life insurance was very generous for a lowlander. Unlike many less kindly aunts, Maggie used the insurance payout to send her to a school for the performance arts. After her Dad had died, she had seemed almost cheerful, singing and dancing, trying to keep those around her entertained, trying to keep herself from thinking. Her aunt thought a school for the arts would be a good fit for her little niece. So, with the help of her aunt and her dearly departed dad, there she stood, night after night, singing the same songs over and over until every last drop of flavor had been removed from them.

The easiest way to hate something that you love is to perform that action mechanically, day after day, night after night. No goodness possible in this world can stand up to the erosion of inauthentic replication. But a girl’s gotta eat, and so night after night she stood on the stage, a ballerina spinning in a music box.

“Hey, sweetie, that was absolutely charming. Why not take a seat next to me? What would you like to drink?” The middle-aged man sitting before her patted the seat next to him. A patterned dark red ascot hung about his neck, which, Luna noted, looked expensive but clashed with his blue suit. Along with his ruffled and puffy shirt, he was a moneyed mismatched mess, reminding Luna not just a little of a rooster—appropriate since he was acting so much like a cock.

There really should be some common sense conventions about hitting on people in situations where they can’t leave, where they must smile and be polite and go along, but that fact was precisely where the boldness came from. She knew at best, that people only half paid attention to her, and she knew that the only thing that could be worse than her singing robotically, accurately, night after night, was her pouring her heart out to an uncaring audience. She was hired to sing, but her real job was to provide romance. The idea of all the men at the nightclub was that maybe someday they could have her, that it would make them interesting. She was paid precisely to promote that daydream.A girls gotta eat.

But she made sure it would stay firmly in the realm of dreams, regardless of the pocketbook. Some mistakes you don’t make twice.

Emmett didn’t agree with her on that matter at first, and he wasn’t terribly interested in her opinion. People, men in particular, had a funhouse-mirror view of reality. But that just meant if you could tilt your head, squint just right, you could see what they saw, and you could obscure the truth so they could accept it, make it feel like it was their idea. Emmett was currently quite convinced that any real romance would dispel the beautiful illusion. He came to this, you understand, purely on his own. It was hard to get men to listen, but it was easy to get them to take credit.

Following the script for such interactions she had developed over the years, coquettish yet with a firm, unyielding barrier behind her smile, she was able to disengage from the conversation while leaving the men with sly grins. A little more audience engagement, and she would be able to take her break. She declined five offers to drink and three cigarettes that had been ‘chivalrously’ offered to her. Whatever else it was, her voice was a wonderful excuse. “Oh…I’m sorry…I’d love to, but that would dry out my throat too much, gotta protect my voice, *giggle*”. She understood the rhythm of conversations and played them the same way that she sang. Occasionally, a customer would be too drunk and too entitled to be anything but dissonant, then Len, the bouncer, would show them out. After all, they ruin things for the other customers. Another idea of Emmett’s, of course.

Luna walked out the back door with her bag. She was going to have her typical break meal, a tuna salad, with some feline friends. The local strays had her break timed down. Coming home from work, Luna always felt compelled to take a long hot shower. Feeding those mangy strays was one of the few things that made her feel clean. There she sat on the step, trying to make sure all comers got some, and as it all too often happened, she forgot to include herself. Before she had a bite, she had already distributed the last of it. After the feeding, instead of leaving, most of the cats hung around her, taking turns rubbing against her legs and receiving pets.

Two knocks on the door meant she was back on. Wiping the cat hair off her stockings, she left the crisp, cold night air for the warm, smoky club.

As she scanned the crowd, a familiar sight caught her eye, and her smile worked its way into the song. She tried to make eye contact, but anytime she looked over, he tipped his head down so that his hat would obscure his face, which only made it more obvious who it was—the one man she knew that she couldn’t quite understand.

She walked to him directly during the next audience interaction break.

“If you really didn’t want me to notice you, you wouldn’t have worn your signature jacket.”

“This? I won it in a bet from one of my superiors. Only decent coat I have, and it’s cold outside.” Unmistakably Gram, though he had poorly adopted a posh accent in order to match the surroundings. Like she did.

“Uhuh, and your gloves? You’re the only one I know who would keep your gloves on in a toasty room like this.”

“These? Won these in a bet too. Real lambskin, lined in cashmere, simply too opulent to take off. Not to mention keeps all the germs away.”

Luna smirked, “Never, huh? And what about those red pants you are wearing? You win those in a bet?”

“You know, after a while, people stop taking your bets.”

“Remind me to never bet against you, Gram.” She said half-jokingly, batting her eyelashes.

He pulled the brim of his hat down. “Don’t use my name.”

“Why?”

“Never know who is watching. Actually, this is dangerous. We shouldn’t be seen talking together.” He got up to leave but then looked at his empty drink and began looking through his pockets.

“You’re being ridiculous, you know that, right?”

“I just wanted to make sure you’re safe. I’d do the same for anyone.”

“Anyone?” she was incredulous, but that did not stop her from feeling some anger. “Why not stop by? You could ask me at my kip then.”

“No, could be monitored.”

“Like that matters, it’s been months. The hunter’s probably gotten bored by now.”

“I don’t think so… It really isn’t a good idea for us to talk. I was just concerned.”

Her pursed lips puckered, “Well, in the future, if you want to hide, I’d suggest you learn to be a bit better at it.” Crossing her arms, she said, “Wait here until my next break, okay?”

Gram didn’t respond. She turned around to walk back.

“Miss Moondrop?” She heard him call out. “That last song was really lovely, by the way.” She smiled to herself and kept walking towards the stage. He was gone before she turned around.