Outfit
Song
High-Hat Harry's, 9:55 PM

"Five Minutes, Miss Scarlet"

Kia glanced up at the reflection of a pimply faced production assistant standing in the doorway behind her and gave him a succinct nod of acknowledgement. As the door... well okay, it was a curtain... shut, she went back to checking her make-up in the mirror. Picking up a thick eyeliner pen, she begin to run it along her lid, leaving behind a somber trail as she softly hummed the song she was going to sing that evening. It was a popular tune sung by a muggle who sounded an awful lot like Celestina Warbeck. She figured it was just the type of music, since the club she was performing in did focus on jazz-era tunes. It had been what drew her to the place and what had given her the courage to try out for their amateur night. That and the fact that she was almost positive she wouldn't run into anyone she knew there.

With her eyes heavily lined in smoky black, the closest she could get to wearing a mask, she was decidedly different then the normal Kia.  That was the whole point wasn't it? The thick curls, the dark makeup and that bright red dress that drew attention... these were things that Kia avoided normally. Tonight, though, she relished them. Kale had been bugging her for years to crawl out of her little shell and show off what she could do, but it wasn't until recently that she had even tried. Her singing to a handful of people under an assumed name in an obscure jazz club was probably not what he meant, but one had to take small steps. She was just glad that no one she knew or cared about was there to witness it.

"Miss..."

"I'm coming..." She said shortly, abruptly cutting the assistant off as he poked his head in the second time. Standing, she smoothed out her dress and took one last look in the mirror. She was no longer Kia Ferris with stage fright, she was Miss Scarlet, who could belt out the tunes with the best of them and looked damn good doing it. It was corny but it made her feel better to think it. Turning she followed the young man to the small stage.

The click of her heels seemed obnoxiously loud on the worn wooden slates lining a stage only large enough for a old fashioned microphone stand and an upright piano, encompassed by ratty crimson velvet curtains. The room was, for the most part, silent, but there was an undercurrent of murmurs as the handful of patrons chatted over dim candlelight. She couldn't see anyone at all, thanks to the bright lights, but she preferred it that way. The microphone let off a high pitched squeal as she took it in hand, signaling the murmuring to die down. Taking a deep breath, she bought the device to her lips and they parted to let out a soft warble, starting a capella and growing in strength as the pianist begin to accompany her.

"It's... only a pa~per moon...
Hanging over.. a cardboard sea...
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me..."

Archie liked to come to the club and drink on his worse days.

He was mostly just taken with the bustle of the little club, watching the surge and flow of all the trendy, urban young Brits. With their overdone makeup. And their jet-set lifestyles.

It made him pissed off sometimes, honestly.

But when he was in a bad mood, he liked to feel different from other people, and nowhere did he feel different like at a jazz club. There, he was reminded with the subtlety of a slap to the face just how much of an Arizona boy he still was.

He folded his arms on the table in front of him, and picked up his rotgut whiskey with a firm, unshaken hand. Liquor didn't even dull his motor skills until the fifth or sixth drink, and his hands were as deft and confident as they always were, even after he'd downed several unpleasant glasses of the stuff.

He'd go outside and grab a smoke, but part of him was actually afraid that his breath would blow past the lighter and set a fireball going. Gross. Taking another stiff swig, he grimaced and set the glass back down, leaning back to watch the rather unimpressive man finish his set.

He was squat, and square-jawed, and Archie thought idly that he would have done better as a cop or an ill-tempered sergeant than a jazz singer.  His face seemed red, and not in an embarrassed way. It looked more like his blood pressure was just really unnaturally high.

Archie clapped politely as the little man finished, and fidgeted with his Marlboro box again. He tapped it impatiently against the butt of his hand and leaned back in his seat, meeting the glance of a comely woman beside him and giving her a little wave. She raised her eyebrows at him and turned back, her face closer to disgust than to any kind of interest. Wow, okay, guess not, he thought with no small amount of ire.

He hadn't even noticed the next girl take the stage, and when her voice rang out he had to stop what he was doing. It was a beautiful voice, to be sure, but that wasn't the fact that gave him pause.

It was a voice he was fairly sure he'd heard before.

Archie whirled around in his seat and stared with his big gray eyes to the stage.

"Is that...?"

He couldn't stop the words from leaving his mouth, and immediately wished he could have controlled his volume and the pointing finger which sprang up involuntarily.

But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me~

"Is that...?"

Kia had barely gotten the chorus out when she heard him. Well, she assumed it was a him by the sound of his voice, which was just familiar enough to cause her to pause. She couldn't see him pointing, but the voice clearly indicated that pointing was in the process of being done, and Kia felt a wave of terror flow over her. Before she had been singing just to the lights, the nameless, faceless lights. It had been so easy. But the voice not only revealed that there was someone out there listening back, but someone who possibly knew who she was. Of course, he could just be some drunkard who mistook her for a celebrity or something of the like, but she somehow knew that wasn't the case. Suddenly her throat closed up and she stuttered to a halt, her face freezing in such a way that she resembled a deer in the spotlights turned headlights.

The accompanist apparently had endured his singers freezing up before and smoothly went into a cheery solo, eying her and twitching his head towards the crowd in such a way to indicate that she needed to get her damn act together. Focusing on the light until her head reeled, she took a few deep breaths and tried to clear her throat. When she grasped the microphone once again, her voice came out weaker and broken. A few catcalls from some of the patrons didn't help and Kia barely finished the song before turning and rushing off the stage. If there was applause, she was deaf to it.

Falling into the stool in front of the vanity, she stared at herself in the mirror. What was she doing? Why was she even there? This dress... this make up... this whole idea wasn't her. At least, it wasn't the her that she had always been told she was. Picking up a sponge she begin to wipe away the make up, starting with the eyes, scrubbing it away until she looked 'normal'. Sighing, she ran her fingers through her hair, mussing the perfect curls, and pulled it back into a simple, low maintenance ponytail. Now to get out of this dress and her transformation back to the real Kia Ferris would be complete.

Moments later, the rather unimpressive Kia slipped out the back door into what she assumed was an empty alley, ready to disappear.

Archie watched the girl make eye contact with him, and as soon as her face turned horrified he withdrew his hand into his mouth and bit his knuckle. "Nononono," he babbled, waving his other hand, but by the time he got himself together she was already gone. It was Ferris, he affirmed to himself, rubbing between his eyes. But what the hell was she doing there? In some little skanky muggle club?

He stood up, counting out money as quickly as he could for his tab. He looked back over his shoulder at a wealthy-looking couple who were still laughing over the situation and scowled. As he hurried past, he made certain to bump their table hard with the side of his ass so that their drinks toppled over.

A few brief requests for directions led him out towards the back of the club. It was in a shady-looking alley, but he felt oddly confident in its murky embrace. As he got close, he heard the loud squeal of the back door opening and his eyes just barely caught sight of the young lady zipping from the building.

"Woah, yo, Kia!" he called, his concern genuine. "Woah, woah, just... hold it, for a minute. What's goin' on there?"

Okay, the alley was clear aside from a pair of mangy looking cats glaring at her from an overflowing trashcan. So far so good. Unless, of course, the cats were animagi's waiting for her to turn her back so they could pounce on her and do unspeakable acts... Oh god, now the paranoia is setting in She cursed inwardly, trying to ignore the cats as she hurried towards the back of the building, knowing full well not to go near the entrance. Just keep walking and don't look back--

"Woah, yo, Kia! Woah, woah, just... hold it, for a minute. What's goin' on there?"

Hearing her name, Kia instinctively looked back and instantly regretted it. It would be bad enough if it was just some random person she passed in Diagon alley that had somehow remembered her face... but no, of course not, not with her luck. Instead it was not only a coworker, someone that she had to see every day at work, but one of the cuter ones. Not that she personally ever dwelt on her coworkers looks, but she heard a lot from the other women on her floor, especially about that 'handsome playboy magizoologist' that they all wanted to 'fix'. At first she thought they meant they wanted to neuter him, considering they were working on a creature control floor after all, but soon she realized that it meant that they wanted to domesticate him. She had no such designs on him... hell, she didn't even want to talk to him.

"Leave me alone, Friar... you already embarrassed me enough." She yelled over her shoulder as she tried to walk faster. It didn't dawn on her to apparate, but what did come to mind was the fact that she just revealed that she was Kia and she had been the one he saw on stage. She should have just kept her mouth shut and acted like someone else. Cursing to herself, she stopped suddenly and turned to face him "What. What do you want? If it is to see me cry in embarrassment, I'm sorry to say those days are over." Oh merlin, why did she just say that?


(Methinks I have been watching too much Big Bang Theory....)

Archie's face was... well, it hadn't really settled on anything, honestly. It was a confused mess, and every few seconds his expression twitched and settled into a different one. "Hey, now," he started, holding up his hands. "It was plenty embarrassing for me, too, y'know."

He started to say something else, when she blurted out some frantic line about crying in embarrassment. His thoughts jumbled, and he sputtered out another few random syllables before laughing a little. His laugh wasn't cruel- it rarely ever was, except in the way that children's laughter is cruel. It was careless. "What? What are you talking about? I just go there to get buzzed and make fun of people that like jazz. Wha-wha... what were you doing there?"

He folded his arms and leaned toward her, expectantly and with just a subtle hint of mockery about him.

Kia could feel the heat in her chest rise to her face, tinging her cheeks pink in the process, causing her to pull herself to her full height and square her shoulders. "Excuse me? What was that?" She snapped, her tone incredulous, "Were you trying to make a joke? Or was that an apology? I hope not because that was the shittiest excuse for an apology I think I have ever heard..." Shaking her head, she added as she starting to turn and walk away "...Come and find me when you grow up enough to do it properly..."

Then she paused as it dawned on her that, if she left now, she was letting him win. He would get to go and brag to his mates at the ministry about how he humiliated and insulted her, and all she did in retaliation was flush and stutter. She wasn't about to let him get under her skin like that. Whirling about, she stomped up and shoved a finger into his chest "You know what... No. I want a real apology right now. You not only humiliated me in front of a crowd but you also just insulted something you would have to be bloody retarded not to realize I love..."

Grabbing his shirt, she pulled him close enough for him to see the sheer intensity of her glare, focusing on him like she did with animals she wished to dominate into submission "... So for the sake of your manhood and, god forbid, your future children, what are you going to do about it?"

Archie immediately scowled, squinting at Kia as though trying to decipher a foreign language. "An apology? What the hell should I apologize for? You're the one sneaking around some shady hole-in-the-wall. I was just surprised! What was I supposed to do?"

He recognized her anger and- well, sure, he was sorry that she'd gotten upset, but he felt like saying "I'm sorry you got upset" wouldn't have been met with the satisfaction he believed it deserved. He was still ready to get defensive when she mentioned loving jazz and he grinned, only barely succeeding on curtailing his laugh. The Arizona boy had always associated jazz with old-timey New York, a setting far-displaced from his regular life. Someone liking it enough to get furious at him over it... well, that seemed bizarre. "You love jazz? ...How?"

He wished he was back in the bar, taking another slug of whiskey.

Finally, he decided he ought to appease her. Or else she was going to ruin his favorite shirt. "Calm down, Kia, okay? I obviously didn't mean to embarrass you. You snuck up on me."