Little Girl Blue

“Hey, ya look hawt!” Amber whoops in greeting, swiftly wiping down the dark mahogany counter with a damp cloth as I walk up to the bar at Some Like it Hot’s. She sports the usually sly smile and big Hollywood curls, her warm Southern drawl and buxom figure making her a favored installment at the club. Amber’s grin widens as she leans on the counter, bright red nails glittering as they rest on her freckled arms.

“Thank you, dahling,” I say, clacking around in a little circle for her, my dress flaring out a bit.

“Ow ow,” she hoots, causing a couple of men at the bar to look at me with sudden interest, and then nonchalantly look back to their beers.

I catch a glimpse of myself blushing in the mirrored backing behind the countless bottles of liquor and I clear my throat. “I’m gonna go warm up,” I tell Amber, and turn back to the semi-full restaurant.

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” she yells with a laugh and I imagine her flipping back her fiery red mane.

In a half an hour, this place should be full to the brim with a waiting line outside. Ever since we were placed in a prominent magazine that called Some Like It Hot’s one of the ‘hottest clubs around (pun fully intended’, we’ve been getting tons of business. Great for Mac (the owner), bad for my nerves. Generally, I’m pretty uncomfortable with large crowds, which the club didn’t have until it was shoved into the spotlight by that magazine article. And now with the bigger crowds, they want to hear something upbeat… which I’m not, really. I mean, there’s a reason why everyone who works here calls me ‘little girl blue’. I’ve made a vow not to sing anything cheery and that’s what got me hired in the first place. I told Mac flat out that I wouldn’t sing anything happy until I felt it. Mac laughed and told me I was strange and then said I was hired. And so, months later I still haven’t sung anything remotely happy. Mac is slowly losing faith and still thinks I’m weird and his customers tend to get a little antsy towards the end of my set. But, believe me, there are reasons why I don’t sing anything happy when I’m perpetually… ‘eh’. It just doesn’t sound right. Everyone knows I’m faking and I think that’s worse than just plain singing how I feel. It may sound strange, but I’ve never been good at lying and I’ve never enjoyed it. So I try not to, no matter what the price. Even if it costs me my job, which I have a feeling it will someday when the crowd gets fed up with my sulking, I won’t lie.

The dressing room is a little area backstage with white cinder block walls, a small makeup counter with a mirror above it, and a little section that’s curtained off with a toilet that no one uses because it’s the nastiest thing I’ve ever encountered in all my years. I sit down on the little black stool in front of the makeup counter and dig through my purse for my cell phone and my water bottle. The time says 7:10. I’ve got a half an hour.

I stick my phone back in my bag, take a swig of water, and start my scales.



“All right now, y’all. Why don’t you put your hands together for Little Girl Blue.”

Backstage, I take one last deep breath in and out and squeeze my hands into fists to get the circulation going again. My heart thrums in my chest like a song bird, panicked, wants to get out. I step out from behind the curtain, listening to the bright sound of palms smacking against palms and squinting into the loud stage lights. The microphone waits, grinning at me, my old nemesis. It’s the most finicky microphone I’ve ever seen and frankly it annoys me. I step up to my sworn enemy and a breathy little voice comes from my throat. “Hello.” They’re still talking. I clear my throat and say, louder, “Hello.”

Eyes turn towards me, bright and judging. Zeke at the piano hits the first note, and then the next, and the audience is long gone. It’s just me and the notes and Billie Holiday.

And it’s just like every night. I get myself worked up into a panic and then I’m calm like flaccid winter waters. All alone at night with no wind to whisper to me, just the branches of trees to cast forlorn shadows across the frozen landscape. It’s lonesome, but it’s peaceful. It’s like sleeping, or being numb. It’s a place I go every night. And then I’m back, my hands warm, and a bit sweaty, my hair hanging where it shouldn’t, a wetness on the back of my neck and only one more song to sing. My last song is the one I sing every night. Call it a signature, if you will. An oldie from 1935, Little Girl Blue. It’s almost a joke now, to me at least. No one’s coming to cheer up little girl blue.