Jessica Rabbit

​The air in the jazz club was a thick, smoky velvet, and the saxophone was weeping a low, mournful tune. I was nursing a lukewarm bourbon, my eyes scanning the room, not for a mark, but for a moment of quiet. That's when she walked onto the stage. The light caught her crimson dress and lit up the room. ​When she started to sing, the noise and chatter of the crowd died down to a hush. Her voice was a low, smoky blues, full of a kind of sad beauty that cut right through the noise. She sang a song about a love that was found and lost, and for a moment, she wasn't just a jazz siren; she was the loneliest woman in the world. I watched her, and in my business, watching is a job. I noticed the way she gripped the microphone stand a little too tightly, the brief flash of something in her eyes that wasn't a performance. ​As the last note faded, the room erupted in applause, but her eyes, wide and searching, found me in the back corner. She walked off the stage and came directly to my table, her smile a beautiful, dangerous thing.