twenty six gil to deling city
-irishais-
A train ticket doesn't look like much when you really take the time to sit down and examine it. Just a listing of your station, your destination and what you paid for that piece of heavy paper, and a little tear off bit at the end. You'd hardly believe that it cost you twenty-six gil--that's half your tips from last night's take, and there's still the rent to consider.
(And yet there's the voice on the other end of the line, it's okay, it'll be fine.)
Don't worry, he says, and you pack all of your things in a bag, embarrassed by the awkward repairs, the ugly patch in the corner.
We'll get a new one.
There's the train, and you clutch your ticket tight (twenty-six gil, last night's tips turned into paper and dreams), the soft handle of the bag held fast between sweaty palms. You almost don't want to surrender the ticket-- it might never come back to you again.
The conductor punches a hole in it and hands it back, with a smile. "Have a good trip, miss," he says.
And you want to say that it's not a trip if it ends in home.
--
Three months later, the sink's clogged up and your best dress has a cigarette burn in the sleeve.
It'll be alright, baby, says a man with twinkling (wandering) eyes.
You've got eighty gil to pay the rent, and you're still storing some of your clothes in that old carpet bag you rode in with, but you're bound and determined--it took you twenty-six gil to get here, and you're going to make it work.
The landlady has rough, calloused hands, and she crumples your money when she takes it, shoving it into her ugly housedress pockets. "A working girl like you'd bring in more money," she says with a grunt and a sneer, and the way she looks you up and down makes you want to cry.
You did not come here to--
You're not a "working girl," you're not a whore...
"Where you gotta go, you're all dressed up?"
Nowhere, someone says in the back of your mind, and it sounds like your mother.
--
The hotel's steady work, and for a minute of your life, you can breathe easier, as long as you know the songs they want you to play. They're easy; even Timber keeps up with the musical times, so you learned them all long ago, your fingers sliding across the keys with something so close to grace that you're afraid to put a name on it.
The best part is that they're alright with you doing your own songs once in a while, only if the house isn't crowded-- a bad singer is bad for business, and if there's one thing that you've had to learn, it's that business is everything. The rent is due in two days; more than eighty gil but at least there isn't a lecherous landlady and a guy who promises diamonds but gives you nights alone in a cold, hard bed.
The microphone they give you is tiny, an old model that they dug up from the dusty band room (this hotel, a musical hotspot? That's what all the managers tell you, and then they give you another drink and try to look down your dress). You don't want to breathe in it because the music is going so well, and there are three soldiers in a corner already glancing in her direction. You know the big tippers when you see them, and the soldiers are always the best, ready to defend country, honor, and a pretty face.
So the bartender says, "Last call, ladies and gentlemen," and you open your mouth and begin to sing.
One of the men catches your eye, long hair falling in his face, and you think that he's going to say something stupid, something that'll cost you the chance to sing, the chance to make just a bit more gil tonight, and instead...he smiles, a slow, gentle sort of smile.
It feels like... home, but that was what got you into this mess in the first place, so you keep singing, keep playing (keep smiling).