He was on a weird gig when he met her. He'd been hired to MC a big fundraiser gala, some shindig for rich Manhattan liberals to get drunk and take each other's money. Society types weren't his usual crowd at all, but his name had started getting out there at that point, and he guessed those white yuppies liked the optics of themselves being photographed laughing at some downtown Latino comic. Plus the money was good, better than most gigs he was called for, that was certain. So his crowd or not, he rented the tuxedo, checked his teeth were pretty, and put on a show for the ladies who lunched and the fat cats who bought the martinis.
He worked hard for this one, toning down his usual rapid-fire insult shtick, but not so much he didn't sound like the guy they'd hired. He actually did research, first time he'd had to do that in a while. Figuring out what their bag was let him know just the right way to skewer it without taking things too far. Roy was no dummy, so he wasn't about to sound like one. Folks like that liked to think of themselves as able to take a few lumps, but take it too far, and they'd turn on you in the time it took to flip the nickel to the help. It was a fine line to walk, but he nailed it, poking fun where he thought they wouldn't mind, saving most of his real zingers for their Republican opponents, who they were clearly superior to because they hired their illegals to work indoors too. He was getting real feedback, good-sized laughs even from stiffs likes these, and but more and more as the night went on, he found himself holding out for the sound of one laugh in particular.
It was very distinctive, difficult for him to describe. He didn't catch it often, usually only when he pushed his luck a bit and threw something out with real teeth. But he found himself starting to listen for it, a sort of high, light trilling almost like the song of a bird. Kind of weird, kind of pretty. In normal circumstances it was the sort he might have made fun of, but the fact that he was able to pull it out so rarely made him hang on it. He found himself starting to play to it, work harder for it, and every time that weird little bird laugh rang out, he counted it as a victory.
At the end of the night, when the monkey suit was off and the monkey had danced his last, he dutifully reported to the front office for the other half of his check. But instead of the frowning, pantsuited lipstick lesbian who hired him, there was another girl, dark hair, flashy dress, sitting on the desk there waiting for him. He had a vague memory of spotting her in the crowd, which meant she was a guest there, some relation or arm candy or paid escort to the political luminaries. And since somebody's girl for the night probably wouldn't be paying him, he wagered she was hooked up but good.
Hot girl, at least by some standards. Her face was beat for the gods, in the way some girls used it by the trowelful to make it look like they weren't wearing anything at all. It would have fooled most dudes, but with his line of work he'd learned to clock it even in this light. Amid her glittery bath towel of a cocktail dress, she was all long, gawky limbs and pale skin, jutting with sharp bones. Not his type, he liked a little more meat on a girl, but something about her all the same. Like a model from the 90s or a rock star, back when they were all on heroin.
Leaving behind the shtick for a minute, he accepted the check mildly. "Thank you. Enjoy the show?" he asked, more out of politeness than anything.
Those exquisitely painted lips quirked. "Not as much as I expected. I thought you were really going to let us have it."
Roy didn't miss a beat. "Well, in that case, honey, your dress is ugly."
And there it was, that birdsong laugh.