Vegas, Baby!
MoshPit
'Total silence. Complete control. Breath, Mattie, breath! Find your center, girl. Tonight, the stage belongs to you.' Madeline VeMonte was unknown to the world. To them, she was Satine, the Sparkling Diamond. A precious gem among the dirt that was the showgirls; strippers and whores, the lot of them.
She wasn't that much different from the girls. If the men had bothered to look, they would see that she was just another woman willing to bare her breasts for others. But Harry had told them she was special, and like fools, they believed.
The only difference between Madeline and some of the other girls was that she wanted more. She was a dreamer. Most of the other ladies chided her, calling her snobbish, accusing her of thinking herself better than them. Only Amelia stood up for her. But she couldn't always be there to stop their hurtful words. What was wrong, she often wondered, with wanting to be more than a stripper all her life?
Madeline's eyes scanned her small dressing room. Another reason for the girls to hate her. She was the only one with a private room, the others had to dress in a walled off portion of backstage. They complained constantly to Harry about the lack of space and organization, but he held fast to his decision that Madeline deserved her own room. After all, he would reason, she was the one bringing in the most money, why shouldn't she have her own private dressing room. Way to add wood to the fire, Harry.
Her outfit for the evening's show sat next to her mirror, begging to be worn. Just above it hung the painting Tunces had done, just for her. He had spent weeks on it. Often the girls would find him adding little details to it, taking great pains to get every line, every curve, every letter exactly right. It depicted her perched on the world, microphone in one hand, the other out in a sweeping motion as she belted a tune. The words "Today Broadway, Tomorrow, the World" rounded out the painting, and the piece of art had become her most prized possession.
Madeline glanced at her watch. 6:45 fifteen minutes till curtain. She disrobed at shimmied into her costume. It was a marvelous outfit, designed by Tunces and handmade by Marie. The other girls were terribly envious of it. On any of them, the combination of silver and white sequins fixed to silk would have made them look pale and washed out. But the paleness of the costume harmonized with Mattie's dark chocolate skin beautifully, and the diamond studded mesh cap she wore over her long brown hair made her seem even more ethereal.
A knock on the door, and her uncle Harry bounded into the room. He wasn't her real uncle, but when she had come to him three years earlier, he acted to paternal and loving towards her he might as well have been.
"Are you ready, my little vixen? Are you ready to wow that director?" Ah yes, she thought. Tommy Dukeham. Though young, he was quickly rising in notability in the art of Broadway directing. A little over a month ago, Harry had sent her head shot and a letter to the director, inviting him to come see 'the magic that is Satine, the Sparkling Diamond!' Now he was here, and if he like her performance, he stay to direct his next production in the Moulin Rouge, then whisk her away to New York to perform on a real stage, in front of a real audience, one that looked at her, and listened to her perform. If he didn't like her show tonight, well, there were other ways to convince him…
"Of course I am, my dear," she said, with a voluptuous smile. "Is he around?" Harry grinned at her.
"He's limping about here somewhere. Amelia kicked him in the shin while practicing her routine." Madeline stifled a giggle. It couldn't be polite to laugh at the man coming to take you away to better things.
"Manuel and Tunces wish you good luck," Harry added, and Madeline sighed. It had been common knowledge for weeks that Dukeham was making his way to the Moulin Rouge, and the thought of it had driven the staff crazy. Manuel, their excellent choreographer, had become 'The General', making the girls dance for hours on end until no step lay out of place. Tunces would be seen flitting in and out of rooms with countless buckets of paint and brushes, touching up the set and repainting pieces constantly. Strains of Zip's special remix of Marilyn Monroe's "Diamond's are a Girl's Best Friend" and "Meet Me the Red Room", a song he had composed specifically for Amelia, could be heard constantly when a show wasn't being performed, the bass rhythm pounding the walls. Add that to Doc's flickering lights and constant complaining from Nancy, a particularly stuck up performer, and you had a zoo.
Five minutes till curtain. Deep breathes. Inside her room, she was still Madeline VeMonte. But once she left, she became Satine. Someday, maybe, she would drop the façade. Someday she would leave the room and still be known as Madeline. But not today. Today, she was just another dancer, but tomorrow, well, tomorrow, she would have to see…