Cabaret Dreams

The Portland-famous cabaret singer Lena Medley was about to go on stage for the umpteenth time. This time in an intimate gastro bar in the Pearl District. Try as she might to feel like this performance would be just like every other one she had done over the years. She knew that tonight was special and she wanted to perform at her best. In order to make her once estranged mother proud. They had reconnected about a year prior and Lena was still trying to forgive her mother for leaving when she was a teenager. Her mother, named Kelly, was coming down to Portland from Tacoma just to see her perform in the hopes to make up for the abandonment of her daughter and to show her the support she deserves. Lena did not want her to have come all that way just to see her fail. 

In the bar’s bathroom, Lena was putting the finishing touches on her makeup twenty minutes prior to her performance. Her hands were visibly shaking causing her to get mascara on her upper eyelid. She gasped and cursed under her breath, luckily she packed some makeup remover in her flashy makeup bag. She got closer to the dimly lit mirror and told herself to breathe as she fixed her eye makeup. Overwhelmed with anxiety, she grasped onto the marble counter and tried to focus on how it was just another typical night. Once she was finished she headed back out to the bar to get herself some water, as a recovering alcoholic, she had not had a drink for three years. Performing in bars at first was hard but overtime the smell of liquor and the observation from the stage of drunken idiots turned her off to it entirely. However, while sitting at the bar downing her water she wished she could just lay on the booze and forget her nerves. Being three years sober was a feat though, and she was not going to give up her sobriety over a nerve-racking performance. 

Lena gulped down the water and the bartender, a friend of hers, asked if she was alright. He had never seen her nervous before a performance. She just shook her head at him and signaled for more water. Giving her a questioning look, he poured her another glass and added a lime just as she liked it. She downed that glass as well and then looked sheepishly towards the stage then looked around the room to see if her mother had arrived yet. Lena did not see her in the crowd but a great number of people had gathered in the restaurant seemingly waiting for her to go on. 

It was less than ten minutes till she was to get on stage. She sat at the bar talking to a few people about the songs she was planning to sing. All the while she could hear the quiver in her voice, the nerves piling on every minute she got closer to performing. She darted her eyes around the room often to see if her mother had arrived. Less than a minute before she got on stage and made sure that everything was ready to go, she saw her mom slip in through the heavy metal door. Kelly sat down at a small table in the back close to the bar and gave Lena a thumbs up and an encouraging smile. Lena breathed in deeply closing her eyes and then settled into her first song. As her first set went on, she felt herself ease into her singing, using the music to help her focus on her act. Lena danced a little and egged on the crowd to help get out her nervous energy and the crowd ate it up. They clapped, sang, and danced right along with her. 

The last song she sang was one that she remembered her mother sang to her when she was a child before Kelly left. A bright and fun song that the crowd absolutely loved. Lena who normally looked out all over the crowd during her performances looked only at her mother during this song. She was humbly surprised to see Kelley wiping away a few tears throughout the song. 

At the end of her set, she walked off the stage and into the club. Shaking a few hands and saying thank you to the statements of admiration of her work. Lena made her way over to her mother’s table and before she could get there, Kelly got up and embraced her. Lena was still shaking a bit but welcomed the hug she had been waiting so long for. She sat down at the table with her mother, letting go of those jitters she had before she went on stage. Kelly told her how great the performance was and told her how proud she was of her beautiful rendition of the song from her childhood. 

Five minutes after sitting down, a man came up to the table and told her he loved the show. Lena thanked him and went back to the conversation she was having with her mother. The man interrupted and said that he was a recruiter for a major touring cabaret company. One that Lena knew would advance her singing career. 

The man said, “I would love for you to come to LA and perform for the company’s owners. They would be amazed by your talent.” 

Teeming with excitement, Lena said, “I would love to do that, thank you so much for the opportunity.” 

“Great, I will make arrangements to fly you down, how does next weekend sound to you?” 

“That would be perfect,” responded Lena. 

After the man left the table, Kelly quietly screeched in excitement for Lena and grabbed her hand. Kelly was so proud of her daughter and lamented how she should have never left her. Lena let her know that it was in the past and how she was just so happy that Kelly had come to see her perform. They spent the rest of the evening talking about where her career may go and how excited they both were about the prospect of Lena being a traveling cabaret singer. A dream that Lena had from the moment she started singing on stage twelve years prior. Lena thought about how silly she had been to be nervous, for the night had turned out better than she could have imagined.