“I’m forever your girl…”

Ranko ended her fourth song of the evening to raucous cheers from the crowd, but she was singing for an audience of one. The mysterious man, who had set up his camcorder in the middle of the round table at which he sat with a little tripod, reclined in his chair and munched on fried cheese as he watched her. Try though she might, Ranko could get no read on what he was thinking. Was he even enjoying himself? He hadn’t walked out, so there was that. The songstress had mostly calmed her nerves once she’d made it onto the stage, but the suspense of this process was starting to fray her resolve. She only had one more song queued up in her set. Okay, Ranko. Now or never.

She looked over to Mei and gave her a nod. They had prepared for the possibility that they might need a big finish to seal the deal and impress the talent scout at table five. She’d hoped not to need to brave the third rail of cover singing, but desperate times and all that. It was time to deploy their secret weapon.

And its name was Whitney.

The speakers bounced to life with the sound of a synthesizer, and Ranko lifted the microphone, closing her eyes and emitting a little run as a vocal ad-lib before the first verse began. Akane snapped her head up from her onion rings, her eyes wide with shock. She’d never heard a note that high come out of Ranko before. Or anyone else who was a guy less than a year ago.

“Clock strikes upon the hour, and the sun begins to fade. Still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away…”

It was fairly normal for Ranko to work a little bit of dancing into her performances, but her focus was usually more on the singing. Tonight, though, she was going for broke, and the song itself demanded that she move her body. Spinning on her toes, the skirt of Akane’s uniform dress flaring out around her hips, she tried to lose herself in the lyrics. This was no time to stand still.

“Oh! I wanna dance with somebody! I wanna feel the heat with somebody!”

The man in the sport coat sat up in his seat. Ranko noticed he was beginning to bob his head with the music. She gave him a coy smile. Gotcha now, buddy, she thought to herself. The full force of years of endurance training blasted forth from her lungs in a belt that nearly pegged the speakers at their maximum volume.

“Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody! With somebody who loves me…”

Everyone standing behind the row of tables was swaying and clapping with the music. Off to the right side of the stage, a small crowd had formed right at the edge of the platform on which the redhead held court. Ranko grinned. This is perfect.

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“So when the night falls, my lonely heart calls…”

She juked her shoulders and hips in sync, snapping her head toward one of the more well-lubricated revelers, a college-age guy with a flat top and a black leather jacket. Her twin pigtails swung out over her shoulder. She reached out and pointed to her target. “I wanna dance with somebody!” As if they’d rehearsed it, the young man kicked his heels insomuch as he could in the limited space he had to move, linking the fingers of his hands together and creating a wave with his arms.

Ranko took another step to her right, bending her knees until her backside almost touched the stage before slowly rising, twisting this way and that on her heels as she did. She pointed to another young man, this one wearing a gray business suit with a thin black tie and thick-rimmed glasses. He had the look of an accountant who was desperate to burst out of his boring shell. She was counting on it. “Don’t ya wanna dance with me, baby?”

It was as if the guy was hit with a pair of jumper cables. He sparked to life, jerking his body this way and that. He wasn’t an especially good dancer; it honestly looked more like he was having a seizure, but that wasn’t the point. His talent wasn’t being evaluated, hers was. The audience was responding, and that’s all she needed.

Nearly everyone who was on their feet was bouncing with the music, and those at the tables had started to stand as well. She motioned from her right to her left, panning the full breadth of the bar as if inviting the entire room to the party she was throwing. “Don’t ya wanna dance? Say you wanna dance! Don’t you wanna dance!?” She closed her eyes as the crowd danced in the walkways between the tables, again taking her voice into the stratosphere to end the song.

The audience roared to life with cheers and applause. Everyone in the place was on their feet.

Even the guy at table five.

Ranko gave a little bow, waving as she stepped down off the stage. Akane and Mei were waiting for her, and they hugged her together. As they ended the embrace, the scout walked up behind them, setting the plastic case containing his camera down on the steps of the stage.

“Miss Tendo! It’s good to finally meet you. My name is Takao Tashima.” Akane looked up briefly, before reminding herself that she wasn’t the one being spoken to. He gave a slight bow, which Ranko returned with a bright, if exhausted, smile.

“Hello, sir. Thank you for coming! I hope you enjoyed the show!”

He smiled widely. “I did! You may have been even more impressive than you were at your Christmas show.” He reached in his pocket, producing a business card. “I would love to work with you! Perhaps you could come by next Wednesday and we can get started?”

Ranko blushed and beamed. “You mean it?”

Takao nodded. “We’re going to make you famous, Ranko.”

The redhead bowed again. “Thank you, sir! I won’t let you down!”