Learning Curve (The Watching Her Remix)
Remix of Learning Curve by Kathryne.
I see you watching her, trying to hide it behind one of your sweet as fucking apple pie smiles.
I bet it started back when the two of you were competing for homecoming queen of Mama's prison ward. Hell, I bet it started back when she was one half of the Kelly Sisters and you were just some dumb schmuck's wife drowning your sorrows in cheap liquor and even cheaper sex. But I'd bet everything I've got that you didn't even realize it until you were stuck in rehearsal one day, after hours and hours of sweating in front of one of those over-sized dance mirrors, and you noticed the way she licks the sweat from her lips.
I bet you convinced yourself you were only trying to learn from her.
"She's so much better than me," I can hear you tell yourself, "and no way am I asking her for help. Not in this fucking lifetime."
So you started paying attention. Subtle and smooth as a police siren, you'd study her out of the corner of your eye, trying to figure out what makes her, well, so much more than you. So much better than you.
First, you'd focus on her hips. They are rather amazing, I'll grant you that, and the way she shimmies when she walks is nothing short of miraculous. Like Johnny Dodds is always playing something hot and heavy in her head and she can't help but swing those hips to the beat. So, yeah, first you'd study the way she moves her hips, trying to figure out if she's moving like that because she knows you're watching or just because that's the way her body works.
Oh, I can just see you, alone in your apartment late one night, wiggling you hips in front of the mirror. Trying to get the rhythm just right. Trying so damned hard and failing so miserably. Oh, yeah, I can just see it.
Then one morning, you'd decide the secret must be in her legs. Her goddamn near perfect legs. Long and lean and I just bet she can move them into all sorts of interesting positions. I bet you just stood there, that morning, wishing you could trade your skinny little chicken legs for hers, didn't you?
The thing is, though, that there are some things you just can't fake your way into. Some things you'll never be able to pick up, no matter how long you glance and stare and study. And the mystery of Velma Kelly is just one of those things. So you'll look, and she'll know, and she'll do a little extra something to keep you interested. To keep all of us poor fools interested. And we'll just eat it up, every last drop, and then we'll fucking thank her it.
So pay close attention to her every move. Watch the way the lights dance as she kicks higher than you'll ever manage, listen as she belts out a song and compare it to your own scratchy attempts at music. Just try to keep up. Just try.
How much you wanna bet you'll fail? How much you wanna bet you won't even care?
Because, in the end, you're just a two-bit hustler with vaudeville dreams, and she's a real live fucking star. And that, darling, is the real reason you'll never leave her. Why, no matter how much you hate her most of the time, you'll always fucking love her. Because that's show biz, babe, and we all wanna touch the sky.