Here’s Looking At You, Kaida (A Convention Photostory)
Originally posted on September 5, 2007
Everybody says good-bye in different ways. With Kaida, you can usually assume it’s going to be rather dramatic…
Kenzo: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you're getting on that plane back to West Virginia where you belong.
Kaida: But, Kenzo, no, I... I...
Kenzo: Now, you've got to listen to me. You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a used doll shop. Isn't that true, Louis?
“Louis Renault:” (from offstage) I am afraid the hotel management would insist.
Kaida: You're saying this only to make me go.
Kenzo: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Jill. You're part of her work, the thing that keeps her going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with her, you'll regret it.
Kaida: No.
Kenzo: Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Kaida: But what about us?
Kenzo: We'll always have Austin. We didn't have...we'd...we'd lost it until you came to Texas. We got it back last night.
Kaida: When I said I would never leave you...
Kenzo: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Kaida, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.
Kenzo: Now, now... Here's looking at you, kid.
“Louis”: It might be a good idea for you to disappear from Austin for a while.
“Louis”: You gots to come home with me and Ms. Beamlette. She aw’ready buyed your ticket.
Kenzo: My ticket? I could use a trip. But it doesn't make any difference about our bet. You still owe me about a billionty dollars.
“Louis”: A billionty dollars should pay our expenses.
Kenzo: Our expenses?
Kenzo: “Louis,” I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
(dialogue borrowed heavily and shamelessly from one of the best scenes in one of the best movies ever made: Casablanca. But you knew that.)