Copyright: RENT characters belong to the late great Jonathan Larson, the man I blame for giving me an obsession and a reason to make up stories in my mind (blame this site for giving me a purpose to write them down). Bohemian Offspring and any other characters you don't recognize from the original play belong to me.
A summary so I can get the story going …
Benjamin Coffin, IV was born on November 5. Kenna Inez Jefferson was born on February 23. After one breakdown too many, Collins convinced Mark to "get a change of scenery" and venture out to Santa Fe. It is now Christmas Eve, five years after the end of RENT.
Santa Fe, New Mexico. December 24, 6 pm.
Collins, Mark, Roger, and Mimi pored over blueprints sprawled over the table inside the former warehouse.
"Well, you finally did it," Roger said to Collins, patting his friend on the back.
Collins grinned. "No, we all did it, buddy."
After six years, their dream of opening a restaurant in Santa Fe had finally become a reality. They had used the rewired ATM money to buy the boarded up and abandoned warehouse. The upper two floors were where they lived. The kitchen and dining area were on the second floor. The first level was the new restaurant, all ready for business. Outside, a sign with the words Over the Moon: A Restaurant in Santa Fe hung on the door. The restaurant was to officially open next week. The friends were going to have a Christmas dinner together, just like they had every year.
"When's Maureen and Joanne's plane due to land?" Mimi asked.
"Maureen called about ten minutes ago," Mark answered. "They have to get their luggage and hail a cab. They should be here within the next hour."
"Give it back!" a girl's voice ordered from upstairs.
"Make me, why don't you?" a slightly older boy's voice responded.
"Give back the doll, Roger!" another girl's voice ordered.
Mimi stood up and crossed to the foot of the stairs. "Behave up there!" she yelled.
Five-year-old Angel stood with her arms on her hips, facing the ten-year-old boy in front of her. "Give April her doll," she repeated firmly. Her four-year-old friend was nearly in tears. Angel allowed no one to make April cry, especially not her own brother. Angel would fight anybody who tried to upset her gentle friend.
"What will you do to me if I don't?" Roger taunted. He held up the pink rag doll over his head. Doesn't that kid know I only tease them to make her mad?
Angel brushed an auburn bang out of her eyes, and glared at him. "If you don't give us back Pinky," she hissed, "I'm gonna take your Daddy's guitar and smash it over your head." For added affect, she kicked the boy hard in the shin.
The boy's name wasn't Roger Davis, Jr. for nothing. Not only did he have his father's brown eyes, unruly blond hair, and lanky build, but he also had the elder Roger's short temper. He threw the doll against the wall and grabbed Angel's leg, spinning her around the floor.
"Roger! Angel!" April implored. "Please stop fighting." She retrieved her doll and rushed back to where her brother and best friend were rolling around the floor in a tangled heap. With her dear Pinky clutched in one hand, she attempted to pull Angel away from Roger. Her friend's temper was worse than Roger's sometimes. They fight because they're so much alike, Mama had told her once. Roger's temper was explainable: he took after his father. The source of Angel's temper, on the other hand, would forever remain a mystery. Collins had found her abandoned near an East Village phone booth five years earlier.
Suddenly, a strong hand reached in and tore Roger and Angel apart. "Stand up, both of you," Roger Davis thundered. The two children reluctantly brushed themselves off and stood up. Roger had that cocky grin that he, his father, and sister often wore. Angel could feel the anger boiling up inside her. He can't treat my friend this way. She stepped forward to strike him when she felt the elder Roger's arm push her back to her place.
"Somebody tell me what is going on in here!" Roger ordered. He scooped up his young daughter and let her clutch his neck.
"Roger took Pinky," April explained quietly. "Angel was trying to get her back."
"She's gonna smash your guitar," Roger informed his dad.
"On your stupid head!" Angel added.
Roger grabbed the bickering children by their wrists. "Nobody lays a finger on my guitar," he said. "Do I make myself clear?" He continued. "Everybody go to your rooms until dinnertime." The younger Roger glared at Angel and stormed into his bedroom. Angel and April started to head to the room they shared down the hall.
"Wait up, April," Roger called out to the retreating form of his daughter. "It's medicine time."
April wrinkled her nose. "AZT break," she whispered to Angel. Mama and Daddy say the medicine will make me feel better but why does it have to taste so yucky? Unlike Roger, Mimi, and Collins, who took their HIV/Aids medication in tablet or pill form, April had to swallow a spoonful of nasty liquid every four hours. She pouted in Angel's direction and trudged down the stairs behind Roger.
It's not fair, Angel thought bitterly. Why does April have to always take yucky medicine? Don't they know how gross it tastes? If I was her mommy, I wouldn't force her to take anything that's gross. She found herself running down the stairs to Roger and April. "Roger!" she called out.
Roger turned around as he descended the last step. "Yes?"
"I'll take the AZT instead of April. It'll still disappear," she suggested.
"Sorry, kid."
Angel caught up with them. "Don't you know how much she hates it?" she asked Roger. "She thinks it's yucky."
"Do I have to, Daddy?" April smiled up at him. "Can't I skip it? Just this once?"
Roger shook his head. "Sorry, kiddo. If you skip even one dose of the AZT, you'll get sick. You don't want that, do you?"
April squinted her eyes. She remembered the story about the house that Daddy had told them once. Our bodies are like houses. The fence is like our skin. Guards in white suits walk around the house with notepads. Whenever someone visits the "house," the guard checks his notepad to make sure the visitor is safe. If the visitor is a bad germ, the guard sends it out of the body. But when an HIV germ breaks through the fence, while the white blood cell guard is checking its notepad, the HIV germ zaps the guard and makes it say "You can enter" to every germ that enters the fence. Eventually, there are more bad germs than white blood cell guards. When you have HIV, your body can't fight the bad germs. So if Mark, Roger, Jr., or Angel get the flu, they could have it for a few days. Roger, Mimi, Collins, and April can have the flu for a few weeks. She reluctantly followed her dad into the kitchen.
December 24, 8 pm.
Mark ushered the gang down the back stairs into the back entrance of the restaurant.
"Nice name," Maureen joked. "I like it." She held her eight-month-old daughter, Paris Rainbow Johnson.
"Do you have any potential customers yet?" the practical Joanne asked.
"We'll find out next week," Collins answered. He bent down and hoisted his daughter off his shoulders. She immediately grabbed April and Kenna's hands and approached Mark.
"Can I help you film?" she begged her filmmaker idol. "Please?"
Ever since she had seen footage of her dad and his friends that Mark had done the year before she was born, Angel knew that she was meant to follow in his footsteps. Mark didn't mind the attention. He let her help him sometimes. Of course, since the five-year-old was too small to hold a camera, he would set it on the tripod and lift her up to peer through the lenses.
"After dinner," Mark told the budding filmmaker.
Joanne lifted April up. "Hey, you didn't say hello to me yet," she complained.
"Aw, come on, Pookie. We said hello to you," Angel assured her.
Mark bit his lip to keep from laughing. The kids called Joanne and Maureen Pookie and Moo. It was all thanks to Angel. Maureen always called Joanne Pookie so naturally the little girl would assume that was her name. Calling Maureen Moo had started after she had watched footage of Maureen's performance in the lot six years ago.
They sat down at a large table in the middle of the room.
"I want to sit next to Mark," Angel announced.
Roger, Jr. watched as his parents and their friends caught up on each others' lives and tried to forget their troubles. Christmas was an important event with this family. It was Christmas Eve that had brought the old friends together. He would always remember these reunions, because they would not last much longer …
Okay, enough introductions and happy-go-lucky people. This isn't the Brady Bunch, Pollyanna, or any of those other stories where the world is full of sunshine and everybody has a smile painted on their faces when they wake up in the morning. But I won't torture Mark (everybody else is doing that and I want to be different. So I will just torture other characters instead ; Þ ).