We open on what is now the new year. Welcome, once again, to the story of our lives. Well, it's not much of a story, more of a display of bitter fact. Poetic, huh? The stores are selling everything at 50 discount, in a desperate attempt to clear their windows of every plastic Snowman and fake snowflake. This is good news for us, who could really use a woollen blanket patterned with 'merry Christmas!' in bright red. New Years resolutions have been made. Mine is to finish my movie. Roger is going to write a song (I'd give him a couple more years). Mimi is going cold turkey...she says she will try next week anyway. Maureen and Joanne are trying to stay together. Angel has promised she will resist the temptation to splurge on various shiny things. Collins says resolutions are pointless, but quietly whispers to me that he will get another teaching job, when Angel isn't looking. A scene commences in the park. It's a freezing day, although the sky is cloudless and a beautiful blue. Collins and Angel share a bench, both unable to feel their limbs, thanks to this unusually cold start to the year. We zoom in on the happy couple.
A sunny laugh cut through the general mess of noise in the busy park. It was shortly followed by another, issued from Angel's grinning mouth. She swept a strand of stray hair away from her glossed lips, where it had stuck.
"No...keep your hand still! I can't concentrate if you keep moving it," Collins declared in a mock serious tone, reaching again for Angel's hand and pulling it into his lap. He ran a finger over the lines of his palm, frowning with concentration and trying to ignore Angel's persistent giggles.
"Honey, you have no idea what you're doing, do you?" Collins dismissed this accusation with a shake of his head and continued to trace the creases in Angel's palm, tickling lightly. He stayed silent and played particular attention to the lines in the centre of his palm.
"Now..." he began, pretending he hadn't heard Angel's protest, "This line here," He traced the skin, making Angel laugh again, "This line tells me that you're going to live for a looonngg...loooooonnnggg...loooooonnnnnngggggg time." Angel wrinkled her nose but didn't say anything. She was quite happy to believe Collins. "...and this one, and all the little ones near your fingers...they signify a tall, dark, handsome man, obviously a computer genius...who will be hailed as a modern day saint. How interesting." Angel rolled her brown eyes and pulled her hand away from Collins, laughing when she saw the smile on his face. She stood up from the bench, smoothing her skirt as she did so.
"Well I'll see you later Sweetie...I gotta go find this man!" She was soon sat back down as Collins pulled at her skirt. Like she would have ever left anyway.
To Angel, every moment with Collins seemed to be more perfect that a moment the day before, or the smile he had given her that morning. She would lay awake at night, running those moments through her head. Unable to sleep because she couldn't decide which had been better: When he had slipped her a few dollars to buy nail polish, or when he said that the stuffy assistant in the store was definitely secretly lusting after Angel, despite the petrified look on the assistant's face. Now she was sure there was a new top moment in her memory. Sharing that bench with Collins, freezing her ass off but not giving a damn, because she had just been informed that her lover was a modern day saint.
She was pulled out of her daydream by a kiss on the cheek, bringing a smile instantly to her face.
"Angel dear, as much as I would love to spend the rest of the afternoon staring dreamily at some woman walking her dog, I think we better get a moving." Collins stood up, pulling Angel with him. He rubbed his hands together until they were warmer, before placing both of them on Angel's right hand, which felt like it was made of ice. A smile crept back on her face, although it was clear that her mind was lost someplace else. "I'll take that absent smile as a sign that Mark and Roger's apartment would be the perfect place to hang out." He wished he knew what she was thinking about. If it was him, the only thing that would reduce him to that dream-like state would be thinking about the owner of the hand he was holding. Sometimes it seemed like a daydream, and any moment, a crumpled paper ball would hit him in the side of his head and he would find himself back in a dead end job. He squeezed Angel's hand to remind himself that he was actually there, holding it.
We end the shot on a heart warming close-up of Collins holding Angel's hand. You see, living as we do isn't all sex, drugs and AIDS. We have our moments. Sometimes, I think that Angel's life is just one, big, perfect moment. Collins is starting to see things that way too Zoom out to a birds eye view of the city. Cars crawling along the roads like ants. Lights spring up as the sky darkens. By nine pm, the whole place looks like some garish holiday decoration. Cut to Mimi's apartment. Mimi and Roger sit at the window, trying to pick out some stars among the sickly orange glow of city lights.
"There...right above that window over there..." Mimi pointed, breathing on the windows so that they misted up. She didn't turn to see Roger shaking his head.
"Nah, that's a plane." He said bluntly, reaching over to write a message in the clouded window. Mimi looked at him quietly as he spelt words out slowly. She smiled silently at the way he stuck his tongue out as he wrote, and how the dull glow of a nearby lamp cast a shadow over one half of his face. He looked tired, but had promised to stay up until she left for work, which would be in about ten minutes. Mimi blinked her soft brown eyes and transferred her gaze to the window.
"Actual...reality?" She asked, reading aloud. Roger didn't confirm whether she had read correctly or not, he just stayed with his eyes fixed on the glass. He seemed to do that a lot. One minute he would be having an active conversation with Mimi, and the next he would be pensive and unresponsive, lost in his own world. She had learnt to put up with it, and would simply leave him alone to think to himself, just wishing she could get inside his head. Mimi gave a deliberate, heavy sigh and walked over to the couch to pick up her jacket. Sometimes it infuriated her to no end when Roger acted like he did. It was like he couldn't be bothered trying with her, but she did her best to help him. Mimi skipped over to the window and began to write a message below Roger's. Her writing was slow and deliberate, out of ill education.
"No day but today?" Roger read aloud as Mimi had, finally snapping out of his trance. She gave a wide grin at him speaking, and the realisation that he had been paying attention to her.
"That's right," she whispered quietly, bending down to kiss him on the cheek. Roger didn't respond at first, but then turned his head so that his lips could brush Mimi's for a second. The second of contact was enough to keep her happy for the whole night. "Don't you forget that," she told him, gesturing to her message on the window. "I gotta work, but I should be back by the time you get up tomorrow. I hope anyway." Roger gave her a short wave of his hand as she turned to leave the apartment, but kept his gaze fixed on the writing. Mimi stopped at the door to watch him for a second, before heading down the stairs and out of sight.
Fade to black after a shot of the messages on the window, and Roger rubbing them out with the sleeve of his jacket. Typical.