"Oh, happy day!"
Angel Dumott Schunard sings brightly. She is in a wonderful mood.
A fabulous mood. Angel bounds up the stairs to the loft and knocks
quickly on the door. No one answers, so she begins to pound out her
famous rhythm. Ta-ta ta-ta-ta tatatatatatata TA!
"Angel?
Give me a minute! I'm not wearing any pants!" she hears Roger call
out.
"That's ok, honey!"
Angel says. She grins as Roger opens the door, zippering his fly
at the same time. "Need I ask why you weren't wearing any pants?
Where's Mimi?"
"Take a wild
guess," Roger grins, running his fingers through his frosted hair.
"Good morning,
Mimi, baby!" Angel calls out.
"Morning, Angel!"
she replies. She comes out of Roger's bedroom wearing a blue tank
top and flannel pants with clouds on them, her dark curls falling over
her shoulders. Angel whips out a grocery bag from behind her back.
"I brought muffins!"
she exclaims. Roger and Mimi dive toward Angel, and if it weren't
for her good balance, she would have been down on the floor, the two of
them on top of her.
"I want the blueberry!"
"NO! You KNOW
blueberry is my favorite! You can have the corn one!"
"I HATE corn
muffins!" Angel lets them argue over the pickings and walks into
the kitchen. She takes out the bag of gourmet hazelnut hot cocoa
and begins to boil water on the stove, a new addition to the loft.
It serves not only as a stove, but also a heater and source of light on
very bad days.
"Darlings…?"
Angel asks the two lovers.
"DAMMIT!
Why can't you understand how much I NEED this blueberry muffin? You
never understand what I need at all!"
"I don't understand
what YOU need? You're trying to make me eat a CORN muffin!"
Angel walks over to Roger and Mimi and grabs the blueberry muffin out of
Mimi's grasp. She rips it in half, handing a piece to Roger and a
piece to Mimi.
"There.
Problem solved. Now…"
"She got the
bigger piece!" Angel chooses to ignore this comment.
"Where are Collins
and Mark?"
"They'll be back,"
Roger says, his mouth full. His face is smeared with blueberry.
He rips off a piece of his muffin and feeds it gingerly to Mimi, letting
her lick the crumbly topping off his fingers. She rips a piece of
her muffin and stuffs it into his mouth. "YUCK! You're supposed
to give me BLUEBERRY!" Mimi starts to laugh and Roger pushes her
to the ground, falling on top of her. They start to make out.
"Wow, you're
right! That blueberry is good!" Mimi exclaims. Angel rolls
her eyes and walks into Collins and Mark's room. Collins bed is neatly
made, an afghan at the foot. Probably because he rarely sleeps in
it anymore, spending most of his time in Angel's. Mark's looks like he
just got out of it and left the room, his teddy bear lying dejectedly on
the floor.
"God, guys!
It ten o'clock in the morning! You had the whole night to do that!"
Angel hears Mark exclaim. "Hey, where'd you get the muffins?"
"Angel brought
them!" Mimi exclaims.
"Angel's here?
Where?"
"Right here!"
Angel says, coming out of the room, her arms wide over her head.
Mark pays no attention, and sorts through the muffins in the bag.
"Damn!
There's no blueberry!" Mark gets up and walks into his room.
"ACK! Why is Teddy on the floor? Oh, I'm sorry, Teddy, I didn't
mean to drop you," Angel hears Mark whisper.
"Thomas B. Collins,
at your service!" a deep voice calls out.
"Baby!" Angel
calls out, running to her lover. She throws her arms around him.
He ignores this and starts toward the kitchen, dragging Angel along with
him.
"I smell hazelnut
hot cocoa!" he replies. He goes to the stove and pours himself a
mug of the sweet liquid. "Know what I need right now? I nice
blueberry muffin!"
"Oh, come on
people!" Angel shouts. "I come here, I'm in a wonderful mood, I bring
breakfast and all you can think about is the fact that I only brought ONE
blueberry muffin! Can't we all just enjoy each others company?
Who cares about the muffins?"
"Wait, you mean
to tell me there WAS a blueberry muffin?" Collins asks.
"Who got it?"
Mark asks.
"We did!" Mimi
and Roger exclaim, grinning. Their teeth are blue.
"Nice, Angel.
After all I do for you, you give the happy couple the blueberry muffin.
I'm afraid to ask how they ate it!" Collins says strongly.
He gets up and storms into his room.
"Collins…I didn't
mean to start any trou…" Angel calls after him.
"NO! If
you are going to buy muffins, you are going to buy enough BLUEBERRY muffins
to go around! If there is anything I would ask of you at this point
in our relationship, it would be to make SURE I get the blueberry muffin,
if there should be one," Collins says seriously.
"Wow, if I knew
blueberry muffins meant so much to y'all, I would have bought out the whole
stock of them. Jeez…" Angel says. She sits down on the couch,
nibbling on the rejected corn muffin. The door to the loft flies
open.
"I have arrived!"
Maureen exclaims, posing in her usual diva stance. In her hand is
a brown paper bag.
"What's in the
bag?" Mark asks.
"Blueberry muffins!
What else?" Maureen answers. Roger, Mimi, Mark and Collins run toward
her, tackling her to the ground. "Wow! I know how to draw a
crowd!" Angel sits back and watches the chaos
"I guess I have
a lot to learn about you people….Never mess with you and your muffins…"
