The door bangs open, forcing Mark to look up from the shoe box on his lap. A certain fiery brunette enters, an enormous package and exhausted lawyer in tow. Mark offers Joanne an apologetic grin, but pursed lips are the woman's only response. "What's with the package?" Mark asks, only half-wanting to know.
"See, Maureen? I told you it wasn't until next week – "
Maureen gapes at Mark, obviously horrified. "You don't know what day it is?" she demands, her eyes comically wide. "Jesus, Mark!"
As Mark mentally begins counting dates on his internal calendar, Joanne's eyes flash and eyebrows raise. "Wait," Mark mumbles, stumbling across a potential occasion. "Is it – ?"
Maureen giggles. "And there are zero shopping days left until Roger's birthday!"
Mark claps a hand to his forehead. "Oooh."
"Oh, don't worry, Mark," Maureen comforts him, barely suffocating giggles. "He's only twenty-five, it's not like it's a landmark birthday or anything. I mean, I'm sure he hasn't even noticed!"
Joanne exhales, and slowly raises a finger to indicate the enormous package stationed in the doorway. "He'll notice that," she points out unhelpfully.
"What? Oh, that," Maureen acknowledges, waving a hand inconsequentially. "Yeah, duh. Of course. Once he sees that, you're screwed."
"What – ?" Mark starts to ask, but he is cut off.
Slowly, Joanne raises her infuriated eyes to meet her girlfriend's. "Wait," she growls. "You told me he was turning twenty-one."
"Well, that was stupid to believe," Mark laughs. "He's been going to bars since way before you met him, so – " Joanne turns her icy glare on Mark, and he closes his mouth abruptly.
Maureen giggles apprehensively, twirling a curl idly around a finger. Mark suspects that she should start running now, but Maureen only stands there and shifts her weight from foot to foot, as is her usual nervous habit. She tries to frantically explain herself: "It was the only way I knew you'd buy – "
"I bought a plasma-screen for twenty-five?" Joanne howls.
Waving a hand to establish order, Maureen calmly points out, "Your parents did contribute quite a bit of that, Joanne, so don't try to – "
Wailing now, Joanne screams, "I bought a plasma-screen for Roger's twenty-fifth birthday?"
Mark, still in shock over the fact that it is, in fact, Roger's birthday, pleads, "Can it be from me too? Please?" His eyes are huge, startled by the fact that in all his years of knowing Roger, he has never once forgotten his birthday – until now.
"No!" snaps Joanne.
A dissatisfied frown makes its way onto Mark's face. "Well, that's not very nice," he mumbles. "If I can't be part of your gift, you can't be in my apartment."
Joanne pastes on her Lawyer Face, the expression she wears when negotiating and/or preaching about the difficulties she's encountered in the past twenty-four hours, but Mark shakes his head. "Not gonna fly," he tells her. "Maybe next time. Out!"
In disbelief, Maureen makes her dramatic exit. Joanne follows.
The television is left behind. Mark suspects that this was a very poor decision on his friends' part, but the door is closed before they can return, and he knows they would never dream of knocking again.
With a long sigh, Mark retreats deeper into the loft, looking all over for something he could give Roger. True, he could just add his name to the "Love, Mo & Jo" on the card attached to the television, but that would be weird, and he's never done that before. Roger would figure it out.
Does twenty-five actually constitute a landmark birthday? he wonders. It's half of fifty, which is a landmark, and it ends in –five, which always seems to mean something special. He wishes he had a calendar on which he could mark the importance of every day, as well as the events taking place every day of the year. Then again, he wishes he had a calendar, period.
All he really has in the loft is his camera, and he could always sell it, but he thinks he'll wait until thirty to do that.
If Roger makes it to thirty…
What a pleasant thought.
Mark's eyes fall back on the shoe box on the couch. It is a small box, cardboard – the average shoe box. He was examining its contents prior to Maureen and Joanne's arrival, and nothing inside it is particularly noteworthy. It only holds a few photos. Well, fifty photos, give or take a few.
Mark tries to readjust his focus. Oh, dear lord, what should he get Roger?
It should be something personal, right? At least, vaguely so. Like a collage or scrapbook or something. Something utterly Mark-esque, related in some way to a camera. He doesn't have the time to pop out a documentary, but those photos…
He could use those, of course. He could use them to make anything! A comic, a collage, anything.
Or…
He could make it simple. Simple, but sweet. He could put some of the photos together, just as they are, all unified under one theme. "Roger," or "birthdays," or something abstract. "Bohemia"? "Love"?
Yes, love.
No more than a second later, Mark is knelt beside the table, the photos spilled out on the table. A universe of faces gaze up at him, eyes of blue and brown and green, smiles and kisses and frowns, teardrops and sweat and snowflakes.
Looking into photographs scattered like this, Mark may as well be looking into portals to zillions of different worlds. There are people here that he has not seen in ages and will never see again; people he has just seen; people he will see in a matter of hours.
And Roger.
Oh, damnit. He has to hurry this up.
Mark draws a photo out at random, one from somewhere at the top of the pile (which, of course, means that it was at the bottom of the box). It is faded, almost black and white, with faces that are nearly impossible to make out. Mark winces at noticing the fingerprints on the sides of it. He is almost ready to set it aside when he suddenly recognizes the features of the four figures in the picture.
He doesn't remember this night as well as he should, but still, it remains in his memory.
It is from high school, a random night spent at Maureen's house. Four young teenagers are captured in this photograph, best friends, of course. Maureen is the center of the picture, leaning against Roger's chest, smiling charmingly up at the camera. She looks about twelve, even though she is probably around fifteen here, which Mark only knows because he didn't know Maureen, Roger, and Collins until they were fifteen.
Also in the picture, slightly off to the side, are Mark and Collins. Mark is in very few pictures from his youth (and, admittedly, even his adulthood as well), but this appears to be an occasion on which he was, heaven forbid, not behind the camera. He winces, recognizing his haircut as that embarrassing attempt at "cool" he wanted so badly in his freshman year. By sophomore year, the approximate time frame of this picture, he had sped past that phase. Still, alas, the haircut remained.
Though his initial reaction was to dispose of this picture, Mark hesitates. The four of them are so – well, he hates to say cute, but really, they are, and if this isn't a perfect example of love, he doesn't know what is. So he sets the picture aside, away from the other photos, far enough away from the shoe box that he won't mix it up with the rejects and those he hasn't seen yet.
About three minutes later, Mark comes across another interesting photograph. It, like the first one, was relatively near the top of the pile, thus meaning that it is extremely old and probably damaged. But no, this one is fine, and just as glossy as those at the very bottom, the ones that had been at the top of the box.
This one features Roger and April. Their arms are unscarred, a rarity in these kinds of pictures, so Mark knows that they are at the beginning of their relationship. They are young – very young – around nineteen or twenty, even. In this particular photo, April's hair is the scarlet that it was when Mark first met her, though longer than he remembers. She never used to cut her hair, not until she started using. It makes sense.
Here, Roger and April are pressed against the side of a building, their hands around each other's necks, lips on one another's mouths. They are kissing, strictly speaking, but Mark isn't sure if he can call it that when they're really just whispering into each other's mouths. It is almost cute, or it would be, if it weren't Roger and that demon girl who got him addicted to heroin.
Mark hates her, but sets the photo aside anyway. There's nothing like a nice, sharp reminder of April to get Roger to stop touching Mimi.
The photo he picks up immediately afterwards is, loathe as Mark is to admit it, another winner. Provided that not all of the photos must include Roger (and why should they? It isn't as if Roger is the only character in his own life, or even the lead), this is perfectly acceptable. It features two girls that may as well be sisters (or, given the content of the photo, may as well have been sisters at the time of the picture's taking). This picture, like the last one, features April, who here sports hair that is sun-streaked and a face dotted with summer freckles. The girl beside her, Maureen, looks much the same, and the two are wearing identical grins. They have their arms around each other, and Mark can immediately place their location. They are nestled together on the couch of the loft.
It is May of three years prior.
Mark shudders. There is something eerie about looking into a picture and seeing a whole different era looking back at him.
When Mark turns over the next picture, it does not surprise him to see that the photos have apparently leapt forward a year or so. It makes sense, because there was very little material to be photographed in that year of Roger's withdrawal, the year between (though he hates to think of it in such terms) April and Mimi.
That aside, the picture he picks up is deemed unacceptable. It is too close in its time frame to the days of withdrawal, and besides, it isn't even appropriate. Mark flips through another five or six photos before coming to one that he is willing to consider.
In this picture, Maureen and Joanne sit together on an expensive-looking couch, situated in the living room of the Jeffersons' household. Their mouths are open, which Mark instantly recognizes as the sign of their conversation; clearly, they were discussing something of immediate importance at the time of the photographer's arrival, and they were forced to momentarily discontinue their conversation. However, for anyone who knows Joanne and Maureen, it is obvious that they would never do such a thing. Of course, while the picture was being taken, they continued to hiss urgently to one another.
Mark is proud to label this photo as one he has most definitely not taken, but it is not surprising that it has wound up here anyway. After all, he gets everyone's photographs eventually. And this one, while not one that a person would immediately label as "loving," certainly does picture love. After all, it takes a special kind of woman to tolerate the insistent photography of another woman's family. The fact that Maureen and Joanne are not married is even more admirable, because Mark is all too aware of the fact that many people refuse to pay the respect to their in-laws that Maureen, here, is paying to Joanne's family.
He puts it in the "yes" pile, beginning to feel a headache coming on.
When Mark picks up the next photo, his head is throbbing. He tries to ignore the pain as he devotes as much attention to the photograph as possible. It is a photo of Collins and Angel (which, from their presence alone, immediately classifies the picture as "loving"), together, in a park. They are kissing, as was the norm for them in the days of their relationship (in fact, Mark doubts they ever took their lips off of each other when not engaged in conversation). Collins is leaning over ever so slightly, bent down the tiniest bit so as to meet Angel's lips. Angel, in return, is looking up.
Mark feels his heart lurch. He places the photo with the other selections and moves on.
After four more rejections, Mark comes across a picture of Roger and Mimi, likely the only one that he has ever found remotely tasteful. Ironically, it seems that this was the most randomly-taken picture. Squinting at the photograph, Mark cannot for the life of him decide what possessed whoever took this photo to do so; it is a snapshot of Roger and Mimi sitting together on the couch, Roger rocking his girlfriend. Even though he cannot see the motion of Roger's arms, he can see the way Roger's mouth is open ever so slightly as he murmurs something soothing to her; the way Roger's hands tightly clasp Mimi's shoulders.
He hates the idea of Roger and Mimi being together, yes, but, well, this is a special case. For a moment or so, Mark tries to convince himself that there is no love represented in this photo, and therefore he cannot use it, but he cannot even make himself believe that tripe, and reluctantly he sets it with the other photos he decided to keep.
Before drawing the next photo, Mark decides that he will only use ten. It seems a tiny number, miniscule in fact, but he likes the number ten, and always has. Compared to twenty-five, it seems utterly random – one would think that Mark would select a number such as, well, twenty-five, or five, or really anything other than ten. But, no. Ten. It is even, round. He likes it, and he immensely enjoys the fact that as he flips through his current selections, he determines that he only needs four more.
Yes, indeed. Ten is a good choice.
When compared to the tragic devotion demonstrated in the two most recent photographs, it seems that the next acceptable photo Mark draws can hardly compare to some of his other selections' demonstrations of love. However, he is stoic in his decision; the moment he sees this picture, a photograph of his entire group of friends celebrating the not-death of bohemia at the Life Café, Mark knows that he will use it. He sees everyone he knows, and Angel, and didn't everyone love each other then? (He hates the way that thought seems to imply that everyone does not love each other anymore, but he ignores it.) He can even see Benny's suit jacket poking out of a bottom corner of the picture, and that just settles it for him. Mark decisively places it with the others.
Of the selected photos, the next one is more… subdued than the others. It is not as loud as the one directly before it, nor does it scream "love" like the picture of Angel and Collins. No, this one's message is quieter, and it would take one like Roger, who truly understood the dynamics of the bohemians' friendship, to see where the love is in this particular photo. It is a small picture, taken on a disposable camera, of Roger, Collins, and Mark seated at the table in the loft, three paper cups and a slim bottle of Stoli set in the middle.
Mark sighs. Oh, for the days of lazy relaxation and jobless satisfaction.
He places this photo with the other ones he has approved, and moves on hastily to the next one. He deems it unacceptable, vetoes a few more, and finally, after about five minutes of searching, comes across one more that he likes.
Immediately upon seeing this picture, Mark recognizes it as one of his own taking, a photograph he snapped by the Hudson. It is of two people – lovers, to be exact – seated on a bench just before the water, their bare feet exposed to the summer air. Their heads are bent together, forming a heart with their shoulders, and Mark knows that even if – even though – they are yuppie scum, they are very much in love. In her beige sweater and his crisp button-down shirt, Alison and Benny are lovely together – from the back, anyway.
By the tenth photo, Mark almost regrets his decision to use only ten. However, he would never dream of revoking it, and he merely flips through a few more pictures before he finds the tenth one he wants to use.
"Yes," he declares firmly, and decides that not only will he use this one, he will put it before the others.
It is a picture of Mark and Roger, lying on the roof of their building one summer evening. The moon is out, and their hands are tucked beneath their heads as they indulge in the warm air, trying to get to sleep. Fresh air is better than any air-conditioner, Mark remembers having declared at the time of this picture's taking.
He takes the photograph and places it atop the other snapshots, satisfied.
He is ready for Roger's birthday after all, and it seems as though he always was.