Disclaimer: I own my puppy, now if I only owned Roger and Mimi…at least I can rent them and the rest of Jonathan Larson's characters
Mimi Marquez stopped dead in her tracks.
"Did you hear that?"
"What?" asked Roger Davis, letting go of her hand and coming to a halt beside her.
"That noise"
"No…"
"I think it came from the alley," Mimi muttered, staring at the alley way a few yards ahead of them.
"I'm sure it was nothing," Roger assured her, as her took her hand again. "Now come on, it's getting dark."
It was around 6:00PM on a winter evening in New York. Mimi and Roger were walking back to the loft from a life support meeting, while trying not to surcome to the extremely frigid weather.
Mimi sighed. Figuring she was probably over reacting like Roger had said, she squeezed onto her boyfriend's hand, and continued to walk beside him.
"See, it's nothing," said Roger as they approached the alley. But he spoke too soon.
Suddenly a loud banging noise pierced through the cool night air, as an empty trashcan fell against the asphalt in the alleyway. Before the two lovers could move away from the alley, something lunged at them from the shadows.
Roger jumped and tried to push Mimi behind him, to protect her. Panicking, her turned around to see what he was protecting her from.
He instantly felt like an ass when he turned around to see a small, filthy dog, whimpering before them on the pavement.
Roger had never been particular fond of dogs especially since he had an incident with a neighbor's dog when he was four. But as much as he disliked dogs, even he couldn't help but smile at his own foolishness.
"I think we found the noise, Meems," he laughed. "Mimi?" he turned around to look at her when she didn't respond. She was no longer behind him. "Mimi?" he called her name out, now confused, and trying not to panic. She'd been behind him a second ago….
"What?" Mimi answered.
Roger instantly snapped his head around to find Mimi crouched over, now a few feet ahead of him. She was moving towards the dog, who seemed to take no notice of the tiny Latina moving towards her, and began to sniff innocently at the pavement.
"What the hell are you doing?" exclaimed Roger. "Are you crazy? It's a stray, it could have all sorts of diseases."
Mimi stopped in her tracks and stared at him, her dark eyes were flashing. "Like us?" she fumed, then continued to move towards the puppy.
Roger couldn't think of a response, so he just stared in shock as Mimi moved closer towards the puppy.
The puppy had now noticed the two strangers standing before her, and lowered her head in fear, and stuck her long, shaggy tail between her hind legs.
Mimi moved even closer; the puppy let out a low snarl.
"Meems, come on this is a bad idea," Roger said nervously, as he watched her move even closer.
"Come here, baby," Mimi began to coo at the dog. She extended her hand to let the dog sniff it.
The dog snarled again, then lifted it's head.
"Oh shit! Mimi!" exclaimed Roger, lunging towards his girlfriend at the same time as the puppy.
But by the time Roger's arms wrapped around Mimi to pull her away from the dog, she was hysterical laughing, not screaming out in pain like Roger expected.
Roger watched in amazement as the puppy wagged its tail excitedly, and licked at Mimi's hands and face.
"Come on, baby," he extended his hand to help her up. "That was nice but we better be getting inside before it gets any colder."
Mimi took his hand and stood up, but her eyes remained fixated on the dog.
"I'm not leaving her," Mimi declared, as she bent down, and scooped the tiny puppy, rather let the puppy leap, into her arms.
"What are you doing?" asked Roger, nervous at the idea of going anywhere with a dog.
"We can't just leave her here."
"Why not?"
"It's cold"
"She's a stray she's used to it, now put her down and come on."
"Roger…" Mimi begged and pouted the soft brown eyes she knew Roger couldn't resist.
Roger gulped as he saw where Mimi was going. "And what do you propose we do with her?"
"The loft." Mimi answered dryly.
"We can't bring a dog back to the building, you know the landlord's rules," stated Roger, in a particularly 'matter-of-factly' tone.
Mimi wrapped her arms tighter around the puppy, who began to pant softly. She raised an eyebrow at Roger. "Since when is Benny 'the landlord', and since when do you give a shit about any of his rules."
"Since you decided to bring a stray dog into our home."
Mimi glared at him, then shoved the dog in his face.
"Roger look at her," she begged.
"Mimi…"
"Just do it, please."
Roger took in a deep breath and did as he was told. He got his first real look at the puppy. She was on the small side, and seemed to fit perfectly in his girlfriend's arms. An abundance of fur covered her body, but it was so caked with dirt and soot from the street that Roger couldn't make out its color under all the blackish grime. Though the dog's eyes were what struck Roger the most. At first they were hidden under her long, filthy, bangs, but Roger brushed the bangs away, with out thinking. His heart wrenched when he caught sight of the puppy's eyes. They were big and deep brown, and instantly reminded him of Mimi's. Like hers they had a certain intensity to them, sad looking, but with a pinch of hope lingering somewhere in their depths.
"Roger please, can we take her?" Mimi begged again as Roger continued to stare at the puppy, now in awe. "You know life on the street is hell, especially when it gets cold."
Roger instantly stared back at Mimi. Her words struck a nerve in him; he still felt incredibly guilty about her nearly freezing to death on the streets all those months ago when he abandoned her for Santa Fe.
"You just had to play the 'life on the street' card," he mumbled, looking back down at the puppy, and scratching her head.
"But, you know the rules," he stated. "No pets allowed, Benny's made that very cl…"
"Roger…," Mimi interrupted him.
Roger winced, trying to hold back a smile as the puppy licked at his hand.
"It would just be for a night," added Mimi quietly.
As if on cue, the puppy began to whimper, like she was begging Roger herself.
Roger bit his lip.
"Erm…fine," he uttered after a few moments. "But like you said just for tonight. She's going to the pound first thing in the morning."
Mimi squealed with delight, ignoring Roger's last sentence.
Before Roger could say anything else, Mimi leaned in and pressed her lips to his, in gratitude.
He threw his arms around her. "It's just for tonight," he reminded.
"As long as she's off the streets," Mimi smiled.
After a few short moments, they began to walk towards the loft again.
"One more thing, babe," said Roger as he stares back down at the puppy, looking up at him innocently through the protection of Mimi's arms.
"Yeah?"
"You're explaining this to Mark."