's got to love nobody.
One month had gone by since her brief contact with her daughter. Shelby had only one certainty: she shouldn't have done it.
All that time apart from Rachel she couldn't get back. She looked to one of the shelves on the wall. She could count as years since the last time she saw the pictures on the only photo album she was able to take with her during the years.
If anyone asked her she would surely deny everything she went through during her teenage and her youth, not because she was ashamed, but because she wanted to be seen as something bigger than what she once was.
She walked slowly approaching the album biting lightly her lower lip as if she didn't quit had the guts to make that trip into her past.
She heard soft knocks on the door and if she believed in these things she would know it was a sign to not disturb the memories of the ones already gone.
"Rachel? I thought that..."
"I talked with my fathers and, well they brought me here. I wanted some tips for a future presentation and..."
"Rachel, I'm the coach from the rival team. You remember that, don't you?"
"I Just wanted to know you."
Shelby took a deep breathe to think and looked back to the album over her shoulder. "Come on in." she said.
Rachel made herself comfortable on the couch and lost herself looking at the walls covered with musical posters, it looked like they shared the same passion: the stage.
"Do you want to drink something? Water? Coffee? Soda? I know I need some wine. "
"Some water." Shelby walked into the kitchen remembering that when Rachel is upset her fathers give her water. Yes, she really shouldn't have forced that contact between the two.
She poured the water on a glass to Rachel and some wine for herself and went back to the living room.
"What are you going to do after the Regionals?" Rachel asked. Shelby set on a armchair close to the couch where Rachel was sat.
"Well, in the end of the year I intend to go back... to visit, to go to New York. "she drank a little bit of the wine.
"You are from New York? I thought you were from here..."
"Do you want something to eat? I can order a pizza... " Shelby stood up.
"I want to know your story. That's it, I don't want nothing else from you."
"Do you want the truth or what I tell to my students every year?"
"You are my mother I imagine you as a perfect version of me."
"So you wanna hear what I tell every year."
"I want to know YOU."
"So I'll end up messing up your little head."
"Not everything in life is as we expect them to be, I know that sometimes we've got to be competitive and doing negligible things to get somewhere. Whoever you had to mischief along the way... I'm ready. "
"So from the beginning... Nice to meet you, my name is Maureen Johnson."
"No, your name is Shelby Corcoran."
"No, it's actually Maureen Johnson."
"I'm not understanding."
"I changed my name a few years ago before you were born. You are a smart girl: what was New York in the end of the 80's?" Rachel seemed paralyzed staring at Shelby, (or was it Maureen?) without knowing what to say. - Have you ever heard about Alphabet city?
"I love Avenue Q. There's a fine fine line is my favorite."
Maureen laughed out loud and then put her hand over her mouth analyzing the teenage. She was torn between telling as a fairy-tale with exaggerated staging and theatrical effects or just to tell what New York could really be.
"Wait..." she walked to the self where something was. Rachel followed her with her eyes curious to know what she was going to get. Shelb... Maureen came back with a huge photo album in her hands. "I think you can know my entire life just browsing this."
Rachel took it in her hand and opened. In the first picture she could see a group with seven people, in the middle she could recognize her "mother" dressed like... The cat woman?
"Who are these people?"
"My family."
"How did you meet them?"
"In so many different places. The skinny blonde with a camera on his hand is Mark Cohen, when I met him I was younger than you. I bet that until this day he doesn't forgive me for the trouble I caused on his Bar Mitzvah" she said chocking between laughs and tears. For so long she hasn't talked about them.
"And the others?"Rachel's eyes sparkled because even though she didn't have friends, the Glee Club and their oddities seemed to be somehow part of the everyday of this person beside her. She always thought that after you graduate all that ended, but the group in the picture seemed to be the bottom-line on the food chain in the grown up world.
"This is Collins, I can't remember how I met him." she pointed to this tall black guy. "And this is his eternal boyfriend, Angel".
"She is way more fabulous than me."
"I thought that growing up with two dads who fight so much for equality you would be used to all kinds of people."
"I will never be used to people with stars that shine brighter than mine."
"Angel wasn't just a star, she was like a sun in the life of so many..."
"Who is this?"she said pointing to the woman beside Maureen in the picture.
"That's my ex-girlfriend, Joanne." Rachel stared astonished to Maureen "Again, you have two gay dads! The other two are Roger and Mimi. Joanne was always so perfect, she made lists on her sleep. If she needed to buy new clothes she would make a list of things she needed the most and then another one of things she wanted the most, she would compare the two lists and then went shopping. Roger can be easily compared to Grumpy from Snow White and that's all I'm saying." Rachel giggled. "And Mimi was very sweet and irresponsible maybe that's why we understood each other so much."
"I don't understand why you are ashamed of them."
"Who said I was ashamed of them? I could never be! When I changed my name it was because I wanted people to see me as something bigger than the actress who did performances in a tarred space where beggars hid from the cold at night. I didn't even had the money to pay for my rent. Well, Joanne did but that bulldog named Benny wanted The Space to build that freaking cyber studio."
"And how did you come here? I mean why did you leave where things happen to this nowhere land?"
"Mark was more into his movies than he'd ever been we didn't, I no longer existed and Joanne was tired of me going out at night and coming back drunken and... I've hurt her in a way that she couldn't be with me anymore. I did an audition for this play that would have tryouts in unusual places, like Ohio and maybe, just maybe it would reach Broadway. I changed my name to Shelby Corcoran because it held more self-control and professional output than Maureen Johnson would ever had. The play closed in a few weeks and I was broke, I didn't have money to go back."
Rachel knew that must have been the first time in her life she didn't know what to say, to be honest it was the first time she knew she should just keep her mouth shut.
"One day I saw an ad on the newspaper and your fathers kind of reminded me of Angel and Collins got me soft and the money was enough for me to go back to NY."
"And why didn't you?"
"I had no one there to go back to. Here I had you."
"What happened to the others?"
"They died, honey." her voice cracked at the end of the phrase.
"How..."
"I will ask you again, do you know how everything was in New York in the end of the 80's? Better, how the world was at the end of the 80's? Mark used to say that if you are dying at the end of the millennium, you are not alone." Rachel once again realized that she couldn't speak. "Angel, Collins, Mimi and Roger had AIDS. Angel was the first to leave us, then Mimi some months later, and then Roger and for last Collins; the biggest gentleman I'd ever meet. Going back to a New York without them or staying here... It was pretty much the same, but in here there was the thrill of the unknown. New York I know like the back of my hand and Lima was mystery, very small mystery. "
"So why are you going back to New York, anyway?"
"I need to see them again, even if is just their graves, I need to look for Joanne, for Mark, see if they are alive. The Life Cafe must have closed long ago... I am your mother but you have two wonderful fathers that know everything about you, whom give you water when you are upset. Even though I have a successful career, some acquaintances that come close to been friends... They were my family. I regret forcing this approximation so late, you don't need me and I'm someone who needs to know I'm needed. You made me remember them. You made me remember that the blood is a bond that loses its power when you've lived a story strong enough to conquer the stages around the world with a group of... unique people."
"Coming here was clearly a mistake." Rachel stood up, picked up her jacket from the chair. To Maureen's eyes it was exactly what she had done that day in the auditorium. "It's too late for a second approach. On the first time, there wasn't one running in slow-motion towards the other one and now we haven't had an emotional breakdown while seeing how alike we were and deciding our lives would never be the same if we lost touch again" she opened the door and left.
"Drama Queen."Maureen said in a low voice before she could think. Her eyes fell back on the album and she saw herself stuck between crying and laughing at the irony of this situation.