A/N: 05-06-02—Not a lot to say here. Um... Okay—I love artichokes. There,
now I have some author's notes. ;) (It just doesn't feel complete without
them!)
Linnell — As you are one of my favorite Rentfic authors (can't begin to say how much I adore Community of Their Own and A New Hope), I am flattered by your reviews. :) Much thanks.
Liss — Same goes; and aren't you going to add more to White Lit Wall??? You simply HAVE to, you know!
NYTW Quote-of-the-Week: "I'm lonely, bored, and horny!" ~Mark
Disclaimer: MINE!!!! ALL MINE! Nyahahaaa, I am so creative! (Actually, they're all Jonathan Larson's. The genius. *contemplative sigh*)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5. [Roger's perspective.]
The fourteen days that followed were longer and lonelier than six months in Santa Fe.
Mimi never came home that night. I finally did, though—about four-thirty the next morning. I'd spent most of the last several hours with Maureen; after I ran into her at the café around midnight, she begged me to let her tag along. We searched the city, almost entirely without conversation, except for the times I would turn around and snap at her to stop crying.
The loft was cold and lifeless when I returned to it. Birds were already starting to squeak outside, and the faintest hint of sunlight was forcing its way through the window. Mark was fast asleep on the couch, telephone resting on his chest, and a folded piece of paper clasped loosely in one hand. When I lifted it from his grasp, I risked one last glance to make sure he was asleep, and read:
'Roger,
I don't think I know how to tell you this in person, so I'm going to write it down instead.'
And that was it. Sleep had obviously overpowered creativity. Whatever it was he had to tell me, now I would never know. Mark was terrible at dealing with confrontation. We both were. But he was so passive, and I was so aggressive, and it was bad combination. Just the thought of one of our arguments was enough to make me dizzy.
For a few moments longer, I watched him though the semi-darkness... as though the rest of that letter would be somehow imprinted on him. But I knew the only way inside that intricate mind of his was through his eyes... and right now, they were closed.
Not having anywhere else to go, I made it to my room, which now felt more foreign than Santa Fe ever had... and collapsed on my bed.
Mark was gone when I pulled myself out of bed the next morning. He'd left a message on the kitchen counter. I don't know why I expected it to be the rest of that letter he'd started, or some note saying that Mimi was back. All it said was that he'd gone to work.
He didn't come home until almost nine that night... and then disappeared into his room. There was no note the next morning.
He did this nearly every day for the next two weeks.
In all those months on the other side of the country, I'd never felt as detached from him as I did now.
Occasionally I would persuade myself to wake up early, before he left. I would sit at the table, watching him dart around the kitchen for a hurried breakfast, and try desperately to think of something constructive to say before the minutes counted down to eight o'clock, and he'd be out the door.
Every time that front door shut behind him, I felt like throwing things.
I finally did. Our apartment no longer has a spoon rest.
Why couldn't he just say it? I would scream silently inside my head, gazing angrily at stains on the floor or scratches on the wall. Why couldn't he just say he blamed me? And that he hated me for leaving, and now he hated me for coming back and driving away the one friend he had left.
That was selfish of me, I knew. It would be easier if he blamed me—then I wouldn't have to do it myself.
It soon became apparent that he wasn't the only one avoiding me. I left three messages on Maureen and Joanne's machine. Saying hi. Asking if Maureen had stopped crying. Asking if they'd heard anything from Mimi yet. After much longer than was appropriate, Joanne finally called back to say they hadn't heard anything. But I knew it was just to discourage me from nagging.
It didn't make sense. They'd never pushed me away like this.
Collins, however, saw past whatever everyone else seemed unable to. I called him late one afternoon while Mark was at work, and we hadn't talked for thirty seconds before he invited me over.
I grabbed a bowl of cereal, drove to his apartment, and knocked on his door. I was getting very tired of knocking on doors. All they did, once opened, was eliminate another possible place Mimi could have escaped to. And there weren't very many doors left.
"It's open," a voice called from inside.
That invitation wasn't actually as welcoming as it may have sounded, as it turned out—I'd barely pushed the door open before I was trapped by piles and stacks and small heaps of papers, books, and folders. In the middle of it all was Collins, sitting in front of his laptop, typing diligently.
He looked up from his work, smiling, pulled off his glasses and dropped them lightly onto a chair. "Hey."
"This is worse than Mark's room!" I observed with a chuckle. "I thought you swore you'd never go back to NYU."
"Oh, I did," he laughed, shoving a few smaller piles together to create a path from the front door into the living room. "That plan had to be revised when the bills started piling up."
"That's selling out," I grinned.
"Yes, it is," he agreed happily, flopping onto the couch and handing me a Coke. "But my TA happens to be very good eye candy, so all is well."
I laughed. "Good excuse."
His voice diminished to a quiet, halfhearted tone... as though if it were less audible, then my answer might somehow be different. "Mimi's still gone?"
I nodded.
Funny that it took such a simple conversation for me to realize how much I'd missed being in a room with someone I could talk to. I wasn't a big talker, really, but it wasn't the actual words I missed. Just knowing that I *could* talk, if I wanted to, was enough. Mark had always been that someone, of course, until now. It wasn't that he seemed angry with me, or even resentful. It was as though we'd run out of things to say to each other... which seemed quite impossible. After all, we'd rarely discussed much of significance anyway. We just talked. About nothing. And it meant so much more than so many... somethings.
"So... how's Mark doing?" Leave it to the philosopher to sort through my maze of thoughts, pinpointing the one question I wouldn't possibly know how to answer.
I caught his glance. "Why does everyone keep asking that?"
"I—I don't know." He turned back to his glass of Coke. "He isn't talking much, is he?"
"How did you know?"
"Just a guess."
It dawned on me, suddenly, that if Mark knew something I didn't, and Maureen knew it, then most likely Collins would. Well, of course—if Maureen knew it, the rest of New York State probably did too.
"Is Mark keeping something from me?"
His expression wasn't altered in any way by my inquiry, and from that I knew he'd been expecting the question. Expecting it, because he knew the answer. And he knew the answer because it was 'yes'.
I got all that from a lack of reaction?
He drew in a deep, tentative breath. "Roger... if Mark has anything to tell you, he will. In his own time. You're his best friend, and I know he wouldn't be able to stand keeping something from you for very long. It would just eat away at him."
Back in the loft, his words echoed in my head. I hated how people's words did that. I could never rid myself of them, no matter how hard I tried. No matter how loudly I played my guitar, or how many pillows I hurled across the room.
*It would just eat away at him...*
But it *was* eating away at him.
My pitiful attempt at dinner that night only shattered my hope that the day wouldn't get any worse. Who the hell came up with the idea for the toaster, anyway?! You push the button one time, and all you get is warm bread. You push it twice and you get charcoal. I finally shoved both slices down the garbage disposal, angrily chopped up an apple, and sat on the counter.
The phone rang, and my mind went only one place: Mimi.
I reached for it frantically—this was no time to screen—and hurried to swallow my last chunk of apple. "Hmph—" Choking on the peel now. "Yeah?"
"Roger?"
My heart began the descent back to its normal pace. "Hey, Mark."
"Hey." Silence. Was he expecting more? An update? Information on Mimi? Well, he'd be waiting a long time. "I can't find one of my tapes," he announced finally. "Can you see if it's in my room?"
"Yeah, hang on." I dragged our insanely long phone cord back to his room and looked around helplessly. If I found anything in this godforsaken mess, it would be a miracle. "Um..."
"It's probably on the chair," he offered.
...And so were three pairs of pants, a book, and a lamp. I relocated these items to the bed and pulled a video out from underneath. "It says 'June 17th', is that it?"
He sighed. "Yeah. Thanks. I'll just get it tonight."
"Okay."
And after that, we hung up, and I would have left his room and retreated to my own and taken out my latest frustrations on my guitar. The sounds would have pulsated through the walls and annoyed the neighbors, but I would have felt better. And then I would have curled up on my bed and stared up at that photograph of Mimi and me, and I would have hated myself for being the reason she wasn't here right now.
But I didn't leave his room, and I didn't touch my guitar.
I sat on his bed, aimlessly sorting through some unlabeled tapes. As I reached the bottom of the pile, however, a label began to pop up here and there, mostly in code or abbreviation, until a clearly marked one on the bottom succeeded in holding my attention:
'M's b-day.'
M... Mark? Maureen? No... Mimi was the only one who'd had a birthday in the last six months. January third. Her twenty-first. God, she was so young.
January third was a bleak day in Santa Fe. I couldn't forget it—it was her birthday, after all, and it also happened to be the night I first conceived the opening notes to my song. With nothing on which to bring them to life, I scribbled them down on a spare sheet of paper, and fell asleep listening to it play over and over in my mind.
Kind of like those voices I could never get out of my head.
Securing a comfortable spot on the living room floor, I pushed the tape into the VCR and pressed Play.
An unsteady shot appeared on screen as someone attempted to adjust the zoom lens. "January third, ten thirty a.m.," a voice recited.
"You're filming the wall?" Mimi's voice asked, amused and off-camera.
"Well, you won't let me film you," Mark whined.
"I just woke up!"
"You look beautiful." The camera panned abruptly around the room and landed on Mimi, who was sitting in bed, hair sticking up every which way, wearing a big white t-shirt and reading the newspaper. "Happy birthday," Mark added.
Her eyes shot upward to look into the camera, and her jaw dropped. "You suck!" she declared, throwing the newspaper at the camera and darting under the covers. One of her unmistakable fits of giggles followed, and the tape cut to a snowy nothingness.
A pang of jealousy shot through me. He'd been there, on that day. He got to tell her 'Happy Birthday' and plan a party for her and have a newspaper fight with her that morning. She'd been the subject of his incessant filming, most likely not just all day, but every day for six months. She was the one who got to tell him to get the damn camera out of her face. And she was the one who got to sit there for hours and watch him splice stuff together and never get bored.
It was pathetic, really—I couldn't even decide which one of them I envied more.
The film cut to a raucous game of Twister, being held on the living room floor of the loft. The atmosphere was much more festive now, and the time on the bottom left corner of the screen read "9:12 p.m." On the Twister mat were Mark, Maureen, and Joanne, and the feeling of sincere laughter, unfamiliar as of late, came over me.
Maureen, who appeared tangled in some kind of backward arch, desperate to keep her right hand on red, felt the need to make an announcement to the camera. "You know," she began, "the rumor is, the people who win this game are the ones who are really great in bed."
Mark slipped from a green circle and blushed. "Maureen!"
Mark and Joanne began spouting obscenities back and forth, but Maureen couldn't have possibly looked more pleased with herself. The camera panned across the living room to Collins, who retained possession of that spinner thing, and Mimi, who was sitting on his lap and watching the game with great amusement.
"Left hand yellow!" she announced gleefully.
Collins glanced at the board. "That's not what it—" But Mimi shushed him, fighting off laughter.
With this attempt, and a final, choice trivia fact from Maureen, Mark finally burst into hysterics and lost his balance, toppling over onto Joanne. Maureen spent the next ten minutes feeling quite proud of herself and offering sexual favors to everyone in the room to prove her point.
Mark gladly took over the burden of cameraman from Benny, who, as it turned out, had been filming the game. I forced myself to ignore his presence, which proved not as difficult as I would have thought, as he spent most of his time in the corner, quietly sipping his drink with an occasional smile or comment, and doing his best to keep Mimi from getting too plastered. But, as Maureen argued, refilling everyone's glass, it was her birthday. Her twenty-first. Not to get plastered would be a crime.
When the time for cake rolled around, Mimi settled herself at the table between Maureen and Joanne, and Mark remained across the room, capturing the moments on film. Mimi and Maureen kept stealing lumps of icing off the top of the cake, until Joanne whacked them with a napkin.
"I would like to make a toast," Joanne announced as she rose from her seat, tapping a plastic spork on her Styrofoam cup. "To our family," she began fondly, smiling at everyone in the room. "And to those who can't be here tonight."
Although this seemed to me to be an appropriate stopping place, she went on, now oblivious to the two girls beside her, who had found something to laugh at, and were attempting to do so as inconspicuously as possible. Mark, who had managed to remain nearly forgotten behind the camera, zoomed in on Mimi until the rest of the room was shut out.
She caught his eye through the lens and smiled. That captivating little grin I had fallen in love with... and if I tried hard enough, I could almost imagine it was me she'd been smiling at. But I knew it wasn't.
She shot the camera a wink, and her lips silently formed the words, 'I love you.'
The television went black.
My eyes scanned the room skeptically. The electricity couldn't have gone off—the lamp by the couch was still lit. A slight shuffle behind me snapped me into awareness, and I spun around.
Mark was standing inside the front door, holding the TV remote.
I scrambled to my feet, feeling only slightly less powerless. "Uh... hey." He glanced from me to the television and back again, hoping for an explanation from at least one of us. "I just... I didn't mean to—"
"What are you doing?" he asked, and for a moment I allowed myself to be deceived by the softness of his voice—maybe he wasn't enraged, after all.
"I just found this in—"
"In my room, under nine other tapes and two pillows?"
Well... technically yes. "Look, Mark, I wasn't—"
His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, ruling out any possibility of being able to read what was inside them. "Not once," he began slowly, deliberately, "while you were gone, did I even set foot in your room."
"Oh, don't make it sound so noble," I retorted. "The only reason you stayed out of there was because it was too painful—it just reminded you of the fact that I was gone."
"Don't flatter yourself."
I sighed. "Mark..."
He swept across the room, snatching the tape out of the VCR in one swift, furious motion, and held it protectively under his arm. "Just leave my stuff alone."
I watched helplessly as he headed for his room, unstoppable, unreachable. "I didn't make her leave, Mark! You can't take this out on me, it's not like I wanted her to go—I don't know why she left, okay?!"
"Well, *I* do!"
He watched me from the wall, one hand on his doorknob, and the other wrapped firmly around his tape, as we both grasped for some way to continue after such an admission
"Mark..."
Bad choice. Bad, bad choice.
"Don't, Roger."
He disappeared into his room and slammed the door. It was a relief only in that I was forced to claim defeat—it was easier than fighting.
But this wasn't right. Why should I let it end like this? Why should I let him get away with that? I deserved an explanation, and so did he. Maybe I could offer one if I heard his first. A convenient excuse, I knew, but as of now, my only hope.
Upon reaching his room, I tapped gently near the doorframe. No response. Well, what had I expected?
"Mark, please. I'm sorry."
If it was possible for the apartment to grow even more soundless, it did.
"Can't we just talk about this?"
Apparently not.
"Jesus, Mark, just open the fucking door, you're acting like a baby!"
I tried the handle, which was firmly locked—as if that could stop me. I grabbed one of those twist-ties that we used for garbage bags and stuffed it into the little hole in the doorknob. A few muttered curses later, I shoved the door open.
He was perched on the edge of his bed, facing away from me. His delicate frame was hunched over a photograph that he clutched in his hands. On closer inspection, I saw that it was a picture from Christmas—obviously this past Christmas, the one for which I had been noticeably absent.
It hurt... to think that the mental place he went to when distressed was one I had no part in.
As I approached him cautiously, it became evident that he'd been crying.
The photo was of our little family—to perfectly honest, *their* little family, by this point—seated around the Christmas tree. Maureen had her arms around Joanne, but held two fingers in the shape of a V over Mark's head. Mark had one arm around Collins' shoulders, and the other was holding Mimi's hand.
I sat down next to him, feeling as though I owed an apology to the photograph as much as I did to him. And, not entirely concerned with appropriateness at this point, I put my arms around him and remained silent.
He rested his head on my shoulder, lacking the energy to fight me off, or to force back any more tears.
"You're not the only one who's lost her," he told me.
I found it difficult to find my voice, and when I did, it was scarcely discernible.
"I know."
Linnell — As you are one of my favorite Rentfic authors (can't begin to say how much I adore Community of Their Own and A New Hope), I am flattered by your reviews. :) Much thanks.
Liss — Same goes; and aren't you going to add more to White Lit Wall??? You simply HAVE to, you know!
NYTW Quote-of-the-Week: "I'm lonely, bored, and horny!" ~Mark
Disclaimer: MINE!!!! ALL MINE! Nyahahaaa, I am so creative! (Actually, they're all Jonathan Larson's. The genius. *contemplative sigh*)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5. [Roger's perspective.]
The fourteen days that followed were longer and lonelier than six months in Santa Fe.
Mimi never came home that night. I finally did, though—about four-thirty the next morning. I'd spent most of the last several hours with Maureen; after I ran into her at the café around midnight, she begged me to let her tag along. We searched the city, almost entirely without conversation, except for the times I would turn around and snap at her to stop crying.
The loft was cold and lifeless when I returned to it. Birds were already starting to squeak outside, and the faintest hint of sunlight was forcing its way through the window. Mark was fast asleep on the couch, telephone resting on his chest, and a folded piece of paper clasped loosely in one hand. When I lifted it from his grasp, I risked one last glance to make sure he was asleep, and read:
'Roger,
I don't think I know how to tell you this in person, so I'm going to write it down instead.'
And that was it. Sleep had obviously overpowered creativity. Whatever it was he had to tell me, now I would never know. Mark was terrible at dealing with confrontation. We both were. But he was so passive, and I was so aggressive, and it was bad combination. Just the thought of one of our arguments was enough to make me dizzy.
For a few moments longer, I watched him though the semi-darkness... as though the rest of that letter would be somehow imprinted on him. But I knew the only way inside that intricate mind of his was through his eyes... and right now, they were closed.
Not having anywhere else to go, I made it to my room, which now felt more foreign than Santa Fe ever had... and collapsed on my bed.
Mark was gone when I pulled myself out of bed the next morning. He'd left a message on the kitchen counter. I don't know why I expected it to be the rest of that letter he'd started, or some note saying that Mimi was back. All it said was that he'd gone to work.
He didn't come home until almost nine that night... and then disappeared into his room. There was no note the next morning.
He did this nearly every day for the next two weeks.
In all those months on the other side of the country, I'd never felt as detached from him as I did now.
Occasionally I would persuade myself to wake up early, before he left. I would sit at the table, watching him dart around the kitchen for a hurried breakfast, and try desperately to think of something constructive to say before the minutes counted down to eight o'clock, and he'd be out the door.
Every time that front door shut behind him, I felt like throwing things.
I finally did. Our apartment no longer has a spoon rest.
Why couldn't he just say it? I would scream silently inside my head, gazing angrily at stains on the floor or scratches on the wall. Why couldn't he just say he blamed me? And that he hated me for leaving, and now he hated me for coming back and driving away the one friend he had left.
That was selfish of me, I knew. It would be easier if he blamed me—then I wouldn't have to do it myself.
It soon became apparent that he wasn't the only one avoiding me. I left three messages on Maureen and Joanne's machine. Saying hi. Asking if Maureen had stopped crying. Asking if they'd heard anything from Mimi yet. After much longer than was appropriate, Joanne finally called back to say they hadn't heard anything. But I knew it was just to discourage me from nagging.
It didn't make sense. They'd never pushed me away like this.
Collins, however, saw past whatever everyone else seemed unable to. I called him late one afternoon while Mark was at work, and we hadn't talked for thirty seconds before he invited me over.
I grabbed a bowl of cereal, drove to his apartment, and knocked on his door. I was getting very tired of knocking on doors. All they did, once opened, was eliminate another possible place Mimi could have escaped to. And there weren't very many doors left.
"It's open," a voice called from inside.
That invitation wasn't actually as welcoming as it may have sounded, as it turned out—I'd barely pushed the door open before I was trapped by piles and stacks and small heaps of papers, books, and folders. In the middle of it all was Collins, sitting in front of his laptop, typing diligently.
He looked up from his work, smiling, pulled off his glasses and dropped them lightly onto a chair. "Hey."
"This is worse than Mark's room!" I observed with a chuckle. "I thought you swore you'd never go back to NYU."
"Oh, I did," he laughed, shoving a few smaller piles together to create a path from the front door into the living room. "That plan had to be revised when the bills started piling up."
"That's selling out," I grinned.
"Yes, it is," he agreed happily, flopping onto the couch and handing me a Coke. "But my TA happens to be very good eye candy, so all is well."
I laughed. "Good excuse."
His voice diminished to a quiet, halfhearted tone... as though if it were less audible, then my answer might somehow be different. "Mimi's still gone?"
I nodded.
Funny that it took such a simple conversation for me to realize how much I'd missed being in a room with someone I could talk to. I wasn't a big talker, really, but it wasn't the actual words I missed. Just knowing that I *could* talk, if I wanted to, was enough. Mark had always been that someone, of course, until now. It wasn't that he seemed angry with me, or even resentful. It was as though we'd run out of things to say to each other... which seemed quite impossible. After all, we'd rarely discussed much of significance anyway. We just talked. About nothing. And it meant so much more than so many... somethings.
"So... how's Mark doing?" Leave it to the philosopher to sort through my maze of thoughts, pinpointing the one question I wouldn't possibly know how to answer.
I caught his glance. "Why does everyone keep asking that?"
"I—I don't know." He turned back to his glass of Coke. "He isn't talking much, is he?"
"How did you know?"
"Just a guess."
It dawned on me, suddenly, that if Mark knew something I didn't, and Maureen knew it, then most likely Collins would. Well, of course—if Maureen knew it, the rest of New York State probably did too.
"Is Mark keeping something from me?"
His expression wasn't altered in any way by my inquiry, and from that I knew he'd been expecting the question. Expecting it, because he knew the answer. And he knew the answer because it was 'yes'.
I got all that from a lack of reaction?
He drew in a deep, tentative breath. "Roger... if Mark has anything to tell you, he will. In his own time. You're his best friend, and I know he wouldn't be able to stand keeping something from you for very long. It would just eat away at him."
Back in the loft, his words echoed in my head. I hated how people's words did that. I could never rid myself of them, no matter how hard I tried. No matter how loudly I played my guitar, or how many pillows I hurled across the room.
*It would just eat away at him...*
But it *was* eating away at him.
My pitiful attempt at dinner that night only shattered my hope that the day wouldn't get any worse. Who the hell came up with the idea for the toaster, anyway?! You push the button one time, and all you get is warm bread. You push it twice and you get charcoal. I finally shoved both slices down the garbage disposal, angrily chopped up an apple, and sat on the counter.
The phone rang, and my mind went only one place: Mimi.
I reached for it frantically—this was no time to screen—and hurried to swallow my last chunk of apple. "Hmph—" Choking on the peel now. "Yeah?"
"Roger?"
My heart began the descent back to its normal pace. "Hey, Mark."
"Hey." Silence. Was he expecting more? An update? Information on Mimi? Well, he'd be waiting a long time. "I can't find one of my tapes," he announced finally. "Can you see if it's in my room?"
"Yeah, hang on." I dragged our insanely long phone cord back to his room and looked around helplessly. If I found anything in this godforsaken mess, it would be a miracle. "Um..."
"It's probably on the chair," he offered.
...And so were three pairs of pants, a book, and a lamp. I relocated these items to the bed and pulled a video out from underneath. "It says 'June 17th', is that it?"
He sighed. "Yeah. Thanks. I'll just get it tonight."
"Okay."
And after that, we hung up, and I would have left his room and retreated to my own and taken out my latest frustrations on my guitar. The sounds would have pulsated through the walls and annoyed the neighbors, but I would have felt better. And then I would have curled up on my bed and stared up at that photograph of Mimi and me, and I would have hated myself for being the reason she wasn't here right now.
But I didn't leave his room, and I didn't touch my guitar.
I sat on his bed, aimlessly sorting through some unlabeled tapes. As I reached the bottom of the pile, however, a label began to pop up here and there, mostly in code or abbreviation, until a clearly marked one on the bottom succeeded in holding my attention:
'M's b-day.'
M... Mark? Maureen? No... Mimi was the only one who'd had a birthday in the last six months. January third. Her twenty-first. God, she was so young.
January third was a bleak day in Santa Fe. I couldn't forget it—it was her birthday, after all, and it also happened to be the night I first conceived the opening notes to my song. With nothing on which to bring them to life, I scribbled them down on a spare sheet of paper, and fell asleep listening to it play over and over in my mind.
Kind of like those voices I could never get out of my head.
Securing a comfortable spot on the living room floor, I pushed the tape into the VCR and pressed Play.
An unsteady shot appeared on screen as someone attempted to adjust the zoom lens. "January third, ten thirty a.m.," a voice recited.
"You're filming the wall?" Mimi's voice asked, amused and off-camera.
"Well, you won't let me film you," Mark whined.
"I just woke up!"
"You look beautiful." The camera panned abruptly around the room and landed on Mimi, who was sitting in bed, hair sticking up every which way, wearing a big white t-shirt and reading the newspaper. "Happy birthday," Mark added.
Her eyes shot upward to look into the camera, and her jaw dropped. "You suck!" she declared, throwing the newspaper at the camera and darting under the covers. One of her unmistakable fits of giggles followed, and the tape cut to a snowy nothingness.
A pang of jealousy shot through me. He'd been there, on that day. He got to tell her 'Happy Birthday' and plan a party for her and have a newspaper fight with her that morning. She'd been the subject of his incessant filming, most likely not just all day, but every day for six months. She was the one who got to tell him to get the damn camera out of her face. And she was the one who got to sit there for hours and watch him splice stuff together and never get bored.
It was pathetic, really—I couldn't even decide which one of them I envied more.
The film cut to a raucous game of Twister, being held on the living room floor of the loft. The atmosphere was much more festive now, and the time on the bottom left corner of the screen read "9:12 p.m." On the Twister mat were Mark, Maureen, and Joanne, and the feeling of sincere laughter, unfamiliar as of late, came over me.
Maureen, who appeared tangled in some kind of backward arch, desperate to keep her right hand on red, felt the need to make an announcement to the camera. "You know," she began, "the rumor is, the people who win this game are the ones who are really great in bed."
Mark slipped from a green circle and blushed. "Maureen!"
Mark and Joanne began spouting obscenities back and forth, but Maureen couldn't have possibly looked more pleased with herself. The camera panned across the living room to Collins, who retained possession of that spinner thing, and Mimi, who was sitting on his lap and watching the game with great amusement.
"Left hand yellow!" she announced gleefully.
Collins glanced at the board. "That's not what it—" But Mimi shushed him, fighting off laughter.
With this attempt, and a final, choice trivia fact from Maureen, Mark finally burst into hysterics and lost his balance, toppling over onto Joanne. Maureen spent the next ten minutes feeling quite proud of herself and offering sexual favors to everyone in the room to prove her point.
Mark gladly took over the burden of cameraman from Benny, who, as it turned out, had been filming the game. I forced myself to ignore his presence, which proved not as difficult as I would have thought, as he spent most of his time in the corner, quietly sipping his drink with an occasional smile or comment, and doing his best to keep Mimi from getting too plastered. But, as Maureen argued, refilling everyone's glass, it was her birthday. Her twenty-first. Not to get plastered would be a crime.
When the time for cake rolled around, Mimi settled herself at the table between Maureen and Joanne, and Mark remained across the room, capturing the moments on film. Mimi and Maureen kept stealing lumps of icing off the top of the cake, until Joanne whacked them with a napkin.
"I would like to make a toast," Joanne announced as she rose from her seat, tapping a plastic spork on her Styrofoam cup. "To our family," she began fondly, smiling at everyone in the room. "And to those who can't be here tonight."
Although this seemed to me to be an appropriate stopping place, she went on, now oblivious to the two girls beside her, who had found something to laugh at, and were attempting to do so as inconspicuously as possible. Mark, who had managed to remain nearly forgotten behind the camera, zoomed in on Mimi until the rest of the room was shut out.
She caught his eye through the lens and smiled. That captivating little grin I had fallen in love with... and if I tried hard enough, I could almost imagine it was me she'd been smiling at. But I knew it wasn't.
She shot the camera a wink, and her lips silently formed the words, 'I love you.'
The television went black.
My eyes scanned the room skeptically. The electricity couldn't have gone off—the lamp by the couch was still lit. A slight shuffle behind me snapped me into awareness, and I spun around.
Mark was standing inside the front door, holding the TV remote.
I scrambled to my feet, feeling only slightly less powerless. "Uh... hey." He glanced from me to the television and back again, hoping for an explanation from at least one of us. "I just... I didn't mean to—"
"What are you doing?" he asked, and for a moment I allowed myself to be deceived by the softness of his voice—maybe he wasn't enraged, after all.
"I just found this in—"
"In my room, under nine other tapes and two pillows?"
Well... technically yes. "Look, Mark, I wasn't—"
His eyes narrowed behind his glasses, ruling out any possibility of being able to read what was inside them. "Not once," he began slowly, deliberately, "while you were gone, did I even set foot in your room."
"Oh, don't make it sound so noble," I retorted. "The only reason you stayed out of there was because it was too painful—it just reminded you of the fact that I was gone."
"Don't flatter yourself."
I sighed. "Mark..."
He swept across the room, snatching the tape out of the VCR in one swift, furious motion, and held it protectively under his arm. "Just leave my stuff alone."
I watched helplessly as he headed for his room, unstoppable, unreachable. "I didn't make her leave, Mark! You can't take this out on me, it's not like I wanted her to go—I don't know why she left, okay?!"
"Well, *I* do!"
He watched me from the wall, one hand on his doorknob, and the other wrapped firmly around his tape, as we both grasped for some way to continue after such an admission
"Mark..."
Bad choice. Bad, bad choice.
"Don't, Roger."
He disappeared into his room and slammed the door. It was a relief only in that I was forced to claim defeat—it was easier than fighting.
But this wasn't right. Why should I let it end like this? Why should I let him get away with that? I deserved an explanation, and so did he. Maybe I could offer one if I heard his first. A convenient excuse, I knew, but as of now, my only hope.
Upon reaching his room, I tapped gently near the doorframe. No response. Well, what had I expected?
"Mark, please. I'm sorry."
If it was possible for the apartment to grow even more soundless, it did.
"Can't we just talk about this?"
Apparently not.
"Jesus, Mark, just open the fucking door, you're acting like a baby!"
I tried the handle, which was firmly locked—as if that could stop me. I grabbed one of those twist-ties that we used for garbage bags and stuffed it into the little hole in the doorknob. A few muttered curses later, I shoved the door open.
He was perched on the edge of his bed, facing away from me. His delicate frame was hunched over a photograph that he clutched in his hands. On closer inspection, I saw that it was a picture from Christmas—obviously this past Christmas, the one for which I had been noticeably absent.
It hurt... to think that the mental place he went to when distressed was one I had no part in.
As I approached him cautiously, it became evident that he'd been crying.
The photo was of our little family—to perfectly honest, *their* little family, by this point—seated around the Christmas tree. Maureen had her arms around Joanne, but held two fingers in the shape of a V over Mark's head. Mark had one arm around Collins' shoulders, and the other was holding Mimi's hand.
I sat down next to him, feeling as though I owed an apology to the photograph as much as I did to him. And, not entirely concerned with appropriateness at this point, I put my arms around him and remained silent.
He rested his head on my shoulder, lacking the energy to fight me off, or to force back any more tears.
"You're not the only one who's lost her," he told me.
I found it difficult to find my voice, and when I did, it was scarcely discernible.
"I know."