Author's notes: You know, it's very interesting that Mark and company always eat at the Life Café, seeing as it's rather expensive there. The food's to die for, though. If you ever go, try their quesadillas. Fabulous food, but a little pricey. Maybe that's why the waitress asked if I was going to order food. And who knows, maybe they overcharge the wealthy clientele. Not that I'm wealthy, but yeah. Good food. Cool place.

Tompkins Square Park is also very cool. I felt like a Rent character there, although I don't know if Mimi or Maureen has ever been cornered by a weird guy and had to listen to him talk for half an hour about how he can see they're a good Jewish girl. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not Jewish. Okay.

Rambling over. Here's the next chapter, for everyone who's waited so patiently for it. Special thanks goes out to Christina, who was nice enough to do the Spanish translations for me.



Angel pulled a skirt off the rack and held it up against her. "What do you think, Mimi?" she asked. "Would this go with my green sweater?"

I bit my lip and tried not to giggle. "Angel, it's orange."

"You think it wouldn't work?" She furrowed her brow and held the skirt in front of her. "I was hoping I could pull it off."

"Oh, Angel," I sighed, resting my head against her shoulder for a moment. "You could wear a table cloth and make it look like something out of Vogue, but this skirt is beyond even you."

"A table cloth?" Her eyes lit up. "Now there's a thought."

This time I did giggle. "Go for it, girl."

"We'll see," was all she could promise. "Now how about you? I don't think I've seen you try on anything since we got here."

I shrugged. "I guess I'm just not up to shopping today."

"Not up to shopping?" she repeated, her eyes widening in alarm. "Is anything wrong?"

"No, nothing, really," I insisted. To tell the truth, I'd been a little down ever since breaking up with Benny two months ago. Not that I regretted it all--he had been acting like a possessive asshole, and I'd sworn I was through with guys like that. But I missed him too. Not so much Benny himself as how he'd show up at my door with flowers, or the way he'd press his forehead against mine when we were curled up in my bed after the sex was over.

I missed the companionship. And Benny, although he had his faults, had been someone who cared about me, in his own way. In his weird, holier than thou way, sure, but at least he was there. He was there and he cared.

"This is about him again, isn't it?" Angel asked, her voice breaking into my thoughts. She hadn't been all that fond of Benny, but she had always understood that he was important to me.

"Angel, what's wrong with me?" I complained, throwing my hands into the air. "He was a total ass, and I don't regret breaking up with him."

"But you still miss him?" she finished.

I nodded and began flipping through another rack of clothes, too embarrassed to look at her. "Pretty dumb, huh?"

"Well, is it Benny himself you miss, or just having someone there for you?" she continued.

"The second one," I admitted. "We had problems, but it was nice having someone in my life. I didn't think I'd ever have that again after I got HIV."

"Tell me about it," Angel sighed. "I don't like to say it, but there are times I can feel my time running out. It's catching up with me, Mimi, and it scares me." I put an arm around her shoulders. "I don't want to be all alone when it happens."

"Well, you won't," I insisted. "I'll be there. And who knows, maybe you'll meet someone fabulous who'll love you more than anything in the world."

"And maybe you will too," she replied. "Maybe one night we'll both find those special someones."

I tried to smile. I'd just about given up on that. Angel was all I had, and one day, I'd lose her too. I hated thinking about that, but in all reality, she had less time than I did. "Maybe you're right."

"You don't sound so sure about that," Angel said to me. "You have to have faith, Mimi. That's the only thing that can help us now."

"I know," I sighed. "It's just hard sometimes. I'm not even nineteen yet, and I have no family, no friends except for you, nothing except for a smack problem and a disease that probably won't let me see my twentieth birthday."

"Whatever happened to your family?" she asked. "You don't talk about them much."

"Oh, I'm sure my brothers have disowned me by now," I shrugged. "I was enough of a disappointment to them even before I ran away."

"You're still their baby sister," Angel insisted. "And what about your mother?"

I stared down at the floor, too ashamed to look at anyone. "She doesn't know what happened to me. Maybe it's better that way."

Angel placed a hand on my back. "You miss her, don't you?"

I nodded miserably. I hadn't been able to think of my mother since I left home, and now here I was, picturing her sitting in her rocking chair, staring out the window at the dirty streets of our Jersey City neighborhood, not knowing if her youngest daughter was alive or dead. I wanted to go sit on her lap like I had when I was a little girl, and hear her whisper words of comfort in Spanish as she soothed my scraped knee or hurt feelings when the neighborhood boys teased me.

"I can't go see her," I mumbled miserably. "It would break her heart to know this is how I turned out."

"Turned out how?" Angel questioned. "You're a beautiful woman who's a lot stronger than she gives herself credit for."

I shook my head. "I can't. I just can't."

She started to say something, then changed her mind, and held up a tall black pair of boots. "Wouldn't these go great with my black dress?"

"And even better with my skirt!" I exclaimed, making a playful grab at them.

"No way, girl, I saw them first!" she grinned. "Besides, they're too big for you."

"They are not!" I made another grab for them, but she was able to hold them above her head and out of my reach.

"I'll let you wear them on the weekend if I can wear them to Life Support tomorrow night," she offered.

I laughed and hugged her. "It's a deal."

I gathered up our purchases and followed her to the cash register.



It took me three weeks to scrape up the nerve to go. It was December now, and Christmas decorations were up all around the city. I'd always loved the holidays when I was a child, and even now, with everything that had been going on in my life, I couldn't help feeling a little hopeful every time I saw a Christmas wreath or candy canes painted on a store window. This was the holiday season, after all. Peace on earth, good will to men, and all that. What better time for the prodigal daughter to return home?

Angel lent me her gray skirt and offered to come with me. As much as I would have liked her company, I told her I'd be better off going by myself. My return was going to be shock enough for my poor mother. I couldn't imagine what she would do if I showed up accompanied by a drag queen.

The train ride out to Jersey City was long and tedious. Twice we had to stop for the tracks to be repaired, which was both relieving, in that I could delay this, even if only for ten minutes, and aggravating in that I was growing more nervous by the minute. All I wanted was for this stupid thing to be over with, so I could go home and sleep until noon the next day.

My old neighborhood was just as it was when I left three years ago. Had it really only been three years? I had played on these streets, jumped hopscotch with the other girls and dreamed of the day I would leave this slum, and of the day I would come back, triumphant, waving to all the little girls who huddled together on the sidewalks and whispered to each other in awe.

No one was outside today. A few white flakes were beginning to fall from the sky, the first snowfall of the year. I held my coat tightly around myself and tried not to shiver. It was a long walk uphill from the subway station. I'd forgotten just how steep it was.

My heart was pounding as I walked up the steps to the familiar gray apartment building. You can do it, Mimi, I told myself. And you'll feel better when you get this over with.

I raised my hand and rapped twice on the door.

No answer. I knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing. Just fantastic. She had probably left for the holidays, to spend them with Maria and her family, and I'd made this trip out here for nothing. The snow was continuing to fall, and I hoped I could get back into the city before the trains stopped.

Just as I started down the steps, I heard the door creak open. "Quien es? Que quieres?" a woman's voice demanded.

"Mama," I whispered, turning around to face her. "Mama, es yo."

Her forehead wrinkled in thought. "Mimi?"

"That's right, Mama," I managed to say. "Yo te vuelto."

It was impossible to read the expression on her face. She might embrace me and take me inside, or she might disown me then and there. Then I saw the tears in her eyes, and she held out her arms to me. She held me tightly to her as we stood there on the front step, in the cold, both crying our eyes out until there were no tears left.

"Por que esta aqui?" she asked, when we'd finally broken away and gone inside, where she went into the kitchen to make a pot of tea. "Why did you come back?"

Here it was. The hardest part wasn't over, after all. "Mama, I have to tell you something," I began. "I'm very sick."

"Enfirma?" She reached over and felt my forehead. "Stay for a few days, rest, then you'll be better."

I shook my head. "Not that kind of sick, Mama," I said softly. "This is a different kind of illness, and I'm not going to get better."

Her face turned pale. "Cancer?"

"Not cancer." I shook my head again. "I have AIDS."

"Dios Mio," she whispered, making the sign of the cross. "Ay, dulce Santa Maria..."

"I'm so sorry," I managed to choke out, and then I was crying again. "Lo siento, mami. I never wanted to hurt you."

She came over to my chair and pressed my head against her chest. "Mimi, m'ija..." she whispered. "Mi dulce chiquitita..." It didn't take much to discern that she was crying too.

I don't know how long we sat with our arms around each other, crying together. At some point I remember it getting dark, and Mama leading me back to the bedroom I had occupied as a child, tucking a blanket around me and singing a song in Spanish she used to sing me to sleep with every night.

The next morning I took the train back into New York. I still didn't have a boyfriend, and I still had HIV. But at least I wasn't as alone anymore.