A/N Another short but important chapter. I was hoping to post this sooner. I'm trying to get chapters out faster, but it didn't seem to work this week. Oh well, enjoy!
Chapter 51
When Mark and everyone came into the loft, Cass was sitting on the couch reading, surrounded by wires and computer equipment. She started moving things so someone else could sit on the couch.
"Roger leave already?" Mark asked her.
"About Twenty minutes ago. Jason throw that stuff on the floor and you can sit there."
"Okay, despite my personal opinion of certain people, she does have incredible taste in clothes, so show me what you bought." Maureen told Cass, flopping onto the chair.
"Oh it's all piled up in the other room. I need to buy a dresser."
Maureen opened up the door to the room that had been Mark's office and saw Cass' stuff. Good. That meant Mark's work stuff had been moved into Mimi's room. That made it Mark's office now instead of Mimi's room. She knew that was a good thing. That all of them has sort of moved on. And that is what Mimi would have wanted. But while she was glad about that, for all of them, including herself, she couldn't help but still feel a tiny bit guilty. After looking through all of Cass' new clothes she closed the door and came back over to them sitting back on the arm of the chair. "What is all that stuff Cass?"
"That's what I was trying to figure out." Jason said picking up a few wires and looking at them.
"It's a splitter. So I can burn CD's."
"I thought you already had a CD burner. What do you need that for?"
"It's a splitter." She shrugged at Jason. "It splits stuff sort of. I don't know, I just do." Frustrated, she threw down the manual on the couch and went into the kitchen and started to get a glass of water.
Mark rolled his eyes and shook his head at Jason, silently mouthing "meow." He picked up the splitter and looked at it. "Relax Cass, it was just a question. Geeze."
"I'm sorry. I'm just tired and I don't feel good all of a sudden. Maybe I ate too much at dinner."
"Yeah think?" He teased her.
"Leave me alone, it was like the first time I've wanted food in just about forever." She snapped at him.
"Cass I'm glad you're eating, just maybe you shouldn't try and make up for it all in one meal. You know?"
"Shut up and explain to Jason what a splitter does."
Mark laughed at her before turning to Jason. "It should take different signals and let you put them all together. But what are you gonna do that has that many signals?"
"Roger's band. All the mics and the amps. I didn't need one this big, but it's got room if we need to add more stuff later."
"Wait, so you can make like an actual, real CD of his band?" Jen was impressed.
"Uh huh. The acoustics won't be perfect, but I can set the levels through the computer. And taking it directly out of the sound system, and burning it onto a CD it will be a much cleaner copy than any tape."
"Wow. That's so cool!"
"Uh huh. Plus, if I can ever get Mark to move into this century, he could digitally film and edit too."
"What? Sell out to electronically, computer generated filmmaking? Never!"
"Yeah Mark," Jason laughed, "we wouldn't want you to do anything like that. I mean, god forbid you ever do anything computer generated. Like those losers that did that movie you like so much, what was it? Toy Story?"
"Or the poor, and I emphasize poor bastards that made your other favorite, Terminator 2. With the cop morphing into that silver stuff." Maureen said sarcastically. "Yeah those sellouts just don't know what they are giving up." She grinned as she spread her hands out, gesturing to the whole loft.
"Everybody's a fucking critic!" Mark laughed. "But that's cool about making CD's. Are you coming with us tonight?"
"No." She shook her head. "I'm gonna finish this and go to bed. I'm so tired."
"Are you sure?" Jason asked. "We'll take you past the Iguana."
"No really, I'm too tired and I have a really bad headache. That's like the last place I want to be at the moment."
"Are you gonna be okay here by yourself?"
"I'll be fine Mark. Go out and have a good time. I don't want you blowing off Joellen to sit here while I sleep."
"Oh I wasn't going to stay. I'm going out with Joellen. I was gonna make Jen or Maureen stay with you. They've got no lives!" He laughed at them, joined by Jason and Collins.
"Hey!"
"Jerk." Maureen looked at Cass. "Are you sure sweetie? I mean I hate to admit Mark's right…"
"Oh let me get that on film!" Mark cut her off as she gave him an evil look.
"As I was saying, while I hate to admit he may, possibly be right. At least until Joanne comes back. Or actually this whole Washington thing is over. But if you want me to stay with you I will."
"No I'm fine really. When is she coming home?"
"Well, she's actually off this weekend, but her parents are in Washington for something. She got sucked into that. But she'll be home two weeks from tonight."
"That's Roger's birthday isn't it Mark?" Jen asked as he nodded his head. "What are we going to do for it?"
"I don't know." Mark shrugged. "Sit around drinking beer someplace. Like we do for everyone's birthday. Or just because it's a weekend night. Or weekday night for that matter." He laughed.
Maureen got a mischievous grin and looked at Cass and Mark. "You know, for something different, we could throw him a surprise party."
They all just looked at her like she was crazy. Cass was the first to speak. "You want to throw a surprise party for Roger?"
"Mo have you lost your mind?" Mark laughed.
"Sorry Mo, you must be confused. We're talking about Roger Davis. You know, you've met him." Jason teased her.
"Yeah, tall, occasionally blonde, brooding, sulking, shitty attitude. Last person in the world that would ever want a surprise party." Mark explained to her like she was a four-year-old. "Lives here, and oh yeah, would kill me if I ever let you do that!"
Maureen shook her head, grinning. "No not a real surprise party."
"What then, a pretend surprise party?" Cass asked her.
"Well sort of." Maureen was getting excited, this was one of the best ideas she had had in a long time. "We make him think we're having a surprise party, but the surprise part is, there's no actual party."
"In other words, make him sweat it out, drive Cass crazy, kill Mark, all so you get the satisfaction and thrill out of watching him think we're throwing some big party?" Collins asked her.
"Well…"
"Mo, it's his birthday, not yours!" Jason laughed. "But it would be kinda fun to watch. Play it up big, drag him someplace, just to walk in and find just us."
"The look on his face would be pretty good when he found out it was only us." Collins said as he considered the whole idea. "We would have to set it up so he found out a little at a time. Just to give him the suggestion that something may be up at first."
"Right, leave little clues. Let him put it together himself." Maureen said anxiously, excited they had caught on.
"Um," Mark waved his hand in the air to get their attention. "While I hate to break up this great meeting of the minds, can I point out one thing? This is Roger we are talking about here! Are you all out of your minds? Hello? We have to live with him remember?" He looked to Cass for support.
"It's a really good plan Maureen, but his might not be the best year to do that."
"Uh huh." Mark agreed. He didn't know where she was going, but he didn't care provided she backed him up on this.
"I mean he won't admit it, but he's still a little stressed out over that whole food/heat thing."
"Uh huh." Mark was vigorously nodding in agreement. "Real stressed out. Over that and ah, other stuff too. Real bad year to do that."
Cass gave a small grin to Mark. "Besides, it will never work."
"Why not?" Maureen asked, surprised.
"Because you told Mark all of it." She shrugged.
Again, Mark didn't care how, as long as she talked them out of this really bad plan. "Right, you told me already, so it will never work."
"Mark can keep a secret." Jen said.
"True, but not from Roger, not when he's trying to pry it out of him. You'll drop a hint, he'll take it, go directly to Mark, knowing he'll get it out of Mark. Mark tells him it's a surprise party. He freaks out wanting to know how Mark could let you do that. To keep from making life extremely difficult for the next two weeks, Mark gives up the rest and tells him the party is actually a hoax.
"Now Roger would actually respect that set up. Probably even find it funny. But when he finds out it was Maureen's idea, he'll do everything possible to get back at her. To the point of making you think he almost wants and expects a surprise party.
"So in the end, it'll go from setting up Roger for your amusement to Roger setting up Maureen for his amusement. And you know he'll take down anybody else that gets in his way on the that little mission." Cass laughed at them.
"She's right." Collins agreed. "It'll never work."
"Thank god, a voice of reason. So, back to the original plan? Sit around, drinking beer someplace?"
************
"Bye Roger, see you next week."
"Yeah see you Tina." He closed the front door and locked it. "Izzy let's go, we're done."
"Hey you got a few minutes? I want to talk to you."
"It's 3:30 in the morning. Where do I have to go besides bed? You want a drink?"
"Yeah pour us a pitcher."
Roger did and sat down at a table with a bowl of pretzels, kicking his feet up onto the table. Izzy came over and sat down, pouring himself a beer as well. He lit a cigarette and held the pack out to Roger who shook his head. Izzy grinned, having forgot Roger had quit smoking again. "So how you doing?"
"I'm tired because I hadn't planned on working tonight and your bouncer's a jackass. I'm hungry too. Cass ate my burger."
"Yeah I kinda meant about all that."
"You mean the baby thing?" He grinned. "I'm okay. Actually I'm pretty cool with the whole idea now."
"You got enough money? I could probably fire Vinny for being a dumbass. Get you more shifts."
Roger laughed. "You should fire Vinny for being a dumbass, but if you set that as criteria for employees around here, you'd only have us and a couple of the girls left. But yeah, we got enough money. Cass gets paid very well. And for some strange reason she doesn't mind living like the rest us poor folk. But yeah she's got a great paying job. And family money too. She keeps telling me not to worry to just trust her."
"Do you?"
"Yeah, it's just a strange concept at this point. You know, having enough money as opposed to not enough, or any for that matter."
Izzy nodded as he drank his beer. "As long as you got enough money. You know if you need more shifts you just gotta tell me."
Roger was spinning his empty beer glass on the table. "Yeah, thanks Iz. I appreciate that."
Izzy filled up both of their glasses. "So did you go to that doctor Cass got you?"
"Yeah, yesterday."
"What did he say?"
"That I'm fine. She actually lowered my dose. Gave me a bunch of vitamins. She said something about going to some nutritionist or something. Cass is all into that I think. Since she's been here she must have told me and Mark we eat like crap almost every day."
"Could be a good idea though. You know how Krystal's all into that stuff."
"Yeah, so's Cass, that's what worries me."
"What do you mean?"
"You know Cass doesn't do meat really. Just fish and like turkey and chicken."
"So?"
"So, have you ever eaten a soy burger?"
"Uh, no, I've never eaten a soy anything." Izzy laughed.
"Yeah well, after the bite of the soy burger I had today, I wish I 'd never eaten a soy anything either." Roger laughed, pouring himself another beer.
"I can appreciate that I think." Izzy laughed. "So, um, how's Cass?" He watched Roger get a small grin at the mention of her name.
"She's great. I mean she's tired and puking a lot, but other than that she's great. She went shopping all day today."
"By herself?" Izzy asked somewhat surprised.
"No, but with just Allison. All the way in Jersey. First major place without me or Mark."
"That's good. So she's doing a lot better on her own. She still seeing Elizabeth?"
"Yeah, once a week. But Elizabeth says she's doing really good. I mean I guess she wouldn't say anything else, but Mark and I think she's doing really good. Especially compared to when she first got here."
"That's good. Really good." He looked up at Roger, watching him for his reaction. "So uh, you think, considering she's doing so good, and Mark and everybody is here with her, she would be okay if, um, you were gone for about two weeks?"
"Huh?"