CHAPTER 53
A/N: Thanks for the reviews as always!
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"Where are you?"
"In Las Vegas," Harvey responded. He balanced his cell phone with one hand and a bottle of water in the other. Considering it was early, and Maureen was still asleep in the hotel room upstairs, he figured he might as well hit the gym before she woke up.
Jackie set the laundry basket on top of the dryer and tossed a pile of dirty clothes into the washer. "Why? With who?"
He pressed the button on the treadmill and started jogging. "With Maureen. We sort of, eloped?"
She dropped the basket onto the floor. "You did what? When did this happen? I thought you were just busy the past two days!"
"Are you mad?"
"Well, not really." Jackie sat down on the edge of the couch and attempted to start folding the clothes. "Just surprised. Okay, a lot surprised. So you're telling me there's actually a Mrs. Spataro now?"
"Yeah." He took a sip from the water bottle and continued jogging. "But we are having a real wedding. Not that the first wedding wasn't nice, because it was. I guess we just wanted to do something spontaneous."
"Spontaneous is skydiving. Which you've already done," she laughed. "So I guess you needed something else."
"You did it with me," he reminded her. "But Maureen wants to have the wedding in the fall sometime. Speaking of, have you even set a date for yours?"
"Nope. It probably won't be until next spring, the way things are going right now. I have no time to sit down and set up a whole interfaith wedding between rehearsals for the show and taking care of Luke."
"Right."
Jackie glanced over at the washer, which was starting to make an odd rumbling sound. "Um Harvey, I'm gonna have to call you back."
"Yeah okay. You swear you're not mad?"
She sighed. "I don't know. I'm not really mad. I'll talk to you later."
Jackie hung up the phone and checked the settings on the washer before walking back over to the couch and stacking the folded clothes and towels in piles. Five minutes later she was done, and as she made her way back over to the dryer to check the clothes inside, she felt water drench her socks. Looking down, she noticed that the entire washing machine was leaking water and that it was running out in tiny streams that were forming pools around the whole thing.
"Shit!" she shouted. "Mark? Can you come here for a sec?"
She heard the bedroom door open and looked over. Mark walked out, yawning, clad in a pair of pajama pants and a shirt. "Yeah?"
"The fucking washer is leaking water. Look at it."
He walked over and glanced at the puddles forming around the base of it. "Maybe you should shut it off so it doesn't leak anymore? Hello Jac, common sense? Anyone home in there?" He laughed and grabbed her around the waist, kissing her cheek.
"Ew, shut up. Go take a shower and then come and try to make a move on me," she teased him.
"Only if you'll take one with me?" he pouted. "Please?"
"Yeah okay. But I need to get this cleaned up. Who used it last?"
"Roger," Mark grinned. "Ask him what's wrong with it."
Jackie walked over to the door and stuck her head into Roger and Mimi's apartment. "Roger!" she shouted.
Roger's bedroom door opened and he stuck his head out. "Yeah?"
"You broke the washer!" she said to him, crossing her arms across his chest.
He looked at her and shrugged. "No I didn't. I know how to do laundry."
"Right. Sure," Mark laughed. "Jac, did you turn the thing off? Because now it's leaking detergent and water."
"Great!" She walked back over to the machine and started pulling the wet clothes out if it, dropping them into the now empty basket. "Don't you two know how to fix anything?"
Roger looked over her shoulder and attempted to shake the washer. "Well that didn't work."
"What the fuck was that supposed to do?" Mark asked skeptically. "Maybe it's off balance."
"Exactly, Sherlock! Why do you think I just shook the damn thing?" He looked down at the bottom of his sweatpants, which were wet. "This is a real picnic." He pressed another button and water started gushing out, only to spray Jackie and Mark.
"Turn it off!" she shouted at him as her hair started plastering to her forehead because of the water. "Dammit Roger!" she laughed.
"Sorry!" he shouted. The front of his shirt was getting soaked as he took the dry towels from the pile on the couch and tossed them on the puddles that were forming all over the ground.
"I just washed those!" she protested. "Ugh."
Roger finally hit another button and the water stopped flooding the living room. "I guess we better call someone."
Jackie shrugged and stepped onto the towels to get them to soak up the water. "God it's a mess in here and I really need to get these clothes washed. Especially the babies'."
"So we'll take everything to the Laundromat later. It's not a big deal," Mark shrugged.
"Well it's a big deal when you spend an hour doing laundry when you haven't slept in twenty hours," she shot back at him.
"What, are you two gonna argue over a machine? Grow up," he grinned. He walked back over to his apartment and closed the door behind him.
Jackie grabbed the wet clothes and started wringing them out in the sink. Mark followed and sat down in the kitchen chair, watching her.
"So who was on the phone?"
"Harvey."
"And what?"
"He was just on the phone, okay?" she snapped at him. Just then, Luke started crying. Frustrated, she flung the shirt into the sink and took off down the hall and into his room. Jackie lifted the baby out of his crib and started rocking him as she walked around the room. She sat down in the rocking chair and looked over at Mark.
"You okay?" he asked her.
"Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm just really frustrated with everything." She tickled the baby under his chin and got him to smile. Jackie then propped Luke up on her lap and pointed at Mark. "Look! Smile for Daddy!"
Mark crouched in front of the baby and lifted him up. "He's getting big."
"Yeah. Three months the end of this month," she agreed. Yawning, she rested her head against the back of the chair. "He keeps smiling at me like he's crazy."
"Well all things considered," he teased her. "But yeah, he does that for me too."
"Hey!" she laughed.
"I bet he's trying to gain bonus points for all the time he'll break his curfew. Not to mention the times we'll find him with some girl in his bed."
"Let's talk about that when we get around to it. Ew, I'll be old."
"You? How about me?"
"Yeah you're right." Luke had just about fallen asleep against Mark's shoulder. "Put him back in the crib before he wakes up again."
Mark placed the baby back into the crib and tucked the blanket around him. "You know what I realized?"
"What?" she yawned again.
"It'll be our one year anniversary next week. Anything special you want to do?"
Jackie looked down at her engagement ring and shook her head. "Sleep for a whole day with you," she suggested. "Other than that, no."
"Make another baby?" he winked at her suggestively.
"No babies. Not right now anyway. But we could have some fun?" she laughed.
"We could. So what are you saying, that you want another baby with me?" he asked her.
"Not that it would be a bad thing. But yeah, I guess we could have another baby. If that's okay with you?" she answered him.
"It's more than okay with me. How soon though?"
"I don't know!" she laughed. "Wow, you're really excited about another one? I just had one, or don't you remember!"
Mark pulled her out of the rocking chair and wrapped his arm around her waist. "Yeah of course I remember. But I don't think another one would be so bad. Maybe in another year or two?"
"How about two years?" she laughed. "Give it some time." Jackie walked into the bedroom and flipped on the light switch. She crawled onto the bed and stretched out on it underneath the comforter. "Come on Marky, the bed's cold."
"How warm do you want me to make it?" he grinned. He slid in next to her and kissed her forehead.
She yawned. "You can make it as warm as you want, but only if you let me take a shower and fall asleep for the rest of the night."
"Deal," Mark agreed. He smiled and leaned in to kiss her. "You know I still love you, right?"
"Still?" she giggled. "I hope so. After all, I'm supposed to be marrying you soon."
"Oh yeah. I guess I'm going to have to tell my other girlfriend that it's over."
She rolled her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck while he pulled himself on top of her. "Your other girlfriend?"
"Yeah. Jaylynn. I try to tell her, but then she does that cute little thing where she crawls, falls down, and starts smiling at me. Wins me over every time."
"Uh huh." She kissed him as his hand started crawling up her shirt. "I think you're about to win me over right now if you keep that up."
"With pleasure."
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"Come on Jay. Just a little bit more. Please?" Roger waved the spoon by her lips. "Look how good that looks."
Mimi walked out of the bathroom, toweling off her hair. "You could at least be a little more enthusiastic about it. She's not gonna eat the cereal if you're sitting there looking like you're about to puke every time she eats some of it."
Roger made a face and grinned. "It smells like shit."
"It's not supposed to smell like flowers. It's baby cereal."
Jaylynn banged her fist on the tray table of the highchair and smiled. She opened her mouth as Roger fed her a small portion of the cereal.
"I guess she likes it." He shrugged and wiped at her mouth. "I think it's gross and it smells. I'd rather change her diaper any day over feeding her this shit."
Mimi lifted Jaylynn out of the highchair and took off her bib. "We both had to eat that once."
"I'm glad that I don't have to eat that now."
"Aww poor baby." She kissed Roger on the head, and then gave Jaylynn a kiss on her cheek. "Show Daddy what you can do."
Mimi set the baby on the floor in a sitting up position, and then smiled when Jaylynn rolled over from it and landed on her stomach.
Roger laughed and scooped the baby up. "That's great. Before we know it she'll be driving the boys crazy."
"Yeah." She glanced at the baby, who already had a smudge of something on her cheek. "Rog, can you give her a bath for me? I really want to go and lay down. Sorry," she smiled at him.
"Nah, don't sweat it." He walked over and gave her a kiss. "Maybe I can get her to sleep after this and I can lay down with you too," he winked.
"Only you, Roger Davis," she laughed.
"Okay Mrs. Davis, I'll be right there."
"Dork," she laughed at him as he attempted to skip to the bathroom with Jaylynn, who was giggling happily over his shoulder. "Hey—um, have you talked to Collins yet?"
"Not really. I was thinking about stopping by later. He's been keeping a low profile lately."
"Yeah," Mimi agreed. Just then, the doorbell rang. "But I don't blame him." She walked over to the door and opened it, surprised to find who was standing there.
"Marcela."
Mimi crossed her arms over her chest at the sight of her mother. "Anita."
"You could at least seem a little more happy to see me," Anita responded harshly.
"I don't think I have a reason to. Not after the way you treated me."
"Mimi, stop it. I came all this way to see you and the baby."
"Yeah, you came all this way uninvited. You told me you never wanted to see me again. Then why are you here?" Mimi protested.
"I don't understand you. You want me to come, then get angry at me when I do show up!"
"That's not what I'm mad at!" she hissed back at her. "It's the fact that you moved to Argentina without so much as telling me! So Veronica could go to college there instead of here. Jesus, Mama, how am I supposed to react to that?"
Anita shook her head. "I just figured that you had your life here, and I had mine there."
"So what? You don't have a life here anymore? You pick up everything and move to South America and forget about whoever's left back home? Like me?"
"You know that's not what I'm talking about Mimi! Are you actually clean now, or pretending?" Anita questioned her. "And is your boyfriend as well?"
"Goddammit Mama, we both are! I'm sorry that I didn't stay in rehab when you tried to put me in there but it was something that I had to do on my own. And for the last fucking time, he's not my boyfriend, he's my husband! How hard is that to remember? We've been married for almost nine months already!"
"I should never have come here then. I'm not arguing with you. I only came here so I could fly back with Carl when he was finished with his business meetings."
"Then go. What's making you stay?"
"All right. I see how you really feel now. I'll be going then. But just remember Mimi, time is precious. One day you'll regret everything you said to me just now."
"Not as much as I'll regret being excluded from my own family because of some mistakes I made in the past. So go, fly to Italy and play grandma to Carmen's kids. Let Veronica get her college degree. Let Isabel get married to her fiancé and love her kids too. But I'll still be here, and I'll be happy. For as long as I have left, I'll be happy with my daughter and my husband and my friends."
"Goodbye Mimi. Your father would be ashamed to see you right now, I hope you know that."
"No. Papa would be proud of me and what I've become. Not like you. Papa never held grudges. He always loved me for who I am, not what you tried to make me become."
"Lorenzo is dead. He can't be proud of you anymore."
"Goodbye Mama." Mimi closed the door and slumped against it solemnly.
"Babe, who was at the door?" Roger called over.
"No one. It was no one," she replied sadly.
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Jackie curled up against Mark's chest and kissed his cheek. "Wake up," she laughed. "Marky's got to go to work today."
Mark rolled over and wrapped his arm around Jackie's waist. "No he doesn't."
"Yeah, he really doesn't. I just wanted you to get up," she giggled.
He opened up one eye and glanced at her. "That's not nice."
"Who said I was nice?" She reached over the edge of the bed and felt around for her tank top. She pulled it on and pressed herself against him.
"Are you really that cold?" he mumbled against her shoulder.
"Yeah, sort of. I think we were too occupied last night to get up and remember to adjust the heat."
"Did you have a good time last night?"
"Uh huh. As much of a good time I could possibly have home with you," she smiled.
"Was I a good birthday present?"
"Yes you were. Happy 23rd birthday to me."
"That's what I thought. What are you doing today?" He yawned and sat up.
"Nothing until 4. Then I have a two hour rehearsal—"
Roger walked in with Mimi in his arms and dropped her on Mark and Jackie's bed. "Morning!" he said cheerfully.
"I don't have any clothes on," Mark stated. Mimi grinned and attempted to pull the sheet off of Mark. "Hey! Cut that out!"
Jackie laughed and rested her head on Mark's chest. "I'll protect you."
Roger grinned. "Marky got some last night. What are you trying to catch up in rank with me?"
"I don't know. I guess?" He grabbed his boxers from the nightstand and started tugging them on.
"We're trying to make more babies," Jackie added.
"Seriously?" Roger asked. He stretched out next to her and winked. "I hope you have clothes on."
Mimi slapped him on the arm and jumped on top of him. "Bastard."
"Hey I was just kidding! I'll go take your clothes off right now if you'd like."
"Did you guys just come in here to have sex with each other?" Mark asked. "Your bed's not good enough anymore?"
"Anyway," Roger grinned. "Are you two seriously making more kids?"
"Nah. Not right now anyway. Maybe in a few years. Once we're married and everything," Jackie yawned.
"So that's more kids I have to buy Christmas and Hanukah presents for? I'm gonna be broke by the time I'm thirty."
"Which is only three years from now," Mimi added. "Hey Jackie, doesn't it feel good to still be young?"
"Watch it, you. Let's get 'em, Mark." Roger started tickling Mimi as Mark did the same for Jackie.
"Hey! No fair!" Mimi whined, laughing.
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