Disclaimer: Don't own RENT. Nothing to do with it.
Summary: You look familiar, your smile reminded me of… I always remind people of…
Not quite the cat Scratch Club. How Mimi and Roger really first met.
Chapter Six is new too.
Melpomene
Chapter Seven
Benny was all in all, not a bad guy. He owned her building. He was a regular at the club. He always seemed to have plenty of money, and he was friendly. He always had enough time to buy her a drink or two before she left work. He liked to talk about his old friends. There was the filmmaker, the artist,the rock star,the performance artist, and the philosopher. They all each seemed to have a separate sentimental value to him, but he talked of them in the past tense. They were either all dead, or dead to him. Either way, they'd left him some fond memories.
"Well," Benny said, laughter in his voice. He grinned. "So this one time, right? April is painting and Roger is lying around playing his guitar. The usual, you know?" He smiled. "Mark and Maureen come in and Maureen is at her best, bothering Mark about something or other like always. Sometimes I wish they had stayed together just because watching them fight was so entertaining."
Mimi smiled politely and tossed back the rest of her drink. It was later than usual and she was tired. Benny continued on in his story about what really just played out to be any normal day in the life of a group of friends. She listened without expressing her boredom because she sensed the loss in his jubilant memories. These were only memories and from the way he was telling them, that made a typical day seem like a specified moment in time, they were impossible to recreate. So she let him have his time. And she let him accompany her back to her apartment. At least for a few nights.
Around a month later, on an unsatisfying Christmas Eve, Mimi's hands were shaking as she fumbled through her drawer for matches. Annoyed and frustrated she slammed the drawer shut and sat on the floor, pulling her knees against her chest and wrapping her arms around them. While pouting, she caught sight of a corner of paper beneath the little table and she slowly reached and tugged it out into the open.
To Mark, the letter opened.
Mimi stared at it blankly, remembering a name, a face, but not recalling which name went to which face. The incident seemed so distant and unmemorable. She crumpled the paper and tossed it aside and slowly stood up. She still needed matches. Picking up the candle she had dropped earlier she frowned and made another lap around the tiny apartment. She didn't have any, but there had to be someone around that did. It was Christmas Eve after all.
One more chapter, I'll get to it when I can.