A/N: Well, it looks like the votes were for Maureen, so that's who we'll be hearing about. Remember for this chapter, those of you who are only dimly familiar with the show but have seen the movie, that this fic is musicalverse, and anyone who complains about the absence of Maureen's mother with "But she was in the movie!" will be disowned. Note: The Offended Virgin Stare is copyright my mother sometime in the 70s and is being used with permission. All rights reserved for me.

Part 4: Tiger in a Cage

Maureen leaned over and peered at herself in the mirror, flipping open the little eyeshadow case. With her thumb and forefinger she picked up the tiny brush and rubbed it in a square of makeup. She closed one eye and rubbed the brush across the lid, snapping the eye open again. She followed suit with the other eye.

I look like a whore, she decided, upon evaluating her appearance. She shrugged and wet her fingers to wipe it off. When it proved to be virtually indestructible, she shrugged and figured it would come off in the shower.

Before she left the little bathroom, she looked in the mirror again. Her own pale face stared back, framed by a mess of brown curls. Hazel eyes focused on the image on the other side of the mirror. Her lips pouted a little, dark pink without the aid of lipgloss.

"You don't look half bad," she said to her reflection—or maybe it was her reflection who spoke to her. She fiddled with her hair a little before shutting off the light switch in the cubicle-sized bathroom and going downstairs.

"Hi, Daddy," she said. Her father was reading the paper in his favorite easy chair. He moved his paper down and smiled. "Hello, Reeney."

"Hello." She moved over to kiss him on the top of his salt-pepper head.

"Did you have fun with your friend today?" He removed his glasses and put them in his shirt pocket.

"Yes, thanks, Daddy, I did." Her "friend" was Mark, whom her father approved of, but whom he refused to refer to, for whatever reason, as her boyfriend. Maybe it was because Maureen didn't exactly emphasize the fact that he was her boyfriend, despite the fact that they'd nearly had sex in the closet of a drunken girl Maureen had never met. It wasn't the kind of thing a seventeen-year-old girl discusses with her father.

"What time is it, Reeney?" Reeney was a family nickname; anyone else who attempted to use it would be met with the Offended Virgin Stare, copyright Maureen Johnson.

"It's about six."

"Oh, you got back early."

"Well, he had to go to a college forum thing." She smiled. Mark had been so excited, preparing the films for his portfolio in hopes to show it off.

"That's nice." Mr. Johnson pulled his glasses out of his pocket again, unfolded them and put them back on. Maureen turned to go back upstairs.

"Oh, Reeney?" her father called quietly after her.

"Yeah?"

"You haven't, um…" He paused. "You haven't heard from…your mother lately, have you?"

Maureen froze. This was an odd question. Her mother had left her father the summer before Maureen had started high school to be with her lover, a coworker she'd been having an affair with for three years. Maureen had come home early on the last day of eighth grade (she'd skipped out on the Farewell Ceremony, as she'd hated her middle school) and walked in on them. Her mother had promised Maureen two weeks later that she'd dumped her boyfriend, but the following month she'd announced to her husband that she was leaving. She hadn't called after that until Maureen's sixteenth birthday. Maureen had been cold throughout the five-minute you're-a-beautiful-young-woman-now speech, the fifteen-minute Ted-and-I-are-so-happy-but-we-miss-you-so-much speech, and the two-minute I'm-so-sorry-I-haven't-been-involved-in-your-life speech. It had ended in her mother promising to call more often, and Maureen simply hanging up. Her mother never called back.

"No, Daddy, I haven't."

"Oh." Her father sighed. "Well, if she ever calls, tell me, okay?"

"Of course…" Maureen went back up to her room and collapsed on her bed, facing her ceiling. It had silver stars hanging from it, that she'd put up when she was ten. Her bed had purple cheetah-print sheets with a comfortable purple comforter, accessorized with several pillows of various fluffinesses and a stuffed tiger she'd had since she was born. A beaded lamp cast off a glow enough to light the room dimly. It stood on a desk also home to her beloved cassette player and a fuzzy purple telephone. It wasn't technically supposed to be fuzzy; Maureen had glued the fuzz onto it herself. Her wall was coated with programs from plays she'd been in, posters of singers she idolized, photos of her and Mark that he'd developed and given to her. Her room was her life in a box.

The fuzzy phone rang; her own line had been her seventeenth birthday present. Maureen reached over to pick it up. "Hello?"

"Mo?"

Maureen was stunned for a moment. Only one person called her Mo. "Rache?"

"Oh my God, how are you?"

"I'm…I'm doing well. How are you?"

"Why haven't we talked in forever?"

Maureen didn't have much to say to that. Rachel had been her best (and only) real friend in elementary and middle school, but when high school had hit she'd suddenly lost interest. She'd streaked her blond hair, begun to wear "rebellious" clothing. They'd stayed friends, Maureen supposed, but the magic of their elementary school friendship was gone. Maureen had soon lost interest in maintaining her friendship with Rachel as well. Sure, Maureen could feel like a rebel without a cause herself--or too many causes--but she didn't want to have to advertise through her clothes.

And now her friend had called her back, after all but ignoring her for three years.

"I dunno. I guessed we'd gone our separate ways."

"Well, let's unseparate our ways then. Shopping. Tomorrow. The Flint."

"Sure, Rache, I'll be there…"

"Good." Her old friend paused. "It's nice to talk to you again, Mo."

The line went dead.

Maureen sat on her bed and stared at her fuzzy phone for a minute. Rache had called. That was so bizarre. Well, I've needed an excuse to go shopping, Maureen thought, before falling back on her cheetah sheets again.

The Flint wasthe shopping mall Hicksville teenagers went to,a good drive away. Maureen's beloved, ancient beige Toyota Corolla squeaked along the road and pulled into the parking garage. She got out of the car carefully and ran to the nearest entrance to the mall, where she found Rachel waiting, blond hair in six different colors, and wearing an outfit that would have given Maureen's father a heart attack.

"Mo!" Rachel swept her old friend up in a tight hug. "C'mon, let's go."

They entered the shopping mall. Maureen was not normally a fan of shopping malls, preferring to go to smaller stores and get things cheaper, or recycle secondhand clothes and make her own. Her latest project was a pair of jeans that had frayed in a few places, onto which she was sewing yellow stars cut from a truly awful shirt she'd gotten for twenty-five cents at a discount secondhand store. Today, however, she had some extra money from her doting grandmother, who sent her money randomly, and the opportunity to get to know Rachel again.

"So, where do you wanna go first?" Rachel asked as they entered the Flint.

"I dunno, Rache, I don't come here much," Maureen responded, hoping Rachel would take the hint.

"Well, then, I'll help you. C'mon, follow me." She led around the mall to a dimly lit store with painfully awful music screeching out from it, red and black lights shining everywhere and clothes Maureen didn't even want to touch hanging from the racks.

"I don't think so, Rache."

"Mo!" Rache looked exasperated. "Why not?"

"You know what I like."

"I do, Mo. But I'm trying to get you to branch out."

"Well, can we branch out somewhere else?"

Rachel looked like she was about to push her one-time friend into the store anyway. Instead she just said, "Okay, sure. We'll walk, you find something you like."

"Okay…"

The girls walked largely in silence. Maureen kept her eyes on the stores, passing nothing that caught her interest. Rachel stopped occasionally to look in a window, but then moved to catch up with her.

Before long Maureen spoke. "What happened to…Nick, right? You two still together?"

"Oh, yeah, him. He left me for this girl Isabel."

"Are you serious? Bastard."

"Whatever. I'm after this guy Mike now. So, how about you? You going out with anyone?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Ooh, Maureen! Who?"

"His name is Mark."

"Mark…who?"

"He doesn't live here. He lives down in Scarsdale."

"Then how do you know him?"

"He was visiting his great-aunt or something up here and needed coffee. I was in caffeine frenzy and bumped into him at the store, and he was adorable. So I flirted a little, and he flirted a lot, really badly, and then he asked for my number, and then he asked me out, and then we went out, and then we made out, and then we started calling every day and visiting most weekends and whenever we could do an afternoon."

"What's he look like?"

"Um…" Maureen fished out her wallet, a denim folding wallet she'd decorated with pieces of ribbon and scraps of cloth, and pulled out her favorite picture of them. They were sitting outside his house, in front of a bush, arms around each other. Mark was kissing the side of her head, and she was laughing. It was one of a set of stills they'd taken. Mark had set his camera on self-timer and put it on his video camera's tripod. They'd all turned out well; one had even gone in his portfolio. This one was Maureen's favorite.

Rachel raised her eyebrows. "You went with a geek. Does he do your homework?"

"Rache!"

"Sorry. He's adorable, if that makes it better."

"It does, thanks…"

"So you've been dating for how long?"
"Our five-month anniversary is next week."

"Oooh, quite the little monogamist, aren't you?"

"Rache."

"Sorry…"

"Oh!" Maureen stopped in front of a window belonging to a little store tucked away in a corner. She didn't see much, but she adored the outfit on a mannequin. Black jeans and a white top, the sleeves tapering out and with a dusting of silver shimmer around the V-cut neckline. "Rache…stop and let me try that on, please."

It was a little too…monochromatic for Maureen's usual outfit. Still, she put it on, because she'd actually seen something in a mall she liked. She looked in the mirror…not so bad. Maybe if she did something with her hair…She grabbed a chunk of her hair in back and pouted her lips a little, posing…

"Mo! Get that cute ass out here!"

"Coming, Rache." Maureen left the little dressing room and faced her waiting friend. She did a little turn.

"Nice, Mo. Nice. I like."

"I think I'm getting this."

"Damn straight you are. And let's find some other stuff."

They looked around the store, which was tucked away in a corner of the mall where few would see it. Maureen was glad she had; she found a pile of clothes, most of them more colorful than the first thing she'd seen, and bought them all relatively inexpensively. Rache critiqued them all, liking some more than others, but whatever Maureen liked she bought.

"It was nice spending time with you again, Rache," Maureen said as they left the store, laden down with bags.

"You too, Mo." With difficulty because of the bags, they hugged.

"We need to do this again sometime, for you."

"Nah, I got plenty of clothes," Rache laughed.

"Well, okay, call me sometime then. It isn't fair we don't know each other anymore."

Maureen spent hours in front of her bathroom mirror that night, modeling outfit after outfit. She liked them, she admitted. She didn't need to make everything, did she? Once in awhile she could afford to splurge.

The phone rang. Maureen ran out of the bathroom to pick it up, the fuzz on her phone tickling her hand. "Hello?"

"Maureen…hi."

"Mark!" She smiled and sat on her bed, holding one of her new shirts. "How'd the college thing go?"

"Great, there was this guy Steve who said I had some really great stuff. I'm looking at Brown, I could go to a great film program there."

"That's really great, Mark."

"So. What'd you do today?"

"I went shopping with an old friend."

"Atone of those other artsy stores?"

"No, we went to the mall…"

"Ah, I feel the earth shift..."

"Marky!"

"Sorry. What'd you buy?"

"A load of stuff."

"That you're going to mutilate and make into something completely weird, yet absolutely gorgeous."

"No, actually, I think I'm going to leave them."

"Branching out?"
"That's what Rache said…"

"Your friend?"

"Yeah."

"Huh."

"Anyway."

They were silent for a moment.

"When can I see you again, Maureen?"

Maureen thought. "Wednesday. Ms. Snow canceled voice lessons this week."

"You come here, or I go there?"

"I'll go over there. I'm bored of Hicksville."

"You try living here and you won't be so hot on Scarsdale."

"Guess so."

"Maureen?"

"Mm?"

"I love you."

Maureen was silent. She couldn't breathe. Her cheetah bedding was about to swallow her, and the air was pushing down around her, and it was warm, very warm. Her choked throat opened again. "I love you too, Mark."

Awwww. Gotta love Mark and Maureen. Another poll: Collins or April next?