Defining Moments
"Mark, what are we?" She folds her legs beneath her on the windowsill and watches as he slowly switches off his camera. He puts it carefully into the little black leather bag he's bought out of one of his recent paychecks and comes over to stand in front of her.
"What do you mean?" It is dark out, but there is enough light coming in from the streetlights outside to reflect in his glasses, turning his eyes into a pair of ice blue stars. In the city, the only stars they can see are artificial.
"I mean what are we. You and me. Friends? Family?" His eyes feel like they are burning holes in her head. She turns and looks out the window. "Lovers?"
Mark looks at the floor. Mimi watches his reflection in the glass. "You know, in eighteen months, this is the first time you've asked me that. Why now?"
"Did you want me first?" They are playing a game of cat and mouse, deflecting question with question.
"When?" He sits beside her on the windowsill. It is still an easy silence between them, though she thinks it ought to be strained given what they are discussing.
"You always used to smile at me in the hall. Ask me if I was doing okay. Before I even knew your name you were taking care of me. Did you want me then?" She continues watching his reflection, as his face goes from embarrassed to sad and back again.
"I wanted Roger to have something good in his life. He deserved that after everything." The undertone in Mark's voice tells her he only mostly means it.
"So you felt like you had to play matchmaker at your own expense?" It sounds harsher than she expected.
"I…does it matter, Mimi? A girl like you and a guy like me? Besides, you were already head over heels. First time I saw you, you were watching him." Now he sounds sad in earnest. For all three of them, she thinks.
"Yeah," she says quietly. "Yeah, I was."
Mark gets up and walks over to the aluminum folding table that once served as a dining room. Nobody's said anything, but it's remained a memorial to Roger in the past year and a half. Mark circles it silently, stopping now and again to run his fingers over something. A picture in a frame. A broken guitar string. A candle, burned down to just a stub of wax.
"I can't believe I saved that," says Mimi, laughing just a little. She is surprised to find that the stab of sadness does not come.
"It's a memory," says Mark vacantly. "Memories are important."
"Yeah." Mimi nods again. "It was the first time I decided to take the risk. The first time in a year that I managed to talk to him."
"If it makes you feel any better, he watched you too." Mark comes back over and sits down again. "He wasn't the kind to admit something like that, but he did."
They are quiet for a long moment. The clock on the wall seems to be ticking extra loudly. It is one of those moments when everything seems to slow down and lengthen. A shift. A redefining of the fundamentals of life.
"You never answered me," says Mimi.
Mark shrugs. "I told Roger I'd take care of you. I'm doing that, right?"
"Right…" Mimi cocks an eyebrow at him.
"Does the rest of it really matter? Answer it for yourself." Only Mark could say a thing like this without sounding angry or accusing. It's just a part of who he is.
Mimi shrugs. She looks at Mark for a very long moment, then very gently kisses him. She thinks she has known all along that she would eventually come to cross this line. Still, in eighteen months it is the first time she's admitted that he will ever be anything more than just a friend.