Chapter Four: Though We May Have Our Disputes
You can't help how you feel… but you can help how you behave. –The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

April really hadn't understood a word of what she overheard of Maureen and Roger's phone call, nor quite why Maureen had rushed out so suddenly, but she decided not to worry about it. It was probably only Maureen in a temper, and whatever the problem it would come out eventually. April knew Maureen too well to think anything else.

She had been about to leave the apartment to meet Maureen at the lot when her roommate stalked in, throwing open the door so hard it banged against the opposite wall. April winced and flinched, tempted to tell Maureen not to do that or she'd put a hole in the wall, but stopped when she saw Maureen's face. She was crying.

Maureen rushed past April to her own bedroom and didn't say so much as a word. That worried April almost more than the tears. She hurried after Maureen and grasped her arm gently before she got to the bedroom door. "Maureen, what happened? I was just going to go to the lot to—"

"Don't bother," Maureen snapped. "I'm not going. I'm canceling the performance."

"What? Why?" April stared at Maureen in disbelief. "But you spent all week getting ready for this, and you were so excited…"

"I know," Maureen said irritably. "But Roger…" Her expression darkened, and she tried to pull her arm away from April. "Never mind."

April took her gently by the shoulders and steered her towards the couch, forcing her to sit down before she sat beside her. She gave Maureen a flat look, but Maureen wouldn't meet her eyes, and finally April just ordered bluntly, "Tell me." Maureen sighed, and still avoided looking directly at April.

"Roger said he's not going. Because his band is doing something tonight and I guess they're more important to him than me…" She sniffed a little, her eyes unfocused, and April frowned. With Maureen it was hard to tell if her emotions were ever real or simply a show. Just in case she was sincere, April decided it was safest not to point out that there was invariably something more important to Maureen than her current boyfriend, and that the fact that for once she didn't have him wrapped around her finger wasn't the end of the world.

"And you absolutely can't do the performance without him? After Mark and everyone helped you out…" She had the feeling that this might be one of Maureen's overreactions, blowing things entirely out of proportion, but April never could tell entirely.

"No!" Maureen snapped. She pulled away from April and got off the couch. "I mean… I just don't want to, okay? I'll be in my room."

For a second, April watched Maureen walk off, and decided that there really must be something wrong, for real this time. "Maur? What did he say?"

Maureen stopped and shook her head. "I don't want to talk about it. He… he's a bastard, that's all." She disappeared into her room and closed the door behind her. April sighed, making a mental note to interrogate Roger about it later. As irritating as Maureen could be, and as much as she might have had it coming, April wasn't about to let anyone get away with upsetting her best friend without explaining himself.

Roger scowled at his guitar as he tuned it, focusing entirely on his own dark thoughts. His band members had been avoiding him all night, and for good reason—they had learned how to recognize when he was in a bad mood, if not the reason why. None of them had said more than a few words to him, and in most cases he'd snapped at them in response. All in all, it was not a good night.

And as if his mood wasn't bad enough, none of the others had come to watch him. Usually when he performed, he had at least one of his friends in the audience, but… He hadn't asked Mark, because he hadn't wanted to deal with that accusing look all night. Collin hadn't even gotten home before Roger left, and the conversation with Benny had not gone well. Mark must have told him what happened before Roger even noticed he was home.

"Dude," Benny had said, giving him a look somewhere between incredulous and disapproving. "You actually said that to her? What the hell were you thinking? Hell no, I'm not going to go with you, you idiot!" Roger, of course, had responded in kind and things had gone downhill from there. Which left him here, alone unless he counted his band, getting ready to go on stage in one of his worst moods.

"Well, fuck Benny," he muttered under his breath as he struck a chord and frowned. Damn guitar was always difficult to tune. "And Mark. I'm right… and why're they taking her side anyway? They're my friends, damn it!" His attempts to justify himself rang false even to his own ears.

April didn't have a shift at the diner the next morning, so she took the rare opportunity to sleep in. Consequently, she was still in bed when someone knocked on the front door. She only half-registered it at first, and just rolled over, mostly ignoring the irritating noise and starting to drift back to sleep—not that it even really woke her up in the first place. But then the knock came again, louder now, and she jumped, coming perilously close to falling out of bed.

"Maureen?" a voice called through the front door. There was a long pause. "April? Are you home?"

April sighed as realization slowly dawned. Roger. Just beautiful. She glanced at the clock as she rolled out of bed: a little after 10:00 AM. So much for sleeping in until noon. Well, close enough, and longer than she usually got. Walking to the front door, still in her nightgown, April caught sight of herself in a mirror. Her short red hair was frizzy, messy as always in the morning; no way of disguising that she had just crawled out of bed. Whatever. Why bother? It was only Roger, after all.

She unlocked the front door and yanked it open. "What is it?"

He seemed startled, and it took a moment for him to answer. "I wanted to… Is Maureen here?"

"Yes."

"Can I talk to her, then?"

"She's asleep." But at ten in the morning, that should go without saying when it came to Maureen. Clearly that was a fact Roger had not quite picked up on yet. April stepped back form the door and beckoned him in. "But I want to talk to you first. Come in."

"Okay…" Roger said hesitantly.

April could see where he might be a little confused. Other than that first morning in the kitchen when they'd really met, she'd scarcely talked to Roger. Hell, she had spoken to Mark more often since then. But this was important. She closed the door behind him and pointed to the couch. "Sit."

Somewhat to her surprise, he listened, watching her wordlessly with those intense blue eyes. She sat on the coffee table, directly in front of him so he couldn't avoid looking at her, rested her elbows on her knees, leaned forward and folded her hands in front of her.

"Listen, Maureen's one of my best friends, as demanding and insane and incredibly bitchy as she can be sometimes. You made her cry last night, and I want to know what you did or said and why, and don't you dare lie to me." Her own directness kind of startled her—she hadn't meant for it to come out sounding quite that strong. But she didn't let her surprise show outwardly, just continued watching him, waiting for an answer. She reflected how odd this picture must look from the outside, the frizzy-haired girl sitting on the coffee table, still in her nightgown, staring down the rock star. Oh yes, April, she thought wryly. Very intimidating.

He remained silent for a long time, but he couldn't avoid looking at her, and her eyes, not exactly accusing, just watching, waiting, and far too perceptive. At last, he sighed and told her, "One of my band members got us a gig, and I had to go. I would've told Maureen earlier, but I didn't know until—"

"If it were just that you went to play at a club instead of help her performance," April interrupted, "she would have come home screaming and throwing things, not crying. There's something else."

Roger's eyes flickered away, to the side, as if he were searching for some way to escape April and her questions. He found nothing, and in a moment looked back to her reluctantly. "You… are very persistent."

"I know," she said with a sardonic smile, and quirked one eyebrow at him. He was going to tell her, or she would drag it out of him.

Somehow, just that look from her seemed enough to do the trick. "I told her," he said with a sigh, "that the difference between my performance and hers was that people actually cared about mine. Happy?"

April sat back. "Not entirely, no, but that explains it." She considered for a minute. "Can I tell you something?"

"Aren't you going to anyway?"

She ignored him. "Maureen cares about her performances. They matter to her, like almost nothing else does. Don't take that away from her, alright?" She paused, and then grinned and added, "Or else I'll have to hurt you."

Roger smiled at the last part, and nodded. "Point taken."

"Good." April gestured to Maureen's bedroom door with one hand. "You can go talk to her now, if you want. Make sure you apologize."

Roger didn't answer, just got to his feet and started for the bedroom. April watched him a minute, then stood up quickly. "Wait!"

He stopped. "What?"

"On second thought," she said, walking past him and placing one hand on the knob of Maureen's door, "I should probably wake her up."

"Okay… Why?"

"Because if you wake her up on top of everything else you've already done, she'll kill you." She heard Roger laugh as she opened the door, and she glanced over her shoulder at him, a faint smile on her lips. "You think I'm kidding."