Warnings: someone dies, girls kiss
I do not own RENT.
o
To Danceo
"Pookie?"
Joanne looked up at the sound of her lover's voice. "Yes?"
Maureen rolled over on their bed and lifted her chin onto her fist. "Did you always want to be a lawyer?"
"No," Joanne sighed, as she moved to lie on the bed next to Maureen. "Once upon a time, I wanted to be a dancer."
"What made you change your mind?"
-
A sixteen-year-old Joanne ran down the stairs as the doorbell rang, but her mother had already answered the door. She stopped and listened to the voices, just in case it was her nasty old pre-cal teacher, Mr. Roberts, come to tell her mother she failed her last test.
"Hello, Mrs. Jefferson, I'm Detective Williams, and this is my partner Detective Kirk. Do you have a daughter named Nadia Jefferson?" A man's voice drifted through the air.
Joanne saw her mother visibly stiffen at the name, before replying, "I'm afraid not. I only have one daughter and her name is Joanne."
The detectives said thank you and good evening before her mother all but slammed the door in their faces. As her mother walked back into the kitchen, Joanne followed the detectives out the front door.
"Wait, wait!" she called, running down the sidewalk. She caught up to the NYPD detectives, as they were about to get into their car. "I'm Joanne Jefferson. Nadia is my sister. My mother sort of, er, disowned her when she came out to our parents. But I still talk to her. Is she okay?" Joanne looked frantically between the detectives, silently praying that nothing had happened to her sister.
The woman, who Joanne assumed was Detective Kirk, coughed lightly before saying, "I'm really sorry I have to tell you this, but your sister was raped and murdered last night."
And Joanne's world came crashing down around her.
-
"Nadia was an actress," Joanne told Maureen. "And she was good too. She was going to be a big hit on Broadway, that's what she always said."
"Honey," Maureen breathed out as she wiped some of Joanne's falling tears.
Joanne laced her fingers with one of Maureen's hands. "She always told me to follow my dreams, be who I was meant to be. I wanted to be a ballet dancer; she always told me I was really good. But something inside me died when she did."
-
A week later, when Joanne and her family returned home from her sister's funeral, she went upstairs and shut herself in her room as had become her custom recently.
Joanne looked up from the pillow she was clutching when she heard a soft knocking on her door. Her father poked his head around the door and asked quietly, "Can I come in, Jo-bear?"
She smiled faintly. "I thought I told you to stop calling me that."
He sat down on the bed next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "My baby girl is getting so grown up. Before you know it you're going to be off dancing in New York, just like your – " he cut off his words, realizing what he was about to say.
"I can't believe she's dead, daddy," Joanne cried into her father's shirt. He held her close until her tears had mostly stopped.
"I know, sweetie, but we'll have to move on and live without her. Somehow, I know you'll make it, because you're daddy's strong little girl," he whispered to her. "Why don't you go down to the studio and dance? It always made you feel better in the past."
Joanne swallowed and looked up at her father, "I would, daddy, but I can't. Not with Nadia, being…gone."
-
"So I stopped dancing."
Maureen took Joanne's face in her hands. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry that this happened to you."
"It happened a long time ago." Joanne placed a kiss on Maureen's hand. "The police never got any leads, so the bastard was never caught. After that I just decided that I wanted to help people like my sister. Get justice for the victims, you know? So I became a lawyer."
Joanne shook her head and took Maureen by the hand. "That's enough depressing talk for one night. Come on, let's go to bed."
-
So the next day, inspired by Joanne's story, Maureen dropped by to whisk her lover away during lunch.
"Maureen, where are we going?" Joanne asked for probably the sixth time as she was dragged down the street.
Maureen giggled, obviously enjoying the lawyer's confusion, "I'll let you know when we get there. You'll like it, I promise."
Joanne just sighed and let herself be pulled along.
Five blocks later, the two women stood outside a crumbling building. "Er, Honeybear, what is this?" Joanne asked, still confused.
"It's a dance studio," Maureen said as she pulled her girlfriend inside.
The yellow paper was peeling off the walls, and one of the mirrors on the far wall was cracked. A few young girls stretched on the bar against the far wall.
"Angel and I found it while she was still here." Maureen twirled a little in open space. "It's free, so you can come any time. You can dance, and, you know, remember your sister. Be a dancer and a lawyer." Maureen paused to shuffle through her bag, and pulled out some ratty Pointe shoes. "They're not much, but I found them really cheap this morning, and, Pookie are you okay?"
Joanne had tears running silently down her face as she stared at the room, the shoes, and Maureen. Suddenly she grabbed her lover a pulled her into a passionate kiss. "Thank you so much, baby. I can't believe you did this."
"Wow," Maureen said, "I should do spontaneous stuff more often, if I get that response every time."
Joanne laughed a little and looked down at the Pointe shoes in her hand. "I never thought I'd get the chance to dance again. But I think I'd like to do that now. For you, for me, for Nadia."
o
Words: 1003
That's like a record number of words for me. You should all be proud.
This was written for speedrent challenge number 68.
You know you want to push the little purple button right there.
Dymond