Chapter 2
I woke up late the next around 3:00 pm.
"God I hate the sun" I mumbled as I dragged myself out of the bed. All the events of the night before came back to me.
Me standing there alone in the snow wishing I had decided not to become a lesbian. After Mark kissed me and left me alone, I went to the life café an got seriously drunk. Then I proceeded to stumble home and put myself to bed.
After a hot shower I started to feel a little better. Until my phone rang shattering my solitude.
"Hello" I mumbled into the receiver.
"Hey Mouth" came Roger's cheerful voice over the phone. "We're going to the Life Café around five to, you know, celebrate Mimi and me getting back together and all. You gonna come?"
"I'm not sure Roger" I said "I kind of have some stuff to do. I might not make it."
"Come on Maureen" Roger groaned. "Is it because of Mark? Because he said he didn't want to come either. What's going on with you two?"
"Roger" I warned "Please don't go there. I mean it was just one little kiss. It doesn't mean I'm hiding from him or anything."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! You kissed? When did this happen?" Roger exclaimed.
"Um yesterday" I said "Didn't Mark tell you?"
"Uh, no" he told me "So that's why Mark won't come. This is so huge Maureen. Oh God what about Joanne?"
"Breathe Roger. Just calm down. Joanne does not need to know, because it didn't mean anything. It was stupid and spur of the moment and brought on by silliness and snow!" I screeched.
"What does snow have to do with anything? Maureen, you can't ignore this. Mark still cares about you. It probably wasn't just a stupid kiss to him. Mark doesn't kiss that many girls you know." Roger proclaimed.
"Oh God, what am I going to do Roger? I don't want to hurt Mark anymore than I already have. But I can't do this now. I mean-"
"I know" Roger interrupted. "Look, you go get your head together and I'll cover for you. Okay?"
"Thank you so much Roger. I'm going to go know. See you later." I hung up and went into my kitchen to make myself some tea.
I couldn't believe that after all I had put Mark through he could possibly still care about me. But then again we had always been close. And it was Mark who had encouraged me to pursue my performing. As I stood there my thoughts took me back to three years ago.
I was performing in Manhattan when I met him. I was right in the middle of doing a complicated jump twirl thing, when I saw a pair of ice-blue eyes staring at me in the crowd. When the show was over he came up to me.
"Hi" he said "I'm Mark Cohen and this is my friend Roger Davis. I hope you don't mind, but your performance was so wonderful I couldn't help but film it. So uh please don't sue me."
"It's cool" I told him "Um just don't use it for evil purposes. Well bye" And then I walked away.
"Hey wait" called Mark
"Look Mr. Cohen" I said and Roger burst out laughing.
"Thank you Roger" Mark said
"God you're like eighteen" Roger said "Mr. Cohen; that's funny!"
"Any way" Mark continued "I didn't get your name"
"Maureen Johnson" I told him "and now I really have to go. This job doesn't pay. So I have to go to my other one that does. Sorry to be rude."
"Where do you work Maureen?" Mark asked me "Maybe I'll come see you sometime"
"Are you a stalker?" I asked Mark
"No I just really admire you" he told me.
I work at Joe's Pub as a waitress." I informed them. Then I turned to Roger. "Don't you perform there sometimes in a band?" I asked
"Oh yeah" he said "Me and The Well Hungarians."
"That's cool." I said "So yeah Mark, come with Roger sometimes. You'll see me. Bye" And then I left while Mark was hitting Roger.
"What?" Roger asked
"Why do girls always seem to migrate to you?" he responded
"Hey, I've got it like that." Roger said smugly.
I chuckled to myself as I walked toward the subway. Yeah Roger was cute; that much was obvious. But there was something about Mark. Maybe it was his eyes or his boyish clumsy charm. Whatever it was I liked it.
He started coming to see me at work nightly and we talked longer and longer. Up until one early December night. Mark was walking me home as he did on most nights. This is how I learned so much about him and his friends, Roger, Collins, and Benny. Anyway, on that night it had just started snowing when we left the Pub. As we walked along Mark stopped suddenly.
"What?" I asked
"Will you go out with me Maureen?" he wanted to know. His usually pale face was very red.
I laughed and said "Well I'm pretty sure you're not a stalker so okay." Then he smiled and took my hand as we kept walking. When we got to my house he said "Hey, I'll call you tomorrow okay?"
"Sure", I said. As I turned to go into the house Mark kissed me on the cheek and smiled as he walked away.
The whistling of my tea kettle brought me back to the present. Mom had always said that tea was good for head aches and boy did I have one. I chose an orange blend of tea made with spices. Mark always said I was spicy. I want back to my memories.
For our first date Mark took me ice skating at Times Square. We had so much fun. Then Roger showed up with his girlfriend April. Introductions were made and I discovered that she worked at Joe's Pub as well. This is kind of the reason I started living with Mark. He and Roger would come and pick April and me up from work, and then we usually just spent the night with them at the loft.
We were all fresh out of high school and kind of immature, but we had a great time. At least up until April killed herself, after that thins pretty much went down hill. Well actually a little before that. I still remember the night she died.
I had just come home from work, a year after Mark and I had started dating and six months after I had first moved in with him. "Hey Baby" I said coming to kiss Mark. "Where's Roger?"
"Who knows?" Mark responded "Where's April?"
"She wasn't at work tonight." I told him.
"Great, so now we know where they are. I can't believe they are being so fucking stupid!" Mark exploded.
"Mark" I comforted "You don't know that's what they are doing."
"Yeah? Well Roger borrowed twenty dollars from me this morning."
"And April got thirty from me last night." I said
"Those are our friends." Mark said bitterly.
"So where are Benny and Collins?" I asked him.
"Benny's with that girl he's creeping with and Collins had to go out of town. So I guess-"
Suddenly Roger came through the door. His eyes were dull and vacant like they were on most Saturdays.
"Sup Mark" he slurred "hey Mouth how you doing?" Mark just looked at Roger and got up and walked into his room.
"What's his problem?" Roger wanted to know.
"What do you think Roger?" I yelled at him, "Every weekend you take his money and go get stoned. And your girlfriend does too. Not only are you killing yourself every time you do this, but April goes down with you, and you stab Mark right in the back. But what does he do? He always stands by you." I shook my head and went into Mark's room.
"You okay baby?" I asked him.
"Why Maureen?" he asked me "Why does my best friend have to be so dumb? When we were kids we always said we would stay clean forever. He never keeps his promises to me. Why am I even friends with him?"
"Because sweetie, you love him." I said laying my head on his shoulder.
"No" he said pulling me into his lap, "I love you."
After that we became so "distracted" that we didn't notice that April didn't come home until five that morning. Or that she and Roger had a fight about her taking the last of his stash. And we certainly didn't know that she felt so guilty about just coming from the clinic and having HIV and giving it to Roger that she slit her wrists at 6:45 am. At least not until we found her at eight.
But that's beside the point. Mark and I tried to help Roger out of his post April slump. Mostly because we were not too happy with each other. That would be my fault.
One night I was performing for the almost empty Joe's Pub. This man was staring at me when I was done.
"Hey" he said "You're really good."
"Thanks" I told him
"I have a company who produces people like you. You should come back to my place and we'll talk."
"That sounds good" I said "Just let me call my boyfriend."
"Sure" he said " I can wait for you."
So I called Mark.
"Hey babe" he answered "I can't come get you tonight because Roger is really messed up."
"Mark" I said sighing "Roger has been messed up for the past six months. What has changed today?"
"He wont even come out of his room" Mark told me
"Whatever," I said "Anyway, I'm going to a friend's house tonight." Mark knew I didn't have any other friends but his friends. But he still told me to go ahead because he was hung up on Roger. He was always hung up on Roger in those days. I tried not to get jealous but I couldn't help it. I was upset, even though I knew it was stupid and selfish of me.
So I left with the guy whose name I still don't know. To make a long story short, we went to his house, I slept with him, got mad when he told me he really didn't have a production company, hired a lawyer to sue him, told Mark all, and I mean all, about it, he got pissed and blew up at me, I broke up with him and slept with my lawyer Joanne, who by the way won my case. You know the rest from there.
So anyway, after I drank the nasty tea and went over old memories, I called my mother.
"Hey Mom" I greeted when she answered the phone.
"Oh hello Maureen" she replied unenthusiastically. "How are you and your partner?"
"Joanne and I are fine mother." I told her. "I actually wanted to talk to you about some feelings I've been having about maybe ending it with her."
"Why, so you can go out with another girl?" my mom asked sarcastically
"No" I said heaving a sigh. "I've actually been thinking about Mark."