Disclaimer: RENT is not mine. I'm just playing with the characters. ("Hey, Roger, catch!")
"No-- Louisa. Did you practice at all this week?" Roger asked, clearly trying to be patient.
"I told you I had trouble with A Major! I told you that!" replied a strained voice on the brink of tears.
"Hey-- okay. Calm down. We'll just run it again, okay? Start with C Major. Close, but-- yes."
Mimi sat on the fire escape, listening as Roger gave a guitar lesson. She looked out at Alphabet City, at the grungy avenue not completely awake yet at nine o'clock in the morning, and she smiled. It was a decrepit, ugly place… but to her, it was beautiful. Sun glinted off broken-down cars and the puddles from last night's rain. Distant car horns drifted a symphony into Alphabet City.
Mimi smiled.
"It's a stupid finger, anyway. I mean speaking from an evolutionary standpoint, it's just a matter of time before the pinkie disappears."
Mimi snorted with laughter.
"Okay… um, then we won't use that finger."
"You."
"What?"
"You said we. You should've said you."
"Louisa…" A chord interrupted him. "Okay, good. See, you played A Major, I knew you could do it. You're gonna practice that for me, right?"
"Yes, Mister Davis."
Mimi snickered. "Again. Roger," Roger said, emphasizing his name.
"Sorry. Roger."
"Better."
"May I use your bathroom?"
"Um… hang on." Roger set down his guitar and crossed the room. He had broken the lock on the bathroom door years ago. As a general rule one knocked before entering. Roger just poked his head in.
Mark immediately plunged his arms under the water, shielding himself. "Roger!"
"Oh, Mark, you don't have anything down thereI haven't seen before," Roger said, laughing.
"Get out!" Mark shouted. He threw a bar of soap at Roger, who backed out of the room. "Sorry," he told his student. "My roommate's having a bath."
"Oh! I… I didn't realize you were gay."
A blush patterned Roger's cheeks. "I said roommate, Louisa, I did not say 'live-in lover'."
"I thought--"
"Then you'll have a lot of fun in college." Mimi laughed aloud, as she heard the student struggling not to. "Go on. Have a good week and practice A Major!" After the door had shut, Roger shook his head, laughing. Poor Mark. He went over to the window and peered out. "You coming in for breakfast, love?" he asked.
Mimi held up her hands and allowed Roger to haul her to her feet.
---
Mark could not shake the feeling that Mimi was finding excuses to hang around the loft. She offered to wash the dishes, a chore she despised, reminding Roger, "You need to buy a new set of strings, remember?"
Roger bit his lip. "Yeah, but…"
"When's your next student coming?" Mimi asked.
"Three-thirty," Roger admitted. "After school." Other than Louisa, who was seventeen but had gone to community college after two years of high school, and the few adults, most of Roger's students were enrolled full-time in either middle or high school, and could not come by for lessons until after class.
Mimi nodded. "You should buy your strings now," she said. "And you can stop off at the market, too, since we're almost out of food." She paused to marvel that "almost out of food" had become a rare condition. Finances had loosened miraculously in the past eleven months.
Eleven months. It would be Christmas before she knew it and, Mimi realized, she had yet to find a gift for Roger. In fact she had yet to find a gift for most everyone, except Maureen (Mimi had come across a stuffed cow in a flea market one day and been unable to resist). The fact alone that she could buy gifts for her friends made Mimi smile.
She thought again of finances. It was not that Mimi particularly cared about money-- no, and neither did Roger or Mark, but it was nice to have heat and meals. Mimi had long since kicked smack-- not long since, less than a year, but it was gone now and her tips stretched a long way without the drug. Not to mention Roger's music lessons, which also provided entertainment for Mark and Mimi.
Apparently Roger had been having similar thoughts, because he smiled and said, "It's not so bad, is it? Money."
"No," Mimi agreed. "It's only the root of all evil."
Roger laughed. "'Love you, Mimi." He kissed her.
"I love you, too." Mimi refused to engage in "I love you more" contests, but she somehow suspected that if she did, Roger would play.
Mark emerged from the bathroom shortly after Roger left. "Mark, are you hungry?" Mimi asked. He had barely glanced at her before heading for his room. "Roger made you a sandwich."
Mark paused. "Roger what?"
"Made you a sandwich. So you would have something to eat. Well, half a sandwich, actually, we're out of bread. Come on, you barely ate last night."
"You guys ate all the pizza," Mark protested. "I had nothing to eat!" He took the sandwich from Mimi. Roger had Sharpie'd "MARK" onto an old guitar pick and stuck it in the bread, standing upright like a strange banner. "Do you think that's sanitary?" Mark asked. "Eating this sandwich might endanger my health."
"Not eating that sandwich might endanger your health."
"…what?"
Mimi rolled her eyes. "Roger," she said by way of explanation.
"Point taken." Mark bit into the sandwich.
He sat at the table. Mimi used the bathroom-- "You only took, what, a two-hour bath?"-- then joined him. "Jeez," she said, "what happened to your hand?"
Mark looked to see what Mimi meant, swallowed and said, "Nicked myself last night, when I was doing the dishes." He scratched around the cut on the back of his wrist. "It itches."
Mimi gave a sympathetic smile. "Good sandwich?" she asked.
"Um… it's just peanut butter and jelly," Mark mumbled.
"Right. Yeah, I knew that. Mark, hey, do you know if Joanne is working today?"
Mark nodded. "She's in court all day, why?"
Ignoring his question, Mimi asked, "What about Collins?"
"Um… he has three classes today, I think," Mark said. "10:30, 12:30 and three. That might be Tuesday-Thursday, though, you'd have to ask Roger."
"Nice weather, huh?"
"Um, yeah. Yeah. It's… pretty warm, for November."
"I hope it snows for Christmas."
"Me, too."
---
The door opened, and Tom Collins could not have been more surprised to see one Mimi Marquez walk into his classroom. She paused. "Oh. I-I didn't want to interrupt," she said shyly.
Collins beckoned her in. "You can stay if you want," he said. "We've got about twenty minutes to go."
"Professor, is that your girlfriend?" a student called.
"That's cradlerobbing!"
"He's gay, jackass," someone hissed.
"And anyway," said a quiet, high-pitched voice, "his partner died last October."
Collins froze. Who said that? He scanned the room. His students were now so busy gossiping-- and about him, no less!-- not a single one noticed. One student was silent, a girl in the back of the class who was doodling in her notebook.
"Enough!" Collins barked. The chatter died. "She is not my girlfriend," he said, trying to make clear by his tone that he found the concept amusing. "And who the hell said I was a cradlerobber?" A boy whose posture shrieked arrogance admitted that it was he. "Andrew. I am not robbing the cradle because I'm not dating her. I am, as Johnston said, gay, jackass." The class giggled. "Mimi, you're welcome to stay. You could probably teach these guys a thing or two."
"What about?" Mimi asked. She winked.
Collins snickered. "Not that," he replied. "Come on." She sat, and he continued his lecture. "…the Asche experiment shows us that even with something our senses display clearly as fact, we are willing to deny, believing others' senses in favor of our own. If we will so lightly renounce that which we know as fact, what of our morals? What of questions we ask ourselves-- you should be asking yourselves-- every day? Is this right? Is this right because your friends say its right, because I say it's right?"
When he dismissed his students Mimi began to rise, but stopped when Collins called one girl to stay. "Izzy…"
"I'm sorry, professor. I didn't mean it disrespectfully. I just…"
"How did you know?" Collins asked.
"I… just… knew," Izzy answered. "The way you were acting last month, it-- I thought-- I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to say it, it just… just happened."
"What goes on in my life, is my business."
Izzy nodded. "Yeah, professor," she said.
"You're dismissed."
"But--" she began. Collins looked up sharply, and Izzy bit her lip. "You're not being fair," she forced herself to continue. "I know what I did was wrong, but you can't chew me out for gossiping, not when everyone else did it too. What I said was too personal and I know that and I'm sorry, but you didn't tell me off for that, you told me off for exactly what everyone else was doing and you didn't tell them off. You practically praised Johnston."
Collins paused. The kid had a point, he had to admit. But… "Izzy, just go," he said. She did. Collins leaned against his desk and shook his head, one hand over his eyes. The last thing he needed… Jesus.
A month ago, he had canceled every one of his classes for a week. When he returned to his apartment after five days of too much booze and who knew what else, he found a message from Mark and five from Roger, asking where he was and what was going on and was he all right? Roger had been sitting outside the apartment, terrified.
A warm hand on his shoulder brought Collins back to the present. Mimi was watching him, brown eyes even wider than usual. She did not ask the obvious question, because she already knew the answer and the lie he would tell her.
"So. You had a reason for coming here," Collins said.
"You know, forget it. It was… a silly thing," Mimi said, shrugging it off.
"Mimi." She paused. "You miss her, too, Mimi," Collins said. Mimi nodded. Yes, she did. "You should understand, you above anyone, that life continues. Inertia. You came here for a reason. Don't let my sorrow overshadow that, or you do us both a disservice."
"I…" Mimi took a deep breath. "I need your advice. And I may need to borrow some money. A lot. But I'll pay you back."
Collins frowned. This did not sound good. "Is this about Roger?" he asked.
"I don't want him to know about this," Mimi replied quickly. "If that's not okay with you, I can go--"
"I can keep a secret from Roger." I've done it enough times before.
Mimi nodded. "I'm carrying his child," she said.
Collins struggled not to let his jaw drop. "And you're thinking about getting rid of it," he asked without asking. Mimi nodded again. "And Roger doesn't know."
"And you promised not to tell him," Mimi reminded him.
Collins nodded. He had said that… "How long?"
"Probably two months. Maybe three. I don't know."
"And you want my advice?"
Mimi nodded.
Oh, boy. "Well…" Jesus. He probably had not gone an entire semester without having this discussion with his students. It's legal, does that make it right? But shouldn't a woman have control over her own body? Without religion? No, we cannot discuss this without religion, not in a Protestant country. Yes, it is. "Mimi, your body is your own," Collins said. How many times had she heard that before as an argument against drugs? Only you can treat your body right. "Whatever anyone says, if you're sure you want to have an abortion then you have that right."
Mimi nodded. She had needed to hear that.
"I guess this goes beyond the question of whether you're ready to be a mother."
Eagerly, she agreed, "I could bring an HIV-positive child into the world. That's not right, is it? And besides, Roger and I… well, even if the child is healthy, we won't be around too long. And that's not fair. But…"
"But you want it. Beyond the question of morals, you want this baby, don't you, Mimi?"
She nodded.
"How long have you known?"
"Since this morning."
Collins sighed. "What are we gonna do?" he asked.
Mimi didn't know. She sat on a student's desk and shook her head, lost, but already she felt better. Already, because Collins said "we".
To be continued!
This story is not in the same continuum as Last Year. Mark didn't black out last chapter, he was just daydreaming.
Reviews would be awesome!