So I'm finally back, ya'll, and with a brand new chapter. Hope you guys keep reading, and I hope this one lives up to the others.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own RENT. But if Jonathan Larson was alive, I would marry him. THEN I would own RENT. Kind of. Not really.
Mark skimmed the pages of the novel he'd picked up from the bookshelf in his room, not really taking in the plot, but it was helping to cure his boredom. After about three hours, Maureen had finally been satisfied with their shopping endeavors and they had gone back to Mark's apartment, where she promptly passed out on the couch. Shopping obviously took a lot out of a woman, he'd thought, bemused. A few bags were on the couch in front of Maureen, containing her haul from the day, which he knew was heavier than it looked (she'd made him carry the bags up the stairs, just like the old days). A glance at the clock revealed that it was almost 7 PM. Joanne would be getting off work soon, and probably drop by again. He hoped she wasn't psyching herself out over him and Maureen, Joanne didn't need any more stress in her life.
Suddenly there was a sharp ringing sound, causing Mark to jump a bit before realizing it was the phone. He made a miraculously quick leap across the apartment to grab it before it disturbed Maureen.
"Hello?" he said quietly.
"Marky!" came the all too familiar high pitched voice on the other line. Mark groaned inwardly.
"Hey, mom," he said, "Listen, can I call you back-"
"Oh, Marky we just heard about Roger. Why didn't you tell us! Do you want to come home?" Usually he avoided his mom's phone calls for just this reason: she always wanted him to come home. He struggled for an excuse to stay away for a moment.
"Mom look, I really can't leave right now. Um, Maureen...Maureen's pretty broken up about this. She and Roger were pretty good friends. I think she needs me," he lied, praying that his mom wouldn't remember that Roger and Maureen couldn't stand each other.
"Oh, honey. I suppose if she needs you, you should stay. Wait, does this mean you two lovebirds may be getting back together?" His mom sounded way too excited by that idea.
"No, mom, jeez–look, I have to go. I've...gotta make some calls for...work. I love you, bye." He quickly hung up the phone, breathing a sigh of relief. Talking to his mother always stressed him out. He turned and picked up his book from the chair he'd been sitting in before, and headed back into his room to exchange it for another one. He was crouched in front of his bookcase when a nearly eardrum shattering yell came from the living room.
"POOKIE!" Mark nearly jumped out of his skin, and muttering under his breath, returned to the living room to see what was wrong with Maureen. She was sitting up on the couch, looking a bit like a confused child. When he entered she smiled.
"Oh, there you are!" she said, "I woke up and didn't see you. I thought maybe–Well, sorry I fell asleep. Shopping always does that to me." She stretched her arms above her head and yawned. "What were you up to while I slept?"
"Uh...I read for a while. I just went in my room to get a different book." He said, holding up the book he was carrying.
"Oh, well I hope you weren't too bored. Has Joanne stopped by? I figured she'd be by after work. I wanted to talk to her." Maureen glanced at the clock on the wall and then at the door.
"Not yet," Mark replied, sitting down on the couch next to Maureen.
"I think..." Maureen began to say something, but trailed off and sighed.
"What?" Mark asked. Maureen shook her head.
"You've got enough to worry about right now without my worthless drama." She said, crossing her legs and staring at her hands. Mark shifted so he was facing her.
"Maureen, when have you ever not wanted to share your drama with someone?" He asked, and Maureen smiled and laughed a little.
"You're right, Marky. I guess I'm a bit dramatic sometimes. I think...I think that next time I see Joanne, I'm going to break up with her." She said the last part all in one breath, and breathed heavily afterwards, as if she'd been holding that in for a long time. Mark was speechless.
"But...but you guys are so..." He stammered. This was completely new to him. It had become a fact of live the last seven years, the one thing that never changed when everything else did, that Maureen and Joanne were meant to be. They had never gotten engaged again after the debacle back before Angel died, but he'd never thought that made a difference.
"Happy?" Maureen supplied the word he'd been looking for. "Yeah, I know. Everyone says that, and it's not that we aren't happy. We're perfectly happy most of the time. Perfectly normal." She said the word normal as if it disgusted her. "And I don't mean that Joanne is boring or anything, it's just...there's a whole world out there of places I've never been. I always said I'd get out of this town and go somewhere I've never been before. Do something no one else has ever done. And these last couple days, staying here, without Joanne coming home at seven thirty each night, it was different. It made me realize how much I like different." Mark was about to protest, but there was a knocking at the door, and Maureen took a deep breath before standing up. "Wish me luck." She said.
"Maureen, are you sure-" He started, but she just smiled sadly.
"Trust me, Mark." And with that she walked to the door and opened it. "Pookie, can I talk to you outside for a minute?" Was all Mark heard, then the door closed. He sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking about the bombshell Maureen was dropping on Joanne at that very moment. He tried to imagine how Joanne was feeling, how he had felt when it had been him in that place, but it had been so long since then and so much more had happened that he couldn't even remember how it felt. A side effect of the Blah, he assumed. Another good thing it had done for him.
A few moments later, Maureen burst back into the apartment, not bothering to close the door, and walked into Mark's room without a word. He stood up and turned around to see Joanne still standing outside the door. He quietly walked over, and she looked up at him.
"Joanne, I'm-" He started, but she cut him off.
"Don't, Mark. It was never me. I knew that." She said, smiling despite the tears streaming down her face, "Watch out for her for me, Mark. I'll see you around." She nodded to him, then turned and started down the stairs. Mark closed the door and turned around to see Maureen peering out of the doorway of his room. Slowly she walked to the couch.
"She took it pretty well, I think." She said, and Mark could tell she was crying a little bit too. He sat down next to her, not knowing what to say. The Blah was blocking the part of his brain which usually came up with the sensitive and comforting words.
"Do you...do you want some water?" Was the best he could manage. Maureen nodded, and he stood up hurriedly, relieved. As he walked by the couch, however, his foot collided with something, and a book slid out from under it. It took him only a second to recognize it: Roger's songbook. A jolt of...something shot through him, and his vision blurred for a moment, then another, so powerful that he dropped to his knees. The Blah...the Blah was fading fast and it was overwhelming him.
"Mark?" He heard Maureen's voice, but all he could see was the book on the ground in front of him. He reached out and flipped the pages, seeing Roger's messy handwriting all over. Finally, his hands were shaking so much that he couldn't hold the pages anymore, and he let them fall open. At this point, Maureen was crouching beside him, a hand on his shoulder. Mark closed his eyes for a second and breathed deeply, then opened them again, looking at the page the book had fallen open to. There was a title at the top, written in larger letters that the rest of the writing.
"Santa Fe..." Mark read. He closed his eyes and dropped his head, letting the tears he'd been suppressing for the last seven years come pouring out all at once. Maureen rubbed his back, and Mark opened his eyes a crack to see her reaching out to touch the book.
"Santa Fe..." she murmured. Mark looked at her, surprised to see that she was crying as well, and even more surprised that a small smile peeked through her tears.
"You know how I said there's a whole world of places I've never been?"