A/N: I don't own RENT...or a Mark scarf...but I'm working on it!!!
Maggie and Mark walked together into the Life Cafe but before Maggie could even take in the surroundings, they were seen.
"Oh my gosh, are you guys alright?" was one of the many questions they were asked as everyone- for lack of better word- ambushed them.
"We're fine, we're fine!" Mark told the group. "Tomorrow," he continued. "On the news, the lead story all day is going to be Maureen's protest." The group all cheered loudly and some patted him on the back.
Maureen squealed and asked him in a very high, excited voice, "Are you serious?" Mark nodded and she planted a large kiss on his lips before another woman pulled her off of him. They all headed farther into the resturaunt before the matre'd stopped them.
"No, please no, not tonight, please no, mister, can't you go? Not tonight, can't have a scene!"
"What?" Mark asked him, as he was in the front of the group and was the one mainly being blocked, as Roger and Mimi walked around them.
"No please, sir, you- hello, sir! I said no! Important customer!" The young man pointed toward Benny Coffin III, Maggie's landlord, and another man sitting together at a table.
"What am I, just a blur?" Mark asked him, slightly offended.
"You sit all and never buy!" The man continued in an annoyed voice.
"That's a lie, that's a lie! I had a tea the other day," he continued matter-of-factly.
"You couldn't pay," the worker said in a dead pan voice.
Maggie giggled slightly next to Mark as Mark cocked his head to side and said, "Oh, yeah," before passing by the man with the rest of the group. Mark and Maggie looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes and laughed slightly before finding seats at the end of the table. They ended up with Mark sitting on the end and Maggie on his right. Mimi was sitting next to Maggie and gabbering away at Roger while Angel and Collins sat across from Maggie and Mark, randomly making funny faces at them.
Maureen, on the other side of the table stood from the table and said to everyone, while looking at Benny, "The enemy, of Avenue A." She gasped before adding, "and Mr. Gray!"
"Why, thanks..."
"What brings the mogul in his own mind to the life cafe?" Collins asked.
"Why didn't Muffy-"
"Allison!" Benny interrupted Roger.
"-come along?" he continued.
"There was a death in the family if you must know..."
Roger backed down but Angel asked sympathetically, "Who died?"
"Our akita..."
Everyone at the table looked at each other, all wondering the same thing. Roger and Mark stared each other down before both figuring it out and said, "Evita!" A woman down the table imitated a little yappy dog bark.
Benny scowled and sang, "Mimi, Maggie! I'm suprised, that bright an' charming girls like you hang out with these slackers who don't adher to deals. You make fun, yet I'm the one, attempting to do some good. Or do you really want a neighborhood where people piss on your stoop every night. Bohemia, bohemias, a fallacy in your head. This is Calcutta. Bohemia, is dead." Benny turned and walked back to his table- and Mark followed, mocking him, to the end of the table.
"Dearly beloved, we gather here to say our goodbyes." Roger and Collins stand and hold hands in 'prayer' and sing in Latin. "Here she lies, no one knew her worth. The late great daughter of mother Earth. On these nights when we celebrate the birth. In that little town of Bethlehem, we raise our glass, you bet you ass to, La Vie Boheme."
"La Vie Boheme!" The rest of the table burst into song as well as Mark stood up from his sitting position on the table.
"To days of inspiration, playing hooky, making something out of nothing the need to express to communicate! To going against the grain, going insane, going mad!" Mark jumped onto the table and started singing while everyone else at the table, including Maggie, did back up vocals and danced. "To loving tension, no pension, to more than one demension, to starving for attention, hating convention, hating pretension! Not to mention, of course, hating dear old mam and dad!"
Maggie laughed as everyone got up and started dancing. She went to sit by Mark on the table and mimicked riding a bikes with him as he continued singing, "To riding your bike midday past the three piece suits!" They got up and started dancing on the table. "To fruits! To no absolutes!"
"TO ABSOLUT!" Maggie added as she held up her drink and jumped down from the table.
Mark laughed and continued, "To choice, to the Village Voice, to any passing fad!" He went over to Maggie and Roger and put his arm around them, facing Benny and Mr. Grey. "To being an us for a once, instead of a them!" Mark pointed at Benny and Mr. Grey while Maggie and Roger flipped them off on either side of him.
"La Vie Boheme!"
"Is the equipment in a pyramid?" Asked Maureen from down the table.
"It is Maureen," said a dark skinned woman who had run the spotlight and electric...stuff...at the protest.
"The mixer doesn't have a case," Maureen said with a wince. "Don't give me that face!" She said as the other woman turned and began to walk away. Maureen hit her ass as she walked away which caused her to turn around with a smile. Mr. Grey cleared his throat and Maureen told him, "Hey, mister, she's my sister!"
"So that's five miso soup, four seaweed salad, three soy burger dinner, two tofu dag platter, and one pasta with meatless balls?" The waiter asked after he had taken everyone's orders.
"Ewww..."Roger said from beside Maggie after everyone had finally sat down.
"It tastes the same!" Collins told him defensively.
"If you close your eyes!" Mimi shot back with a smile and a giggle.
"And thirteen orders of fries, is that it here?" the waiter continued.
"WINE AND BEER!"
Angel and Mimi jumped onto the table and started singing, "To handcrafted beers made in local breweries! To yoga, to yogurt, to rice and beans and cheese! To leather, to dildos, to curry vindaloo! To Huevos Rancheros and Maya Angelou!" They sat back down as Collins and Maureen got up and sang.
"Emotion, devotion, to causing a commotion, creation vacation."
Mark looked straight into Benny's eyes as he smirked and said "Mucho masturbation!"
Maggie laughed and spit out her drink before Mark explained. "Benny's room used to be right next to mine...and the walls are thin. I really am scarred for life!" Maggie laughed even harder as Roger and Collins got on the table and sang.
"Ginsberg, Dylan, Cunningham and Cage! Lenny Bruse, Langston Hughes!"
"To the stage!" Maggie yelled.
"To Uta, to Buddha, Pablo Neruda too!"
Mark got up as Maggie stood on the table (as Dorothy and Mark as Toto) while singing, "Why Dorothy and Tot went over the rainbow, to blow off Auntie Em!" Maggie jumped off the table and high-fived Mark.
"La Vie Boheme!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"And wipe the speakers off before you pack!" Maureen told the other woman, Joanne, Maggie had come to find out.
"Yes, Maureen," she said with a sigh.
"Well, hurry back!" Maureen pulled Joanne in for a kiss.
"Sister?" Mr. Grey asked, causing them to break apart.
"We're close." They said dead-pan both wearing a smirk on their faces.
Mark and Maggie went on either side of the anarchist and drag queen as Collins lay on the table and Angel on top of him. "Brothers!" The four of them shouted to Benny and Mr. Grey.
"Bisexuals, trisexuals, Homosapiens, Carcinogens, hallucinogens, men, Pee Wee Herman! German wine, turpentine Gertrude Stein, Antonioni Bertulucci, Kurosawa, Carmina Burana!" Everyone was on their feet as they sang and Mr. Grey, it seemed, was getting fed up. He rose from his table and gave Benny a look before quickly leaving.
"To apathy, to entropy, to empathy, ecstasy! Vaclav Havel, the sex pistols, 8BC! To no shame never playing the fame game!"
Collins and Maggie jumped on the table and knelt down, striking a pose that looked like the were smoking..."To marijuana!"
"To sodomy! It's between God and me! To S&M!"
"Waiter! Waiter!"
"La Vie Boheme!!!!!!" Everyone at the table belted as Benny ran out of the restaraunt.
'Introductions,' Maggie supposed you could call them, were given by everyone, and about EVERYONE at the table. Maggie accompanied Angel on Angel's plastic pickle tub as she strutted down the table like a runway. Roger and Mimi had disappeared from the group right as Maggie's beeper went off.
"Damn..." Maggie muttered to herself as she looked for her water bottle in her purse and then on the table.
"Here," Came a voice from behind her. Mark was standing behind her with a bottle of water and Maggie smiled softly at him as she took it. Mark sat down next to her as she popped the AZT in her mouth and put the cap back on the water bottle.
"So," Mark said. "What's wrong?"
Maggie looked up quickly with a confused look on her face. "What do you mean?"
"Well," He started. "You seemed a little upset at the meeting...I mean, you didn't look at anyone or even put your head up...And then tonight too. You were so happy until the beeper went off and then as soon as it did you looked, oh, i don't know really. Just kind of upset or like something was really bothering you, I guess...I don't mean to be nosy or anything! I just- I uh..." A small smirk began growing on Maggie face at the last couple of sentences.
She said, "I dunno...it's just this thing I guess. It's like handcuffs or something holding me back from things all the time. I just wish it would go away." Her smirk had turned into a sad smile by now. "Some people are crazy and if they find out you have HIV they don't want to be around you anymore because they either think they're going to 'catch' it or they judge you and decide you're a slut because you have it. And neither of those are true, with me at least. And starting out somewhere new and then meeting all these people tonight makes me worry about losing them. Because, I already know that these are good people and...I don't know," Magie sighed and then smiled slightly. "I'm not making any sense, am I?" She laughed a little and said, "It's the alchohol. I'll blame it on that!"
Mark smiled and said, "Well, I don't think you're gonna lose any of us anytime soon. This is like an initiation of some sort! You're stuck with us forever!" They both laughed and he held out his hand to her. She took it with a smile and they walked back over to the main table and sat down just as Roger and Mimi walked back in from the snow.
Roger and Mimi kissed and Maggie and Mark raised their eyebrows at each other. Everyone wolf whistled or cheered (Collins went over and slapped Roger on his buttox, cause ing them to separate. Mimi jumped up on the table as everyone shouted, "To dance!"
"No way to make a living massochisms, pain, perfection, muscle spasms, chiropractors, short careers, eating disorders!"
"Film!"
Mark sang, "Adventure, tedium, no family, boring location, dark rooms, perfect faces, egos, money, Hollywood and Sleaze!"
"Music!" Angel and Maggie jumped onto the table and started dancing together.
"Food of love, emotion, mathematics, isolations, rythm, power, feeling harmony and heavy competition!"
"Anarchy! Revolution, justice screaming for solutions, forcing changes risk and danger, making noise or making pleas!"
"To faggots, lezzies, dykes, cross-dressers to!"
"To me, to me, to me, to me!"
"To you and you and you and you and you!"
"To people living with living with living with- not dieing from disease! Let he among us with out sin be the first to condemn!"
"La Vie Boheme!" Everyone was dancing on the tables and the ground as Mark sang on his own.
"VIVA LA VIE BOHEME!"
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