Well, it certainly has been a while since I last updated this story. Apologies to everyone (if anyone…) who has been following. No excuses.
Here we go again!
Disclaimer: I don't own Newsies or any of its characters, but I do own all others.
No matter how much good you think you've done, keeping a good attitude isn't easy.
I tried my best to be happy for the next couple days. I had my best friend back and my obligation to the newsies was – in all senses – terminated. What could be better, right? Back to my old life of boredom and short breath.
Except I wasn't foolish enough to think I would really be going back to normal. My life wasn't going to immediately go back to being the same, no matter how hard I wished for it. I went to work, Lola walked me home afterwards, my father made dinner… Yeah, on the surface everything was the same, but it was all so empty. And the emptiness meant I had more time than ever to just…think. Gah.
Going to work was a nice distraction from all that thinking, despite the fact that Caroline Woods began paying me an abnormal amount of attention. Not the type of negative attention she always delighted in giving me, the village klutz, but rather the curious-questions-worried-about-you type. Sometimes I'd catch her gazing at me (that's right, gazing, not glaring) like she just couldn't figure me out. Every time I saw her do it I looked away real quick, but the sinking feeling stayed with me. As strange as it may sound, I was actually hoping she would get mad at me for some inconsideration, as it would give me something else to worry about.
It was now Wednesday and I promised Lola I'd go right to her house after work. I left Caroline Woods and her lingering gaze as I walked out the door and sprinted to Lola's building, anxious to get away from those delicately made-up prying eyes.
Lola answered the door. We walked through the living room and I saw Carlos lying across the couch, arms and legs askew.
"Hi Carlos," I said, although as soon as the words left my mouth I wished I hadn't.
He barely turned his head to give me his look of despondence. Ouch. Thankfully, Lola hurried me up the stairs.
"He's just in a bad mood, you know. He told Mother some lie about getting in a fight with some street kids and ever since she hasn't let him out of the house."
"Oh," I said dully, but I didn't really understand. Carlos was actually listening to his mother? That was news to me. Sure, he always avoided the worst case scenarios to spare himself the grief-stricken woe she would heap on him, but as long as I had known him he never followed the house rules. Could it be because he was just as depressed as I was, knowing the newsies and their noble cause had ultimately failed? That made me feel worse. Even Carlos, the eternal optimist and lifelong go-getter had given up on the strike.
Lola sat on her bed and patted the spot next to her, so I sat.
"You know, Izzie, ever since we've been friends again you've been acting very strange," she said.
"Really?" I said, picking at my fingernails. Can you believe that I wasn't particularly interested in the following conversation? Threw you for a loop, I'm sure.
"Well, yes… You walk around now. Well, I mean you walk now, instead of rushing. Like you don't care if you get there late or not. Before you used to care. Before you ran everywhere you went."
I didn't know what to say, so I said something that meant nothing.
"Oh, I don't know. I've just been a little distracted lately, that's all."
Lola peered eerily into my eyes.
"What?" I asked, perhaps a bit too forcefully.
"It's those newsies, isn't it?"
I rolled my eyes. "Oh, come on Lola. I told you I wouldn't –"
"No, Izzie. I mean, you miss them, don't you?"
I didn't say anything. I looked at her for a brief moment, and then went back to picking my nails.
She stopped looking at me then and started fiddling with her fingers. Tearing my eyes away from the blood and hangnails, I looked at her but didn't say anything.
Lola looked out the window for a moment and then said the unthinkable: "Look, Izzie, I'm really sorry."
"Sorry about what?" I said, letting my hands fall limply into my lap.
"Oh," she said, standing up and walking to the window. "I'm sorry about the whole thing. I shouldn't have asked you to give up the strike. You loved it – don't try to tell me you didn't, because I know you did. I just – Oh, I don't know."
This was a moment I had not been expecting… and I wanted to savor it. An apology for the all-mighty Lola? That hadn't happened… ever. No, I wasn't going to let her get out of this easily. So I waited until she took it up again.
"It's just that you changed once you started helping them. You weren't the same old Izzie as before… you were confident and adventurous and smart and you were helping people. I suppose you've always been those things but those boys brought that out of you, you know?"
I didn't know. She must have realized from the perplexed look on my face.
"You changed, Izzie, and… well now that I've seen you I realize that it's not bad. I guess I was just… gah, I was just jealous. I mean, it's always been me and you, Lola and Izzie, ever since I can remember. I order you around and you do whatever I ask. I was rude and I was wrong, and I always knew it, but I couldn't help but want it to always be that way."
Now she was really scaring me. I was hoping for an apology and here she was, going on a philosophical rant about our relationship. Dumbstruck, is what I was.
She threw her hands up. "Oh, and it wasn't just you. I couldn't believe that Carlos went off with you after what that boy did to him. You should have seen him, Izzie. His eyes black and his lip busted… It was a mess and I swore I would never forgive the boy that did that. I didn't care who he was or where he was from. He'd hurt my brother for something as silly as a newspaper."
I stopped looking at Lola and started reflecting on what she had said. Was she right? Did I really change around the newsies? Was this my moment to shine and I was letting it pass me by because of some stupid old man living in his golden tower of newspapers? I'd unwillingly let my chance go by to make a change in Cuba… was I doing the same thing here in New York?
"Is that why you hate the newsies?" I said.
She shuffled around a bit and looked everywhere but at me. "Well, what that boy did to Carlos was pretty bad."
"But that's not all, is it?"
She stuck her nail in her mouth and began biting.
"What is it, Lola?"
She threw her arms out in frustration. "It was Marisol, all right?"
Yes, I was certainly going through every emotion I had ever felt, right here with Lola. Baffled was now taking its turn.
"What in the world does Marisol have to do with the newsies?"
She sat down on the bed next to me again. "You remember that day, Izzie. You were the only friend I had and you remember the day they came to tell us." She looked at me in the eyes. "We didn't know, and one of them showed up to tell us –"
"What?" Rude, yes, but entirely necessary.
She frowned. "It was one of them that told us."
"How would a newsie know about Marisol?" I don't think I'd ever asked so many questions in my life.
She huffed a bit before answering. "I don't know, I guess they were friends. But he was one of them. And I don't know, every time I see one I just remember… and to think it was one of them that was the last person to see my sister… it makes me want to throw something."
She might as well have thrown something then from how angry she was. Under her usually delicate skin I could see her blue veins emerging, like earthworms arising from a long winter.
So I sat there for a minute, thinking about what she had told me. Then I said the best thing I could think of saying in that moment, "Wait, so do you really believe all that stuff about me you just said?"
And she smiled.
"Yes, Izzie. You're really special. They would be crazy not to see that."
Just that smile from Lola was enough for me. For as long as I could remember, I had never been recognized for something great. It felt good, and I didn't want it to end. So I took a moment to revel in my newfound glory.
And then it hit me in the face like one of those low-hanging signs I always cursed on my deliveries. The strike was over, done, terminado. The newsies had lost hope, and I had left them in their misery.
"Well," I said, depressed once again. "That's all very nice, but it's all over now."
Lola looked confused. "What? What happened?"
"I already told you, Lola! The bulls came and rounded them all up. The newsies that aren't in jail are miserable because none of the newspapers covered the strike. Besides, I left them. I left them high and dry. Why would they ever want me to help them again?"
Lola put her hand to her mouth for a moment, and then smiled. "Well, then we'll just have to help them find a way to get the word out. They'll want you back, Izzie. After all, they got you involved in this for a reason. You've got the stuff in here (she pointed at my chest, so I assumed she meant my heart) to make the difference."
At first, I shook my head at her sudden optimism. Enthusiasm was great and all, but it wasn't going to tell the whole of New York how the newsies had been cheated. I sat on the bed with my head in my hands.
Oh, but then! I jumped up in a state of brilliancy.
"I've got it, Lola! I know exactly what we could do to bring down that bearded tyrant down once and for all!" I yelled, disregarding the paper thin walls of the apartment.
But then I stopped. Lola had said loads of nice things about me, but that still left the question of the newsies. We were best friends again and for real this time, but would she be willing to help the newsies?
"Lola," I said, getting closer to her. "I need your help."
She looked at me for a moment and I wasn't sure what she would say. I was still so shaken up over everything that had happened that I just didn't know if up was down and down was up or if Lola would say yes or if Lola would say no.
"I'll help you, Izzie," she said quietly, a shadow of a smile on her face. "As long as you have a plan."
"All right," I said, tying my hair up. "We need to go get the newsies, right away. This is going to be big."
I ran down the stairs with Lola right behind me, the both of us happily ignoring Mrs. Martinez's yells from her bedroom.
"Carlos!" I yelped as we entered the living room. "Come on, we've got a plan."
I never did ask Carlos why exactly he awoke from his stupor on the couch to follow us, but he did. My thoughts? He was probably just sick of staring at the ceiling.
Who cares how it gets done, as long as it gets done, right?