Disclaimers:  Roxana and  Pride and Prejudice characters and concept are property of their original creators.   Original story is property of the author.
Rating:  PG-14; Literature.

"A Little Night Music"

© 1999 Grace Macy

The music was loud in the pub, throbbing in that primal depth it accomplishes when the bass is too high and the indistinguishable mumble of the words are left to the subconscious to decipher.  Liz didn't mind.  Right now, she needed the pounding that was coming from the walls, the floor, up through the soles of her feet and the palm of the hand she had rested on the seat beside her.  She could see little ripples in the bottle of beer in front of her.  She needed that too, right now: the beer.

Liz giggled slightly and took up the bottle again, took a long pull and then set it down, watching the way the lights played on the brown glass.  She stopped giggling a moment later, a sure sign to that little part of her mind that was still logical that she was quite definitely buzzed.  Or what was the other word? the one Roxanne had used once?  Blitzed.  Yes, Elizabeta Benedetti decided, she was quite nicely blitzed.  But darn it, they deserved it.  She deserved it.  One year of college -- the first, truly trying year of college -- gone.  Done with.   Finito.

Liz giggled again.  Freedom, for a few precious months, no worrying about papers and grades, and boys.  Liz frowned.  No, that wasn't right.  She still had to worry about boys.  One boy, at least, if her Mama was still harping on that: Giuseppi Colombo.  Her cousin, a distant one, and set to inherit Papa's estate -- the Benedetti estate -- when Papa died.  The way Mama made it sound, that would happen any day now, not years and years -- and years and years and  years -- down the line.

Mama had been shocked when she'd turned down Giuseppi's offer of marriage; her sisters had stared at her like she'd grown another head or two; and all because she had the revolutionary idea that she should be in love in order to get married.  Papa,  grazi a Dio, had supported her, but Mama . . .  Mama was the reason she had jumped at the chance to attend university in England when the Scholar's University had opened its doors to women.

So here she was, a thousand miles from Rome, and not really looking forward to the three months she'd be back there for the summer.  Liz pouted and sniffled slightly.  No one understood her decision back home; Mama thought she was being silly.  She was a daughter, she had an obligation to her family, and what would happen to her sisters and Mama when Papa died and Cousin Giuseppi swooped in and collected the estate?  Mama thought a woman should marry when she's told to, and she could love her husband later, but Elizabeta . . . she didn't think so.

Liz sighed and looked over at where her roommate was sitting, a few feet away on the long seat of the booth, practically climbing onto the lap of her boyfriend.  Her much older boyfriend.  Who managed the band she was in.  Who gave her anything she wanted.  Liz frowned contemplatively.

When the couple separated for breath, Liz cleared her throat.  They went back to kissing.  Liz frowned and pouted; not loud enough.  The second time, just when she was about to give up on waiting, she cleared her throat louder.  She wasn't sure whether it was the almost painful throat-clearing or a simple precautionary measure to ensure the man didn't suffer a coronary, but they stayed separated.  Roxanne seemed to remember she was there, though, so that was a good sign.

The auburn-haired beauty rested her head on her lover's shoulder, then turned it slightly to look at Liz.  Her green/hazel/brown eyes looked dark in the changeable lighting, her expression holding a pleasantly dazed quality.  She smiled; Liz smiled back, suddenly amused.

Roxanne Unger was that type of woman that men were drawn to almost magnetically; she was beautiful, but it was more than that, a kind of otherworldliness that couldn't be created with makeup.  Brian turned his head to nuzzle his face into Roxanne's wild, crimson-streaked hair, then kissed her temple and said something into her ear.  Roxanne looked at him and smiled, forgoing an answer to settle further onto her side of the seat as he stood.

He gave Liz a brief smile, then headed for the back of the pub.  Roxanne watched him go with a mixture of amusement, fondness, and raw desire.  It reminded Liz of what she had intended to ask.

"Hey," she said, to call her roommate's attention.

Roxanne pulled her gaze to her friend and smiled, sliding down the long seat with the careless grace that seemed to mark her every move.  As she reached the slightly younger girl, she pulled her purse along, opening it to rummage efficiently for a pack of cigarettes.  She found it, pulled out a fag and lit it with a silver engraved lighter, then sucked in a long breath.  She smiled as she released the smoke in a thin plume, and slid a little closer so she could be heard over the still-pounding music.  "Hey," she returned.

"I must ask you something."

Roxanne nodded, pushing her long hair away from her neck in an effort to cool her skin.  She craned her head away from Liz briefly to release another cloud of smoke.

Liz looked at her, trying to think how to frame the question, then heard herself saying, "How can you marry, or sleep with, someone you do not love?"

Roxanne stared at her, startled.  "Say what?"

Liz blinked, blinked again, and coloured slightly.  "Merda."  She frowned at the bottle on the table and realized it had a hell of a lot of company.  "I suspect I have drunk more than I thought," she said.  "I didn't -- I didn't mean to say it like that."  She looked at Roxanne, her brown eyes wide and dismayed.  "I'm sorry,  cara.  Perdona me?"

Roxanne chuckled and reached out to hug the girl one-armed.  "'S'okay. Just surprised me.  Didn’t think you'd ever have the nerve to come right out and ask something like that."  She grinned at her.  "We gotta get you drunk more often."  Liz chuckled and shook her head at the American.  Roxanne smiled.  "Now -- why do you ask?"

Liz sighed and shrugged, brushing her short brown curls behind one ear.  "I was thinking . . . about my family."

Roxanne nodded.  "Ahhh.  That Columbus --"

"Colombo.  Giuseppi."  She frowned, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears.  "Everyone was so upset that I said no, but . . . I couldn't say yes.  It never even occurred to me.  I mean, one should be in love when they marry -- and Mama said no, they don't -- and I thought --"

"Who would know better than me?"  There was a note of bitterness in her voice.  "Kid, I . . ."  Roxanne shook her head.  She had never really gone into detail about her life in the seven months she and Liz had been roommates.  The pretty Italian struck her as being an innocent in so many ways and Roxanne -- well, wasn't.  In any.  But Elizabeta needed to hear some support right now, and Roxanne had grown fond of her despite the nearly two year difference in their ages.  She sighed.  "Look," she said finally, as Liz looked at her with wide, pleading eyes.  "There are worse things, and better things, and it's all just . . . timing."

She sighed and leaned back against the booth, settling herself so that she was sideways on the seat, facing her roommate.  "You know I was born in the U.S., and my mom died when I was little.  Well, thing is, I wasn't an only child like I said I was.  I had five little brothers and sisters."  Liz' eyes widened.  Roxanne chuckled at the expression on her face and nodded, taking a deep drag on the cigarette before continuing.  "Dad stuck around 'til I was sixteen and they were, god, I don't know, like ten and below.  Then he split.  I took care of them, tried to anyway, for a few months and then . . . I just couldn't anymore.  It was hard, and expensive, and there was never enough to feed and clothe and pay for shit and . . ."

Roxanne swallowed hard, fighting down the wave of sadness that edged towards her.  "So I made an anonymous call to Child Services.  I knew they'd take care of them okay, but we wouldn't have stayed together anyway, so . . .  I went out the door and called, and they showed up and . . ."  She shook her head.  "I told them what was gonna happen, so they didn't cry or anything.  Shit, they were probably too hungry to cry anyway."

Roxanne shook her head again, fighting that sadness, but it showed in the way she stabbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.  "So I went and did what I had to do.  Constantine found me in a restaurant one day and . . . he was . . . good to me.  Took me in, took care of me . . ."  She smiled at the look on Elizabeta's face.  "No, he didn't ask for sex.  He just took care of me.  And then I wanted to take care of him, eventually.  And I did.  And it was . . . good."

She smiled in fond remembrance of the man.  "He had to go to Europe on business -- he dealt in jewels -- so he took me with him.  Me, in Europe, in silk and jewels, and . . . it was great.  Then one day these shmucks break into his office, and he's too damned stupid to just give them the damn diamonds."

She sighed and lit another cigarette.  "So I'm stuck in Europe, some money but not a lot, and I meet this guy at a club where I'm trying to get a gig.  William.  Cute, English, dad was Lord Somebody or Other.  So we get together -- same reason as I got together with Constantine, but . . . not.  I mean, he's gorgeous, and rich, and he's got women falling all over him, and he chooses  me.  I mean, I didn't know I was pretty back then, you know?  I was eighteen.  So I come back to London with him . . . and we end up breaking up, you know, over some dumb shit -- literally.  Some bimbo his dad wants him to marry, and I want to do stuff with my life.  So he gives me some money, and I start auditioning for bands and--"

"That is how you met Brian?"

Roxanne nodded.  "See . . . the deal is . . . it's  nice.  When you get together with someone and you don't love him, and you know he doesn't love you, and you know it's not gonna be permanent. . .  When you know it's about sex and money, to whatever degree . . . it gives you this . . . freedom.  You can do whatever, say whatever -- you can just concentrate on having fun with him.  And eventually, you do fall for him.  I fell for each of them.  I'm in it with Brian.  And no, I don't know where it's headed, but . . . I couldn't do this if it wasn't so -- open, you know?  I mean, we sleep together and have fun, and he pays for me finally going to college and I get to sing, too.  It works for me."

Liz nodded, thinking it all through.  "I . . . I don't know if it would . . . work for me."  She sighed.  "I believe in true love.  I know it sounds silly, and perhaps I shouldn't . . .  My parents do not love one another.  I don't know if they ever did, really.  Papa is a very smart man, and Mama . . . Mama is . . ."  Elizabeta chuckled bitterly, sounding rather sober now.  "Mama is Mama.  She thinks of trips and clothes, and cars and money, and how much each of her daughters will marry for and what they will buy her when they have rich husbands.  It's not that she is petty, just . . ."

"It's the way she was taught," Roxanne supplied.

Liz nodded.  "Yes.  Papa didn't realize that when he married her, and when he figured it out, I think he placed all his attention on getting sons from his marriage.  But he got five daughters instead.  And Giulianna, my older sister, she is the only truly nice one.  Maria and Olivia and Katerina . . . well, they are all something like Mama.  And Papa just . . . gave up.  He is still kind to me and to Giulianna, but to Mama . . . I think the only reason he is so mean sometimes is because he knows she does not understand his joking.  I hope it is so.  But . . ."

She turned anguished eyes to Roxanne and confided in a soft voice, "I do not want to be like that!  I do not want a marriage where it is only for money.  I want love, or at least to really like my husband.  I want to know we respect one another and will never treat each other like that . . ."  A tear slipped down her cheek unnoticed; Roxanne cooed in sympathy and wiped it away, pulling her into a gentle hug.  "Why can Mama not see that?  Why can she not understand?"

Roxanna shook her head.  Brian was coming back from the bathroom, but she waved him away discreetly.  "Because then she'd see her own life," she answered.  "Look, whatever they tell you, you did the right thing.  A woman has a right to live her own life, whatever way she wants to."  She slipped a hand under Liz' chin and lifted it.  "There are other fish in the sea, and they are way cuter and more worth your time than Columbus."

"Colombo," Liz corrected her, but she was smiling.

"Whatever," Roxanne laughed.  She thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up with a mischievous smile.  "What about that guy on campus.  That upperclassman.  What's his name . . . the one you can't stand."

Liz frowned.  "Devon Finley?"  Roxanne nodded.  "But he is too -- too stuck up.  Always looking like a gargoyle, all frowns -- and he was terrible at that club, when he said I wasn't pretty enough to dance with -- and  . . .  why do you ask about him?"

Roxanne smiled; she'd been wanting to bring this up for a while now.  "Well," she said dryly, "I doubt he walks past our side of the dorm every day after class because it's the scenic route to his building."

"Maybe he is just on his way home."

Roxanne raised an eyebrow.  "His dorm is in the other direction.  He doesn't know anyone else over out way.  Unless he's got the directional sense of a blind lemming, he knows that."

Liz' eyes widened.  "Oh."

Roxanne snorted and then laughed, taking a pull at her cigarette and then putting it out.  "You gotta give people a chance, kiddo -- especially when they're male.  They have a hard time making themselves clear when it means something to them."

Liz' eyes widened even more.  "Oh," she repeated faintly.  She looked thoughtful now.  

Roxanne smiled.  Looked like next semester was going to be an interesting one.

finis

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