The Final Jam

I sighed as I began to clean the floor of the entrance hall. It was normal that my boss asked me to do the cleaning, even though I was appointed as a cashier at the theater. I never declined though because New York was expensive as hell and I could use every penny I got, so if there was extra cash, you could count me in.

Had you asked me how I imagined my life after graduating this would definitely not have been my answer. When I graduated and left my parents' house in Long Island, I had big dreams; I wanted to make it in New York City. I wanted to be totally independent. I had planned to make it with my music - one of my dreams had always been to star in a Broadway production, but every audition I went to was the same: Either they told me my voice was good, great even, but not what they were looking for; or they said they needed someone with an established name and more experience.

Well how could I prove myself if I never got the chance? I didn't think they'd ever thought about that. Whenever a lot of money and fame is involved, people changed. I was proud to have stayed true to myself. My parents hated that I was not trying to become a doctor like them, but I refused to devote my life to a career I was not passionate about. Sure, I wasn't living the dream at the moment, but I was not going to give up.

When I looked up, I saw that I was almost done. I grabbed the bucket and poured the dirty water away. After putting everything back in the storage closet, the theater was clean and ready for that night's audience and I was ready to go pick up Matthew. I just needed to change back into my street clothes. It was slightly cold that day so I was wearing a long, knitted gray cardigan with black ripped skinny jeans and a simple white tank top.

Matt's school was only a few blocks away, so I could easily walk there. His teacher had asked to see me after they finish, so I sped up a little to make sure I was on time. When I reached the gates, I could already spot him playing with his classmates and confidently strode onto the school's property to greet his teacher. Just as I was about to reach her, I heard a tiny voice shout "Mimi!" I instantly smiled and turned around. "Matt!" I exclaimed just as happily and bent down to hug him and ruffled his hair. "I have to talk to Mrs. Hamilton real quick, so you can play with your buddies a little longer, okay?" I asked. "Okay," he grinned at me with his front tooth missing smile and ran off to play whatever they were playing before.

I took a deep breath before turning around and continuing my path towards the teacher. "Hello Mrs Hamilton, I'm Mitchie Torres, you wanted to talk to me?" I approached her. I felt really awkward...

"Yes, hello Ms Torres," she greeted with a friendly smile. "I wanted to talk to you because lately, Matthews grades have been slipping, not much, but I'm worried about him, he used to be such a good student. If I may ask, are you sure you can take care of a seven year old? I mean, your barely out of high school..."

She had to be kidding me. Of course I could take care of Matt! How did she dare to judge me on the basis of my age?! Would I have taken on this responsibility if I thought I couldn't do it? No! I closed my eyes for a second and told myself to stay calm. I was used to people judging me for becoming Matt's legal guardian when I was nineteen, but none of them cared enough to ask for the story behind it.

"Yes, I know I'm only twenty years old, but that has nothing to do with my ability to take care of Matt. I have noticed that his grades are slipping and I've talked to him about it. He told me he's been having trouble to concentrate because some of his classmates are really loud during class. With all due respect, but maybe that's where you should start looking instead of questioning my abilities," I said as calmly as I could, looking directly in her eyes. Something in her gaze changed, she looked almost as if she was impressed.

"...You're right, there is indeed a lot of noise in class. I will talk to the other teachers about it...I'm sorry if I insulted you," she sighs. I shook my head with a small smile.

"It's fine, but thank you. If that's all, I really have to go," I said. "Have a nice day."

I smiled as I looked to my left and saw Matthew and a few of his friends playing soccer on the grass, having made makeshift goals by putting their backpacks on the ground as the 'posts'. He looked so happy running around with his little buddies and that was all I needed to know that I'd made the right decision. "Matthew, you ready?" I shouted. "I'm coming! Bye guys!" he shouted as he quickly grabbed his small backpack. It was blue and had the red sports car from the movie 'Cars' all over it. He picked it because it was his favorite movie and because he wanted to own a car "just as cool and fast as Lightning McQueen" when he got older.

"Did you have a good day?" I asked as I grabbed his hand to make sure he didn't get separated from me in the busy streets of New York.

"Yeah! In music class Mrs Simmons allowed me to help her play the piano. It was really cool!" he said excitedly.

"That's awesome! How about we make some music after you finish your homework?" I suggested. I hadn't written a lot lately...I had had zero inspiration, all songs I had written had ended up being really depressive and that's not what I wanted. I wanted to make music that inspired others and made them happy.

"Yes! And can we have pizza tonight?" he asked nearly bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Hmm, we'll see about that. You need to eat your veggies too," I reminded him.

"But Mimi! Pizza is so much better, it has cheese!" he said, his eyes widening as he emphasized the word cheese.

"I know. But if you don't want to get sick, you need to eat the healthy stuff too," I chuckled.

We came to a halt in front of our apartment complex. I quickly pulled out my keys and unlocked the door. Matt ran in before me and started climbing the stairs to our apartment that was on the second floor. I decided to open the post box to see if we had got mail and pulled out a couple of envelopes. Two were for me and the rest were for my roommate, Caitlyn. I closed the box again and quickly walked up the stairs where Matt was waiting impatiently.

I opened the door and watched as he immediately bounced in "Mimi, I've got to pee pee," he told me.

"Well, you're a big boy now, go on, you know the way," I said and on afterthought added "And don't forget to wash your hands!"

I closed the door and took my shoes off and then put on my fuzzy bunny slippers, I know mature, right? But they were really comfy and they kept my cold feet warm. I sat down in the kitchen and decided to open the letters I got. One was some kind of membership campaign, asking me to join them on their journey to do whatever the heck they were doing...I didn't read it till the end. But the other one was from my boss, apparently I needed to come and see him that Thursday about an 'urgent matter'. Why didn't Frank, the manager of the theater and my other boss, just ask me? Why was the owner of the Helen Hayes Theatre asking to see me in person? I'd met him a couple of times and he was always very nice to me. He even remembered my name at the Christmas party the year before and stopped to ask how I was doing. I was only a cashier, but he still remembered. He knew every employee by name, even though he wasn't around most of the time. I was still impressed by that, but I was more than a little curious about that meeting.

"Will you help me with my homework, Mimi?" Matt's voice startled me.

"Sure, I'll be with you in a few. I'm just gonna fix us a little snack, alright?" I asked getting up and walking over to the counter to get out two small bowls and a knife.

"Okay," he agreed and went back into the living room.

I grabbed some carrots and an apple and washed them before starting to peel the carrots and cutting them in smaller sticks. After that I took the apple and quickly cut it in about eight slices. I took both bowls to the coffee table where Matt was using his fingers to count.

"five,..., seven!" I heard him mumble before he wrote down the solution. He was so smart, he didn't even need my help, but he loved to do stuff with me. Whenever we were home he always came to ask what I'm doing. I put the bowls on the table and sat down on the couch. I waited for him to write down the solution of the problem he was solving.

"So, how far did you get?" I asked.

"I'm almost done and after this I only have to do English," he announced proudly.

"That's good! There's snacks on the table if you want them," I told him.

"Does that mean we'll have pizza later?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes, but we're going to wait till Caity comes home from the studio," I said.

"Yay!" he exclaimed. I smiled. His happiness was contagious. After everything he'd been through you'd think he'd be a sad little boy, but he was the opposite. Matthew could brighten anybody's day. I looked over at him and saw that he'd moved on to his English homework.

"Mimi?" he asked.

"Hmm?" I hummed.

"What does this mean? How do I say it? An-an-anch-" he pointed to his worksheet.

"You mean ancestor?" I asked.

"Yeah, an-ancestor, what's that?" he repeated after me, still stumbling a little over the unfamiliar word.

"Uhmm...okay, so for example when I visit my grandparents that means that I'm also visiting my ancestors. But my ancestors are not only my grandparents, they're also my parents, my uncles, my aunts and everybody from my family that is older than me. Do you understand that?" I tried to explain.

"Yeah...so an ancestor is from your family and older than you, right?" he asked.

"Yes, You got it!" I said proudly.

I watched him scribble a few more words onto the sheet; such as strength, might, flight and bright. He had to write each word four times to practice the spelling and the letters. It was kinda weird... I never thought I'd be taking care of a kid so soon, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I was glad I had found him in the streets eight months ago.

"Done!" Matt startled me from my little walk down memory lane.

"Good job! Now what do you want to do? You wanna help me write that song or you wanna do something else?" I asked while he packed his stuff in his backpack for the next day.

"Can we go play in my room?" he asked with hopeful eyes.

"Sure," I smiled as I watched him jump up and race to his room. When I heard a loud clattering noise, I knew he just emptied his entire box of toy cars onto the floor. Sigh. I entered his room and found him already on the floor 'driving' his favorite blue car down the streets on his toy rug.

"Come on Mimi, you can take the black one and we'll have a race to the gas station!"

"Okay...Ready?" I set my car down next to his.

"Yeah...Go!" he shouted enthusiastically and started to push his car to the far end of the rug.

"Wait! You're so fast, I can't keep up!" I exclaimed, pushing my car way slower than he was his.

"Brr" he imitated a speeding car "Finish! I won!" he shouted happily.

"Aww...man!" I said, pretending to be really frustrated. Matt only smiled at me and patted my arm.

"Don't worry, maybe you'll win next time."

"Thanks. So...what should we do now?"

"Easy! We'll drive around town and we have to catch the bad guys and then bring them to the police station, 'cause we're special agents:" he told me.

"Alright Agent Campbell lead us to our targets!" I played along.

"Okay Agent Torres, I think they were last seen close to the store. Let's go!" he informed me in a serious voice.

We continued to look for criminals and fought for justice for about an hour when Matthew suddenly decided that he wanted to help me write a song. So I told him to put his cars back into the box and to come to my room after that. I got my guitar from it's stand next to my dresser and sat down on my bed, waiting for him to come in. I noticed that we never ate the fruit I cut up, so I quickly went into the living room to take it to my room for us to snack on. It was only three pm, so it'd be at least three more hours till Caity came home. The weird thing was that my best friend and roomie was working at a recording studio, but still couldn't suggest me as a new client because she was only an intern at the moment. The one time I actually had a connection to someone in the music business and she couldn't recommend me until she was fully employed. The world really sucked sometimes...

Suddenly Matt ran into the room and threw himself on my bed grinning cheekily at me. I shook my head and continued strumming the melody I had been playing subconsciously for the past few minutes, it was kind of upbeat and happy. Hmm...I wondered what lyrics I, we, could come up with.

"So? What do you think?" I asked him after I was done. He put on his thinking face, sucking in his lower lip and squinting his eyes before giving me a thumbs up.

"I think it's cool! It makes me wanna stand up on the bed and jump till I reach the moon!" He babbled excitedly.

"Actually, that's a great idea!" I said thinking of a way to put his words into lyrics, before I realized my mistake "And by that I mean great idea for the lyrics. So no jumping around on my poor mattress," I quickly added. Matt sighed loudly.

"Fine!"

I giggled at his dramatic antics. He sometimes made me wanna be a child again, the way he was so full of life and love...it was amazing. Wow, this all really does make a good song, I thought and quickly scribbled down a few keywords and lines that came to my mind. I might have a chorus!

"Hey Matt what do you think of this?" I asked and began playing him the possible chorus. "So stand up for the love, love, love. So stand up for the love, love, love. So stand up for the love, love, love. So stand up, stand up, for the love, love," I strummed before I was hit with a new idea "'Cause you're as old as you feel you are. And if you don't reach for the moon you can't fall on the stars. So I live my life like every day is the last, last, last..." I added spontaneously and looked to Matt for approval. He was nodding his head excitedly and jumped up, starting to bounce on my bed "So stand up for the love, love, love!" he sang gleefully while bouncing up and down.

We continued working on the song for at least two more hours with him munching on the apples and carrots and me scribbling and crossing out lyrics that came to my mind.

"Mimi I'm bored!" Matt complained.

"Okay, how about you go watch some TV until Caity comes back?" I suggested, knowing that it wouldn't be much longer till she would return from work. I didn't really like him watching a lot of TV because in my opinion it's important that kids spend their days running around having fun instead of being flooded by fast and colorful images from the television. The way parents left their children to fend with technology these days never failed to amaze me. I never had an iPhone as a kindergartener and I turned out fine... I think. What did three year-olds even need smartphones and tablets for? It confused me.

"Okay!" he said and got up to turn it on in the living room.

While I was alone in my room my mind wandered to different things. First I thought about the meeting I would have with my boss in two days, what could he want after all? If I was fired they surely would've just sent a letter stating the fact, so why all this effort? Then I thought about my future, would I ever make it in the music industry? Would my dreams come true? Would I be able to afford my own apartment one day? Would I be able to give Matt the care he needed? Most questions came back to one thing – money. I really needed a better paying job.

When I heard keys jingle in the lock, I knew Caitlyn had returned from work, so I got up and left my room.

"I'm home!" she called out like she always did.

"I know," I said.

"Hi Caitlyn!" Matt popped up behind me. "Did Mimi tell you? We're having pizza night!" he said happily.

"Nope she didn't, but thanks for telling me! I could totally go for some cheesy goodness," Caity said, nearly as excited as Matthew.

"See Mimi! Cait thinks pizza is awesome, too!"

"Don't listen to Mitchie, Matt. She's a health nut, such a party pooper," Caitlyn pretended to whisper. I rolled my eyes.

"Just because I don't always stuff my face with junk food, doesn't mean I'm a 'party pooper'," I said making air quotes.

"Whatever you say Mitch. Now let's order those pizzas, I'm starving!" she whined.

"I'm on it, jeez. Am I living with two kids now?" I huffed, pulling out my cell to order from Luigi's.

"I want one with extra cheese and ham!" Matt told me.

"Oh! I'll take one with pineapple and ham!" Caity said, jumping up and down, pretending to be a kid just to annoy me.

"Hello! I would like to order one small pizza with ham and extra cheese, and two regular sized ones. One with pineapple and ham and one with mushroom and bell peppers...Yes that would be all, thanks," I said and gave him our address.

Half an hour later we all had our pizzas in front of us and were watching The Voice on television. Caitlyn peered onto my plate and crinkled her nose, pretending to gag.

"Mitch, how do you eat that? You ruined an entire pizza with all that yucky stuff on there," she told me.

"Ugh, just eat your pizza Cait. I can eat whatever I want on mine," I rolled my eyes and playfully shoved her.

After we finished out pizza's we watched TV for about half an hour before Matt let out a huge yawn.

"Come on, Matt, sleepy time," I chuckled when he tried to look wide awake.

"No, I'm not tired yet!" he protested.

"Matt, it's time for bed, go brush your teeth," I said.

"I don't want to!" he stomped his foot. He looked so cute I wanted to laugh.

"But you're going to. You have school tomorrow, now go!" I said sternly.

"No!"

"Matthew you know that I'm not kidding. Get ready for bed or you can forget about going to Jamie's birthday party on Saturday," I told him. I hated when I had to be so strict, but I was not going to let him become a spoiled brat. I knew what it was like to be spoiled by your parents and I also knew the outcome.

"But..."

"I'm counting to ten. If you're not in the bathroom by then, you won't be going. One...Two..." I started counting waiting for him to cave. When I got to five he started squirming and went into the bathroom angrily. I got up to clean up the table and then followed him. He was nearly falling asleep while brushing his teeth.

He waited for the sand glass to be full on the bottom before spitting into the sink and washing his face. I dabbed his face dry with a soft towel and then tucked him in, grateful that he had changed into his PJ's before dinner.

"Goodnight Matt, sweet dreams," I said kissing his forehead and turning off the lights on my way out, leaving his door slightly open though, because he couldn't sleep with it closed.

After that I went into the kitchen to make myself some tea and to put our dirty plates into the dishwasher. When I was done with that I took my cup with me and sat down next to Cait who was watching some action movie by then.

"So how was work?" I asked while getting comfortable on our small couch.

"Eh work, was work. They let me help and stuff, but I feel like it's going to be ages until I'm gonna be a real employee and I wanna be a producer already. I really think I'm ready, but I feel like they don't see it," she sighed.

"They're really stupid if they can't see your talent. I'm sure they'll come to their senses soon," I said reassuringly.

"Let's hope so, but enough of me. How was your day?" she asked.

"Well you know that I sometimes help clean the theater, so that's what I did before I went to pick Matt up. You know what the teacher asked me? She asked me if I thought I was able to take care of Matt, because his grades were slipping! She had to accuse me instead of looking what was right in front of her nose! Her students are too loud during class, that's Matt's problem!" I ranted.

"Whoa, people are so ignorant. And you totally need a new job, you're wasting your time there," Caity said.

"Yeah, I know...I'm gonna start looking soon. Oh! I forgot to tell you...my boss, like my real boss, wants to meet up with me on Thursday and I have no idea why," I told her then took a huge sip of my tea, totally forgetting that it was still too hot. "Shit!" I interrupted her involuntarily. "Ouch! Damnit!" I cursed.

"Shit! Are you okay?" Cait laughed.

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry continue," I said still wincing at my scalded tongue.

"Right! Where was I? Oh, maybe you're getting a promotion? That would be great wouldn't it? But I really don't know what he could want...but it must be important I'm guessing," she said folding her legs underneath her.

"I really don't know what to expect from it, but I'll ask Frank about it tomorrow," I let out a yawn.

"Looks like it's sleepy time for Mimi," Caity mocked.

"Haha. Funny. But yeah, I'm going to bed. Night," I said getting up and shuffling into the bathroom to do my nightly routine.

Hi there! I'm finally back to writing fanfiction... the idea for this story has been in my head for a while now and I finally found the time to type it out. I have a lot planned for this one, so I hope you liked it!

Please leave me a review and tell me what you think! I won't be updating if I get the feeling nobody's interested, but that's okay, too. Just tell me if you want me to continue or not. Also, I am writing in the first person perspective for the first time, what did you think of that? Did I manage okay? :)