Windows on the World (OLD VERSION) [BEING REWRITTEN]

[¹⁷] ˡⁱᶠᵗᵉᵈ

The door to Dana's apartment opened for Walter. At the other side, a girl with one half of her hair puffed up in curls and the other half with braids closely knitted to her scalp, received him with a wide smile despite another on of his unannounced visits.

"Happy birthday, Pheebs."

The smile grew exponentially with the use of her nickname.

"Well, come on in," she told him after he just stood there for a while, staring ahead like he'd lost something on her face.

The heating problem had been fixed, and a brand new black couch replaced the old one. The apartment was still nothing spectacular, and the location was still less than ideal, but those two details added a much stronger feel of homeliness. While he ran his hand through the thick and soft fibers on the armrest, an evaluating glance at the couch brought his attention to a video tape titled Buns of Steel lying on the middle of it.

"Dana's." Phoebe was quick to repudiate the object. "Thank God you caught me in the middle of this, and not that." She pointed at her head and then at the tape, joking. The mere image of the second scenario, with aerobics and lycra involved, caused an instant laughter in them both. "I suck at braiding, though," she continued in a rant. "My arms get tired so quickly! I don't know how Jen does it!"

"I'd offer to help, but I have butter fingers." He wriggled his fingers up high.

"It's aight. I'll get them done in time, I just gotta concentrate."

Walter took notice of her second statement and tilted his head while he watched her stand before the full-length mirror in her bedroom and fiddle amongst volume quantities of ringlets.

"You are going somewhere, then?"

A week ago she'd told him she had nothing planned for her birthday. That was why he'd shown up. He'd remembered her eighteenth birthday and was afraid loneliness may have been in play again like last time. However, her answer proved the opposite.

"Mm-hmm. Meeting the gang at the club later." Much later, in fact, but she'd wanted to get an early start on her hairdo. "You can come too, if you want."

It wasn't just not wanting to leave him hanging since he'd gone all the way to her place and make him turn back. The thought of Walter in a hip-hop club seemed too entertaining to pass up.

"Ha. Don't think so."

She pouted. "Oh, please, I'd like that."

"And meet the same friends who got you into trouble in that same club?"

"All right, man, don't get all righteous. I would just like you to be part of it."

Walter stood behind her to pick up the right strap of her denim dungarees and tightened it around her shoulder so it wouldn't fall again.

"In case I need to 'bail you out' again."

Phoebe made her hands into a W shape as if to say 'whatever'.

They got to Brooklyn ahead of time, still before the hour they were supposed to meet at, and Walter was not yet sure about going into Hips at all. Phoebe dragged him inside, made him leave his jacket at the club entrance and performed a few adjustments on his image.

"They are all looking at me."

"Of course they are, Cinderella." Coincidentally, the song Sexy Cinderella was playing as they went down the industrial staircase to the underground floor. His eardrums were thankful that it wasn't a hard-beat song at an obnoxious volume. "Just because you took off your jacket and rolled up your sleeves doesn't mean you blend in. You're a forty-year-old man in a hip-hop joint."