"They were what?!" came the slightly gasped reply from Maria as she tried not to choke on the sip of water she had so recently taken.
Taking a bite of her dinner, Emily took a moment before replying, partly to be sure that her friend didn't choke and partly to make sure that she didn't say the wrong thing and explain the event of earlier wrong. "Fighting." She reached across the table to pat her friend on the back, "Oh for God's sake, Maria, don't die on me, it wasn't like that. They were having some sort of contest, I think."
Regaining her breath at the thought that her daughter was not hurt in any way, Maria set down her glass of water firmly, as though it was the problem and not her own. "A contest, about what?"
Emily thought about this for a long minute, trying to call together all that she had seen and figure out exactly what it had all been about. But even after excessive brain scouring, Emily had no further idea than she those she had had while watching the fight-like contest. "All I caught was that they were seeing who could pin the other most… no I don't know why." She eyed Maria, as though her friend's raised eyebrow were a vast offence.
"Pin each other?" Maria repeated, trying to ingest this bizarre information without choking on air, as that would not give her such a viable excuse as the damned water had. "But why would that be appealing in a contest?" Thanks to her not-so-enlightening chat with Max earlier, Maria understood that Manticore hadn't exactly been a wholesome place to be raised, but this seemed a little much.
Shrugging her shoulders and taking a casual sip of her own water as if to say see, it isn't that hard, Emily added, "Well, there were some sort of prizes for the winner. I guess that would be incentive."
Leaning forward from her seat across the table from Emily, Maria tried not to sound too scandalized as she asked, "Prizes? What kind of prizes?" it was only too clear to both women what kind of prizes would be expected.
Again Emily shrugged, leaning back and slouching against the couch as if to make up for Maria having leaned forward. "I don't know," she couldn't help but admonish her friend, "and neither do you, Maria, remember that." When her only response was a sigh, Emily did add, "They seemed a little, embarrassed when I came in though, and kind of cozy."
"Cozy like in Logan Cale's bedroom, like I told you about?" Maria asked, raised eyebrow firmly back in place and all notions of dinner momentarily forgotten.
Giving up her charade, Emily sat up straighter and set her water glass down, "No, not cozy like that! Comfortable cozy." She figured that it was all right to indulge in gossip if it was about one's children, but Emily still felt squeamish about the whole issue.
Recognizing from long years together that this would be as much as her friend would say, Maria turned back to her dinner and took a bite before mercifully changing the subject, "Speaking of cozy, this place looks very nice, I'm amazed how you've fixed it up already!"
Smiling gratefully at the ill-disguised change of topic, Emily took a second herself to survey how nicely her apartment was coming together. The walls were still bare of decoration and items were stacked away too neatly for someone to have lived there long, but the living/dining room was almost looking lived in. "Ah, well, the advantages of having a son to move around the furniture." Emily paused, considering this, "Although, I'm sure your daughter could do just as well."
"Well, yes, actually, but that's beside the point!" Maria sent a quick prayer of thanks to Logan Cale for securing both herself and Emily with such nice little apartments until they could figure out what they were going to do with themselves.
Accidentally echoing her friend's thoughts, Emily continued the conversation, pointedly ignoring how Maria had suddenly drifted out of it. "I've been thinking that we should try to get in touch with our families, discreetly of course, and see what's what with them."
Maria snapped to attention at this idea and tried not to look as though the idea had been flitting around her brain for days now. She coughed discreetly, in an attempt to seem less scandalized, "I doubt my family even has any idea where I've been, I haven't talked to them since before I came to Seattle, originally."
Nodding, Emily kept her expression one of practiced calm. She didn't know much about Maria's childhood life, as it hadn't been something her friend wanted to discuss, and Emily herself wasn't inclined towards talking about her own. "Seems like we'll have to rectify that then, Maria, you know, leaving out the part about being escaped from a mental institution."
Both friends laughed tersely at that comment, trying to relax and go back to their dinner, leaving anymore planning for after they found out what was what.