Chapter Six
Brave Girl
Morning came sooner than expected and Manny was already up and adam. Emma fluttered open her eyes and all she saw was the white leather in front of her, she felt the warmth of Sean's arms around her, holding her hands dead asleep as if it had been something natural. She didn't move she didn't dare to wake him she just smiled to herself silently. The silence didn't last in the kitchen she heard movement. Manny was making coffee and the smell permeated throughout the room, Manny lit up a cigarette which is an translatable code which means she knows Emma is awake and wondering why isn't she yelling at her for lighting one up in her apartment but she was paralyzed and too drunk on love to even care. Manny quietly brought her cup of coffee in Emma's favorite night shirt and slippers in her Ryan's Planet mug clearly knowing she was getting to Emma.
Emma kept her eyes closed appearing to sleep but clearly she was agitated. Manny turned on the TV and annoyingly turned up the volume and kept changing channels until she got a satisfying reaction out of Emma and found something on TV she could watch. Manny inhales her cigarette once she put her mug on the table without a coaster to cool. One of the many things that drive Emma mad is when Manny doesn't use a coaster on her white wood tables. Everyone else seems to follow the unarticulated command.
Manny when she wants to be can be quite persuasive when she wants her way, and can be quite careless when it comes to how she behaves, she ashes her cigarette on the ash tray and looks at Emma again.
The truth of the matter is that Manny feels terrible most notibly about the things she said to them last night. Her cruel behavior toward Sean, at Emma's house no less and she was a guest. She rarely thinks before she acts, she's in the moment and almost never does she rely on logic. Now she's worried that she won't be heard out. She smiles genuinely at Emma and Sean snuggling on the couch and as much as she would hate to wake them she would still want to wake them up just so the entire jig would be up. It's not that she hates Sean but Emma has been through enough already in the realm of romance. The brunette plays the mother hen always looking over her unlucky in love best friend. It's no cakewalk by any stretch of the imagination. She knows that there's really one guy that would make Emma the happiest girl in the world and Manny can only pray he's sincere. Planning to stick around for the long haul, she's testing him. Absentmindedly, sifting through the cable she finally found an episode of Westdrive she was keen on. Her dream job. She quietly beamed to herself in celebration doing a small victory dance with her cigarette in hand, she ashed it and went back to enjoying it along with the episode and took another drag to her lips. The television was loud causing there to be movement almost instantaneous.
Even so, Manny's a straight shooter. She gets what she wants, she's a pusher. Right on cue, Emma groaned while opened her eyes permanently and shot her eyes at Manny exchanged looks and this was much to Manny's delight and to Emma's chargrin. From Manny to Sean who they realize was still fast asleep, "Could you turn that down? It's what 6:30?"
"No, sweetie it's like 10." Manny whispered obviously lying turning down the sound on the remote, Emma stuffed her hands in her pocket of her cardigan from the night before looking for her phone to check, "Okay okay, it is 6:30 but I had trouble sleeping so here I am on the couch."
"Nothing gets by you. You suck." Emma beamed with malcontent.
"You can be such a priss when you're tired. How could you especially you sleep at a time like this?"
"So now I guess I have trouble sleeping correct?" Emma ignored the latter and questioned Manny irratated by the wake up call trying hard not to wake Sean, "right?"
Manny crinkled her nose. She won. After a pause she spoke, "No . . yes I sort of wanted to apologize about last night. Residual guilt." She leaned against the couch and sheepishly took another drag before exhaling, "you see, when I'm jetlagged and sleep deprived I can be sort of nasty."
Emma shot back whispering, "We all know you meant everything you said. You know how I feel about him."
After that she gingerly made movements in an effort to let Sean sleep longer. He turned again facing the couch and groaned in his sleep but then resumed back to sleep. Asleep and at peace Sean according to Emma looked so cute. Decisiding it's best to move, the pair of girls slowly and quietly got up from the couch in a swoop concluding with Emma Bogarting Manny's cigarette moving to the kitchen and motioning Manny to come with her. The two took a seat at the bar facing the kitchen, "I need this more than you do right now."
"Does the move insinuate that I'm going to hear all about the evening?" Manny asked from behind the bar raising an eyebrow, "Coffee?
"Please." Emma answered ignoring that high brow loaded question yawning "And to answer your question honestly exactly what you did, we fell asleep. Which I'd be doing if you didn't wake up at the asscrack of dawn."
Amused Manny stated, "You're avoiding the question."
"Just do me one favorite alright? Stop insinuating something I don't even have any idea what's going on. We went to sleep."
"That all?" Manny asked in cough-sounding voice showing her disagreement, "I really am sorry about last night."
"Manny . . ." Emma softened, "don't worry about it. I don't care you're going to think what you want so it doesn't even matter."
"Which is why I tried really hard to wake you up to apologize. See I'm not so terrible after-all."
Emma wasn't going to disagree she really had no basis to continue her stand-off and topped it off by placing the cigarette to her lips and wordlessly agreed with Manny, the predictable blonde wasn't terrible at changing the subject and expanding on the ever the same story with her favorite boy, "Call me corny or hopeless or whatever . . . but whenever I'm with him it's like I walk on air and time just doesn't exist, I don't think I literally shut down doubt and negativity and open myself and just feel. It's beautiful but dangerous so it's alluring."
"Not to mention dangerous and a trap."
"Shut up," Emma shot back in denial she was not upset just embarrassed and it showed, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"And denial is not just a river in Egypt. But let's just snap back to reality for a minute." Manny reminded her friend while stirring Emma up a cup of steaming black coffee with sugar and cream, "Your MO is you. Remember? Doing you. We don't want you to slip back into anything bad you've been doing great since well . . . you know." Again were the reminders that sort of haunt Emma and as much as Manny knows this is the last thing her friend would like to hear on a good day following the perfect night that just passed. Manny was right, a lot more than she gets credit for. Manny's been around the block no real disagreement there. She's had her strings of failed romances and neither of the girls had played the the angel or the villain in relationships. People are people, "Don't kill the messenger." Emma took the coffee from her friend with downcast eyes.
Emma kind of fell off after the end of the marriage stopped taking care of herself and went trough depression stopped bathing and getting out of bed, bogged down on sleeping pills and wine utterly miserable until Jay reached out to her and forced her to man up and start caring more. Jay had to shake her back to reality. Started her going out places spending time with her new buddy Jay and stuff. Jay was the person who plucked her out of the bad situation. The problem was with Emma was when she expressed her concerns in her marriage to Spinner and in result she found a phone number in his pockets when it was him who sort of didn't like when she went out. He always on the defense that she had been cheating but then it was discovered it was he who was unfaithful. Instead of Emma being unkind, sabotaging his life she just quietly, politely and strongly asked if they could just split up and put it all behind them, start over and more importantly divorce.
After Spinner moved out and got a place of his own Emma started going out with Jay living this lifestyle of parties, phone numbers, dates going nowhere and random seedy motels she had a few blind dates but most of them were non-committal, fun and completely non-serious duds. For Emma that was okay for the time that sort of thing was appropriate. She never really had anything strings free so it was refreshing that there wasn't emotional tethers bounding her to any of her non romantic conquests. When it was over it was over and nothing hurt. Jay remained with Manny but their relationship was long distance but Jay played protective gentleman and pretended to be her boyfriend if any guys got touchy on her. Emma always wanted more but never had so much as fleeting attraction for the guys she'd meet out. She has sort of old fashioned views and these guys were way beyond her norms. She wanted more. Jay would be there more or less for moral support. For a young single girl Jay just expected her to enjoy that kind of awhile she stopped going places aside from out with Jay and started focusing on the business. She lost track of people. Manny started to worry though when she hadn't heard from Emma in awhile so she came back.
"Manny, the whole reason I got into this mess was because I was alone."
Following the revelation, Manny paused feeling a tinge of guilt. She knows she hadn't been around for the better part of the past few years, it wasn't like Manny to walk in and start pointing fingers but in the time after high school it's become more and more evident that things are rarely going to be the way they used to be so it's for the best that they start accepting instead of falling backward into old habits but Emma is the one fighting tooth in nail for the past fearlessly. In Manny's absence she hadn't bothered to observe that people change for better or for worse and Emma in her heart of heart believes his change is positive and it's Manny who is struggling to accept. Either way, in their own way the collective stubborn is enough to make it clear, "wait are we talking about Spin?"
"No one really had a gun to my head."
Manny scoffed with sensitivity to the loaded subject, "Are you really going to make a gun joke?"
Emma paused not even thinking about the significance of the remark, "I knew what I was doing but I did it for the wrong reasons, marrying for the wrong reasons. I saw you know you and Jay and the fairytale and I wanted that too."
"Sweetie . . "
Emma sort of dismissed the sympathy from her friend, "The only person to blame is myself."
Manny silently understood, and calmly offered a reply, "Look I'm just looking out for you my best friend I didn't want you to start feeling sorry. Things don't work out there's no use crying over spilled milk."
"So you aren't mad?"
Emma shook her head sipping on coffee afterall the heart to heart made her feel much better about everything from Sean to Manny. Emma coughed from the smoke and in repulse she gave it back to Manny, "How do you smoke these things? They're vile!"
"Not going to tell me why you puffed for the last five minutes."
"Bitch." Emma jokes, it was just something they tended to do when they got together. Nobody on the planet knows more about them than they do. Not even a boyfriend not even their mothers.
"Skank." right on cue manny girls erupted into laughter but quickly quiet down for the sake of slumbering Sean.
"So Manny what are your plans looking like today?"
"Open as your legs, my dear."
"Manny!" Emma hushed in exclamation.
"You surely think I'm blind."
Emma shook her head snickering, "I'll say it now and I will say it again I did nothing last night."
"Soon." manny sipped her coffee pinky out.
As Emma turned attention to the television. Here Manny goes trying to deprecate herself. She knows exactly what she's doing but she's selfless enough to know she was killing multiple birds with one stone, "Why are you watching that rerun?"
"I've got wo reasons, sleeping beauty."
"Enlighten me"
"Well of course to wake you up dear."
"Ah there's the rub." Emma teased.
" . . To apologize, not done!" Manny whined irratatingly, "anyway why do you have plans?"
Emma shook her head, "I was hoping you'd want to go shopping ro do some girl stuff you know this morning while we're up."
"Retail therapy sounds good."
Emma took out her purse, and saw her money and cards right where she needs them, "I've been wantng to shop but it's not like I could ask Jay because he just begs me to go to the food court so he can eat his weight in nachos."
"Ew!" Manny screeched repulsed, "and then he goes to one of those other vendors and gets ketchup and honey mustard from Chic-fl-a and puts them in the taco salad -"
"And then he mixes em all together and it makes an ugly sound."
"YES!" Manny jeered happily before forgetting Sean was here, she matter of factually quieted down and smirked, "you know we should bolt down now." Emma thought fast and sort of managed to quikly pen a note to Sean letting him know the dealing of the day. Manny ran into Emma's bedroom in a mad dash to get ready for the day ahead. Not bothering to shower she threw her sunglasses upon her face and threw on a black baseball cap and and slipped into clothes she didn't bother to check for matching it's not like anyone would even recognize her and before long the girls were gone and out the door locking Sean securely inside careful not to make a peep.