(One day, I swear. I swear. I will finish editing all of this.)
Emma took long the walk back to Manhattan to weigh the pros and cons of getting amazingly drunk before spilling her heart out to Blink. She got into it with herself, arguing and bickering arguments back and forth silently, and sometimes not so silently, between the voices inside her head.
Pros:
You won't remember any of it.
It would be a really great excuse.
No more inhibitions.
The looks on the newsgirls' faces when she came home drunk.
Cons:
You won't remember any of it.
You'll feel like a walking corpse tomorrow.
Who in their right mind takes a drunken person seriously?
You might throw up on him instead.
Reluctantly, she disregarded the idea. If she could handle Brooklyn, being a newsie and Spot Conlon, she could be a man and tell Blink she loved him. Or…be a woman, and do...what was the difference, really?
Oh hell. This was going to be difficult.
It was more difficult then she had expected, because Blink was nowhere to be found. Emma made the rounds through every profitable part of the borough and found them all distinctly lacking Blink. Even the newsies she met with along the way had seen neither hat nor patch of him all day. Her happy mood dipped precariously as the search proved fruitless. Emma's quest was cut short only by an encore of the previous night's rain.
It seemed like a very enthusiastic encore.
Wet and angry, Emma slammed the Lodging house door behind her, disregarding the quizzical looks Boots and Itey sent her from the poker table, Emma thunked, moodily up the stairs. She was unbelievably mixed up again inside, and further annoyed by the insult of not understanding her own mind.
Muttering darkly to herself, entirely engrossed in her own thoughts, she didn't see the boy leaning casually on the wall next to the girls' room. She would have passed him right by if he hadn't admitted a gentle "hey,"
"Blink?" Emma's whole thought process jarred, uncomfortably. "Where the hell have you been?" she demanded, not giving him a chance to answer before blundering on. "I have been looking for you for the entire afternoon! I am wet, confused, pissed off and it's entirely your fault."
She glared at him, hands akimbo, wondering how in the world she went from confessing her love to yelling at him.
"Um, are you angry at me?" He asked, tilting his head with a show of innocence that Emma really hoped he was faking.
"No, this is my happy face." She snapped.
"Look," his voice was suddenly all seriousness, "If I stepped out of line last night…well, I'm sorry," His gaze did not meet her eyes.
She softened, damn his unnatural grip on her heart. "Why did you kiss me, Blink?"
He sighed, obviously taking this as a 'how could you' statement.
"Because I think you're amazing. You cheat at cards," his mouth curled up as he listed, "You think Candide has an army of squirrels who do her bidding-"
"She does!" Emma interrupted, impulsively, fighting back a smile when he lifted his eyebrows at her.
"Because you're such a newsie, Emma,"
The words slid over her; the most romantic, perfect declaration she could have imagined. Here, after all the worrying and doubts about her ability to hold him, he wanted her for everything she was. He admired the person she needed to be. He didn't want a skirt-clad, clean-cut girl. He wanted a newsie.
"Oh," she mouthed, unable to think of anything to say to that.
"But that's no excuse," he admitted, attempting to further apologize, but Emma wasn't listening.
"So it wasn't a dare?" she asked, searching his face with fluttering eyes, "You meant it?"
"I don't gamble Emma, I thought you knew that," Blink looked subtly hurt by her question, which only made her trust him further.
"Then why did you leave?" Her question was soft, a little hurt.
He laughed at her, long and loud, forcing her eyebrows to knit together in anger, her fists curling. In a moment more, Blink would have been on the floor (6.), defending himself against her well-trained outpouring of rage. Fortunately for Blink, he reacted quickly.
"Emma, you jerked away from me, what was I supposed to think?" He was still chuckling at her and she felt a blush rising to her cheeks. This was really too much for her pride. She side-stepped him, making for the girls dorm.
"Don't," His soft word slapped her. The effect was both enraging and soothing, she couldn't decide which emotion dominated, but she turned to him, eyes searching.
"Blink, why do you wear the eye patch?"
It was a question she had asked before, never getting the same answer, though always entertained by the story; "Fight with a bear, I can see dead people, it was gouged out by a jealous lover, I ate it," and, Emma's favorite; "The squirrels got it!"
"It earns me an average dime-a-day more. And…We all want to be memorable. We all want something that's ours," his answer was honest, eye searching her gaze.
"Why did you pull away?"
"A memory. I was caught by something that should never have happened."
He waited, patiently for her explanation, as she drew deep and began to lay out the thoughts she would offer to him.
"When I was in Brooklyn-"
Her answer, slow and solemn was cut off by the wild trajectory of the door, ending in a sharp, wooden thwack between her shoulder blades.
"Damn!" she cursed, whirling angrily to see who had inflicted the pain. The smell reached her first, a husky, burning aroma, which reeked of charred hair and singed skin.
Ember stood before them, a small smirk on her face, a cigarette in her mouth and lit matches between her fingers. The slip ends of her wavy red hair was black and smoking, soon to be ash, though no flames licked at her except those devouring the matches. Her hands were red and the smell of burned skin was overpowering. The amazing part was the absolute lack of burns or ash on her clothes. They were spotless. It made the whole scene more bizarre. Ember did not have accidents with fire. She had the finesse and careful attendance of a lover to her flames.
"Emma, Blink," she nodded, her low voice smooth and knowing. "Emma, it's card night, and you know the rules," She raised her eyebrows, daring Emma to deny it. In the silence between them all, she slowly blew out one match, and then the other, as they got too close to her skin. The third one left a dark red mark on her fingers before she blew it lovingly out.
Card night was sacred
The game, made up by Ace to be complicated enough to spite Racetrack (1.), was a mixture of canasta, poker, and go fish, with a few of their own tweaks. Only the Manhattan newsgirls ever really knew all the rules, possibly because they changed with every Card night.
There were some simple house rules. The stakes were never monetary, and points were given for imaginative bets. The oldest girl was always dealer. The youngest girl was always referee. Each girl shuffled the deck once. Then the fun could begin. These games often went late into the night. So late, that some days there would be a paucity of female newsies on the streets the next day. It had been accepted as a small price to pay.
Sighing, Emma nodded, and turned back to Blink.
"I really don't have a choice," She admitted, as Ember shut the door.
Blink knew the rules; he had watched Ember drag Star from Iety's bunk last time. "Tomorrow? Will you wait for me at the distribution square?" he meant it and she loved him for it.
Cupping his face gently in her rough hands, she kissed him softly. Her lips weaving words she didn't have the skill to string together. "I will wait for you," she smiled. Then, winking cheekily, she slid through the door, leaving him staring at the place where she had been.
His goofy grin was going to give him away. Damn.
Footnotes:
(1.) He wouldn't take her to the races. Among other small slights. Honestly, he's not being sexist, he just would rather not lose…He needn't have worried, she's not so good at things that aren't card games. She's just really amazing at anything involving the cards. Houses made of cards, fortune telling. You name it. She and Race really are the best of friends. Though he still won't take her to the races, and she still wont tell him how to play the game.
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