Chapter 2
Once again sat at a booth by the window in the diner that's between their office and the apartment, they plan out their entire trip. Which car to take (Penny's, because Rose's eats up too much gas), what to bring their parents (food and wine, because there can never be too much food, or wine, at reunions like these), where to stay (they considered hotel, but Rose's mom had called them earlier and insisted that they all stay at their house— “there are just too many rooms in this house and I wanna be close to my girls,” she said), and lastly, how they're going to spend 25 hours on the road without killing each other.
“I'll drive, you take care of everything else,” is Penny's answer.
//
They must have been sitting there for hours when both of their phones ring. Rose pulls her phone out of her jacket and immediately presses the green button. It's her mom.
Across the table, Penny must deal with yet another intern in distress. Calm down, she says to herself. This can't take long. After several minutes of pep talk, which took all that's left of her sincerity, she resolves in a yes or no Q & A session to find out what's really wrong. But Penny can only take that much of frustrating maybes, so she finally tells Jose, Jason, Jeremy, or whoever that intern's name is, to go find her secretary— and that if he can't solve his problem by himself, he can get out of his internship before she fires him. Penny doesn't like firing people, but a long time ago she was told that she doesn't have to solve everyone's problem either.
Rose, on the other hand, sounds like she's having a great conversation with her mom. That is, until Penny sees her friend's expression falls and full sentences turn into one-word answers: yes, sure, OK, uh-huh, alright. All hurled while her eyes sometimes steal glances at Penny's with what Penny could only describe as... fear? That can't be right, Penny thinks.
//
“What was that about,” Penny asks as soon as Rose is off the phone. “Why did you look at me like that?”
Rose makes Penny swear to not make a scene before she tells her.
//
The apartment door closes with a slam, and with Rose still outside. Penny is furious. To her credit, she waited until they're both out of the diner before she started mumbling all kinds of profanity. She wasn't hurling them at anyone in particular (though she thinks it would definitely makes it all the better) but Rose wisely kept a safe distance walking behind her.
Rose waits a few minutes before she enters the apartment. She finds Penny sitting on the couch, still muttering curses. She's used to it by now— they've known each other for almost 10 years. There were times when she would sit next to her fuming friend and try to console her, but by now she knows that it's best to just go on with her life until Penny's ready to get on with hers. It never takes too long, probably an hour or so. And they already spent the first 30 minutes walking the long way from the diner. Well, okay... the super long way.
Seeing that she still has another half an hour or more, Rose decides to take a shower. Penny's not going anywhere anytime soon.
//
“Hey, hon, I need to run something by you really quick,” said her mom through the phone, so Rose let her talk.”What is it, Mom?”
“Sally's here and she wants to know if you guys can let Tara and Chiquita stay the night tomorrow.”
Rose felt her eyes were about to jump out. She needs to process this request, and she needs to process it quick. ”They, uh... They're not flying straight from Dublin?”
“No. Something came up and Tara has to stop over. And it's not like there's a direct flight, anyway. You know that.” A pause. “You don't sound thrilled at all.”
“No, no. I'm just surprised, that's all,” she tries to smile into the phone but Rose isn't so sure it's working.
“So you don't mind,” her mom asks again.
“No.”
“Would Penny mind?”
Rose steals a glance at Penny out of worry. She immediately regrets her action because Penny was actually looking at her too. “No,” she says to her phone, answering her mom's question, and averts her eyes to the table.
“So they can stay at your place?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have the space?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It's only gonna be one night, hon.”
“I know.”
“You used to have sleepovers all the time.”
“All the time.”
“So what's your problem?”
“Mom, nothing. There IS no problem. Tell Sally we're happy to have Tara and Cee stay the night,” says Rose as quickly as possible when she sees Penny's lip movement spells 'goodbye' to whoever it is she's talking to on the phone.
After excusing herself and telling her mom that she'll call her back, Rose hangs up and looks up to Penny.
“What was that about,” Penny asks.
//
Thirty minutes are up and Rose gets out of the shower in her robe and a towel wrapped around her head, much like the night before. Here we go again, she says to herself, seeing Penny is still wearing her walls up from the looks of her frown decorated face.
“P, do you want to order in,” Rose tries to break at least one brick down, and food is always the way to do it.
//
One and a half hours and $32 later, bricks are falling like onion peels from conversations and friendly insults over chow mein and dumplings. Penny hates the fact that out of 19 million people living in this city, she has to live with one of the very few people who can read her like a book.
“It's only for one night, P. They're probably gonna arrive late at night so you guys may not have to interact at all. We can go have dinner or something, and I'll put the spare key under the mat so they can let themselves in,” says Rose, finishing her sentence with her hand on Penny's shoulder. “Sally asked us to do this,” Rose says.
There's a hidden meaning behind that sentence and Penny knows it. She owes Sally a lot of things. “I know,” Penny says. “The last thing I wanna do is let her down. It's just...” Penny stops to sigh. “It's just that it's Tara and I need to be not near her.” There's a small amount of venom coming out from that last word and Penny actually doesn't like the way it sounds. Neither does Rose. But she sees through her friend as if she's a piece of plastic.
“I don't think that's the case at all,” Rose says.
//
From: Mom
Time: Sat, 07:38 AM
Subject: Change of plans
Hi hon,
Change of plans. Sally said that under the circumstances, both Tara & Cee won't make it for their flight to Austin from NJ. Looks like you're gonna have extra passengers for your roadtrip! All our girls together again! We moms are excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. SOMEONE AT WORK TOLD ME THAT THIS IS READ AS SHOUTING! So I stopped doing it. Cool mom of the year award, here I come!!!!!!!!!!
Love you,
Mom
Rose really doesn't know how to relay this new information to Penny without getting injured in the aftermath. So she hits Forward, locks her door, and listen as the cupboard and refrigerator doors are being opened and slammed repeatedly.
This is going to take a while.
(end of chapter 2)
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