How Important Is Getting There? (1/10+1)

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Chapter 1

They're both sat at a booth by the window in a diner conveniently located smack dab between the office and their apartment on an uneventful Thursday afternoon. Neither are on their lunch break but God knows both needed the time off.

Whenever the bell above the diner door rings they glance towards the entrance. If a familiar face from the office walks in and dare to look at them curiously, Penny and Rose just shoot them a glare that would make them cower. They've always been good at those glares. Practice makes perfect, and they had all the practice they needed during their foolish, reckless college years. Besides, they're the bosses now. They make the rules. They can take their lunch breaks anytime they want. Especially when the whole company shoves them nothing new but useless, unproductive interns to take care of and endless piles of papers to approve and sign.


“Can't believe those idiots think they can come here and lay eyes on us,” Penny scoffs, unhappy with the amount of glares she already had to give in the last 30 minutes. “Us,” she says, “the ones who sign their checks every month.”

Rose huffs after taking a sip of her coffee. “I know,” she says. “Don't they get that we actually work harder than they do?”

“Way harder,” Penny agrees. “Idiots.”

The bell rings once more and both instinctively shoot a death glare to the man at the door who, probably feeling like being pricked by thousands of really sharp daggers, ends up turning around and goes back out the door.

“Tim,” Rose says to her best friend. “The smelly intern.”

Penny raises an eyebrow and joins Rose's victory smirk with her own.

//

“Maybe we should go this weekend,” Rose calls from the kitchen, sorting their mail into two separate piles.

Emerging from the bathroom with a robe and a towel on her head, Penny walks tentatively to the kitchen. She already knows the answer, but still, “go where,” she asks.

“You know where,” Rose sighs.

“No, Ro. Tell me,” Penny crosses her arms and put on a familiar scowl on her face. “Where,” she asks again. But this time with a menacing tone that she probably doesn't even realize she's voicing.

Rose isn't one to shy away from a confrontation when she sees one. But picking a fight this late at night with a girl who's as intractable as she is? She knows better. In any case, after a long day of meetings, which also involved her best friend-slash-roommate-slash-company co-founder, she really doesn't have the energy to go through what this conversation might bring.

“Listen, Penny,” Rose starts. She turns around to open the cupboard and picks up her mug. She's set on brewing herself some tea. “I'm tired, and I know you are too,” she continues. “Let's just wait until the morning to talk about this, OK?”

She wasn't going to back down at first, but Penny heard the exhaustion in Rose's voice. And, to be honest, she knows Rose is right. They're both tired. So instead of pressing on, she opens the cupboard to get a mug for herself and set it next to Rose's. “Sorry, Ro,” she apologizes for being all worked up. “Make me one too?”

As she finishes her tea, Penny makes a mental note to at least try to listen to Rose's reasoning before she snaps tomorrow because, well, the girl really knows how to make a wicked cup of chamomile.

//

Rose lets herself into Penny's room at 5.40 AM, sits down on the bed next to one still sleeping, less than a morning person, and rests her back on the headboard. She knows it's a huge mistake, but she figures that if she doesn't want to fight, she might as well take advantage of Penny's weak state of morning brain. She doesn't, though, want to wake Penny up just yet. At least not until she knows how to wake her up without pissing her off.

“Ro, you do realize that you've been watching me sleep for almost 10 minutes, right,” Penny calls from under the covers. Rose jumps a little because a) she didn't know Penny was awake, and b) lost in her thoughts, she forgot Penny was under the covers— she almost thought the duvet has come to life if it wasn't for Penny pushing it off her.

Rose thinks it's now or never and she favors now. “Our moms' reunion thing,” she said. “I think we should go.”

Penny really wants to say no and just jump down Rose's throat, but she made a promise last night and she's not going to break it just yet. Besides, it's too early for the gears inside her brain to start turning and work to give her some supportive arguments.

Penny props herself with her elbow and sits up, leaning her back against the headboard next to Rose. “Why,” she asks.

“I have several reasons for you,” Rose puts on her serious face. “One, we haven't been back home for almost 2 years. Two, I really miss my mom, your mom, and everybody else,” Rose continues to count her reasons with her right fingers, then her left, then she just forgets about the fingers altogether because the reasons become too many for her fingers to accommodate.

There's a smile tugging on Penny's lips. Leave it to Rose to include all the names of her exes among the reasons (she wants them to know how mind-blowing her life is right now compared to those sorry losers). “And finally,” Rose closes her argument, “we both need the break from all the work, P. We've been working nonstop. We opened a store, started a whole friggin' business— by the way, yay us— and we've been flying all over the country for all sorts of meetings. Not to mention the paperwork— oh my God, the paperwork! I swear, I think my office is a vortex where every single sheet of paper in this country decided to meet. Your office looks like a vortex too, by the way. So yes, we need this break, Penny. I swear we do. Two weeks off. We'll take today off, and use this weekend to prep. On Monday we'll have a road trip home just like we used to. We'll have a good time, and drive back to the city when it's all done,” Rose lets her last sentence hang in the air while Penny absorbs everything that she had said in a record time. There was a short while of silence before Penny finally asks if Rose knows what this trip would mean for her.

“Yes. And I know, I'm asking a lot from you, but they're— they used to be my friends too,” says Rose, suddenly interested in looking at her hands.

There was no emphasis on it— Rose posed no accusations when the sentence rolled out of her mouth, but Penny still cringes at the words 'used to be'. After a few seconds of staring outside the window into nothing, and a few more of scratching a phantom itch on the back of her neck, Penny gets up and walks into the bathroom, closing the door softly.

As the sound of water coming out of the shower reaches her ears, Rose stays in her position on the bed, extremely unsure of what to do next. Is she supposed to leave now? Stay? Make breakfast? Knock on the bathroom door and ask for a yes or a no? Yeah, I should probably do that, she thinks. But before she even stands up, the bathroom door opens a tiny bit of crack and from it is Penny's voice before the door is back shut. “What the hell, Ro? You're still here? Why aren't you planning our trip? There better be an itinerary when I get out from the shower!”

Penny can't hear it through the droning noise from the shower, but Rose squeals like a prom queen announced of her royalty.



(end of chapter 1)