Page 47 of Falling Backwards
“No, it’s not okay!”Emma stops moving and tosses a frown across the table.“Today is your birthday, and you’re not doing anything wrong by wearing that.You’re dressed up ’cause dressing up makes you happy.Who is she to make fun of you for it?”
“She is who she is.”Joy raises her eyebrows at Emma and at me, then grabs for the straw in her raspberry margarita.“I don’t care if she thinks I look stupid.”
I hold up a hand for a high-five.“That’s it.”
She smacks her palm to mine and giggles.
Still scowling, Emma scoots back into her seat.“You don’t look stupid.You look glamorous.”
Joy cutely hunches her shoulders.“Thank you!That’s how I feel!”
“Yeah, so how ’bout this lady shuts the hell up?”
“Better yet,” interjects the friendly yet firm voice of one of the bartenders, “how about we see her off?”All three of us watch him shuffle up to the lady, beckoning.“You’ve been here a long time, ma’am, and I think you’ve had about enough now.Let’s go on and get you home.”
She doesn’t like that, of course, but he lowers his voice and at least gets her to listen to what he’s saying.
While they talk, Emma holds her drink out to Joy and me, and we clink ours against it.
“Glad that’s getting taken care of,” she says.“I wasn’t about to listen to her talk one more bit of shit about the birthday girl.”
Joy and I giggle even though we know how serious she is.She’s protective when it comes to us.
When we were sixteen, she even helped me get back at—
“Au revoir,” Joy remarks breezily.I look where she’s looking and see the drunk woman is slowly being escorted away.She doesn’t even glance at us as she goes, as if we never meant a thing to her.
“Mmhmm,” Emma mutters.
I just nod.It’s funny how the noise in this large room is suddenly more comfortable with the lady not being belligerent.
After I think about that for a second, I tsk and tell the girls, “Sorry she interrupted our song.”
Emma scoffs.“I know!”
Joy shakes her head.“We had it going, too, guys!We were nailing it!”
I say, “We’ll just have to listen to it again when we get home.”
“Yes!”
Emma agrees, “Dashboard Confessional is definitely best enjoyed somewhere we can freely belt it out.The apartment.The car.”
“Yep,” I say.“As much as we feel at ease in here, it’s not the right place for us to really let our inner emo kids shine.”
Emma and Joy burst into laughter, and I have to do the same.
“I love you both,” Joy tells us.
“We love you!”we say in unison.
I add, “Got any birthday wishes for this year?”
She sighs and hums, a dreamy look on her face.“Off the top of my head?That I’ll get better at cooking and meet a guy who isn’t disappointing.”
I wrap an arm around her shoulders in a half-hug.“Those are good ones.”
Emma says, “Yeah, they are,” even though we know how she really feels about love.And she knows we know how she feels, so she doesn’t go off on a tangent about relationships or heartache or Graham.She just clears her throat, sets her drink down, then extends her arms and starts scooting out of her seat.“I need a hug too!”
