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SHE KNOCKED POLITELY, tapping with the edge of her fist on the cherry red front door of the Horowitz household. There was a neatly arranged bunch of flowers in her arms. She was no florist, but they were yellow, and she knew that yellow stood for friendship. Meg had scarcely allowed her to buy the blooms, but after a short winded argument, her aunt had given in and allowed her to purchase the bouquet.
Mr Horowitz, Cindy's dad, unbolted the door and opened it, a cigarette dangling precariously from the rim of his lip. "Yes?" He asked in an uncaring tone. He was narrow-faced with close-set eyes, which were greyish blueish, like two shards of dirty ice. His hair was scarce, silver or perhaps blonde, she couldn't tell. She didn't plan on lingering for long.
"Is Cindy in?" She asked with an overly plucky demeanour. Mr Horowitz was a scary man, and she felt like he was drilling into her skull with the look that he gave her.
"Yeah," oh thank God, she praised to herself. She'd rather not loiter around on the doorsteps and converse with Mr Horowitz any longer. He breathed out a plume of smoke that fanned warmly into Romy's face, causing her brown eyes to water, "She's just in her room. Up you go."
She walked with haste past Cindy's borderline creepy father, making a break for the stairs. There was no sign of Cindy's mother, who, as she recalled, looked like an older, smoke-soaked Cher from when she was Loretta Castorini in Moonstruck. Her feet thumped against the oak wood panels as she escaped upstairs, calling out cautiously, "Cindy?" As her footsteps creaked against the landing.
"Rom?" Cindy dryly answered as Romy entered her bedroom. The wallpaper was floral, as well as the bedsheets and the curtains. It was very 1960s, as it had belonged to her grandmother well before she was around, not head bitch or teen movie "it" girl at all. The blonde laid with her head dangling over the edge of the bed, an open magazine beside her body, however, which was very teen-movie-esque. "Hello," she said blandly, her head lolling towards the open door where her friend stood, "I wasn't expecting you over."
"Your dad let me in. How are you?" Romy politely asked in an awkward exchange, tucking a lock of dark hair behind her ear (it barely reached, given its length, and fell back into her eye a moment later — she longed for longer hair, like how Daisy's was in Mystic Pizza).
"Yeah, I'm alright," she answered monotonously, her flaxen hair sprawled out around her head like a halo. She wore silk pyjamas, and had yet to get changed out of them, despite it being almost midday.
"I got these for you," she extended out the arm that cradled the bouquet of flowers like she would a child. Cindy took them from her arms cautiously, giving her a curious look as she put the the bouquet mutely down onto the bed, and walking over towards the vase on the windowsill, where dead flowers drooped, "I got them because I want us to still be friends."
