Assisting Yourself
Grace Manewitz’s teeth chattered as she pulled open the door to the lobby. A gust of wind and a few snowflakes followed her in, somehow managing to blow up beneath the hem of her winter coat.
She didn’t care though. Today, little things like that were irrelevant. The mare at the coffee shop got her order wrong, the cab driver chattered on and on about something, his accent making him unintelligible, and now the cold and the wind.
On a normal day, she would frown and grumble to herself, too much of quiet and meek soul to voice her objections. Not today though. Today was the day.
“Good day, miss Manewitz,” Herb, the ever present and ever lazy ‘guard’ in the lobby, said. “A little chilly today, or is it just me?”
Normally, she always gave Herb a tight smile, never responding to his attempts at small talk. But today, she wasn’t normal.
“Sure is, Herb,” she said cheerily, brushing a few errant snowflakes from her blond mane as the door closed behind her.
Herb looked a little startled, so used to just receiving no reply at all the sound of her voice seemed to shock him to alertness.
“Whoa… Uh… I hear it’s supposed to let up soon,” Herb said awkwardly.
“We can hope, right?” she laughed, shrugging out of her heavy coat, giving her natural pink one a quick shake.
Herb just nodded, watching the mare he normally knew as quiet and calm all but skip to the elevator.
She entered her apartment with a merry skip and whistle, earning her a look from her roommate, who was standing near one of the many tri-stands, painting something or another on the canvas. Something gloomy, probably.
“Grace?” the blue-grey pegasus mare said, staring at the earth pony. “Is that you?”
Grace couldn’t help herself. She skipped over and ruffled the jet-black mane of her roommate.
“Never better, Inky!” she sang, causing Ink-Stain to duck her head and look at Grace like she was crazy.
“Did you take a hit of something?” Ink-Stain asked, still giving Grace the look of a concerned parent.
“Sure did!” Grace said, attempting to ruffle Ink-Stain’s mane again.
The pegasus swatted her hooves away. “And what exactly was it?” she asked, something akin to concern in her expression.
“Life!” Grace sang out, earning a groan from Ink-Stain.
“Somepony slipped you something, didn’t they?” the painter deadpanned.
Grace just giggled and skipped off to her room, leaving Ink-Stain alone again.
“Definitely slipped her something,” the pegasus said to herself, over-sized wings rustling as she turned her attention back to the canvas. “Hm… needs more grey.”
Grace entered her room with a skip and a hop and then nearly fell on her face as she tripped over a discarded pizza box. She regained her balance and just giggled as she kicked the box away. Probably left over from one of her binge watching sessions.
Normally, the mere sight of such clutter would annoy her enough to make her drop whatever she was doing and clean up. Not today though. Nothing could stop her today.
If Ink-Stain being all gloomy and painting rain clouds couldn’t suck the happy out of her, nothing could.
She tossed her coat on her bed, knowing it would wrinkle. She opened her closet and pulled the clothes bag from the hook. From inside that, she pulled a delightfully scandalous black dress. She gave it a quick once over before sealing the clothes bag back up.
Today was the day. Today she was finally going to wear this. Today she was going to finally be able to tell the mare she loved how she felt.
She couldn’t help the excited laughter that momentarily doubled her over. It was all rather funny when viewed from hindsight. She spent what could easily have been months watching that mare come through the lobby of her work. They would exchange a tight, shy smile or maybe a quick word before something pulled either away.
But then, only a week ago, Grace finally managed to work up the courage to ask. The feeling that had welled up inside her when she heard that sweet little mare whisper; “Yeah… me too.”
It was awkward. So incredibly, embarrassingly awkward. But it was hope. Knowing that the door swung the same way for another pony too was an amazing relief.
She didn’t get that with Ink-Stain. That pegasus’ wings flapped in both directions. No, that was a stupid metaphor. Her color palette was varied? No, that didn’t make sense…
Grace just shook her head and smiled. Forget the metaphors. Her roommate was bisexual and that’s not as relatable as a straight-up filly-fooler.
In fact, after hearing her love was ‘that way’ about mares as well, Grace somehow had found the courage to pop that ever-so-important question.
“Would you like to get dinner later?”
The mare was too stunned at first to answer. A quick call from down the hall managed to break her from her stupor.
“I, uh… yes. Where would you like to go?”
Grace was just as shocked that she received such an answer. She blushed and named one of the few nicer restaurants she could get into.
“S-sounds good,” the mare stuttered out.
“So… pick you up at five?”
The mare blushed. Grace took that as a good sign.
“Sure,” she turned and began to trot towards where the call for her attention had come from. She paused and looked back. “See you then.”
“See you then.”
Grace had been giddy the rest of the day. The rest of the week too. She triple checked the reservations every day and had her dress cleaned twice. And then, finally, today had arrived.
Her hooves had never flown faster over her typewriter at work. Her boss was so stunned, he actually didn’t seem to mind letting her go home early. From there, she had gotten the wrong coffee, taken a cab ride with the chattiest Prench stallion she’d ever met, and gotten chilled to the bone by the cold.
And she didn’t care. Because in exactly… one hour, twelve minutes and twenty-six seconds, she was going to be sitting across from Manehatten’s newest fashion designer, sipping wine and wondering if she put out on the first date.
Exactly one hour, twelve minutes and twenty-nine seconds later, Grace Manewitz felt everything crumble around her. She stood stock still, staring at the note pinned to the door.
“Grace,
I am so sorry, but I had to leave. There is somepony I need to talk to. I hope you understand.
~Coco”
Grace swallowed dryly, wondering where she went wrong. Had she been too aggressive? Too forward? Coco was a shy pony, yes, but didn’t she crave connection as much as Grace did?
Grace felt tears in her eyes. What did she do wrong? Why was this happening now? Why now? Why her? Why, why, why?
She felt her legs buckling beneath her. She wanted to crumple, curl up, cry until it stopped hurting.
But she caught herself. She stared at the note. Her look of sadness twisting into anger.
She was not about to get stood up by some bitchy little fashion pony.
She angrily snatched the note and stomped back to the elevator. She glared at each and every pony that dared to cause the machine to halt. She grabbed the lobby door-stallion by his lapels.
“Where did she go?” she growled.
“What?” the stallion asked, confusion and panic in his voice.
Grace blinked and let the poor pony go. She cleared her throat and awkwardly shuffled her hooves.
“S-sorry. I was… I was wondering if you know where Coco Pommel is?” she asked, awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck.
“I, uh, think she said she was going to the train station,” the stallion replied, looking concerned. “What is this about?”
“Uh… lovers’ spat?”
The stallion merely nodded.
Grace sighed and fished a ten-note out of her purse, shoving in into the stallion’s hooves before walking away, dejected. If Coco went to the train station, she had no chance of finding her.
“Uh, miss?” the door-stallion said hesitantly.
Grace turned back to him. “Yes?”
“She, uh,” he looked around nervously. “I shouldn’t say, but she did have the clerk call ahead and get her a ticket to Ponyville. I don’t know if that-”
Helps? It certainly seemed to. Grace took off running as soon as she heard the word Ponyville. The cold outside was barely perceptible to her. The couple she shoved out to the way to get the cab hardly registered. The angry shout they voiced didn’t reach her brain.
“Keep the change,” she said to the cabbie, tossing a few notes at him as she left the cab.
“One for Ponyville, please,” she said to the mare managing the ticket window.
“No thank you,” she said with a tight smile to the mare offering refreshments on the train.
The young mare nodded politely and closed the compartment door, leaving Grace alone. The train rattled and bumped occasionally as it made its way through the countryside. The snow outside gave way to rain as the night wore on and Grace came closer and closer to her destination.
She gave the note another read. She had no idea exactly what Coco’s reason was, but it had better be a really fabulous one.
Author's Note
I wonder whoever it is Coco needed to talk to.
