May 1
The problem with sharing a bed with a unicorn is that they don't like to get up early, so once me and Aquamarine were both awake we abandoned Cayenne and I made another pot of coffee, since the smell might wake her up.
She was stirring in bed but wasn't up after Aquamarine and I had both had a third of the little pot, so we went off to the shower without her and we were pretty much finished when she finally stumbled into the bathroom and slid open the curtain far enough to climb in.
There ought to be some sort of stepstool or stile into the bathtub. I never really had much trouble with them 'cause I could fly over, but Aquamarine had struggled with it, and Cayenne wound up doing a sort of sliding belly-flop into the bathtub. Then she muttered something about not being all the way awake yet and stuck her head right under the water.
I've always thought that cold water works better to wake up quick.
But it worked okay for her because she pulled her head back out and shook some of the water out of her mane and said that outdoor fucking started today. I told her that I’d already started and I didn’t know that we weren’t supposed to start before the first of May and she just stuck her tongue out at me, levitated a loofah and started to scrub herself.
When me and Aquamarine had finished up our shower and dried each other off we went into the main room to finish grooming, while Cayenne was still in the shower washing her mane.
I guess that either Cayenne had made us sleep in a little or else Miss Cherilyn was up early 'cause I was still brushing Aquamarine's tail when we heard her knocking on the door and Cayenne just looked over and opened it then turned back to getting her bangs just right. I suppose there are some advantages to rooming with a unicorn.
Miss Cherilyn was a little bit surprised that there wasn't anypony near the door but she told us that if we were almost ready they were too and we could go get breakfast.
With the three of us all together we did even better for breakfast; not only did we have granola and oatmeal, but also a fruit salad. Mister Salvatore said that we could order more than one thing if we wanted to so we got a second fruit salad to share.
Cayenne told us in Equestrian that it was still pretty early so we ought to stretch out breakfast. She said that theatre parties usually ran really late; she had been to one in Chicago and she said that she hadn't gone to sleep until four am. Then she grinned and said that she had been in bed by two and that it had been a great party.
Miss Cherilyn asked what she was talking about, and she waved a hoof and said 'unicorn stuff,' then before Miss Cherilyn could ask anything else she floated up a cube of melon and ate it with a satisfied grin on her face.
We finally finished drinking our coffees and then went back to the room to pack our things. Neither Aquamarine nor I had all that much—it had only been a weekend trip, after all—and even Cayenne had made do with only one bag besides her saddlebags. And we had to put it all in Sienna 'cause otherwise we would have had to carry it with us.
So we went towards Nicky's house 'cause that's where Gusty was, and Cayenne managed to find another way to delay us at a store that sold greeting cards, scented candles called Yankee, and other small gifts that looked to me like the kind of thing you give someone when you don't know what they actually like.
There were lots of different subjects for the cards and Cayenne found one that she liked. It was pink, and on the front it said 'All her life she imagined being this impressive, amazing woman, and one day she woke up and realized she was.' It would have been better if is said 'pony' instead of 'woman,' but I didn't think we'd find a card that said that.
Then we all signed it and put it in the little envelope and we were about to leave when Cayenne said that she ought to get a candle too, and she found one called Midsummer Night, which was just perfect. Miss Cherilyn had gotten into the spirit and found a nice bag that we could put it in, and then she said maybe we should get something for Nicky too but none of us could think of anything that she might like.
When we finally got to her house and rang the doorbell, Gusty came down and opened the door just a little bit and said she wasn't dressed yet and would we mind waiting out on the porch for a few minutes, and Mister Salvatore looked down at the three of us who weren't wearing anything and raised his eyebrow but didn't say a word.
And it didn't take her too long before she opened the door and let us in and happily trotted up the steps with us following. We all congratulated her again on how well she'd done and everyone got hugs and nuzzles and then we gave her our gift and she was so happy with the card and with the candle. She told us some funny stories about rehearsals and said that she got to help one of the Mechanicals put on his stage makeup because he couldn't do it himself and he didn't trust any of the girls to do it for him.
She told us that she'd heard last night that they were going to get to do a special performance in Stratford, and that was where all the famous Shakespearean actors performed, and she was really looking forward to that.
We talked up until it was time for her to go to the theatre to get ready for the matinee performance, then we hugged her and wished her good luck except for Cayenne who told her to break a leg and I thought that was mean to say.
Cayenne rode with us in Sienna all the way to Glencoe, where she got out so that she could ride a Metra train, and we went back through Chicago which was even busier and more crowded than it had been before. When we stopped for the hundredth time at a guard station Mister Salvatore said that next time he was going to fill out the paperwork for an Easy Pass and Miss Cherilyn said that she had told him he ought to.
I wanted to stop for dinner at a Taco Bell, but I got outvoted and we stopped instead at Denny's and this time nobody was mad at me for being a pony. Aquamarine had never eaten at a Denny’s before and she said it was kind of shoddy. Mister Salvatore said maybe so but it was a lot nicer at four am when you were on the road and the only thing better was Waffle House but there weren’t any of those nearby.
Miss Cherilyn changed the subject and said that Nicky and Gusty were so cute together and so I guess she hadn’t been fooled at all. We all agreed that they were.
Then we went along a different highway for a little bit and stopped at a beachfront dunes park where you could see Chicago off in the distance over the lake and that was really neat. The skyscratchers were like distant mountains, and I was glad he'd thought to stop there for us.
It was kind of odd to think that somewhere off in that distant city that I could barely see was Cayenne, and it had only been a few hours since she was in the van with us. Human travel is so fast.
Once we’d left the dune park, it didn’t feel like all that long before we were back in Kalamazoo, and we agreed that we'd had a great weekend and we still needed to get together in Chicago and see the museums. And once we'd said our goodbyes I went back to my dorm room and started catching up on my homework 'cause I'd missed a lot when I was sick and then even more 'cause I hadn't been able to pay attention on Friday. So it was nearly midnight when I went to bed: even Peggy was undressed and in bed before I finally closed my Anthropology book.