It’s such a cold moment when Ennis walks in that morning. He looks at Alma with her tearstained face and says only, “Hey.” After being married so long, you’d think he’d notice when she’s had a sleepless night.
I think much of Ennis's behavior in this scene the morning after the motel is meant to show us that Ennis can't really look Alma in the eye.
To me, he mainly seems distracted and excited. Guilt is another good possibility. But the way I've always interpreted it is, he's so caught up in being with Jack that he can't be bothered to pay much attention to Alma.
I can’t decide whether she says, “You know your friend could...” or “You know, your friend could...” Slightly different meaning. I think she offers because she’s supposed to...in a normal social situation.
Yes, Alma might on the surface be trying to be polite, but I think she's really trying to test Ennis and Jack here. I don't know what she thinks she would gain though. Her voice when she says "you know your friend could come in and have a cup of coffee" sounds like a challenge or there's an edge of bitterness in her tone.
I think of the coffee offer as a desperate grab for normalcy, not so much out of her own duty to be polite, but because she hopes somehow that if Jack came in she'd find out her suspicions were wrong, or maybe she can keep an eye on the two of them, or at least she can delay Ennis' departure, or ... something. Anything to keep things from going in the direction they're going. It's the same when she asks about his job, frantically trying anything she can to stall or prevent him from leaving.
