DOROTHEA

TWELVE

"...And in the end in Wonderland
we both
went
MAD..."

———

February 24th, 2018

Of all the nights Dorothea had the six to eleven shift at The Pearl—

it had to be that one.

There had been a spontaneous, bold wave of courage that coursed through her veins at the singer's invitation; so strong that it nearly caused her to call Will and quit right in the middle of that SoHo conference room. But like the owner of a wild animal using both hands to control its leash, she had to resist the temptation. Her need for money in the After hadn't changed. Though if anything happened to come along...a long-term opportunity, perhaps—she wouldn't hesitate to rip her apron off right in the middle of the restaurant and leave through the gold-framed entrance with both middle fingers sky-high.

But the night that Taylor had asked her to come over, that wasn't an option.

She had let a few mental cuss words sail towards the monster in her uterus after denying the blonde's offer, but she immediately felt guilty. As if the baby could hear her thoughts. Could he? Or she? Of course not. She was not only being ridiculous, but also selfish. If she really wanted to give the rice-bean everything she possibly could, she was going to have to stop putting herself first.

Luckily, karma recognized her attempt at this, and Taylor ended up inviting her over for dinner with her friends the following night. And since The Pearl just happened to be closed that night for a private Golden Globes-related event —that she somehow luckily didn't have to work— Dorothea immediately accepted the second invitation. Perhaps that was how it was meant to be, anyway. Though the idea of being alone with Taylor in the blonde's apartment made her stomach backflip in that pleasant, cage-of-butterflies way, she felt more relaxed now knowing that it wouldn't be just the two of them.

Dorothea quickly glanced at her watch, then back at the lemon she was examining in her other hand. It was almost three in the afternoon and she had a little less than three hours before she had to leave for Taylor's, yet here she was standing in the middle of a packed Whole Foods, suddenly thinking she should make something. Not just bring a bottle of wine or store-made dessert and a bouquet of flowers, but actually turn on her ancient gas stove and use what little cookware she had in an attempt to make something edible for Taylor Swift and her friends.

She had to cover her mouth to avoid bursting out laughing next to a display of grapefruit. If she accidentally poisoned one of the world's biggest pop stars, that ship would sail faster than her toxic ex-now-ghost-father-of-her-child had essentially vaporized right before her eyes.

Or maybe once Taylor's bout of food-borne illness ended, the two of them would maybe...laugh about it?

Of course not, idiot. But after dropping the lemon back onto the pile, Dorothea struggled to suppress a laugh. For the past several hours she had been in one of those strange, giddy moods that felt wild and unpredictable.

As she wandered down the avenue towards the store earlier, she had been smiling to herself like a drunken fool; she almost skipped —really?— over a chunk of ice in her path. But when she got to the grocery store, the feeling softened to a vibration that rattled every inch of her limbs. Her thoughts were flighty and incomplete; she was questioning everything and surely, the other people at the store must have thought she was on the most platinum-quality cocaine. But even the one time she tried cocaine —one time! at a party in the Bowery when she was nineteen and yes, it was fucking stupid—it didn't feel nearly as electrifying or blissful as how she felt now, dead-sober in the middle of an over-priced grocery store.