DOROTHEA

FORTY-ONE

"...My house of stone, your ivy grows
and now I'm covered in you..."

————

...Hell's Kitchen, NYC...

Time - ???

Taylor was far too drunk for this.

She knew that second glass of Rosé was a bad idea. But not the glass of champagne after that, of course. And most definitely not the tequila shot that snuck its way in there, somewhere along the way. Who gave her that, anyway?

Maeve.

But she couldn't fault Dorothea's sister. At some point during the after party, she found herself in deep conversation with the sibling, and as all pleasantly intoxicated evenings go, the encounter seemed to manifest out of thin air. They were bonding, as friends—sisters?—do, and obviously after spending an uncounted amount of minutes together, one would offer the other to take a shot together. And of course, one would never dare to refuse such a thing. Taylor was certain that violated some aspect of Girl Code.

So she was a little hammered.

Well—

No.

She had been hammered before, and this wasn't hammered. But regardless of the proper distinction, she was a little too far gone and couldn't seem to comprehend that this was seriously happening right this exact very second!

Dorothea, her girlfriend, was apparently—Hours? Minutes? Seconds??—away from giving birth. And here she thought when they made it to the after party, that they had gotten over some invisible hump. Like, Oh, we made it to eight pm! I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow! As if Ivy has some sort of clock to stare at in there and is waiting with her tiny hands folded for the most convenient moment to make her grand entrance. Naturally, she'd also have a calendar in there with all of their schedules penciled in. But evidently she decided to say, Fuck your after party, the real party's just getting started!

At first, she thought it was a joke.

The way in which Taylor found out about Dorothea's water breaking was so ridiculous, she thought she had passed out somewhere and gotten lost in an inebriated dream. She always had the strangest dreams when she was drunk.

Taylor was still standing at the bar with Maeve when Jack approached them. He was noticeably sloshed himself and they were all laughing excessively at a conversation that probably wasn't that funny. Taylor was relishing that blissfully fuzzy, just-unaware-enough feeling. She welcomed the edges of her surroundings being softer. At this point, she had no idea that Dorothea had actually been in the bathroom for a rather long time. She was too busy balancing Jack's rounded black spectacles on her nose, mocking one of his countless philosophical points he tended to make, drunk or sober.

She was making a clumsy attempt to put the glasses back on Jack when Karlie appeared next to them.

Karlie.

A bold, yet sour feeling squeezed into her. She was aware of the fact that she was staring at the woman, but the shock was too overwhelming for her to look away.

She was wearing a short black dress that exposed her shoulders. Her hair was now platinum—How original!—and she wore a dark shade of lipstick. It was only when Taylor noticed the latter that she realized Karlie's lips were actually moving.

Instead of asking her to repeat herself, Taylor smiled crookedly and said, "So, black. I guess orange was a one time thing?"

But Karlie didn't smile. Fine, don't laugh at my jokes, Taylor thought to herself. Bitch.