SEVENTEEN

"The more that you say

The less I know...

Wherever you stray

I follow..."

———

March 12th, 2018

It had been almost a year since the last time Dorothea was in Texas. Between working at The Pearl and her relationship with Nick, there hadn't been time to go down and visit her family in Dallas — or at least, that's what she convinced herself. But even after she and Nick broke up, the motivation to book a flight was even harder to find; the anticipation of the question about them, then the fear of her family's unknown reaction —or worse, the I Told You So— had always produced enough anxiety for her to push her laptop shut, right in the middle of looking at the seat chart for the next Delta flight.

It didn't feel like it had been that long, but it was amazing how much she could just...forget about the place she grew up in.

For starters, it was hot. Spring was still a week away, and yet the middle of the day felt like a New York heat wave in July. Her body temperature had already been feeling unusually warm thanks to the bean in her uterus. And now as she stepped out of her mother's white SUV onto the baking asphalt outside the 824 Diner, she felt the first beads of sweat slide down her back.

"Oh," Heather sighed, adjusting the floral-print shawl draped over her shoulders, "I do hope they've fixed the A/C. I came here last week with Marcy and it was just brutal. The ice in my tea glass melted before I even took my first sip!"

"If it's not then we're going somewhere else," Dorothea said.

"What? No!" Her mother disagreed, as though offended by the suggestion, "It's breakfast time, and Sam's blueberry pancakes or eggs and home fries are exactly what you and Baby need!"

Dorothea groaned under her breath, both at how loudly her mother tossed out Baby! outside of a restaurant in her hometown and the idea of such food at that moment. "I'd have just been fine with tea and some toast, Mama," she mentioned. Her eyes suddenly widened at the last word that slipped out. Only a few weeks back in Texas, and she was slipping back effortlessly into being Dora Jane: the string-bean with purple braces who lived on Magnolia Drive that went to the all-girls Christian high school.

"And that's why you're much too thin!" Heather declared, reaching for the door handle at the entrance, "Baby, you're starving that poor little one inside of you!"

"Mom." Dorothea's cheeks grew hot when they stepped onto the checkered linoleum floors and she instantly met the eyes of one of her classmates as she walked past. Jessica? Jennifer? She looked around at the leather booths and the shiny chrome counter, and suddenly familiar people were all she could see; like little plastic moles popping up out of a cheesy arcade game, except she didn't have the rubber hammer to get rid of them.

At least the air-conditioning was fixed, but whoever repaired it had clearly overcompensated; the chilled air blasting against Dorothea's neck felt good for about a minute, yet now all she craved was hot tea and a sweater.

A sweater.

The word—like many others, it seemed—transported her back to Taylor's apartment a few weeks ago. After breaking down in tears while sitting at the singer's gorgeous marble counter, she'd decided she needed to be alone to clear her thoughts. At the time, she didn't really know what she meant, but it wasn't what actually ended up happening.

In the midst of gathering her belongings from Taylor's bedroom, she'd grabbed one of the blonde's sweaters by mistake. She hadn't realized until she'd gotten back to her apartment and dropped the Coachella canvas bag onto the couch, when Oliver came bounding onto the furniture and knocked it off. Spilled out onto the beaten wood floors below the green striped sofa was a cream-colored, cable-knit sleeve of the unfamiliar garment.

A part of her felt embarrassed for the mistake, but the other part was relieved; it was the perfect excuse to undo her hasty exit and see the singer again. But after multiple brief chats via text, none of them had ended with mention of the sweater. Dorothea's inner monologue was becoming increasingly self-critical, if not insulting. She couldn't recall a time in her life that she'd ever been so hesitant to do or say something, and she certainly wasn't the type of person to just take things from others; their money, time, and possessions: all of which, at one point or another, she'd managed to take from Taylor.

"Mrs. Madison!" Angie, a plump woman with dusty auburn hair piled on top of her head and a pen stuck in it, approached the table. She looked nearly the same as she had when Dorothea was seventeen, in the same red t-shirt with the diner logo and the apron on her waist with her pink furry-topped pen sticking out of the pocket. Even her nails were manicured in their signature, bright style: squared tips in an emerald green (St. Patrick's Day, Dorothea realized, was quickly approaching).

"...And my!" Angie gasped, blinking her pale blue eyes rapidly as she turned to Dorothea. "Dora Jane, what a lovely surprise! Look at you! Darlin' you look like you've done jumped right out of a magazine! You're stunning!"

Dorothea blushed, dropping her eyes for a moment. "Oh, thank you, Miss Angie—"

"Heather, how'd you and Chase manage to make all three kids come out so beautiful?" Angie asked, playfully tapping her mother's shoulder. "I saw Dean the other day at the market and I swore it was Chase standin' there at the meat counter! I mean, the resemblance—"

Her mother laughed. "Oh, I know, he's growing into him more and more each day—Minus that ugly scruff on his face. Chase never would have gone a day without his razor..."

Dorothea suddenly found herself in somewhat-stunned silence as the two continued exchanging the most recent local gossip. A year ago, she never would have imagined such a reaction from her mother at the mention of her dad. After a few years battling pancreatic cancer, he passed away in 2016, and the family was thrown onto what seemed like an endless rollercoaster of grief. Her mother, understandably, became very fragile.

It was right after Dorothea dropped out of NYU and she'd almost decided to move back to Texas then. But she and Nick were in one of their "on" phases, and as hard as it currently was to believe, it was the most emotionally supportive he ever was. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted to be there for her mother, but with Maeve and Dean still in Dallas—and her own wildly unstable emotions—it seemed like it made sense to just stay in Manhattan.

Now, a couple of years later, she was facing the same dilemma: a life-altering event, and the debate of uprooting herself from the place she assumed she was destined to be. It was starting to seem like the universe would use any tactic to prove that New York City wasn't for her, even though she had never felt more at home anywhere else. And while Nick was not a factor this time around, there was a new kind, absolutely beautiful, and generous person the universe had gifted her to make the decision just as, if not even more, complicated than before.

After ordering their meals, Dorothea watched her mom squeeze a lemon over her iced tea, then followed the drips of citrus as they floated through the amber-colored liquid. She glanced at the Texas-shaped clock on the wall, noting the time and then instantly adding an hour. Even though she wasn't physically in New York, it seemed as though her mind refused to be anywhere else. It was late morning there, and she couldn't help but wonder what Taylor was up to. Probably something work-related, since it was Monday.

Since Dorothea's photography/editor job was more of an as-needed position, the management team was fine with letting her take off for a few weeks for personal reasons. Her manager at The Pearl, on the other hand, was more reluctant. But if she was really going to raise this baby, she needed to go back to work because as long as she was in Dallas, she wasn't adding a cent to her name.

"I think I'm gonna look at flights when we get home," Dorothea suddenly spoke, looking away from the parking lot out the window into her mother's green hues.

"What?" Heather immediately frowned. "Honey, it's only been a couple weeks. You've barely had a chance to get some color back in your skin! Where's the rush?"

"Work, Mama," she sighed, "I have two jobs and we've already made it clear that I need the money—"

"Two jobs?" The older woman interrupted, surprised, "When were you going to mention that?"

Suddenly, Dorothea realized what she was about to reveal to her mother. Somehow, she'd managed to avoid the subject for the past two weeks, but now it was too late and she had no choice but to explain. "Well, it's sort of two jobs...It's...The one is more of an as-needed position."

"'As needed'?"

"Yeah..."

"What sort of work is as-needed?" Heather asked, "Are you a Nanny? Or is it at another restaurant? Hopefully not something as physically demanding as your one at The Pearl! Five months from now your feet are gonna near kill you!"

"No, it's a...photography gig," she responded, hesitating on the last part.

"A photography job!" Her mother exclaimed, eyes brightening as she clapped her hands together, "Dorothea Jane, how could you not tell me? That is amazing, isn't it? What's the matter? Isn't this what you've been dreaming about, ever since moving to New York?"

"It is! It's just..."

"The baby?" Her mother tried softly.

Dorothea nodded, although that wasn't what made her hesitate. Her mind had begun to spin at all of the questions her mother was seconds away from firing. It was one thing to explain the string of coincidences that landed her such a bizarre opportunity to work with a global superstar, but adding in her romantic involvement with said-superstar was an entirely different issue altogether. Not to mention the fact that she'd only ever told one person she was bisexual, and the cancer was the only reason she still wasn't in the closet to this day. Had her dad not been sick and she still been with Nick, she most likely would have taken it to her grave.

It wasn't that she feared her mother's reaction—the older woman's brother was openly gay, and for as long as Dorothea could remember she witnessed her unwavering support and pride for Uncle Evan—but it felt as if it was the last thing she held with her father. Sure, there were all of the memories, some of his belongings and photographs of him at her mom's house, and yet for some reason that secret felt like the only string tying them together between Heaven and wherever she was on that tiny blue-green dot in the galaxy.

A few minutes later their food arrived, and her mother picked up one of her pieces of toast and began spreading it with jam, frowning again. "You know, Honey, I don't know much about New York City, but I'm pretty sure it's required by law that your employer allows you to go on some sort of maternity leave," she mentioned, "and I know you're worried about money but they should be paying you through that, anyway. Regardless, you're going to take as much time as you possibly can! It's essential that you spend that time with your baby, Thea! That's when you nurture and bond with your little one, and I absolutely will not allow you to do otherwise! Once that time goes, it never comes back—"

"Okay, understood," Dorothea mumbled, cutting off a bit of her omelette and taking a bite. Thankfully, her stomach had settled, but she could feel the greedy little Bean insisting that she wasn't eating fast enough. How could something without hands or feet and a speck of a brain be so demanding?

"So, tell me about this photography job," Heather continued, "where is it? Who are you working for? What are you taking pictures of? Oh Dorothea Jane—Do not tell me it's for one of those adult websites!"

Dorothea nearly spit out her sip of water. "Oh my gosh, Mom! How do you know about those?"

"Well anyone who has an Internet connection does," her mother said, taking a sip of her tea and swallowing it, then added, "according to the article I read."

Dorothea glanced sideways as her mother burst into giggles. "Well, sorry to disappoint you, but it's actually for—" she stopped, then bit her lip, "a celebrity."

"A celebrity?" Once again, her mother's eyes lit up. "Darling, how could you possibly have been keeping this from me! What kind of celebrity? A movie star? Was it George Clooney? He was in New York filming that new movie! Wait—I saw Reese Witherspoon on one of those magazines at the store—"

Dorothea laughed. "No, Mama, it's—" she stopped again, suddenly bombarded with the memory of the stacks of paperwork she signed before taking the Reputation merch photos. Was she even allowed to say it? She quickly glanced around the restaurant, then sighed and leaned across the table, her voice low, "promise you won't tell anyone?"

Heather, lover of juicy secrets and all things celebrity and reality-TV, eyebrows lifted in intrigue, leaned towards her and whispered, "Promise, Baby. My lips are sealed tighter than a barn door in a hurricane."

Dorothea held back a laugh at the ridiculous analogy. She then let out a breath and said, "It's Taylor Swift."

Right as her mother gasped, Dorothea's phone rattled violently on the vinyl seat of the booth.

Taylor

10:16am

Hey!

Sorry to bother you,

but I just wanted to let you know that I'm on my way to LA

...and my flight may have just made a spontaneous stop in Dallas