New Century (Adopted by Taylor Swift)

Chapter 1

Saturday, March 4th, 2023

Taylor paced back and forth through her room, typing an extremely long text in a message to herself, that she would eventually copy and paste to send to another person.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Earlier that morning, she had called Lunar Management to try and get in contact with Tessa. She had no idea if this was going to work or if it was even a good idea. To be completely honest with herself, she hadn't really thought it through. Maybe her mom had just been joking? No, her mom was probably, most definitely, joking. Oh god, was she about to fuck this up?

But, completely ignoring all of that, Tessa had been somewhat difficult to get in touch with. She had called that morning but they all seemed hesitant to hand out her phone number. Which was...fair enough. She was literally a child. And hadn't there been someone who tried to kidnap her once? Anyways...

Taylor had ended up leaving for rehearsal without a response, and when she got back that afternoon, after taking a shower of course, she had one email from them with Tessa's phone number. Oh boy...

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

So now she was pacing back and forth, writing a carefully worded, albeit painfully long, text message. Writing long text messages is such an old person thing to do... Is Tessa going to think she's old?!

(Taylor): Hi! It's Taylor (pause) Swift

No! God, that's awful.

(Taylor): Hi, this is Taylor Swift.

(Please leave a message). No! This isn't an answering machine message!

DELETE

(Taylor): Hi, this is Taylor Swift. I got your number from your manager pause

Maybe emojis can fix this?

DELETE

(Taylor): Hey, it's Taylor ❤️(Swift).

Do parentheses really help?... Sure, why not

(Taylor): [...] So, I'm about to go on tour (and I realize that this might be a bad time for you with the 14 Oscar nominations and everything, congratulations by the way 🎉. The movie is incredible by the way, I really loved it 💕), the tour is called the Eras Tour so I'm performing parts of all my albums, and I've been wanting to make a concert film for it but I don't have a director. I know this is very last minute, but everyone I've talked to says that if you want something done well and quickly, or efficiently, ask Tess (not to mention I'm a huge fan (pause)

That might be coming on too strong...

BACKSPACE

(Taylor): [...] ask Tess. I've also seen a lot of your work and am very impressed (pause)

That sounds like a teacher or a parent or something...

BACKSPACE

(Taylor): [...] ask Tess. To be totally transparent with you, I don't have much of anything figured out in terms of the film. So, no pressure to agree to anything and feel free to say no. I totally get it, I haven't given you much for you to know what you're getting yourself into. If you're interested I'd love to meet to talk about it, but again meeting doesn't equal committing to directing (or co-producing) but I'd love to chat and get to know you. I've heard such amazing things about you. Please feel free to say no, I totally get it ❤️. Congratulations about the Oscars again 🎉.

Taylor continued to pace back forth as she read over the text message, at this point she might as well just send it. It's not getting any better.

(Taylor): Hey, it's Taylor ❤️(Swift). So, I'm about to go on tour (and I realize that this might be a bad time for you with the 14 Oscar nominations and everything. Congratulations by the way 🎉. The movie is incredible by the way, I really loved it 💕), the tour is called the Eras Tour so I'm performing parts of all my albums, and I've been wanting to make a concert film for it but I don't have a director. I know this is very last minute, but everyone I've talked to says that if you want something done well and quickly, or efficiently, ask Tess. But to be totally transparent with you, I don't have much of anything figured out in terms of the film. So, no pressure to agree to anything and feel free to say no. I totally understand, I haven't given you much by means of you knowing what you're getting yourself into. If you're interested I'd love to meet to talk about it, but again meeting doesn't equal committing to directing (or co-producing) but I'd love to chat and get to know you. I've heard such amazing things about you (I hope that doesn't freak you out 💕). Please feel free to say no, I totally get it ❤️. Congratulations about the Oscars again 🎉.

Taylor clicked send and flopped down on her bed. Thank god she sent it, now just don't think about it. After a moment, she lifted up her phone above her head, ideally to close messages and scroll through pinterest, but instead she noticed a bubble with three little gray dots on the screen, underneath her blue bubble containing a novel of a text message.

(Tessa): hi taylor! (nice to meet you? 🤷‍♀️i don't know, text you?) anyways. thanks so much for the congratulations, i'm glad you enjoyed the movie. if we're being totally transparent i can't say i'm one hundred percent on board yet but i am interested. i'd love to meet to talk. i know you're about to officially start the tour in a couple weeks but i'm unfortunately quite busy with the oscars and i'm sure you must be as well with preparations. just throwing a date out as a ballpark, how does march thirteenth work for you? thanks so much for the offer by the way, it means a lot ❤️.

"Ow!" She dropped the phone... right on to her face. If only she could say this was the only time this had been a problem.