Stop and Stare

18

"It's good to see you again, Mahony." Dorothy started, "How you ended up here? If you don't mind me asking." Dorothy pulled her drink closer towards her after Mona had delivered their order.

Mahony sighed. "Murdered." He said the one word like it's the biggest embarrassment of his life.

Dorothy picked up her light-yellow cocktail rimmed with sugar and took a generous sip, all the while not looking at Mahony as she took in the implications to Mahony's demise. "I see." She continued to stare down at her drink. "Even you," she murmured to herself then as if she had decided on something she smirked before looking up at Mahony. She physically shook herself and picked up her drink and drained the rest of it and signaled to Mona for another.

Mahony watched the internal dialogue that played out on the grown-up version of his childhood playmate with fascination. It's not hard to guess not everything was rainbows and sunshine after she had moved away.

"Well," Dorothy said, her bubbly demeanor slid back in place, "one way or another we all end up here. Don't we?"

"I suppose so, don't have much of a choice." Mahony said. "How about you? What was the method of your demise?"

Dorothy smirked again. "Drank myself to death." She wiggled her eyebrows as her drink arrived.

Both surprised and not surprised by Dorothy's answer. Mahony supposed that Dorothy's mother had a lot of influence in shaping Dorothy's life. It's no secret that Dorothy's mother drank. Mahony remembered back then he learnt about Wizard of Oz and what alcohol smelled like on a person from Mrs. Mulholland.

"I see," Mahony said, mirroring Dorothy's response to his own demise. He eyed Dorothy as she drained half of her second glass. "Are you sure you should be drinking so fast?"

"Relax. You can't get drunk here, ever." Dorothy patted Mahony's forearm. "Haven't you noticed that you can eat and eat and never feel full, just satiated?"

"Now that you've mentioned it, yes." Mahony said.

"It's the same as alcohol. You only get a slight buzz no matter how much you drink here," Dorothy said. "It's both good and bad. It meant you can drink and drink and drink without much consequence." Dorothy said with meaning while still all smiles. "I guess you only just got here, not everything has come back to you yet. Give it a few more minutes."

Mahony didn't want to get into how he's been here, there, and back again. "Fill me in, what happened after you moved?"

"Daddy got a new job so we moved out west," Dorothy said as she smoothed down her dress. "Got himself a new girlfriend, divorced my mom and left." Dorothy finished her second drink. "Mom got the house and some money from the divorce and promptly disappeared into the bottle. As for my dad, once the new baby came, he lost interest in me entirely." She signaled for another drink. "I got into college, got pregnant, quit school, miscarried twice; afterwards, crawled into a bottle myself."

"I don't know what to say," Mahony responded after Dorothy's staccato delivery of her life in a nutshell.

"Nothing needs saying," Dorothy said. "I could've chosen different, seeing how my mom ended up but there's just something about mothers and daughters, you either make the same choices or you go the opposite, only to ended up much the same in the end still. I don't know about fathers and sons."

Mahony thought went to his own childhood. His father was barely around when he was young and as he got old enough to wonder, he realized that he had gotten used to his father's miniscule presence in the household that it was inconsequential whether he existed or not.

"No different, I suppose," Mahony said and finally took a sip of his whiskey. He's no connoisseur of spirits but just as with foods and drinks at the diner, it tasted nostalgic. Images of Milo taking him out for a celebratory dinner and drink after Mahony had gotten accepted to the university of his choice. He'd gotten a whiskey then, thinking that it's a grown-up sort of drink. It's that same night that Milo told him of his plans to see the world. It wasn't long before Mahony left for school and Milo left for his world tour. That memory led Mahony to wonder what it'd be like if he'd taken off just as Milo had. Would he end up here—murdered.