Mister Greengrass was mildly reassuring about coming back in good time, and for better or worse, she trusted him. He asked her to trust him, firstly, but secondly, he seemed honest with her so far. Moving around did her some good anyway, to get her mind off things. The frown started to ease into something a bit more impassive, even as her hands restlessly fiddled with the beading on her reticule. Though they didn’t get very far – he proffered two new glasses from a server, and Ida took the one offered with a questioning raise of an eyebrow.

The young woman took a sip, and hummed in happy assent. The taste reminded her of grapefruit and licorice. “I like gin,” she announced, throwing him a guileless smile. “I like citrusy things, sour things. That last drink was a little too sweet for something to have often. It was interesting, but I think it made my face red,” she added the last with a huff of displeasure, and tapped her cheek for emphasis. “I’m not usually like this,” she felt the need to clarify. ‘This’ being one of the things she could no longer define, but perhaps observable behavior already made it self-evident. Mister Greengrass just gets things, she didn’t have to explain things to him, she decided.

The two set off, their little venture through the wonderland making Ida increasingly aware as that first drink may have incapacitated her more than expected. Every slim, diminutive brunette they passed made her twist her head wildly in her direction– the ballerina?, only to be met with profound disappointment each time. The details of where they were and who she was with felt fuzzy in the sense that it all felt irrelevant, and Ida had to coax herself to think about the present moment often. Gods have mercy, she needed her cigarette. Nevermind if Mister Greengrass found that profoundly unladylike, he wasn’t the one she needed to sort herself out for.

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