1. The Stars Are Gone And So Am I
"Hi, my name is Rory Gilmore. I have an appointment with Professor Tarkington at ten."
"Name here, sign there, initials at the bottom," the Professor McGonagall-lookalike told her, passing a clipboard over the desk. "Sit over there."
Rory nodded curtly and grabbed her briefcase. As she walked to the designated armchair, she caught her reflection in one of the glass office walls. The chestnut-haired beauty in the stylish suit, wearing heels that were both fashionable and functional, bore little resemblance to the beaming, fresh-faced graduate on her mother's mantelpiece. Four years on the campaign trail had made Rory lose weight and gain confidence, stopped her smiling at everyone like a Girl Scout and sharpened the tools of her craft. Rory was poised, elegant, self-assured and as bullish as the next investigative journalist. Her superiors lauded her as the next Woodward, her contemporaries feared her insightful and creative touch. Rory was going places. Except that she no longer wanted to go those places. Except that she was bored, frustrated and more than a little disillusioned by the inner workings of the American political system.
As she sat down, ankles crossed demurely with the rasp of silk stockings, her mind flashed to her days on the campaign trail.
xxxxxxxxxx
Rory muttered every profanity she knew, and a few she invented, as she walked from the bathroom. The water had, predictably, been tepid and unable to relax the permanently tight muscles in her shoulders and neck. And, despite the copious amount of lathering, rinsing and repeating she had done, the light green linoleum in the bathroom reminded her so much of fungus that she still didn't feel clean. She sighed as she began rummaging through her bag, looking for something that bore a resemblance to clean clothes. The search was prevented by the insistent ringing of her phone on the bedside table.
"Rory speaking."
"And, my oh my, how cheerful she sounds. Bad day trailing politicians, babe?" her mother asked, almost annoyingly chipper herself. "I saw your article in the New York Times on Nora Huffington, by the way. Great scoop, Gilmore!"
"Thanks," Rory mumbled, pulling on faded sweatpants and a blue T-shirt. Her mother meant well. And, truth be told, Rory would also have viewed her most recent expose as a victory five short years ago. She had diligently followed a paper trial which revealed that Nora Huffington, the thirty-year old secretary to one of the most influential senators, has faked all of her qualifications and was no better at her job than Kirk would've been. Worse, in fact. But Rory was forced to withhold all the further proof that clearly indicated that Nora got her job by sleeping with the married senator, an activity she had been engaging in regularly since her senior year of high school, and that Nora's own marriage to the senator's son had no dampening effect on their illicit trysts. Rory's editor had balked at printing the sexual scandal, partly because the senator was ferociously litigious and capable of burying the paper in legal fees and party because the senator was a woman who would've turned the entire scandal into a particularly vicious crusade for equal treatment. When Rory had pointed out that equal treatment would entail running the story as they would've with any married male senator who slept with his secretary, her editor told her to revise the article or it would not be printed at all. A heavily censured version of the article she submitted appeared in the inner pages of the New York Times, where it was unlikely to draw much attention.
"You okay, kid?" Lorelai asked, concerned.
"I'm fine," Rory sighed, sitting down on the cheap mattress to untangle her hair. "I'm just tired of living in cheap motels, I think. So how is Luke?"
Rory tried her best to engage with the rest of the conversation and by the time Lorelai said goodbye, she had her mother convinced that her mood was nothing more than cheap motels and cold showers. But Rory couldn't convince herself. The irregular hours, the constant sleep deprivation from sharing small rooms with strange journalists and the insistent pain in her back from cheap seats and bumpy bus rides had eaten away at her over the past few months. The idea of living on fast food in busy cities sounded utopian at first, until her body began to rebel against all things salted and synthetic. Travel sounded exciting, until Rory realised she travelled from terminal to conference room to motel to airport without any opportunity to indulge her inner tourist. Politics sounded meaningful, until Rory saw first hand how much the government relied on an intricate system of front page insults and back room agreements. Journalism sounded important, until Rory experienced how her stories got censored and her exposes dampened down for the sake of political expediency. While it all had the saving grace of novelty and experience at first, Rory was beginning to think that travel should not be boring, coffee should not resemble lighter fluid and politics should not be corrupt. Most importantly, the truth about politicians should not be distorted simply to stave off lawsuits.
"You should be able to call a spade a spade," Rory told her reflection as she applied night cream. The endless assault of flickering florescent lighting had left her skin dry and, with her eyes rimmed red from sleep deprivation, she was beginning to bear an unwanted resemblance to one of the characters from Interview with a Vampire. "You should be able to call a politician a thief if he steals government funds, a slutty weasel if he screws his son's wife, a criminal if he ignores the law."
Her cell phone began to ring again. Rory groaned, thinking that it was Sam again. Could a boy not get a hint? But her work ethic kicked in and, fearing to loose a lead, she answered reluctantly. When she heard the caller's voice, tinny and distant, she bolted upright and thanked her guardian angels for compelling her to take the call.
xxxxxxxxxx
"Miss Gilmore?"
Rory looked up and saw the kindly gentleman in the tweed suit beckoning her. For no reason other than instinct, an instinct honed by years of meeting new people and making almost no new friends, she liked the man. "Nice to meet you, Professor Tarkington," she said, meaning it.
"Let us go to my office," the professor said.
As Rory followed him into his office, a richly decorated space filled and crammed and stuffed with books, she felt another jolt of joy that she answered that call.