A Paris Twist
Disclaimer: ASP and crew et al. still own all of it, all rights pursuant thereto, and all money. Therefore, *not mine*.
Summary: Post-Revival: What does an old friend say about Rory's magnum opus?
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"It's crap."
A very pregnant Rory Gilmore wilted. "Okay?"
Paris Geller, who had acquired degrees and children and a disenchanted Doyle while Rory whiled away her twenties at plum feature writing jobs, leaned back and said crisply, "Crap, Gilmore, it's crap. Twee. Squee. Sentimental, sycophantic crap."
"Uh, okay," replied Rory, flushing.
"Oh here we go," said Paris, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair. "Look, I run a business. I've turned into my father and I'm letting a nanny raise my kids because, quite frankly, my mother was a whole chapter of diagnoses all by herself, and I have enough issues to qualify for a volume." She pointed a gold-plated pen at Rory as if holding a fencing foil. "If I wrote a maundering, meandering autobiographical paean to my own virtues, I sure as hell wouldn't put my real name on it. Are you kidding me, Rory? Gilmore Girls? Eponymous is so…" Paris's entire face wrinkled into disdain. "It's so precious."
"I thought…"
"No, you felt, that's your problem, you feel-feel-feel. I'm the one who thinks-thinks-thinks, and FYI, that's why I can tell you I've read better articles about parking lot re-paving."
Sniffling, Rory hunted in her capacious purse for a tissue.
Sighing, Paris reached into a drawer, yanked out a box, and tossed it to the disappointed author. "Rory, I don't lie to you. That's the bedrock of this friendship. I don't let you keep that invisible pink-diamond tiara without earning it, and this manuscript? It's headed for the books-for-a-buck bin."
Big wounded blue eyes turned on Paris, watering.
Paris said coolly, "You're leaking hormones all over your cashmere. Look, I get it. You adore your mom, I adore your mom, blah blah blah. But on page 38, you start a four-page diatribe about how awful she was for not involving your deadbeat loser dad in your life, right after you spent three pages defending her for always trying to involve him!" Leaning back, legs crossed, eyes on ceiling, Paris continued thoughtfully, "You keep trying to compare your struggles as a Chilton-Yale girl to a high school dropout with a community college degree, you equate your sleeping with two taken men with your mother having a rebound bed-romp, and you brag about how down with the common people you are when you're up to your neck in Gilmore money." Paris leaned forward so abruptly that Rory startled. "I respect you, Rory, or I'd lie and tell you to go for it. Kitschy angsty memoirs are all the rage. Traipse off on some wilderness hike, go pray-eat-love in Tuscany, whatever, but you're thirty-two, Gilmore. If you haven't found yourself by now? I suggest you look in a mirror. There you are. Right where you've been all along."
Paris waited. She mentally counted down from ten. In Latin, simply to provide a little spice to her day.
"So what are you saying? I spent six months writing a therapy session?"
"Ding-ding-ding, the girl wins the prize! Yes, Rory, I am saying exactly that. Keep it as a journal. Use it for reference. But stop kidding yourself. You did interview features for magazines read primarily by intellectual elitists, and your best hope for steady income was going to be as a talking head on cable news, until you decided sex with Huntzberger was more important than building a solid reputation as a real journalist, doing real work, in between mooching off people to convince yourself you're not one more rich kid playing checkbook-charity hero."
"Excuse me!" shrilled Rory, face flushed with indignation.
"Hey, takes one to know one. I donate to good causes, but these hands?" Paris held them up. "Never lose their French manicure. Why do you think I own the business? Now, some of the stuff about Richard was lovely, but seriously, Rory, who's going to take you for some small-town working woman when you spent six months writing a book free of charge in the family mansion?"
Rory's mouth dropped open.
"Y'know, your mother and grandparents forgave anything with you. The world's not like that, and it's freaking me out that we're this old and you haven't figured it out yet," continued Paris more kindly. "Hey, I've got a list of possibly acceptable nannies, I sent it to your phone."
"Thanks," said Rory feebly, and stood with a lurch. "Jess said the book is great."
"Yeah, well, I don't see his name on the short list for the Booker Prize, let alone Pulitzer, so consider the source."
"I will," snapped Rory, "and you never wrote a book in your life, so I have to consider that source too!"
"Very true," agreed Paris sagely, walking Rory to the door of her office, "but there's a catch, Gilmore. I don't want to have sex with you and play Superman to your Lois Lane. Now get out of here, go home, and do better. I know you can."
Paris closed the door of her office on a very bewildered Rory, and leaned against the wood for a moment, as if drawing strength from it. "This is why I didn't go into psychiatry. Okay, Geller, toughen up. Fertility waits for no woman. Men, sure, yeah, but women? Nope, not us, tick-tock on the biological clock, oh God, ten minutes with Rory and I'm babbling to myself." She strode to her desk, pressed a button, and bellowed, "Miranda! Chamomile tea now!"
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AN: "Eat Pray Love", "Wild", and "Under the Tuscan Sun" do not belong to me, nor did I watch the movies. I read the books. Kudos to PurryCat for catching a title botch on my end.
Extra warm fuzzies to anyone who knows what the Booker Prize is!