II
An embarrassingly sweaty half hour later, Rory was extricating the pink hairdryer. She bounced it across her bed, watching it land where her pillow had been. Well, at least they'd find it there since the spot made sense to her mother, for some reason. Well… pillow, head, hairdryer. She could see the connection.
Rory turned and started maneuvering her way towards her closet, having a harder time of it now that the boxes were even more scattered. At least before they had been taking up space vertically, but that stack had since been dismantled. Thank god today was the first day in ages she'd be wearing something that she didn't first have to excavate from a box filled with staplers and shampoo.
She tugged open the closet door (a particularly heavy box leaning against it caused some resistance) and reached for the only thing hanging in a garment bag. It was too early to get dressed. Certainly, it would be a mistake to change before coffee. There was always the possibility that it could get slopped down the front of whatever she was wearing and THIS outfit was one she had not ordered caffeinated.
Rory gently edged the bag's zipper down, revealing a vibrant, gauzy, romantic shade of blue. Lorelei had described it in a handful of ways over the last little while. The blue for "something blue," though she had reminded her mother that this was only supposed to apply to the bride. The blue of the November sky she could see out her window. After Kirk's Lewis Carroll attack on the gazebo last night, Alice blue. And finally, the unspoken true reason behind her mother's colour choice: the trademark blue of Gilmore eyes.
Her hands slide down the edges of the translucent garment bag as a memory sprang to mind, as sudden and insistent as a white rabbit. She was wearing another blue dress on the day of another wedding. He was there. He had come back. For her. She had kissed him briefly, but felt the weight of it for the rest of the day. The ghosting of his hands across her arms as he had attempted to draw her to him.
In the present, Rory blushed. That really felt like where it had all begun. That scene was idyllic. Preserved in her heart like the Beast's rose, under a delicate casing of glass. How's it end? She had a startling thought. Maybe Jess—dream Jess—hadn't just meant her story, Gilmore Girls. Maybe he was talking about the two of them. They were about to spend most of the day and night together, integral parts of the Gilmore-Danes wedding. Maid of honour and best man.
Best man, indeed. Rory had enjoyed Jess's pep talk at her Stars Hollow Gazette office the other day, but if she was honest with herself, his comments had come in somewhat of a weak second next to the glimpse of his ass she'd had when he's gotten up to go. No sir, Jess Mariano's brain was no longer the main attraction for her.
Though, obviously, she shouldn't be objectifying him like that. He was talented, he was sharp, he was on her intellectual level. He was supportive and inspiring! She eyed her dress once more. He would be walking down the aisle next to her in a few hours with his arm under hers. He would likely dance with her at the reception. It would be rude not to. His hand would be on her back. Hers on his shoulders. His face so close. That dark hair. The smirk.
Woah, snap out of it, Gilmore! He was her friend. Her confidant. Heck, her relative-by-marriage after today! She grimaced. Yuck, erase that last thought. She would just focus on Lorelei. Lorelei was safe in a distracting, force of nature sort of way. She was the Kraken to Rory's floundering ship! Ugh, another nautical metaphor!
She leaned into her closet and jerked the zipper back up. She allowed herself one dreamy little sigh to exorcise some of the Jess thoughts making her head fuzzy. I just need coffee, she thought. She turned, caught her toe on the edge of a box and almost went sprawling. Or that. Now I'm awake! She grabbed the hairdryer off her bed and crossed into the kitchen, determined to keep her mother on schedule and herself 110% distracted from anything that wasn't dry shampoo, top coat, or those fiddly little hooks you have to do up to get the zipper of a dress to lay just right. She would make sure her mother would not be late for this very important date, over a decade in the making.
Culture references in this chapter:
Beauty and the Beast directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise