A/N: I'm glad to see there's some interest after chapter one :) I don't have much to preface this with except to remind you that exposition is a necessary thing for this fic and that some of the chapters are a bit on the short side for what I typically write, but it broke down well this way. Updates should be frequent, so you'll never be left hanging too long. Thanks for humoring me! Continued thanks to geminigrl11, Piratelf, and sendintheclowns. Other notes in chapter one.
CHAPTER TWO
Her mother was gardening when she got home. By choice. Overalls, trowel, the whole nine yards. There were even blooming plants to show for it. Perhaps miracles did happen. Either that or hell had surely frozen over.
"Since when do you garden?" she asked quizzically.
Lorelai looked up at her from under her ridiculously floppy hat. "Since two years ago," she said. "It was slow going at first, and even Babette was pretty sure I was hopeless."
"Even Babette? The same Babette who gave you plants three Easters in a row to try to make you start a garden?"
Her mother nodded regretfully. "We even tried dyeing my thumb green one year just to see if it would take, but not such luck. But I've found success recently."
"How's that?" Rory asked.
"Well, I stopped killing them mostly," Lorelai said.
Rory nodded, matter-of-fact. "That usually helps."
"Did you know there are sun plants and shade plants?" her mother asked. "I had no idea at first. Apparently, some plants like the sun. Others like the shade. Finnicky plants, just like the world full of finnicky people. It's like they're going to a restaurant and trying to order their meal: a nice batch of dirt, a side of Miracle-Gro, and hold the sunlight."
"Are you sure finnicky is a word?"
"If you'd met my plants, you wouldn't care," Lorelai replied simply. "I mean, like our good friend, the hosta, for example." She nodded to the plants she was working on. "Hostas thrive in shade. They're also very hearty plants. Hard to kill, which is why I lined the side of the house with them. Sadly they're also one of the most overused plants in all America. Every other house has some."
"Repetition is never good."
"No, but plants that you can't kill are. The lesser of two evils." Lorelai stood up, stretching, looking at Rory fully. "So, what'd the mechanic say?"
"That I should never be allowed to operate large vehicles again."
Her mother winced. "That bad?"
Rory shrugged. "I think it just needs some tender loving care," she said. "Though you'll never guess who the mechanic was."
"I'm just going to assume this is a trick question--"
"Dean."
"Forester?"
"No, the other Dean," Rory said with a roll of her eyes. "Yes, Forester."
Her mother opened her mouth and shut it, like she was going to say a lot more than the simple "Oh" that came out.
"Just 'oh?' No, 'how is he? What's he up to?'"
"Well, based on what you just told me, I figured he was up to being a mechanic."
"True, but there's more than that. Don't you want to know more than that?"
Putting her trowel down, Lorelai sat down on the steps. "Seems like you want to tell me more than that."
Rory's shoulders sagged and she sat down next to her mother. "I thought he went to college. I mean, I thought he was going to a good college, getting out of here."
"He did," her mother said.
Her mother said that far too knowingly. In fact, looking at her mother, it seemed like she was holding out. "Okay, spill. What do you know?"
"You act like you care." "You act like you don't."
"A bit defensive, I think. All that time driving make you think fondly of your exes?"
Rory rolled her eyes. "You know, if you're not going to tell me, I'm sure I can find someone who will. Someone who gets to the point far quicker than you do and tortures me less."
"Okay, okay. Deny a mother only joy," Lorelai relented. "He graduated from college--"
"UConn?"
"Yep. And, so, he's got his degree and he came back home to help out the family."
Rory cocked her head. "Help out the family? With what?"
The good humor on her mother's face faded. "His dad had a heart attack. Pretty bad one. So I guess Dean came back to help keep the stereo shop going until his dad could get back on his feet."
Rory waited. "And? And what else? That's it?"
Lorelai shrugged. "What more do you want? You have tension and drama and family commitments all right there. Much more and we're talking, like, epic novels and stuff. Maybe even a Lifetime movie."
"So why is he working as a mechanic?"
"Well, probably because he has a mechanical engineering degree."
"But why there? What's he going to do next? How long is he staying?"
"You know, you could always do the unthinkable and ask him yourself. You should know by now that the town gossip is not the best way to keep informed."
Rory sighed. "I know. But it's Dean."
"Exactly," Lorelai said, clapping her on the shoulder. "It's Dean. Do they not have men or something in that far off land you've been calling home?"
"They have men," Rory said.
Lorelai smiled. "Just not men like that."
Her mother, perhaps, had a point. Though Rory couldn't say for sure. She'd been so focused the last couple of years that boys hadn't been on her mind all that much. There had been a few dates every now and then but there was still that lingering feeling of Logan, and it had taken her a good year to stop thinking about him whenever she was by herself or late at night when she woke up from a dream.
She'd gone so far with Logan. Gotten so close. She'd loved him. And yet...
He wasn't the one.
Jess hadn't been the one.
Neither had Dean.
So, why here, why now...why Dean?
"It's just nostalgia," she said finally. "I didn't expect to see him here."
Lorelai stood up. "Just keep telling yourself that, sweetie," she said.
Rory narrowed her eyes at her mother as she disappeared inside. Because really, she hadn't expected to see him and she certainly hadn't expected him to look like that.
So, her mother gardened and Dean Forester had turned into a man without her knowledge.
Wonders never did cease, not even in Stars Hollow.
Rory could only think this was a good sign.
-o-
She needed a job.
That was her latest revelation. It wasn't so much a revelation as a natural progression of realization. Leaving her previous job had been self-explanatory enough. Leaving one job meant finding another, no matter what the circumstances. She'd just been so preoccupied with getting out that she hadn't thought about how she'd get in someplace else. Especially knowing what that meant in Stars Hollow.
Going home had been a natural choice, of course. After a life of freedom and instability, she couldn't deny the appeal of something that never changed. Something like Stars Hollow. The predictability of it. The safety.
The complete lack of job opportunities.
Which was why her job seeking efforts had done nothing but cost her money. She hadn't left the diner all morning and had invested so heavily in the coffee there that she might as well own stock, as though in one day she wanted to make up her four year absence.
She was making her way through her lunch when she realized that the paper's want ads only spanned two pages. Two pages and she had circled nothing.
Well, not quite nothing. She had underlined a possibility that looked for Creative Educated Persons Wanted for Self-Made Company. But the pay was variable and the last line of We shoot for the stars! sounded too much like Kirk or Miss Patty and that simply made her nervous.
Of course, Doose's Market was looking for workers. There was a waitressing job available at a restaurant on the edge of town. A motel on the highway was looking for a nighttime receptionist and there were always shifts available down at the Casey's.
All jobs in the most basic sense of the word. But they were jobs for high school students. Second jobs for people struggling to make ends meet. They weren't jobs for Yale graduates. Were they? Or was she being classically elitist in the worst sense of the word?
"You know, the whole idea of looking for a job means actually going somewhere," her mother said, interrupting her thoughts.
"True," Rory said, not missing a beat. "Speaking of which, why aren't you at work?"
Lorelai shrugged, sitting down across from her. "It's my lunch break."
Rory glanced at the clock on the wall. "At eleven AM?"
"It's flexible," Lorelai countered. "Besides, at least I have meaningful employment. Unlike some of us."
"Well finding meaningful employment is easier said than done."
Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Perhaps you are being too picky."
"I highly doubt it," Rory said. She scooted the paper over. "See for yourself."
Skimming the ads, her mother paused. "Hey, what about this one? Flexible hours, good pay--"
Peeking at the page, Rory said, "And it requires extensive cooking experience."
"You can cook." "I'm not sure opening a bag of chips counts."
"Eh, maybe," Lorelai said. "Hey what about this one? Needs friendly people--"
"With bartending experience," Rory finished for her. "I'm half qualified."
"I'm sure you'd be great at tending bar."
"Except for my complete lack of familiarity with drink combinations."
"Perhaps." Lorelai continued to scan the page. "You could always apply at Doose's."
"And I could always pretend to relive the high school days that I never had," Rory said with a bit of a sigh. "I feel like I need to do something a bit more worthwhile to make all those years at Yale worth it."
"Picky, picky," her mother said, tossing the paper back at her. "You could always just sit on the street corner with a sign that says Yale Graduate Will Debate For Money and see what happens."
"A new kind of pan-handler," Rory said. "I like it. Not the safest profession, though."
"Beggars can't be choosers. Wait! Ha! That one works."
Rory rolled her eyes. "I'm considering just admitting defeat and relying on unemployment benefits for the time being."
"You know," Lorelai said. "You could always just stick to what you know."
"And that is...?"
Her mother looked at her expectantly. "You know, writing. Journalism. That little thing you spent all those years at Yale studying for."
"And that would be lovely if this wasn't Stars Hollow."
"Well, someone has grown snobby in her time away," Lorelai said. "Do you not remember that we have a paper here?"
"The Stars Hollow Gazette?"
"Well, I don't think we have two. We may have finally wrangled in a McDonalds, but I think two papers would be pushing it."
This made Rory stop. She hadn't really considered it. After a job on the campaign trail, after being a staff writer for a paper on the nation's top ten list, she hadn't really considered writing for her hometown paper, which probably was lucky to have a circulation of a few thousand. It still reported social news, sighting and comings and goings, as if the small town was something of a soap opera that people needed to stay up-to-date with.
A step backwards in her career? Perhaps. But...it was writing. It was journalism. And it was close to home, it was convenient, and she was sure she had enough credentials to garner her a position.
Besides, it was temporary. A small reprieve to keep her occupied and thinking while she figured out where she was headed next in life. Getting a job didn't mean she would be there for the rest of her life. Quite the contrary--a stepping stone that would be mutually beneficial to all parties involved.
"I can see you're thinking about it," Lorelai observed. "You've got that sort of furrowed look on your face where you sort of scrunch your nose up when you're trying to make sense of things."
Rory scowled. "I don't scrunch my nose up."
"Au contraire," her mother said. "I think I would know far better than you. I have spent more time looking at you, unless you have some kind of hidden mirror system set up. Which, really, would be kind of freaky. And oddly egotistical."
Luke had sauntered up. "You talking about yourself again?" he asked.
"Ha!" Lorelai said. "Aren't you funny. I was merely commenting on Rory's thinky face."
"The scrunchy nose one?"
This was just unbelievable. Or rather, too believable. Why had she wanted to come back to this? "Are you through insulting me now?"
"Not quite," Lorelai said. "Just until Luke comes back with my sandwich."
"Chicken salad?"
"On a french roll."
"That's right, it's Wednesday."
"You're getting it," Lorelai said with a grin. "And a water will be good."
"Anything for you?" Luke asked, looking at Rory.
"Perhaps my dignity."
"I only have so much I can offer," Luke said. "How about a piece of pie?"
"Fine," Rory muttered.
As Luke walked away, Lorelai leaned forward. "Aw, you're sulking," she said. "There's no reason to sulk when Luke offers pie. You know how Luke is with his non-health foods. Though you really always have had an affinity for sulking. Sometimes, when you were little, I'd take your pacifier away and right away, all you'd do was thrust out that lower lip of yours and just go for it. No crying, just lots and lots of sulking."
"Why didn't you just give me back the pacifier?"
Lorelai frowned a little, considering that. "But then I never would have discovered how well you sulk."
"And I wonder why I'm so screwed up."
"At least I found you a job."
"Yeah, yeah," Rory said. "I don't think mentioning it means you actually found it for me. I still have to go and apply and hope that they need writers."
"Honey," Lorelai said, quite seriously. "This is Stars Hollow. We may be able to put out a daily paper but that doesn't mean that there's a single writer on the staff. I mean, have you read it?"
Rory cocked her head. "I'm not really sure I have," she admitted. "There were always, you know, better things to read. Books, newspapers with standards."
"You may not want to tell them that when you interview."
Rory scoffed. "Who here has actually interviewed for an actual paper? Oh, yes, now I remember, that was me. So I'm fairly sure I don't need your advice."
Her mother held up a hand in placation. "You managed to get two prestigious jobs and suddenly you think you know everything. Need I remind you that I myself have been gainfully employed for most of your life?"
"You own the place," Rory pointed. "They can't fire you."
"Right," Lorelai said. "Which means I have reached the pinnacle of my working career, all before I'm past my prime, which really is quite impressive. I mean, how long until you think you'll be at the ownership level? Years, I think, no matter how good of a writer you are. Years."
The fact was, her mother was impossible. Purposefully. It was sometimes like having a conversation with a...well, with what, she wasn't sure, because in the end, there was nothing like having a conversation with her mother. And to think people thought she was bad. "I'm not having this conversation."
"That's because I win."
"I'm chewing too loud to hear you."
Lorelai's laugh was practically a cackle and Rory wondered what she'd look like with a wart on her nose.