"Yes?" Rory glanced around at the maids tiptoeing around the living room. "Can we talk in the study?" she asked.
"Of course." Emily gestured to one of the maids, "Bring a bottle of wine to the study."
They walked into what used to be Richard's study. Emily sat in the leather chair and while Rory sat in the seat across from her. Rory wracked her brain trying to figure out a way to beg Emily for money, without sounding like she was begging. The maid that walked in with a cold bottle of wine and Rory gladly let her glass be topped up.
"Well, what is it?" Emily asked.
Rory took a deep breath. "Can you give me the money from grandma Trix's trust?"
There was a moment of silence that stretched so long that Rory near exploded from the tension.
"I don't see why not," Emily said with a limp wave of her hand. "It's been taking up space in my accountant's file cabinet. I'll make an appointment tomorrow and we sort this whole thing out."
Rory sighed in relief before nodding. "That sounds nice. We can have lunch, too."
"That sounds wonderful! There's this little bistro…"
And just like that, everything fell back into place. There was no more sneering or puckered lips, only the Emily she remembered. The Emily who knew Rory had a bright future and would stop at nothing to help her get there. As the night wound down, the flitted from topic to topic, sharing laughs and sweet smiles. Emily glanced at the clock above Rory's head.
"10:30 already? Your mother must be dying to escape. I should let you get home."
Rory nodded and stood. She hung on to the back of the chair as her knees buckled. She guessed she had drunk a bit too much. Despite the amount
"Okay. So I'll see you tomorrow?"
"I'll send a car over. Are you going to do anything fun with the money? I always thought it would be so cute if you opened a boutique or a bakery."
"Um," Rory said with a laugh, "I actually need it."
"For what?" Emily asked.
"To live?" Rory laughed. "Living in New York was a little more expensive than I thought and I used up my graduation gift."
Emily said nothing before slowly shaking her head with a snort.
"Of course, of course! Why else would you visit your widowed grandmother, if not to have her clean up your messes again?"
Rory's mouth dropped open, "Grandma, that's not what I'm doing. I've been busy–"
"Certainly not too busy to waste $100,000! Honestly, what have you been doing with the Yale education your grandfather and I paid for? Writing crappy little articles, and quitting your job whenever you feel like it because you think I'll always bail you out?"
Rory fumbled to deny the truth.
"Oh please, did you really think I wouldn't look into your "firing"? You're 32 years old and you quit a job people would kill to have because they didn't pat you on the head and tell you what a good job you were doing? What did you want from them, Rory? A gold star? This is the real world!"
"I know that this is the real world, I'm trying my best!"
"You're not trying you're failing! You have had every opportunity gift wrapped and handed to you and you haven't done a thing with them. Not one thing! You couldn't even graduate from Yale on time, for goodness sake."
"You told me I could drop out, you told me it was okay!"
"Well, I was wrong, Rory. Do you hear that, wrong! I was wrong to coddle you and solve your problems for you. Maybe then you would have turned out to be more than a trust fund baby who has no idea how to survive."
Rory wiped her the tears from her eyes. "You think you know how to survive? You've never worked a day in your life! The hardest work you ever did was chasing mom away from you."
Emily stalked closer to Rory and crossed her arms. "Yes, big bad Emily, chasing away poor little Lorelai. Fine, if that's how you think of me, then fine. But at least Lorelai made something of herself. She didn't come crawling back home, begging for money when things got too hard for her. You're not half the woman she turned out to be. Your grandfather would be so ashamed."
At the mention of Richard, the wine in Rory's stomach turned to acid. "Ashamed of me? Look in the mirror! Mom times her visits because she knows that being around is like being poisoned. You ran every Gilmore out of this house. You don't know how to exist unless you're stepping on someone. I think it's great the Grandpa died before he could watch James grow up and hate you too."
Emily's lips snapped shut. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Rory swallowed around the cotton in her mouth and watched Emily take out a checkbook. She signed her name, tore it out and left it on the desk.
"Here. Write any number you want," she whispered before walking out the study.
–––
After Lorelai's clandestine meeting with the toilet, Luke did his husbandly duty and dragged her to one of the guest bedrooms to relax. Lorelai buried her head under the pillows, not giving a damn if she smeared her makeup on it. She felt the bed dip and peeked up at Luke. She frowned.
"You're making that face," she said.
"What face?" he asked.
"The 'face'. The 'I'm really worried about you but I can't make you do anything about it so I'm going to make this face until you do something about it' face. That face!" she replied.
"Is it working?" Luke asked.
"Kinda."
Luke sighed, "Lorelai."
"Ugh, I know, I know. But I've been so busy. With the money dad left I've been fixing so much stuff up at the Inn, James decided to be some sort of mutant athlete so he's got so much crap going on and Rory's back now so–"
"Hey," Luke said, leaning down to wrap his arms around her, "You realize you haven't been a single mother for, give or take, 10 years right? Whatever James's got going on, I'll take care of it. Michel could run that Inn in his sleep and you know it. Rory's a grown woman, she'll be fine. You need to go to the doctor and figure out what's going or I'll keeping making that face. You're gonna have to bury me with that face."
Lorelai pulled Luke closer and sighed. He was right, yet again. She had been letting things pile up to ignore whatever the hell was going on with her body. She was at the age when things started to fall apart. Emily was still kicking because evil never dies, but her father was as healthy as a man his age could be and still…
Afraid as she was to find out the truth, Lorelai couldn't live in fear of food. She'd never say it out loud, but she loved food a tab bit more than Luke and the kids.
"Okay," Lorelai said, rolling onto her back and pulling Luke down on top of her. "I'll take the day off and drive into town and let them steal a liter of my blood."
"Good. Cause I wasn't kidding about the face." Luke said before they both broke down into giggles.
Lorelai lifted her head for a kiss but Luke pulled back with a grimace. "Puke mouth," he said when he saw Lorelai's confused face. Lorelai grinned and yanked him back down.
"In sickness and health, Danes that's what you promised. Gimme those lips!" she said.
"Fine," Luke said with a grumble before diving in for a kiss. Even with the puke mouth, it was damn good.
"Ready to go home?" Luke asked after a moment of comfortable silence.
"Yeah, I can't sleep here. There is not one US magazine that you can read to me."
"Maybe we should spend the night here."
Lorelai laughed and pushed him off before sitting up. "Don't pretend you don't read them. Let's grab the kids and blow this popsicle stand."
They found James curled up in Lorelai's old room. Lorelai slipped his shoes back on and Luke gently tossed him over his shoulder. Not wanting to wander the mansion looking for Rory, Lorelai went to the kitchen to find a maid.
"Hey, do you know where Rory is?" she asked.
"Oh, Ms. Gilmore took a taxi home about half an hour ago." the maid replied.
Weird. "Oh, okay. I guess I'll just say goodnight to mom–"
"Actually, Mrs. Gilmore wasn't feeling well and went to bed early. She's sorry she couldn't spend the night with you."
That was strange. Lorelai had never known her mother to abandon guests for anything, even if she was the guest. One of Emily's favorite stories was about the night of her birth. She threw a dinner party and didn't head to the hospital until every guest had left.
"Oh-kay, goodnight."
"Goodnight, Mrs. Danes." the maid said before turning back to the dishes.
Lorelai took her coat from the maid at the front door and hopped into the car where Luke had buckled James in. Luke looked over from behind the wheel.
"Where's Rory?" he asked as she closed the door.
"The maid said she took a taxi home like, half an hour ago. Did she text you that she was leaving?"
Luke pulled out of the driveway, "I dunno, I left my phone at home."
"What's the point of having a mobile phone if it's never mobile?"
"To stop my wife from nagging that I needed a phone."
"Oh! Luke that is so going in my "Why I divorced you" journal."
"You threatening to divorce me every 10 minutes is going into my "why I divorced you" journal," Luke replied.
The shrill ring of Lorelai's phone cut off her response. A picture of Rory's smiling face flashed across the screen.
"You know Rory, the deal was to spend the entire night with her. You cheated!" Lorelai said as she answered.
"Sorry! But I got an email about an interview for a magazine in Brooklyn tomorrow morning so I had to run home and pack."
"You okay? You sound a little sniffly. You got your flu shot right?"
"Mom, It's no big deal. I'm just bushed. I ran home and packed a bunch of stuff and then ran back and had to grab a train. My old bones aren't used to this kind of exercise."
"Ugh, you have to stop calling yourself old. I can feel more wrinkles forming. Well, good luck with your interview!"
"Bye mom, tell Luke I said bye!"
Lorelai hung up. "Rory says bye. She got an email for an interview tomorrow so she's on her way to New York. She sounded a little sick, though."
"Did she get her flu shot?" Luke asked.