CHAPTER 4
"So are you going to tell me or what?" the male voice asked her over the phone.
"Why are you calling me?" Rory asked, smiling upon hearing his voice. She unconsciously rubbed her eyes from the deep slumber she'd been roused from.
"Because it's been two days since you've promised Jackie that you would give her the scoop, and you still haven't," his voice reverberated in her ear. "She said that she tried calling you several times with no luck. She said I was her only chance. God only knows what made her think I'd have better luck than her."
"Why did Jackie ask you to call me?" Rory asked the rhetorical question. She knew why. Jackie would use up all her resources first, friends or otherwise, to get the news. Jackie had reached a level of desperation she thought she'd never witness.
"Rory…." She could hear the impatience on his voice.
Rory got up from her bed and leaned her head over her cocked knee. "I know, I know. Damn, I knew I should call her… I promise… Today."
"Tick tock!" he mocked her. "Nope. She told me to not fall for that line. So, are you going to spill?"
Rory grumbled. "I'm on vacation, you know."
"Well apparently you hold the scoop of the century, and she wants an exclusive," he grumbled. She could hear him inhale the cancer stick on the other end. "I know that I need something juicy to give to Arnold so that I can get back on his good graces."
"Jess, what did you do to Arnold this time? I thought you guys called a truce?" she asked playfully. She knew that the Jess Mariano she knew would've not given his boss this kind of trouble.
"I told him to ask this girl out to dinner. It so happens she was apparently a psycho chick that went to school with him. I'll tell you the rest of the story when you come back to New York," he said, chuckling.
"Aww, poor Arnold!" Rory laughed along. "I guess you do owe the man something."
"How could I know that they would know each other from a previous life?"
"Who would've thought that we'd actually be friends?" Rory fired back.
She heard him snort on the other end. "Ours is different."
"How so?"
"Mutual understanding," Jess argued. "We became friends out of mutual respect and desperation."
"Funny you should mention that," Rory sighed, remembering how she was so desperate for a place to stay in New York that she begged Luke to give her Jess' address so she'd have a place to crash.
"It's not the scoop of the century," Rory said. "It just so happened I was at the wrong place at the wrong time."
"That's not the Rory Gilmore I know," he said. Rory could picture the smirk that covered his face.
"Did Jackie tell you what this is about?" Rory asked.
"Just that some dude married some chick in Vegas, and that you told her you knew the mystery lady," he remarked.
"The dude you fondly refer to is Tristin DuGrey," Rory informed him.
"The plane dude? He's like Howard Hughes! Dad was a little nutty from what I heard," he recalled.
"Nutty is a mild description," Rory picked her words slowly. She would describe him as a classically deranged individual. "But yeah, same guy."
"So you know the broad that married him? So what? Guys like him get married at least once a year. Maybe two if he is that impetuous."
"Well, he was currently seeing Katherine Lloyd," Rory explained. She heard him whistle on the other end.
"I would've loved to see her. She has these great knock-," he got interrupted.
"I get your point," Rory rolled her eyes. "The thing is, when he was in Vegas, she wasn't there to tie the knot with him."
"I still don't get it," Jess said, inhaling the cigarette again. "So he didn't marry his girlfriend. Big deal. It happens."
"Not when the person involved is high profile," Rory suggested.
"So the question is, who was the broad he married?" Jess inquired.
"Me."
"Rory, I am not leaving this house until you tell me what happened in Las Vegas," Lorelai stood in front of her daughter's room, tapping her fingernails on her arm.
"Damn!" Rory swore under her breath. She stared at her bedside clock. It was only eight-thirty, and she was still without a coffee in her hand. Jess just hung up on her and she wasn't sure if she should check up on him or just let him digest the information on his own. How could this be called a vacation?
"Mom!" she groaned from behind the door. "Not this early!"
"Ah, the fact that you snuck into this house at two A.M. means that you are subjected to the Gilmore rule of giving up all information pertinent to any sleeping arrangements, especially the marital kind."
"There isn't such a rule!" Rory wailed, opening the door as she shrugged into her robe. She slipped her cell phone into the front pocket.
"Well one had to be made now that one of us is married," Lorelai snorted as she headed to the coffee maker to pour each of them a cup.
"Don't remind me," Rory groaned. Great. Did she say that out loud?
"Rory, should I be worried?" Lorelai put her hand on top of Rory's.
"No, no," Rory blushed. "It is just… strange."
"Strange?" Lorelai looked at her daughter.
"It's just, I never expected to be married to…," she got interrupted with the loud ringing emanating from her pocket.
Automatically, Rory answered the annoying device despite her mother's look of disapproval.
"You didn't," the female voice said in disbelief.
"I did," Rory said in response.
"Oh my God. You married Tristin DuGrey? How? Why? How?" she asked, stuttering. Jackie was still trying to take in the absurdity she had just heard.
"We met, we talked, we married," Rory said, trying to make it sound romantic despite the vagueness. She couldn't remember the walk down the line to start out with. She was not going to start gushing about something she might be questioned later on.
"It's not in the news yet. Can I go on the record with this?" Jackie asked permission.
Rory looked at her mom, who was all of a sudden working furiously over a piece of paper and some coloring pens that had been stored in the top drawer where the silverware usually was stored.
"I don't know," Rory bit her lip. "I have to ask."
"Ask who? Mr. DuGrey?" Jackie screeched.
"Yeah, Tristin," Rory replied, her heart beating extra hard. "It was his wedding too, you know."
"Fine, fine," she grumbled. "Promise me I get the go the moment he says yes."
"Will do," Rory said before disconnecting her friend. "What are you doing?"
"Shh, artist at work. Some silence, please?" Lorelai stated acerbically, still working on the sign on the paper in front of her. After a few seconds, Lorelai asked, "So, who is my son-in-law?"
"Remember Tristin DuGrey?" Rory asked.
"Hmm, no. Should I?" Lorelai started attacking the paper with a glitter pen.
"Yeah, he was the creep that gave me trouble in Chilton," Rory replied, trying to sneak a peek at her mother's work.
"Hmm, doesn't ring a bell," Lorelai pretended to think.
"Mid-Dean, dance fight, blonde guy that kept on calling me Mary? You made a remark about using Biblical references," Rory gave her a snapshot of her current husband.
"And you married this winner? Why? I don't remember saying to you, "Rory, please marry the first guy that insults you. He's the best husband material around!"" her mother sarcastically pointed out. "All I remember from that Dean fiasco was a moment of temporary insanity that had you and the Narco sleeping in Miss Patty's studio."
"Are you upset at the fact that I got married or at the fact that I didn't do this whole marriage thing the Gilmore way?" Rory asked testily.
"No, I just want you to tell me how you could be so smart and yet so dumb when it comes to monumental decisions like this!" Lorelai replied, equally upset with her daughter. "Granted, I don't know who Tristin is despite your helpful hints in trying to dig out this miscreant from memory."
"Mom!" Rory was getting testy with the way her mom answered her.
Again, her cell phone rang.
The voice of her husband hummed on her ear, "Rory, the news is leaked. Be careful."
The warning was something she thought she was prepared for at this point. However, the reality didn't quite match the reaction her heart just took upon hearing the news.
"What do you want me to do?"
A pregnant pause followed the query. "I don't know. Where are you at right now?"
"Mom's," she said.
"Good," he sighed. She pictured him run a frustrated hand through his hair. "I'm going to ask Amy to send you some information, press junket stuff."
"No, don't!" Rory said immediately. "I mean, don't have Amy send it."
"Why?" Tristin asked, concerned.
"Well," she covered the mouthpiece of her cell. "Uhm, with the arrangement…."
"Damn it," he sighed. "You're right, you're right. I've been up since four."
"Sorry," she said, wincing. She felt guilty for being part of his problem.
"Don't be," he said. "It's best that it's done now rather than later. Is there a place you can wait for my fax?"
"Yeah," she said, giving him the number to the Dragonfly Inn. "Give me about an hour, is that okay?"
"If that's the only way we can actually get our story together, yes," he said. "Still regretting this?"
Rory bit her tongue. "Nope. Now go and do what you rich people do."
"You know you're part of the circle now," he teased, lightening the somber mood.
"Can't wait to throw the first social," she giggled.
"I hope you're ready!" he chuckled. "Give me a ring when you get the documents."
"I will," she sighed before disconnecting him from her phone.
Rory turned around just to see a note held across Lorelai's chest. It was a replica of Luke's "No Cell Phones" sign posted in the diner. The expression on her face matched the scowl Luke usually put on his mug the moment the device went off in his establishment.
"I'm sorry!" Rory replied.
"So now, will you take me seriously?" Lorelai asked.
"I've been trying, Mom," Rory said. "I married Tristin DuGrey, okay? I don't really know how I actually got married to him…."
"Rory, what happened?" Lorelai put the sign down. "I knew I should've told Lane to hang out with you until you got on that plane with her."
"Mom, it's not Lane's job to baby sit me. Remember, I was the one that tagged along. Now this marriage? It's water under the bridge," Rory tried to calm her mother. "Besides, it's…."
"Rory, marriage is not a joke. It's the reason why I didn't marry your dad. It's why I didn't marry Luke."
Rory could not look at her mother. The feeling of guilt ate her from within.
"Just answer this truthfully, Kid. Are you happy?" she asked.
Rory was about to answer when her cell phone rang for the third time in the last thirty minutes. Lorelai picked up the sign she laid on the table and started pointing at it. Rory looked back at the number. She had to pick it up.
"I'm sorry," Rory apologized one more time.
"Rory? It's your grandmother," Emily haughtily responded. "What is this news I just got that you married Tristin DuGrey?"
Rory blanched at her grandmother's accusation. She looked up as Lorelai took out the roll of clear tape from the drawer, snipping off a portion of it and taped the sign on Rory's chest.
Other than witnessing her mother walk out on her with a face full of disappointment, she had to defend herself to her grandmother.
Her day really started on a sour note.
