Title: Mary or Mary'ed : Chapter Ten
Author: Aquarius Angel
Rating: PG
Authors Note: Busy month, finals, graduations, sister's wedding, and now moving.
Hint: There are two things Tristan does for Rory that has meaning beyond the story.
"He does know that I am leaving in the morning?"
"Yes Ms. Gilmore I informed him of your departure time this morning."
"How did he react Helen?"
"I'm sorry Ms. Gilmore?" The secretary said as if she could not give that information to the disappointed young women on the other end of the phone.
"What was his reaction? Was he sad, happy? Help a girl out here."
"I'm sorry Ms. Gilmore, but I am not paid to judge his reactions. Now do you have a message for Mr. DuGrey?"
Rory sighed and gave up on getting anything out of Tristan's strict secretary, "Would you ask him to please make it home in time for supper?"
"Yes, mama."
"Thank-you."
Helen closed her phone and looked over at her smirking employer. "She would like you to be home in time for dinner."
"Can we fit that into my schedule?"
"Since you rearranged your entire day, I think so. Now I asked Zasha to send up the Jonquil's in approximately two minutes, and Mark will be picking her up in an hour."
"Good, that will give her time to get ready. Alexei, how did those favors go?" Tristan said while heading towards his personal changing room to get himself ready to leave the office.
"Everything is going as planed or rather not planned. Are you sure you don't just want to fly off to Athens? The jet can be ready in thirty minutes." Alexei said, since he still had doubts in his best friends plan.
"Athens won't work. Now go you have to sit in some of those meetings for me." Tristan said while closing the door on his best friend and secretary.
"How did he get you to go along with this?" Alexei asked Helen.
"He promised me two more weeks of vacation." Helen said with her own evil smirk.
"Figures you get time off while I just get more work." He rolled his eyes and headed out to his newly scheduled meeting, leaving Helen to make sure everything starts off smoothly for Tristan.
Rory received the bouquet of daffodil looking flowers, at the exact moment she opened her lap top to start working on the remaining studying and reviewing she had yet to complete. Her first few days in Moscow were spent entertaining herself with a mixture of touring the city and taking the time to complete her projects and other school work she had scheduled to work on over her spring break. She had remained in contact with most of her head reporters to make sure the newsroom was being run smoothly in her absents, and Logan e-mailed her copies of the paper layout. However he did not add any non-newspaper related messages to the few e-mails he sent. Of course her last couple days in the Russian city were spent spending time with her new acquaintances and Tristan. Rory feared she would be spending her last day alone in the apartment, though the arrival of the flowers changed her apprehension into anticipation.
Not knowing what the flowers represented, Rory was unsure of how to react to their presences, until she read the card.
When Mark arrived to pick her up, Rory was ready for whatever her Romeo had in store.
But he wasn't in the limo, and they didn't stop to pick him up, in fact Mark had stopped the limo and was letting her out without even a mention of Master DuGrey.
As she stepped out of the limo, she found herself standing in front of an old, unremarkable, abandoned building. If she had any doubt in Mark's knowledge of the city or of his loyalty to Tristan, she would have questioned him on if he was sure this was the right place. Since the building was far from welcoming she was unsure where to go or what she was supposed to do now that she was out of the limo.
Seeing her uncertainty, Mark smiled and pointed to the buildings boarded up entry way. Rory gave him a questioning small smile, he nodded, so she took a deep breath and headed into the abandoned building with as much dignity as a Gilmore Girl possessed.
As she tentatively pushed opened the door, she heard Mark get back into the limo, but she stopped herself for turning to look back at him, instead she continued into the mysterious old building. At first there was nothing to remarkable, just an old entry way, with another entrance series of doors leading into the buildings interior. These doors were not boarded as the ones she had just passed through; in fact the new doors were perfectly clean however they were tinted so she could still not see what lay on the other side.
Rory took another deep breath, but instead of air entering her lungs she just got a cloud of dust. Before she could open the doors in front of her she was consumed with a coughing attack. After she was able to clear her lungs, she started contemplating why she was dropped off at this dust heap and when will Tristan show up. She waited about two minutes to see if he would walk in behind her, but her Romeo didn't appear and thus she was forced to enter what she could only assume to be the last of the barriers keeping her from whatever this afternoon held for her.
Slowly she pushed open the double doors, she didn't look at first since she was afraid of what she would find. However her ears picked up a strangely familiar melody, one she was sure she knew but had know idea of why. Rory slowly opened her eyes and allowed them to adjust to the dim lighting. What she beheld were rich colors of velvets and golds, the walls were covered with picture frames holding old movie posters, the music she remembered hearing at the Stars Hollow Black and White Theater, and most importantly there was a popcorn stand with a waiting attendant.
"Ms Gilmore, how may I help you with your movie substance selection?"
Rory's face lit up in excitement, her heart's desires were being laid out in front of her. All around the counter was every type of movie night delights her mother and herself had ever dreamed of, and she had no idea where to start. She stood in front of the counter thinking over the different groupings and options of the array of movie candy she had at her disposable.
"Is there anyway that I can get a sample of everything?" Rory said looking over the different chocolate candies. Not only did the popcorn stand have all the regular name-brand candy, but it also a variety of original candies in different types of candy jars. To Rory it was looking over Taylor's Soda Shop, Doe's Market Candy Isle, and her mothers candy cupboard all at the same time.
"Anything you wish Ms Gilmore." The attendant started scooping and mixing all the different types of candies onto a try for his special customer.
Rory was unable to withhold her excitement, and started doing a classic Gilmore Girl happy dance. "Make sure you mix the gum drops with chocolate covered peanuts. And don't forget the nachos with extra cheese, or the popcorn with extra butter."
The Rory's personal candy man was laughing as he mixed the different sugary delights. He could never remember having so much excitement while pleasing a consumer of his movie going goods.
"I do believe we have a selection worthy of the gods. Would you care for anything else Ms. Gilmore?"
"No friend, I think this is a perfect selection of your offerings. Now can you direct me in whatever direction I am to go to next?" Rory asked the friendly candy man.
"Ms. Gilmore if you would please follow me." Rory turned around, carefully in order to keep all her candy in her arms, to see another attendant dressed in the classic movie theater attendant apparel. He was in a slight bow stance, with one arm across his mid-section and the other extended towards a door.
"Of course," Rory started towards the man, which immediately moved to open the door for her. Once she was inside, she was able to view an old theater, only all of the normal movie seats were replaced with booths and couches, for a more cozy and intimate viewing experience.
"Right the way Ms. Gilmore." The attendant ushered Rory to the middle of the theater where a low table was set up with a candle, pizza, Chinese food, and plenty of extra space for all of her chosen candy. The seating was a leather couch that sank as she sat on it. Between the couch and the table, she felt that she was all settled in for one of the Gilmore movie nights.
"Excuse me, is Tristan going to be joining me?" But as Rory looked up the movie attendant was replaced with a very relaxing looking Tristan. He was wearing jeans and a simple navy sweater that made his eyes seem a darker shade of blue.
"Sorry I was late, but I forgot the French Fries." He said as he motioned to the bag he was holding.
Rory about jumped for joy, she hadn't even realized how much she has missed the greasy delights until Tristan mentioned them. "When you said prepare for a relaxing night at the theater, I thought you meant we would be attending the theater." She said giving him an evil stare has she grabbed a hold of the bag containing her French Fries. "The flowers were beautiful, thank you."
"Your welcome." He sat down next to her, though not to close. "You could have gotten more candy, I actually thought you would." He said with a smile.
"This is just the first round." He laughed as the opening previews started rolling. "You know we could have just rented a movie and watched it at your apartment."
Tristan looked at her, then grabbed a piece of pizza, "Nothing beats watching the movie in a theater, plus now we don't have to walk to far when we run out of food."
Rory noticed how Tristan was trying to make this a special day for her, and not be cocky about how he went to all this effort for her, and she really appreciated it all, however….
"What movie are we going to see?"
"Saratoga Trunk." Tristan went for some milk-duds, while Rory finished off the French Fries.
"Classic, why?"
"Something about the town, reminded me of the time when I visited Stars Hollow."
Rory nodded, but refrained from saying more since the movie's opening credits had started rolling.
"How we following up a classic movie, starring the classic movie actress Ingrid Bergman?" Rory asked Tristan as they exited the movie theater. "And how did you find this theater?"
"First you will have to wait and see, and second I literally stumbled upon this building during one of my first few trips to this remarkable city." Tristan had his hand resting upon Rory's lower back and gently guided her into the waiting limo, as Mark held the door. Mark smiled at his boss while Tristan winked at his employee.
"Stumbled upon, you've got to explain." She said as she slid across the seat, Tristan followed and waited for the door to close before continuing.
"Alexei and myself went out drinking to celebrate finding a suitable starting office space. We called a taxi to take us back to the hotel, but Alexei decided last minute to spend the night with Lina. Turned out to be a bad decision for him, but an even worse one for me, because my Russian is limited and I forgot what the name of the hotel was, so I ended up at this random hotel which of course did not recognize me or my name, meaning they soon kicked me out, leaving me wondering the streets, still drunk as a Bush daughter. I really don't recollect how I stumbled into the old run-down theater, but when I woke up the next morning I noticed I was surrounded by the dusty beauty of the old Star-Light Theater. I was enthralled."
"Enthralled?"
"Amazed, interested, never wanting to leave, so I started asking my new contacts about the abandoned theater. I learned the building was owned by a family, however the only reason they hadn't sold it was because the amount it cost to keep owning the property was less than the amount of pain it would be to see it torn down. Talking to the family was enchanting."
"Enchanting?"
"Educational. They showed me old pictures from when the theater was a live theater, then when it was revamped to be a movie theater, and finally the last show which was a mix of both types of the theater's history. I made an offer to restore the theater to it's originally glory, but with a twist."
"A twist?"
"Will you stop questioning my words?!" Finally he reacted to her consent questioning.
"Sorry, but the way you are wording your experience does not seem typical Tristan lingual." Rory said with the same disbelief tone she had been using during his explanation.
Tristan smiled and looked sheepish as her comments. "You're right but this theater is one of the few passions in my life. Can't you just image coming in, sort of like we did tonight, and lounging in couches watching new and old movies, new and old plays, original work produced by local artist."
The way Tristan talked about the theater Rory could tell that he was truly excited to be working on something that would give back to the community. "So what are all the twists and conditions the family agreed too?" Rory said in hoped to keep Tristan in a good mood.
"The family is actually doing most of the working, talking to contractors, approving the designs, etc. We agreed to keep the original design, and decorate with some of the original movie and play posters, along with pictures from the theaters history, including the times of its rundown and rebuilding arras. And the theater will be focused on bring art back to the community at an affordable price. The few people working tonight were actually two of the family members."
"What? I would have told them how amazing the theater looked if you would have told me." She said a little annoyed with him.
"They know, when I walked in they told me your reaction was to die for."
"To die for?" Seeing the side look from Tristan, "Sorry, but to die for?"
"They are working on their English."
"And I'm working on my acting skills." Though she was sure he was completely capable of another retort, he was to busy laughing to get one out. She had no choice but to start laughing with him. It was the first time, without Tristan's best friends around, they truly laughed together.
Mark looked into his mirror and saw the future.