"Was anything in the world truer than that intuitive leap of the heart?"
— Richard Russo, Empire Falls
"I think the manuscript is ready," Celia said, adjusting her glasses. "The last round of edits really sharpened it. It's funny and it breaks your heart at the same time."
After weeks of phone calls and emails, Rory and Celia were meeting in person for the first time at Celia's office in Manhattan, in a nondescript building a dozen stories above the chaotic traffic below. Madison Square Park was just around the corner, although you couldn't see it from the office.
Rory had originally intended to play it cool and professional, but Celia had been enthusiastic from the get-go and it was infectious. "I just can't believe this is happening," Rory marveled. "I mean, I've been working on this book for almost a year, and now it's time to send it out into the world and see if anybody bites."
"I'm confident that someone will bite," Celia declared. "I have a few publishers in mind that I think are going to be interested."
"It just feels like it's all happening so fast."
"It doesn't always happen like this. When I read it the first time I could tell that you'd already done a lot of editing. Not everyone does that."
"Well, I actually enjoy editing. My work and other people's work. Cleaning things up, making sense of messes. And I did have help. A friend of mine runs an indie publishing company and he gave me notes."
"Huh, I wonder if I know him. I have contacts at lots of indie presses." Celia was young, younger than Rory, maybe. She was still trying to prove that she could hack it as an agent and not just an assistant.
Rory picked up the manuscript in front of her and flipped through the pages distractedly, looking for a particular section that still needed work. "He's actually in the book," she said offhand.
"Oh, Jess?" Celia asked eagerly.
Rory's eyes bugged out as she let go of her page. "How did you…"
Celia blinked. "The book. The last time we see him he's starting up that press with his friends, right? It was really nice to see him grow up a little. For a secondary character he was really well fleshed-out."
"We really need to change those names before we send this to publishers," Rory said, hoping that there were a lot of guys named Jess working for indie publishing companies and that Celia wasn't a gossip.
"Are you guys…?" She wiggled her eyebrows.
"No! No. We're just friends." Rory felt like she'd just caught someone rummaging through her medicine cabinet, even though she knew she shouldn't. Celia was perfectly nice and she was on Rory's team. But besides the handful of other agents she'd queried who'd read her entire book, Celia was also the only person in the world who knew her family and friends from her manuscript rather than from life itself. They were characters to her. And Rory wasn't used to that yet.
"I'm going to start sending out feelers this week. I'll let you know when I start hearing back, okay?" Celia asked as she showed her to the door. "I have a really good feeling about this one."
Rory found the right doorbell, pressed it, and waited for the buzzer. She was early; she'd given herself a cushion because she didn't know how long her meeting would be, but she'd overestimated. She tapped her foot impatiently. She wanted to tell Jess all about her meeting with Celia.
He didn't answer the door. Maybe he wasn't home yet. She could just wait out front, or find a coffee shop. She wondered where he'd want to go for lunch. But just then someone walked out of the building, and she caught the door before it shut. She climbed the stairs to the third floor and found his apartment.
He was definitely home; she could hear his music through the door. She knocked once and then tried calling him, but he didn't pick up. Finally she twisted the doorknob.
The door was unlocked. "Hello?" she announced herself cautiously, peeking her head in. The apartment was pretty much what she'd expected: decorated minimally, open floor plan, leather couch, record player in the corner. One wall had the most glorious floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves, which were currently empty. There were cardboard moving boxes everywhere.
No sign of Jess in the main living space. She peeked into the room to the left, which turned out to be the bedroom. He wasn't there. She glanced to the right. The bathroom door was ajar, and she caught a glimpse of skin.
Oh, crap. What if he wasn't dressed yet? She cringed, stepping closer to the bathroom but averting her eyes. "Jess?" she called tentatively, but the music was so loud. She debated whether to knock.
The bathroom door flew open. He almost ran right into her and jumped back, startled. "Jesus Christ," he said, putting a hand on his naked chest, over his heart. He was wearing jeans but no shirt.
"Sorry!" she exclaimed, slapping her hand over her eyes and peeking through her fingers. "The door was unlocked."
He turned off the music. "You're early. We were moving furniture at the office this morning so I had to come home and shower." He patted his wet hair with a towel.
"Well, at least you're wearing pants," she quipped, sitting on the couch.
"My new mantra anytime I'm having a bad day." He flashed an easy smile and headed for his bedroom, clearly unbothered by her intrusion. Her embarrassment faded. No longer distracted by her own blunder, she noticed something on his chest, a couple inches below his collarbone.
"Is that a tattoo?" she asked curiously, craning her neck.
He reflexively covered it with his hand and mumbled something unintelligible, continuing into his room.
"Hold it right there, mister." She hopped up from the couch.
He froze halfway to the closet and turned reluctantly. He knew her well enough to know there was no squirming out of this one.
"If you don't show me I'll have to assume it's a butterfly."
"The butterfly tattoo is actually on my lower back," he deadpanned.
Rory stood in the doorway. "Come closer. What does it say?" Here was a thing she didn't know about him. She thought she knew him pretty well, better than most people know most other people, but this had literally been sitting there under his shirt and she'd had no idea.
He reluctantly shuffled toward her until he was close enough. She read it aloud: "This is water." She looked up. "DFW?"
"Chris went to Kenyon. Graduated the year he made that speech," Jess explained. "He showed it to me not long after."
"It's a great speech."
"This was a long time ago. Way before they made it into a book."
"Sure," she said, amused, hanging onto the sides of the doorframe and leaning forward to examine it more closely.
"If I knew it was going to turn into a whole thing…"
"I get it. You knew all about it before it was mainstream." Needling him was always fun. And, actually, it was pretty funny, Jess getting a tattoo of a line from an obscure graduation speech that ended up going viral and being turned into a book now available in hardcover, paperback, and for Kindle for the low, low price of $9.99.
"I got it done when I was too young to appreciate how permanent it was." He rubbed it like he was trying to erase it.
She looked at the tattoo again. She could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed. It was actually a pretty nice chest, she noted. He also had a good stomach, solid but not too toned. Too toned meant vanity and carbohydrate avoidance. And jeez, Miss Patty was not wrong about his arms. She was close enough to feel the warmth coming off his body, leftover from the shower. He smelled clean.
She was suddenly cognizant of the proximity of his bed.
"Rory?" His voice jolted her out of her thoughts and their eyes met. She had a funny feeling, like a hand was squeezing her solar plexus. He looked at her quizzically. "It doesn't have a hidden message when you look at it with your eyes crossed. Can I go change now?"
"Yes. You are dismissed," she said, pointing at him in attempted nonchalance that just felt clumsy. She retreated to the couch. Weird. This feeling was weird. Sean Spicer hiding in the bushes weird. Ariana Grande licking donuts weird. Tom Cruise jumping on the couch weird. Just weird.
He reappeared fully clothed a few minutes later. "Nice bookshelves," Rory said.
"I had to choose between this place with the bookshelves and an elevator building, so… I take the stairs."
"Well, you made the right choice." Rory swept her hand along one of the empty shelves.
"Hey, I have to hop on a work call before we go — do you mind? Sorry, I thought you were coming at noon. I'll leave you to it out here. And then I want to hear all about the big meeting."
"No problem," she said. "I'm good." She still felt shaken from whatever had happened between her and his bare chest and a few more minutes to recover could be useful.
He shut himself in the bedroom for his call. She looked around the quiet room and her eyes landed on the unpacked boxes. The first one was labeled "NOVELS - 1950 TO PRESENT." She opened it.
Nothing was organized. She pulled out one jumbled stack of books after another, shuffling through them to read the titles. Pynchon, Bellow, McCarthy, Roth. Of course. Exit West — she'd been wanting to read that. The Blind Assassin, A Clockwork Orange, White Teeth, Snow, Catch-22. An Ann Patchett novel, but not the best one. She began to stack the books in piles. Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel, Junot Díaz, Colson Whitehead. All the Neapolitan Novels. A surprising amount of John le Carré — he must've gone through an espionage phase. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Beloved, some Ursula Le Guin. In a row she found a bunch of books set in New York, probably read in anticipation of his big move: The Goldfinch, Invisible Man, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, A Little Life, Underworld.
When Jess reappeared in the living room, the box was empty and the books were lined up on a few of the shelves.
"What on earth happened in here?"
"The best books are on this shelf because it's at eye-level," she said proudly. "The not-so-good ones are down there at the bottom."
"Uh-huh," he said, stroking his chin and examining the shelves, his head tilted sideways to read the titles.
"The ones I haven't read are in the middle — you can decide where they go. The Updikes are in the garbage. And the ones I really want to read are right here." She held up four books and smiled cheesily, waving them back and forth in front of him.
He raised an eyebrow. "Are the Updikes really in the garbage?"
"No," she admitted.
He looked at the books she was holding. "Rory, would you like to borrow those?" he asked, faux-earnestly, as if she hadn't already staked a claim.
"Why, I would love to! How thoughtful," she replied, immediately stuffing them into her bag.
He looked back at the shelves, studying the way she'd sorted them. "Hmm." His forehead wrinkled. He moved a couple of books from one shelf to another. He looked at her pointedly as he shifted the Updikes from the bottom corner to a place of prominence. He wasn't even an Updike die-hard; he was just being contrary. He spotted the le Carrés. "Oh, yeah. I was really into spies for awhile."
He finished assessing her handiwork. "You're nuts," he concluded, but his mouth was turned up at the corner and she was grinning back, her face warm. And it felt familiar, like slipping her feet into a pair of broken-in shoes she'd found at the back of her closet. It felt like the time she'd visited Boston after a couple years away, boarded the T, and realized that she still remembered exactly where her old stop was. Realized that she still knew the map of the entire system by heart.
She still knew the map by heart.
Oh, shit, she thought.
"Ms. Geller will see you now," Paris' assistant announced, opening the door to her office and ushering Rory inside.
"Get Rory a coffee," Paris ordered from her desk. She stood and smiled broadly at Rory, reaching out for a hug. "So good to see you. It's been, what, a month?"
"I know! I'm so glad you were free last-minute. I was already in the city and I thought it would be nice to catch up before I head back," Rory said.
Paris sighed. "Well, I shouldn't have been free. I blocked off Tuesday afternoons for Timothy's debate tournaments but then he didn't make the team," she said darkly, gesturing across the room. Timothy was sitting in a chair, oblivious, headphones on, looking at his iPhone.
"Third graders have debate teams?"
"Oh, yeah. It's cutthroat at New York prep schools. Martha Raddatz moderated the last one. Timothy was supposed to be prepping all weekend before the tryouts but he just sat in his room playing the guitar." She spat "playing the guitar" in disgust, like it was "smoking crack" or "giving himself a DIY tattoo with an unsterilized needle and pen ink."
"He plays the guitar?"
"I know. I tried to buy him a cello. If he wanted to be Yo Yo Ma I could accept it. Yo Yo Ma went to college. But he wants to be Jimi Hendrix. Did Jimi Hendrix go to college?"
"I don't think so. But Brian May has a PhD in astrophysics," Rory offered.
The office phone rang. Paris picked it up and slammed it back down. She shouted into the hallway: "Carol, I told you to hold my calls. Do you know what it means to hold my calls? It doesn't mean to send them through to me."
Carol tried to explain, tentatively. "But it was Chelsea Clinton calling about the board meeting for that non-profit —"
"God, she's so needy. Just hold all my calls. No exceptions." Paris massaged her temples and kicked off her stilettos. She glanced over at Timothy. "All he talks about is music. I don't know how to talk about music. I don't want him to hate me." She leaned forward, lowering her voice. "He's already in therapy. The divorce has been very upsetting for him."
Rory winced sympathetically. "How's that going?"
"One more court date in two weeks. I just want it to be over."
"How's Gabriela taking it?"
"She's scarily adept at playing Doyle and me against each other. He got her a new bike and before I knew it I was buying her a horse." She pointed to a picture frame on her desk with a photo of Gabriela in riding boots and a helmet. "It's actually impressive."
Rory looked at Timothy in the corner, his music audible even with the headphones. "You know, I have an idea," she said. "Do you have time to drive up to Connecticut?"
"So, Timothy, can I see the music on your phone?" Lane asked. They were sitting on her front steps. Steve and Kwan were running around in the yard.
"You have a lot of great stuff," Lane said, scrolling through. "Hey, do you want to see where my band plays?"
"You have a band?" he asked in awe. "But you're a mom."
"Moms do all kinds of things besides work," Paris protested.
Timothy followed Lane into the house. "Whoa!" Rory and Paris heard him exclaim. His exclamation was followed by several minutes of chaotic drum-banging.
"When we were kids, Lane used to hide her CDs under the floorboards so her mom wouldn't find them," Rory told Paris.
"I don't want that," Paris said, staring at the sidewalk. "I just want what's best for him." She looked at Rory, an unfamiliar expression on her face. Uncertainty.
"Maybe you should try embracing his interests instead of squashing them. Plus, if he's any good, it'll look great on his college resume."
"I'm just worried about his middle school resume. He's at Dalton but that place is full of drooling halfwits. I'm trying to get him into Horace Mann."
Timothy left Lane's with a list of songs to download — "You've got classic rock covered, but you really need to try more punk," Lane opined. And Paris left Lane's with some brownie points in Timothy's eyes.
"Thank you both. This really made him happy," Paris said as they left. She smiled gratefully. "Doyle is going to be so jealous."
Next week: Rory and Lorelai's visit to Kirk's Cat Cafe has unexpected consequences; Rory struggles with her feelings.