A/N: Not much Dean, but some important Rory stuff. Major decisions will come in the next chapter--I promise :) Thank you!
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
She had a preliminary interview with the Chicago Tribune. A phone thing, a little low-key, a testing of the waters of sorts. The man who interviewed her was named Stan (of course he was named Stan, and she could almost see him with his suspenders and tie and little reporter notebook in hand). Stan sounded nice enough as he praised her portfolio and asked about her intentions.
"Where do you see yourself in five years?" he asked. "You know, if you had your way?"
Her hand was sweating. "Well, I obviously would like to be employed at a major news company--newspaper, some kind of broadcasting perhaps, maybe something more humanitarian. Traveling would be ideal."
"Aspirations to see the world," he said. "Very good. Very good. And ambitious. You haven't been out of school that long."
"I've always been focused."
"Future-oriented," he said, and she could almost see him nodding. "Good, good. Plans to return to college? Complete some kind of masters work?"
"Of course," she replied, not because she was really thinking about it or even wanted it. She'd thought about it, of course, because that was what people did. They went back to school. They advanced their knowledge, their careers, themselves. But she didn't say it because she wanted it. She said it because it was the right answer. "You can never stop learning."
"Well, the looks of your resume, I must say, it's quite impressive. Your portfolio suggests you're just the kind of employee we're looking for. Now, we're not past the preliminary stages of all this, you see, but I can promise you that you're on our short list. We'll be following up with you."
"Thank you," she said, and she felt her face flush. Excitement. Anticipation.
"No, thank you," Stan said. "We'll be in touch."
As she ended the call, her skin was prickling. The Chicago Tribune. Another step up. A good job. A new challenge.
And the reality was there for her as plain as newsprint: the future was still hers for the taking. This was the first of many opportunities, she knew that. There'd be other calls. There'd be interviews. There'd be offers.
All she had to do was pick the one that was right for her. Chicago, Washington, overseas, even New York, or maybe--
Maybe someplace closer to home.
She couldn't let that go. She just couldn't, and she was afraid that she knew why.
-o-
Her mother was working on a cross stitch on the living room couch, looking far too composed.
"So?" her mother prompted.
Rory just stared, unable to move from the doorway. "So."
"You called them?"
"I called them."
"And?"
"And it was the Chicago Tribune."
Her mother raised her eyebrows, her needle pausing. "Wow. That's a step up. What'd they say?"
"It was a preliminary interview."
"Sounds impressive."
"I talked to Stan."
"Stan sounds like a strong, journalistic name."
"That's what I thought."
"So, it went well."
"I think so."
"And we're not excited?"
"I don't know?"
Her mother sighed, putting her cross stitch to the side and leveling her with an all-too-perceptive stare. "You know."
She was right. Rory did know. She slunk to the couch and curled up next to her mother. "The job sounds great."
"But?"
"But I can't stop thinking about..."
"About...?"
"Dean."
"What about Dean?"
"Why doesn't he love me? I can nail any interview but why doesn't Dean love me?" she asked finally. It was a hard question to ask. An uncomfortable one. But the one she'd been hitting around for months now, the one she couldn't' figure out, the one that everyone around her seemed to inherently understand and yet she couldn't quite grasp.
Her mother smiled a little, that sad, sympathetic smile she seemed to have mastered in Rory's time away. "Do you really want to know?"
"Yes," she said emphatically, her voice hitching with anticipation.
Lorelai seemed to sigh a little. "It's not that he doesn't love you," her mother said. "It's that he's always loved you. He's loved you since he was seventeen years old and I don't think he ever stopped. Not when he broke up with you, not when you chose Jess, not when he married Lindsay. Not even when you moved away and he went to college. Sometimes, there's that one, the person that you're meant for. And you never really get over them. Sometimes you can move on, sometimes you can let go, but you never really forget. That's something special, something rare, but it's always so hard. Especially when that person breaks your heart."
Rory just stared, her mouth going dry, her hands feeling clammy.
Her mother shrugged. "That's you, honey," she said. "That's you for Dean. It always has been and it's the reason why I've always liked him best. Not just because he was stable and modest and not a complete jerk, but because he loved you."
"So, why not now?" Rory asked, her voice quieter now. "Why won't he be with me now?"
"Because he spent the last four years letting you go," she explained. "Don't you see? After his divorce, after losing you again, he had to work to get himself back together. I don't think you realize that--you weren't here. It wasn't easy. But he redefined himself. He made himself someone better. It took a lot of work and he didn't have any support—but look at him. The success he had in college. The respect he's earned in this town. That doesn't just happen. Not for everyone. And I'm not sure Dean wants to risk everything he's tried so hard to become on the one person who has always broken his heart."
And there it was. Spelled out. Plain as day. The secret her mother knew. The truth Luke was privy to, too. The thing she should have seen all along but had never let herself realize.
It wasn't that Dean didn't love her. It wasn't that Dean didn't want to be with her. It was that Dean didn't trust her. That after all these years, there was still the simple fact that she'd broken his heart and never really appreciated just what that meant. She'd never gotten it—that to him, it hadn't been a high school romance. It hadn't just been fun and exciting and something to do. It had been more. And she had treated him so extraneously. Like a passing trend.
She hadn't meant to--but she just hadn't really been ready for more. They had been at different places.
More than that, Dean had moved on. He'd figured himself out, he'd done the very thing that Rory was still struggling to do--he knew what he wanted and he knew enough about how to get it. He'd made his life and he'd done the best he could and he'd done it without Rory, which is exactly what she deserved.
And here she was, wanting him back.
"I'm sorry," her mother said, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I know it's not the answer you wanted to hear."
The pain of it was nearly suffocating. "It's all my fault, isn't it?"
"Not all of it," her mom said. "But, yeah. A lot of it."
"Will I ever get him back?"
"I think there's a more important question to ask yourself," her mom said. "Do you really love him? I mean, if this is more of the same, I understand that. I mean, come on, I can see the guy. He's amazing and, um, yeah. That would be fun. But you can't pursue him if you don't really love him. If he's not worth sacrificing everything for, then you shouldn't even go for it. And I say that because I love you. You're my daughter and I want what's best for you, but doing that to Dean—making him open up to you again when you're not ready to give him everything back—it can't end well. It won't. For anyone."
And that was a lot to take in. All of it.
Her mother was watching her carefully. "So, do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Love him?"
Did she? He'd always been the one to say it first. That night, in the car he was going to build for her. That night he'd planned for, and Rory hadn't known what to say. And since then, she'd been so sure of it. She'd counted on it. Like it was a given. Even through the breakups, even through Jess, and Lindsay. She could still remember her first time, thinking it was okay because he loved her.
She hadn't loved him then.
Did she love him now?
"How do I figure that out?"
Her mother just let out a slow breath, an amused smile on her face. "I don't have that answer for you," she said. "That one's yours to figure out."
She could get a job, she could write an article, but damn it all if she still didn't totally know when love was worth the sacrifice.
-o-
When answer wouldn't come, there was always eating.
At this point, Rory was really all about quick fixes. Distractions. Anything.
So, the next morning, Lane met her in the diner.
This was impressive for several reasons. For one, Lane was nearly impossible to get ahold of. Rory had believed that their physical distance from one another had hampered their ability to easily communicate.
She'd been wrong.
It turned out being a full-time mom of three was pretty demanding. Even living in the same town hadn't made it much easier to hold a conversation with Lane, even though Rory had to admit she remembered to call her more often. It just seemed like any conversation was truncated by some emergency of the child variety.
More reasons why Rory was pretty sure she should never be a mother.
But the fact that she was actually talking to Lane wasn't the only impressive feat of the day. The fact that Lane was out in public and alone was the true accomplishment and it made Rory almost ache with nostalgia.
She'd come home for this--for safe and familiar and friends and family--and yet, this entire time, it had been hard to pin down.
No more, though. She was sitting with Lane in the diner, just to two of them, eating pancakes and French toast and more hash browns than either of them should humanly consume.
"I feel like I'm missing something," Lane said, cocking her head to the side.
"I was thinking about warm maple syrup myself."
"No," Lane said. "I mean. Man. I don't remember the last time I was out without the kids. Do you know how weird this is?"
"Sort of lonely?"
"Sort of liberating," Lane exclaimed. "I actually got to bring a purse. Not like a gigantic mommy-purse, on diapers, no extra clothes, no sippie cups. Just my purse. With my keys. And lip gloss. Remember when my mother wouldn't let me use lip gloss?"
"Well it is rather scandalous."
"Now, I don't even have time for lip gloss."
"Your mother would be proud."
"My mother is proud," Lane replied. "And she doesn't care about the lip gloss. It's kind of funny that way. Though she's already planned that Kwan will be a doctor and Steve will be an architect."
"An architect?"
"Lawyers are too morally ambiguous."
"And how does she deal with Zack's career?"
"She'd be his manager if she could. She's completely accepted it," Lane said, taking a bit of her toast. "After all, she got three grandkids now and her daughter being home and domestic."
And that was weird. Rory often tried not to think about it because it was just too weird. Because Lane was eccentric and rock and roll. Lane was quirky and punk and of all the things Rory had envisioned for her best friend, a happy if neurotic homemaker was not it.
"To think," Lane said with a small laugh, "that my only dream used to be the band. I was obsessed with the band. And now I barely even have time to think about it."
"And you don't mind?"
Lane looked at her and blinked. "Mind what?"
"Giving up the road, your dream of being in the band."
Lane stared at her a minute more before she laughed.
This time, it was Rory who blinked.
"You really have to ask?" Lane said, like it was obvious.
"I just want to know," she said. "What it's like giving up something you want so bad, a dream you've always wanted. I mean, do you regret it?"
"Regret what?" Lane said with a shrug. "You give up one thing and get another. So maybe I didn't think I'd have kids until I was old enough to be boring, but it's like, now that it's done, there's no other way to do it. I married the right guy, even my mother concedes that. And I think that's all that matters. It makes living in a crappy house, having no money, having him gone on tour all worth it. And the kids? Trust me, Rory, you never know until they're yours that they're all you've ever wanted."
Lane was so serious, so sure, so unreasonably reasonable about it that Rory didn't know quite what to say. Just that it was hard to believe they were here, standing in Lane's kitchen where Lane had a ring on her finger and three kids running around. Lane hadn't gone all the places she wanted to go, she hadn't accomplished any of the dreams she'd had in high school, and she was okay. She was more than okay: she was happy.
Rory, on the other hand, she'd gotten everything else. The opportunities, the chances, the dreams come true, and she wasn't so sure about herself.
There was a lesson there, she was sure of that.
She smiled.
Lane cocked her head. "What?"
"Nothing," Rory said.
"No, no, no," Lane said. "That wasn't a nothing smile. I know we haven't been around each other that much in recent years, but I know your smiles. And you have a nothing smile, that's true, but that? That wasn't nothing. You had significant thought behind that. Not just the random, oh, wow, I actually really like the color of that stove kind of thought, but like real thought."
"The color of that stove?"
"Yeah, you know, not white, not black, but bisque, that nice in between shade," Lane said. "That's a nothing thought that might go with a nothing smile if you happen to have an impossibly bisque refrigerator. But that's so not the smile you had."
"You get a smile at a bisque stove?"
"Have you tried to match a bisque refrigerator? Until you do, trust me, finding the right stove is totally worth that kind of smile. But you're still avoiding the question."
She sighed. "You're just so happy," Rory said.
Lane narrowed her eyes, clearly skeptical. "Yeah. And?"
"And I think that's great," Rory said. "Really, really great. I'm happy for you and so I smiled. You're my best friend, Lane, and I'm sorry I haven't been here every step of the way, but it's so great to see you here. Bisque stove and all."
Lane's expression softened. "I'd like to see you here, too," Lane said. "Well, not married and trying to manage three young children with the only highlight of your life being a bisque stove, but happy."
"I know," Rory said. "And truthfully, I wonder if the rest of it wouldn't be so great."
Lane looked incredulous. "You're kidding, right?"
"No, I've seen how happy you are," Rory said. "I just, well, maybe the whole settling down and family thing isn't all that bad."
"Are you serious? You've never thought about anything except getting out of here, about doing the next great, best thing."
"Well, you only dreamed about the band."
"You excused yourself in high school biology when they talked about how babies were made."
"You didn't see me in Life Skills when they showed it."
"The baby video, right," Lane remember. "That woman must have been on some good drugs, though, because I was nowhere near that calm."
Rory blanched. "I don't think we need to go into the details."
"Exactly," Lane said. "That's what I'm talking about. You can't even talk about giving birth."
"Well, maybe I'd adopt!"
"You had your mother write you a note to get you out of taking home the fake baby."
"Those things were just annoying."
"It was the only time in school I ever saw you try to get out of work."
"Like a piece of plastic with sensors and a speaker can really teach you about motherhood."
"You don't like real babies any more than the fake variety."
"Well, they cry all the time."
"And poop. And pee. And spit up. The spit up is the killer. Much more common and much harder to keep track of. You think you're good, but next thing you know, you're out and you've got white stuff on your back."
"Okay, fine, maybe you're right, the domestic life isn't for me. Sheesh, my future children thank you for their nonexistence."
"Aw, now that's sad. My kids need little friends who can grow up into their little prom dates and then they can fall in love and get married and we'll get to be in-laws to each other's kids."
Rory brightened. "You'd let my kids marry yours?"
"I wouldn't want anyone else."
"I'm flattered."
"You better get cracking, though. Steve and Kwan aren't getting any younger."
"What if I have all boys?"
"Really, I'm still getting past the idea of you having kids at all."
"It's all good in an abstract sense."
"Well," Lane said, raising her juice glass. "To your abstract children."
Rory raised hers and clinked it to Lane's. "And to your bisque stove."
"I'll drink to that."
And so they did.