Chapter 37: Grandpa's Jess
"I swear, Mariano, if you publish that book, I will personally hunt you down in Philadelphia and set your bookstore on fire!"
Paris Gellar had arrived at her and Rory's flat only 10 minutes ago, and was already annoying him. She had only glanced at the screen of his netbook, and then dragged it over to the place where she had sat down on the table, scrolling down the page as she did so, and started threatening him.
Jess just sighed as he walked up and down before the kitchen island, burp cloth over the left side of his chest and shoulder, patting Doula's back.
"Paris, I only started reading." And it had been painful. He had to force himself to not read his normal way, namely skipping everything that was not interesting to even start on the first chapter, and gave up after two paragraphs. He would try the next two chapters, and if he could not fly over them in his usual way, it was not worth the space it used up on his harddisk.
"I've read StarTrek fanfiction that was better!" Paris exclaimed in the meantime.
"Then, for heaven's sake, don't read the stuff I'm editing, Gellar!"
Paris just huffed, and continued reading.
"Oh my god, is this even English? Or any other spoken language?
"Paris, please… I think Chris just digs the chick who wrote that, and Matt is trying to help… Can't you just leave it alone?"
Paris threw her temporary flat-mate a look. He looked tired, probably because the kid he had dragged here two days ago when he and Rory had come back from Stars Hollow wasn't sleeping properly. At least, it wasn't sleeping properly during the nights, she had no clue about the days, when she and Rory were attending their courses, and he was sitting here, working.
She liked coming home to a meal that was actually cooked, and not ordered, because Rory was just way too into junk food, and always roped her into it. And damn, he cooked well, and he did it on most the occasions Rory had brought him here.
"Then why even read it? If she is as smart as I assume from what I'm reading here, she has the IQ of a mashed potato, she will believe that you're publishing it, and you can take the evening off."
"Why, Paris, you almost sound like you care about my wellbeing", Jess mocked and got a little smile.
"Don't flatter yourself. I'd have to deal with Rory, and your kid, so you better not pass out on me here from exhaustion."
Jess rolled his eyes.
"She's my sister, Paris, you know that."
She did not respond to that, they had had this argument about his mother taking off in the most mistimed moments, and him being sick of having random people taking care of the little one. So Doula was stuck with him, whenever Liz decided to bail out on them.
She just liked teasing him about his kid, because most of the time he became really agitated.
"You still have not proven that to me, and she so has your eyes", she grinned, and was saved by a knock on the door when he took a breath to answer that.
Paris just leaned back on her chair and looked at him.
"Your turn."
"We are taking turns in opening the door?"
"You are up already."
Rolling his eyes once more, Jess decided that he was too tired to put up another fight with Paris. So he just walked over to the entrance door, threw a sidewards glance to the baseball bat leaning in the corner, and then briefly peeked through the spyhole, letting out a snort when he saw who exactly was standing there.
He had forgotten that he was still carrying Doula when he opened the door, and was greeted by Emily's downright confused glance at him, the child against his shoulder and Paris sitting at the kitchen table, as he welcomed her.
"Mrs. Gilmore, what a surprise, please…"
Paris, of course, had to make herself noticed.
"Aw, rats, couldn't you come tomorrow? I had 20 bucks on that date!"
Rory blazed into the apartment half an hour later, throwing her bag next to the baseball bat, and started a full blown rant about her day the same second, struggling to get out of her coat, scarf, hat, gloves and shoes.
"I swear to god this world will end rather sooner than later, the increasing stupidity must have some reason! They must have dropped the standards for accepting students lately, because I bet those kids never even used a word processing program, let alone they know how to spell in the first place."
She was hopping on one leg now, because her shoe wouldn't come off her foot, but that didn't cause her to end her rant.
"And then this guy who calls himself Duuuuude all the time has the nerve to hand in three different versions of an article that was due yesterday. I want to fire him, but I'm just too nice…"
Her shoe finally let go of her foot, sending her arms up. She let it fall and started on her other leg.
"Oh, and you remember Barbie doll? That blonde chick I always wanna feed when I see her, because a stick has actually more curves, and who for whatever reason has the hots for Duuuude? She really asked why the Yale Daily News wasn't reporting more about Cameron Diaz' latest movie, because then she would tell all her friends to get that paper, to finally make some money with it. Argh! We're the oldest student-run paper in the US, and we're not making any money with it!"
By now she was almost strangling herself with her scarf and slightly wondering why nobody had interrupted her rant yet.
"Next time you wanna snap at Barbie Doll or Duuuuude, I'm not gonna hold you back, Paris. Or even better, I'll bring you, Jess", she said, finally turning around to face their table. "That guy is just so mockable, I wanna see you making him cry, and great, now I owe you a 20", she deadpanned, spotting her grandmother seated between Paris, who was looking at her with a frown, and Jess, who was pretending to be busy keeping the pacifier in Doula's mouth to not burst into a laughing fit.
Emily Gilmore closed her fingers around her cup with coffee and sent both Jess and Paris an incredulous look.
"How many people have in fact been betting on the date I would come here?!"
Paris shrugged.
"Just a few. Tana, Janet… basically everybody who knows you are her Grandmother. I just can't believe Jess of all people got the right date!"
Paris was more or less shoving and kicking Jess out of the apartment, telling him that is was his turn to buy her dinner.
"Good Lord, Gellar, let me put on my shoes, will you!"
"Mariano, you take more time than every girl I know to get ready. Rory won't kill your kid, and I've got your six!" she exclaimed, giving him a final push out of the door that almost sent him into the opposite wall, closing the entrance door behind them, leaving an astonished Emily, and an embarrassed Rory.
"Doula's Jess' sister, and not his child", she piped up after a while, taking a look at the sleeping baby in the travelling bed they had purchased sometime in the last weeks with Liz unannouncedly springing her kid on someone, and then taking off with TJ for good.
Emily made a silent "Oh" to that, for the first time in her life feeling too shy to say a word, because it might have been the wrong choice. She had not exactly practiced what she wanted to say, she just couldn't stand sitting around at home anymore, after having heard that Lorelai was not fine, and that her granddaughter was moving forward in her life without her being there to witness it. After what she had heard in the mall, she had become restless, even Richard had commented on it.
Visiting Rory at the very same day would have been stupid. Jess had told her that they would be staying in New Haven the next days, but he had not been very precise on when they would go there. She had assumed they would stay the rest of the weekend in Stars Hollow, and had given them the Monday to arrive in New Haven.
Coming to think of it, Jess did not have to make that many calculations to bet on Tuesday.
"It is nice of him to spend time with his sister", she then said, and actually also meant it. At this, Rory's glance became hard. Of course, it was nice to have Doula around. But lately, the child was spending more than half of the week with them, and not with her mother. Every time they had Doula finally trained to some sort of a rhythm that included sleeping in the night for longer than 3 hours, Liz reappeared again, and destroyed everything.
Emily carefully watched her. She had not thought that this would be so hard, and obviously, Rory did not want to make small talk.
"I… I am sorry. This is none of my business", she offered quietly, only to have Rory blush and look at her apologizingly.
"No… Grandma… it is nice." She took a deep breath. She was a journalist, for heaven's sake, she should be better with words.
"Jess told me about Saturday in the mall…" Rory blushed furiously – Oh God, their conversation back then… she never wanted her Grandmother of all people to know about...
Emily looked at her granddaughter, turning all crimson and hiding her head in her hands, and thought back to all the times she had wished Lorelai would open up to her about her life when she was still a teenager, yet, she had been so stuck in her conventions, in what was expected from her by the society, that she never could see past them.
She would lose all of her family, if she didn't break out of these conventions now.
"I promised to forget the things you talked about before he went to fetch food, and most of what I witnessed afterwards."
Her glance now rested on Rory's hands, on the bare ring finger of her left hand. Had Jess told her about her knowledge of their engagement, and they had decided not to do it?
"As if somebody could forget a conversation like that… Normally, he's so quiet and brooding, and when we're alone, he turns into Mom and talks about everything…"
Resting her hands on the table again, Rory's glance followed that of Emily who was still watching her hands.
"We bought a ring, but he's refusing to give it to me", she actually pouted, making Emily snuffle amusedly, before she reached over, taking her granddaughter's hands in hers.
"I am sorry. I hurt you deeply, and please believe me, I did not mean what I said."
"I know, Grandma. Mom told me how you reacted when Straub suggested abortion. I was hurt more by how you reacted to Jess and my decisions. I love him, Grandma. I loved him already when I was 17 and tried to deny it, because Dean was just so perfect, and I did not want to hurt him. From the first time I saw Jess, I was attracted to him, everybody around me knew that he meant trouble, hell, even I knew he was trouble. And he knew it as well. Still, I was drawn to him, and he was drawn to me. Don't you know how that feels? To find that one person, and you'd do everything to be with him?"
Emily averted her eyes.
Yes. She knew how that felt. A little more than 41 years ago she had met that person and moved heaven and hell to be with him. She had destroyed his relationship with another woman to be with him, not that he needed much of persuasion.
"I tried. I tried so hard to stay with nice, dependable Dean", Rory continued. "Everything I wanted was Jess, however. I just tried as hard to stay with Logan, and still it didn't take any effort to leave him once I finally made up my mind that this time, Jess would not break my heart, and I would not break his. The thing with Dean was not supposed to last. I would have been miserable with Logan in the end."
Emily locked her eyes onto the cerulean ones of her granddaughter. Richard had tried to refuse her in the beginning. He was engaged, he was about to marry in a few days, and still they were circling each other like predators. Oh, he had tried so hard, and still, in the end Emily had won. Why had she never seen the similarities?
Reaching out, she caressed Rory's cheek.
"I know exactly how you feel. And I should have realized it earlier. After all, I was your Grandfather's Jess."