Episode 27: Fast Lane to Nowhere Good

Waking up to an empty house and no Lora was becoming too normal. After making the now-usual phone calls to Lorelai and Luke, getting a call from the school that Lora skipped another day, Rory found herself standing in front of a tall blue-painted door hating her daughter. She didn't want to knock on Dean's house looking for Lora, didn't want to see his wife – who she had effectively avoided for this long and had no intention of breaking her lucky streak.

But she didn't have a choice. Lora's phone was going straight to voicemail.

The Wah-Wah fail sound trumpeted from her pocket. She heaved a sigh, breathing in wet grass and pine trees, as looked at who texted her.

Not at the Inn. Michel says she isn't at the Spa. Both horses are here. Luke hasn't seen her this morning. Rory could almost hear Lorelai's panic in her clipped sentences and lack of emojis.

She sighed again, blowing straightened strands of hair out of her face.

And rang the doorbell.

It was a classic ring, nothing like the deep and echoing bell at her grandparent's old house. If you have to have a doorbell, at least make it memorable. Rory curled her lip as the ring went on, crossing her fingers that Dean or, better yet, Lora answered the door.

"Stupid-stupid-stupid-stupid," Rory muttered, shifting her feet on the sickly-sweet welcome mat that had the Forester name surrounded by cartoon drawings of their son, daughter, Dean and his wife. Rory stared at her alien-sized green eyes, toothy smile, and super short brown hair. She looked like a Karen, even if her name was-

"Beth," Rory greeted as the door opened. So much for her super long streak of never seeing the woman.

In real life, those green eyes were squinty and mean, lacquered in too much mascara and pencil eyeliner. Beth. Dean's first girlfriend and apparent soulmate. For the life of her, Rory couldn't see the appeal of someone who still wore colorful snap clips in their hair. It was a weird contrast with her charcoal pantsuit and stiletto heels.

"Rory." It wasn't said like a greeting. Her name dropped out of Beth's mouth like a cussword, followed by a blockading lean across the doorway. It looked casual, like Beth was just propping herself on the white painted frame to have a chat with a neighbor about borrowing sugar, but it felt like a barbed wire fence just bared itself.

The silence stretched. Beth raised both gelled and colored eyebrows, so fleek it must have taken her an hour on each, but Rory could see where her real eyebrow stopped and the drawing began.

"I'm looking for Lora." Rory had to tear her gaze from the fake brows. She'd have to gossip about them with Lorelai later. "Is she here with Mike?"

Beth's smile was thin-lipped and mean.

"Didn't you hear?" Beth asked, eyeing her up and down like her Zara draped mini dress was nothing more than a potato sack. "Mike broke up with her."

"What?" A cold breeze knocked some of her hair in her face again.

"After he saw her drunk in a sleezy dress, he put together that she's just a piece of trash." Beth shrugged.

"Don't you dare." Rory's face burned.

"But like mother like daughter, right?" Beth asked. "All the Gilmore's are just steaming hot trash."

Rory's hand moved faster than her common sense. The slap of her palm on Beth Forester's face felt both satisfying and horrifying.

"Don't you ever talk about my daughter that way," Rory shouted, face hot and her hands now shaking.

Beth took a step back and slammed the door. The sound of the deadbolt falling home made Rory want to break a few windows, but instead she just ground her heel into Beth's cartoon face on the welcome mat before storming down the stairs.

Buffalo Gals chimed from her pocket. Rory answered it with a rough "Hello?"

"Miss Gilmore?" a man asked.

"Yes?" she snapped.

"This is the Hartford Police Department."

Her heart plummeted and she looked over her shoulder half expecting to see Beth glaring from a window with the phone to her ear, reporting assault. But then her common sense finally caught up and she remembered she was in Stars Hollow, not Hartford.

"We have your daughter," the man said.

O

Lora didn't look guilty. She looked hung over.

Rory pulled her tan trench coast tighter around herself, the cold and flickering old sodium lights of the police department were both giving her a headache and making her shiver. Lora walked past the uniformed officers with her head down and looking green. More than that though, she was dressed in the department's sweatpants and baggy sweatshirt and a pair of oversized men's tennis shoes. Lora slipped in them, catching herself on the tall counter.

When Lora looked up, there were double bags of exhaustion under her eyes, made worse by her makeup falling into the creases. Dried vomit caked the corner of her mouth and clumped pieces of her stringy hair together. She looked a mess.

"The clothes she stole are returned, but you'll have to pay for them still because they're destroyed," one officer said, handing Rory a manila folder that she assumed held the bill and Lora's court appearance information. "The gas station she and her boyfriend stole liquor from will also need to be paid back. She's needed at court next week. Don't miss it."

Rory didn't bother looking at him. She just stared at her daughter, this muddy-eyed, smear of what a Gilmore should be. But then again, she must have looked a whole lot similar when Lorelai picked her up from jail that one time.

Except she got to keep her clothes.

"We won't miss it," Rory promised, grabbing Lora by her elbow and hauling her through the glass doors.

The afternoon sun was warm, but the breeze was cold here in Hartford too. Rory tucked the folder under an arm, opened the car door and made sure Lora was inside before she slammed it. By the time she got herself buckled in and calm enough to speak again, Lora was opening her door to dry heave onto the pavement.

Rory waited, drumming fingers on the steering wheel.

"Ug, there's nothing left." Lora shut her door again and leaned her head back, stinking like puke and tequila and a whole bunch of other nasty things.

"Want to tell me what happened?" Rory asked.

"Not really." Lora gave her the side-eye, like the one Paul Anka used to give her when she was doing something he didn't like, usually putting shoes away that he pulled out and lined up in neat row.

"Not really?" Rory's face was hot again and she held the steering wheel for dear life so she wouldn't slap her daughter like she slapped Beth.

"Not really much to say," Lora finished. "Ryan and I did what we used to always do and this time we got caught."

"Ryan? You mean McDoosherson? They said you were with your boyfriend-"

"Well, since Mike broke up with me, it wasn't him with me tearing through Macy's," Lora droned like none of this mattered.

"I heard."

"From who?"

"Well, when I woke up and you were nowhere to be found – again – I tore through town looking for you and met Mike's mom for the first time. Nice lady."

Lora snorted.

"She filled me in. Want to fill me in on the rest?"

"Isn't this how a demon child should act? You know, since I've got the eyes."

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw you book, Mom. The sequel. The one with me in it. My debut was real well written. People will pity you for birthing such a nightmare, I can see it now."

Rory's stomach plummeted for the second time today.

"I was going to tell you," Rory said.

Lora flipped a hand and stared out the window.

"You know, I don't have to explain myself to you," Rory decided. "You know I'm a writer, you could have figured out a sequel was coming. Are you really that surprised? I think you just want an excuse to act out, to blame someone else, because you're out of control. You're out of control and I'm going to force you back in line."

Lora was staring at her with huge eyes, mouth popped open.

"With what, military school?" Lora half joked, half snapped.

"For starters, making sure you get to school every day, that you show up to your court appearance, and shoving you in a white dress for that debutant event because maybe some new people, a new culture, will refine you. And you're not going to complain, you're not going to act out, you're going to do exactly as I say-"

"Or what?"

"Or I'm moving us away from your grandparents."

And there was the reaction Rory wanted. Tears. Actual sorrow. She could use that to get Lora back in line, she knew it.

O

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