NOTE: I had to reupload this. For some reason the "Kat" section didn't upload last time...

KAT

I had gotten ready and was in the living room with Jess, waiting for Luke and Lorelai to leave.

"Jess, do you want to go?" I asked

"Kat. You know how I feel about making my Uncle Luke mad at me. I can tell you if I make Lorelai mad at me by being your accomplice? I will be making my Uncle Luke mad at me. We're going to go, but with Lorelai. End of discussion"

I was about to argue with Jess when I heard Luke's footsteps coming down the stairs.

"Lorelai told me to make a hot water bottle for you for the car ride. You feeling okay?"
"Yeah, I had just noticed the warm water in the shower seemed to make my stomach feel better."

"Well, if it helps your stomach feel better? Let's make a hot water bottle. Or better yet? I have one of those rice bags. I use it on delivery days. That way? You won't chance any water leaking onto your dress. Now Lorelai also said she wants me to drive your car to her parents' so she can talk to you and Jess about something. I think so you can still take him home? I can just drive my truck and take Jess home after myself. Unless you want to drive Jess home or Jess wants you to."
"I don't care as long as I get home and am not stuck at the Gilmores"

"Whatever's easiest is fine."
"My truck. I like the simple life."
"I didn't realize you were a fan of Paris and Nicole." I said
"I don't know what that means, but I guess we're good... so let me go get that rice bag going." Luke turned around to head to the kitchen

"Thanks dad."

Luke stopped and turned around.

"No problem kid."

"Kat! Will you come up here and help me with something?" Lorelai shouted from upstairs

"Coming."

Walking into their room, I didn't see Lorelai, so I went into the bathroom.

"Does my hair look insane? I thought I was going to wear it up. Then after getting it all up, which was no easy feat let me tell you that. I mean holy hell my hair is thick right now. Yay Pregnancy! Can't wait for all that to fall out... That will be even more fun... but as soon as it was up? I remembered why I almost never wear it up. Except for a low ponytail or when I'm in the house in pajamas. Then I thought I would pin it all to one side, but that looked even more ridiculous. Am I just destined to be the naturally wavy or perfectly straight hair girl who does the occasional low ponytail in public and only wears a normal pony in private?"

"Lorelai, breathe. Why are you worried about being the naturally wavy hair girl? Most people go to blow out bars to pay for that look."

"I think this baby is making me crazy."

"That makes two of us... which I am sure is even more fun for Luke. What if I do one large side fishtail braid. Take advantage of your thick hair. If it doesn't work? We'll figure something out or just leave your hair in its natural wavy state."

"Yes! Thank you."

After I finished braiding, Lorelai stood up and looked at the whole picture – her outfit with the hair.

"This is perfect."
"No. It's missing something. Let me go grab something real quick from downstairs."

When I came back I had a LuLu Frost pearl necklace, a Chanel necklace and a glass bottle sprite

"Chanel and sprite are an interesting combination."

"The Sprite is for me. The necklaces are for you"

"Trying to burp?"

"How did you know?"
"I have done that many of times already this pregnancy and with Rory."

"Hopefully it helps my stomach. Now take off the bow and try these necklaces"
"You're right. That does make it perfect."
"The velvet helps elevate it and mixing the long Chanel with that layered Lulu Frost that is much shorter... with the velvet ribbon tie around your neck makes it less about the logos."

Lorelai and I stood in front of the fridge. She put her arm around my waist and brought me in close, putting her head partially on mine.

"We clean up well... or rather I do since you're always well cleaned up."

"Meh, I have my off days. You're right though, this is not an off day for either of us."
"Shoot. We have to go, bring your Sprite." Lorelai said grabbing a clutch off of her bed.

LORELAI

There's some mysteries I could care less about. Like what was in Al Capone's vault... which I guess was a good thing since basically nothing but trash was found down there. However, the mystery of that answering machine message? I cared about. I didn't even quite know why. But some spidey senses had gone off alerting me that something was up and something was probably going on with my firstborn. So as promised, I was going to find out on that drive to my parents'.

"Okay. So... Since we're over halfway to my parents' we need to talk... I know this is making you uncomfortable, but please?"

Silence.

"Kat. It's okay. It's Lorelai. She'll want to know anyway."

"Jess... I don't know she is going to want to know this."
"Will she like it? No. Will she want to know though? Yes. So she can talk to Rory. Something is going on."

"I do want to know." I said assuredly.
"Okay... I don't know the timelines exactly. I mean I know them on my end... but I don't know them in the whole picture. Just an estimation based on things Lauren said."

"That's fine. You still know more than me. All I know is that Lauren is writing an article about you and seems to be under the impression you wanted Rory to do it."

"Okay. So 2 or so weeks ago? That's when your dad called me into his office and Rory was on a Skype call. She had pitched him the idea for the New York Times article. She said it wasn't in her wheelhouse, but she would find someone. That she knew someone would want to write that story... So I think? It had to have been before that." Kat seemed like she was trying to still piece things together.
"What had to have been before that?" I asked.

"When Jess and I were in New York, the second day? I got a call from Rory. She said Paris saw us at a restaurant – which was true."
"Yeah, I was there when Kat got this call."
"Rory had already set up a phone call with her editor and a writer."
"Lauren?"
"Yes. She wanted to let me know they'd be calling me."

"Which I thought was a bit weird, because that seemed like an awfully quick turnaround since Kat said she'd only just agreed to it Friday night and this was Sunday early morning." Jess interjected.

"I didn't know if it was weird or not... but when they called? They wanted to meet with me to discuss my reservations about having someone other than Rory write the story. If Rory had told me? I would have told them it had to be Rory... but I didn't know."
"I didn't put it together either." Jess said almost as though trying to make Kat feel better.

"Why would you have put that together?"
"Well, Rory had called me panicked about something a week or so prior? She wasn't making a lot of sense. Said she'd missed some deadline at work and needed to figure something out... I don't know. The conversation was hard to follow. Sounded like she may have been drinking or maybe she was just really stressed. She never talked about it again."

"Alright..." I said trying to prompt the conversation to continue, "So..."
"So I told them I didn't really have a lot of time since I had to drive back to Stars Hollow. So they met us super briefly at the hotel. How long do you think they were there Jess?"
"Fifteen minutes tops."

"Well, in that estimated fifteen minutes? It seemed like this thing had been in motion for longer than 36 hours. They knew a lot of information and had even talked to my teacher Mr. Medina by that point."

"Wait, they talked to Max?"
"Yeah... Well, they said Rory had."

"Which I thought was weird. I just told myself to keep out of it since while I know publishing? I know the small independent press world, I don't know the newspaper world."

"I didn't know what to think either... and all I have heard about Rory has been good things. So I didn't have any reason to actually question anything?"
"But something changed?" I said out loud. Not even so much a question as what seemed obvious.

"Rory got fired at some point after that meeting. I don't know why. Lauren alluded to it during a call to talk to me about what happened. She told me she knew Rory missed some deadline trying to land the story so felt terrible she wasn't even given the story and then was let go."

"Wait. Rory got fired?"
"Yes..."

I suddenly felt like I couldn't breathe. Rory hadn't told me she was fired? I noticed we were coming up North Main Street in West Hartford. I got into the turn lane.

"Umm... this isn't our turn... where are we going?"
"Starbucks. It's a chain, but I don't care... I know where it is. I know it's open. I need some fresh air and I need some coffee."

"I'm not going to argue.

"Hey. I know better than to get in the way of a Gilmore or Banks girl and their coffee."
"Good." I said.

After we went and got our coffee we sat in the parking lot for a little bit. I had to ask the question I didn't want to.

"Did Rory pitch the idea of your story to try to not get fired?"
"Lorelai..." Kat said hesitantly.

"Kat. I am asking you."
"Do I think so? Yes. Do I think Rory must've felt she had no choice? Yes." Jess answered.

"I think to answer with absolute confidence I would need a little bit more information... but I think that's the only reasonable conclusion. I mean 'landing the story' as Lauren called it couldn't have caused Rory to miss any deadline"

"And the only deadline I know of Rory missing was before all that happened... she could've missed some other deadline to I guess."

"Fuck." I hit my hand against the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn, "fuck."

"I told you... I'm not mad."

I turned to look at Kat who was holding her coffee close to her chest.

"Well, I'm mad. Why wouldn't she tell me she got fired?"
"Lorelai, you know Rory. I know Rory. I have asked myself that same thing. Unlike Kat? I've been pissed off about this as well. Rory likes to be perfect. Minus her stealing that yacht? She's sort of been some derivative of perfect. All of us have sort of put her on a pedestal. 'Best girl friend,' 'best daughter,' 'best granddaughter,' 'best friend,' etc. Minus that Huntzberger kid's dad? No one has ever told her she didn't have it. I remember her telling me about her meltdown when she first started Chilton because she wasn't effortlessly number one. She doesn't handle failure well. We know that. Maybe this is like that. You get told your whole life how great you are, it's hard hearing that you're not in some aspect of your life. Probably especially hard hearing it at your dream job."

We sat there quietly. Jess was probably right. I ached inside thinking about how hurt my daughter must have felt to not tell me... but I was also so angry she would do such a thing.

"Is there anything else?"

"No."

"Jess?"
"Not that I know of."
"Alright then."

I put the car into reverse, pulled out of my parking space, and drove to my parents' house.