"Now Leah," Rory began squatting down next to her toddler, "here's your basket, look how pretty it looks, and now you can go around the square and when you see an egg, you put it in the basket. There are all different colors and patterns of eggs, pick any one that you like," she instructed, only ever really staying as far as a few feet from her. Stars Hollow still had the best celebrations, way better than the larger cities, giving her a good reason to try to engage Leah in the local activities she herself had grown up with.
Finn limped along excitedly, almost more eager to find the eggs than Leah, now finally having his cast off and using only a kane to take some of the pressure off his leg.
"Look, there's a pink one," Finn bowed down to point at an egg under a yellow forsythia bush.
"Are the older kids too grown up for the easter egg hunt?" Rory asked Finn.
"So they claimed at least. But I bet once I take Leah home with these eggs, they'll regret it," he said. He'd already been living at Paris' most of the time to get the kids used to having him around and even when Leah was at his place they'd go to dinner there before returning to Finn's Dutch Colonial for the evening, not bothering moving Leah's bed before the actual move. Leah seemed to like Paris, though she was clearly more attached to Finn and was still a little shy with Paris, leaving most of the actual care taking to Finn.
"Did you find a new house yet?" Rory asked, after helping Leah choose between three eggs she found in one place.
"We have two options on the table. One is close to my current place and it's very classic, a little smaller than ideal but the park is closer. The other is a red brick which I like a little more, but it's been out of use for years and needs a bit of work before it's move-in ready," he explained, adding, "there really isn't that much to choose from when looking at 5+ bedrooms."
"Finn do you realize yourself how much you've changed just in three years?" Rory noted.
Finn laughed. "Why, yes I do, Rory, you don't need to remind me. The road has been a little bumpy, but I am happy to be where I am at," he replied, helping Leah carry her basket, that was already getting a little heavy for her.
"So Ms. Gilmore, I've received the plans from your architect, and I have a general understanding from your e-mail what you are looking for, but before I will draw up some ideas with product links, I need to pin-point some preferences out just to make sure I have all the necessary input," the interior decorator asked.
"Sure, go ahead," Rory replied.
"First, I need to know the budget," she asked.
"Honestly, I've never had experience with something this size and especially from scratch without any finishings, so I can't really tell you. But let's just say it's flexible and perhaps you can just keep a Google Calc sheet for me or something where I can see the total, say, weekly to keep an eye on it. And I will let you know if we have a problem with it," Rory instructed, adding "when it comes to any interior choices between quality and higher cost versus the cheaper alternative we prefer quality, but I am not the one to buy something just for the sake of it's designer or prestige, functionality is more important."
"And the timeframe when the place will be up and ready for taking measurements, just to be sure, and actually getting ready for the finishings?" she continued.
"If everything goes according to plan, which I am sure we can encourage unless there are any surprises, the deadline for them to have the place up and functional is beginning of July, measurements you can probably get a few weeks earlier. I'll just give you the contact for the contractor and you can ask him yourself" Rory explained.
"That's quite quick, how did you manage that?" she asked curiously.
"My fiance can be persuasive," she said plainly, not wanting to mention the Huntzberger name. She knew that'd bring a whole other attitude towards spending their money.
"And I understand you are the person making the decisions, if I say need a quick decision should I call or e-mail you or your fiance or both?" she continued.
"Just me is fine, if it's something more important I will consult my fiance myself before I reply," Rory added.
"Do you already have an Pinterest account, I'd love it if you could share a board with me to show me what you like," she suggested.
"Yes, I already have one going, I'll send you the link," she replied. Rory was keeping his grandfather's study set but the nearly all the rest was going to be replaced, Leah beginning to outgrow her bed soon. The board contained glimpses ranging from mid-century modern to scandinavian minimalism, a few fun and eclectic choices. She was her mother's daughter after all and the idea of a quirky lamp or a funky piece of art made her smile with amusement as well. The light-colored minimalist pins were also spruced up by colorful scandinavian style kid's rooms, with busy wallpapers and lots of textures. Those were recently in her mind the most, still deciding on what to do with the extra room - whether to keep it neutral or already add hints of its purpose.
"And as I understand correctly, this one is the master bedroom, right?" she pointed at the layout plan on her tablet.
"Yes, that's right," Rory replied. "And the room across the hall split up by the double doors are the studies. Logan will send you his preferences on that and mine is basically set with the furniture I already sent to you, just add whatever is still lacking," she continued to explain. "The other wing, the larger room will be for my two-year-old daughter. Pink is definitely her favourite, but I'd prefer to keep it calm overall, not too "barbie's dream house", but just spice it up with some girly details. And I almost forgot, this is also going in there," she added showing her the picture on her phone of Leah's umbrella wallpaper poster she was aiming to bring along from New Haven.
"Alright, I'll make a note of that," she commented. "And the other room?" she continued.
"It's a prospective nursery, so I think it should be left quite neutral at this point, and maybe not overcrowding it with furniture just now. I do want a full size bed in there as well, but I think it still leaves plenty of space for any later additions," Rory explained. She had loved the idea of a bed in the nursery like she had in Leah's room in the Hartford house - there were many nights when Leah had been cranky and she'd just slept close by giving her an extra minute or two of sleep. While they had kept the number of rooms reasonably according to Rory's wishes, Logan had suggested keeping the rooms relatively large, so in case they did want to add any rooms later, it'd be possible to divide some of the rooms up for increased functionality.
"What about the kitchen, anything special I should keep in mind? Do you cook a lot?" she asked
"No, not really. My fiance does sometimes. So just standard stove sizes and such, a bit more room in the fridge and I guess a wine fridge in there somewhere as well. I would love a kitchen island with the counter possibility for breakfast and such but I need the hight to coordinate with the high chair and standard junior chair," she replied. "But the dinner table should be fairly large seating 12-14 people, but perhaps so that'd it'd be easy store away some the chairs and fold it up in the meanwhile so the whole thing wouldn't be in the way on daily basis," Rory added. "And for the living room, the couch has to be easy to clean and there should be seating for at least 8 or so," she continued practically.
"Any ideas for the pool house?" she asked.
"Consider it an oversized guest room, and entertaining friends in the main areas," Rory commented.
"Okay, it seems I have what I need to get started, I'll take a look at your board and we'll go from there. I'll send you some plans and inspiration pictures sometime next week," she explained.
"That sounds great," she agreed.
She was glad not having to do all the thinking herself on this. She was fairly low maintenance and could really live in all sorts of conditions, from a potting-shed to Logan's Manhattan apartment overflowing with marble, clearly not a choice made by Logan at the time of the purchase. She was beginning to understand the possibilities having some extra money meant - in part it meant delegating, hiring people who were good at what they did to ease some of the workload.
"They took our offer," Finn announced, cheerily. They'd made an offer on the larger red brick house, needing some work, mainly due to its location close to the kid's school, not wanting to change their routine just because of the move.
"Great, I'll call the contractor tomorrow and agree to meet us up there as soon as we can get our hands on the keys and that leaves us just with one house to sell," Paris said. Finn's house had already sold, leaving him feeling a little homeless and most of his stuff in temporary storage. While he lived in Paris' house, it still didn't feel quite like home to him, plus Leah didn't have a room there. But hopefully the situation wouldn't last for long.
"So does that mean we can finally set a date for us too?" Finn suggested, pulling Paris close and wrapping his hands around her waist.
"It takes two weeks to get the licence," Paris began, but Finn interrupted her.
"So two weeks from tomorrow?" he offered, teasingly.
"You know, why the hell not. It's not like it's going to change anything about the way we live now," she replied, feeling spontaneous. She hadn't really meant that with her statement about it taking two weeks to get a licence, that was just a fact she'd looked up recently. But there was just something being around Finn did to her, his "jump head first" attitude seemed to rub off on her.
"Are you sure? Rory is taking like half a year to plan everything, I don't think you deserve any less of a wedding just because we already live together and because it's not your first time doing this," Finn hesitated. He had no problem with doing it soon, he just didn't want to simply get it over with. He wanted it to be special.
"Rory is marrying a Huntzberger, they have guests coming from all over the world, they have media interest, they have the etiquette queen herself planning it," Paris reasoned. The truth was that as she'd done this once before, she remembered too well what a life-long planner like herself did in the weeks prior to her wedding. She had stressed and gone full on bride-zilla, which she wasn't proud of looking back. All she wanted was just a sweet little ceremony with the people she cared about the most.
"Well I'll have family coming from Australia, too," Finn argued.
"Okay, sorry, I forgot about that for a sec. What I mean is that I don't need a flashy and expensive party or tons of prep time. I just need to go get a dress, book some catering and that's about it. We could even do it here, if we don't want to rent a huge venue. The only question is whether your family is going to be able to attend on such short notice," she replied. Finn's large and extended family was on it's own a lot of people. Paris, on the other hand, was only really planning on inviting Rory, Logan and Lorelai, who would probably bring Luke, besides her kids. She was never really much for making friends and Rory was one of the few that had stuck. She barely spoke to her parents, exchanging an occasional greeting. She hadn't even bothered to tell her parents about Finn and she wasn't really planning on it. Her life stood separate from them. And while some might have considered that sad, she had accepted it a long time ago. It was just the way things were.
"Sure, we don't need anything huge, but I mean I still want to celebrate. Let's just decide that I'll call my family tomorrow and I'll see what their schedules look like for a couple of weekends and then we can go from there," Finn suggested, "Or maybe I'll send a doodle link or something," he added laughingly. It frankly didn't sound like a bad idea considering the size of his family.
"Sounds good," Paris relented, knowing that planning a wedding while often being seen as the bride's thing, Finn was doing this for the very first time, and for him the procedure was probably more special than for her. It was not that she cared less about Finn that he did about her, it was just the notion that held less importance to her. Being with him was already enough. She wasn't going to tell Finn that, however, not wanting to spoil it for him.
Rory had just finished her presentation on the status of her research in front of the entire class and the committee. They'd do this every year to ensure they met the criteria for continuing their work next year. This presentation was especially important for those on a full scholarship, but still Rory felt she couldn't take it easier just because she was partially HPG funded. She'd introduced her theoretical concepts and dug deep into the empirics, explaining in detail what was done and what was left to do. The feedback from the committee evaluating them had been minimal, asking a few questions, but nothing too optimistic nor nothing too devastating, but that could've also been because she'd been the last one to present after a row of students leaving the professors already looking tired.
"You wanted to see me," Rory said, after knocking on her supervisors ajar door.
"Yes I did, can you please close the door," the professor said.
Rory complied and took a seat, expectantly.
"Rory, how do you think your presentation went?" he asked.
"I guess it went okay, I had prepared for it, all the parts that were required were presented and I think I answered all of their questions alright," Rory replied.
"Honestly speaking, Rory, I think you really need to take a long hard look at why you are doing this. I don't see that drive in you, you seem unengaged with your research. You do the things that are expected, but I don't see that you have that yearning to find out the answer to your own research questions. Doing a Phd is a very long and straining process and I haven't seen anyone who has just done the things that are asked of them, reach their defence," professor De Vries explained.
"But…," Rory began, hesitating what to reply.
"I know you have a lot going on in your life," he began. Clearly the news had reached him as well. "But that is not why I am saying this. I've seen people juggling different things while doing this, but I think you really need to think long and hard look and figure out whether finding the answers to these questions you proposed today really are the things you need and want to find out," he added.
"So what are my options? Would you even be willing to continue supervising me if I do decide to try to push forward despite this?" she asked, sounding defencive.
"You could switch to a master's degree if you wanted to. You'd only really have to take a couple of extra classes, the research part is sufficient for a Master's thesis and you'd basically just have to write the thing. It won't answer all the questions you were proposing but it'd be something and your time wouldn't be completely wasted. I'd be willing to supervise that as I am already familiar with it, but I don't think I could continue supervising this as your PhD project. I just don't see it happening," he replied, regretfully.
"Okay, I'll think about it," Rory replied, raising form her seat dissapointedly.
"And Rory," he began. "I know it must feel like the end of the world right now, but it really isn't. Academia isn't everything, I hope you see that," he added.
Rory did see that. But hearing what she just had wasn't something she had wanted to hear either. She couldn't help but to feel like a failure.
Rory drove home as if in a bubble, only focusing on the driving itself. Perhaps it was her self-preservation mode, who knows. As she got there, she was glad to see Logan in the kitchen cleaning up after Leah's dinner.
"Hi!" she said, trying to seem cheerier than she felt, picking up Leah for a hug. Being around Leah and Logan already made her feel a little better.
"Hey Ace," he greeted, walking over to give her a kiss. "How did it go?" he asked, having seen Rory preparing for her presentation for nearly a week, she'd even practiced in front of the mirror once or twice.
"It went alright," she replied. "But my supervisor seems to think otherwise," she added reluctantly. She knew she wouldn't be able to hide that from Logan for much longer, and there wouldn't have been any point.
"What did he say?" he asked worriedly, handing Leah her crayons and some paper.
"He basically recommended I switch myself to a Master's instead of the PhD. He told me he didn't see it happening, that I didn't have the drive," she replied. What her supervisor had said had sounded a awful lot like something Mitchum would say.
"What a jerk," Logan huffed.
"I don't know, I don't think he was really doing it to be a jerk, I think he knows what he is talking about. He's done this a lot of times. Maybe he is right?" Rory pondered.
"You know the most important thing is what you think and believe right. If you think you can do it, I have no doubt that you can. Get another surpervisor if you have to. I know you can do anything you set your mind to," he said. He knew he wasn't particularly objective on this, but keeping Rory calm and happy was the goal here.
"I just need to think it over, I don't need to decide today," she sighed, looking clearly a little defeated. She certainly had some thinking to do. There were choices to be made, both her supervisor's and Cara's suggestions flying around in her mind.
"Anything I can do?" he asked.
"Lets just watch something fun," she suggested, throwing herself onto the couch. She just needed to switch her brain off for a couple of hours.
