It was perhaps an hour or so later and Rory was setting Finny at the junior chair by the dining table table, while Cathy continued to play with the twins upstairs, Celeste having been there too just now, helping out. It had been good for her to keep herself occupied, the letter still remaining unopened. It was almost easy to forget anything was going on at all as long as it remained sealed.
Rory had just texted G for the second time, telling her dinner was ready and was frankly becoming a little curious to what was taking her so long. Was she really that upset at them, she would just skip dinner? Having breakfast and dinner together had become their thing, at least at most evenings, unless of course she'd decided to order in herself. But she usually always let her know if she did or if she had other plans, but then again that entire afternoon had had very little usual about it.
"Do you want me to go check?" Celeste read her thoughts, but felt like she didn't want to just assume that Rory wanted her talking to G about G's issues alone anymore, feeling like the trust between her and Rory was still frail in that department. Rory seemed to understand why she'd done what she had, but she could sense she was a little hurt just the same, and perhaps more importantly she could tell Rory wasn't feeling very good about herself when it came to actually helping G.
"Would you?" Rory said, already seeing that Finny definitely needed her help with the chicken that they were having for dinner. Celeste was right about most of her thoughts, though at the same times Rory was becoming rapidly quite angry at Finn too. This was so typical of Finn - he wasn't emotionally very mature, and frankly in her experience, he often just decided to not deal with his relationships at all, simply ghosting a lot of them. But as she'd said and thought a thousand times before - Finn was easy to like and very easy to forgive, almost like forgiving a child. She also scolded herself for not keeping better tabs on them before, having in the summer been the one to point out she suspected G developing some attraction for Finn. She'd told Logan about it and Logan had promised to have a word with him. But as this was just before the babies came, the months after had just been a blur. She didn't feel like she was equipped to handle this, yet picking up the phone to Christopher or Sherry, felt like betraying G all over again. She didn't just want to ship G off to anywhere because she didn't know what to do. That would've made her just another person who admitted they couldn't handle her or did want her around.
Celeste rose from her seat and got into the elevator, which took her to the sixth floor. As she got there, she found the place empty and dark, the door left ajar. Yet she called out for her, just in case. She even stepped out to the rooftop balcony for a second to make sure G wasn't there - but she wasn't.
She was just about to panic, imagining all possible scenarios just like any mother would - if G was anything like her running off to her friend's at the time would've probably been her first reaction too - when her phone rang, distracting her.
"Noah?" she asked in confusion, having really not expected to hear from him.
"Hey," Noah began.
"How can I help you, Noah?" she asked. She hadn't spoken to him in months, except for a few brief e-mails. She generally knew Noah wasn't very understanding of her not pulling her 110% on their joint book after it was published, and while she felt a little guilty for it she wasn't really up to changing much in that department. But he really hadn't done anything other than complain to Jess about it, he wasn't a threat or someone to hold a very deep grudge as far as she knew him.
"I just wanted to let you know that there was a PI asking around about you today, he had your both names," Noah said. "I didn't say anything, but they talked to Bilal too, I don't know what he said," he added.
That certainly explained a few things - it could possibly have been someone her mother hired, though again this made her think about why her mother would have done something like that, and done it now, but at least setting the timeline even further in the past, definitely earlier than Celeste herself had sent out the letter to her.
"Oh, okay," she said, her voice sounding a little shaky, adding, "thanks for letting me know." Noah may have had higher aspirations for the book than she did, but he wasn't a bad guy.
As they hung up, all she really could think at that moment was texting Lorelai, just in case, to keep a close eye on Evie, adding that someone in her family knew her new name. Her name was one Google search away from knowing she was part owner of Apparatus Bay in Stars Hollow. There were pictures out there in the media of Celeste Mariano with a baby bump so it was likely her family knew about her child too. She should've been panicking, but maybe she was panicked out for the day, feeling rather numb, or maybe it was just the mixture of issues that day that wasn't allowing her to. She wasn't allowing herself to prioritize any one of them, feeling like she owed that to G, being probably one of the few people that seemed to be noticing how G always kept ending up with the short straw, figuratively speaking.
Celeste hurried down the stairs - it seemed somehow quicker that way.
"She wasn't up there," Celeste said, hoping that perhaps G had come down the stairs the same time she'd taken the elevator up. It clearly was a feeble hope.
As neither knew G had overheard anything that could've made things worse, their initial reaction, while concerned about where she was, wasn't that bad really, it wasn't even that late yet. Celeste took a seat at the table and began to eat. The food smelled delicious but neither really seemed to have the appetite after all of this, despite the facts not raising any obvious alarm. It was a gut thing that they both could feel.
"I should call her," Rory said, pulling out her phone while helping Finny with his sweet potato. Finny was eating fairly well on his own already, just preferred to use his hands rather than the utensils, and it took Rory always at least one hand to make sure he didn't just dig in with his fingers when the food wasn't finger food as such.
"She's not picking up," Rory sighed, beginning to really worry. But the time really wasn't very late, and it wasn't like it was the first time G was out late during dinner time, her lack of contact could've easily just been her wanting some space or being angry at them. Maybe she'd gone to see a movie or something? The only thing raising red flags in both of their minds, logically, was the fact that she hadn't told them that she was going and the afternoon's conversations that had left her upset.
The four, Maya now having joined them at the table too, continued to eat in silence, neither Rory or Celeste wanting to admit that they were both panicking inside, Celeste for two reasons one of which she hadn't disclosed to Rory yet.
"I'll try to call her again," Celeste suggested, the look in Rory's eyes speaking for itself by now. She didn't want to stop and think what someone knowing her new name meant - with the bookstore, it wasn't like they were going to keep running anywhere. Nor with Evie. Evie needed a stable home, it was all down to how she handled it. But right now she was unable to really process it, focusing her energy on G.
"Someone seems to want to talk to you pretty badly?" Rosalie, Philipa's and Brody's older sister, asked, as G sat with a bottle of water in her hands, on a colorful row of plastic chairs. It was the waiting room of U-lifeline, a mental health emergency room for college students where she had now been for nearly 45 minutes. Brody's sister had been an 'in' at the place, so Brody hadn't really bothered with the technicalities of her not being a college student and had an Uber take G there just the same. As Brody had called Rosalie on G's phone, G had overheard Brody getting a scolding from Rosalie from not coming along himself, as he sat next to her on those stairs. Frankly - G didn't want his apology, he didn't owe her anything - he'd done way more than she would've expected him to do.
G had probably apologized ten more times to Brody herself and she felt incredibly guilty for showing up like that and clearly ruining his night. The woman in his bedroom, has just huffed at him briefly from the doorway as he'd handed her the Chinese they'd ordered before. But Brody had sat there on those stairs in his robe, clearly freezing his ass off, and waited with her until the Uber arrived.
"I don't want to talk to them," G replied dismissively. G wasn't sure if she would've come to this place, if she hadn't just been at that state of mind where she no longer wanted to be in control. She just let Brody put her into that Uber, saying that his sister would meet her there, which she had. It was like she just wanted someone else to control her, so she wouldn't have to make decisions.
"Can you tell me who they are? You're parents?" Rosalie inquired, making the most obvious assumption. While Rosalie had seen her once at Philipa's party, they didn't really know anything about each-other besides the names. Rosalie was a tall blonde woman, skinny, but kind of rectangle shaped at the same time, currently wearing her long hair in a large bun on top of her head and a bulky turtleneck sweater-dress that came down to her knees, clearly focusing on other things than looking hot where she worked. Rosalie wasn't a professional psychiatrist or psychologist just yet, she'd just barely started her grad school, but she worked at the clinic as a first step counselor. And in that sense it was perfect - that's what G needed - a first step, not labels or diagnoses.
"No, my sister and her friend, I live with my sister," G answered, saying intentionally that Celeste was Rory's friend rather than hers, even if just recently she would've believed differently. It was actually Celeste whom she felt most betrayed by right now - she'd spoken to Finn and knew more than she'd let on.
"Where are your parents?" Rosalie asked, carefully.
"Paris. Tokyo," she listed plainly. Frankly all the crying had left her feeling very tired, all energy drowned out of her. If it wasn't for the semi-weekly calls from her dad and e-mails with her mom, she would've had no trouble forgetting she had parents altogether. To be honest on a day-to-day basis, it was just dates in her calendar when one of them was spending time with her, having spent Thanksgiving in Boston with Christopher and the upcoming Christmas holiday when she was flying to France. They were just motions really, she could've just as well been anywhere.
"I do think we should let at least one of them know you're okay, they're probably worried," Rosalie suggested.
G really didn't want to, simply holding the phone in her hands, almost hoping her battery would just run out.
Rosalie just observed her, wanting her to really just take that tiny step before they went any further.
"Fine..," G relented, seeing she wasn't really letting up.
She pulled up her phone, beginning to type a message back to Rory…. But she was unsure what to write.
"I don't want to go back there yet, I don't want to talk to them about this…," G sighed, feeling like she wanted to cry some more but she was all dry.
"Say that you're safe and with a friend, for now," Rosalie suggested.
G sighed, and texted, then setting the phone on silent. There had been a steady flow of messages and calls from both Rory and Celeste for a while now, and she hoped they would calm once she'd sent it.
The waiting room was secluded this time in the evening, but what G didn't know was that the place had actually closed for the evening an hour ago and Brody had just managed to get his sister to stay in after hours for this. Rosalie had let her in, but had been busy with another patient that had arrived last minute.
"You know - I wanted to do what you do. Help people like this," G shared. "But I don't think I can do that anymore, not if I can't even figure myself out," she said, her statement ending in sobs again. There were no more tears coming just whimpers, but still - she felt just as bad.
"I didn't know what I wanted to do until the first year of college, my admissions essay was on environmental justice," Rosalie shared. "There's nobody telling you what you can or cannot do, you just need to make it that far to get to making those decisions," she added, essentially trying to figure out how bad the situation was, having been tought to eliminate potential suicide-cases first, knowing then whether to call in reinforcements.
G hadn't even realized that Brody and Rosalie were perhaps so worried about her that they thought she might actually be a danger to herself. While that had never crossed her mind, the despair having not lasted so long to get that far in her thought process, the fact that someone cared that much was actually something that really touched her.
"Do you mind telling me a little bit about yourself - what do you like to do?" Rosalie inquitred.
G hesitated.
"Brody told me you're in Philipa's class," she suggested as an easy beginning, knowing that before considering asking anything more serious - she simply wanted to chart whom she was dealing with and whether this was just one unhappy evening or something more serious.
"I…," G hesitated. "My parents are divorced - I went to secondary school in France, then moved to Boston to live with my dad in 2017. My sister's my half sister, same dad - very different moms. She was kind enough to let me stay with her and her family so I wouldn't have to go to a boarding school or move abroad again. But she's got three little kids - they are always a priority," G explained.
"Those are your circumstances alright, but what about you - what do you like? What or who is important to you?" she emphasized.
"I don't even know anymore," she sighed. "I guess I like psychology, I liked photography, exploring the city," she said, those memories bringing Amelia and then Finn into her mind. She'd lost Amelia as her friend, despite her having been one of her initial reasons for wanting to come to New York specifically. And Finn was Finn. "I read a little," she noted, then again Celeste's recommendations reminded her of Celeste. "I like to just watch TV with my sister sometimes," she added, feeling like she was unable to list anything of real significance to her these days. Everything she seemed to like doing was closely tied to some person in her life. Anything school related relating to Philippa, Mason and Homura, and anything sexual relating to Brody. While Rosalie probably knew the latter, just in case, she wasn't going to go into it - not wanting him to get in trouble.
"Is there something you just do for you?" Rosalie asked.
G shrugged, wiping up her nose with a napkin.
For a moment Rosalie let the silence carry. "You want to tell me maybe, why are you so upset tonight?" she asked after a while.
"I can't seem to get over this guy. It's been more than a month. He's older... Like a lot older. He was my closest friend. And now I found he just lied to me, letting me believe me it was all in my head - that we had this connection. He just left and moved on. He just left me…," she let go, tears falling down her cheeks again. "I've tried everything - being with my friends and seeing other guys, focusing on school and spending more time with my sister... I just don't know what to do," she added in a whimper. "And the person I'd been talking to about this just knew all this - she was supposed to be someone I could trust," she exhaled.
"You are allowed to feel what you are feeling and there is really no rule on how long getting over a broken heart can take," Rosalie explained. A month was a long time for a teenager, no so much for someone older. "It's trauma, it's a shock to your system - and you likely just experienced it twice over. First when he lied to you and second time when you found out he lied. And releasing those emotions is good, but you can't get stuck in them. The answer is in finding a safe way for you to deal with those emotions," Rosalie explained. "Some people say, writing it out helps. But cutting all communication is most often the key - even the passive kind - following, unfriending and so on," she added. "And I'm not taking sides here - but that person that you trusted - she probably didn't mean for you to find out, am I right?" she asked.
"No," G replied.
"Maybe she was trying to protect you," Rosalie suggested.
G shrugged again.
"And I think you should try setting up some new routines. Do something that's good for you. Exercise. Take a course. Cook a healthy meal. Do something differently or at a different time," she listed. "Try to think what impulses you have - if you have an impulse to text him or scroll through his pictures - just don't - find a healthy replacement for it. Scroll through inspirational role models or photography tags that you like instead," Rosalie advised.
G thought back at Celeste's words - maybe her impulse was in fact going to look for approval and appreciation from men. She'd done it a bunch of times, but as this involved Brody, she didn't really want to bring it up right there. No teenager wanted to admit that someone who almost identified herself as her elder or 'parental figure' understood her better than she herself did. No-one wanted to hear that they thought it was a good idea for them to go to therapy.
Rosalie could see that all of this was a bit much for G, she might have even registered something she'd said, but she couldn't be sure she'd remember it. At first glance G's issues seemed almost too simple - a simple case of broken heart. But she got it - things ran deeper, reasons for clinging onto someone being likely much more deep-rooted than that, but those weren't going to be solved that evening.
"How about this," Rosalie suggested. "I can make you a list," she began, scribbling down on a white piece of A4 paper. "Feel," she wrote down, adding, "But don't dwell on it. Write about it, watch romantic movies - whatever. Set a time limit - say an hour a day. Then move on and do something else." She then wrote down "Disconnect," adding, "you disengage yourself from what is hurting you. And then find at least one thing to try out that is just for you. Do you think you can try these for me?" she asked.
"I guess..," she hesitated, looking over the three phrases - FEEL, DISCONNECT, FOR YOU - on that piece of paper.
"But I do think it's a good idea for you to come back here - you don't have to talk to anyone other than me if you don't want to, or you can if you feel I'm too close to Brody. Either way it's confidential. It's only if we, you, decide that you might want or need to try medicine as a support that we need to involve a psychiatrist," Rosalie explained and wrote down a time for their appointment for next week.
"But I'm not in college," G replied.
"This is all anonymous anyways, give a fake name if you want to, pick a school you like. It's just statistics, nothing more," Rosalie explained.
"Okay," she mouthed. Again - having been taken away that control - having Rosalie just make the appointment for her was what she had needed in this case. It almost seemed like coming back here wouldn't be like the worst thing in the world.
"Hey - you're going to be okay. You can beat this. Okay?" Rosalie assured her with determination. "Now, if you want you can hang out here for a bit. I have some paperwork to finish up, so no rush, and there's a vending machine right there if you're hungry," she added.
"Thanks," she whispered, her throat feeling a little sore from all the crying. She was in no hurry to go, for a moment feeling like this was a safe place. She knew she'd need to gather up her courage to go home but if she could delay it a while longer, she would.
Jess let himself through the front door, feeling rather exhausted from the long day and drive, which the search for a parking spot around the block really hadn't helped. This he really didn't miss about New York.
The initial, somewhat disappointed, reaction of the two women in the parlor, however, surprised him.
"Oh, it's you," Rory sighed, disappointedly.
"Jess," Celeste exhaled, rushing up to him to the foyer and threw her arms around him for a hug.
"You okay?" Jess asked, and pulled off his coat, hanging it up, as she let go.
"I guess, I haven't really processed it though. Right now we're sort of worried about G more than anything," Celeste explained.
"What's going on with her?" Jess asked.
"She's having a bad day and she just took off," Rory explained briefly.
"I'm sure she'll be fine - if someone were to count all the times I just took off, they'd never finish," Jess pointed out, unsure if he was understanding the severity of the situation. As far as he saw it a 16-year old probably just went to her friends or to a party. But then again, he'd never been a 16-year old girl.
It was then Rory got a text from G.
"I'm safe, don't worry. With a friend," Rory read out the text.
"Oh, thank god," Celeste exhaled, having not really shown how worried and guilty she'd been feeling.
"You see…," Jess notes. "Now, Este, what about you?" Jess insisted she change her focus.
Celeste roller her eyes for a second, but she knew he was right. Her panic attack that day hadn't been nothing.
"So Yvette came by to drop off the letter, I pretty much threw the dresses at her face and shut the door," Celeste explained. "And when I was upstairs I got a call from Noah that there had been a PI over at Truncheon asking about me today, that he had my both names. So I texted Lorelai to keep an eye on Evie…," she continued.
"Why didn't you tell me he called?" Rory exclaimed, her eyebrows frowning.
"I was, I am worried about G," Celeste replied, neither of the two others in the room really getting her reasoning.
"Alright, so someone wanted to find you, do you know why? Have you read the letter?" Jess asked, keeping a clear focus.
"Nope," Celeste sighed, taking the letter from the mantelpiece.
It was the family crest stationary that her mother had used, having actually bothered with a wax seal, but that was her mother alright. She was old, approaching 80, and she was quite traditional, and in that sense she wouldn't have ever expected her to use e-mail, call or participate in online auctions herself, always having had people to do those things for her her entire life.
"I think you should," Jess pointed out, the letter holding the promise to a lot of answers.
"Can you just hold me while I do it?" Celeste asked Jess. She was scared she might have another attack, but she hoped she wouldn't, feeling rather numb at this point.
The two sat down on the couch, and Jess put his arm around her, while Rory observed them form the bar.
Already from the backside of the paper Celeste could tell there weren't a lot of answers in there. But the envelope contained something more - newspaper clippings. Again - clearly not the most modern touch.
Celeste looked at the clippings first, those telling the general story of her brother's divorce drama. Jess couldn't really follow much besides the headlines and pictures. She'd googled Henri roughly a month ago so the divorce itself was no surprise, but as she read further she also noticed speculation on marital mental and physical abuse. She quickly skimmed through the other clipping as well. It addressed Henri's less than admirable conduct in the business world, more specifically forging their mother's signature and some documents. Ignoring Jess' curious glance, she could feel drilling into her, she folded open the letter and read it.
"She's apologizing - though not really specifying for what, and wants to see me tomorrow at the Plaza. From what I gather from these clippings is that Henri's getting his karma's worth - police, mother, money," Celeste explained briefly, feeling instead of the fear she felt before, of her life being revealed, a sudden sense of frustration instead.
Rory took the newspaper clippings giving her Chilton education a run for its money, having not had to read anything in French in years. But she got the gist. The dates on the articles were fairly recent - from two weeks ago.
"Abuse and forgery," Rory explained to Jess.
"What the hell does she want from me now? Now?! Clean up Henri's mess?! Fuck!" Celeste shouted, having a much different reaction that she or the others had anticipated.