AN: So I did get a chance to write a bit, but I didn't make it all the way to the really important chapter which I thought yesterday I would do today - so no ROGAN reunion just yet. But I promise - soon.
Considering the familiarity of the emergency room at Saint Francis and its staff it really didn't take Paris very long to be guided to the right partition, where she could find Vikki. Paris was calm and composed, concerned but definitely not panicky, knowing that it would do nothing to help the matter.
"Hey," Paris's demeanor changing from bossy and demanding to gentle as she saw her. Vikki already had her left arm in a sling, she was wearing a neck brace and the right side of her face had about four or five in smaller cuts, but it seemed she was more or less in one piece at least, making Paris sigh with relief.
"Hey," Vikki said, sounding excited to see her. She'd calmed noticably, but clearly looking exhausted from the entire ordeal.
"You look like you're in one piece at least," Paris kissed her in greeting, and continued to check her over with her eyes and grabbed the chart jammed into the front of her gurney and skimmed through the text.
"Barely," Vikki responded with some annoyment. "The guy ran a red light," she explained briefly. "How did it go with Silas?" was what Vikki really wanted to know.
Paris squinted her eyes apologetically, fearing her reaction.
"They called Tristian, and because we were there roughly at the same time he convinced me to let him take her. Silas seemed to want to go with him. I tried calling you, but… I just wasn't sure how to handle it. I thought maybe Silas would be upset if I took him to my place without warning…," Paris explained, shrugging her shoulder.
"Oh," Vikki responded with some surprise. "I'm surprised he was in town, but other than that I guess that's fine - did he say where he was taking him?" she asked. "They didn't allow me to use a phone in here - trust me, I tried," she muttered, knowing herself too well why that was.
"His mom's birthday apparently," Paris noted, casually.
"Alright, I guess I'll have a sugar loaded kid at the end of the day, but oh well - better that than…," Vikki replied, the crash having scared her thoroughly.
"Tristian sort of guessed we're involved," Paris admitted.
Vikki shrugged, only really able to shrug one of her shoulder though. "Did Silas find out?" she asked, like it was the only person who really mattered.
"I don't think so, he was out of earshot," Paris replied, holding her hand supportively.
"Good," Vikki exhaled. "I want it to come from me," she added, and Paris really couldn't argue with that. The same went for her kids.
"So, how long are they keeping you?" Paris asked loudly, hoping someone on the other side of the curtain would hear her.
"They're just checking over the X-rays once more, apparently the first picture was a little fuzzy. It's the question of how badly damaged my humerus is. I'm betting on a hairline fracture," Vikki explained, making an educated guess based on the pain level. But in reality all she hoped that she wouldn't have to get surgery.
"Good - do you need me to go make some calls?" Paris suggested, knowing what a pain an event like this, disrupting the normal life, could be.
That was just what Vikki wanted to hear, and handed over her phone with her password, and asked Paris to call her insurance company about not needing that replacement car right now as she couldn't drive with the injury and the rest that concerned her work Paris already knew how to handle.
As Paris returned, half an hour later or so, with some water and snacks for Vikki, feeling a little excited about having gotten to play watchdog for her injured girlfriend when she'd ran into Vikki's attending, an old aquaintance of hers, she returned and saw that Vikki was just given the all clear to leave. Paris helped her get dressed, her arm remaining in a sling and another splint having been set on her upper arm for the minor fracture she had, which meant she was going to be wearing that for a while. They got some pain meds for her to go, Paris making sure she was prescribed the non-addictive kind and drove her home.
"I didn't know you'd added me to the authorized pick-up list at Silas' school," Paris noted casually as they drove.
"I knew you'd help if it came to it," Vikki smiled humbly, blushing a little. In theory Tristian's parents were the last option call in this town, but Vikki really didn't like them much.
"I'm just glad you're okay," Paris replied, as she drove, squeezing her thigh through her slacks, as her left arm was in the sling.
Vikki also called Tristian from the car, letting him know she was heading home. Paris could tell Tristian had a few things to say concerning how she'd had Paris come and pick his son up, but it was rather about not knowing she'd been in an accident, which sounded like genuine concern, and perhaps some annoyment from being left out of the loop that other people were authorized to do it than genuine jealousy.
"He's bringing him in a half an hour," Vikki shared, as she'd disconnected the call.
"Listen, I want you to know that I didn't take Silas because I don't want to deal with him or because I have an issue with him - I was just caught a little off guard and I wasn't sure how he was going to handle my car and my house... I could use some practice with him before…," Paris explained, being a little nervous about how Vikki would percieve it.
"Yeah, I get it. He can be a little intimidating," Vikki replied. Silas was also rather tall, definitely taking after his father, unlike Timoteo for example, which made him look a lot like a pre-teen already. "But you'll get practice, I promise," Vikki assured her, humbly.
"Do you think Tristian has an issue with you dating me?" Paris asked, sounding a little worried.
"I don't care what he thinks. He might think it's a little weird, but I mean - at least he might more or less see the benefit in knowing you a little - you're not some complete stranger he has to start building trust with from the scratch," Vikki added.
Paris hadn't really thought about it from this angle, but most of these single-parent relationships seemed to move around the parent's concern about the kids - how they'd trust the other person with the kid, or how they got along with the kids. In her case, Paris almost felt like perhaps she should've thought more about it - but she hadn't been concerned about having Vikki around her kids at all. She trusted her.
"Maybe we should start telling the kids - I mean they're going to find out eventually, right?" Paris suggested, a little insecurely, hoping it wasn't too soon. She also knew that she needed to tell Doyle, which was likely going to be a bigger drama, as this was actually the first person she felt like coming out to.
"Okay," Vikki replied. "But not tonight, okay?" she replied with a yawn, clearly feeling rather tired.
"Do you want me to stick around, help you?" Paris offered. She knew she was probably going to need some help around the house. She felt bad for leaving her kids at home, but how could she not help her?
"Would you?" Vikki asked.
"Of course," she replied, and kissed her at a red traffic light. It was only slowly beginning to reach Paris, as the adrenaline wore down, that she nearly could've lost her.
What she didn't know at the time was that this was the beginning of them slowly moving in together - Vikki needing help with her arm and little by little they were going to start getting Silas adjusted to Paris' house.
Sherry stood at the doorstep of Emily's current place of residence, her friend Isabelle's place in the 16th arrondissement, having managed to find a parking spot just out front.
She knew the area was fancy, but hadn't quite expected to be greeted by a maid - it just wans't the Paris she knew - who invited her in after having asked for her name. To her surprise, she found Emily Gilmore already in the foyer, getting ready to leave herself. She'd seen her briefly, years ago at one of Rory's school functions, but they had never really spoken to each other.
"Hi, Mrs. Gilmore, it's nice to meet you," Sherry offered her hand in greeting to the woman who was pulling on her red leather gloves.
"Hello, just call me Emily, please," Emily said, with a smile that may have seemed a little forced, dressed in her red coat by now. She was doing this for Rory, Celeste and Rory's sister, as she was important to Rory.
"Here, these are the keys Rory asked me to give to you. But as I have little else planned for this afternoon I was hoping to accompany you to the place by Madeleine," Emily stated, and handed her the heavy plastic envelope, not sounding like she was really expecting an answer, and walked out of the door, expecting Sherry to follow. It wasn't really a suggestion one knew, especially out of the blue, how to decline.
Sherry followed her, watching her step, feeling the authority that radiated from Emily Gilmore. Emily was a lot like Christopher's mother to her, but several degrees sterner and more confident, hence it wasn't like she was never handled women like her before. She was just a fifteen years out of practice.
"This one is mine," Sherry opened the lock of her humble blue Volkswagen Polo, that was already over a decade old. "Do you want my help with the door?" she asked, unsure what Emily was expecting from her.
"I'm not completely incapable," Emily grumbled, and opened her own door, and took a seat in the passenger's seat. She, however, didn't remember the last time she sat in a car that small.
"I'm sure I could've handled checking this place out on my own," Sherry said, feeling a little confused as to why she was insisting on coming along.
"I understand that Rory and her friend Celeste are thinking about proposing that you take care of some of Celeste's properties, but I'm sure they're going to fill you in on their suggestion soon enough. But I just figured that since I'm here and I'm already a little involved with Celeste's personal business, I might just as well get a look at the place - maybe I can help, advise…," Emily spoke. When someone of her caliber offered her advice, it wasn't exactly polite to turn that down either. What Sherry didn't know, neither did Celeste nor Rory, was that Emily hadn't felt this useful in years with her so-called assignment, and she was rather reluctant for this little journey to come to an end.
Sherry didn't yet know anything about the proposal and almost wanted to argue that she already had a job. But they were right - it wasn't a fulltime job really, and considering how Rory had cautioned about mentioning this to Remi, she was beginning to get that perhaps they were planning something. She felt confused - on the one side she didn't recognize this attention that really was just caring, but on the other she felt betrayal and hurt, but more about so many people knowing about her business, at least to some extent, and pitying her rather than the fact that G, her sweet girl, had told them.
They drove the rest of the 15 minute drive in silence, most of it along the Seine. Finding a parking spot nearby was a little more challenging on a workday morning in the 8th arrondissement, and it took them a good 5 minutes to circle around the block on foot. Sherry was wearing her leggings and a lightweight down coat that came down to her mid-knee, along with sneakers which made it much easier for her to get around compared to Emily who hadn't really emphasized convenience that day. Emily expected the place to be grand, maybe even have a doorman - this was Odette Aubertin after all - and she didn't think it was right to show up in sneakers, feeling relieved to be balanacing Sherry out.
"I think this is it," Sherry said, looking at the address on her phone and the keys in her hand.
"Are you sure? This can't be right?" Emily exclaimed. It just seemed too common to her. No doubt pricey and prestigious - this was the 8th after all with the Champs-Élysée was right there, the Louvre a short walk away, the Avenue Montaigne held every designer boutique worth knowing, the Épicure, Le Cinq and Ledoyen were all just around the corner, but she was still a little underwhelmed.
Now Sherry just needed to figure out which key was the right one. These old houses often had a dozen various locks - for the recycling shed, front door, hallway door, which may or may not usually be locked, apartment, cupboards, car gates and so forth. She compared the locks and the keys and made a fair guess, the right one, and the door to the five-storey white stone building, like many others in Paris. What made this one special, though, was the classy restaurant downstairs and the way compared to the other buildings across the street which appeared more or less the same height, this one only had six stories, while others had seven, which meant this one had higher ceilings which was definitely a sign of wealth.
Sherry didn't hurry her step, letting Emily go first, seeming a little concerned for her health. But Emily was a champ - years of tennis, hikes along the dunes in Nantucket and gardening in the recent years, had kept her in fairly good health. Her knees hurt a little and she was a little out of breath by the time she reached the fifth floor, but so was Sherry.
Sherry flipped through the keys once again looking for the right one, at the same time hoping the place wouldn't have a security system installed.
"I'll just check real quick so there isn't an alarm," Sherry suggested and hopped in, quickly glancing over the entrance hall for an alarm console. There was one, but it said with clear letters "Disabled", allowing her to breathe a little easier.
"It's fine," she said, opening the door for Emily.
It was only then she really began to look around, taking in where she was.
The place was calm and spacious, fully furnished, but all of the items had been covered up with sheets and plastic covers - the place itself hadn't been cleaned in years, a thick layer of dust covering most surfaces.
"I'll just open the window, it's stuffy," Sherry said, and opened up the large windows that opened up to the balcony from the living room. From underneath some of the covers one could tell it was mostly decorated in mid-century modern, but also had some more modern - well a decade or two old-modern - furnishings. Large gold-frame paintings hung on the walls, grand mirrors and various smaller pieces of art hung on most walls. The kitchen was a bold Indian Pink shade and had a fierce white and gray patterned marble island, countertop and backsplash, as became clear when Emily raised part of it's plastic cover, making herself cough from the dust. The place was a decent size, the high ceilings giving the room some additional visual space as well. There was a bedroom, also rather boldly decorated, which held also a large wardrobe set, which to Emily really was no surprise considering the social calender Odette must've had back when she'd lived in this place.
"Well this is it," Emily exhaled, raised her hands in a shrugging motion, having not even removed her gloves.
"So they want me to do what with this place?" Sherry asked Emily, feeling left in the dark.
"I'm not sure - they were suggesting taking care of it, or maybe renting it out - they did also say that you could stay here if you needed to," Emily explained.
"So this belongs to Rory's friend? She isn't using it herself?" Sherry inquired, as she walked around the living room. The place was definitely gorgeous, it was dreamy. Sherry closed the window again, sensing the place getting too chilly.
"I think you should call them yourself. There is this other place as well, but I'm not exactly sure where this is. But I guess I can say this much that right now Celeste isn't using these," Emily explained based on the impression she'd gotten. She didn't quite understand Celeste choise not to use these properties - it wasn't like she couldn't travel, even if she had complex relations with her mother.
"Right," Sherry sighed, looking out of the window.
Emily was feeling like they were done with the place, and trying to respect Rory's wish, she wasn't going to push these painful topics onto Sherry right now no more than she had already hinted. But she could tell, Sherry was actually a little reluctant to leave.
"Sherry?" she asked.
"Yeah?" Sherry turned, eyes a little red. Her arms were crossed on her stomach, clearly feeling a little defencive.
"I promised Rory I wouldn't poke my nose into this - but as far as I understood they're offering you the place to stay in so you wouldn't have to stay with that man of your's. You daughter was pretty upset about what she learned before she turned up on my doorstep, she wants you to be happy. So when you do speak to them…," Emily began. She just wanted to assure her that Rory and Celeste meant well, that she'd turly consider this - whatever it was exactly that was the problem in her relationship.
"What? When did Gigi..?" she asked in confusion, her emotions getting pushed down for a moment.
"She showed up on my doorstep because she didn't feel safe staying at your place with that man," Emily explained, sounding a little annoyed for having to explain something she thought Sherry knew. Emily had just gotten a brief explanation of G having been in a fight with her mother due to some inappropriate behaviro of her stepfather, and that she needed a place to crash until her flight.
"I thought Gigi flew home," Sherry sighed, instead of anger feeling defeated. Her daughter had lied to her.
"She flew home on the 3rd, she couldn't get an earlier flight. I took her in the day before. She was heartbroken, worried about you, not to mention disturbed by the rest," Emily clarified.
Sherry didn't dare to say it, fearing Emily's judgement, but she didn't know where her daughter had spent the night on the day that she'd packed up her suitcase and walked out of their house. And she hadn't even asked whether she'd gotten home in one piece, let alone if she'd gotten a flight home. Without realizing Sherry was in tears.
"It's not supposed to happen to someone like me," Sherry whimpered, her shoulders hunched as she let her previously crossed arms fall, letting her defences down. "I'm not some uneducated woman in her 20s that makes mistakes like this - ends up with a guy like that," she sobbed.
Emily felt sorry for the woman. She offered her a hankerchief.
"Who makes mistakes like this? Who misses the warning signs that every third billboard warns you about these days in this country? Why did I bring G into this?" she asked, sobbingly, referring to the anti-abuse campaign they'd had all over the City just recently. She would've added 'What kind of mother sets her girl that kind of example?' but she just felt out of breath, she just couldn't do this anymore.
Sherry wasn't in her first youth, but she really didn't look a day over 40. But somehow it had happened to her. She didn't even tell Emily about all the details, it didn't seem relevant. There was nothing concerete she could press charges on - the few times he had grabbed her a little too strong which might have left a mark but it wasn't frequent, hence she had no proof. There was, however, all sorts of other types of controlling, picking and choosing what she did for work and who she hung out with. When she'd sent G to live in the States the man had treated her like dirt for months - from tiny comments like telling her how she needed to loose weight or suggesting her to get a second job to pay for plastic surgery, criticising everything she did to torturous silent treatment that had lasted for weeks. He'd invalidated her in front of their clients and joint friends, humiliated her in public on more than one occasion by having persuaded her wear clothes fit for a tramp, making her feel like she was going insane - that was just a small list of the ways he'd abused her.
No matter what had happened - she now wanted to get out. It wasn't that the apartment presented an appealing opportunity, which it did no doubt as well, but it was feeling the caring of the three women, four counting G, and she didn't even know the third. Rory had been so much stronger than she had been in so many situations - having stuck by her in an hospital bed giving birth to G, and she was doing it again.
With a shaky hand, she pulled off the plastic from one of the chairs, took a seat along with a deep breath and pulled out her phone, dialling Rory. She couldn't keep failing her daughter like this.
"So Finn, what is it that you do for a living?" a man, who looked like a spitting image of Kenneth Branagh, except for the hair which in his case was noticeably thinning, asked in a hoarse voice.
They were sitting at a red brick detached house on Nun's island, the humblest house of the block, but as the neighbourhood with Audis, Lexuses and BMW in front of most houses, and having passed a golf course, it was clear it was not a shabby neighbourhood. However, the insides of this house hardly reflected the wealth the man in front of Finn and Charlie was worth these days. All three of them were sitting on beige leather recliners that were a little saggy, a TV-tray was folded up by the side of the couch and the man, dressed in grey joggers, hadn't bothered with a single decorative element throughout the entire house.
Finn truly hated that question. Answering it always made him feel like he didn't do anything meaningful, that his schedule, like their presence in Charlie's father's, or John's, living room on a Friday afternoon demonstrated, was too flexible and that essentially he was simply slouching away on the family fortune.
"I'm an entertainment management consultant," Finn said, having thought of the job title on the spot. Well he was a consultant of sorts, he supposed. But this was closest to what he actually wanted to be. He was the person who knew what strings to pull, or who to call, to make things happen.
"Like Broadway or something?" John asked with a slight cough. The place smelled like cigarettes, hence the cough.
"No, I think it's more versatile than that, isn't it, Finn?" Charlie suggested Finn elaborate, feeling rather amused by the way Finn was bending the truth just a little. She understood what his issue with the job title was, so she was fine with whatever he chose to say.
"Concerts, performances, art exhibitions, recreational sports, magic shows, museums, celebrity sightings, dance events, costume parties - anything really," Finn listed, noting Charlie squinting her eyes at the 'costume parties', their last night's role play having hit a little too close to the discussion they were having.
"That's a broad playing field. What this tells me about you is that you must be quite a people person," John said, without embellishments that he was trying to get an understanding of him as a person.
"I guess I am," Finn shrugged.
"And no wonder, his family is huge and so friendly," Charlie explained. She'd already been over to his dad's once to tell him about her plans and overall about her trip, so this meeting was essentially just about meeting Finn and loading some of her boxes into his garage for safe keeping - things Charlie felt reluctant to part from but didn't feel the need to bring along either.
"Well my parents and my siblings certainly love Charlie, as do I," Finn stated, taking Charlie's hand. This must've been what men felt like when they were asking future father in law for the daughter's hand - Finn thought to himself.
"Well it looks like you've found yourself a fine man," John grumbled, approvingly, as he rised from his seat and walked over to his bar cabinet, and poured himself a scotch. "Would you like a drink?" he offered.
Finn was feeling a little puzzled - the whole meeting had lasted no more than 20 minutes and other than telling him how they'd met and a little about his family, homeland and his education, and as an interesting diversion - his taste in cars, the man had hardly inquired much that would've proved tricky for him to answer. He didn't know whether Charlie had told him about his net worth, but that was certainly one thing he'd decided to keep to himself for the time being - after all that shouldn't play any role in whether he liked or tolerated him.
"I'm fine," Charlie replied.
"Sure, single malt if you have," Finn said on auto-pilot, wondering whether that had been too presumptuous of him.
"Here, not my best bottle, but I'm saving that for a special occasion - you know like a wedding or the birth of another grandchild," John grumbled, handing Finn a scotch taking a sip of his own glass. Finn wasn't sure whether this was just the way he was, but considering Charlie couldn't have kids, the comment seemed a little tactless and Finn's eyes searched for Charlie's to see whether she was okay. If she was hurt by that, she wasn't showing it.
They talked some more, drinking their scotches, Charlie explaining their road trip plans which involved visiting her sister Olivia in Boston. They were also going to drive through New Haven, Finn wanting to show her his alma mater.
To Finn, John seemed like an odd man. He seemed a little sad and lonely, and for that - taking his daughter to another country made him actually feel guilty. But he couldn't quite figure out what the relationship was between them - they seemed friendly, but he could see Charlie being a little withheld around him.
When they got back in the car, Charlie insisting in driving her own Dodge Journey, which Finn was actually a little impressed with until he found out Greg had helped her pick it out, he decided to inquire into it.
"Your father is an odd man - he seems a little lonely and sad to be honest," Finn pointed out with all honesty.
"Well he is - he hasn't had much luck with wives, he has had a bunch of up and downs with his ventures, he's been treated for pancreatic cancer twice - now I just think he's tired of it all," Charlie explained, continuing to drive over the Nuns Island Bridge
"Yeah, but that's no reason to be mean...," Finn replied, hoping Charlie wouldn't be mean at him for pointing it out.
"What do you mean?" Charlie began, almost not following. "Oh, you mean that comment about grandkids and weddings?" she quessed.
"Yeah - I mean to rub it in like that, that's not very nice," Finn replied.
"He doesn't think he's doing anything wrong - he doesn't know what happened to me. As far as he know my trip was mostly about the breakup. Yeah, he knows I had some surgery, but he doesn't know the details. I didn't think it'd come up," Charlie explained.
"Oh," Finn reacted, now feeling like he'd perhaps judged the man a little unfairly just based on that once sentence.
"He was at the time getting chemo, it really didn't seem like the best time to tell him. And then a few months later he got good news and then I no longer felt like I needed to stick around for him for support - so I went to Australia," Charlie continued to explain.
Finn didn't reply with anything topical, asking something about the buildings they were passing instead. What he really wanted to ask her was why she hadn't told her when she got back - that type of thing was pretty significant and at least in Finn's family it would've been shared and news like that would've gotten support and caring in return. It was becoming clear to Finn that Charlie's family relations were much different than those that he was used to, and he hadn't even met her mother yet, and she hadn't even suggested he did. He wondered why, but didn't feel like ruining the good mood they had going otherwise.
AN: Celeste's apartment in Paris 8th can be found on "lefigaro" under ad nr "36136953"
I would love your reviews!