Now and Then

They took the train from Paris to Milan. Emily bought out an entire sleeper cabin so that she and Rory would not be forced to share with strangers. The sleepers themselves were not quite Emily's style, too bench-like and closed in and plastic. Rory sat up with her as long as either of them could stay awake, talking. They sat hunched in their cabin, attempting to negotiate the small space as they went through their overnight bags.

"Rory," Emily began, "you have been awfully quiet this trip."

"I have?"

"Is there anything you that you would like to talk about?"

Rory chewed on her lip. "I don't know what my mom told you," she said, "but I'm really okay."

Emily's look was an eloquent negative to this. She responded only that Lorelai had vaguely suggested Rory needed to get away. Though Rory knew this to be a slight untruth, her mother's brief description of the conversation she and Emily had actually had still fresh in her memory, she had to admire her grandmother's adeptness at steering a conversation.

"She was very respectful of your privacy, just as I wish to be. I am only offering to listen should you want to discuss anything that might be bothering you."

"I do have some things on my mind," Rory conceded.

"You can tell me."

"I know," she said.

"Did you have a fight with your mother?"

Rory turned her face away to smother a slight smile that this was the automatic first assumption. The humor of it didn't last long when she realized what the answer would be.

"Yes," Rory said, "and no. First we had a fight and then we made up. And then I decided to leave."

"What was this fight about? A boy?"

Rory looked at her grandmother, her eyes wide. "How—yeah, a boy."

"I am a mother, Rory. I understand fights between mothers and daughters. The ones that lead to running away often have to do with members of the opposite sex."

"I guess they do," she replied vaguely.

"Could you tell me more? Perhaps I might be able help."

Rory sighed. "I didn't—I was… with someone that I shouldn't have been with. He's—he's not—he didn't belong to me. I didn't think. Mom called me on it, that's all." She looked at Emily. "Mom and I are okay now, though."

"But you're not," Emily said. It was not a question, and Rory found she couldn't read her grandmother's eyes at all. Her own gaze faltered. She had seen Emily Gilmore judgmental, angry, distant, and any number of frighteningly intense emotions, but she didn't know what to make of the level, even stare, the stillness of her posture. There was no coldness, just inscrutability.

"Not really. The way I acted—and then I said some things to Mom that I still can't believe I said… When I think about it now it almost seems like that had to be someone else, because it couldn't be me. I'm just—I'm not like that."

The expression on Rory's face was one of bewilderment and frustration, as though she were staring at a painting she could not quite figure out, or a math problem flawlessly executed still ending in an incorrect solution. Emily rose and moved towards the small window, staring at the countryside that passed for a moment.

"Oh, Rory, we're none of us just one person all the time," she finally said. "Except, perhaps, for your mother. She's always known her mind so well, been so confident—even when she falters she seems to do in the most Lorelai way possible." She smiled ruefully. "The rest of us aren't always so lucky."

"What do you mean?"

Emily stooped and sat beside Rory, placing her hand on her granddaughter's knee. The guardedness Rory felt before was replaced by weariness.

"We're bits and pieces of different people at different times. It all adds up to who we are, eventually." Emily sighed. "Sometimes you suddenly see a piece you don't like very much."

"What then?"

Emily kissed Rory's forehead and rose to prepare herself for sleep. "You figure out what to do with it and then you get on, move forward." She paused. "Thank you for sharing with me, Rory."

Rory bit her lip. "Are you disappointed?"

Emily opened her mouth to speak, but paused, considering her words. "Rory," she said, "we all make our mistakes. Every one of us. It's a terrible condition, but that's the way we are. It's what we do after we make them that matters."

"Oh." It was all she could think of to say. "Mom was hurt by it. She didn't know. I should have told her."

"Yes, well, your mother has made her own mistakes. I'm sure she understood, or she will, at some point." Emily sat down again heavily, as though the weight of what she said was too much to bear. "Hindsight really is the damnedest thing." She attempted a smile. "Goodnight, Rory."

"Goodnight, Grandma."

Dear Mom,

This is what I told you: he took the ring off. We were safe.

This is what I didn't tell you: he took the ring off right before he put the condom on, and he shoved the ring into the pocket of his jeans. We had been kissing on the bed and he undid the back of my dress before he sat up and took his shirt off. He pulled me off the bed, then; for a second I was frightened. He had a look in his eyes, this intense look, and he told me he needed me, that he'd never loved anyone in his life the way he'd loved me. I remember the past tense he used now but I didn't notice then. He'd only ever felt good enough, he said, when he was with me. I didn't know what to say, and I let him kiss me. I'm trying to think of what was going through my mind, but I'm coming up blank. The only thing I can remember is that I knew this was going to be my first time, that it was going to happen with Dean, and that was the way I'd always thought it would be when we were together.

After that, things happened really fast. He took off the ring and put it in his pocket, took off his pants and left them on the floor. I remember that when he turned around and looked at me, I was still in my clothes: I remember feeling overdressed. And then—what happened then? I don't remember how the bed got unmade, really, just that he told me he wanted to be with me and slid my dress off and we were together in the bed and kissing and he had the condom and when it happened it hurt. I don't even remember if we looked at each other. I just remember it was really quiet.

We didn't have a lot of time together when it was over—he was holding me, and he was stroking my hair, kissing my face, saying my name. I ached a little bit then, and not just because what we had done was painful, Mom, but because that was when I remembered things like falling asleep with him in Miss Patty's studio and the first time he held my hand and how easy it was when we were together at first—everything was easy. But we heard you come in and he stopped saying my name. He was out of the bed so fast he elbowed me in the shoulder, hard. We got dressed before you came down, and you know the rest.

That conversation we had? Some of the things I said? "You don't understand the situation," I said, and I said it to you like you were stupid. "She's not good for him," I said, and I still think I was right. But so were you, I know. I threw Sherri and Dad in your face, and that was just mean. And then I said you were mad because I didn't talk about it with you first, that I decided I was ready on my own. You told me I wasn't. I still don't know—there's no way to know now because it's done and you can't just go back and revirginize yourself—well, I know technically you can, but you can't unhave an experience. But if I had been honest with you earlier, or if I had told you what was going on with Dean sooner, maybe we would have had that conversation. Maybe the whole thing could have been avoided.

I didn't tell you, Mom, because I didn't realize anything had changed. Everything with Dean before Jess showed up—this time, that is—was just normal. I think. I thought. I don't know. It was me and my friend Dean, who I used to date. But then Jess came around and he wanted me to go with him and all I knew was that I didn't want to go. He'd just leave me again if I did, or I would be waiting for it all the time. And Dean never leaves unless you tell him to. But he didn't say goodbye to me when you came in that night. He took off with the ring in his pocket.

I said I hated you for ruining it for me. I hate that I said that to you. I hate that it happened fast and we didn't have a lot of time together and that it hurt. That doesn't mean I didn't think it was nice, afterward, when he was holding me. But it was scary, too. It was after, when you asked me what I was going to do, when I heard Lindsay's voice on the phone, that I realized what we did wasn't nice at all, and it seemed much scarier.

You and Grandma both said pretty much the same thing: figure it out and keep going. This is what I've figured out: the whole year I was too scared to go beyond… anything. Yale was Chilton, grade 13. I didn't work very hard to do the keep going part. Going back was easier.

Funny that it takes me leaving to see how unlike you I can be and how far I have to go to be as strong as you are.

Love,

Rory.

In the morning, they took a look around Milan. The one look was enough. Milan, Emily said, only had one good painting in one church; other than that it was a dreary city where they'd spend all their time feeling fat and frumpy. Rory laughed and put her head on her grandmother's shoulder. They boarded the train for Rome, this time, the center of the rest of their trip.

"Oh, Grandma," she said. "Italy is going to be so much fun with you."

"You think we're up for it?" Emily asked.

"I think we've been on trains too long," Rory said. "But I think we are, yeah."

Emily put her arm around her granddaughter. "That is a very good thing," she said.