Metamorphoses
16 – He's Your Ex-Boyfriend?
"Not the Yankees!" Tristan exclaimed once he properly swallowed his dinner.
Inwardly, he compared the superior talents of the cook and Marguerite. But it seemed mean-spirited to make that sort of comparisons.
"I agree." Luke nodded and stabbed a small piece of the chicken. "I'm so tired of the Yankees. Somebody else should grab the title for once before they start to name it after The Yankees. I'm thinking the Mariners. They look good this year."
"Come on now Lucas, don't be silly. They can't win. It'd be lucky if they could advance pass the Cardinals, much less winning the World Series," Richard insisted.
Tristan couldn't help but side with Luke. He actually didn't care much for either team. All he knew was that the Yankees had won way too often. "But they got a new pitcher and they nearly got to the finals last year. I think they have a legitimate shot."
"Well, when I first saw you, I pegged you as a bright young man. But I'm afraid you're seriously wrong in this occasion." Richard waved his fork excitedly as they continued on the topic of baseball. "You know what, I shall wager-"
"There will be no wagering on mydinner table, thank you very much." Emily primly interrupted. Even though she did not know or care enough about baseball to take part in the argument, her inner radar was able to pick up the few keywords that weren't suitable for a dinner conversation. Just because they were sitting on the other end of the table didn't mean she couldn't hear them.
"Fine." Richard rolled his eyes petulantly once Emily looked away. "How about the Cubs? I don't mind seeing them in the finals."
"Are you kidding?" Luke almost choked on his dinner. "Aren't they cursed?" he moaned.
"Oh, so you can see the Cubs win and yet you can't see the Mariners winning?" Tristan couldn't help but question Richard's flawed logic as well.
"I didn't say anything about winning. All I said was they looked they have a legitimate chance of get to the finals. Besides, this whole "curse" business is just a bunch of nonsense since the Red Sox won. Still, don't get me wrong, the Yankees will win the World Series." And thus their conversation came to a full circle. A full, fruitless, circle.
Lorelai curiously watched the conversation anxiously. Her head whipping back and forth between the men as they spewed yet another sentence on a topic she had absolutely no knowledge on. She was peeved to not be included in the conversation, but that was also overwhelmed by her shock over her father's apparently exhaustive knowledge of MLB.
She finally couldn't stand it and nudged Rory with her foot and gestured her to lean in.
"What?" She leaned closer at Lorelai's request.
"Is this normal?" She tilted her head to the right, and said in a conspiratorial whisper.
Rory listened to the men for a short while. "Well, yours was supposed to talk like this. You knew that. Mine taught little league baseball during his college years," Rory said unfazed as she speared a piece of carrot and made a face at it. She casually dumped the vegetable on Lorelai's plate.
Lorelai scooped the carrot back on Rory's plate before she thought out loud, "I know that. Wait … your boyfriend taught little league?" Lorelai asked with disbelief.
"Yeah," she replied nonchalantly and she plunked the carrot back on Lorelai's plate. "I thought I told you that."
"Nope." She strained to conjure up an image of Tristan patiently teaching little kids how to bat properly. She frowned, "Nope, not seeing it. But that's not the point. The point is … when did my father, your Robert Frost-quoting Grandpa, start talking like that?"
"For goodness sake Lorelai, what are you mumbling about?" Emily interrupted them.
Richard was sitting on the opposite end of the dining table with Luke and Tristan beside him. It infuriated Emily to no end at her inability to join in on their side of the conversation. She didn't care if she had absolutely no idea on what exactly they were talking about. She just wanted to be a part of it. And now, she certainly didn't want to be left out of the conversation on the girls' side of the table as well.
"I'm just trying to figuring out where you hid my real daddy." She tried to dispose the carrot on Emily's plate.
"Lorelai, don't be absurd. We have guests here." Emily said that with a tight smile, as if she was mothering a 7-year-old girl on the verge of spilling cranberry juicy on the white carpet. Lorelai wasn't sure whether she was referring to her question or the carrot. Either way, the traveling carrot ended its journey on Emily's plate as she pick it up and ate it.
"It's the rose bushes isn't it? They do look a lot prettier this year."
"They look prettier because I hired a new gardener." Emily rolled her eyes. "Not because it has a new source of fertilizer."
"Oh sure." Then she added an extra part for her daughter, "I bet the gardener looks like Miguel from Passions."
"Mom! Eww! Trying to eat here."
"Lorelai, what are you mumbling about?" Richard suddenly asked and
Lorelai found everybody focusing on her. He cheerfully finished the
last piece of his chicken as he waited for his daughter's reply.
Lorelai, momentarily stunned by all the sudden attention, did not
recognize the similarities between Richard and Emily's question.
"Quick, say something baseball." Rory prodded her mother.
"If you build it, he will come."
"Mom!"
"Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack, I don't care if I never get back."
"Mom, what is that?"
"She just quoted Take Me Out to the Ball Game." Luke came to her defense.
"I blame it on you! You keep singing that around the house." She playfully hit his shoulders; he playfully mocked a pained expression.
Richard was the first to laugh uproariously. Then the rest of the table joined in and soon, they all shared a hearty laugh at Lorelai's expense. Even Tristan.
He had been enjoying this dinner so far, trading pleasantries with the Gilmore clan. They welcomed him with open arms and he felt comfortable around them. He grabbed Rory's hand under the table and she squeezed his hand lightly. She mouthed, see, I told you they'd like you.
Come to think of it, he didn't know why he was so nervous at the prospect of meeting Rory's Family.
"What? You want me to meet your mother and you grandparents in one sitting?" he asked incredulously as he walked her home. It was a fine evening and they just finished the entire first season of Arrested Development at his place. He wanted her to stay for the night. But Rory remembered that she still had to do some research for an article that she was working on.
"Oh, don't make it sound like you're contracting some incurable disease. They're nice people and they aren't going to go all Meet the Parents on you and hook you up on a lie detector. I've met your grandpa. It's now your turn."
"But I didn't ask you to meet my father and my grandpa at once."
Tristan freaked out at the possibility of meeting the entire Gilmore clan at one go. Though he did start to wonder when Rory was going to introduce her family to him and he was anxious to meet them. He wasn't that anxious. "How about I'll have dinner with only your mother this weekend? We can arrange dinner with your grandparents at a later date," he suggested.
"No, because Grandma is dying to meet you. She had been asking about you even since she saw our picture in the paper."
"What picture?"
"The one they took when we were at Christian's party."
"I hate that picture. The angle was all wrong," he grimaced. "How about I'll have dinner with your grandparents first and we'll arrange a dinner date with your mother at a later time."
"No, because mom called shotgun."
"What am I, a road trip to California? You can't call shotgun on people," he scoffed. This did, however, pique his interest on Lorelai. From the sound of it, Tristan imagined her to be a vivacious and eccentric person. Rory probably inherited all of that from her mother.
"Oh, it's possible in Gilmore world. Start getting use to it. Mom didn't want to give grandma the bragging rights and Grandma would feel like she was out of the loop if you meet my mother first. So this seems to be the best solution." She laughed at his frown. "Besides, don't you want to meet all of them at once, just to get it over with."
"I don't know. It sounds … intense." He was still hesitant.
"On the bright side, my dad and Sherry aren't going to be there. So you have 2 less family members to deal with. Not to mention all the hidden resentment and unresolved issues between them. Don't worry, mom is going to bring Luke. He'll be the buffer." Luke was probably more inept at handling the elder Gilmores than Tristan. But Rory decided to withhold that piece of information.
Tristan had to admit, it sounded a lot less traumatizing if there was another non-Gilmore there, but he couldn't resist one last chance to wiggle out of this Friday night dinner.
"But I met your grandfather already."
"When?"
"At your birthday party. I remembered he said you have very good taste in friends and he approved. Clearly we don't have to go through this again."
Rory vaguely remembered her grandfather saying something like that, but she wasn't sure. "I don't know about that." She pursed her lips. "Besides, we weren't friends back then, so it doesn't count."
"We weren't friends?! Oh Mary, you hurt me." He made a pained expression.
"Oh suck it up princess." She chided as she dug around in her bag for her keys. "Come on, I promise you it won't be as bad as you imagined. I'll even tell grandma to make apple tarts. You'll love them."
"But I thought the apple tarts are for Christmas." Tristan had heard of the famous apple tarts. He remembered how his grandfather could wax exuberantly at those delicious desserts for hours.
"Anything to bribe you."
"Fine." Now that he had some time to think about it, he wasn't as intimidated as he was 10 minutes ago. Rory's family sounded like decent people and who knew, he might have a pleasant time with them. He kissed her lightly on her lips before walking her up to the front of her building. "I'll pick you up at 5:30. Those apple tarts better make an appearance."
"Dad, when did you start talking ESPN?" She asked once everybody stopped laughing.
"The cable company mixed up our channels and we went through last month without BBC World. To make up for it, they gave us the sports package for free." Emily soon find out, like any other housewives with a husband on retirement, that men would watch anything on TV if time permitted.
"Ernie McDougal had a baseball pool going on. It was quite fun actually and I'm making a killing at it. I watch TV to polish up on my facts."
"Oh enough about sports," Emily insisted as she waved the maid over to clear the table. She turned to Tristan, "I know you're looking forward to the apple tarts, but the right kinds of apples aren't in season. Do you mind poached pears in bourbon sauce?"
"No, of course not." He was having such a great, relaxing time here that he almost forgot about the bribe.
"Good." Emily smiled. Definitely approved of Rory's latest boyfriend. After extending her patience for a minute she simply couldn't stand the inefficiency of her maid. "My god, this new maid is painfully slow. Let me see what's taking her so long to spoon sauce on a fruit." Emily said in a huff as she stood up and went to the kitchen.
Just at that moment, Rory heard the ringing of her cell phone. She could hear it all the way from another room because she recognized the unique ring tone.
"Sweetie, still Cyndi Lauper?"
"I don't diss Justin Timberlake; you don't diss Cyndi." She laughed at her mother warningly as she went to the living room to retrieve her phone from her purse. She heard her mom sheepishly explaining to Tristan, "I can't help it! Rock Your Body was way too catchy for its own good. Even after that whole nipple-gate fiasco!"
She answered her phone, "Hello."
"Hey it's me. I'm at Lake Louise."
"How was your flight?"
"It's alright." Jess could hear the laugher in the background. "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting Friday night dinner."
"No don't worry, Jess. I want to make sure you've arrived safely." She had been having apprehensions about flying ever since she saw Alive when she was 14 and she insisted on Jess calling her once he reached all of his destinations. "What's on your itinerary?"
"Heli hiking."
"What is that?"
"A helicopter drop us of at the remote mountain back country and as the name implies, we then go hiking. We're doing heli fly-fishing as well. But I don't exactly how that works."
"Well, that's not too bad." She feared Jess was going to break his leg one of these days. "At least you're not bungee jumping out of a helicopter."
Her comment was met with silence.
"Jess Anthony Mariano, are you going to bungee jump out of a helicopter?!"
"Helicopter is our theme!" he desperately explained to Rory as if he was asking for permission from a parent to do something insanely adventurous.
Rory wanted to reprimand him, but she knew he was old enough to make these kinds of decisions. She sighed, "Be safe, Jess. Check the equipment before doing anything."
"Yes. Listen, Rory, I have to go now. We're starting early tomorrow morning and I need some rest."
"Okay. Bye." For the sake of redundancy, she added, "Be safe!" again before she hung up.
"Was that Jess?" Luke asked when she got back to the table. He still worried about his occupation. But since he was making an honest living, he really couldn't complain much. "What's he up to this time."
"He's in the Canadian Rockies." She decided to withhold the part with Jess planning to jump out of a helicopter. Luke didn't deserve a heart attack.
"Ah the Canadian Rockies. I remember going there when I was young. The ski resorts were quite nice," Richard reminiscend.
Emily finally emerged from the kitchen and joined the rest of them. The maid sheepishly trailed behind with the much-anticipated desserts. "Was that your roommate?"
Luckily, Rory had told her about her rooming arrangement with Jess after she told her she was going out with Tristan. She also helpfully pointed out that Jess was gone on assignment most of the time anyway and insisted they were not "living in sin." Emily, still feeling the elation of her granddaughter dating the grandson of a dear friend, was willing to overlook her current living arrangement.
"Yep." She cooed appreciatively at the elaborately arranged dessert before she lobbed off a piece of pear.
"He was such a nice young man. He knew his Tennessee Williams well." Richard beamed appreciatively as he too ate his dessert. "Too bad he hasn't been here since you two broke up. We had a nice debate on Mussolini the last time he was here."
Rory could feel Tristan tensing up beside her. Oh shit! She never told him about her relationship with Jess, thinking there was always a better occasion at a later date. She blamed her procrastinating tendencies. Of course she didn't expect her grandfather to be the one breaking the news to Tristan.
She didn't need to see Tristan's face to know that she needed to come up with a decent explanation soon.
Tristan's upbringing prevented him from asking out loud. But Rory fully expected a thorough interrogation once they were out of the earshot of her grandparents.
"You dated Jess? Why did you hide that from me?"
"It was a long time ago and I wasn't 'hiding' the fact. I didn't tell you because my past relationships have no relevance to you." Rory explained as patiently as possible without letting her irritation boil over.
They were on their way back to New York. Tristan's temper had not improved one bit ever since they left her grandparents' house. Fortunately, his tight plastered-on smile remained intact for the rest of the evening and nobody else knew better. Right now though, it seemed no amount of words could pacify him.
This scene was way too familiar for her comfort.
"I think my girlfriend still living with her ex-boyfriend is something that I should know about. Don't you think?" Tristan gripped the steering wheel tightly. She wished he would pay more attention to the road. Rage driving really didn't suit him well.
"Whether you choose to believe it or not, there is nothing between us. I don't see why you're getting so worked up," she huffed.
"He was your EX-BOYFRIEND!" He emphasized every single syllable. "Do you honestly think I'm naive enough to believe there's nothing going on between the two of you?" He suddenly recalled that warning that he got from Jess prior to his first date with Rory. Back then, he didn't think too much of his protective stance.
But the pieces are starting to fall together now.
"Yes. Ex. As in 'in the past.'"
"You still should've told me."
"We broke up years ago. I don't have to tell you anything. I owe you no explanations," she reminded him. Honestly, she dated Jess, big deal. It wasn't as if he never dated anyone before her. Did she ever get all worked up over his ex-girlfriends? In fact, did she even asked about his ex-girlfriends? No. "We are roommates now. A strictly platonic relationship where most interactions usually involve me goading him to pitch in on his share of groceries. There is nothing going on beyond that whether you choose to believe it or not."
Subconsciously Tristan knew Rory wouldn't lie. He knew he should trust her and take her word for it. He knew he should remember what happened last time he got all paranoid over her and another guy.
He knew better. But it still didn't stop him from worrying.
He didn't say anything for the rest of the night and they continued home in tense silence.
Pseudo-important a/n:
Guys, thanks for you on-going support during these years. Yes, years. I just checked, this story started back in 2002. And to further date myself, I remember f4f was down at the time.
So yeah, after talking about all this irrelevant stuff, here's my point: this is stopping. I used to think people who left their stories incomplete are ginormous tool/losers. But it seems I'm joining their ranks. The probability of me updating this is, if I have to throw out a number, around 5.
It had become apparent that it's physically impossible for me to write … at least for now. School is consuming too much of my time and whatever spare time I have, I work on the school paper. In addition, I'm also considering grad school. So I have practically no time during the school year to write (or doing anything else for that matter).
I usually try to write during school breaks. Since I'm leaving Christmas, it's highly unlikely for me to be able to write more during this break. Looking ahead, I'm likely to be away for spring break as well. Honestly, the soonest I can write it is during summer, a whole 4 months away and I'm not even that sure about that.
This is quite distressing for me since this isn't about writers block. I have a clear idea of where this is going and who's going to be in this (Including appearance of: Baily, the golden retriever that is neither golden nor does he "retrieves;" Jacob, the grad school graduate that calls himself a "novelist," but really he's unsure what he wants to do, there's also a car accident …) It's all about lacking the time necessary to transcribe these thoughts into written form. (There are 2 people who knows the entire storyline and can vouch for me.)
So I am profusely sorry about this. But hey, for a story that started out as a one-shot, I'm still amazed by how much it dragged on. 16 chapters!! Wow! And I'm equally amazed by your support and reviews. Without you, I probably would have give up a lot sooner. So a big shout out to ya'll.
I know this sounds like a bombastic rant. But I think you deserve to know.
Once more, a heartfelt thank you to you all.