CHAPTER 4 - Cat got your Tongue?

GILMORE HOUSE

"MOM!" Rory yelled up the stairwell

"What Ror?"

"Do you have my silver charm bracelet? I've been looking for it everywhere and I can't find it."

"Well...umm...that would be... because it's on my wrist."

"MOM!"

"What? It matched my outfit, and I was thinking that EMILY would just love it! Especially when it jingles together and makes a lot of noise, which will cause her to forget what she's talking about because she is too busy yelling at me." Lorelei replied as she made her way down the stairs.

"MOM!"

"Okay, okay. You can wear it." she said as she took it off her wrist. It was Friday night, which means Friday Night Dinners. Emily had called to remind them, as she does every Friday, but today she seemed particularly excited. "Why, I don't know" Lorelei thought to herself when she hung up the phone earlier that day. "Can't wait to find out." she said sarcastically.

The drive to Hartford was uncomfortably quiet. "Something is up with Rory. She hasn't said anything the whole ride over." Lorelei thought to herself. But she decided to keep her observation to herself and not bombard Rory with questions, she would tell her whatever it is that was bothering her when she was ready. For the time-being all Lorelei could do was wait.

"Lorelei, come in," Emily said as she opened the door, before Lorelei could even stick out her finger to ring the doorbell, "hello Rory, how nice it is to see you. Come in, come in."

"Gee mom, you seem happy."

"Oh I am! Your father got home from his business trip today. He brought home some souvenirs."

"Oh goody! That's just swell!" Lorelei said with a wide grin on her face, "Rory, isn't that swell?"

"Yes ma'am!" Rory answered, growing a bit perkier.

"Oh stop it! Now come into the living room, I'll get you some drinks." As Emily led the girls to the living room Lorelei and Rory exchanged glances, and not to mention, funny faces. Just as Emily turned around she caught Rory sticking her tongue out at Lorelei, looking as if she had just swallowed a lemon.

"Why Rory! What is wrong?" As Lorelei burst out laughing, Rory tried to contain herself.

"Oh nothing Grandma, I -umm- I bit my tongue."

"Do you want ice?"

"No, just a cup of water would be fine." Emily hurried off to the kitchen to get her some water; Richard came out of his office.

"Girls, I didn't know you were here, I didn't hear the bell.'

"Well that's because your crrraazzyy wife was waiting at the window for us and opened the door even before we got to the steps." Lorelei answered with a laugh.

"A bit anxious, isn't she?" Richard said as he fixed a drink for Lorelei.

"I'd say." Rory added.

"Why is she so giddy?" Lorelei asked. "ohhh! Does it have anything to do with the souvenirs you bought us?"

"Well, no, not exactly," Richard handed Lorelei her drink, "she'll probably want to be the one to tell you, but-" he looked around before continuing, "We bought a house."

Lorelei spat our her drink. "YOU'RE MOVING?"

"Lorelei, please control yourself," Richard looked at Lorelei with a disgusted face, "RUBY! RUBY, PLEASE COME IN THE LIVING ROOM AND CLEAN THIS UP!" As the maid strolled into the living room, Emily did too.

"What happened?" she asked, Rory's water in hand.

"Well, I hear you're moving." Lorelei answered with a very confused look on her face.

"RICHARD! I wanted to tell them!" Emily whined, as if she were six years old again.

"I'm sorry. They wanted to know why you were so bubbly and I couldn't keep it in any longer." he replied as he looked at Emily, then turning his glance toward Lorelei, he said, "No Lorelei, we are not moving, we-

"WE BOUGHT A MOUNTAIN HOUSE!" Emily finished, bursting with excitement.

"That's great!" Rory said, throwing a quizzical look toward Lorelei.

"Where?" Lorelei asked.

"In Vermont. It is the cutest thing, right on the slopes of a ski resort, so as you eat breakfast you can literally watch the skiers fly down the mountain, right outside your window!"

"But mom, you hate the snow." Lorelei's comment was ignored and Richard led everyone to the dinner table, where they continued to discuss their new investment.

CHILTON

"Hey Ror." Grace said as she entered the cafeteria on Monday. Rory and Grace were getting to be very close friends, very fast.

"Hey."

"I am so excited for summer break."

"Isn't everyone?" Rory replied, without looking up. When she didn't hear a quick response she looked up to find Grace's face with an "ASK ME WHY" expression on it. "And why are you so excited?" Rory finished.

"Well, so glad you asked," she said with a plastic smile, "no actually, because Tristan is coming home!" Rory jumped at the sound of his name. You would think his name would come up a lot, on account that Grace was his sister and all, but he really didn't come up all that much.

"That's good, I'm glad." Rory tried to answer nonchalantly.

"Yeah, it'll be fun. And you'll have to come up to our ski house sometime, we usually go up there for the end of June through to July 4th." Rory suddenly caught herself in a daydream of her and Tristan sitting and laughing on the ski-lift. She also thought about where THEIR mountain house was, in relation to her newly bought grandparents' house.

"Sure, yeah." She said with a pained look on her face. 'What would it be like, to see him in his house? What would I say when I first saw him?' Rory thought to herself.

"So, anymore prom plans planned?" Grace asked, spitting out the tongue twister. Rory started to laugh and Grace found herself dumfounded. "What?" she asked, wanting to be let inside on the joke.

"Well it's just that-" through gasps of breath she managed to get out- "Brad spotted me at my locker today, and I could see him out of the corner of my eye. He was in the classroom across the hall and as he started to rush out of the room to me, he-he-" she couldn't do it, she burst into hysterics.

"HE WHAT?" Grace nearly screamed.

After about five minutes of straight laughing, Rory gathered enough composure to finish her story. "he tripped over a chair. I felt so bad, but I took it as my chance to escape and I took off down the hall." Grace started cracking up. As both girls sat at the table laughing uncontrollably, Paris slid up next to them.

"What's so funny?"

"Oh nothing."

"FINE! Don't tell me!" and just as quickly as she had come, Paris was gone.

"God, she should just get over herself and take a Midol or something." Grace said, with a big smirk on her face. 'A smirk like Tristan's,' Rory found herself thinking.

"It won't help. When you have PMS 24/7, I don't think anything helps." Both girls started laughing again. Once they regained some composure, they moved on to other topics of discussion.

"So I was thinking, do you want to sleepover on Thursday? I mean, we only have 2 days of school this week, so I thought it would be fun to hang out." Grace asked.

"Me? In the DuGrey mansion? I'm not so sure." Rory said with a big smile on her face.

"Aw come on! It'll be fun."

"Sure, I'll call you tonight about it, to let you know if I can."

"Okay," Grace answered as she looked down at her watch, "Whoops, I have to go, I was supposed to meet Todd at his locker."

"I'll talk to you later." When Grace was gone, Rory found herself wondering what the DuGrey house looked like. 'How weird would it be so be walking around Tristan's house!' While part of her wasn't so sure, another part was extremely excited.

The rest of the school day seemed to fly by. While she wasn't taking taking notes, Rory found herself daydreaming about Tristan yet again. "This can't be good," she thought. Daydreaming about a guy who you haven't seen in almost two years, who also just happens to be your best friend's brother. This ought to be interesting!

DuGrey House

"-and then she just stormed away because we wouldn't tell her what we were laughing about." Grace had been on the phone with Tristan for a little over an hour that night. And had brought up Rory's name exactly 7 times. And each of those seven times, she noticed that Tristan would quickly try to steer the conversation elsewhere. She could feel that amount of discomfort the name caused him. HE DEFINITLEY STILL LIKES HER! She found herself saying every time. "Good it's all going according to plan." she said to herself.

Just as she began to tell another "Rory" anecdote, there was a beep on the phone.

"Umm, can you hold on Tris, there's another call."

"Yeah sure, actually you can take you're time, I have to go to the mailroom real quick. It should take like 5 minutes, but I'll leave the phone off the hook for when I come back."

"Ok." When she heard this a smile formed on her lips. She knew what she had to do.

"Hello?" Grace asked into the phone, even though she knew who it was.

"Hey Grace, it's Rory."

"oh, hey. I just got off the phone with Tristan...What's goin' on?"

"Nothin really. I called to tell you that Thursday is a go!" She said with a laugh.

"good! It'll be fun. I'll get my mom to buy lots of junk food! We can even make smores," Grace laughed, "like the real third graders we are."

"YIPPEE!"

"Yeah, Tristan taught me to melt the chocolate before you put it on the smore, AND THEN put chocolate ice cream on it. It's SO GOOD!" Rory's heart lurched, once again.

"T-Tristan?"

"yeah."

"That's cool. It sounds like something he would do," Rory was stalling, "so, how is he doing, ya know, at military school. I mean I know he's been there a while, I-I- just never really got a chance to ask before-"

Grace laughed. Her brilliant plan was working, Mwa ha ha!

"He's doing good. I talk to him about three times a week,"

"oh yeah?" This was getting easier, Rory thought.

"Yeah, we even talk about you sometimes." Suddenly things got a whole lot more complicated in Rory's world. 'what do they say? what does HE say?'

"Well I hope you're not trashing me," she said, trying to play it off as a joke. But anyone in their right mind could tell Rory was not joking what-so-ever.

"Don't worry, it's good." Grace could feel Rory's uneasiness. She wanted to spill her guts at that point, tell her that Tristan was MADLY in love with her, and if she would just quit denying it and call him, everyone would be happy. But she didn't, she wasn't going to let anything slip, she had a plan to stick to, in the end they would both be thanking her.

"I hope," Rory said with a sigh, "I mean, I don't really care, but-" She tried not to sound needy, she didn't need Tristan. Plus Grace didn't know that she was madly in love with her brother, and she didn't intend on telling her.

"Okay, well I got to go," Grace said. "I'm glad you're coming on Thursday. I'll see you tomorrow." And with a click, Grace hung up. She hung up knowing that instead of pressing flash when Rory called, she pressed three way. She hung up knowing that Tristan had just heard every word in their conversation. She hung up knowing, that in about two hours, Tristan would give in and finally give Rory Gilmore a call.

Rory noticed that after Grace had hung up, she heard someone let out a deep breath. It sounded as if that person had been holding their breath for a long time, afraid that if they breathed, they might miss something.

Now Rory felt very uneasy. Who could have been listening to their call? Suddenly she got very dizzy, "Right when she got on the phone, Grace had mentioned she was just talking to Tristan." she thought to herself. How could I have been so stupid? The fact that she was talking to Tristan before, had nothing to do with her. And now it all made perfect sense. GRACE WAS SETTING HER UP! She knew it involved Tristan, and that alone made her not angry with Grace, but almost thankful. She was still very confused about what was going on, and had no REAL way of knowing if Tristan was the one listening in on the call, but part of her hoped. Hoped that HE had heard every word she said and hoped that he knew exactly how she was feeling while she said them.