Chapter 5 / High Tea
Rory face showed some signs of tiredness - no wonder after a work day on second thought. Maybe the timing hadn't been perfect. Her hair, perhaps a few shades more auburn than he remembered - possibly dyed - came down just below her chin and he couldn't be sure but it seemed like she was a little rounder around the hips - but the fact that he had notices it was by no means a criticism. A burgundy cashmere turtleneck sweater showed from underneath her emerald coat. She'd always looked great in those colors and she had that classiness about her that she'd always had - Logan thought.
"My meeting ran late," Rory said just as Logan was about to open his mouth to ask whether he'd been late leaving. Maybe she'd been just hoping to go home to Emma, but was unable to leave because he was there until 5.30, but her message explained things.
Logan looked older too - the lines on his face having grown a lot deeper, especially in the corners of his eyes. He didn't shave every day these days, but didn't really aim for a beard either. His hair held definitely more silver, even if the rather short cut barely showed it.
"Good," Logan exhaled from relief.
"Good?" Rory asked, a slight snort in her tone, crooking her eyebrow.
"Just…," Logan began to explain that essentially he'd just meant that she had not not shown up.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," Rory replied, relenting. "And I am sorry I made you wait. And - hi," she added a small smile creeping onto her lips.
"Hi," Logan exhaled. "And it's fine… I was just nervous you wouldn't show, you know," Logan replied, sensing how her almost unexpectedly soft approach began to untangle the ball of nerves in his stomach.
"Well, here I am. And it is good to see you," Rory said, and did something Logan truly hadn't expected from their first meeting after five years considering how cold and calculated the last time had been.
She stepped close and hugged him - no, not like a lover would, but indeed like old friends might, and added a little cheek kiss, much like a la bise, which was definitely an odd combination coming from the Rory Logan had last known.
"You too," Logan replied, his side of the hug definitely being a little more awkward than hers. It almost didn't look, feel or sound like the over-thinking, cautious with expressing her feelings and self-conscious Rory he'd last known.
"So let's talk..," Rory said decisively as the hug broke and she'd taken a deep breath.
Logan wanted to say that she looked good. He could see that spark in Rory that he'd missed the past few years he had seen her, but he didn't want her to think he was focused on the wrong thing, nor to rub it into her face that she'd had a rough time in the past.
"Yeah - anywhere we could go close by?" Logan asked, realizing that he could've used that time to scout the area out on a map while he'd grilled himself while waiting.
"Like a cafe or a bar?" Rory asked.
"Whichever you like," Logan said, trying to read her, but he wasn't exactly sure what he was seeing. Was she seriously fine seeing him? Was it what he'd promised in his e-mail? Or was this just a very good poker face?
"There's a bakery just a block that way, it tends to be quieter in the evenings than the student bars," Rory suggested, gesturing down the street.
Logan nodded and followed her, studying each of her impressions - like the way she looked down just briefly and then up - so many of her mannerisms, he'd almost forgotten, coming back to him.
"Um, could I please have some of that Hibiscus tea, what was it - orange flower or something…," Rory ordered from the counter, wanting to get the ordering over and done with so they'd have some time uninterrupted. She was nervous too, though she tried not to show it.
"Blood orange hibiscus," the waiter said, helping her.
"Yeah, that's the one," Rory replied, smilingly. "And one of those tiramisus too, please," she added, and continued to pay for her order.
Logan for one struggled to hold his laughter, for the life of him he couldn't remember a time when Rory had ordered anything but coffee or hot chocolate in a place like this. He also knew that against his instincts he was under no circumstances to offer to treat her, not when he was trying to focus on Emma and Emma alone. Rory had made that very clear to him during those few times they had seen each other since New Hampshire - they no longer had that type of a relationship.
The entire time Rory looked for her wallet and paid for her order she kept expecting him to do those two things - offer to pay for her and comment on her drinking tea. She wasn't doing the latter on purpose, but technically had she wanted to avoid that comment she could've opted for a decaf. It wasn't either of those things she was after though, they were just bitter-sweet memories. Still, it was weird he was this withheld, wasn't it? Maybe he did have something major to tell her? Organ transplants requests didn't apply to 5-years-olds, did they? - She pondered, trying to think of reasons why he was there beyond the obvious.
It was because of her dad's words - "What's the worst that can happen by hearing him out?" - she'd been this calm until now.
"Can I just get the same tea she's having and um… that's it," Logan said, looking quickly over the pastry display. But honestly, he wasn't hungry.
Rory gestured towards the table she was heading to, going a few steps ahead of him, but overall it looked like she knew the place well.
The place wasn't fancy - a simple cafe with an white tile and black industrial details - its prices, however, exceeded perhaps those of the most typical student place.
They settled for a place in the far corner. The stereo played the instrumental La Valse d'Amélie, sad but very illustrative of life moving on despite it all, as they sat down.
"Can I just say that you look well," Logan went for a variation instead of saying she looked good.
"So do you," Rory replied.
Her eyes studied him - a man no doubt well off as the quality materials that he wore showed now what he took off his coat and placed it on the chair back next to them. He looked fit, perhaps even a little skinnier. Rory found herself wanting to know everything about how he was, despite that having not really been the plan. The plan had been to come here, looking fabulous, which she had put some effort into, showing him how well she was - and that was not a facade except for the underlying tiredness after the working day - but either way she didn't want to demonstrate her weaknesses and just hear him out. She didn't hate him, she wasn't outright terrified of seeing him, but she was apprehensive.
But it was then Rory's eyes momentarily landed on his fingers that he'd comfortably interlinked on top of the table. There was that brushed golded ring, still on his ring finger. Rory wasn't really sure why because that glance had happened so unconsciously but that realization made her pull back on the bubbly character she was showing.
"So how have you been?" Logan asked, watching Rory scoop up a spoonful of Tiramisu, trying to distract herself. She could still make something as simple as consuming food so sexy. But he cautioned himself yet again not to think about her like that.
"Pretty good. We're good - healthy and happy," she replied, meaning healthy both physically and mentally. She'd had a rough few years but eventually it had been her daughter and professional help that had pulled her out of the worst of it - thinking about what kind of role model she wanted to be, even if that took some settling and lowering of one's expectations, had helped.
"That's great," Logan replied, keeping up the small-talk for a little while.
Their teas were brought to the table, their preparation having taken a minute and they both thanked the waiter courteously.
"And you?" Rory asked. "Still married, I see?" Rory asked and drifted her eyes towards his hands as an explanation for her question, but scolded herself internally.
"Ah, this…," Logan said, suddenly realizing there was indeed a ring on his finger. "Well, technically 'no'. Odette… she…She actually passed away a few months ago," Logan admitted, his voice growing a little fragile. Frankly, he'd forgotten he was still wearing it.
It actually looked like he was still mourning, kind of, and Rory honestly was rather angry at herself for stepping onto a land mine that painful right off the bat.
"I'm so sorry," Rory replied.
She hadn't been oblivious to the fact that Logan hadn't been completely indifferent to Odette. While they'd had an open relationship for a large chunck of their earlier relationship, Rory could tell there had been more to it than just a platonic marriage. The little they'd talked about her he'd mostly just referred to her in a way that he cared about her, that she was easy to talk to and that she wanted him, all of him. The latter was thrown at Rory as an accusation at that historic, painful, moment, in the heat of an argument. But he'd had every right to say that. It was true. Rory may have loved him, loved him for years, but there were parts of Logan she hadn't really wanted, ever - she had never acutally wanted to be his wife, not with all the family ties, the expectations and the strings attached to all of it.
"Yeah, I am too," Logan sighed.
Maybe they had indeed learned to love beyond caring about each other? And despite feeling a tinge of envy in her gut, Rory was actually happy he had. She allowed herself to now assumed that marriage had included some moments of happiness and that was good - Logan deserved happiness.
"She had been sick for a while, so it wasn't sudden. Ovarian cancer…So yeah, " Logan felt he should explain a little.
"That's rough," Rory commented, unsure what else to say.
"Hey, I was just thinking earlier about what is it you do over here," Logan said, gesturing towards the building from where they'd just walked over a few minutes ago. "I mean this place certainly suits you," he added, hoping this would be seen as a compliment.
Rory was just taking a sip of her tea. Even the latter was an odd sight for Logan. But at that question she coughed, the question having caught her off guard.
"Well I'm at the English Department here, and basically what I am is a… research assistant," Rory confessed, hesitantly. She'd fought internally pretty long and hard to get over Logan's father's once-spoken words to not see this as a sign of failure. She now knew it wasn't.
"Oh, right," Logan commented and nodded, and took a sip as well.
"It's nothing fancy, but the pay is okay. I have summers off to spend with Em and it's kind of fun to help out with research. Sometimes there's writing, editing, lecture preparations even," Rory confessed, hating how the self-consciousness was slipping back into her mind telling him this. Logan had always been the one to push her and support her at her loft endeavors. And somehow saying that she was an assistant felt like disappointing him, even if she didn't felt that telling it to anyone else these days. She took pride in her work, she was good at it. She got to work with interesting intellectuals and be surrounded by books all day - it was just not what she had planned her whole life.
"Hey, as long as you like it and you're happy doing it, I think it sounds right up your alley," Logan said, oblivious to how much she was overthinking this. He barely remembered that whole internship thing with his father. She hadn't brought it up since 2005, nor had he.
"You're still at the company?" Rory asked in return.
"Actually I'm taking a bit of a sabbatical, Honor's actually in London these days handling the majority of things. She's actually pretty good at it, it's tempting to just leave her at it," Logan replied, humorously. He still had some things, that he dealt with, but just the pace was a lot less and mostly it just involved delegation of everything that still landed in his mailbox.
"Well Honor definitely has that fierceness about her," Rory commented, a moment from three years ago in the Central Park Zoo coming to mind, when she'd seen Honor with her own kids and exchanged a few words with her, the entire time being scared out of the mind Honor might ask about Em, at the time snugly tucked into her stroller, fast asleep, and somehow figure things out. She hadn't.
"Yeah, she does," Logan agreed.
For nearly half a minute there was silence, the two just sipping their teas.
"So…what brings you here?" Rory felt she needed to rip the band-aid off.
"I guess these past few years have made me think about what's really important," Logan began, adding, "but I know that sounds lame. But, I guess, I am here to ask whether in the present day there would be any scenario in which I would have a chance to get to know Emma," Logan confessed hesitantly.
"So what's changed? Besides Odette…," Rory asked, needing to understand where he was coming from.
"Look, I know I don't have any right asking for this. But I just thought that maybe with all those e-mail you'd at least be kind of receptive to me putting the question out there. I mean I know I have no rights in this, and I don't intend to start looking for any loopholes or contest what we signed. I just had to ask... Things have calmed down - dad's retired, mom passed three years ago. I'm not working as much…," Logan began to explain.
"I'm sorry...," Rory said, feeling it was appropriate to say about his mother as well, despite knowing there had hardly been much authentic love between the two.
Logan nodded, but much rather wanted to hear what she had to say in response about everything else he'd just said.
Rory took another sip of her tea, giving herself a moment to think.
"Were you going to tell me you already saw her yesterday?" Rory asked. That still stung. What if he'd just gone up to her and announced to being her father? It would've been way more difficult to claim he wasn't her father or ignore his wishes then, wouldn't it? Em was not 2, she was 5, she had her will and her questions, and she was eager to ask them. She only had hope from the past that they had that much respect for each other that he wouldn't do that, but at the same time she knew he was the kind of guy who didn't accept 'no' until he'd exhausted all of his options. She couldn't be sure something like that wouldn't be one of those options.
"I wasn't sure whether Christopher talked to you. I mean - eventually, yes, I was.., but I never planned on it happening in the first place. I sort of just happened to pass the field and recognized it and the uniforms from the picture and I just felt like I couldn't just drive past. And then your dad shows up, we talk and ten minutes later he's introducing her to me. I mean, how could I say 'no' to that?" Logan explained, sounding at least a little apologetic. "And I am sorry, I didn't talk to you first. But this is me talking to you. If you tell me to stay away… I will," Logan promised, raising his hands as if giving up. He was always so damn good with his arguments.
"Where's the guy who would exhaust all of his options if he really wanted something?" Rory asked.
Logan chuckled, quietly, recognizing the reporter in her with natural wittiness about her.
"Honestly - I see a lot fewer reasons why you should say 'no' to me compared to back then," Logan said, hoping for her rational thinking. "I don't want to fight you. I don't want to complicate anyone's life… I just want to get to know her," Logan said.
The truth was that Logan was lonely too. Odette's disease had been a long time coming and as a result, beyond his old buddies, he'd isolated himself from a lot of people. He could even say that he looked for a reason to get up in the morning, even if in his grief and regret he was, despite all of it, a highly functioning human being.
"You know, getting to know a five-year-old doesn't just mean meeting her, right? It's spending time with her, lots and lots time, regularly, doing ordinary and sometimes boring, inconvenient and loud things. It's not just tea parties and zoo visits, you know that right?" Rory asked.
"I do know that. I have experience with 5-years-olds. With Honor's kids, believe it or not," Logan replied.
"Yeah, but how's that going to work if you're flying back to London in what, a week?" Rory said, his choice of words in his e-mail that he was in town for the week coming to mind.
"I told you, I'm on a sabbatical. I'm around for longer than that, I've just kept my plans loose. I'm just going to meet Finn in the city during the weekend and then see…," Logan explained.
"See what?" Rory asked.
"If I have reason to stick around…," Logan added, his sentence definitely holding some deeper meaning directed to her and Emma.
"But what about after your holiday is up?" Rory said, looking at the big picture. "This isn't just some degree program into parenthood. I don't want her to get used to seeing you for a few months and then lose you again? She might not realize she's lost anything at this point but she definitely will if that happens," Rory said, putting her little girl's best interest first.
Logan repositioned himself in his chair, taking a little bit more defensive position than before.
"Well I wasn't going to cut off all the ties I have to London before I knew you were even going to see me, was I?" Logan replied.