And I'm back! Thanks for the reviews, you people make me smile all day long!
Like I promised, this chapter will mainly be about Richard and Suzannah. My beta and I agreed that this chapter somehow fits perfectly in, but somehow doesn't. Confused? Don't worry, just enjoy your reading. For those of you who are longing for the big "Emily-Lorelai"discussion, it will come in the next chapter, that will be posted sometime next week, if I can manage to keep my homework under control.
Here's the chapter, please read and review!
It's a cruel world by Ane Berentsen
"Emily, could you come and get Suzannah, please?" Richard called from his study. He had two of his colleagues over for an emergency meeting, and as much as he wanted to, this was not the time to play with a four yearl old. Emily came rushing through the hallway to get her.
"There you are. I told you not to disturb Daddy right now," she said with a smile on her face as Richard handed her Suzannah. Once she had her child safely placed on her hip she turned towards the two men in the chairs in front of Richard's desk. "I hope she hasn't caused any trouble."
"Not at all," It was Floyd, Richard's colleague. Emily had never really liked that man, and she certainly didn't like the way he looked at her daughter; as if she was some kind of vermin who should be removed imidiately. As Emily brought her youngest daughter with her out of the room, she admitted to herself that she somehow liked it when the child interupted her father's business meetings like this. She wasn't sure why she felt that way, maybe because the little girl twirled through the room like a summer breeze and brushed of the dust from the business men's old grey suits. Maybe because it gave her an excuse to come into their private little world for a moment, without making her any less of a good wife. Or maybe it was simply because she could see how much Richard liked it when he could look up from the papers for a moment and concentrate on something more cheerful. Emily's thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing. She put Suzannah down and went to answer it.
In Richard's study the atmosphere was quite tense.
"So, you see, Richard, if we let McLane's new company get this contract, it will be the first nail in the coffin for the Gilmore Group!" Floyd sounded upset. Richard couldn't blame him.
"Why did Simon ever have to start his own company, anyway? He's too old for that kind of stuff," Richard still couldn't stand being in the same room with Simon McLane, not after what had happened between him and Emily during Richard and Emily's seperation. Now McLane had started an insurance company of his own, and was desperate to get it up and running.
"I'm telling you, we'd better put all our forces on for this one," Floyd continued. "Don't plan on anything special this weekend, we must put all other things aside!
When the meeting was over about an hour later, Richard followed his colleagues to the door before he went to the living room, where Suzannah was drawing and Emily was reading. When she saw her husband, she got up. Richard could see that she was excited about something.
"Richard, that was Vivian on the phone earlier. She and some of the girls are going to a spa resort this weekend, they won a weekend-stay there, and they asked if I came with them. Do you think you two can manage alone for a few days?" Emily asked. He could tell from the look in her eyes that she really wanted him to say yes. He sat down on the couch and ruffled Suzannah's hair before he answered.
"This weekend? Emily, I don't know, I have to work a lot the next couple of days..." he tried meekly. Emily's expression became dissapointed.
"Oh, all right. I'll phone her and tell her I can't make it," Emily turned and was about to leave the room.
"No, wait." Richard got up. "I guess...I can probably work from home quite a bit. Suzannah's a big girl now, she can manage to be quiet and entertain herself for a while, can't you, princess?" The girl nodded, without looking up from her drawings.
"Are you sure?" Emily asked. She was grateful for the gesture, but she had to make sure Suzannah would be all right.
"Yes, I'm sure..." Richard leaned forwards and gave his wife a kiss. This caused Suzannah to turn away while making sounds as if she was about to throw up. "If there is any kind of trouble, I'll call Lorelai and ask for help."
"Thank you, Richard." Emily seemed relieved. "I'll go pack right now." She blew him a kiss as she left the room. Richard smiled at her.
"I don't see why you need a spa vacationthough, it can't possibly make you any more beautiful than you already are!" he called after her. He could hear her laugh as she went up the stairs. Then he turned to Suzannah again and shook his head.
"Oh my, how are we going to manage this?" he asked rhetoricaly. The girl shrugged.
It was getting late and Luke had already gone to bed, he had to get up early in the morning to get his deliveries to the diner. Lorelai and Rory however, had parked themselves in front of the TV to see "King Kong". The coffee table was filled with cookie dough, marshmellows and other kinds of junk food that would have made Luke call the funeral agency right away if he had seen it. Just as Lorelai pushed the "Play"-button on the remote, the phone started ringing. Both the girls sighed at the same time. Lorelai got up.
"I'll get it," she said as she stretched over the table to reach the phone. "Hello, this is Lorelai speaking?"
"Lorelai...it's me." It was Richard, and he didn't sound too good. Lorelai remembered that he had Suzannah to himself this weekend, and she became worried.
"Dad, hi, why are you calling this late? Is there something wrong?" she asked.
"Yes, there is something terribly wrong. You should come over right now." All though the words were dramatic, Richard's voice was very calm.
"OK, me and Rory will be there in a flash. What's going on, Dad? Is it Suzy?" Lorelai asked while she gestured to Rory as though to say "We have to hurry!" Rory turned the TV off and went into the hallway to get the jackets.
"Suzannah is fine, Lorelai, don't worry about her. I will explain it all when you get here," Richard said and took and deep breath before he continued. "Please hurry."
"Will do, Dad," Lorelai finished before she hung up and ran after Rory out the front door.
"There goes our movie-night," she said while trying to catch her breath. Rory nodded.
"Ah well. Do you think we should leave Luke a note or something?" she asked as she opened the door to the car.
"Nah, that's alright. He knows how to reach me, I have my cellphone," Lorelai answered as she got into the driver's seat. Rory sat down next to her.
"What did Granpa say, exactly?" she asked as Lorelai started the car.
"He didn't say all that much. He said that there was something terribly wrong, but Suzy is alright, so we shouldn't worry about her. And he said to hurry," Lorelai explained.
"Weird...I hope it's nothing too bad," Rory mumbled.
When they arrived in Hartford around 30 minutes later, they didn't even have the time to knock before Richard opened the door. He wasn't dressed as neatly as usual, he wasn't wearing a jacket or a west, his tie wasn't tied, and his whole apperance was a bit sloppy.
"You're here, good," he said as he let them in. The expression on his face was sad, but somwhow in a solemn way. This made Lorelai even more nervous than she already was.
"So, your call really scared us...Would you mind telling us why we're here?" she asked as the three of them went into the livingroom. She tried to make it sound as if she wasn't worried at all, but she didn't succed.
"Is it Grandma?" Rory asked. The fright was obvious in her voice. "Has something happened to Grandma?" Richard sat down on the couch and signaled that the girls should sit down as well. When they had done so, he cleared his throat and began to speak.
"Today, I've discovered that the woman I love has been lieing to me..." he looked up and into Lorelai and Rory's confused faces before he continued. "I am not Suzannah's biological father."
The silence that occured after he had said this was so quiet that one could have heard a pin hit the floor. It lasted for a few seconds, then Lorelai rewon her ability to speak.
"What do you mean, dad?" she asked. "That can't be true, can it?"
"I'm afraid so..." Richard answered. "I found out earlier today. Do you remember a man named Simon McLane?" Rory shook her head, but Lorelai tried to dig out something from the back of her memory.
"McLane, it does sound familiar...Wait, wasn't that that guy Mum...dated, or whatever, when you two were seperated? What about him?" Lorelai couldn't see what her father was saying.
"He is her real father, not me." Richard tried to keep a straight face, but it wasn't hard to tell that it hurt him very much to let the words out of his mouth. "He came over earlier today, we had agreed to have a meeting, about this contract that we're both out to get. While he was here, Suzannah came in to ask me to tie her shoe-laces..." Richard's voice was getting thinner and thinner with every word he spoke. He had to hawk before he could continue. " When she had left, he said "I hope you know you can thank me for that beautiful child!" I didn't know what to do, so I just sat there quietly while he told me how he and Emily had agreed to keep it a secret, at least for a while, until things were better between me and her. Apparently, he thought she had waited long enough..." he finished.
Rory and Lorelai looked at each other before they looked back at Richard. It was Rory who broke the silence this time.
"I still don't understand. Are you saying Grandma has been cheating on you?" she asked in a faltering voice. Richard shook his head.
"No, it's not that terrible. It seems like Suzannah was concieved before me and your grandmother got back together," he explained. Lorelai felt as if it was her turn to talk.
"You're still my dad, right?" she knew it was an incredibly stupid question, but it was the only thing she could think of.
"Of course, Lorelai, I'm both yours and Suzannah's father and I always will be. Biological facts can not change that," he assured her and tried to smile. Then he became serious again. "The reason why I told you to come her as fast as you could was that...I realized today that every day, every hour, every minute you keep the truth from someone, is one too much." He leaned back and stared up in the ceiling. " I just wish Emily could have realized that too."
"Have you called her and asked if she has any explanation to this?" Rory asked in an incredulous way. Richard shook his head again.
"I have nothing to say to that woman. In fact, I think I need sometime to myself right now. Do you have any more questions?" Rory and Lorelai both had a ton of questions, but they realized that this wasn't the time to ask them.
When they were back in the car, Lorelai allowed her anger to show.
"I can't believe her! To do something like that, it's just...too cruel. Both to Dad and Suzy!" she exclaimed and took her frustration out on the steering wheel by hitting it. It hurted her hand more than it hurted the car. "Ouch!" She rubbed her hand against her thigh.
"We should have noticed it before. I mean, blond hair? None of us ever had that!" She looked at Rory. "I feel a bit mean right now."
"Why, because you taught Grandma how to date?" Rory mumbled
"No, not that, but thanks for reminding me!" Lorelai said sarcasticly. "No, I meant...I've always been kind of jealous of what Suzy has..you know...with my parents that I never had. Now it turns out it was all based on a lie."
"I still can't believe it's true. Why would Grandma do such a thing?" Rory seemed petulant.
"Well, I guess telling your husband that you're pregnant when you're 53 is hard enough. To add "And by the way, it's not even your baby" can't be esay." Between other people this would have seemed like a morbid joke, but Rory knew her mother well enough to know that this was her way of dealing with what they had been told.
"Guess not," she said dryly.
When the girls had left, Richard was alone with his thoughts, and they weren't a pleasant company. He went over to the drink cart and was about to pour himself a drink, but once he had picked up the glass, he felt the sudden need to throw it as far away as possible with all the energy he could gather up. As he saw the glass lie on the floor, shattered into a thousand pieces, he listened to hear if the sound had woken up Suzannah. He couldn't hear anything, but decided to check on her anyway.
When he stood next to her bed a minute later, he could see that she was still asleep. He ran his fingers through her hair and then over her cheek. He loved admiring her like this, just watching her while she played, or slept like now. Normally he would do this to make sure that he didn't miss a thing about her, like he had missed so much of Lorelai when she was a child. Today, however, he scrutinized her for a different reason; to see if he could detect something of Simon McLane in her face. After having studied her for quite a while, he concluded that there was nothing different about her this evening, she was still the same little girl she always had been.
He rememberd the first time he had seen her, he was the first person ever to hold her and talk to her. Even back then she had relaxed once she had heard his voice, she could cry for hours and still would be silent as soon as he picked her up. This became such a normality that Emily nicknamed him "the pacifier". Oh, yes, Emily. He shook his head as if that would help getting her out of there. He didn't want to think of her now.
He turned around and saw Suzannah's dollhouse on the floor. It used to be Lorelai's, but it looked as if it was brand new. Lorelai had never been allowed to play roughly with it, and Suzannah was much too careful to destroy anything. He rememberd the day they had given it to her. It was her fourth birthday, Lorelai and Luke had been there, and Emily had arranged a treasure hunt for the enourmous gift. When Suzannah finally found it hidden under a sheet in the kitchen, she just gasped and couldn't move for quite a few seconds, before she began playing with it in a careful, almost solemn way. Lorelai had laughed and pointed out that that was the way they had wanted her to react when she got it. Back then he hadn't really thought much about it, but he now realized that there had been a somewhat hurt, perhaps even envious undertone in what Lorelai had said. What a nuisance, when Suzannah was old enough to understand what he had discovered today, it would be her who envied Lorelai instead...
He decided to try and get some sleep, even though he doubted he could. As he left the room, he knocked the door against the wall a bit too hard, and Suzannah woke up. She sat up and made a short squeaking sound. He hurried over to her bed.
"It's all right, princess, you just go back to sleep," he said in a soft voice and tucked her in. Suzannah looked up at him for a second before she closed her eyes.
"I love you, daddy..." she mumbled before she turned her head and seemed to be sleeping again. Richard remained by her bed for a few seconds, then he leaned forewards and kissed her forehead gently.
"I love you to, cherie..." he whispered. At that moment, he knew that everything would be alright. He touched his wedding ring with his thumb as he left the room. Well, almost everything.
When Lorelai and Rory came home, it was too late to begin their movie night. Neither of them was in the mood to watch movies anyway. Rory went straight to bed, but Lorelai knew she wouldn't be able to sleep, so she stayed in the livingroom, stuffing marshmellows into her mouth.
When she had been sitting there for a while, feeling useless and rather saturated, she decided that she had to do something. She got up and went to get her phone. She dialed her mother's cell phone number, but she only got the asnwering machine. That figures she thought to herself. Why would she be up in the middle of the night? After hesitating for a second, she decided to leave a message. As she was speaking, she restlessly wandered around her livingroom.
"Hello, mother. It's me, Lorelai...Well, of course it's me, who else would call you this late and call you her mother? Not Suzy, that's for sure, because A) She doesn't know how to dial a number and B) It's way past her bedtime. So unless you have any more secrets, mother...Yeah, we know about your secret now...Dad's totally crushed. And you're not my favourite person at the moment. Guess that's not exactly big news, cause...you know. You rarely are, but still. Anyway, Dad doesn't want to call you, or talk to you but, I just thought maybe you could call him, or whatever. Do whatever you want, but please, mum, I'm begging you, try to fix this."
After having hung up, she took a deep breath.
"Now I feel better. I think I can get some sleep now," she told herself . She knew that it wasn't true, but decided to go to bed anyway.
The next morning, Richard sent Suzannah to a neigbour's house to play with a friend. He felt like spending the day on his own, so he settled on the couch in his robe. He was about to read the Washington Post for the third time when he heard someone opening the front door. Two seconds later, Emily walked briskly into the room.
"Richard, what is going on here? I woke up this morning to be scolded by my own daughter on my answering machine! She said you're not speaking to me? What is this?" she was clearly very upset. Richard got up slowly and stared deeply into her eyes.
"How dare you ask me that question?" he asked in a low, almost threatening voice. Emily looked at him as if she thought he had gone mad.
"Richard, I don't understand...," she began, but was interrupted by Richard's yell.
"I know, now, Emily! I know that you've been keeping the truth from me! I know I'm not Suzannah's father!" he hollered. Emily came over to him. He was shocked to see that she didn't seem shameful or sorry in any way.
"Who on earth has claimed that?" she asked in surprisingly calm voice.
"Simon McLane, of course. Her real father!" Richard was far from calm. Emily ran her hand over his shoulder, he was too confused by her reaction to ask her to stop it.
"Richard, this is pure nonsense. Simon McLane is not Suzannah's father, you are. I can assure you." She looked into his eyes. Richard didn't know what to do or say, but somehow he instantly knew that she was telling the truth. He sat back down on the couch and stared right ahead of himself. When Emily sat down next to him, he turned to her.
"Are you sure?" His voice was thinner now. Emily nodded.
"The only thing I ever did with Mr. McLane was to have dinner at a resturant. I know science has come a long way in our days, but I hope it will take a while before something as that can impregnate a woman," she said in a firm voice. Richard was extremely confused.
"But...but why would he say that?" he asked. Emily had to think.
"Didn't you tell me that you're up against him these days? Something about an important contract?" she asked suspiciously. Richard nodded.
"Yes. He was hoping to make this the foundation for his new company..." he confirmed. " But what does that have to do with this?"
"Richard, think about it. If Lorelai hadn't phoned me, I would still have been at the spa. I was hard to reach, so we were lucky that she managed to get through. You would have remained on this couch, wallowing in your pity, until I got back on Monday. You wouldn't have managed to do any work at all. Without you, your team doesn't stand a chance at stealing this contract from McLane, it would have been ten times easier for him to get what he wanted." Emily was quite proud of herself for having figured this out. Richard was still confused.
"How did he know you would be gone for the weekend?" he asked. Emily frowned.
"You have a point, he couldn't know that...Unless...He might have had something to do with this mysterious lottery we won the spa stay from. None of the girls could remember having bought a ticket," Emily was thinking out loud.
"That bastard!" Richard got up. He radiated anger. "I just feeling like tracking him down and give him a good beating!"
"And you will," Emily said calmly as she got up as well. "But not the way you're thinking of. You will get dressed, go to the office and make sure you win that contract."
Richard needed a little time to think it over before he realized that his wife had made the perfect suggestion.
"You're right!" he said and hurried out of the room. When he reached the door, he rememberd something and turned.
"What about Suzannah? She's at the Robertsons..." he asked in a faltering voice.
"Don't worry, I'll stay at home. You just have to get going!" Emily seemed determined. Richard got halfway to the stairs before he remeberd something else.
"Oh, and Emily?" he said as he came back to the door. "I'm so sorry I suspected you of lying to me. I really am."
"So am I, but we'll have that discussion later. Now, hurry up!" she almost yelled. Richard nearly ran upstairs.
A few days later, the whole Gilmore clan was gathered for a dinner at the elder Gilmore's residence. Suzannah had already gone to bed, and Richard was proudly telling the story of his latest work achievement.
"...and you should have seen McLane's face! It should have been video-taped! I've never seen such an amusing sight in my life!" he chuckled.
Rory smiled at him.
"Wow, I can't believe anyone would do something like that to get a contract! The business world must be rougher than I though!"
Richard nodded.
"Well, I almost feel sorry for the fellow. He can kiss his company good bye now!"
"That settles it, I'm not going to be a business woman," Rory concluded. "I wouldn't have what it takes."
"I think you would. It takes some smart women. Remember, your grandfather couldn't have done this without me!" Emily blinked to her granddaughter.
"You couldn't have done it without me," It was Lorelai who tossed in her opinion.
Little did either of them know that this alliance between mother and daughter wouldn't last very long...
Hope you liked it, please leave me a review. As mentioned, the next chapter will be about Emily and Lorelai (and I hope I'll finish it sometime in the not too distant future;)) so please stay tuned...