Chapter 11
September 24th, 2021
"Thank you! Ladies and gentlemen that was Marion Cowan," the host of the event said, the crowd applauded.
Rory had held her breath a little as she's listened to Marion, one of the two 12 graders she'd chaperoned to Yale for a day and half, had successfully concluded her speech. She was a good speech writer, it was the presentation that she sometimes struggled with. But as the girl had been the last in the long list of speakers, Rory had sensed the girl had been very nervous.
"Good job," Rory said to Marion, who was just returning to her seat. The girl was a lot like her - a little shy and timid, but smart, she just didn't always dare to show it, having only during the past year, since she'd been teaching her, come a little out of her shell. The other girl, Lexi Cartwright was the polar opposite of Marion and Rory really didn't connect with her much. But, thankfully, Lexi was fairly low maintenance, having never been much trouble. And all Rory really needed to do for the night was to make sure neither got lost and drunk on any of the college parties, her embarrassing experience with Anna from her own college days still in her memory.
The host continued to make a few concluding statements about the evaluation process and introduced the itinerary for the following day which was largely about giving the students a chance to attend Yale tours or lectures, if they liked, a celebratory lunch with the Dean of Admissions and the award ceremony.
As the competition ended, Rory gathered up her stuff and got ready to guide the girls to the dorm they were staying in. Rory knew how to work the system at Yale, that was for sure - only the first ones to register for the competition actually got to stay the night on campus while most of the group had to take a shuttle to some 3-star hotel on the outskirts of town. The dorms may not be fancy, they never were, but they had their charm. She at least liked to think the two girls would see it that way.
They were staying in Saybrook, which was just adjacent to her own former college, Bradford, colorful climbing vines creating a similarily pleasant autumn mood that she recalled from her own college times in relation to this place.
As they walked over Rory ofcourse shared a few stories from her Yale excursion repertuar, leaving out the boring bits - her graduate education and experience as an actual journalist had given her the necessary self critique.
It was a room much like her first college dorm inside, a smallish living room with a few armchairs and a fireplace, and two double rooms, both with single beds, which was an interesting change. The latter was actually something not for just Rory to grumble about internally, but also for Lexi, she being very much the kind of girl who'd grown up with a golden spoon in her mouth. Marion was quiet as usual.
"So, get settled, and dinner in 30 minutes?" Rory suggested to her students, already traveling down memory lane, almost as if hearing the voices of her first college roommate bickering about something in the background. Good times - she thought.
"Yes, Ms. Gilmore," Marion replied, and headed for her room.
It was the first time Rory didn't appreciate the formalness of their interaction. In a Chilton setting it was good to keep boundaries clear and follow through on treating everybody with respect, much like did for example in a business setting. After all that was what most of the Chilton students were prepared for. Here, however, she just wanted to be Rory.
She recalled awkwardness with the formal and casual names when Max had told her to call him Max instead of Mr. Medina, but she had truly respected him from trying to create a more personal relationship with her as a student too. And it hadn't all been about her mom. In a way he'd been her mentor.
As she headed into the room, which she thankfully didn't have to share with anyone, and hung up the dress she'd brought for tomorrow's luncheon. She took off her red suede low-heeled loafers, and put her feet up, as she checked briefly through her inbox that was quickly filling up.
35 minutes later, she hurriedly stepped back into her shoes, and changed her cardigan to one that actually showed a little cleavage. She wasn't out man-hunting today, naturally, but somehow this setting brought out that side of her that was willing to put herself out there. Even going out with Finn had helped her and she'd shed some of that rust.
"Sorry, I got carried away on my laptop there for a minute," Rory said, realizing she was the one who was late, adjusting the glasses on her nose, packed her things out of her laptop bag into the small cross-body purse she'd brought, as the two girls waited for her in the living room, having now ditched their school uniforms for a pair of high-waisted jeans. Marion wore a satin crop top that ended half an inch above her waist, while Lexi had gone with a tight fitting beige turtleneck.
"It's fine Ms. Gilmore," Lexi said, thought Rory could sense her rolling her eyes at Marion.
"It's so weird seeing you out of your uniforms," Rory commented, but really she didn't mean anything negative about it - their outfits were entirely appropriate. "And I tell you what - how about while we're here at Yale, until the luncheon, you can just call me Rory, okay?" she said, deciding to take a chance. She wanted to be their friend tonight, a Yale alumni showing them around, while naturally keeping up with her professional responsibilities at the same time.
"Okay, Ms..," Marion began, realizing how automatic using that name was to her.
"And as you're both 18, I suggest we go have dinner at the pub. No alcohol of course, but I see no harm in showing you the Yale college scene," Rory tried to be generous.
She'd expected more excitement than she got from them, perhaps, but she chose to believe it was just the matter that she hadn't allowed them to go there by themselves. After all these girls all had the money to go buy dinner at the fanciest restaurant in New Haven if they wanted to, or they could just call the Uber to take them home. But that wasn't the point of this. It was about experiencing a glimpse of college life, even if it was with their teacher present.
They stepped into Rick's pub, at least what used to be Rick's, which didn't quite match the memory image Rory had had of the place. It looked shabbier than she'd expected, but perhaps it was the fact that she was just used to very different types of places these days. It was still early, so it was fairly calm, which was likely another problem - one saw too much of one's surroundings instead of other people who would normally just blocked the view.
"This place used to be the best place around, but the food still looks good," Rory said, optimistically, having already glanced at what others were eating and seen a waitress take a whole tray of empty plates back to the kitchen. The latter didn't happen if the food was bad. It was one of the many tricks Rory had learned from her mother.
The three slipped into a corner booth, and the waitress soon brought over their menus. The girls discussed amongst themselves what they were going to get, while Rory still struggled a little, feeling the pressure of wanting to be cool. She knew she probably shouldn't bother - but she was sick of being the timid teacher. She used to be cool back in college.
"Rory Gilmore, is that you?" a voice suddenly asked, jolting Rory out of reading the menu, having been deciding which would scare the girls less - her eating two burgers or a full snack platter and a large stake, feeling quite hungry. The man continued to say his hasty goodbyes to a couple of other men he'd been dining with, and who were now leaving, and took a few steps closer to the table Rory was at.
"Seth Norman?" Rory looked up, hardly recognizing the guy she knew from the Life and Death Brigade. His face was still more or less the same, long and having slightly comical cheeks as if having jumped out of a cartoon. He had a much better haircut, and even an evening stubble, which definitely made him look more of a man than back in college. He was no longer as geeky as he'd been in college, having developed some more muscle and he certainly dressed better. "What are you doing here? I can't believe it's you!" Rory exclaimed, rising to give him a friendly hug.
"Well I actually teach here - material sciences. Just got tenure," Seth explained, clearly proud of his achievement. He had every right to be. He'd been one of the smartest guys in the Life and Death Brigade, often responsible for organizing and testing of their stunts. It was no wonder he'd gone for a higher degree.
"Wow, that's great, congratulations," Rory replied. "I'm teaching at Chilton Prep, I'm actually here with two of my students for the speech competition," she added and continued to introduce the girls. The trouble was that in this comparison - her old friend having just made tenure at Yale versus her teaching at a high school, she felt a slight sense of embarrassment. She hated that she felt it. It was in part the reputation of the teacher's profession, and in part about confessing that she hadn't climbed the ladder or succeeded in anything big like she'd dreamt of origionally like everybody had said she had promise for. Some part of her felt like it was about admitting failure. But she knew that the last thing she could do was show those feelings in front of her students.
"Oh, is that so? I used to go to Chilton for secondary school actually," Seth shared. "It's a good school," he added, speaking much more appreciatively than Rory would have expected. But she supposed the thing was mostly due to the fact that she was indeed speaking to another educator. Overworked and underpaid just the same.
"You did? How did I not know that?" Rory exclaimed.
Seth shrugged. "But, hey, I don't want to interrupt your dinner, I'm sure you have a lot of Yale stories to tell you two," he added, referring to the girls.
"Oh, you're not interrupting. Maybe you'd like to join us. It'd be great to catch up," Rory suggested friendlily.
"I just had dinner, but I could stay for a drink," Seth replied.
"Great, you can tell the prospective students yourself what Yale is like these days," Rory said and smiled, teasingly, knowing he probably got these kinds of requests all the time. Besides, for her it was easing the pressure of being interesting and cool all alone that evening.
The guy was quite talkative, and Rory almost didn't know why she hadn't hung out more with him back in the day. Well she knew why. But now as he continued to talk she considered for a moment, while not thinking of him in particular, that maybe someone like him was the guy she was supposed to be with. Someone who understood her field, maybe someone who looked equal to her considering the way she felt about herself. Someone who seemed happy with doing something less than buying up companies and properties or being the head of a multi-billion dollar company. The former wasn't much of a compliment. But the truth was that Rory didn't know what she needed in her life yet.
Seth continued to talk about the classes in his department and what people did with their time off, skipping out of a lot of the secret stuff. He did manage to describe some of the stunts he'd planned, the less dangerous ones, which left the teens actually a little impressed.
As their food was finally brought to the table, Seth sipped his small draft beer and asked, "What did you do after Yale? I never really knew…," he asked.
"Worked as a journalist for a while. Obama Campaign trail. After that it was mostly freelance," Rory explained, not really wanting to admit struggling with any of it in front of her students. They were talking a little by themselves at that point, not fully paying attention. But she didn't want anything that would get back to their other classmates in the form of gossip nonetheless.
Rory would've liked to add that she'd written a book, but she'd never finished it. Her momentum having worn off while she'd actually moved in with Jess. It had definitely not been what she'd expected to happen, as Jess, after all, was the source of the idea and a major encourager. But the words had just run dry.
"Right, you were at the Daily News too, right? Now I remember," Seth recalled.
"I was...," Rory replied, taking a sip of her one glass of Pinot Noir she was allowing herself that night.
"How do you become a teacher from that? I'd imagine something like that would be too dull in comparison?" Seth asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"Well I got an offer, and since I had a kid, it made sense to travel a bit less than I did before," Rory replied, but realized it sounded too much like settling. "But I do love it, there's never a dull day, like one might think," she quickly added, hoping it'd make it sound better. She didn't even have to lie. She just felt bad about sometimes thinking of it as settling.
"Yeah, I know. Same here," Seth replied to the latter. "You didn't go to grad school here, did you? I'm sure we would've ran into each other sooner, if you had," he asked, answering several of Rory's upcoming questions.
"Oh, no… I wanted to be closer to home at that point. So Hartford University this time," she replied.
"Well there you might actually get see your professor at times," Seth chuckled, admitting the negative side of Yale. A lot of the undergraduates really rarely saw any of the big names, if they did those classes were waitlisted for from day one.
"I think it depended a lot on the field, it wasn't that bad with the economics department here for example," Rory reflected, having had good experiences mostly.
"I guess things have changed a bit since then too, there's never enough funding, TA-s are doing most of the real work while we're stuck just writing grant applications most of the time," Seth explained.
They parted on friendly terms, even the girls having before asked him some questions about Yale which the brochures didn't cover. They left with a casual 'we should keep in touch' phrase, that really didn't obligate anyone for anything, but the meeting had added that something Rory had looked for in that evening - a little connection to the past, something stimulating of the present.
"Rory?" Lexi began as they walked back, hesitating a bit how she might take her question.
"Yes, Lexi?" Rory responded.
"How do you know him? I always thought different colleges were pretty separate," Lexi asked a very relenvant question, Seth belonging to a different college having come up earlier.
"Just through some mutual friends," Rory replied.
"Are you glad you went here?" Lexi asked. "I mean... I know it's prestigious and it's all my dad ever talks about me going to. But honestly, I'm not that convinced," she continued, surprising that it was Lexi asking her that instead of Marion who she'd always thought to be the deep one.
"I am, I wouldn't change it for the world," Rory said without a gram of doubt.
September 25th, 2021
The buffet luncheon took place at the Schwarzman center, Yale showing the cavernous dining hall, the Commons, and the hall echoed with a pleasant buzz and clinking of the dishes. Teachers, students, organizers, the evaluation committee and of course several of the Yale academic and administrative staff. After all, this was a prime place for the Admissions department to make a note of some of their prospective students.
Rory talked a bit to the girls, who had livened up a little, having found a common tongue, and seemed to be overall enjoying themselves. Rory herself talked to a couple of teachers she knew, and also one of her professors whom she'd had classes with year ago. Of course she didn't remember her from her class, but the minute Rory mentioned the Yale Daily News people seemed to know who she was. She wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about the latter. She wanted to know what they thought - did they consider her career path as a failure? Or did they all really see that the work she was doing was important? She didn't know why their opinion suddenly mattered to them - for years it hadn't.
The ceremony began and the Dean of Admissions, who Rory couldn't believe was still Harris Fellows, the man she'd met when her grandfather had arranged a meeting with while she'd been completely unprepared, made the introductory speech. Looking back Rory knew, of course, that in a way that had been the good thing about it - she hadn't had time to fret, which she certainly would've.
The man began to speak, thanking everyone for coming and participating. The old man spoke generally of what made up a good speech, mentioning several very famous speakers and what their speeches had made happen.
Suddenly a familiar name caught Rory's ear, one that she hadn't expected to hear. Not here, and not now.
"Unfortunately we lost one of the greatest speakers Yale has ever known yesterday," Harris Fellows said. "Mitchum Huntzberger was a born journalist but mostly spent his life speaking rather than writing. It wasn't certainly not because he lacked skill or expertise. An man of his caliber needed to make difficult decisions that took him away from the simple pleasures of his field to make great things happen. The Yale University will be proposing him for the Yale Medal," he said, and continued to explain in more detail what huge contributions the man had made to the University.
But by that point, all Rory could think about was Logan. How was he handling it? Even if his relationship with the man wasn't great, surely it couldn't have been easy.
Would he be coming to the funeral?
