11. The Huntzberger Shanghai II
Rory had been staring at her computer screen for the last 15 minutes, touching the keys only when her screensaver started to appear. Her eyes were becoming sore and dry from the glare of the screen. Taking a break, she blinks several times and looks to the distance, at the chest of drawers in front of their bed. Several posters and pictures adorned the wall above it: a black-and-white print of Sterling Memorial Library in winter (only she would have a poster of a library on her wall, Logan had teased); a landscape photograph of the Great Wall of China, Rory and Logan miniscule, perched as if at the edge of the world. Sixteen year-old Rory, fresh, with Lorelai. On the dresser, a collection of wine and scotch decanters, some holding white sand, others, seashells in various hues and curlicues. Buddha. Fat, cheeky, and smiling benevolently, one of an odd assortment (white, pink, green) scattered around the room. Remnants of a treasured trip taken 5 months past.
And the invitation. Cream-colored, with pale red poinsettias embossed along the edges. It stared at her from its place on the dresser, propped up against a framed close-up of a laughing Logan taken by Rory on his graduation.
Mitchum and Shira Huntzberger request the pleasure of your company at dinner on Sunday, the 10th of December 2006, at 6:30 in the evening.
It was nagging her. Plucking at something inside her.
Rory rubbed her eyes and sighed, loudly enough for the blonde head beside her to stir.
"Wartandowinaky…"
"Shh, sorry, did I wake you? Is my light too bright?" Rory whispered, adjusting her bedside lamp so that it tilted farther away from them.
"What are you doing up?" Logan mumbled, opening one eye to squint at Rory sitting up in bed, rumpled in his sweatshirt, laptop and notes spread out around her legs. "And wearing my clothes…?" Logan reached an arm out and sneakily put a hand under her top to rub her tummy.
Rory pressed his hand to her stomach, stalling it before it went any further up or down. "My Pol Sci senior essay, Logan, as always. My second draft is due on my adviser's desk at 8 on Monday. And clothes are a necessity on winter evenings; I couldn't very well think intelligent thoughts while freezing in my birthday suit."
"Oh, I don't know about that…" Logan yawned, stretching his lean arms above his head as if to push away sleep. He then reached out over his side of the bed, got his Powerbook from its backpack. Flipping it open and on, he gave Rory a wink then turned to his screen, a concentrated frown replacing his drowsy smile as he propped up the pillows behind his back. He was of course, in his birthday suit, their sheets coming up to his navel.
As always, Rory marvelled at Logan's ability to shift gears so rapidly, moving easily from one activity to the next—in this case, from sex to sleep to work. Which was the rhythm they had established since Logan took his post at The New York Times 5 months ago and could only go home to New Haven two or three days a week.
Sex first, inevitably. Whether at their apartment, Grand Central in New York, or the hallowed halls of Yale, coming together after days apart was electric; their mouths, hands, full of anticipation, full of missing and searching. Looking at Logan from the corner of her eye, Rory felt herself blushing involuntarily as she considered her bedhead, bare-chested boyfriend, tapping away at his laptop. He had practically thrown her on the bed earlier this evening with barely a 'honey-I'm-home', divesting them of clothing to burrow in the warmth of their sheets and her body.
They would catch up with each other's week in the interlude between sex and sleep, swapping stories about colleagues and classmates; professors and assignments; Lorelai, Paris, Finn; the weather; movies they needed to watch. Stories they had already told each other over phone and e-mail, but demanded personal re-telling. Then the sheer relief and release of being together in the same space would send them to sleep, deeper than in any night they were apart.
Predictably, though, sleep would be jarred by the cellphone, her senior's essay, or his article's deadline. Reminding them that life and the world rushes on, despite their wish for it to stay still long enough to be together another hour, another day. Rory loved seeing Logan at work, though; it was a facet of his that was novel (Logan of course protesting at the insinuation that he never worked in college). Its as if something dormant was awakened in Asia. It began with the six feature/opinion articles he wrote on the impact of globalization through the eyes of people they had met: their tuktuk driver, a Muong Hill tribe family, a silk vendor in the shopping mecca that is Taiwan. They now refer to these as his "Asia series"; it was his key to a dozen job offers that met them on their return to New Haven. It was still new, Logan throwing himself with—dare she call it passion?--at his writing. Like how he was at that very moment, tapping at his keyboard at 2 in the morning.
"Mo-om, she's doing it again!" Logan said in sing-song, as he perused his notes.
"What?"
"She's staring at me!" He turned to her, amused. "I've sacrificed my sleep to keep you company, Ace, but I believe I've written…" he leans over to peek at her screen. "…at least 2,000 more words than you in the last 10 minutes."
"Yeah, well I'm distracted."
"Really..? All you have to do is ask, you know, and I'll purge you of this distraction, make your creative juices flow…" Logan murmured, pulling her to him.
"Promise?" Rory asked, as she let herself be entangled in his limbs.
"Mm-hm," Logan replied against her neck as his hands crept under and up her sweater. "Study break."
"Okay then. It's Mitchum. And Shira."
Logan stopped abruptly and looked down at Rory's earnest face. "You seriously did not bring up Mitchum and Shira just now. That's kind of a low blow to my prowess, Ace."
"They sent you another invitation. The third in the last three months."
Without a word, Logan extricated himself from Rory, his laptop, their sheets. He walked to the dresser to get a shirt and a pair of boxers, shrugging them on as he padded to the kitchen. Sighing, Rory followed him, the shock of cool air on her bare legs slapping her fully awake. As Logan got their coffee maker running, she popped her Pop Tarts and set out his bagels for toasting.
"So, what's the occasion this time? Dad buying himself another paper? Mom acquiring a new set of silverware?" He bit into his bagel quite savagely.
"The first time was to announce Honor's pregnancy…"
"Which we already knew, and congratulated her on. We had lunch with her and Josh the week before."
"The second was for Thanksgiving…"
"…and man, was I really thankful that I got to spend it with you and Lorelai at Stars Hollow rather than with them."
"And this time…huh, well, I'm not sure," Rory paused, a tart in mid-air. She slid off her stool and returned bearing the invitation, dropping it in front of Logan. "It doesn't say what for. Poinsettias though, pretty…pre-Christmas?"
Logan shrugged. "So we can exchange gifts through the mail."
Rory cleared her throat. She plucked up the nerve to say, "I think you should go."
"Huh. You think?" Logan raised an eyebrow at her. She finally said it. She's been wanting to, he knew, but always managed to keep from saying it outright.
"Just to get it over with, Logan. Just to tip the scales of this…strange stalemate that you're on with Mitchum. I don't even know why you never saw them again after our trip," Rory wondered aloud.
"There was no reason to. Mitchum was only ever interested in me for the company. And now that I'm not in his company, not working for him…what for?" He turned his back to her as he explained it the way he saw it, busying himself with getting orange juice from the refrigerator.
"Logan." It always pained her to hear of Logan talk about his relationship with his father. "These invitations obviously mean he is interested in you…maybe its an olive branch, you know? Not that he needs to extend you one. If I remember correctly, he did give you an out on that London thing. He let you go, Logan. He didn't even cut you off. And you said he wasn't even that angry…"
"Oh, please," Logan retorted. "He wasn't being benevolent, Rory. I was the one who insisted on not going; he couldn't make me—I'm not a child. I was the one who decided to take another job, earn a living, and shelve my trust fund for later. Mitchum is still Mitchum the selfish jackass. And lastly, my mother sent those invitations, not him." He stood up to leave.
"Okay, okay," Rory covered his hand with hers on the counter, rubbing his knuckles. "I'm sorry this is making you upset. But you're right, Logan. It was you. So why this refusal to see him? He doesn't have this hold on you any longer—okay, I get that. So then what better way to just show up and let him and Shira see that you're okay where you are now."
"Rory…" he ran his hand through his hair, becoming clearly frustrated.
"All I'm saying is that it's not going to stop, they won't fade away to the distance. You can't avoid them forever, especially Mitchum. Just get it over with, Logan."
Logan looked at Rory's guileless eyes for long minutes. Thumper, Lorelai calls her. His family was the one thing they still couldn't talk about without him getting upset. More than getting it "over with" with Mitchum, he wanted to settle the matter with Rory. Maybe it would make her happy to see him do this, maybe it would make her stop asking and worrying about it. She had enough to do as it is, with graduation a term away.
"Fine. I'll go. But you—you're coming with me."
He pushed the wide-eyed, feebly protesting Rory out of her stool and back to their bed, Pop Tart crumbs and all.
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"Have I told you that you're beautiful?" Logan asked, kissing her palm.
You know how people are dressed at their best at their funeral… Logan had joked. Rory was wearing a white dress with a fitted bodice and full knee-length skirt, shot through with silver thread. Around her neck was a single strand of Southsea pearls, the only thing Logan bought her in Asia that wasn't haggled from a street market. Logan was Heathcliff-brooding-handsome, wearing black from collar to toe.
"You've told me about ten times already, Logan. So I guess we can stop with the pleasantries, and you can buzz the door now, please? It's cold; my smile is now permanently frozen on my face."
"That's actually a good thing if you have to deal with my mother," he cracked, as Rory peeked through the stained glass of the front door. It doesn't look any warmer inside, she thought ruefully.
Footsteps approached from inside, and the door swung open, saving them from their standoff on who should ring the doorbell. No less than Shira Huntzberger welcomed them—welcomed Logan—with open arms and a wide smile that Rory could sense was actually genuine.
"Logan!" Shira beamed, embracing her son. Logan, usually generous in his embraces, patted his mother's back awkwardly.
"Hi Mom, how are you?"
"Logan," she breathed again, holding his shoulders and still staring at him.
Rory coughed discreetly behind Logan. "Um, good evening Shira. It's nice to see you." Logan immediately turned to her and placed his arm around her waist.
"Mom, Rory."
"Oh, of course. Rory. Rory!" She tilted her head and gifted Rory with a small smile. "Such a…surprise to see you with my son…why, after all this time!"
Strike one. (Translation: I can't believe Logan has stuck with you!)
"But of course. If we don't see Logan…then I assume he must be with you, isn't that right? Why, it might have been even easier to get in touch with you!" she laughed at her own cryptic comment.
Strike two. (Translation: You've taken our son from us!)
"Anyway, this is wonderful, so wonderful," she continued, clapping her hands as she looked at them. "Rory, what a pretty dress. But you're looking quite…flushed?"
"I believe my melanin hasn't fully recovered from Asia," Rory explained, knowing her white dress set off the remaining vestiges of a tan, even in winter.
"Hmm. My skin is so sensitive, it would shrivel like a prune under the sun," Shira said in turn. "Just not used to...being exposed. I suppose it's in our genes. And what with skin cancer and all…good thing Honor knows to slather on the sunblock!"
Strike three. (Translation: You're of the brown-skinned lower-class gene pool—certainly not one of us! Am I being too sensitive? Rory wondered. She had looked forward to a good meal, but now she felt like throwing up.)
"I don't know, Mom. My skin's none the worse for wear," Logan interjected.
"Oh, men and the outdoors," she breezed, waving a hand. "But you look tired, Logan. And thin. Doesn't he look thinner?" Shira put her hand to his cheek. "If that job in New York isn't wearing you down, it's having to travel back and forth from New York to New Haven."
Strike four. Definitely. No translation required.
"On the contrary. New Haven is what rejuvenates me, Mom," Logan replied. "And I haven't lost weight, I think I might have gained a couple. Rory feeds me. She definitely feeds me." Rory furtively pinched his waist.
"Hmm." Shira continued to smile, as a prickly silence ensued for a few moments. "Well where are my manners? All this catching up in the foyer, for heaven's sake. Linda! Linda? Please get their coats! And can you tell Mr. Huntzberger that Logan is here!" Turning to them, she said "Your father is in his study, working even on a Sunday evening…shall we proceed to dinner, then?"
Logan raised his eyebrows as he looked at Rory, with an expression that clearly said, I told you so. "Her back is turned, let's make a run for it!" he whispered.
Rory shook her head, muttering under her breath, "And miss the prized cow that was slaughtered for your homecoming? Never!" Tugging Logan's hand, she pulled him resolutely toward the dining room, after Shira. Welcome to the Huntzberger Shanghai, Part Two.
