Dear Wally
A story about a box that holds a treasure and finding out that that something you want in life is right in front of your nose
Notes
Post-"You Jump, I Jump, Jack"
Notes:
+ Emily and Richard are not together, they are separated.
+ Lorelai is still in Friday Night Dinner attendance.
+ Paris and Doyle are already in a dating relationship.
+ Rory and Dean are not together
Inspiration: (song) Dear Wally by Aslyn
Cast List
Rory Gilmore, Logan Huntzberger, Lorelai Gilmore, Luke Danes, Miss Patty, Paris Gellar, Doyle Evans, Finn Crawford, Colin Richardson, Stephanie Fontaine, Rosemary Petersen, Robert Grimaldi, Isabel Gardner, Emily Gilmore, Richard Gilmore, Sookie St. James, Jackson Belleville, Kirk Gleason, Taylor Doose, Marty, Michel Gerard, Steven Sebastian Easton, Walter Andrew Karay, Elisabeth Clara Easton Karay
Chapter Five
A Night of Almosts and What-ifs
Dear Wally,
I've had the most amazing day today. The library was very thin today, giving me time to catch up on some much needed reading. Mr. David has let me raid his private collection and I've just finished reading Pride and the Prejudice for the third time and that's when it happened. I felt him…or her. It was the most amazing feeling that I ever could've felt in my life. I wish you were here to feel it; to place your hand upon my emerging tummy and feel your son or daughter move. I only hope you make it home safe so the next time we decide to do this, you can be here and you can feel this miracle inside of me that we created.
Yours always,
Elisabeth
A piece of blonde hair, thin and bleached a color that one might call radioactive slapped him in the face, bringing him back from the year of 1917, from an era that wasn't as fast paced and rushing to get to the next day; back from a letter from a lovesick expectant mother and her writings that had been sitting on his desk for the better part of the day, wanting and begging to be touched; back to the lively and loud party in front of him. That thin piece of wig was placed on his head sometime this afternoon during the preparations for the party along with the bright red lipstick that was plastered on his lips to make them pop, according to Stephanie, brought him back to the real platinum blonde beside him who was disguised skillfully as Humphrey Bogart, complete with the cigarette dangling out of her mouth and a slick black wig to put the last touches on the costume. But it wasn't enough to keep him at the party. His mind kept wandering. Turning around at the bar to get Jim, dressed as the Grease starlet Olivia Newton-John to refill his drink, Logan wondered what originally inspired this party. There was no point to it, except to fulfill Finn's fantasy of dressing in a dress and not getting arrested for it. Then the idea just blossomed and Colin followed, then it was him.
Eight o'clock had come and passed and he knew better than anyone else that asking the host, this year and every year before this dressed as Tony Curtis' alter ego Josephine in Some Like it Hot, when the party was going to end or at least let up a bit was a bad idea. There would be yelling and a temper tantrum to follow if he dared. Finn had a firm rule that all of his parties, themed or not, were not to end until he had kissed every red head of the female gender in the room. And since telling the real red heads from the fake ones and the ones that were wearing vibrant crimson on top of their heads was going to very hard for Finn, Logan planned on the party ending somewhere around four a.m. or until Finn passed out from too much alcohol consumption. In fact, right now at this minute, Finn was in heels, a black cocktail dress and bright blue eye shadow to match his eyes, he was across the room trying to get his hands around or at least on Lucille Ball. Logan silently wondered that if Finn ended up kissing Alex Williamson and if all of the classic Hollywood regime was talking about said lip lock, would they notice if he was gone?
Finn's annual cross-dressing party had been going on for years and who was he kidding? Of course someone would notice if Marilyn Monroe just disappeared from the crowd that was basically a reincarnation of Some Like it Hot. Finn was Josephine, Colin was Daphne and in fact, Stephanie, dressed as the mob boss Spats Columbo, with a fedora nearly falling off of her head and a cigar sticking out of her mouth was strolling up to his side and ordering the next round of drinks for the headliners of the cast. Spats, of course, ordered her signature Greyhound and Colin stuck with his usual tequila.
He wanted to leave, wanted to escape to his room and get lost in the words of a small town girl wanting her husband to come home; he wanted to find Rory her miracle. Turning back around and leaning up against the bar, still trying to ignore Trina's poor imitation of Bogart next to him, he looked over his dorm room that was filled with most of the LDB. The furniture had been moved into Lanny's corner of the universe while his remained untouched. The old Hollywood regime that was gathered in and around the main room consisted of the cast of Some Like it Hot, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, and those were just to name a few. Even Harold Monroe, another member of the secret and distinguished club, had dressed up for the event. Usually the one to be a stick in the mud and arrive at themed parties with the opposite-kind of outfit on, he was actually in the know. Of course, he had dressed up as John F. Kennedy, but nonetheless, he was participating.
The music had been blaring and a dance competition had broken out in the middle of the floor. Logan watched Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire give Gene Kelly and Judy Garland a run for their money…and money was there. There was big pool going on as to who everyone thought would win. His money was on Fred and Ginger, of course. No one messed with the dancing champions of Hollywood and there was just no competition when compared to them. Of course, having Danielle Gordon, Yale's only ballroom dance champion as Fred Astaire was a good thing too.
He was bored and that kind of thing never happened, especially not at one of Finn's infamous parties that even campus security joined in on. It was Friday and Friday's were meant for dates with sultry long legs and parties that lasted until the wee hours of the night. It wasn't meant for hiding in your room, losing yourself in ancient letters that smelt of the ocean and trying to find out who the mysterious Elisabeth was. But yet, that's what he wanted to do.
He wanted to slip out of the dippy white dress that his female counterpart was famous for, wipe the red lipstick off of his lips, toss the radioactive blonde wig back into Stephanie's collection of disguises and dive straight into research mode to find out who Elisabeth really was. Logan was a sucker like Rory was; he wanted to know who Elisabeth was, what her secret entailed and when Wally would be coming home. Logan found himself actually yelling at the letters for Wally to come home sometimes. Somehow and someway, Rory's obsession with the letters and the modern day Sherlock Holmes mystery had gotten to him.
Slipping past the crowd whose gazes were fixated on the dance competition in the middle of the floor and into the safe haven of his room, Logan let the wig fall off of his head and placed it on his desk, next to the three random letters that were taken from Rory's stash. From these three letters, all Logan could tell about Elisabeth was that she was a woman in love with a man who was quite possibly dead at the moment she was writing the letters. But she still kept writing, kept telling him of the days in Stars Hollow and how much she missed him.
Taking a tissue from the box sitting atop his computer monitor, he started to wipe the bright red lipstick off of his lips as his computer let out that annoying beep. Logan turned towards the monitor again and quickly opened up the browser to start on his research. He found it incredibly ironic how Finn's party was boring to him, yet sitting behind a desk, learning things he already knew about the military and reading small town life circa World War I was what he wanted to be doing and he found interesting and a bit fun. And if that meant getting through Holly and Gina, Yale's own Mary-Kate and Ashley, who both had their eyes on ending up in his bed tonight, then that's what he would do. After all, no one stood in the way of what Logan Huntzberger wanted and he wanted that miracle as bad as Rory.
In the past four days, while working with her on the letters and the article, he had placed an anonymous post on a genealogy board. He and she both figured that the post would go unnoticed with no responses whatsoever and they would end up at another dead end, but it didn't hurt to try. A military man named Wally and a tiny, discolored postmark were the only things they had to go on and that's what went in the message. It was short and quick and Logan honestly didn't expect to get any responses at all.
Logging onto the genealogy site and searching for his post that had landed itself on the second page and very close to being knocked over to the third, Logan was surprised to find that his post had gotten 13,458 clicks and even better a surprise were the five responses. Each and every reply told him to head on over to another genealogy site, one that specialized in every military branch. This was definitely something that was more interesting than Finn drinking himself into a coma.
Hopping on over to the genealogy search engine, he hoped this would get him somewhere other than a dead end, which they had been at for a while now. Immediately book marking the site, he typed in the facts that he knew just from the three letters next to him and he patiently waited while the database searched for any potential matches. Logan could already see in his mind that nothing would show up. He'd been hanging around with Rory too much, that was for certain – as much as he liked her optimistic outlook on life, she also had a pessimistic one as well. She kept saying throughout the week that they weren't getting anywhere and that was true, they weren't, but there was still hope and with the month deadline that was approaching very fast – well maybe she wasn't that far off when she said there was no hope. But that all changed in his mind as soon as he looked back to the screen to see if anything had popped up in the database. And there was.
Seven possible matches, the top of the page said. This only caused Logan's wide grin to get wider and he could see an "I-told-you-so" on the horizon. Clicking on the first one, Logan immediately vetoed that one from the list of possible Wally's that the search engine showed him. Numbers two, four and seven were that way as well. Randomly clicking on the fourth choice, Logan was pleasantly surprised when he saw the thing he was looking for. Connecticut was what convinced him to keep looking throughout the document and of course, much of the original documents that had been scanned for the database, had sections blacked out, missing information and a confidential section that even Logan's fake security and government logins couldn't access. The blacked out sections even included Wally's last name and his regiment number. But that wasn't a problem, at least not yet.
Logan wasn't looking for the members of his crew or even his rank that weren't blacked out on the document. In fact, those were listed. Each member under the command of Lieutenant Commander Wally whatever his last name may be, were listed and so was everything else about the boat. He was just looking for a last name: Elisabeth's last name to be specific. The "I-told-you-so" just hit it's horizon as his smile grew wider than before and Logan reached for his cell, immediately dialing Rory's cell number. He found their miracle.
"I'm just saying, what's the point of whipped cream if you don't get it on a milkshake?" Lorelai proposed the question at the bitter end of dinner, just as the maid had come out of the kitchen to take away their picked-over and hardly eaten plates. Emily stared at her daughter, wondering for all the world if she had been switched at birth for her real daughter as suspected. It could've happened too – the hospital that day had been a far cry from what Emily considered clean the nurses were not above the orderlies.
Emily had been questioning Lorelai's sanity ever since the girl had turned thirteen and tonight, along with the whipped cream question, had reaffirmed Emily's concerns that she was definitely insane. The conversation that she assumed would spring up from the silly question would top the one about anvils that she remembered well.
"There's pie," Rory reminded her mother as she leaned forward into the edge of the table and brought her elbow up to rest.
"Yes, of course! There's pie!" Lorelai said excitedly. "How could I forget about the pie?"
"How could you forget about the pie?" Rory repeated her question and repositioned herself in her seat as the maid started to bring the dessert plates out for them. "Pie is only the third most important thing in life."
"And what are the first two?" Emily asked, well aware of what she was talking herself into.
Rory looked towards her mother for any sign of 'don't do it' but there was none, just an eager face for the mystery dessert that Emily had kept a secret since they started pestering her the moment they sat down for the appetizer. "Family and Willy Wonka," Rory decided for the both of them and enlightened her grandmother.
"Willy Wonka? Why on earth is Willy Wonka on the list?"
"Because mom, it's Willy Wonka. It needs no explanation."
"Of course it doesn't," Emily rolled her eyes indirectly at Lorelai and her obsession with the movie that had only become popular within the last ten years. She would never understand the movie even if she watched it 52,367 times like her daughter claimed she had.
Feeling the need to move their dinner conversations along, Rory brought up the whipped cream question again. She knew this would cause more eye rolls from her grandmother but at least it was something to talk about and much more interesting than a recap of one of Emily's DAR meetings that she loved to inform them of.
"Did Luke forget about the whipped cream on a milkshake?" She asked prompting a big smile on her mother's face to emerge.
"No, he remembers. After 8 years with us as customers, he remembers. My very good accomplice Cesar, on the other hand, doesn't."
"Cesar? Who's Cesar? And why is he named after a conqueror?"
"Cesar is Luke's employee. He closes, cooks and cleans. And we don't know," Rory answered her grandmother's question in three short answers.
"Yes, Cesar, who helped me with Luke's birthday gift, doesn't like whipped cream. So, he takes it upon himself to and I quote, 'save all of us from complete agony and food poisoning' and then proceeds to drown the milkshake with a bucket of cherries. Which brings up another question, why is it always cherries? Why can't it be a banana slice or a strawberry or even better, chocolate? That would be the perfect milkshake right there," Lorelai put a hand to her chest and fantasized about the delectable dessert. "Chocolate with whipped cream with more chocolate on top."
Rory couldn't help but smile at her mother. She loved how in spite of what Emily thought of their silly conversations, she kept on with them. She could truly say that there was not one boring dinner she had attended at her grandparents' house. Pulling her arms over her chest, Rory leaned back in her chair and listened as her mother went on with the milkshake phenomenon and watched as her grandmother, although she wouldn't admit it, was quite interested.
"But you don't like banana milkshakes," Rory pointed out as her purse got her attention from the floor below her, moving ever so slightly back towards the parlor room. Trying to ignore it, Rory pulled her gaze back up to the table and watched her mother's mouth move more, talking of her favorite milkshake flavors, which excluded banana and included mango kiwi. And she would only drink the mango kiwi that Luke made. Whether there was some sexual joke behind the milkshake, Rory didn't want to know.
Her purse tipped over and caught Rory's eye again. She wanted to pick it up and answer it but knowing the way her grandmother would react, like the last time was not something she wanted to experience again. The last time, Dean was the one who called her and that's when Emily the earthquake happened. Hesitating was definitely good, maybe she could strike up another conversation and call whoever was calling her now afterwards. Or they actually could wait until she was done with dinner; that would've been ideal.
"Are you going to answer that?" Lorelai's voice shook Rory from the pro and con list that she was writing down in her head about answering the slim silver phone that was buzzing with glee.
"Answer what?"
"It could be an emergency," she reasoned.
"I don't think it's an emergency," Rory paused and looked down at the ground, her purse still inching towards the parlor room with every intent on getting there before the dessert arrived. "I'm not going to answer it," she said triumphantly as she grabbed her purse and put it on the table, letting it vibrate towards her mother instead.
"Rory, answer the phone. It's annoying," Emily told her granddaughter.
"Wait, you want her to answer the phone? You, who doesn't even like to answer your own phone, wants her to answer hers?" Lorelai started to mock Emily's wishes and was enjoying every minute of it. Rory thought that sometimes this was what Lorelai was born for. Mocking her parents and everything they represented was fun for her mother and yet, tonight, Emily didn't seem to mind. Something was off with her grandmother. Rory hoped that this was a reflection of her missing Richard, that the separation, by pool only, was getting to her.
"Yes, I want her to answer the phone, Lorelai. Plus, as you stated before, it could be an emergency," Emily retorted in a condescending tone that only brought a shocked face to Lorelai and a smile to her lips. Emily was learning to play her daughter's game and was succeeding at it. "Answer the phone Rory, but make it quick. I don't want you to miss dessert."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure."
"I mean really sure, I mean if I answer this and exceed the ten minute time frame that you gave us a lecture on two weeks ago…."
"Oh for heaven sakes," Lorelai exclaimed, grabbing Rory's purse off the table and answering the vibrating phone for her. Flipping it open, her mother dove right in to the kinky greeting. "Rory's house of shackles, specializing in whips, chains and fuzzy handcuffs. This is Lorelai speaking, how can I help you?"
"Mom!" Rory exclaimed, grabbing the phone away from her face and answering it in her way, the way where you said hello and waited for whoever was on the other end of the line to say hello too. "Hello?"
"Elisabeth, is there something you're not telling me?" Logan's voice resonated in her ear and Rory didn't know why, but it brought a smile to her face. It was a break from the Lorelai-Emily bickering fest that she predicted coming soon in their dinner hours.
"Dear Wally," she bid him, taking the napkin off of her lap and onto the table and slipping out into the parlor room to see why he had to call her in the middle of her Friday Night Dinner. Even though she welcomed and was glad for the interruption on the milkshake and whipped cream debate, it was still Friday Night Dinner and it was inevitable that she would see him tomorrow when he "accidentally" ran into her with a very large cup of coffee to her liking.
"Dearest Elisabeth," he countered back as she sat down on the light sofa and took off one of her shoes. She had to wear heels, didn't she? Rory scolded herself silently as Logan told her of a surprise that he had for her.
As Rory listened to "Wally's" peculiar riddles and undertones, Emily was busy hassling her daughter into telling her who exactly this "Wally" was. Emily had taken note that it was in fact a member of the opposite sex on the other line and wanted to know everything and anything regarding this "Wally". That meant history, family history to be exact along with any old romantic entanglements he might have been involved in.
The last time she had heard, her granddaughter had just ended things permanently with Dean Forrester, a young man who along she got along with yet didn't think he was suitable enough for her granddaughter. And although she wouldn't dare admit it, agreed with Luke on Rory. She should be dating someone her equal, someone who would challenge her in all the right ways, someone who looked at her the way that Richard used to look at her. And Dean, well, he wasn't that someone.
"Who is he Lorelai?"
"I don't know Mom," Lorelai said as the maid brought the three desserts to the table. Looking at the fried ice cream dessert that Emily knew Rory and herself liked very much, she knew exactly the way to divert the conversation from Rory back to the whipped cream question she had before. "Now this is an occasion for whipped cream."
"Oh, enough of the whipped cream and milkshakes, Lorelai. Who is Wally?"
"Mom, if I knew, don't you think I'd tell you?"
"I know for a fact that you wouldn't."
"Then why are you asking me now?"
"Because you're her mother, she tells you everything."
"She doesn't tell me everything, Mom," Lorelai tried to reason as the maid brought the whipped cream can out like she had requested. Shaking up the can, Lorelai made the fried ball of ice cream disappear with the cloud of whipped cream that overflowed the tiny dessert cup that it was in. "Yes, definitely in need of whipped cream. Mom?" Lorelai offered the whipped cream to her un-enthused and otherwise preoccupied mother who was staring back out into the parlor room, wondering what was taking her granddaughter this long and who she was talking to. "Mom?"
"What Lorelai?" Emily answered, but didn't turn her head from the parlor room's direction.
"Well, I was just saying that Dad's home and if you want, I can go and ask him what's up with the flamboyant Liberace inspired vest that we found last week when he was gone. I mean, I would even want to know the answer to that and to find out if my father actually went and joined the circus. Could you imagine if he did and we got like free tickets, elephant ears and knew Johnny the Human Torch for the rest of our lives?" Lorelai tried to get her mother's attention with the outrageous and completely unbelievable conversation that she randomly pulled out of Harry a moment ago. But it didn't. Emily's gaze only came back to the table when Rory started to walk back.
"Okay, I'll just meet you then. Bye Wally," Rory bid "Wally" goodbye and closed her phone, slipping it back in her purse and noticing the fried ice cream in front of her. "Oooo, fried ice cream. Where's the whipped cream?"
"Who's Wally?" Emily spat out, not giving Lorelai a chance to counteract on the whipped cream question and just handed over the can for Rory to indulge in the pleasures of whipped cream and fried ice cream deliciousness.
"Yes, Rory, who is Wally?" Lorelai raised her eyebrows. Knowing of the letters and stories that she had since uncovered, which would be very few, Lorelai was also interested in who exactly she was calling Wally.
"Wally is just a friend who's helping me on an article at the Yale Daily News, that's it," Rory offered the simple explanation and dipped her spoon into the delectable dessert that was begging her to eat it.
"Just a friend?"
"Yes, Grandma, just a friend," Rory told the Gilmore girls sitting in front of her. And that's what he was, just a friend.
Why couldn't her grandmother ever take a simple answer for anything? Why was it so hard to believe that she was working with a boy and he went to Yale and he was just a friend? Emily had met Marty, and he was just a friend. He would always be just a friend. But Marty never called her during Friday Night Dinner and that was all because he knew better than "Wally" did at the moment.
Rory had known Logan for six or seven months now and although she had pounded it through his head time and time again during the past week that she would be at Friday Night Dinner at eight and wouldn't be out until at least ten, he had still called and as it says to rate guys in the Gilmore girl handbook, deducted at least fifty points from his scorecard. The guy rating system wasn't reserved just for potential boyfriend guys, it was for all of them. Skip, the mailman with the Reno 911 shorts to Carlos, the new stock boy that Taylor just hired a week ago had one. Carlos, was by far, in the number one spot, followed by Luke and that was all because of Luke's liking to feed Lorelai healthy food.
Rounding the south corner and heading towards Logan's dorm room, she started to notice the costumes people were wearing and found it both funny and weird that Vincent Woodward was dressed as Audrey Hepburn, although the dress that he picked out to portray her was busting at the seems. It made her think of Stars Hollow and all their quirky traditions that Taylor had to uphold, this was exactly something that they would do. Pushing her gloved hands into her pockets, Rory bundled herself in her coat and tried to stop the cool wind from entering the thick material. Stopping short of his dorm room door, Rory observed all the other costumes and knew exactly what she was walking into.
She had heard of the infamous cross-dressing party that was by invitation only but had never seen it until now. Even last year, when Finn and Colin were still attending Yale and Logan was not, she had not witnessed it. Immediately recognizing James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor, in the day known as Alicia Townsend and Steven Adams, she knew this was the place to be. Not knowing whether to knock and play it safe or just let herself in like everyone else was doing in front of her, she went along with the latter. Pushing past campus security who were equally as smashed as everyone else in the room, she started to unbutton her coat, feeling the warmth of the crowd and looked around for Logan.
Now realizing that he would be dressed as a member of the opposite sex from the old Hollywood regime, Rory knew she was looking for a needle in the haystack. Finding Logan in a dress was no doubt going to be hard and funny when she found him. She imagined finding him in a short skirt and a barely there shirt, something that maybe one of his many girlfriends had picked out. But then again, she should just look for the guy dressed as a girl who was surrounded by a bunch of girls dressed as guys. That would be much easier. Going to her left and looking and then to her right and looking some more, she knew she was lost. Just where would you find the Errol Flynn of Yale in an over-crowded dorm room? Room…Rory thought of the word for the enormous space she was in. Correction, this wasn't a dorm room, this was half of the south wing merged into one and for whom? Only the heir to a newspaper empire whose family had donated half of the south wing in the first place and his one lone friend, Lanny who she was sure was around here somewhere, sipping on a whiskey and talking of how comfortable tights actually were. Looking around one more time, Rory started to take her cell phone out to call them famous Errol Flynn of Yale when she saw two cross-dressers and pretty cross-dressers at that walk towards her.
"Invitation please," the one with the flaming red wig atop his head said, his hand sticking out in her direction.
"Daphne, she doesn't need an invitation. All she needs is a suit and a cigarette sticking out of her mouth," the taller, dark headed one corrected his friend.
Rory started to roll her eyes as the Some Like it Hot duo, who she only recognized when Daphne addressed Josephine, started to argue about her attire. "Look, I hate to break this female bonding moment up, but all I'm looking for is Logan. I'm sure you know him since this is his dorm and…" Rory was caught off guard as a hand brushed the small of her back and she turned to see who it was.
"Thanks for finding my Arthur Miller guys, you can go," Logan told his two best friends and took Finn's place in front of her. Looking her up and down like he was sizing her up to be his next victim, err, date, a cocky smile appeared on his face. "You didn't have to dress up just for me," he told her as she did the same to him.
Looking him up and down one last time before letting the gigantic laugh out in the middle of the room, she added on, "Don't flatter yourself and neither did you." She should've guessed that he would be dressed as Marilyn Monroe, the pretty girl with more smarts than everyone put together in the room had, the one who got what she wanted and all she had to do was smile at them in a certain way. It was a great parallel and Rory silently congratulated the girlfriend who dressed Logan up for tonight's party; they had placed him perfectly.
The dippy white dress hugged his upper body, showing off those abs that made the girls fawn over him; red heels were placed on his feet and Rory wondered if he had thrown them up against a wall yet or not, like she had wanted to do all the while she was on the phone with him at dinner with hers. Compared to the other guys at the party, with their Hollywood counterparts' famous dresses and hair, Rory suddenly felt underdressed and out of place. Nothing out of the normal in this type of atmosphere but still, this was different. She couldn't put her finger on it, but this was different.
Daphne and Josephine were pulled away by Donald O'Connor, one of her favorites and Dean Martin, back out into the center of the proclaimed dance floor as Logan, err, Marilyn as she would remind herself to call him from now on, pulled her back in the direction of where he came from. Shutting the door behind them as they entered, presumably, his room, Rory looked around the four walled space and watched as Logan pulled up another chair next to his computer and clicked on the computer to boot it back up from its sleeping mode that it was in.
"So, Sugar Kane, why aren't you out there with the rest of your cast?"
"You know the movie?" he questioned, raising a lone eyebrow at her as he roamed over his desktop for the link.
"I'm a Gilmore Girl, I know every movie in the history of movies. Never question that."
"Noted," he said, never turning his gaze from the computer. Leaning in behind him, she was curious as to why he called her in the first place. "So," he began, "remember how earlier this week you said that you thought it was pointless to make a post on a genealogy board that would get us nowhere and no responses in return?"
"Yes, and you agreed, don't pin this all on me."
"I'm not and I'm also not finished. Remember when you said in a very frustrated tone that you needed a miracle?"
"Yes."
"How about when you…"
"Wally!"
"Simmer down Elisabeth, simmer down."
"Just tell me what you found so that I can figure out what to tell Doyle on Monday morning how this article isn't going anywhere and…"
Logan covered her mouth with his hand, only to stop her from talking any further and to give her her surprise. Pulling her closer to the computer, he scrolled down the browser and moved the mouse arrow to right where she needed to read. Her miracle was there. Right there in front of her nose and she couldn't believe it. Letting herself sink in the chair in front of the computer, she scrolled up, just making sure that the site was legit and nothing or no one was pulling their legs on the information. With all the blacked out information on the document and the credentials that she pulled up on the browser's main site, a smile slipped on her face. Her miracle; their miracle was right in front of her face and she couldn't believe it.
"Easton. Elisabeth Easton," Logan whispered next to her, hoping and actually waiting for Rory to jump for joy over their discovery. He saw the smile on her face and that, right now, was enough for him. That article deadline that Doyle had set for them was fast approaching and Logan had a feeling that this would give them a head start on actually writing the article, instead of just researching.
Reaching behind him and grabbing the shirt he had been wearing earlier in the day, he rid of the dress and quickly changed into the shirt. Rory tried to keep her gaze on the computer screen but found her eyes wandering the bare of his chest before he covered it and got up from the chair to slip into his khaki's that were on the other side of the bed. Reminding herself that she wasn't interested in Logan as a romantic prospect, he thoughts immediately returned to Elisabeth and her last name: Easton.
"Logan?"
"Hmmm?" he said behind her, returning to the seat next to her. She didn't know what prompted her to do it, all she knew was that she was in his arms a moment later and smiling about it.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome," he said softly into her curls that rounded around her covered shoulders. He was just as surprised as she was that she was in his arms. Something that he wasn't at all unfamiliar with, having a girl in his arms, but this time was different. Usually he would scoot out of the embrace just as fast as it had happened, but Logan found himself actually wanting to hang on to this one, to prolong the feeling of her hands floating across his back just a bit longer than it probably should've been. When she pulled back a bit, he fought the urge to pull her back in. She was different, he reminded himself. She was one of the ones who weren't interested in him because of his name or his money. She was just a friend…a very good friend that challenged him just as often as he did her. He didn't want to chance that friendship…at least not yet.
Her hands drifted down his arms and he found himself wanting to hold her hand in his, just to see what it was like, to see how it felt when she suddenly thought of something else…something pertaining to Elisabeth.
"Wait a minute, Easton?"
"Easton," he echoed, reaffirming her question of the night.
"I know that name," she said aloud, reaching for her coat that was hiding her tiny purse beneath it. Flipping out her cell phone, she quickly pushed a number on her speed dial and waited for the party on the other line to answer. Scrolling up and down the site just to look over the facts, he leaned in and watched her work. "Can I?" she looked back at him as she hovered over the print button.
"Sure, go ahead," he said as she printed off a copy of the secure Naval document. Still watching and trying to eavesdrop on the conversation that she would be having with the person she started to call, Logan, nonchalantly took a whiff of her scent and liked what he smelt. A mixture of cinnamon and fresh rain, he could definitely get used to that smell.
"Vicki's house of thieves. We got Aladdin, Abu, Jafar and even that funny talking parrot whose name I forget every time and let's not forget those Arabian Knights. Jasmine speaking."
Logan overheard the odd and imaginative greeting and smiled to himself. This definitely had to be her mother. During their week spent together, Rory had brought him up to date on all the things her and her mother had done, including the handbook and weird traditions they had made for themselves. This had included all the previous telephone greetings that they had used in the past month. Yep, definitely couldn't wait to meet the other Lorelai Gilmore.
"Jasmine, I need pie."
"How much pie?"
"A lot of pie. Does he have a full one there, untouched?"
"He has…blueberry, apple, cherry and a huge chocolate one that has my name all over it."
"I'll be there in thirty."
"See ya then kid."
"Bye Jasmine," Rory flipped her phone close, grabbing the sheet off of his printer, her coat and purse off of his bed and started to head out the door when she stopped suddenly. Turning back around on her heel, Rory looked at Logan who was staring right back at her. "Are you coming?"
"What?"
"Coming, you know, with me?"
"Where and why?"
"Stars Hollow and for more information about Elisabeth. But, if you do you have to change back in that dress. My mom knows all the jokes for that and would love to see how that dress looks on a real live guy instead of her plastic blow up doll that she likes to get out of her closet every know and then."
"And after that, I'm saying no."
"Come on, best coffee in the world. Trust me on that one."
"Better than Café Florian?"
"Correction, best coffee on the east coast, hands down. Plus, you're as much a part of this article as I am. I wouldn't even be going back home tonight to interrogate my mom's boyfriend if it wasn't for you," Rory reasoned, hoping he would say yes. It was true; she wouldn't be anywhere near this point without him and was thankful.
Logan weighed the options in his head. At first thought, he would say no, drag himself back out into the party and watch the girls dressed as guys throw themselves at him but he would still be bored. And at second thought, he was saying yes, all because he wanted to meet the infamous Lorelai Gilmore that he was now familiar with and was going to predict that he could and would get along with her.
"Hmmm, I don't know Ace, I mean, party," he pointed out towards the door and stepped closer to her, "or small town life with probably nothing better to do than set my car alarm off just to wake everyone up?" His hands floated in the air, like he was weighing the events on a scale and Rory squinted her eyes just to let him know that she wasn't amused by his joking of her small town. Letting a strong sigh out of his body, he only had one question for her as he grabbed his coat off of the hanger that was dangling from his closet. "Your car or mine?"
"Definitely yours. My mother's face when we show up in a loaded Porsche? All I have to say is thank God for camera phones."