Chapter 4
Tristan walked through Richard and Emily Gilmore's house, following the maid from the foyer to the sitting room. There were fresh flowers on the dining table, and soft classical music played throughout the first floor, creating a pleasing ambiance. The last time he was here was for a birthday party five years ago—to the dismay of the birthday girl. He may not be any more welcome today, as he was not invited. The maid stopped at the double patio doors and opened one for Tristan. He thanked her with a nod and walked out to the pool.
Rory was sitting under the large umbrella of the patio table, wearing a disappointing one-piece bathing suit. She had a book on the table, but it was closed and tossed aside. Instead of reading, she was staring at the water in the pool. At the sound of the door closing, she looked up. Tristan saw her surprise quickly shift to indignation at his surprise appearance. She definitely wore a confused scowl. But she kept her mouth firmly shut, watching silently as he pulled out a chair opposite her and sat down.
"What are you doing here?"
"I heard you were staying here for the summer," Tristan answered.
"Who told you that?"
"I heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend."
"Just say Paris," Rory said irritably. "Is that what she said? That I'm just here for the summer?"
Tristan looked out at the blue ripples of the water. "No. She says you aren't going back to school this fall."
"So she sent you to talk me out of it?" Rory asked defiantly. "I've barely even heard from you since . . ." She stopped there, and it wasn't because she didn't remember. They both knew the last time they saw each other. He still had dreams about that night.
He wasn't sure what to talk about in their formerly regular correspondence. It didn't seem right to go back to the way things were. Like they were just friends. He didn't talk to old girlfriends. He didn't know how to talk to a best friend he'd slept with. It was uncharted territory. She tried a couple times to get back into the habit at the beginning of sophomore year, but he didn't get back to her. He told himself he'd respond when he got the chance, and that she knew he was busy. He assumed she was busy too.
But he didn't make the time, and she gave up. No one wanted to be in a one-sided friendship. He did miss her. She was his friend before he made new friends.
"Since your grandpa died," she finished. "And you think you can come here and—and what? Slap some sense into me?"
"No. That sounds violent." He lifted his shoulders. "I just came to see how you're doing. I'm not here to talk you into anything. Or to judge. I am just here to support a friend."
Rory scoffed at the claim.
"I'm sorry," he said genuinely. "I got busy. School. Eating club. Crew."
"Girlfriends," she said resentfully.
He tilted his head to the side, conceding. "Girlfriends. You seemed pretty busy too, last time I heard from you. Following a secret society—for some reason."
"It was for an article." She bitterly added, "Not that I'll be writing any more articles."
That was ominous. Now they were getting to it.
"So, uh, what happened?" Tristan asked. Even Paris didn't have the details, indicating Rory wasn't talking about it.
"Nothing," she said quickly.
Tristan squinted in the sunlight and let his eyes rest on Rory for a moment. She was hot and put out, glaring at the pool. She looked vulnerable too, like she was reliving whatever happened. She swallowed hard.
He looked out at the water too, not saying anything. He wished he'd brought his sunglasses. The midday sun was bearing down on him.
A couple minutes of silence passed by, neither saying a word.
"It was awful," Rory finally said. "It's so humiliating. I don't want anyone to know."
He looked over at her, still not saying anything. He just waited. He pretended to be fascinated by Emily's begonias that were planted around a tree off the side of the pool.
"The things he said to me."
"Who?" Tristan asked, turning his gaze back on Rory.
"The publisher of the newspaper where I did an internship this spring. He was only there for a couple of weeks and he thought he knew me," she said. "I thought I was doing a good job, but he said I don't have it."
"Don't have what?"
"It, I don't have it. I told him about my goals and he said I'd make a better assistant than a journalist," Rory said. "I don't have what it takes to be a foreign correspondent. He said I don't have the drive to actually do it."
Tristan saw Rory's throat bob, swallowing hard, pushing down a lump, no doubt. Very delicately, he asked, "Do you, though?"
Rory's eyes narrowed viciously. "You agree?"
"It's just—your temperament, and since you got to college, you haven't been, exactly . . . what I'd call—"
"Spit it out."
He looked her in the eye. "Resilient." He continued, "You needed your mom to stay with you the first night of college. You and Paris gave up on raising money for Burmese prisoners after sitting in the rain for five minutes," he said. "You want to write about politics and war? Then why did Paris have to drag you to the International Relations Association?" he asked rhetorically. "You traipsed around New Haven looking for the perfect study spot. You run home to your mom at every minor setback."
"I do not!" she protested. Her cheeks turned pink, angry that he knew all that, and probably regretting that she was the one who told him. "Not anymore. We aren't even speaking now. She can't accept that I need time. She kicked me out, practically. "
"Okay." He thought of another. "Hey, can you refresh my memory, how did you get Dean's attention when he was new at school?" he asked. "It was a cute story, I just can't remember."
Rory looked away, thinking of the story. Grudgingly, "He was amazed that I didn't look up from my book when someone got hit in the face by a ball." She was silent for a beat. Then, "It was a huge scene, and I was oblivious."
Tristan sat back and raised a brow, waiting for some kind of rebuttal.
She lifted her shoulders. "So? What? You agree. How long have you thought I couldn't do it? I thought you were my friend."
"I am. Can't friends be honest?"
"You're honestly a jerk."
"Rory, you immediately gave up because one guy said you don't have 'it', and you don't want anyone to convince you otherwise. Is he the villain because he's right or because he's wrong?" Tristan asked. "What do you want from me?"
Rory twisted her hands in her lap and glared in his general direction. She looked away, her eyes screwed up in the sunlight. "I don't want anything. I didn't ask you to come here."
At her silence, Tristan went on, gently, "Look, a lot of people think they know what they want to be and then change their minds." She tilted her head to the side and rolled her eyes, not wanting the trite lecture. He went on, "It's normal. You seem to like staying inside and reading. And that's fine."
"You don't understand," Rory protested. "I've been saying I want to be a foreign correspondent forever. My entire life has been working towards journalism."
He nodded. "I understand. When I was little, I wanted to be a pilot because I thought I'd get to see my—."
Rory noticed he abruptly stopped mid sentence. "See your what?"
He ducked his head. "My dad." Bashfully, he added, "My dad traveled a lot for work. I thought the pilot saw him more than I did. So if I was a pilot . . ."
The corner of Rory's mouth twitched. "That's cute," she said, softening.
"After that I wanted to be a scientist, then I got a dog and thought for sure I'd be a veterinarian."
"That's different, that's when you were really young."
"You've wanted to be a war correspondent since you were a little kid?" he countered. It just had seemed so unlikely.
"I've wanted to see the world. And write about it."
"Yeah, but the worst part of it? War is awful, Rory. It's awful." He said, "You're funny, and you can turn a phrase. You make boring topics interesting and moving. Even you won't be able to make death and destruction inspiring."
"I want to write about things that are important."
He considered her a moment. "Yeah, war is important—for ratings and defense contractors," he said cynically. "There's a war ready and waiting. Which semester were you planning to take Arabic?"
She raised her shoulders. "I wasn't." She bristled. "Everyone has always told me I could do it. My mom, my grandparents, my teachers, my town," she listed. "I don't want to let them down."
Tristan rested his elbows on the hot table. He rested his mouth behind his fingers that were laced together. He fixed his gaze on the brunette across from him. She wasn't the girl he knew five years ago. She was a young woman, suffering an existential crisis. "It isn't fair to you. It isn't your responsibility to carry two generations of baggage on your shoulders."
She looked over, confused. "What are you talking about?"
"Your mom." He tilted his head toward the big house where her grandparents resided. "You don't have to make up for her disappointments."
"Mom is doing fine, thank you. She finally owns an inn, and it's doing great. Grandma and Grandpa have nothing to be disappointed about."
"Still. You know what I mean."
"I'm supposed to be the great white hope," Rory said. "But I'm messing everything up."
"No you aren't. Your life is yours, not theirs. Young people change their minds every day." Tristan leaned toward her like he was going to share a secret. "I've changed my major three times."
Rory's brows furrowed. "You changed it again?"
"Mm-hmm."
"What did you change it to this time, general studies?" she asked, exasperated. "Tristan, you only have two more years, how are you going to fulfill your degree requirements if you keep changing your major?"
"That's what you're worried about right now?" He waved a hand dismissively. "I figure one of two things will happen when I graduate. Either I'll keep living on campus like I'm a Noah Baumbach character, or I'll go to my dad and let him decide what I should do. Honestly, it would be a lot easier if I was being forced into the family firm or something."
Rory stared at him for a moment, stunned.
Tristan just grinned and shook his head. "See? I'm not doing any better than you." He sat back in his chair. "High finance seems like a good way to make a bunch of money. But then you get into it and it's just so dull." He added, "Don't take it personally, but I expect everyone to change their mind. We're young, it's what we do."
Rory turned her gaze back out to the pool again. Tristan's feet were burning in the sun, so he pulled them in closer to his chair under the shade. He really wished her swimsuit was a bikini—not that the one piece wasn't working for him at all.
After a moment of thought, Rory said, "I can't be at college without a purpose."
"It's Yale, not a vocational school. You aren't there to learn a trade," he said. "Unless you major in business, or law. Then they will gladly send letters every week begging for money. Do you have any idea how much mail my parents get from Princeton and Wellesley?"
"No."
He side-eyed her. "No, I guess you wouldn't. It's a lot."
They were quiet again. He could almost hear the wheels in her head turning. Finally, she said, "After careful consideration of everything you've said, I'm still not going back."
He grinned at her. "That's fine. Take a year. Take two. Yale isn't going anywhere. In fact, I should probably take some time off." But after contemplating it, he said, "Nah, I'd never go back."
She turned back to him. "Really?"
He nodded. "Hey, do you want to run off and join the circus with me?" he asked curiously, like he'd really do it if she just said the word. "I'll learn the trapeze and you can grow a beard."
A surprised giggle burst from Rory. She shook her head.
"Remember when Paris was moping around in bed for two weeks when she didn't get into Harvard?" he asked. "You told her to go out and do something crazy. It's your turn. Go out and do something fun and crazy."
"I already did, that night, after I got my negative review."
"Oh, yeah, what'd you do?"
"I had some brownies—edibles." She said in a hushed voice, lest her grandmother hear, "They were laced with pot."
He grinned easily again. "Oh boy, first time?"
"Yes," she said, offended that he even had to ask. "I was as high as a kite. I got really paranoid. And hungry."
"That happens." They sat in companionable silence. "It's hot," he said, sitting up to pull his shirt over his head. Rory's eyes widened in surprise. "I really want to get in the water. I should have worn my trunks." He looked at her. "So what's the plan?"
"The plan is there is no plan. I thought that was clear."
He smiled again and gestured with his arms. "This is it? Sit poolside every day?"
Rory sighed. "Grandma mentioned something about going to Europe, just the two of us. She thinks I need to do Europe right."
"Good, travel. Maybe you'll find something to write about while you're there."
She made a scoffing sound. "Doubtful."
"You have a lot to say," he said confidently. "You just have to sit down with a blank page and you come up with soaring prose." He sheepishly looked over at her and added, meaningfully, "Words fail me sometimes. Usually when it's important."
"I don't always know the right thing to say, either." It was a moment before she talked again, "We fell out of touch with each other."
He slowly nodded. "We—I. I've missed you."
"Do you think we can get back on track?"
He locked eyes with her. He didn't like not keeping in touch. It didn't seem right. "I hope so. No one else knows me as well as you."
"I've been busy too," she said, the edge gone from her voice. "Classes. Studying. The paper." At the sound of the patio door opening and closing, she looked over. "Colin? I didn't know you were coming over."
Colin had close cropped brown hair and was wearing a short sleeve button down shirt with shorts. He eyed them suspiciously as he approached. Rory stood up to give him a quick kiss. He glanced from Tristan—still shirtless—to Rory. "Your grandmother said you were in the pool. She didn't say you had company."
"The maid let me in. Emily didn't see me," Tristan said. He stood up and stuck his hand out. "Tristan Dugray."
"He's a friend from Chilton," Rory explained.
Colin looked back at Tristan. "Always nice to meet a friend of Rory's, though she's never mentioned you. Colin McCrea, her boyfriend."
Tristan knew it was a slight, to indicate his insignificance, but he wasn't bothered. "My dad does business with a McCrea," he said. "Andrew?"
"My father," Colin confirmed. He glanced at Tristan's bare chest. "Did I interrupt an afternoon swim?" His voice was tight, his annoyance thinly veiled.
Tristan shook his head as he reached for his t-shirt. "Nope. Just hot. I was actually on my way out."
"Oh, okay," Rory said. He couldn't discern if she was happy or disappointed for him to leave, but he wasn't about to hang out with her boyfriend. "I'll walk you." She told Colin, "I'll be right back."
Tristan led the way back inside the house. They stopped when they reached the front door. He could see the goosebumps on Rory's arms and chest, her bare skin cold from the sudden burst of air conditioning.
At his smirk and twinkle in his eye, she asked, "What?"
"Did you find another jerk?"
She glared at him. "Colin isn't a jerk. Most of the time. To most people." When he raised a brow, she said, "You're a jerk."
Tristan chuckled softly, his smile growing. "Yeah, but you like jerks."
She opened the door. "Get out."
He took a step and turned back to look her in the eye. "Keep in touch."
XXXXX
Rory got back to the hotel before Emily woke up from her nap. She had been out on her own, checking out some of the cultural attractions in Italy. Her grandmother had scheduled tours everywhere they went, but Rory liked to go out on her own to explore. She was interested in some things her grandmother wouldn't like, such as the catacombs. Rory's way was faster and funkier.
Since she had some time to spare, she pulled out her laptop for the first time since she'd been in Europe. She didn't think she was going to need it. But after two years at college, it was a part of her, like an extra limb. Her eyes widened when her inbox populated all the emails she'd gotten in the past month. They were mostly from Tristan. She scrolled down to the bottom to click on the oldest message. It was a long, detailed message full of anecdotes he wanted to tell her about from sophomore year. A quirky professor, a tyrannical resident advisor, a change of major.
She clicked on the next message. It was his to-do list. The next one was short biographies of all the guys on the rowing team. By the tenth message, Rory understood he was making up for lost time. Perhaps even overcompensating, but she kept reading. It wasn't until she got to a quick, to-the-point message that she wrote something to Tristan.
Paris gave me Terrance's number. Remember him? Her life coach. Paris thinks I need a life coach.
The next day, she saw his response. Paris put a lot of pressure on herself since she was five to get into Harvard and was rejected. She needed help figuring out what to do with her life. I guess that is a lot different from you.
Rory rolled her eyes. I'm not calling Terrance, she wrote back.
The next day she told him about what she and Emily saw in Italy—the Medici Villa, the Vatican, the ruins, plus what she saw on her own.
I haven't been to the catacombs, he commented. Are they worth seeing?
Yes, absolutely, she answered. Then she described what made them fascinating, and why everyone who hadn't seen them needed to put them on their list when traveling to Italy.
This is good, it's like I'm there. I will definitely go to the catacombs on your recommendation. But unfortunately I'm not paying for it, he responded.
Why would you? I wasn't expecting you to. She thought that was odd. Who would pay for her essay about the catacombs?
She wrote about other things she saw. She wasn't sure if Tristan really hadn't seen it all, or if he was playing dumb. But he would say, tell me more about that, and what's so great about that, so she humored him. It was easy to do, it was like writing features. She was good at writing features. She wrote an ode to a triple espresso from an Italian sidewalk cafe at the corner of Bark and Cheese, where she had flashbacks of a tiny dog in a basket who barked the entire time. She advised visitors to be careful to pronounce cream correctly, lest the waiter bring them limburger cheese with their coffee instead.
Sometimes she wrote longer messages about where she was staying. Other times she quickly dropped a line while riding a train to their next country. She attached pictures of what she saw. She slipped back into her old habit of writing to him like she was journaling. Her pieces got longer. Sometimes she profiled citizens of the cities she visited.
When they were in Greece, Rory anxiously started pitching pieces to a few travel magazines. If Tristan wasn't going to pay her, maybe someone else would. The worst that could happen was some editor she didn't know might tell her, thanks, but no thanks. Well, that wasn't true. The worst that could happen would be a faceless editor telling her to never write anything ever again because it was the worst thing he'd ever read.
Wanderlust Magazine, in Britain, took her bait. After her fourth letter and article, someone called her. They wanted her to do a roundup piece, her top five must-see attractions in Greece. She felt a rush of adrenaline. Someone was going to pay her to write.
While having lunch at an outdoor cafe on Corfu, Rory nervously pushed the food around her plate. Emily was talking about what they would squeeze in tomorrow before heading to the airport the following day. She enjoyed their time in Europe together, but was ready to sleep in her own bed.
"Grandma," Rory started, putting her fork down next to her plate. "I was thinking that I'd like to stay."
Emily frowned over her tea cup. "Stay? Our hotel reservations are only for the next two nights."
"No, I mean, I'd like to stay in Europe a little longer," Rory said. "I met some expats at a coffee shop when I was out and about the other day, and a few of them work in exchange for housing, and on the weekend they go out exploring."
"I can't possibly leave you here by yourself," Emily protested. "If you want a job, I was talking with some of the ladies from the DAR, and we need an office secretary. You'd be perfect for the job. You would have to join the DAR, of course."
Rory grimaced. "Mom would roll over in her grave."
"Your mother is alive."
"Joining the DAR would kill her." Rory pressed on, "I want to travel a bit more, on my own."
"If there's more you wanted to see, you should have said something."
"No, no, I've had a lovely time with you. It was perfect. But I think," she said, pausing to decide on her words. "I think I'm very sheltered. I haven't had to figure things out for myself. I let Mom do it. I want to see if I can make it." She added, "We can transfer my ticket to another day. I promise I'll come home then."
Emily finally relented, insisting Rory take one of her credit cards, in case of emergency. Rory looked down at the card, tempted to take it. She pushed it back across the table. "No."
"No?"
"I need to do it on my own. I have some money. If there's an emergency, I'll call and you can wire me some money."
Emily very reluctantly slid the card back in her wallet.
Rory heard about an apple orchard in Slovakia that was looking for a few workers, so she took a train to talk to the owners. She worked around five hours a day and went out exploring the rest of the time. It was the most time she'd spent outdoors in her whole life. She visited small towns and hiked to castles. She was just a train ride away from Budapest and Prague. A couple more travel publications accepted her pitches.
Rory was beginning to believe travel was, in itself, important. She met new people and immersed herself in the local culture. It forced her out of her comfort zone and gave her a new perspective. She had to work through any problems on her own—without Lorelai there to talk their way out of a pinch, without Emily's connections and money to fall back on. In some ways, she learned more than she'd learned in the lecture halls at Yale. She needed the break. A break from studying, deadlines, and writing papers. It was all to please her teachers. Now, she was pleasing herself. When she did write, it was what she was interested in, not what an editor or professor wanted. Gone were the schedules and managing her time down to the minute, and always looking to the next test.
At the beginning of October, she returned to Connecticut, as promised. Emily asked if she wanted to refurbish the pool house before she moved in. Rory said it wouldn't be necessary. It was fine the way it was and she wouldn't be staying long. She sent a short message to Tristan, and cc'd it to Paris.
I'm enrolling for spring classes. But less political science, more writing and foreign language. And history. And photography. Who knows, maybe I'll even learn the metric system. If I take an extra class every semester and three next summer I should be able to graduate on time.
XXXXX
"Thank you, professor," Rory said, ending her call and setting her phone down. She crossed off an item on her to-do list. She was almost ready to go home to see Lorelai. It had been four months. She would be just in time for them to go to Atlantic City for her twenty-first birthday like they planned.
Her laptop softly dinged with a notification behind her. A minute later, Colin asked, "Rory, what the hell is this?" He was sitting at the kitchen island, using her laptop to make reservations for a trip he was taking with his friends.
She looked over from where she was sitting on the couch. "What?"
"All these emails. Are they from that guy? There must be fifty just from this summer."
She crossed the room to see her email account open. He had clicked on the folder labeled Tristan. "That's private."
"Are you pen pals with that guy or something?"
"We're friends." Once she started emailing again, she just kept thinking of more things to tell him. Seeing him in person cured the funk they'd been in. He also helped fill the void left by Lorelai. Of course, no one could replace her mother, but she could bounce ideas off Tristan and he'd give his two cents, as someone who knew her well.
"Do you tell him every passing thought you have?" he asked. "How many times did I call you in Europe and you said you were too tired to talk?" He pointed to one of the messages. "It looks like you weren't too tired to type to your best friend at eleven o'clock at night."
Colin liked to stay on the phone after they'd exhausted conversation and lapsed into silence. He'd keep her on speaker phone, while she had to keep her cellphone pressed to her ear. She had things to do, and she couldn't do it one handed. He always forgot she was still on the line anyway. It wasn't how she liked to spend her evening.
"Calm down, Colin. It doesn't mean anything. I was just showing him what I was writing in Europe," she said. "I sent some to you, too, remember? You just said, 'Yeah, that was cool when I was there'. You didn't seem interested in the stuff you've already seen."
She knew Tristan had probably seen it too. His attitude wasn't been there, done that. He kept stressing that he wasn't going to pay for her writing.
"Why is it I never heard about this friend until he showed up at your grandparents' house?" Colin asked.
She lifted her shoulders. "It never came up. And we lost touch last year. School got busy."
Colin's brows made a V. "So you're just friends? Nothing has ever happened between you and him?"
She opened her mouth and shut it.
Surprised by her reaction, his face untwisted. "Oh? Do tell. Did you two date?" he asked, crossing his arms. "Were you high school sweethearts? Rock around the clock, two straws in the milkshake?"
She scoffed. "No. We never dated. I wouldn't date him in high school."
That didn't calm Colin any. "Why did you say it like that?"
"Like what?" This was getting tiresome.
"Why the qualifier? In high school, you wouldn't date him. But you would now, if you had the chance?"
"I didn't say it like that," Rory said, getting exasperated. "You asked if we dated, and we didn't."
Colin still wasn't placated. "To be clear, you're saying nothing ever happened between you and Tristan?"
Rory crossed her arms to have something to do with her hands, and to cover herself. Colin's eyes widened, incredulous. "Something did happen. I think I deserve the truth."
Images of her night with Tristan flashed across her mind. It took her all summer last year to stop thinking about it. Or at least, think about it less. "We spent the night together. But it was over a year ago, when his grandpa died. And it was just one night." This time she did choose her words carefully. One night, yes. One time, no.
He scoffed and turned. When he turned back, he asked. "Are you kidding me? There's no one else you can be friends with other than a guy you've slept with?"
"I do have other friends," Rory argued. "Paris and Marty. Maybe you forgot since we never hang out with them. You've never even met my best friend, Lane."
"This is the first time I have ever heard you call Paris a friend. You always talk about her like she's a hanger-on."
Rory stammered something unintelligible, guilty. She was sure he was wrong, but couldn't come up with an argument.
"You know what? Be friends with whoever you want. I need a break," Colin said, the fight gone from his voice.
"A break from what?"
"A break from this. From us." He gestured between them with his arms. "I was patient while you were out 'finding yourself', but I can't look past this. I don't even know who you are right now."
Rory made a sound in her throat and rolled her eyes. Colin was being dramatic. But she didn't stop him as he walked out the door.
