"It seems that they're having another one of their crazy festivals," Jess grumbled as they drove through Stars Hollow.
"Oh yeah?" Celeste reflected only really seeing a bunch of guys on the town square setting up string lights around the gazebo, that was already pretty well light up as it was and some others setting up bonfires.
"I think this one was something like the bonfire or firelight festival, or something like that, something about founding of the town," Jess explained, as he pulled up to the Inn Annex.
"It might be nice in the evening when it's dark," Celeste pitched in hopefully, beginning to unstrap Evie from her carseat who she'd been sitting next to the ride there. They'd delayed their arrival to Saturday morning, the Friday night drive seeming a bit too daunting. But still - 24 hours away didn't seem like a bad idea.
As they really hadn't had any significant plans for the weekend, and despite Jess being not too enthusiastic about coming to Stars Hollow in particular, Celeste had convinced him to take Lorelai up on her offer. They'd had a pretty good time at the inn a little more than a year ago, and despite having to bring Evie along this time, still she hoped that it would give them some break from their home-life.
There was a slight smell of spring already in the air and neither of them could deny that the air smelled a lot cleaner, the dust of the winter currently blowing all over New York. Jess could already see from the corner of his eye how Mrs. Patty and Mrs. Cassini made commentary about them, but he tried to ignore it, as he held out the door for Celeste, who climbed out of the car with Evie in her arms.
"You got everything?" he asked caringly, holding their single large suitcase that held all of their stuff, with his other hand.
"I think so," she replied and they walked through the doors of the Inn.
"You're here! Yay!" Lorelai exclaimed enthusiastically. "Hi, Evie!" she waved at her, playfully, getting happy giggles in return.
"Thanks for offering," Jess said.
"I have your keys right here - it's a suite - so while a little further from the pool," Lorelai explained with a slight wink in her eyes, knowing more about their last year's adventures by the pool than she let on, adding, "it has a separate room for Evie to sleep in and I had a crib with a baby monitor put in there in case you didn't bring one," she explained. "And we do have a nanny service until 8 PM that you can use if you want to go get some treatments. Two massages or body wraps are included," she continued to explain.
"Oh, I might like that," Celeste replied, excitedly. She'd been up with Evie for two hours that night, most of the time soothing her on her arms, and now her shoulders were notably tense.
"Dinner is served at 7, breakfast from 8 to 10.30 on weekends," Lorelai continued as she led them over to the wing at the far end of the house and unlocked the door for them.
"Thanks," Celeste replied. "Do you mind checking what time I could get that massage?" she asked.
"I'll look and text you, okay?" she offered, smilingly.
"Thanks," she repeated and the three settled into their room. The room was a lot bigger than the standard room they'd stayed in the last time, large gridded windows with blinds opening the room up to the garden, the art deco mirrors and creating the era's theme in the room. The room held a complimentary fruit basket and a bottle of wine in a cooler, and some snacks for Evie, Lorelia having added an extra touch.
Celeste placed Evie down on the bed, beginning to take off her wool onesie.
"So how do you like our room, Evie?" she asked in a softened voice. Evie really hadn't stayed anywhere other than their home, them having skipped the travelling over the summer holidays last year, mostly because of Jess' work, but also simply because Celeste still had had her physical therapy to do and the general lack of sleep their main priority had be 'surviving' until now. Because of this Celeste was a little apprehensive, how Evie would take to the new surroundings or whether it would just leave her oversimulated. She'd also managed until now without hiring any outside nannies other than April, and Rory, Luke and Liz for a few hours, hence she wasn't sure the nanny service here would even work for Evie. Evie was not the bravest around strangers and the least she wanted to do was to upset her unnecessarily
Celeste allowed Evie to climb down to the floor and she quickly began observing her surroundings by walking around the edges like she usually did at home while she herself checked her phone noting that Lorelai had texted her she could go straight for the massage if she wanted.
"Do you mind if I go for that massage right now?" she inquired from Jess who was looking out into to the yard.
"Go ahead, we'll just get acquainted with the room a little," Jess replied, beginning to unpack their essentials while keeping one eye on Evie. Surely he could manage for an hour or so.
"Thanks," she added, kissing him briefly, and went to change into her robe.
Jess was left, while understanding, also a little disappointed. The whole point, while not spoken out loud, had been to take some time for them and now with Evie there it really didn't feel like that right at that moment. Sure he wanted her to relax, hopefully they would all go swimming later, but he kind of missed the time when it had been just the two of them there. And frankly, he would've gladly just given the nanny service a try, but he knew how she felt about it.
It had been harder than he'd thought for him to set Celeste up with Noah to talk about her drawings, it felt like trusting the guy with the most valuable thing he had in his life, besides Evie. And while he had tried to focus on his work, he could really help but to glance a few peeks towards the conference room they'd been to see how things were progressing. He hated that there was something that guy could offer her that he himself couldn't. The whole thing of her trying new things and meeting with new people, artists that she'd tried to take classes from and the walks she took, sometime showing him some of the pictures she'd taken during those walks, it was all making him apprehensive - she was exploring, discovering new things - potentially a new life, as if the home life wasn't big enough for her. And he knew it probably wasn't. She'd been a woman of the world, well-travelled, multi-lingual, well-connected and well-spoken, funny, clever, with excellent taste, style and tact in almost any situation. If she succeeded in getting her book out, this could potentially mean great success for her - she had it in her, and he saw it. Yet he couldn't help but to see the dark side of all of that - while it could make her happy, it could also distance them even further. He liked to think that all that he had been trying - involving her more into his own writing, cooking together more often, taking Evie on long strolls together now that it was nice outside for her to nap in her stroller on occasion, limiting the amount of work he took home and so on - was working. Andthat despite her own career not being set, he wanted to believe that she was happier than she'd been a month ago. Because if she wasn't, he really didn't know what else to do.
He'd just watched Evie go around the room, her having now reached the door, he figured why not head for the hall with her. He took his phone and the key, and let Evie walk along the hall, leading the way as he held her hand. Celeste liked to dress Evie in modern vintage style, currently wearing a mustard colored dress along with black and white striped leggings, which no doubtedly looked cute on her. As they reached the lobby, Evie was instantly drawn to the playroom, seeing already one other girl, perhaps a year older than she was, occupying herself at the Lego Duplo corner. Evie glanced hesitantly at Jess and took a few more steps finding her bearings by the table. Jess went to crouch down next to her.
"There are all this cool blocks here, you've never had these before, have you?" Jess said to her, demonstrating how the blocks attached to each-other.
"Locks!" she exclaimed, skipping the 'b'.
Jess helped her build a small tower, encouraging her to make it even higher.
Evie tried one first and then continued on to the next. It wasn't five minutes until she had a hang of it experimenting with colors and shapes.
"You know you can just leave her here to play for a bit, go enjoy the spa yourself," the female voice spoke from behind him.
Jess stood up, glancing behind him expecting that to be the nanny Lorelai was talking about.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" Jess asked, unsure where she'd seen the woman.
"Jess Mariano?" she exclaimed surprisedly, hesitating a bit on the last name. "I'm Sarah Green, I'm not sure if you remember me, but we went to school together for a bit," she explained.
Jess really didn't recall much from his schooling in Stars Hollow, other than the utterly unpleasant interactions with his teachers and the headmaster.
"I'm sorry, I wish I could say I remember you by name but the face is a little familiar," he added honestly.
"It's fine, I was a year younger," she replied, making a dismissive gesture with her hand as if it was no big deal.
"She's never really been with anyone who isn't family before, I'm not sure my wife would appreciate the idea if I just left her here," Jess explained, as he crouched down to Evie's level again and showed how the little figurines worked, placing one to sit and another to stand.
"Well, you're welcome to just hang out here then if you want," she said gesturing towards the bean bag chairs in the corner. "They are usually very happy just playing on their own, especially if there is more than one kid," she explained, leaning against the wall.
"Sure, why not - I have to say that we didn't bring that many toys, so I'm sure Evie here will love this room either way," he commented.
"That's a cute name," Sarah noted. "So are you here to visit family or?" she inquired curiously.
"Not in particular this time, Lorelai just invited us," he replied.
"Ah, right," she recalled the connection through Luke and Lorelai. While Jess had hardly noticed her, she'd definitely had a bit off a high school crush on him back in the day. So had many - his bad boy image making a lot of the girls melt while he just ignored them.
"Well I'm here just getting back to work part time with this gig, I was at home for 6 years with my own kids. It's been a little challenging to get back into the working life after a break like that," Sarah explained.
"Oh yeah? How old are they?" Jess asked politely, making small-talk.
"5 and 4, two girls," she explained.
"What did you do before?" he asked, casually.
"Administrative stuff mostly, nothing fancy," Sarah replied. "What do you do these days?" she asked in return.
"I run a small publishing house, I edit," he replied, referring to Truncheon as 'small' out of instinct, but the place was really becoming more of an average size little by little.
"Sounds cool, I do remember you reading a lot," she noted smilingly. "What kind of stuff do you publish?" she inquired.
Jess was slightly taken aback by her recalling him so well, feeling a little guilty for not paying more attention. "I can't believe you remember that," he chuckled. "It's this and that - crime, poetry, graphic novels - it's more about the themes being slightly darker, noir, than the genre specifically," he explained.
"God, I think I've only read children's books and a few Mysteries of Laura books in the past 6 years or so," she laughed.
"Well… you've been busy, I'm sure," he replied, glancing at his phone realizing Celeste was back at the room wondering where they were. "Evie? Want to go see where mommy is?" he rose, holding out his hand for Evie.
"Mommy!" she exclaimed in anticipation, leaving her 10 inch Lego tower standing on the table.
"We can come back later and you can show mommy your tower," he assured, nodding to Sarah friendlily in goodbye.
"I feel like jelly," Celeste chuckled as Jess and Evie returned to their room, Evie now pulled onto his hip. "Where did you guys go?" she asked.
"To the playroom. Legos are a thing now apparently. We met the nanny. Apparently I went to school with her, hardly recall her though," Jess explained.
"Did you have fun?" Celeste asked Evie, who was already attempting to climb onto the bed, in which she succeeded in with some help from Celeste who'd been laying on the bed.
Evie snuggled into her armpit, then resting her head on Celeste's shoulder.
"Let me just take your shoes off," Celeste suggested, beginning to pull of her cute booties.
Jess toed off his boots as well and laid down next to them. Jess propped himself up on his elbow and just watched the two for a minute. Just being there like that was pretty amazing - his wife, relaxed and rested, and his daughter, playing with Celeste's hair between them. He had no doubt this was worth fighting for - he just hoped she still felt the same.
Back at New York, Rory had been reluctant to draw away from writing her thesis, but she knew that they had to sit down and just do it - now that Finny was asleep providing the best moment for it. She'd spoken to both Honor and Paris about this and she knew that they just had to get this done, despite it seeming like very early on. Finding a live in nanny that was both qualified, trustworthy and didn't judge Rory's drive to work was difficult enough, and they needed someone who was willing to take on all 3 kids and cook on occasion. Sure, the nanny they'd been using now was still going to stick around, but having twins meant having one around 24/7 that could potentially also help at nights. And this was just the first round of candidates that Logan had asked to be sent over from the Honor-approved agency that had passed the initial security check. This was not going to be an easy task - with confidentiality agreements involved already as early as in the interview process and Rory's reluctance towards the entire idea, despite knowing she was going ot need it, was not going to help either.
"So who do we have?" Rory landed onto the couch besides Logan who had already shared the screen of his tablet on to the large TV they had in movie nook by the kitchen. She at least tried to sound excited.
"Older-younger, three with a Master's, native speakers, French-speakers, Spanic-speakers, Mary Popppins impersonators," Logan listed cheerily, adding slightly less enthusiastically, "and this one looks a little like Mrs. Doubtfire."
"So what is it that we want?" Rory asked, hoping Logan, who clearly had more experience with nannies himself would be able to advise her. The nanny they currently used was literally the same nanny Paris had used before she moved back to Hartford, hence it hasn't really required them much thought - if anyone had been thoroughly vetted it was her.
"What do you want?" Logan asked in return.
"I don't know these things," Rory argued. "What kind of nannies did you have growing up?" she asked.
Logan eyed at her questioningly, not really wanting to get off track but he realized she really didn't know enough about this part of his life.
"Fine… I guess we mostly had foreign nannies - mom never really trusted teenagers or 'locals', she liked that they depended on the job to support their families hence she considered them to be more loyal and more hardworking," Logan explained, not feeling particularily proud about that.
"Ugh, I would prefer not to fall into her thinking pattern," Rory sighed.
"So you want the exact opposite just to annoy my mother?" Logan inquired.
"Maybe?" she added with an innocent look.
"Let's just go through these, see if we can eliminate some of these by some other factors, alright?" he insisted.
"Fine," she muttered.
"So here Marissa Wiley, 43, has worked in two households as a live in nanny since 2006, one of which had a set of newborn twins. Cooks only paleo, macrobiotic, vegan and lactose free food," Logan began to read out, glancing at Rory. "I'm going to have to exclude her, don't I?" he asked seeing Rory's face of disgust at the dietary restrictions.
She really didn't need to reply.
"Alright - Jessie Mariana, 36, so far worked as freelance nanny in Boston, has experience with 3 sets of twins and one set of triplets. Comes from a large family herself of 12 children," Logan read out.
"Seriously? Her name is like the female version of Jess, that's just plain weird!" Rory replied.
Logan rolled his eyes at her, going on to the next candidate.
"Next we have Taliah Jennings, 53, has worked as live in nanny and maid for 20 years in New Orleans, comes highly recommended by John Goodman," Logan read out, continuing a few more lines of listing the fairly common courses and trainings she'd passed.
Rory didn't say anything, realizing that she was being picky as it was.
"Then we have...," Logan began taking a deep breath, and stopped reading it. "I think this one actually worked for us in Connecticut," he added, looking over the resume of a 55 year old Lylah Blair.
"Really?" she reflected.
"Yeah, it wasn't for a long time but I don't remember anything wrong with her," Logan added, making a mental note to ask Mitchum's housekeeper for a reference.
"Okay, lets keep her in the running for now," Rory replied.
"Then we have Kristen Glover, 24, has a BA in Early Childhood Education, hopes to continue to Master's. Has worked as freelance to a family with twins and a few others with kids from age 0 upwards. And she speaks French and Mandarin," Logan added, feeling kind of impressed with that particular resume.
"Logan! She's too pretty! I'd be insane to hire her," Rory scolded, clearly paying more attention to her D-cups and slim waist and long naturally curly blonde hair.
Logan couldn't help but to chuckle in response, it was a little endearing frankly that Rory would still feel threatened by anyone.
"Fine," he relented, knowing better than to push it.
"Good," Rory replied, demonstratively.
"Then we have Nora O'connell, 30, has experience with twin toddlers and newborns, so far has worked freelance. But she has a Master's in Child Development, did her thesis on Montessori pedagogics," Logan read out.
"Maybe," Rory added. Still the idea of someone younger and prettier than her not really appealing to her.
"Maya Lucia González, 52, live-in nanny since 1990 in three families in New York. Cooks authentic Mexican food, Italian and American, sews, does crafts and sings - now that's got to sound at least a little appealing to you," Logan said, adding, "and she has worked for Camelia Kath and Kiefer Sutherland, and Gisele Bundchen."
"Luke knows Kiefer, we could check with him directly," Rory pitched in.
"Luke knows Kiefer Sutherland?" Logan asked in disbelief.
"Yeah," Rory replied, putting on a face as if there was nothing unbelievable about that fact, despite having reacted very similarily herself at first. "They go fishing sometimes, he was at their wedding, sat at our table" she added.
"Okay," Logan shrugged, moving on to the next resume.
