June 6, 2008
One week later she moves in. She doesn't need to bring more than a bunch of boxes containing books, clothes, music, bedlinen and bathroom gear. Still, Lorelai has dragged herself out of bed at Luke's ungodly hour to help. However, her help mainly consists of getting coffee and then drinking both cups when Rory doesn't have time for hers.
"If you just wanted to check the place out you would've been welcome some other time." Rory says pointedly.
"And miss out on watching you work? Oh, to be young and move into a room of one's own in somebody else's apartment!"
Rory sighs.
"Something on your mind?"
"I still don't see why you couldn't stay with me. Your room is still there."
"Oh, to be young and move back home to your mommy." Rory counters. "You of all people should understand why this is how I'd wanna do it. But oh, to be old and retcon being young."
"Hey!"
"Hey yourself! Put down the cup, you're done. Pick up a box, you might as well make yourself useful."
Lorelai sighs but does as she's told. They empty the car and starts carrying boxes up the stairs, stacking a few into the elevator and pushing them up that way.
Nicks meets them at the door.
"The place is all yours. I'm on my way out." She greets Lorelai and hands Rory a small bundle of keys. "Paula is cooking something up tonight with Neighbor Adam, she said to invite you."
"Thanks."
"Later."
She waves and disappears down the stairs. Lorelai gapes after her.
"Woah."
"What?"
"Monopoly girl. I'm kinda awestruck."
Rory opens the door to the elevator and pulls one box out to use as door stopper while they start unloading the rest.
"She's cool."
"Obviously. What is it that she does?"
"Writing mostly, I think. She has a blog. It's sort of a mix between Gossip Girl, alternate lifestyle stuff, and autobiographic therapy, she was apparently raised by the help."
"Poor little rich girl."
"You're one to talk. Anyway, now she's mostly out and about, doing interviews, spending weekends with her subjects."
"You sound jealous."
"Grow up." Rory mutters. "Would it be awesome to have enough money to own a place like this while freelancing and writing what I like? Sure. But it's hardly what Christine would do, now is it?"
"Ah, the almighty Amanpour, broadcasting live from a foxhole in Brooklyn with her mommy."
Rory smiles, seeing as she painted herself into this corner.
They finish their task pretty quickly and Lorelai drags Rory out for lunch.
"I take this moment to remind you that you're under no obligation to drop everything and come home-" Lorelai has to stop talking due to chewing and Rory makes use of the break by stifling a sigh. "-don't let Emily twist your arm-"
"Mom, I've told you a hundred times it's not that- Grandma hasn't asked me for anything."
"Then what?"
"This was my idea."
She can't tell Lorelai she's scared of things spiraling out of control between the rest of the Gilmores in her absence, that she's come to recognize that she's the glue holding things together, that this might hinder any far away position she might attain, and that that's not all her grandparents' fault, but some Lorelai's. But most of all she can't tell Lorelai that she's not even panicking at that thought, but instead, maybe, possibly, is okay with it, in a kind of resigned way. Fine with never broadcasting from Tehran. She retreats.
"Look, it's not like I bought a place. I'm renting a room. Hardly permanent. If you like I could find a trailer park but I don't think grandma would react well to that."
Lorelai snorts and pays the bill. They drive to Ikea and fills a bag with utensils, boxes for clothes, and a few cute pillows and blankets on Lorelai's insistence. They part way on the sidewalk outside the building.
"Call me when you're done with the room."
"I will. Call me when grandpa's all settled back home, I wanna go visit him."
She heads upstairs, uses her key for the first time and is greeted by a woman as soon as she gets inside. Paula. She's exceedingly chatty and cheery, inviting Rory to the evening's festivities, giving lengthy descriptions of Mark and Izzy as well as a few of her students, and the town she grew up in - a small place in northern Wales, all in the course of five minutes. When Rory does get a chance to speak she can't think of anything other than to keep asking questions, sometimes that's nice, she's noticed.
"Nicks told me you've been best friends for a long time?"
"Oh yeah! I've known her since she was fourteen. I was eighteen, got a job as an au pair and she turned out to be the kid I was gonna look after, fourteen at the time." Paula laughs. "I figured out quickly I couldn't teach her a thing, she was more worldly than I was back then. But I think she liked that about me."
"Wow."
"Yeah. Her dad was-" She pauses, looks serious for a second, the first time since they started talking. "-let's just say not there, so, I tried to be. I stayed close after my work was done and, that was that."
"It's quite a story. You should write a book."
"That's Nicks's job description, but yeah, she has talked about it."
The door opens, and Adam steps into the hallway.
"Sorry to interrupt, but, I was gonna start getting things in order."
"I'll be right there. You wanna come and help, Rory?"
"Fair warning; stoves and I do not intermingle, we're like oil and water."
"It's fine. We'll put you in charge of decorations."
Party preparations mainly take place in Adam's apartment, despite it being distinctly smaller than Nicks's. After a while Izzy and Mark arrive and Rory gets introduced to them. Mark has a dry sense of humor, very sharp, he reminds her a bit of Michel, and Izzy's serious, organized and intelligent, and doesn't really remind her of anyone, which gets her thinking about her friends and what types she actually has represented there. Other people start showing up and everybody seems to know each other or at least be comfortable enough to ignore each other. Nicks arrives, still in her jacket and bag, straight from the city. She and Adam stand talking in the kitchen and she waves at Rory. The place is crowded.
"Why isn't the party at Nicks's place?" She asks Izzy.
"It is too. We just take turns hosting and the place providing the food usually winds up providing all the floor space," she shrugs, "but the common rooms are open, people usually hang out there, listen to music and stuff like that."
Rory chats with Izzy some more and does the introductory rounds with her other flatmates. She looks for Nicks but she's nowhere to be found. Adam joins them and remains when the others head to another room to dance.
"So, how do you like your new place so far?"
"Too new to tell, but, the apartment is amazing. I'm so jealous of Nicks, just, being the mistress over it all, I think I've changed my life goal from writing to just being a mother hen at an apartment like that."
Adam laughs.
"Mother hen. A bohemian chick at best."
His tone is humorous, but with a little edge. She matches it when responding.
"What do you know about it? Have you lived with her?"
"No, but, she's just not really warm enough for the motherly reference."
"Don't you guys get on, or what? Why isn't she here?"
"She rarely spends time at these things, just hosts them in absentia, she's pretty hard to impress." He gulps down his drink. "You'll see. I'm gonna get a refill."
"I think I will go hang out in my room for a bit, see how I feel about it."
She brings her drink back into the apartment, Paula's door is open and two guests are going through her record collection, low music plays from the stereo in the common room where a guy is lying on one of the couches with his fedora over his face. The corridor is lit only by the light streaming from the bathrooms, red beacons for people in need.
She unlocks her door and goes inside. She finishes her drink while making her bed, unpacking a box of books, locating her toothbrush and all her articles for the bathroom, she plugs in her lamp and lights a candle.
She sits in her armchair and looks at her walls. Just to have walls. The last year she's slept on buses, airports, motels. Now she's going to go to bed between these walls every night for a while. These empty walls. She'll have to decorate. Lorelai actually tried to buy her a poster at Ikea, but she fervently declined. They're the kind of posters that hangs in motels, airports, hospitals. The room in Saint Francis had a stock photo of a landscape, very pretty, but still, Rory couldn't shake the feeling of having seen it somewhere else, maybe in more than one place in the hospital or in one of her many motels from the last year, and all she could associate with it was this feeling of going, and how it was messing with her sense of direction, of balance even. The thought of it leaks into even this moment, making her dizzy. She stands up abruptly and blows out the candle, then heads to the kitchen.
She turns on the light and puts on a small pot of coffee, while she waits she takes a seat close to the window and looks out into the street. It's still relatively early for a Friday and lots of people are moving around. She opens the window and leans out, listening to the talk from people on the sidewalk, from traffic. Growing up she never had this; The reassuring sound of alternative life, there was only she and Lorelai, their set circumstances, and even now, during the last year, the evenings have been oddly quiet, spent in places just populated for work, not living.
The coffee maker hisses as it finishes and she closes the window and pours a cup. She sits at the table while she blows on the hot beverage, and takes small sips from it. She looks around the kitchen and listens to the sounds from the party across the hall, echoes from voices in the stairs, music from Nicks's room, she can't quite make it out, just the bass, something by Massive Attack perhaps. This is a home, several actually, surrounded by so many others. It feels new in a way that she can't really figure out what to do with. She remembers her first night at Yale, her first night on the road. If she's ever going to get right around here she's going to have to get through the first night, and the quickest way to do that is to sleep. She pours out the remnants of coffee in the sink, rinses her cup and heads back to her bedroom.
She's about to pass Nicks's door when she notices it's not closed all the way. She slows to identify the music before, but freezes entirely as the sounds from the room become clearer: the rhythmic whispers from the bed, air being pushed out in breaths, moans, skin on skin. To make matters worse, movements to accompany the sounds are visible through the crack in the door. No more than shadows, sheets on the bed moving, but still. Her new landlord is definitely having sex in there. She takes a step backwards which makes the previously silent floor whine, luckily in unison with Nicks's voice, but Rory still panics and hurries back into the kitchen. The sounds from the bedroom are distinct once identified and escalating to add insult to injury. Rory runs the water to block it out.
Then silence falls. She takes a breath and realizes she's still trapped here, in the farthest room of the apartment. There are steps from Nicks's room. She desperately rummages around her pockets and finds her cellphone. It's turned off but she still presses it to her ear and makes a few incoherent sounds as if engaged in conversation. Nicks's door opens and she turns away from the moving figure- has to be Nicks's boyfriend- who enters the kitchen, but she has to at least acknowledge his presence.
She turns slightly, and drops her phone. It lands on the floor with a seemingly Earth shattering thud.
It's Jess.
Jess is standing by the sink, barefoot in sweatpants, t-shirt tossed over his bare shoulder, hair on end, glass in hand, expression a landslide, wide open, he gapes, he never gapes. She can't feel her own face and puts her fingers to it to read it.
"Rory-" He interrupts himself to make way for a sharp exhale.
"Jess-"
It's a whisper, she can't seem to get tone into her voice, like it's a broken lighter. She rips her gaze from his, but it's no better, him being half-naked, she diverts it and nails it to the floor between them. She sees him moving in the corner of her eye, pulling his t-shirt over his head, putting it on. She clears her throat, managing to get tone back into it, forces her lips back together in a tight smile.
"You're Nicks's boyfriend."
It's quiet, she looks up at him. He finally closes his mouth, nods.
"And you're her new tenant."
His mouth twitches or maybe trembles, but there's an expression in his eyes, unhesitant - the recognition - and her smile widens without her meaning to or understanding why on earth, and she feels it, the warmth, in her chest accordingly, because it's been so long and she's missed him and - The heat starts burning her; He's dating, fucking, her landlord. She blushes.
He suddenly looks like she feels, is it possible he gets her, still? How does he do that? Is he going through the exact same turns as she is right now? He clears his throat, gestures to the room.
"I hope we didn't-" He starts, and she has to stop him.
"No, I just-" How is it worse from those stupid words? "I'm sorry."
Her heart must wake up the entire building.
"What are the odds?" She says, helpless.
He looks at her, and for a moment she sees it in his face too, like a mirror. You know we're meant to be together. Is that a promise or a threat? The words seem like a curse.
"Astronomical." He says.
They let the silence give weight to what's spoken. He blinks, looks away.
"I'd better-"
He shoots her a bleak smile and puts his glass down on the counter, attempts to leave.
"Oh, good, you've met."
Nicks walks into the room, wrapped in a robe, stops next to Jess, and lets her gaze dart between them.
"Haven't gotten around to shaking hands yet? Jess, Rory, Rory, Jess."
He presses his lips together and gives Rory a straight look, before turning to Nicks.
"Yeah, so, turns out we actually already know each other."
"No way! How?" Nicks smiles.
Rory looks at Jess for guidance, but he's got his attention on Nicks.
"We lived at the same backwater town for a while."
"Connecticut? I didn't know you'd lived there." She puts her arms around his waist.
"It was a temporary thing, when I stayed with my uncle."
Nicks eyes flick to Rory.
"But you were friendly?"
Jess smiles and Rory has to too.
"Yeah, Rory was definitely one of the people I could stand to be around."
Rory nods.
"I liked Jess too." She musters.
"But Rory likes everyone." Jess fills in.
Rory gives an indignant gasp, surprised at her own antics. Nicks looks beyond pleased.
"Oh well, this is just further proof that I have the most excellent taste in people."
"That you do." Jess looks at her, puts an arm around her shoulders.
Rory bites her lip and smiles firmly. Jess glances back to her and drags his hand through his hair. The silence is probably no longer than a few seconds, but it's deafening, everlasting.
"Well, I-" She reaches for the glass Jess left on the counter. "I just came to get water, I'm beat."
"Yeah, of course, long day." Nicks's tone is apologetic. "Sleep well."
Rory fills the glass and is almost at the corridor when Jess's voice halts her.
"Rory."
She has to check her expression before turning back. He bends over and picks up her phone, takes a step closer and hands it to her. She has to remind herself to breathe.
"Thanks."
She turns and hurries back to her room. As the door closes the ground seems to open, where she wanted to fall in the first place. His pants, that's what she winds up thinking about, he has a wardrobe for staying in, because he lives here, with Nicks. And now with her.
In a fit of desperation she considers calling her mom, but lets it go: she's not ready for any response Lorelai can provide and it's late. Not that that matters. She doesn't sleep that night, not well anyway. That first night in her new place winds up being a long one.