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Chapter 2
Christmas 2008
The whirlwind month after the end of the campaign and the end of the election left Rory feeling battered, bruised, and exhilarated. She left the beat of the trail on good terms with her online magazine, flush with four different recommendation letters, the glow of being a part of a historic campaign, and a portfolio of successful articles signed Rory Gilmore.
Within a week of election day she rode the wave into a few different no-nonsense interviews in chic modern offices on the upper floors of lofty Manhattan skyscrapers. She brought her neatly printed resumes and tied her hair into a sensible knot on the top of her head, and smiled and used the firm handshake that her grandfather had practiced with her when she was a kid. When she called her mom to tell her that she had landed a job at New York Magazine, they screamed together and jumped around, one in Luke's diner and the other on a corner in SoHo. Her grandparents helped her with the security deposit on an apartment in Bushwick, and her mom drove up to help her collect knick-knacky furniture at different Brooklyn thrift stores and vintage sellers. They splurged on a brand new mattress at a real store after they saw a few too many abandoned mattresses on the street with vaguely suspicious stains and crawling bugs.
By the last week of November Rory was set up with her metro card, her own spotty wifi, and her neighborhood coffee shop. She knew where the cheapest bagel was between her subway stop on the west side and her office, and she had the right amount of twinkle lights strung up to eliminate the terrible overhead lighting in her apartment. She went to a few different happy hours at dimly lit village bars with the other new employees and paid interns.
Soon, the glow faded to normalcy, and Rory began to get used to the new New York life she led. Her job was anything but glamorous. As an entry-level editorial assistant, she became well-acquainted with the Starbucks baristas on her street and developed advanced copying skills. She hung out in the mail room, reloaded printer ink, signed for packages, checked her boss' email, and sent handwritten thank you notes to the authors, celebrities, and artists that someone else interviewed and wrote about.
She arrived at work early and left late, exhausted, dozing off on the subway and falling into her bed without even kicking off her shoes. Her fridge became an embarrassing combination of molding take out containers and half-empty condiments. Her dirty laundry piled so high that she was forced to buy new underwear after work one day.
When Christmas finally loomed on the horizon Rory felt a deep sense of relief, not only for her laundry, but for the chance to escape to Stars Hollow for a few days and forget the drafty New York avenues and the icy steps that she always slipped on at her apartment.
A few days before she was supposed to go home, her phone rang on her walk from the subway platform to her apartment. It was dark and bitterly cold, and she cursed at having to pull her hand out of her pocket to hold her phone up to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hey kid!" Lorelai's cheer caused Rory to smile despite herself, "three day countdown, you ready? I'm trying to draft a takeout schedule, to hit all the favorites, but I think we're going to have to double or triple up on meals to make it all work, which I know we are fully prepared for after our years and years of painstaking training."
"Fine by me," Rory reached the stoop of her building and rummaged in her purse for her keys, holding the phone with her shoulder, "did you include that new place that you were telling me about last month? The Indian/Southern combo pop up restaurant?"
"Yes," Lorelai scoffed, "what do you think I am, an amateur? That will be our second lunch on day two, right after the full and complete burger collection at Luke's. You've got to try their fried chicken samosas."
"Deal. Are you stocked up on junk food?"
"Picked up poptarts, red vines, doughnut holes, and ice cream today," Lorelai listed off, "oh, and Luke promised to supply us with a five gallon bucket of French fries as long as we let him put lettuce on our cheeseburgers the whole time you're here."
Rory managed to unlock the door and quickly moved into the hallway, slamming the door to shut out the cold behind her. "That's a heavy price to pay but I guess we can try to tolerate it."
"I'm trying to train Paul Anka to take the lettuce and hide it, but you know Paul Anka, he will not do anything that he deigns to be beneath him. Plan B will be the age old napkin trick."
"Last time Luke made us shake out our napkins," Rory pointed out, slowly stepping up the stairs to her third-floor apartment, "we have to have a more creative solution. Maybe we should watch magic trick videos. Or hire a consultant."
"Um, no thank you, lettuce up my sleeve sounds worse than lettuce on my cheeseburger. I'll just use my wily woman ways to get him to change his mind."
"Good idea," Rory unlocked her apartment door and stepped inside, flicking on the lights, "don't let me know the details."
"I'll tell you all about it on Friday," Lorelai blew her a kiss over the phone, "see you soon, let me know your train schedule. Love you."
"Love you too," Rory replied. She hung up, tossed her phone on her bedside table, and collapsed onto her bed, coat and all. Friday could never come soon enough.
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Her trip back to Stars Hollow was delayed by a snowstorm, but Rory couldn't care less once she was safely on the train, chilled fingers wrapped around a hot coffee thermos, book open in her lap. She allowed herself to disappear in fiction for the first time since her job had started eight weeks earlier. Jane Austen wasn't the most original of choices, but Rory needed something warm and familiar. I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! – When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.
Rory did not quite yet have an excellent library, but she did have more books than she could fit on the bursting shelves in her little apartment. Some were classics, read so many times that the worn covers were falling off and the pages felt like fabric to her fingertips: Orwell, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Bukowski, Bronte, Wilde, Vonnegut, Woolf. Others were less worn, more rigid, their secrets not laid quite so bare, their words not quite as memorized.
Some books she kept buried on purpose. The guilty pleasure books that she pulled out when she needed the equivalent of poptarts for her brain, the books that reminded her of moments too painful or precious to bear, and a slim black novel signed by one Jess Mariano.
She remembered that her mother had told her that Jess was coming to visit Luke for Christmas this year, and shifted slightly in her seat. She hadn't seen Jess in a while now but they conversed sporadically, usually through one-sentence texts with book recommendations or short emails with brief well-wishes after one of them published something or other. To her relief, Rory felt fairly comfortable with her distant friendship with Jess. She hadn't been sure if her awkward, stumbling apology would fix the guilt she felt over using him a couple years ago in Truncheon, but if nothing else it had seemed to at least build a tentative, fragile bridge between them. At Thanksgiving last year Jess had seemed so unbothered by her apology, leaning against the wall of the diner, his dark eyes fixed on her without awkwardness or judgment. She hadn't been able to match his confident eye contact, but she had felt perfectly laid bare by his. And he had taken her apology, shrugged it away, and let everything rest between them, even going so far as to send dry-humored book recommendations to her in Iowa as a token that the bridge between them was real and not imagined.
This reads like a Didion ripoff, but who am I to judge characters for having too much anxiety?
A lovechild of the standard bildungsroman and surrealism. I think Ernest would have hated it.
I'm not sure this author has ever met a real, live woman, but his stream-of-consciousness reads like he's well-acquainted with a variety of illicit substances.
She read every single one of the recommendations, and gave him a one or two sentence text review back, doing her best to stay on par with his casual humor. She looked forward to receiving them every couple months or so, sharp reminders of the literary world that she was missing due to her job on the campaign and then her job in New York. The excuses to read a decent book on the subway and craft some type of thoughtful response made her feel more like herself than she did in weeks of fetching coffee and making double-sided copies.
Perhaps this holiday she could be in the same room as Jess without the gnawing guilt that had chewed her up at the last family Thanksgiving. She knew it was in her head – no man could pull off that quality of James Dean indifference unless he truly was unbothered by it all – but Rory still felt shame over the behavior that Jess had witnessed and absorbed from her in Truncheon.
Austen would have had none of it. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.
Jess Mariano it seemed was slightly more forgiving.
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The magic of Christmas in Stars Hollow swept Rory and her suitcase full of dirty laundry straight out of her New York blues and into the cheery joy of the snow-dusted, light-strung town. She chatted with her mom over take out containers in front of classic old movies and over large mugs of coffee at their usual table at Luke's. They snuck junk food under the table to avoid Luke's protestations and gave him big innocent smiles when he thought he heard the crackle of wrappers. Whenever they could bear the cold, they put coffee in to-go thermoses and walked the town, stepping into the familiar little shops and saying hi to all the people that Rory missed from Brooklyn.
On Christmas Eve they attended Miss Patty's holiday ballet performance dressed in their most festive and glamorous attire, like honored guests at a properly fancy gala. Rory borrowed an old gold sequined skirt from her mother, and tugged on the black heeled ankle boots that she wore to work nearly every day in the city. Lorelai resisted a boa but could not resist a shockingly scarlet shade of lipstick. "It's Santa-colored," she justified, giving Rory a sly wink.
When they arrived they hurried to their seats next to Babette. "Oh sugar, I'm so glad you're here," she patted Lorelai's knee, "Taylor kept threatening to not let me save seats in an effort to stop town cliques. I told him if there was no law then he could scram, but then he tried to take your chair!"
"Well thank you for not letting him steal my chair," Lorelai twisted in her seat, trying to spot Taylor, "besides, there is no town clique! What is he talking about? Has he been watching too many teen high school movies lately? Did someone accidentally lend him a copy of The Breakfast Club? Mean Girls?"
"Who knows," Babette shrugged, "you know how Taylor gets. Always trying to fix something."
Rory glanced back and saw Taylor tugging a chair away from Kirk. "No, Taylor, it's for Lulu!" Kirk pulled back, straining, "a clique can't be two people in love! No!"
Rory faced forward, hiding a smile.
The performance, a mixture of The Nutcracker and something that might have been Home Alone, was enjoyable enough but entirely too long, and Rory caught herself stifling yawns as the final dances revolved to a close. The ending, and the eruption of applause, jolted her awake. She clapped politely and smiled as her mother wolf-whistled the ballerinas.
"Which after party do you think we should attend?" Lorelai put her arm around Rory, giving her a short squeeze, "the cast party always has the best food but the under-21 vibe is kind of a bummer. Crew knows how to throw down but they come with the threatening possibility of being exposed to basement beer pong."
"Luke's? Coffee?" Rory suggested, sleepy.
"Excellent plan, child of mine. Caffeine first, then debauchery and revelry."
The two women left Miss Patty's in a flurry of cheek-kisses, happy-holidays, warm hugs, and cheer. They avoided Kirk, who had taken it upon himself to take Polaroid photos of all of the underage dancers and was badgering them for autographs to sell signed copies at the town fair.
The light in Luke's was on, but the sign on the front door said CLOSED in large, no-nonsense letters. Lorelai completely ignored it and pulled out her key ring. "Perks of sleeping with the owner," she told Rory conversationally, as she unlocked the door and pushed it open.
When Rory stepped in she saw Luke and Jess sitting across from each other at a table, both of them relaxed, nursing mugs, mid-conversation. They both looked up at the women when they entered.
"Honey, I'm home," Lorelai tossed her sparkling clutch in an empty chair, "coffee on?"
Without waiting for Luke's reply she bustled behind the counter, procured two appropriately bucket-sized mugs, and filled them both with the full pot of coffee that Rory was sure Luke had timed to coincide with the end of Miss Patty's show, specifically for them.
"Well, no one can say you don't feel at home here," Luke rolled his eyes, "Hi, Rory, come sit." He pulled the chair out from next to him.
Rory sat. She nodded at Jess across from her. "Hey Jess."
"Hi Jess," Lorelai called from the counter.
"Hey," he tipped his mug towards her, "Happy holidays. What's with the get up?"
"Oh right," Rory glanced down at her garishly sequined skirt, "well, we wanted to be appropriately dressed for the town ballet. Mom found this somewhere, in a closet or a trunk or the eighties."
A smirk tugged Jess' lips, but he hid it by taking a sip from his coffee mug. Lorelai placed a mug of coffee in front of Rory, and then took the remaining empty chair. She flashed Luke a smile. "You really missed out on the ballet/play."
"Oh really?"
"Oh yeah. It had everything. Romance, magic, suspense, murder -"
"Murder?"
"Yes, murder. Fake knife, red scarf for blood, the whole staged shebang. We're thinking four, no, five Tony nominations minimum, wouldn't you say Rory?"
"Definitely, and that's with us expecting at least two snubs due to the political inclinations of the costume designer," Rory agreed.
"Besides, you could have gone out with us dressed like this," Lorelai tossed some of her hair back to show off the shoulder pads that accompanied her red dress, "aren't you sorry you missed it?"
"Not really," Luke snorted, "I've had enough of that ballet. The ballerinas have been trying to hide from Miss Patty behind the counter in here to avoid rehearsal. Very high-pitched, lots of drama."
"Well it wouldn't be a show without drama," Lorelai said. She turned to Jess. "What's new with you? Luke said you're here because TJ had an accident?"
Jess nodded, "He tried to joust without pads. He's out of the hospital now, but Liz didn't want to do anything big for the holidays. I think handling Christmas for Doula is stressful enough without me hanging around."
"Wow, jousting," Lorelai couldn't help but crack a smile, "is this a regular thing? Like instead of going to the gym he goes to the joust? Does Doula have a little jousting cheer outfit?"
Rory spared Jess from having to respond and interrupted. "How old is Doula now anyways?"
"Almost two, I think," Luke said, "sounds like they're having a hell of a time trying to keep the kid from killing herself. Liz never took baby-proofing very seriously. Jess swallowed a box of screws once. Ate them like popcorn, doctor was furious."
Jess grimaced. "Great."
"But she's doing better with Doula right?" Lorelai pressed, "she took Rory's old baby gates from the house. I'm sure there are no power tools or home improvement supplies laying around anymore."
"She's doing fine," Luke said, "This is her second Christmas, no permanent scars yet, happy home, decent though admittedly bizarre parents."
"Bizarre parents are the best parents," Lorelai leaned forward, "did I tell you the thematic sequence I created for Rory's Halloween costumes until the age of 6?"
Rory let herself tune out the familiar story, enjoying the warmth of the coffee mug on her fingertips and the pleasant, homey vibe of the cozy diner. Snowflakes built up on the windowsill, and she settled deeper into her chair.
She glanced at Jess, as he listened to Lorelai. He looked a little different from the last time she had seen him at Thanksgiving, though he hadn't seemed to have aged at all. His hair was still a dark mess, his jawline was still dusted with five o'clock shadow. He was wearing a dark gray Henley with the sleeves pushed up his forearms, both hands gripping the mug of coffee. His dark eyes were intent on Lorelai as she exuberantly told her story, something of a smile playing at the corners of his lips.
Perhaps it was curiosity, the nosy ex-girlfriend inside her that made her take subtle glances at his familiar frame, or just the usual casual interest she took in men her age. There had always been something about Jess that peaked her interest.
He glanced at her, and she felt an inner twinge of embarrassment at being caught. She flashed him a small smile and re-focused on her mother, concentrating, listening to the story of the different obscure movie characters Lorelai had dressed her as during her infancy. Lorelai stood up and began to act out her particularly dramatic three-year-old costume, and Rory couldn't help but laugh, holding her coffee, letting herself forget everything else and be distracted by her mother's antics.
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Christmas Day made Rory feel full of warmth and joy, surrounded by all the people she loved. She and her mother went up to her grandparents for a sumptuous, decadent Christmas brunch, attended by more than a few of her grandparents' closest friends from the club. Her grandfather passed her an envelope with a wink and a grin, and when she opened it she found tickets to Broadway's Phantom of the Opera. "Now we have a perfect excuse to visit you, Rory dear," Emily kissed her on the cheek, "February, box seats."
"Wow, thanks," she gave them each a hug, "it'll be so nice to have family visit the city for a minute."
They asked about her job and her apartment, but she shrugged off the questions, not in the mood to talk up her glamorous position as a glorified Starbucks delivery girl. In a year or two, when she got a promotion and could write her own things, she'd feel more comfortable talking about her job to her grandparents. For now, it was best to mention the name a lot (New York Magazine!) and avoid the dirty daily details.
Rory spent the rest of the brunch doing her best not to laugh as her mother not-so-quietly impersonated various members of the club crowd. When it was time to leave she gave her grandparents one last hug and thanked them again for the tickets. They handed Lorelai an envelope too, with a check inside that made Lorelai swat Richard on the shoulder, "Dad, you didn't have to do that."
They had agreed to host Christmas dinner at their house, so they were quick to get home. Lorelai had snorted aloud at the idea of cooking anything, so Luke and Sookie had both promised to split the responsibility and bring a few things pot-luck style. Sookie and Jackson showed up in a whirlwind of heavy platters, stacks of Tupperware, and small children running about still high off of the joy of their present-filled morning. Luke showed up more subtly, arms laden with grocery bags and Jess behind him holding a case of beer.
"It's not for me," Jess assured Rory, setting it on the porch out in the cold. "think I would drink this domestic crap? Come on. Luke said he knows what Jackson likes."
"They do all like that," Rory shrugged, and helped him grab a few for the adults that were running the kitchen.
The afternoon quickly darkened into evening, and soon enough the table was stacked tall with a perfectly delicious collection of Luke and Sookie's finest. It was a small, cozy group dinner, and Rory spent the meal gossiping with her mother and Sookie as the kids entertained with their sugar-high antics. She tried to help with the dishes but Luke shooed her away, handed her a half-empty wine bottle and told her to go relax with her mother.
In the living room the kids played games until they crashed, while the adults hung around, finished the case of beer, and talked about old times. The twinkling lights on the tree and the marathon of Christmas movies on ABC helped to soften the tone of the evening, everyone wrapped in blankets and sleepy-full on too much amazing food.
Rory eventually noticed that Jess had pulled out Hemingway and was reading in the corner chair. He had one foot balanced on his knee, a short glass of either whiskey or scotch resting on the armrest. The kids laying on their stomachs and playing a game by his feet didn't seem to phase him in the slightest. His eyebrows were furrowed, concentrated, one hand casually flicking through the pages as he absorbed the text.
Eventually Sookie's family left, and Rory found herself on the couch with Luke and Lorelai watching an old Christmas flick. A phone buzzed, and the three of them glanced over at Jess.
"Hey! Silence during the movie!" Lorelai shushed him.
He held up one hand in defense and answered the phone, quickly putting his book and glass on the side table. "Hello? Hey, Em."
He moved into the kitchen, listening to whoever was on the other line. "Em?" Lorelai raised her eyebrows at Luke, grinning.
"Some new girl, Emma," Luke shrugged, "he told me she works at the bar down the street from the publishing house or something. I don't know, he doesn't talk much."
Rory sipped her wine. She felt more or less unsurprised. There was no way that Jess, with his dark eyes and bad-boy charisma, stayed single for any length of time. But the comfort in the way that he answered the phone and the easy manner in which he shortened her name did surprise her a little. He was clearly relaxed with her, whoever this Philadelphia girl was.
She tried to shake Jess out of her head, focusing on the TV and the wine. Of course he had a girlfriend.
Late in the evening, after Lorelai and Luke had headed upstairs, Rory stretched out on the couch. Her mind was hazy with wine and food. She could feel the pressure of her work emails beginning to close in on her, but she pushed it away, refusing to think about it until she was back on the train to New York the next morning.
"More whiskey?" she offered Jess, reaching for the bottle on the coffee table.
He reached from his chair to hand her his glass. "Thanks."
He took a swig, and rubbed his eyes, tired. After a long pause he rested his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. "My editor is going to be so pissed at me."
"Why?" Rory poured herself a glass too. Her head was heady and she wanted to keep the buzz, enjoying that capricious and pleasurable halfway place somewhere on the road between sober and dizzy.
"She wanted my next draft by the new year," Jess said, "She liked the first one but wanted a rewrite of the ending."
"Endings are hard," Rory sympathized.
"The first one was shit," Jess stared at his glass, "I knew it. Sent it to her anyways."
Rory watched him, patient. He sighed. "Oh well. Age old cliché story. Writer hitting a block."
"What's the story about?" she asked, curious.
Jess sipped his whiskey, his voice heavy with self-deprecation. "Nothing like Subsect. Something of a love story I suppose but the characters are too messed up to realize it. Set in New York, like every other novel."
"Sounds like a success already," she smiled, "I'm sure I'll be seeing it on the New York Times bestseller list – they love the ones set in New York even if they try to pretend they don't. Self-indulgent, all of them."
Jess nodded. "True. But last I checked most bestsellers had endings."
"That's true, they do tend to have endings."
Jess swirled his whiskey. "Maybe I'll just sell out, not resolve anything, and leave it at a cheap cliffhanger. I've heard authors consider that a noble option these days."
"Don't do that," Rory frowned, "you're better than that."
"My editor would disagree," he said darkly, "I've got a week to fix this before she starts offering me her own equally awful suggestions."
"My offer still stands, Mariano," Rory pulled her feet up on the couch, curling up against the arm rest. "If you need ferocity of editorship, you know where to look. I can give it a go."
He seemed hesitant, watching her, deliberating. "No one has read this other than my editor. It's an unfinished disaster with plot holes and inconsistencies and unrelatable, unlikable characters."
Rory scoffed, "You're a gifted writer, there is no way that it is that bad. Maybe it just needs a fresh set of eyes?"
"Maybe," he finished the rest of his glass in one swig, and half-stood to pour himself another. Without asking, her leaned toward her and topped her glass off as well. In his suddenly close proximity she caught a snatch of his cologne, a familiar, woody, whisky-aged something that reminded her of pine needles and the worn leather binding on old books. "My condition still stands as well, I would fully expect for you to shred the thing to pieces."
"Blitzkrieg of criticism," she raised her class to him.
He clinked his glass against hers, "I expect nothing less."
She smiled despite herself. He settled back in his chair, and caught her grin. "What?"
"I'm looking forward to reading it," she admitted. "Subsect was brilliant. You know me, I can't resist good literature."
"Lower your expectations," he warned.
"Sure," Rory held up a hand, but she couldn't quite suppress the smile pulling at the corners of her lips.
"Well," Jess drained his glass, "if that's the case then I suppose I should get you a copy before you head out. What time is your train?"
"I'm leaving at noon tomorrow."
"Great, pick up the copy at Luke's before you go? I'm driving back earlier than that."
Rory nodded, "Sounds good."
He stood, picked up his beat up paperback book and tucked it into his back pocket. She watched him put on his coat, his motions just a touch too slow, the whiskey making some kind of effect on his bloodstream.
"It was nice to see you," she said. She meant it.
Jess glanced up from his coat buttons and gave her his typical, crooked smile. "Nice to see you too. Kill my book, will you?"
"I'll send you the ashes in a few days," she promised.
"Alright." He walked past her, behind the couch, giving her shoulder a short squeeze as he passed by. Like a habit she reached up towards her shoulder, fingertips lightly touching the back of his hand, a brief moment of contact before he vanished towards the front door.
"See you," she twisted in her seat. Jess' dark eyes passed over her once, thoughtful, and then he opened the front door and disappeared into the dark, cold night, quickly shutting the door behind him to block out the icy rush of air.
She turned back around and stared at her whiskey glass, at the inch or so of dark, amber liquid that made her head spin and her thoughts fuzzy.
Perhaps she was an idiot for pushing her editorship on Jess, for pressing their friendship despite doing her best to pulverize it the last few times they had met up while she was at Yale. She felt herself unconsciously pulling the familiar strings of their connection again, pressing gentle conversation about literature and prose, offering whiskey and friendship when she knew that they were both disasters with each. But Jess was careful and guarded, sending book recommendations and giving witty one-liners without really letting her in. Maybe it was for the best, maybe he was protecting himself from the aching damage they had tended to inflict on each other in the past.
Or maybe she was being utterly narcissistic and Jess was still unbothered, careless, removed from whatever history they had once shared. He answered the phone with a smile to an Em in Philadelphia and kept a careful distance from Rory. Maybe all of this was in her head and when he walked home she wasn't on his mind at all. More than likely he was running over the plot of his book, trying to tie together an ending to an uncooperative narrative. Or maybe – and she took too large a sip of her whiskey and winced at the rush – he was imagining a girl in a dark bar in Philadelphia with her own bottle of liquor and her own strings to pull.
Rory stretched out and lay back, closing her eyes, pushing her thoughts away from the closed off ex-boyfriend that had left her living room feeling remarkably empty. In the morning she would wake up to pots of coffee, a heaping breakfast at Luke's, and a thick sheaf of papers in a manila envelope with Jess' name and characters. She would have literature to read and creative, constructive criticism to contribute. For the first time in months, ever since becoming a glorified intern, she would have real, valuable writing to peruse and explore.
Her inner editor smiled.
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Reviews are always, always wonderful.
And (shameless plug) for those of you wishing for a different imagining of the Revival, check out Fall is for Funerals and Vonnegut :)
