"My heart has followed all my days

something I cannot name."

— Don Marquis


The Monday night dinner rush at the inn always finished early. By nine o'clock the last dessert was cleared from the table, the dining room was spotless, and all the guests were settled in their rooms. Lorelai was flipping through applications for the new housekeeping position when Rory walked in.

"Delivery," Rory announced, holding up Lorelai's phone charger. "As requested."

"Thank you, thank you," Lorelai said, grabbing it. "I always leave it home."

"You know you're allowed to have two chargers, right? You can just keep one here."

"Ah, yes, but then I'd need to come up with a new excuse to make you come visit me when the inn is slow." She leaned over to plug her phone in behind the desk and stood back up. "Hey, do you want to sit down and have dessert with me? It's dead here and we have cake."

Rory really didn't have a lot of time, but… cake. "What kind?"

"We have a chocolate fudge and a cinnamon crumb."

Her eyes lit up. "Throw in a cup of coffee with that cinnamon crumb and I'm yours. But I can't stay long. I'm heading to New York to crash with Paris tonight. I asked Jess to read my manuscript and he just texted me that he's going to be in the city tomorrow, so we're going to meet up."

"Oh?" Lorelai was surprised. Jess was going to be the first person to read Rory's book. Well. Somebody had to be the first, and Lorelai had turned down the opportunity when Rory gave her the first three chapters, so she should've known this day was coming. But did it have to be Jess? "Do you need to meet him? You can just email it to him. Save yourself a trip."

"Mom, this is a big deal. I'm putting this thing out there for the first time. I can't just… email it." She fluttered her fingers in the air, illustrating an email floating inconsequentially through space. "It requires a little pomp and circumstance."

"Well, we better get it a mortarboard, then," Lorelai said. She opened her mouth to say something but held back, pressing her lips together. She better not. But, no, she had to: "Rory, this thing with Jess, is it… just work? This isn't Cary Grant tricking Rosalind Russell into working on a big story just to get her back, is it? Jaunty hat, striped coat? 'Don't be hasty, remember my dimple?'"

Rory slowly puckered her lips as Lorelai prattled on, as if her words were sour. Her chin jutted in stubborn disgust. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"What I mean is — do you think he's going to try to use this whole book thing to get closer to you?" Lorelai shifted anxiously from foot to foot.

It's strictly professional. We're just friends," Rory said dismissively.

"So which is it? Are you friends or is it professional?"

Rory stared at her. Really? She wanted to interrogate her about this? First of all, there was nothing to it. Obviously. Second of all, she didn't need her mom's protection. Especially from Jess. It was like part of Lorelai still saw him as the kid who broke Rory's wrist, half a lifetime later. Wasn't he essentially Lorelai's nephew now?

"It's both. But it's nothing more than that," she said tightly. "I'm asking him to give me his thoughts on a document that includes five entire pages about the fight you and I had after I lost my virginity to Dean. Does that sound like something a person would do in a non-platonic situation?"

Lorelai studied Rory's face. She just looked pissed off. "Okay," she relented, backing off. "I get it. It was just a question."

A beat passed and then Rory nodded, letting her off the hook.

They headed back to the kitchen, Lorelai leading the way. When she walked through the doorway she did a double-take. Every surface in the was covered, but not with food: with bottles of shampoo and conditioner, tubs of moisturizer and facial serum, and jars of massage oil. There was anti-aging cream, acne cream, pore minimizing cream, and cream of mushroom soup. Okay, the last one actually was food.

"Abort mission," she said, stopping short.

Rory collided with her and peered into the room over Lorelai's shoulder. "Nope," she said as she glimpsed the chaos, turning on her heel. "I definitely don't have time for this. So long, cinnamon crumb. See you tomorrow night, Mom."

Lorelai waved goodbye weakly without turning around. "Michel?" she hollered.

He swept in from the other room. "Yes, Lorelai?" He sounded chipper.

"Michel, why does it look like Sephora barged in and got in a fistfight with Ulta in our kitchen?"

"Oh, these are samples."

"Why do you need so many samples?"

"I'm testing them for the spa. Companies keep sending them to us. I feel like a celebrity getting free clothes that the designers want me to wear in front of the paparazzi." He was positively gleeful.

Lorelai surveyed the madness. There was just so much of it. "Well, have you narrowed it down at all?"

"This is the narrowed-down selection. I've already thrown out the obvious rejects."

"Michel, we could've donated that stuff."

"Trust me, it was more charitable to throw that garbage away."

Lorelai picked up a foot scrub and sniffed. "This smells good."

Michel took it from her and smelled it. He wrinkled his nose. "If you want your feet to smell like a prostitute." He tossed it into the trash.

"Hey!" She gingerly peeked into the trash. It was mostly empty with no unidentifiable liquids anywhere, so she reached in and plucked out the foot scrub, clutching it to her chest. "I'd rather my feet smell like a prostitute than an accountant or a dockworker."

He clicked his tongue disapprovingly and scanned the counter, looking for something specific. He picked up a tube of something. "Try this. Patchouli is the biggest fragrance trend of 2017."

"Patchouli? Like, 'smell my dreadlocks' patchouli?"

"It's much more sophisticated than that. Tom Ford does a patchouli fragrance, and Tom Ford does not do dreadlocks."

She sighed and looked around. "Are you sure you don't want help with this? It's a big project."

He puffed out his chest. "I have been training my whole life for this project." His eyes darted over to the mess. "However, it is an enormous task of vital importance, so a second opinion would be useful. But not your opinion. Someone with refined taste. Are there consultants we can hire for this sort of thing?"

An idea popped into Lorelai's head. Something that would both fix Michel's mess and address something else that had been bothering her for the past few weeks. "I think I know just the person."


She made the call first thing in the morning. Michel had piled all the samples in the office so that the kitchen could actually be used to make breakfast and not just to exfoliate. Her desk was covered. As the phone rang, she picked up a tube of hair texturizing paste and fiddled with the cap.

"Hello?" Emily said.

"Mom, hey."

"Lorelai. How are you?"

"I'm good, Mom. I haven't heard from you in awhile. Over a month, actually. Not that I've been keeping track or anything." She wondered if she had done something to upset Emily without even realizing it. The last argument she could remember was New Year's Eve, but that was nothing and Emily was fine the next day. She braced herself.

"Oh, I've just been so busy." Her tone was cordial but distracted. "Listen, I'm starting my begonias indoors this year so they bloom earlier, so I was about to head to the garden center."

Lorelai relaxed her shoulders. "Oh, well, I'll be quick. I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Michel is testing products for the spa and he's pretty overwhelmed."

"Oh?"

"He could really use some help. Someone to go through products with him and pick the winners. Someone with discerning opinions who truly relishes making snap judgments and looks good doing it." She laughed stiffly. "I thought you'd be the perfect candidate."

"What do I know about choosing products for a spa?"

"You've been to every luxury spa in the state of Connecticut. Plus, don't you want to make sure we're spending your money wisely? Michel is strongly considering going with patchouli-scented everything." She hadn't intended to throw him under the bus, but the opportunity presented itself, and, well, it was an added benefit.

"Patchouli?" Emily sounded horrified. "It's supposed to be a spa, not a commune."

"If you can come down next week I'll make sure Michel is available anytime you want to meet."

"Fine," Emily relented. "I'll come down next week."

Lorelai smiled, satisfied, and put the texturizing paste down on top of a pile of other hair products. She hung up the phone just as the entire pile collapsed and fell to the floor. Perfect.


Rory entered the restaurant and stamped the snow off her boots on the mat. She scanned the tables. It was halfway between lunch and dinner on a weekday, so it wasn't crowded. She spotted Jess sitting in a booth near the back, engrossed in his… iPad?

"Too much screen time causes brain damage," she greeted him, unwinding her scarf. Her face was flushed from the cold.

He looked up. "I was wondering why I had a headache." He closed the iPad's cover and stuck it in his backpack, standing to give her a brief hug.

"Do you actually read on that thing?"

"Nah, I'm still a Luddite when it comes to books." He pulled a paperback out of his back pocket to prove his point. "I was just doing some work."

She slid into the opposite side of the booth and dropped her tote down next to her with a loud, satisfying thunk.

He glanced over at the bag. "Sounds hefty."

"It's definitely got some heft to it. I hope you have room in that bag of yours."

He smiled. "Plenty of room."

"So what brought you to New York today anyway? Getting ready for the move?" She picked up the warm mug that was waiting in front of her.

"Yeah," he said. "We were actually looking at office space. I checked out a couple of apartments this morning too. I just put my condo on the market."

"You have a condo?" She almost choked on her coffee.

"Don't sound so surprised."

"I just never pictured you with a mortgage."

"I like not having a landlord. Nobody to yell at me about the nail holes in the walls." A waiter plunked down a plate of nachos in front of them. "I figured you'd be hungry," Jess said.

"Bless you," said Rory. She lifted a chip and held it in front of her like a champagne glass. "To first drafts and generous friends."

Jess raised his own chip. "Cheers."

She ate her chip, wiped her hands on her napkin and reached into her bag. "Okay. So, without further ado…" She took the manuscript from her bag, hugged it to her chest, and then placed it in front of him. "Take good care of it, please."

"I'll be kind," he confirmed.

"No, don't be kind. Be brutal," she implored him, eyes wide. It was the most difficult thing she'd ever written by far, and for months, she'd been alone with it. She didn't want coddling. "It's like a puppy. The best way to take good care of it is strict discipline."

He nodded, a solemn expression on his face. "I will train your manuscript not to pee in the house," he assured her. He ate another nacho.

"In all seriousness, I really appreciate you doing this."

He waved her off, his mouth full.

"I mean it. I know you're busy but it means a lot."

She'd debated whether to warn him about the other things in the book that might surprise him ("Spoiler alert, in Chapter 25 I steal a yacht!"). But if she was going to do this, if she was really going to put her book out there and ask him for help, she had to just let go of it. And besides, if the book actually turned into something, everyone else in her life would be reading it too.

Jess' phone vibrated. He glanced at the screen.

"You can get that if you need to."

"Nah, it's just Matthew. I'm meeting the guys again later anyway."

"It's weird. It's been just me and this book alone together for months. I almost chickened out today. I was thinking maybe I need to go through it one more time…"

"It's never going to feel perfect," he said. "But the first step to getting it out there is to let someone else read it. What did your mom think?"

She realized that he didn't know. "She hasn't read it. She doesn't want to read it until it's done. You'll be the first."

"Huh," he said, blinking, playing it cool. He began flipping through the pages aimlessly.

"Don't," she said, cringing. "I can't watch. It's like a professor grading your paper right in front of you." She suddenly remembered the red flags. "Oh!"

He looked up at her.

"The red flags," she said, pointing at the Post-It notes jutting out from a few of the pages. "As I was getting it ready for you, I realized… there might be some parts that you'd feel uncomfortable reading or giving me feedback on or both. Those parts are flagged. You can just skip them if you want. I would totally understand if it's too weird."

"Why would it be weird?" he asked. She just looked at him, waiting for him to get it so she wouldn't have to explain: You're in the book, Jess, and it's not all happy memories. It wouldn't be awkward, exactly, to talk about that part of their lives, but it almost felt like it was two other, completely different people. In fact, she couldn't remember a time in the last decade when they'd had a conversation about their high school relationship.

Thankfully, she didn't have to explain, because it dawned on him. "Ah," he said, looking down at the red flags. He shrugged. Clearly it wasn't a big deal for him either. "I can handle it."

"Well, if you do read those parts, at least you can make sure they turn out to be good."

"Not even Hunter S. Thompson himself could save Where the Buffalo Roam," he quipped.

She scoffed. "My book is not Where the Buffalo Roam. At least I hope it's not."

"I haven't read a word yet but I'd put money on not."

Jess' phone vibrated again. He frowned. "Do you need to go? I don't want to keep you if you have to get back," Rory said.

"In a little bit." He hesitated. "To tell you the truth I'm trying to delay a conversation I really don't want to have."

"What's going on?" Rory asked.

He sighed. "Another press called Blue Fern — still independent, but way bigger than us — wants to buy Truncheon."

"Wow." Rory said, awed. "I've heard of them. That's a huge deal. Congratulations."

He grunted. It wasn't a happy grunt.

"You don't like the idea?"

He squirmed in his seat. "They'd keep us on. We'd still run things, but they'd get a say in… everything. And if push came to shove, they'd be able to overrule us."

"And you don't want to sell out."

His mouth twisted reluctantly at the cliched expression. "I'm not a Beastie Boy," he said, mildly defensive.

"But you don't want to sell out."

"Kind of," he admitted. He grimaced. "Ever since we started, we've only ever published what we wanted to. We've never had someone breathing down our necks, pushing us to do something just because it'll be profitable, or telling us not to publish something awesome just because it's not going to sell like that book by the Fixer Uppers."

"I never pegged you for a big Chip and Joanna fan," she remarked.

"We used to have this intern who was obsessed with them. He took a long weekend once to go stay at their bed and breakfast or something. He just kept talking about the silos and the shiplap. Waco this and Waco that, but he'd never even heard of David Koresh." He shook his head in disbelief.

"Kids these days," Rory sighed.

"Isn't shiplap just wood paneling?"

Rory dipped a chip in salsa. "So the other guys want to do it? Sell?"

He shrugged. "They're open to it."

"And why do they think it's a good idea?"

He picked up a chip. "It's a lot of money. Not, like, a lot of money — not like 'Oh, I was too busy sitting on my golden toilet to notice that somebody stole my yacht —'"

Rory sat up ruler-straight. "How did you know about that?"

He stopped, chip halfway to his mouth. "About what?"

"Not the golden toilet, the…" she trailed off. He was looking at her like she'd just doffed a tiara and a red clown nose. Huh. Strange coincidence. Well, he'd understand soon enough. "Nevermind. Carry on."

"It's not just the money itself. The money would let us do more with the business. We'd have an owner with deeper pockets. More resources, good connections. We could do more, be more."

"That's quite a dilemma," Rory said. She couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy. Here she was, spending most of her time on a book that might only ever be read by two people, both of whom were currently scarfing down nachos at the same table in a Brooklyn diner. Meanwhile, his life's work was so valuable someone wanted to both buy it from him and pay him to keep doing it.

He tucked her manuscript carefully in his bag. "The way you feel about this book is the way I feel about Truncheon."

He may have grown up and grown a beard, but she could never see him selling. "Well, do what I'm doing, then," she suggested. "Make sure it's only ever in the best hands."


That night, back in Stars Hollow, Rory tossed and turned in bed, wondering if Jess had started reading yet. What if he thought it was so bad he didn't even know what to tell her? Was it too warm and fuzzy in some parts? Too glib and jokey in others? She thought of the turns of phrase she was most proud of and wondered if it would look like she'd tried too hard. Had she killed enough of her darlings? She thought of a new, better way to end the first essay. Dammit.

She climbed out of her warm bed and threw on a sweater. Sliding into her desk chair, she opened her laptop. Maybe she could just make some quick changes and then email him the updated file. But what if he'd already started?

Get a grip, she ordered herself.

There was nothing she could do now that Jess had the manuscript. The rest of her edits would have to come later. She wondered if he'd mark it up by hand or send her typewritten notes. It was going to be pretty time-consuming. He had a lot on his plate, with work and now the possibility of selling his business. She felt a little guilty. He really needed to do his due diligence, but did he even have time?

She was still sitting at her computer. She had time, especially since she was wide awake at two in the morning, He had mentioned the potential buyer's name — Blue Fern. Pretty much anything recent would be on the Internet where he could find it himself, but there was plenty of older stuff that was a little trickier to dig up. And she had access to some databases for journalists. There were public records she could search; had they ever been involved in litigation? Or filed for bankruptcy? That would be good to know. She bit her thumbnail as she considered where to start. It was the least she could do, really.


Next week: Lorelai struggles with the new relationship dynamic between her and Emily; Rory covers a town meeting; Jess considers a big decision.