What You Want
Chapter 4
"Babydoll?….Honeyface?…Sugarcake?"
No response. Only crickets. Daytime crickets, actually. Lorelai stared in the direction of the staircase, lips pursed. "Rorrr-eeyyy?" She hollered.
"What-ey?" Rory returned. Lorelai calmed, despite knowing Rory was upstairs. Call her crazy, but months without Rory and she was feeling a little paranoid. Who knew if that hologram she saw back at the diner was real or not – she had to be certain!
"Just checking. Geesh. Don't get your panty hose in a twist."
Rory rolled her eyes as she walked downstairs, approaching her mother. "I don't generally wear panty hose. 'Specially not with jeans. And 'Sugarcake', really?"
"Oh, I know. It's just such a faux pas these days," Lorelai responded, ignoring Rory's last comment.
"Mom."
"Right," Lorelai smiled at Rory. "Well, you're all unpacked, so, what now? I forget how this works."
Rory glanced toward the living room, still on the stair landing. "Umm… Well, I don't remember."
"Oh, boy."
"We saw everyone. Babette showed us Maury's hat collection and the cat album. Miss Patty smothered me. Kirk shared his love of phone books with us. Michel gave me that incredibly awkward hug. Sookie fed us. Humongous amounts of food…"
"I heard that humongous isn't actually a word? Is that true? Because I don't trust anything unless you tell me. Or Vogue tells me. It's generally one or the other."
"Typically, if a slang term is used frequently enough in common vernacular, it becomes worthy of the Oxford English Dictionary."
"So is it, or isn't it?" Lorelai was unsettled.
Rory shook her head slightly. "I certainly don't know. Do you see those convenient little thumb indices in the seam, here?" Rory gestured up and down her side.
"Point taken."
"We could look it up," Rory suggested.
"Yeah," Lorelai turned and headed toward the kitchen, and Rory followed. "Yeah, I think I actually have an appointment with the, uh…the, uh…"
"It's okay, Mom."
Lorelai looked at her gratefully, all joking turning to seriousness. "I'm a little out of practice. Luke's pretty good, but he's not you."
Rory nodded. "Well, that's good. That would be inappropriate."
"I'm glad you're home." Lorelai beamed, and opened her arms slightly.
Rory easily stepped forward into the hug. "I'm so sorry, Mom. I was foolish. Completely irrational." Rory sighed into Lorelai's shoulder. "I just believed so strongly that it was something I needed to do. And maybe I did need to do it. But, still, I'm so sorry. I never meant to let you down like that."
"I'm glad you're home, kid," Lorelai repeated.
It was dusk, and it was beginning to snow. Jess could not help thinking it was a little early for snow, and he spitefully pulled his jacket more tightly around him. Throughout his childhood growing up in New York, Jess never recalled minding the cold. Then, he spent one winter in California, and he could not readjust to the chill currently pervading his bones.
Matters were not helped due to the fact that Jess was heading to meet guy he didn't particularly like. The guy had written four pieces for Windrush, a zine Jess helped to publish monthly. Jess, Andrew, Chris, and Matt generally met with regular contributors at Truncheon, or at least on neutral territory, like at a restaurant or coffee shop. But this guy, Marco, had called the previous day and attempted, in his unbelievably thick Portuguese accent, to reschedule on them for the fourth time. Between Jess's adversity to the weather and being coerced into dealing with the 'artist,' he was struggling to even imagine himself appearing professional soon. Damn Marco for coveting the home-field advantage. And damn Jess's terrible luck at five-card draw. Or any card game, for that matter.
He only had a few more blocks to go. Jess shook his head and sped up slightly. He found himself cursing like this far too frequently in the past few days. Last night, he had been at the pub with Chris. In hour one, they had started drinking. That was when the majority of his cursing occurred. Jess had opened up to Chris about Rory, including the pre-, during, and post-relationship, as well as the thoughts he was currently nursing. Chris was a good listener. While Jess had harped on his own apparent inability to leave well enough alone when it came to all-things-Rory, Chris had remained fairly silent. 'To hell with all this!' Jess had said, after hitting the important points, then hitting the tabletop with his open palm. Chris only had to raise both eyebrows skeptically in response, and Jess caved. 'Fine. Maybe I don't mean that. But to hell with something…' Jess scanned the room while he thought. 'Porsches. To hell with Porsches.' Chris had chuckled and tilted his glass in agreement.
In hour two, Andrew had joined them, starting a round of darts and aiding them as they worked their way through a second, and then a third pitcher. In hour three, Matt finally appeared, bringing the latest work news and flask of Jameson. Though they were inebriated enough to not care about the rudeness of this move, they remained overly cautious about drinking outside alcohol in the local bar.
In hour four, darts were deemed too dangerous by Sean, one of the bartenders, and they piled into a booth at his request. In hour five, the card playing began. Out of pure self-preservation, Jess stopped drinking. He was generally terrible at poker when intoxicated, a thought which reminded him of the hatchet of a headache he would likely have the next day. And he had not been able to help himself from thinking, 'to hell with alcohol, too.'
As Jess rounded the final corner before Marco's apartment building, a fierce wind swept past him. It thrashed his hair about a bit – he hadn't bothered doing anything to it today. With his hands buried as deep into his pockets as possible, he felt simultaneously annoyed and revived by the weather. He realized he didn't actually hate the cold, not really.
Winter had been nonexistent in Venice Beach, and after leaving there, temperatures below forty degrees had seemed insulting. Looking down the street, thousands of snowflakes danced under the streetlamps. Everything was momentarily quiet and unmoving and Jess admired it all. It really was pretty. Like a snow globe, he thought. He didn't – couldn't – hate this. He didn't really mean it when he said to hell with alcohol, either. And certainly, and most importantly, he harbored no ill feelings of any kind towards Rory.
'How could I?' he thought, hopelessly. After all, he knew he was still completely in love with her. His obsessive thoughts over all-things-Rory the past few days confirmed what he had always grudgingly known. He had no idea how to stop loving Rory Gilmore.
The two Gilmore girls sat in front of the television, credits rolling. It was dark outside. Lorelai groaned.
"So, I'm just going out on a limb here, but I think that final bag of food – the pizza pocket-y things – might have been a mistake," Rory said, shifting on the new and improved couch.
"Shut your mouth!" Lorelai exclaimed, feigning incensed easily.
"Sorry, sorry." Rory laid her head back on a pillow, in undeniable likeness to her mother. "This is a pretty comfortable couch."
"Yeah? You like it?"
"I approve," Rory said, closing her eyes tiredly.
"Good. Took me long enough to pick it out. Weeks of debating. Couch. Loveseat. Leather. Plush. Striped. Solid. So many options! Who knew a couch could be so complicated?" She exclaimed.
"Not me."
"Yeah, well," Lorelai improvised, "It's serious business."
"I'm sure."
They fell into an easy silence. They had talked through the majority of both movies. They had caught up with each other's lives – the big things, anyway – and still, they managed to keep the conversation surprisingly light. Rory was impressed with her mother's restraint: Lorelai had avoided asking her about Logan at all, and Rory had probably only mentioned his name twice. She recalled one time had been in reference to the holy Birkin bag. Oh, the Berkin bag. Rory mentally shook her head, thinking of how impractical a bag it was for her, especially when she discovered the approximate price. She was more than a little horrified at the number of zeroes before that decimal.
Rory wondered if Lorelai's avoidance of the topic of Logan was more purposeful than a simple attempt to 'keep the conversation light.' Did her mother assume they were not together any longer, and that was why Rory was back? Or did Lorelai just not want to talk about Logan, thinking of the role he played in Rory's departure from Yale, and consequently, their extended separation? Perhaps it was a bit of both?
Whatever the reason, Rory was grateful for some room to think on the topic. Largely on her own, she had come to the conclusion that she felt naïve for her time spent with Logan. Sure, it was only last week they were still a couple, but Rory could not help noticing how different things looked to her after their most recent fight. Logan and Rory had nearly opposite priorities in life. He enjoyed drinking, partying, avoiding school, and just generally wreaking havoc where possible. Granted, he was creative in his endeavors. His imagination and smarts were undeniable, which she figured had kept her so interested. But she knew that if she pictured a little further into the future, they did not want the same sort of life. He was running from responsibility, while she craved it. And more than all the other reasons, she just knew, deep down, they were not right for each other. They had enjoyed each other's company, but she could not imagine being with Logan beyond her time in college.
Through most of this thinking – thoughts of the future – feelings of Jess were upturned. Now, that boy, she had not quite figured out. Somewhere on her various mental lists regarding why her and Logan ought not to be together, Jess was a reason. She had trouble with that. Because when he had left at the end of her freshman year – after his wildly flattering proposition – she had done everything in her power to bury her memories of Jess. The bad ones, at least. The good ones, she just let fade into the background, until she could lie to herself about how much she missed him, and them together.
Dean had been her ingenuous, young love. Logan, on the other hand, had been her experienced, more full-fledged love. But Jess…Jess was indescribable. And because she was still young and fairly shy at the time, she had acted safely with him. Like when she realized it was Jess calling her – as he said he would – and she told him she thought she might have loved him. It was a horrible lie. She knew she loved him. But her feelings were on the line – and she was infinitely more involved than she had been with Dean, which was hard enough to express.
Rory recalled wanting to express to him how she felt, back in her senior year, when she started to feel him pulling away from her. She did not know how, though. When they tried to talk about it, she felt him tuck tighter inside himself. It was miniscule each time, but she felt it; and more than anything, she did not want to lose Jess.
All these thoughts were overwhelming. She stirred and gently shook Lorelai's shoulder. "Mom, I think it's time for dreaming."
Lorelai swatted at her hand. "Mm hmm, Honeycake. Sure thing. Just walk on upstairs for me, will ya? Thanks."
"Mom," she said, shaking again. "Fine, but don't blame me when you can't figure out why in the morning you feel like a jackhammer went to play on your neck…" Rory left her Mom, and headed to her room. Relief washed over her as she closed the door and leaned against it. She took a deep breath, but instead of it calming her, it was like she was letting all the emotions wash over her. Surprised at the force of it all, she gasped quietly, and started to cry. The tears fell silently, and uncontrollably. And then she stopped fighting, and slid the length of her door to the wooden floors. She allowed it all to come, and when it ebbed, she felt better. She picked herself up, changed into pajamas, and climbed into bed.
Thanks for reading!