9. No Slapping At The Table
A/N: I'm sure you all know, but just to clarify: the flashback scenes with teenage Jess is from the episode "Nick and Nora, Sid and Nancy" in the second season while the flashback scenes with adult Jess and Honor are all from my imagination. I know it's a little after Christmas, but doesn't a Christmas dinner just seem like the perfect setting to air all that dirty laundry? Hope you guys had a better Christmas than the one I'm describing in this instalment!
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It would've been wonderful to say that he'd never been this awkward and unsure of himself, that he'd never been to a meal that promised so much in the way of anger and bile. Yet he had. And in this house, too.
The hyper caffeinated woman from earlier opened the door, grinning and making a joke about gluttony in the Roman Empire. He ignores her and the sexual tension between her and his uncle, wandering off instead into the living room. On the mantelpiece are photographs, images of a childhood that must adorn every house in America. Every house, that is, except his. Liz had never been one for capturing the fleeting joys of being a child – first bath, first bike, first broken wrist. He wonders what it would've been like to grow up in Stars Hollow, how he would've turned out. Would it have been any better for him?
He's been ignoring the muted mumblings between Luke and Lorelai for so long that he only belatedly realises he's being beckoned to the kitchen. He follows and is immediately asked about his dietary preferences. Cheese. Lemons. Jackson scaring people with homegrown fruit.
And then he sees the girl from the pictures on the mantelpiece.
Admittedly, the novelist in him had capitalised on the experience (Tudor-styled feast, Fellini film characters, dialogue straight from a Taylor Swift song – how could he not turn his pain into literary profit?) and turned it into one of his favourite short stories. And as an adult, Jess could appreciate the thought behind the gesture and not remember the gesture with the same shuddering horror. Yet he knew that tonight's dinner, a Christmas spent with the much loathed uncle of his much loved daughter and Rory, would never be turned into a novella of self-deprecation and angst. It was too close, too personal, too much. And the chance that Rory would give him the same happy support was too slim.
He unlatched the window and nodded outside. "Shall we?"
"Shall we what?" she asks, looking perplexed.
"Bail," he clarifies.
"No."
"Why?"
She grins. "Because it's Tuesday night in Stars Hollow. There's nowhere to bail to. The twenty-four hour mini-mart just closed twenty minutes ago."
He shrugs, unwilling to lose her company. It's been a welcome, surprising relief to find someone who seemed normal, someone who could carry on a conversation without appearing to have materialised straight out of Stepford. "So we'll walk around or sit on a bench and stare at our shoes."
"Look," she began, a placatory tone he would come to recognise as her normal Rory-let's-make-everyone-happy-even-if-they-don't-want-to-be-voice, "Sookie just made a ton of really great food and though it may not seem like it at this moment, it's going to be fun. Trust me."
"I don't even know you."
She widens her eyes innocently, another specialised Rory manoeuvre. "Well, don't I look trustworthy?"
The same blue eyes, set in a slightly thinner and infinitely wearier face, stared at him in wide-eyed shock as he walked into the living room. He had seen the Prius pull up to the house from an upstairs window, had guessed from the stops and starts in their conversation that they had seen Lily sleeping on the couch and that Logan knew. Knew that the hated ex-boyfriend of his favourite ex-girlfriend had fathered a child with his adored older sister. This is the part that sucks about being an adult, Jess tells himself, the fact that you can't escape your problems by unlatching a window or snaking a beer anymore. Heck, you probably couldn't solve your problems that way as a teenager either, but as a teenager you didn't really know it. He squares his shoulders, looking from Rory to Logan to his daughter. "So."
"So," Rory echoes.
Logan remains quiet.
Luke, who had followed Jess downstairs, is first to notice that Lily is waking up from her nap. With unusual spontaneity, he swings the little girl from the couch onto his shoulders. "Let's go pick you out a kitten from Babette."
Lily looks at him with sleepy suspicion. "You just want to get me out the way before Santa comes and brings all the presents," she accuses him as they walk out of the house.
Luke glances back to his nephew, his almost-niece and her on-again-off-again-seemingly-on-again boyfriend. "He'd better bring a bloody Christmas miracle," he mutters.
As the front door closes, Jess sits down on the couch and looks at Rory and Logan. "So, what are you two planning for New Year's Eve? Something rocking, I bet!"
"Is that my sister's daughter?" Logan asks.
"She," Jess replies, emphasising the pronoun with exaggerated care, "is my daughter."
"And her mother is my sister."
"Yes." Although he didn't take his eyes from Logan's junkyard dog expression, he can see Rory flinch at the bald admission. He feels a spark of irritation. What right did she have to be surprised or shocked or upset by Lily's parentage? She had four years to ask him, Lorelai, Luke ... Miss Patty and Babette either knew or would have hedged their bets in Kirk's pool on the identity of Lily's mystery mother with knowledgeable intuition. If it had mattered so much to her, to warrant such a reaction, she should have asked.
"Where did you meet?" Rory, sounding stunned, sits down in one of the overstuffed armchairs, carefully avoiding eye contact.
"So we'll walk around or sit on a bench and stare at our shoes."
"You remember I came to visit you while you were staying at your grandparents', to show you the book I'd written," Jess begins.
Rory glances at Logan, the memory of an uncomfortable night at a crowded bar and a hushed night in her borrowed floral bedroom clearly reflected on her face. "Yes."
"What you don't know is that Honor had been worried about your dropping out of Yale and abandoning all your academic dreams. She was especially worried that Logan was being a bad influence on you ..."
"What?" Logan, who had been pacing the room like a chained Rottweiler, glared at him. "If you're going to tell tales, I'd expect a supposed 'writer' to come up with something a little more original."
Jess shrugs, letting Logan's anger wash off his back. "You can verify whatever you want with both Luke and Lorelai. Lorelai will tell you that Honor went to the Dragonfly Inn to persuade her to convince Rory to return to Yale. It touched a bit of a nerve with Lorelai, since she couldn't even tell Rory about her own engagement at that stage. You remember that fight you had with your mother on the side of the road?" he abruptly asks Rory.
"Difficult to forget," Rory mumbles.
"That came just after she blew up at Honor, telling her that your decisions were your own to make, however wrong or misguided she might be. She ... well, Lorelai said quite a few things, including the fact that Gilmore girls always seem to follow where the wrong guys lead them."
"I fail to see what a personal conversation has to do with your affair with my sister," Logan growls. "Make like Hemingway and get to the point."
"The point," Jess says equably, "is that Honor heard of the day you went to New York to see me and ditched school from your mother. Honor figured that, if I could've convinced you to leave school, I could convince you to go back."
Rory smiles a little. "Sounds like something Honor would do."
"Yeah," Jess agrees, remembering the day that the fiery society blonde strode into Truncheon and demanded to see him.
"Get your bags. You're coming with me," she told him without first introducing herself.
He leaned against the counter, raising an eyebrow at her determination. In his experience, women with discreet labels on their shoes and the unmistakable cut of money to their clothes seldom wanted him for something good. Nevertheless, he was curious. Could this highlighted, French manicured, pampered East Coast Barbie have him confused with someone else? Probably. Yet it would be fun to see. "Where to, milady?"
"Stars Hollow."
The mention of the town stiffens his back and he turns to walk away from her, throwing a "No, thanks" over his shoulder. She follows him to the stockroom, disregarding the STAFF ONLY sign on the door.
"Why not?"
Jess shrugged.
"What, you're too busy being a self-important, pretentious, monosyllabic prick to go help your friend?"
This gets his attention. "Nice use of 'pretentious' and 'prick' in the same sentence. Might plagiarize it from you."
"Shut up and go pack," she ordered.
"No."
She glares at him.
He sighs. "Who is my friend in Stars Hollow who needs help?"
"Rory. She's dropped out of Yale and she needs to be convinced to go back, otherwise she's just going to ruin her future and regret it so much and she'll end up hating my brother for it and she's so good for him, she really is, he is such a bonehead without her and ..."
"You want me to convince Rory to go back to school so that she won't break up with your brother for turning her into a drifter?" Jess interrupts. "A brother you yourself refer to as a bonehead?"
"Yeah," the blonde says, as though it is perfectly self-evident. "And you're going to have to fake surprise when she tells you she's dropped out. What, you have something better to do?"
"Well ..."
"You left town without saying goodbye to her, you broke her heart and, even though she may not realise it, it took her a very long time to get over you. You owe this to her, Jess, you owe it to her to at least try to fix the situation." The blonde girl stared at him, her voice surprisingly free from judgment or loathing. Something tugged in the bottom of Jess' stomach; something he had long forgotten surged to his heart. Here was a girl who knew exactly what he did, who could sketch the outlines of his teenage cruelty to Rory with perfect accuracy ... and yet who did not hate him, who did not treat him with the same angry contempt he experienced in Stars Hollow. A girl who seemed to know him well, who seemed to know all the things who would frighten away most ... and yet saw in him the power of redemption, the possibility of healing.
Jess Mariano was piqued.
"Honour could be really persuasive," Rory remembered, looking at Jess with a softness around her eyes. "I remember once ..."
"And I remember once when we found out that my sister had a child with a social misfit who is leeching off society to provide for said child and everybody came to the point and told me exactly what happened," Logan interrupts her, rudely, not taking his eyes off Jess.
Rory frowned. "That was unnecessary."
Logan sighed, making a conciliatory gesture with his hand. "I'm sorry. I'm really thrown by this situation and I would like to have all the information. But I shouldn't snap at you, however frustrated I am."
"It's okay."
It's not okay, Jess thought and was about to voice his opinion when Logan turned to him and asked, "Did you instigate her divorce?"
"You never really filled me in on that," Rory said, curiously. The cynical side of her, the one that overexposure to politics has honed to an edge, started calculating. Based on Lily's date of birth, the time that Honor and Josh separated might be very important. Sure, Lily looks like Honor and she has an unmistakable touch of Jess in her. But her love of books, her posture, her delight in storytales ... that could all be nurtured in her. "When exactly did she get a divorce?"
"Just after the Christmas we spent in London. At the time, it never seemed like quite the right moment to tell you. Besides, I wanted to respect her privacy and her right to inform whoever she wants to about her private thoughts and feelings." Logan shot a pointed look at Jess, conveying his disgust at Jess's disclosure of the conversation between Lorelai and Honor. "Then your grandfather got sick, business took off and I lost touch with Honor. Which I now realise she orchestrated to hide her pregnancy."
Rory nodded thoughtfully, remembering how quiet Honor had been over that Christmas. Something had nudged aside the easy cameraderie that had existed between them, something had caused Honor to be a little less happy and a lot more controlled around Rory. At the time, Rory had put it down to Honor's demanding schedule and her own imagination – surely, Honor would've told her if she'd been offended in some way? She now thought it quite possible that Honor had been consumed with guilt over her affair and fearing Rory's reaction. "So Honor got a divorce because she was having an affair with Jess."
Jess tousled his hair, wondering if he could tell them that it didn't happen like that. Not exactly. Not at all, actually.
"He's what?" Jess exclaimed, orange juice shooting through his nose in surprise.
Honor giggled as she tossed him a napkin. "How elegant, you savage."
"Don't tell me news like that and expect me to go, Oh, how unpleasant for you, darling, now let us have some truffles and quiche," Jess growled in an affected British accent, dabbing at his wet face with the napkin. Honor giggled again and he shot a bemused look at her. They had become close friends since her visit to Truncheon and his subsequent visit to Rory; the fact that her husband had been transferred to Philadelphia made the friendship all the easier. Despite her heinous brother, despite her family connections, despite the fact that she had a lot more opportunities to spend time with Rory, he liked her. Liked her a lot. Underneath her designer clothes, beyond the couture exterior was a funny and warm woman who met him sarcastic comment for sarcastic comment. He had come to enjoy every moment he spent with her; even the ones she spent mocking him for messing orange juice on himself. "You don't seem particularly upset about the news."
"Because it's not news to me, silly," Honor said cheerfully, flopping down on the couch next to him and adjusting the Lalique lamp shade. "You think that my perfect insight into other people's personalities failed me and didn't show, as clearly as the nipples in the Batman suit, that Josh is gay?"
"So why did you marry him if you knew?"
Honor sighed as she pulled off her sandals and tucked her feet under her. "Do you have any idea what it is like to be a Huntzberger?"
"Your brother makes it look like it's the biggest accomplishment known to man," Jess said, instantly regretting his animosity. But he disliked her brother, have from the moment he had casually parked his expensive vehicle with the imported calf's leather seats across the driveway and always will.
Honor, who neither understood nor condoned his anger, didn't let it throw her. "To my parents, it pretty much is the biggest accomplishment known to man. All the money, the class, the privilege, the power ... but it only means something as long as other people want it, as long as other people want to be you. Which means that they spent an enormous amount of energy and money into projecting just the right image, just the balance between unimaginable luxury and down-to-earth neighbourliness."
"Which explains the handcrafted Belgian chocolates you gave out at Halloween."
Honor nodded. "Exactly. Which also means that everything has to be seen to be just right, you know? When we were kids, my brother and I had to be the best at everything we did. Top three academically, captains of the sports teams, leads in the school play ... you know my brother loved basketball. Absolutely adored it. When he was seven and somebody gave him a basketball for his birthday, he bribed our gardener into putting up a hoop so he could practice shooting baskets. And he needed the practice, trust me. Not that Logan noticed that he wasn't very good at basketball; he just enjoyed playing, pretending to be Shaq or Michael Jordan. My dad noticed his dedication and got one of the top coaches at Duke to come watch him play."
Jess was silent, the unbidden image of a golden-haired boy with an intense look of determined concentration popping into his mind. Two men in suits watching him, deciding over his future, while the boy is just playing for the fun of it.
"When the coach said that my brother didn't seem to have the needed talent or height, my dad forced our gardener to take down the hoop. When my brother bribed James to put up a second one, my dad had James fired and told Logan that since he wouldn't be the best at basketball, he should leave it."
Honor started fiddling with the lampshade again. "So very early the next morning, Logan snuck out of the house with my dad's toolkit and began to put up the hoop again. My dad saw him from the study, stuck his head out the window and yelled at him, telling him what a disobedient son he is, what a disappointment he'll turn into. Logan got such a fright that he fell off the ladder. Right into the rose bushes, got a couple of nasty scratches and a few broken ribs. My dad told him to get up and to stop being such a sissy, then slammed the window shut and went to work. When our nanny arrived for work an hour or so later, she immediately took Logan to the doctor. He had to be hospitalised because of internal bleeding. My dad had her fired too and refused to give her a reference, so she had a difficult time finding another job. Docked Logan's allowance to pay for the damaged rose bushes, too."
Jess remained silent, knowing that no words could comfort her or take away the memories she had. Honor glanced at him, seemingly reading his mind. She had a knack for that. "Doesn't really explain why I married Josh, does it?"
"Not really," Jess admitted.
"Well, we always had enough food and warm clothes and nobody ever beat us. But a lot of things that happened, a lot of the ways our parents pushed us to be the best we could be ...," Honor bit her lip. "It wasn't child abuse, but it came close. And I would watch my mother watching my father berate us for not being smart enough or fast enough or strong enough and all she would do when he got vitriolic is to smoke another secret cigarette. She never stood up for us, Jess, she never defended us from his unreasonable expectations. Maybe because she demanded the same from us, maybe because she was too weak, maybe because she didn't really care enough about us. Whatever it was, I couldn't take the risk of becoming a mother like that myself. How could I have children when the same gene for being horrible could well be in me?"
"Now you're being ridiculous," Jess said robustly. "You would never let your child fall off a ladder or fire the nanny for taking him to the doctor."
"That's not the kind of chance you take with a child, Jess," Honor replied seriously. Jess realised that, misguided as she was, there was little he could say to convince her what a great mother she'd be. "And yet my dad became very pushy. Once I had a year or so left before completing my degree, he started insisting that I should get engaged, get married, get pregnant, give him the Huntzberger grandchildren that are expected of a man in his position."
"Your dad wanted you to have children so that he could show off to the world about what a great grandfather he is?"
Honor nodded. "I was dating Josh at a stage when my dad was getting really belligerent about my lack of bridal preparation. You're going to think badly of me, but I've spent my formative years watching this man discarding people who don't fit his script. It was a scary thought, that he would discard me for not fitting into his fantasy scenarios, that he would leave me to make my own living when I haven't gotten myself qualified yet."
"You don't fire daughters for not getting pregnant," Jess said, patting her knee, a testosterone-driven part of him wondering thoughts he wouldn't allow himself to utter. "And if he did, you would've been just fine. You would have survived."
"Instead, I survived by blackmailing Josh into marrying me," Honor said, her characteristic cheer reasserting itself into the conversation.
Jess grinned. "Sounds like something you would do. Exactly how does one bribe a guy in ten days?"
"Easier that Kate Hudson makes it look," Honor laughed. "I had a friend who worked at a New York paper, doing a story on underage drinking in student towns. She snapped a pic of Josh at a gay club with her phone and BBM'd it to me, so I downloaded it onto my laptop and e-mailed it to him, threatening to upload it to his Facebook account if he didn't come to the flat right then to explain himself."
"Very James Bond of you."
"I'm like Sean Connery in heels," Honor retorted. "Anyway, he came running, told me it was his prerequisite college hanky-panky same-sex exploration phase. I told him that he could name more designers and Tony award winners than I could and had a more dedicated skin care routine. That he knew all of the moves to the Saturday Night Fever dance and had a stronger aversion to white after Labour Day than I do. All amounting to an expectation that it is not just an exploration phase, but in fact an admittance of his sexual orientation."
"All very politically correct and not at all a horrendous stereotyping, of course."
"Again, I'm like in Kofi Annan in heels. Anyway, we had quite an argument. I was hyperventilating because the man who I was expected to marry was more likely to rub baby oil on a drag queen from the Bronx than ever knock me up. And just as the paper bag tore, I started thinking that the problem may be the solution after all. Josh has parents that are as nightmarish as my own; they were also putting pressure on him to marry and to procreate. The idea of Josh being gay would be as welcome to them as if he voted Democrat."
"What a charming family."
"So much like my own. Anyway, Josh and I struck a deal. The perfect win-win situation. We both get our respective parental monkeys off our back, we get married and I don't have to run the risk of becoming pregnant."
Jess looked at her wonderingly. "And was the price worth it?"
Honor returned his gaze, an odd spark of intensity in her eyes. "I thought so at the time."
He'd never forgotten the conversation. Not just because it is far from an everyday occurrence to hear from your heterosexual best friend why she married a homosexual man with an overwhelming sense of relief, but also because it marked a turn in their lives. Their acquaintance had cemented itself into friendship, with slowly blossomed into a relationship. It was nothing at first; just a steady increase in time they spent together, apart from mutual friends. They would have brunch together with mock battles over the Leisure section, watch midnight showings of cult classics with derisive glee and pockets full of candy, occasionally fall asleep on the other's couch. It was the closest Jess had ever come to experiencing a fully mature, adult relationship – the fact that it was an asexual, chaste affair with a married woman seemed nothing less than expected.
Then Halloween came, the night Honor had set aside to finally force him into watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Chris and Mark teased him endlessly; that a woman could make him watch anything starring Susan Sarandon without sleeping with him was, apparently, definitive proof that his manhood should be revoked.) He had arrived at the house she still shared with Josh, armed with enough candy to set up a Willy Wonka booth, and the hairs on the back of his neck had raised at the ominous silence. Since he had started coming by the house, there had always been sounds – music, laughter, a movie, the slightly crazed conversation of their mutual friends drifting through the windows like an audible welcome mat. Sometimes, the noise had threatened to deafen him and he would escape onto the patio, simply watching the white dots in the night sky, until his mind was empty and he would go back inside. Sometimes Honor joined him. Sometimes she didn't. She knew how much the noise got to him and she should know that the silence would terrify him.
He didn't knock before letting himself in, sure that he would find something worse than his imagination can prepare him for. The sight of Honor, sobbing on the coach in her terry cloth pajamas, almost broke him. He gathered her in his arms, quickly checking for any signs of injuries. Finding none, he cradled her head against his chest and made the soothing, nonsensical noises he would later make to their daughter.
When she had finished crying and washed away the remainder of her mascara, when he brought her a pot of her favourite Lady Grey tea, she finally told him. Josh had gathered up all his courage and told her that he had met someone, someone he loved and wanted to spend his life with and all that yada-yada Cosmo crap. He wanted to get a divorce, he said, and would allow her to start the proceedings. Salvage some of that all-important Huntzberger dignity in front of their friends and social circle.
"You know none of us will care that you're divorcing your husband because he's gay," Jess told her soothingly.
"My parents will," Honor sniffled. "A divorced daughter is only okay if I come back with all my dowry and a large divorce settlement to boot."
"So give your dad his goats back," Jess ventured, trying to elicit a smile. "I'm sure he'll be fine."
Honor smiled wanly. "He's going to be so angry. They're going to be so furious with me."
"Well, screw them," Jess said firmly. "You're a great person and if they can't see it, they can go play with lightning rods during thunder storms."
"You don't tell a Huntzberger to play with lightning rods during thunder storms, Jess, it just doesn't happen."
"It does when the Huntzberger in question is being a dick," Jess rebutted.
Honor looked at him through wet eyelashes. "And if the Huntzberger is being a silly girl who is more upset about her parents' disapproval than the dissolution of her marriage?"
"Then you tell her she's perfect and if her parents can't see it, it's their problem and not hers," Jess said softly.
The kiss was unexpected, but unsurprisingly wonderful. He twined his hands through her hair, crushing her body against his, unwilling to let her go. And then he did. "Honor," he said, touching his lips to her forehead, "you are still married. This is still cheating, in the eyes of both God and Philadelphia family law."
"I don't care," Honor murmured.
It took all his willpower. "Tomorrow, you might."
"Jess, I've wanted to kiss you since I first met you."
"Before or after you called me a pretentious prick?"
"Both. How can a girl resist a guy who will go cross-country to convince his ex-girlfriend to go back to college because he once broke her heart and he would do anything to make good?"
"With a flourish and flair?" Jess suggested.
Honor smiled tenderly. "Jess, everybody else can see what good qualities you have. Why can't you see that yourself and realise that more girls than you know are in love with you?"
"Good question. You should ask yourself that, just without the part of the girls." Jess furrowed his brow. "Although you would totally rock Spring Break."
"I did," Honor confessed in a whisper. "I have pictures, too."
"Tease."
"Want me to show you?"
"More than anything. And once you're divorced and a free woman, I'll let you."
"We're just wasting time, Jess, you know that we'll wind up together eventually anyway. Why wait until the divorce goes through?"
"To give you an incentive to pull through," Jess replied, then gave her a serious look that made her heart melt. "If we're going to do this, I want to do it right. I'm not starting a relationship with someone who is still in a relationship with someone else."
Honor smiled. "If you insist."
He did and shortly after Christmas, she had announced to her family that she was planning to divorce Josh. No, that the divorce had actually gone through, that she knew they would be disappointed, but that she needed their support as parents and no amount of yelling at her would (a) erase her signature on the divorce papers or (b) amend the situation. Mitchum and Shira had been too surprised to quibble. At first. Their continued toxicity made it easy for Honor to hide from them, easy to disguise the fact that she was pregnant. JessJess
"... custody of her."
The last three words snaps Jess from his reverie. "What?"
"I'm going to petition the court for custody of the child," Logan said, enunciating his words as though Jess was hard of hearing. "You're in no way capable of supporting and providing for the child."
Teenage Jess would have floored this smug Ken doll by now with a snide comment and a well-aimed punch, Jess reflected. And he's kicking my ass through the time-space continuum for failing to do so.
"Luckily, we're no longer doing Santa's dry cleaning, but that doesn't mean that he no longer stops by with unexpected packages," Lorelai chirped as she breezed into the living room. She froze, the brightly wrapped parcels in her hands forgotten, as she glances at the three faces and feels the chill of their conversation. With something like motherly intuition, fuelled by the fact that Luke was currently next door holding court at a tea party for kittens, she guessed what the main topic of discussion was. True, it didn't take much for Luke to make an adorable idiot out of himself trying to make his nephew's daughter happy. But his timing and choice of activity, drinking cups of air with Babette's cats on Christmas Day, seemed to suggest a desire to keep Lily away from a potentially explosive situation rather than the desire to see her giggle. Lorelai wondered how she could gauge the situation. "So, is everybody staying for dinner?"
"Of course, Mom," Rory said, a little too quickly. "It'll be nice, won't it?"
"Not unless Santa brought a Christmas miracle in one of these boxes," Lorelai mutters. Jess, who is the only one close enough to hear her, gives her a look of commiseration. "We'll be here."
"Would be rude to turn down the invitation," Logan said, a modicum of charm in his voice and nothing but steel in his eyes. "Besides, it'll be nice to meet my niece."
"Okay. Just remember that there's no slapping at the table," Lorelai replied.
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There had been no slapping at the table. Nor kicking, biting or hair-pulling. In many ways, Rory reflected as she switched off the light and curled into her bed, it would have been better if there was. The unspoken questions, the silent wondering, had had a dampening effect on the dinner - much like a thunderstorm during the Macy's parade. Rory snorted at herself. Original thought, that one. You could tell why I was such a success as a journalist. She turned over in her bed, thumping the pillow restlessly, her mind still running through careful mathematical calculations. Lily was born in August, a few weeks after Rory had graduated. Honor had died within days and Logan only knew about her death after the fact, only knew about the drunken high school seniors because the story had been printed in a society gossip magazine as part of a feature on the tragic consequences of teenage drinking. (Rory had seen the feature and was horrified; it personified the type of sentimental nothing-much journalism she loathed.) However, Lorelai's sudden entry in the house and the subsequent dinner, with the enforced politeness and quiet "pass the potatoes, please" had left Logan no space to ask the question he most wanted to ask.
Why didn't the Huntzbergers know about Honor's daughter until now?
Rory sighed, thinking that she might had gotten the answer to that one. And that she would not be the one to connect the dots for Logan.
Logan.
She sighed again.
He had been in so much pain today, she thought. It must have felt like he was losing her all over again, realising that she had a daughter that he hadn't met. His scrutiny of her at the table, his close observation of how she held her knife and fork and how she pronounced her words, could have been misconstrued by others. She suspected Jess saw it as an expression of Huntzberger arrogance. But she knew Logan, she knew it was nothing like that. Logan wasn't studying her for signs of neglect or proof that Jess was an unfit parent.
He was watching his older sister come to life again.