Chapter 113
"Rory?" Logan asked, eager to hear Rory respond. But his question had left Rory short for words, and she'd just stared at him, frowning.
"Um…," Rory struggled to make out a coherent sentence. "I don't even…," she added, shaking her head.
"I mean this doesn't have anything to do with our Christmas plans or you graduating Yale, but just… in long term - is going back something you want us to make a goal of," Logan felt he needed to clarify. They were still standing there on the sidewalk, late Friday night traffic, mostly consisting of minicabs and double decker buses slowly moving past them.
"But what about your dad?" Rory asked, not quite understanding what this meant in terms of the HPG.
"My guess is that he won't like it," Logan began, putting it mildly. He sounded incredibly easygoing saying that, almost like he was in some alternate universe where this wasn't going to be the scandal of the decade.
Rory frowned even more.
"And it'd probably start us off by a significant cut in pay. But I have savings, we can both work. And by renting out our apartment here we'd already make a very decent income each month no matter what we do and where," Logan discussed.
In that sense he was right - renting out a two bedroom apartment in Kensington really did mean they could afford to live pretty much anywhere in the States for that kind of money quite decently. And it wasn't like Logan had poured all of his trust fund into it either, there was still money left for various business ventures - that much Rory knew of their financial situation by now. And considering they weren't really planning on having kids before they had their careers set up, setting up college or retirement funds wasn't yet high on their priority at their age. But all this time, while she'd heard Logan toy with the idea of making it on his own, somehow she'd never actually thought he was serious. It wasn't that she wouldn't want him without his money, nor that she believed it to be a struggle. It was just that she'd never truly believed Logan would be willing to give that up unless it was their love that was at stake. Or at least something more significant than the thrill he got from risk investments.
"And Christmas..," Rory exclaimed, sounding a little accusatory. Hours ago she hadn't even been able to tell her mother what their plans were.
"Booked and paid for," Logan assured, having had his assistant handle it just that same morning.
Rory didn't like being in the dark. Not about their Christmas plans, not about what Logan was doing with this new investment business of his, nor about what he had thought about for their future. All without discussing things with her.
"Well, that's good but..," Rory began, struggling to get her words out in a way that didn't sound accusatory. His lack of time had been expected, and generally they could read each-other's wishes pretty well even without discussing things - what the other might like for dinner or which books one might like. But this was bigger than those things surely.
"What if the investments I make in the name of this company enable us to move back to the States, you could be closer to your mom, and I bet it'd be easier for you career wise too," Logan said, revealing that despite the lack of joint time, he had in fact paid attention.
Rory had discovered that not only did many of her course mates in college consider her the outsider due to her American background, she'd begun to sense it would be a real obstacle for her to continue the type of career she'd thought about in the States here in London. She didn't have the contacts; she didn't have the firsthand experience of politics here - even though she'd tried her best to catch up by reading and listening to local media over the past few months. But there were still names that she didn't know. It felt like playing catch up with a world that just kept on speeding by.
"Yes, but we just got here, we bought a place, a home. Our first home. You've just been working for a couple of months. I mean… are you sure you've thought this through?" Rory blurted, this all just feeling like too much all of a sudden.
"I am just suggesting a possibility, nothing's decided," Logan said, shrugging his shoulders in a carefree manner. The fact that he was a little drunk that night, drunk and happy, being in the celebratory mood that he was in, actually made him sound too impulsive and frivolous - like it was just something one could do at a snap of one's fingers.
"But it sure sounds like it is. You get a whim and I'm, what, just supposed to jump?" Rory said, the whole Bobby thing still irking her a little in the base of it all.
"That's not what I expect of you…," Logan said, but was beginning to sense this whole discussion was taking a wrong turn. "Hey, just forget about it. Let's just go home, we'll talk about it some other time, it was just a thought…," he suggested and shrugged, not wanting to upset her.
While he had thought this would be a welcome change for her, he believed she just needed some time for the idea, or rather - the possibility, to sink in.
They made it home, talking just about the everyday things and observations, as if knowing this topic should just be put on hold for the time being to not shake things. A number of things that night had made both of them cautious. It almost felt like they'd gotten too comfortable again and stopped being exactly on the same wavelength, and considering they remembered well how things had not gone well a year ago, they were both determined to be more cautious about what they said out loud at least for the time being considering the complicated nature of the evening.
After a pleasant weekend at home, working on their homework, watching a couple of episodes of the IT Crowd and cooking, Logan departed to Hamburg for some HPG business first thing Monday morning. Rory carried on with her life like she usually did.
It was a couple of days later, Logan having stayed in Germany a few days later than initially planned. They'd called daily, and texted even more frequently but the topic from Friday had not been touched again. The details of their Christmas plans were discussed a little though and they pretty much began with going to Stars Hollow and ending with visiting Honor and Josh who were planning on spending the holidays in Martha's Vineyard.
Rory stepped out of her university building, her afternoon class having ended, her hand holding her phone to her ear. It was a pleasant afternoon, a little windy, but at least without the usual dampness in the air.
"What are you doing right now?" Paris asked, according to Terrance's suggestions still keeping tabs on Rory as a form of friendship maintenance at least every couple of weeks. Academically speaking, Rory really had nothing against it, as Paris was certainly most driven person she knew when it came to those things. It felt refreshing in small doses.
"Not much," Rory replied.
"I just got cornered by professor Edwards. She wants to meet for coffee in 10 minutes to discuss me being her T.A second semester. I've got to start thinking about life after graduation," Paris said, sounding like she was walking through campus. "Cozying up to professor Edwards could be a fast pass to a fellowship," she added.
"I guess that's true," Rory commented, feeling like she was automatically transported to life at Yale. It felt so different from the way college life was here in a big city. Here college life was mixed in with big city life. She kind of missed that about New Haven - the ability to ignore the fact that college was just a small part of life. It had felt safer, like a medium size fish in a small pool unlike here.
"What about you?" Paris inquired.
"What about me?" Rory asked her to clarify.
"You looking into fellowships? Scholarships? Grad Schools?" Paris asked, curiously. This reminded Rory of high school, knowing how Paris needed her to be the bunny for her to chase to be at her best. She didn't mind, but this was just yet another reminder how she really didn't have things figured out.
"Not really. I mean, not yet. I will, probably," Rory replied.
"Time's running out," Paris reminded her. "They only give the LSAT one more time before spring," she added.
Rory really hadn't given the American tests a lot of thought to be honest. But beyond her obscure plan of wanting to write speeches, she really hadn't had a lot of time to think about it in depth. All she had thought about really, was the immediate future. The half a year that was quickly coming to an end and needing to decide what she was going to do with her spring semester. She only had a few credits due at Yale, having tentatively already explored options from working on the independently in part, so she did have plans of returning to New Haven for a month or so, but beyond that, she didn't really have many plans. But what was she going to do here in London, if at best she was getting a well-rounded education, but would always lack the local contacts and experience with the local political scene unlike many of her course mates who seemed to have at least one leg between the door of at least one of the MP-s already.
She finished the call to Paris after a few minutes, assuring her that she was indeed right and she would need to hurry up to explore her options. It was strange - a year or two ago thinking about her academic future would've been at the forefront of her mind, but now, being married, and away from home mainly because of her husband, having put his job first essentially, she wasn't recognizing herself at all.
Later that night she got invited over by Lucy and Olivia to celebrate Olivia finishing one of her semester projects over at the Art College. And characteristic of the two, 'the girls gone wild' as Logan sometimes teasingly called them, they'd decided to celebrate it with some cheap but fairly okay-tasting wine and four boxes of eccentric hair dye.
"Who's that?" Rory asked, looking through some old photos on Lucy's computer as she'd suggested to show some of her former travels.
"Oh, that's Boyfriend," Lucy replied.
"Does the Boyfriend have a name?" Rory chuckled at her expression.
"He does, but she mostly just called him Boyfriend," Olivia declared.
"Where is he now?" Rory asked, casually, taking a sip of wine from the mug that they were using instead of wine glasses.
Lucy was standing in front of the mirror finishing up Olivia's purple highlights, her own hair already neatly packed in foil.
"Back home, he turned out to be hung up on some old friend of his. We became friends but he failed to tell me he'd had a crush on her. Pretended like he didn't know her for months and months. So weird, total jerk," Lucy commented.
"Hey, who did you date before Logan?" Olivia asked, casually.
"Um… there was Dean, then Jess… and then Dean again," Rory shared.
"Two Deans or the same Dean?" Lucy replied.
"I knew a guy named Dean in high school," Olivia commented.
"Same Dean," Rory replied, but wasn't too eager to talk about it.
"Oo… then he really must be hot if you've taken him back," Lucy commented. "You got a picture?" she asked.
Rory knew that being avoidant around the two of them would probably not work, this was just innocent fun anyway. Hence, instead of interesting she didn't, she pulled up Dean's Facebook page and showed it to them.
"Ooh, Dean is smokin'," Lucy commented, approvingly.
Rory rolled her eyes. She couldn't deny that, even though she was married.
"Oh, yeah. Dean's a fox," Olivia approved.
"He looks tall," Lucy added.
"He is," Rory confirmed.
"Logan's not that tall," Lucy made an observation, almost as if asking what made Logan better than Dean, though didn't ask it. It was not like Logan was bad looking, he just didn't have that tall, dark and handsome combo going on that Lucy seemed to like.
"How can you tell that from a picture of his face?" Rory asked.
"Oh, it's a talent I have," Lucy replied.
"Spooky," Rory laughed.
"Yeah, right? I figure I'll be recruited by the FBI any day now," Lucy continued to joke.
"It's a very specific specialty," Rory noted.
"Here, you're done!" Lucy announced to Olivia. "Rory? Your turn?" she suggested.
"I don't know…," Rory hesitated, having not initially come over with a plan to get her hair dyed.
"Oh come on, you'd look great. We have green and pink left," Lucy suggested.
Suddenly Rory just felt like taking a plunge. Choosing to dye her hair, even if it was just something temporary, seemed like such a big thing to her and she wasn't even sure Logan would like it. But it felt like something she had control over.
"Oh why not," Rory giggled, opting for the pink.
"I promise you, you're going to love it," Lucy replied, and brushed a generous amount of bleach onto her hair.
"Is this dye supposed to smell all vinegary?" Rory asked after a few minutes of Olivia and Lucy showing off their exes as well. Somehow beyond dyeing Lane's hair purple once, she had never really felt the urge to do something like this, which was a miracle really. But as she sat there, thinking, looking at Lucy dying strand after strand, she was beginning to get nervous.
What if her hair fell off? What if Logan hated it? What if this made her look stupid or silly to her course mates? This would've been the norm at the art college, but with her already snarky course mattes she wasn't quite so sure. It sucked feeling like she didn't fit in. She didn't fit in anywhere that well here. This moment allowed her to finally begin to think about Logan's words in depth. Did she want to go back?
"Mm-hmm, it means it's working," Olivia commented.
"I feel like an Easter egg," Rory replied.
"My mom's totally going to freak when she sees this color," Lucy added.
"Freak, like be mad?" Rory asked, not knowing much about Lucy's mom.
"No. First, she'll be like "Whoa!", then like, "I like it,"" Lucy tried to impersonate her mom. "And I'll be like "Thanks" and she'll be all, "I thought you looked pretty good before, too,"" Lucy added, getting carried away a little as she went on.
They continued to chat, laugh and make rice-crispy treats while they waited for their dye to set. One by one they washed the dye off their hair, After blow drying and curing their hair, making it into a real make-over girl's night, they looked at themselves in the mirror, all three of them trying to fit themselves in front of the single mirror.
"We so have to start a girl band," Lucy said.
"We so have to," Olivia agreed.
"We'll pretend we're a Norwegian girl band, and we can purposely lip-sync just slightly off," Lucy continued, moving back to the couch.
"Oh, we'll be famous!" Olivia agreed, following her.
"We'll be huge!" Lucy replied, her hair now striped with light green highlights. "You can write articles about us for all the great gossip magazines," Lucy suggested, speaking to Rory who had stayed in front of the mirror. "You can say things like - we're the hottest thing to come out of Norway since…. What came out of Norway?" Lucy continued, needing to ponder a little.
But Rory was paying attention less and less to her blabber. She did miss home. She hated how she didn't have a plan - she didn't have a plan for any of it.
"We got the Vikings," Olivia replied to Lucy.
"Edvard Munch, and that's all I got," Lucy replied.
"You're still planning on writing right? You haven't buried that dream because you're not fluent in British English or anything?" Lucy asked Rory, teasingly and in a light, laughing tone.
"Though it would be good - more time to be 'the Forbidden Fjords," Olivia commented.
"Wait, we need to discuss the name," Lucy said.
But in the bathroom, Rory was already fighting tears that had seemingly come out of nowhere.
"Rory, where are you on 'the Forbidden Fjords'?" Lucy asked, casting a look towards the tiny bathroom.
It was then she saw it - the tears running down Rory's cheeks.
"Oh, my god. Rory, are you okay?" Lucy asked, hurrying to her.
"I'm fine," Rory sobbed, the pink highlights accenting her face now. She tried to wipe her cheeks clean, feeling embarrassed.
"Do you hate your hair? Cause you can change it," Lucy assured.
"No, no, no, I love my hair," Rory assured, crossing her hands on her chest, in avoidance. "It's… it's nothing, it's stupid," Rory whimpered.
"It's not nothing. What is it?" Lucy insisted.
"Everything's just…," Rory exclaimed, not even knowing what to say. "I just feel like everything… Everything is so undecided, so open… I'm just floating. It's just like I'm standing on this cliff, looking out into this huge, foggy abyss?" Rory added. She felt like she could even stand anymore, feeling incredibly weak and she sank to the floor.
"In my life, I've almost always had a plan, or I've found a plan quickly, even if I was going through something. I've known exactly what is in front of me, or at least a general direction… and now I don't know what's out there.. ," Rory sobbed.
"Besides fog?" Olivia replied.
"A ton of fog, and I hate not knowing what to do," Rory replied. "Is it London or the States or who knows, tomorrow Logan could suggest we fly off to Australia for all I know," Rory exclaimed. "What's going to happen to my career? My marriage? And the rest of my life?" Rory added. She wasn't considering divorcing Logan, but he was away an awful lot - would they grow more distant as a result or be fine, would they have kids or would being married to him lead her to give up her career altogether?
"Rory…," Lucy comforted her, touching her arm compassionately. All three of them now sat on the floor, Rory in the bathroom and the two just outside.
"I'm so sorry, I don't mean to drag everything down…," Rory began, worrying about killing the mood.
"I so know what you're talking about," Lucy assured.
"Totally!" Olivia agreed.
"Really?" Rory asked.
"Are you kidding?" Lucy said. "Once I move that tassel to the other side, I have no idea what the hell I'm gonna do," she added. "I mean besides the FBI gig," she noted in a serious tone, managing to get Rory to chuckle through her tears.
Lucy was an art major, and Rory she made Rory realize that her own problems might've seemed big, while in comparison they really weren't, It was just evidence of the fact that she might still need to check in with her therapist from last year, as that truly had helped her a little to come to terms with the changes in her life. But at this moment, she just wished Logan would come home. She just wanted to snuggle into his chest and have him hold her. He was her constant, he grounded her even if sometimes it was his impulsiveness that scared her.