fool (lester averman)

chapter nine

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chapter nine: ro-day-o drive

a/n:

rory acting as rich as she is >>>

tw(s): the start of rory and goldberg's beef, boys being gross, rory has a slight mental breakdown, and rory's a little mean.

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After their post-game nail appointment, the girls, having returned to their room, watch Rory pace the floor, her fingers combing through her hair.

She's been trying to make a phone call back home to Detroit for almost twenty minutes now. Every time it sends her to voicemail, her face pinches even tighter than it was and her footsteps get quicker, but, instead of leaving a message, she just hangs up and calls again. It makes Connie and Julie look on with concern, their eyes tracking her movements so closely that they start to get dizzy.

On the seventh or eighth try, someone finally picks up. She stops walking, and both of her roommates startle, slightly.

"You've reached the Myrtle residence. How might I help you?"

"Mr. Beaumont, hi! It's me. It's Lorelei." She breathes a sigh of relief at the sound of the butler's voice.

He drops the attitude almost immediately, and she can hear the smile in his tone. "Oh! Miss Lorelei. It's nice to hear from you. How is the City of Angels?"

"It's, uh, pretty cool, actually. The coach is decent, and my teammates are nice, and I've got my book."

She ignores the teasing coo that comes from Connie in favor of twirling the cord around her finger.

"That's wonderful, madam. Everyone here at home has been rallying for you."

The majority of the staff that works in the Myrtles' Detroit home have been in Rory's life for as long as she can remember. Due to grandfather's increasing need for more and more specific care, and her father's paranoia that the whole world is out to get them, the staff members who understood how things needed to work in the house were granted their own form of tenure and a bed in the smaller house behind the main one.

Mr. Beaumont and Joe are an exception in the sense that they have known her father since he was her age, but the rest of them were forced to start when Rory's mother divorced Oliver and left her behind.

"Thank you, Mr. Beaumont. Tell them all I say hi, please?"

Meaning that the majority of them are, in their own way, Rory's family.

"I will." He hums pleasantly. "Now, what is it that you called about?"

"I wanted to know if I could speak to my grandfather-- but only if he's awake. I don't want to disturb him."

Rory pinches her thigh to keep herself from chewing on her nails as he takes a moment to pull away from the receiver and ask about Eli's condition.

"Yes. Kim says he's alright enough to talk. I'll connect you to the line in his bedroom."

"Thank you. Bye!"

After a beat of silence: "What? Who's this?"

Rory winces and pulls her face away from the phone momentarily. She gives him slack because phones when he was a teenager, were coin-operated and public.