Saviour from the Past

Chapter 11

"Hey Gilmore, did you see this?" Paris shouted as she walked into the newsroom.

"No, what is it?" Rory asked, looking up and watching her friend march towards her, as she twisted her head trying to see what Paris was holding.

"It's the Wall Street Journal, they have an interview with Mitchum Huntzberger printed in there." Paris says handing Rory the paper, sitting down to watch her reaction.

"I looked for the best and the brightest, even at the intern level." Rory says out loud, sounding shocked.

"Keep going."

"Ben Cochran at Harvard, he helped me out with my Boston paper, as did Frank Williams. And Rory Gilmore, I gave her her first internship at my Stamford paper, and now she's the editor of the Yale Daily News." How dare he? "I gave her her first internship"?" Rory openly scoffs.

"This is one of those patriarchal things, Rory, men grabbing credit wherever they can, whether it's earned or not." Paris states.

"Everyone in America has read this." Rory comments, starting to pace in front of her desk. People in the newsroom are now starting to stare, trying to guess what Rory and Paris are ranting about this time. It's more common for Paris to rant but Rory has been known to join in.

"The Wall Street Journal's readership is high, but it's not quite 300 million."

"Well, enough people have read it. My Grandpa will see this!"

"Look, the beauty of a daily paper, it's in everybody's recycling bin the next morning. This will be forgotten." Paris says, seeing how much it is affecting her friend.

"It won't."

"It will."

"I remember everything I read, front page, op-ed, concert reviews, it never leaves. My eyes accidentally flit over an obituary, as I'm hunting for the metro section and I can remember the deceased's first wife's name a full month afterward. I mean, and that's just a flit, not even a perusal. If I perused it, I could give you his grandkids in alphabetical order five years later." Rory rants.

"Hey, can we get to the bottom line on this article here?" Paris asks.

"Give it to me." Rory huffs resolutely.

"It's all good. It's very positive what he said about you. A powerful man is citing you as one of his accomplishments. It is no way a dis."

"I know."

"It's actually a good thing, so you should let it go."

"Never!"

As Rory walked into the apartment that night, she was still contemplating the article about Mitchum and her place in it. She knew she should think of it as a positive, but she just hated that any part of her career was being attributed to that awful man. She was shaken from her musing by the sound of her cell phone ringing.

"Hello?" Rory said, forgetting to check the call display in her rush to answer.

"Hey Mary."

"Hi Tristan."

"What's up? You sound angry?"

"I'm just annoyed about an article I read today. Nothing important. What's going on with you?" Rory asked, sitting down on the couch to chat.

"I did actually have a reason for calling. Are you busy this weekend?"

"I have no plans other than Friday night dinner, why?" she asked skeptically, with good reason, with Tristan you never could predict what he was planning.

"I have concert tickets for Saturday night. Mike was meant to go with me but he got called into work for the weekend. Sebastian doesn't want to go, I already tried. Do you fancy a trip to the Big Apple?"

"What band is it?"

"Arcade Fire. They are playing at Radio City Music Hall, with The National."

"Lane would kill for those tickets."

"Well I thought you would at least know the bands. So what do you think, Gilmore?"

Rory looked around her apartment, taking in Paris's whiteboard covered in plans, the stacks of study notes and newspaper articles, it didn't take her long to make her decision.

"You know what Bible Boy? I think I will take you up on that offer."

"I'm actually still a little shocked that you are here," Tristan said, as they walked along 6th Avenue heading towards Radio City Music Hall.

"Why?" Rory asked, tilting her head towards him in confusion.

"I kept having flashbacks to Chilton and the PJ Harvey ticket fiasco," he admitted bashfully.

"Oh, yeah, that. Well to be honest if that had all gone down a little differently I probably would have gone with you. The timing, and Paris, well everything really. It just went wrong." Rory said looking away from him.

"That is interesting, I mean good to know. I really had wondered, cause I knew we weren't quite as antagonistic with each other by that point, so I never fully understood how vehemently you refused to go."

"I think if Paris hadn't found out about it before you even asked me, and used it as an excuse to torture me even more then I probably would have agree to go as friends."

"Wow," Tristan said, shocked. "Come on, I think we should get some sugar before the concert." He started to speed up as he led her further down the block.

"What do you have in mind?" Rory asked, fighting hard to keep up with him.

"Here," he said, pointing at a store front. Rory was surprised to see the white and navy front of Magnolia bakery.

"I forgot that they had one here," she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet in her excitement. "Come on!"

Ten minutes later and they were back on the street with a cupcake each.

"I can't believe it took you that long just to pick a vanilla and chocolate cupcake."

"It's not my fault. I couldn't decide between the cupcake, that red velvet cheesecake or the banana pudding!"

"If you want, we can walk back tomorrow and you can get your fill of desserts before you head back to Yale?"

"Really? It wouldn't be too much trouble?" Rory asked, in between bites.

"Really, now come on, it looks like the line is starting to move, we better join it." Tristan said, while reaching forward to wipe a blob of frosting off her nose.

"Lane was so jealous when I told her I was coming here tonight with you. They are playing a gig tonight in Davenport or else they would have been here themselves."

"Maybe you need to get her a shirt on the way out, I'm sure she would love that," Tristan said as they made their way into the building.

"That's a good idea, Bible Boy," Rory said, smacking his arm in recognition.

"No need to look so shocked. I can be smart and beautiful," he said with a falsely angelic pose.

"Idiot," Rory stated as they walked into the hall laughing.

Radio Hall felt almost like an intimate gig, especially when the band was coming off the back of playing festivals like Coachella. It meant that the atmosphere in the hall was electric. It didn't take long for Rory and Tristan to give up on any attempt at talking, instead they just danced and sang along to the songs that they knew. Rory was shocked by how many songs Tristan seemed to know, even though she knew that he had to have liked the band to have tickets. It made her realize how much she still didn't know about the young man who was rapidly becoming a close friend.