Gilmore Girls: Wish Upon a Snow

Chapter 18

Rory tore through her room, stuffing jeans and leggings haphazardly into a carry-on bag as she went. She should be a professional traveler by this point, but she usually ended up shoving things into a bag at the last minute. She twirled charging cords around her fingers into somewhat neat loops and shoved them in the bag. Glancing at the top of her dresser, she fastened her watch to her wrist and placed a book in her bag. Whirling around to her bed, she noticed a bottle on her bed with a sticky note attached to it. It was in her mom's handwriting.

So your baby is tall and beautiful like you

It was a bottle of prenatal vitamins. Rory felt the sting of hurt snap at her cheeks. She felt her stomach clench in sadness as she looked at the bottle of vitamins she already had in her purse. They were the same brand, even. Did Lorelei think her to be such an unfit mother?
Rory had started taking the vitamins as soon as she found out, fearful her baby would be born as messed up as her life was when she became pregnant. Had Lorelai left some warning against cigarettes stashed in the bathroom? Ripped up her voucher to a sushi restaurant in Hartford she had received the previous Christmas? A tear slipped from the corner of her eye in frustration. She was in her thirties. Twice Lorelai's age when she had Rory. Twice the age, twice the readiness. She had an education. She felt like she could do it. Why were people doubting her?
A buzzing in her pocket snapped Rory from her melancholy reverie.
"Hello?" She singsonged, trying to cover her frustrations.
"Rory Gilmore, my friend. Lunch next Wednesday?" boomed a familiar voice.
"Paris!" Rory exclaimed. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this luncheon?" Rory began throwing her toothbrush and any toiletry less than 2 oz into the bag. Frowning, she pulled the toothbrush back up and looked for something to put over the bristles. Her shoes were probably disgusting.
"I'm getting divorced and I'm looking to have lunch with anyone who is not a lawyer. Oh! And Doyle is 'casually seeing someone.'" Paris snapped.
"What?! Doyle? Who?" Rory paused.
"An intelligible sentence would be helpful, Rory. We graduated from Yale, remember? Some bimbo makeup artist on one of his precious sets. Nicole. Can you imagine? After all the hard work I have done to parent, just to have some vapid stepmother pollute my daughter's brain with mascara and hair straighteners and then she will run off to Arizona State and study psychology and join Kappa Kappa Bimbo..." Paris sighed.

"She's a makeup artist," Rory said distractedly, wrapping a piece of paper towel around the head of her toothbrush. 

"Yes. Try to keep up. This is so derivative and classic divorced-man-on-the-make, especially for Doyle, who claims to be such a creative spirit." Paris snapped.

"Right, so if she is a makeup artist...she doesn't do anything with straighteners." Rory struggled to read how many ounces of toothpaste there were in the tube. "Plus, they aren't getting married if he is casually seeing her."

"Enough about the beauty-blogging bitch, Rory!" Paris sighed so loudly that Rory had to pull the phone away from her ear.  When she placed it back, Paris was talking.

"...If you want to meet in Stars Hollow then I suppose we could go to that Luke's place. A cheeseburger is probably more than warranted, given the circumstances."

"No, no, no! If you want to meet in Hartford, we could totally go to that place that puts everything in the rice bowl," Rory said too quickly, thinking of Luke's absence.

"I have a meeting with a VIP couple afterward. I will stink of shellfish. What about ChopChop?" Paris asked.

"Sounds violent. I'm in," Rory said, trying to sound light. 

"I will see you there at 10:30 AM next Wednesday," there was some clicking on Paris' end, the unmistakable sound of keystrokes.

"Are you putting me in your Google calendar?" Rory laughed, throwing the last of her things into her bag and grabbing her purse. "Can't you put your phone on vibrate like a normal person?"

"Yes, Rory. I put you in my calendar. Not all of us jet set all over the world with an empty day planner and a flip phone." 

With a beep, Paris was gone.

Rory closed her bedroom door and made her way towards the front door. Glancing up the stairs, she debated finding her mother to say goodbye. Then, thinking of the vitamins, she decided against it. She left the house, closing the door quietly behind her.