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“You’re going to a Chilton party?”
“Yes I am.”
“Honey, why don’t you just stay home and read The Bell Jar? Same effect.”
(The Breakup, Part II)
***
Once she sees that Lane is happily dancing with Henry, Rory means to hide. That’s a hip thing to do at a party, right? Hide and read? The book in her purse is really calling her name. But then she thinks of Paris scurrying out the gigantic front door minutes ago, and suddenly being outside sounds really nice. Some cool air, away from the heat of the crowd and the impending breakup vibes hovering around Tristan and Summer.
It’s not because she wants to wallow and outside is a better place to do it. She just wants a little break. A break is not a wallow.
So she walks through the foyer, dodging her classmates who clutch red solo cups or each other or sometimes both, and finally steps out into the crisp night air. It’s way too cold to be out here without a coat, but she doesn’t mind so much. For a second, she just stares up into the dark sky, looking for stars, definitely not thinking about the last time she went star-gazing. Just because she looked at the stars with Dean and now they’re over doesn’t mean the stars can just stop being there. So she’s just going to have to learn to live with it. She can handle that. She’s good at that.
“That’s it!”
Rory jumps at the sound of a car door slamming and the unmistakable rage of Paris.
“What’s up?” she asks, surprised.
Paris storms up to her, long hair swishing angrily. “I’m totally blocked in. Of course. God forbid anybody extend any parking courtesy when they’ve got to get inside and bump and grind their way through the discerning idiot’s social event of the season.” She pauses and tilts her head, registering that it’s Rory she’s fuming at. “What are you doing out here? You didn’t come after me, did you?”
Rory can’t resist a little scoff. “Why would I come after you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have my doctorate in Understanding The Whims of Rory Gilmore.”
“I wasn’t coming after you. I just needed a break.”
“What, from all that sophistication?” Paris deadpans.
Rory laughs under her breath.
“Where’s your friend?” Paris asks after a moment, seeming encouraged by the laugh.
“Still dancing the night away with Henry.”
“Typical.”
“Typical what?”
“Typical high school friendship. Of course she came along to support you and then ditched you as soon as something moderately cute entered her line of vision.”
“Paris.”
“What?”
“That’s my best friend you’re talking about. To my face. Right now.”
“So?”
“So, you might want to knock it off or I’m gonna have to fight you. Lane is pretty much the greatest person I know.”
“She abandoned you for a guy.”
“No she didn’t! She’s just having fun. Believe me, she deserves it. Her mom is really strict.”
“So you’re not upset,” Paris tests, “that she didn’t stay with you when you and your boyfriend just broke up?”
Rory feels a twinge of regret for telling Paris about Dean. Why had she told Paris? She keeps being surprised by how even though Paris is way meaner than Madeline and Louise, she’s way easier to talk to, too. Paris, Rory is starting to suspect, is a kindred spirit. One of those weird ones that you never see coming, like Aunt Josephine Barry.
“Nah,” she says. “It’s okay.”
“You don’t want her to hug you while you cry and hand you tissues and spoonfuls of ice cream?”
“Lane and I aren’t really hug-and-criers. Well, except for when we watched all of Titanic on VHS. Lane’s mom came to pick her up early, so we just barely made it to the end, and then my mom panicked and ejected the tape and threw it into the house plant -- we don’t really keep house plants anymore, and that’s kind of why. Just in time, she switched the TV to PBS, but then we had to explain why we were sobbing at Antiques Roadshow. But Mrs. Kim has an antiques shop, so she just bought it. Boy, was that a close call.”
“Your life is so weird,” Paris declares, shaking her head.
Rory smiles at her. “But exciting, huh?”
Paris smiles back slightly, like she’s not sure if she’s doing it right.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she asks then. “With you and Dean?”
Rory tenses. “Not really.”
Paris tenses more. “I know you want me to go.”
“No.” Rory shouldn’t be by now, but she’s thrown. “I don’t want you to go.”
“You don’t?”
Rory gestures toward the herd of cars crowding the driveway. “I mean, you’d have to walk all the way home in the dark, and that seems like a bad idea. Either that or Grand Theft Auto your way out of here.”
Paris eyes the other cars with a tempted gleam.
“So you should probably stay,” Rory concludes.
“Okay,” says Paris, “I’ll stay.”
And even though it wasn’t an actual option for her to go, Rory is relieved.
“Hey,” she says, thinking back to the rager inside, “have you read The Bell Jar?”
“You know, you don’t have to be perfect all the time.”
Talk about a non sequitur.
“I’m not perfect all the time,” Rory protests.
“Well, freakishly good, then. You’re polite to everyone, even when they don’t return the favor. You hung out with me at the Bangles concert when you could have just stuck to Madeline and Louise, two people who actually talk to you and didn’t spread the word about your mom frenching Mr. Medina--”
“I wasn’t ever going to stick to Madeline and Louise that night. Call me crazy, but one of my goals is not to be on Dateline.”
“And you’re a really, really annoyingly good person, okay? You’re the real deal. Audrey Hepburn in blue plaid. But life is crap and it’s not healthy to pretend it isn’t all the time. So if you want to be sad about breaking up with him, then you should just be sad. He was really tall and really cute in that never-washes-his-hair kind of way, and he was yours, and now he’s not. It sucks.”
Incredibly, stupidly, it’s this that makes Rory lose it. Suddenly her eyes are hot and her throat is full and she’s crying.
“Sorry,” Paris says, her flat tone at odds with her panicked eyes.
“No,” says Rory through tears, “it’s okay.”
“Stop saying everything is okay. Someone needs to revoke your access to the word ‘okay.’”
“Okay,” Rory says, and lets out what might be a laugh or a yowl. She lifts her hands to her face, blocking out the world, and feels her tears on her palms.
After a moment, there’s a hand patting her back. Rory looks up to see Paris watching her.
“Don’t worry,” Paris says, “I’m not going to hug you or anything.”
It defies all reason, but. A hug from Paris actually sounds pretty nice.
So Rory flings her arms around Paris’s shoulders, hunching down a little to rest her head against Paris’s, and it’s easy in a way it couldn’t have been with Mom or Lane, because Paris doesn’t know her, not really -- or at least, not the version of her that Stars Hollow knows. Paris knows whoever she is now: the new kid, the competition. A girl who can’t say ‘I love you’ even after a whole life full of love, sure. A girl with no excuse. But someone still worth staying alone in the dark with.
Thinking about it now, she realizes she met Paris and Dean at around the same time. And Paris still seems to be able to stand her. Paris might even be starting to like her. Maybe one out of two isn’t bad.
Just as she thinks it, Paris pulls away. But then instead of nixing the whole embrace, she puts her hands on either side of Rory’s face and stares into her eyes. For a crazy second, Rory wonders if Paris is going to kiss her.
“Hi,” Paris says, staring deep into Rory’s eyes.
“Hi,” says Rory.
“My nanny always does this,” Paris says, “to calm me down when I really need to be snapped out of it.”
“I’m very calm,” says Rory.
“That’s because it works. Nanny knows what she’s doing.”
“Well, tell her thanks from me.”
Paris pulls her hands away at last. One of them stays in the air for a second, like she thinks about brushing Rory’s tears away and then reconsiders.
“Obviously I’ve read The Bell Jar,” Paris adds. “I’m not six.”
“Oh, good,” says Rory. “I was worried.”
A few laughing Chilton kids burst out the front door, stumbling past them and down the drive. Weird privacy bubble popped.
“Is that your car?” Paris shouts after them. “Move it or lose it, Chip!”
“Lose it how, Paris?” Chip calls back.
“If you don’t think I’ve got the numbers of at least five tow truck companies memorized, then you’re in for a world of hurt, my friend--”
Rory laughs as Paris starts shouting out phone numbers while Chip and his buddies flee to a car that’s nowhere near Paris’s.
She wraps her arms around herself, protection against the cold, and glances up at the sky again while she listens to Paris’s voice pierce the night. Her eyes take a few seconds to adjust, but then, sure enough, stars up there. Still shining.
+
Rory gets home to an empty house a few hours later. It doesn’t feel as bad as it might have. She’s feeling steadier after a half hour of talking to Paris on the front steps, then finally giving up on the parking situation and going back into the house to hide in a corner and talk some more. (Really, sometimes it was talking, sometimes it was debating, sometimes it veered into studying territory, and sometimes it was sulky silence -- mostly from Paris -- but at least it was never boring. Plus, it really was fun to roast the contents of the Lynns’ bookshelf together.)
Home again, she puts on her comfiest, least cute pajamas and raids the fridge and sits down on the couch with her coffeetable cornucopia spread out in front of her. It’s a guaranteed stomachache. But some things are worth the pain. First boyfriends, she’s still not so sure about. But infinite ice cream with sides of tater tots and Pop Tarts? Definitely. Her only regret is that she can't get some easily accessible pot roast to go with it.
There’s the sound of coming home, and Lorelai steps in. “Hey, you’re back!”
“I’m back,” Rory agrees.
“And you’re …” Lorelai takes in the sight.
“I’m going to wallow,” Rory announces. “But only because it’s not healthy to pretend you’re fine all the time, and when something sucks, you should be honest about it. I wasn’t being honest. I can be honest about that. I can also be honest and say that yesterday sucked. Now, I’m going to eat a stupid amount of ice cream and tater tots and at least one Pop Tart packet and cry at Ever After. Do you want to join?”
“Does it have to be Ever After?” Lorelai, Rory knows, takes serious issue with Drew Barrymore’s attempt at an accent.
But wallowing means never having to say you’re sorry, so: “Yes.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, sweets.” Lorelai comes over and touches Rory’s hair. “Good party, huh?”
“Pretty good party,” Rory says, meaning it.