Chapter Text
Juliet’s cell phone rang five minutes before her lunch break ended. She rolled her eyes as she answered, half expecting it to be her mother, who seemed to have a sixth sense for when she had no excuse to dodge her calls.
“She got in!” Lorelai. Thank God.
Juliet’s eyes widened as the initial relief wore off, and the meaning behind Lorelai’s words sunk in.
“Chilton? Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack, baby!” There was a pause. “I probably shouldn’t say that while you’re at the hospital, huh?”
“Oh yeah, say it three times here and one happens. Like Beetlejuice,” Juliet deadpanned, smiling and waving at another resident as they left the cafeteria. “But it’s six times if it’s over the phone, so you’re in the clear.”
“Whew! Thank God!” Juliet smiled, able to see Lorelai wiping fake sweat from her forehead in her mind’s eye. “Anyway, I just got the letter, and I had to call and let you know.”
“I’m glad you called. Have you told Rory yet?”
“Not yet. She’s stopping by after school, so I’ll tell her then. You know, give her a plaid skirt and let her guess,” she sighed dreamily. “I’m just so proud of her, you know?”
Juliet opened her mouth to answer, but Lorelai was on a roll. “Well, duh. Of course you know. You’ve been along for the whole ride, and you’re just as proud as I am. Ooh, hey! We should go out to celebrate! You’re not working this weekend, right? Wanna have a night on the town with me and our girl on Friday?”
“What does a night on the town with a fifteen year old girl entail? Apple juice shots?”
Lorelai laughed. “Ice cream, duh!”
“I should’ve known. I can’t on Friday, though. Dinner with the parents, remember?”
“Ugh, I forgot. Remind me why you put yourself through that every week?”
“Uh, it keeps Mom from showing up at my apartment unannounced and disapproving of everything in it?”
“Ah, a pre-emptive strike. Want to come over after you’re done? Crash with us for the weekend?”
“I guess I can squeeze you in. We can do the ice-cream party on Saturday night.” Juliet checked her watch. Shit. “I have to go, but we’re still on for tomorrow, right?”
Ever since Lorelai had started business school, she and Juliet made a habit of meeting at the same coffee shop in Hartford every Tuesday and Thursday, but sometimes more sporadically if Juliet’s work schedule didn’t allow it.
“Yep. See you tomorrow!”
“Tell Rory congratulations for me, okay?”
“I will!”
Juliet hung up, chugging the last of her tea as she dumped her trash and put her tray away, jogging to make her afternoon rounds.
Juliet opened the door to the coffee shop, rubbing her arms to warm up from outside. She looked to the counter, furrowing her brow in surprise when she saw Lorelai at the counter, smiling and waving at her. She usually breezed in five minutes after their agreed upon meeting time.
Juliet was struck, as she often was, by how beautiful her older sister was. Even in a plain long sleeve and pants, Lorelai managed to be glamorous and feminine, making Juliet feel even more shapeless in her baggy scrubs and face that hadn’t worn makeup all week. She was tempted to pull her hair out of the messy knot she’d tied it into this morning and let it fall down to her waist, but thought better of it.
“Hey!” Lorelai said brightly, moving her coat and scarf from the stool next to hers so Juliet could sit down. “I got you a chai latte already, it should be out in a minute.”
“Thanks,” Juliet smiled as she lowered herself on the stool. “Did your class get out early or something? You’re never here before me.”
“I decided to give you some competition for the Miss Punctuality crown.”
“Dr. Punctuality,” she corrected as the barista placed their drinks in front of her. Holding her breath as she passed Lorelai her coffee, she continued, “Besides, if anyone’s my competition for that title, it’s Rory, not you.”
Lorelai snorted, raising her eyebrows in agreement as she took a sip of her coffee. She swallowed and put the cup down, facing Juliet head on. “Actually, I need some advice.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, Rory starts Chilton on Monday, and of course that’s great, but, oops! Her Mommy got so excited about her finally using her whole brain at school that she forgot that Chilton costs money.”
Juliet frowned as she reached for the cinnamon shaker in front of her. “I thought she got a scholarship, though. Isn’t that what you guys applied for?”
Lorelai shook her head, closing her eyes in a barely concealed effort to remain calm. “We didn’t qualify. I just found out last night. They said it was because my income is too high, but really. . .”
“It’s because your last name is Gilmore.” At Lorelai’s nod, Juliet worried her lip between her teeth. “I mean, I could –”
Lorelai shook her head. “Don’t start, Jules. You don’t get paid enough to afford that.”
“And my trust fund obviously isn’t an option,” Juliet said with a rueful smile.
After Lorelai left home, Richard and Emily had rearranged their assets so that Lorelai was cut off from her trust fund, and all the money that had been in it was placed in Juliet’s. However, when they discovered a few months later that Juliet not only knew where Lorelai was, but had been sneaking out to visit her once a week, she’d been cut off too. In theory, the money now belonged to Rory, but not until she was twenty-five, so it would be no help to them now.
“Sookie says Mom and Dad are my only option,” Lorelai sighed, playing with the lid on the to-go cup.
Juliet hesitated a moment, running through every possible solution before coming to a frustrating conclusion. “I think she might be right,” she whispered, placing a hand on her sister’s knee.
Lorelai sighed again. “I know. I’m gonna go see them after I leave here. I was just hoping you knew of another alternative I hadn’t thought of yet.”
“Sorry.”
“Eh, it won’t be that bad,” Lorelai said with a shrug, taking another sip of her coffee. Then, placing the cup on the counter deliberately, she shifted her focus to Juliet. “Sooo, how are things at General Hospital? Any good stories?”
“There was a code brown on the third floor.”
“What’s a code – oh, gross! That’s not what I meant!”
Juliet shrugged with mock nonchalance. “Should’ve been more clear.”
After bidding Juliet goodbye, Lorelai climbed into her Jeep and drove the short distance from the cafe to her parents’ house. She sat in the driveway, nursing the coffee refill she had gotten just before leaving.
Taking a deep breath, she rang the doorbell, blinking in surprise when her mother answered instead of a maid.
“Hi, Mom,” she said.
“Lorelai! My goodness, this is a surprise. Is it Easter already?” She fought the urge to roll her eyes. For all Emily Gilmore complained about how little Lorelai visited her, she sure gave her a hard time when she did.
“No, I finished my business class, and I thought I’d stop by.”
“To see me?”
“Yes.” No, to put itching powder between your sheets. Why else would I be here?
“Well, isn’t that nice. Come in.”
Following her mother inside, she glanced around the house, searching for something to stimulate conversation.
“The place looks great,” she said, because nothing else came to mind.
“It hasn’t changed.” I’m trying here, Emily, why can’t you?
“Well, there you go,” she laughed nervously. “Juliet told me to tell you hi for her, by the way.”
“Why would she need to do that, Lorelai? We see her once a week.”
She bit her lip as they walked to the living room, forcing herself to refrain from saying something stupid like, Well, I see her twice a week, and sometimes more than that, so ha!
Right then, Lorelai wished she had taken Juliet up on her offer to come with her. Never mind the fact that she was a thirty-two year old woman who couldn’t hide behind her little sister every time she was nervous, or that their parents probably wouldn’t be as willing to hear her out if they felt like she and Juliet were conspiring against them.
Just as the silence was becoming unbearable, her mother said, “So, you’re taking a business class?”
“Yeah, at the college twice a week. I’m sure I told you.”
“No, you didn’t,” Emily said snidely. Lorelai clutched the sides of her pants, itching to run or break something.
“Emily, I’m home!” Dad. Thank God. Richard Gilmore was low on the list of people she’d want as a buffer between her and her mother, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“We’re in here!”
Lorelai waved at her father as he walked into the living room. “Hi, Dad.”
“What is it, Christmas already?”
“Lorelai was taking a business class at the college and thought she’d drop in to see us,” her mother’s tone showed how much she believed that explanation.
“What business class?”
“The one Juliet told us about, remember?”
“Ah,” Richard nodded, clearly not remembering.
With a deep breath, Lorelai explained to them why she was really there, and was almost home free when her mother held up a hand and said,
“I want a weekly dinner.”
“What?”
“You and Rory will have dinner here every Friday night. That’s what your sister does, and her work schedule is far more demanding than yours.”
Lorelai scoffed internally at the thinly veiled barb. It was laughable how Emily could take the seemingly endless pride she had for her little sister’s career and turn it into envy. Juliet was one of the only things she and her parents had in common, why did she seem to be the largest sore spot in their relationship?
“She doesn’t want to go!” Lorelai said as she answered the phone without pretense.
“Who doesn’t want to go where?” Juliet asked, knowing that she could be talking about anything from her Jeep breaking down to Diane from Cheers not actually wanting to leave Sam.
“Rory! She met some dreamy guy, and now she wants to stay at Stars Hollow High so they can go steady or something!”
Juliet sucked in a breath. “And you’ve already gone to Mom and Dad for money?”
“Yup,” Lorelai said, popping the p. “By the way, we’ll be at dinner with you tomorrow night. And every Friday night for the foreseeable future. Oh God, you should’ve heard Emily. ‘Why should Juliet need to pass a message along through you, she’s always here even though she works so much harder than you!’”
“And then you told her that I call and complain to you about them as soon as I get in my car afterwards?”
“You’d be proud, I actually held back from saying that!”
Juliet rolled her eyes. “She’s ridiculous. When I’m there, I get nailed for not joining the DAR like she wants me to, or for using my medical degree to work as a doctor instead of marrying one. But when she’s talking to you, she can’t stop singing my praises.”
“What’s that called again? Trianglefication?”
“Triangulation?”
“That’s it! That’s what that was, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what she’s doing.”
“Look at us! Sigmund and Carl better watch their backs!”
Juliet laughed, and then sobered when she heard Lorelai suck in a shaky breath and whisper fearfully,
“I think I’m turning into Mom.”
“Oh, Lor, no. Why would you think that?”
“I was so mad at Rory, Jules. I’m still a little mad, honestly. I told her she was throwing her life away for a guy just like I had. I told her she had to go to Chilton whether she liked it or not,” she paused, and Juliet could hear her sniffle. “Did I do the wrong thing?”
Juliet hesitated. “I mean, maybe the 'throwing your life away’ thing was a little much. But you’ll apologize for that, and Mom never apologized. And she should go to Chilton. A little tough love when she needs it doesn’t make you a bad mom.”
“I know. But I don’t know know, you know?”
“No,” Juliet said, her brow furrowed in confusion.
Lorelai exhaled, and Juliet could hear her shifting around. “I just – I swear my voice sounded just like hers today. It felt like I was the mom in Titanic , you know, when she’s lacing Kate Winslet into that corset? What if I’m doing the same thing? What if this guy is her Leonardo DiCaprio?”
“Then he’ll be dead in a few days, so you won’t have to worry.”
“I’m serious!” Lorelai insisted, and Juliet held back a comment about how the Titanic references indicated otherwise.
“Lor, it’s not like you’re forbidding her from seeing him. If he goes to Stars Hollow High, she’ll still see him all the time.”
“I know,” Lorelai repeated.
“You’re not Mom,” Juliet promised. “Just the fact that you’re worried about turning into her shows that you aren’t.”
She heard Lorelai sigh in begrudging acceptance. “I want to be a cool mom.”
“You are a cool mom.”
“You promise?”
“You pretty much raised me, so I think I would know.”
“I guess you’re right. Hey! If I raised you, then my firstborn is a doctor! I must’ve done something right!”
“There you go!”