Title: When She Cries
Book: II
Chapter: Five
Chapter Title: Steps By You
Rating: R.
Coupling: Ultimately: Dallie/Lola, Aggie/Fin, Devon/Ashley,
Thalia/Ethan, Paris/Jess, Meggie/Zander, Aurora/Tolly. Now aren’t you glad
you’ve spoiled yourself in that way?
Disclaimer: Aye, captain. I hold no
deeds to Gilmore Girls. And I don’t own matchbox twenty’s Shame.
Author’s Note: To Jess, Jamie, Ash and Gracie, all of whom I had to
black mail in relation to this update.
*
But
there's no one around who can tell us what we're here for/
Funny
in a certain light/how we all look the same/
And
there's no one in life you can remember ever stood/For you.
The store held a musty scene akin to
the kind you found in a library. It was a lot better than the scent of blood
and death that she and Aggie feared would be there. Even though she was nearly
eighteen, she supposed a part deep down inside of her still feared that it
would. It was silly, but any Stars Hollow child with a semblance of an IQ
feared Mrs. Kim, and her store Kim’s Antiques. But it was the best
chance she’d get of finding an 1890’s desk that she’d find before school
started. Lola’s eyes scanned the room; the place was almost a cluttered mess.
‘All the more places to hide the
bodies,’ she could almost hear an adolescent Devon Mariano taunting her.
This was, of course, followed by a resounding smack as Augusta pummeled her
younger brother to the ground. Dallie had never really believed in that stuff,
so he just kind of hung back, now knowing what the big deal was about. Aggie
would tell her it was because he had horror-o-phobia. It was funny how Stars
Hollow seemed to remind her of her childhood, when she had spent the majority
of it in Hartford.
That was enough of that. “Hello?”
She called, trying not to trip over the furniture in her heels. It should have
been easier to be graceful in such a situation, given the 14 years of ballet
lessons she had taken, but apparently she wasn’t.
“Over here,” came the strident
reply.
Eh, that was worse than Lola
had imagined. She followed the direction of the reply as best she could.
Finally, she came across a doorway and in it stood a white haired Korean woman.
Good, not exactly the Bride of Frankenstein she and Aggie had imagined.
“No teenagers,” Mrs. Kim told, or
rather barked at, her.
Lola had anticipated this. She may
not have stepped foot inside the store or even met Mrs. Kim before, but her
mother was good friends with her daughter, Lane Rygalski, who had told enough
stories about her. So Lola pulled out the clip of five hundred dollars out of
the pocket of her denim jacket that she had brought with her, she had a total
of five thousand with her though. Better be safe than in debt.
Mrs. Kim assessed it shrewdly. “Very
well.” She paused. “Nothing is on sale today.”
Lola nodded, like she cared. “I’m
looking for something very specific.”
“Good, good.”
“It’s a desk from the 1890s.
American,” Lola described. “And I need it by today.”
“You’re in luck,” Mrs. Kim told her.
“We just received something like that the other day. It’s over there.”
Lola just nodded and followed the
Korean woman. She had learned over the years that reticence is the best form of
politeness out there. She checked her watch. She had an hour before she had to head
back to Hartford and prepare for Aurora’s dinner party. Except she didn’t know
what to wear. Maybe it should be a half an hour.
She couldn’t wear anything gold, she
had worn gold far too much last year. White was just not her color. Black was
too cliché. She didn’t like green presently. Ice blue? Oh yes, that would be
very nice. Maybe she could lengthen it to a 45-minute limit. Yeah, that sounded
nice. Now, onto hair…
“Here it is,” Mrs. Kim’s harsh voice
snapped her out of her thoughts.
There it was, just what she needed
to compliment her AP History project that would have to be present within the
first two weeks of school. And Mariano had always lectured her that
procrastination didn’t pay.
“I’ll take it,” Lola announced,
flipping through the bills.
“Don’t you want to know the price
first?” Mrs. Kim asked suspiciously.
“Does it matter?”
“How are you getting it out of
here?” Mrs. Kim questioned.
“I got a truck on loan,” Lola
replied, it was actually Luke’s, and he offered to drive it to Hartford and
back for her. “So that’s how.”
“Today?”
“Right now,” she clarified,
repressing a sigh. Paranoid people were such a hassle to deal with.
“Okay. That’ll be fourteen
hundred and seventy-two dollars,” Mrs. Kim proclaimed.
Lola reached into her purse for the
rest of the money and counted it out. “Here you are.”
Mrs. Kim obviously still didn’t
trust her because she counted the money while holding it up to the light.
Lovely.
*
Bit. Aurora knew that Aura, Dallie
and Lola were not the most normal nicknames for a person to have but Bit?
Egad, that was weird. The only reason
she was Aura in the first place was because Lola and her decided that her
having the normal nick name for Aurora, which is Rory, would be too weird seeing
as that was Lola’s mom’s name. Bit. Where did one think of these things?
Maybe Aurora was being a little
biased, since she was probably destined to hate Brigitte Lennox from the
beginning, with the two counts she already had against her. Those being 1.) She
was moving into her house, her inner sanctum not to mention that she was an
only child, she had never learned to share, and 2.) She was Bartholomew Lennox’s
sister, so obviously she suffered from a case of bad genes. Maybe she could have gotten over that, but to
have the nickname of Bit was just pushing it to far for her sensibilities.
She was over that now, and needed to
find an outfit. Not green though, green was far too much of a clichéd color for
a redhead to wear. Knowing Lola she’d end up in ice blue, so that was out too. Maybe
a dark ruby, the color always seemed to make her hair appear darker as well.
She liked that. She was in a dark mood.
“Aurora?” There was a knock on the
door. It wasn’t her mother, but it was almost as bad.
“Come in, Bit,” the name left a bad
taste in her mouth. Maybe she should stick with Brigitte, friendliness be
damned.
Brigitte stepped into the room,
still wearing the hip huggers and white tank top she had arrived in. She had
Tolly’s dark hair, excepted it curled, and had brown eyes. It had to be
something about house-invaders with dark hair; she and Lola would have to trade
notes later.
“How formal or informal is this
thing?” Bit asked, and Aurora stifled a sigh. She knew Brigitte wasn’t into the
society thing. That had been blatantly obvious from the first fifteen minutes.
It was already obvious whom her friends would end up being at Chilton. Which
secured her place as not being Aurora’s friend, thank the Goddess. Since it
would most likely be Thalia, and the two of them got on as well as Thalia and
Lola did. That is to say, not at all.
“It’s formal enough for a dress,”
Aurora answered, thinking about it a little before continuing. “But not formal
enough for a gown.”
“Thanks,” Bit replied before leaving
the room.
Aurora sighed as she pulled the
dress out of her closet. She didn’t care how irrational it sounded, but she
just did not like Brigitte Lennox.