Title: When She Cries
Book: II
Chapter: Thirteen
Chapter Title: Been So Composed
Rating: R.
Coupling: Ultimately: Dallie/Thalia, Lola/Fin, Devon/Meggie, Aggie/Ethan,
Paris/Zander, Meggie/Tolly, Aurora/Jess. Now aren’t you glad you’ve spoiled
yourself in that way? (This is not serious. I just want to see who reads this
section.)
Disclaimer: Aye, captain. I hold no
deeds to Gilmore Girls. And I don’t own matchbox twenty’s Soul, or Bruce
Springsteen’s Red Headed Woman. And in the last chapter I forgot to
credit the song Thalia quoted to Lola- it was Comfortable by John Mayer.
Author’s Note: To Gracie, who just makes my day and rocks my world with
her awesome graphics.
*
His mother was attempting to cook
again. That must mean his father was working late. How bad of a son would he be
if he found other plans for dinner? Dallie looked down at the Harvard
application in front of him. That had to even it out. It was decided that it
did. Especially since he had finished the Princeton and the Yale application
earlier in the week. His attention turned back to the phone conversation he had
started as a way to take a break from the tedious application process.
“So, what are you doing tonight?” It
was probably random considering the current topic of conversation was about
yesterday’s assembly on what clubs were available to join this year.
Bit, who was on the other end of the
line, sighed. “Practicing the violin.”
That was rather easy to work around,
Dallie thought. “Planning on taking a break to eat?”
“Well, as a matter of fact I try to
make it a habit to eat at least once a night,” she replied, an amused quality
to her voice. “Sometime I even stretch it out to a full meal and call it ‘supper’.”
“Sounds like they teach you to do
some crazy things over at boarding school. How about trying this supper thing
with me?”
Bit twirled the phone cord around
her finger. “Where are you thinking about trying this supper thing out at?”
Dallie had an idea where he’d like
to take her. Then again it all depended on the time limit. “That depends. How
much time is allotting for this date?”
She looked across the room, to where
he violin was set up. “Two hours. Three, if I find it worthy enough.” The last
comment was said, of course, teasingly.
Perfect. “I know a place that’s thirty
minutes away by bus.”
“Am I going to have to dress up for
this?” Bit asked, silently hoping that this wasn’t the case. One of the best
things about dating, or even hanging out with, Dallie was that he provided a
welcome respite from her normally ritzy world.
The idea was nearly laughable. “Not
at all. It’s actually my uncle’s- great uncle if you want to get specific-
diner.”
“Sounds wonderful.” And it really
did. Eating dinner with the Thomas’s was rather awkward and uncomfortable and
it reminded her far too much of eating dinner with her own family. “So this bus
trip- should I bring a book to amuse, or something?”
“Depends on what you’re reading.”
“The Waves by Virginia Woolf.”
“Go for it then,” Dallie told her. “Woolf
is always welcomed in my book.”
Bit laughed. “You’re kidding.” No
guy she had met had ever enjoyed the three bigs, as she liked to call them-
Woolf, Plath and Austen. The only possible exception being her brother, who
admitted to liking The Bell Jar. Though, strangely enough, he had only
done so rather recently.
“I kid you not,” he assured her. “My
mother raised me to appreciate female authors.”
Seriously, Brigitte Lennox had not
met a guy that just got better and better as they furthered their acquaintance
like Dallas Mariano did.
*
Marguerite Giselle could appreciate
a good deception. Being a mastermind at them like she had been since the age of
nine, gave her the capability of recognizing the best in a deception. So even
she had to agree that what Bartholomew Lennox had suggest was absolutely
diabolical. And she loved it.
“If your father found out, he’d lock
you up in a tower like a medieval princess so fast,” She felt the need
to point out to Aurora.
“Or make me actually marry him,”
Aurora added, taking another spoonful of the low fat frozen yogurt. She
resisted the urge to shudder.
Meggie rolled her eyes. “Like that’d
be so bad.”
“How would you know?” Aurora asked,
nudging her friend with her elbow. “You’ve never met him.”
“I’ve seen pictures,” she replied
matter-of-factly. “My parents, too, wish for me to marry a well bred gentleman.”
“You have Zander,” Aurora pointed
out. “Your boyfriend that you’ve been dating for what? Three years.”
Meggie resisted the urge to glare
because of the fact that people had actually been keeping track. Like she had planned
to date Zander that long. “Give or take.”
Aurora sighed. “I’m shocked. I can’t
believe that he and Lola never got the chance to hook up. I lost money on that
one.”
“You think that’s bad? I lost money
on the fact that she and Devon Mariano never hooked up,” it was Meggie’s turn
to sigh. “So do you actually date Bart or is it like a thing where you leave
together but don’t stay together?”
“Tolly,” Aurora automatically
corrected. Always Tolly, never Bart. Apparently he was very particular about
that. “And I didn’t agree to it.”
“I don’t see why not,” Meggie told
her as she finished off her own frozen yogurt. “You have this absolutely
gorgeous man- and his blue eyes have to be even more amazing in person by the
way- who you go out with. Not only that, but by doing so you get your father to
calm down about the whole marriage situation. I’d be jumping at that.”
“Yeah, and in more ways than one,”
Aurora told her as she tossed the container in a trashcan that they were
passing. “But there is only one thing we’re not considering here.”
She threw away her own container
before replying. “What’s in it for him?”
“He hasn’t told me his reasons for
his oh-so-magnanimous offer,” Aurora agreed in the positive to Meggie’s guess
at what her problem was. “It makes me edgy.”
“Well if what he wants is sex,”
Marguerite shrugged. “I don’t see the problem in that.”
“You don’t know him. Like he’d make
it that simple.”
“Oh,” it dawned on Meggie instantly.
“You are so going to become Mrs. Lennox.”
“That’s what you get out of that?”
Aurora asked incredulously. “I’d expect it of Lo, but not from you. She lives
to torture.”
“I know, that’s why I love her,”
Meggie agreed. “However, this plan totally reeks of romance novels.”
“Since when do you read something
other than Marquis de Sade?”
“I went through a phase in sixth
grade,” her friend explained. “Now here me out, darling. You’re in a situation
where you’re forced to spend time with Tolly. He saves you from the evil
marriage list, and you start thinking ‘hey- look who’s not so bad anymore’. The
more you get to know him, the less it matters that your father actually wants
this to happen. You get over it, become his wife, and then live happily ever
after before you turn twenty six.”
“Um, that sounds really complicated,”
Aurora, pointed out. “Why go through all of that to marry me?”
“Maybe he suffers from Springsteen
complex,” Meggie offered. “You know, where he believes that only ‘a red headed
woman can get the job done’. But that’s only my theory, and I’m no Augusta
Mariano.”
“And that’s assuming far too much for it to work out so perfectly,”
she felt the need to point more out as to why Meggie’s theory couldn’t be
right.
Marguerite flipped her honey-toned
blonde hair back, “Because, Aura, deep down inside you’re a romantic. That’s
why you’re so set in rebelling against your father’s list for you. And that’s
why this little diabolical plan of his will work in the end.”
Aurora crossed her arms petulantly. “It
will not.”
She arched an eyebrow challengingly.
“Prove it.”
Oh, Aurora would. She was not a
romantic, and would never be one. Then again, she wouldn’t leave this one up to
fate to decide. She’d go along with Tolly’s plan, up to a point that was. And
even if Meggie turned out to be right, there still wasn’t one thing neither of
them had considered- Aurora Thomas was a strong believer in making up her own
rules.