A Different Life

seven

5 years later

Rory was sitting in the first class lounge in JFK, she was flying to London Heathrow for ten days with hopefully three or four days in Ireland. She had to check on her properties that she had inherited there, both from Lorelai the first and the Hayden side of the family, so it was a mixture of work and pleasure while also providing a break from her work at the firm. While Rory enjoyed the freedom she had in the states to travel everywhere on her cessna, she sometimes enjoyed the people watching opportunities that commercial air travel afforded to her. She was never sure whether it was due to her time spent in journalism or from her body language classes as part of her coursework at Harvard Law but she liked to watch people and speculate on their relationships and reasons for being there.

She sipped on her caramel macchiato, always needing the sugar rush before long flights, and looked around the lounge. Not for the first time she found herself thinking of the different path she could have found herself on had she said yes to one Logan Huntzberger after her Yale Graduation. She may have been a part of a young family like the husband, wife and what looked to be three year old twins on one side of the lounge, or there was an around thirty year old woman leaning against the bar having a loud argument over the phone with what sounded like her husband who had not came home the night before.

Instead, Rory had packed herself up after her Yale graduation and went to Disneyworld and Universal with her mother. She had promised her mom she would ride roller coasters all summer with her, and as she no longer has the opportunity to spend the whole summer doing that she had taken her mom to the two biggest parks to pacify her. That had actually started a bit of a love affair between Rory and Disneyworld. It became one of her favourite places to travel to, it was like being in a continual bubble of happiness for the duration of every trip. Not to mention the accommodation and food were always first rate. Unlimited churros, need she say more.

After they returned from disney it was time for Rory to gather everyone together and outline her future plans. They all knew pieces of what she had been thinking but no one knew the final decisions or complete plans. She arranged with her Grandfather to gather everyone together at one of the board rooms at his office, as it had enough room for them all but was a more neutral location than choosing from one of her grandmothers or her mothers houses.

Flashback

Rory looked through the glass into the boardroom where everyone was wondering what was going on and as they were so busy asking each other no one was looking at the door to see her studying them. At one end of the table was her Grandfather Richard looking steadfast as usual in his grey suit and tie, beside him was Grandma Emily in a classic navy Chanel suit, Rory wondered not for the first time just how many colours did she own that suit in. Next to Richard on his left hand side was her mother who was dressed reservedly enough for her in a blue button up blouse and a pair of dark dressier jeans. At the opposing end of the table sat her father in a shirt, khakis and a sports jacket with no tie, and Grandmother Francine in what appeared to be a Dior suit. Unlike Emily, Francine liked to mix up her designers a little more and to Rory's currently untrained eye she always had to work hard to ascertain the brand, not that it really mattered in the long run.

Rory took a deep breath and brushed off some invisible lint from her lilac blouse and smoothed her skirt, then she entered the room. Instantly all heads turned to her. Rory felt like she was a specimen under a microscope at a lab somewhere with the intensity of the scrutiny coming from the elders.

"What is the meaning of this little assembly Rory, gathering us all here without informing us what it is in regards to really is not appropriate young lady," Emily started.