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“You know what,” Paris says, “it’s my fault. I should have seen this coming.”
“You could have checked in with The Weather Channel first,” Rory agrees blithely.
“What else was going to happen once I’d made the choice to drive to Stars freaking Hollow in mid-December? Obviously the only options were solstice-time ritual sacrifice or the Franklin expedition.”
“Then be glad it’s the second one.”
“Maybe the snow’s stopped.”
“Maybe.”
Paris slides the door of Miss Patty’s dance studio open. She’s immediately greeted with an icy breeze and a face full of snowflakes. Rory knows that they’re in the town square, but there’s no indication of it: just white, angry snowfall as far as the eye can see. Which isn’t far at all. She can’t even make out the lights around the diner window or on the gazebo.
Paris slides the door closed with an angry grunt.
“So, what?” she scowls, spinning around to face Rory. “Do we just live here now?”
Rory brushes snowflakes out of Paris’s hair. “Hey, you were the one who wanted to practice before your dance elective final.”
“Fat load of good that did, since your resident dance expert bailed on us hours ago. Apparently seventy bucks an hour for private tutelage doesn’t mean much in this town. Should I have offered to pay in candy canes and elf dreams instead?”
“Don’t take it personally. Miss Patty misses Babette’s Christmas karaoke party for no man. Or woman. Or petite and terrifying teenage girl. And don’t worry, your dance is great.” This is, oddly enough, true. You would think Paris Geller would be the last person to have rhythm, but there’s something about her natural ferocity that channels itself really well into the art of dance. Her Ballet/Bob Fosse/Britney mashup is bound to get an A.
Still, Paris doesn’t seem to take any joy in her gift for boogieing. “Thank God we’re doing fencing when we get back from winter break. Dance class has put me in a serious mood to stab something.”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to stab in fencing.”
“You’re probably right,” Paris says glumly, like this is a disillusioning truth bomb instead of a good thing. “The world really is out to thwart me at every turn, huh?”
“The storm will die down. And don’t worry, I brought a book.”
“What book?”
Rory goes to her backpack and pulls out the magnificent leatherbound copy of A Christmas Carol that her grandparents gave her back when she was tiny.
Paris stares at her. “I swear, Hallmark made you in a lab.”
“Hey, can you blame me for wanting to return to the source material of a much-adapted tale every once in a while for a reminder of what’s actually in the text and what’s creative license?”
“You are such a nerd.”
“Not all of us can be as cool as you, Paris,” Rory says. Sometimes the urge to be petty is just too strong.
Paris deflates a little. “I’m sorry if you wanted to be at the karaoke Christmas party.”
“That’s okay. I’ve seen many a karaoke Christmas party before, and I’ll see one again next year. It’s kind of a relief to have a year off from Kirk and Miss Patty’s ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside.’”
Paris looks down at her hands. “Well, I’m sorry that you’re missing date night with Emo James Dean or whatever.”
“It’s fine. He had to work a late shift tonight anyway.”
“I know this isn’t how you wanted to spend your night,” Paris insists, looking up at her moodily.
“Trapped in the dance studio? Not really.”
But as usual with Paris, there’s something about being inconvenienced by her and given a front-row seat to the anguished one-woman show of her life that Rory enjoys. She supposes it’s the reason they’ve been friends all year without having any fallouts, the reason that being her vice president and sharing a room with her in D.C. all summer hasn’t sent Rory to the loony bin yet. Paris isn’t an easy person, but a few years in, Rory’s pretty sure she’s worth it.
“Hey,” she adds, brightening so that Paris will too, “it could be worse. My mom’s hidden all kinds of snacks in here so that she doesn’t ever have to risk being at a town meeting without one.”
“No way.”
“I mean it.” Rory only has to rifle around for a minute before triumphantly unearthing potato chips, beef jerky, marshmallows, and Hershey Kisses. “Here, we’ve got a hearty meat-and-potatoes supper with deconstructed s’mores for dessert.”
“There’s dairy in those,” Paris says, gesturing to the chocolates.
“Got it,” Rory says, “no Kisses for you.”
Paris looks disappointed, or disturbed, or something. Rory guesses it’s understandable. Who would be happy about not getting to eat chocolate?
“That just means,” Rory presses on valiantly, “you get to be the marshmallow queen.”
Now Paris looks like she really wants to be horrified, but can’t quite manage it. In any case, she accepts the bag of marshmallows and stares inside like she’s not quite sure what to do.
“And,” Rory says once she’s arranged their snacks on the floor next to the bean bag chairs, “who can beat Dickens for entertainment?”
“The Brontes.” Paris sits down opposite her, looking seasick. It’s definitely the first time the girl has ever been in a bean bag chair.
“True.” Rory takes a handful of potato chips and then passes the bag to Paris. “And honestly, this night has taken on a real beginning-of-Wuthering-Heights vibe. But we’ll make do with what we’ve got.”
“I haven’t read it in a long time,” Paris says, perking up. “Iconic Christmas tales aren’t really my thing. And Dickens does deserve my merciless scrutiny after Fagin. Sure, he tried to atone with Our Mutual Friend, but I know when I’m being pandered to.”
“See, this is perfect.” Rory feels a little flicker of excitement that might be, okay, nerdy. “Approaching the text from the Jewish perspective. It can be like a Charlie Rose roundtable.”
“There’s only two of us. Doesn’t that make roundedness by definition impossible?”
“That’s the exact incisive energy we need for our round table. Now shhh, I’m reading.” Rory clears her throat and begins. “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that … ”
+
They pass the book back and forth for a while, taking turns reading out loud. According to Paris, Rory reads too slow, and according to Rory, Paris reads too fast – “This isn’t debate, Paris; you’re not fighting anyone” – so it takes some time to really get into it. Not to mention that Paris has a lot of criticisms vis-a-vis the myriad inaccuracies of Rory’s jokey British accent. (“It’s supposed to be bad!” “That doesn’t mean it has to be that bad. Rory, it’s important that as women we respect ourselves, or how is the world going to respect us?”)
They adjust the bean bag chairs a few times, pushing them closer together so they don’t have to pass the book so far. It’s surprisingly easy to forget to check and see if the weather outside is still frightful.
Just when they’ve reached the part where Marley’s ghost shows up, Rory looks over, wondering why Paris isn’t jumping on the opportunity to read such a dramatic development. And there Paris is, slouching in her bean bag chair, asleep.
Rory closes the book and watches Paris for longer than she means to. Sure, she saw Paris asleep loads of times this past summer (or at least asleep-adjacent; insomnia was basically invented for Paris Geller). But there’s something about how she’s sleeping now. Accidentally. Peacefully.
After a moment, Rory gets up and fetches Paris’s coat from beside the door. It’s getting a little chilly in here. She rests the coat on top of Paris like a blanket, taking a minute to smooth it out and make sure it’s got her as covered as possible. Paris doesn’t wake up, which is probably good, because resting a coat lovingly atop her isn’t exactly in the class vice president job description.
Rory thinks about pulling the door open again to see if the blizzard has calmed down yet.
Instead, she settles back into her bean bag chair, her shoulder almost touching Paris’s, and picks up the book to keep her company until Paris wakes up.
Meanwhile …
“Luke, thank God!” Lorelai cries, staggering into the diner despite the ‘closed’ sign on the door.
“How the hell did you get here? Did you drive in that??” Luke gestures indignantly to the wrathful snowfall outside.
“I did something that vaguely resembled driving, yes. I don’t know if legally you could call it driving, and I might have somehow parked in your apartment, but can you blame me? Look what it’s like out there!”
“Why the hell aren’t you at home? Or at least at Babette’s?”
“Rory! We have to save her! Miss Patty said that she was at the dance studio helping Paris with some dance project for school.”
“Yeah, I thought about bringing them some food, but I figured I’d wait the worst of it out. I was just putting together a couple bags–”
“Luke! You waited? What’s wrong with you? She could be a human icicle out there!”
“She’s in the dance studio. I saw her go in there, Miss Patty told you at Babette’s karaoke hell night thing that she was there. She’s there with her weird friend.”
“But what if she tried to leave? And then she got lost? And now she’s trapped under the gazebo freezing to death like Leo on the door??”
“Your mind goes some interesting places.”
“Duh. You new here or something?”
“Rory’s smart. She knows to stay inside.”
“Rory’s usually smart. But she left before dinner because Paris, being extremely Paris, called her out of the blue, and hunger does weird things to us. We don’t have the opportunity to experience it often, okay! And when we do, there’s no telling what might happen.”
“Hopefully she hasn’t resorted to killing and eating her friend yet.”
“Yeah, Luke! Hopefully! I can’t believe you’re so calm about the idea of my daughter becoming a cannibal because you couldn’t brave a few beautiful snowflakes to bring her a burger.”
“Oh, fine,” Luke sighs, reaching for his coat, scarf, and gloves.
“Really??” Lorelai breathes, relieved.
“Sure, what’s the worst that could happen? It’s a twenty-second walk under normal conditions, so we should make it before the sun comes up. And hey, if we freeze to death in the process, the rest of the town can hang Christmas lights on our upright icy corpses and we’ll become part of the holiday decor. That’s fun, right?”
Lorelai puts her hands to her heart. “You’re a good man, Lucas Danes.”
“Unfortunately,” Luke agrees. He stares out the front door warily. “We should probably hold hands. You know, for safety.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure!” Lorelai says a little too casually a beat too late.
She holds her gloved hand out, and Luke takes it in his fingerless-gloved one.
This is nice, Lorelai thinks for an unsettling half-second. And then they step outside.
+
“You still feeling the magic of snow?” Luke yells over the wailing wind once they’ve been outside for exactly ten seconds and, Lorelai can only assume, they’ve both privately accepted that they’re going to die here.
“Magic can be bad!” Lorelai yells back through chattering teeth. “Haven’t you read Harry Potter?”
“No. What is that? Why does everybody keep talking about that??”
“Oh, Luke! You’ll never be cool!”
“But at least I’ll freeze my ass off!”
Then they take a break from conversation so they can focus on battling the elements.
+
When they finally make it into the dance studio a very harrowing five minutes later, covered from head to toe in snowflakes and ice crystals, it’s to find Rory and Paris asleep on bean bag chairs, Paris’s coat tucked over her like a blanket. Rory has that copy of A Christmas Carol from Richard and Emily on her lap.
“Aw,” Lorelai says. “This is so much better than when it happened with Dean.”
“Merry Christmas to you, I guess.” Luke pats her shoulder.
Lorelai smiles, content. Then she takes in the scene a little more, and her expression darkens. “Oh my God. They ate my emergency snacks.”
“God bless us, everyone,” Luke says.