If you had a brain/You'd be smart enough to change…/ Had enough, but you're too blind to see it/But you'll see it for the first time in your life.

Rory Gilmore dialed the familiar cell phone numbers and waited calmly for one of her best friends to pick up.

“Mariano,” came the familiar voice.

“I hear you picked up a stray for me, Jess,” Rory said by way of greeting.

“Somehow I just can’t picture your father wording it that way.”

“He didn’t,” Rory clarified. “That’s how Lola explained it after he explained it to Dallas and her.”

“Ah yes, it is much more Lola-sounding now that I think about it,” Jess mused absently. “But I wouldn’t call Donnie a stray, per say.”

“I thought it was a she.”

“It is, Rory. It’s short for Eadon.”

“How Americanized of her.”

Jess sighed; conversing with Rory could be rather taxing. As the years went by, she seemed to become more and more like her mother. “Well, Fin found out that we’re friends with you, and she’s aspiring. Do you have anything to help her out with?”

“You’re in luck today, Mariano,” Rory informed him. “It just so happens my assistant quit two days ago.”

“I’m sending her down early then,” Jess told her. “I’ll send her on the train tomorrow; can you met her?”

“I or Lola and Dallie will be there,” she assured him.

“From mortal enemies to one unit. Maybe Paris and I should leave town and hand him over to Tristan more often.”

“They’ve been…civilized.”

“So in other words, we should hurry up before they decide to slit the other’s throat in the middle of the night?”

Rory laughed. “Oh, I’m sure it’s not to that point. But Tristan’s currently more of an expert on the subject than I am.”

Jess paused. “You know, the best way to deal with a girl like Lola is patience. Lots of it.”

“Oh, I know I’m bad when I’m getting parenting advice from you.” Her eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean the way that…”

“It’s nothing,” Jess shrugged it off. “Everyone knows I was a horrible father for the first ten years.”

“Yes, but you’ve gotten better and better,” Rory said with a sigh. “I’m getting worse and worse.”

“You’re doing the best you can under the circumstances. It’s not easy with a kid like Lola.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? Is there something about her that I just don’t know or see?”

“She’s….” Jess stopped and contemplated his words. “Just not as open as you were at that age or even now.”

“So what everyone’s been telling me is that she’s Tristan at that age?”

"Err, in a way.”

“I disagree.”

There was a moment of silence at the other end. “What?”

“She’s not like him because at that age, Tristan liked me.” She made some sort of noise to signify that she didn’t want him to respond to that comment. “Send Donnie to me. I’ll take care of her.”

Aurora Thomas entered Lola’s room without a warning, not even a knock requesting permission for entrance. She groaned and landed melodramatically on Lola’s chaise.

“I want to cry,” she announced just as dramatically as her landing.

“What’s wrong?” Lola asked, not looking up from what she was typing on her laptop.

“Nothing. What makes you think something is wrong?”

“Expressing a desire to cry usually means as such,” she replied, wrinkling her nose at the screen before retyping her last sentence.

“Oh no, prom was great last night,” Aurora replied with a grin, sitting up in the chaise. “Real good.”

Lola shook her head. “Stayed for about twenty minutes before realizing what a waste of time it was. Dress was good though.”

“I didn’t see you,” her friend told her. “Color?”

“Oh, I went in the gold sleeveless Cinderella gown,” Lola said, rolling away from her desk. “It was similar to my coming out gown back at Grace Angel’s Finishing School in New York.”

“Ah yes, I remember the proprietress’ assistant; she was so bloody jovial,” Aurora complained. “Like Mad Hatter on acid.”

“Scary thought considering the Mad Hatter already suffered from mercury poisoning.”

Aurora glared at Lola. “Don’t do that. You’ll sound like his annoying hotness.”

“Please, I beg of you to stop referring to Mariano like that.”

“You begging?” She snorted. “That’s likely to happen.”

“About as likely as the skies opening up and dead pigs falling down, making it rain blood,” said a voice from the doorway. The two girls turned to see Dallie standing there. Lola’s eyes narrowed. Just how long had he been standing there anyway?

“Ugh. Lovely imagery there, Mariano,” Lola said with undisguised disgust. “Any reason you’ve wandered down here?”

Dallie leaned indolently against the doorframe. “Have you started The Franklin article yet?”

“Not due till Wednesday, my dearest Hitler.”

“Your articles have a way of always missing the deadline, my dearest Aryan.”

“Well you two's intellect is far over my head,” Aurora announced, picking herself off the chaise.

“Err, Aura?” Lola asked.

“Yes, Lo?”

“Was there a reason you wanted to cry?”

“Oh never mind, I’m just going to go watch Mandy Moore straddle the state line and bemoan my Landon-less existence,” Aurora brushed it off.

“Read Bridget Jones’s Diary instead. It’s better for your sanity.”

“I’ll watch the movie,” Aurora comprised. “Colin Firth is always yum.”

“Bye then,” Lola said as Aurora walked past Dallie.

“Somebody got a little keg-happy last night,” Dallie commented, stepping into the room.

“She didn’t get keg happy last night. She said she got a real good lay last night, which meant it was meaningless, which depresses her,” Lola explained, before realizing that she really didn’t have to explain anything at all to him.

“Article?”

Lola resisted the urge to clench or even grit her teeth. “It would’ve been done twenty minutes ago if people would stop interrupting me.”

His eyes widened. “You mean you actually have it done?”

“You made write about the new granite monument. It’s not a Ulysses-sized writing project.”

“That’s a very nice show of control, I must say, DuGrey,” he commented, backing away into the open doorway. “Might want to lose some of it someday though.”

“Where’d the fun be in that?” she muttered after he had disappeared into the hallway.

Bloody hell. Now she wanted to watch Mandy Moore straddle the state line. Damned men, she thought as she grabbed her keys to go over to Aurora’s. A little Colin Firth might do her a lot of good.