Volume 5: The Recruiting War
Date: October 1992.
Location: Highland Park, Texas.
Event: The Sunday Return.
Part 1: The Rebuttal
The flight back from New York to Dallas was significantly quieter than the flight there.
Larry Allen slept the entire time, taking up two seats. George Sr. stared out the window, quietly calculating scholarship mathematics in his head.
But Sheldon Cooper was furious.
He was sitting in the middle seat, completely ignoring the in-flight movie, furiously scribbling on a yellow legal pad. He had gone through three sharpened pencils in two hours.
"Sheldon, what on earth are you doing?" Mary asked, leaning over from the aisle seat. "You haven't stopped writing since we left the hotel."
"I am constructing an academic rebuttal, Mom," Sheldon stated, not looking up as he violently crossed out a mathematical equation and started a new one. "Rory Gilmore utilized a highly manipulative rhetorical tactic known as an emotional appeal to undermine my thesis on theoretical physics. I am currently drafting a fourteen-page proof demonstrating why Tolstoy's understanding of human nature is mathematically inferior to quantum mechanics."
Missy, sitting in the row behind him, kicked the back of his seat.
"You're writing a love letter to the smart girl," Missy teased mercilessly.
"I am doing no such thing!" Sheldon gasped, genuinely offended, turning around in his seat. "This is a declaration of intellectual warfare! She claimed a physicist who cannot articulate philosophy is a mere calculator. I am going to prove that her philosophy is entirely reliant on the physical laws I calculate!"
"Uh-huh," Missy smirked, popping a piece of gum into her mouth. "You gonna ask for her phone number at the end of your fourteen-page proof?"
"There will be no telephone correspondence!" Sheldon huffed, turning back around and violently gripping his pencil. "I am going to mail this to her grandfather's estate via certified post, requiring a signature. She will read my irrefutable logic, and she will be forced to admit defeat."
I sat across the aisle, smiling softly.
Sheldon had an IQ of 187, but he was completely blind to what was actually happening. He hadn't stopped thinking about Rory Gilmore for twenty-four hours. He had finally found a rival who didn't care about his math, and it was driving him absolutely crazy.
He wasn't writing a rebuttal. He was making sure she didn't forget him.
Part 2: The Manager and the Queen
When George Sr.'s truck finally pulled into our driveway in Highland Park late Sunday afternoon, Meemaw was sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigarette.
Sitting next to her, diligently organizing a new stack of recruiting mail, was Eric van der Woodsen.
Missy was the first one out of the truck. She grabbed her duffel bag, looking completely exhausted.
"Eric," Missy commanded as she walked up the driveway. "Take my bag. My arms are tired."
Eric looked up from a letter from the University of Oregon. He didn't complain. He just set his clipboard down, walked over, and easily picked up Missy's heavy duffel bag.
"How was New York?" Eric asked, walking next to her toward the front door.
"A nightmare," Missy exaggerated dramatically, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "The buildings are too tall, the air smells like garbage, and Cousin Monica organizes her refrigerator by expiration date. It's unnatural."
Eric smiled, a quiet, genuine smile. Eric grew up in high society. He was used to fake smiles, polite lies, and girls who constantly pretended to be perfect. Missy Cooper was none of those things. She was chaotic, she demanded things loudly, and she was entirely, terrifyingly authentic.
To a kid who spent his whole life walking on eggshells in a mansion, Missy's ruthless Texas attitude was the most fascinating thing in the world.
"Well, you survived," Eric said smoothly, setting her bag down inside the hallway. "And your hair looks great, despite the humidity."
Missy paused. She turned around and looked at Eric.
Really looked at him.
Eric was fourteen, but he was wealthy, impeccably dressed in a dark blue sweater, and he didn't act like the sweaty, loud teenage boys at Highland Park High School. He was organized, he was polite, and he had just smoothly complimented her.
A very faint blush crept onto Missy's cheeks. She quickly recovered her bossy demeanor.
"Obviously it looks great," Missy said, putting her hands on her hips. "I used half a bottle of hairspray. Did you organize the cheerleading schedules while I was gone?"
"Color-coded them by varsity and junior varsity," Eric confirmed, tapping his clipboard. "They're on your desk."
"Good boy," Missy smirked, turning and walking up the stairs.
Eric stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching her go. He shook his head, a small, completely smitten smile on his face, before turning back to Meemaw to help with the bagman filters.
Part 3: The Confession
At eight o'clock that night, I drove my dad's truck up the winding, perfectly paved driveway of the van der Woodsen estate.
The adrenaline of the East Coast trip had completely faded, leaving behind a cold, heavy pit in my stomach.
I knocked on the massive oak front door. The housekeeper let me in, and I walked straight upstairs to Serena's private balcony.
Serena was sitting at her patio table, wrapped in a cashmere blanket, surrounded by prep-school textbooks and Yale admission brochures. Her Grandmother CeCe was flying into town next week to prep her for the alumni board, and Serena was studying like she was going to war.
She looked up as I stepped onto the balcony. Her sharp blue eyes immediately softened.
"You're back," Serena smiled, standing up and wrapping her arms around my neck.
I hugged her back, burying my face in her shoulder. She smelled like expensive vanilla and clean laundry. I held her a little tighter than usual, knowing what I was about to do.
"How was the trip?" she asked, pulling back and looking into my eyes. She could read me perfectly. She immediately knew something was wrong. "Did Syracuse pull their offer?"
"No," I said quietly, leaning against the balcony railing. "Syracuse offered me. Penn State offered the guys."
"But not all four of you together?" Serena guessed, her brow furrowing in sympathy.
"No," I shook my head. "But someone else did."
I looked out at the Dallas skyline, unable to look her in the eye for a second.
"We had a meeting at the Waldorf Astoria on Saturday afternoon," I told her. "With Richard Gilmore. A massive Yale booster."
Serena gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. Her eyes lit up with a brilliant, explosive hope. "Yale? Georgie... Yale wants you?"
"Richard offered us the golden ticket," I said, my voice thick. "Four fully funded, four-year academic endowments. Me, Larry, Zach, and Jimmy. All we have to do is pass the baseline entrance exams, and we play for Yale. The package deal, completely protected."
"Georgie, that's incredible!" Serena laughed, stepping forward and grabbing my hands. "Don't you see? That solves everything! We can both go to New Haven. You'll have your team, I'll have the Ivy League, and we won't have to be apart. It's perfect!"
She was so happy. It was the exact future she had been dreaming of. A way to bridge her high-society world with my chaotic football life.
I gently squeezed her hands.
"I told him no, Serena."
The smile slowly fell from Serena's face. The cool autumn wind blew across the balcony, suddenly feeling freezing.
"What?" she whispered.
"I turned him down," I said, forcing myself to look directly into her eyes. "I told Richard Gilmore no."
Serena took a step back, her hands slipping out of mine.
"Why?" she asked, her voice tight, trembling on the edge of anger and heartbreak. "It was the package deal. It kept your friends together. It kept us together. Why would you say no?"
"Because it's Yale, Serena," I said desperately, stepping toward her. "It's the Ivy League. If we go there, we get a great education, but our football careers die the day we graduate. Zach Thomas was born to play in the NFL. Larry Allen is a generational talent. If I drag them to an academic school just to keep them safe, I am stealing their dreams. I can't do that to them."
"So you're choosing the NFL," Serena said, her voice dropping into a cold, devastating whisper. "You're choosing the fame, and the state schools, and the risk."
"I'm choosing the team," I corrected her gently. "They protect my blind side on Friday nights. I have to protect their futures on Saturday mornings."
Serena wrapped the cashmere blanket tighter around herself. She looked at the Yale brochures on her table, and then she looked at me.
She wasn't a teenage girl throwing a tantrum. She was a brilliant, mature woman realizing that the boy she loved was fundamentally incompatible with the life she had to live.
"You're going to go to Miami, or Alabama, or USC," Serena said, tears welling in her eyes, though she refused to let them fall. "And I'm going to go to Connecticut. And this... us... it's just going to end, isn't it?"
I stepped forward and gently wiped a stray tear from her cheek. My chest felt like it was cracking in half.
"Not today," I whispered. "I'm still right here, Serena. We still have the Senior year."
She leaned her forehead against my chest, closing her eyes. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly as the Dallas city lights flickered in the distance.
The recruiting war was designed to tear my football team apart.
But it was already tearing my heart out.
[Quest Update: The Attachments]
* Sheldon Cooper: Academic rivalry established (Rory Gilmore).
* Eric van der Woodsen: Unlocked new dynamic (Missy Cooper).
* Serena van der Woodsen: Heartbreak threshold reached.
* Next Destination: The West Coast Swing (Los Angeles).
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Take a deep breath, everybody.
We needed this chapter. The recruiting war has massive emotional consequences.
Sheldon has essentially found his intellectual soulmate (and rival) in Rory, and he is fighting it with every ounce of math he has.
We set up a fantastic new dynamic for Eric and Missy. He is organized and smitten; she is chaotic and bossy. It's going to be a hilarious B-plot.
But Georgie and Serena... that hurts. Georgie made the right choice as a Quarterback, but the wrong choice as a boyfriend. The clock is officially ticking on their relationship.
Next up, we pack for the West Coast! Charlie Harper and the bright lights of LA are waiting. Drop those Power Stones!