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Emily Gilmore got out of her car and glanced at the town she had never managed to like.
She parked her car, which looked more expensive than all the other cars out there next to the sidewalk, facing the gazebo.
It wasn't long before she saw the lady she remembered as Patricia from Rory's birthday party, waving at her.
"Lovely day, isn't it?"
Stars Hollow was, well, charming, for sure. She couldn’t find a better word to describe it. She surely didn't expect anyone to act with a certain grace they obviously didn't have in them.
She gave Patricia a polite nod and nothing more before turning away and continuing her walk towards the Independence Inn.
When she reached the inn's grounds, she tried her hardest not to look at the road that she knew led to the shed her daughter had called home once, instead of their gorgeous house. She felt a shiver run through her body but she didn’t stop walking. She walked into the inn to be welcomed by Lorelai’s chef friend, Sookie. And Sookie was one that she could tolerate. It was obvious that this lady had Lorelai's best interest at heart unlike some other people related to the very same inn who didn't and made Lorelai live in a shed with a baby instead of sending her back to her parents' house.
After greetings, Sookie led her to her daughter's office as she requested, talking about the cake she was going to bake for Lorelai's wedding all the way there. At least one person cared about this wedding as much as Emily did since it was obvious Lorelai didn't.
"Hi, Mom," Lorelai greeted her with an obviously forced cheerfulness. "Did I know you were coming?"
"Am I supposed to book an appointment to see my own daughter? Call her secretary?" Emily raised an eyebrow with a daring look in her eyes.
"No. Of course not, Mom," Lorelai answered, her smile wavering but still there.
"I thought we would go look for wedding dresses together." The elder Gilmore sat down on a chair facing Lorelai and put her purse on the chair next to it. "Now, I know you and I don’t have similar tastes at such matters but I know some stores that you might like." She opened her purse to take the catalogs she took from Miss Celine out.
Lorelai shared a look with her best friend standing behind her mother, who left the room quickly and closed the door in seconds. "I already got a dress, Mom. Sookie and I picked it the other day."
The pleasant look on Emily's face disappeared as anger started to bubble inside of her. "You couldn't invite your own mother to look for wedding dresses?" Her tone did not fail to tell her emotions on their own if her words weren't enough.
"It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, Mom. We weren’t even looking for wedding dresses and then suddenly this gorgeous hot stuff was there and I just couldn’t not get it!" Lorelai tried to explain it in a rational way even though it was clear that she too knew her mother would not accept any of her reasons.
"Are you going to at least let me see it or is it bad luck for me to see it?"
"Of course not, Mom. Let me just talk to Michel and then we can go to my house for me to wear it for you."
Soon, quicker than Emily expected it to happen, both of their cars were pulled up in front of Lorelai's house. And it was just as quickly that Emily found herself sitting on Lorelai's uncomfortable couch, waiting for her to walk down the stairs.
"I'm ready!" She heard her daughter announce and she let out an excited breath.
She had to admit that her daughter’s future husband was not exactly who she imagined her with. But she also had to admit that he was still a good catch even though him being Rory's teacher was not exactly a great thing.
With the footsteps coming closer she turned her head to see her daughter walking down the stairs.
But she didn’t feel the excitement she was supposed to feel when she saw her daughter in her wedding dress. She didn’t feel tears in her eyes because of how emotional she felt. And it certainly had something to do with the dress not being a wedding dress.
"Lorelai, tell me this is one of your weird jokes." Emily pleaded with her whole life.
Argument grew fast and soon they were standing in Lorelai’s living room, yelling at each other.
"Whatever the bride wears is the wedding dress, Mother." Lorelai answered her for the thousandth time with an exhausted tone after listening to her mother whine and scream at the same time for minutes that had felt like hours.
"It's orange, Lorelai!" Emily almost screamed with frustration. She could almost hear the monkeys on the ugly lamp right next to her laughing at her. She could almost hear them clapping hands at her utter despair.
"You know," Lorelai started talking with a calm tone that irritated her mother even more. "The wedding dresses being white thing is not really something old. Some queen wore white and then it became a thing. People used to wear their most beautiful dresses. And this is my most beautiful dress." She turned around herself with an unnecessary cheerfulness as if letting her mother see the back of the dress would calm her down.
"Honestly, Lorelai. How could this ugly eyesore be your most beautiful dress? Even what you made out of that beautiful dress I bought for you for Rory's birthday party was better than this."
She knew her daughter was not big on tradition. She didn’t enjoy doing things the way they were supposed to be done, like giving her child a house with two parents. She obviously had no desire for doing things that way. But this, for someone who organized weddings in her inn all the time, was just unacceptable. The story of white dresses becoming a tradition didn’t matter to her. What mattered was that people were going to see her wearing that thing. People were going to see it, judge it, judge Lorelai and judge her and her taste at the end. It was going to be the failure of Emily Gilmore. Oh, she didn’t even want to imagine Trix's reaction.
And of course Lorelai couldn’t see that because every decision she had made aimed to rebel against them, always.
"Is that a tattoo on your back?" Emily asked with a sharp tone and wide eyes when Lorelai stopped spinning like a spoiled three year old. "Lorelai Victoria Gilmore!"
"Oh, boy..."
The fight ended with Emily storming out of the house. She drove to get out of the small town that now she only felt anger towards.
Her hands on the wheel shook with the visual of the coffee cup shaped tattoo appearing in front of her eyes.
With the traffic light turning red she stopped the car and tried to take a deep breathe to calm down. She turned her head to glance at the town only to see the familiar flannel wearing man.
She couldn't even remember his name but she knew he worked in that rustic diner. And she knew that her daughter respected that filthy diner man more than she respected her.
What surprised her though was the other men he was talking to. There stood five other men, wearing baseball hats and flannel shirts and working boots. They all seemed alike, especially with their caveman-like beards and the scene only made her feel disgusted. Them standing right next to a traffic cone that was the exact same color with Lorelai’s so called wedding dress didn't help either.
She turned back to traffic light that was now green with the urge of running out of the lunatic town growing up inside of her.
She turned left to go to the main road that was supposed to lead her to Hartford. Her original plan was to go to the house of Selen, one of the new ladies who joined D.A.R. She was a newlywed woman who was at the same age with Lorelai and Emily couldn’t help but wish her daughter tried to be like her for one second. But her loving D.A.R. was enough reason for Lorelai to hate it, that much she knew.
She frowned when she saw a sign telling her to turn left again for Hortford. She couldn’t remember such junction but then she also couldn't remember the road she took in the morning. She didn’t even remember driving.
And she surely couldn't remember some other place other than Hartford that sounded close to the sign so she had no other choice but turning.
The second she turned the wheel she had to step on the brake to stop so that she wouldn't drive into-
-drive into a huge French fry.
She got out of the car to check who she almost ran down, only to discover it was a little girl wearing a French fry costume.
Every second she stayed in that town, she felt more like she was losing her mind.
"Alright. I could deal with some child dressed up as a fried potato."
But suddenly she was surrounded by other French fry girls, who were singing a song she couldn't understand. Two of them held her hands and pulled her with them to the crowd.
And suddenly right in front of her was her daughter, who was walking out of the diner that people were standing in front of, wearing her orange dress and holding a ketchup bottle with one hand as she held the hand of the man standing next to her.
Emily was sure she was going to pass out right there, right at that moment.
Her daughter was holding hands with the diner man who was wearing a suit made with flannel fabric, with a really skinny man in a suit that was way too big for him standing behind them telling them their vows.
The last thing Emily saw was the lady she knew as Patricia signaling the French fry girls for them to start dancing with the couple leaning towards each other before her head hit the floor.
"Oh, my dear Lord." She gasped as she tried to take a breath. Her eyes darted frantically in the dark bedroom lit by the moonlight.
"Ems, you okay?" She heard her husband's sleepy voice.
"I'm fine, go back to sleep." She pressed a hand to her heart to hear it drumming against her chest. "Just a horrible dream..."
She standed up on woobly legs as she reached for her morning coat.
She surely wasn't going to get any more sleep.