Other Girls of Gilmore Girls: The Lindsay Lister Story

Chapter 8

View Along: S3 E 15 Face-Off

My mom and I went back to grandma's house again. I had one small box for the things I wanted to keep. I would have kept every item, exactly how it was, but the whole house wouldn't fit in the box. Sometimes, as I stacked books into piles to donate, sell, and keep, I would find my mind wander to Dean. Boyfriend. My boyfriend Dean. I would smile just when it felt like I couldn't.

"This?" my mom asked as she came around a corner. I jumped out of my Dean daydream to see her holding a bowl of fake fruit. I had loved that fruit when I was little. The grapes were air-filled, so you could squish them, and they would slowly fill back into shape. "I have no need for fake fruit," I whined, "but I want you to keep it."

"Our keep pile is getting too big."

"Unsustainable," I said as I put a hardcover copy of a book I had never read into my keep box. It was one of the beautiful ones with fabric lining the cover and a ribbon for a bookmark. I just needed it. I went back to thinking about Dean. He had been accepted to Southern Connecticut State University, and I pictured visiting him on weekends or maybe I would live in a studio apartment near campus. He wasn't sure if he was going to stay home and commute or live on campus. Maybe if I got the studio, he could spend the night. He never pushed me to enroll or to follow him; he was fine with my plan to do nothing the next year but figure out what I wanted to do.

"I have to get going soon. Hockey game," I reminded my mom.

"I have the button!" she yelled from another room. "Fifty percent off Stove-Top stuffing from Doose's Market!"

"I can probably get a discount on anything from Dean," I quipped and quickly realized my mom didn't know about Dean.

"What's that?" She rounded the corner again, only she was faster this time. It was time to tell my mom that I had a boyfriend.

***

Dean was playing in the hockey game. In all of our conversations, Dean didn't mention that he played hockey, and he had never been at a practice or anything in all the time I knew him, but apparently he played on the Stars Hollow High hockey team. "An ever-evolving man," Abby joked.

Stars Hollow was decked out in red to support the team; they had not made it to the semi-regional playoffs in decades I believe. It was exciting to see people walking the street in our high school's colors; people were choosing to watch the game on their Saturday. Someone from the opposing team even covered our school in toilet paper. The rolls unraveling all across the buildings and trees, white and billowy. I drove past the school and Dean and some of the other players were trying to clean up the mess. They waved at me, and I pulled over. "Need help?"

"Run," Kyle warned me. "This is so not easy to clean up."

I shrugged and laughed and drove off feeling happy and well-liked. I had to get home and find something red to wear. Our school colors were red and white, and for things like this it was all about wearing red. In the past I had attended some football games and pep rallies, but I didn't feel like they were fully my place to be. Abby and I would sit off to the side and hope to fall in with a larger group, but tonight was different. Dean had made me feel part of his larger group of friends, and people had to know we were together. Word spreads fast. I was going to wear something red and sit right in the middle. I chose a cable knit sweater and put a puffer vest on top. The vest was black, but it was going to be cold sitting so close to the ice, and I didn't have a red jacket.

I had to get to the game early enough to see Dean before he went on the ice, and Abby agreed to walk with me to the rink.

When we got there, Dean was outside the ice in full uniform with the rest of his team. Their blades still covered with protectors. I waved and he signaled me to come over to him. "Hey," he said quickly before greeting me with a kiss. "Hey you," I said when he pulled back.

"Hey Lindsay!" a few of the other guys said. I waved as if we always greeted each other, but it was the first time some of them had ever talked to me. "Hit pucks, block pucks, do whatever it is you are here to do, and you'll look so good doing it," I told Dean, resting my hands on his uniform which was loose over his shoulder pads. He was taller than usual wearing skates, and he was even the tallest on the team. I had to look nearly straight up to see him, and he had to bend down to kiss me again.

Abby and I went to the stands and watched as the crowd started to fill in. "Not as many people as I thought," she observed as people began to sit around us. "Apparently no one knew we had a hockey team either." We laughed a little and waited for the game to begin. As the team skated into place, Dean waved in our direction, and Abby and I waved back. "I really love that you have a cute and nice boyfriend. Sometimes I thought you were waiting too long for something that didn't exist, but this is good." Abby smiled and I smiled back at her. Then she yelled: "Look! Dean's a center! Your boyfriend is a center!"

"He sure is."

Stars Hollow High wasn't very good at hockey, at least not in comparison to the other team, but I was there to support my boyfriend, who was better than any other guy on either team. At a break, I told Abby I wanted to get a drink. The line moved quickly, and just as I was getting back to watching my Dean, I turned around and ended up face to face with Rory Gilmore.

She was there. She was just standing there. But why? She didn't go to Stars Hollow High. Her boyfriend definitely wasn't going to go to a school event. "Hey Lindsay! How are you?" Rory asked. She had the clearest blue eyes. I forgot how pretty she was.

"I'm good thanks. How are you?"

"Good. You know, just enjoying my first hockey game," Rory said so confidently and easily. "It seems like there's lots of bashing people into walls, which is always good fun in my book."

She was quick-witted and comfortable, and I realized she had no idea that I was now dating her ex-boyfriend. That we had kissed just before the game. Would she be jealous of me? Or was I jealous of her?

"Oh absolutely," I said without any confidence or quick wit. "I'm all for more bashing." My voice started to shake, and I looked at the ground trying to figure out how to walk away. Except Rory kept talking to me. She asked me what I had been up to.

Just falling in love with Dean, you know, your ex of two years.

I would never be able to say such a thing, so I told her nothing. Just school. I hated myself. I was so much more than a person who did nothing, but I couldn't say any of the things that made me right then. That I had to pack up items from my deceased grandma's house that flooded me with sadness and then pooled under the warmth in my chest from the thought of Dean. That I was writing a blog from the point of view of an Athenian girl. That I had plans for next year to explore and see and learn and love. That I had a boyfriend. Instead: I said nothing. School. That was it. I excused myself and told them I had to get going. I walked as fast as I could back to the ice and didn't look back.

I walked up to the rink, near the door, so I could wave to Dean again. When he saw me, he skated right up to the door, lifted his face guard, and smiled. I could feel how happy he was as he leaned in to kiss me right there. I really did have the best guy there was.