Other Girls of Gilmore Girls: The Lindsay Lister Story

Chapter 16

View Along: S4 E4 Chicken or Beef?

My wedding to Dean was happening in one day. My mom and I had to go to the center of town to make sure the tables and chairs and lights and tulle were in every place they needed to be. We chose a church ceremony that would immediately empty into an outdoor town reception. In the weeks leading up to today, I began posting on my blog again. I wasn't sure what an Athenian wedding would look like, so I had to research it a bit. My readers were excited to have me back.

||||     Where have you been?!?!?!

Did she go back to Sparta? ||||

I didn't want to keep researching Sparta and Athens, so I ended up forgetting the Athenian alternative reality, and I began sharing details from my real wedding. No one seemed to mind. One night, surrounded in darkness, my parents sleeping in their room, I sat in the hallway at the sewing machine computer desk and began to cry. It didn't seem right that my grandma wouldn't be at my wedding. I had always pictured her being there. I began to type.

|||||     I imagined her sitting and watching. So proud and happy to know that I will create a family just like she had. That her legacy lives on in me. It does, but I want her to be there. To see it. To dress up and get her hair done and to dance along with me. To officially bless this wedding and to have us over for dinner next week to celebrate. Instead, we still have her near empty house, waiting for the busy summer real estate season next year to sell it. Empty. Lonely. A dead end. ||||

I was wallowing.

Ten minutes later, someone commented:

||||     She's there! I know she is! Now tell us what she would make for dinner and share that recipe. That noodle one was tooooooo good ||

The glow of the screen lit my face, puffy from crying. I had to calm down in order to not be a mess for the actual wedding. Dean was out for a mini-bachelor party; I had opted out of a bachelorette party. Abby was mad, but my "freedom" ended when I first agreed to be Dean's girlfriend. We could go out together as friends even when I was married. I didn't need to make a fool of myself right before the big day.

And the big day came, a giant whoosh of activity from getting my hair done to walking down the church steps. Our loved ones lining up to cheer and celebrate. They were so happy, and it was the first moment I took it in since waking up. It was done. We were married. Now we could cut this cake, alongside a picture of Dean and I that was larger than we were. I looked at it, remembering how 24 hours earlier I was so excited for this giant photograph, and now it seemed silly. What adult plans a wedding by decorating with a giant picture of herself? But I would walk out of this town party a married woman, and the renter of an third-floor, one-bedroom apartment in the very same town where I grew up, next to the one where my mom grew up.

"Hey," Dean whispered as we worked together to cut the cake. "Go slow. We haven't been alone all day, so I haven't been able to tell you that you are the single most beautiful woman there is. I love you. I love you."