Other Girls of Gilmore Girls: The Lindsay Lister Story

Chapter 20

View Along: S4 E14 The Incredible Sinking Lorelais & S4 E15 Scene in a Mall

The next afternoon, Dean came home early from class. He was nearly skipping with excitement. "I am going back to work for Tom! It pays three times what I have been making!"

"Wait, what?" I jumped off the couch, where I had been sitting as I read through a magazine about clean eating, something I was considering trying. "What happened?"

"Tom came into Doose's before my class today and offered me a job! I did small stuff for him before, but he's going to be remodeling the Dragonfly and needs extra men. I said sure!"

"Really?"

"I won't be doing anything too intense until he trains me. But this is it! This can be how we make more money! Also, if I take a semester break from school, I can double my hours with Tom. We will have that down payment so fast."

"Yes!" It was my turn to skip over to him. We jumped up and down at the thought of living somewhere with more than one room. "But are you sure about school?"

"I didn't know what I was going to do there anyway," he said waving it off with his hand. This was true; Dean hadn't declared a major or felt excited about anything he had learned about so far. He hated writing papers and rarely did any reading that I could see. Maybe he would find passion in construction?

Dean held me in a hug. I felt him take a deep breath. "Hey," I said softly. "Thinking of..."

"Something," he said as he picked me up, kissed me deeply, and we found each other again.

***

As Dean fell into a routine working at the Dragonfly, my mom and I began trying more recipes. We attempted peanut brittle, which I didn't like at all, and perfected a turkey and ham grinder. I suggested taking the grinders to the construction site, so we spent a morning making a whole batch of them, loaded them into a picnic basket, and took them to the guys at the Dragonfly. They were thrilled and thanked me and told Dean he was lucky. He was. I hoped he remembered it.

Before we dropped off the food, I took pictures of all the sandwiches wrapped carefully and tucked into the basket. I thought about how I might compare sandwich making to my relationship. Something about how forgiving they were, but not any old thing could go into it if you wanted it to be delicious. I'd write the post later. I would also explain the big news that we were saving for a bigger house, and that because my husband was supporting us financially, I had to support him. And that meant fresh lunch delivered daily. Sometimes that meant fresh lunch delivered for his coworkers too.

When Dean came home that night, I was floating. Clouds of future dreams kept me up, and they were inflated by the praise of Tom's crew. I even tried roast beef for dinner that night, knowing it was Dean's favorite. It takes a while, and I had to check the temperature over and over, and when it was time to serve it, the whole thing was a mess. Awful, but we looked at the disgusting lump and laughed. "That poor roast beef," Dean joked and poked my side. "I'll take out leftovers," I suggested with a giggle. Dean seemed happy at first too, but while I was cleaning up, he disappeared. Nowhere to be found. If I was going to support him, he had to be there. Right?

With the last dish clean, I went back to my blog. Someone commented:

||||     I wish I could make a life for myself like this ||||

I hit "reply" and typed:

||||     Sometimes I think I have, and sometimes I'm not so sure myself. We are all thinking this. ||||

My reply was flagged as coming from the blogger, and I felt like this space was all mine. Time to tell them about roast beef, failure, and trying again.