Other Girls of Gilmore Girls: The Lindsay Lister Story

Epilogue

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Every morning I read through cooking blogs while I drink my coffee. I try to find exciting new writers or new angles or content strategy we could use. I provide feedback to my team of five food bloggers and encourage them to continue growing and improving. Then I go outside and take care of the garden beds Erica helped me build. Sometimes I take my laptop and sit on the porch swing, drafting and editing. Seeing my world. Once a week, Kirk cuts the grass and helps to pull weeds.

Kathleen checks in on me in the afternoon. She calls, and together with Sandee, we look over analytic reports together, making choices and plans for the future. Sandee is brash and smart, quick and confident. I try to emulate parts of her in my own work, and one day she tells me she tries to copy the best parts of me as well. When it's cold, I take these calls in front of the fireplace. I have never been so comfortable.

You are probably wondering if I ever heard from Dean again. I did. It was the winter after I signed the divorce papers. He called me, apologized, and tried to come over. I could have had him that night. I could have had him back. But Dean didn't know that I knew him. Like, really knew him. Something wasn't going well for him, and wanted to be large in my life so I could fix it or fill a hole. He wasn't there for me. And things were going well for me, and I wanted him small in my life. Tiny. Gone. "Please don't call me," I said. "Not late at night, not with cryptic messages to share. Don't call me."

And he stopped. Just like that I never had to hear from him again.

One day Kathleen asks if Sandee or I want to start looking at digital media in our verticals. "Digital media? Like videos?"

"You could easily be video talent with that fact," Sandee says. I tell them I'll think about it, knowing that I'll agree.

I see Erica walking up my driveway, so I tell them I have to go. She has a bushel of my week's CSA subscription items. I tell her to come in, and she holds up a hand. "One second," she laughs and runs back to her truck. Then she emerges with two plastic cups of Stars Hollow's Founder's Day punch. It's a bright red alcoholic travesty that I had always avoided at the caution of, well, everyone. "No," I laugh. "No way. Get that away from me."

"But if you don't write about this," she says, waving the liquid around in the cup. It stains the sides as it swirls around.

"I'll write about it, but I won't drink it," I tell her.

Erica swishes the punch around in her cup a few more times. "Bon voyage," she says and take a large gulp.

After she leaves, I watch the flies line up on the rim of my plastic cup, which I left on the porch railing. I go back outside and toss the cup in a trash bin. My phone buzzes. Kathleen has another idea she wants to run past me. She needs advice and says I'll know just what to do. I respond to her text and tell her: Let's hear it.