We all heard the one character reference they used. How about the ones they didn't?
Short little vignette. Missing scene. Well, missing letters, really. This fits into To Whom It May Concern, and refers to events from Santa's Secret Stuff. Again, I'm attempting to address some things that make me go, "Hmmmm":
Why, when Rory saw Lorelai struggling with the character reference, didn't she just write one herself? How bad could Liz's letter have been, really? And, come on, who uses a note pad and typewriter in 2007?
a/n: I just learned that ff won't let you use a web address, even a fake one. Sorry if it looks weird, I had to improvise.
Concerning Luke
Jim McNally glanced anxiously at his pocket watch. Danes vs. Nardini was going down in less than an hour. The experienced lawyer handling the Danes end of things wasn't nervous, exactly, since he really didn't think his poor slob of a client had any real shot at winning. Ideally, however, he would have preferred to go in with more than one character reference. But what could he do? The others were unusable; his law clerk had said so. Still, one thing he'd learned in 30 years of family court - you just never know. So, on a whim, he decided to take a quick glance at the others, just in case his young clerk might have missed something. He picked up the very first letter he had received and gave it another shot:
To Whom It May Concern:
My big brother is awesome. He has always had such a tremendous aura about him, and has a very fatherly-type energy. Our father died when we were young adults, but even before he crossed over, Luke would get all Dad-like on me. The first time a boy kissed me, Luke found him at recess and whipped a snowball at him. But he was just a kid then himself, he would never throw a snowball at anyone today. Maybe at my husband, but that's a whole different story. Luke really isn't violent at all. In fact, my son told me that when they all got into a fight at a strip club, Luke was the one who tried to keep the peace. He's like a dad to my son too, by the way. He tries to be a great role model to him.
My earliest memory of Luke is at Christmas, maybe I was 4 and he was 7. My present came but Santa forgot the batteries. Luke took out the batteries from his toy so I could play with mine. So, as you can see, even as a brother, Luke is in a very fatherly place.
So even though the "father" thing is technically new to him, it really isn't new to his psyche at all. I don't think he should be penalized for not being in April's life, because, in a way, he always was. Maybe not in the literal sense, but in his own time-space continuum, he has always been a parent. Had he known to look for the wormholes between his world and April's he would absolutely have crawled right through.
My next memory of-
"What a flake," Jim said, tossing it in the recycling bin without even finishing it. "Next."
The next letter was completely unsolicited. Some strange guy called his office and asked if he could send a reference "on spec". Truth be told, McNally hadn't even looked at it, based on his clerk's reaction and the guy's monetary motives, but, 'Hey, what the heck,' he thought as he began to read. 'Here goes nothing':
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Kirk Gleason. I am an upstanding member of the Stars Hollow community, holding 47 different jobs at once. And I have a girlfriend. Unfortunately, my communication skills on paper are somewhat lacking, and I often do not properly articulate my thoughts in writing, but when I heard that Luke Danes was in need of character references for his custody hearing, I felt I could be of assistance.
I am going to list off some of my anecdotal observations of Luke Danes that accurately sum up how I feel about his ability to be a good parent and role model. You may be wondering just what kind of man Luke Danes is, and I, Kirk, feel that I can explain it best through personal examples:
What kind of man is Luke Danes?
He is the kind of man who would gather up rotten Easter eggs and then let everyone think that you were responsible.
He is the kind of man who would chase you down and tackle you into a rosebush, then lay you naked on a couch at the local inn and watch while two women pull the thorns out.
He is the kind of man who would linger around the third grade play practice day-in and day-out, even though he had no good reason to be there.
He is the kind of man who would give you advice about women and then let you sleep naked in his girlfriend's daughter's room when that advice leaves you homeless.
Is this not the kind of man who deserves to be in his young daughter's life? I think so. I love Luke Danes, and many others in our town feel the same way about him. If you would like more examples of Luke's outstanding character traits, please contact me at www'affadavitsbykirk'com. accepted.
Yours truly,
Kirk Gleason
Well. 'Unusable' didn't quite cover it. Moving on. The last one held promise. Some nice young woman called, said she was a Yale student, and would like to submit something, but only if the character reference from her mother fell through. It didn't. In fact, her mother's turned out to be his one saving grace and his client's best chance, but at this point, this was his only means of having more than one reference submitted. He opened the letter for the first time and began to read:
To Whom It May Concern:
April Nardini and I have a lot in common. We are both conscientious, precocious, high achieving young women. We are each completely devoted to our single mothers who raised us to see that having a father in your life is not necessary to one's development, growth or happiness, and that a single woman can successfully raise an accomplished and self sufficient young woman.
"What is wrong with these nut jobs? Goddamn Ivy League, Liberal Arts, feminista rhetoric! How is that supposed to help?" the Connecticut State Law School graduate of '72 muttered to himself. Had he kept reading, he would have seen that the editor of the Yale Daily News had her own unique writing style that would have eventually yielded the desired effect for his client. But Jim McNally was out of time, and out of patience, and never saw the rest:
Probably the biggest similarity between April and me is the fact that both us of were fortunate enough to have Luke Danes enter our lives as pre-teens. In fact, I am uniquely qualified to address the issue before the courts, as I alone can personally attest to what it means to have Luke act as a father figure at this vulnerable age. I know that April has been in Luke's life for a little over a year. To a young child, that is a lifetime. A year after I met Luke, he was and would forever be entrenched in my world. To have that ripped from me at that impressionable stage of my life would have been devastating.
However, one vitally important difference between us is that I was encouraged to have a relationship with my biological father, while April was not. I sought out my father, much like April did, but was often met with only disinterest. From my father, I learned that men are often unreliable, that they can be selfish and lack commitment. By contrasting my own father's behavior with Luke's throughout the years, I learned that men can in fact be loyal, caring, dependable and selfless. I love my father dearly, but I do not look to him as an example of what a dad, a partner or a man should be. For that, I turn to Luke.
I cannot help but feel envious seeing how hard Luke is fighting to be part of his daughter's life, and how much he has already sacrificed in order to do so. I cannot imagine a scenario in which a mother would not want such devotion for her daughter, or a court of law would not encourage that level of dedication to a child.
Thank you for listening,
Rory Gilmore
No one else would ever see Rory's letter. As per her Post-It instructions to 'Please destroy immediately after use', McNally promptly tossed it directly into the shredder. Of course, Rory had long ago erased it from her hard drive, and had meticulously destroyed the note pads she jotted her thoughts and lists on, even though they were all safely back at her apartment. She even deleted the search for the lawyer's contact info from her laptop history. Although part of her actually wanted Christopher to find it, to see what she wrote, to see her true feelings about him, and about Luke, she knew that such a discovery would be a disaster waiting to happen. She knew that the fall-out from her words would cause irreparable damage to many relationships, and she did not want to be the catalyst for that. Rory Gilmore was nothing if not practical. She knew that, with proper diligence, there was absolutely no good reason for even a trace of a letter like that to show up again anywhere, ever.
Unless someone subconsciously wanted it to be found.