"Lorelai Gilmore! Lorelai! LORELAI! I command you to come here this instant!" Emily Gilmore was once again looking for her daughter who always managed to disappear in their giant house. Emily was already swamped with other preparations for that evening's party and didn't have time to deal with her daughter's drama. "Lorelai, I'm giving you until the count of three! One…two…."
"Or you'll do what, Emily?" Lorelai ask as she entered the room, dressed in a t-shirt and sweat pants.
"Lorelai! There you are, stop hiding from me! Why on Earth are you still dressed in your pajamas? Are we a trash family that wears their sleepwear twenty-four hours a day without bathing? No! Come in here, Renee has to take the measures for your costume." Emily said as she lead Lorelai through the house. They finally arrived in the room where Renee was with her measuring tape, looking quite annoyed that she was kept waiting.
"I thought we agreed that I was going to go as a duck." Lorelai said as she was thrust into the center to be measured.
"Certainly not! You are going as a beautiful angel. I was one at my first dress-up party. It was the most beautiful white lace dress I ever saw." She reminisced as Lorelai tried to give Renee the hardest time measuring her.
"Sorry if I don't agree mother, but I don't even want to go to this stupid party."
"Of course you are going! Christopher Hayden is expected to be here tonight and I think you two are just the best match for each other. He comes from a proper family of proper breeding and I can tell he just adores you! I'm thinking a summer wedding at Martha's Vineyard…"
"Mom! First off, Christopher and I are just friends, not a perfect couple or some sort of crazy arranged marriage! And second, if I ever did marry someone, I want him to be the one. The one and only love I could ever have, not any of this good breeding crap. I want him to love me for me." Lorelai finished, a little embarrassed. She never told her mother what she really thought, but she felt this topic was too important to just drop and do what her mother wanted. When it came to love, Lorelai was very passionate about finding the one.
"Darling, you're living in a fantasy. You won't be happy with just any man that just walks down the filthy streets. He has to come from a good family and have a stable income. That's the only way you'll ever be happy." Emily answered as she carelessly searched through the dresses, picking out one or two that looked acceptable. Lorelai realized that her mother would never understand anything she felt; she lived in a completely different world. "Thank you Renee, that will be all." Renee then stood up and left the room and Lorelai was left with her mother and millions of white dresses.
"Ok, mom, if I go to this party, I want to pick out my own dress." Lorelai said as she eyed the ugly lace and polyester dresses her mother had picked out.
"No! You will pick the most inappropriate dress you can find just to spite me!"
"Well, now that you know-"
"I will not let my daughter parade around my party like a tramp." Emily interrupted.
"Ok, if I promise to pass it by you first will you let me?" she asked hopefully.
For a moment, Emily took it into consideration. "Ok, but I have to approve of it before I let you leave this room." She put the dresses she was holding on a nearby armchair and sat down on the couch, waiting for her to pick one out.
"Thank you." Lorelai said, thanking God she got out of wearing that lace one. There were hundreds of dresses on the racks, at least on of them had to look good. She scanned a few dresses on one rack then skipped to the second. Nothing was really catching her eye. "Mom, are all of these dresses ugly or is it just-" She stopped.
"Or is it just what? What possible sarcastic remark were you about to make about these very expensive dresses?" Emily asked. Lorelai turned around with a dress in her hand
"This one." She said breathlessly. It was a silk, white dress that went all the way to the floor. It looked like a halter dress from the front but crisscrossed in the back. It was gleaming in the light like it was illuminated from the inside out.
Emily eyed it over for a minute. "Well go try it on." she ordered.
Lorelai ran into the nearby bathroom and quickly put it on, flinging her clothing to the floor. When she came out of the bathroom, she closed her eyes and walked to the floor length mirror. When she opened her eyes, she didn't recognize the person reflected. The dress fit her body perfectly, hugging her in all the right places but making her look tall and long with the flowy bottom. The glow from the dress seemed to spread to her skin, making her look like there was a real halo of light around her.
"This is the most beautiful dress I've ever seen." she said awestruck.
"Yes, it is very pretty." Emily said honestly, coming up behind her in the mirror and looking at her daughter. "And the back is perfect for the wings I've bought for you." She said, walking away into the other room, then reappearing with a set of gigantic, sparkly wings. She attached them to the back of her dress and stood back to look at her.
Lorelai looked at herself and thought she really did look like an angel. "So mom, does it pass your inspection?"
Emily smiled at her genuinely. "I think it's a wonderful dress." Lorelai smiled back at her, glad that she and her mom agreed on something for once. "Now, go take it off and hang it up in your room for tonight. I think Christopher is going to love it." she said. Lorelai knew it was too good to be true. Spring weddings and Christopher, that's all her mom ever thought about. She could care less about what he thought. Tonight, she was going to shine for herself.
Lorelai quickly changed back into her clothes and ran upstairs, away from her mother and the demands put on her from this society she didn't want to be part of, with the beautiful dress gliding next to her as she held the hanger. She ran to her room and shut the door behind her.
"So, what did your horrible mother want now? Didn't she collect your soul as a child, I mean what more could she want?" Sookie asked from Lorelai's bed, reading a magazine and not even looking up. Sookie St. James was Lorelai's best friend from Chilton. She had gotten a scholarship to go there as a freshman and didn't know anyone, plus was a little overweight, making her a bit of an outcast. But after she and Lorelai sat together in Science Lab they realized they had the same sense of humor and outlook on life and happiness. Lorelai had invited her over that day so she could be a distraction from her mother's constant rearranging of furniture and shouting at all the servants that would continue throughout the rest of the day.
"Sookie, look at this dress!" Lorelai said excitedly.
Sookie closed the magazine, turned around, and squealed. "Oh God! That is the most beautiful dress ever! Your mom is letting you wear it?" she asked incredibly.
"Yes, it passed the crypt keeper's inspection, and I am actually looking forward to the party now because I can wear it." Lorelai took it and hung it against the door, grabbing the bottom and admiring its beauty.
"That is the most amazing white dress I've ever seen! Oh you must look like a real angel in it!" Sookie said, starting to tear up. "I….you….beautiful…" she sobbed.
"Whoa! Sookie, sentences dear. And don't worry, I'm not going anywhere tonight, just downstairs." Lorelai assured her.
"I know, I know. I just…. get so emotional sometimes!" She blew her nose loudly, regaining her composure.
"Better?" Lorelai asked, giving Sookie a supportive hand on her shoulder.
"Nope, yeah, I'm great. So what do we do till the party? I mean, Jackson said he'd bring some friends to the pool house party, and even though a bunch of the Chilton kids will already be there, the boys won't get here till 9, that's when the real party begins." Sookie made a wooping noise as she started to dance in place.
"Well, I guess we try to look nice, shake old people's hands, avoid the Haydens and any talk of spring weddings, and, my favorite, eat all the finger foods before they leave the kitchen." Lorelai said through her smile.
"Yeah, I love that part too! Oh especially those apple tarts, oh my God those are great! And hey, maybe you'll even meet someone tonight that will make you forget all about those dumb Haydens." Sookie said as she twirled around the room, thinking about the wonderful food down stairs and all the fun they'd have tonight. Lorelai was glad her friend wasn't crying anymore and held out her dress again, admiring its beauty. Hey, maybe Sookie's right. With this dress, anything is possible.
