We had a bonding moment. Reckon it did come with someone's death, but it did happen. It finally happened. We were actually mother and daughter for a moment. A real moment. It was real. That's what is so crazy about it. It was real. I didn't imagine it.
You know when you're younger you imagine things. For most people it's their future wedding, their future career, their future family that they fantasize about. For me, I imagined my current family. My current family that could possibly be a family. A real family. What is my fascination with realism? It's because it's real. Something I've hardly experienced.
We have to start planning the funeral. No doubt this is probably going to be a social event for the season. All the right people have to be there. I hate that. Someone dies and people show up to make appearances. It's not like they even really know the person. It's fake. All the time fake.
Emily Gilmore. What a woman. I don't think I've ever met someone like her. Since she's from the upper-class of Hartford society, one would expect her to be the cookie-cutter image of a Hartford wife: following the DAR protocol, throwing the right parties, being at the right parties, raising the right kids. No doubt Emily Gilmore did the first three right. The last one can be disputed. If you ever tell Grandma Lorelai that, considering her parents, she most likely would have been nothing more than the perfect child, she would laugh at you. I mean really laugh at you. She would be laughing for days.
Lorelai was rebellious at best. First, disgracing the family she had my mom, Rory, at the age of sixteen. Second, she refused to marry Rory's dad Christopher Hayden. Third, she took off and left her parents in the dust. Emily Gilmore, being Emily Gilmore, went on with her life for fifteen years pushing her daughter out of her mind. If she was out of sight, she would be out of mind, right? When Rory got into Chilton and push came to shove, Lorelai could not afford the tuition so Lorelai had to ask for money. That was when Lorelai and Rory reentered Emily and Richard Gilmore's lives again.
No doubt they were a little hesitant, but underneath the surface they were happier than ever. Not only did they have their daughter back, but their granddaughter could possibly be the daughter they never had. She was going to Chilton, the right school, and was promising. There my mom was, a fifteen year old unsuspecting girl that had no idea her grandparents were investing all their energy and efforts towards making sure Rory could restore the Gilmore name.
Of course, Emily's plan was put back with Rory's first boyfriend Dean or as Dad likes to refer to him, bagboy. Then there was Jess, the brooding New York bad boy as Lorelai calls him. He was also Grandpa Luke's nephew. Of course he was unacceptable. There was Dean again. Something really big happened with him. I've only heard the background whispers, but I think it had to do with Mom losing her virginity to Dean who was married. Something like that. At Yale there was Logan, who Richard and Emily definitely approved of. There was no getting past that. He was from a good family, had a "future", and by all means rich. Total of three guys before Dad. I know Dad was in there with Dean the first time, but Mom told me that didn't count. They both weren't old enough to fully understand their feelings for each other. I kind of snickered at that. It just made me laugh.
Anyway once Dad came into the picture all the cards were set. Emily had the daughter she never got with Lorelai. Lorelai Leigh Gilmore III was exactly what Emily Gilmore wanted and she got it. I remember Grandma saying that this was always true, but never with her. I always thought that was kind of funny. Anyway, Emily had always been the pillar of our family, keeping everyone together. I can tell you that I think the reason why Mom and Dad stayed together after the Logan affair was because they didn't want to disappoint anybody, especially Grandma. She had invested so much in that relationship.
Maybe that's why Mom is taking this really hard. There won't be anyone to talk them out of getting a divorce. Of course there will be Grandma Lorelai, but no one who really put a lot of time into making sure that they stayed together. And Grandma will want both of them to be happy.
This means that it's really going to happen. Mom and Dad are going to be divorced. Wow. I mean I heard it, but I never really digested it. It has just been there for the past eighteen hours, lurking in the back of my mind. No child wants their parents to get divorced. No one. I don't want them to get divorced. I want them to stay together. Rory Gilmore and Tristan Dugrey are meant to be together.
They promised that to each other. That's what you do when you get married. You promise to stay together forever. You promise through sickness and health, richer or poorer, to stay together. The value of marriage seems to have diminished over the years. No one really cares about it anymore. It's just there and if everything seems okay then it's as viable option. There is commitment that is suppose to be there. A real commitment.
That's something I've never been a part of. A commitment. Something real that means something. Joe and I had a "commitment" on the surface. We pretended to be the only partners of each other, but we both had other people. Part of the reason I started with Alex was because I knew Joe was screwing around behind my back. It wasn't the center reason, but it made it slightly more rewarding. Really I just wanted to try something new.
At one in the afternoon, my phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Mary–," I heard Alex say.
Immediately I cut him off, "Alex. Hey, I need to talk to you."
"Always the impatient one aren't we?"
"Can you not joke for one second Alex?"
I hear him laugh lightly, "Okay. Meet at the coffee shop on Main in Hartford at two."
Normally I would ask questions, but I just responded with, "Sure."
"Bye."
"Bye."
I hang up. He always knows how to get me with coffee. The addiction
is something I definitely inherited from my mother.
Normally I would never ask my parents for permission to do anything, but for some reason I ask Mom if it's okay if I go out for an hour. She's says it's fine. I ask because frankly I want to have a relationship with them. I want to be able to call them Mom and Dad and not have this feeling that they aren't really my parents. I can start with Mom, she's more approachable, than Dad.
Quickly I change out of my sweatpants and into brown slacks with a white t-shirt. Casual, but nice looking. It kind of covers me up. I don't want to show Alex that I'm too messed up. I've always been good at that, covering myself up. Maybe it's a trait that I have acquired or maybe it's in my genes. Sometimes I can't help but feel that my whole family has these masks on and that they are really unhappy and tragic in a sense. Although the ironic part is that everyone around us envies us. I don't know why, it doesn't make any sense. Maybe we have the money and the status, but we lack the real things that matter. The things that make life worth living. For some reason they just don't exist in the Dugrey household.
I get to one of the more popular coffee shops in Hartford. After I order a black coffee, I sit down at one of the tables. I glanced around for a minute, before I pulled out a book. For some reason, I always bring a book everywhere I go. All my handbags have to have enough space to fit a paperback. After about thirty seconds, I found myself completely engrossed in the tale of Scarlet O'Hara and Rhett Butler. I have no idea how many times I have read Gone with the Wind, but it gets the same reaction out of me every time.
Suddenly I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I am snapped out of my reverie. I jumped slightly as the hand brushed my shoulder. I calmed down once I felt that it was Alex.
"Her nose is always stuck in a book."
"Alex," I start to stand up.
"No, sit still," he orders. "Still haven't touched your coffee?" he comments as I put my book away.
"I guess I forgot about it," I shrugged my shoulders.
"I never really thought that the story of Rhett and Scarlet is realistic," I gave him a confused look. He was challenging one of the most arguably love stories of all time. "Well there's this guy that could have any girl he wants, but he choses the one girl that is love with another man. Rhett has everything going for him and it just doesn't seem real. How could he possibly be in love with Scarlet, who is confused and essentially hopeless?"
I couldn't help but feel like he was trying to parallel us. Of course, Gone with the Wind, is nothing like Alex and I, but maybe that's why I like the story so much.
"Scarlet is confused, but she's not hopeless. She has a lot of things going for her and she wants to make the right choices. Granted some of the choices she makes, leads to the inevitable downfall of her marriage to Rhett and her gross underestimation of her love for him, but she does what she thinks is best," I refuted. There's this complex that I have. I can't help but fight with Alex on any issue that's present.
He laughed a little, ironic laugh. "However you can justify it Mary."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"Exactly what it means."
There's a pause. He looks around at his environment and I just look at him.
Suddenly I blurt out, "I broke up with Joe."
He smirks a little. In a sense, it's almost evil. "If I heard correctly, he broke up with you."
"It doesn't matter, we're not together anymore."
"It does matter, Mary. I told you that you needed to make a decision if it was me or him. Now if he broke up with you, it made that decision easy for you. But if you broke up with him, then you chose me."
I sighed. Why does everything have to be so complicated? "I broke up with him. He somehow found out that I was going to do it, probably through Hannah, so he knew it was going to happen, but I definitely had already made the decision."
"Really?" he asked. He looked eager, almost like a kid in a candy store, finding out he could have anything he wanted.
"Yes," I smiled, relieved.
"Let's get out of here." He stood up and held his hand up for me to take as he came around to the side of the table I was sitting on.
I looked up at him. He wasn't smiling, but there was something in his eyes. Something that looked like promise and expectation of what could come. I place my hand in his and I stand up, walking out of the coffee shop and into the streets of Hartford with Alex holding my hand.
For the next hour, we were just walking. Walking around Hartford, holding hands, letting the whole world know that we were there. There together. Well I'm not too sure about the together part, but I guess you could say that we were together. I mean we were holding hands, that has to constitute for something.
We wandered into my favorite bookstore, called Under the Carpet. It has a lot of contemporary fiction, but then it has the classics. I can always get something there that satisfies my book cravings.
"Have you ever read Pride and Prejudice?" Alex asked me, while browsing the Jane Austen shelf.
"I've tried about seven times, but I can't really seem to get through it, why?" I look at him. I'm on the floor looking at Alexandre Dumas. I still haven't read The Three Musketeers, I should get to that.
"Just wondering."
"Have you read it?"
"As much as it would tarnish my image, yes I have."
I smirked at him, "So Alex Ryderstan likes Jane Austen. Who would have thought?"
"Don't think about using this for backmail."
"Me? Never," I insisted innocently.
He laughed at me and then I started too. We were just laughing. Everything was completely casual and we weren't worried about being caught. We stopped laughing and I continued looking at him and he did the same. His gaze never wavered, but he slowly walked over to me. He lowered himself and placed his palms on the floor, next to both sides of my body, leaned up against the bookshelf.
Slowly he placed his lips upon mine. It was the first kiss we had that wasn't marked by the suspense of getting caught or guilt. It was slow and sweet, allowing me to absorb everything about him.
It was almost like we were two innocent kids trying to kiss someone else for the first time. There was just something nice about it. And it scared me. Scared me like something I've never felt before.
I pulled my mouth away from his, "My mom's going to be worried about me."
"Since when has your mom been worried about you."
"My grandmother died last night and we're rebuilding our relationship, both of us decided to put more effort into being a mother and a daughter."
"Why didn't you tell me about your grandmother?"
"It's not really important," I said. This made him stand up.
"I can't believe you Mary. One minute you want to be with me, the next you're pulling away. Like I've said before it's all or nothing!" Alex yells.
I look around and notice everyone staring at us. "Alex, people are staring," I said quietly.
"Let them stare Mary. We don't have to hide this anymore. Or is this one of those things that it's better in the dark?" he questions.
Finally, I stand up. "It's not like that Alex and you know it. It's complicated."
"Life is complicated and if you haven't figured that out yet then you are in for a rude awakening."
I feel like crying. I won't do it though. I can't do it. "Are you going to cry Mary?" he asked in a taunting manner.
"No, I'm not!" I put the book I was holding on the shelf and walked out of my favorite bookstore.
How come I can't stop fighting with him or everyone for that matter? It just never stops, the fighting. One time it's with Dad, the next Joe, then now with Alex. I can't do this anymore.
I began walking toward my car, but Alex stopped me in the middle of the street.
"Mary you can't keep walking away."
I wrapped my arms around my chest. "Why can't I?"
"Because it makes everything harder. For awhile it makes things easier, but in the long run it just makes it harder," he says sincerely.
My eyes move toward the ground. He's right. Look at my parents, they have avoided their issues for all these years and look where they are. I don't want to be like them, but I can't help but fall into my usual pattern of behavior. I avoid things. May it be confrontation, or just addressing problems, I avoid it all costs, hoping it will solve itself.
"Don't fight this Mary. You know that I'm right." He doesn't mean this in "I'm right, you're wrong" scenario, but he means it realistic and sweetly. Unlike anyone, he can see that I've dug myself into this hole and everyday it just gets harder for me to get out.
I can feel his warmth as he slowly moves toward me. His arms wrap themselves around my short frame and my own arms around myself, become loose and find their way around Alex's tall frame. For once, I think I'm finally opening up.