By the time Rory's eighth birthday rolled around, Lorelai had become famous for her birthday blowouts. The little garden shed had more than once been the site of raucous affairs that often ended in one child or another getting sick, while the older guests enjoyed the more adult refreshments kept well out of reach. The Gilmore girls had effectively won the hearts of most of the town – Rory with her sweet-tempered personality, Lorelai with her fiery independence – and they had been crowned undisputed princesses of Stars Hollow.

That sunny day in October, Rory came home from school bursting with impatience.

"My party is tonight, right, Mom?" she said eagerly. "I told all the kids at school just like you said!"

"Perfect," Lorelai grinned. "I have got some surprise for you, little missy."

"What is it, what is it?" Rory jumped up and down, her hands clasped.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise! Go put on the party dress I made for you, sweets. Hurry!"

By five o'clock, twenty-five seven- and eight-year-olds had swarmed the garden shed and the yard, and several of them, Rory among them, stood enthralled as Gumbo the Clown created balloon animals and juggled pins. Lorelai walked around the yard checking on everyone, grinning to herself at the success of this, the greatest of all birthday parties. The twenty pizzas she'd ordered were almost gone, and the cake from Weston's Bakery would be coming any minute. She congratulated herself on a job well done.

The collected kids squealed with laughter as Gumbo's balloon animals got crazier and crazier. A duck with a long tail. A poodle with five legs. An elephant with two trunks. Gumbo tried to squirt someone with his flower and somehow squirted himself in the face. He picked up the juggling pins and ended up hitting himself in the head with them and dropping one on his foot.

Lorelai frowned. That looked like it had hurt. Gumbo hopped up and down, his painted smile not hiding the grimace of pain.

That was when she spotted the cup.

It was red. It was on Gumbo the Clown's table. And she knew for a fact it didn't hold apple juice.

She hurried past the applauding kids and grabbed the cup off the stool.

"Hey, tha's mine!" Gumbo slurred angrily.

"I think you've had enough," Lorelai answered calmly, pouring it on the grass. She turned to his audience. "Hey, everybody, Gumbo's a little tired, so he's got to take a nap now!" The kids objected loudly, but Lorelai shouted over them. "Thank Gumbo with me so he can go home and sleep!" Reluctantly they clapped, cheering and thanking him for entertaining them.

"I don't wanna go," Gumbo protested as Lorelai tried to lead him away by the arm. "Kids're havin' fun. They like me."

"I know they do, sweetie, but you've had too much to drink."

"I don't wanna go!" the clown shouted, jerking his arm from Lorelai's grasp. "Hey, kids, I'm back!" he called, weaving back towards the crowd. "Who wantsss to play?" He stumbled a little and the children cheered, rushing towards him and piling on top of him.

"Gumbo, come on," Lorelai said nervously, tugging on his arm to get him stand.

"No! Kids don't want me to leave. Do ya?" he yelled at his admirers.

A cheerful chorus of "no's" was his answer.

"See?" he grinned.

"Well, you have to go!"

He ran away, ignoring her, and Lorelai stared after him in disbelief.

She was still standing there when the police cars rolled up onto the lawn. Maybe she could have heard them if she hadn't had the music turned up so loud. At any rate, the stereo was suddenly shut off, and the lawn descended into deathly silence.

"Who's in charge here?" shouted a policeman.

"I am," Lorelai called, stepping forward.

"I'm afraid the party's over," he answered sternly. "Someone at the inn called complaining about the noise."

"Crap," Lorelai muttered, wondering which snooty guest had finked.

"Hey, man," Gumbo said, tottering towards the officer. "This is Rory Gilmore's party, man. She's, like, a princess."

"Princess or not," he answered steadily, "she has to follow the laws like everyone else."

"Don't yell at me!" Gumbo shouted. "I'm the clown!"

He leaned a little forward, breathing in the officer's face, and the officer grimaced. "You're also drunk. You're under arrest, sir."

"No'm not! I'm the clown!" Gumbo twisted, trying to get away from the two officers suddenly at his sides, leading him to the car. "Hey, wait! I'm sorry! I'll – I'll make ya balloon an'mals! Come on!"

"Officer!" Lorelai hurried over to the man who appeared to be in charge. "I am so, so sorry about this. My daughter's parties never get this crazy, and…"

"I have to write up a report, ma'am," he assured her with a smile. "Even though the guys at the office would have a field day with this one."

"Well, yeah, but we're not going to get in trouble, are we? I didn't mean to disturb anyone."

He paused, glancing around at the children who were watching goggle-eyed as Gumbo was read his rights. "All I'm going to need from you is a statement about the clown's behavior. Other than that, I don't see any reason to write up an eight-year-old's birthday party."

Lorelai sighed in relief and smiled. "You are a wonderful, wonderful man. My hero."

He raised his eyebrows. "Hero? I can live with that."

She fished a pen and a receipt from her coat pocket and wrote her name and number down. "Call me whenever you want me to make that statement, okay, Officer…?"

"Oh, sorry. Carlson. Rick Carlson."

"See you around, Officer Carlson." Lorelai grinned and went back to the group of kids, ushering them into the shed to watch movies until their parents came to pick them up.

When Lorelai tucked Rory into bed that night, Lorelai said, "I'm sorry about your party, sweets."

Rory grinned. "Sorry about what? It was the best party ever!"

She should have known it was too good to be true. Lorelai closed the door and leaned heavily against it. Two days after Rory's birthday party had been broken up by the cops, Rick Carlson had showed up at her door.

"Uh, hi," she said nervously. "I'm not in trouble again, am I?"

"N-no, you're not," he answered, fidgeting uneasily. "Look, I feel like a jerk because you gave me your number to call you about the statement and I did, and then I sort of hung onto it."

"Hung onto it?" she asked, surprised.

"Yeah, see…I kind of wanted to see you again but I decided it would be wrong to use information you only gave me for that reason to get in touch with you socially so I…just…came here."

It had been pretty adorable, she had to admit, and for a while things had been okay. But he was so awkward with Rory. He didn't know how to talk to her, or play with her, or anything. It was almost like he didn't like her or want her around. So Lorelai had broken up with him. Anyone weirded out by a woman with a child wasn't for her.

And yet all of her boyfriends – not that there were many of them – seemed to have a problem with her. Some guys would just see Rory's toys in the yard and bolt. Others would pretend to like her, buying her presents she had no use for. But always the truth came out: no one wanted to date a woman with that kind of baggage.

Which was fine with her. Completely. She wasn't desperate. Or lonely.

The little garden shed was empty. Rory was at Lane's house. Lorelai dropped her purse on the armchair and fell back on the bed, closing her eyes wearily. There were times when she almost wished that she wasn't a mother. When she wished she'd stuck to going to Harvard as her major rebellion and left it at that, without the sex and the having a baby and the running away to start an adult life at seventeen. She was twenty-four years old. By now she would have graduated from Harvard and would be out in the world doing – what, exactly? Anything but this. Anything but working as head housemaid for an inn in Stars Hollow, Connecticut, and scrimping to pay for food to keep her and her daughter alive.

She hated these times, when she wondered what her life would have been without Rory. She hated herself for even momentarily wanting anything else. Rory was a perfect, beautiful, angelic little girl, a piece of heaven sent down to earth. And what kind of horrible person wants more than heaven?

"He's really big, Mom," Rory said doubtfully, eyeing the pony uneasily.

"Sweetie, you're the one who always said you wanted a pony, no matter how many times I've told you that we can't afford one. This is your chance to see what having a pony would be like."

Sighing, Rory allowed herself to be placed on the pony's back. She gripped its mane tightly in her fists and allowed herself to be led carefully down the path. Slowly she eased her grip and sat up straighter, a smile blossoming on her face.

"This is fun!" she called to her mother, who was walking beside her with a camera in her hands. "Are you sure we can't have a pony?"

Suddenly the pony stopped walking. Surprised, the man leading the pony turned to look at his animal as it dropped to its knees.

"Oh my God! Hang on, Rory!" Lorelai cried, rushing forward. The pony lay down its side and Rory fell off its back, tumbling down into the ditch. Lorelai knelt beside her. "Hon, are you okay? Anything broken, bruised, bumped?"

"I'm fine, Mom! What's wrong with the pony?" Rory said, jumping to her feet.

"Don't you worry about old Bruce, darlin'," the pony's owner said. "He's just…restin'."

"Resting?" Rory asked, patting the pony's side. "He's not moving."

"Uh…he's…real tired."

"Mom!" Rory suddenly cried, pointing. "He's dead! He's dead!"

"No, sweetie," Lorelai said desperately. "The nice man said he's just asleep. That's all."

The man picked up Bruce's hind legs and started pulling him down the road.

"But why…"

"Honey, he knows what he's doing. Come on, let's just go home."

Lorelai pulled Rory down the road back to the town square, but Rory kept looking over her shoulder, waiting for Bruce to get back up and walk along with his owner.