Francine took her seat at the small table in the back of the country club. After sitting there for less than two minutes she glanced down at her watch and sighed. She was fifteen minutes early. She had made a point to be this early. She wanted to see the two of them walk in together. She loved the way a couple looked when they entered a room together. The way Christopher and Lorelai would always hold hands whenever they entered a room together made her smile to just thinking about it. She pulled out her small compact and looked at herself in the mirror. She hoped she appeared to be looser than she used to. Once upon a time Christopher described her look as a tight ass.

Rory applied a little more blush to her cheeks before turning to look at Logan who was sitting next to her in the car no saying much of anything. He had this goofy look on his face. "What?"

Logan just shook his head and laughed a little. "Nothing, it's just well, you look so cute when you're putting on your makeup. I just don't know why you bother. You don't need that stuff. You're radiant."

She smiled and kissed him on the forehead. "Are we ready to do this?"

"You sound like we're getting ready for a mission." Logan said as he got out of the car. He waited for her to join him in front of the car.

Rory laughed. "Well in a sense this is a mission, its mission figure out who the hell Francine Hayden is…" Rory attempted to make it sound like she was joking but she failed miserably. The truth is she was here to do just that. She was here to learn who this woman was. She had a feeling that there was much more to Francine than met the eye. The key was to figure out how to peel away the layers to make said discovery.

Logan sensing she needed a kiss sweetly kissed her forehead and then grabbed her hand to hold it. "Okay well let's get on inside so we can get MISSION: FIGURE OUT WHO THE HELL FRANCINE HAYDEN IS underway."

Francine smiled as soon as they walked in. They were holding hands and Logan appeared to be making some sort of joke because Rory was smiling like he had just told her she had won the lottery. She gave him a kiss on the cheek. She mentally took a picture. No matter what happened she wanted to remember what the two of them looked like when they walked in a room the same way she remembered the way Christopher and Lorelai entered a room.

Rory took a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face as soon as she saw Francine sitting at the table. Unlike last night Rory actually had time to study this Francine. She seemed more tranquil. She walked across the room the way Emily had taught her to. She walked across the room as if she owned the place. When they finally reached the table she took another deep breath and plastered an even bigger smile on her face. "Sorry if we've kept you waiting. Grandmother this is Logan. Logan this is my Grandmother Francine Hayden."

Francine was surprised that Rory had called her Grandmother. She remembered the first time she met the young girl. She remembered feeling simply awful when the girl struggled to give her a title. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Don't worry about me waiting. I haven't been here but a few minutes. You two are actually on time. I'm early. I have a bad habit of always being early."

Logan laughed as he took his seat. "So does Rory. In her mind 12:00 means 11:45."

Francine smiled. She wondered if he granddaughter had inherited that trait from her. "Straub was always "fashionably" late for things. The man was nearly late for our wedding. He was impossible that way."

Rory could tell that she was still broken up about Straub's death. It had been more than a year since he died. She did the only thing she could think of. She gently placed her hand on Francine's.

Francine smiled and sighed. "Sorry I have a tendency to do that nowadays. The other widows in my pinochle group tell me that one day it'll stop happening. Anyway let's focus on something positive. How long have you two been together?"

Surprisingly Logan was the one who furnished Francine with an answer. "We're going on seven months." He never thought he'd been the type to keep track of the amount of time he spent with a girl. Then again he'd never been the type to commit either that is until he met Rory. Rory had changed everything.

Francine smiled. "You know I hope you don't mind when I say this but you two really do remind me a great deal of Lorelai and Christopher when they were together. This reminds me the other day I was going through a few old things that I had packed up when we made the move to St. Petersburg. I was looking for this picture of Straub and I that I was going to have made into a portrait and I found this picture. I thought you might appreciate. I realize Lorelai left a lot of her things behind when she made the move from Hartford to that quaint town you grew up in. I don't imagine she had many pictures of her and Christopher spread out and about." Francine pulled the picture out of her purse. She had found herself lost in the thought the moment she first saw the picture. She still remembered the days when she thought her son would marry Lorelai Gilmore. The days when she thought that all that mattered was pedigree and education. She had been a snob back then. She wondered why she had any friends at all back then.

Rory stared at the photograph for a moment. It resembled many of the ones that Christopher had given her when she had asked what her relationship with him was like when she was a child. "Where was this taken?"

Francine smiled as memories of that day came flooding back. "That was actually taken in Hartford for the Daughters of the American Revolution debutante ball program. I wasn't able to find the program just yet."

Lorelai shifted uncomfortably in her dress. She had been wearing the puffy number for at least three and a half hours. She looked over at Christopher who was presently doing his French homework as they waited for it to be their turn. It seemed like it was taking forever. "How many more couples till it is our turn?"

"Two. Once Mallory Davis and Brendan Astin, and then Sharon Foreman and William Hasting take their pictures it will be our turn." Christopher then started conjugating the verb jouer.

You might as well have said there were a million. I wish that my last name was like Adams and not Gilmore." Lorelai sighed. She hated doing this. She felt like this was just another tool the man was using to try and keep her down. "What are we doing after this?"

"I don't know. Digger is home this weekend from Andover we could get together with him and Kerry." Christopher suggested. He was now focusing on reading some of the French literature he had been assigned. He hated French. He didn't know why he was even bothering to study this stuck up language.

"Well I was thinking something more intimate. You know just the two of us. I love Digger and Kerry but we spent all last weekend with them. Quick question when is Digger actually not home on the weekend?" Lorelai posed the question and then noticed that one of her nails was looking a little dull so she pulled out her bottle of nail polish so she could touch them up real quick.

"I like the sound of doing something intimate. To answer that question I have no clue when Digger is actually no home from Andover during the weekend." Christopher paused to scribble down an answer about Monet. "Still uh we can go grab a bite to eat and then my parents are out of town this weekend so we could hang out at my house for a while."

Lorelai smiled. "Perfect. I love how good we are together."

"The other day I was walking past my father's study on my way to the kitchen and I overheard my parents discussing our relationship. They think this debutante ball is the first step to marriage. My parents love you. My father kept going on and on about how lucky I was to have a girl who accepted me no matter how immature I am." He once again paused to erase a mistake and then he continued. "I love you Lorelai. I really love you and I think that it would be great if maybe that did happen. I mean you know we did get married."

Lorelai opened her mouth to tell him that she too loved him and that marriage was a possibility that they would deal with when the proper time came but a white-haired old man interrupted and announced their name at that exact moment. "It's show time."

Christopher got up the way a proper gentleman would and then escord her to the back room. When the time came for them to pose he placed his arms around her the way he'd seen a million escorts hold a million debutantes. He smiled brightly as if he were the luckiest man alive. In a sense he was because he had Lorelai Gilmore as his girlfriend.

"Hey Chris…" Lorelai whispered when the photographer turned around to fix the lighting. "I feel the exact same way."

Rory and Logan stood up from the table after eating lunch, and desert. "Grandmother I'm so glad we did this. I'd love to get together. Maybe we could do something with my other Grandmother as well."

Francine smiled and kissed her granddaughter on the cheek. "That sounds positively lovely. Oh and Logan I hope you'll forgive me for the way I talked to your mother. I'm very glad to see that you are nothing like her. Do tell Emily that I say hello."

"I will definitely do that. I loved this." Rory was shocked. She never knew that Francine could be so interesting. Lorelai had made this woman out to be a monster the same way she made Emily out to be a monster. So far Rory had found that neither of them were monsters just picky. "Thank you for coming with me to do that. I know it couldn't have been the most fun way to spend a Saturday."

Logan smiled and shrugged. "Life always seems more fun as long as your there. She seems like a great woman, almost as great as you."

Rory scoffed. "You are too charming for your own good."

Logan looked at her. "You wouldn't love me nearly as much as you do if I weren't as charming as I am. I could charm the pants off of Janet Reno."

"That is nothing something I would brag about." Rory joked. "I think Bill O'Reilly could charm the pants her off."

Logan pretended to be wounded by her joke.

"Still that doesn't mean that I want you to charm her pants off. You're my little charmer." She gave him a kiss.

This was fun! The million attempts at writing this were not but this was! You know what would make it even more fun is if you shared your feelings on this story! Thanks for reading! Keep your eyes peeled for the next review!