Charlie's 6
"Is it wrong that I feel kind of dirty making my 6 year old daughter a black cocktail dress?"
"Is it sparkly?" Rory asked as over the phone, finishing up a paper for school.
"Yes, it is actually."
"Then no, it's not wrong that you feel a little dirty. It is for a dance recital though, right?"
"Yeah, but still! Everyone is going to see her in this! My baby!"
"I thought I was your baby," Rory complained.
"She's my other baby. And Maddy is my other other baby."
"Like pork is the other white meat?" she asked with a smirk.
"Rory," Lorelai warned as she snipped a few threads and held the little dress up to see. Rory giggled a little and Lorelai relented.
"It's fine that you feel weird about making Charlie a cocktail dress, better?"
"Much. Hold on," she said as she took the phone from her ear. "Charlie, come'er!" she yelled. The 6 year old bounded up the stairs a few minutes later. "Try it on," she said, tossing the dress to Charlie.
"Oh boy!" she said as she scurried off to the bathroom.
"Now, where were we?"
"Are you going to Friday night dinner?" Rory asked.
"Oh, I suppose," she said.
"Good. Grandma's having a theme dinner next week."
"What? You can't be serious!" she moaned as her face fell. "A dinner party?"
"Yup," Rory said with a chuckle.
"I'm wearing the white suit," she said all of a sudden.
"You hate that suit, you said it made you look like a Stay-Puff marshmallow."
"I've been provoked now," she said as she wandered towards the bathroom to check on Charlie. "A theme party without warning me . . . I should let Charlie wear what ever she wants to this, bonus points if she picks the cocktail dress. How is it?" she asked as she knocked on the door.
"Miss Patty is kidding about this, right?" Charlie asked from the bathroom.
"I better go, wardrobe crisis," Lorelai told Rory.
"Don't wear the white suit," Rory pleaded before she hung up.
"Let's see," Lorelai said as she opened the door. She watched as Charlie tried to pull the hem of the dress down while trying to pull the top up. "It's a dance costume sweetie, it's okay." Charlie dropped her hands and shifted uncomfortably.
"I don't like it."
"You're gonna have tights and your leotard on underneath. That help?" Charlie shrugged. "Wear it around the house a little, get used to it, freak Luke out. And that is just an added perk." Charlie sighed and started to leave the bathroom before she ducked back in and slipped back into her pants. Oh yeah, this week was going to be interesting.
Charlie's 5 or 6
"Charlie, turn it down a little," Luke called to her as he paced the length of the hallway between the den and the kitchen, the whole length of the house. Charlie sighed and rolled her eyes as she left the volume where it was. All she heard these days was 'Charlie, turn it down.' or 'Charlie, later, I'm too tired.' "Charlie, please," Luke said again. She looked over her shoulder at him and her eyes focused in on the baby on his shoulder. Your Sister, since there was no name yet, seemed to be asleep for once.
"I was here first," she finally told him as she turned back to the TV.
"Charlie," he started.
"I was here first," she said again. "In this room, in this house, in this family, on this planet. I was here first!" she yelled, loud enough to wake the baby. She scowled as she turned the TV up so she could hear it over the crying.
"Charlotte Abigail," he said as he marched over and turned off the TV before helping her to her feet. "Go," he said pointing in the direction of her room. Charlie scowled at him and held her ground.
"No," she said simply. "I don't want to."
"Let me help you then," he said as he took her arm again and marched her to her room. "You can come out when you can behave," he told her as he shut the door. Charlie stood in the middle of the room for a moment before she caught a glance at the window. She wrote out a note for her parents, announcing to them that she was running away. She wrote 'to Rory' at first, but erased it. She instead said she'd call when she got to where she was going. She grabbed her backpack and dumped her school stuff out, instead shoving in a couple of changes of clothes and her blankie. She zipped it up, tossed it on, grabbed a sweater and heaved her window open before she shimmied out the window and headed for town.
"Rory?"
"Hey Charlie!" she said brightly into her cell phone. "Whatcha doin'?"
"I'm runnin' away from home. Can I live with you now?" Rory paused for a moment.
"Why?"
"'Cause I don't have any where else to go," she said simply.
"Where do mom and Luke think you are?"
"My room," she answered. "I left a note."
"Stay in the diner, I'll be there in about an hour," she said as she hung up and grabbed her keys.
"Where are you going?" Marty asked.
"Charlie is running away from home. I need to call my mom and Luke and pick Charlie up for at least the night. Wanna come?"
"Sure why not?" Marty asked. After dating Rory for almost a year, almost nothing that came out of her mouth surprised him. "Want me to drive?"
"Sure, I have calls to make," Rory replied casually as they headed out of her dorm room and to her car. "Hey Luke," she said brightly when he picked up the phone.
"You're mom's asleep," he said.
"That's fine, I just wanted to let you know that Charlie is running away from home," she said casually. She held the phone away from her ear as Luke freaked out for a moment. She looked to Marty who was smirking slightly at this. "I'm on my way to pick her up, she's hiding out at the diner. I'll bring her home tomorrow,"
"Why is she running away?"
"I'm not sure, we'll work it out," she assured him. The conversation fell to lighter topics for a while before they both hung up. "It's over the baby," he told Marty when she hung up.
"How do you know?"
"She may be loud and confident, but she's pretty insecure about her family and I don't blame her. I mean, dad was in and out of our lives, more out than in after Gigi came along, and she freaked out once already that Luke was gonna leave and I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's gong on again. From what I hear, this My Sister is pretty high strung."
"Still no name?"
"They were planning on a boy," she said with a shrug. "I think, last I heard, it was down to Madeline Elizabeth or Alexandria Elise."
"Wow," was all Marty could say.
"They're trying to decide which they like better, Maddy or Allie. Personally, I think Maddy has more resonance when yelled up a flight of stairs, but, whatever." Marty chuckled and shook his head. Life with a Gilmore Girl was never boring.
"Do we need to pick up anything else?" Marty asked as they headed back to Yale. Rory and Charlie had insisted that they needed supplies, so they had been driving all over New Haven.
"Nope, I think we're done. Home Jeeves," Rory said with a smile. Rory glanced back at Charlie who was staring out at the now familiar scenery that was whizzing past as they drove. She sighed a little before she tuned back into what Marty was saying.
"So, how long are you planning to stay?" Rory asked at some point during the 2nd movie. Charlie shrugged and played with her straw. "I see."
"Can you make them send her back?" she finally asked. "All she does is cry and the only time she's not crying is when Luke is walking her up and down the long hallway."
"It'll get better," Rory said with a chuckle.
"Did you want to send me back?"
"When I was trying to study and you wouldn't shut up? Yes," she said. "But, then I'd either escape to Luke's or Lane's house or mom would take you off somewhere and I'd study and everything would be okay." Charlie considered this for a moment.
"I liked it better before."
"I know, I did too at first. But, she'll get bigger and you'll actually be able to do stuff with her instead of just watching her sleep and it'll be kind of cool. You'll have some one to play with all the time in a couple of years," Rory assured her with a shrug. "Besides that, being a big sister is an important job. Everything you and me do, you're gonna do that for little No Name." Rory watched as Charlie chewed this over.
"Fine," she said as she turned her attention back to the movie.
"They haven't phoned yet because I called them," she whispered.
"Oh," she replied. Rory smirked as Charlie relaxed into the couch. "Do I haveta go back tomorrow?"
"No, but if you're gonna stay, you have to call them tomorrow. Deal?"
"Fine," she grumbled. Nothing more was said for the rest of the movie.
"Go on," Rory prompted after Paris had left for the day. "I'll be in here," she said as she disappeared into her room. Charlie stared at the phone for a long moment before she finally picked it up and dialled. The conversation was slow and painful between her and Luke. He kept trying to draw things out of the little girl, but she wasn't budging. She was mad and she wanted to stay mad and he was trying to make her not be mad any more. He eventually passed her along to her mother who tried the same thing.
"It's okay to be mad Charlie," Lorelai had finally said near the end of the conversation. "You be mad as long as you want, ok?" Charlie had assured her mother that that was good because she intended to be mad for a long time. "Well, we'll see you on Sunday night. Please slam many doors when you get home."
"I will!" she said as she hung up angrily. "It's not fair!" she finally cried.
"Why?" Rory called out.
"They want me to be mad!" Rory laughed when she heard this. "It's not funny!" Charlie hollered back before she turned on the TV and Rory went back to her studying.
"Still mad?" Luke asked when he greeted his girls on Sunday. Charlie shot him a rather nasty look as she pushed past him and into her room. "Still mad?" he asked Rory. Rory snickered and shook her head.
"She's mad that mom told her she could stay mad as long as she liked. And that she should slam many doors and throw many tantrums. Now she's not really sure what to do." Luke smiled as he invited Rory in. She accepted, but just long enough to dash upstairs and greet her mother and sister before dashing out again to spend a little time with Lane before heading back to Yale.
"So," he said as he leaned on the door frame to Charlie's room. "I found a little rope ladder the other day and I hooked it up. To make the window escaping easier next time," he told Charlie. He waited to see if she was going to answer him. "I know that window isn't that far from the ground, but how much would it suck if you got hurt climbing out and couldn't run away?"
"I don't need any help," she finally said, her back still to Luke as she emptied her bag.
"Oh, I know," he replied as he left her to her brooding.
"How long is she going to keep this up?" Luke asked Lorelai one night a few weeks later. She shrugged as he took Maddy from her before she crawled into bed.
"She's a Gilmore, we're stubborn," she said with a bit of a smirk.
"It's been three weeks," he replied.
"I know and you know that if you start laying down ultimatums, she'll be mad longer. I'll deal with it tomorrow," she assured him as he came to bed.
"So, just wanted to let you know that we're getting rid of Maddy," she told Charlie over breakfast. "She's just too much work."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we found a great orphanage who will put her to work as soon as she can walk. And maybe, if she's good, some one will come and take her home. Though she'll probably have to work hard there too, earn her keep and what not." Lorelai watched as Charlie fidgeted in her seat. "And Luke agrees with me. He wants to be able to just go back to sleeping through the night instead of having to get up with her. He says he's had enough of the walking up and down the hall."
"You're really gonna send her away?" she asked after a moment.
"Well yeah. I mean, you were here first, in this house, in this family, on the planet after all, and she makes you so mad all the time. . . " Lorelai leaned against the counter as she waited for what she knew was coming.
"You can't give her away! This isn't Oliver Twist!" Lorelai smirked, she still couldn't believe that Rory had read her that novel.
"But I thought. . . "
"I changed my mind!" she yelled as she pushed away from the table and headed upstairs. "You can't get rid of her just because you're too lazy to walk around the house!" she yelled at Luke before stomping back downstairs.
"Uh, okay," he replied, more than a little clueless as to what was going on.
"Now you can't get rid of her," she informed her mother smugly.
"Drat, foiled again," she said as she turned to the coffee maker.
Charlie's 3 or 4
Charlie sat and listened as he grandmother raged to her grandfather. From what she had picked up, her grandmother was angry about not being invited to a certain party that apparently everyone else had been invited too. Richard finally threw his hands up in defeat and stalked off to his study. Charlie slowly ate her cookies as she listened to Emily in the other room, yelling at someone over the phone.
"Grandma?" she said finally, heading towards her after she had finished. "What's wrong?" she asked as she invited herself onto Emily's lap.
"Nothing," she said tensely as they sat for a moment.
"Is this about a party?"
"Yes," she admitted after a moment.
"It's okay," she said calmly. "You can't go to every party. Leah Tomlin didn't invite me to her party last week," she told Emily. "She invited all the girls but me and Elise White and they had a pool party with a clown and movies and everything and I really, REALLY wanted to go."
"Well, that was very rude of her to exclude only you and one other," Emily said.
"But it's okay," Charlie said quickly. "Cause I wasn't really her friend and mom was right, you can't go to every party. Besides, this means I don't have to invite her to my party," she said with a smile. Emily considered this for a moment.
"You're right," she said after a moment.
"I am?"
"Yes. You can't go to every party and this means I don't have to invite them to my next party. You are a very smart girl, Charlie."
"Well, they don't let just anyone into kindergarten," she replied with a smile as she slid off of Emily's lap and dragged her off to find something to do.
Charlie's about 6
Charlie frowned as the teacher went on and on about making a card for mom and dad. She shifted uncomfortably as other kids in the class would turn and stare at her, This substitute teacher didn't know that her mom and dad weren't married and didn't even live in the same state.
"Mr. Brass?" some one finally asked. "Charlie doesn't have a dad." She shrunk down in her seat as the class giggled. As he tried to fumble an answer, the bell rang. Charlie was the first one out of the room.
Mr. Brass was at school again the next day when they started to make the cards. He avoided Charlie as best he could while trying to keep the whispers under control.
"It's too small," Andy pointed out to her. "You did it wrong."
"Did not. There's no wrong way to make a card," she told him before she stole his glitter and tossed his pencil across the room. That would keep him busy for a while.
Charlie stared at the second card she had made for a long time. The one for her mother was already addressed in an envelope and ready to go but she wasn't sure what to do with the second card. It was pretty generic card as far as she was concerned. Eventually, she signed it, addressed it and slipped it into an envelope.
"Here," Lane said, handing Luke an envelope on Valentine's Day.
"Lane," he started.
"It's not from me," she assured him, thrusting the card at him again. He rolled his eyes and sighed as he opened it. He made sure no one was looking when he finally pulled the card out. He frowned at the shower of glitter that now covered his hand before he opened it.
'Happy Valentine's Day Dad!' it read. He frowned a little, thinking it had to be a mistake before he saw who it was from. He shook his head and put the card back in the envelope and disappeared into the stock room. He quickly pinned it to the board with the rest of the cards Charlie had left for him. Some of them were addressed to Luke, though most were addressed to dad and he knew that he got them because she was mad at Christopher for whatever he hadn't done this time. And it was also easier just to make the card the way the teacher wanted than to argue with them.
He stared at the board, covered in cards Charlie had given him, every holiday, for the last year. He had been working up the courage to finally ask Lorelai out for some time, but he didn't want to upset Charlie. Maybe the board he kept in the store room was a sign.
That, and Liz's wedding was coming up next week.
Charlie's 15
"Fuck me with a limp noodle," Charlie muttered as she read her report card.
"Pleasant," Amber said as she came up beside her. "Ouch," she said when she saw the B's and A's, more B's than A's, in Charlie's report card.
"Indeed," she said as she stared at the report card a few moments longer before she heaved a sigh and folded it closed. "Okay, off to face the music. Maybe I'll get REALLY lucky and Maddy and Liam will have had an off semester." Amber looked at her for a moment. "You're right, who am I kidding?" she asked as she threw her hands in the air before she stalked off towards the bus stop.
"Hey Sweets!" Lorelai said cheerfully as Charlie wandered into the Dragonfly Inn.
"Hey," she said as she flopped down on the couch across from the reception desk.
"Know what day it is?" she asked excitedly as she came to sit on the couch too.
"The day my life ends?" she asked.
"Report card day!" she said excitedly. "Wait, what do you mean the day your life ends?" Charlie sighed and waived the report card in her face.
"Give me a 5 minute head start," she said as she got up and headed into the kitchen. "Chocolate?"
"Over there kitten," Sookie replied. "What's wrong."
"Wait for it," she muttered as she pulled the mixing bowl of chocolate chunks into her arms.
"Charlotte Abigail!" Lorelai called out as she stormed into the kitchen. "What's this?" Charlie just looked at her, but didn't say anything. "This is barely a 3.3 average."
"I know," she said. Charlie and Sookie watched as Lorelai's face hit about 18 different shades of red. "I know," she said again, a few more pieces of chocolate going into her mouth. "I'm going home," she said as she slid off her stool. Lorelai shook her head as she watched Charlie leave the Inn.
"That kid. . . " she said, still shaking her head.
"It's not like she tanked the year," Sookie said quietly.
"She can do so much better Sookie. She's just as smart as Rory, maybe even more so! Why does she do this?"
"Didn't you once tell me that you were smart, but not the greatest student?" Sookie asked. "Maybe school just isn't her thing."
"Then why did she want to go to Chilton so bad? We offered it to her, we didn't make her go! We were happy for her to stay here! We also could have saved $20,000."
"She doesn't want to disappoint you and Luke," Sookie replied with a smile as she handed Lorelai a cup of coffee as she plucked the report card from Lorelai's hands to take a look at it.
Charlie hesitated as she got closer to town. As she loosened her tie, she turned and headed towards the diner.
"My grades are ugly, like a rabid spider monkey ugly. Mom has already freaked out slash is still freaking out at the Dragonfly," she announced after walking into the diner. Luke and all the patrons turned to look at her. "So, there, it's out in the open. I'll leave you all to start comparing me to Rory and preparing what you're going to yell at me when you get home," she finished as she turned on her heel and headed home for real this time, her long hair flying out behind her as she squeezed between Liam and Maddy who were heading in to the diner. Luke blinked at the door for a moment before he turned to the diner.
"So everyone's done?" he bellowed when he saw everyone still staring at him and the door. The diner quickly got busy again and Liam and Maddy wandered over to the counter.
Charlie stomped around the house for a while, enjoying the quiet and the echoing of the books and what not that she was throwing around.
"Where'd you stop?" Lorelai called calmly from the living room. Charlie jumped a little, she hadn't seen her mother on the couch.
"The diner," she said calmly, trying to keep the fatigue out of her voice. She nodded as she crossed her legs and sat back against the couch.
"Want to tell me how exactly this happened?"
"No," Charlie replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Ah, let me try that again, this new fangled English and all . . . Want to tell me what happened?"
"It was boring," she finally said. "I got bored and lost interest and just stopped caring for a bit," she said, looking everywhere but at her mother. "A bit too long, apparently."
"You got bored?" Lorelai exclaimed. "We sent you to Chilton to keep you from getting bored!"
"I know!" she exclaimed. "You think I don't know that? I've been sitting on this for three days, THREE DAYS!" she yelled at her mother.
"Charlie," Lorelai started.
"No, no, I don't want to hear it!" she said. "I fucked up!" she exclaimed and this threw Lorelai for a moment. She had always assumed that Charlie' swore, she had just never heard it before. "I fucked up and now you're going to yell at me, and then Liam and Maddy are going to show you and Luke their perfect report cards before they rub it in and you and Luke start yelling again so why don't we just wait until everyone's here so we can just get this over with in one shot, sound good? Great!" she said as she turned on her heel and headed into her room, slamming the door behind her. By the time Lorelai realised what had just happened, Rancid was already blaring from behind the door.
Charlie sulked through dinner and Lorelai stayed pretty quiet as she noticed that everything was playing out exactly as Charlie had predicted. Liam and Maddy were bringing up their grades every chance that got at dinner and that muscle in Luke's jaw twitched ever time they did.
"Enough about school," Lorelai finally said. "There has got to be something other than school to talk about today," she said. Maddy and Liam stopped and looked from her to Charlie to Luke before they looked at each other.
"Okay," Maddy said after a moment and launched into a conversation about what she was planning to do that weekend.
"I'm done," Charlie said quietly as she got up from the table and left the room. Lorelai and Luke both knew this wasn't a normal Charlie funk when they realised her plate was still mostly full.
"So," Lorelai said later that evening.
"I think I should just go back to Stars Hollow High," Charlie said quickly. "I mean, at least when I screw up there, it doesn't cost $5,000 a year."
"Kid, if you're this bored at Chilton, you will shrivel up and die at Stars Hollow High School. Maybe. . . Maybe you need to rethink you're course choices," she said. "You're at midterm, first semester of Grade 11, there's time to think about this."
"What about a different school?" she asked again.
"But I thought. . . "
"One where I can get away from Rory." And it all dawned on Lorelai.
"They still remember her there, huh?"
"Gilmore-Danes. . . You look an awful lot like one Rory Gilmore. Are you related?' and it just gets worse from there. They all want to know why I'm not going out for the Franklin and isn't it a shame I don't have her work ethic? At least I have better social skills than she did, my transcripts won't lack for extra curriculars. . . I know it's stupid to let stuff like this get to me, I mean, I'm not 5 years old anymore. I can't just start throwing a tantrum over everything that doesn't go my way."
"Honey, word is going to get around no matter where you go. Rory was the Great White Hope for the Gilmore clan, she was their second chance to do right and she left a wake 8 million miles wide. Your grandparents talk about her to anyone and everyone who will listen and the social circles are all connected. No matter where you go people are going to know you're Rory Gilmore's kid sister."
"Great, thanks. You are just really . . .super at this make me feel better game," she grumbled as she tossed her pencil across the room.
"If it makes you feel any better, you and me, we're in this together," Lorelai said as she sat down on the bed. "I was the Great White Hope at one point in time," she pointed out. "Then Rory came along and I became the Great White Disappointment. If you think being compared to your sister is bad, try being compared to your daughter. You are my Great White Hope Kid." Charlie turned in her chair slightly to look at her mother. "You and me, we'll never be perfect. We're smart, but we get bored easily."
"We like shiny things too much."
"We do. And chocolate and boots. We don't apply ourselves until we really have to, but when we have to, we blow everybody away. That's why I don't worry about you," she said as she held an arm out. Charlie reluctantly got up and came to sit beside Lorelai. "I know that you will dig yourself into a hole and you realise that, you'll work to get out of it and never dig the same hole again. I worry about Maddy and Liam, that's who I worry about."
"But, they're like Rory," she said, considering this for a moment.
"Exactly. When Rory went bad, she went bad. I mean, yacht stealing, dropping out, living with my parents. . . It was rough and it happened all at once. At least with you, you space out the pit falls. But those two. . . I'm afraid that they're not going to learn how to pick themselves up when things don't go according to plan."
"So, you're disappointed, not mad?"
"Which will make you feel worse?"
"Disappointed."
"Then I'm disappointed, both me and Luke are disappointed."
"I'll do better this year, there's still lots of time to pull my grades up to a respectable 3.8, 3.9 if I really push."
"Charlie, don't do this because you think me and Luke want you to. You need to do this because you want to," Lorelai warned as she stood up from the bed.
"I know," she said as she watched her mother head towards the door. "Tell pop that too."
"I will," she said as she slipped out. She closed the door and heaved a sigh. Charlie was a bit too much like her mother, and that always worried Lorelai more than she liked to admit.