Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series) (8 page)

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Authors: Jennifer Crusie,Leah Wilson

Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Television, #History & Criticism

BOOK: Coffee at Luke's: An Unauthorized Gilmore Girls Gabfest (Smart Pop Series)
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But, as every woman knows, it’s not easy to maintain that best-friend bond over time. And if that bond’s between a mother and a daughter, it seems like it could be particularly tricky. Do you smoke your first cigarette with mom? Your first joint? Is she there to keep your hair out of your face while you’re throwing up on the curb from your first vodka binge? Do you graduate to club hopping together like Lindsay Lohan and her mom?
 
Okay, maybe it’s not in Rory’s character to get into substance abuse and partying, so Lorelai is off the hook there. But what happens when romance comes to Stars Hollow? Many a friendship has fallen apart when a guy becomes “the most important one.” And because the bond between Lorelai and Rory is so ultra-close, when sex and romance enter the picture, their relationship seems particularly vulnerable.
 
The first “intruder” is Max.
 
Max is a teacher at Rory’s school. Lorelai has an affair with him. They’re even gonna get married. Will this upset the balance?
 
Max tries to fit in to the Gilmore household. He cooks them food on pots they didn’t know they owned. He watches
Billy Jack
with them, tolerating how they quote favorite lines, give away the plot, and shush him when he asks questions. But he’s inevitably the odd man out. You really know this relationship is not going to work the night he sleeps over for the first time. Lorelai gets up in the middle of the night and crawls into Rory’s bed. She says it’s weird because she has a “boy in her room.”
 
LORELAI: Wake up, wake up. We’ve not properly talked about this.
 
RORY: About what?
 
LORELAI: About having Max in the house. About the effect on you. Don’t cover up anything. Let’s get it all out in the open.
 
RORY: I don’t have anything to cover up. I like Max.
 
LORELAI: I know you do, and that’s good. But you know, once we are married, nothing will ever be the same again.
 
RORY: I know.
 
LORELAI: It won’t just be the “me and you secret special clubhouse no boys allowed” thing anymore. (“Red Light on the Wedding Night,” 2-3)
 
 
Okay, this is a little unsettling. Lorelai can’t deal with having Max in the house. She can’t allow him to come between her and her Rory. Young, hip mom is freaking out about getting married. When it comes time for her to have what we might call a “mature relationship,” this mom and daughter best-friend bond actually keeps Lorelai from moving forward in her life.
 
And there is something else troublesome here. Even if it means having to rise above her own squeamishness, Rory has to take care of her mom’s emotions. So there’s a rather ironic role reversal going on: the best-friend daughter has to mother the mom.
 
As that same conversation continues, Rory reassures Lorelai that it’s okay to be in a relationship.
 
RORY: Aren’t you happy?
 
LORELAI: Yes. I’m happy.
 
RORY: Well, then it’ll be fine. You’ll get used to it, having Max there.
 
LORELAI: I know. You’re right. I will. I will get used to it. (Lorelai closes her eyes.)
 
RORY: Mom.
 
LORELAI: Hm?
 
RORY: You’re falling asleep.
 
LORELAI: So?
 
RORY: You need to be a big girl and go to your own room.
 
 
As a wannabe hip if not young mom, I can attest to the fact that there is something very appealing about imagining that your daughter is more together than you are—that she has miraculously (or, well, thanks to your best-friend mothering) developed into a human being who can take care of herself, is not too troublesome, and is pretty much together when it comes to love, life, and getting into college. But still, we all know the mom is supposed to be the grown-up and the daughter gets to be the one with the problems. Lorelai and Rory are paying a price for all this chumminess.
 
Lorelai proceeds to dump Max. And she avoids commitment for the next few seasons of the show. Yes, Christopher buzzes in and out of the picture and Luke is always around—at just the right distance. His diner provides a “kitchen away from home,” with the man-figure tantalizingly present yet peripheral.
 
But the center of her world is Rory.
 
And the center of Rory’s world is Lorelai.
 
It cannot, however, stay like this forever. Rory needs to become independent from mom and experience intimate relationships with other people. And Lorelai, no matter how painful the prospect, needs to let her.
 
When fifteen-year-old Rory is dating her first boyfriend, Dean, there is a hint of the trouble to come. Lorelai has to deal with the fact that her daughter is preoccupied with someone who is not Lorelai. Dean is sweet and polite and works part-time in the town grocery store. He helps refill their water cooler and even presents Rory with a car that he’s restored. But Dean isn’t too much of a threat because he’s, well, kinda boring. He isn’t dynamic enough to supplant mom and never presents any kind of challenge to the status quo.
 
But then Jess comes to town.
 
Jess is Luke Danes’s troubled nephew. He lies, steals things, and— even more worrisome—reads a lot, is really good at banter, and is really,
really
good at kissing. (So good, the actor became Alexis Bledel’s real boyfriend off the show.)
 
It’s enough to make a best-friend mom downright schizophrenic. When Jess and Rory get into a car accident, Lorelai goes ballistic and makes it quite clear she doesn’t want her daughter to associate with the guy. Lorelai is in full “mom” mode, and does not resemble a best friend in the least. Her worst fear seems to be that Rory might lose her virginity to Jess.
 
One weird moment happens when Lorelai is eavesdropping on Paris and Rory. When Lorelai hears that Paris has had sex and Rory, now seventeen, is still a virgin, she smugly says to herself, “I’ve got the good kid” (“The Big One,” 3-16).
 
Is this the same woman who had a baby out of wedlock when she was sixteen? Perhaps the prospect of your own daughter having sex makes even the youngest, hippest mom channel Newt Gingrich, Anthony Comstock, and Andrea Dworkin. I do know I never hesitate to remind my daughter that she should always use condoms, even if she’s on the pill, because she could still get syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, AIDS. . . . It’s almost as if I want these frightening diseases to scare her into celibacy, even though I of course want her to enjoy her sexuality.
 
Before too long, Rory seems to have put “losing virginity” on her to-do list. And she tells Lorelai her intentions.
 
RORY: Nothing’s happened yet, but . . . it might. Maybe.
 
LORELAI: Maybe?
 
RORY: Maybe . . . with Jess.
 
LORELAI: Hm, with Jess.
 
RORY: You still want me to tell you everything, right?
 
LORELAI: Yeah. Uh, no. Well—
 
RORY: Which is it?
 
LORELAI: We’re doing this now.
 
RORY: Yes. Which is it?
 
LORELAI: I don’t know.
 
RORY: You’ll let me know?
 
LORELAI: Yeah.
 
RORY: Was that, yeah, you’ll let me know, or yeah, that’s your answer, you wanna know?
 
LORELAI: I guess, I want to know, yes, and now, sure.
 
 
The language is especially awkward. No clever repartee here. When it comes to sex, the Gilmore Girls are as awkward as any mother and daughter.
 
RORY: Well, nothing’s happened.
 
LORELAI: I heard.
 
RORY: But it might.
 
LORELAI: Okay. Could you tell me before it does?
 
RORY: Right before, or—
 
LORELAI: No, just . . . just before.
 
RORY: Okay. (“Swan Song,” 3-14)
 
 
Lorelai’s request to be notified when her daughter is going to have sex seems like a desperate attempt to maintain the status quo: we are best friends; we tell each other everything. She puts her arm around Rory, and Rory puts her arm around Lorelai, and they begin to eat. And they both look very uncomfortable.
 
Rory’s first sexual experience is not destined to be with Jess, though. He leaves town, and Rory goes off to Yale. She doesn’t get serious with any guy her first year of college. And then she ends up having sex, surprisingly, with the now-married Dean. And she does not consult with Lorelai first.
 
When Lorelai discovers the truth, she does not take it well. She insults Rory in a very Emilyesque way. “I didn’t raise you to be like this. I didn’t raise you to be the kind of girl who sleeps with someone else’s husband” (“Raincoats and Recipes,” 4-22). In fact, she reduces Rory to tears. The season ends with the two fighting and then picks up again in the same place in the fall.
 
LORELAI: I give up. It’s your life. Do what you want.
 
RORY: Thank you.
 
LORELAI: You’re nineteen. You know what you’re doing.
 
RORY: I do know what I’m doing.
 
LORELAI: So you don’t want to talk. We won’t talk.
 
RORY: Good.
 
LORELAI: I wasn’t thinking we had to talk like mom and kid. I thought we could talk as friends, but hey, forget it.
 
RORY: I will. (“Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller,” 5-1)
 
 
Now that Rory has an active sex life, it’s just not the same between mother and daughter. I think it would be safe to say that for most mothers and daughters—even today’s most chummy ones—this is a point in the relationship where there is a drawing back. There’s just something so intrinsically icky (for lack of a better word) about it. Few daughters want to confess to mom about doing the dirty. And even the coolest Boomer mom isn’t too keen on hearing the details of her daughter’s sex life. You could argue that this is a time when communication is more important than ever. (Yes, I am trying to sound mature, here.) But hey, who wants to discuss topics like,
Where did you get those cherry-flavored ribbed condoms I found in your sock drawer?
 
I don’t know exactly when my daughter lost her virginity. For a long time, I assumed this was something I would most certainly know. I thought, when the time came, I’d be too curious not to ask. But the more she was doing, the more I shied away from the specifics. It just didn’t seem like my business. My comments became more cautionary, hers more dismissive.
 
ME: Please just make sure that you only have sex with someone when you’re in a loving, happy relationship.
 
HER: Mom, you’ve been watching too much
Gilmore Girls
.
 
 
In any case, the relationship with Dean does not last long. Rory is settling in at Yale; basically, he has no chance. Rory becomes preoccupied with the ultimate threat to the mom and daughter best-friend bond: Logan Huntzberger.
 
Logan, a student at Yale, is the son of an extremely wealthy newspaperman. His family is exemplary of everything Lorelai despises about the social sphere in which her parents orbit.
 
Rory is incredibly attracted to him.
 
And she’s really afraid to let her mother know this.
 
Lorelai is quite clear on how she feels about “vapid, selfish” rich people like the Huntzbergers: “These people live in a universe where they feel entitled to get what they want, when they want it, and they don’t care who’s in their way. I hate that world” (“Wedding Bell Blues,” 5-13).
 
The romance blossoms anyway, and Rory keeps that pretty quiet. But then Logan’s father undercuts Rory’s abilities as a journalist. In the grips of an extreme meltdown, Rory proceeds to steal a boat with Logan, get arrested, and drop out of Yale.
 
Lorelai handles the theft and arrest parts of the meltdown with all the coolness of a young, hip mom. But she can’t stand the idea that Rory is giving up her Ivy League education—the opportunity that Lorelai never had. Mother and daughter have it out, and Lorelai blames Logan, saying everything has gone wrong since Rory started seeing him.

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