╭ ╮
━━━ " 📂 " ..⃗. ༉
𝘿 𝘼 𝙉 𝘿 𝙀 𝙇 𝙄 𝙊 𝙉 𝙎
! chapter five ─── ʚĭɞ
╰ ╯
"REMIND ME WHY I'M HERE AGAIN?"
Evie had a look on her face that resembled the expression someone got when smelling something particularly horrible, looking around the hall, eyes landing on far too many flower arrangements and tables with white tablecloths and the sign that detailed it to be a 'Daughters of the American Revolution Debutante Ball'.
Yet another thing that she had been too far too many times.
Except now, she wasn't the one with a white dress bundled into a garment bag. Instead, she was stood besides Lorelai in one of the Gilmore woman's creations - a very pretty dark red dress, with black flower detailing and the odd sparkle here and there, a band of sequins under her bust and over the flat neckline, which the thin straps were sewn onto.
On her feet were a pair of shiny black Mary Jane heels that had taken up a good portion of her bag on her way there, her hair was already pulled up into a style that Lorelai was far too good at, around her neck was the locket that once belonged to her mother and lip gloss that Lorelai had given to her.
"To support me." Rory leaned forward, looking over to her half-sister from the other side of her mother. "Really, I have no idea what I'm doing, and you're the only person who knows anything about this."
"That and Emily wants to see you, properly this time." Lorelai looked around the room, past the multitude of staff as they hurried around. "Well, this is it."
"Wow this place is huge!" Rory seemed to get the idea that the subject of conversation had now changed, and Evie folded her arms over her stomach. "Do I have to walk down those stairs?"
"I'm afraid so." Lorelai nodded, all three girls letting their eyes wander over the wooden panels, momentarily distracted by the flowers wound around the hand railing. "Unless you want to make a really memorable entrance and slide down the banister, which I totally encourage."
"But then you'll get nasty looks from all the old ladies that judge you for the entirety of the night." Evie added, making the mental decision to just enjoy whatever the night was going to be. She could easily sneak behind the bar, from the looks of it. "It would be really memorable though, so I'm with Lorelai on this one."
Their attention was drawn to a rather small woman with a haunty expression and a clipboard sliding in front of them. "You are..?" She asked, Rory glancing over to Evie with an expression matching the question 'old ladies like this one?'. To which she got a nod and now needed to hide her laughter.
"Lorelai Gilmore?" Rory replied, swallowing back giggles.
"Late." The woman corrected.
"Sorry. My fault." Lorelai stepped in. "Took me a while to get pretty, not all of us are sixteen anymore - you know what I mean? And I had an extra one tonight as well." She gestured to Evie, who offered a smile.
"You're not on my list." The woman looked between her clipboard and Evelyn for a second, before turning to Lorelai. "This is highly unusual and completely against-"
"Oh no." Evie quickly stepped in as she heard the tone getting worse and much more rude, as well as louder and was beginning to attract attention from others waiting. "I'm not presenting. I've already been to like three of those things back in California, so I'm not interested in a fourth."
"Ah.. California." The woman looked over Evie with a rather distasteful expression, then looking back at Rory. "You are to head up the stairs. The preparation room is on the right."
"Look for the toxic cloud of Chanel and Final Net." Lorelai nudged Rory and sent her towards the staircase. The pushy clipboard woman led the way, the Gilmore girl glancing back, uncertain, watching as both Evie and Lorelai held up their arm, second hand imitating sliding down it like a bannister. "Geez, I was kidding when I said about you being a mini-me, but you're closer to that than I was even expecting."
"Your mom is gonna be horrified." Evie replied sagely, her eyes on the entrance. "She has high expectations for me, I think."
"Well here - take those photos so you can keep her entertained for a bit." Lorelai hurried to extract the pile from her bag, pressing them into Evie's hands. "Now I see a bar, you go wait somewhere - preferably where my mom can't find you, and I'll be getting something to drink."
"Get me something?" Evie called after her, her words causing Lorelai to pause and look back at her. "Champagne, preferably." She added, seeing the confusion. Then she realised why. "But.. ask to add some orange juice to it?"
Lorelai shook her head, and Evelyn couldn't tell if she was going to get her something or not. Either way, she would end up with some champagne even if she had to get it herself.
Following the advice, Evie decided that it was probably best to find herself a somewhat quiet corner and she twisted around the crowds, one particularly quiet area beside a large flower arrangement her goal. There she could hide out not only from Emily Gilmore, but her father as well.
She had at least an hour and a half to kill before Rory would be walking and glancing around, the checked that nobody was around before pulling the side of her skirts upwards, extracting the book that she had stapped to her thigh. It was a paperback and although she wasn't particularly keen on putting a permanent curve in it, she wasn't allowed to put one in Lorelai's bag and now that she was here, well there was nothing they could do about it.
"Ah yes, a rather useful hiding place." A prim-tone made Evie jump out of her skin, letting the skirts drop as she turned back to see Emily stood in front of her. She had the sudden feeling over needing to curtsey to the woman in front of her, but instead just smiled weakly. "I've seen it far too many times with Lorelai to actually feel surprised."
"Good evening Mrs Gilmore." Evie cleared her throat, clutching the book to her chest. "You look lovely tonight."
"Although, I suppose I am glad that it is a book and not alcohol of some form." Mrs Gilmore continued thoughtfully. "And thank you, I suppose Lorelai made your dress?"
"Yes, she's been working really hard on it over the past few days." Evie didn't dare to even smile at the small hint of irony that Lorelai might possibly be getting her a drink from the bar at that very moment. "Mrs Gilmore, I have those photos you asked for, I'm sorry I couldn't get them to you sooner."
"Emily is fine." Mrs Gilmore smiled, taking the stack of photos that Evie offered to her. "Oh don't you look wonderful. If I was on good terms with Straube and Francine I would congratulate them on making sure that you experienced a Debutante Ball properly - and chose appropriate dates no less. Just wait until I show these to Sunny and the girls."
"Yes, they did a good job." Evie nodded, lying through her teeth - well, her tone was compeltely false. If there was any two people she hated more than her father at this point in time, it was his parents. They were just so judgemental about everything, which Evie hated.
"We really must see about enrolling you at Chilton." Emily thought aloud. "Really, I can't believe Lorelai is letting a society girl attend a public high school. It's despicable."
"I don't know how long I'm planning on staying here." Evie interjected. "Otherwise I believe I would be attending. However it would be an awful waste of money if I did attend now."
"Money's no problem!" Emily looked up from the photographs, tucking them in her bag. "Has Christopher arrived yet? I must talk to him about this, really it's unacceptable."
Evie was pulled forward by the woman, dodging around several staff in their black and white outfits. She didn't even try to fight against it, just letting out a sign and allowing herself to be subjected to it.
It was going to be a long night.
⩩≀𓈒
Evie was finally let go of some time later when it was made apparent that Christopher was nowhere to be found. A blessing in all ways of the word. Instead, Emily muttered something about baby's-breath, the proper height of tapers and finding her husband, leaving Evie by the bar.
Which was, again, a blessing.
And now she was sat at the table with her name card, sipping on a flute of champagne without a drop of orange juice in it, book balanced in her lap and only a couple of photos from her pile on the cotton table cloth in front of her - another thing that Emily had commented it on whilst extracting several of her photographs to show her friends.
"Did Lorelai get you that?" Christopher's tone was friendly as he approached his daughter, nodding at the glass in her hand. "I didn't think you would be allowed to bring a book to one of these things."
"I snuck it in. Would've thought Lorelai would encourage me to do something I'm not supposed to do, but this is supposed to be a social event and she said something about me having to suffer the same fate as her with the stuffy society ladies." Evie shrugged, folding the page and placing her book down. "And no, I got it myself. It wasn't hard to convince Steve that I was someone's older sister. Don't think he believed me that much, but he's not getting paid enough."
"First name basis with the bartender, huh?" Christopher had seen it several times before - he had ended up picking up his daughter from quite a few of these society events that her friends in California had taken her to, all of in which she had become friends with someone in there supplying alcohol.
"I wouldn't think you'd been too happy about that." Evie replied, looking up at the man as he pulled out the chair beside her, which unfortunately held the tiny piece of card that held his name.
"Don't really think this is a great place to make a scene. Far too many people watching. Although I don't think you'd be too embarrassed by a shouting match here, right?" He was being nice to her, really nice to her, but it just seemed forced, as if he was trying to stop himself from causing an argument.
"You're right. I wouldn't." Evie was avoiding his gaze expertly, eyes remaining across the room on Lorelai, who didn't seem to be too happy to be trapped amongst a group of her old school friends.
"I think we should have a discussion about what's happened. Because I don't want to leave you here on bad terms." Christopher said, loosing the fun edge to his voice and sounding more formal now, more fatherly.
"Can't say I'm surprised that you're leaving me here." Evelyn turned towards him. "But alright, what are we starting with? You kicking me out, you pretending that everything was alright after telling me that you were kicking me out? You being a general dickhead, me running away to Connecticut from California and you not bothering to call for a couple days?"
"You decided to run away at a pretty fortunate time, coincidentally." Christopher began, and those few words shocked Evie into silence. She had not expected that, to say the least. "I'm not saying that it's a good thing you ran away, but it's let me have some space to clear my head and figure out what I'm going to do."
"What you're going to do about what, exactly?"
"About you. This behaviour, this attitude that you have is completely unacceptable. I could excuse you leaving your own Debutante Ball, seeing as these events are majorly stuffy, but running away to Venice Beach with your date for several days is by far one of the worst things you've done." Christopher continued.
"I could argue I've done worse." Evie mused, tone far too light and breezy for what she was hearing.
"Yes, yes you have." Christopher nodded. "You've stolen cars, stolen money, smoke and drunk for as long as I can remember. You've almost been expelled from school too many times to count, skipped and talked back to teachers, gotten detentions and missed them. I don't suppose you can imagine how hard it is for me to explain to Emily Gilmore that not only would it be a waste of money for you to attend Chilton because I don't know how long you'll be staying here but also because you won't even turn up half the time!"
"Can't argue with that. Schools like that are filled with stuck up bitches who think they're better than anyone else just because they have their first botox appointment in two weeks." Evie mused, watching as bubbles in her drink fizzled and danced.
"And there you go with that attitude again!" Christopher say back in his seat, shaking his head. "You've caused far too much trouble for me, I have spent too much time defending you to Sherry only for you to prove that everything she was saying was right!"
Evie's heart thumped sickeningly in her chest. "Sherry?" She repeated, flicking through her memories and trying to locate the one in which she heard that name before. It wasn't easy. "Who's Sherry?" She asked eventually, feeling sicker by the second.
"My girlfriend from Boston. Which is why I thought it was ironically good timing for you to run away. Because I'm moving there with her." Christopher revealed. "And this isn't the way I would have thought to tell you, but here we are."
"Do you have any room for me in your new life?" Despite her lack of interest in school, Evie was a clever girl and it wasn't hard at all to put together the pieces. "I'm guessing not, seeing as you've said you were leaving but haven't said anything about me."
"Sherry has put up with a lot from me." The Hayden man continued, trying to be as kind as he could about it, but anger was joining his words as he thought back to everything that had happened. "She's given me one chance to get everything together, and that means you as well."
"Great, so it's girlfriend or the kid from the one-night-stand-that-you'll-forever-regret. Thanks a lot for that, Dad." Evie's hands snaked around her waist, ignoring the look from Lorelai asking if everything was okay.
"I'm still going to have to talk to Lorelai about it." Christopher had followed her gaze and that had brought him onto the next point. "If you stay in Stars Hollow, then it gives you a chance to mature and think about your behaviour. I'm not wiping my hands of you, I just can't deal with you anymore. The behaviour is just so out of control. Maybe, in some time we can see about you moving in with me in Boston."
"Right. Okay." Evie picked up her glass, draining the rest of the champagne in one gulp. "Well, let me know when you're planning on visiting. I need a refill."
And with that, Evie uncrossed her legs and stalked across to the bar, blinking unshed tears away.
⩩≀𓈒
It was fair to say that by far, this was the worst of the Debutante Balls that Evie had ever attended. Not to mention it was the only one she wasn't actually being presented in.
She had wrongly assumed that just because she wasn't going to be the one wearing the virginal white dress and walking down the staircase that everything would go swimmingly. But apparently, being in the audience was just as bad as being up there.
At least she wasn't debuting once again, especially after what she had just heard from her father. It would have been incredibly awkward for her to walk alongside him and need to look like a proper lady of society when she had just been told she was practically being disowned.
It was a shock that she hadn't gotten out of there yet, but Lorelai had spotted her eyeing the doorway with an empty glass in her hands and instead guided her to the bar, where they had a very interesting conversation about martinis - which was now that drink that sat in front of her on the table.
(Lorelai wasn't too keen on her drinking just that much considering she had had multiple glasses of champagne already and was almost completely sober. But she had seen the look on her face and decided that one more wasn't going to hurt.)
So now, after touching her makeup up in the bathroom, Evie was sat back at the table with Lorelai on one side, who had disappeared to rescue Emily and Richard from beside the bar - they were arguing about something.
She was watching the first debutante descend down the stairs, feeling sick to her stomach. Arguing could be heard from where she was at; Rory's grandparents had been pulled out of the room by Lorelai.
Evie couldn't quite believe what she had heard. Christopher was letting this Sherry woman dictate how he should live his life and bring up his daughter. It felt awful, and it was so, so cruel.
She felt as if she might actually throw up when she saw Christopher beside Rory, all smiling and illuminated in bright lights as some tune played behind her. And now they were doing that stupid fan dance.
Once upon a time she had been doing that stupid fan dance after being escorted down the stairs by her father. And now here he was, settling down into the empty seats behind her and watching Rory with the feathery white fan complete a dance with other girls who had been presented by their fathers.
He looked so proud of her, so happy to be there. Not once had she seen him looking like that at her. Then she felt like she was going to throw up. Either because of the alcohol or pure jealousy.
"I'm going to the bathroom." She clutched her glass as tightly as possible as she stood up, ignoring Christopher's words as she turned away from the table, offering Lorelai and Emily as she passed them, heading through the doors and turning left.
Pushing open the wooden door, Evie was greeted by the sight of a far too fancy looking bathroom and she stopped in front of the mirror, placing her glass down. "Oh you look like a mess Evelyn." She murmured to herself, leaning forward and using her thumb nail to wipe under her eyes, sighing at the glistening tears.
It wasn't even that she wanted to move to Boston to live with Sherry - who clearly hated her - and her father, who was on his way to that hatred as well. It was just that she felt jealous of Rory, who never saw her father yet was perfect in his eyes.
Evie, since she had found out about just what had happened with her mom knew that there was always going to be something different about her relationship with her father. But not once had she felt it as much as she did right then.
She just wanted to take off the stupid pretty dress, take off the heels which made her feet hurt and take her hair out of the style that made her head itch. But she couldn't, could she?
Rory wanted her to be there, needed her for moral support just in case anything went wrong. Because even if she was surrounded in a group of people there to support her, none of them really had any clue to what it was like.
They didn't understands the nerves of falling on the stairs, or the fear that if you mess it up then you were a disappointment to your family. Poor Eric, who was sweet enough but terrified of failure had almost overdosed in the bathroom later that day because he messed up one of the dances. He had the drugs tucked into his cumberbund and was never allowed to wear one again - she would know, he had luckily lived to tell the tale and they still talked from time to time.
But for Christopher it wasn't about her walking down the stairs perfectly or not stumbling when you did the fan dance. No, it was everything outside of the Debutante Balls, everything that Rory did perfectly.
She swallowed the rest of her martini and left the glass on the sink counter, turning back towards the door and stepping out again. But she breezed past the archway back into the room, stopping by the coat check to steal twenty missable dollars from someone's purse and left the hall all together.
If she saw Christopher looking so proud one more time she was going to erupt, so instead, she was going to take a bus and head back to the place that Christopher had decided would fix her shitty behaviour.
⩩≀𓈒
"Cinderella's had a makeover since I last saw her." Jess looked up as the door to the empty diner was pushed open. "Where's the rest of them? Debutante Ball end up getting flooded or something?"
"No, but you'd need a flood to water all those flowers." Evie sighed, looking around the diner and the lack of people in it. "Slow night, huh?"
"Yup. Luke's upstairs if you want something to eat."
"Nah, I'm good. But please tell me you've ignored everything Luke's said about smoking and still have some cigarettes somewhere?" Evie asked, looking apprehensive. "Stupid fan dance made me feel antsy."
"Fan dance?" Jess repeated, trying his very hardest not to laugh. "But yeah, I've got some." He nodded, disappearing into the back room for a second, Evie raising her eyebrows as she heard some banging before returning with a small cardboard box and a lighter.
Minutes later and they were sat on the steps in front of the diner, cigarette lighted and being passed between them. "They're my last few." He had admitted seconds before, taking it from the girl beside him.
"I think Luke's put the whole town on lookout." Evie shook her head. "Out of all the things he knows about me and smoking is the thing that bothers him."
"Yeah, it's pissing me off." Jess mumbled, letting her steal it back and take a couple of drags. "So, what was it that led to you leaving? Didn't you say something like a fan dance."
"Well I just discovered that it's nothing like what they write about in books." Evie sighed, sitting forward and balancing her elbows on her knees, leaning down to undo the buckle on her shoes and kicking them off. "Joking. I've already done three of them and that was the first time I've been in the audience."
"So that's why you're not in the white dress and definitely made friends with the bartender." Jess sat back against the windows of the shop. "Ladies of society are rolling in their graves at the thought of this."
"Oh I saw at least twenty of them looking like they were planning on murdering me. Some of those hairpins are lethal. But Steve saved me with champagne and martinis." Evie passed the cigarette back. "Not my chosen drink or scene, believe it or not."
"It's pretty obvious. Shame there wasn't any Leos to whisk you away." Jess thought back to the conversation the previous day.
"No, but there was a really nice bus driver called Oliver who only let me pay for half the fare." Evie replied, shaking her head. "As it turns out, I might be staying here for longer than I expected. I hate Boston anyway."
Jess paused, trying to piece together the two sentences. "You know, getting a little context for conversations is real nice sometimes." He finally said, letting her take the cigarette again, the smell of smoke surrounding them.
"He's moving to Boston, doesn't really appreciate that I almost burnt a pool house down." It wasn't hard to figure out that she was talking about Christopher. "His new girlfriend Sherry who I didn't know about until he told me that she practically told him to kick me out sounds like a bitch anyway, I don't want to live with-"
But she didn't reach the end of her sentence, the door behind them swinging open and the cigarette being pulled out of her hand and crushed under Luke's boot.
"Come on!" He exclaimed, reaching for the discarded packet and lighter. "You're going to kill yourselves!"
"Good."
The man rolled his eyes at the simultaneous reply, shaking his head. "Just at least try and stop, okay?" He referred back to the many different remedies he had gotten for it.
"Give me free fries and coffee in return?" Evie, despite her shitty mood, wasn't one to miss out on an opportunity to try and get the best deal out of someone.
"You work here, you could do that anyways." Luke's face was completely void of emotion, and Evie smiled a little.
"Don't go putting ideas into my head!" She exclaimed. "You are a bad role model, bad!"
"You can really see that you grew up with Lorelai. Come on, I'll cook you some. Jess, go and get one of those packets of gum and take a real good look at the pictures in that flyer." Luke instructed, Evie mouthing her thanks to the boy as he disappeared inside.
Sometime later and the girl was sat in one of the window seats, tapping her nail against the table as she chewed on one of the fries. It tasted as good as always, but it was almost as if she was trying to eat cardboard.
The door was pushed open once again and she looked up, seeing a smiling Rory placing a book and the smaller pile of photos down in front of her, stealing one of her fries.
"Hi.." Evie smiled weakly. "Sorry I left, I.." Her voice dried in her throat. How could she tell Rory that she had left because she felt sick with jealousy about how Christopher treated her.
Luckily, Luke heard her come in and swooped in with conversation about the ball, and not too long later, Lorelai joined them. "Your dad's gone to turn in for the night. He's going to Boston tomorrow morning." The woman said, after saying something about how Rory was eating her burger.
"Oh yeah, I know." Evie nodded, pushing the plate of fries towards Lorelai as she sat down. They were waved away as Luke placed a burger down in front of her.
She zoned out as soon as Christopher was mentioned again, not wanting to rain on either of their parades with just how shitty he had been to her whilst he had made their night. Instead, she just kept on eating her fries, way too focused on one of the pictures of her first ball.
"You alright?" Lorelai asked, as Luke stood by them talking to Rory again, nudging Evie in the side. "You can talk to me if you want, you know that right? I know what Chris has said about you staying."
"No, I'm fine, really." Evie nodded. "I just didn't even know Sherry existed - he's dating someone named after a Journey song and she sounds like a-"
But once again, her complaints about Sherry were cut off as her eyes landed on Jess, who had just returned from upstairs. Dressed exactly like Luke, even one of his old caps pulled onto his head.
And all of a sudden, she was laughing, properly laughing for the first time since she had arrived in Stars Hollow.