"Wow, this place is huge!" I say in disbelief.
Looking around at the ballroom made me feel slightly queasy. There were tables and chairs scattered around the room except for what must be the centre, where we're supposed to dance.
I looked towards the stairs to see that it's dark oak banisters were adorned with flowers of different shades of pink. I could already see myself tripping down them.
Rory, beside me voiced my thoughts. "Do we have to walk down those stairs?" She asked incredulously.
Lorelai grimaces as she answers her daughter. "I'm afraid so."
"Well, unless you want to make a really memorable entrance and slide down the banister," My mother added with a suggestive look at me.
"Which I highly encourage," Lorelai adds.
As I shift my dress in my arms a middle aged woman with a brown bob in a pale pink dress approached us.
She holds her clipboard in her hands as she questions us. "You are?"
"Cassie Quinn and Lorelai Gilmore," I say for the both of us.
"Late," the clipboard lady finishes with a scowl.
Lorelai raised her hand at the clipboard lady's comment. "Sorry, my fault. Took me a while to get pretty."
My mum butted in, "Yeah, not all of us are sixteen anymore."
Clipboard lady ignored our parents and turned to Rory and I. "You two are to head upstairs, the preparation room is on your right."
"Look for the toxic cloud of Chanel and Final Net," Lorelai whispers to Rory.
Giving my mother a small smile, Rory and I begin to head up the stairs. If going up the stairs already gave me a headache I wonder what it would be like going down.
We entered a room full of girls in big and fluffy white dresses sitting around and putting make-up on. Lorelai was right, it did smell like Chanel.
"Hang your dress over there," Clipboard Lady says pointing towards a rack of dresses. "You put your makeup on there, you two will have to share a non-lighted mirror."
Rory and I make a move to hang our dresses on the rack. "Listen up, ladies!" She shouts to get every ones attention. "Everyone must be beautiful and ready to go by seven-thirty."
At this all the girls made noises of horror and began to work twice as fast. Rory and I headed to sit in our seats as we waited to go.
"I can't believe we have an hour and a half," I say to Rory.
However, before she could reply the girl next to her spoke. "I know, I'm never gonna be ready in time." She had someone styling her short blonde hair while she held two different shades of lipstick in her hands.
"God only knows if the swelling on my nose is gonna go down. I just had to inherit my fathers nose," she continues. As if realising that we were here, she introduces her self. "I'm Libby."
Before either one of us could reply, Libby went off talking again. "Which one should I wear? I cannot decide." She holds up the two lipstick she had.
"Oh well, that's a tough one." Rory glances at me for help.
Libby nods her head. "I know right? This is a red-red and this is an orange-red. The wrong one I'll end up looking like a hooker or a teacher."
"That's a lot of pressure," Rory emphasises while looking at me to help her once again.
Libby looks at me for an answer. "Oh, um go with the red-red." I tried.
She nods as if I gave her the right answer. She gives a quick thanks before going off again. "The two minutes you are standing on the stairs will determine your social status for the rest of your life."
"Wow," says Rory.
I thought of myself walking down the stairs in the heels. "What if you trip?"
Libby halts her movements as she looks at us with wide eyes. "I mean not that you would," Rory quickly adds to reassure the girl.
"Speak for yourself," I joke with a chuckle. "Could be a cirque du soleil kind of night."
"You should not even joke about stuff like
that-" Libby stops herself with a grunt of pain as her hair is brushed too harsh. "Ow! There's a head under there, you know!" She snaps at her hairdresser in the mirror.
~~~
Waiting for seven-thirty to come around, Rory and I sat in two chairs in the corner of the room. We didn't want to be in everyone's way as they rushed around with half done hair and make-up.
With a book in both our hands we sat in comfortable silence as we read. Well, slightly less comfortable since the dress I was wearing made it hard to breathe. On second thought, maybe it wasn't the dress. Maybe it was the nerves for tonight.
Considering that my dress looked a lot more comfortable than Rory's one I shouldn't complain. It was slim fitting from the waist up with sleeves that stopped just before my elbow. The dress' skirt starts to fan out with elegant frills and lace towards my ankles.
I see Libby approach us. "You want some?" She asks, holding out a flask that was filled with most likely alcohol.
Rory looks at me with a knowing glance. "None for us, thanks." She says for the two of us as she closes her book, to be polite.
"More for me then," she shrugs. Unlike Rory, I went back to my book. She could hold down the fort for now. I ignored their conversation as Libby said something about neon green puke.
"Cassie?"
I looked up to see Rory looking at me. "Sorry, what was it?"
Libby just grinned. "So, are you gonna marry your escort?" She asked, leaning forward in her chair.
I blinked at her. "Um, no definitely not. I'm not even dating my escort," I explain as Libby looked disappointed. "He's just a friend."
"Huh, I guess it's just Rory then."
I turn to my friend with a raised eyebrow. Rory merely blushed and avoided my gaze. Her and Dean? I mean, I knew they loved each other. I just didn't think it was that much of love.
Before either of us could respond, Libby averted her gaze to someone behind us. "Katie, hi!" I turn around to see who I assumed must be Katie Hettington by the scab on her face. "Too bad about your face," Libby continues sympathetically.
I brush some of my dark hair out of my face. My mother decided to leave it be and just curl it, instead of making some fancy updo. Which I will be forever grateful for.
"Is it horrible?" Katie asks as she turns her head to the side to give us a clear view of her scab.
Libby gets up and gives Katie her hand. "No, you can hardly tell," she lies. "Just walk sideways." They both walk away hand in hand.
Rory and I share a look that said 'yikes', before turning back to our books.
~~~
We were waiting in a line before the stairs. I turned around and saw Rory and Dean engaged in conversation. I decided to give them some privacy by looking for Luke. He said he would be here but I was afraid he wouldn't show. These kind of things weren't really Luke's forte.
Tristan, I wasn't worried about. I saw him a few minutes ago at the bottom of the stairs waiting with the rest of the escorts. I was ready to turn around to ask Dean if he'd seen Luke anywhere when I saw Luke come up behind Rory.
Luke said a quick 'hello' to Rory and Dean before heading over to me. I was not used to seeing Luke all dressed up like this. He was wearing the required suit and tie along with a pair of white gloves. But what really bothered me was the absence of his backwards baseball cap on his head. So now his hair was combed back neatly.
"Hey, kid," He greeted as he came to stand next to me. "You ready?"
"Yeah, surprisingly I am." I state truthfully. "Actually, Luke. I just wanna thank you."
"For what?"
"Well, for all of this," I say gesturing around me. He nodded as he realised what I was talking about. "I know it's not exactly you're kinda thing but, I just hope you know that I'm glad it's you who's here." I explain gratefully.
"Anything for you, Cassie," he says with a small smile.
~~~
"Cassandra Quinn, Daughter of Maria Quinn."
As I walked down the stairs with my arm in Luke's I tried to ignore the few murmurs of people. Unlike Rory who had both her father and mothers name said by the announcer, I only had my mothers. My mother wouldn't even tell me his name so I wasn't surprised to see that she wouldn't tell the announcer either.
The bright spotlight shone brightly on Luke and I as we both made our way carefully down the grand stairs. I was trying very hard not to trip over my own feet. Catching Tristan eyes at the bottom of the stairs he gave me a small wink.
When we got to the foot of the stairs, I had to do a little curtsy that went well with the accompanied elegant music. Luke gave me a small nod before leaving to his designated place.
Tristan approached me and took my arm. We both walked down the aisle with fake smiles plastered on each of our faces. The light making me feel hot. People clapped respectfully as we walked.
"You look like a cloud," Tristan whispered in my ear jokingly.
I lightly elbow him as he staggers to catch his breath. I catch my grandmothers eye from one of the tables. Her light brown hair tied up in a neat bun. She smiled at me lightly, her brown eyes shining.
My eyes trail over to the man next to her, hoping to send my grandfather a small wave. Only to see him leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed. I could see his chest rise evenly and slowly, signalling he was asleep. Can't say I blamed him.
~~~
"My feet hurt," I whined. Sitting down in Luke's with a mug of coffee definitely helped lift my spirits from that dreadful ball. Although the cake was really good there, it wasn't enough to make up for the horrendous fan dance. I kept making funny faces to Rory, trying to get her to laugh. Which resulted in me getting told of by my grandmother.
Luke appeared from the kitchen with three plates in his hands. "Here's your food." He was still clad in his suit and dress shoes but his tie had been discarded the minute we left the ball.
My mum had to accompany my grandparents home to our house, not wanting them too nag her about being a horrible hostess. Lorelai and Rory sat around the table with me, both of them looking at their food with looks of pure joy.
"I think it's safe to say we're never doing that again," Rory remarks before popping a fry in her mouth.
"All those in favour say I," Lorelai added.
"I," everyone chorused in agreement.
From behind Luke I noticed that Jess came down from the apartment upstairs. But what really made me notice him was that fact that he was dressed exactly like Luke. Well not how Luke was dressed now but how he was always dressed.
Jess had on a red flannel and some denim jeans. He also had an a backward baseball cap. He caught my eye and sent me a smirk. He began to wipe down a table near to us.
"Uh, Luke," Lorelai tries as she notices Jess.
"What?" He asks as he follows her gaze. Luke grumbled in annoyance as he starts toward Jess. "What do you think you're doing?"
Without looking up from the table, Jess responds to him. "Working."
Luke puts his hands on his hips. "So you think this is funny, huh?" He asks angrily.
"I'm sorry, I thought this was the uniform," Jess mocks as he faces Luke.
"You know what?" Luke says, clearly done with Jess' new costume "Have you're little joke, that's fine. Doesn't bother me at all. You just go over there and clean off that table"
Jess nods and says a small 'okay' before going back to wiping down the table.
When Jess made no move to change Luke continued. "I'm ignoring you. You do not exist."
Looking up at Luke, Jess says another small 'okay'. Jess made a big show of arranging the salt and pepper while Luke watched him in angry silence, clearly not ignoring him.
"That's it! Get upstairs and change!" Luke had enough and bursted.
Jess drops the rag he had in his hands before looking up at him in mock affection. "Whatever you say Uncle Luke." The rest of us at the table silently held back our laughs at this whole performance.
Luke looked like he had gone crazy. "It's Luke. Just Luke," he says with fake calm. "Mr Luke. In fact, don't address me at all!" He shouts at Jess as he heads up the stairs.