Chapter Text
Pick your left foot up
When your right foot's down
Come on legs keep movin'
Don't you lose no ground
You just keep on keepin'
On the road that you choose
Don't you give up walkin'
'Cause you gave up shoes.
“Ease On Down the Road” from The Wiz (Broadway, 1975)
Back in ‘66, when every night was young and the Broadway lights gave Tiffany’s windows a run for their diamonds, Ricardo Montalban told her, “Pat. Hey, Patty, Pittypat, Pat-on-cue, know what you are?”
They were as drunk as a brace of monkeys (it was that good a premiere), but her feet were seeing him home, even as his arm kept her safe and landlocked. There might be a sailor for her in the late hours, a buccaneer even, who knew? It was that young a night. But for now she was content with Ricardo’s platonic arm by her side. Glad man, wise man, a man to remember.
“A lightmaker,” he said, his tone happy. ”That’s you, Pattycake.”
“Because I leave the rainmaking to you, Ric-o’’ (patting his camel’s-hair lapels).
“No, no. Because I heard you last month, telling that kid Sam to go triple threat even if he never sang or spoke a line in his lifetime - that learning to push his voice forward would give his bod the right chutzpah and, Christ! did you see him tonight?”
She laughed. Yes, young Sam had stepped and piqué’d like nobody’s show business.
“See? I say we move him to front line. You did good there, Patty. You have an eye with the young’uns, and I don’t mean the roving eye. You help them see the light.”
Years later, a well-off, well-rounded (and how!) theatre vet cooling her toes in a small country town, she made his words her motto. No matter how old the kid, be they four (“Or you could help me find words for the song, Rory”), fourteen (“Try boiling the egg in the water , Kirk”), or forty-nine (“Taylor, the sideburns have to go”), Miss Patty lit those lights. She wasn’t always wise, as testified by four divorce courts so far, but her eyes were as good as young, and her heart ditto.
So when young Dean came up to her, tall, dark and wholesome, saying Rory this and Rory that, and would she kindly point him to a job, please and thank you (and Rory)? She felt her heart smile, and sigh across the smile.
“Wearing his hope on his leather sleeve,” she told Babette upon their next catch-up drink. “And a boyfriend bob, oh my. You know, with his hair parted in the middle, very nice hair, too, and -.”
“Ya know the boyfriend bob is what the girl wears, right?”
Miss Patty only raised her majestic chin. “You wait and see,” she said.
Babette waited; Patty saw. Her open-door-policy studio was a stage, filled with colour and life, but it was a first-row seat, too, with an unspoilable view on Stars Hollow’s bigger and continuous variety revue. Stars Hollow was a show that kept giving, with Miss Patty a keen spectator, and, like Shakespeare’s Puck, an actor too if she saw cause. And while Dean and Rory’s idyl was only one of many songs and dances, a foil to Taylor’s Pulcinello act or the will-they-won’t-they tap duet of Luke and Lorelai, it was a dear one. Over the year, Miss Patty watched Rory bloom from introvert to ingénue, coaxed by that good strong love to unfurl her petals one by one and take a step into the limelight. Even their quarrels were prop quarrels (Miss Patty had lent the Donna Reed dress - a relic of her Band Wagon days). Comedies of errors, April rains brought to a kiss and a quick rainbow by a riff on the town minstrel’s guitar.
Ah, young love.
When their big number came - a white ballet, no less, attended by the most elite audience - Dean came again to her for help, and Miss Patty was thrilled to play dancing coach. Again. (And again, long after Rory had gone home; his “I don’t want to let her down” slightly too anxious, loaded with more than a mere “I don’t want to trip and land her in the caviar fountain”). But he made it. They both did, Lorelai prattled the next day, promising her a picture for her memento wall. And they looked so great nailing their big number, every inch - yard, in his case - Mr. and Mrs. Bride Barbie in that white-iced cake of a decor, mmmm, butter cake!
Only later did Patty remember - the big number comes right before curtain.
And only in showbiz does curtain (courtesy of Mr. Lloyd Webber) equate love never dies .
In life, the show does go on. And, Patty knew to her loss, loves nothing more than to call out “Change partners!” while the first violins are still hot and panting in your ear. Oh, she knew. She knew the minute she stepped out of the Independence Inn for a breather, having declined the horse (too frisky) and driver (not half frisky enough) in favour of an apéritif, and spotted Rory’s sleigh returning with its cargo of two. She stayed under cover of the gigantic blue spruce in the yard and waited, and she saw more than enough.
She was not surprised when, upon her going to Mass the next day, Reverend Skinner ambushed her at the church door and said, “Taylor’s just informed me that we have a local snowman iconoclast. Should I be concerned?”
“I doubt he’ll target your Nativity next, Archie. It's February.”
“About Taylor.” The wise brown gaze, Ricardo’s true heir, found and held hers. “Young Forester works for him, doesn’t he? And Taylor has never dealt well with breakage.”
Which was Archie’s roundabout How many heartbreaks are we anticipating, to which she could only answer, “Well, he did give Mr. Briscoe a consolatory voucher. For frozen yogurt.”
“Ah yes, the February comfort food.”
“A three-dollar voucher” - Taylor’s bristling head had made itself at home between theirs - “to be fully refunded by Luke, qua guardian of that… that… that desecrator. That mini-mobster menacing us with malicious mischief!”
“Please say that again and make my Sunday, Taylor.”
Taylor, ignoring him, turned to his town vizir. “What was that about Dean, Patty?”
She sidetracked him with a smooth pirouette (verbal these days, alas). But his ear had perked up, and the very next day he summoned her and a few town worthies for an inner circle council because “we need to talk about Dean”. Who, it turned out, had cancelled two shifts in a row so he could work on a car for Rory and, a more cardinal sin, had piled up the canned pears on the shelf dedicated to the canned Borax.
“But where did he store the Borax?” (Andrew, somewhat anxiously.)
“Never mind the Borax! Can’t you see what’s happening here? That boy’s mind is not on his job. He’s unhappy, he’s suspicious - confused - addled in his head and heart, and as a result my shop is on the brink of collapse! We have to do something.”
Kirk, who had somehow gatecrashed the circle, raised his hand. “I disagree. Only the truly confused know that pears rhyme with ears - no confused in his rightful mind would ever pile them up in a public space.”
Not waiting for everybody else to parse this, Taylor took up his point. “I say we roll up our sleeves and put an end to Jess Mariano’s attempt to sabotage Dean’s and Doose’s welfare. Andrew! What books are in your shop window this week?”
Andrew lightened up. “Hamlet. Hemingway. Catcher in the Rye - you know, Holden Caulfield. I’m doing an alphabetic theme this year, and -”
“Throw them out. We don’t want to provide Rory with more Jess fuel. From now on, until further municipal notice, you will display biographies of pure, healthy, hard-working baseball players. Reverend!”
“Let me guess. You want me to impress young Rory with a sermon on conjugal fidelity?”
“Well, yes, now you mention it. What about the Cana episode? You know - the good wine comes first and the cheap wine second, so make sure you stick to the first if you know what’s good for you.”
“Ah, but Jesus would beg to differ. He made it so the best wine was served last.”
Thus was the meeting brought to its inconclusive end. Not that Patty wished it otherwise. Jess Mariano might have cast himself as Stars Hollow's Lord of Misrule, but that was no reason to sic Stars Hollow on him. Patty still recalled Dean’s brief and entirely unfair stay in the town doghouse after his first break-up with Rory - a lesson that, while it may take a village to raise a child, said village has no damn call to go and pitchfork up against another kid. She told Taylor so in no uncertain terms and took home his Et tu, Patty? reproving look.
Still, what he said about Dean...
She felt uneasy. She felt the old itch brush her toes, the urge to step in and drill them through their next act before it ended up a trainwreck, well, sleigh wreck (to say nothing of that new car). It felt to her that she still had unfinished business with the young things, especially Dean. She had found him a job; taught him to dance; consequently, she experienced the age-old paradox that the more you help someone out, the more you feel a sense of obligation to them. Rory’s Dean he might be, but he’d been Patty’s Dean first. A subtle, invisible thread of responsibility shimmered between them, for her eyes only.
Yet nothing much happened. Rory's life continued to orbit around its double foci of school and Mom, tacking on an honorary focus, which was to let Jess watch her like a hawk in a hoodie. Dean watched Jess watching her. Patty watched Dean watching Jess watch Rory - and sighed a heartfelt sigh. That boy got more trouble than the entire cast of The Music Man.
He was growing fast, their Dean-o, and she joked about it with Lorelei and Babette (“We have a Morey contender!”). Yet a fear lurked at the bottom of the quip - that the heart’s growing pains would be too much for him. He put her in mind of the yellow daisy she’d picked up on the market place at the close of summer, when they’d come in thousands (all right, one thousand); or rather, he reminded her of another flower long ago, the reason she’d plucked a yellow souvenir of Lorelei’s amours. The longago flower had been a daffodil - Sinjen’s gift to her when they were young and in love, three parts broke to one part on the roll, so cars were sadly off the cards. Patty had kept it in a tumbler as long as she could. After a while, the water in the glass had taken on a lovely yellow-gold sheen, as if taking its cue straight from the flower. A thing of beauty! But, not long after, the yellow in the glass had clouded up and turned bilious, even as the flower’s bell shrivelled and browned.
She feared that the same might happen to Dean, who had let his love for Rory colour him through and through.
No heart, however young and strong, can take that much stagnancy.
February had a meltdown; March breezed in with translucent light, crayon blue skies and ye auld courting auctions.
Up woke the old husband fever, regular as hay fever. Patty bought her basket early; dug out Sergio’s yellowing, dog-eared cookery book (he’d known the way to her heart all right) and let the nostalgia take over. Not that it ever did her any good. But, just for a night, it was good to swathe herself in the warm scents of sage and butter, chaperoning Sergio’s focaccia, toss a gourmet salad and lash out on orange syrup and cardamome as she rolled that last baklava finger. As a finishing touch she tied a large velvet bow to the basket handle. Que sera, sera, as poor Doris had shrugged on their respective fourth and third bachelorette nights, a shared-cost extravaganza at Studio 64.
Love was on the cards, Patty decided, and even found time to set up a four-of-a-kind for Lorelai. (Still young. Very much in need of a light - no, make that a laser show.)
But all thoughts of out-Daying Doris vanished the moment Dean launched his bid and Jess launched his rocket attack. She had seen some pretty harsh public scenes in her days, but this? Was a new harsh. And so she waited for Rory to parr the crisis with the obvious repartee: that while the rules made it compulsory for her to escort Jess, she woud have Dean escort her. Our duo is now up to three, and that’s the bottom line. Surely, any girl in love - be they half the wit and quote boffin Rory was - would know what to say?
Rory made it as far as rules.
Patty waited until Dean had stormed off, then waited a bit more because the Lorelai auction was on, and so was her barbershop quartet, beautiful lads, all chiming in, aaaaand - yes! She watched Lorelai take off like a roadrunner, and then she stepped forward, extracted her own basket with a First Lady privilege, young lady glare at the bit of fluff co-hosting Taylor’s show, and left the square.
She didn’t hurry. Dean would be on his way back from home, driven by love and confusion (and hunger - Patty bet he’d starved himself against Rory’s warning, the better to enjoy her Gilmore-brand munchies). Ah yes, there he was - wound up and tight-lipped from a frustration some would have found droll, others sullen, while it was only Dean's heavy heart weighing on his face and gaze.
Hugging the basket to her bosom, she called “Dean! The very man. I need help, Dean - or rather, this does.”
Man did it - maybe - or her best-staged look of helplessness. Slowly, with reluctant steps, he came back.
“... Patty?”
“Nobody would bid on it, poor thing,” she lied. “I guess it’s just not my day - but eh, c’est la vie. Only I made my best salad for two and home-made focaccia, and these never keep well. Please, honey, be my guest? I’ll feel better if it’s not just me eating my own lunch behind a bush.”
He paused - as he always did, whenever she needed a hand packing up lollipop costumes or fixing Taylor’s mike pre-town council. Sweet boy.
“I… I was looking for Lorelai” (only half-sullen now).
“Oh, honey, she’s with Luke.” Enjoying that laser show - hopefully. “And I’d be ever so grateful. This way I can boast the fried chicken and I had savory company for lunch!”
Ah, a tentative smile. Dimple-less and barely there, but still. Bless that chicken.
“You’re on, both of you. Gazebo?”
“Already lit up.” She smiled at his baffled gaze. “Take me home, honey. It’s just across the square.”
Back at the studio, she gave him a chair to sit on and let him eat to his heart’s content. He was still a growing boy, and as such had three goes at the chicken and still plenty of room for her baklavas, which made him a very nice, if very chaste, revel companion. Most men picked at their plates and looked a bit green around the gills when she called “Pudding!”, but Dean’s eyes lit right up. He gave her thanks by offering to make the coffee himself.
Patty knew a cue when it entered front stage. “Oh yes, thank you, Dean. Who better than our Gilmore Boy.”
“Am I?” Ah. The bitterness up and at it, if muffled by the orange syrup. “Not with that jerk going for the champion title.”
“You mean Jess.”
“Yeah, I do! Who else? It’s not like his kind comes in doz -.” Dean paused in contrition. Remembering where he was and whose wittles he’d just shared. “Sorry, Patty. I didn’t mean to row you. But… he… he… you saw what he did over there. With me and Rory.”
“Hmm-hmm.” The chiaroscuro in her studio was soft, contemplative; the large wooden doors slid half way closed to craft the right mood for her yoga ladies. It would have been tempting to leave Dean in its shade - if the shade had done him any good. “And I saw what Rory did.”
“It’s not her fault! He messed with her, that’s all. Flashing his bucks like I’m a small-change punk, a cheap date. Like the best I can do is take her out to Doose’s and give her a discount on shampoo!”
“Dean…” She was starting to sniff an older complaint.
“Straight from Tristan’s book.” (Bingo.) “Christ, what’s with those jerks and books? You’d think there’s a Connecticut Douche Central and they just keep spreading the word around. And Rory, she...”
He stopped, because making Rory a subject instead of he or they was opening a new can of worms and he wouldn’t pick one, wouldn’t risk baiting an uneasy truth with it. Instead, he got up and shoved his hands deep down his pockets, the teenager’s seal-my-lips. Immediately to his left, blocking the sun’s path, was the picture of Rory that Lorelei had given Patty - Rory’s clear young face, looking up from clouds of demure silk. Dean stared at it. “Yeah,” he said, half for himself, “Yeah, that’s her. She’s so bright, okay? She makes you feel the world’s a sunnier place, just looking at her. But these days, she’s...”
“...Yes?”
“Like this. Like she’s a close-up, but too far away to touch.”
(It was, in Patty’s opinion, the saddest line ever spoken on a podium.)