Three Letters Emily Gilmore Never Sent

by >>Jae

1.

"Up on the roof," Patsy said as she came through the door. "Now."

Emily said, "I'm studying," but Patsy ignored her. She opened the window and began to climb, her long legs in their silk stockings disappearing up the fire escape. Emily listened to the sound of Patsy's heels pattering like rain on the wrought iron, then sighed and put her book aside. When Patsy wanted something, there was nothing to do but follow her.

Outside Patsy lounged against the low brick wall that framed the rooftop. As Emily watched, she pulled a silver lighter from her pocket and lit a Gauloise. She gestured to the old wooden chair they'd liberated from the second-floor sitting room at the beginning of the year. Emily wiped the seat carefully with her handkerchief and then sat down. "It was dirty," she said when Patsy raised an eyebrow.

"Mimi Van Zucker," Patsy said slowly. Emily crossed her legs, lifted her chin and looked at her. "Mimi. Van Zucker," Patsy said again. Emily regarded her coolly. "Mimi. Van. Zucker."

"You know, I don't think I look much like a Mimi," Emily said. "But I'll tell you when you hit on the right name. Though if you keep guessing the same one, we might be here quite a while."

"I had to hear it from Mimi Van Zucker," Patsy said. "I thought I was your best friend, but apparently you've become bosom buddies with Mimi --"

"Do not say that name again," Emily said crisply. "And for anyone to become bosom buddies with -- that person, she'd first have to grow a bosom."

Patsy laughed and handed Emily a Gauloise with a bow and a flourish. She leaned over to light Emily's cigarette, and then said, her eyes serious for once, "Weren't you even going to tell me?"

"There was nothing to tell," Emily said. "Of course I can't do it, it's just that Mimi can be so insufferable, with her impeccable taste and her so-called contacts, that I just had to put her in her place. Can you believe it, she actually tried to tell me --"

"Of course you can't do it?" Patsy said. "You can't take a job this summer with one of the top interior design firms in New York City -- in the world? Why, do you have a more pressing engagement at the mental institution?"

"I'd hardly call it a job," Emily said. She took a shallow puff from her cigarette. She detested the dark foreign taste of Gauloises and the shadow they left on her fingertips, but she always took one when Patsy offered. She liked the way her hand looked when she held it. "It doesn't pay anything, which I have always understood to be the point of employment, after all."

"Apprenticeship, then," Patsy said impatiently. "An internship with Bertram Smythe -- "

"You know that was Bertie Smith before he crossed the pond."

"I don't care what his name was then, I only know that everyone knows his name now. And he doesn't offer just anyone a job. It's one of the most sought-after --"

"Oh, please," Emily said. "He liked me when I took his class on design, he thought I was spunky, he said. And I'm sure he thinks I'll help him bring some business into the firm. After all, I have the right accent, the right connections--"

"And impeccable taste, and -- what did he call it when you were in his class? An uncompromising eye, that's right. And that's you exactly -- impeccable and uncompromising. He wants you, Emily, and you absolutely have to do it. You'll never forgive yourself if you miss this chance. Old Bertie will certainly never forgive you, and neither will I!"

"Of course I'm flattered, and I'm going to write him a lovely note thanking him for the great compliment, but I just have too much already scheduled for this summer. I'm completely booked -- honestly, I'm not sure how I'm going to fit everything in!"

"What can you possibly have to do this summer? A few Junior League meetings, dances at the country club, maybe -- oh happy day -- a DAR cotillion?"

"You can try and make those things sound as ridiculous as you like, but the fact is, I enjoy them, and my mother enjoys them, and I have been looking forward to this summer for months now, ever since …" Emily smiled. "Besides, what would Richard say if I were to run off to New York City for the summer? I can't imagine his face if I told him."

"I can," Patsy said. "I'd rather like to see it. But if that's your real objection, why then, just don't tell him in person. Here, we can write him a letter." She rummaged through her pockets, then held up a lipstick triumphantly. She plucked Emily's handkerchief from the ground where it had fallen and said, "Finally this thing will actually come in handy."

"What on earth --"

In sprawling letters of Fire and Ice, Patsy wrote,

Dear Richie,

Your darlingest,
Emily

Despite herself Emily laughed. "Richie," she said. "Oh, I would like to see his face!"

"Then give it to him," Patsy said. She leaned in close to Emily again. "Emily, please, you must come to the city this summer. I'll be working at Harper's -- we can get an apartment together, we'll have so much fun. Can't you picture it? We'd set the city on its ear! Shopping on Fifth Avenue, picnicking in Central Park, dinner and dancing with older men at some smoky jazz club …"

"Older men?" Emily said.

"Or younger men, if you prefer," Patsy said, and Emily laughed again. "Oh, Emily, you must! We'll have such a wonderful summer, so many adventures. It'll be just like Rome!"

"Rome was fun," Emily said.

The summer before she and Patsy had traveled to Rome with a group of girls from school, giggling their way through ancient ruins and flirting with boys in art museums. On their last full day there, Patsy had convinced her to slip away from their group, and more importantly their chaperon. They'd found their way to the Spanish Steps, and then Patsy had insisted they split up. "We can't leave Rome without having a real adventure, each of us on our own. I'll meet you back here at six, and we'll compare notes and see who had the most exciting time." Emily watched Patsy run off easily down the street, and turned in the other direction to head off for her own adventure. But it was drizzling, not enough to be a real rain but just enough to be miserable, and although her Italian was perfectly adequate she was suddenly tired of speaking it. For the first time since they'd arrived, Emily felt a little homesick. Just next to the steps there was an English tearoom, and Emily established herself at a table in the back and ordered tea. A Swiss boy about her age was sitting next to her reading Baudelaire, and she smiled at him when he looked over. When she asked him about his book, he blushed and laid it face down on the seat next to him and talked to her in English about the weather. It was wonderful.

At six Emily had gone out to the Steps to wait for Patsy, warmed all the way through by her tea and her conversation. When Patsy ran up, late as usual, her hair was plastered to her head and she was already talking, stories spilling out about Gianni and his Vespa and his father's osteria. As she chattered Emily grew colder and colder in the drizzle. By the time Patsy asked Emily about her afternoon, she was in no mood to talk. She just wanted to get in out of the rain. "You're mysterious, Emily," Patsy had said, as Emily smiled coolly and led the way back to the hotel.

Now Patsy leaned in confidentially and said, "Come on, Emily, you must do it. Don't you want to have at least one real adventure, something interesting to tell your grandchildren about?"

"Oh, I think I'm interesting enough already," Emily said. She smiled.

Even last summer she wouldn't have been able to say that, not to someone who knew her as well as Patsy. But a month ago she'd been arranging flowers in her mother's dining room, telling Richard some silly story about a dance at the club the year before, when she suddenly looked up and saw him watching her intently, a look in his eyes that she'd never seen before but that made her feel as if any minute the earth would sway beneath her.

"Everything you do is a song," Richard had said, his voice low, and Emily had dropped the flower she'd been holding. Richard looked at her, surprised, as if he couldn't believe he'd said what he had, as if he couldn't believe he was capable of feeling it. Emily's mother had told her once that she'd know she was in love when she found herself entranced by every little thing a man did, when she was interested in the way he lit a cigarette and joked with a waiter and combed his hair. Since then Emily had been entranced several times, by Clark Gable for the length of a movie, by Tommy Morris for the length of a dance. But the trance had always broken by the time the lights came up or the music ended. Now, as Richard looked at her, Emily thought a better measure of love was the feeling she had now, the knowledge that no matter what she was doing or saying, as long as Richard was looking at her she would always be the most fascinating creature in the universe. Richard walked around the table to her, his eyes never leaving her, as if he were afraid that if he looked away she would disappear like a dream. "Emily," he had said, and for the first time she let herself imagine what it would be like to live forever with that look, to live her whole life as the most interesting woman in the world.

"Oh, Emily, you are mysterious," Patsy said, and something in her voice made Emily look at her sharply. "But when you smile like that I can tell it's a lost cause. Guess I'll be alone in the city this summer," and she dropped the handkerchief in Emily's lap and swung herself down the fire escape.

Emily followed her back into the room, crushing the handkerchief in her pocket.

2.

Robert was busy with three other women when Emily walked into the store, but as soon as he saw her he disengaged himself politely and rushed over. "Mrs. Gilmore!" he said. "It's been too long since we've seen you. How may I help you? What fabulous occasion are you planning?"

"Nothing too exciting today, Robert, I'm afraid. I was just in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd stop and pick up one of those journals that Richard loves. The Florentine ones, you know."

"Of course," Robert said. "They are so hard to come by, and so popular, that we're almost out. But I always keep a stash in the back, for special customers."

Emily sat down on a low sofa while Robert disappeared into the back. Idly she leafed through the book of paper samples in front of her. There was no real need for her to stop by; she didn't need any stationery, and even if she had, she had only to call the shop and Robert would see to it. But she had an empty half hour on her hands between a breakfast meeting and a lunch date, and she had always loved this store. It was so quiet and calm, and full of beautiful things that were only beautiful if you knew to look closely, like the intricate marbling of the pages of the Florentine journal Robert was looking for, like the deep dull sheen of the sheet of ivory paper in the sample book she held. Some people might think these things simple pleasures, but Emily knew that no true pleasure was ever simple. In her own desk at home she kept a sheaf of dove gray stationery, and when she was angry or frustrated, sometimes Emily found herself running her fingers over her initials, engraved at the top. It was a pleasure, the cool gray surface, the slight indentations curving beneath her fingertips, and it wasn't simple at all.

The three women Robert had abandoned upon Emily's entrance seemed to have resigned themselves to his absence, and were exclaiming over their own sample book. A mother and two daughters, Emily thought, and the oldest daughter, a year or so younger than Lorelai, was the bride-to-be. Not much blushing about her, with her long face and her wide hips, and the poor girl seemed to know it, too, because she said, "I feel ridiculous."

"Why?" her mother said with a slight shrug, as if they'd had this conversation many times before.

"It's just -- this whole thing. It's not me. It's absurd."

"Of course it's not absurd. Look at this -- do you like this one?"

"Sure," the bride said, "but it's just -- it's so, I don't know. Serious. Formal. I mean, really, I try to picture my name there, and I just can't. And you and dad -- Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Reynolds? Pleased to announce their daughter's wedding? It just sounds, I don't know, it sounds fake, like we're trying to run some sort of scam or something."

"Yeah, you should really try and keep it real a little more with the invites," the other daughter said. "How about something like, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Reynolds are unbelievably relieved to finally announce their daughter's wedding?"

"Kate," the mother said, but the bride laughed.

"Mr. Joseph Reynolds is recovering nicely from his stroke at the announcement that his daughter's fiancé works at a record store."

"Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Reynolds are thrilled at the prospect of grandchildren conceived without the aid of a turkey baster and space age technology."

"Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Reynolds are pleased and just a little surprised to announce that their daughter is apparently not, in fact, a lesbian. Or at least not a very good one --"

"All right," the mother said, and both sisters fell into each other, giggling.

"Come on, mom," the bride said, "you have to admit, any one of those sounds a little more like our family than these invitations. I mean, if the invitations said what you and dad actually feel --"

"If the invitations said what your father and I actually feel," the mother said crisply, "they would say, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Reynolds are overjoyed that their daughter is loved." Her voice stopped suddenly, as if she'd caught her breath, and the bride dropped her head just as suddenly to her mother's shoulder, her forehead wrinkling her mother's neat pink blouse. To anyone looking in from outside the shop, the movement must have looked strange, awkward, but Emily found herself pleased to see it. She couldn't explain why.

"So," the sister said finally, "I guess this is why people don't really keep it real with the wedding invites. Because all the people who were invited would end up puking all over their mail."

"Kate," the mother said, and looked over at Emily apologetically. "I hope we're not disturbing you," she said. "You know how we all get over weddings -- so sentimental."

"Of course," Emily said. She smiled over at them. "You make a very lovely bride," she said, and the older girl finally blushed.

The women went back to their invitation book more quietly, and Emily looked down at the sample book in her lap. Without pausing to think, she slid the ivory sheet of paper out of its protective sleeve. In the open air it was luminous and heavy in her hand, with something both grainy and smooth about the texture. When Emily read the little card in the sample book she almost gasped in delight. The paper had been made with ground pearls.

She spread the sheet out on the glass table in front of her and picked up one of the shop's delicate pens. The paper gave gently under the easy pressure of the ink. Emily followed the motion of her hand as the pen moved across the paper, as if she had nothing to do with what was being written.

In spite of the circumstances, and her suspicions,
And against her better judgment,
Emily Gilmore is
Pleased
That her daughter is loved.

When Emily lifted the pen it made a soft sound like a sigh, as if it were reluctant to stop writing. She read what she'd written and almost snorted, but the presence of the other women restrained her. She started to crumple the paper up, and then paused for a moment. For a moment she thought of asking Robert for a matching envelope, of addressing the letter and leaving it for him to mail so she couldn't change her mind once she'd left the store. She thought of Lorelai opening the envelope at the inn, the clatter of guests around her and in her hands a sheet of paper made of pearls.

Emily read what she'd written again, more slowly. Then she ripped the page into tiny pieces so no one else could read what she'd written, and dropped the pieces in the wastepaper basket. She picked up her purse and nodded at the three women on her way out the door. Lorelai probably wouldn't understand what she'd written. Besides, she was late for her lunch appointment. Robert could send the journal to her.

3.

It was embarrassing, of course. Emily had never made a habit of watching television, and she certainly didn't watch television during the day like one of those glum housewives who ate cheap chocolates while they followed their tedious soap operas. She hadn't even meant to turn the television on. But as she walked through her bedroom she noticed a red light blinking on the DVD player, and as she tried to turn it off the television flared into sudden raucous life.

She ignored it for a moment as she struggled with the player, and then she realized that the names they were talking about seemed very familiar to her. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed. She turned down the sound and leaned in a little closer, glancing at the door in case Esmerelda was nearby. She couldn't help herself. Emily had just re-read Anna Karenina, which she had always loved, and lately she had had no one to talk to about it. The DAR Book Club had selected The Jane Austen Book Club, and then spent their meeting talking about Mimi Van Zucker's third facelift.

For the next few days, Emily kept finding reasons to be in her bedroom at the same time each afternoon. She knew she should be ashamed of herself. The first day, of course, could be excused because Anna Karenina was a work of classic literature. But they certainly weren't talking about classic literature every day after that. Still, Emily couldn't keep herself from watching.

She started to worry about herself a little on Thursday. The show that day was about addictions, "because we all know about being addicted to drugs, or alcohol, or even sex," the expert guest said, and the crowd tittered as Emily rolled her eyes, "but did you know you can be addicted to food, or to dangerous men, or even to pleasing other people? If you can't control your behavior around something, even if you know it's not good for you, then that's an addiction. You don't have to be on crack to be wack!"

The crowd tittered again, and Emily said aloud, "You must be addicted to peplum jackets, because that silhouette is certainly not good for you and no one would be caught dead looking like that if they had any control over their behavior."

The expert looked straight at the camera and said, "If you're saying, oh, not me, I'm not an addict, well, you may be right, and I say good for you. But you need to ask yourself, am I up in my bedroom with the door closed in the middle of the day scarfing down a bag of potato chips? Do I lie to my husband about how much I spent at Wal-Mart? If there's anything you'd be ashamed if your lover or your best friend caught you doing, if there's anything you can't indulge in unless you're hiding out --"

Emily snapped the TV off. Then she picked up the phone.

"Dragonfly Inn, Lorelai speaking."

"Have you ever heard of Oprah?"

"Mom?" Lorelai said. "You know, we've had a lot of conversations that have made me wonder about your sanity, but this is the first time I've ever wondered if maybe it's time to start involving professionals. You're not wearing tinfoil on your head, are you?"

"Very humorous," Emily said. "So you do know her?"

"Yeah, sure, me and Oprah are like this. I hang with her and Ellen all the time, and they're always saying, oh, Lorelai, you're the one who should have your own talk show, but I tell them no, no, I prefer to work live. Helps me keep my edge. Besides, I don't think network TV is ready for me. You know how I love to work blue." Lorelai paused. "This is possibly the strangest thing I've ever said to you, but -- are you watching Oprah?"

"Of course not," Emily snapped, then remembered the doctor on the show, in close-up with her pores revealed, talking about lying to your relatives. "I happened to turn on the television one day and she was talking about Anna Karenina."

"That was a re-run," Lorelai said. "It's been a while since she's done that one. Although let me ask you, was she especially puffy in the episode you saw? Because I have a theory that she starts up with the great works of literature when she's feeling fat."

"You've watched her?"

"Sure. I mean, I live on this planet, after all, and I am a woman, and I believe it's the law. I don't catch it often, though, because of how I have to work and all during the day, but for a while there they were showing a re-run at midnight and sometimes I'd watch that one, whenever I wanted to be reassured that I am beautiful, although not as beautiful as I'd be if I'd just show a little discipline and take the HoHo out of my mouth, and I am smart, definitely smart enough to read great works of literature involving abused women, especially if I'd put down the trashy gossip magazine, and that I am living my best life now, although my absolutely very best life is nowhere near as good as Oprah's on a bad day."

"So you like her?"

"That's what you got from that? Okay, sure, yeah, I like her."

"I thought she seemed very confident. Very self-assured, and persuasive."

"Well, having all the money in the world will do that for you, I guess."

"Don't exaggerate, Lorelai."

"Okay, half the money in the world. Bill Gates has got some, too."

"Lorelai --"

"Mom, are you trying to tell me that you like Oprah? Like, like like her, like you're going to start hanging out in the self-help aisle and honoring your spirit and reading O?

"Reading Oh what?"

"All right, I guess you're safe," Lorelai said. "Although I warn you, if you start, I don't know, getting a life coach or dressing all in the color purple, I'm going to stage an intervention."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Emily said.

"Then all's right with the world," Lorelai chirped. "Gotta go!"

In the end, Emily had no trouble quitting Oprah cold turkey. Two days later Richard returned from his business trip, and then the ballet gala took a turn toward catastrophe and the committee started holding emergency meetings every afternoon, and before long Emily didn't even feel a pang as she passed the big blank eye of the TV on her way through the bedroom. She went so long without even thinking of the show that she didn't even pause to worry when one afternoon, after a meeting she'd been particularly looking forward to was cancelled, she flicked on the TV and watched the last twenty minutes of a show on pampering your spirit. She didn't even flinch a few days later, when she had a horrible, streaming cold and finally retreated to her bed to try and nurse herself back to health with a hot toddy and a special report on animals who rescued people from natural disasters. That was what television was for, after all, mindless entertainment when you weren't feeling yourself. And as long as it only happened every once in a while, no one could call it an addiction, not even a woman with atrocious pores and worse fashion sense.

So Emily didn't feel a moment of guilt when she turned on the TV one afternoon, while Richard was away on another trip and both the house and the pool house felt especially empty. She sat down on the edge of the bed to hear Oprah say, "Now, letter writing is a lost art, and it's such a shame."

Emily settled in, because she agreed with Oprah. It was indeed a lost art.

"Well, you know I'm talking about a very special kind of letter," Oprah's guest said, and both Oprah and Emily leaned a little closer. "You see, every so often I sit down and I write a letter that I have no intention of sending. In fact, I don't even know who I'm writing to until I sit down with my pen!"

"Really?" Oprah and Emily said, although Emily felt she sounded a little more skeptical.

"You see, Oprah, sometimes there are things that you'd like to say to people, things you'd like them to know about you. But maybe that person's no longer with us, or maybe they're no longer in our lives. But just because someone isn't there to listen, that doesn't mean there aren't things we'd still like to tell them, if we could. That doesn't mean there aren't things about ourselves we'd still like them to know. Of course, sometimes we don't even know what it is we'd like that person to know about ourselves. Or sometimes, you may not even know who it is you want to tell your story to, or you may say you don't even have a story to tell. But once you give yourself the freedom of knowing you're never going to send that letter, you'd be surprised at what comes pouring out on the page. And sometimes that's all you need. You'd be surprised by how often you don't need someone to actually read what you have to say. You just need to write it down for yourself."

"Fascinating," Oprah said. "So how do we get started?"

"You just sit down and pick up your pen," the guest said. "Don't think about it beforehand, don't even think about it while you're doing it. In fact, sometimes I even close my eyes and don't open them until I've written the name on the page. I encourage everyone out there to try it tonight. You'll be surprised at what you have to say!"

"I tell you, I can't wait to try this tonight," Oprah said.

A commercial for a feminine hygiene product came on, and Emily turned the television off. There was a pad of paper and a pen right next to her bed. She felt a little silly, but after all, Oprah was a very persuasive woman. Once she picked up the pen, though, she couldn't think of anyone to write to. Feeling even sillier, she closed her eyes and let the pen travel across the paper.

When she opened her eyes, she thought she'd see her daughter's name on the pad. But the strong black letters read clearly, Dear Rory. Emily put the pen down and stood up. Then she took a deep breath and sat down and picked up the pen.

Dear Rory, she wrote, once upon a time I sat on a dormitory roof with my best friend and smoked Gauloises and talked about running away to New York City.