Soli Deo gloria
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or The Wizard of Oz. Or Oliver Twist. Or A Christmas Carol.
Guess who's writing out of personal experience and also can't eat chips for the next month? (Hint, it's me.)
Luke couldn't help but stare at Rory Gilmore. Rory Gilmore, who had neat, clean manners, and controlled herself around food far oftener than her unapologetic mother, was going at her hamburger like it was her last meal before judge-issued execution. She drowned fries in ketchup and scarfed down bites of apple pie like a starved prisoner under a time limit.
"I wasn't going to ask, but I'm going to ask," Luke said to Lorelai, who sat next to Rory. Her own plate of food was untouched as she leaned against her hand, watching her daughter with a calm understanding. "What's up with the primal cheek-stuffing? Is she training for a food eating competition or something? Do you have an official fast food eater on your hands?"
"Ah, if only," Lorelai said, "I would be such a proud mother. But no." She shook her head. "Poor Rory's going to get out wisdom teeth out in two days."
"Wow. All of them?" Luke wondered, surprised. He remembered getting his own teeth out as a kid. Man, he wouldn't repeat the experience for a thousand bucks.
"Yep, all of them. Her mouth is, and, I quote this dentist who hasn't spent a lot of time in our presence, obviously," Lorelai scrunched two fingers on either hand into quotation marks, "'too small'. After I broke into a fit of hysterical laughter, I realized that he was like, dead serious. It was the first time either of these loudmouth Gilmores have ever been accused of having small mouths, but hey, now we have the X-ray to prove it!"
Lorelai waved her hand to Rory, who wasn't showing many signs that she was getting tired or gonna slow down anytime soon. "I told her she can pig out to her heart's content two days before, but not the day before. I don't want her to threaten to throw up in the face of her nice surgeon. She's going under local."
"Wait, local anesthesia? She's going to be awake the entire time?" Luke looked at Lorelai like she was a poor mother who was letting her daughter go get her teeth extracted by a crazy axe-murderer for how crazy that idea was. "That's insane! Why isn't she going to be sedated?!"
"'Cause I don't want her to wake up all groggy. Besides, it's a learning experience." Lorelai broke under Luke's fuming gaze. "It's cheaper, okay? Rory asked which was the cheaper option, so I told her, and since she's an obstinate and immovable, but good kid, she's going under local."
"Why not just get your parents to pay for it? They'd be glad to, and Rory wouldn't have to be awake," Luke pointed out.
Lorelai did not particularly like the fact that Luke knew of her personal bartering business deals with her parents. "I can't just go to my parents every time the issue of a couple thousand dollars rises. Besides, I'd rather they not know about this. Goodness knows they would offer to pay for it, and I'd rather not add Wednesday night dinners to the weekly routine. So, hey, keep your voice down!"
"What, are your parents here right now?" Luke said. He didn't use quite a mocking tone, but it was heavily implied.
"No, but they're like the Wicked Witch of the West. They have spies everywhere," she pointed outside, "even that tree."
"Well, I'll be darned. I'll never be able to trust that tree again," Luke said, deadpan.
Rory slurped noisily through a straw the last of her soda before saying, "Well, it's nice to know that you two are able to hold a conversation about me right in front of me like I'm not here at all."
"And she comes up for breath! Good!" Lorelai patted her back. "Take a breather."
Rory fixed her eyes on Luke pleadingly as she offered up her empty cup. "Please sir, I want some more."
"That's, what, 'A Christmas Carol'?" Luke wondered uncertainly.
Rory looked mortified. "No, 'Oliver Twist'."
"Close, but no cigar," Lorelai said. Luke went to get the drink, looking a little annoyed that he couldn't catch her cultural reference, while Lorelai said to Rory, "Hey, at least he got the right author!"
"Jess would've gotten it," was all that Rory said. She fell back to her munching. It was satisfying to crunch on a pickle. She had a week or two of crunchiness to ahead on.
Luke returned with the full soda and Rory fell on it with gusto. He said, "I was wondering why it was soda versus coffee."
Lorelai nodded. "The novelty of the straw cannot be overstated."
"Well, you get your maximum dose of caffeine either way, I guess," Luke said. "Hope the procedure goes well, Rory."
Rory nodded in acknowledgement and Luke went off to seat another table. She came up and muffled a burp in her sleeve and said, "I think I'm good."
"You finally hit the food wall. Took you a while, but you finally hit it. It was mortifying, the day I realized that we Gilmores do have a limit as to how much our insatiable appetites can consume," Lorelai said. She rubbed Rory's back. "Are you ready for a week's diet full of smoothies, yogurt, milkshakes, and medical cocktails?"
"A mixed drink sounds delicious," Rory said.
"You realize I mean a bunch of prescribed meds versus an actual alcoholic cocktail?" Rory nodded. "Oh, good. Just making sure, kid." Lorelai rubbed Rory's back faster. "All right. You ready for this?"
Rory shrugged. "I guess. It's a good time to, anyway. Get it out of the way before graduation and our big European trip."
"Exactly. Your experience backpacking through Europe will be much improved by having only twenty-eight teeth instead of thirty-two," Lorelai assured her.
Rory slumped a little and slurped her soda. Lorelai patted her back. It wasn't something to look forward to at all, really.
The fateful day came; Luke looked up when Lorelai strode with determined intent to the diner counter. "Hey, how'd Rory's surgery go?" he wondered, ready to break into small talk banter conversation, but Lorelai wasn't having it.
"Not today, buddy. I've got a sad kid with a bleeding mouth full of open gums who needs drugs and a milkshake. It's a real emergency. Quick, double time."
Lorelai laid her purse on the counter, already wrestling out her wallet as Luke instantly ignored any other pending customer orders by popping his head into the kitchen and ordering Caesar to get out the blender. "What kind of milkshake are we looking at here?" Luke said, his head popping back out.
"Vanilla. Normally I'd say, 'Dump all the chocolate chunks you got into it' but right now Rory can eat as well as a teething baby can," Lorelai said, sighing as she found her wallet.
Luke came back to the counter and reached for the coffee carafe. "I've got Caesar on it. I'm getting coffee for you, though." He couldn't help but observe, "You're more shaken up than normal."
Lorelai raised a hand and let it drop with a flop, sighing. "I dunno. It's just—this is my kid, and she's in a lot of pain and discomfort. I didn't get my wisdom teeth out, mostly 'cause I didn't have the time or the money to pay for it. I mean, I had a toddling Rory attached to my hip all the time. I didn't realize what it could be like. And she took to being awake like a trooper. I mean, I couldn't ask any more of her. She's just so frustrated with having so much blood to worry about; she's got enough gauze stuffed into her chipmunk cheeks to stock a normal-sized first-aid kit. I'm heading to the drugstore to get her some antibiotics and more gauze and ice packs. I've got her on ibuprofen but that ain't strong enough."
Luke nodded sympathetically. "Poor kid. Sounds like it sucks," he said, hanging Lorelai the already lidded travel-ready coffee.
She gave him a smile in thanks, and then her head cocked in wonder. "Did you ever get your wisdom teeth out?"
He nodded in the affirmative. "Yeah, I did. The bottom two were impacted, so they extracted them. I don't think I'd ever eaten so much yogurt in my life until then. Haven't eaten it since."
"Ah, that would explain your extreme distaste for actually eating it," Lorelai said, to the man who often pushed something healthy like a yogurt with grapefruit for her to have for breakfast in lieu of her favored carb-laden pancakes and waffles.
"Yeah, well, I associate it with an unpleasant, traumatic event," Luke said, shrugging.
"Wait, you were traumatized? Do you now have like, an intense phobia of dentists or surgeons? Should I be worried?"
Luke gave her a look that meant he didn't like her slathering his medical procedure in humor. "It sticks out in my mind as one of the most unpleasant times of being a teenager, so yeah, I was traumatized by it."
"I only hope that Rory isn't going to associate vanilla shakes with getting all four of her wisdom teeth out," Lorelai said, as the sounds of the blender churning came from behind the muffling wall. "Say, did Jess ever get his wisdom teeth out?"
Luke shrugged. "Not when he was with me. And Liz never mentioned it. Why do you ask?"
"Well, I've never taken care of someone post-wisdom-tooth-removal-surgery and was wondering if you had any tips or helpful hints stemming from a previous experience. Oh well," Lorelai said.
"Just do what the surgeon told you to do post-operation and you should be fine. Though," Luke said, as Caesar passed him the milkshake in a big foam cup, "I gotta question your choice to come here first instead of getting the much-more-needed meds at the drugstore."
"It is in my personal, maternal opinion that the shake will do more to take away the pain than the drugs will do," Lorelai said, accepting the shake.
Luke gave her a look as she handed him a couple of bills and said, "Just make sure it doesn't all melt before you get home."
"So what if it melts?" Lorelai said, "she can still eat it. Now, what you really need to warn me to not do is stick it into the freezer and let it get solid again and then give it to her. That wouldn't work for a while, until at least tomorrow."
"Get out and get to Rory," Luke said, waving a hand at her.
Lorelai grinned at him. "Sir, yes sir," she said, saluting him before grabbing up her coffee and heading to the door. Kirk was thoughtful enough to get the door for her, and she thanked him before she hurried down the street to get her daughter some drugs and medical supplies.
Luke watched her disappear with a sigh. "That poor kid," he said, thinking of Rory.
"This is going to be kinda hard to hide from your grandparents," Lorelai said, sitting next to Rory with her hands delicately framing her swollen chipmunk cheeks.
Rory's head leaned against the seat. On the outside, the only betrayal of her surgery was that undeniable swelling. She said, her mouth barely open, "Or maybe the fact that I can't even smile?" To prove her point, she opened her mouth and tried her darndest against the pain and swelling to try even the tiniest smile; it was impossible to define the expression on her face as a 'smile'. It was a gummy grimace that wasn't annoyed. That was about it.
"Well, yeah, that too," Lorelai said, waving a hand around. She sighed and leaned her head against Rory's. The kid had been out of school for three days and read four books and watched thirteen episodes of TV and seven different movies. They needed to take a step back into their normal lives—even if the step was attending Friday night dinner.
"Have you told them yet?" Rory asked drowsily. She'd rested more than she had all school year, yet she felt tired—tired of pain and not being able to eat real food, and tired of having to have this conversation.
"That you got your wisdom teeth out? Well, maybe no. It may be a thing I've been putting off for a little while," Lorelai said, not meeting her daughter's eyes as her hand absentmindedly carded through her hair. "I've got it written down on a note as a reminder somewhere, though."
"Maybe you should've heeded the reminder sooner than Friday afternoon," Rory said, just a note of sarcasm marring her usually cheerful voice.
"Ah, there's the fighter in my girl. But yeah, but whatever—shoulda, woulda, coulda," Lorelai said, shrugging it off. "We're just going to go there and pretend that everything's normal."
"We can't do that," Rory said.
"Why not? I have great faith in your acting ability. You've been pretending to tolerate my parents for nigh on eighteen years. You should've won an Oscar ten years ago."
"How about the fact that I'm puffy-faced? Or that I have to duck between cocktails and dinner to take my meds? Or how I can't eat anything that's not liquid or pureed?"
"If we're lucky, they'll have mac and cheese, and you can finagle that. You know that they know you like mac and cheese, and it just might be our lucky night and we can get away with it!"
Rory gave Lorelai a look.
Lorelai sighed. "We're going to have to come clean, aren't we?"
"I won't; you will. You were the one who wanted to keep it a secret from them!"
"Uh, yeah, for obvious reason. If I didn't, they'd have taken it over. They'd have paid for the entire thing, been over our shoulders the entire time. Dad probably would've taken the surgeon aside and threatened his entire medical career if you should feel the tiniest twinge of pain. Mom would've been over here the hour you were home, fussing and talking and not giving you a moment's peace."
"Sounds kinda nice," Rory said in a small sort of voice, looking more tired.
"It wouldn't have been nice. You would've been dying to be alone for two minutes, I swear it." Lorelai rubbed Rory's hand. "It'll be okay. Let all their blame and anger fall on me. It all inevitably does, in the end, so don't worry that it won't. And you can just sit there and look sad and pathetic, and they'll moon over you, and tuck blankets and pillows about you, and feed you the choicest of all the applesauces and yogurts in the land, and you will just have to sit there and take it and get yogurt ruined for you forever—while I am cast aside as the evil villain only trying to keep them out of your life, forever." Here Lorelai splayed a hand against her forehead in a dramatic show of theatrics.
"I get it, I get it!" Rory said, waving her hand, showing her first sign of energy all day.
"Got it," Lorelai said, smiling. She stood up and said, "Feel good enough to get dressed in the next two hours?"
"I'll look at my day planner and see if there's a time slot for it. I'm sure I can shift some things around," Rory said, grabbing the TV remote and surfing the channels.
"Glad that it made the list," Lorelai said, heading upstairs.
Emily thought Rory looked a little different this time around, but decided to say nothing of it as she warmly greeted her girls. She wasn't going to be the first to point out the significant puffiness of her granddaughter's face. So of course she rolled her eyes when Richard entered the room and instead of kissing her on both cheeks, stared at Rory's face and said, "Good grief, Rory, what's happened to you?"
Lorelai swung a fist in front of her. "Oh, darn. He noticed. The jig's up, Rory."
Rory gave her grandparents the best smile she could, which was sorta of sad to see. "Guess who's now toothless?"
Her grandparents didn't say anything; they just leaned forward with gaping mouths; they were looking into the smile for signs of teeth.
"Not, like, totally toothless. Wow, way to scare them really well, Rory," Lorelai's tone was a little admiring, to her mother's chagrin, "just four little teeth. That's all."
"Actually I looked it up. Do you know how big wisdom teeth are? Huge! They're freaking huge!" Rory said, as her words made her grandmother gasp and her grandfather's mouth drop open even farther.
"Well, I assumed," Lorelai said. "So, um, yeah, Rory got all her wisdom teeth out."
"All four?" Richard said in surprise.
"Yeah, and I was awake the entire time, too," Rory said. Having actually enjoyed being awake (despite the pinches of the numbing medicine), she quite liked the experience, and enjoyed also the looks of horror grow on the faces of those just told this.
"She was AWAKE?!" Emily screeched, turning on Lorelai.
Lorelai nodded, as if expecting this. "And so it begins, right on schedule."
Lorelai was indeed verbally fought by a relentless Emily and a concerned Richard, but she lived. Rory was tired but ate the mashed potatoes ("I wouldn't have had Vera make pot roast and Brussel sprouts if I'd known Rory couldn't eat anything," Emily scowled. "Squeeze one more italic into that sentence, Mom. I dare you," Lorelai said) and they escaped the night early, relatively unscathed.
"That's it. The worst is over. It's going to be smooth-sailing ahead for the rest of your recovery," Lorelai comforted Rory.
And it was. Many folks in town, especially Miss Patty, asked about the poor girl. Babette would often stop Lorelai when she got the mail to ramble down a rabbit trail about all the wisdom tooth horror stories she'd harbored up over the years. Lorelai found herself sneaking away as fast as she could to relate these ghastly stories to Rory; Babette called her hopes for Rory to feel better after her.
Rory, at the end of the day, though it seemed to take forever, did feel better. She didn't feel particularly traumatized by the procedure, and resumed her normal eating habits that better fit a giant instead of a teenage girl within the week. Her only great sadness was her mom and Luke joining together in a campaign to keep her from eating chips for another couple of weeks. "Just until your mouth is more healed," Lorelai explained. "Does a bacteria infection sound good to you?"
"I think it's just her excuse to hog all the chips in the house," Rory confided in Luke.
Luke looked past Rory to smirk at Lorelai. "Sounds like something she'd do."
Lorelai scoffed in faux-shock. "As if I would ever step so low!"
Luke turned to Rory. "She would," he said, as she nodded, "She would."
"So sounds the thanks of the girl who just exhausted her mother playing as her post-op nurse for the past week," Lorelai said, pretending to be mad.
Rory grasped her arm. "Thanks, Mom. I owe you, like, a million."
Lorelai smiled. "I know. But I'd do it over again and again for you."
Rory contemplated this and nodded. "But let's be glad we don't have to do it again."
Lorelai nodded in agreement. "You and I are, as usual, in total agreement." It was a toss-up as to who was the most relieved that it was over: the pained patient, or the patient bedside nurse.
Yeah, guess who got her wisdom teeth out? I just wanted to write about it, I dunno. I was awake during my surgery; it was kinda fun, like you're the subject of everyone's attention while also observing it objectively. Would actually recommend it.
Thanks for reading! Review?