Chapter 1: Wrapped in Plastic

Lorelai and Rory Gilmore were ushered into their seats in Luke's Diner.

"I have something new to show you," Luke Danes announced to his girlfriend and surrogate daughter. He presented two laminated documents.

"New menus," Rory observed.

"Turn them over," Luke prompted.

Rory did so to find her own picture and words staring back at her. "My... New Yorker piece."

"For everyone to read!" Luke beamed in a very non-Luke like way. "So, what'll you have?"

"Coffee," Lorelai answered predictably.

"I have a list to go," Rory presented to him. She had to board a plane for London in a few hours and would eat her beloved Luke's meals on it.

"You got it," Luke smiled.

Rory turned back to her mother after he left. She almost smiled, as if discovering for the first time how nice guys actually were. "That's my piece! Wrapped in plastic." She said the last in a really bad Southern accent.

"Well, you should have known that when Luke moved in with me, he'd turn weird eventually," Lorelai smiled.

And indeed he must have, for at a dinner not long after, Luke told Emily Gilmore, "Did you see that piece Rory wrote for New Yorker? I put it on the menu!"