Credit for these characters goes to Amy Sherman-Palladino
Luke stared out the diner windows into the town square. He could almost see her standing by the door, as she had one week ago, suitcase in hand. She had told him that she was leaving, that the town was too small, that though she loved him, she just couldn't stay. She had kissed him on the cheek, looked at him for a long moment, then turned and walked out the door. As he watched her curly hair bounce as she disappeared, he knew that a piece of his life was gone. Ever since Rachel left, he'd felt empty. Distracted. He'd never felt that way before, and he didn't like to admit it to anyone, but he knew the entire town could clearly see that he was hurting. That was one of the worst parts of living in Stars Hollow. There was no private grief, only public humiliation.
"Ouch!" Luke heard someone shout. Snapping back into the present, he realized he'd filled Kirk's mug… and more. Coffee had spilled over the brim and splashed Kirk's hand.
"Sorry, Kirk," Luke mumbled, absentmindedly pulling a dish towel out of his back pocket and tossing it to the young man. Kirk, eyeing the somewhat dirty towel suspiciously, proceeded to wipe the spilled coffee off the table.
Luke shook his head. It was a good thing the diner was so busy; it kept him from having to think. He moved around in a blur, taking orders, flipping burgers, serving food, yelling at people who were slow or loud. He was standing with his back to the door, scrawling something on his order pad, when he heard the bell over the door ring and a voice call out, "Coffee!" Luke turned to see a beautiful woman standing before him. She had wild, curly dark hair and vibrant vibrant blue eyes. A short navy skirt and matching tight blazer were all that covered her tall, thin figure.
His breath caught in his throat for a moment before he could answer, "Sit down, and I'll get to you in a minute."
"But I can't wait a minute. I need coffee now!" she said desperately. She leaned forward, clutching his shirt in her hands, and he had to try very hard not to look as the v-neck of her shirt revealed more skin.
"I'll get to you in a minute," he insisted.
Luke delivered a tuna sandwich to a customer, turned, and there was the woman, right in his face again. "Geez!" he shouted. "Don't sneak up on me like that."
"I'm sorry, but you don't understand." Tentatively, she said, "I really need some coffee." Her eyes sparkled even more from this distance, and she smelled like a garden.
"I told you to sit down," Luke said sternly. It didn't matter what she looked like; he was not in the mood to deal with a crazy woman in a caffeine frenzy.
Rather than following his instructions, the woman followed him, jabbering at a million words a minute. "Babette told me they have great coffee here. You know Babette? She's my next door neighbor. I just moved here, me and my daughter. She's eleven. My daughter, not Babette." The woman just kept following him around, rambling.
Luke was amazed at her ability to keep talking without even taking a breath. "You're like the Energizer Bunny on drugs," he commented.
She went on, as if she hadn't even heard his comment, or perhaps chose to ignore it. "Anyway, I need coffee daily, I drink it all the time, might as well just hook up a coffee IV. Babette told me you've got great coffee here, which surprised me, because it's a diner, not a coffee shop, but I figured I might as well give it a try, since there don't seem to be any coffee shops in town, and since I just got promoted I can afford to get coffee all the time instead of just drinking it at the Inn. I work at the Independence Inn, and I-"
"Will you just sit sit down?" Luke interrupted, exasperated. The last thing that he wanted to do was to give this maniac more caffeine. "I will get to you when I get to you." He went in the kitchen to help Caeser cook food, and when he came out, he noticed that the pretty, nutty woman was finally sitting, next to Miss Patty. Good, he thought. Let Patty monopolize her for a while.
When the woman looked up and flashed him a smile, he felt his stomach twist into a knot. "What's your birthday?" she yelled across the diner.
"My what?" Luke asked incredulously.
"Birthday. Come on, just tell me." She smiled radiantly, and Luke had no choice to oblige.
The woman began ripping a piece of paper out of the newspaper Patty had in front of her. She turned her head down to scribble something on the scrap of paper, and Luke returned to the back, where he wouldn't have to think about her. She was making his head spin, and that was something that hadn't happened for a long time – not since he'd seen Rachel for the first time. This feeling was so much stronger than it had been with Rachel, though, which scared the hell out of him.
After delivering a patty melt to Andrew, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He spun around to see the woman standing before him again.
"I'm sorry to bother you, but… here." She stuffed the scrap of newspaper into his hand. As her fingers brushed his, his skin tingled, like he'd been pricked with a jolt of electricity. He glanced down at the paper. It was from the horoscope section, he noticed. Under Scorpio, the astrological sign dictated by his birthday, were scrawled the words: "You will meet an annoying woman today. Give her coffee and she'll go away."
He looked up at her. "Are you kidding me?"
"I never kid about caffeine," she spoke solemnly. Their eyes locked, and Luke forgot momentarily that he was in the middle of the diner during a huge lunch rush. This woman had a hold on him, he knew it already.
"Fine. If it will make you go away." Luke held up the piece of paper and gruffly said, "What am I supposed to do with this?"
"Put it in your wallet. It will bring you good luck," she said, offhanded. He stuffed it into his wallet to appease her, and then motioned for her to follow him.
"Here or to go?" Luke asked.
"Better make it to go. It took so much time to actually get my coffee, I have to get back to work right away," the woman said flippantly. "You sure are slow." She sat down at the counter.
Luke grabbed a paper cup and sat it in front of her. "I'm not slow. You're just impatient," he argued.
She shrugged. "Hey, when someone stands between me and coffee, I can go full-on Matrix."
"I noticed." He began to pour her coffee. "You said you work at the Independence Inn?" he asked, needing to know more about this mysterious woman.
"Yeah. I work at the front desk. My daughter and I lived there, in a shed at the inn, but we just moved into town. I started as a maid, but I got promoted recently so we moved into a house," she babbled, talking just as fast as before.
"I see." He snapped a lid onto the cup. "Well, here you go…"
"Lorelai," she answered, placing a couple of dollars on the counter.
"Lorelai," he repeated softly as she flipped her hair over her shoulder, spun, and walked out the door. He liked the way that her name rolled off of his tongue.
For the rest of the day, the diner remained busy. Luke didn't have a chance to sit down and relax until the end of the day, after he'd mopped and closed up. Relaxing upstairs with a beer, he finally had a chance to reflect. He took out his wallet and pulled the scrap of paper out, staring at it for a second and rubbing it softly between his fingers. The memory of the gorgeous, confident woman drifted back into his mind. She was obnoxious and wild and witty and sexy – and he felt a gnawing desire to see her as soon as possible. Rather than throwing the paper out, he slid it back into his wallet hopefully. She said the horoscope would bring him good luck. Maybe it would bring her to him again.