4
Luke had to be up and out early the next morning, far too early for Lorelai's liking, and so he had gracefully volunteered to sleep in his own bed and let her have her beauty sleep. Lorelai hadn't particularly minded. She had a lot of sorting out to do for the night.
With a sigh, she turned on her dinosaur of a computer and, without giving it a second look, headed into the kitchen to make a sandwich. It would be a good ten minutes before the monster was warmed up and ready for use, and anyway, she was hungry. She hadn't been eating much at Luke's lately, and that had cut away a good three-fourths of her daily nutrition (or lack thereof). Rummaging around her cupboards, Lorelai managed to come up with one unopened package of strawberry Pop Tarts and some marshmallow fluff. That was good enough. She ripped open the package, grabbed a knife, and spread the fluff between the two soft pop tarts. Smushing them together, she disposed of the wrapping and made her way back to the computer with her makeshift sandwich. It was still buzzing loudly, and she plopped herself down on her bed to eat, giving it another moment to itself.
Joining the green revolution, Lorelai had switched to paying her bills online after some heckling from Rory. She wasn't particularly fond of the internet and all its wonders, but it made Rory happy and saved a few trees, so she did it. It also, she was beginning to realize, made big red numbers much easier to hide from. She had been seeing more and more of them lately, as emails headed OVERDUE rudely flooded her inbox. It wasn't that the inn was doing a whole lot worse than usual, although bookings had been going down increasingly, though only slightly, over the past few months. It was just a hard financial time for everyone, that was all, although it seemed particularly hard to Lorelei Gilmore.
She rubbed her temple with her free hand, trying to massage away the caffeine headache that had been not-so-gently throbbing there for something like a week now. She really was trying her hardest, and she commended herself for that. She had begun to cut back on what she could, namely cable and, more difficultly, coffee. She had gone over her monthly bills again and again, and it was simply an unavoidable fact, even to her well trained "see-only-what-I-want-to-see" eye, that coffee was her biggest unnecessary monthly expense. After fighting it for as long as she could, eventually there was no choice but to grit her teeth and do what had to be done.
And so she did. It was a swift kick to her pride, and also to her body's daily routine, to give up her excessive coffee habit. Luke was starting to worry, and she felt badly about that. Licking the leftover Fluff off of her fingers, she replayed the morning's conversation in her mind. More and more of their conversations were along those lines lately, and she knew that she was to blame. She couldn't bring herself to tell him about her money troubles, though. She knew that Luke had money, and she also knew that it would ruin the great new relationship they were doing so well in should she borrow any. She was desperate to do things on her own terms, and she knew that Luke would never let her flounder if he found out. Keeping it from him, she'd concluded, was better than worrying him.
Besides, she thought as she sat down in front of the glowing screen to see what she could do for her bills, everything would be just fine.