"OK, let's start with the basics: do you want sitdown service or buffet style?" Lorelai asked.

Lorelai and Sookie were meeting with Anna and Luke to discuss menu planning for the wedding. It was a lunch meeting at the Inn, and they had brought April along, who sat in a high chair eating pieces of fruit and Cheerios, and occasionally throwing her sippy cup on the floor just to make sure they didn't all forget she was there.

Anna and Luke replied simultaneously.

"Buffet," Luke said.

"Sitdown," Anna said. She turned to Luke in surprise. "I thought we had decided this."

"We did decide," Luke said. "We decided that people don't like being shackled to a chair with a table full of other people they didn't choose to sit with in the first place, and given prearranged portions of food that they may or may not like."

"Sitdown is just so much more elegant," Anna protested. "Do you want people to remember this as the wedding where they were free to mill about as they pleased," she rolled her eyes as she said this, "or the event where their every request was promptly catered to, leaving them with plenty of time to socialize with their neighbors and enjoy the ambiance of their surroundings?"

"Of course it's impossible to enjoy ambiance with a buffet table in the way," Luke said sarcastically.

"Luke…" Anna protested.

Luke sighed in resignation. "Fine," he conceded grudgingly.

"You don't need to decide immediately," Lorelai interjected gently. "Why don't you discuss it some more and let me know? We would just need to know by the 23rd so that we know how many servers we'll need."

"OK, now did you have any thoughts on your appetizers?" Sookie asked. "Ooh, I just made these amazing sausage balls yesterday, you've got to try them."

"Oh, you have to try Sookie's crab puffs too," Lorelai said. "They're unbelievable. She's actually got crabs lining up asking her to puff them."

"Hey, do you do fried calamari?" Luke suggested.

Anna made a face. "Ugh, I hate calamari. Always feels like I'm chewing rubber. What if we went a little ethnic and did some spring rolls?"

Sookie got excited. "Ooh, and we could do a Thai chicken satay on skewers, and some fish cakes with cucumber sauce, and a tropical fruit salad…" she began scribbling ideas down on her pad of paper.

"You know, not everybody likes Thai food," Luke said. "How about some mozzarella sticks or something too?"

"Mozzarella sticks? Luke, this isn't a diner," Anna snapped back at him.

Luke gritted his teeth and turned away from her to feed April another slice of banana.

Anna leaned over to him. "Sorry," she said as she leaned over and squeezed his hand. "That didn't come out right. I just meant that a wedding is a pretty upscale event, and mozzarella sticks don't really seem to fit in with that kind of feel."

"Mm-hm," Luke replied. He continued to feed April, who was beginning to squirm in her high chair, and did not look back at Anna.

"OK, one thing before I forget," Lorelai interjected, "will there be any guests on special diets? Vegetarian, kosher, anything like that?"

"Yeah, actually, my sister…" Luke began, but Anna cut him off.

"Don't even go there," she said, waving him off.

Lorelai looked back & forth between them. "Is it something we can help with?"

Anna rolled her eyes. "Luke's sister just started this ridiculous macrobiotic diet, it basically consists of barley and steamed vegetables. And now she's inflicting it on her kid too. I swear we should start a pool going as to how much weight Jess is going to lose before she caves and lets him eat a hamburger."

"Well, if you could give us some ideas…" Lorelai began.

"Don't worry about it," Anna assured Lorelai and Sookie. "She can't expect people to accommodate her bizarre diet everywhere she goes."

Luke disagreed. "We're paying them enough money to support a small guerilla army; they should at least be able to come up with a serving or two of rabbit food for Liz and Jess."

Anna shook her head again. "Luke, This is Liz we're talking about. You know she'll be over and done with this whim of hers long before the wedding." She turned to Lorelai. "This is the same woman who borrowed $10,000 from her father to start a business making plastic wishbones. The business lasted a month, and Liz's boyfriend ended up making off with the money instead. She's the biggest flake you'll ever meet."

"Anna," Luke growled.

"And Luke gets all protective of her," Anna said warmly. "Even though he's the one who ends up bailing her out nine times out of ten, especially since their dad died."

"That's very chivalrous," commented Lorelai.

"Just call me Lancelot," Luke commented as he got up and started cleaning April's face off. "She's not going to sit here much longer, I'm going to take her outside."

"Do you want me to watch her while you go over things with Sookie?" Lorelai offered.

"She's actually pretty nervous around strangers," Anna replied. "Luke, stay. We'll manage."

"You can deal with this on your own," Luke replied dryly as he picked up April and headed out the door.

"Everything OK?" Sookie wondered.

"He'll be fine," Anna replied. "Let's keep going."

"OK, now what sort of salads did you have in mind?" Sookie proceeded on. "We could do a regular green salad, but if you wanted something really different, I've got a bunch of ideas…"

"Excuse me for a moment," Lorelai said suddenly, "I just need to check on the flower delivery for the Gallagher wedding this weekend."

She left Sookie and Anna to discuss the finer points of vinaigrettes, made a quick phone call to the florist, and then ducked out back of the Inn, where she found Luke taking a walk with April around the grounds. She made her way over to them just as Luke was extracting an acorn from April's mouth.

"About 6 more months," she informed him.

"What?"

"You've only got about 6 more months of the whole putting-everything-in-their-mouths stage and then it's on to the 'I wanna do it' stage. She'll start insisting on doing everything on her own, and trying to help you, only it'll take you twice as long to get it done if you let her."

Luke grunted in reply.

"So – wow," Lorelai began. "I thought I was going to have to get you a towel for that bloody tongue of yours."

"What?" he asked.

"Bloody tongue? From biting it so much?"

Luke grunted in reply.

"It just seems to me like…well, you don't seem like the invertebrate type."

He looked at her questioningly.

"Invertebrate. Sometimes a euphemism for 'spineless?' The kind of guy who lets people make decisions for him like that."

Luke was still silent as he picked up a stone and skipped it across the surface of the pond.

"I know I'm getting in way over my head by asking this, but why do you let her?"

At this, Luke erupted into a rant. "Why do I let her? Let's see, why do I let her? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the one time I brought up the subject of how bossy she is, we ended up breaking up? And maybe because of the fact that she almost didn't even bother to tell me about the pregnancy? She was going to leave me out of it entirely? And when she finally did decide to tell me, she was already seven months along? I don't know, maybe it's got something to do with that."

"She told me she didn't think you would've wanted to be involved.," Lorelai said.

"What the hell kind of guy doesn't want to be involved with their kid?" Luke asked. "She didn't want me involved. She wanted to run the show."

Just then, April took off running down an incline, lost her balance and tumbled down. Luke ran over to pick up and comfort his crying daughter. He rubbed her bumped knee until she calmed down, then put her down again.

"You should've been a mailman," Lorelai informed him.

"What?"

"You're in the wrong line of work. With all that baggage you're carrying around, you'd be a natural. Luke, you need to talk to her. Is this really how you want your marriage to be for the rest of your life?"

"We'll be fine," Luke assured her.

"You sound more like a soldier going off to war than someone who's about to get married to the love of his life."

April took off down towards the pond. Lorelai watched as Luke ran to retrieve her before she fell in the water. Lorelai walked down to the water's edge to join them.

April had discovered how interesting it was to toss stones into the water, and was keeping Luke busy trying to make sure she didn't end up drenching herself in the process. Lorelai watched them in silence for a few minutes.

Finally Luke responded. "She needs a father," he stated simply.

"Are you some sort of mirage that disappears after sundown? Because it looks to me like she has a father," Lorelai replied.

"She does now," Luke said.

Lorelai began to realize what he was saying. "Are you seriously telling me you're only marrying Anna because of April?" she asked.

Luke winced and looked down at the ground. "There are other reasons," he said in an entirely unconvincing voice.

"Man, you and Christopher both, you'd make quite a pair," Lorelai observed.

"Who?"

"Christopher. Rory's father."

"You're comparing me to him?" Luke asked in surprise.

"Tweedledum & Tweedledee. Butch & Sundance. Bert & Ernie," Lorelai said.

"You're comparing me to some guy who walked out on his kid?"

"I'm comparing you to some guy who was going to marry me when he found out about the pregnancy, despite the fact that it would've been a disaster of Woody & Mia proportions. And I'm comparing you to some guy who can't seem to see any option other than 'all in' or 'all out.' Marriage, or Robert DeNiro in Awakenings."

Luke was staring at her in shock.

"There's got to be a third option," Lorelai insisted. "Luke, you're the only one who really knows how you feel about Anna, but if you don't love her, you're really not doing your daughter any favors by marrying her."

Luke went after April, who had started pulling flowers out of a flower patch, and did not reply.


A/N: Can you believe that somebody actually did start a business making plastic wishbones? And they made millions off it?