A/N: Another sci-fi reference in this chapter. For anyone keeping track, this is the third one. Yes, I'm a geek.
BBRRINNGG!
Lorelai was lying in bed, awake, a short time after the encounter with Luke, when she heard the phone ring. She wiped the tears from her eyes and picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Lor?" Christopher said on the other end. "I'm sorry, I just noticed the time."
"It's OK," she replied. "I was awake."
"Are you OK?" he asked, noticing the shakiness in her voice.
"I'm fine. Just watching The Way We Were," she lied. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to call…just…wanted to talk to you…" he trailed off.
"Chris, is everything OK?" Lorelai asked, concerned.
"Everything's fine," he replied. "A buddy of mine just became a dad and it just got me thinking…about everything…everything I've missed with Rory. Lor, I'm sorry."
"Wow, that statement could encompass all sorts of things. Exactly what is this in reference to?"
"New Year's Eve. I was upset with you and I just couldn't deal. I know I was acting like a petulant five-year-old."
"Well, I was thinking more like a two-year-old," Lorelai replied. "But you've got the basic idea. But you're apologizing to the wrong person."
"I know, but I wanted to talk to you first. I'd like to take her to the zoo tomorrow to make it up to her."
"Chris, that sounds great. Rory never passes up a chance to go see the turtles. But you do realize that this is coming five months late, don't you?"
"Hey, four and a half," Christopher corrected her. "I was thinking I could come by around 1:00, is that OK?"
"Well we'll be here, but I'm not telling her about it until you actually show up," Lorelai said accusingly. "I'm not getting her hopes up again."
"You can tell her," Christopher assured her.
"I'm not telling her," Lorelai insisted. "You never know, there could be an earthquake, or a falling satellite, or bubonic plague, or you might get trapped by a pair of shrinking boxer shorts that's really a chameleonic genetic mutant creature that wants to suck away your emotions."
"Tell her," Chris emphasized. "If I have to, I'll hire a helicopter to get there, or I'll find a cure for the plague, or I'll send nuclear weapons to destroy the falling satellite, and that might work for that chameleonic mutant creature thing too."
"We'll see," Lorelai considered.
"So what's wrong?" Christopher asked. "And don't give me that Way We Were BS, I know you better than that."
"It's nothing."
"Rory's OK?"
"She's fine."
"Something to do with your parents?"
"My parents are just as dysfunctional as ever. It's nothing, Christopher," Lorelai repeated.
Christopher took a deep breath. "Is it a guy?" he asked in a guarded tone.
"Oh, my God, why does everyone keep asking me that? Am I broadcasting some sort of 'pity me, I'm pathetic' signal?" Lorelai complained.
"Hey," Christopher defended himself. "I asked every other alternative first. So who is he?"
"Keanu Reeves," Lorelai replied. "Love a man in a speeding bus."
"Lorelai," Christopher chided.
"Chris, it's nothing, he's nobody, nothing happened, nothing's going to happen, there's nothing going on and nothing to discuss. And that was possibly the most negatives that I have ever uttered in one sentence at one time."
Christopher pondered for a moment, then took a deep breath. "It's never going to happen for us, is it?" he asked her.
"Chris, I really can't have this conversation with you right now," Lorelai appealed, wiping a fresh tear away on her face.
"Can you just…" Christopher began but Lorelai cut him off.
"Petulant two-year-old," she reminded him.
Christopher sighed. "OK," he conceded.
"Are you still coming for Rory tomorrow?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Christopher asked.
"No reason that I can see," Lorelai replied. "Just checking."
"I need to do better with her," Christopher stated. "She's only young once, and not for much longer. God, I sound like a stupid Hallmark card."
"Well at least you care enough to quote the very best," Lorelai replied.
And now it was a week later. Lorelai and Luke had managed to avoid each other quite effectively since their ill-fated encounter. It was easy, really; Lorelai had stopped going to the diner and Luke was apparently finding excuses not to participate in wedding planning sessions.
But there was still Anna to deal with.
Lorelai was meeting with Anna in the dining room of the Inn to go over arrangements for the rehearsal dinner. They sat at a table with sheets of paper spread out in front of them, Lorelai occasionally sipping her iced tea, desperately wishing it was a martini.
Anna was dishing out instructions to Lorelai. "My friend Amanda will be making a speech before dessert; I need you to make sure she doesn't go more than 5 minutes, or she'll end up boring everyone to tears with stories about her stupid dogs. Also please make sure my uncle doesn't have more than two drinks or he'll start making passes at all the bridesmaids. And if you see my friend Lucy talking to my brother, can you run some interference? They used to date and it didn't end well."
Lorelai obliged by making notes of all Anna's instructions.
"Now can we talk about place settings?" Anna continued. "Do you normally do some sort of decorative napkin folding, or do you just stick them in napkin rings?"
"We usually do a fan pattern, stuck in the water goblets," Lorelai informed her.
"That should be fine. Now I'll be presenting the gifts for the wedding party after Amanda's speech. I'll leave them with you when I get here, Can you get someone to bring them over when it's time to present them?"
"Of course," Lorelai replied, adding a note to her list.
"OK, now I just need to figure out what to get for the bridesmaids. Oh, I also need to find a time to go shopping with my mom for a dress for her, and check with the best man on the bachelor party arrangements, and get something for the groomsmen…" Anna rattled off the list in a tense voice.
"Anna," Lorelai suggested as gently as she could muster. "If I could just make a suggestion? I don't want to overstep my bounds here, but maybe you could get your fiancé to deal with some of this? It's just that you seem pretty stressed out, I thought it might do you some good to unload some of the work."
Anna sighed. "He hasn't gotten his passport yet," she informed Lorelai.
"What?"
"I thought he was on board with these honeymoon plans, we talked about going to Paris a while ago, but I double checked with him the other day, just to make sure before I booked the flight, and he still hasn't gotten his passport. And he keeps making excuses to get out of coming to these planning sessions. I can't count on him to do anything," she complained.
"Maybe he forgot about the passport?" Lorelai suggested lamely.
"Well now it seems that he doesn't even want to do Paris for the honeymoon, he mentioned something about a weekend in Martha's Vineyard instead. What the hell is that?" she vented. "Who the hell can't spare two weeks for their honeymoon?"
Lorelai fought back the urge to reply 'small business owners' and remained silent.
"And it's not just that," Anna continued. "He's just been so…combative lately. It's like everything I say or do is wrong. He's making his own meals all of a sudden; he doesn't want to eat my cooking. We were driving the other day and I swear the man drives like my grandmother, and I kept telling him to speed up but he just ignored me. I really think he was doing it just to piss me off. And then there was the whole 'blue shirt' debacle."
Lorelai remained silent with the rapt attention of someone watching a train wreck. She looked at Anna questioningly, inviting her to elaborate.
Anna rolled her eyes. "He has this shirt. It's a complete embarrassment, it's faded, the seams are fraying, it totally makes him look like a vagabond, I keep expecting people to give him handouts whenever he wears it. So we were supposed to meet with the minister the other day and he decides he's going to wear this thing. And, I'm sorry, but I refuse to be seen in public with him wearing it. Especially meeting with the minister, for God's sake."
"So what happened?" Lorelai asked.
"He just walked out. He was going to leave without me, if you can believe it," Anna replied. "He was out there with the car started, about to drive off on his own, so what else was I supposed to do? I caught up with him and we went, and we were totally pissed with each other through the whole session with the minister. I swear, we'll be lucky if that minister even agrees to do the ceremony." Anna sighed for a moment. "You've never been married, right?" she asked Lorelai.
Lorelai shook her head.
"Ever been in love?"
Lorelai froze, unsure how to respond. After a sickeningly long moment, she decided that any words at this point would be dangerous, so she shrugged.
"It's just…how do you really know when it's right?" Anna asked. "Luke was so amazing when April was born, he's been there every step of the way, he's a wonderful father." She sighed. "I guess…is it possible that I only think I love him because of April?" She looked at Lorelai with an agonized expression, then shook her head. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I guess it's probably because you're not involved."
A chill went down Lorelai's spine at these words.
"It's not like I could tell my friends, or my mom or anyone close," Anna continued. "Luke and the rest of the world would probably hear about it within the hour." She sighed and laughed half-heartedly. "Oh, hell, I'm sure I'm worrying about nothing. I mean, all brides have some doubts, right? I'm sure everything will settle down after the wedding's over."
Lorelai had seen enough weddings at the Inn to know that not all brides have doubts, but thought better of informing Anna of this fact. Instead, she rifled through the papers on the table and drew Anna's attention back to the matter at hand. "OK, so with dessert, do you want to offer cappuccino, or just coffee?"
Lorelai walked into the kitchen of the Inn and took a deep breath. "Oh, my God, Sookie. I seriously thought my mother had prepared me for this whole event-planning gig, but this woman is making me work really hard on perfecting my plan for the perfect murder-suicide. I think my mother could take a few tips from her. Seriously. And that's something I never thought I'd hear myself saying."
"Who?" Sookie asked.
"Anna. She's turning into a seriously high-maintenance client," Lorelai complained. "She's morphed into a major Bridezilla. She was just sitting there, stressing over napkin folding."
Sookie nodded in agreement. "She did seem pretty uptight about which variety of vinaigrette to serve with the salad when I met with her the other day."
"And you know, I think I could handle that part, but she wants to be friends, too." Lorelai said distastefully. "I've become some sort of confidante. In between worrying about napkins and groomsmen gifts, she's sitting there, telling me her relationship woes. I mean, I don't want to hear this. Who the hell does she think I am, Dr. Ruth?"
"Relationship woes?" Sookie asked, raising an eyebrow.
Lorelai sighed. "It seems that the bride is having some doubts," she said through gritted teeth.
Sookie's eyes widened. "The wedding is in less than a month. What's the problem?"
"Oh, some story about him not having a passport yet for the honeymoon, not wanting to leave the diner for 2 weeks, she says he's getting…how did she put it? 'Combative' with her." Lorelai bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling. "I really can't handle this. I need to get some air," she said, agitated. She turned and headed out back of the Inn.
Sookie followed her outside and watched for a few moments while Lorelai paced back and forth and fought back tears.
Finally Sookie spoke. "This wouldn't have anything to do with a guy there's 'no point in talking about because he's taken?' would it?" she quoted Lorelai's words back to her.
Lorelai sighed and looked at Sookie. "You know, it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to see them all the time. I think I could muster up a nice Casablanca attitude about the whole thing, go have a good cry, drown my sorrows in some chocolate amaretto cheesecake, and be done with it. But no, I have to deal with Nessarose on a daily basis complaining about passports and drunken uncles, and treating me like I'm some sort of friend."
"Nessarose?" Sookie asked.
"The Wicked Witch of the East, and that just shows you how far gone I am if I'm quoting Miss Patty."
"Was she the one with the green skin?" Sookie asked.
"Miss Patty?" Lorelai asked, confused.
"No, the Wicked Witch of the East," Sookie said.
"No, she's the one who had the house fall on her. The beautiful sorceress who used her feminine wiles to control her subjects." Lorelai continued with her rant, "so then Anna's ranting on about what a jerk Luke has been lately, how totally unreasonable, and I'm sitting there wondering if I can fit my whole fist into my mouth to prevent myself from saying what I really think."
"Which is?" Sookie asked.
"That it sounds to me like he's grown a spine. Plain and simple. Finally," Lorelai informed her.
"He did seem a bit whipped to me," Sookie confirmed.
"Only with her," Lorelai replied. "Only to keep the peace. And now that he's showing this 'combative' side – something known to the rest of the world as 'confidence,' – it seems she's having doubts. She's wondering if she was only enamored with him because he's such a great dad."
"Don't you think it's a little weird that she's telling you all this?" Sookie asked.
"I don't think she has a lot of friends," Lorelai explained. "I think she has a bunch of people who she calls friends, and who go through the motions and perform the functions that we normally assign to friends, but the slightest hint of anything resembling reality and they run screaming. Oh my God, she really needs to meet my mother." Lorelai took a deep breath. "OK, rant over," she announced.
"I'm sorry, honey," Sookie said sympathetically. "But you never know, there's still three weeks…"
"Don't even go there," Lorelai replied. "I swear I'm going to be old and gray by the time this wedding is over. And hopefully very, very drunk."
tbc
