THE BIRTHDAY PARTY
April's birthday party brings an unexpected twist that changes Luke's and Lorelai's lives forever. Late sixth season.
Disclaimer: Me, write a great show like this? Yeah, right.
Chapter Fourteen: A Different Kind of Planning
While Rory was visiting with April—the two were chattering like magpies—it gave Luke and Lorelai an opportunity to slip out to the nurses' station and find out a little more about April's progress. "She's doing well physically," the charge nurse told them. "We're still planning for her to be discharged on Monday at this point."
"When will we know for sure?"
"Her doctor will decide at morning rounds. We'll give you a call, probably around ten o'clock, and you can pick her up around noon. Ms. Webster will probably be the one to contact you," they were told.
"I've noticed that she seems tired a lot of the time," her father said, concerned. "She seems to be sleepy a lot more than usual."
"That's normal. She's still getting the last bit of anesthesia out of her system, and she's still on pain medication, although not as much as she was at first. Plus, surgery just tires some people out. She may need to sleep more for the next few weeks."
They didn't stay long because April began to look worn out even while she was eating dinner and they noticed her blinking her eyes sleepily soon afterwards. She didn't object to their leaving as much as she had a few nights earlier and seemed to be glad to be able to settle down for the night.
Upon their return to Stars Hollow, Luke whipped up a quick spaghetti dinner and the trio discussed their progress on the moving and listed what they had yet to do. After a while, all three were talked out on the subject and their heads were just too full of details to continue in the same vein. A silence fell over the kitchen.
"I know what we could talk about," Rory piped up a little later. "New subject altogether." She smiled at her mother and Luke as they looked up at her with interest. "Anybody want to talk about the wedding?"
Although Luke looked interested, Lorelai drew back a bit and said nothing for a few minutes. When Luke noticed her silence, he looked at her quizzically and asked, "What?"
She chewed on her lip. "I'm just a little afraid to talk about it, I guess. I don't want you to feel like you're being pushed or anything."
"Not at all," Luke said, surprised. When she still looked uncertain, he reached over and took her hand. "We talked about this the other night, remember? I don't feel hesitant about the wedding any more. I want to do it as soon as possible."
"And if that's going to happen, we have to start discussing it," Rory reminded her mother.
"Yeah, I guess."
She still seemed unsure and Luke squeezed her hand, looking at her closely. "Unless you two just want to plan it without me and I'll just show up?"
Lorelai was horrified. "No, Luke! I want you to be involved with the planning. I just barged ahead and did it without you the last time and look where that got us."
"Okay," Luke smiled. "I'll be glad to be a part of it. Just don't expect me to chime in a lot on colors and flowers and what kind of shoes you wear and stuff like that."
Rory decided to cut in on the hesitation and get them going. She went and got a pad of paper and a pen and sat back down briskly. "Okay, let's at least start with the basics. When?"
The prospective bride and groom looked at each other. "Well, maybe before the summer is over," Luke said, "If we want any kind of a honeymoon, we should probably get it done in time to be back before Rory and April go back to school. April will be starting school in Stars Hollow and I think we should be here for that, don't you?"
"Yes," Lorelai decided. "And since April will have to stay somewhere while we're gone, that would be easier if she wasn't in school. I'd say mid-August by the latest."
Rory ran and got a calendar. "August fifth and twelfth are both Saturdays. You could maybe push it to the nineteenth," she mused.
"It's going to be hard to find a venue in that short a time," Lorelai worried.
"Do you want to go back and check out the places you found before? The church and the hall?"
Lorelai shook her head slowly. "No, I don't think so. I remember that they didn't have any other dates available." She looked unseeingly ahead for a while and then burst out, "Besides, I want these plans to be completely different. All the arrangements we had for June 3rd—I know this sounds crazy, but it feels now like that sticking with any of those plans would be a jinx. It would just be bad luck, seeing the way the June 3rd plans failed. I want it all fresh and different." She paused, thinking. "I might even decide to get a different dress," she mused.
"Aw, but that one is so pretty," Luke objected.
"Yeah, but I let you see it!" she cried. "That was part of the bad luck! This time, Mister," jabbing him in the shoulder, "we're following all of the old superstitions to the absolute letter. You can't see the dress. . . We can't see each other that day until the ceremony. . . The whole 'something borrowed, something blue' thing—we're doing it all. We've been through too much to jinx ourselves now."
"Okay, okay, whatever you want," Luke smiled.
She stared across the room and chewed her lip for a moment. "I do regret missing out on that carousel, though," she said wistfully.
Luke privately made note of that.
Rory cleared her throat. "Anyway. If the old choices are out, let's start with where do you want to have it?" She paused. "You know, Grandma and Grandpa could probably get a place in Hartford, even at the last minute," she suggested.
"Absolutely not," growled Luke.
"No," Lorelai said with certainty. "It'll turn into a three-ring circus. Besides, we live here and most of our guests will be from here. We should have it around here somewhere."
"The town square? The gazebo?" Rory suggested.
"Too hard to get permits," Luke objected. "I remember Liz and T.J. had a tough time getting permission for their wedding. Besides, that would mean subjecting ourselves to Taylor's whims. He'd probably blackmail us to put in a door between his place and the diner. Or something equally terrible."
"I don't like that idea either," Lorelai murmured.
He looked at her with a touch of exasperation. "Well, there's an obvious solution here. I can't believe you're not thinking of it."
"What—the diner?" Lorelai grinned. "That would make my mother's head explode for sure. She actually made a bad joke about that once, about me carrying a ketchup dispenser for a bouquet."
Luke chuckled. "No, I meant the other obvious solution—the inn."
"The inn? My inn?"
Luke rolled his eyes. "How many inns do you know around here, Lorelai?" At her hesitation, he added, "Unless you don't want to have it where you work."
"No, no, that's no problem," she murmured. "I'm just wondering if it's big enough. Most of the weddings we've done there have been very small. There's not much room for a dance floor—and I'm dancing with you at our wedding, Mister," she added to Luke.
"Well, yours won't be that big, will it? Maybe part of it could be outdoors," Rory suggested. "Maybe you could have the ceremony down by the pond or something. Or put a tent and a dance floor out on the lawn."
"Possible," her mother considered. "We had a wedding where we opened the double doors from the dining room and put the tent as an extension straight out from the building. So it would be covered if the weather was bad. What do you think, Luke?"
"I like outdoors," Luke replied.
"And we could use the rooms upstairs to get ready."
Rory was writing briskly. "Do you want a sit-down dinner or a buffet?"
"I think a buffet is nicer," Luke said. "Less formal, more casual. If casual is what you want," he added, a bit anxiously.
His fiancée smiled. "Casual is fine—it's just what I want. This is going to be as anti-Hartford-society a wedding as we can get. " She thought for a moment more and then looked around the table. "Are we agreed—the Dragonfly?"
"Seems appropriate to me," replied Luke.
Lorelai leaped up and ran to the phone. After a low-voiced conference with the person on the other end, she returned triumphantly to the table. "I just talked to Nancy, our night manager," she told them excitedly. "I had her check the book and we're completely open for the weekend of August fifth."
The three looked around the table at each other. Then Luke picked up his bottle of beer and offered it in a toast. "August fifth?"
"August fifth," the girls chimed in, clinking their drinks against his.
Lorelai took a sip and continued. "Okay. Buffet supper. Who's going to cater it?"
"Sookie, of course," Rory said.
Lorelai shook her head. "That worries me a little."
"Why?" Rory was astounded.
"Because I want her to be my matron of honor and she's always said she's going to make my wedding cake. I know Sookie—if she has too many things to do, she'll run herself into the ground before she'll delegate any of them. If I ask her to do the food and the cake, she'll probably run into the kitchen to check on things in the middle of the vows!"
"Mom," Rory said with exasperation while Luke chuckled. "I'm sure you can talk sense into her. She's your best friend. She'll understand if you tell her that you're worried."
"Maybe," Lorelai conceded. She glanced at her watch. "Too late to call her now anyway. Okay, next."
"Attendants?" her daughter asked, tapping her pen on the table.
"You, of course," Lorelai immediately said. "Sookie." She looked at Luke. "I've love to have April. Do you think she'd like that?"
"I think she'd be thrilled," Luke answered.
"Okay," Lorelai said happily. "How about you?"
He thought. "I—I think I'd like Jess to be my best man," he said hesitantly. He looked at Rory. "Will that be a problem for you?"
"No, of course not, Luke," she assured him. "You have the right to have anybody you want."
"Okay. And Jackson, I guess."
"Good."
He looked at them. "Do I need a third? Since you're having three attendants?"
"It's up to you," Lorelai shrugged.
"I'll think about it some more."
"Okay," Rory declared. "Moving on. Music?"
"I'd love for Lane to deejay," Lorelai said enthusiastically. She looked at Rory. "Can Hep Alien do other stuff besides rock?"
"They can do anything you want," she was assured. Rory smiled. "Thanks, Mom. I think they'll really like that."
A silence fell over them as Lorelai looked around the room. "This is worrying me a little. It's coming together too easily." She looked worried. "That's what happened the last time."
"Well, it's going to have to be easy if you want to get it done by August," Luke told her patiently. "Lorelai, these solutions are all—natural ones, I guess is the word I'm thinking. You own an inn. Your best friend is a terrific cook and is used to doing weddings. You had a band develop in your own garage. I'm kind of amazed that these choices aren't obvious. In fact, when you planned it the last time, I was surprised at what you came up with—that you didn't go with what we have available naturally."
"I guess," Lorelai conceded. "I have to say, these choices all seem like they would be pretty automatic. Maybe that's why I wanted to do something different." She smiled at him. "Okay, one more question and then we quit for now. Color scheme?"
"Leave me out of that one," Luke said, starting to rise from the table. "I told you, I don't do color."
"Well, just tell me this," Lorelai said, looking at him flirtatiously. "What color do you like best around me?"
He stopped in his tracks and smiled at her. "Blue," he said softly. "I've always liked you in blue."
"That's what I thought," she smiled back at him.
They looked softly into each other's eyes in silence, until Rory interrupted with a snort. "Get a room, you two!"
"Oh," Lorelai said suggestively, "we plan to. Very shortly, as a matter of fact."
"Ewww!" was her daughter's response.