SEVEN : RICHARD CLAYDERMAN AND THE MOLE MAN
Lorelai opened the door, finding Rory and Paris peering over what seemed to be a huge pile of newspapers scattered all over the living room.
"No, you're mistaking the June 1994 Franklin for the November 1996 Franklin," said Paris, as she snatched one newspaper from Rory's hand and handed her another. "It's easy to make that mistake, because most people would not notice that the November issue's margin was one sixth of an inch wider than June's."
"I highly doubt that the width of the margin had a great impact on the quality of the newspaper," sighed Rory.
"Maybe not," said Paris, "But it does raise the often asked issue of layout, layout, layout."
"It's not often asked. It's not asked at all. If there was a list of frequently asked questions about our newspaper, it would not be on said list, because, hey, it's not frequently asked, and most of the space would be used up for more important queries like 'Why Is Paris Nuts?'."
"This is a serious …"
"I'm back," said Lorelai suddenly.
"Mom," Rory got up to greet her mom. "How was your night?"
"It was okay," Lorelai replied, going into the kitchen. "You kids sure are up late for a school night."
Rory was about to follow her mother into the kitchen when Paris stopped her. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm going to talk to my mom."
"We aren't done yet," insisted Paris, "We still have September 1998 onwards to go through."
"Paris, you've been here for two and a half hours. I'm tired, and I'm bored, and I want to talk to my mother."
"All right," said Paris, glancing at her watch. "I'll give you a five minute break. When you come back we'll talk about the discrepancies in the font sizes from August 1997 to May 1998."
"Oh, don't you dare start without me!" Rory said with feigned enthusiasm, rolling her eyes as she turned around and marched into the kitchen.
"Hey, kid," Lorelai was sitting at the kitchen table. "I see Paris has been bathing in bong water again."
"Ugh," Rory slumped into the chair opposite from her mother. "This isn't even the tip of the iceberg. It's not even the tip of the tip. Paris – the massive submerged iceberg which nobody sees until they crash into her and drown in the murky waters of the unforgiving ocean. How was the movie?"
"It was fine. We laughed, we cried, I said Jackie Chan was reminiscent of a younger Clark Gable, and Luke pointed out that Clark Gable would never jump three feet in the air and drop kick three professionally trained hit men, and then I said Clark Gable would if he could, and from there on our conversation just went downhill."
"So, good night huh?"
"It was okay."
"You said that already."
"I did?" Lorelai paused. "Well, this is a first. I normally don't repeat myself. Because, you know, I normally don't repeat myself. Ha… get it?"
"Your sophisticated brand of humor is lost on me."
"If you think that's funny… guess who I saw at the theater. I'll give you a clue. Death, destruction, mayhem, torture and despair."
"Cher?"
"No."
"Shannen Doherty?"
"Sweetie, I went to the theater, not rehab," said Lorelai. "I saw Grandpa and Grandma."
"Grandpa and Grandma were at the theater?"
"No, I saw them in a vision, floating around like angels without wings."
"Geez, you don't have to be sarcastic about it," said Rory. "What were they doing there?"
"Get this. They were actually going to watch the same movie."
"I don't believe you. Stop lying."
"No, I'm not lying, and I got Grandma to say 'kung foolery'."
"You did not."
"I did too. She nearly said 'whoopah', too, but I had a feeling that was asking for too much."
"I'll take your word for it," said Rory. "So, what were you and Luke talking about just now?"
"What?" Lorelai suddenly became defensive.
"I heard your truck pull up on the driveway while Paris was yammering about the paper," said Rory, "But you guys seemed to be out there for a bit."
"Oh, we just didn't want to interrupt, you girls," said Lorelai, "Cause, you know, you'd be talking about make-up and boys, and you know how shy Luke gets about make-up and boys."
"Very funny. I just …"
"It's getting late," Lorelai got up before Rory could finish her sentence. "Don't you think Paris should be getting back before her parents start getting excited and look for a normal kid to raise?"
"Paris," said Rory with a forlorn sigh, "Is spending the night. I've been asking her to go home repeatedly for the past hour, but she wouldn't budge."
"I hope you didn't hurt her feelings."
"I told her she was a crazy nutjob and to get the hell out of my house."
"Oh," said Lorelai. "As long as you weren't rude."
"She brought along her Chilton uniform, as well as her PJ's; she has an extra set of each stored in her car just for emergencies like this. I would find it amusing if it weren't so terrifying that she's spending the night in our house."
"That's so cute. It's like your little slumber party."
"More like Slumber Party Massacre, if she doesn't quit soon."
"Where's she sleeping?"
"The guest room."
"We have a guest room?" Lorelai asked, surprised.
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"It's that little room at the end of the hall. The one you're afraid to enter."
"If I enter, that means I know the room exists," said Lorelai, "And if I know the room exists, it means I will have to clean it. Some things are better left undisturbed. Tell Paris to make herself at home. I'm going to bed."
*
The digital clock by Rory's bed showed that it was 2.17 AM.
The door creaked open slightly as Lorelai crept in. She climbed into Rory's bed and went under the covers with her. "Hey, Rory."
Her daughter gave a pitiful moan and sat upright, rubbing her eyes. She looked at the clock. "It's two o'clock in the morning. Why are you here?"
"I had a weird dream," said Lorelai, grabbing one of the pillows and hugging it tight. "I want to talk about it."
"Then get a psychiatrist," said Rory, turning away. "I'll pay for it."
"It's really important."
"Like the time you dreamt Barney stole your curtains and sold it Kenny G?"
"Ugh, don't remind me," Lorelai shivered, "Freaky, disgusting, dinosaur. And that Barney isn't all that great either."
"What is it this time?" Rory asked, reluctantly, turning to face her mother.
"Okay," Lorelai said, "I'm in this beautiful field, with knee-high grass, and the wind is blowing gently and I'm wearing this beautiful white gown. And in the middle of the field is, get this, Richard Clayderman, and he's playing a golden piano."
"Richard Clayderman."
"Yes, Richard Clayderman. And if you think that that's freaky, the weirdest part of my dream comes next. I say to this Richard Clayderman, 'Hey, Richard Clayderman, aren't you dead yet?', and then tells me, in a really creepy voice, that all pianos are magical, and that they bestow their users with the gift of immortality."
"I guess we'll be hearing a lot more from Tori Amos in the years to come, then."
"Ah, good. It's always nice to have someone weirder than me on the planet," Lorelai sighed. "And then I think to myself, I have to cut off his head, because that's the only way you can kill an immortal. I saw this on Highlander, so it has to be true."
"So you decapitated Richard Clayderman in your dream. That's perfectly normal. Can I go back to sleep now?"
"I'm not finished," said Lorelai. "But I hear this sound, and I turn around, and it's Enrique Iglesias, and he has three heads, but you see, only one is real."
"Between a three headed Latin pop singer and Richard Clayderman playing a golden piano, you chose Richard Clayderman as being the weirdest part of your dream?"
"Yeah, well… it's Richard Clayderman," said Lorelai. "Anyways, one of the Enrique Heads tells me, I have to guess which one is real, and if I don't, his brother Julio will be more famous than him."
"Tragedy."
"Indeed," said Lorelai, "So, I, naturally, chose the most logical way to figure out which head is real, which is , of course, pinching the mole on each one. But you see, each time I pinch a mole it plays a medley of 'Hero', 'Don't Turn Out The Lights', and 'She Bangs'."
"Ricky Martin sang 'She Bangs', not Enrique."
"I know… like things aren't complex enough as they are. Anyways, only one mole is real, and that's the real head, right, and when I pick that, the other two false heads deflate, like a boob job gone wrong, and so I've saved the day. So, what do you have to say about this?"
"I hate you , you've wasted three minutes of my life."
"I think that in my dream, Richard Clayderman is the embodiment of my childhood fears of rejection, and the golden piano is all the things I've wanted but could never have."
"I think he's the embodiment of your insanity, and the golden piano is what I want to drop on your head. Go back to bed."
"I can't sleep," said Lorelai, "That Richard Clayderman dream is going to put me off sleeping for a long, long while."
"So, let me get this straight," said Rory, "You woke me up at 2.17 in the morning, just to tell me that you had a dream about an annoying pianist and the mole man of the pop industry."
"Yeah, that, and to ask you to remind me to buy some more orange juice tomorrow, we're all out. And also, I think Luke almost kissed me tonight," Lorelai got up, "But I see it's a school night and you need to get your sleep, so I'll leave you alone now. "
Rory's hand shot up and grabbed her mother's arm, pulling her back to the bed. "What? We have to talk about this!"
"Oh, sweetie, I know it's hard now," said Lorelai, "But we can get some more juice tomorrow. First thing in the morning."
"I didn't mean that. I meant about Luke."
"Luke has orange juice?"
"No," said Rory. "Kiss."
"KISS has orange juice? You would think that after they disbanded they wouldn't care about this sort of thing anymore."
"Mom, stop avoiding the question. You brought this up, so clearly you want to talk about it, and if you don't want to talk about it to me, I can wake up Paris."
"Fine," said Lorelai, "You know, what, the more I think about it, the more I think I'm wrong. I'm wrong right? I think I'm wrong. I mean, I'm hardly ever wrong, except for the times when I think I'm wrong, but you know, turns out I'm wrong about that, so I'm actually right. But this time, maybe I'm wrong."
"What happened?"
"I don't know, we were just standing on the porch, talking about Luke and lumberjacks, and how you couldn't fire a shotgun …"
"What?"
"Don't ask," said Lorelai, "And then Luke starts to tell me something, but stops, and then starts again, and then stops, it was like reading a telegram. Or is it telegraph? Which is the one which goes 'Come home. Stop. Mom stuck under
carriage. Stop.'?"
"I don't care. What did he tell you?"
"Argh...I don't know. He wouldn't say, but when I suggest he act it out, he just looks at me weirdly, leans in, like something's going to happen, and then he just says goodnight and goes home. What's that about?"
"Well, looks to me like he wanted to kiss you," said Rory, after much thinking, "But then didn't have the courage to go through with it."
"Oh, what do you know."
"You asked me what it was about, and I gave you my opinion."
"Yeah, well, I take it back," said Lorelai, "I don't want your opinion, which renders your previous sentence null and void."
"You can't null my opinion," said Rory, "It's what I think, and you yourself said you thought something was going on between you guys."
"I did not."
"You did."
"I said, 'I think Luke tried to kiss me', that is so totally not the same as 'something is going on'. You know, if you're going to just twist all my words like that, I don't think you should quote me ever again."
"Fine," said Rory, "Here's my question . Did you want something to happen?"
"Rory, don't go there."
"What? All I'm saying is that, he's a man, you're a woman, the two of you have the whole town up in the air with your Ross-Rachel will-they-won't-they antics, and I'm just asking you a simple question."
"He's just a friend."
"I applaud the manner in which you conveniently did not answer my question."
"I wasn't finished," said Lorelai indignantly, "And what I want is irrelevant. What's really at hand here, is that Luke probably leaned in to check his own reflection in my eye, and I've misconstrued it as something else. Yes, that is a believable explanation, and I am sticking to it."
"Great. So, are we still allowed to go to Luke's, or do we have to start avoiding him again? I'm not going back to Al's Pancake World again, unless it's to pin up a 'condemned' notice on his front door."
"No, we are not going to avoid Luke," said Lorelai, "Why would you assume something like that?"
"Because whenever something weird happens between the two of you," said Rory, "You and I are left walking eight hundred blocks to find coffee."
"I've told you, like three million times already, Rory, stop exaggerating," said Lorelai, "And if you think that Luke and I can't handle this like adults, then you're wrong. Tomorrow, we're going to Luke's like normal, and then we're going to discuss it like adults, where I will discover that he was indeed checking out his own reflection, and that nothing weird is going on. Are you satisfied?"
"Hey, it's your life."
"Yeah, yeah," said Lorelai, as she leaned back in bed and sighed. "Richard Clayderman was way easier to understand."
* to be continued *
Lorelai opened the door, finding Rory and Paris peering over what seemed to be a huge pile of newspapers scattered all over the living room.
"No, you're mistaking the June 1994 Franklin for the November 1996 Franklin," said Paris, as she snatched one newspaper from Rory's hand and handed her another. "It's easy to make that mistake, because most people would not notice that the November issue's margin was one sixth of an inch wider than June's."
"I highly doubt that the width of the margin had a great impact on the quality of the newspaper," sighed Rory.
"Maybe not," said Paris, "But it does raise the often asked issue of layout, layout, layout."
"It's not often asked. It's not asked at all. If there was a list of frequently asked questions about our newspaper, it would not be on said list, because, hey, it's not frequently asked, and most of the space would be used up for more important queries like 'Why Is Paris Nuts?'."
"This is a serious …"
"I'm back," said Lorelai suddenly.
"Mom," Rory got up to greet her mom. "How was your night?"
"It was okay," Lorelai replied, going into the kitchen. "You kids sure are up late for a school night."
Rory was about to follow her mother into the kitchen when Paris stopped her. "Where do you think you're going?"
"I'm going to talk to my mom."
"We aren't done yet," insisted Paris, "We still have September 1998 onwards to go through."
"Paris, you've been here for two and a half hours. I'm tired, and I'm bored, and I want to talk to my mother."
"All right," said Paris, glancing at her watch. "I'll give you a five minute break. When you come back we'll talk about the discrepancies in the font sizes from August 1997 to May 1998."
"Oh, don't you dare start without me!" Rory said with feigned enthusiasm, rolling her eyes as she turned around and marched into the kitchen.
"Hey, kid," Lorelai was sitting at the kitchen table. "I see Paris has been bathing in bong water again."
"Ugh," Rory slumped into the chair opposite from her mother. "This isn't even the tip of the iceberg. It's not even the tip of the tip. Paris – the massive submerged iceberg which nobody sees until they crash into her and drown in the murky waters of the unforgiving ocean. How was the movie?"
"It was fine. We laughed, we cried, I said Jackie Chan was reminiscent of a younger Clark Gable, and Luke pointed out that Clark Gable would never jump three feet in the air and drop kick three professionally trained hit men, and then I said Clark Gable would if he could, and from there on our conversation just went downhill."
"So, good night huh?"
"It was okay."
"You said that already."
"I did?" Lorelai paused. "Well, this is a first. I normally don't repeat myself. Because, you know, I normally don't repeat myself. Ha… get it?"
"Your sophisticated brand of humor is lost on me."
"If you think that's funny… guess who I saw at the theater. I'll give you a clue. Death, destruction, mayhem, torture and despair."
"Cher?"
"No."
"Shannen Doherty?"
"Sweetie, I went to the theater, not rehab," said Lorelai. "I saw Grandpa and Grandma."
"Grandpa and Grandma were at the theater?"
"No, I saw them in a vision, floating around like angels without wings."
"Geez, you don't have to be sarcastic about it," said Rory. "What were they doing there?"
"Get this. They were actually going to watch the same movie."
"I don't believe you. Stop lying."
"No, I'm not lying, and I got Grandma to say 'kung foolery'."
"You did not."
"I did too. She nearly said 'whoopah', too, but I had a feeling that was asking for too much."
"I'll take your word for it," said Rory. "So, what were you and Luke talking about just now?"
"What?" Lorelai suddenly became defensive.
"I heard your truck pull up on the driveway while Paris was yammering about the paper," said Rory, "But you guys seemed to be out there for a bit."
"Oh, we just didn't want to interrupt, you girls," said Lorelai, "Cause, you know, you'd be talking about make-up and boys, and you know how shy Luke gets about make-up and boys."
"Very funny. I just …"
"It's getting late," Lorelai got up before Rory could finish her sentence. "Don't you think Paris should be getting back before her parents start getting excited and look for a normal kid to raise?"
"Paris," said Rory with a forlorn sigh, "Is spending the night. I've been asking her to go home repeatedly for the past hour, but she wouldn't budge."
"I hope you didn't hurt her feelings."
"I told her she was a crazy nutjob and to get the hell out of my house."
"Oh," said Lorelai. "As long as you weren't rude."
"She brought along her Chilton uniform, as well as her PJ's; she has an extra set of each stored in her car just for emergencies like this. I would find it amusing if it weren't so terrifying that she's spending the night in our house."
"That's so cute. It's like your little slumber party."
"More like Slumber Party Massacre, if she doesn't quit soon."
"Where's she sleeping?"
"The guest room."
"We have a guest room?" Lorelai asked, surprised.
"Yes."
"Where is it?"
"It's that little room at the end of the hall. The one you're afraid to enter."
"If I enter, that means I know the room exists," said Lorelai, "And if I know the room exists, it means I will have to clean it. Some things are better left undisturbed. Tell Paris to make herself at home. I'm going to bed."
*
The digital clock by Rory's bed showed that it was 2.17 AM.
The door creaked open slightly as Lorelai crept in. She climbed into Rory's bed and went under the covers with her. "Hey, Rory."
Her daughter gave a pitiful moan and sat upright, rubbing her eyes. She looked at the clock. "It's two o'clock in the morning. Why are you here?"
"I had a weird dream," said Lorelai, grabbing one of the pillows and hugging it tight. "I want to talk about it."
"Then get a psychiatrist," said Rory, turning away. "I'll pay for it."
"It's really important."
"Like the time you dreamt Barney stole your curtains and sold it Kenny G?"
"Ugh, don't remind me," Lorelai shivered, "Freaky, disgusting, dinosaur. And that Barney isn't all that great either."
"What is it this time?" Rory asked, reluctantly, turning to face her mother.
"Okay," Lorelai said, "I'm in this beautiful field, with knee-high grass, and the wind is blowing gently and I'm wearing this beautiful white gown. And in the middle of the field is, get this, Richard Clayderman, and he's playing a golden piano."
"Richard Clayderman."
"Yes, Richard Clayderman. And if you think that that's freaky, the weirdest part of my dream comes next. I say to this Richard Clayderman, 'Hey, Richard Clayderman, aren't you dead yet?', and then tells me, in a really creepy voice, that all pianos are magical, and that they bestow their users with the gift of immortality."
"I guess we'll be hearing a lot more from Tori Amos in the years to come, then."
"Ah, good. It's always nice to have someone weirder than me on the planet," Lorelai sighed. "And then I think to myself, I have to cut off his head, because that's the only way you can kill an immortal. I saw this on Highlander, so it has to be true."
"So you decapitated Richard Clayderman in your dream. That's perfectly normal. Can I go back to sleep now?"
"I'm not finished," said Lorelai. "But I hear this sound, and I turn around, and it's Enrique Iglesias, and he has three heads, but you see, only one is real."
"Between a three headed Latin pop singer and Richard Clayderman playing a golden piano, you chose Richard Clayderman as being the weirdest part of your dream?"
"Yeah, well… it's Richard Clayderman," said Lorelai. "Anyways, one of the Enrique Heads tells me, I have to guess which one is real, and if I don't, his brother Julio will be more famous than him."
"Tragedy."
"Indeed," said Lorelai, "So, I, naturally, chose the most logical way to figure out which head is real, which is , of course, pinching the mole on each one. But you see, each time I pinch a mole it plays a medley of 'Hero', 'Don't Turn Out The Lights', and 'She Bangs'."
"Ricky Martin sang 'She Bangs', not Enrique."
"I know… like things aren't complex enough as they are. Anyways, only one mole is real, and that's the real head, right, and when I pick that, the other two false heads deflate, like a boob job gone wrong, and so I've saved the day. So, what do you have to say about this?"
"I hate you , you've wasted three minutes of my life."
"I think that in my dream, Richard Clayderman is the embodiment of my childhood fears of rejection, and the golden piano is all the things I've wanted but could never have."
"I think he's the embodiment of your insanity, and the golden piano is what I want to drop on your head. Go back to bed."
"I can't sleep," said Lorelai, "That Richard Clayderman dream is going to put me off sleeping for a long, long while."
"So, let me get this straight," said Rory, "You woke me up at 2.17 in the morning, just to tell me that you had a dream about an annoying pianist and the mole man of the pop industry."
"Yeah, that, and to ask you to remind me to buy some more orange juice tomorrow, we're all out. And also, I think Luke almost kissed me tonight," Lorelai got up, "But I see it's a school night and you need to get your sleep, so I'll leave you alone now. "
Rory's hand shot up and grabbed her mother's arm, pulling her back to the bed. "What? We have to talk about this!"
"Oh, sweetie, I know it's hard now," said Lorelai, "But we can get some more juice tomorrow. First thing in the morning."
"I didn't mean that. I meant about Luke."
"Luke has orange juice?"
"No," said Rory. "Kiss."
"KISS has orange juice? You would think that after they disbanded they wouldn't care about this sort of thing anymore."
"Mom, stop avoiding the question. You brought this up, so clearly you want to talk about it, and if you don't want to talk about it to me, I can wake up Paris."
"Fine," said Lorelai, "You know, what, the more I think about it, the more I think I'm wrong. I'm wrong right? I think I'm wrong. I mean, I'm hardly ever wrong, except for the times when I think I'm wrong, but you know, turns out I'm wrong about that, so I'm actually right. But this time, maybe I'm wrong."
"What happened?"
"I don't know, we were just standing on the porch, talking about Luke and lumberjacks, and how you couldn't fire a shotgun …"
"What?"
"Don't ask," said Lorelai, "And then Luke starts to tell me something, but stops, and then starts again, and then stops, it was like reading a telegram. Or is it telegraph? Which is the one which goes 'Come home. Stop. Mom stuck under
carriage. Stop.'?"
"I don't care. What did he tell you?"
"Argh...I don't know. He wouldn't say, but when I suggest he act it out, he just looks at me weirdly, leans in, like something's going to happen, and then he just says goodnight and goes home. What's that about?"
"Well, looks to me like he wanted to kiss you," said Rory, after much thinking, "But then didn't have the courage to go through with it."
"Oh, what do you know."
"You asked me what it was about, and I gave you my opinion."
"Yeah, well, I take it back," said Lorelai, "I don't want your opinion, which renders your previous sentence null and void."
"You can't null my opinion," said Rory, "It's what I think, and you yourself said you thought something was going on between you guys."
"I did not."
"You did."
"I said, 'I think Luke tried to kiss me', that is so totally not the same as 'something is going on'. You know, if you're going to just twist all my words like that, I don't think you should quote me ever again."
"Fine," said Rory, "Here's my question . Did you want something to happen?"
"Rory, don't go there."
"What? All I'm saying is that, he's a man, you're a woman, the two of you have the whole town up in the air with your Ross-Rachel will-they-won't-they antics, and I'm just asking you a simple question."
"He's just a friend."
"I applaud the manner in which you conveniently did not answer my question."
"I wasn't finished," said Lorelai indignantly, "And what I want is irrelevant. What's really at hand here, is that Luke probably leaned in to check his own reflection in my eye, and I've misconstrued it as something else. Yes, that is a believable explanation, and I am sticking to it."
"Great. So, are we still allowed to go to Luke's, or do we have to start avoiding him again? I'm not going back to Al's Pancake World again, unless it's to pin up a 'condemned' notice on his front door."
"No, we are not going to avoid Luke," said Lorelai, "Why would you assume something like that?"
"Because whenever something weird happens between the two of you," said Rory, "You and I are left walking eight hundred blocks to find coffee."
"I've told you, like three million times already, Rory, stop exaggerating," said Lorelai, "And if you think that Luke and I can't handle this like adults, then you're wrong. Tomorrow, we're going to Luke's like normal, and then we're going to discuss it like adults, where I will discover that he was indeed checking out his own reflection, and that nothing weird is going on. Are you satisfied?"
"Hey, it's your life."
"Yeah, yeah," said Lorelai, as she leaned back in bed and sighed. "Richard Clayderman was way easier to understand."
* to be continued *