A special thanks to everyone who's letting me know they like it. It started off as such a silly idea that I wasn't even sure I'd get past the first chapter. You guys make my day ;)

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Chapter Three: Jay and Silent Luke Strike Back

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The mallowmar stash had been nearly depleted, a situation which called for immediate Doose's Market Action on Lorelai's part. She emptied Taylor's shelves of the delicious, choclatey marshmallowy goodness. On her way past the produce section, an area she spent zero time in normally, Lorelai spotted the new teacher.

Lorelai was the kind of person who would talk to the people in toll booths for hours if she could. She wasn't going over to the peach display to talk to the lady just to prove her non-jealousy. She was friendly. Lousy Sookie.

Lorelai approached her. "Hi, I'm Lorelai Gilmore," she introduced, holding her hand out.

The woman returned her polite smile. "Jay English," she said, shaking Lorelai's hand.

Lorelai's eyebrow rose. "Jay, like 'Jay and Silent Bob?'"

Jay nodded. "It's short for Jayne, J-A-Y-N-E, because my parents are freaks and thought that was clever."

Lorelai could sympathize. "All parents are freaks. One time, when we went to the circus, people were lining up and handing me quarters to sneak a peek at my mother."

"Really?"

"No. I made that up. My mom would never degrade herself by going to a circus. But she really is that freaky. Speaking of freaky, I was the new girl in town about ten years ago, so I know what you must be thinking about this place, especially after last night's meeting."

Jay smiled. "I wouldn't go with 'freaky' just yet; but it was definitely interesting. What's up with the guy who wanted to 'buy my basket' for 25 dollars?"

Lorelai waved her hand. "Oh, don't worry, that's not sexual slang or anything. That's just Kirk. He needs a girlfriend bad. There really is a whole basket-auction thing."

"Good to know. I thought I'd have to watch 'Oz' to find out what it meant."

Lorelai smiled at that. "So, besides Kirk, have you met anyone else? Miss Patty, Bootsy?" Lorelai wasn't going to say Luke. That was her subtle way of maybe getting Jay to mention the garbage incident and find out what they talked about. Not that she was dying to know if they'd made a date or anything; Lorelai was simply curious.

"Miss Patty's the drama queen?" Lorelai nodded. "Then yes, I met her. I walked out of my apartment building this morning and she snapped a picture of me. She tried to say it was for the newspaper, but for an acting teacher, she doesn't act very well."

"Must be for the men," Lorelai explained. "She used to have one of me that she passed around without my knowledge, then she tried to set me up with a guy who loved 'Ghostbusters.'"

"It's a great movie."

"He saw it 142 times. Probably more, since I last saw him."

Jay smirked. "At least it wasn't Star Trek."

Lorelai almost said a prayer. Not a Trekkie. Very good sign. She cursed though, when she caught a glimpse of the food, and she was using that term loosely, in Jay's basket. Soy cheese. Fruits and vegetables. A box of veggie burgers, not a trace of red meat. Oh, and gross, non-fat ice cream. How could it even be called ice cream if it didn't have any fat in it?

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Lorelai jumped. "That's it. Next time I'm out shopping, I'm picking you up one of those little cat collars with a bell. A nice, pink one." She turned to Luke. "Stop sneaking up on me!"

Luke looked miffed. "I wasn't sneaking up on you. I was shopping and you were in front of me."

"Yes, but if that basket had been a gun and this produce section had been a jungle, your actions would be called 'sneaking up on me.'"

"Speaking of the produce section, you didn't answer my question. You've never even set foot in it with the exception of that one time you arranged the bananas and kiwis into a lewd sculpture and nearly gave Taylor a heart attack before blaming it on the Collins kid."

"Oh, every one knows he's a perv anyhow. Why do you think I wanted him to get my basket and clean out my rain gutters? All I'd have to do is wear the daisy duke shorts and bring him some lemonade and he'd have done them for free."

Luke rolled his eyes. Lorelai's heart was fluttering, not in the romance novel way, but in that 'Yes! He's talking to me and it's almost like old times again!' way.

When Luke rolled his eyes, he seemed to finally notice the jogging lady behind Lorelai. "Oh, hi," he said.

"I hope you're not buying more lettuce for my hair," she said.

"Again, sorry about that."

Jay smiled. "Really, it's okay." She introduced herself, and ended up explaining the name thing all over again.

Lorelai shook her head. "You must have done that a thousand times in your life."

"At least."

"They should have given you a nice, easy name, like Lucas here."

"Ah, so he has a name."

"Luke," he finally said, very firmly, stating the lack of the last syllable. "Not Lucas."

"Good to know."

"You could have just called him Oscar," Lorelai suggested.

"I'm assuming you mean the Grouch, because of the whole garbage thing, and not Wilde. Because he doesn't look like a gay playwright." She turned to Luke. "You're not gay, are you?"

"What?" Luke looked like he was having trouble with the whole process of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. "No, I'm not."

"I don't know, Lukey, you haven't had a girlfriend in a while…and you do live with a young boy," Lorelai piped in.

"He's my nephew!"

Lorelai snickered. Luke was so easy to rile up. Jay smothered her laugh and smirked instead when she saw the dark look on Luke's face.

Lorelai decided not to push his buttons anymore, for today at least. She missed talking with him. "Luke owns the diner across the street," Lorelai informed Jay. "And the building next to it, which he seems to be doing nothing with."

"That's because you're only suggestion was to convert it into a roller disco," Luke pointed out.

"You don't know what you're missing."

Luke picked up a few peaches and put them in his basket. "I'm gonna leave now, before this conversation gets any stranger, if that's at all possible."

Lorelai shrugged. "I'm done too, so I'll follow you to the check out and make the eww-ing noises at all your food."

Luke sighed. "It wouldn't be a complete trip to the store without the noises." He remembered his manners. "Nice meeting you in the normal, non physically-violent way," he said to Jay.

She smiled and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Oh, I'm following you guys to the check-out. Lewd kiwis and roller disco? You rarely hear conversations of this caliber."

Hair flip, Lorelai noticed. Was she flirting? Who did she think she was, with that long blonde ponytail, Barbie? Lorelai took a breath and calmed down. There was no reason to get worked up.

"Too bad you're not really getting the good stuff; we're a little rusty in the conversation area." They headed for the cashier. Lorelai snagged a giant bag of Twizzlers on the way. Everything's cool, she told herself. She leaned closer to Jay and stage-whispered, "He's mad at me."

"I'm not mad," Luke gruffly said, plunking his jar of wheat germ on the conveyor. Lorelai got in line behind him, and Jay behind her.

"Well, I said 'sorry' like a thousand, billion times. And all you said was 'fine.'" She turned back to Jay. "What does that sound like to you?"

"Sounds like he's still mad."

"Sure, take her side."

"I'm not the one who knocked her over and got garbage all over her," Lorelai pointed out.

Jay groaned. "It wasn't totally his fault. And just how many people saw that?"

Lorelai shrugged. "In person, maybe ten people. But Miss Patty was one of the ten so by dinnertime, everyone had heard the story."

Luke's groceries were almost done and Lorelai started putting hers down. Jay couldn't help but ask, "Are you having a party?"

"Huh?"

"Ice cream, candy, cookies…"

Luke snorted. "That's not party food, that's her normal diet."

"Wow."

Lorelai groaned. "Great, I'm the yucky, unwanted, processed meat in a health nut sandwich."

Luke gave Jay's basket a surreptitious glance. Not only did he approve, but she seemed to eat better than he did. "If you ever come to the diner, there's a secret, healthy menu," he told her.

"Great," she enthusiastically replied. "I've already been to Al's Pancake World…" she let the sentence trail off. There was no need to elaborate.

Lorelai shuddered. "And to think, no one had even warned her about the lack of pancakes."

Jay nodded. "This town is freaky."

-end ch.3-

Is Rory coming back? Will Lorelai deny more than the government? Will Taylor restock the mallowmars in time? Stay tuned g