Chapter 7

A few weeks later, the diner was so busy Luke hardly noticed when Mia came in with a tall, pretty brunet woman.

"Brisk lunch hour business," the woman noted approvingly as Mia led her to a seat. Luke came by to take their drink orders, and both asked for coffee.

"So, Ms. Davies," Mia began once they'd both settled on their lunch orders. "What do you think?"

"Of?" the other woman replied, tilting her head slightly.

"The Inn. The town," Mia said.

Ms. Davies smiled warmly. "Both are undeniably beautiful. And the only other time I've seen such a well-run establishment it was my own. I'm afraid I won't have much to do when the sale goes through." She transferred her smile to Luke as he brought two mugs of coffee. "Thank you," she said. They placed their orders and Luke left again.

Mia said, "So we should have the lawyers draw up the papers as soon as possible." She tried to sound business-like, but her eyes began watering almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She gave a weak laugh when Ms. Davies hastily pulled napkins out of a dispenser, handing them to Mia. "You must think it's silly," Mia said, and the other woman shook her head furiously. "Well, I think it's silly."

"To tell the truth, I'd be a little leary of buying if you weren't so obviously attached to the place."

"Yes, I suppose so," Mia replied and dabbed at her eyes carefully.

Luke came just then bearing food and stopped dead when he saw Mia was crying. "What's wrong?" he demanded and hurriedly set the plates down.

Mia waved him away. "Apparently property transactions make me weepy," she said.

"Ah," Luke said, a world of comprehension in the syllable. "Let me know if you need anything else."

Even though the statement was aimed at Mia, Ms. Davies held out her mug. "I'd love another cup of coffee," she said. "It's absolutely delicious."

"Coming right up," Luke said.

"Thank you." Again, Ms. Davies smiled at him. His lips almost twisted into a smile in response before he turned away. Ms. Davies turned to Mia. "So, how do I go about finding an apartment here?"

"An apartment?" Mia asked, non-plussed.

"Yeah. I'm going to need a place to live. Unless there's someplace in the Inn?"

Mia shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. Well, there are several nice apartment complexes here, mostly on the streets named after fruit."

"Fruit, got it," Ms. Davies said with a smile. "Truthfully, what I really want is a house, but I know that might take some time. So, I'll be doing apartment living for a while."

They settled into eating in companionable silence.

"Aw, it's gone," Ms. Davies said a few minutes later, making a disappointed face at her empty plate. "Everything here is delicious. Why do people even eat at the Inn?"

Mia smiled. "The Inn is for more up-scale meals. You know, nights on the town."

"I suppose. So, tell me about Stars Hollow," Ms. Davies requested before finishing the last of her coffee. In response, Mia stood and grabbed her coat.

"Why don't I give you a tour as I talk?" Mia suggested, smiling warmly. Ms. Davies returned the smile and mimicked Mia's actions.

"Sounds great," she said. "I'd just like one cup of coffee to go." When Mia laughed, she explained, "I'm a little neurotic about coffee." They exited the diner into the crisp afternoon.

"My dear Ms. Davies," Mia said. "I think you're going to fit in just fine here."

"Well, as long as I'm going to fit in here, please stop calling me Ms. Davies. It reminds me of my ex."

"I'm sorry," Mia said. "Was it a bad divorce?"

She shook her head in response. "We just didn't see each other for what we were for a long time." She grew a little melancholy for a moment. "Not until it was too late." Then she brightened. "But the point of that was to ask you to call me Lorelai."

"I'd be thrilled," Mia said. The two women strolled through the town for the next hour or so.


~*~

The next morning, Lorelai came into the diner for breakfast. Instead of another business suit she wore old jeans and a sweater underneath her heavy winter coat. And rather than the sedate bun she'd worn in her hair, it now tumbled down around her shoulders. The diner was moderately busy, and she opted to sit at the counter rather than take up a whole table.

A young man was circulating with a coffeepot, instead of the Hispanic man she'd seen yesterday. He looked a lot like the man who'd taken their orders, come to think of it. Then the man from yesterday appeared with three plates in his arms. "I'll be with you in a minute," he said as he passed her.

"No hurry," she said absently and studied the menu.

"What can I get for you?" the man asked, coming up behind the counter.

"Uh, I don't know," she said. "What would you recommend?"

"Well," he said, considering. "The pancakes came out good today."

"Great," she said, slapping the menu closed. "In that case, I'll take three pancakes, a large order of hash browns, a side order of bacon and lots and lots of coffee." She smiled knowingly as he flashed her an incredulous look. He sighed, obviously prepared for leftovers.

"Coming right up," he said. Then he shifted his gaze behind her. "Jess!" he said, obviously an order, but not a harsh one.

"Yeah," the young man said, and approached with a coffeepot. He poured her a large mug of the hot liquid and took a seat behind the counter. Lorelai watched him as he picked up a ragged-looking paperback. As she craned her neck, she saw the title was of Jane Austin's that she didn't recognize. Interesting, she thought, and sipped her coffee. Then she closed her eyes at the wonderful flavor that hit her. She hadn't had the concentration to fully appreciate the wonderful coffee at lunch yesterday, but she did now as she held the liquid in her mouth for a few glorious seconds.

Then she swallowed, and thought back over the business lunch. It had gone well. She hadn't said anything spectacularly stupid, and she hadn't ruined the sale. In fact, she'd closed the deal. But she could barely comprehend that. It was her dream to own a beautiful place like the Inn, and make it run simply by working at it. And now, she was finally able to do that.

Rather than dwell on the fact that she might mess this up, she decided to not think about it and get to know her new home.

Once she got past the scruffiness, the proprietor wasn't bad to look at. Strong and silent, she mused, watching him make the rounds of the diner. And she wondered if the kid—Jess—was his son. There was no wedding ring on his hand, though that didn't mean much, really.

By the time her food was ready she'd eavesdropped shamelessly on all the conversations she could. I'm really going to like it here, she thought, and took her first bite of pancake. I'm really going to like it here.

She enjoyed Scruffy Guy's look of surprise when he took away a completely cleaned plate. She had all the time in the world to find out anything she wanted to know, because she was here to stay.


~*~

Jess continued to worry about what was bothering Lorelai. She still sounded funny on the phone, but everything was fine if he asked about it. His worry caused him to retreat even more than he already had, and when he wasn't working at the diner, he was in the apartment reading and writing. He barely talked to anyone at school. Even the teachers didn't show that much interest in him when they found out he wouldn't flounder or flourish in their classes. Though there was this one girl who was constantly pelting him with weird questions about New York, but he could talk music with her occasionally.

He had managed to find a plot: Civil gets hired to look into a disappearance in a small town. The characters were a little more malicious than the ones he'd observed in Stars Hollow, but it was more fun that way. Sometimes he thought the people in this town were too nice for their own good.

Because he was so distracted, he didn't notice for a few days that they had a new regular customer. When he did realize, he watched her. She seemed very familiar to him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why.

"Well," Luke said one morning. "What'll it be, Ms. Davies?" Jess took note of her name, hoping that it would help jog his memories. Then he shook his head and remembering he had school, though it was the last day before the Christmas break.

"I'm gone, Luke," Jess said. He simultaneously stuffed his book in his back pocket and grabbed his coat.

"You're working at six," Luke reminded him.

"Yeah," Jess said.

As he left, he heard the woman say, "It's Gilmore. My last name, I mean. I'm changing it back to my maiden name." Interesting, Jess thought, and let the door close behind him.

"Oh," Luke said, and blinked. "Sorry."

"Why don't we start over?" she suggested, and held out her hand for a shake. "I'm Lorelai Gilmore."

"Luke Danes," he answered and they shook.

"Nice to meet you. So," she added with a smile. "Who's the chatty kid?" Her thumb jerked over her shoulder after Jess.

"That's my nephew, Jess," Luke answered. "He lives with me."

"Oh," she said. "What about his parents?"

"His dad took off a little while ago, and his mom—my sister—couldn't handle him. Do you have any kids?" he asked suddenly.

She bit her lip and shook her head, ignoring the fact that technically she did, because she didn't want to think about that.

"'Cause I'm trying to figure out why Liz couldn't handle him," Luke continued. "I mean, he's not a bad kid. He's just really…solitary. He doesn't do badly in school. Doesn't do well, either, but he doesn't do badly. He helps out here in the diner. When he's not doing that, he's either reading, scribbling, listening to music or talking to his girlfriend. I mean, the worst thing about him is that he likes his music really loud, and I have to yell at him to turn it down." Luke looked surprised for a moment, as if wondering why he was sharing so much.

"I take it your sister never gave you a specific reason for sending him here from…where was he from?"

"New York. And, no, she didn't. She just said she couldn't handle him and put him on a bus the next day. He's not a complete saint, I mean, he's pulled a few pranks, but it's just kid stuff."

Lorelai smiled. "Like what? He didn't put, like, soap in the water fountain, did he?"

"Not that I heard about."

"Ah, that one's a classic."

"The worst was this chalk outline in front of the grocery store window," Luke said. "Pissed off Taylor a lot, but it was pretty harmless. He also hid a whole bunch of the school's baseballs." Lorelai snickered. "They found them in a closet. The coach almost got buried by horsehide." Lorelai outright laughed and Luke almost joined in. "So, what'll you have this morning?"

"Well, seeing as how I've sampled pretty much everything on your breakfast menu but the omelet, let's try that."

"Great. What do you want in it?"

"Ham and cheese," she said. "With, of course, the usual hash browns and bacon. And coffee, coffee, and more coffee."

"I take it you don't want the coffee in the omelet?" Luke asked as he got her a mug. She had a horrified expression on her face that nearly made him chuckle. "You know," he added. "Coffee's terrible for you."

"Is it?" She took a healthy gulp. "Do tell."

"It rots your brain with caffeine, it's addictive."

"And how. Fill 'er up." She held out the mug until he refilled it, then he sighed and went to wait on other customers.