Chapter Six

Little Lorelai and Big Lorelai

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It was just past noon, and Jess' mother still hadn't returned to the apartment. After Jess had left, Rory had curled up on the couch with a book of essays by Lester Bangs she'd found on one of Jess' bookshelves. But after a while, the reading grew tiresome. She'd read most of the essays already with Lane.

She spent a little time poking around in not too private areas. She checked all the classic places; the medicine cabinet, the backs of the kitchen cabinets, and of course, Jess' old underwear drawer (an idea her mother had planted in her head long ago). Unfortunately, the only things she found in the drawer besides boxers were a poorly hidden pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a pocket knife. She tried to find old pictures of Jess as a child, which promised to be amusing, but she couldn't find one. Eventually, she gave up, and picked up her cell phone and started dialing. She really needed to make a couple calls.

She hadn't really expected Lorelai to answer. Most mornings when she didn't have work, she stayed at Luke's for a long time. But surprisingly, she did answer.

"Aloha?"

Rory smiled, relieved to hear her mother's voice. "Hey, mom," she said.

"Rory!" Lorelai squealed, excited. "You're still alive!"

"That I am," Rory chuckled. "I'm sorry I didn't call last night; it was late, and I was... distracted."

Lorelai winced, trying her hardest not to think about the activities Rory was probably distracted with. "It's ok, I was out pretty late last night too."

"Doing what?"

"Celebrating with the whole town because we finally got rid of you," she joked. "Secret's out."

Rory stuck out her bottom lip. "I'm hurt. Deeply."

"Oh, suck it up," she snapped, sarcastically.

"Fine. How was the celebration?"

"The Best. There was square dancing and three legged racing and flags and- cake and-"

"Wow. You guys really go all out when celebrating my absence."

"Yeah, well I guess that just goes to show how much we despise ya'."

Rory sighed. "How's life in Stars Hollow? Really?"

Lorelai sighed. "I wouldn't know. I haven't been out of the house since last night."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm trapped in here!" Lorelai whined. "I can't go outside. This town is too small. It's WAY too difficult to avoid people."

"Huh? Who are you avoiding?"

"Luke."

"Why? What happened? Did he hint that he likes you again or something?"

"Not exactly."

Rory sighed, frustrated. "Well explain please, because this is long distance and it's costing quite a bit too much money for you to be cryptic."

Lorelai sighed. "Ok. Well see... last night after you left, I had a little bit of a nervous, worried meltdown."

Rory put a hand over her heart, pretending to be touched. "Oh really? Awww, that's so sweet-"

"Shut up, I'm trying to say something!"

"Wow. Talk about running hot and cold. Ok, continue."

"So, I went to Luke's to complain to him."

"Of course," Rory said. "And?"

"And we had dinner together, and we got to talking, and then I tried to steal his hat," Lorelai rambled, completely flustered, "and then I-I-"

"You-you-what?"

"I kissed him."

Crash.

"Whoa, Rory? Rory, what happened?"

A stunned Rory picked the phone up, "Sorry. Dropped the phone."

Lorelai collapsed on the couch. "This is awful!!!" she whined. "I can't concentrate on anything, I'm confused, I can't go anywhere, for fear that I might run into him, and I'm STARVING!!!!!" she sighed. "I must have died and gone to hell."

"What did you ever do to merit going to Hell?" Rory asked.

She shook her head. "Beats me. Maybe because of what I did to Max."

"Huh. Maybe."

"Or maybe because at Fran's funeral, all I could think about was buying the Dragonfly."

"Yeah, that was pretty distasteful of you," Rory agreed.

"Or maybe because I got pregnant out of wedlock when I was 16."

"Yeah, from a Christian perspective, that's not something that'll guarantee you a spot upstairs with the big guy."

Lorelai sighed. "Great. So just when I thought this day couldn't get any worse, I discover that I'm going to Hell, and my own daughter thinks I deserve it."

"I never said that," Rory defended herself. "You brought the whole thing up, I was just agreeing with you."

"Fine, defend yourself with technicalities." Lorelai sighed. "What do I do, Rory?"

"Well, I hate to be the one to give you this advice," she began, "but I think you need to go talk to him."

"But I don't want to!"

"Mom, you have to. You can't just pretend it never happened. Trust me, I've tried that before. It doesn't really work out that well, especially not with guys in their family."

"But I-"

"Nope! I don't want to hear it, young lady," Rory scolded her mother in her best Emily Gilmore tone. "Now you get your butt off the couch, and turn off VH1 because I know you've already seen all the countdowns they have, and go down to the diner to talk to Luke."

"But--!"

"Now!!!"

Lorelai sighed, frustrated. "God, someone's sure caught on to the rude New York City attitude quickly."

"Yeah, Jess says I'm adjusting well," Rory said. "Now get going!"

"Fine, fine, I'll go. But if he's too busy to talk, I'm gonna leave."

"He's never too busy to talk to you, Mom."

"That's not true," Lorelai objected.

Rory sighed. "Name ONE time that he was too busy to talk to you, and I'll stop pushing."

Lorelai winced, racking her brain. "It was-the time-back when we were... at the diner and I said-"Hey there Luke," and he said, "Not right now, Lorelai, I'm TOO busy to talk to you."' There was no sound on the other end, but Lorelai could just picture Rory's skeptic glare. "Oh come on," she whined. "You remember the time, don't you?"

"Go talk to him," Rory insisted again.

"Oh fine!" Lorelai gave up. "But just so you know, I'm disowning you."

"Love you too, Mom," Rory replied. "Tell everyone I say hi."

"Yeah whatever," Lorelai grumbled. "Call me tonight."

"I will. Bye."

"Bye."

Rory hung up, and immediately dialed Lane's number.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Lane, it's me."

"Hey Rory!" Lane squealed, happy to hear her voice.

But before Rory could answer, her heart stopped. She heard keys in the door.

"Sorry, gotta go," she whispered, and hung up before Lane could say a word. A sudden sense of terror filled her; for some reason, meeting Jess' mother for the first time proved to be a really intimidating thing to do. She glanced down at her body, forgetting for a moment whether or not she had remembered to change out of the tee shirt and boxers Jess had lent her the night before. Thankfully, she had remembered to put on her own clothes that morning; glancing in the mirror, she found she looked presentable enough.

Thinking quickly, she grabbed the book again and opened it, collapsing on the couch and trying to look as though she'd been there for hours.

Liz nearly had a heart attack when her eyes fell upon Rory's figure on the couch. She hadn't expected anyone to be there when she got back; Jess hadn't seemed too keen on introducing his guest to her, so she'd assumed he would take this Rory character out on the town with him. But she'd obviously assumed wrongly.

"Figures," she thought to herself, seeing the girl was slow to look up from the book in her hands. It made sense that Jess would make a connection with any girl his age that was interested in any kind of reading. But taking a second look, Liz couldn't find any other obvious indicators that this girl was well suited for Jess. As Rory looked up from the book with a warm, friendly smile, Liz couldn't help but be confused by the idea that she seemed... well, nice. And Jess wasn't exactly known for having NICE girlfriends. Usually, his conquests were ditzy girls in low cut tops with shoes so tall they could barely walk in them. This was certainly a refreshing change of pace.

Rory stood up, putting the book down and putting on her friendliest smile that she usually reserved for teachers. From the way Jess had described her, Rory had expected Liz to look like some kind of junkie/prostitute. But, much to Rory's relief, she didn't. She looked a little too young to have an 18 year old son... but then again, Lorelai looked too young to have an 18 year old daughter too. She had long jet black hair pulled up into a hair sprayed pony tail, and the same nose and cheekbones that Jess had. If Rory hadn't known better, she would have thought she was a much older sister and not a mother.

"Hi," she offered her hand to shake as she crossed the room. "You must be Jess' mom." She silently scolded herself for her choice in words. She'd tried to sound polite, and instead she came off as though she'd been rehearsing the simple line all morning.

But Liz was somewhat impressed by Rory's attitude. She shook her hand with a slight smile. "Yeah," she said. "I'm Liz. You're Rory, right?"

"Yeah," Rory said. "Actually, my name's Lorelai, but everyone calls me Rory, because my mother's name is Lorelai too, so it's a lot less confusing this way, and people don't have to call us 'Big Lorelai' and 'Little Lorelai' like she'd originally planned..." she offered an awkward smile, making a mental note that she had to work on her tendency to talk too much when nervous.

"I see," Liz said, not sure how exactly she was supposed to respond to that. After a moment of awkward silence, she asked, "Where's Jess?"

"Oh, he went-" she stopped, suddenly realizing that he might not want Liz to know where he was. "He went out for a while," she said.

"And he left you here all alone?" Liz asked, raising her eye brows. This was so like him, she thought. He finally had a nice girl, and he was treating her like dirt.

"It's fine, really," Rory assured her. "He asked me to come along, but I asked to stay. I'm kind of exhausted from last night." Her stomach dropped. "I mean-! I mean, from the trip last night. The bus ride-the bus ride was the thing that was exhausting..." she sighed. 'Nice going, Rory,' she thought to herself, 'You might as well have just said, "Hi, nice to meet you Mrs. Mariano. Your son and I had wild, passionate sex last night."'

Liz chuckled a little. She could tell how hard Rory was trying to make a good impression on her; and it was nice. She'd never gotten to be in that position before. Jess had rarely introduced her to his girlfriends, and when he did, they weren't generally the kinds of girls who cared much what Liz thought of them.

She tried to comfort Rory's nerves a little. "Yeah, the buses here aren't exactly relaxing."

Rory nodded. "You can say that again."

"Well," Liz began, "I don't want to keep you from your book there, so I'll just grab a couple things and be out of your hair." She headed off to her room, leaving a slightly disappointed Rory in the living room.

Rory had hoped to at least get to know Liz a little. Especially after that awkward, unintentional sexual innuendo, she wanted more time to prove to Liz that she was good for Jess, and not just another one of his temporary make out partners.

Just as she sat down on the couch to open the book again, Liz reemerged from her room with a look on her face that suggested that she was maybe- just maybe-a little nervous. "On second thought," she began, "would you maybe... I dunno, want to grab a bite to eat or something?" her fingers fumbled with the strap of her purse. "I could even show you around town a little, if you want. You know, just till Jess gets back..."

Rory smiled, relieved to see she wasn't the only one looking to make a good impression. "I'd love that," she said, standing up. "I'll just go grab my wallet."

Happily, Rory walked into Jess' room and grabbed a few ten dollar bills from a pile of money Jess had left on his dresser. Hopefully he wouldn't mind.

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It was almost 2 PM, and Lorelai was stuck.

She'd walked, determined, all the way to Luke's, just as her daughter had ordered. But when she reached the door, and caught sight of Luke wiping down the counter, a strange sense of fear came over her, and she bolted; granted, it wasn't graceful in her heels, but she got out of sight quickly, and proceeded to stop by just about every open building in the Town Square. She went so far as to sit in and watch one of Miss Patty's yoga classes, all in the name of procrastination. When all the members of the class started trying to make pretzels out of their bodies, she could barely keep her laughter inside anymore, and she'd had no choice but to leave.

But now it was 2 PM and there was no place left to go besides Luke's. She couldn't go into Doose's market again; she'd been in twice already, and Taylor kept following her around to see if she was shoplifting. She was afraid if she went in again, he might demand one of his employees to do a strip search.

Of course, she'd backed herself into a corner, because now the lunch rush was over; therefore, there was no chance that Luke would be too busy to notice her come in. Lost in thought, she stood in plain view of the diner, staring through its windows like a lonely child outside a pet store. The voice of the town troubadour shook her out of her trance. He sang a song by Sam Phillips that she'd always liked, and he sang it with a mischievous smile on his lips, sending knowing glances her way, as though he were singing it just for her.

We don't want lives of steel

We don't want hearts that feel

We want to live above it all

I feel you closing in

A target on my skin

I think you'll be there when I fall

We might get out of time

We might connect our minds

We might land beyond the wall when I fall

I might give love to you

I might step right on through

Fear might keep me from it all

I climb so high to see

But the ground just teases me

I think you'll be there when I fall....

"Oh I bet you think you're really funny, don't you?" she snapped at him with a glare, interrupting the bridge of the song. He just shrugged with a smug smile, and mimed locking up his lips and throwing away the key. She nodded. "Yeah, it's probably wise for you not to say anything right now." She sighed. He started up playing again, but she interrupted, crying out, "Alright already! I'm going in!" and before she had a chance to talk herself out of it, she stormed into the diner.

However, it was rather anti-climactic. Closing the door behind her, she waited for Luke to notice her and begin blushing. But he barely even looked up. She stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do next, and finally decided to sit down at the nearest table. She opened the menu to try and look busy, but of course it didn't fool anyone; she practically had the menu memorized by that point, and she only ever ordered a few specific dishes anyway. Just as she was considering approaching him at the counter, she found him standing by her side, pouring her a cup of coffee.

"Oh-Luke," she said with an awkward snicker. "You scared me."

"Gee, that'll do a lot for a guys self-esteem," he said in his usual gruff tone.

"No, I just meant that you were like-right there. All of a sudden. I mean, one second you're behind the counter, the next you're right here next to me, pouring coffee. You're like a human pop up book or something."

He ignored her clumsy attempt to begin conversation. "So what'll it be?" he asked. "Your usual dead cow on bread with grease covered potato chunks?"

Lorelai chuckled. "Boy, as appealing as that sounds, I'm not really all that hungry right now."

He looked confused. "So then why'd you come here? Cuz that's really all we provide; the food."

"I actually came here to um..." she cleared her throat, avoiding his eyes. "Well, to talk to you."

"Me?"

"No, the other guy in a baseball cap serving me coffee." She sighed. "Yes, you, Luke."

"You came here to talk to me?"

She sighed. "I'm not sure how many other ways I can say 'Yes', Luke."

"Did you have any particular conversational topic in mind, or were you just in the mood for some small talk?" he asked, a slightly amused smile playing on his lips.

Lorelai rolled her eyes. "Quit being a wiseass, ok? I just thought we should talk. You know, since we haven't since... well, since last night..."

"Well, I would have called this morning, but my separation anxiety has been getting better lately," he said sarcastically.

Lorelai shook her head, in awe. "What? Do you have amnesia or something?"

"Lorelai-"

"Don't you think we should at least discuss what happened last night?" she asked. "Just a little?"

He sighed. "Look, Lorelai, it was an accident. No big deal. We were both caught up in the moment. Let's just forget about it."

Lorelai was far too awed by his nonchalance to protest as he walked away. She couldn't believe it. She had been freaking out about the whole thing all night and day, and here he was, acting like nothing really happened. And suddenly, before she could even prepare herself to prevent it, she felt the hot sting of frustrated tears in her eyes. She couldn't believe her immaturity; she felt like she was right back in Junior High school, realizing the boy she liked didn't like her back.

She blinked, trying to stop the tears. This is stupid, she thought. It wasn't like she was in love with him or something.

But the sting in her eyes only got worse; and so, to avoid being seen in tears, she grabbed her purse and hastily rushed out of the diner and headed back to her house.

And that was when it hit her, like it hit Cher in Clueless. There was no other explanation for the sting in her eyes and her jittery, unstable legs. She did have feelings for Luke.

Of course, it was just her luck that she only realized it after he'd gotten over her.

"You're an idiot, Lorelai," she muttered to herself, redirecting her path to Doose's market to buy some comfort food. "A complete and utter idiot."

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A/N: So yeah. I have two apologies to make. First, sorry it took so long to get this up. It's exam week and I've been studying a lot. Secondly, sorry there was no Jess/ Jimmy in this chapter!!!! That has to be a long conversation, and I didn't have time. but I promise it will come next chapter. PROMISE!!!!!!! And if I break that promise, well then I guess I'll owe you guys my first born or something... so yeah, please review and put me in a good mood for upcoming exams!!!! Hehe next chapter comes during the weekend, maybe sooner.

~Emaline