Oneiromancy
Part Three
The breakfast crowd had just left and Luke was standing behind the counter with his back to the diner, filling out an order form.
"Boo," a soft voice whispered in his ear. Slim arms wrapped around his waist and hugged him from behind.
Please don't let this be another Lorelai dream, Luke thought as he turned around to face the owner of the arms.
"Hi," Nicole gave Luke a peck on the cheek.
"Hi," he responded, surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"Nice to see you too," Nicole replied, only half teasingly.
"I mean, shouldn't you be at work?" Luke asked.
"I took the morning off. I felt like seeing my fiancé," said Nicole with a smile, taking a seat at the counter. "I tried calling you last night."
"Oh, I had dinner at Lorelai's, remember? You must have called then."
"I tried calling until 11:30."
Luke didn't respond.
"I'm not trying to check up on you or anything," Nicole said quickly.
"Do you not like Lorelai?" Luke asked bluntly. "Because you know she's a friend of mine."
"I guess I'm just a little jealous. I miss having you all to myself now that she's back."
"Don't be jealous." Was all Luke said.
Nicole let the subject drop. "Let's do something fun this morning, just the two of us," she suggested.
"I can't, I have to work. Caesar doesn't start until 11 today."
Nicole looked momentarily put off. "That's okay, you didn't know I was coming." She said and checked her watch. "What the hell, I'm here now, may as well take the whole day off. If I hang around will you have lunch with me at least?"
"Of course."
"Great," Nicole pulled out her cell phone. "I'm gonna go call the office, then maybe explore the town a little."
"Should take you all of five minutes."
"I'll see you soon then."
Luke turned back to his orders after Nicole left, only to hear another "boo" in his ear a couple of minutes later.
"I told you the exploration would be short." Luke turned around, expecting to see Nicole again.
"What exploration?" Lorelai asked.
Luke shook his head. "Nothing, I thought you were Nicole."
"I can be Nicole."
What did she mean by that? Luke wondered.
"I can be Nicole if it would help me get a cup of coffee," Lorelai clarified.
Oh. "Nope, no coffee for you, whoever you want to be."
"But we don't have a kitchen at the Inn," Lorelai whined, "I came all the way here to get some coffee, and I only have like five minutes before I'm supposed to meet contractors at the Dragonfly."
Luke remained passive behind the counter. "This is me not caring."
"Please, Luke?"
"Nope."
"But I can see it right there, tempting me with it's rich, dark, flavorsome goodness."
"That coffee's reserved."
"For who?"
"Someone who hasn't already had five cups this morning."
"Pretty please?" Lorelai tried again, one step away from begging.
"Nope." A smile began to form on Luke's face.
"You're enjoying this torture way too much," Lorelai complained. "Hey would it help if I said the magic phrase?"
"It can't hurt."
"Oooh baby, give it to me goooood."
"What?"
"Hmm, wrong phrase huh?"
"I officially do NOT want to know which business you regularly frequent where that would be the RIGHT phrase," Luke declared.
Lorelai winked. "Sure you do, I'll tell you if you give me some coffee."
Curiosity almost got the better of Luke, but he knew she was just messing with him, so he continued his refusal.
"What's the correct magic coffee phrase, then?" Lorelai asked.
"Coffee is addictive and will
destroy my internal organs, leading to an early death."
Lorelai dutifully repeated the phrase without meaning a word of it. "Just like cigarettes," she added cheerfully at the end.
"And it stains your teeth," Luke warned as he reluctantly handed her a cup to go.
Lorelai bared her teeth at him. "Peroxide, baby." She took a sip. "Mmm, thanks Luke, love your work," she said before disappearing out the door with a wave.
* * * *
"I'm bored," Lorelai announced to Rory as they ate dinner at Luke's that night.
"We can go rent Moulin Rouge after dinner," Rory suggested. "I'll even let you sing along and act out the death scene."
"Good start, but this is more a general boredom," Lorelai said. "Things at the Independence Inn are winding up, and there's nothing I can really do at the Dragonfly yet, after making sure all the trades people are doing their thing. Hey, what do you do all day?"
"Well yesterday I visited Grandma and Grandpa; today I helped Lane out at bible camp in the morning, then started to clear the junk out of my closet in preparation for Yale packing; I've read three books in the past two days…"
Lorelai dismissed this with a wave of her hand. "Still too boring. I need a project."
"Oh, no," Rory groaned at the thought of another unfinished Lorelai project. "Nothing involving perishables," she instructed.
"This has to be something fun. I could ask Taylor if we could organize another festival."
"Because we don't have nearly enough of those."
"I could paint the kitchen." Lorelai suggested.
"You've been saying that for six
years," Rory pointed out.
"Well speaking of stuff that needs
doing around the house, I have to ask Luke to fix the porch step," Lorelai
remembered.
"That's a project?"
"No, but I have to ask him before he gets married."
"Before he gets married?" Rory repeated questionningly.
"Yeah. Anything you want doing,
better get in quick."
"Have they even set a date yet?" Rory wondered.
Lorelai frowned slightly. "I don't
know – oh, that's it! Call off the dogs, stop looking everyone, I've found it."
Lorelai raised her hands in triumph. "I have found my latest project."
"You're going to fix the porch yourself?" Rory guessed.
"I'm bored, not insane. Nope, and this is something I can't drop mid-project either."
"Well what is it?"
"An engagement party! For Luke and Nicole."
Before Rory could respond, Lorelai jumped up and ran to the counter.
"Hey Luke, how about a swap?" she proposed.
"Your currency for my services? 'Cause that's pretty much the way things work around here."
"Dirty!"
"Cooking services."
"I was thinking of a different kind of Luke services. The kind rendered with the aid of a big toolbox…" Lorelai trailed off with a suggestive grin.
Luke rolled his eyes. "You never stop, do you? Cut to the chase."
"You fix my porch step and I'll
throw you an engagement party."
"How about I fix your porch step
in exchange for you not throwing me an engagement party?"
"Come on, Luke, you have to have one. We'll invite the whole town, except the people you can't stand to be in the same room with for more than five minutes, which will basically just leave me and Rory."
Luke gave her a look.
"Or maybe just Rory. Hey is Nicole upstairs?"
"No."
"Liar, I just saw her go up there five minutes ago."
Lorelai jogged up the stairs to the apartment with Luke close behind.
"Hey, Nicole?" Lorelai called, knocking on the apartment door.
"Don't bring her into this," Luke groaned.
"Into what?" Nicole asked as she opened the door.
"One of Lorelai's crazy schemes,"
Luke said.
"Throwing you an engagement party is not a crazy scheme! What do you think Nicole?"
Nicole appeared surprised at the offer, but recovered to accept graciously. "Thank you, Lorelai, that sounds lovely."
"It'll be easy," Lorelai continued. "Too bad about the Inn, but we'll set up a bar at Miss Patty's and maybe have a sit down meal here at the diner. Candles! White tablecloths!"
Nicole looked at her strangely, but Luke was accustomed to Lorelai's thought processes. He took her by the shoulders and pointed her in the direction of the stairs. "Sounds good, go tell Rory all about it."
"Not this weekend, but the next one," Lorelai yelled over her shoulder as she made her way back down to the diner.
"Sorry," Luke said to Nicole.
"Why are you apologizing? I think it's great, really nice of Lorelai. She is a good friend to you. I mean, considering…"
"Considering what?" Luke asked.
Nicole shrugged. "Whatever was between you in the past. It's nice that she still values your friendship and is supportive of our marriage."
"There has never been anything between us, I swear, Nicole," Luke insisted.
"It's okay if there was, Luke, I know I'm the one you're with now. Anyway, I'm excited about this party. We haven't really done anything as a couple yet and I'll get to meet more people in this town."
"That you may live to regret," Luke warned.
"It'll be fun," Nicole declared.
Big fun, Luke thought, wondering what had possessed Lorelai to make such an offer. "Not you too," he groaned to Nicole.
"Yes, you big grouch," Nicole said affectionately. "You better get back to work."
"You okay up here alone?" Luke asked, feeling slightly ridiculous. Nicole appeared fine; he was the one who was uncomfortable with her being alone in his apartment.
"I'm working on something," Nicole said mysteriously. "I'll show you later on."
"Okay. If you get hungry, you know where to find me."
* * * *
Bang bang bangLorelai came home on Friday afternoon to discover Luke hammering on her porch step.
"Hey," she said to him. "Can I get inside?"
"Sure, I'm just about finished." Luke stood back and dusted off his hands on his jeans.
Lorelai hopped gracefully over the newly repaired step and opened the front door. "I'll be back in a sec."
True to her word, Lorelai returned a moment later with a beer in each hand. "You deserve one of these after that manly display," she said, taking a seat on the newly repaired step.
"Thanks," Luke took the beer and sat down beside her.
"This looks stable once more,"
Lorelai commented.
"Yep."
They sipped their beer silently, staring into the front yard.
"Do you what the chuppa back?" Lorelai asked suddenly.
"No," Luke said quickly. "I made it for you."
"You made it for my wedding. So unless you believe the rumors about Brad and Jen breaking up it doesn't look like I'll be using it anytime soon. It seems a shame for all that effort to go to waste."
Luke shifted his gaze to the spot in the yard where the chuppa sat. "It looks good there," he said. "Besides, Nicole and I aren't Jewish and I don't think it's exactly what she had in mind for our wedding. I have this horrible feeling that she's planning something extravagant."
"Yeah?"
"The other night she filled the apartment with hundreds of bridal magazines trying to find the perfect combination. And she wants my opinion on everything," Luke complained.
"That's good, isn't it?" Lorelai
asked.
"But I don't care whether the table settings are roses or carnations. I can't even believe she's going into table setting detail when we haven't even set a date yet."
Lorelai patted him on the back. "Lucas, my friend, you have a lot to learn. Nicole's a woman, this wedding is going to be one of the most important days of her life."
"Way to lay on the pressure."
"I'm sure she just wants everything to be perfect. Just be supportive and go along with whatever she wants," Lorelai frowned slightly. "Unless its dancing midgets or Chinese acrobats."
"What?'
"Don't let her near my mother and you'll be fine."
Luke gave her a slightly bemused look. "Right."
"Have you ever thought about your wedding day?" Lorelai asked him. "I mean, before you even met Nicole. Just generally?"
"No," Luke gave the succinct, male response.
"Really?" Lorelai prodded.
"Okay, that's not exactly true. Rachel and I talked about it once," Luke confessed.
"About getting married?"
"Yeah, not so much about the
marriage part, just about what we wanted out wedding to be like. We both agreed
– simple, outdoors in the spring."
"Sounds nice," Lorelai said softly.
"What about you?" Luke asked.
"Sure, I thought about it."
"With Max?"
"Nah, I couldn't really get into that. But when Rory was little I used to daydream about what it would be like if I had married Christopher," Lorelai admitted. "But I think it was mostly for Rory's sake. The most important part was what she would be wearing as the flower girl." She paused, and then continued softly. "I know Chris and I were too young to get married, but I used to wonder if I did the wrong thing, not providing Rory with a father figure." Lorelai looked over at Luke. "But then I realized, she had you."
"Me?" Luke blinked. "No, you did an amazing job with Rory all by yourself. I was just the guy who should have been arrested for serving coffee to a ten year old."
"It was so much more than that, Luke," Lorelai said seriously. "You have always looked out for Rory, I hope you know how much that means to me."
Luke was touched, but slightly embarrassed. "It's not like I helped raise her or anything. I never even babysat," he downplayed.
"You did once," Lorelai recalled.
~*~*~*~*~
Luke wiped down the counter ferociously. He was grumpy, which wasn't uncommon, but this time he had a better reason than usual - Rachel had just left for a year in South America.
The bell on the diner door jingled and Luke looked up, ready to snap as the latest customer let a blast of cold air into the diner. But his mood mellowed immediately on seeing the Gilmore girls. The outgoing young mother and her daughter had smiles that melted hearts all over town.
However Lorelai didn't have a smile for him today. "Coffee please," she ordered weakly.
She looked about as dejected as he felt.
"You looked bummed," Luke commented as he poured her coffee. He and Lorelai weren't exactly friends, but they talked whenever she came into the diner, which was fairly often.
She shrugged. "It's nothing, really. I was supposed to have my first date in months tonight, but my babysitting arrangements fell though."
Luke knew Lorelai well enough to know that she was completely devoted to Rory and wouldn't hesitate to cancel her date to stay with her daughter. But he felt a rush of sympathy toward this woman who, at 23, was still so young, yet worked incredibly hard to provide for her daughter. She deserved a break, and one date seemed like such a small thing to ask for.
"I can watch Rory if you want." Luke found himself offering tentatively. This was crazy; he knew nothing about kids.
Lorelai sensed his trepidation. "It's Friday night, I'm sure you have plans."
"Nope, and it's shaping up to be a slow night here."
"You know I don't think I've ever seen you outside the diner, are you sure you aren't trapped here by some mystical force field?" Lorelai teased.
"Maybe I am," Luke said mysteriously with a raise of his eyebrows. "But I'm serious about watching Rory."
"Are you sure it won't be any trouble?" asked Lorelai.
"It's fine, really," Luke assured her.
"Okay," Lorelai turned to her daughter. "What do you say, Rory? Want to hang here with Luke tonight?"
Rory nodded and smiled at him shyly.
"Thank you," Lorelai said gratefully, and cracked a smile for Luke.
* *
Rory was an angel. She sat quietly in corner and read all night, only once asking for a bowl of ice cream with extra chocolate sprinkles. After Luke closed up, he made his way over to the table where Rory sat, wondering what on earth he should talk to her about.
"How was the ice cream?" he asked nervously.
Rory looked up from her book. "Good, thank you," she responded politely.
"Good." Luke nodded. "Whatcha reading?"
"The Voyage of the Dawn Trader," she replied solemnly.
"Narnia, huh? How old are you?" Luke asked.
"Six."
Luke was impressed. Six, what as
that, first grade? Didn't kids just start to learn their ABC's then? "Good
book?" he asked.
"It scares me sometimes," Rory admitted. "I forget it isn't real." She carefully folded one of the pages down to mark her place in the book before setting it aside. "Do you have cards?"
"Sure. Do you want to play go fish or something?" Luke asked, retrieving a deck from behind the counter.
"Poker."
"You play poker?" Another surprise. Maybe kids were easier to relate to than he'd realized.
"Mommy taught me."
Of course.
They played until Rory fell asleep at the table. Luke was just covering her with a blanket when the door jingled.
"Hi," Lorelai said.
Luke stepped back quickly, not wanting Lorelai to think she'd left her daughter with some kind of pervert.
But Lorelai was smiling at the sight of Luke parenting Rory. All her instincts told her he was a good guy. "Any problems?" she asked.
"Nope, she's a great kid. Good poker player too."
Lorelai mock gasped as she sat down at the table. "You involving my daughter in illegal gambling?"
"It was her suggestion. So how was your date?" Luke asked, sitting down as well.
Lorelai shrugged. "Good until the end when he asked me to come back to his place and I said I had to pick up my daughter."
"What happened then?" Luke felt a surge of protectiveness flow through him.
"He recovered well from the shock to give me a polite 'I had a good time, I'll call you,' which of course will never happen."
"Jerk," Luke said.
"I'm used to it. I'm more mad at myself," Lorelai said. "Rory's the most important thing in my life, yet I avoided mentioning her until the end of the date. I'm not ashamed of my beautiful girl." She brushed a strand of hair off Rory's face.
Luke didn't quite know how to respond, but there appeared to be no need.
"Anyway, I should get this one home to bed." Lorelai pushed back her chair and Luke stood up also. "Thanks so much for looking after her. You're a sweetie." Lorelai stood on tiptoes to give him a soft kiss on the cheek.
Luke blushed. "Do you want me to help you get her home?" he offered.
Lorelai scooped Rory up with a grunt. "It's okay, I'm used to it."
"Mommy?" Rory stirred.
"Hey, baby, we're going home. Say
good night to Duke."
"Good night, Duke." As they left the diner, Rory waved to Luke over Lorelai's shoulder before her eyes drooped closed again.
~*~*~*~*~
Lorelai regretted that that moment, so simple, yet so meaningful at the time, had lain dormant in her memory for so many years. "We've known each other a long time, haven't we?"
"We have," Luke replied thoughtfully. They had drifted through varying degrees of closeness over the years, and he now knew her friendship was one of the few things he could depend on in his life.
"So has there been a discussion?" Lorelai asked.
Luke gave her a quizzical look.
"With Nicole. About kids?"
"Oh, no. I don't even know if she wants them," said Luke.
"Well I think you'd be a better father than you give yourself credit for," Lorelai told him.
"And you're a great mother."
"What is this, the mutual admiration society?" Lorelai asked, lightening the mood. "This is beginning to resemble a Hallmark moment."
"We can't have that. I better get back in time for the dinner rush." Luke stood up. "Will I see you at the diner later?"
"Friday night dinner with the parents," Lorelai reminded him.
"Right. Have a good night."
"You too." Lorelai remained on the step watching Luke walk away and finished her beer, deep in thought.
* * * *
