Sunday Afternoon

The breakfast at the Dragonfly went as well as the dinner the night before. When the guests filed past Lorelai on their various ways home, they smiled or touched her cheek and cooed or, in Taylor's case, gave final warnings about dull faucet hardware. Luke was the last to leave; he squeezed her elbow and gave her a significant look.

"I'm okay," she told him. "I'll call you soon."

She sat with Sookie and Michel in the kitchen to go over the comment cards, but she was unable to concentrate. After a half hour, she rose. "I'm sorry, guys, I've got to get home. Rory thought she was coming down with something last night—"

"It couldn't have been the food," Sookie said.

"No, no," Michel said, "not the food! Not possibly all that fatty animal carcass she devoured."

"It wasn't the food," Lorelai said. "Just a touch of allergies, I think, but I'd like to get home to her. Can we do this tomorrow?"

"Sure, honey, just call me and let me know if you need anything," Sookie said.

"Do not call me," Michel said.

"Oh, now you've ruined my whole day!" Lorelai said. She gave Sookie a hug. "This was amazing. We are going to be amazing."

She was out of breath when she got back to the house. She made straight for the coffee pot and kicked off her shoes in the kitchen before running up the stairs. Rory was still in bed, curled under the covers with a battered copy of The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles. She looked up when her mother entered.

"Hey babe," Lorelai said. "Wangdoodles again, huh? God, do I remember that book."

Rory sat up. "I love this book. How did it go?"

"Let's just say that I am now even more impatient for the inn to be open to paying customers," Lorelai sighed. She sat on the edge of the bed and pushed a lock of hair out of Rory's eyes. "How're you feeling?"

Rory shrugged. "I don't know. Tired. Nauseous."

"Did you sleep at all? Can I get you anything?"

"I slept a little. Off and on. You're making coffee?"

"You want?"

"And a Pop-Tart?"

"You got it, sweets. You want to come downstairs, watch a movie?"

"Will there be big pillows?"

"Yes."

"Fluffy blankets?"

"Most certainly."

"Nothing on the television but Absolutely Fabulous?"

Lorelai couldn't help snorting in laughter. "You want to watch Ab Fab?"

"Drugged out fantasies and bad fashion choices are what I desire," Rory said simply.

"I'll run to the video store, see what I can find. Go downstairs and get settled, okay?" She stopped at the door. "Hon?"

"Mom?"

"How's your heart?"

Rory averted her eyes and drew her knees to her chest. "Still here. Not quite intact, but here." She took a breath. "I haven't been thinking, which is weird."

"And maybe good," Lorelai said. "Give everything time to settle. I am great at not thinking, so you are in luck. I am yours all day, all night—you'll have to beg me to go away. After I get back from town, of course, with provisions that will rot our teeth and dissolve the lining of our stomachs."

"But don't you have a date with Luke tonight?"

Lorelai's chest tightened at the mention of his name. "Oh, babe, nothing's settled. It was all very casual, off the cuff."

"Luke is never off the cuff, Mom. And besides, you made it sound like the invitation was this whole big thing when we were talking about it the other day," Rory said. "You know, before."

"I'm not leaving you alone for another night again," Lorelai said. "They'll kick me out."

"Who?"

"The other mothers," Lorelai said. "You know, the mothers in the international maternal association that has established the laws by which all mothers are governed. They're very strict."

Rory rolled her eyes. "You're spending the day with me. And besides—don't take this the wrong way—but I think it's better if I'm alone for a while." She watched her mother open and close her mouth a few times, trying to form the appropriate response and failing. "It's just, if you're here? I'll be watching you watching me, and I'll be thinking about what you must be thinking about."

"What do you think I must be thinking about?"

"Me and—Dean and I, what we did, how disappointed you must be," Rory said, her voice faltering.

Lorelai kneeled on the bed and put her arms around her daughter. "Oh, honey. Never. What you did, you and Dean? It was wrong; I'm not saying it wasn't. You cheated, and you can't change that. But Rory, you made a mistake, babe, and there's nothing wrong with that. I've made plenty of them myself—I am the queen of ill-advised actions, you know that. I'm not saying that I'm singing from the rooftops or that I think you should consider it among your greatest achievements, but I am not judging you. Do I wish things had gone differently? Of course I do. But Rory, sweetie, you are my kid and regardless of how you screw up, how badly or what you do, I will never look at you with anything less than absolute acceptance and respect. And that is because I think you are an exceptional person. Even exceptional people make mistakes—look at George Clooney."

"George Clooney?"

"Very nice looking man—exceptional, even, one might say—but let's see: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Batman and Robin, Solaris, Intolerable Cruelty—need I go on?"

"I beg you, please don't."

Lorelai sighed. "Rory, you made a mistake."

"A big one."

"I don't disagree; it was really big one. It's going to take a while for you to process that, and you've got to go through whatever you have to go through to get through it, get over, put it behind you. But know, while you do that, that I will be here, that I love you unconditionally, and that I will not, under any circumstances, read Wangdoodles with you even one more time," Lorelai said. "Other than that, you and I, we're good. We're always good."

Rory leaned forward and kissed Lorelai on the cheek. "You know, I think I kinda love you," she said.

"Right back at you, babe."

She looped her arms around Lorelai's neck and rested her forehead against her mother's. "I want you to go out with Luke tonight. If you stay here, I'm just going to feel guilty that you're not out, and—"

"—and you don't need more to feel guilty about than you already do," Lorelai said.

"Right."

Lorelai sighed. "Well, as I've always said: anything for you, Rory."

Rory nodded. "Good. Well, what are you waiting for? Go! Food!"

"You know, you're very demanding for someone reading a novel written by Mary Poppins."

"Julie Andrews Edwards happens to be a fine writer of juvenile fiction," Rory said.

"You keep telling yourself that, Rory. I'll be back."

Lorelai took her time walking to town. There were too many things to think about: Rory, dealing with this; her parents, arguing; Luke. She sighed. She hated that she was sure she could get Rory through this, as though there had existed in her mind the possibility of a similar circumstance occurring for which she had subconsciously prepared. And her parents—she had no idea what would happen and she clearly wasn't going to be any help to them. She could just put her fingers in hear ears, hum, and wait until it was all over; still, she couldn't help wishing her plan had been a little more successful. She hadn't enjoyed their screaming, both at her and each other. And they were her parents, as she had never been able to discover any legal evidence to the contrary, and their separation was depressing. She couldn't even begin to think about Luke—that was somehow bigger than she was capable of comprehending. When she did, she again experienced that familiar, somehow pleasant pain in her chest, as though she had forgotten how to breathe.

She went to the diner first.

She put her purse on the counter and slammed her hands down. "Set me up, Burger Boy. I need the works: burgers, fries, chicken fingers, and lots and lots of pie."

Luke looked at her from beneath lowered brows and attempted to smother a smile. "You planning on killing a small country by feeding them with artery clogging trash?"

"You're the pusher, man: I am just a victim of the game," Lorelai said. "It's for Rory. I'm feeding the pain. That's how it works, right? I know it's feed a fever, starve a cold—or is it starve a fever, feed a cold? I can never remember," she said, tilting her chin towards him and looking at him with a questioning smile. "Anyway. Feed the pain and walk off the weight when it's satiated."

"What pain are you currently attempting to satiate?"

Lorelai crooked her finger at him, indicating that he lean closer. "Generalized heartache and perhaps a fractured soul," she told him, her voice low.

Luke shook his head. "Ah, crap. I'm sorry, Lorelai. You want lots and lots of pie, you got lots and lots of pie."

"You're an angel," she said. "I'll come back—I've got other anesthetics to get, too."

He called her name and stopped her at the door. "You got a lot of stuff to get?"

"Indeed."

"I'll meet you out front in fifteen minutes, give you a ride back."

"Luke, you don't have to do that," Lorelai said. "Really."

"I know," he said.

Lorelai grinned. "You, sir, are the best."

"Know that, too."

He was annoyingly prompt. She was stumbling out of Doose's with her arms full of bags and three DVD cases clenched between her chin and her chest, and there was the truck, idling by the sidewalk. Luke was out of the cab and removing the DVDs before she knew it.

"You're going to be eating this crap for weeks," he said. "And what the hell is Absolutely Fabulous?"

"You clearly haven't been paying attention all these years; this food will last only days in the Gilmore house. And the movies? Isn't it obvious, sweetie darling? It is what it says it is."

"Absolutely Fabulous?"

"Indubitably."

"Sweetie darling?"

"Watch the DVD. It will all become clear," she said. They deposited everything in the bed of the truck and Lorelai slid in, easing the door shut behind her. "Thanks for this," she said. "Really. Yet again above and beyond the call."

He shrugged. "No big deal." He threw the truck in gear and pulled out. "And I have been."

"Have been what?"

"Paying attention all these years."

Lorelai blushed and was silent. After a moment, they broke the silence simultaneously.

"So, this evening," she said.

"About tonight," he said.

"Oh, sorry," Lorelai said, "you go."

"No, no, it's fine. What were you going to say?" Luke asked.

"Ah, I was, um, you know, eh—" she stopped, sighed, and covered her eyes with her hands.

"Lorelai?"

She dropped her hands and jerked her head up. The pain was now complicated by a slight flutter; the thought crossed her mind that she might be having repeated mild heart attacks. If she was, it was really not that bad. "Did you still want to go out tonight?"

"Did you?"

"I asked you first."

"Technically," Luke said, "I asked you first."

"Crap. You did. I hate losing."

"Noted."

From the corner of his eye, Luke watched Lorelai tuck her hair behind ears. She couldn't keep her hands still. She turned to him, about to speak, and saw the look on his face.

"Oh, you're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Yep."

"Nicely put." She took a breath. "So, ask me again."

"I already asked you once."

"Do it again," Lorelai said. "Please," she added, as an afterthought.

"Do you want to go to the movies with me tonight?" he asked. He stopped the truck just in front of her house and turned to face her.

Lorelai put her hand to her chest and affected surprise, gasping and batting her lashes. "Why Luke, this is so sudden!"

"Lorelai."

"I just don't know what to say!"

"Lorelai."

"I mean, you asking me to the moves, it's just—"

"Lorelai."

She giggled and nodded. "I would love to."

Luke nodded and smoothed the front of his shirt with his hands. "Good. I'll be here at six. You want to grab dinner before?"

"I would love to, also." She slid out of the truck. "Thank you, again, for the ride. You probably shouldn't come in just now. Is that okay?"

He nodded and helped her gather up her things. "You sure you can get this inside all by yourself?"

"I would nod," she said, "but I'm afraid I would dislodge the ice cream and then the whole candy pyramid would collapse, and that's just a tragedy waiting to happen."

"I'll see you at six."

"Six o'clock it is."

She wanted to watch him go, but the food situation was growing ever more precarious, and Rory was waiting for her.

Next: Sunday Evening