Five and a half beers later, Luke and I have settled down considerably.
The air is cool, the coffee is hot, and the minutes are broaching midnight but we're still gabbing away effortlessly—or at least I am.
Surprisingly enough, this is actually turning out to be one of the most relaxing evenings I've had all year. There is no worry, no disruption, only the age-old amusement of two good friends laughing their asses off at nothing in particular.
Then again, the bulk of our happy hour has been intimately complemented by the fact that I'm now wearing Luke's clothing…
After my dinner dress got all damp and dewey and we had knocked back a few, Luke got it in his head that there was no way he was going to let me go back home and change. Now being the well-bred, well-mannered, and classy young broad that I am, I naturally protested. Honestly, there was much remonstration on my part. But poor selfless Luke, he just kept on insisting and insisting and well, here I am, feeling small and dainty amid a sea of blue flannel.
And in spite of my ongoing threats to belt out the Lumberjack Song, I think I'm finally beginning to understand the fabric's mass appeal to the working man.
Or is it just that this so-called "working man" is finally beginning to look massively appealing to me? Hmm…
"Lorelai!"
Who? Huh? What now?
"Do you always take up the entire couch or is this just some neurotic compulsion to run me out on the floor?"
Aggh, I grimace, bolting from a cloud of contemplation. Luke's grumbling has pretty much killed my short-lived fantasy of the two of us getting hot and heavy in the stockroom.
"Why do you always have to ruin the moment?" I whine, swatting him with a sofa pillow in an overly callous fashion. It's infuriating to discover that for all my drive he takes little offense.
"What are you talking about? What moment?"
Swat!
Once again, Luke barely flinches. No way is he going to pretend he doesn't remember backing me up against the wall and kissing my neck inside that really trippy electric purple haze, is he?
"Seriously, What mo—"
"Nevermind!" I swat one last time for emphasis before wistfully evacuating his side of the couch. "Far be it from your blue collar man-tality to even begin to comprehend the intricate inner workings of the modern day woman. We have needs, Luke. We need our moments! So you just go back to what you do best. Sitting pretty."
And I manage to let that one sink in for all but four seconds before Luke develops the nerve to retaliate, swatting back. Oof, I rub my shoulder. That's smart.
"All right, I don't really know what's going on in that freak show head of yours but I've got a fairly strong hunch you just insulted me… somehow."
"Lighten up, Floyd. I was only joking."
"Floyd?"
"Yeah, Floyd. As in Pretty Boy Floyd."
"My dentist's first name is Floyd. There is nothing pretty about him."
"But you have pretty teeth."
Ah, the telltale visage of utter and complete confusion on Luke's face. Does it ever get old?
"Ooo, ooo, ooo! Platypus!" Ever prone to distraction, I yank myself upright and start pointing at the screen in front of us.
"Plata-what?" Luke questions lazily, my toothy-comment quickly forgotten.
"Who are you, Jessica Simpson? Platypus. As in duck billed platypus, the semi-marsupial of Australia."
"Semi-marsupial?"
"Eh, well there's somewhat of a debate going on about its genus. Kind of like that whole panda debacle only with less prestigious biologists. I guess those egotistic 'head honchos' aren't very interested in the platypus."
"And you are?" I look over my shoulder and discover Luke staring at me as if I had two heads. And who knows? Maybe in his inebriated state I do.
"Hello, it's only the greatest animal on the face of the earth! Totally unique. And did I mention that it quacks and growls?" I beam at him pointedly.
Luke throws his hands up in the air. "I'm sold."
"I knew you would be."
And then we revert to the Discovery Channel.
"They're sorta funny looking, aren't they?" Luke offers, scratching his head in evaluation and throwing his feet up on the coffee table.
"Luke, please, you're insulting my familiar."
"Familiar?"
"In a past life." I nod sagely.
Luke grumbles and shifts away, signaling that I've confused him to the point where he's up and ready for a change of topic. I figure I'll let him pick this one.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot," I yawn, stretching out my bare thigh in front of me idly. It's done in part to alleviate my strained muscles but there's also the underlying motive of attracting Luke's interest. I try not to smile when I catch him studying the movement more than passively. Good thing I shaved this morning.
"What do you think your life would be like if you… if you hadn't had Rory?"
"Wow," I whistle, tucking my leg back in a retired position. "Congratulations, Luke. You must make the fifty-hundred-thousandth person to ask me that question."
"Ah, jeez, really?" The words slip out, slightly slurred but unmistakably regretful. "Screw it then. I'm sorry, I—"
"Relax, hun," I giggle, touched by his inadvertent spout of sensitivity. "It's not your fault. And you're in luck, actually, because you get the sparkly polished answer."
"Oh?" In the blink of an eye, Luke has mellowed and he slides closer to me expectedly. So close that we're hip to hip and his arm is resting behind my head, like a couple of care free teenagers at the drive-in. His body's so inviting and the arrangement so near compromising that I can almost pretend it's flirtatious. "Which is?"
"Well," I giggle again, thrilled at the irony of Luke relocating to my side of the couch. "I probably would've gone to Yale. Ultimately not because my dad wanted me to but because I wanted to, since I was wee and small. And then there would've been graduate school, presumably the West Coast because I'd always wanted to go there and, you know, give birth to a whole new wave of rock and roll."
"Of course."
"Let's see… and if I hadn't had Rory I probably never would've stumbled upon Stars Hollow so I doubt I'd still be living in Connecticut. Damn… that would truly suck 'cuz I love it here. Oh, and I definitely wasn't planning on having children until I was at least… huh, the age I am today. Wow. This is scary."
"But what about occupation-wise?" The chatterbox-formerly-known-as-Luke asks, leading me to ponder over whether he's been spending too much time with me lately. "Would you have ended up opening your own inn and everything?"
"Probably not," I fathom, my brow furrowing with fine line of the hypothetical. "What I'm doing now is completely different from what I'd anticipated. But that's how it is for everyone, isn't it? Few people end up where they thought they'd be. Sookie wanted to be a surgeon—much as I tremble at the thought of her with a scalpel, Michel a dancer and-or head of an evil corporation, and right up until I had Rory I wanted to be Belinda Carlisle so God knows where I'd be."
And then I shake my head in overload. This is getting to be a little too deep for my tastes.
"Well, what about you?" I spur, eager to grill him for a change. "What would you be doing if you hadn't opened the diner?"
"I'd be a carpenter." The response is nothing short of automatic.
"Like Jesus and Bob Vila?"
"Yes," he sighs. "Like Jesus and Bob Vila."
"So how'd you decide between the cooking and the carpentry?"
"Oh, you know..." Luke toils off and darts his eyes downward, ill at ease. "I flipped a coin."
The picture that comes to mind, of young Luke beside a railroad track with a pocket full of pennies, sends me reeling.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Run that by me one more time. You based your entire financial future and livelihood on a coin toss?"
"Yup."
"Luke," I chuckle in amazement, "that's insane."
He rolls his eyes. "Then I take it we're kindred spirits."
And gazing upon him just now, perfectly and delectably handsome with just short of a six pack in his belly and not even a scrap of an effort, I start to wonder if maybe Luke's right. Maybe we are alike, in some kooky, kismet kind-of-a-way. Maybe we are the yin and the yang and the Frankie and the Johnny and the abstract and the concrete rolled up into one big whole. Maybe we are… meant to be.
…
Oh, no. Not this again.
How many times are we going to have to go through this? Bad, Lorelai, bad! You're taken. You have a boyfriend. An exceptionally witty, elegantly dressed, somewhat eccentric boyfriend whose Dutch, yes, may be a tad on the rusty side but he's still a catch! Jason's crazy about you. And Luke—Luke's not your soulmate. He belongs to Nicole.
That's right, Nicole.
Prissy, pretty, super-model-thin Nicole with her Ann Taylor outfits and her baby doll voice and her two hundred dollar hair cut and her Ivy League law degree and her kissing Luke behind the counter that one time and in front of the counter that other time and her luring Luke onto the Love Boat and her stealing and stowing away the only guy I ever truly…
Whoa, Nelly, whoa.
What am I doing? God, I must've drank quarts more than I thought to be bitching at the extent that I am. And the worse part is that I know it's not me. I'm better than this. I don't hate Nicole.
Oh, please. Not even a little?
No, she's never even been rude to me!
Sure. Not outwardly so. But you and I both know we hate her.
No, I don't. Sherrie, admittedly, yeah but Nicole and I have always stood on neutral ground. I hardly know the woman, for Pete's sake! How could I hate her when I haven't the slightest sense of who she is?
She's Luke's wife. That's enough.
But—
Why can't you just face it? We're petty, Lorelai. When it comes to men, we always want to have our cake and eat it too.
Now that's simply absurd. It's Luke's food I'm after, not the man himself. And look, if he were ever legitimately interested, he would've asked me out, right? He was the best looking available guy in Stars' Hollow within our age bracket for many years and I was his crosstown counterpart. God, he must've had zillions of opportunities.
"But to tell you the truth,"
Oh, thank God, the best looking formerly-available guy's talking again. Man, if I was ever in need of a distraction…
"I'm actually pretty happy with the way things turned out. My job, living in Stars' Hollow…"
I want to interrupt him and call attention to his alleged residence in Litchfield but I'm far too browbeaten from the unprecedented Nicole rampage to open up a can of worms.
"Because I've lived elsewhere before. Not for very long but I migrated a little. And what it kept coming back down to was that this," Luke gestures around him, "is it."
"What do you mean?" I question, wrinkling my nose in perplexity.
"Stars' Hollow. It's one of the few places left in America that hasn't fallen victim to crime and drugs and perversion and that other crap that's out there. I never had to deal with that growing up and I guess I took it for granted until—did I ever mention I once lived with Rachel in Chicago for a number of months?"
"No," I mumble, irrationally jealous yet again. "You didn't."
"New York too. I tell ya, sometimes I'm amazed Jess came out as well as he did."
"Okayyyy. And now I cut you off." As much as I love Luke baring his soul, this is getting to be ridiculous and so I grab and down the remainder of his beer. Big gulps equal instant refreshment, for body and mind.
"You're going to have one hell of a hangover in the morning," he says knowingly.
"Eh," I yawn, "It's been a while. I'm entitled to one."
My mind is flickering on and off when I hear Luke rise up. "Maybe we should go to sleep before it gets any later. It's twelve-twenty already. Plus I've got that early lettuce delivery to sign for in the morning."
"Noooo," I whimper, dreading the inevitable. "Lettuce is gross. And sleeping leads to hangovers. You said so yourself."
"Come on," Luke prompts, grabbing my hand and yanking me up on my wobbly feet. "You're going to have to face your demons sometime."
"I'm not tired," I groan, resting my head on his amicable shoulder.
"Oh, no? Your eyelids look like saddlebags."
"Jeez, Luke. You really know your way to girl's heart."
"And you really know your way to a man's pants. What of it?"
Hearing that come out of Luke's mouth is almost enough to make up for the cupping incident, the Nicole rampage and the size too small Mary Janes Emily forced me to endure all throughout my baneful childhood.
"Don't say it!" he warns, his voice full of gripe and foreboding.
"Ultra-Dirty!"
"Uggh, I so set you up for that."
"And I greatly appreciate it," I laugh, skipping my way to the bathroom. "You don't mind if I use it first, do you?"
"Naw," Luke waves me along. "By all means, go right ahead."
"Oh, and you wouldn't happen to have an extra toothbrush?"
"Uh, there should be one in the medicine cabinet that I bought for Nicole but she never got around to using it. It's yellow. Nicole doesn't like yellow."
Doesn't like yellow?
I gawk at his retreating back with a fleeting mixture of pity and irritation. (Mostly the latter.) But what am I to do? My best friend's married to the poster child for picky.
Hear that? You're doing it again.
Sighing guiltily, I try to banish my bitchiness to foreclosed land of below and beware and open the medicine cabinet with excessive precaution, half-expecting the very woman to come pouncing out of it. I like yellow, I think, studying the sad little brush longingly.
"How do you want the bed made up? Do you want me to tuck in both sides?" Luke calls, bringing me back.
"Ummm…" I pause. And then it happens.
Out of the not so clear blue, a stream of disturbing images cuts through my weirded brain: Luke… Bed… Nicole… The place where Luke bedded Nicole.
Captain, all signs point to abort. M'aidez! M'aidez!
I'm seasick. Seasick and dying to be anywhere else but right here, right now. At any rate, rather than hightailing it to my place and leaving Luke in the dust, I may have just enough sobriety to think outside the panic box. Okay. Time to employ some of that classic Gilmore charm…
"You know what? On second thought, why don't you take the bed? I'll be just fine on the couch."
"You're kidding me!" His tone is incredulous. "After you fought so hard for it during the last sleepover? Why turn it down today?"
"Yeah, but you woke up with a backache, remember? And then you groused at Taylor for whistling 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.' I still feel really bad about that."
"Lorelai, if this about your feeling guilty over Taylor then that's ridiculous. You should've seen how I treated him this morning. Just take the damn bed."
"No, no. It's about you. You need your mattress. And, hey—I can sleep on Jess'!"
"It's in storage."
"Oh." My voice falls flat. I'm praying vigilantly that he isn't able to detect the bundles of butterflies laying waste to my stomach. "Well, I still want you to have it."
"Why?" Luke's upper body pops itself through the crack in the doorway, startling me so much that I drop Sunny, the rejected toothbrush. Yikes, I rub my forehead. I didn't even hear him come over here.
"I don't know…" I bend down to retrieve Sunny in effort to avoid his scrutiny. "Because I'm your friend and I care about you."
It sounds beyond pathetic to my own ears. Lamentable, really. What a sorry, sorry, choice of words. Ohhh, but I don't want to look… I literally have to force myself to straighten up and observe just what sort of a reaction I've induced.
…
Great. It appears I've grown a whole new second head.
"Okay," Luke finally responds, obviously discomfited by my lame avowal of affection. And I can't say I blame him. "I'll get you some blankets."
A.N. Next chapter is where all the silly string starts to unravel, or so speak. Stay tuned.