Chapter 9: Shop Talk
Lorelai knelt beside an oak bureau, examining a chip near the bottom.
"Do you like it?" Emily asked.
"It would be perfect for the inn," Lorelai said. "Rooms twelve, three, and seven don't have any dressers. Guests have been leaving their stuff all over the floor."
"That can't be good for business."
"Well, they seem to appreciate channeling their inner teenage boy."
A saleswoman floated up beside Lorelai. "This is a lovely piece, isn't it?"
"It's very pretty," Lorelai said.
"It's Georgia pine, circa World War One." The saleswoman pointed out original knobs, and a little puppy love message carved inside one of the drawers, dated 1954.
"That's adorable!" Lorelai gushed.
"Are the feet original?" Emily asked, less enthused.
"The entire piece is in its original state," the saleswoman answered.
"Oh, I don't know, Lorelai," Emily said warningly. "The whole thing may fall apart a week after you get it home."
"It's in excellent condition," the saleswoman said, slightly insulted. "The previous owners had great respect for the history of the piece."
"Was that the same 'respectful previous owner' who let his child carve graffiti into it?" Emily said.
Lorelai, who had been watching the exchange, smirked ever so slightly at her mother, knowing exactly the game she was playing.
"Mom, the graffiti is cute. Gives it personality. It's at least worth," Lorelai checked the tag, "eight hundred."
"Lorelai, I did not raise you to throw your money away on a piece of furniture simply because it's 'cute'," Emily said with twinkled eye.
"The sticker price is negotiable, of course," the saleswoman said nervously, utterly intimidated by Emily Gilmore, professional haggler.
Ten minutes later, the Gilmore Mother-Daughter good customer/bad customer tag team had knocked the price down by half and had delivery and a pitcher and bowl set added to the deal.
"Wow. What a rush," Lorelai said as they left the store.
"Shopping is a sport if you do it right," Emily said, delightedly.
"Or a battlefield. Thank you so much, Mom. The guests in room eleven will be thrilled to have a place to park their stuff."
"I saw an armoire at a store down the street that has a very mendable crack down the back," Emily said.
"Yeah, and I think I saw a rocking chair that would look great on the deck," Lorelai said with a grin.
"I heard that shopkeeper's a cryer," Emily said like a huntress.
"Let's go."
The two women cruised the street amid the midafternoon tourist shopping rush.
"I haven't asked you recently -- how is the inn going?" Emily asked.
"Better than I could have imagined. We're booked through this month, and Michel expects the rest of the summer to be the same. He's probably right; Michel has a sixth sense for customer service. Which is why he hates them all."
Emily smiled.
"It's so amazing to me that it's all going so well," Lorelai said. "Before the inn opened, I was so obsessed with preventing the whole thing from blowing up in my face that it never occurred to me that it might not be a total disaster." Lorelai stopped to look at some baskets at a sidewalk sale.
Emily regarded Lorelai with the same wistful smile she had worn back at the house. "Lorelai, it occurs to me that perhaps I should tell more often how very proud of you I am."
Lorelai turned away from the baskets to face Emily, stunned.
Looking slightly chagrined yet earnest, Emily continued, "You have become such a success. You worked for everything you've achieved, and you deserve every inch of your success."
Lorelai's eyes glistened as she said, "Thank you, Mom. That's very nice of you to say."
Considering the subject closed, Emily spotted one of her favorite haunts and steered Lorelai inside. As Lorelai thumbed idly through a box of old photographs, she said, "Mom, Rory said something to me the other day that was just crazy."
"What was that?" Emily said, reading a tag on a ladder-back chair.
"You'll laugh," Lorelai said, though her smile was manufactured. "She said you were talking to Mr. Ferguson from next door, and it looked like you two were having some kind of secret rendezvous. Isn't that crazy?"
Emily gripped the chairback, knuckles turning pale. "Why is that crazy?"
Surprised at Emily's reaction, Lorelai stuttered, "Well – I, I guess it isn't crazy. But, y'know – it's jumping to conclusions a little, don't you think?"
Emily turned to Lorelai, eyes piercing. "I guess your father is the only one allowed to have secret rendezvous. It's part of his new life now, isn't it?"
"Mom – I- "
Emily turned on her heel and walked out of the store. Lorelai hurried after.
"Mom, I didn't mean to imply –"
"I don't want to talk about this, Lorelai. This is between your father and me." Emily charged down the street in the direction of the car. The wind ruffled her hair, and the sun had gone in.
"Mom, he and Pennilyn were just having lunches, that's all. Yearly lunches."
"That's all it took for George and Doris."
"That's just a movie, Mom," Lorelai said. "A really bad movie. Starring Alan Alda. Don't throw your marriage away based on something from a movie with Alan Alda, for god's sake. Maybe Jamie Farr, but—"
"Lorelai, stop babbling." Emily wrenched her keys out of her purse. "Let's just go home, please."
"Mom." Lorelai touched Emily's elbow. "Do you honestly think Dad and Pennilyn were . . . meeting," Lorelai said, finding the idea of a tryst and her father in the same sentence slightly off-putting.
Emily unlocked the car but hesitated to get in. She fiddled with her keys, not meeting Lorelai's eye.
"Did you even ask him?" Lorelai said gently.
"Lorelai, don't start. You have no idea what goes on between your father and me, and you have no business butting in."
Emily swept into the car. Lorelai hesitated and then got in, too.
"I just want you to be happy, Mom," Lorelai said. "If leaving him is the best option, then I'll respect your decision. But I don't want you to do it because you think it's the only option."
Emily started the ignition, staring straight ahead. After a moment, she nodded briefly, which Lorelai took as acknowledgement enough. She let her mother drop the subject.