disclaimers in chapter one.
The phone rings in the midst of dessert, something so chocolate and delicious that extra pounds are gained simply by watching it be delivered onto one's plate. Ignoring her grandmother's look of annoyance and great tribulation, Rory takes the call.
"Hello?"
"I broke a cup!"
It's her mother on the other end. Rory mouths that to her grandmother, who looks slightly less stern when she hears this news and a bit more uncomfortable. Lorelai and Emily have yet to speak on the phone, much less in person, since that disastrous night at the Dragonfly three weeks ago. They aren't fighting exactly, but the relationship is more strained than usual and needs a cooling-off period so as to make everything smooth once more.
"That's great!" She takes a large gulp of tea and has a moment of feeling very British (drinking tea! drinking tea!) before continuing. "Did you spill it on anybody?"
"Only Taylor. He would have made the same amount of fuss had I spilt it on the floor."
Rory nods in agreement, then remembers that her mother is currently on another continent. "That's true."
"It was so awesome. I was walking out of the diner, maintaining eye-contact, just like you told me --"
"Wait, were these actions performed simultaneously?" Rory asks. "Because that doesn't sound exactly .... safe."
From over her fork, Grandma watches Rory's side of the conversation with unveiled interest. It pains Rory that the relationship between her mother and grandmother is so knotty as to make them get their information on each other from secondary sources. Grandma and Mom are pretending not to fight, and no amount of hinting and nudging from Rory will get them easy with one another any faster than they wish. Rory is once again thankful that she and her mother have a good relationship. Even stumbling blocks -- such as the terrible, ridiculous night three weeks ago -- are just that: stumbling blocks.
"-- and then Kirk had to ruin it."
Rory waits expectantly for her mother to finish for all of three seconds before she realizes that a game's being played upon her. She sighs lightly, because her mother has given her ninety percent of the story, and now she's waiting to be asked for the last ten percent. Rory isn't certain, but she thinks that she might have created the game when she was a child, coming home from school. No matter that Rory started it, her mother found a way to monopolize it.
"How did Kirk ruin it, Mom?"
"Glad you asked!" her mother returns brightly. "He says to Luke -- and I quote -- 'She hasn't broken anything yet!' You see, it was the 'yet' that threw me."
This sounds strange to Rory. She can't quite place what's wrong, though, so she falls back on a tried and true strategy: confirmation.
"Are you certain that he said 'yet?'"
"Are you doubting my ability to remember a simple conversation that I had only ten minutes ago?"
Rory checks her watch, then does some math in her head. As she comes to her difference, she smiles. If she's right, then there is an even higher chance than usual that her mother is embellishing the story. Mom has been known to hallucinate in the early hours of the morning, especially if the number of cups of coffee that she has had is less than the time it is divided by two.
"Mom, ten minute ago was six-fifty-eight for you."
"Actually, it was two minutes past seven. One of our watches sucks."
"I'm just saying, Kirk happens to be a really optimistic person. I find it hard to believe that he added the 'yet.'"
"He added the yet, Rory. I'm certain of it."
"Mom, you were certain that William Hung would outsell Clay Aiken."
"I say the numbers are fixed."
"So how's Luke?"
"Whoa, Rory, I just got whiplash from your abrupt conversation change!" Mom exclaims. "Excuse me while I go get myself checked out at a good chiropractor. You wouldn't happen to know a good chiropractor, would you? I've never actually been to one. Well, okay, I lie. When I was eleven, my mother was certain that my backpack -- only, we called it a book bag, because more expensive schools call them book bags -- was too heavy and causing me to slouch. So Emily took me to three chiropractors, all of whom told her that I was just lazy."
"Congratulations."
"I started young."
"So, Mom, are you going to get back to my question? We've talked about him all conversation without actually, you know, talking about him."
Rory actually has her suspicions about why her mother is reluctant to speak about Luke, beginning and ending with the short life of one of the diner's mugs. However, she is definitely not going to be touching down in that area too heavily. She and her mother had briefly spoken on it about a week ago, and Rory is still trying to strike the conversation from her mind. If she never things about her mother and Luke getting it on -- or not getting it on! -- again, it would be all too late. Unless Mom starts in with crazy dreams that Rory is forced to analyze to death, well, Rory is looking forward to a long retirement of that topic between the two remaining Lorelai Gilmores.
"Luke is ..." Mom's voice trails off, and Rory can hear something lighter in there. Mentally, she makes a note to remind Luke that she took a three week course in karate when she was nine, so that he had better not hurt her mother. "Luke is good. We made plans. For this weekend and next."
"Oh, that's great, Mom! What are you going to do?"
"It may be a slow burn, babe, but, I gotta tell ya, this is a calefacient relationship, mark my words."
"You're calescent, marked. Continue."
"Well, this Saturday, we're going to have a movie night. I'm introducing him to all the greatest B-movie action and science fiction flicks that I can find."
"Good choice, good choice," Rory interjects.
"I'm even sneaking in a couple of A-movies, just to keep him on his toes. I'm going to gage his goof-factor by how well he knows each selection."
"I hereby suggest the first Matrix movie and the third."
"You're right. Watching that Zion scene -- AKA 'nipple town' -- in the second movie would just be too weird," her mother agreed. "However, he's already vetoed the entire series."
"That scoundrel!"
"That's what I said, but I was afraid to start a scene, as I could hear Taylor starting the Shoppe up next door, and we all know that he comes running at the first sign of violence."
"And we're well aware of how you would have become violent with Luke, Mother."
"Rory!" Mom sounds scandalized. "It's the Matrix! I would, of course, have demonstrated some of the better moves out of the films."
"Forgive me, I'd forgotten."
"It's okay, young Padiwan. You too one day shall be as all knowledgeable as I am."
"Cool. I look forward to it."
"So, whatcha doin' in merry ole England today?"
"We're slumming it in about thirty minutes," she informs her mother. "Our lunch has to settle first."
"Ah, yes, how well I know the settling of lunch." Her mother's voices sounded sage and obnoxious. Rory grinned. "You have to let lunch settle before the hour it takes to wait to get into the pool can start, you know."
"Of course."
"So, slumming it?"
"We're taking the London Underground back to the hotel."
"Oh, doing it proletariat style."
"Yup."
"So, how are you, babe?"
Rory realizes that they've spent the entire conversation first talking about Luke and then pointedly not talking about him. She gives a little laugh as she replies to Mom, to make sure that her mother realizes how cool she is with it, though she isn't entirely sure that she is cool with it or why she should be.
"Very jamesjoy."
"Thatta girl," her mother said. "So, I'm at the Dragonfly, I have to go, but love and kisses."
Rory makes silly smooching sound over the phone to her mother, who reciprocates with even more absurd-sounding noises. Across the table, Grandma pushes away with plate with a sigh of defeat and wipes her mouth with her napkin before tossing it in her plate. Shocked, Rory flicks the napkin off and pulls her grandmother's half-eaten dessert to her.
"Love you, bye!"
"Bye, babe. Oh, yeah, Luke and I are spending next weekend at the Dragonfly!"
Before Rory can reply to this news that was just thrown at her, the connection is cut, and she is left listening to a dial tone. Flicking off her phone and feeling bemused, Rory dives into her grandmother's dessert, her attention half on her own neglected plate to her left. Grandma rolls her eyes, but refrains from commenting, though Rory knows that she's dying to hear all about Lorelai and, in a more girlish yet matronly way, Luke.
Rory smiles.
"They're having a movie night this weekend."
"Movies aren't very romantic, are they?" Rory thinks that Grandma sounds a bit more upset with this than she ought to. "I thought that you said that this guy is the one for your mother. Why is she trying to sabotage their relationship with movies? Oh, this is just like Lorelai!"
"Chill, Grandma," Rory says, reaching across the table with her free hand to touch her grandmother's arm. Grandma raises her brows at the instructions. "Next weekend, they're going to spend time at the Dragonfly."
Grandma relaxes and nods to herself, satisfied.
Quite uncharacteristically, Lorelai tonight arrives ten minutes before seven, giving Richard and his daughter plenty of time for an amble through small talk and awkwardness, et hoc genus omne. She takes her drink strong, he takes his even more so.
It's been this way, sans the timeliness this side of bizarre, since his granddaughter and Emily had departed for Europe. Already, Richard and Lorelai have been through two almost clumsy dinners, each ill at ease but neither willing to say so after his first perfunctory offer of a temporary cancellation until Emily and Rory returned. For a sharp moment, the words had hung in the air, and he was surprised to remember that, why, Emily might not be returning after all.
Richard suspects that his daughter is keeping the Friday night dinners so as to look after him. He does not further request solitude on the night, but rather appreciates her effort and tries, in his own way, to take advantage of her companionship.
"And how is your mother?"
Richard doesn't know why he persists in inquiring after Emily each time he and Lorelai sit down for their lonely dinners. It isn't as if Emily and Lorelai are speaking to one another, though it isn't as if they are. The relationship between his wife and daughter is a complex one, and one that Richard has never fully cared to investigate. Emily will do something to irritate Lorelai, and Lorelai will do something to infuriate Emily. If Richard cared less for his neck, he might remark fondly to them each that they really are too much alike one another to enjoy each other's company for long periods of time.
He, however, enjoys his head firmly attached.
So he begins the dinner with a question after Emily, which he isn't certain that Lorelai can truthfully answer, but it isn't done in any way to attack his daughter.
"Ma's good, Dad," she replies, smoothing her napkin on her lap. "I talked to Rory this morning on my way to work. They were just finishing with lunch, then they were going to go take the subway back to their hotel."
Richard is shocked and upset.
"Taking filthy public transportation?" he exclaims. "And before their food has settled? They could catch the Ebola virus, for heaven's sake. Lorelai, I hope that you strongly advised them against such action!"
"Yeah, gee, Dad, I tried, but it didn't work. I managed to convince them to wait a half hour before heading home, so hopefully their food was snug and settled."
Emily would have never taken public transportation back to the hotel if she were in her right mind. This goes to Richard's personal conclusion that she was fraught with emotion and unable to admit it. He hopes that she doesn't make anymore rash decisions, but one can never tell with Emily Gilmore, nèe Montgomery. Trix had advised him against marrying Emily, citing what she called Emily's rare and vibrant temper (perhaps Trix had used words like erratic and uncouth, but it amounted to the same). Richard, however, would not give up one moment of disquiet in his married life for all the years left with a more subdued Emily Gilmore.
If he really wishes to look upon the matter, why, Richard enjoys the way that he is wrapped around Emily's little finger. He has to admit, he is somewhat absent-minded, and his wife's take-charge attitude often saves him from social blunders. Richard really doesn't know what he would do without Emily. She's in charge of the tickler file, for heaven's sake! How is he supposed to attend all those functions without her?
"Thank you, Lorelai."
They fall into silence, though it isn't uncomfortable, eating the roast that had been prepared for them. Idly, he realizes that this is the longest that he has ever had the same maid employed for a single block of time.
Lorelai seems to be abnormally bright-eyed, almost as if it were a false awareness, and he decides to comment upon it.
"Dad? I'm sort of cranky tonight. I got up at a quarter to six and had to deal with what can only be described as a group comprised of Taylor clones for most of my morning as they inspected the Dragonfly. All this alertness? It's about twenty cups of coffee vying for dominance."
Though his outward appearance doesn't falter, Richard inwardly shudders. He has not lived with his daughter in almost eighteen years, but he does remember what an early rising does to her for the rest of the day.
"Well keep dinner short, then," he promises.
Lorelai smiles truly for the first time that night.
Before she leaves, Richard taps Lorelai on the arm. He's uncomfortable, upset, and his current situation with his wife saddens him to a level that he had not before comprehended. Perhaps his daughter sees it in his eyes, because she stands there for the moment it takes for Richard to gather his thoughts and speak.
"Emily and I are going to need to sign our own Camp David Accords to fix this thing, aren't we?"
He feels so powerless and ineffective, asking his daughter for her opinion on his marital troubles. The matter is that he values it, and he's lonely for a bit of Emily's vehemence and confidence, which can always be found in her daughter.
"Maybe not, Dad. Maybe everything will turn out okay."
