disclaimer in chapter one
author's note: Ah -- I quite remember how much I disliked writing this chapter. Richard is so dry! :-D As always, don't forget to review. And -- somebody want to buy a younger sister? I've got one for sale.
Rather than have his secretary do the work for him, on Thursday afternoon, Richard looks up and dials Lorelai's number himself, a fact of which he is quite proud. She answers on the third ring.
"Hello?"
"Lorelai, this is your father speaking." Always he has started phone conversations this way with Lorelai. Richard finds comfort in routine, and it is also a sensible way of making certain that his daughter knows with whom she is conversing. "Take whatever it is you have inside your mouth out before you answer the phone, please."
"Hey, Dad." Lorelai sounds puzzled, as well she might be. Richard rarely makes use of telephonic means of communication with her; he prefers instead to discuss matters over the Friday night dinner or allow Emily to handle all calls. However, Emily is not here, and Richard's is a timely subject upon which to confer.
"I'm calling about dinner on Friday night," he says without introduction. Go straight to the topic for which you were calling, his mother always said! "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind if I changed plans on you. Just slightly, mind you."
"You want to cancel dinner?" she asks. "Just this Friday, though, right?"
"Actually, no, I do not want to cancel dinner."
"Oh."
He thinks that perhaps Lorelai sounds disappointed about that. He hmphs into the receiver. For him, temporarily at least, in the bickering between himself and Lorelai he must render himself hors de combat; out of the fight as a penalty of his gross mishandling of the Jason situation, picaroon though that boy turned out to be.
"I'm merely wondering if you would mind terribly if I had a couple of old friends join us. Merle and Elise Jennings from Austria. They're visiting the States for the first time since you were a child, if you recall them."
"The only thing that the name Merle brings to mind is a small, smelly lapdog."
"Ah, yes," Richard reminisces, "Merle and that unfortunate toupee of his. But that's good: you do remember them."
"Listen, Dad, if you're really sure that you want me there, I'll be there."
"It sounds, Lorelai, as if you're trying to get out of dinner."
On her end of the line, she pauses.
"I'm seeing this man," she says, and nothing good has ever come out of any conversation that Lorelai begins those words with. Richard bites his tongue and waits for his daughter to continue, repeating to himself over and again as his mantra the words out of the fight. "I made plans with him for later on Friday night."
"And you think that it would be better and more easy for yourself if you were to skip Friday night dinner altogether and go out with this -- who did you say it was?"
"Luke, Dad," Lorelai sighs into the phone. "It's Luke."
"Luke?"
"Yeah, Dad, Luke. You've met him before. He owns the diner?"
Ah, that Luke. Yes, Richard remembers him, and he's only halfway surprised that Lorelai is seeing the man. In fact, Richard is more surprised that his daughter has willingly given up the information to him.
"Well," he says, "wait until your mother finds out."
This is not a warning or an ominous statement, merely a filler for the conversation. When his daughter doesn't speak for several moments, he thinks that she has misunderstood his statement, and so waits patiently for her to speak so that he can explain himself.
"Um," she says. "She already knows. See, Rory knows, and she and Mom ... you, are in Europe together. In fact, I think it was good for Rory, having someone to talk to about my dating Luke."
This piques Richard's interest.
"Has Rory ever needed to speak to anybody about the men that you were dating before, Lorelai?"
There was the teacher, but Richard has a feeling that this is a different for of yea or nay vote that Lorelai is seeking from Rory. Lorelai clears her throat, causing Richard to move the earpiece way from his head for a few moments while the static died down.
"No, but this is different, Dad."
"Different how?"
"This is Luke. Luke that has always been there, you know? And now suddenly, he's not just there, he's dating Mom. And that has to be rough on Rory."
"That you're dating Luke."
"That I'm dating the closet thing that she had a positive male role model in her entire childhood?" Lorelai asks, a bit sarcastically, Richard thinks. "Yeah."
There is a pause from both parties as he thinks about what Lorelai has just said. It is true that he was not there for much of Rory's childhood, a fact that he regrets beyond many other things in his life. An even greater tragedy is the fact that Christopher was not there, was not a stable part of the life of his own flesh and blood. Part of this, he knows, has to do with Lorelai's insistence on living on her own, with her damn independent streak. However, how difficult would it have been for Christopher to be there more often for Christmases and birthdays?
Had Christopher been there? Heaven knows, Richard himself was not there, so he could not verify the whereabouts of Christopher at those times. However, from the past few years spent in the company of his daughter and granddaughter, and from the stories that he has been told, Richard garners the idea that this Luke man was probably there, probably a big part of their celebration.
Why? There is only one clear, solid relationship that Richard can see between Luke and his daughter. He ran the diner; Lorelai liked food. But why would Rory have so many stories of him, if he were merely there for the food. Richard recalls that Luke has very little family -- at least, until recently, for, wasn't his granddaughter dating Luke's nephew? Did Lorelai choose him as her friend because he was as alone as she? Or was it merely a relationship built up out of the convenience of her eating habits?
"I remember when you were a subdebutante," Richard says, breaking the silence.
"Technically, Dad, I still am a subdebutante."
"Well, then, that's certainly one in your favor. There is a dearth of subdebutantes over the age of thirty."
"Did you just make a joke about my age?"
"Bring Luke along."
"Excuse me?"
"Bring Luke to the Friday night dinner with you," Richard repeats. "I would like to meet him, and I'm certain that he would appreciate a night away from the diner to a place where he is catered. Think of it this way, Lorelai. A Gilmore will be feeding him instead of the other way around."
"Dad, I don't know if Luke would want to come."
"Lorelai, this is final!" exclaims Richard. "I want to meet his man who has to win the approval of my granddaughter in order to continue his relationship with my daughter. He sounds like a special man indeed."
And one, Richard thinks to himself, that she has obviously not been dating for four or five months; it has only been a month and a half since Lorelai and Jason ended their liaison.
"Dad, you're beginning to scare me," Lorelai says, her voice somewhat lighter. "You're starting to sound a lot like Mom."
He hates how morbid his company gets when his wife is mentioned; he has only just recently realized how he darkens a conversation with his silence.
"I miss your mother terribly, Lorelai," he says. "I would do anything to bring her back. If only she had not rushed off to Europe with Rory. Another week would have had me on my knees begging to bring her back to the house, I am man enough to admit."
"You two were at each other's throats." Lorelai's voice is gloomy. "Maybe you just needed this time apart. Rory says she's very interested in Luke and me, like we're her vicarious love life. I think she misses you too."
"I wish that she would come back. However, I have no knowledge of her itinerary beyond what you have given me, which you'd told me is only given to you on a week's prior notice. If Emily were in her right mind, she would not leave the details of her trip to the last minute!"
"It's her way of working off steam."
"It should not be a unilateral decision."
"Sometimes it seems like Mom's her own junta."
"In our family bloc, I am currently the mugwump here, Lorelai, and I refuse to allow your mother to leave me."
"Dad, I created the kangaroo court. I elect mugwumps."
"Well, then elect me, damnit."
Lorelai exhales loudly.
"We'll be mugwumps together."
"Thank you."
"Listen, Dad, I've gotta go, but Luke and I will be there tomorrow night, okay?"
"Good-bye, Lorelai."
"Dad? I love you."
He does not take time to reflect on the number of times that Lorelai has said those three words to him without prompting.
"I love you too."
The disconnection rings in his ears for several minutes, and he stares at the computer screen before him, lost in thought.
"Sir?" Richard looks up from his reverie to see his secretary Linda in the doorway. "Sir, Ms. Gilmore is on the line."
"Lorelai?" He is surprised. "I just got off the phone with Lorelai."
"No, sir, the other Ms. Gilmore," Linda replies. "Your wife, sir."
Luke knows that he looks ludicrous in the linen shirt that Lorelai lobbed off on him to wear. He wasn't even aware that he'd owned it, but, apparently, she had bought it for him when she had done her shopping that time once before. When she had produced it, he had shaken his head at the considerable daring she had, charging such an expensive shirt to his credit card.
"I feel as if I should be at a Ricky Martin concert discussing the tautness of the leather across his bottom."
"You know, if we run directly before anyone sees us, we may be able to make it to one," Lorelai says, straightening his collar.
"Will you knock it off?"
Her father chooses that moment to open the door.
"Lorelai!" he exclaims, beaming.
"Dad. You answered the door. Yourself."
"Yes, well, the maid was busy cleaning up a vase that I've just broken. I really hope that it isn't a priceless family heirloom, but it's so hard to tell and remember. Emily keeps rotating things out of the attic and basement."
"Ah," Lorelai says, nodding at Luke, "I've been there, and it is like walking through a museum, only everything is worth more and dusted more often."
"Yes, and sometimes they're heirlooms, and sometimes they're only five thousand dollar pieces of glass that she picked up last month at the shops. Not, mind you, that I care to break five thousand dollars in one fell swoop. It's just better if it isn't an heirloom."
Luke touches his collar.
"So, you going to invite us in the house, or are we having dinner with Merle, Elise, and Spot the Toupee out here tonight?"
"Oh, yes, of course, Lorelai! Where are my manners! Come in, come in, come in!"
Rather absentmindedly, Mr. Gilmore steps aside and gestures Luke and Lorelai in. She gives Luke a smile before entering, whispering so low that he almost doesn't hear it, "Take your drink strong."
The house is amazing. Luke casts a look at Lorelai and tries to figure out why she left all this behind. He knows that Lorelai's family is well-off -- he has met the Gilmores on more than one occasion -- but he has always rather assumed that their well-dressed-ness, their very cool and collective social graces, were a sort of act that they placed on whatever small wealth that they had amassed.
Apparently, it weren't no small wealth!
He silently thanks Lorelai for making him wear the stupid shirt and tie.
"Ah, yes, Lorelai, before I forget," Mr. Gilmore begins, as soon as the three of them enter a nicely and expensively furnished sitting room, "Merle and Elise will not be joining us this evening. Their flight from Kansas is delayed, and they will be arriving late tomorrow morning. I've arranged to have lunch with them."
"But I had double entendres to go with Merle's bad hair piece!" protests Lorelai. "Can we phone them and ask that they hold dinner conversation with us? I want to at least try out the material that I spent all of yesterday evening coming up with."
Luke can tell that Lorelai is teasing. Apparently, though, Mr. Gilmore can not.
"Honestly, Lorelai, if you really have nothing better to do with your time than come up with ways to poke fun at an old man's regrettable fashion choices, then your life must be dull and empty indeed."
"Not so empty since the invention of Punk'd, where Ashton Kutcher makes use of prison-lingo in a new and inventive way, changing it from bunk buddy gone bad to someone who has had a prank pulled on them. That is quality television."
"Punk'd, Lorelai?"
"A documentary series, Dad."
The way that Lorelai runs circles around her father makes Luke want to laugh out loud. That -- and kiss her for getting him less nervous about being in the house of her parents. Without being too obvious, Luke glances around her childhood home and tries to envision a young Lorelai living here. The closest he comes too picturing her brings an uncomfortable question as to whether this is the couch that Rory was conceived upon.
"I will remind Miriam to TiVo it for me," Mr. Gilmore replies steadily. "Thank you for the recommendation."
Luke isn't so sure anymore that Mr. Gilmore didn't get that Lorelai was teasing.
Mr. Gilmore turns to Luke.
"Lorelai has yet to introduce us."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Luke says, standing up, extending his hand. "I'm Luke Danes, Mr. Gilmore."
"I know." His voice is ominous, and Luke tries to remember that he's dating this man's only daughter. Hell, he remembers how protective of Rory he'd felt when she was going out with Jess, and Jess was his nephew. Though, on the other hand, he had probably had a lot more reason to be mistrustful of Jess than Mr. Gilmore had to be of him.
Mr. Gilmore looks as if he has something more to say, but a young woman in a maid's uniform (yes, Luke does a double take, it is a maid's uniform) steps out into the sitting room and announces dinner.
"We didn't get anything to drink!" Lorelai says, sounding panicky. "Dad, you pour, I'll drink, quick as you please."
"Lorelai, please," Mr. Gilmore admonishes, sounding exasperated, as he herds Luke and Lorelai into the dinning room. Luke realizes that Lorelai's father has probably mastered that skill as a necessity in his business; urging clients from one area to another so as to keep them busy, make them feel the energy in the company.. An energetic company is a lively one, and a lively company is trusted more and subsequently has more business put into it.
After seating Lorelai, Luke sits down and counts to ten. He knows that the evening has so far gone well. Lorelai has chattered enough to keep Mr. Gilmore's attention off of Luke for two people, and he's not done anything to break something -- though he suspects that Mr. Gilmore wouldn't be terribly upset. Luke is rather glad that Mrs. Gilmore isn't here for this dinner, as she has always seemed to him to be a rather intimidating woman. He does want to make a good impression on Lorelai's parents: he cares not particularly if they like him, but he wishes for them to accept him as Lorelai's beau.
He can't believe that he just thought the word beau, but it came to him as a better choice than suitor and less high school than boyfriend.
"So, Luke," Mr. Gilmore begins abruptly after their salads are served.
"Sir."
"I hear that you run your own business."
"Yes, sir," Luke allows. "I run a diner."
"My daughter frequents your establishment not sporadically, I assume."
Luke casts a glance at Lorelai to try to discern as to whether her father was joking with the way that he had phrased the question. She doesn't look at all upset, surprised, or even amused, so he's going to assume that Mr. Gilmore is in complete sincerity with his syntax.
"Yes, sir. She and Rory both eat there almost every day."
"Breakfast, dinner, and late night snacks!" Lorelai adds. "This guy makes a mean burger. Sometimes with little ketchup happy faces."
"Ketchup happy faces?"
Luke turns red. Aw, geeze.
"There was a ... thing. And ... someone ... was sad. Thought it would make her happy." Lorelai squeezes his hand under the table and gives him an encouraging smile. "It sort of cheered her up, I guess."
"That's good," Mr. Gilmore says.
It's quiet for a moment. Luke stares at his salad, wondering if he ought to put grape tomatoes in the ones at the diner. Would anybody like them? He's pretty certain that Taylor would be pleased with their introduction, and Kirk would probably give them a shot, but he's got to cater to the Stars Hollow customer who just wants a salad with their lunch.
"Remember when I was twelve and obsessed with Eskimos?"
Luke snaps his head up so as to follow the conversation.
"Remember?" Mr. Gilmore chuckles. "You had at least three piblokto fits, each of them an animal that you wanted your mother and me to buy you. Once a cobra, once a tarantula, and, if I'm not mistaken, once a miniature horse. That was the most amusing."
"Miniature horse?" asks Luke.
"That year's and last year's tap shoes," Lorelai explains. She adds, "Don't even mention that again. I was terrible at tap."
"And you wanted to move to ... damn, to where was it that you wanted to move?"
"Caledon, Dad. I wanted to move to Caledon."
"Which, correct me if I'm wrong, is somewhere near Toronto," Luke says, bemused.
"Canada had Eskimos. I wasn't picky."
"So, young man," and the conversation is back to Luke from Mr. Gilmore again as the main course is served, "It seems to me that we have met several times before."
"Yes, sir."
"You were at Rory's graduation."
"I was very proud of your granddaughter, Mr. Gilmore." A pause. "And the grounds were magnificent."
"Yes," Mr. Gilmore chortles. "They most certainly were. Were you not also at Rory's birthday party several years ago?"
"Oh, I just delivered a bag of ice. Lorelai had run out."
"You happened to meet my wife."
Lorelai drinks her cherry cola like it's Juliet's potion and so will render her unconscious for the duration of the evening. Luke kicks her under the table as a warning for her to behave.
"Yes, sir. She's a fine woman."
Mr. Gilmore nods in agreement.
"That she is, young man. That she is." He wipes his mouth with finesse. "Now, If I were Emily, I would ask you questions such as what you were doing with my daughter, what your intentions were, and your political affiliations concerning the upcoming election. However," and Mr. Gilmore chances Luke with a smile, and Luke thinks that maybe he's going to have an okay relationship with him, "I am not Emily."
"It'd be really funny if you pretended that you were Emily, Dad, because her dresses would look exceptional on you."
As per usual, Mr. Gilmore doesn't reply to Lorelai's comments.
"I will say this: I hold no qualms about a long incarceration in a federal penitentiary."
There is stunned silence for a few moments.
"...did you just make a prison joke, Father?" Lorelai demands.
Mr. Gilmore cracks a smile.
"I've always wanted to use that line; I've never had the chance."
"Wow," Luke says. "Oh, wow."
"Yeah, that just about sums it up for me too. Dad, you are a wild man when Mom's not here to rein you in."
Mr. Gilmore manages to look miserable and cheerless in an affable way. It's sort of joke within itself, this misery, because it doesn't seem so extremely real. Luke gets the feeling that Mr. Gilmore is starting to become more accustomed to Mrs. Gilmore's absence; not accepting, but accustomed.
"That is why she is imperative to my existence, Lorelai," he says, his tone light. "She stops me from becoming a rogue."
Luke is surprised to find that dessert is on his plate. He's a bit disconcerted -- what did he eat? he hopes it was good, because he's got not memory of how it tasted -- but he picks up his spoon and dips into the plain vanilla ice cream.
From next to him, Lorelai whispers, "I called Miriam and told her that you were a freak, and I explained some of the foods that you would probably like." She grins at Luke.
"Lorelai," interjects Mr. Gilmore, interrupting the look of amusement halfway across Luke's face, "before we finish our dinner, and you two depart, I have some significant news that you may be interested in."
"Yes, Dad?"
"After ending my conversation with you on the telephone, I received a call from your mother in the Netherlands."
Luke glances at Lorelai; from what he knows of the situation, Emily Gilmore isn't speaking directly to her daughter, much less her husband from whom she is separated. Lorelai seems unperturbed by this news, though, and takes a mouthful of chocolate ice cream.
"Oh, the Netherlands," says she airily. "Holland. Home of the Dutch."
"Well, Lorelai, don't you wish to know why your mother was calling?"
"Sure I do, Dad."
Mr. Gilmore visibly preens in readiness. "She was calling to inform me that she and Rory have decided to return. They will arrive on Tuesday."
"Unless, of course, their flight is delayed, in which case, they will be arriving on Wednesday,"
"Lorelai," admonishes Luke in a low voice.
"Emily said that they were beginning to miss home terribly much," Mr. Gilmore says, appearing not to notice Lorelai's flippant comments. "She told me ... " He clears his throat, and Luke grabs Lorelai's hand in a request for silence from her. Whatever Mr. Gilmore is about to say is important. "Your mother told me to inform the maid to change the linen and the bedclothes, as she thought that I was not likely to have remembered to tell the new girl that we prefer to have them changed every three days as opposed to once a week."
It sounds like Mrs. Gilmore is coming home. This information seems not to phase Lorelai.
"That's good, Dad! I guess that I'll finally get my daughter back next week." Lorelai places her spoon in her dish and wipes her mouth. "Now, we're going to leave, because I have reservations for an activity, and they're in forty-five minutes. You know how traffic can be."
Mr. Gilmore is all absent-minded businessman once more.
"Yes, yes, of course, Lorelai."
Luke helps Lorelai out of her seat, then the three of them leave the dining room for the hallway. Awkwardly slipping Lorelai and himself into their jackets, they make their good-byes to Mr. Gilmore, with Lorelai pausing her teasing long enough to give her father a kiss on the cheek.
On the way to the car, Luke asks her, "You knew, didn't you?"
She doesn't answer directly.
"When I was a little girl, I used to plot ways for them to split, like a reverse Parent Trap, only I didn't have a twin and wasn't a cute blonde. They were always bickering over something trivial, always pettifogging with one another." While he opens the car door, she blows a strand of hair out of her face. "And suddenly, I get my wish. Only it's not so nice anymore, because Dad is wretched and lost, and Mom has nothing to do with herself except think of reasons why this is the right thing to do, except for the fact that it isn't."
Luke turns the key.
"Yeah."
"Rory could see it in Emily, I could see it in Richard," Lorelai continues. "So we've spent half of Rory's vacation trying to make peace between the two of them. Richard was easy. You see how much he idolizes and admires my mother. And Emily ... Emily was much more difficult, because admitting that it couldn't just take love was hard enough, but allowing that maybe it was the first step to repairing her marriage seems like a lateral move to her."
Luke has had enough experience with Lorelai's mother to know that Mrs. Gilmore moves forward or not at all. Even leaving her husband: to Emily Gilmore, it was half a step back, capitulating to the stresses of marriage; but it was also a full step forward, doing something about it once she had decided that defeat was inevitable. Except, of course, defeat isn't inevitable, because she's coming home to her husband, isn't she?
For a strong woman like Emily, that is probably one of the hardest steps that she will ever have to make, returning like a cat with its tail between her legs. Luke has a feeling that she will have a lion's will and a gorilla's exertion of will, so she will not quite be the dependant and defenseless wife; not that he thinks for a moment that she ever was, though she may have played one for society.
"For Christmas," Luke says thoughtfully, "we'll buy them time with a couple's therapist."
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