Chapter 3
The Gilmore Plan
Rory met her mother in front of her grandparent's pool house the next Friday, as they gathered the strength to face the elder Gilmore's in the now routine dual rounds. As soon as Lorelai stepped out of her Jeep and spotted Rory casually sipping her coffee, she broke out in her signature smirk.
"So here is my favorite love struck daughter." Lorelai joked as she approached Rory. "What are you planning on doing next? Chase him in the playground?"
"Yes mother, I was planning on chasing him and poking him and irritating him to no end…oh no wait, you must have me confused with…you!" Rory retorted as she threw her empty cup in the dumpster before walking towards the house.
"Well I just think it is cute that you are coming to me for tips on how to get the guy. I mean seriously, I know I am older, wiser, more beautiful, more experienced and more entertaining, but what made you think to come to me?"
"Ha mom, older is about the only nail you hit on the head with that one." Rory quipped.
"I am going to pretend I did not hear that last comment. Anyway, Lane is an expert at devising complex schemes, wouldn't she be best?"
"Yes, Lane is an expert when it comes to sneaking around her mother, but when it comes to matters of the heart I feel that the person who knows me best would have the greatest advice to offer. Besides, you know what kind of person Logan is, and thus will be able to infiltrate the system best. Lane is inexperienced when it comes to this high class etiquette."
"Right you are my dear protégé. So is now a good time for us to go over Operation SLH?" Lorelai asked innocently.
"Operation SLH?" Rory asked.
"Yeah, Operation Steal Logan's Heart. I am not fond of the code name, but I exercised all of my creativity when coming up with the operation in question." Lorelai responded.
"Well mom, as much as I want to hear all about Operation SLH, we unfortunately have to attend our annual Friday Night Dinner with the lovely couple who is paying for my college education."
"But, but, but…this is for you baby!" Lorelai wined.
"Shhh dear, I know, I know, but this comes first. And the longer we stand out here, the more worried Grandpa is going to get about us. The longer we put off our obligatory hour with him, the longer Grandma is going to make us stay with her to make up for what she will assume to be the extra time we spent with Grandpa, so really there would be no winning." Rory told her mother in a soothing voice.
"Fine, lets just do this so we can go home and play with all the neat spy gear I got for the Operation." Lorelai said in a purely gleeful tone.
"Spy gear?!?! Mom, what are you planning on doing to him?" Rory said in shock.
"Oh Rory, for my offspring and best friend, you sure don't know me that well do you?" Lorelai joked.
"Urgh" was Rory's only response as she went to open the pool house door that was currently operating as her grandfather's home during the elder Gilmore's separation.
"Welcome my girls," came the booming voice of Richard from the sitting area. "Rory my dear, how did things go with Logan after our encounter? I got really caught up in the moment, thank you for letting me help you with that." Richard said with a positively gleeful look.
Lorelai sent a questioning raised eyebrow towards her daughter which she ignored and responded to her grandfather by saying, "Thank you so much for helping me out with that. I still have not talked to Logan about it, but I am thinking that he is still shell shocked by it."
"Yes, when I left him I thought I may have had to call 911 and start giving him CPR." Richard joked.
"Or Rory would have to give him CPR" Lorelai said with a snide look.
"Hmm, Rory give Logan CPR? Did I miss something? Why would Rory want to give Logan CPR? I thought she was mad at him?" Richard said looking positively confused.
"Oh don't listen to her Grandpa, she tends to get things confused. You know how mom can be." Rory said flushing red with embarrassment. She could not believe that her mom would say something like that. No, wait, she could believe it, but she did not want her to say it to her grandfather. Rory knew that her grandparents did not approve of her past boyfriends and they always hoped that she would meet someone who met their standards whilst at Yale.
"I always thought that Rory and Logan would be nice together. The Huntzbergers are close friends of ours and I have known Logan for years. He is a little rough around the edges, but as soon as he finds the right girl I am sure he will settle down really quickly." Richard said to Rory with a suggestive gleam in his eye.
"And I know that Rory could be just the girl to help him settle down." Lorelai added.
"So have you given it any thought Rory? I know I helped you with the little payback mission, but have you thought about forming some kind of relationship with Logan? I would be happy to put a good word in with the Huntzbergers." Richard suggested.
"Oh I don't think that will be necessary Dad. Rory and I are working on our own plan of attack." Lorelai pointed out.
"Shhh mom, I don't want everyone knowing about this." Rory glared at her mother.
"So you do like the boy then?" Richard asked. "This is very interesting indeed. Does Emily know?"
"No Grandpa, I have only told you and mom. And you only know by accident, I was hoping to keep this a secret until I planned on doing something about it." Rory said.
"Doing something about it? You are going to make the first move?" Richard said looking a little shocked.
"Yes Dad, Rory is a Maverick, she flies in the face of danger, she breaks the rules, she sets the trends…" Lorelai said with a laugh.
"I want to show him that I can have fun too." Rory said, glaring at her mom's joke. "He comes from a world that I know from you and grandma, but I don't live in. He is the rule breaker and he has pegged me as the girl who sits idle and reads."
"How is that any different from reality?" Lorelai questioned.
"Well it is not, but I don't want him to think that I can't let loose too. I proved it to him once by jumping with him at the LDB event, but he knows that it is not in my nature to act that way." Rory argued.
"Well honey, as glad as I am that you are finally meeting guys at Yale and making new friends, I was not too thrilled to learn about your little escapades with the LDB that you speak of. I also don't want you to compromise yourself just to impress a guy. I know that we have our fun every now and then, but I don't want you to go after Logan and fool him into thinking that you are something you are not. You are an amazing girl, and somehow I have a feeling that Logan knows this. You don't have to jeopardize yourself to be part of his crowd, he should want you to be part of his group because of who you are. I don't want to get all preachy here, but I do want you to understand that you don't want to betray who you are just to get the guy. I don't want you to go Grease and bust out the leather jacket and spandex jump suit." Lorelai said in one of her signature diatribes.
"Well, what if I am sick of playing the goody-two-shoes? I have always been a 'Mary.' I have always been the one who obeys all the rules and pleases others. The one time I did something out of the ordinary, I liked it. It was thrilling and it was freeing. College is the time of your life where you are supposed to experiment and test your boundaries and find yourself. Grandpa has told me stories about his college days and I know that he was not on the straight and arrow himself. I know that Logan would not make me do things that I would find morally objective, but he will also give me opportunities to do things that I have previously been unable to even try. I want him to know that I am not against breaking out of my good girl mold and that I will fit into his group of friends and participate in their escapades while still being the Rory that you know and love. I can be both the good girl Rory while still managing to get out and be young." Rory said partly to talk herself into it and partly to prove her mother wrong.
"I know that you won't be completely stupid, but I also know that you have a tendency to get yourself into trouble when it comes to matters of the heart. I don't need to remind you of these past examples Rory. I just worry about you. I don't know Logan, but from what it sounds like, he likes you, and because of that I know he can't be all bad. But please, before you go falling head over heels in love with this guy, think. He may put you in compromising situations, and are you prepared to stand up for yourself against him? Or will he be able to influence you into doing things that my daughter would have never even thought about in the past?" Lorelai practically yelled.
As Richard watched the scene unfold, he finally spoke up, "I know Logan pretty well. As rebellious as he is and as stupid as some of the mistakes were that he made, he is also a caring young man. Don't pigeonhole him as the bad guy. He is simply a man who I assume has fallen for our girl, and really, can you blame him? I think that they will do wonders for one another. He will be able to introduce Rory to a world that she has previously not explored and she will be able to help him settle down."
Rory finally interrupted, "Okay, I am done dissecting my love life, or lack there-of, with my mother and grandfather. I promise that if anything happens with Logan I will not do anything that will force you to disown me. I don't promise that I won't try new things though. I won't let him influence me to the point of making me do something against my better judgment, but I will also do things that I would have previously been shocked by. I am 20 years old; I want to start acting like it!"
"Enough said. So what is the plan to steal his heart?" Richard asked, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
"I think she has already accomplished that feat." Lorelai said.
"Well, I think we should start by inviting him to our New Year's Eve party. In fact, he can go as your date Rory." Richard said matter-of-factly.
"Dad, don't play matchmaker here. Rory will go out with him in her own time. She does not need you forcing the two of them together. If she wants him to go as her date she can ask him and if he wants to accept then he will." Lorelai said, trying to stop Richard from manipulating her daughter once again.
"No, wait mom. I like this idea. We can continue playing off the engagement charade. He can go as my date, but it will be out of fun, as a closing poke at the joke. This way I will be able to be with him without his cronies and hopefully get him to open up to me. If he does have feelings for me we may be able to do something about them during the party. The only hesitation I have concerns Grandma and Grandpa. I don't want them forcing anything. I know you guys like to meddle, but I don't want you saying anything to him that may scare him. If he goes as my date then acknowledge it as such, a date. It is not 1950 and we don't need a chaperone." Rory stated.
"Okay fine, but then what about my plan? It involved masks, a bathtub and an elephant" Lorelai said crushed.
"Well mom, as intriguing as your idea sounds, I think I want to play it cool for now. If he does not understand me after New Years, then I do believe that desperate times call for desperate measures" Rory said, ignoring the elephant remark.
"So it is settled then. I will tell the Huntzbergers that Logan shall accompany them to the party to serve as your date for the evening. I will put the call in as soon as you leave for dinner." Richard said, trying hard to hide his excitement.
"Okay grandpa, thank you for doing this for me. As much as I want to make the first move, I think this is more subtle and it will be easier for me to go through with." Rory said, smiling for the first time that evening.
"Lorelai, were you planning on coming to the party?" Richard asked.
"Oh, well I hadn't been invited yet. But I don't know, I think Luke and I were just going to have a relaxing evening alone. I don't want to be out when the new-year strikes. Who knows what kind of crazies will be out." Lorelai said only in half seriousness.
"The only crazy out there is you. Nonsense, you will not spend the evening at home, you and Luke will come to the party as well." Richard said obviously closed to the discussion. All Lorelai could do at that point was glare at Rory silently placing the blame on her for this new predicament. Rory was completely oblivious to her mother's look, however. She was too busy thinking about how Logan will react to the news that he was practically forced into going to a party sans his posse and will be acting as Rory's date. Maybe this was not the greatest idea, Rory thought as they prepared to leave the pool house. Logan will probably want to spend the evening with his friends and not with his parents at a party hosted by her grandparents. It was obviously too late for second thoughts, as Richard was already placing the call to deliver the news.
"Is that how you wanted your first date with Logan to be like? A set up dictated by your grandfather?" Lorelai asked as they walked to the main house.
"Well, it is not ideal, but at least it will give me an opportunity. If I left it up to Logan I could be waiting a while, or forced to admit my feelings to him while dangling upside down in the midst of some LDB stunt." Rory said.
"Oh yes, and thank you very much for roping Luke and me into this! Do you think I want to spend my new-years at some posh party? I was planning pizza, pajamas and an amazing rendition of REM's 'End of the World.'" Lorelai said, once again pouting.
"Mom, you do that every night. Why not get dressed up and attend a fancy party for once?"
"For once? Because it is not like I am drug kicking and screaming to these events nearly once a month."
"Fine mom, go kicking and screaming, but please just go. I don't want my night ruined because you are not there and Grandma finds it necessary to remind me every five minutes." Rory yelled back.
"Speaking of Grandma…I think it is time to get this Friday night dinner out of the way." Lorelai finally said.
Thanks for the reviews. I am glad that those that have reviewed seem to like it. I guess I will keep it up…it is kind of fun