chapter seven

xx.

October brought almost daily letters from Emily. Lorelai continued to ignore them, and Luke still read them and even replied to a few. Soon there were letters between Luke and Emily that he did not read to Lorelai, and it was by the greatest self-restrained that Lorelai didn't peek into the envelopes.

There were no cats killed in the Danes household, a fact of which Lorelai was very proud.

"What is it today?" she asked as Luke tore open an envelope from her mother.

"There's a newspaper clipping."

"That's strange," she said, but it wasn't unheard of, so she thought not much of it. "Another new coffee shop in Hartford? Or what is it this time, a place where you can buy salt and pepper shakers in bulk?"

"No..." said Luke slowly. "It's Rory. And Logan."

"Oh, God," and Lorelai sighed deeply before putting her head onto her arms. "Please don't tell me that she's gone and been caught stealing another boat."

Lorelai lifted her head to prepare herself for the news, reckoning that it was better to take it standing up, so to speak.

"She's getting married."

The only thing that Lorelai could hear after that was on loop: take it nicely, take it nicely, take it nicely, or she'll hate you forever. She forced herself back to the present and saw that she was shaking. She steadied herself, picked up her coffee, and prepared to speak.

"When?"

Lorelai sipped her coffee deliberately.

"Um," and Luke checked the envelope and pulled out a heavy piece of parchment. A wedding invitation. Lorelai and he shared a glance. Opening it up, he read aloud, "Sunday, November sixth, two thousand five."

"That's only a few weeks away!"

She mentally reviewed the timetable in her head. It was already the ninth of October, which meant that in a little over three weeks' time, Lorelai was going to become a mother-in-law. She was too young to be a mother-in-law! She put her head back onto her arms.

"It says in the clipping that they're moving to Italy at the turn of the year so that 'Mr. Huntzberger can continue his education abroad.'" Luke's voice changed into a mocking, high-class accent. He stopped, suddenly stricken. "Lorelai, they're moving to Italy."

What was she supposed to say? Did Luke want her to ask something like, what about Rory's education?

"That's a really long drive." Then -- "I wonder how the Huntzbergers are taking this. They didn't exactly welcome Rory with open arms into their family. I can only imagine what they're saying about her to her face -- and how much worse it is behind her back."

She could not think about her daughter moving across an ocean to get away from her; it was too much for her right now. Luke squeezed her shoulder gently, and she leaned her head back into him, wondering why things had turned out as they had done.

"This was published by Mr. and Mrs. Mitchum Huntzberger."

"Of course," she said. "She's ensorcelled them. Rory's good at that stuff."

"Lorelai?" and Lorelai could tell by Luke's voice that he was trying to change the subject slightly; he'd learned that lightening the situation helped Lorelai face those things which she might not have wanted to thought about otherwise. It was a trick learned at her knees.

"Mmm."

"Does Logan really have sisters named Honor and Patience?"

"Give me that!" Lorelai scanned the article, pleased for the distraction that kept her still tied into the conversation. "I can't believe it. In all truthfulness, I cannot believe it. When Rory mentioned Honor, I thought it was some sort of Scandinavian name. You know, like Anna, only spelled ridiculously and said like a snooty pants. Never did I think the name was Honor."

"You would have figured Patience out, though, right?"

"Probably," she said. "I hope."

xxi.

Luke and Lorelai didn't talk about Rory's wedding again, though Lorelai knew that he'd called Rory and spoken with her about it more than once. As for herself, she had fallen back on the tried and true method of communication with her daughter -- as she was removing her make-up in the evening.

"What the hell is this?"

In her dreams, Lorelai grabbed on to Rory's hand and peered intently down onto the third finger. Her daughter snatched the hand away with a most exaggerated eye roll and place it back in her lap.

"You know, Mom," she said, "it's easy to see why I thought you were so quick."

"Is this a ring?"

She didn't know why she was asking these obvious, obnoxious questions -- perhaps it was to get it out of the way before she had the actual face to face meeting with her daughter (the meeting that she was beginning to think that she would never have). Lorelai wrinkled her nose down at the ring on Rory's finger and crossed her eyes.

It was still huge.

"Yes," Rory said, "it's a ring."

"Oh, Rory." Lorelai paused here to censor herself. "Are you sure that's what you really want?"

"Mom!"

Even when Rory wasn't there, Lorelai managed to piss her off.

xxii.

Lorelai hadn't expected to run into Logan in Hartford -- Rory, yes, and possibly one of her parents. She'd given very little thought to Logan whatsoever, even considering the pending nuptials between him and her daughter. When she was tapped on the shoulder outside of a bookstore, she didn't think anything of it.

She turned and saw him.

"Oh," said Lorelai.

"Mrs. Danes," he said, and it was obviously that he hadn't known exactly how to address her. She was his soon-to-be mother-in-law, yet they had spent less than three hours in each other's company. He had taken the liberty of calling her Lorelai before, but times were changed.

She was not cruel.

"Lorelai, please," and she stuck out a hand to be shaken. "I'm ... surprised to see you."

She peered around his shoulder at the crowd surrounding them. He understood her actions, for he said, "Rory's not here. She's fitting the bridesmaids for their dresses. Well, my mother's dressmaker is fitting the bridesmaids. Rory's there to make sure they don't end up with modest replicas of Princess Diana's wedding gown."

Lorelai had the feeling that Logan was not exaggerating. If there were one mother-of-the-groom who would be desirous of the bridesmaids outshining the bride, it would be Mrs. Huntzberger, who did not think that Rory was good enough for her son.

She wondered how things that change; for all that she had told Luke that Rory'd bewitched and charmed them, Lorelai suspected that it was merely a ceasefire on the part of each person. The truce had probably been engineered by Rory though, and Lorelai took comfort in that.

"Can't wait to see them," she said, the closest she was coming to personally accepting the wedding invitation.

Logan understood that, and Lorelai felt herself disliking him less and wondering at where this sudden maturity had come from: he was holding himself differently ,and the smirk that had seemed so ready to grace his features was less of a smirk than an amused smile.

Logan was more adult.

"The wedding's only two week's away, and not all of the dresses are perfect. Rory's had hers handmade by Emily's woman," Logan said by way of conversation. "I know that you sew, so I thought maybe you'd like to know."

Lorelai smiled.

"I care less than Emily wants me to," she said. There was a silence then, but before it could get uncomfortable, she filled it -- with perhaps a topic even more awkward. "So. Italy."

"Yeah. I'm going to study international business and English."

"You couldn't study English in America?" But the way she said it was kind; she wasn't blaming him. Lorelai didn't want to be the wicked step-mother or even the wicked mother-in-law in this story. She was too tired of being miserable and mulish to keep up appearances anymore.

Logan threw his arms out and shrugged.

"I'd be hard-pressed to find a native speaker."

"They're treating her okay?" Lorelai asked, changing the subject sharply.

"I had to threaten to write a series of articles on the real Huntzberger family, but my mother and grandfather are tame enough. My father is ... as distant to Rory as he is to me, so there are no favorites being played, in case you were worried."

"I just -- that dinner --" she started.

"There have been a lot of dinners since."

Lorelai stared at him, wondering where her daughter had met him and how she had found herself in love with him. He was nothing at all like the sort of men that she had dated; he was too good-looking, had too much money, and was infinitely sure of himself. Even Jason had had strange phobias and baggage brought with him in the relationship, and he certainly wasn't pretty.

Logan was everything that Richard and Emily had wanted for Lorelai, and everything which she thought she had taught Rory to avoid.

But the kid had done okay, even so.

"Thank you. Thank you for watching out for her." Lorelai looked down. "I've gotta --" and she waved vaguely in the direction for which she'd been headed before he'd stopped her.

"Yeah, me too. It was nice seeing you, Lorelai."

She watched him walk in the opposite direction, and only when he had turned the corner did she say, "Nice seeing you too."

xxiii.

One afternoon during a lunch break that she'd stopped by the house to pick something up, Lorelai stumbled once more across the baby magazine that's she'd bought to look for a gift for Sookie. Luke had left it out on the table after he'd put away his drawings and sketches the night before, and Lorelai sat down to scan through it out of mild curiosity.

Most of the cover came off with a rip as Lorelai tore the hunky dad off of the page, indiscriminately shredding baby carrier and baby alike in her quest. She flipped the book open and started going through the pages in a quick scan.

Baby strollers were on page eleven, so she checked page ten to see if there was anything on it that she liked. Nothing was there but disgustingly ugly cribs, and goodness knows that she didn't need them. Lorelai started to rip the page but thought better of it. Standing, she went to a kitchen drawer that Luke had stocked with glue, rolls of tape, and other important, homey things that she would have never bothered to put in one spot.

"Bless him," she whispered. In another week, he'd have to wander through the house in order to restock the drawer.

Careful to get the order number and price, she cut two strollers out of the page. One looked as if it were ready for world war three -- there were attachments that she was certain her purse didn't have -- but the other was ... sturdy. It looked right. She tossed the first to her right, where she already had the hunky dad from the cover, and the second to her left.

"Mom, what are you doing? I keep hearing scissors. Are you clipping coupons? You know how you always forget to use them, and you'll end up with three or four dozen of them lining the bottom of your purse."

"I'm practicing sortilege."

"Well, then, Sybil, can you anticipate my next remark?"

"Yes, and you're grounded for it, missy! Show some respect for the arts."

Page fourteen held on it several absolutely adorable baby carriers. Her favorite was the one modeled by a man -- a father. The infant was on his chest, dark hair just visible over the back of the carrier. It was just what she wanted, and she didn't the reverse side before taking her scissors to it.

"Really -- what're you doing?"

"I'm making flashcards of things that Emily is likely to say while you're out shopping, and appropriate responses. The first one is What do you think of my hat? Never, ever tell her the truth, especially if that happens to involve the fact that she looks like Davy Crockett. What you're supposed to do is use words like fetching and handsome."

"Quite fetching, rather handsome, got it."

Maybe. Maybe not. Having girl-talk with Rory was harder when she lied to her (especially as it was one-sided imaginings).

The house was quiet when she got to page twenty-seven. Patti had been right: eye candy littered that page in the form of same sex fathers.

"Oh my God." Lorelai giggled in the silence. "You filthy woman."