Foot Fashions of Neanderthals
"Rory! Hurry up, my dead grandmother moves faster than you!" Lorelai hollered from the hallway, shrugging into her jacket and looking under the pile of mail for her keys.
"Okay, a, that's a horrible thing to say since Gran's not dead, and b, how is it possible that you are ready before me?" Rory demanded, sticking her head out of her bedroom door and hopping into the kitchen on one foot, struggling with her other shoe.
"What are you talking about?" Lorelai inquired innocently. "I'm always ready before you."
"Ha!" Rory scoffed. "You are always late, for work, for lunch, for dinner, and especially for Friday night dinners at Grandma's because you don't want to go. In fact, I usually have to chase you around the house before you'll get dressed, and then I have to herd you down the stairs with an electric cattle prod just to get you out the front door. Today is Friday. It is six-thirty in the evening, which makes it night, and we are about to eat a fairly large meal, which makes it dinner. Friday plus night plus dinner equals Friday night dinner, you know. That's now."
"I know," Lorelai said in an irritated voice.
"So why are you ready?" Rory returned to the original question that she'd almost lost track of.
"I didn't do it on purpose!" Lorelai exclaimed indignantly. "I went upstairs, and my clothes jumped out of my closet and covered me with themselves, and then my hair curled itself all by itself, and my make-up smeared itself on my face even though I told it not to! I can't help it that I look so fabulous!"
And she did, Rory thought exasperatedly; in her black pants and blue sweater that made her eyes stand out even more than usual, her hair down and gently curled.
"So now you can't even dress yourself? Your clothes have to do it for you?" Rory asked, amused.
"I can dress myself, Vera Wang, just this time I didn't have to. It was very futuristic, you know, like out of some science-fiction movie like…like…hey, we don't do sci-fi, I don't know any references."
"Like Fifth Element?" Rory suggested, making her mother turn and gape at her with eyes wide open. "You know, there's that part where the girl holds this thing up in front of her face and wham! her make-up's done…" She trailed off, mentally kicking herself for revealing this information.
"Well, aren't you my little sci-fi-guy?" Lorelai said gleefully. "Quick, Captain Rory, the planet's about to explode, and, we need the, the, thing-a-majing that does the whozit and- and- light-speed!"
Rory was not impressed by her mother's mocking but quite-unimaginative-by-Lorelai-standards monologue.
"I'm not a sci-fi guy because I'm not a guy," she argued, rather obviously.
"Well, I know that- if you were a guy then you've been spending way too much money on undergarments- but you have to get with the whole rhyming thing," Lorelai instructed.
"My apologies," Rory replied sarcastically. "Hey, you know who is a sci-fi guy though, don't you?"
"Luke," Lorelai answered immediately. "Wow, I am so going to ask him about how women get dressed in the future!" She said the last word loudly and impressively- it seemed to call for it.
"Please, please let me be there when you do," Rory begged as they finally managed to exit the house and lock the front door. Fastening her coat as she turned towards the drive, she suddenly stopped.
"Jeep. Where?" Her mother's battered old car was not parked in its usual spot.
"Jeep at Inn," Lorelai responded, equally monosyllabic, then demanded, "Why are we talking like cave-women?"
"The shock must have brought out the Neanderthal in me," Rory explained. "But don't worry, I'm all better now."
"Whew, that's a relief," Lorelai let out a breath. "'Cause I really don't think I could pull off the whole animal-skins-as-clothing thing. I don't look good in fur, and plus, if it's not machine-washable-"
"Leave it on the shelf," Rory finished, giggling. "So why is the jeep at the Inn?"
"Long story," Lorelai replied. "I had to drive Sookie home in her car this afternoon after I found out that she dislocated her shoulder last night and is not supposed to be driving or cooking for a week."
"How'd she dislocate her shoulder?" Rory asked in concern.
"Peeling potatoes," Lorelai answered easily, and in response to Rory's look of amazement, said, "Hey, this is Sookie. She could dislocate her shoulder setting the oven timer."
"This is true," Rory said in agreement. "So how are we supposed to get to Luke's?"
"Walk, biped, you got two legs hanging around somewhere, now's an excellent chance to use them," Lorelai answered, swinging her purse cheerfully as she set off down the road.
"At least Neanderthals didn't have to wear heels," Rory grumbled as she trailed along after.
"Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no," Lorelai gasped as they crossed the town square and Luke's diner came into view. The blinds were all drawn down, the lights were off, and the big 'Closed' sign hung on the front door. Her chant soon evolved into "Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap," as they got closer and she noticed that Luke's big ugly green pick-up was nowhere in sight.
"Quite an extensive vocabulary you got there," Rory commented.
"Hey, if you weren't such a young, sweet, impressionable child I'd break out some big-girl words that you wouldn't even find in the dictionary," Lorelai warned, walking up to the door and banging hard on the glass.
"Go ahead, you're always telling me to expand my education," Rory said innocently.
"Don't tempt me," Lorelai muttered under her breath. "Luke!" she yelled when the door-banging didn't seem to yield any results. "Luke! Don't do this to me! I told you we were coming, I told you my parents were coming, if you don't open this door and make us burgers I will be disowned, I swear it, please, pretty-please with a-"
She stopped when the door swung open from the inside. "Cherry on top," she finished, staring at Luke. Or rather, at Luke's clothes. Jeans- a given- and a clean white shirt, a tie, and the major clincher- no hat.
"It's open," he said mildly, by way of a greeting.
Lorelai recovered and gasped, one hand to her chest, the other thrown out protectively in front of Rory. "He's not wearing flannel!" she announced, even though Rory had two perfectly good eyes in her own head.
"Alert the media!" she ordered Rory, hanging on to her arm to prevent her from going inside. "You call Christiane Amanpour, and I'll get Dan Rather on the phone. Hell, that'll take too long, this is major news here! Breaking news! I know, we'll break into the newspaper office and print up a special bulletin. You can do that, you know stuff about newpapery things, and I'll stay here and give you live coverage over the cell phone! Hurry, he might change-"
Luke just rolled his eyes and let the door swing closed mid-rant, which was highly successful because it ended the rant altogether. Before he'd even made it back across the diner to the counter the door bells jangled and the girls came in, and he found out pretty damn quick that Lorelai Gilmore did not like having doors closed in her face.
"Excuse me, diner man?" she inquired snobbishly. "We weren't done out there, and since I'm about to patronize your establishment, I think it's highly impolite for you not to hold the door open as long as necessary."
"As long as necessary can be a very long time with you," Luke grunted impatiently. "Besides, you don't need me to hold your door open."
"Au contraire, Luke," she countered, "I do need you. You are the main focus of our story. Without you all we'd have would be flannel-shirt-seeks-owner, and that won't get those issues off the newsstands anytime soon."
Luke decided that that comment didn't even deserve an answer, so he kept silent, which gave Lorelai a chance to look around at the empty room.
"I said save me a table, not save me a diner," she chastised. "Why are you closed, anyway? It's seven o'clock on a Friday night, usually you have half the town in here doing something obnoxious…Kirk's only just on his eighth cupcake by now…"
"It was a slow day, I decided to close early," Luke defended himself. "I could have closed altogether except I remembered some annoying woman telling me that I had to make her burgers at seven o'clock sharp on Friday under pain of death-"
Lorelai stopped listening when Rory poked her, and she followed her daughter's gaze. The table in the corner under the window was obviously where they were supposed to sit. Usually Luke told them to sit anywhere they wanted, which Lorelai usually delightedly took completely literally and tried to steal someone else's table. This time, though, there was a special table. A special table with four chairs and a white tablecloth. Lorelai had never, ever, seen a tablecloth in Luke's, and had in fact distinctly heard him refusing adamantly when Taylor had requested tablecloths to make the place 'classier'- Taylor's word, of course. But now there was a tablecloth, and fancy plates…cloth napkins…a vase of flowers and candles. And there was Luke, who looked suspiciously fancy himself.
"What did you do?" she demanded accusingly.
"Nothing," he shrugged uncomfortably. "I just figured maybe your parents were used to something a little…nicer, so-" he gesticulated at the table. "There you go. Nicer."
Lorelai gaped at him. "Very high class," she managed to say. "But you're supposed to fold the napkins into swans."
"Yeah, well, I'm all out of swans," he answered dryly. "But I do have duck, which I'm planning to serve, unless you really can't live without your dead cow on a bun."
'Duck will be fine," she said dazedly. She hadn't expected anything like this, not from Luke. She knew most of her requests- all right, demands- were a major inconvenience for him, and she often felt bad that he didn't complain. If he would only yell at her about being taken advantage of she would feel so much better. The best she'd hoped for tonight was a clean table and for Luke not to make any disgusting announcements about the food when he delivered it. She had also hoped that the town drama would be nonexistent, because she really didn't want Taylor or Kirk to give her mother more ammunition about what a terrible life she led by starting World War III at the next table. But there was no chance of carnage now- Luke's was closed, for everybody except her. And Rory, and Richard and Emily, but mostly her. She wasn't going to have to worry that all of her friends and fellow Stars Hollowites were going to witness her ritual humiliation at the hands of Emily Gilmore, and she didn't have to worry that the almost-inevitable dinner confrontation would be town gossip by tomorrow morning. Nobody was here except Luke; but the thought that Luke might see her flagellated by her family actually caused Lorelai more anxiety than if Miss Patty, Babette, and even Sookie- none of whom could keep a secret for more than five seconds- were there.
"Luke, I-" she began haltingly, but he held up his hand.
"The management is not currently accepting complaints, Ms. Gilmore," he said tiredly. "If this isn't good enough then I can't help you, because this is the best I can do. And you owe me."
"It's perfect, Luke," Rory assured him. "You didn't have to do this- Grandma and Grandpa have eaten burgers before, once, and I think they are capable of doing it again, but this is really nice, so thank you."
"Yeah, thank you," Lorelai gulped, feeling slightly ashamed that she hadn't thought to say that earlier.
Luke looked embarrassed. "It's no big deal," he protested again. "Here, you want some coffee?"
"Got anything stronger?" Lorelai asked with a half-smile.
"Hey, you ever tried to get a liquor license from this town?" Luke inquired, shaking his head.
"You mean, tried to get a liquor license from Taylor?" Lorelai corrected, smiling.
"Same thing," Luke grunted. He glanced up as a pair of headlights flashed into the diner.
"They're here!" Rory cried, opening the door to greet her grandparents.
"What time is it?" Lorelai asked Luke, grabbing his wrist so she could see his watch.
"I really wish you would just buy your own watch," he grumbled. "How do you ever get anywhere on time?"
"I don't," she answered simply, flashing him a grin.
"It's seven o'clock," he told her, and she nodded solemnly.
"The hour of judgment is upon us," she sighed.