Here You Go, Sailor
Dinner lasted a little longer than usual- and to Lorelai's astonishment, she didn't notice. She wouldn't admit it to anyone but herself, but she'd actually had a not-so-heinous time tonight. There had even been a time when all four of them had laughed, together, at the same thing- and for once it wasn't at her expense.
At nine-thirty Richard and Emily agreed by unspoken signal that it was time to leave, and as Richard helped his wife with her coat, she turned to her daughter and said, quite sincerely, "Thank you for dinner, Lorelai. This was a lovely idea."
"Well, you can thank Rory for the idea, since it was hers," Lorelai answered, smiling, "and thank Luke for dinner, since I quite happily had nothing to do with it."
Emily's eyes flashed, and she said curtly, "Well, of course I'll thank them, I'm not an ungrateful barbarian. I simply meant-"
"I know what you meant." Lorelai tried hard to keep the defensive edge out of her voice. In a sudden flash of insight almost unknown to her she realized that Emily was hurt because Lorelai hadn't accepted the compliment that had obviously been difficult to give. Her mother's mind worked in very strange ways, and most of the time they were completely alien to Lorelai. But this time she had figured it out, and she actually had the option of knowing exactly what to say that wouldn't be insulting. Well, hallelujah, she thought wistfully, and put that baby down in the Guinness Book of World Records, cause it ain't happening again.
"You're right, Mom, this was nice," she offered, giving Emily a small but genuine smile. It had been nice, and she desperately wanted to believe that it could happen again- but she knew her parents too well to let her guard down completely.
Richard shook Luke's hand companionably, and said, "Thank you for an excellent meal, young man. I shall recommend this place to my clients."
Luke smiled and accepted the compliment, resisting the urge to tell Richard that his clients would never be able to get a similar meal here, because he would only do this fancy stuff for one person- and he was pretty sure she wasn't one of the clients Richard had in mind.
Rory and Lorelai walked the Gilmores to their car, but Luke knew from long experience that he wasn't off duty yet. He grinned to himself and started a fresh pot of coffee, mentally counting down, 3…2…1…
Mother and daughter re-entered the diner, identical, shell-shocked expressions on their faces.
"We've entered the third dimension," Lorelai muttered in wonder as they sat down at the counter. Luke continued to clean up from dinner, but they ignored him, so he was a silent witness to their conversation- as usual. Lorelai turned to Rory and demanded, "Who were those people we just had dinner with?"
Rory shrugged, sharing her mother's confusion. "It looked like Grandma and Grandpa, but…" she trailed off uncertainly.
"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck- no, wait a second, that's not right, ducks don't talk- maybe if it quacks like a duck…" Lorelai babbled nonsensically.
"Stop talking about ducks again," Rory groaned.
Those were not my parents," Lorelai stated firmly. "I don't know who the hell they were, but that woman was not Emily Gilmore! She did not insult me once. Not once! I need to lie down…my whole world's been turned inside out and upside down and backwards…"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Luke grunted from behind the counter. "Not that I usually do," he allowed, at their questioning looks. "And I don't know why you complain so much about Friday night dinners, anyway. That was a perfectly nice dinner with perfectly nice people."
Lorelai and Rory exchanged expressions of complete and utter horror, transferred their gazes to Luke, who had the common sense to back up a step, and then looked at each other again. Lorelai raised an eyebrow at Rory, asking for permission.
Rory held up her hands to absolve herself of any responsibility and said, "Hey, you do what you gotta do."
Still giving Luke the look of horrified disbelief, Lorelai raised herself up, leaned across the counter slowly, and then soundly whacked Luke on the shoulder before carefully climbing back down onto the stool. His mouth twitched, and he tried very hard not to laugh.
"Was it worth the effort?" he asked sarcastically.
"Totally," she replied wholeheartedly. He waited for the rest of the rant, but she was silent, which stunned him more than anything else that had happened that night. He had never seen Lorelai Gilmore speechless- and he doubted he ever would, but right now she was pretty close, and he was enjoying it immensely.
"Your dad seemed like a really nice guy," he commented, watching Lorelai turn a funny shade of pink out of the corner of his eye. "Not exactly a kick-back, watch the game with a beer and grill up some steaks kind of guy, but still. Really nice."
"Luke, you did not meet my father tonight!" Lorelai exploded. "My father is not a really nice guy! He's scheming, and manipulative, and he uses people to get what he wants, what he thinks is best for them, even if they don't want it! He-" she stopped abruptly when she saw he was almost laughing.
"You're kidding," she realized. "You're kidding, I can't believe you're kidding, I must have lost ten years of my life this week stressing over this dinner, and it went unbelievably well, so now of course I'm stressing to figure out why it went so unbelievably well, and now you're kidding and I'm-" she blew out a breath. She noticed Rory laughing and poked her.
"Hey, you're supposed to be on my side," she grumbled, making a face at Luke. He finally took pity on her. The woman always teased him to past the point of no return, but he was kinder- and plus, he figured she could take him, and she ran faster than he did, even in heels.
"It did go really well," he agreed sincerely. "I don't know why- probably because I don't know how well it went, but I don't think you need to worry. Although if you're thinking of a repeat performance you've got another think coming- there's no way I can deal with a Gilmore Friday dinner every week, I do have principles."
"No, we wouldn't subject you to that again," Lorelai promised. "Because that was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of dinner, a once-in-an-eternity kind of dinner, the kind legends are made of. All the little children in years to come will gather round and hear the story of how the Wicked Witch of Hartford played nice and didn't eat her daughter for supper. You, my friend, just witnessed a miracle. I hope you're suitably impressed."
He just grinned at her and poured her another cup of coffee- before she even asked for it, which was something he never, ever did.
"It was you!" Lorelai exclaimed, close on the heels of her last sentence.
Luke turned around to see who else she was talking to, but of course the diner was empty except for the three of them. "You, flannel man, you!" Lorelai elaborated.
"Me what?" he demanded impatiently. He really did not want to play another Lorelai mind game, not on top of everything else.
"It was you that made the dinner go so well!" She sounded almost accusatory.
"What?" Luke and Rory said together, both sounding equally skeptical.
"You! With the fancy table and the fancy reservation and the fancy candles and the cooking of the fancy food and the fancy wine-"
"Would you stop saying fancy?" he asked, though with little hope of relief.
"And the fancy apron! I like the fancy apron, by the way-"
Luke opened his mouth for a much louder protest than before but she didn't give him a chance.
"And the fancy manners- you charmed my mother! I never would have believed it possible, but ol' Luke here tamed the dragon!"
Luke was shaking his head in denial, but Rory was looking at him appraisingly. "You were pretty fancy tonight, Luke," she admitted, almost as an apology.
Lorelai stared at him, incredulous. Why had he gone to so much trouble just for a simple, stressful dinner with her parents? Why had he done that for her? With just one duck l'orange (there were the ducks again) he had quite possibly patched up years of her tangled, messy, complicated relationship with the Gilmores, and she couldn't comprehend it. A precedent had been set- she had proved she was able (with a healthy amount of help from Luke) to keep her mouth shut at opportune times, thereby avoiding venomous responses and insults, and her mother had demonstrated that she was fully capable of holding a civilized conversation, even with Lorelai. Shaking her head in amazement, she looked him right in the eye and said, "Thank you, Luke."
He waved his hand as if to ward off her gratitude. "I didn't do anything," he argued. "I got Lane to set the table, and Cesar did most of the cooking, I just-"
"You were fancy," Lorelai said sweetly, "and fabulous."
He actually stopped what he was doing long enough to give her a disgusted look that expressed just how he felt about her using that particular adjective to describe him.
She watched him slyly. "Fabulous in flannel," she tested, and he flinched. "You, Luke Danes, are our Fabulous Flannel Fellow," she dubbed him triumphantly.
"Ah, geez," he sighed, and Rory joined in.
"New game!" she cried happily. "How about Brave Burger Boy?"
"Daring Diner Dude," Lorelai offered.
He gave her a dirty look. "Don't call me dude," he said warningly.
"Helpful Hamburger, um, Hero!" Rory said between giggles.
"Ooh, good one!" Lorelai complimented. "Bad-ass, Backwards-Baseball, B-…B-…" she frowned when she couldn't come up with another 'B' word. "Boy," she finally finished unsatisfactorily.
"You can't use that one," he rebuked her sternly, reaching to take away her coffee cup. She snatched it back before he could touch it.
"Why not?" she demanded childishly.
"You already called me boy. If you're going to insult me, at least be original about it," he requested wearily. He turned to the other one, but the wheels were still going in Rory's head.
"Marvelous Mocha Man!" she offered him, smiling angelically. He glared at her.
"Rory. I don't expect any better from your mother, but you? I always liked you. Gave you coffee, made you pie-"
"She started it," Rory pointed to Lorelai guiltily.
"Fink," Lorelai pouted at her daughter.
"Besides, when have I ever made you mocha?" Luke wanted to know.
"Never," Rory agreed readily. "But coffee doesn't start with an M. If it did then I could call you Marvelous Moffee Man-" Lorelai snorted in laughter- "or if man started with a C then you could be…Cool…Coffee Can, or something."
"Cool Coffee Cutie!" Lorelai managed to get out between giggles and giggles-induced hiccups, but Luke had finally had it.
"Lorelai, I will give you free coffee for a year if you stop right now," he bargained, deadly afraid that she might call him 'Cutie' again.
"Aw, Luke, that's sweet," Lorelai said sincerely. "But you already give me free coffee."
"Hah, that's what you think," he muttered as he finished whatever it was he was doing with the dishrag and leaned against the counter. "I've actually been putting it on your tab all this time…I think you're up at five-thousand-seven-hundred-and-something-odd-bucks by now…"
"Funny." She feigned annoyance.
"And that's just for Rory," he added teasingly.
"I do drink a lot of coffee," Rory said thoughtfully.
"I knew having a kid was a bad idea," Lorelai grumbled. Luke was just watching her, smiling, glad that the dinner had gone so well and she was so happy. His gaze made her supremely uncomfortable, so she did what she always did and made a joke.
"Weyall, ah doo hate bein' indebeted to anyone fo' anything," she drawled in an over-the-top southern accent. She slithered off her stool and sauntered along to the cash register. "Ah guess ah'll just have to pay all mah bills to the nice, kind gennleman he-ar," she continued, looking around her and batting her eyes. "Where is the nice, kind gennleman?" she demanded. Luke rolled his eyes but didn't move his feet, just leaned over so he was right across from her if she turned to face him.
"Oh, theyah you are," she observed, her accent faltering a bit. She dug around in her purse, shoving aside keys, lipstick, hairbrush, pens- why did she have so many pens?- and finally emerging with a sad-looking crumpled-up five dollar bill.
"Here you go, sailor," she said jauntily, tossing it on the counter. Rory shook her head pityingly as her mother's Southern Belle degenerated into Southern Dance Hall Girl. Luke did not express an opinion on the accent- not out loud, at least- but he regarded the fiver with a less-than-appreciative look.
"Is that all?" he wanted to know.
"What else do you want?" Lorelai asked.
"What else you got?" he shot back.
"This," she said, and leaned over and kissed him.
Rory's mouth dropped open in shock; Luke's would have done the same if it hadn't already been otherwise engaged. Lorelai pulled away before either of them could acknowledge what she'd done, and she didn't look at Luke. He stared at her, dumbstruck, convinced that he had imagined it and it hadn't really happened. He wrenched his gaze away from Lorelai and glanced at Rory, who was staring back at him goggle-eyed- which made him think maybe it had really happened and he hadn't imagined it. Lorelai grabbed her purse and her daughter, saying, "It's late, hon, you should be in bed," and took off, fleeing the diner, the only evidence that she'd even been there the jangling door bell and the empty coffee cup on the counter.
Luke stared after her, mind reeling, and wondered whether or not he was supposed to go talk to her. But it wasn't his fault she'd kissed him- he wasn't so self-centered as to think that she'd simply been unable to resist his raw animal magnetism- and he wasn't good at talking.
He could see her on the other side of the street, yanking Rory along- then suddenly she stopped, turned around, and began to cross back again. Almost as soon as she'd stepped off the curb she changed her mind and spun round, striding off determinedly without a backwards glance. Luke placed both hands on the counter and bent his head as he tried to deal with the overwhelming thrill of panic he felt; he had no idea whether it was terror that she'd almost come back or dismay that she hadn't. His sudden, complete lack of self-control made him unaccountably angry, and he stormed over to the front door, locking it securely.
This changed absolutely everything, and as much as he wanted it, he hated change. Ten minutes ago he knew the boundaries of their relationship- she came in, demanded coffee, he gave her coffee. Sometimes she came in crying, about the good relationships that had ended or the bad relationships that hadn't, and he'd give her coffee again and tell her everything would be okay. And sometimes she'd ask him to fix things- her porch, her window, her self-esteem- and he'd do it in a shot, never even wondering why she always asked him. But this changed everything, and it was all her fault.
In the very back of his mind he had always allowed himself to acknowledge that maybe it could change someday; someday in the far distant future when he didn't feel like such a worthless coward; but it had always been him that changed it. Now with a here-you-go-sailor and a five-dollar bill she had changed it, and it pulled the rug out from under him. He was mad at her for doing it so spontaneously, so casually- but if it was going to be Lorelai that changed it, that would be the way she would do it.
And he refused to admit it, but he was mad at himself as well, because he had let it happen so fast that he couldn't even remember the kiss that he'd waited forever for. He stomped up the stairs to his apartment- maybe he should have gone to talk to her, but he wasn't good at talking. And he knew quite firmly that she wasn't coming back tonight.