"What…" Luke mumbled groggily into the phone, rubbing his eyes. He glanced at the clock. 7:00 am. "Who is this?"
"It's Lorelai," his new friend exclaimed frantically.
"Why are you calling me?" Luke asked, still disoriented from having been woken up unexpectedly by the ringing phone.
"You have to come pick me up," she ordered him.
"What?" This was unbelievable, Luke thought. Lorelai could not possibly be serious.
"My Jeep won't start, and I need to get to work, and Rory needs a ride to school. But my friend Sookie's already at the Inn, and the concierge, Michel, won't come get me because he says sitting in the car will wrinkle his new suit, and I didn't know who else to call," Lorelai rambled.
"I was sleeping in today," Luke moaned, covering his eyes. What was she thinking? They hardly knew each other, and already she was being a huge pain in the ass.
"Please, Luke?" she begged.
Luke opened his mouth to protest, then stopped. "You're probably one of those people who will bother me until I agree to do what you want, aren't you?"
"You're a great judge of character."
Luke sighed. There was no way to win this one. "I'll be over in ten minutes."
"Wow, and I didn't even have to use my Louis Armstrong impression!" Lorelai gasped.
"Thank God," Luke muttered. He hung up the phone and proceeded to grumble to himself as he pulled on pants and a flannel shirt and slid his baseball cap over his hair. He was thoroughly annoyed with Lorelai, but at the same time, it was nice to wake up to her voice. Even if the voice was nagging and demanding. He couldn't explain it, but there was something pleasurable about being ordered around by Lorelai.
Luke pulled up in front of the house moments later. Lorelai flew out the door, disheveled, with Rory bouncing along behind her, adorable as ever.
"Thank you so much, Luke!" Lorelai panted as she hopped into the passenger's seat. She flipped back her hair, which was straight today. It cascaded over her shoulders like a shimmering fountain, and it was all Luke could do not to reach out and run his fingers through it – but he had more sense than that.
"So where are we going?" he asked.
"Let's head to Stars Hollow Elementary first, it's on the way to the Inn," Lorelai suggested.
"Fine. So how's school going for you, Rory?" Luke asked her daughter conversationally.
"Good. I have all A's," Rory told him. Excitedly, she added, "We're having a Thanksgiving play soon, and I get to be the turkey!"
"Well, isn't that… nice." Luke had terrible memories of being forced to participate in cheesy productions back when he went to that school, and he found it pretty strange that Rory was actually excited about dressing up as a giant turkey and doubtless singing some ridiculous song celebrating the fact that a bunch of obnoxious English people had invaded this beautiful land and spread disease to all of its inhabitants. Nevertheless, it was kind of cute to see Rory so wound up about the play.
The car pulled up in front of school, and Rory hopped out and immediately began chatting with a young Asian girl. "That's Lane," Lorelai explained. "She and Rory have been friends since she started kindergarten."
"Ah, that's the Kim girl, right?" Luke recalled a frightening encounter a few weeks ago with her mother, a small Korean woman who'd run into him at Doose's when he was picking up some extra ground beef and started lecturing him about nutrition, condemning him for selling greasy plates of death that would eventually lead to the detriment of Stars Hollow.
Lorelai affirmed that Lane was indeed Mrs. Kim's daughter, then started to tell him how to drive. "You missed the street!" she said wildly, looking backwards and punching Luke in the shoulder.
"Will you stop it?" he grumbled, swatting her hand away. "I know how to get to the Inn!"
"No you don't! You're going the wrong-"
"Will you stop telling me what to do?" Luke cried, exasperated.
"But you don't – oh." Lorelai broke off when she realized they were pulling into the parking lot of the Independence Inn, in less time than it normally took her to drive to work.
"I finally got you to stop talking?" Luke said, incredulously, then fleetingly worried that he had offended her.
Lorelai, however, remained cheerful. "Just for that, I'm going to come to the diner tonight, sit at the counter, and talk for an hour straight, Duke."
"Oh no, you're not going to start that Duke thing again, are you?" Luke sighed. "I got up at 7 in the morning for you."
"That's right, you did," Lorelai smiled. "I shall give you kisses of gratitude," she joked, her eyes sparkling.
Luke cleared his throat. "Geez," he said gruffly.
"Or, I'll just give you a tour of the Inn." She stepped out of the car and waved for him to follow her. "Come on, don't you want to see the place?"
Luke followed because he had no choice – how could he possibly resist her charm? He trailed behind her into the Inn, where a rude French man started muttering things under his breath and shooting them contemptuous looks.
"What's with that guy?" Luke asked Lorelai.
"Oh, that's Michel," she answered. "He's probably still mad at me for calling him a spineless snicklefritz when he refused to pick Rory and I up."
"A spineless what?" Luke was bewildered. He could hardly keep up with Lorelai even when she was speaking in English.
"Oh, that's just a word Rory and I use. It means curmudgeon, nincompoop, that kind of thing."
"Oh. Right."
As Luke followed Lorelai around the lobby, she began to narrate her history with the Inn. "When I came here, I had nothing. I was just a scared teenager with a baby on my arm. I had just gotten off the bus in this town because it looked nice; I had no further plan than that. I didn't even have a place to spend the night. I ran into Miss Patty pretty quickly, and she told me that this place was hiring. So I stormed in, and Mia took one look at me and gave me a job."
"She was probably scared not to," Luke commented. "You're a real terror when you haven't had caffeine."
Lorelai glared at him briefly, then continued. "I started at the bottom, as a maid, but I worked my way up really fast. Now I'm working at the front desk, greeting people, and making enough money to be able to afford a house for my kid and I."
Luke stared with admiration at the beautiful woman in front of him. "You're amazing, you know that?"
"What?" Lorelai's eyebrows crinkled a little. She looked more serious than he'd ever seen her.
"You're amazing. You started with nothing, and now you have a house and a cute kid who's getting A's in school. You should be proud of yourself," he offered somewhat timidly.
"Thanks," Lorelai said, placing a hand gently over her heart and still smiling at him solemnly. They stayed that way for who knows how long; time seemed to stop.
Eventually, Lorelai shook her head. "Right. Well, I should be getting to work."
"And I should be getting back to the diner," Luke pointed at the door.
"Right. Well-" They both said good-bye at the same time, smiled awkwardly, then turned and went about their business.
For the rest of the day, no matter how busy the diner got, Luke remained preoccupied. He just could not get the way that she looked at him out of his head.