Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Warner Brothers or Dorothy Parker Drank Here or anyone else attached in any way with Gilmore Girls.
Chapter 13 – Sealing the Cracks
Lorelai wakes shortly before noon and looks around. No Luke, but next to her on the bedside table she finds the fresh glass of tomato juice sitting in a cup of ice that he left for her. Stuck on the glass is a little note that says "Hope you don't need this, but just in case…"
She smiles as she reaches for the juice. Unfortunately she does need it, though not desperately, but she is feeling really queasy, so queasy that she can classify it as bordering on nauseous.
As she drinks the tomato juice, Lorelai is thinking, "He does care and he's trying so hard but…" Unfortunately, there is always the "but".
She isn't sure exactly what comes after the "but". That's what's scares her so much, what is coming after the 'but".
Her feelings are all over the map and she knows it. "Damn hormones!" she curses silently except she's not completely sure that she can blame all her erratic emotions on the pregnancy. Early this morning she decided her problem is that she is manic-depressive (or is it bipolar?) especially when it comes to relationships.
"Luke is better off without me" she laments to herself, "but (there's that word again) now I'm carrying his baby so he's stuck with me. I should just give the baby to him after it's born. He's a good father and he'll take care it and will protect it from its crazy mother."
All of a sudden she feels like crying. Only not just crying but a full-fledge, all out deluge of blubbering waterworks. Feeling like this makes her angry, not only does she want to cry but also she wants rip up something (anything) or maybe hit something.
The angrier she gets the weepier she gets and the weepier she gets the angrier. Lorelai is trapped in a vicious swirling spiral headed down.
So now not only is she manic-depressive she decides, but also psychotic or is it schizophrenic? (She's not really up on her mental illness terminology.) She is certain though, that she needs to be heavily medicated, strapped in a straight jacket, and placed in a rubber room.
Any minute now, she will start screaming and the nice men in white will come and stick her with the needle full of medicine that Tom Cruise will not approve of. Then she will head into la-la land and stop being weepy and angry and so crazy.
Luke is watching her, not creepy watching, just checking on her. In fact he has been checking on her every fifteen or twenty minutes since around ten. He knows that she needs her sleep, so he is letting her sleep as long as she can.
The problem is that he wants her to wake up because he misses her. "Okay Danes," Luke tells himself, "you're becoming kind of sickening and schmaltzy. Get a hold of yourself, man."
Actually he does enjoy watching Lorelai sleep, though he will never admit that to anyone, even Lorelai. (Well maybe to Lorelai, but only if she forces him to by using her irresistible womanly wiles.) It is just that he likes the "awake" version of Lorelai more. Her energy, her laughter, her teasing all makes him happy. Plus he likes to touch her (dirty yes, but not just in dirty ways) and if he touches her while she is sleeping he might wake her up.
So he is watching and waiting for her to wake up.
He happens to be looking in when she opens her eyes. He sees her sit up and he sees her read the note and drink the juice. "Crap, I was hoping that she wouldn't be nauseous again." he thinks to himself.
He watches as her expression changes first to a smile then to frustration then to sad followed by angry and back to sad. He has no idea what is going on in her head but decides he better get in there and figure it out.
Luke pushes the door completely open and says in his warmest, most caring voice, "Good morning, sleepyhead!"
Lorelai throws his pillow at him, bursts into tears, and buries her face in her own pillow.
"Okay," he thinks to himself, "Warning, Will Robinson, warning. We are about to enter the crazy hormonal zone." Luke now ventures where all men fear to tread.
Anna spent last night thinking and planning. She is obsessed with the idea. She put together a list of six steps that had to work together if her idea is to have a chance at success. Anyone else reading this list might find it cryptic but to her it is a plan of action.
1. Donna
2. Sally Ride
3. Eleanor Michaels
4. Mirkan
5. April
6. Permission slip
The first step is to talk with Donna, one of her closest friends and associates. Donna also works with Anna in the boutique, covering for her whenever she can't be at the store.
She is first on the list because Anna values her opinion, at least she did until today. Donna did not embrace the plan as Anna had hoped she would. In fact, Donna had indicated that she feels Anna is overreacting and is possibly acting crazy.
After explaining the situation, Donna begrudgingly agrees that April appears to be developing an attachment to Luke and his family. The problem is that Donna does not see this as some omen of destruction. She views this as a good thing.
Anna can't believe that Donna doesn't understand how disastrous this situation is.
Donna tries to calm Anna down and get her to see reason (as she puts it) but Anna is adamant. Luke is trying to steal April from her and she can not let that happen. April is her life and she is fighting for her life.
Donna agrees to do as Anna asks only because she feels the plan is absolutely too insane to ever work and figures that Anna will come to her senses soon. There is no way that April will agree to this and Anna will have to give it up.
Next Anna contacts the Sally Ride Science Camp. April really wanted to attend this camp during the summer session that is being held at Stanford University but was rejected because her application arrived too late.
Anna had forgotten to mail the application for two weeks. It might have been a Freudian slip on her part since she wasn't happy about sending April all the way to California for a ten day camp. Even though the session is designed for girls entering the 8th and 9th grades, Anna feels that April is too young.
Unfortunately, April inherited her mother's strong determination and evidentially wore her down until Anna agreed to send the application. It was merely an oversight that she mailed it in two weeks late.
April is not accepted because the session is full but they do put her name on a waitlist. Last week, Anna received notification that a space had become available. She called them today and now April is officially enrolled (pending receipt of the tuition) for the July 9 through July 18 session at Stanford University.
Her next call is to Eleanor Michaels. Anna met Eleanor a couple of years ago while on a buying trip at the Atlanta market. They hit it off and have kept in touch ever since.Eleanor owns a consulting organization, Michaels' Marketing, that specializes in working with small independent boutiques like Anna's.
She reaches Eleanor and they talk like old friends, catching up on news and such. Then Anna offhandedly mentions her idea, making it seem as though it is just a casual thought and not one that she contemplated and deliberated about for hours.
Eleanor jumps at the idea, just as Anna had hoped. Anna maneuvers her through the discussion making it appear as if it is all Eleanor's concept. The trickiest task was negotiating and reaching acceptable terms. In the end the call was very successful.
Things are fitting into place. Now it is time to call the Mirkan School.
Since before daybreak, April has been sitting next to the local stream monitoring and tabulating crayfish, as they are called in Connecticut (down south they're crawdads).
April is busy documenting the decrease of the population of Orconectes virilis (native Connecticut crayfish) in the local stream. She believes the Orconectes rusticus (transplanted crayfish) are crowding out the locals and seriously affecting the environmental balance. She intends to present her findings to the State of Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.
She explained this project to Luke and Lorelai last night. Luke found it interesting (he is very concern with the environment she has found) though he admitted the only thing he really knows about crayfish is how to catch them.
He told her how as a small boy he and some friends would take string and tie bacon on the end to catch them. After they caught them, they would throw the crayfish back since they didn't really know what to do with them. The fun was in the catching, he guessed.
Luke asked a lot of good questions about her project. He really seemed enthusiastic and April considered asking him if he wanted to join her this morning but she decided against it. Her mom probably would freak out.
April doesn't understand her mother's apprehension with Luke but she knows that Anna gets really snippy and agitated whenever April is around Luke too much or talks about Luke too much. So she has learned to tone down her comments about Luke and Stars Hollow.
April is pleasantly surprised that Lorelai took an interest in her environmental project also though not to the same extent as Luke. Lorelai listened attentively and even asked some questions. Though April could see that some of her descriptions made Lorelai uncomfortable and squeamish, she didn't space out like her mother does every time April tries to talk about crayfish.
Luke approaches Lorelai cautiously. He says nothing else knowing full well that anything he says will be wrong. He simply lies down on his side of the bed and begins to gently rub her back with his hand.
Lorelai yells at him to go away.
Luke says nothing but continues to rub her back.
Within a few minutes, Lorelai ceases sobbing and becomes quiet. She continues to lie with her face buried in the pillow.
Luke suspects that she is now too embarrassed to move. He reaches across the bed and forces her to roll over on her back and then he pulls her under his arm. They lay like that for a few minutes until he breaks the silence, "I am thinking we might catch a movie this afternoon, maybe two. What do you think?"
Lorelai doesn't look at him as she asks in her still really hoarse voice, "You want to go to the movies with me?"
Yikes," he thinks but doesn't say it "her voice sounds really painful. She really shouldn't talk." What he does say is "I just asked you, didn't I?"
"But I'm acting crazy?"
"You've always been crazy."
"You want to go to the movies with me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because we haven't been to a movie in a while and this is a rare opportunity. You have laryngitis and can't talk all the way through it. I might actually have a chance to hear the dialogue."
Lorelai smiles and rolls over to look at him and then punches him lightly in the chest.
Luke feigns pain as he gasps "Aw!" Then he kisses her on the top of her head, slaps her lightly on her thigh and gets up saying, "So, that's a yes? Good. You get dressed and I'll make you some breakfast. When you're ready, come down to eat and we can argue over which movie to see."
April completes her observations for the day and heads home to eat. Her mother is working at the store so April will have to fend for herself for lunch. She's used to that.
When she gets home, she sticks her head in the refrigerator and tries to figure out something to eat. Nothing looks good.
The problem is that she is in the mood for a cheeseburger. Actually, she is in the mood for a Luke's cheeseburger. Luke makes exceptionally good cheeseburgers.
She wishes that he would teach her how to make them but he says she too young. Heck he won't even let her walk in the diner's kitchen. She's thirteen for cripes sake! She's not a baby.
April considers riding her bike to the diner to get a cheeseburger but decides against it. For one thing, it will take too long and she is starving. Two, if her mother finds out, April suspects that she will be mad.
She finds some hamburger in the meat drawer and there's some cheddar cheese slices in with the deli. April checks to see if they have any hamburger buns in the freezer and finds a package.
Well, Luke may think she's too young to cook but her mother doesn't.April makes soup (out of can) all of the time. She also makes scrabbled eggs and grilled cheese. Surely she can fry up a cheeseburger.
Though what's a cheeseburger without French fries? April checks to see if there is a package of frozen fries in the freezer. Drat, there isn't any.
Then she remembers that her mom has some raw potatoes. She has watched Luke fry potatoes enough times that she has the basic idea.
First she cleans and peels the potatoes and slices them into French fry sizes. Then she sets them in a bowl of cold water with just a drop of lemon juice for acid because she knows that oxidation will turn raw potatoes brown.
Now she gets out her mom's biggest saucepan and pours cooking oil in the pan and heats it. She has the burner set on high because she knows the oil must get hot before she can add the potatoes.
Next she makes the hamburger patty. She decides to wait until the vegetable oil is hot enough to put the potatoes in before she starts to fry the burger.
Suddenly the phone rings and she runs to answer it. It's her mom checking to make sure she got home alright. They start talking for a few minutes then April suddenly realizes that the room is getting kind of smoky. Just then, the smoke detector goes off loudly and April can hear her mother screaming on the phone to get out.
April drops the phone and rushes into the kitchen only to see her pan of oil is now a pan of flames.
She tries to think, water on an oil fire, bad. April remembers that the best way to put out an oil fire is to smother it. But the flames are too hot and scary for her to try to put the lid on the saucepan.
Then she remembers that flour will smother an oil fire so she grabs the bag of all purpose flour out of the cabinet and dumps the entire contents of the bag on the fire. The concept is sound and the flour extinguished the fire, but unfortunately not without a consequence. April had been standing too close when she dumps the flour and some of the hot oil jumped out and burnt her right hand and arm.
The burn is excruciating. April begins to cry and scream from the pain and fear.
Anna is still on the phone, screaming for April to respond when she hears her daughter scream in pain through the dropped receiver.
Now Anna comes completely unglued. She has the local 911 on her cell phone and they are assuring her that help is on the way to her house but she can hear April in the background on the land line phone screaming. She doesn't know what is going on and she doesn't know what to do.
She wants to run immediately to the house, to April, but if she does, she will loose the phone connection to her. If only April would pick up the phone and tell her what's happening, but she doesn't.
Anna finally decides and rushes home. When she arrives she finds April with a paramedic being treated for a burn on her arm. The house has not burnt down. A fireman assures her that it was just a small kitchen fire and there is no real damage other than some smoke. April's burns are painful but not dangerous.
Anna falls down to her knees crying nearly hysterical whiles she hugs her daughter tightly.
Sookie has the afternoon off to herself. Actually she had hoped for some girl time with Lorelai but that is not going to work out even though she hasn't seen Lorelai since she got back into town. Sookie called her this morning but Luke answered the phone and told her that Lorelai was still sleeping.
Sookie didn't mention anything to Luke about getting together with Lorelai. She is just too happy that Luke and Lorelai seem to be working things out that she would rather not bother them.
"A late summer wedding." she thinks to herself. "Maybe this time Lorelai will want to have it in the town square." Sookie was never really excited about using that little church that Lorelai had first selected. It didn't seem right not to have the wedding in Stars Hollow but Sookie's job as the best friend of the bride was to help so she had agreed.
Sookie also was never really happy that someone else was catering the wedding feast. Lorelai had used logic to coerce Sookie to agree to the caterer but it never felt right to her. She feels that only she can properly do justice to Lorelai's wedding.
Yes, it made sense that Sookie would be too busy with her bridesmaid duties (whatever they are) to properly oversee the food presentation and Lorelai really wanted her to just to have fun at the wedding but that's not Sookie's way. This time she will be adamant and insist that Lorelai let her handle the food.
Sookie already knows the cake she will make, actually two cakes, one for the bride and one for the groom. Luke is so health conscious that she will make him her Heart Healthy Carrot Cake (she has this recipe that includes unsweetened coconuts and crushed pineapple in the carrot cake that she is sure he will love) and for Lorelai, of course it has to be the Mocha Supreme Cake with a Chocolate crown.
As for the menu, Sookie has it all planned in her head. She will serve an international cheese table that includes double crème brie, gorgonzola, Jarlsberg, cheddar, and chevre cheeses arrange with a fresh-cut fruit and vegetable crudite. For hors d'oeuveres, an artichoke putanesca barguette, vegetable & cheese stuffed mushrooms, vegetable & Fonina frittata, and scallops wrapped in bacon. There will be a choice of appetizer, either Cape Cod lobster and corn chowder or seared sea scallops and wild mushroom risotto or maybe lobster ravioli with a saffron chardonnay sauce (she'll have to check with Lorelai to get her opinion).
Sookie will serve her specialty salad with white French dressing and fresh baked rolls. The entrée will be a choice of Pan Seared Sea Scallops served over a roasted red pepper sauce with a fresh pasta tossed with pesto or Lobster Webster (half of a large lobster baked with caramelized leeks and brie sauce) or Chicken and fig Marsala (boneless breast of chicken, sautéed with figs and toasted hazelnuts in a Marsala wine and natural chicken sauce sprinkled with Gorgonzola cheese).
Now Sookie is getting hungry and anxious to make the wedding feast. She starts to make out her shopping list for the ingredients that she will need in her head but the list is too long. Hurrying home, Sookie thinks, 'I'll get it all planned out today then all I'll need is the date."
As Sookie attempts to run past Miss Patty's studio, she is suddenly seized by Patty and Babette and dragged inside.
Luke and Lorelai are trying to decide what movie they will see. Since Luke had insisted that Lorelai can not speak for the next 24 hours so that her voice can rest and recover, Lorelai is using pantomime to communicate.
Currently she is lying on the floor doing her impression of Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. She is trying to indicate that she wants to see The Da Vinci Code but instead of just pointing to the listing in the paper, she chose to pantomime it. Luke is trying to guess what the heck she is trying to say. It's pretty funny.
It got funnier when Rory calls. Luke answers the phone and explains to Rory that Lorelai can't talk because she has laryngitis.
Lorelai, once realizing that Luke is talking to Rory, goes down on bended knees and crawls to his feet with clasped hands and a pleading look. Luke tells Rory to hang on a minute because her mother is acting crazy again.
Rory listens over the phone while Luke confers with Lorelai.
Perplexed, Luke speaks to Lorelai, "You want the phone? No way, you can't talk."
Lorelai rubs her body against his like a cat, while she looks at him with pleading puppy dog eyes and tries to grab the receiver.
Luke responds, "What? No, I'm not giving you the phone because you will end up talking and you promised not to talk for 24 hours."
Lorelai clasps her hands together again as she pleads with her eyes. Then she crossed herself, slaps her chest over her heart, then covers her mouth, and tries to mimic talking with her right hand by opening and closing it really fast. She repeats the gestures until Luke responds.
"You promise that you won't speak, just listen?"
Lorelai nods her head intensely in affirmation.
Luke relents and says to Lorelai, "Okay.' Then he returns to talk to Rory. "You mom wants the phone. You may talk to her but she is not allowed to talk back. Oh, hang on a minute."
Now Lorelai is miming something else as Luke tries to figure it out.
Luke repeats as Lorelai points to him. "Me? You want me to do something?"
Lorelai nods her head yes. Then she covers to her mouth.
Luke misinterprets "You want me to stop talking?"
Lorelai shakes her head frantically. She points to Luke again and then raises her hand to imitate talking by opening and closing her hand really fast. Then she slaps her chest.
"You want me to talk for you?"
Lorelai nods furiously.
Back to Rory, Luke says, "You can talk to your mom and ask her questions. Then I will try to figure out what the heck her answer is and tell you, okay?"
Rory agrees.
Luke then puts the phone to Lorelai ear as she fights to take a hold of the receiver herself. He tells her, "No, I will hold the receiver. That way if you start to say something, I can pull it away and hang up. Understand?"
Lorelai nods and Luke speaks loud enough so Rory can hear him, "Okay Rory, Lorelai is listening."
He can see Lorelai concentrating as she listens to Rory. She absentmindedly nods her head. Then she pushes the phone back to Luke.
"Okay, it's me again, Rory. Your mother is holding up her index finger. So, number one. Now she's nodding yes. So I guess the answer to your first question is yes."
"Now she is holding up two fingers, so now question two. She is wrapping her hands around her own throat and trying to strangle herself. What the hell did you ask her?"
Rory tells him she wanted to know how her mom got laryngitis.
"Oh, I can tell you that Rory. You mom had an intense round of morning sickness this morning and strained her throat."
Luke keeps talking to Rory and all Lorelai can hear is his side of the conversation. She is starting to get impatient.
Luke's response to Rory, "Uh huh, me too."
Rory talking.
Luke, "Well, she has. Tomato juice."
More Rory.
Luke, "Yeah, I know it's weird but it's working, I guess."
Rory again.
Luke laughing, "Yeah, that's what your mom said."
Now Lorelai is getting really impatient and is looking very cross with her arms folded and tapping her foot.
So Luke mouths "Sorry" and tells Rory that her mom is now holding up three fingers and is nodding. "So the answer to your third question is yes."
Rory replies to Luke, "I asked mom if she wanted to meet me for dinner here in Stamford on my break."
"Good. Your mom and I were just going to see The Da Vinci Code (yes, he had figured out her pantomime but he was having too much fun watching her struggle with the clues to admit it earlier) but it will be over in time for her to join you for dinner."
Rory replies, "I meant the both of you. I want you to come to dinner also. I may need your amazing interpretive skills to figure out what she is saying."
Luke is touched that Rory wants him to join them so he agrees. He tells her that he will call her when they get out of the movie and then they can make definite plans.
The paramedics take April to the emergency room in the ambulance and Anna rides along. When they get to the hospital, the nurse takes April to an examination room while insisting the Anna must stay and fill out some forms.
As Anna fills out the forms, she is getting more and more frustrated that they won't let her in the room with April and her frustration is manifesting itself into anger at Luke. Anna has decided since Luke owns a diner it is his fault that April tried to make the French fries and burnt herself.
Next thing she knows she is dialing Luke's cell phone and getting ready to rip into him for endangering her child.
(Tbc)