They managed to find an all night diner just across the block and decided to take a quick break from their activities to rally the troops. Rory claimed she was in desperate need of sustenance of both the caffeinated and non-caffeinated variety. Soon the five of them were situated in a red vinyl covered booth with plates piled high with an assortment of breakfast foods. Logan had returned after a brief head clearing walk and was now in better spirits, of course Rory suspected this was mostly because he was anticipating the unpleasant call to her mother.
It was 5:45. Since waking the reigning Lorelai from a dead sleep was never a good way to start off a conversation that was bound to be ugly anyway Rory was stalling. Lorelai's tongue tended to be at its most barbed before coffee and the fact that Rory was a couple hundred miles away wouldn't stop her from threatening bodily harm and carrying out said threats at the next possible opportunity. As she was not in favor of having to wait for the other shoe to drop for the interminable future she decided that she had a bit of a reprieve before her mom called out the feds.
Rory grasped the steaming extra large cup of coffee like it was a life ring on the open sea and inhaled the pungent scent with a look of rapture as her eyes fluttered closed. Finn watched her with an awed expression. "I think that you are the only person I have ever seen that makes drinking coffee look orgasmic."
She opened one eye but didn't answer as she let the hot liquid slide down her throat. "It's better than sex if you ask me."
Finn quirked a leering eyebrow and was about to make a playful comeback when she held up a warding hand to stop the inevitable lewd remark. She gave him a stern look. "Spare me."
He attempted a pout but the effect was comical when they both started laughing.
Colin watched this from on side, ever the observer. It was clear that Rory Gilmore had managed in the space of few hours to wrap Finn around her little finger, and Stephanie seemed equally willing to embrace her into their little group. This wasn't much of a feat really since they were the emotional whores of the group. They loved adopting new friends whenever they thought it might bring them a modicum of entertainment. Logan was also obviously taken with the girl although he was better at hiding it. Now Colin, he was a different beast altogether and he hadn't decided what he thought of this new interloper.
Thirty minutes later they had made an impressive dent in the mountain of food before them and now Rory was slumped in the booth with a look on her face that suggested that she was a death row inmate who had just been told that her time was up. It was a last meal of sorts. She was staring blankly into the dregs of the third of her prerequisite 3 cups of coffee that she had allowed herself before she called her mom, who knew how many she would need after to staunch the bleeding. She was muttering sarcastically to herself, building up some momentum to face her mom's wrath. This was of great entertainment value to her audience. All other pretense at conversation had ceased over 5 minutes ago as they all regarded the escalating fervor of Rory's grumbling. Logan was back to smirking and Finn and Stephanie were watching the scene with openly voracious curiosity. Colin was watching the three of them watch Rory. When she began to add gestures to the one sided argument Logan reached across the table and grabbed her arm cutting a particularly vehement finger point off mid motion. He placed a cell phone in her hand with an artfully sympathetic look.
"Just call her Ace. We don't have time for a full filibuster here."
She flushed and looked at the avid eyes of her companions "You are enjoying this aren't you? Don't get me wrong my mom is my best friend but when she gets her righteous mom attitude going you pretty much get steamrolled unless you are ready with the ammunition and well rehearsed. She has a gift, unfortunately it got diluted in the gene pool."
She gave an envious sigh and then focused on the expectant faces around her, okay, she was stalling. She checked her watch, by now her mom would probably be up and getting ready for work. She looked at the phone and with a resigned sigh she dialed the familiar number. She only hoped that she had already had a few cups of coffee because Lorelai half awake and caffeine deprived was an experience that would make a good horror film.
The phone only rang once before it was picked up...bad sign, very bad sign, it meant she had been waiting for it to ring.
"Hi, mom?" it came out in a tentative tone.
Lorelai's voice came over the line a second later dripping saccharine sweet sarcasm. Rory rolled her eyes towards heaven...this was going to be ugly, like Night of the Living Dead ugly.
The voice was exaggerated concern "Have you been kidnapped by pirates? Sold into white slavery in China? Thrown in a pit by a psychopath who wants to fatten you up so that he can use your skin as a woman suit? Cough twice if your captor is in the room and I will have the feds there before you can even blink. "
"I'm fine mom..." she was cut off as her mother continued the diatribe.
"I'm out of plausible movie themed explanations then. I have wracked my admittedly smaller and less exercised brain and I just can not fathom another reason that you would not have called to tell me that you were not indeed in your dorm room sleeping off the exhaustion of the past week of mental gymnastics as you so convincingly told me you would be only two days ago."
"Mom, I can explain..."
She wasn't finished with the saccharine yet but now it had a lethal edge that would slice you to ribbons without leaving a drop of blood as evidence. "Yes, please do explain why it is that when I called your lovely and inestimably articulate roommate at 12:00 last night I was informed that ...now wait let me make sure I get this quote verbatim, "Your daughter has decide to participate in the midnight shark feeding frenzy with a smirky, yacht-wrecking, cold blooded heartbreaker otherwise known as Logan Huntzberger" now I'm not sure that smirky is actually a word although I would in most cases defer to the superior vocabulary of a Yale student, but I have to give her at least 6 points for creativity alone."
"Are you finished?" Rory asked in a sarcastic tone.
"Not hardly but I will follow Robert's Rules of Order and give you the floor, I will allow 30 seconds for a rebuttal."
"No interruptions allowed if you are really going to follow the rules."
"Rules are meant to be broken...29 seconds and counting."
Rory's eyes narrowed despite the fact that her mom couldn't see her as she prepared for battle "I'll make this brief. To summarize Mac invited me on an LDB event for a follow up article and as an apology. I accepted. End of story."
There was a brief silence on the other end; she was regrouping for a second charge. "So now you are god knows where at 6:15 in the morning with Logan Huntzberger, the Logan Huntzberger who made you jump off a seven story scaffolding with only an umbrella?"
"We've been over this...I wanted to jump, he just gave me the opportunity."
"That's what Manson's followers said about the coolaide." Lorelai continued as if she was never interrupted "The Logan Huntzberger who blackmailed you at my parent's Rory auction?"
"He didn't blackmail me...well, okay maybe he did but I benefited from the arrangement as much as he did. You saw the other guys there, it could have been a lot worse."
She saw Stephanie give Logan a curious look.
"The Logan Huntzberger who punched the Naked Guy over some as yet undetermined but imagined slight involving you?"
"He didn't punch the Naked Guy, he just tried to punch him."
This time Finn gave Logan a raised eyebrow as it became blatantly obvious who was being discussed "Naked guy?" he mouthed and Logan just shrugged. He had to assume that was Marty but it was a mystery how they had come up with that nickname. He wasn't sure that he wanted to know the derivation of that particular name.
Lorelai was on an unstoppable roll "The Logan Huntzberger who tried to bribe you with coffee...okay well, actually I understand the lure of that one."
"It was good coffee." her voice was on the edge of impatience. "Almost as good as Luke's"
The gasp at the other end was audible to all assembled as Rory held the phone away form her ear with a wince.
"I am going, for the good of us all, to assume that you are currently either delirious from lack of sleep or on some sort of drug that prohibits operating heavy machinery or talking to your mother about her boyfriend's famous coffee. As I was saying before I traveled that particular yellow brick road, I need to ask you a question. Are you involved with this Logan chap?"
"No, mom, it's not like that, it's for an article..."
" Because you know if you are that's okay, I just need to know so I can prepare an offensive against your grandmother's gloating. They are probably partying right now, conga lines, piƱatas, the works for their granddaughter who finally upheld the family name and landed a rich fish."
"Mom.." this time it was sharp and high pitched.
Rory took a deep breath and glanced at her rapt audience. She rose from the table and took a step away from the table consciously lowering her voice "Listen mom, you know I so love dissecting my every foible with you but this really isn't a good time. I am in New York; I have not been kidnapped, sold into slavery or in any other way taken against my will. Johnny Depp and Jody Foster are not involved, nor is Hannibal Lector, creepy reference by the way. Just think of me as Indiana Gilmore off on a new adventure."
Lorelai perked up at this "You know his real name was junior, that sort of fits...only I can't really see you with a bull whip and your features are too delicate for one of those hats."
Rory shuddered to think of how close her mom had come to the truth.
Lorelai continued gaily now "So in this little scenario are your current companions the Nazis or the cannibalistic slavers that eat monkey brains?"
Rory regretted ever bringing up the Indiana Jones theme, it was one of her mom's favorites. "We are here on a scavenger hunt and assuming that no disaster befalls me between now and midnight tomorrow night I will be back under your mommy radar on Monday. Then we can dissect and plan offensives to your little hearts content. Now please, just promise me that you won't call any federal agency and file a missing person's report and I will promise you the uncut version of the details on Monday night over Luke's coffee. "
There was a pregnant pause on the other end and Rory knew that her mom was sulking while her dervish of a brain whirled trying to come up with another angle to argue, finally she relented. "Okay, I agree to your terms but only if you pinky swear that you will tell me everything and promise that if you get arrested you will call your grandmother first..." she chortled " I would just love to see her face when she got that call."
"Gee, thanks for your support mom."
Lorelai's voice was serious now "Hey kid, in all seriousness, be careful. You are a good kid and I know that everyone has to go through this whole finding yourself phase, you were there for several of mine after all. A word of advice from a veteran of the battle. Don't let them talk you into being someone you aren't." there was a brief pause "Enough of the heavy stuff. I love you babe, just don't do anything I would do."
"Okay Yoda, I love you too. I'll see you at Luke's on Monday at 7 o'clock."
"Its a date my young Jedi...may the force be with you. Oh and if you want to get on my good side get me a present...you know how much I LOVE presents."
"Anything in particular ----?"
"Surprise me."
"Bye mom." She laughed ruefully as she flipped the phone closed and turned back to the table to find 8 pairs of eyes glued to her back.
She smiled brightly now. "My mom says hi."
The quartet of raised eyebrows garnered a sigh of vexation "You all should consider trying out for the synchronized eyebrow raising team, I hear its the next big event to be added to the Olympics."
"Ooh, the Olympics, I want to be in the Olympics just for the volleyball, the dancing girls in bikinis are my favorite." Finn said with a gleeful gleam in his eye.
"You do know that those aren't the actual volleyball players right? Those are just the half time show." Colin turned to Rory "Now, if they make hitting on women an Olympic sport Finn here is your man."
Finn sulked "Why must you always rain on my parade?"
Rory turned curious eyes to Logan who had been strangely silent throughout this exchange. "What no sarcastic remark from the Quip Master?"
He looked her straight in the eye and said in a total dead pan "It was too easy. You should know I never like to take the easy way. It takes all the fun out of my ultimate victory." He held here gaze a moment longer and Rory had the odd feeling that she had lost track of exactly what they were talking about. The challenge was there in his eyes, as it had been since the day they met but this time it was different, this time it was personal.
He rose from the table. "Alright my friends no more time to waste, we've got mayhem and madness to pursue if we want a chance at winning this little contest."
