Lorelai slammed the jeep door with a halfhearted attempt at ill temper.
She felt it really wasn't up to the standards of her best work but couldn't really muster the angst to give it the oomph that a good fit of pique required. It simply took too much energy to rage at the world when the real target of your ire was yourself.
The anger that had flamed white hot and fueled her through the day had burned itself out and nothing but the embers of self-recrimination remained to impart a paltry warmth to her tired body. She was a corpse, a mere shell of her former self, drained of energy, life force, anger, desire, need. She would have made the screwed up dead folks on Six Feet Under look down right cheery in comparison.
All that was left was the overwhelming urge to cry, to stand alone with only the snow cloaked branches of the once naked trees as company and spill out all the jagged pieces of her pain like a lone wolf howling at the pale white face of the man in the moon. He had always been a sympathetic ear when the ranks of the empathetic were sparse.
Of course she knew better. She was Lorelai Gilmore. Tears seldom assuaged the calamities in Lorelai Gilmore's world. Crying never cleaned the slate it just made the words get all smeary, it rarely brought clarity or answers but rather left a path of muddy questions in its wake. All a good bout of weeping had ever earned her was puffy red eyes, a throbbing head and little trip into the not so pleasant past that left her feeling like she was sixteen again with her world spinning out of control around her and her foundations crumbling bit by bit beneath her as the stones fell to the lapping dark waters of grief and guilt.
No...crying never solved anything. All she was managing to accomplish out here in the dark was the imminent loss of her baby toe and she'd regret that tomorrow, as the little piggy that went to market had always been one of her favorites. There were certainly better ways to go than frozen to death like a giant popsicle even though she would make a very tasty popsicle, coffee flavored of course.
She pushed herself into sluggish motion with her eyes on one target. She trudged doggedly towards the refuge of hearth and home blind to the ethereal snowflakes whirling past her cheeks with a dancer's grace to take their place in the soft silent congregations at her feet.
She had one goal. Hibernation. Inside her cave in her rattiest sweats, cocooned in the big comfy afghan and ensconced on the perfectly squished couch with comfort food and coffee and a remote control she felt she could fight off even the barbarian hordes if need be and with a little help from the pizza man she figured she could wait it out until spring if necessary. Surely by then the town would have moved on to a new victim and left her to sulk in private.
She shut the door against the insistent flurries and leaned heavily against it, as if insuring the world stayed safely locked on the other side of its wooden weight. When she roused herself enough to venture further into the living room it was only to stop a few steps from the windows and gaze out at winter draped in it's loveliest snowy finery like an elegant bride beautifully festooned in streamers of white for her walk down the aisle. Dreams were spun and promises made on nights like this with lovers warm and cozy in each other's arms, tucked into the house by all those alabaster pillows of fresh snow like a giant inside out goose down comforter. It was the kind of night that begged for chestnuts roasting on crackling fires, Jimmy Stewart revelations and warm eggnog liberally laced with rum.
Her heart sank as she turned back towards the dimly lit interior of her silent living room and she felt with a weighty sense of pity that she was the butt of a very nasty joke and even her old friend snow was in on the punch line.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes in dejection before straightening her shoulders. Okay, time to get a grip. Yes, it had been a bad day... a very bad day, Napoleon and the Battle of Waterloo bad and she might be down for the count in this round... that didn't mean she was beaten for good. She'd gotten through days worse than this with her spirit a bit more cracked and showing a few more scars but still intact and this one would be no different. It was time to pull out the old standbys and get down to a good wallowing. She nodded emphatically in agreement with her own inner monologue.
In Lorelai's admittedly slightly off balance world there was a long list of cures for a bad day, but three options usually topped the list... Luke's version of a happy meal (coffee with a side of cheeseburger, fries and pie), a good roll in the proverbial hay...minus the pokey bits of dried weeds better suited to Mr. Ed than a romantic interlude or a night of maudlin/ comedic British TV shows.
Since the first two were out of the running for best-unmentioned reasons she decided that the third was just what she needed to kick her out of her bad day funk. A little Black Adder, some Ab Fab, a dash of Coupling and smidgeon of Two Pints and what you got was a recipe for guaranteed entertainment no matter how black your mood. Now if things got really desperate you could always dig into the emergency contingency plan and break out some Red Dwarf and High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman but that was only to be considered when desperate measures were called for. Another glance at the snowy wonderland outside the window convinced her that desperate measures were just what the weatherman ordered.
In an act of defiance against sentimentality she chose mallomars, coffee and revelations of the long dead variety. Avoidance and distraction had always been one of her best-honed talents and a little conspiracy of weather and loneliness wasn't going to derail her that easily, She was no teary-eyed schoolgirl. She'd had her share of heart break and disappointment and she'd learned long ago how to turn down the volume on self-blame and regret.
She plopped down on the couch and wiggled down into the cushion ideally shaped to fit her body and flipped on the DVD player. The credits rolled and she munched a mallomar but her thoughts were tuning out the music and focusing on the root of her bad mood. She'd seen the look in Luke's eyes this morning. She had felt the distance between despite their physical proximity. She'd seen the writing on the wall and it was a big old F for failure. Yes, she'd failed the test again, come up with a big old fat zero in the game of love. So what? She thought defiantly, so she would be an old maid, live in a shoe, have 18 cats, collect something kitschy like salt and pepper shakers and take up crocheting, it was time she just accepted that some people just weren't the marrying kind. What was the use beating herself bloody over spilled milk? Maybe she was lactose intolerant anyway and she should just find a substitute.
Time to let it go.
Move on.
Wipe the slate clean.
Turn over a new leaf.
Start on a fresh page.
Get out the purple hat and embrace La Dolce Vita.
She could give Diane Lane a run for her money. Move to Tuscany and buy a run down villa just for the hell of it and find herself a hot Italian lover and maybe even learn to cook. Okay, okay perhaps she was getting a bit carried away with the idea of the thing. Cooking had always sounded a lot better in theory and she'd often found the reality messy and unpalatable. She'd just get her self a hot Italian lover who could cook... the best of both worlds. Much better plan.
It was a good pep talk; just the right note of acceptance and encouragement without sounding like something Dr. Laura would spout to her disciples.
Too bad that she was her own worse audience and had stopped listening to herself back somewhere around the leaf or the slate or some such prosaic nonsense. She closed her eyes in submission, effectively blotting out the TV show that she had stopped watching shortly after the opening credits. She pushed the stop button on the remote with rather more vehemence than was strictly necessary.
She chewed contemplatively on another mallomar as she surveyed the living room as if looking for searching for movement or life in the empty, depressingly silent space. The memories were all around her pressing in and she shivered slightly at their presence.
"I see ghosts." She whispered to herself in a passable creepy frightened voice.
She shook her head sharply. She refused to be a one-woman advertisement for Thorazine. "Maybe I should just call the Ghostbusters and get it over with."
She clambered to her feet and paced into the kitchen on stockinged feet. She poured herself another cup of coffee and then stalked forward and yanked the fridge open. Moments passed as she stared listlessly into its nearly barren shelves. Not even the half eaten pizza or the frozen snickers bars stirred her interest; she shivered a little and then closed the door huffily. Things were even worse than she'd expected. It was a dark, dark day indeed when Lorelai Gilmore's vaunted appetite even deserted her. She slumped there with her back to the refrigerator for a few moments before she stood resolutely to her feet and squared her shoulders.
Fine. If that was the way her damn guilt complex wanted to play this game she would play. She might be many things that most people would consider uncomplimentary. She was impetuous, she had a stubborn streak a mile wide and she was often accused of being sarcastic, something she rather took as a large feather in her cap even though she was quite sure the comment wasn't intended that way, but it was a matter of pride that no one would think Lorelai Gilmore a coward and she wasn't about to change that now. She wasn't afraid of a few little ghosts that went bump in the night. She didn't need men with unlicensed nuclear accelerators tied to their backs or knowledge of quantum physics. These were her on personal ghosts and she was going fight them one on one, mano a mano.
She stuffed her feet into her yellow rubber fisherman boots, shrugged into a winter coat, and wrapped a fluffy scarf around her neck before she paused. She knew just the accessory to top this outfit off right. She turned resolutely towards the hall closet, refuge for all lost and forgotten clothing and dug until she found a hat left over from Taylor's last misguided notion of staging a Shakespeare in the park series in the town square. It had four rather comical points with bells on them and was just the right shade of royal purple. Just the thing the battle called for. Two could play at this game. She stormed out the recently closed door in search of illusive peace of mind.
She was drawn inevitably and inexorably to the hulking shape that called her attention. Her very own personal incarnation of the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. She wrenched open the garage door that still stood slightly ajar from it's morning plundering. Then she found herself at a loss for engagement tactics.
Having gone this far she was unsure of her next step. She needed a moment to plan a strategy she rationalized as she took an absentminded sip of coffee strong enough to strip the paint from the much-neglected walls as she stared into the stygian darkness of the void and she contemplated the fickle nature of inanimate things.
She closed her eyes as the coffee heated what it could of her insides leaving only that icy lump in her gut that had been growing of late into something ugly and impossible to ignore. She didn't like guilt or grief or their sequelae. They tended to screw up her life royally and make her do stupid things.
She reached out and flipped on the light in a burst of pique as if to dispel the shadows of emotions that resided here but that only seemed to make the sting sharper as she stared at the outline of sawdust that remained in the garage like crime scene tape effectively outlining the shape of the body that had once occupied the space. She glared as if the dust motes themselves were to blame for this nonsensical ache in her throat.
It was just a stupid little boat after all. ...Not even a boat really, just a few scraps of un-seaworthy wood with illusions of grandeur.
She should be thanking Luke for moving it. She should be glad that it was sitting in front of Luke's diner rather than taking up space in her garage. Glad to be rid of its hulking brown shape. She had no use for it, she wasn't a boat person, she was a good solid land under your feet kind of gal and as far as she could see she had the right idea. She'd learned her lesson from history. She didn't need a treacherous mode of transportation that could play both savior and destroyer in equal part. Yes, Noah had his Ark and that had sounded all miraculous in the moment, certainly she would be the first to admit there were some adventures to be had on such crafts as the Hispaniola, the Nautilus or Huck Finn's trusty raft. It might even be argued that she might not have a nice little garage in Connecticut to be lamenting so if it had not been for the Mayflower but look what happened to those blokes on the Titanic and the Lusitania.
She had plenty of well-earned baggage of her own without taking on another irrational attachment to an inanimate but somehow sentimental thing. She should have known not to get involved. She should have known not to get attached. She shouldn't care that it was gone.
Lorelai slumped dejectedly against the rough wood of the entrance to the garage allowing the solidly constructed if somewhat dilapidated structure to carry the brunt of her weight.
The rationalizations sounded so good in her head but admittedly there were a few problems with the thought process. One, she was completely incapable of not getting involved. That poor lonely abandoned boat had all but shouted her name and she could no more have turned her back on that then she could have kicked a sad eyed puppy. It would have been barbaric.
She'd known the boat was important to Luke, known even when he'd railed at her for interfering that he couldn't abandon it any more than he could abandon his father's hardware store with it's nostalgic knick knacks and outdated decorating scheme, it had as key a place in his heart as did their quaint town that he gruffly professed to hate on a regular basis but never failed to rescue when it needed a handyman or a hero.
It belonged in his life as much as the bickering with Taylor, the exasperation with Kirk and the constant harangues to her about the evils of coffee and grease. Its existence had shaped him. Its stewardship had been his homage to his father's memory. It had meant something more to him than a bunch of boards and nails and marine paint and so she realized, it had come to mean something to her. It had been a work, if not of art, at least of love and it's absence left more than an empty garage.
She had grown fond of its somewhat misshapen silhouette and it's jaunty prow, come to think of it as a friend who belonged there. She'd adopted it as she adopted so many stray beings into her life and her home. Who was she kidding? She always got attached.
And now it was gone, kidnapped in the dark of predawn morning and dragged from her warm garage to reside cold and shivering in front of the diner like a giant billboard that read Luke and Lorelai are over with a nice little post script in neon and lights that said...forever.
As long as it had been in it's customary place she had been able, despite the creep of time and separation, to believe that this was a temporary thing, that it was simply a break and not a break up, an intermission in the play and that soon enough the chime would ring and the players would return to the stage and take up where they left off in their story.
Now it was looking distinctly like the intermission had become a showstopper. This thought left an empty gnawing hole in her chest, a funny sting at the backs of her eyes and a lump in her throat as big as a walnut that not even coffee, the eternal panacea, could soothe.
That thought brought her attention back to the sluggishly steaming cup clutched to the center of her chest in a vain attempt to ward off the tendrils of icy damp December night that coalesced at her back.
It wasn't her usual role, that of the penitent sinner. She didn't do repentance well, nor did she carry in her soul any misplaced need to number contrition and atonement among her many hard won skills. Yet here she stood, staring into empty space as much to remind herself what had been lost as to contemplate what was to be won with brave action.
She was tired, so tired. Defeated, exhausted, bone weary. She was tired of coffee at Westin's with a group of scary regulars who she suspected might have escaped from a fifties sitcom of small-town life and wouldn't recognize a good Who's on First bit if their life's depended on it. Sarcasm was so hopelessly lost on them that she didn't even have the heart to insult the servers. She was worn down by dinners that were simply about eating without the side dishes of enlivening discourse. Strangely enough she'd found that even ingestion of artery clogging grease and adrenaline inducing caffeine lacked a certain flavor without a nice exchange of pithy one-liners for dessert. And dessert, she didn't even want to think about dessert and the travesty of pathos that ritual had become.
She was tired of it all. Tired of pretending that everything was okay, when she doubted that anything would ever be again. She was exhausted from her own futile attempts to forget that had her planning extravagant Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas decorations that would have put even Emily Gilmore to shame.
The whole take it a day at a time thing had been working for her, or at least she had convinced herself it was working until tonight, when all the music had stopped and she was left alone, in this dark sad attempt at a recreation of her life, as she had known it. Only it wasn't as she had known it, her pretty little world lay in pieces around her because she had forgotten the cardinal rule of puzzle solving and lost that one key corner piece upon which the rest of the picture was built. Without it, without Luke the rest of the images were just a jumble that made no sense.
She was tired, so tired of dragging around more baggage that Louis Vuitton himself with no destination but what seemed to be the road to ruin for her and all who had the misfortune to share her travels. Where was the detour, the exit ramp, the freeway back to life? She was alone and she hated it, she was depressed and she detested herself for the weakness. She wondered what it would take to fix her this time and doubted deep inside that world had enough superglue and duct tape to put her back to right.
Mired in melancholia Lorelai nearly jumped out of her ice laden boots when she was shocked out of her internal diatribe by a soft voice at her shoulder. "It looks so..."
Lorelai recognized the voice and let out her initial sharp inhale on a sigh as she nodded knowingly "Empty is the word I think you're looking for."
Sookie put a comforting hand on her shoulder "I was going to say sad and in need of a makeover."
Lorelai's lips quirked in a half smile "Gee Sook don't sugar coat the truth on my account."
Sookie rolled her eyes "I meant the garage although just for that I might sick the Mary Kay lady on you next time she comes to call in her pink Cadillac."
"Funny, you're a funny. A little too funny for someone who is going to have a hit taken out on her immediately with a guy named Lou Fingers." Lorelai threatened blandly before changing the topic. " So tell me Sookie, what the bloody hell are you doing out here sneaking up on people in the middle of the night? We should put one of those little bells on you like Babette got for Apricot just so you don't go around killing birds or giving your friends heart attacks."
Sookie shook her head in disbelief "Look Miss Daisy it's only nine o'clock. I hardly think that counts as the middle of the night unless you are a three year old." She paused to replay Lorelai's word and then gave her shoulder a concerned pat as her eyes widened "Oh dear, you've already been into the Brits haven't you, it looks like we got here just in time. " Sookie eyed her friend's strange outfit and tired eyes "Just in time indeed, I'm thinking you are the one who needs a makeover. What's with the hat? You planning on leaving town as part of a traveling circus? Maybe join that old lady's club that always has tea at Westin's on Tuesdays?"
"The hat is symbolic and pretty... only regrettably not so good at keeping my ears warm. Pretty soon maybe they'll just fall off and then that whole circus idea might have some merit, I'll be the Amazing Lorelai earless coffee drinker extraordinaire.
Sookie wisely ignored the note of self-pity "You know you could go back inside where they have this new fangled thing called heat."
Lorelai shrugged and looked defiantly back at the empty garage "Nah, I think I'll stay here, I think I'm really starting to get the hang of that whole beating the dead horse thing... harder than it looks at first but now I know the secret. It's all in the wrist action."
Sookie sighed "Yeah, I figured you'd choose the hard way." she stepped up next to her friend to survey the dusty dingy space that somehow seemed smaller and less impressive when it was empty like this. She just hoped their plan would work because it hurt her insides to see her friends in such stupid self-inflicted misery. She stepped into the garage hunting around in the odds and ends stuffed into corners.
Lorelai raised an eyebrow in spite of her self as Sookie poked an old deflated beach ball that had somehow escaped the recent purge. "Sook? What ya doin'?" asked Lorelai in an inquisitive tone.
Sookie gave her a look that implied that she was a few cards short of a full deck. "I'm looking for something to sit on of course, you can't expect a pregnant woman to stand out here in the cold all night fighting gravity."
"Okay, fair enough, but you know you could take your own advice, head on back to your own nice warm house and cuddle up with Jackson on the couch, or is he only good as a pumpkin patch attendant?"
Sookie giggled but completely ignored Lorelai's suggestion laughing to herself "Pumpkin patch attendant, cute, I think I'll use that one on him next time he threatens to give me yamkins to make my pies with."
Lorelai sighed and pushed herself up off the doorframe and took a reluctant step into the space. "So I take the silent treatment to mean that you are not going to toddle off to your little gingerbread house and leave me here to revel in my regrets, plan my memoirs and generally drown myself in self pity?" it wasn't a question.
"Will you go inside?"
"No."
"Well then it looks like we'll be practicing to be Eskimos together. We are partners after all. What kind of friend would I be if I let you mourn out here in the cold all alone, without refreshments?"" She had finally located a lawn chair and she opened it with a flourish before returning to the door of the garage where she grabbed a picnic basket that Lorelai had only just noticed and got a firm grip on Lorelai's arm with her other hand as she marched back towards the lone chair.
Lorelai came along willingly after a few steps and few whiffs of whatever was hidden in the basket. "You brought snacks? Well why didn't you lead with that? You know Gilmore's never turn down free food." She took another heady inhale. "Especially if it involves anything with melted cheese and salsa. We having a little fiesta that I don't know about?"
Sookie looked a little surprised at her deduction but covered it well as she plopped down in the lawn chair on one side of the garage. "You're a pretty quick study when it comes to food detection."
"What can I say, I have a grease radar and talent honed by survival instincts. It's probably the main thing that kept Rory and me alive for all these years." She plopped down on the cold cement floor with the tail of her coat as a cushion and looked up at Sookie. "So what brought the cheddar, black bean and green chili nachos...wait, wait, I bet I know... margarita night right?"
Sookie gave her an admiring look "You are good."
Lorelai gave her a little half smile "and you my friend are a creature of habit. I've never quite figured it out but you seem to think that next to the magic risotto the next greatest food for healing a heart and soul is a margarita... not that I'm complaining of course, just never quite got the connection."
Sookie giggled mischievously "Let's just say Spring Break in Cancun and leave it at that shall we."
Lorelai smirked knowingly "Enough said."
Sookie pulled out a plastic glass with a flourish and filled it with greenish liquid that she poured from a plastic jug that she had also extracted from the basket of plenty. Lorelai took it from her and tipped it back for a healthy sip as Sookie pulled out the nachos and set them on top of the basket as a makeshift table "Sorry, I guess in retrospect a picnic and cold margaritas wasn't quite seasonally correct."
Lorelai shrugged "No problem, after a few of these I'll forget all about the fact that my butt has frozen off and be dreaming of wasting away on a nice sandy beach in Margarita Ville."
Lorelai looked around as she grabbed a heaping nacho and bit into it. It was funny but somehow the company and the inane chatter was making the whole place seem less like a graveyard for hopes and dreams and more like just what it was, simply an empty garage. The nachos were fantastic as expected and thankfully warm enough to ward off some of the chill from the drink. Lorelai waved with her fifth nacho at the empty room. "So what now? I mean moping is fun and all but that's only going to get us through a couple of hours before we have to find something better to do, you're no moping marathoner like I am and I don't think you have the stamina to last the night."
Sookie gave her a considering look as if weighing whether or not to voice an opinion "Well, I did have one idea, but I was a little afraid to bring it up.'
Lorelai gave her a narrow look "You were afraid to bring it up? Because I am so terror inspiring and forbidding?"
"Hey, I've heard stories." Sookie said with feeling.
Lorelai contemplated for a moment before shaking her head decisively "Nope... can't think of a single story to such effect, they must all be blatant fabrications."
Sookie's right eyebrow reached impressive heights "The one about Kirk and the rabid squirrel?"
Lorelai bit her lip "Well okay that one might be true, but I still swear the squirrel set me up."
"How about that time with Mrs. Lanahan's cake shaped like a..."
Lorelai cut her off with a wave "It was a completely innocent I swear, a total misunderstanding but if I do say so myself it was hilarious... apparently once you reach 90 you cease to have the ability to find humor in life... nobody told me. I plan on dying when I am eighty nine and three quarters just to be on the safe side."
Sookie held up a hand "Okay, okay. Before we start planning the suicide pact lets get back to the topic at hand shall we?"
"Probably safer."
Sookie patted her comfortingly on the shoulder and had just opened her mouth to elaborate on her idea when a none too happy looking Jackson appeared silhouetted in the open doorway looking like an overworked pack mule. Before Lorelai had time to visually inventory the various odd shaped packages he was carrying he spoke "Hi Lorelai."
She opened her mouth to answer but apparently it was a rhetorical greeting and no answer was expected because he had already turned back to Sookie. "Where do you want them?"
Sookie pointed to the center of the garage and Lorelai's eyebrows rode high in question as Jackson trooped towards the center of the dusty space and began to divest himself of his sundry objects. Lorelai raised an eyebrow "We having an intergalactic kegger I don't know about or did you just bring reinforcements in case I got out of control?"
Any reply was stymied by Kirk's appearance in the space recently vacated by Jackson. He was clearly weighed down by a bucket on each arm that made him look a little like a Gumby figurine.
"Ahoy Matey." He said with a bit of a grunt as he stopped in front of Sookie a bit out of breath. "First mate reporting for duty Captain." He tried for a one armed salute but nearly toppled over with the effort. " Where shall I stow the cargo?"
"Nice feather Kirk." Lorelai said with a smirk.
"Thank you Lorelai. I thought it befitting given the occasion." He said with stiff aplomb.
Sookie pointed towards the cast off pile of bundles that Jackson had left in the center of the room. "Put the paint over there."
Kirk spun away and toddled off "Ay ay captain."
"I think your sailor needs to take a page form Popeye's book and eat a little more spinach." It took her a moment to rip her eyes from the blow up parrot on Kirk's shoulder. "Uh Sookie. Did he say something about paint?" Sookie's smile could only be described as sheepish. "Am I hosting an episode of Extreme Makeover that I don't know about?"
"You could say that I guess."
Lorelai nodded as if struggling to add up the facts and then cocked an eyebrow "And that has what to do with Kirk wearing an eye patch?"
Sookie cleared her throat and looked aggrieved "Yes, well, I think I should have been a bit more specific in my directions for Kirk. He took a bit of creative license with my secret code name."
Lorelai now patted her a bit sympathetically "Kirk needs a creative license just to exist. Besides maybe it was just laundry day and the only thing he had to wear was a yellow slicker and a hat that was probably last worn by Captain Barbosa...with Kirk you just never know. Besides at least the slicker will keep the paint off him, I shudder to remember the time he spilled the orange paint on himself while decorating the town square at Halloween, he swelled up to twice his size and almost gave Jackson's mutant pumpkin a run for its money."
Sookie giggled wickedly "Yeah, do you remember Luke threatening to carve him as a jack-o-lantern and bake a pumpkin pie from his innards?" the laugh died in her throat she realized what she had said and she glanced guiltily at Lorelai who was silent for a beat before cracking an ironic little twist of a smile.
"Yeah... good times." Lorelai patted Sookie's shoulder in a show of camaraderie "Don't worry Sook... you can say his name, I promise not go all Hindenburg and burst into flames. Now... let's get back to the paint."
Sookie smiled again as she trailed Lorelai into the garage. "Well, you see we had this great idea about a makeover for the garage, I thought maybe now that it's empty you could use it as a rec room or something."
Lorelai raised an eyebrow at her "So you want to make over my garage. Make it into a recreation room of some sort? I don't know Sook, I remember what you did to your house after Jackson moved in, I don't think there was a moose head left in the county."
Sookie held up a hand "I promise, no decapitated quadrupeds."
"A rec room huh?" Lorelai looked around the space and then made a square with her hands imitating a pretentious interior designer, "I don't know. I'll have to envision what it will look like; I mean there are important details to consider. Will there be a pool table or a ratty old couch like in That 70's Show? And who will play Fez? A rec room just isn't a rec room without a horny Central American boy. I get to be Jackie though."
"A craft studio then." Said Sookie with a shrug.
"Okay now the crazy is talking. Do I look that close to the edge that you think my inner Monster Stewart is lurking like the Mr. Hyde to my Dr. Jekyll, the Voldemort to my Professor Quirrell if you will?"
Sookie narrowed her eyes and her nostrils flared. "Look Murphy Brown you can use it as a bomb shelter or a back room casino or a yoga studio like Darryl Hannah. I don't care how you use it but damn it this garage is going to be cheerful if I have to tie you to a chair and gag you to do it."
Lorelai widened her eyes to a comic parody of fear "Yikes, talk about inner voices. You channeling Nurse Ratchett there or what? I'm thinking perhaps one too many cuckoos have flown over your nest."
Sookie breathed deep once through her nose and then sighed "I'm sorry, its the hormones. I get a little worked up. It's just that you've been so sad and so gloomy like Eyeore when he lost his tail, I thought you needed a new tail to cheer you up."
"I'd have to cut a tail hole in all my best pants but I suppose I could make it work. Might be rather fetching, start a whole new fashion trend, give new meaning to the phrase chasing tail." Lorelai tried for a cheerful tone but then fell into silences as she surveyed the depressingly dingy space. Maybe a redecorating was just the thing it needed, after all a new outfit usually worked to cheer her up why not try the concept on a garage?
"You don't like the idea." Sookie looked down cast as Lorelai remained silent. "I had such a great plan and it had a code name and everything. I told Jackson we should have just snuck in at night like those people in England do and, then you would have seen it all finished and you would have loved it." She looked on the edge of tears and her voice had turned mournful.
Sookie's forehead crinkled and Lorelai's hands shot up "No, wait, no tears, unless we need more salt for the margaritas I'm going to have to declare this a no tear zone."
Lorelai patted her shoulder with a resigned air "I'm sure it's a great plan Sookie. I'm warming to the idea already. This place could use a little sprucing."
Sookie looked up at her with a hopeful smile "Really? You like the plan?"
Lorelai laughed a little helplessly and patted Sookie's hand "Sure Sookie, what's not to like? We'll make an ugly old duckling into a swan before our eyes. You know I love a painting project. So what did you have in mind?"
"Well we were going for the girl space vibe and they had this really fun color called Pretty in Pink." Sookie smiled a little excitedly as she turned back to Jackson who was busily unfolding a tarp in the middle of the room. "Hey Jackson open the paint so that Lorelai can see it." Jackson smiled indulgently and pulled a screwdriver out of a mysterious pocket in his cargo pants and set to work on the paint lid.
Lorelai was nodding "Pink, okay, I can work with that, feminine but..." she screeched to a halt mid sentence as Jackson pried off the first lid and held it up for her to see the color. Lorelai looked wildly at Sookie "Let me guess. The Magical Kingdom's interior decorators were all you could find on such short notice?"
Sookie gave her hurt puppy dog look but she couldn't quite stop herself "I'm just imagining the protest form the Color Rights Coalition at this abuse of pink."
Sookie looked at the paint and then said in a cheery voice "Don't worry about the pink if you don't like it, we got purple too."
Lorelai's eyes closed in submission. "I think I need another margarita before I can face that one. I still have a few too many functioning rods and cones."
It was worse than she feared and she choked on her last swallow of margarita when the next color was unveiled. "What I wouldn't give to be color blind right now. Since when did you and Rainbow Brite become shopping buddies?"
Sookie narrowed her eyes and enunciated in insulted tones "I was trying to cheer you up."
"Cheer me up or crack me up? You know we could just put big pads on the wall and I'd have my very own personal asylum room. It'd be home away from home."
Sookie huffed and crossed her arms "You're impossible."
Lorelai laughed a little surprised at how the sound suddenly felt a little more natural than it had in weeks. "Okay Sook, I'm sorry. The purple and pink are fine... very... fun...bright. Guess plan B is out though, I don't think I'll be hosting a back room betting parlor anytime soon unless it's run by Strawberry Shortcake and her buddies the Care Bears."
Sookie's eyebrows drew together in confusion "Why would a desert run a gambling den?"
Before Lorelai could even touch that one there was a disgusted snort from behind them and they both craned their necks around to see their newly arrived intruder. Michel regarded them with haughty look. "Not the dessert you idiot, the cartoon, you know this cute little girl with the hat that looks like a big red strawberry." Only Michel could have carried off elegant indignation dressed in overalls that looked so new and starched that she bet they rustled when he walked.
Both Lorelai and Sookie looked at him solemnly for about three seconds before they dissolved into a fit of laughter. Between giggles Lorelai wagged a finger at the now beet red Frenchman "I...can't believe that you know Strawberry Shortcake...next you're going to tell me that Papa Smurf was your idol as a child, no, wait, I bet it was Farmer Smurf."
Lorelai grinned starting to feel that tingly warm relaxation that comes from imbibing one of Sookie's famous margaritas. She waved a lazy hand at him as he huffed "What are you supposed to be anyway John Henry or Howdy Doody? I wasn't aware that this was a costume party."
He looked highly insulted as he glanced down at his pristine overalls. "These are my painting clothes."
Lorelai snapped her fingers and grinned, "I've got it... Yankee Doodle Dandy." She began to sing loudly and off key "Stick a feather in his cap and call it macaroni." She paused as if genius had struck "Wait I've got it, you can borrow Kirk's hat and we can take this show on the road."
"I am done with this conversations with you two imbeciles. I don't know why I even bother." He glared and then spun on his heel and flounced towards the door he stopped only when he had one foot out the door "You have no respect for style and I'll have you know that Papa Smurf is a great role model and you should not make fun of him."
Lorelai called after him "Don't you mean smurf...he is a great smurf." Then she turned to Sookie with a smile still on her face Then she turned to Sookie with a smile still on her face and ticked off the fingers on her right hand as she spoke "So now we've got a coffee drinking court jester, a slightly fashion challenged sea man and a GQ cowboy, I say we chuck the whole joining the circus idea and start our very own carnival right here." She waved a hand at the dingy wall across from them as if picturing the words "I'll call Lorelai's Loony Side Show. We can paint the room in checkerboard style that will have the epileptics seizing, get some of those mirrors that make you look all wiggly, maybe a disco ball...hey, I think I might have one of those in the back of my closet somewhere."
Sookie laughed her eyes twinkling "Glad to see you are getting into the sprit of things. I knew if you thought about it the idea would grow on you."
"Like a wart on a toad. You know I embrace all things that appear on the surface to be sheer lunacy. Kindred spirits have to stick together. I'm liking this idea though, Babette can organize the posse of gnomes as ticket takers, we'll put Patty in charge of the entertainment... although we might have to give her a deadline or the prospective hot boy bands may never escape the auditioning tent you know how she is about performers. I hear that Bugsy is practicing to be a mime and Jackson can display his newest weird fruits and vegetables, like a regular old time fair. Now all we need is a dancing bear or a tiger or a cobra or..."
"You really want a deadly reptile living in your garage?"
Lorelai bit her bottom lip "Good point...well maybe something less lethal... a tight rope walking kitten or a trained monkey dressed like a clown..."
She trailed off as a new group of wanna be Bob Villa's arrived and surveyed the scene in the soon to be carnival space.
Lorelai shook her head with a little raised eyebrow at Sookie, as Taylor was the first to step inside and brace his hands on his hips surveying the scene with obvious displeasure. "It's almost too easy. I wish it and it appears. Give him a hand organ and we're golden."
Sookie clapped her hands gleefully "I bet Jackson can get us a permit for one of those. One of the many perks of being married to Town selectman."
Lorelai crowed in delight "Shameless nepotism... but I'll take it. I say we make him ride a unicycle while plays Bring in the Clowns. It'll be a show stopper."
Sookie gave her a little squeeze on the shoulder and then refilled her margarita glass. "Good to see you back Hun, you had me a little worried there for a while."
"Well I won't say my recovery is complete just yet, but I'm getting there. Nothing like a margarita and a picture of Taylor in a fez with an accordion to help one forget one's misfortunes."
Lorelai raised her glass to hide the smile that still wasn't quite at full force. Truth was she welcomed a bit of inanity and a respite from endless circular conversations with her annoyingly persistent heart but she had a feeling that things weren't quite back to normal just and it might be quite some time before she reached that milepost again.
She sipped thoughtfully on her margarita for a moment longer as she watched Taylor and Jackson in an animated argument stage center that involved a great deal of finger pointing and discussions of color swatches and town regulations. She shook her head a little as she emptied her glass. At last she was past the mist of self-pity and looking clearly at the picture. She was lucky really. For all the zany misfits that called themselves her friends and refused to go away and leave her alone even when she did her best to drive them away. She was lucky she had all those people that she often took for granted in her life and she owed them too much to allow her to shut herself off from their world altogether.
She stared at the mob of misfits that seemed to be escalating into full battle and now were brandishing paint brushes threateningly. The first splatters hit the wall and would have Jackson Pollock proud as they dripped luridly down the wall. And there it was...the writing on that wall again, only this time it said...F as in Fight Back You Idiot!
Lorelai blinked at it was gone but the message was there formed of her own subconscious and imposed on a messy pattern of random color.
She'd been going about this all wrong, in a very non-Lorelai like manner, she'd been letting other people call all the shots, her mother, Luke and Taylor even. It was time she took back the reins and started playing the game by her own rules. She just had to get back in the saddle and figure out how to lasso in the one who got away.
Having decided that her self-imposed isolation period was over she set down her glass and rose to join the debate. Painting wasn't much fun as a spectator sport.
