Editor's note: Another little nod to DSLeo in our initial chats about this story. And Luke just might inspire the next round of customs forms when I go overseas next time.
Chapter 2: A Voice in the Wilderness
It was the same answer she'd gotten an hour earlier, and the same as the hour before that. The English-speaking teller had looked at Lorelai with a mixture of annoyance and pity, though heavily on the annoyance this go-around. He reminded her of Michel, and if there was one person she knew how to handle, it was him.
It was just after noon, and she'd visited the HSBC once an hour since it opened. The money should be there. It had to come eventually. If she and Rory were careful, they had enough euro on them for a few days, but their reservation at the hostel was only for three more nights. After that, it was a train to Avignon, and surely the money would arrive before then.
She took a moment to lean against the side of the bank and compose herself before walking the rest of the way back to the little outdoor café where Rory sat in a chair, curled up with a book, coffee, and a basket of fresh croissants. Lorelai had taken two bites of hers, then her legendary appetite failed her. The delectable pastry tasted like ash, and she excused herself because she refused to be upset in front of Rory.
Oh God, what a disaster this all was. She'd had the sense to carry her cash, her rail pass, and her passport in the travel document holder strapped around her waist under her clothes. But she kept her cards separate, just in case of something like this. She and Rory had checked into the hostel, and she'd decided to take out some more euro from an ATM. They'd gone barely a block from the hostel when it happened out of nowhere. A slice of a knife had cut the cross-body strap of her purse, and nimble fingers had dipped into her jeans pocket for her phone. That had been the biggest violation, and the groping still made her shudder. Her scream had alerted Rory, prevented the same thing from happening to her.
It happened all the time, the police and the incredibly kind people at the American embassy told them. They were smart, they'd done everything right, but it still happened. Such was life. She'd done everything right with the inn, and it still burned. She'd tried to do everything right in her love life, and now she had a failed almost marriage, a strained relationship with her daughter's father, and an unacknowledged crush on one of her closest friends. She'd done everything right and now she was stranded in Europe with Rory and just two heartbeats away from breaking down into hysterical sobs. But she couldn't. Even though she and Rory were best friends, she was still the mom, and she knew Rory was more worried than she let on.
So Lorelai plastered a smile on her face and walked back to the café, dropping into the vacant seat across from Rory.
"Nothing yet?" Rory asked, still reading.
"Not yet. Clearly Western Union decided to send the money via carrier pigeon."
"You know it's 1 a.m. in Seattle," Rory said casually.
"I know, I know," Lorelai replied. But Luke's plane should have touched down hours earlier, if her calculations had been correct. For a moment, she was seized by the fear that the plane had crashed, then the thought disappeared as quickly as it had come. If a catastrophe of that magnitude had happened, it'd be all over the news - even in France.
"Mom, why don't you just call Grandma?"
"Nope." Lorelai fished out a magazine she'd picked up in London and stared down at it, not really seeing the words on the cover. "Luke won't let us down."
"I know, but we really should have a backup plan."
"And that's Sookie." But a distant backup. Sookie was pregnant, and Lorelai knew firsthand the way hormones could screw you over. It would send Sookie into a panic, which would make Jackson furious, which would add to Sookie's stress, and none of it would be good for the baby. Damn it, she would call Miss Patty, Babette, Kirk, even Taylor before calling Emily and Richard. She would even grit her teeth and call her grandmother before her parents. But that wasn't going to happen because Luke would come through for her. It was just a fact.
"Where are you having the card sent?" Rory reached for a croissant, absently taking a bite out of it.
"Because of the time involved, it should get to us in Avignon thanks to my smarty pants Chilton grad and her itinerary."
"Which you mocked endlessly," Rory pointed out.
"Well, that is the difference between your Chilton education and my lackadaisy ways," Lorelai teased, grateful not for the first time in the past couple of days for her daughter's ruthless need to plan everything as much as possible.
"We can go visit the L'Arc de Triomphe and the Champs-Elysées," Rory suggested, finally looking up from her book.
"Yes, with all the shops where we currently can't afford anything."
"It's not like we can fit all that much in our backpacks."
"It's the principle of the matter. All the shopping of Paris available to us, and nary a euro to spend. It's a tragedy."
Rory rolled her eyes. "We can just take pictures. And get postcards. Those are pretty cheap."
"Who's on the list today?" They had a rolling schedule of people to send postcards to, making sure to send out one once a day if possible.
Rory consulted the itinerary she kept at hand. "Um … Miss Patty today and Babette's from yesterday, since we didn't get a chance to get out because of everything that happened. Oh, Mom, we should visit Shakespeare and Company!"
"No, we shouldn't."
"Mom!"
"Rory, you've already bought enough books that we've had to ship back a package to Babette to drop off at the house."
"Just one book!"
"That's what you said when we went into Waterstones in London."
"But that was different." Rory waved her book at her mother, a copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. "They had all of Harry Potter in UK English there! There's some key differences between the UK and the US books, especially the first two. It was a necessity."
Lorelai rolled her eyes, more for show than anything. "Fine, one book."
"Thank you." Satisfied, Rory reached for her cup of coffee. Then her eyes focused on something over Lorelai's shoulder and her jaw dropped. "Um, Mom?"
"Hmm?" Lorelai finally opened her magazine.
"How did Luke say he was sending the money again?"
"Western Union," she replied absently and considered trying to eat another croissant.
"Um."
"What is it?" Lorelai glanced up, startling at Rory's suddenly pale face. "What's wrong, Rory?"
Rory just nodded to something behind her and Lorelai turned in her chair to look at the crowd milling the sidewalk. She wondered if it was a mime. If it was, they needed to run as fast and as far as they could. Or mock it. Mock the mime or run from the mime? She wasn't really in a mocking mood. Once the wire came through, she would be in prime mocking mood once more. Right, run from the mime.
The crowd thinned a bit, and she spotted someone vaguely familiar at the other end of the block holding a map and a sheaf of paper along with a shopping bag. The man was dressed in a nice shirt and jeans, a small duffel bag slung over one shoulder. Poor lost tourist, she thought as the man squinted at the street sign and rubbed tiredly at his eyes. Something about the way he did it, about how he ran his hand through his hair and stared about him in an annoyed manner reminded her of Luke. Actually, his hair reminded her of him. And his build. And his face. And ... oh my God.
Rory was already out of her seat, shrieking his name as she raced down the sidewalk. Luke turned at the sound of her voice, and she threw her arms around him, hugging him as fiercely as she had as a little girl and he'd shown up to her caterpillar's funeral. It took him a moment before he hugged her back in that awkward manner of his, not used to impromptu hugs from young women. Then he looked down the sidewalk, straight into her eyes, and the intensity of his look made her drop her magazine. She wondered if somehow she was seeing things, that her worries over the money had somehow conjured a mirage of him. Granted, she figured her imaginary Luke would be wearing flannel and a blue baseball cap, but she chalked the internal error to being outside her comfort zone.
She forced herself to her feet as they walked back to her. He looked exhausted, and she realized he had to have been awake at least 24 hours. She wondered if she should hug him or shake him. She settled for gripping the back of her chair. "What are you doing here?" she blurted, knowing it probably wasn't the best welcome to give him.
"I don't know." His voice was just cross enough that any thoughts of him being some sort of hallucination vanished. "I was just about to board the plane when I found myself going to the ticket counter and exchanging my ticket to Seattle and a $400 voucher for a non-stop flight to Paris. Because, what the hell, it wasn't like I was about to go on a cruise or anything like that. I must be out of my mind because I crossed an entire ocean and almost put on the customs form that the purpose of my trip was to save you from some strange Parisian coffee-drinking cult, who stole your purse because it was their way of letting you know they wanted you to enter their secret society." Luke rested his hands on his hips, heedless of the map and bag he still carried. He glared about him in a way that was so familiar, so much like home that she moved on instinct.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. She felt him stiffen with shock, then relax into the embrace. He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her like a lifeline. She could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, against hers. It was at that moment that she realized how homesick she was. As much as she loved the traveling, the past day had been terrifying. But here he was, the biggest reminder of home, stability, and safety, exactly when she needed it the most.
"You wanted to save me from a coffee-drinking cult? That's so sweet," Lorelai murmured, marveling that despite traveling for so long, he smelled good. Had he always smelled this good? Would he think it weird if she took a discreet sniff?
"Aww, thank you for ensuring I'm not an orphan!" Rory cooed from somewhere behind her.
Lorelai pulled back, taking a moment to study him, from bloodshot eyes to the day's worth of scruff to the rumpled clothes. Luke almost seemed to be swaying on his feet, but his blue eyes on her were steady and sure and seemed to be saying something that she wasn't quite sure she was ready to acknowledge at that particular moment. "You look like Han Solo after they finally got him out of the carbonite," she said softly.
"It's good to see you too," he said thickly.
Her brain chose that moment to remind herself that they were standing on a public street and getting a number of looks, even for Paris. Reluctantly, she ended the hug and turned just in time to catch the look on Rory's face. It was a mix of shock, smugness and a pleased smirk. It helped bring Lorelai the rest of the way back to reality, noticing that she had a party of one standing before her.
"Where's Nicole?" she asked.
Luke gave a half-hearted shrug. "I assume she's still going on the cruise."
So many questions leaped to mind. Were Luke and Nicole still in a relationship? Lorelai's internal Magic 8-Ball pointed to "outlook not so good" based on the fact that he was swaying on his feet in front of her out of exhaustion and not on a cruise ship. Why had he come to Paris instead just wiring the money? Friends don't just leave their girlfriends and fly across an ocean to hand you cash, the rational part of her brain said. Did he know this was one of the kindness things anyone had ever done for her? It only ranked second to Mia taking a chance on her and baby Rory, giving them a home for the very first time. Did he know how insane this was?
He gave her a tired half-smile. "Sorry. Couldn't sleep on the plane. Hate those things. Probably should find a place to grab a little sleep."
"Well, you can bunk with us." Lorelai linked arms with him, mostly in an effort to keep him from stumbling in exhaustion. She steered him toward the hostel and nodded to Rory, who hastily gathered their things and wrapped the rest of the croissants in a napkin.
"Y'know," Luke slurred, nearly sounding drunk. "I didn't want to go on the cruise. Lorelai, she wanted to do couples yoga."
"No. Really?" Lorelai tried to picture Luke doing yoga, and it was so far outside the realm of reality that she couldn't begin to imagine him in a downward-facing dog pose. The closest she could come was seeing him in yoga pants and a scowl. She fought back the laughter that bubbled up. "You'd never do yoga."
"Exactly!"
"If you did, we'd need to get you to a doctor. Or charge admission and record it for posterity."
He scowled at her.
"Oh, we could make it a two-for-one special! We could talk Taylor into it as well, maybe Kirk," she teased him.
"Lorelai," he growled.
"Where's your luggage?" Rory asked as they walked into the hostel and toward the room the girls shared. Lorelai silently thanked herself for booking a private room on this leg of the trip rather than the dormitories the hostel also offered.
"Somewhere over the Atlantic, I hope," Luke said as Lorelai unlocked the door and led him in. She pointed toward her bed, and he sank wearily onto it. "Didn't have time to take it off the plane. They said they'd send it later."
Rory put the bundle of croissants on her bed and pointed to the hall. Lorelai nodded and watched as Rory slipped out of the room.
"We should, you know, go to the bank," Luke muttered, eyes already closed as he leaned back against the wall.
"You are taking a nap," she informed him in her best mom voice. "I hear the Rip Van Winkle look is very sexy." She tapped his boots. "Off with the shoes."
Lorelai took his bags from him and sat on Rory's bed as he took off his boots, lining them neatly next to her jumble of shoes by the bed. He muttered something under his breath about having to haul those shoes around Europe before stretching out, his large frame nearly spilling out of the single bed. It reminded her of the similar bed in his apartment and wondered, not for the first time, how he could sleep in such a narrow space.
A flash of pink caught her eye from the partially opened shopping bag, and she pulled out the bright pink purse. "What's this? Are you going metrosexual on me, Luke?"
"Need a new purse, don't you?" Luke murmured, already half-asleep. "Reminded me of you."
Lorelai felt the sting of tears and hugged the purse close to her chest as he relaxed, absently nuzzling her pillow. She wondered if he was aware he was doing that "Smells like you," he murmured into the pillow.
She forced the words out around the lump in her throat, keeping it light and casual. "I would imagine so."
"Did such a stupid thing. Not sure why I'm here," Luke muttered, then he was asleep.
—
"Wow," Rory said as Lorelai joined her in the hostel's living room. She marked the place in the guidebook she was reading with her finger and flipped it closed.
"Wow doesn't quite cut it." Lorelai found herself staring at the wall that divided the common area from the sleeping quarters, from the last person she ever expected to see in Europe who was now sleeping in her bed. The entire day had such a surreal quality to it that she wondered if she was still suffering the effects of jet lag herself. "I'm still trying to figure out the logic where wiring emergency money suddenly leaped into flying across the Atlantic."
Rory opened her mouth to say something, then noticed the purse Lorelai still held. "Where'd you get that?"
"Oh." Lorelai dropped to the couch next to Rory and turned the purse over in her hands. She quirked a grin, running a finger over the flower and the sewn-in fake gems. He was right, it was something she would buy for herself. "Luke gave it to me. It was in that shopping bag he was holding. Said it reminded him of me."
Rory gave her a look so baffled it had to be a physical conduit of her own feelings. "Luke flew to Paris to give you a purse?"
"Well, and I assume a couple hundred euro until my debit card gets here."
Rory laughed. "Mom, this is literally the script of every Rob Reiner movie ever made and quite a few that are still in production.. This is Luke. Our Luke. He left his girlfriend and flew across the ocean for you!"
"For us," Lorelai corrected.
"For you," Rory enunciated as if Lorelai was the daughter and she was the mother.
For me. Lorelai stared at the purse as her brain began to play a rapid game of connect the dots. Though it was really more like Connect Four. Actually, it was Battleship, and the sinking ship was constructed out of every lie she had told herself about her friendship with Luke.
"Oh, God. Mommy needs some time to process," she groaned.
"Mommy has had seven years to process," Rory muttered.
Lorelai scowled at her. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"
Rory snagged a brochure and stuck it in the guidebook before putting it on the battered coffee table in front of them. "It means that there are things between the two of you that even I saw at 11 years old."
"Well that's because you were too damn grown-up for your age," Lorelai muttered.
"My mommy made me that way," Rory said primly.
Lorelai stuck her tongue at Rory, who immediately retaliated.
"I think it's pretty obvious, Mom. I know he hasn't said the words, but it's Luke. He doesn't do things like this unless they mean something. For him, flying across the ocean to glare at you is like skywriting his feelings."
"He was going on a cruise with Nicole."
"After you told him to," Rory pointed out.
Lorelai narrowed her eyes. Rory frowned at her. "What?"
"Rory." She faced her daughter. "I didn't send him on that cruise. I didn't ask him to come here. Everything he did, he did himself. That's something you've got to remember, honey, especially as you go to college. You are going to get so much conflicting advice. You're going to have the people you trust more than anything, and yes, go to them when you need help solving a problem. But the most important thing of all is to trust yourself and stand by the decisions that you make, because in the end, you're the one to make them. Not me, not Luke, not Sookie or Grandma and Grandpa. It's all on you, kid."
Rory's gaze cut away, and Lorelai knew she was thinking of Dean and Jess. She wrapped an arm around Rory's shoulders, pulling her close. Rory nestled against her, and Lorelai flashed back to when her baby had been very small and the answer to the world's problems could be solved with a good snuggle.
"Hey, you're going to make mistakes. We all make them. But the thing to do is own up to them," Lorelai told her.
"Like you did with Max."
"Like I did with Max." Lorelai stroked Rory's hair, trying to forget she was weeks away from sending her baby, her best friend, off to Yale. "I don't know what's going through Luke's head right now, and he has his own way of sharing his thoughts when he's ready."
Rory gave a hum of approval. "You know, you make a very decent mom."
Lorelai kissed the top of her head. "And you make a very decent daughter."
They watched the ceiling fan lazily turn, listened as people spoke in rapid French as they passed the hostel. "So what do we do?" Rory asked.
Lorelai shrugged. "For all we know, he's just dropping off cash while on his way to Barcelona for a hot date with Nina and Maria."
"Poor Pinta," Rory sighed. "No one ever remembers Pinta."
"But I was thinking we could invite him to stay for a few days, at least while we're in Paris. I know it's our trip, but …"
Rory sat up, tucking her hair behind her ear. "It'd seem ungrateful to just take the money and run? I don't mind, Mom."
"No? It is our legendary mother-daughter trip."
"Really," Rory insisted. "I mean, we'd have an extra backpack that we could load with books and other souvenirs. Hey, Luke could take stuff back to Stars Hollow for us!"
"Yes, he could!"
Rory's eyes lit up. "I could buy more books!"
"Luke's the only one who could possibly make horrible hostel coffee edible," Lorelai said thoughtfully, toes curling at the thought of having his coffee once more, even if it was a cobbled-together French version.
Rory gave her a considering look, tapping her finger to her cheek. "Now there's a perk I didn't realize." She reached for her guidebook. "You say everything happens for a reason. So Luke's here for a reason."
"The zen of Rory Gilmore," Lorelai teased, and Rory pressed her hands together and bowed before turning her attention to her guidebook.
She flipped open the book to reveal her itinerary, now liberally marked up with crossed out lines and scribbled-in notes. "I've been going over the itinerary, and even though it's summer, it should be relatively easy to get a room with two double beds at most of the hostels if, for some reason, he wanted to stay with us a bit longer. We might want to nix the dorms entirely, but I think after the London hostel, I've had my fill. Cost-wise, it shouldn't be that much to switch some of our stays to smaller B&Bs."
"I could write them off on my taxes," Lorelai said, peering at some of the circled entries over Rory's shoulder.
"Really?"
"Staying at B&Bs means research for the Dragonfly."
Rory beamed. "I like it! So, you see, Luke being here is already helping." She closed the guidebook, absently fiddling with a corner of the itinerary that stuck out of the book. "Say, Mom, do you think he wants to stay?"
"Well, we'll find out when he wakes up," Lorelai said cheerfully, giving herself permission to hope that perhaps, when he came to his senses, Luke would want to stay.