Disclaimer: I don't own Gilmore Girls.
"You're kidding right?"
She turned, her brown hair fluttering out behind her as she did so, and gave him a horrified look. "Luke, I never kid about coffee."
He shook his head at the situation but held up his hands in mock defeat. "My mistake."
"Come on, I won't even make you drink it…there's tea too ya know."
"But…a coffee house? Honestly?"
"Not just a coffee house, my coffee house." She grinned at him, seeing him start to waver in his stubbornness. Her blue eyes sparkled as she nodded her head for emphasis.
Lifting his head skyward to take in the towering maroon storefront and bright yellow script letters proclaiming the words "Java City," he released a sigh of defeat. Lorelai let out a squeal of delight as she watched his hand move to the brass handle to open the door for her. God, he had missed that sound.
"Oh Jacobbbbb!" Lorelai called out, barely even inside the door.
"Hey Lorelai!" The kid that had taken Luke's order not twenty-four hours ago dropped his book and jumped to his feet behind the counter, sloppy grin on his face.
"Oh Lorelai! Hello darling!" A woman, who looked to be in her late 50s despite her long very bleached blonde hair, called out from table near the window, a pink sweatered Chihuahua in one arm, a large Styrofoam cup in the other.
"Hi Stella!" Lorelai smiled, walking over to where she sat. "Hey there Rascal, how are you ya crazy pup?" she asked while playfully scratching the dog's ears. "How's Alan?" she asked the woman as she continued to make faces at the fuzz ball.
"Oh, you know Alan…" the woman trailed off, glancing over at Lorelai as realization dawned on her, "No, I suppose you don't do you?" She set the cup down, freeing up one hand for gesturing, and continued, "He's never been in here in the mornings. Well, anywho, you've heard enough about him to feel like you've known him…" The woman trailed off again as her low laugh turned into a small coughing fit. Lorelai turned from the dog and pushed the woman's coffee cup closer to her. Smoker's cough, Luke concluded. After a few sips she gathered herself and continued, unfazed, "He's looking for a new get rich quick scheme. He's goin uptown and then he's goin downtown and…" She paused, looking past Lorelai, for the first time taking in Luke. "Darling," she said, her voice lowered but not to the point where Luke couldn't clearly hear their conversation, "is he with you?"
Lorelai laughed, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. "Now, now, Stella, don't go trying to throw me into your gossip mill…"
"Well it's just that you've never come in here with anyone before…Darling," she said as if the realization was just dawning on her, "is he your boyfriend? Do you have a boyfriend? I mean you've never mentioned him…my…my, my…a year of coffee shop meetings and you know Alan and I from head to toe and here Rascal and I barely know a thing about you…" Peeking around Lorelai's shoulder she gave look a once over concluding, in her not so discrete whisper tone, "He can't possibly be from Florida….Is he?"
At this Lorelai's laughter was genuine. "No, no, Stella, he's not." In almost the same breathe she had switched her attention back to Jacob and begun gliding to the other side of the room calling, "How's that macchiato coming?"
"It's been ready for almost a minute!"
She feigned shock. "You've been holding out on me!"
"Please, a little more credit where credit is due!" the boy cried, retaking his seat on the wooden stool behind the counter but not bothering to pick his book back up. "I'd be out of a job if I couldn't put that masterpiece together in under thirty seconds from the moment you stepped through that door."
"Jacob, my man, you're too good to me." She picked up the cup and took a sip, giving the boy a satisfactory smile.
Luke fought the urge to roll his eyes as the love struck kid looked like he could have floated off on cloud nine. Then again, he chastised himself, he didn't know what he had to feel so smug about. It wasn't so long ago that the same exchange, with the same results had been happening to him. He took a deep breath, fighting the dark cloud in the pit of his stomach from rising up. He gave Lorelai a sideways look, wondering how she could be so bright, bubbly, happy. Nothing had been resolved between them, not really. They had settled into some much needed contentment last night, a chance to feel whole again. But that's all it was really, a chance. Sure, it was nice walking around together, being in each other's company again. He understood her point about wanting, needing, a small amount of time, just a day, to be happy, unburdened by, well, by everything before they both had to jump back into modes of seriousness, of hurt, of reliving pain and suffering, of accusations, of apologies, of uncertainty. He understood all that. But she was doing such a damned good job of compartmentalizing it was actually starting to concern him…
"Here," she broke into his thoughts again. He looked down to see her handing him a cup. "It's tea don't worry. You can smell it first if you don't believe me."
"No…I mean…uh…" He snapped his jaw shut, took a deep breath. In a way maybe it was all how it should have been—her seemingly perfect, flawless and him a rambling, self-conscious idiot. His previous concerns still weighed on him and his resurfacing insecurities about his worthiness of being in a relationship with Lorelai Gilmore wasn't helping. Get it together, he told himself. Finally he opened his eyes. "Thanks."
"You're welcome." She was looking at him curiously but said nothing.
He had had his wallet half way out to pay—she had picked up the hot dogs so, even if it was far from his place of choice it seemed only fair—but he realized Lorelai had yet to make an attempt to pay and the Jacob kid, clearly not thrilled by Luke's presence, had returned half-heartedly to his book, utterly unconcerned with attempting anything involving the cash register. He wondered if he should offer nonetheless, but decided against it. Lorelai seemed to have some sort of routine down here—here in the shop and here in the city—and, he was beginning to realize, he was still an outsider to that. This was her life, on which she was letting him in on no doubt, but one she had formed without him nonetheless. He decided it would be in his best interest to gage his actions, and reactions for that matter, carefully and not throw a kink into her new sense of normalcy.
He gestured, with a jerk of his head, over his right shoulder to an empty table near the back of the shop. Lorelai looked at him for a moment, clearly surprised by his suggestion that they spend any more time than necessary in a place where you could get a caffeine buzz from merely taking too deep a breath, but quickly took him up on it nonetheless.
Luke was already running his hand over the table's surface, inspecting the rugged patterns of chipped, colored glass that formed its top, curious as to what owner would feel this to be an appropriate, let alone alluring, place for paying customers to sit, when he realized Lorelai was no longer a step behind him. Looking up he spotted her standing patiently next the a woman, three tables back, who was writing with something, he thought, akin to what must be meant by 'lightening speed,' into a spiral notebook. After studying her a moment recognition flashed over him and he recognized the red haired, long skirted figure as having been in the exact same spot, doing the exact same thing as when he saw her yesterday. She was the one that had reminded him of Jess and he stopped just short of musing out loud as to whether or not she had actually gone home that night. Perhaps, he thought, Jacob and little Betty Lou, or whatever the coffee girl from yesterday's name was, had just turned out the lights, closed the doors, and locked up, leaving hippie red head here alone in the dark, unmoving and unhindered, writing like her life depended on it. The odd, less rational part of Luke couldn't help wondering if maybe somehow, possibly in some metaphorical way, it did and before he could close off that goofy side of himself he couldn't help feeling just the slightest connection with her at that. If only there was an action, he thought, a concrete thing that he could just do, do over and over again for as long as it took that could save him, save them. If only he could sit in a coffee shop and write day in and day out, write a book, write novel, write thousands of novels, in order to save them, to save their lives. He was very good at doing, he knew that, but the time for actions seemed to have long passed and, as the churning feeling deep in his gut refused to let him forget, words and feelings and everything else he had ever run from were now the only things he had to work with.
He almost fell over when the girl, without warning looked up, in a way that looked like coming out of a trance, and smiled sloppily at Lorelai. "Ohhhhh, hiiii," she greeted softly, painfully drawing out the words.
"Hey, September," Lorelai smiled.
September? Luke hoped that was a nickname…
"Well I don't want to keep you," Lorelai went on, "but I was dying to know what you thought of that CD I told you about."
"Ohhhh, Lorelai, it was perrrrrfect," she drawled. "The Unforgettable Fire, ohhh, even the title gives me goose bumps nowww!"
Okay, Luke thought tiredly, no one actually talks like that…
"I told you, Bono is your man. Did you listen to "Bad"?"
"Anyway we were in London and we ran into this group of girls who were heading to Dublin to stake out the Clarence Hotel." She says it like it's the most logical thing in the world. Like anyone with nothing better to do would just jet off to Ireland to hang out in a hotel for the weekend.
He feels the obligatory, "Why?" come out of his mouth. It's almost a subconscious reaction at this point, to react to one of her stories with what really is the most logical response in the world…for most people anyway.
"Because U2 owns it and Bono hangs out there."
"Ah. Him again." Though his name hung on her lips a little to long for Luke's liking he understands now that, in her universe at least, her reaction merely followed suit of the way all things should work.
"The "MLK" track was my favorite," hippie girl was saying, as Luke tuned back into the present.
Lorelai just shook her head, seemingly awestruck by the mere mention of the song. "Bono is a god," she agreed.
Luke soured at her words, at the memory, at both. Bono again. And again. And again. Bono, it seemed, would have Lorelai forever. As for himself, as for old coffee making, diner owning Luke? His 'forever' could now potentially be measured in mere hours.
He sunk into a hard, unforgiving metal chair as he watched Lorelai wrap up her conversation and meander towards him, while red-head took up her pen and began to once again shoot it across the page. Luke traced patterns absently onto the top of the white plastic lid on the cup of his tea and, sitting with his back to the wall, let his gaze drift out, past Lorelai who was now sitting across from him, and let it flicker around the crowded shop, taking it all in, committing it to memory…just…well, just in case…
"Sooo?" Lorelai's slow, somewhat tentative drone of the word forced Luke to focus his eyes once again on her.
He cleared his throat. "So?" He repeated, just as softly, simply because he wasn't sure what she might want to hear from him right now.
Lorelai let out a nervous laugh. Nerves and an attempt to keep it all light hearted, up beat. "Thoughts?"
She wasn't going to let him off easy. Luke glanced at the bleach blonde and her dog at the far corner of the room. "Well," he started uncertainly, "they…know you."
She shrugged slightly, turning her cup in her hands, smile of the character that matched her previous laugh glued to her lips. "They know…" she searched for the right words, "of me."
Luke raised his eyebrows. She looked at him and looked down again at her coffee cup. She didn't offer anything else. He sighed, hearing himself almost deflate as he did so. He couldn't help it. Maybe it was just that action that prodded him to vocalize what was really weighing on him, thoughts meant more for himself than her. "You rebuilt it."
"What?"
"Your own little corner of the world." He couldn't look at her. The window to his left proved distraction enough. One cab cut off another. Four pigeons flocked around the blue legs of a mailbox. He didn't add the rest of his thoughts. He didn't need to. One with out them. Any of them. And most especially, one without him.
"I…" she started and stopped. Her eyes glued to their own reflection in the glass shards of the tabletop. Multiple reflections staring back at her in shades of green, red, orange, and brown…any color but blue.
He kept his head trained towards the window but chanced a glance at her out of the corner of his eyes nonetheless. "It had to be a coffee place, huh?"
There was a moment of silence, leaving Luke to brood in his own sense of betrayal, before she spoke. "I never got coffee."
He let out a sharp puff of air. One that could have been construed as a laugh under circumstances of less tension. "Sorry?" He directed his gaze pointedly at the cup in her hand.
"I never got coffee, Luke." She lifted her head and, finding his eyes met his gaze.
"Then what…"
"Macchiatos, cappuccinos, lattes, you name it—double the espresso, heap on the whip cream, mix in some cinnamon, lather it with caramel…the works. Everyday. Multiple times a day. At all hours. But," she spoke slower now, as if willing him to understand, "not coffee. Never just coffee. Not once."
He swallowed. She dropped his gaze, finding instead invisible lint to pick off the sleeve of her blouse. He wasn't sure how to take that. He knew what he wanted it to mean but… He rubbed his temple. He was beginning to hate the mere act of thinking.
"I ran from everything, Luke," her voice broke through the silence, catching him off guard as she continued, "everything I'd come to know, to trust, to want. I closed the door on it all. I wanted…I needed…anunimity…" She laughed. "I thought about using a fake name. I liked Scarlet Johansen, but then I realized it was pretty much taken…"
He felt himself chuckle softly at that as he stared fixedly at the work his thumb and forefingers were doing in making little tears on the edge of the cup.
"Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name…" She glanced around, stopping short. "Sorry," she laughed, apologizing for her off-tune-ness. "I couldn't resist."
He shrugged. "If it was good enough for Norm…" He looked up in time to see her mouth gape a bit. "What?" he smiled, proud of himself. "You don't think I watched Cheers? I have seem some TV shows in my life."
"Why Luke Danes!" she mused in mock surprise, in a mock Southern accent.
The corners of his mouth tweaked for just a moment before she turned serious again. The banter didn't last long, but God had it felt good.
"They don't know my name though," she said, surprising him again. "Well," she reconsidered, "some do I suppose. I'm not in Witness Protection or anything. But, most probably don't."
He looked at her. "Probably?"
She shrugged. "It's not Stars Hallow, Luke. It's New York. People have secrets. People run away from their secrets and, in some cases, people run with their secrets. Life, in terms of familiarity, becomes what you're willing to expose over a cup of coffee. They know my face, they know the last state I lived in, they know I have a daughter. Some may know less, most don't know more. No one asks, it's just the way it is. Look around, Luke," she said, watching as he did so. "We're not a community, but we're a comfort. I could never rebuild what I left. And I was never looking to."
Luke pursed his lips, nodding at this. Nodding and taking it all in, what she said, what she meant. He didn't react to any of it right away and she looked like she didn't expect him to. Maybe, didn't want him to.
"Ready?" she finally asked him.
He drained the last of his tea, nodded, and stood up, following her out of the shop, tossing away the cup, all torn up and tattered along the top, in the trashcan on his way.