Incoming
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it. Not even the computer I wrote it on.
Summary: Jess shows up at Richard and Emily's vow renewal. Luke has something to say about it. Rory is less than happy. Lorelai has to deal with Christopher. And the day is definitely not everything Emily hoped it would be.
Feedback: Reviews are fun. Like a barrel of monkeys. Why anyone would put monkeys in a barrel…I don't know, but it's supposedly a lot of fun.
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"Alright, I know most of the people who are coming live in town," Rory said to Lorelai as they waited for breakfast. "And we could just give Miss Patty the information, and everyone would know in an hour, but invitations are so much nicer."
"And my mother would have an aneurysm if we didn't send them out. On second thought…" She trailed of with a dreamy sigh.
"You're not killing grandma." She took a sip of her coffee and continued. "So, what do you want to put on the invitations?"
"Could we photocopy a picture of my – "
"No."
"Fine." She said dramatically. "Then I guess just something pretty. No fascist leaders."
Rory nodded and made a note on legal pad in front of her. "How do you feel about communists?"
"In general? I love them. They have that whole red thing going on. Red goes very well with my skin tone."
"You're not wearing red to our wedding." Luke said as he set a plate in front of each of them.
"Oh, no." Lorelai placed a hand on his arm. "We were talking about communists."
He nodded. "Of course. I forgot about how often communism came up when you were planning a wedding."
"Silly." She gave him a wide smile. "Oh." She dropped her hand from his arm and picked up her own note pad. "I almost forgot. I picked a song for the first dance and I really happy with it, so tell me what you think."
"Okay."
"I was thinking 'Ja Glory' by Boots Tambada. But if you really want, we could go with 'Let Your Ya Be Ya' but Ranking Roy. That would be totally fine by me."
Luke rolled his eyes and walked away.
"I mean," Lorelai yelled after him. "We already have the CD, so that makes things so much easier."
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"Lorelai Gilmore!"
Lorelai and Rory immediately stopped the fight between the lion and gorilla shaped animal crackers they held. "Sorry." They both muttered, putting the cookies back in the box.
Emily gestured to the maid who immediately took the box. "How many times have I told you you are not to have food in the sitting room? And why would you eat cookies right before dinner? Are our dinners so unsatisfactory that you need to fill up on that garbage?"
Lorelai leaned over to whisper to Rory. "How come she only yelled at me?"
"It's not my fault you raised me to eat cookies before dinner."
She gasped. "Traitor."
Emily gave an exasperated sigh. "I was yelling at both of you. Lorelai Victoria Gilmore and Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, you are both old enough to know better."
"Hah!" Lorelai stuck her tongue out at her daughter.
"Ah, Lorelai, Rory." Richard said happily as he walked into the room.
"Hi, Grandpa." Rory hugged him tightly.
"Hey, Dad."
He smiled then went about making himself a drink. "Rory, why don't you tell us about school? How are your classes?"
"They're great, Grandpa. I just got an A on a paper."
"That's excellent. And how is Jess doing? Things are going well with the club?"
"Yea. Actually we just came up with a name last weekend."
"Oh," Lorelai took the drink her father held out to her. "She's being modest. It's actually times like these I think I took the wrong baby from the hospital." She smiled as her mother shook her head. "She came up with the name all by herself."
Richard took a seat next to his wife and looked at them expectantly.
"Alright," Rory started. "Umm, Paris said something to me the other day about bylines and it made me think about something I read one time. Well, I didn't exactly read it because it was Hemmingway, but I remember seeing it in Luke's apartment and looking through it, but that's beside the point. It made me think of this book that was a collection of Ernest Hemmingway's writings, and since Jess loves Hemmingway, I thought it would be perfect."
"Right. Yes." Richard said. "Byline. I have a copy of that in my study. That's what you're naming the club?"
"Bylines. It has a nice ring to it." Emily smiled and took a sip of her drink.
"I think it's an excellent idea." Richard added proudly.
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"Hey, Jess. Man, come in here." Matt yelled from the publishing house's kitchen.
Jess rolled his eyes. "I need to finish editing this."
"It's not even two hundred pages. You should be finished by now."
He marked his spot and stood up. "Have you looked at it? I haven't seen anything spelled right in the past three hours."
"Of course I looked at it. That's why you're editing it."
"Nice." Jess looked around the kitchen and leaned on the counter. "So, where the hell is Chris?"
"He's out with the poet girl." He pointed at the white towel he had draped over something on the table. "You're not gonna ask what's under there?"
He looked at it for a second then shook his head. "No. Personal or professional?"
"Who? Chris? It's supposed to be professional, but I doubt that'll last past eight. Ask what's under the towel."
"Why?"
"Just ask."
"What's under the towel?"
Matt smiled and folded his hands together. "Why, I am so glad you asked. Sitting right here on this very table, under this very towel, is your 'Opening a Club' present."
"My what?"
"Your 'Opening a Club' present. It's kind of like a grand opening present, but you haven't actually opened yet. And there's no way I could have waited until then to give it to you."
Jess nodded his head toward the table. "So what is it?"
You have gotten a present before, right?
"Christ." He muttered.
"Oh come on. Just open it."
"Fine. Fine." Jess reached for the towel and pulled it off the table.
Matt grinned and rocked back on his heels. "Sooooo…" He drew out the word. "What do we think?"
Jess lifted up the framed page and let his eyes scan the words. "Wow. This is great. Man."
"I figured it would go with the theme. Bylines and whatnot. That's an original article. It was never published or anything, but still an original."
"Shit." He put the frame back on the table. "You can't afford this."
"Hey, I know people. You're not the only one with powerful friends."
"If you are, by some chance, referring to Richard and Emily Gilmore, I wouldn't exactly call them friends, more like…bane…?" He nodded. "Yes, bane of my existence."
He shrugged. "Yea, well, my father-in-law knows a guy that had a couple of these and after much begging and quite a few tears, he was willing to part with it. For a semi-reasonable price, I might add. All it cost me was my soul."
"What did you really pay?"
"Okay, I was just kidding earlier, but seriously, have you never gotten a present before?"
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"Okay, I think there were still chunks of horse in that jello-y stuff."
Rory's eyes widened. "The stuff in the cake? I know. I didn't know what to do with the pieces."
Lorelai gave her a smug look. "Did you see how I took a sip of my wine every time I found a piece?"
"Yeah…Oh. Ew! You drank almost the whole glass before we left."
"I would have finished it off if I didn't need to hide horse parts in the bottom of the glass."
Rory cringed. "That's so disgusting."
Lorelai smiled, stopping at a red light. "You know what else is disgusting? Broccoli."
Rory's eyebrows furrowed. "What?"
"I couldn't think of a good segue to Tomorrow's movie night. I was gonna say broccoli is gross so we shouldn't have it at movie night, and use that as a transition, but…"
"But, it was kinda sucky?"
"Yea. Anyway. Movie night. Me, you, Luke, Jess, Simon, Matt. That means we're gonna have to stock up more than usual. And we'll have to buy some healthy crap. So, when we get home we make a list. Candy, frozen food, cookies, produce, the works. And movie wise, I say we go for the double tri-fecta."
"Double tri-fecta?"
"Well, I don't know how to say six fecta. Set-fecta. Whatever. The double tri-fecta. Comedy, horror, romance, drama, classic, animated. We'll let the guys pick which ones to watch tomorrow, then we can have a mother-daughter day on Sunday and finish them off. Savvy?"
Rory got a dreamy look on her face. "Sigh, Johnny Depp."
Lorelai grinned. "Now, that's how you segue."
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"Imagine me and you."
"I do. I think about you day and night."
"It's only right to think about the girl you love."
"And hold her tight."
Luke smiled widely at the pair as the danced, arm in arm, into the diner.
"So happy together!" They finished with a flourish.
"I take it dinner went well." Luke said, immediately reaching for the coffee pot.
Lorelai slid onto the stool next to her daughter and smiled at Luke. "Lord, no. That was on in the car somewhere between the eye-popping nausea and route 44. And really who doesn't love The Turtles? Hell, not even the band, just turtles in general."
"That's true." Rory agreed.
"It doesn't even matter what kind of turtles. Box, Snapping, Mock, Teenage Mutant Ninja."
"They're all so cute."
Lorelai suddenly gasped. "Ooh! We should go –"
"No!" Resounded from around the room, cutting her off.
She turned around, to see the horrified looks on everyone in the diner. "What?"
"You are not getting a turtle." Rory continued. "The guy at the pet store said the last one was supposed to outlive us. He didn't even last a month."
Lorelai glared at them as she folded her arms across her chest and let out an annoyed sigh. "Fine."
