A/N I am really overwhelmed with the number of you who are enjoying this story. Your reviews are most gracious and kind. Thank you again for all who read and reviewed and I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
Again, I own nothing,
Chapter 15 Say Good-night Martha
The following Friday night dinner went much better than Luke had thought. Richard was traveling and Emily was focused on Rory as she had heard from Bidy Charleston that Rory wasn't interacting well with other Chilton children. "Really Rory how do you think you'll get into a prestigious college without social clubs on your application?"
"Grandma, I'm having enough to deal with the increased workload and I'm working on The Franklin, I just don't have a desire to go to football or basketball games. Please let me get my footing and I promise I'll become more involved next year, OK?"
"Mom, how about we look at the schedule next summer and then we can figure out where Rory would be happy spending her extra time when she isn't studying or working for that tyrant Paris? By the way, did you say that dad is in California? What is he doing there?"
"There is some company that he wanted to look at, I guess they are looking to expand internationally and they needed to have more insurance he just wanted to take a look at the operation personally. He will be back on Tuesday."
The rest of the evening went as well, and Luke was able to fly under the radar. Lorelai called her mom on Monday and told her that since Luke was going to get up at 4 a.m. she was going to wait and drive him into Hartford. "Really Lorelai, I simply do not see the need for you to be as rude as your boyfriend. You should be here for drinks, why your father allowed that man to show up late I'll never know."
"Mom, Luke is feeding dozens of people who wouldn't have a nice place to go for Thanksgiving dinner. I love that he does this, it was very important for Rory and me to be part of this tradition and dad didn't think it was rude, he was very understanding. Rory and I are going to drive Luke to Thanksgiving dinner or we aren't showing up. Your choice."
"Fine Lorelai, just try and not be too late." Emily hung up leaving Lorelai fuming.
"If that woman could possibly get her nose any higher she would have to walk backwards to see where she was going!" Sookie came in just as Lorelai was ranting.
"Lorelai, are you ok?"
"It's just Emily, Luke is going to be working for fourteen hours straight before he goes to my parents for Thanksgiving and I'm afraid if he drives home after what I'm sure is to be at least wine with dinner and a brandy chaser with dessert he might fall asleep at the wheel. So Rory and I want to wait for him and drive him out. But my mother sees this as rude since we'll miss the before dinner drinks with their friends. Better my boyfriend gets into an accident then we appear rude. ARG!"
"Lorelai, I'm so sorry, I know you and Luke are wonderful together, he loves you and Rory, I wish your mom could see that."
"I know," Lorelai sighed. "But onto more pleasant things, what are you making us for dinner?"
"Well, I was going to try a new whipped sweet potato casserole that has lots of brown sugar and caramelized pecans on top. I'll make up a test run tonight and see how it works out. I may put it on the regular fall menu. Then there's this sugar cream pie recipe I found in Indiana on vacation."
"Wow, that sounds great! I can't wait to try both! Soooo is Jackson going to join us?"
"Yes, he's really looking forward to supplying the vegetables for the dinner and wants me to try his mother's pumpkin pie recipe. I'm so afraid that it won't taste the same and he'll think I can't cook as well as his mother and he won't want to date me any more and then I'll never meet another man as wonderful as Jackson and I'll die an old maid. You said something about cats swarming right? I bet I have tons of cats the day after Jackson says I can't cook as well as his mother."
"Sookie!"
"What?"
"Take a breath! If Jackson ever says you can't cook as well as his mother I would be very surprised. He likes you for you and that you make his vegetables edible. Although that calls for a dirty," Lorelai giggled, "I know you'll make a wonderful dinner and Jackson will swoon like the rest of us. But then Rory and I have to go right over to Mrs. Kim's and have Tofurky and kimchi, who ever wants to eat fermented vegetables?"
"Then we have to lead poor tired Luke to the slaughter house also known as the Gilmore mansion for his first official 'dinner party' with Hartford society. The upside is that it's just the Clemenceau's this year. Claude is very sweet and Monique doesn't speak English, so that's always a challenge. But since it's so small Luke will probably be allowed to fall asleep after dinner while the men talk shop and mom picks apart my life and lets me know what a disappointment I've been."
"So Sookie, your life's looking pretty good right about now eh?"
"Yep, I think I could even live with the cats compared to yours"
"Always glad to share the sunshine. Well, I think I need coffee and a pretty thing to look at so I'm heading into town." Lorelai said with a laugh.
"Tell Luke hello."
Lorelai drove into town to the diner, parked and when she opened the door she heard Luke in the back screaming, "Taylor, I'm not putting a fruity turkey up in my diner. You want that crap you can put it in your store or where the sun don't shine!"
"But Luke, how does it look to our tourists when the only diner in town won't get into the spirit of the holiday?"
"The same way it looks for every freaking idiotic festival and holiday since I opened this diner. My dad didn't decorate and I'm not decorating!"
"Well, I must say, like father like son!"
"Thank God for that!" with that Taylor walks out from the storeroom pass Lorelai and stops, "Lorelai, you ought to think about the company you keep around here. You may end up finding yourself bitter and alone just like your boyfriend."
"Taylor, if he's my boyfriend, how's he alone?" Luke has come out from the back to hear this and he smiles to himself.
"Well, we'll see how long this relationship lasts, so far he hasn't had a good track record." At this Luke almost jumps over the counter to get to Taylor.
"Taylor, get the hell out of my diner and if you know what's good for you, you won't come back here for at least a week!" Luke looks at Lorelai who's almost laughing, he sighs and starts to relax. He had to admit he was worried that Lorelai would believe Taylor; after all he hasn't had the best record.
"So, you don't believe Taylor? You're not worried that I might screw this up?"
Lorelai laughed, "Oh, babe, if anyone's going to make this relationship crash and burn it'll be me and my nutty family. Trust me, I know sides to you that Taylor would be shocked, shocked I tell you to find out. If he had half a clue as to why Luke's mysteriously closes two to three times a week in the middle of the morning, not to mention the shine you have brought to my bedroom floor on more than one occasion I'm quite sure a new law would find its way onto the books,."
Luke leaned over said, "Dirty," and kissed her. Then he went and poured her a cup of coffee. "I told you before, I'll never leave you. You want this to end you're the one who'll have to pull the plug."
"Fine line between love and insanity right?" Lorelai smiled as she sipped her coffee.
"You bet." Luke winked at her and went to deliver some orders that Caesar had put up.
Later that night Luke and Lorelai were curled up in bed at his apartment basking in two hours of bliss, Lorelai was wrapped in Luke's arms. "How many more classes do you have left?" Luke asked as he stroked her back.
"This semester I have two weeks after Thanksgiving and my final, so a total of six classes counting tomorrow. Then I still have three semesters after this for my degree. I'll graduate the year before Rory enters college. Is that a sad comment or what?"
"Lorelai, I'm so proud of you for doing this. You've never let circumstances dictate what you could or couldn't do. I never was able to get my degree and now there isn't the time to pursue it. What I've learned I've had to pick up on the fly. Don't ever let anyone tell you that what you're accomplishing isn't a big deal. I don't ever want to hold you back either."
"Luke, I never feel that you hold me back, I've always felt your support and I love that you think I can do anything, sometimes I really question that in myself, but when I look at you I know you'll always be there in case I fall." Luke kissed Lorelai deeply and then the phone rang in his apartment. "Please tell me you are not going to leave this nice warm bed to answer that cold nasty telephone?" Lorelai whined.
Luke got up putting on his boxer-briefs and his jeans. "Lorelai, I need to get this, I'm pretty sure it's Tom and I have an important question to ask him."
"So you really want to date him huh?"
Luke smiled as he was picking up the phone and said to her, "After the past two hours you can ask me that question? Hey, Tom," he said into the phone, "Thanks for returning my call. Yeah, I have a question about folder number 27 in the section marked California compliance. Yeah I'll wait."
Lorelai got up, put on Luke's flannel and went to his kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. While Luke was waiting for Tom to respond she sidled up to Luke and ran her fingers down his back.
"Lorelai," Luke hissed, "I really need to concentrate on this for just a bit and I am having a very difficult time keeping my mind.. Yeah, Tom I'm here." Luke held onto Lorelai's hand while he was talking. "Well, what I'm seeing is that in the first quarter Hayden didn't send in a registration to the California attorney general and they were fined 13 million dollars, then three months later they were late filing another registration and they were fined another three million dollars. So in this three month period they lost sixteen million dollars. What I want you to do is to tell me I'm an ignorant dolt who can't read a report and they really didn't lose this money due to incompetence."
"Yeah, I wish you could too. Do we have the records of who forgot to file? If you could get that and find out if they let this person loose I think that would be good. Well I don't see anything we can do right now, maybe have QA come up with new standards and guidelines to make sure their legal department doesn't get us into trouble. Did we know this was going on? OK, should we have known this was going on? Yeah, hindsight. Could you get the accounting guys to go over all the reports and see if this was an isolated incident or if this is a system wide problem? OK, great. Call me when you find out."
"You got what?" Luke chuckled, "See there is a method to my madness. Unfortunately since I'm dating her daughter I'll see you there. Yeah, I'd appreciate it and let Annie know, I'd let her introduce us if it comes to that or if we end up in the same place it would be rude to not speak. Oh, Tom, you'll have to call me Luke there. I doubt anyone will be introduced to me and definitely not by my last name. Let Annie know as well. Thanks again for your time." Luke laughed out loud, "I'll let her know. Thanks. Bye."
Lorelai stood looking at Luke not saying a word. He cocked his head and asked, "What?"
"Wow."
"I'm going to need more than that."
"You run a corporation."
"Lorelai you know that." Luke was a bit concerned with her demeanor.
"No, I knew you said you run a corporation, and you read reports while you watch football and then I see you in the diner. But you run a corporation that just bought a business that lost sixteen million dollars and you are talking about it as though it's a number on a piece of paper. And you are looking to fix this problem …I guess I just never got a real good grasp of the fact that you do run a corporation."
"Lorelai, I need you to talk to me, I'm still Luke, the schmuck who waited for you to come into the diner at Thanksgiving, remember? Tom really runs it, I just have to deal with the big pieces, not the day to day. I am not a part of that world, I take my responsibility for it very seriously, but I'm happy here, with you in Stars Hollow. Simple, uncomplicated, dumb schmuck Luke, who is hopelessly in love with one Lorelai Victoria Gilmore."
"Luke, I'll deal with this, it isn't going to make me run for the hills, but you are neither, simple nor uncomplicated my friend. You have depth to you that no one and I mean probably not even you, knows. I'm in awe that you are able to take on this challenge and do it so effortlessly, and I am also in love with Lucas Buech Danes, so this is working out very nicely and Tom will have to get his own boyfriend." Luke sighed with relief at Lorelai's words.
"Well, I think his wife Annie will be upset if he does. By the way, your mother sent them an invitation to her Christmas party, since Tom is the CEO of Straub's new owner. So you will get to meet him before we go to New York City."
"I wondered, what does he normally call you since you told him he has to call you Luke at the party?"
Luke blushed and said, "He's worked for me for ten years, and he still insists on calling me Mr. Danes. I've tried to get him to call me Luke, but no luck. So your mother is going to force the issue at least for one night."
"So what are you supposed to tell me?"
If possible Luke's blush turned to crimson, "He said to tell you he's sorry if he interrupted our quality time and that he hopes you forgive him."
"Luke he knew what we were doing!" Lorelai laughed. "OK, stud, let's get back to bed, I won't see you tomorrow because of class and Wednesday you're going to need all your sleep since you're getting up at 4 a.m. on Thursday."
Thanksgiving afternoon Lorelai and Rory wandered into the diner around three-thirty. Luke was delivering plates to about ten different tables.
"Hey barkeep, how's about some food?" Lorelai called out to Luke.
"You are going to eat at your parents in less than three hours, you have just eaten at least at Sookie's and possibly at Mrs. Kim's and now you wan t food here?" Luke was bewildered.
"But no one made your sweet potatoes with extra marshmallows. I want those!" Lorelai and Rory both gave him the Bambi eyes.
"Jeeze!" Luke threw up his hands and went into the back and got them sweet potatoes.
"But the sweet potatoes taste best with all the other stuff." Rory chimed in.
"If I give you an actual dinner you have to eat at your mother's. I'm not going to take the heat for you two not finishing your dinner there!" Luke snapped, he was feeling the exhaustion already and he knew he had a lot to get through at the Gilmore's.
"Hon, I promise we will eat all of our dinner at Mom's, it's three hours away and we just came from Mrs. Kim's how much food do you think we actually consumed? Is there anything we could do to help you out right now?" Lorelai was also concerned about the outcome of this evening, she didn't want Luke to suffer another night like the one a couple of weeks ago.
"No, I'll be closing down in about half an hour so I can clean up a bit. Caesar is coming in at 4:30 to finish clean-up so I can get a shower and dress. I really am glad to see you two, I'm just tired."
At five-thirty Luke is almost ready to get going to the Gilmore's and Lorelai and Rory are waiting in the diner when he comes down the stairs. "I love that navy suit," Lorelai whispers in his ear, "later tonight I'd love to take it off of you."
Luke blushed and Rory said, "Mom, please leave Luke alone, we like Luke remember?"
"I really like Luke," Lorelai purred.
"Enough! Let's get on the road please." Luke begged.
Dinner at the Gilmore's went very smoothly all things considered, they were only five minutes late and Richard and Claude were doing most of the talking. After wine with dinner Richard suggested that they retire to the living room for coffee and dessert.
"Claude, you must try this brandy that Luke brought us a few weeks back, it's a wonderfully smooth and full bodied." So of course everyone except Rory had two fingers.
Richard and Claude were talking about Richard's trip to California where he had visited William's Industries. Luke was feeling himself start to drift after working for fourteen hours and the alcohol he'd had at the Gilmore's. Suddenly he heard something being addressed to him by Claude, "So, Look, 'ave you ever 'eard of theese company William Industries?"
"The one in California? Oh, yeah, I have." Luke responded, he was having a hard time figuring out Claude's accent, he made his name sound like it rhymed with hook.
"So, what do you theenk of theese company, eh?"
Emily was watching this with glee, that man was going to make a fool out of himself without her having to make any effort at all and she was happy to help out by saying, "Yes, Luke, what do you think about this company?"
Luke responded automatically, "Well, the past three years they've had a steady decline in profits while they had an increase in expenses. Then this past year the extended family members have been buying up stock so that the family now has a controlling share in the company, which wouldn't always be problem except that they also showed a profit in the last two quarters indicating that they dropped some baggage instead of fixed problems. This has all the indicators of a desire to merge or a buy-out. Since the family now has controlling interest in the company the likelihood is that they will do a dump and run after the sale and the new corporation will be left holding a shell instead of a viable company."
When he finished there was silence in the room and Luke looked up to see Rory, Richard and Claude's face in shock and Emily looking like she was a cat who had eaten a canary. The only thought that came to Luke's mind was, 'Shit, what did I say?' Lorelai looked amused and of course Monique was waiting for Claude to translate.
Emily was waiting for Richard and Claude to tell Luke how wrong he was, she didn't even have to wait another ten seconds until Claude spoke up, "Look, 'ow do you come to 'ave so mooch information?"
"Well, I have a financial advisor who looked at Williams as a possible investment this past year, and he told me it wasn't a good idea." Luke said slowly, trying to make sure he didn't slip again, B-D had considered Williams until they did the research.
Richard said, "Luke, unfortunately my advisor wasn't as thorough as yours but you may have saved me quite a bit of money if this information you stated is true. Do you mind if I ask who you use as your financial advisor?"
"He's just with one of the New York City firms, I could get you his name if you will be in your office on Monday?" Luke carefully avoided anything more specific. If Richard found out his broker's name he would realize that this man wouldn't deal with small investors. He would give Jack a call and ask him for one of his associates and tell him to educate the associate on the William's stock.
"Excellent!" Richard said, "If you are able to come at lunch I would love to take you to the club."
"Thank you Richard, that's very nice of you to offer, but there's a festival in town and lunch is one of my busiest times, would you be available around ten in the morning?"
At this Lorelai cried out, "Hey!" Luke was giving away their special time together. Luke took hold of her hand and held it tightly.
Richard said, "Of course my boy, I understand, I believe that my morning is open, but if you would like to call in the morning I get in around six a.m. we can solidify a time then."
"That would be wonderful sir, I open at five-thirty, but my help comes in at six-thirty so I could call you then?"
"Done!"
Emily was beside herself, she couldn't believe that Richard was taking the word of this, this, hooligan about significant financial matters.
After all of the guests had left she cornered Richard about this, "Why did you believe this man about the William's company? You went out there and had a first hand look at it didn't you?"
"That's the problem Emily, what Luke said is spot on, I just hadn't put the pieces together like his advisor did. I knew the family was buying up stock, as he said, not unusual, but the fact they were making the bottom line look good was the key. By preening themselves to attract a large corporation, the stock would go up for the merger and since the extended family isn't on the board, it's less obvious when they start dumping stock which drives the value of the entire company down and the new owners are left with just a name and no assets."
"I know you don't like him, Emily, but it was a very savvy answer, Claude was impressed."
Emily huffed, "Well at least he may not embarrass us at the Christmas party."
Richard thought, 'no, he certainly won't do that.'
On the way back to Stars Hollow Luke had already fallen asleep during the drive. Rory took this moment to ask her mom, "Mom, how does Luke know so much?"
Lorelai sighed, "OK Rory, it's time you get the 411, Luke owns the diner, but his grandfather on his mom's side left him a bigger company that he runs out of New York City. When we go down there in a few weeks that's where Luke will spend most of his time while we have fun and play. This is information that no one else has, not anyone in Stars Hollow and certainly not Grandma and Grandpa. It would hurt Luke for people to know this about him, he wouldn't be able to live his life as he is now, and we need to keep his secret, OK?"
"Wow, so Luke has a whole James Bond life going on?"
"Well, he isn't a spy that I know of, but yeah."
"And you have known this for a while?"
"Yep."
"And you are OK with it?"
"Yep."
"The only thing I am concerned with is going to New York when Luke is working all day, I would feel bad having fun without him."
From the front passenger side with eyes closed Luke responds, "I want you to have fun, if you are having fun I won't mind being caged with accountants for two days and then we can all have fun on the Thursday together. Plus we can go out to eat each night. I swear you are your mother's daughter."
Rory smiled at Lorelai, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Luke answered still with his eyes closed, "A very good thing."
Lorelai laughed, "Say good-night Martha."