Chapter Two
Where You Lead, I Will Follow
"Rory! I'm home! And I've got sustenance!" Lorelai screamed in a singsong voice.
"Great! You got Al's. What country did Al grace us with tonight? I hope it's Lebanese. That was good last time, or at least the stuff that looked edible was good." Rory replied. Knowing Al, she expected to have food from a crazy country each time they ordered there.
"Nope, it's not. You'll never guess what country it is though."
"Where?" Rory asked excitedly.
"What? You're not going to even guess! Who sucked the fun out of you?"
"A little thing I like to call Chilton. Now enough chitchat. Out with it already. Come on, what country?"
"Kazakhstan!" Lorelai yelled, trying to keep her laughter to herself.
"You're kidding!"
"No! Apparently Al wanted to cash in on the big 'Borat' frenzy, and well, there ya go, Kazakhsanian…Kazakhsananite…Kazakhsanananian…" Lorelai said, struggling for the word she was looking for.
Rory jumped in before her mother started a rant, "Kazakhstani."
"Oh right, I would have gotten there eventually."
Rory rolled her eyes, "Sure. So what exactly is Kazakhstani food?"
" Do I look like the person who would know that?"
"Yes." Rory shot back.
"Alright that's enough of you, Sassy McSasserson. Let's open the bags before this gets ugly."
"Friends?" Rory asked sticking out her hand.
"Always!" Lorelai responded, shaking Rory's hand in a truce.
The girls turned their attentions back to the bags and started opening them. Upon seeing what was inside of them, looks of disgust were plastered on their faces.
"Pizza?' Rory asked.
"Don't forget extra cheesy bread!" Lorelai responded, glad that her and her daughter were on the same page, although that was nothing out of the ordinary. They got along together great. They considered themselves best friends and Lorelai couldn't be happier. Rory was everything she wanted and more.
"If I did, I wouldn't be your daughter anymore." Rory yelled back while picking up the phone. "Hey Joe. We want a pizza with everything and don't skimp on the cheesy bread this time!"
LGLGLGLGLGLGLG
Rory woke up to find her mother sitting at the kitchen table with bits of newspaper scattered around it. She was currently looking at the coupon section with a pair of scissors in her hand.
"Oh, no. No, no, no." Rory grabbed the pages Lorelai had just been looking at while shaking her head. She threw the arm holding the pages up in the air and started swinging them around. "What are these?'
"Wow, don't you look pretty this morning." Lorelai said, lacing her words with extra sweetness just to avoid the embarrassment that was sure to come.
"Hey, don't you dare change the subject. Are these what I think they are?"
"I don't know, what do you think they are?"
Rory looked around the table and in the corner near Lorelai and her scissors, she found exactly what she was looking for. "Aha! You were cutting coupons!"
"I was not! How dare you accuse me of such a thing!" Lorelai responded, placing her hands over her heart.
"Wow."
"Wow, what?"
"I can't believe you, Lorelai Gilmore, would stoop to such lows." Rory said while shaking her head.
"Hey, its just a few measly coupons, no big deal." Lorelai commented, starting to get annoyed.
"If they are so insignificant, then why are you spending your Saturday morning cutting them out when you could be sleeping."
"Well…I…" Lorelai was at a loss of words. Man, her daughter was good.
"Tell me for real mom. Are we in trouble?'
"Well, no… I mean… well… I don't know, I guess if I could save a few dollars here and there it would help me out."
"Why couldn't you tell me?"
"Well, I don't want you to worry about another thing, you have midterms coming up and there is no need to put you under extra stress. Don't worry though, we're gonna be fine. Trust me."
"Alright, so I guess this means no Luke's?" Rory said with a hint of disappointment.
"What! Are you kidding! Jeez, you clip a few coupons and suddenly you think the whole world is ending." Lorelai said while getting up.
"Come on." Rory announced while giving her mother a little push, mentally preparing for the rant ahead of her.
"No one comes between me and my Luke's!" and with that, they were out the door.
RGRGRGRGRGRG
"Wow, my friend, you are a genus."
"Why thank you. I guess Chilton is starting to pay off."
"Chilton, uhh, maybe, but I think it's the Britney Spears music video marathon we had last night. Cheesy lyrics combined with computerized singing and oh so charming dance moves equals tons of hours of merciless mocking, thus stimulating the mind." Lorelai explained while motioning to her head for added effects.
"Wow, look who's the genius now!" Rory said.
Just then, Luke came over looking flustered from all his customers streaming in. "What can I get you two."
"Guess what, Luke!" Lorelai said declared, totally ignoring his question.
"So it's gonna be one of these days." He mumbled to himself.
Lorelai continued, "You are in the presence of two geniuses."
"Really, where?" Luke started looking around the diner, playing into her bit.
Lorelai, snapped her fingers in Luke's face, to turn his attention back to her. "Very funny, but your looking at them. This could be historic, Luke! Just think about it. Your first genius in your diner, and there are two of them. We should commemorate this day. Do you think we could have a plaque? You could hang it up in your diner and everyday before opening up, you could shine it because nobody likes an unshiny plaque."
"That's a great idea. I'll put it on the list of urgent things to do right under shoot myself." Luke said, full of sarcasm.
"Great!" Lorelai said.
Rory, who had been quietly observing the scene in front of her, finally piped in. "You wanna hear why we are geniuses?"
"Well, I actually have a lot of customers, so maybe…" Before Luke could even finish his sentence Lorelai jumped in.
"Well, you know how Rory and I are going around the world someday."
Luke knew he would be here for a while, so he shifted his weight to one side and folded his arms, "Uhuh."
"We realized during the long, laborious, task of planning, how are we ever going to go that long without Luke's coffee? I mean traveling the world! It takes a long time considering that, well, you're going around the world." Lorelai rambled.
"Sure."
"So, my darling, genius of a daughter thought that since we can't get to Luke's, Luke's would just have to come to us. We realized that you have other customers, so obviously you couldn't put the diner on wheels and have you follow us all day, which by the way, was the first plan."
"Well, obviously."
"So, we decided every five hours, you would call to see where we are, and you would ship us all the coffee we want."
"Wow, that is genius. And let's not stop at just coffee. I could send you muffins and bagels. And just for you guys, I would give you free shipping, cause I'm betting shipping will cost a fortune, for you know, being around the world and all." Luke mentioned.
"Wow great!"
"Yeah, thanks Luke!" Rory jumped in.
"Yeahhh." Luke said, holding out the last letter a little too long.
"So we should probably find a good coffee house at every stop." Lorelai said, finally coming back to reality.
"Probably." Luke agreed. He started walking back to the kitchen when suddenly turned back around, "I'm sorry, but before, did you say Britney Spears marathon?"
"Yup, I downloaded them all, I'm a Slave 4 U, …Baby One More Time, Crazy, I've got 'em all." Lorelai noted as if it was normal.
"And to cap off our evening, we watched Crossroads." Rory added. "It'll make you laugh, cry…"
"Cry in the sense that you will laugh so hard, you will cry." Lorelai nodded.
"I must say that was a great movie night." Rory finally said.
"Indubitably." Lorelai agreed and the girls just sat and laughed together.
LGRGLGRGLGRG
It was a brisk winter day and the entire town was getting ready for the big Christmas procession rehearsal, which meant Christmas was only two weeks away!
Everyone was helping either by setting up the life sized nativity scene in the park, setting up decorations in the town square, or putting the final touches on the costumes for the procession tonight.
Everyone except Lorelai. Midterms were right around the corner for her and she was having meltdowns every two hours, complaining that her head was going to explode and what not. And if you think just studying was bad enough, she was constantly playing phone tag with Luke to try to set up a date, but when they did reach one another, they could never find a night when both of them were free. She was so busy with studying and the daily drama called life, she forgot all about the town's Christmas traditions and Rory thought that was just plain sad. Rory had to do something.
GGGGGGGG
"Can someone's life go from normal to hectic, in less than one week like that?" Lane asked. She and Rory had met up and were currently sitting in the gazebo in the middle of the town square, watching the hustle and bustle of Taylor and the rest of the town getting ready for tonight.
"I guess so." Rory hated seeing her mother like this, but how to fix it?
"Well we have to do something. Christmas without your mother's crazy antics is like…well, I don't know what its like, but I don't want to find out anytime soon."
"I'm with you there. That's why I need your help to think of something. Nothing big, just something that will take her mind off of studying." Rory said, hoping her best friend could think of something.
"I'm sure we can think of something." Lane answered, full of confidence.
LGLGLGLGLG
Rory came barging through the door and went straight to the scene of the crime. "Alright. Put your highlighters down and step away from the brightly colored note cards and nobody gets hurt."
"Ha ha, very funny, but can you save your Johnny Carson act for later. I'm kinda busy right now." Lorelai said, not even able to look up while talking to her own daughter.
"Nope, not anymore, I'm kidnapping you." Rory grabbed Lorelai's arm and started pulling it up. "Come on! I promise you it will all be here when you get back."
"Promise?"
"Would I ever lie to you?" Rory asked.
"No."
"Right, now come on!" Rory pulled her mother up and dragged her to the entryway of their house so Lorelai could put on her coat, and they were out the door, heading for the town square.
RGRGRGRG
"Just a hint." Lorelai begged.
"No." Rory was determined not to be pressured by her mother to tell her where she was going. She wasn't doing much for her mother, under the circumstances, but keeping it a secret was an added bonus not only for Lorelai, but for Rory too.
"Come on! Just a piece of information, like its genre."
"Genre?"
"Yeah, you know, like its type. Restaurant, theater, store…that sort of thing." Lorelai said, explaining her word choice.
"I think you can only use genre when you're talking about books."
"Aha! So we're not going to a bookstore."
Rory just rolled her eyes at her mother. "No, I thought the perfect plan to take you away from books is to take you to a bookstore."
"Well, I don't know! You can be crazy like that! Remember that one time…" Lorelai talked the rest of the way to the town square, unfortunately for Rory, but at least it stopped the third degree on where they were going.
LGRGLGRGLGRG
"Oh my god." Lorelai had stopped dead in her tracks, pulling Rory back with her. "What is today's date?"
"Ummm, the eleventh." Rory said.
Rory looked over towards her mom. She could tell Lorelai was counting the days until Christmas 'till she realized "Oh my gosh, two weeks, the practice for the processional! I can't believe I forgot!"
"Well, that's why you have me here."
"Thank you Rory."
"You're welcome. Now come on, I set up some chairs and Luke said he would put out a thermos of coffee for us."
"Only one?"
"I told him we would need more, but he said his thermos was pretty big, but if we needed any more we could just run inside, thinking we would be to lazy to anyways, so we would only drink one."
"That Luke, always trying to make us cut down on coffee. When will he realize that we will find loopholes, like sending Kirk to fetch us some more coffee?" Lorelei told Rory.
"Yes, doesn't he know we are world renowned loophole finders?"
"Apparently not." Lorelai and Rory took their seats outside Luke's Diner and took out the thermos. Lorelai poured some into the cap and handed it to Rory. "Cheers to a happy new year!"
"Cheers." Rory returned and they clinked their cups and while they did, it snowed for the first time that year, of course.
GGGGGGG
"Alright, we are way behind people and because of that, we can't have useless people wasting our time away because you just had to know the latest scoop on who's boffing who. From now on, when I call a meeting, I expect you to be here, or else, you can pack up a sad little box with all your junk because you won't be needed here." Paris said while walking around the newsroom with her hands behind her back.
"Now if Mrs. Traiser would have let us work over break." Paris mumbled to herself, but Rory overheard.
Rory replied, "Paris, we were on Winter Break. Time to spend time with family, spread holiday cheer, that sort of thing, not be working on a school newspaper."
"Aha! See, that's where you are wrong Gilmore. This is not some silly school newspaper. I want this year's edition to be the best. I want it up there with the New York Times and the Washington Post. But we can't do that with all these insipid little breaks. The news never sleeps, and if you have a problem with that, then I suggest you leave." Paris scanned the room, and while the reporters inside looked scared to death, nobody left.
"Now, I've typed up all your assignments for next issue on these pages. Take one and get working." Paris left the pages and turned to sit at her desk.
Rory took a page and scanned down to find her name, but to her surprise, her name wasn't on it. Paris! What is her problem now! I have done nothing to deserve this!
Rory looked over to where Paris was sitting. She looked completely calm and extremely determined to finish whatever she was doing.
There is no way she is going to get away with this.
Rory stood up and walked over to Paris. "Paris, I need to talk to you." Rory declared in a stern voice.
"Sorry, its going to have to wait. I am right in the middle of doing something, if you haven't noticed." Paris said. Her voice was laced with ice and not once did she look up from her computer screen that she was franticly typing on.
"Oh I noticed. You want to know what else I noticed?" Rory asked, putting as much venom in her voice as Paris did.
Paris sighed loudly, "I guess you aren't going away. What?"
"Look." Rory stuck the page in front of Paris's face.
"Again, I ask, what?"
"Did you see what's on here, or better yet, did you see what's not on here?" Rory asked, getting more annoyed by the second with Paris who obviously was not caring about the situation at all.
"Look, if this is about you not getting an assignment, well, I wanted the issue coming back from winter break to be special. That takes great writing, and well, your last piece wasn't as good as the others. Kind of a snooze." By this time, Paris had gotten up and walked towards another girl and gave her a post-it.
"Paris! The writing wasn't the thing that made it a snooze! It was the topic!" Rory exploded, getting strange looks from the other girl standing next to Paris.
"Hey, remember when I gave you that piece on the new parking lot pavement? Total snooze, but you made it interesting, but your last piece, I just didn't think it was good." Paris said circling the room again and ending back at her desk.
"Look, I'm sorry I am not a good boring topic writer, but you have to give me a chance. Don't let your personal feelings get tied up with work. What would Woodward say?" Rory said trying not to lunge forwards and strangle her.
"Don't you dare accuse me of mixing personal feelings with work. I gave the deserving students an article. Don't think I'm going to give you special treatment just because we used to be friends. Now if you don't mind, I really have to get to work."
With that, Rory stormed out of the newsroom and didn't stop until she reached the bus stop.
LGLGLGLGLG
"If I strappadoed Paris, do you think would anyone miss her?" Rory fumed to her mother.
"Bad first day back at school?" Lorelai asked, coming out of the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn to meet her daughter on the couch.
"Oh no. The day was fine, but as soon as I enter the newsroom, it is like her life mission to make it impossible for me to even breathe in there!"
"Aww, honey. I'm sure it's not that bad." Lorelai added while rubbing Rory's arm in comfort.
"She didn't even give me a story."
"Well, I know this is a little unconventional, but unconventional is part of my name, right in between insane and unique." Lorelai started to say.
"Wow, those are quite the rare genes." Rory interrupted.
"That's what you get for being a Gilmore. Anyways, as I was saying, let's have a movie night." Lorelai suggested excitedly. She loved movie nights, almost as much as Emilio Estevez in 1984.
"But it's a school night, and you have a big meeting tomorrow." Rory said with a hint of disappointment. She loved movie nights as much as her mother, but the way their movie nights usually ended, she would never be able to get to school.
"So?" Lorelai replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "We just won't stay up as late."
"I'll call Luke's!" Rory said with excitement exuding all around her.
"I'll pick out some movies! How about a musical marathon! West Side Story, Annie, and Bye Bye Birdie. A mix of love, orphans, and Ed Sullivan."
"Sounds great. And when Riff is stabbed, I'll just pretend its Paris!" Rory yelled from the kitchen.
"Ah! Perfect." Lorelai yelled back, bent over searching through tapes in a big brown box.
"Ok, Luke said to be down at the diner in a couple of minutes and he'll have our stuff ready, so let's go!" Rory ran out of the kitchen and into the entryway to get her coat. Lorelai was right behind her as they both shot out of the door into the cold winter night.
RGRGRGRG
Rory got off the bus and started to walk through town to get back home. She would have to order another pizza tonight because her mother had to go to Hartford for a seminar for hotel/inn managers. She had been gone lately, whether it was business at the inn or special classes, and Rory was starting to get lonely. And cold, she pulled her coat tighter around her body for more warmth.
Lorelai sat in the back of an auditorium, barely listening to the man currently droning on about maids and how to hire them. She knew all of this, but every year the Independence sent her here. It was just another stupid technicality. Lorelai had already used all of her paper trying to draw and make cootie catchers. She was bored out of her mind.
Rory didn't want to spend the night alone again, plus she was getting tired of eating Indian food without her mother's crazy reactions towards the smells. That's when she thought of the only thing left to do. As she rounded the corner of Doose's Market, she flipped out her cell phone and punched in the numbers so familiar to her.
Lorelai was trying to count the number times the speaker said "umm" while wiggling her pen to make it look like it was made out of rubber, when a distinct vibrating came from the pocket of her jacket and broke her out of her reverie.
She quietly slipped out of her chair and into the hallway. "Hello?"
"Mom?"
"Rory?"
"Can you come home? It's kinda creepy by myself and I don't know. I guess I kinda miss you." Rory said starting to feel stupid for calling.
"You kinda miss me? Hmm, I'm sensing this call was because you wanted me to come home. But I only come home to people who admit that they really miss me. Oh, well, I guess I will just have to go back to my really boring seminar, where as if I were to leave, hmm, " Lorelai looked down at her watch to see how long she had been there. An hour! I've only been here an hour! It feels like an eternity! But, I've been here long enough. Lorelai directed her attention back too the person on the line."…if I were to leave well, now, I could be home in about an hour or so."
"You could really do that?" Rory asked, excited to see her mother tonight.
"I could, but only to people really miss me." Lorelai wanted to tease Rory a little before starting her venture back home.
Rory sighed with defeat, "Fine. I really miss you."
"What was that? This phone connection is really bad." Lorelai said, barely containing her laughter.
"I said, I really miss you and I want you to come home." Rory announced feeling slightly humiliated.
"Wait, one more time?"
"Mom! Come on!"
"Alright, alright." Lorelai said giggling like a two year old.
"Jeez, the things I put up with." Rory stated, shaking her head.
LGRGLGRG
Rory pulled up to their house to notice Lorelai fiddling with something near the windows. She cut off the ignition and stepped out of the car. "What'ch ya doing?" Rory yelled to her mother who was now stooped over the windowsill.
"Tada!" Lorelai backed away from where she was working to reveal the new flowerboxes hanging from the windows.
"Wow! Did you actually garden?" Rory said shocked by even the thought of her mother working with dirt.
"No of course not! Do you think I'm crazy! I just bought some fake flowers and put them in the box. Pretty, don't ya think?" Lorelai stated, obviously proud of her work.
"Yeah. It adds a certain hominess to the house. Martha Stewart would be proud." Rory answered.
Both Rory and Lorelai stepped back from the porch to admire their home. It wasn't a big mansion or anything like that. What made it special was the fact that it looked lived in by people that loved life and all the house's little quirks.
"I always wanted a real home, one with flowers on the windowsills and a wrap around porch with squeaky stairs and a slightly unstable handrail." Lorelai commented in a dreamy voice.
"And look, now you have it." Rory said, taking in the sight of their house, really appreciating it and all the hard work Lorelai did to get it.
"Yeah, and I couldn't have asked for anyone better to share it with." And with that, Lorelai draped her arm around Rory's shoulder and led her inside. "Come on, I heard they are playing The Adventures of Huck Finn on T.V. tonight, and you know how much I like to see baby Frodo." Lorelai said, regaining her usual perkiness.
"Come on, let's get you inside." Rory laughed.
GGGGGGG
"Mom! Mom, quick! Come here!" Rory had just gotten home from school and was in the living room, Lorelai, who took the day off, came rushing into the room thinking Rory was hurt.
"What? What is it? What's wrong?" Lorelai asked, slightly out of breath from running all the way downstairs.
"Look." Rory held a big white envelope in front of Lorelai's face. It was thick and had fancy script on the front with an emblem of some sort on it.
"I'm looking, but unless it is one of those things that you wait for it and then something pops out, I don't see what's so special about this envelope."
"You know when I was applying to all those private high schools and lots of them said they were too full, but they would contact me it that changed?" Rory asked while smiling. She just couldn't contain her excitement.
"Oh my God! Which one is it?" Lorelei realized what the envelope was and was doing everything short of jumping up and down.
"The one from New York."
"Well… open it!" Lorelai couldn't wait any longer.
"Alright already!" Rory carefully ripped the top seal off. Lorelai had moved around the table so she was standing directly behind Rory, peaking over her shoulders to get a good view. Rory pulled out all of the papers and started to read the first page.
"So! What does it say?" Lorelai asked impatiently.
"Shhh!" Rory's eyes kept scanning the letter, as each second ticked by; the wider Rory's smile grew.
"Come on! Tell me!" Lorelai was whining like a toddler now.
Rory looked up, grinning from ear to ear. She turned to face her mother, who was also grinning like a fool.
"I got in!" Rory and Lorelai squealed, put their arms around each other, and started to jump up and down. "I could be going to a school more prestigious than Chilton!" Rory said in awe.
"Well they certainly made a good choice in picking you!" Lorelai was elated for her daughter. Now Rory will have the life she never had. Something was troubling her though. They would have to live in New York City. Of course Lorelai would do anything for Rory, but New York City? Oh, well, we will find a way. We have to.
LGLGLGLGLGLG
That night, Lorelai couldn't get to sleep at all. She kept wondering what she was going to do and what she would be leaving behind. Should we even go to New York? Ahh, I wish the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come would show up right now to tell me how this is all going to turn out. That would make things much easier. I guess as long as Rory and I are together it will be ok. And with the last of her thoughts dwindling down, she finally fell into a peaceful sleep.