Chapter 3

When the entrance bell gives its usual over-enthusiastic burst at Lorelai's entrance, Emily's giving the evil eye to Miss Patty's sequined shirt, and my meat supplier's trying to screw me. I brace a hand on the counter and speak into the phone. "No, I'm definitely not going to wait an extra day for my delivery."

The bell coughs out a little afterthought as Lorelai hauls Kirk inside by one ragged rabbit ear. "My rash!" he squeaks, and collapses on the floor.

Lorelai plants her hands on her hips. "Up."

"It hurts!" he whimpers, curling into a ball of grit-covered…fur?

I don't even bother listening to my supplier's whining on the other end of the phone. "Can you wait a day to have your truck? Yes, I know you're a delivery service. Well, I'm a delivery service, too. For food. Food you're going to have here by tomorrow morning at the regular damn time or you're going to find a way to pay your bills with Monopoly money because you're not getting any more of mine!" I slam the phone into the cradle and dash back to the kitchen, because Cesar's at his sister's third wedding. I put a grilled cheese on before I came out here, and if I'd ranted for two more minutes it'd be a goner.

"Up or you're getting no Crisco, Kirk!" Lorelai shouts.

There's the squeak of a chair, then Emily's voice. "Lorelai, do you need some help with…this?"

"Oh believe me, you don't want to help with this any more than I want your help with this."

I plate the grilled cheese and stick my head out of the kitchen, blasting Emily with a single look. She sits back down, scoots in her chair, and hurriedly folds a new napkin onto her lap. I go back for the pickle and chips, then carry the order out, stepping over Kirk.

"Little help here, Luke?"

"It followed you home, it's your problem."

I deliver the plate to the corner table, then turn back to see her trying to wrestle the hood of Kirk's rabbit costume off while he howls and curls tighter onto the floor. Lorelai's purse has fallen to her elbow and it's swinging like a pendulum, banging Kirk in the cheek with every beat. She looks like she's about to twist an ankle half-crouching in those heels. I take a second look, because she also looks like about a trillion bucks in those heels.

"I need your Crisco and your store room," she huffs, finally getting his hood off. His skin is horrifying, all welts and a dark purplish red. I'm starting to understand the need for the Crisco.

"No way. Kirk, I told you to stay away from the rental costumes. You don't know where those things have been."

"I was passing out fliers for the pet store," he whimpers. "I can't wear my hot dog costume for that."

"It's store room and Crisco or we do this right here and I leave him for you to babysit while I run to Doose's for half a cart's worth of Calamine lotion." She reaches for the zipper on the bunny suit, turning her face away and cringing.

"Fine." I grab her purse in one fist, Kirk's fur-covered ankle in the other, and stomp toward the back. He whimpers a little, but his costume slides easily on the tile. In my peripheral vision, Lorelai's fingers flicker as she gives a gleeful little wave to her gaping mother. "But you get behind the curtain, not all the way in the store room. There's food in there. And no screaming." I give Kirk's leg a shake to underscore my point.

"How about a little quiet weeping?" Lorelai proposes. "You don't have a blindfold, do you? Or some bourbon?"

"You're on your own." I slam down an unopened gallon of Crisco next to Kirk's prone rabbit form, then drop a set of plastic gloves on top. "And don't come crying to me tonight when you have nightmares."

"Mmm." Lorelai purses her lips and does that little upward peek like she does when she knows I'm bluffing. "Can we at least bring the chocolate peanut butter ice cream to the upstairs freezer so I can get back to sleep afterwards?"

"I'll think about it." I look at her directly for the first time since she came in. She's a little flushed from wrestling with Kirk, but she looks happy. Well needed, a little annoyed, and busy. She's in her element.

I bend a little as she presses up on her toes and kisses me. "Thanks for the Crisco."

"You owe me," I say half-heartedly.

"A Gilmore always pays her debts."

I head back behind the counter, leaving her purse by the register so it'll be safe until she's done doing whatever I'm not thinking about behind that curtain.

I throw the next entrée on the grill, do half the books for the night, and clean out the coffee maker before Lorelai comes back out with a greasy and subdued Kirk stuffed back into his rented bunny suit. She kisses me and pinches my rear in a futile attempt to get me to jump and out her lewd behavior to her mother, then takes off to meet Rory so they can buy more sweaters, as if there's an iteration of a sweater in the world not already owned by the two of them.

Emily crosses her silverware on her plate, folds her napkin in quarters, and places it atop the plate before pushing back her chair. I haven't brought her bill yet, so this development spells trouble. With a little bit of luck, dragging a grown man in a bunny suit across the floor of a restaurant six months before Easter will be the final straw and she'll storm out. Hell, I'd even comp her meatloaf for the pleasure of getting rid of her daily presence in the diner.

She made it through every item on the menu by last week, coming up with something complimentary to say about all of it, though I think she had a little trouble with the biscuits and gravy. I started bringing her food myself four days into this debacle. Partially because I wanted to be sure she wasn't picking on Lane when I wasn't looking. Partially because I want to force her to endure my objectionable personality as much as possible, since that's apparently what she's here for. And partially because Emily Gilmore has never been served by someone who wasn't a servant, and I think she could use the experience.

This is my building, from floor struts to shingles, as is the building next door. The plates are mine, recipes are mine, and every scrap of food she ate was prepared by me personally. If she wants to condescend to it or insult it, I want to know it was perfect when it hit her fork and it's her psychosis finding fault and not a slip of my kitchen staff. I like to look her in the eye when I bring her food, because here, I'm in charge of whether she gets to eat, not her. And I know she can tell the difference.

I can't forget the look she gave me when I shook hands with her maid.

The only reason I've allowed her in here enough times to eat everything on the menu is because she hasn't looked at me like that again. Not since Lorelai laid into her with my perpetually broken toaster lying exhaustedly between them.

Now, Emily approaches the counter and lays her bill next to the register with a matte black credit card so elegant it looks like it belongs in a glass museum case.

I don't pick it up. I keep my hands braced on the counter and my eyes narrowed on hers, because I'm really hoping we're done with this ridiculous little game we've been playing.

She places her purse on the counter and folds her hands on top of it. "You run a very neat little business here, Luke."

"Mr. Danes, to you."

The skin at the edges of her eyes tightens and her eyes go a notch even more distant, if that's possible. "Very well. Mr. Danes. The place is clean. Your customers are numerous and happy. Your employees are loyal and exceptionally obedient. You work long hours without any evident fatigue. You never run out of an item on the menu with the exception of pie, which you seem to enjoy running out of, as you do it nearly every day. The deliveries appear to be conducted in off hours, with no interruption of business. Every item on the menu is plain, but impeccably prepared. I've not been able to determine exactly what your cost of business is, but I would venture to guess you're collecting a very reliable profit."

"Quit suckin' up." I swipe her card off the counter and run it. "You think all that crap is going to change anything between you and me, you're dead wrong. And if you think it'll change anything between you and Lorelai, you're delusional."

Her throat does its sucking-tight thing, her chin quivering a little in what I can only guess is suppressed rage. I slap her credit card slip and a greasy Bic down next to it. I said I'd outlast her until she got tired of her little game and gave up once and for all, but if she blows up at me, I'd be damn glad to have this done and behind me. I stare, stone-faced, and wait.

She doesn't touch the pen. "My compliments are not insincere. I'm not only here for my daughter. I wanted to see for myself why she respects you so deeply, when every other man in her life has become disposable. I wanted to see if you could provide for her."

"Lorelai can provide for herself just fine. She could provide for three of herself if she dropped her shoe and sweater habit. Four if she learned to cook at home." I say it because it's important to Lorelai, not because it's important to me. I'd want to check out the work ethic of any guy Rory was serious about, too.

"You are not particularly polite," Emily says.

I can't help it. I crack a smile, crossing my arms across my chest. "Nope."

"And many of your customers are abhorrently behaved."

"Yup."

She glances toward the curtain, the tile behind which I'm going to be bleach mopping in a minute in case Kirk left some kind of Crisco smear behind after his emergency rash treatment.

"But then again, maybe that's just the way things are in these small towns. Perhaps that's why Lorelai feels so at home here."

"Watch it, Emily."

"I don't mean it negatively. She's never liked things to be…pleasant. She likes drama. Oddities. Taking in stray people who don't fit just right in the rest of the world. I suppose that's how she's always felt alongside our friends, so she has some weakness for it." Emily sighs. "She has a good heart, my daughter, if slightly questionable judgment. Unfortunately, that well of compassion has never extended to me."

I start to argue once, twice, but both times I stall out before speaking because her assessment of Lorelai is spot on. Clear sighted and not as disgusted as I think Lorelai would have expected it to be. I almost wish I could have recorded it. For future reference, I make a mental note of what her tone sounds like when she's giving a genuine compliment.

"We're alike in so many ways, my daughter and me."

My disbelief bursts out of me in something like a chuckle mangled by a wheezing choke.

Emily looks up sharply, her lips curled in distaste. "What? It's true. I heard her talking about how she's sewing little leaf costumes and cornucopia hats for the fall festival next week. I'm organizing a fall festival too—the DAR is sponsoring a harvest time charity dinner to benefit the local food bank. We both spend our time on charity and socializing in our communities, but somehow for her, the work is morally superior because it's with working class people, not wealthy people." She gives me a shrewd look. "If I were you, I would never tell Lorelai how much you make, or she'll distrust you as well." She nods outside. "The truck is a good cover, and wherever you live, I'm sure it's suitably modest, but mark my words, if she finds out, things will be different."

She picks up her credit card and files it crisply back into her wallet.

I clamp my mouth shut, because I'm pretty sure Lorelai has an inkling of my net worth, since I bought a hundred thousand dollar building after she told me I needed room for a double bed, and also since she asked me for thirty thousand dollars, which I had in a personal check by morning. But if I tell her mom she borrowed thirty grand from me, I won't get a kiss until Christmas and only then if I make her a Santa Clause burger again.

Emily looks away with a little irritated exhale. "She thinks I'm so slovenly, lazing about the house with nothing to do all day. She thinks because she has a job that she's modern and industrious and I'm some sort of parasite living off my husband. But what does she do at the inn all day? Manage maids and cooks and events. She runs a household, just like I do, and because she does it in Stars Hollow rather than Hartford, she can continue to hate me and pretend our lives are utterly alien to one another."

"You want to pull this poor me act, you should try Babette." I point down the street. "Maybe she'll feel sorry enough for you to forget that you sent a sixteen-year-old girl and a newborn to live in a damn shed, because you couldn't get past one mistake."

"I never sent her. She left. And I've apologized a thousand times for my shock at her pregnancy, and the way it came between us, not that she'll ever forgive me." She hooks her purse over her shoulder. "Remember that, too. Once you've wronged Lorelai, she might let you back into your life, but she'll remind you with a million little backhanded comments how you hurt her." She straightens up. "But. That is in the past. We're here now and that's that."

I narrow my eyes, not sure what she's leading up to. She's been on her best behavior for two full weeks now, suspiciously polite, never a trace of condescension or mocking in her tone. But now when she looks at me, I recognize her normal expression in its haughty confidence. With a little less artifice, and a shrewd light in her eyes.

"My point was, a strong business is something to be proud of. Few people have the discipline required to run a business well."

At that faint compliment, I snap. "I don't need you to tell me I run my business well. Especially since you've never run anything more than a charity fundraiser." I slap my hands down on the counter. "Math tells me everything I need to know about my business. Margins in a diner are razor thin. Making one pay is all about being ruthless with the numbers. My spoilage rate is less than 1%. Industry average is five times that."

Her lips pinched up tight after I called her on her housewife armchair quarterbacking, but now I'm pissed. Who the hell is she to compliment me? I'll tell her exactly how I run a goddamn business just so I can watch her face go blank in incomprehension.

"Part of that's your daughter, because she'll eat just about anything if it's fried. The rest of it is an algorithm that runs my ordering schedule based on the habits of the regulars. I cook or Cesar cooks. We don't make more batter than we sell, we don't burn an egg, and we don't throw out a peach pie because I don't make peach until Margaret Ginsmore is having her time of the month and she'll buy three slices every time she comes in."

Emily goes white, and her pinched lips drop apart in favor of a gape.

"I don't pay staff to be here unless I know the rush will be more than I can turn over on my own. I make my own cleaning products out of generic base ingredients, and I have a separate menu for out of towners with higher prices. Their service is slower because they're not factored into my algorithm, but that means they go away happy because all their stuff is made fresh to order."

Now her eyes flare with admiration, probably because I'm openly screwing people who aren't going to be return customers.

"Sure, I could buy some nicer chairs and serve duck like Sookie does out at the Inn." I scoff. "I can make duck. But nobody around here buys duck, Emily. They run a Zagat-rated restaurant over there and their profit margin's 8% lower than mine. 14% on lunch. But do you think I tell your daughter that?"

She sniffs. "As if she'd listen."

"Exactly. But she's smart. She knows jack about the kitchen but she shut down lunch sixteen days after I would have done it." I straighten up, pride taking some of the edge off my temper. "Not bad for an amateur."

"So you're more than a cook." She nods. "All right. You've proven that. But then why did you turn down the growth opportunity Richard presented you with? My husband has a very good head for business. With his help, you could go from a diner owner to a corporate magnate."

"I didn't take Richard's advice to expand because I can't know fifteen towns worth of regulars, which means spoilage goes up, marketing costs go up, and profits go down." I narrow my eyes. "And yes, Emily, I may only be a diner owner but you know what? I pulled down more than your husband did last year. So why don't you go home, sit on your designer couch, and think about that?"

She bristles. "That is a lie," she says coldly. "And how could you even know how much my husband makes? Did you paw through our trash for our tax returns?"

"I didn't have to. When he took me golfing, he was all too happy to brag it up while he was explaining to me that golf clubs are like engagement rings: the rule of thumb is they cost about two months' salary. He may have come into life with a hell of a lot bigger nest egg than I did, but we own the exact same set of golf clubs." I smile fiercely, tightly.

"Well!"

If I could take a picture of Emily's face in this moment and frame it for Lorelai, I'm pretty sure she'd never ask for another Christmas present as long as we both lived.

"So I suppose now you think you're good enough for our daughter simply because you can wring a decent salary out of this place."

"No. I think your daughter has never once asked me how much I made, and she's had nineteen years of living in this town to figure out what kind of man I am." I lean forward and stare her down. "If she ever decides I don't make her happy, she can leave with my blessing, because then I wouldn't be good enough for her."

Emily's whole body trembles, but for the life of me I can't tell if she's still angry or something else entirely. I don't know if I've finally won her respect or made her hate me even more. After a long, long moment she nods, and then she leaves.

For the first time, I'm actually curious to see if she'll show up tomorrow.