Disclaimer: Not mine
CHAPTER NINE
Lorelai Gilmore had a new motto: Who I am isn't where I live or what I wear.
She had written it in big looping neon pink letters on her bedroom ceiling, so it was the first thing she saw every morning and the last thing she saw before turning off the bedside lamp. She also had her motto inked in permanent marker on an index card propped on her desk at the Dragonfly Inn. She did truly enjoy quirky and kitschy things, but she felt as if she'd begun to free herself when she moved into the little Cape Cod house and painted those words on her ceiling. The ghost of Emily Gilmore's criticisms sounded fainter, and sillier, with those words in front of her.
Now, she stood on a ladder, hair covered by a kerchief, re-painting the motto in a decisive rich blue. As she worked, she hummed along with the Ramones on a mix CD that was a house-warming gift from Lane. "Twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go," she sang softly, "I wanna be sedated, somethin' somethin' somethin' oh-oh, I wanna be sedated…"
Her doorbell chimed. The original had been a clong-clang guaranteed to wake the dead. The new one, helpfully installed by a hired handyman used at the inn, was bit more like ding-ding-a-ding-tink.
She ignored it. She was in her zone, she expected no company, and she wasn't about to stop painting to the Ramones for Girl Scout cookies. Much as she loved cookies.
The front door was hit by a battering ram.
Lorelai yelped, lost her balance, and landed on the bed, paintbrush, paint tray and all. Fortunately, she'd covered it in lots of clear plastic, along with the rest of the room. Unfortunately, she still ended up with blue paint all over herself.
She rose, like magma from a volcano, and prepared to commit mayhem.
"Oh geez," came from her bedroom door.
Lorelai seethed. She was also, perversely, grateful that blue looked good on her.
"I, uh, you didn't, um, answer, and… Yeah, I screwed up," said Luke in a small, cowed voice. "You okay?"
"I," stated Lorelai, pointing her paint roller at him, "am fine. You, buddy, you're dead. Or arrested. Give me a second to decide."
"I, well, you always answer the door or yell out and…"
Lorelai's glare silenced him. "And what if I'd been in my bedroom doing something that was none of your business?"
He paled, flushed, and looked ill.
"Not that, you pervert!" she yelled. "I meant… Y'know, never mind, shoo! Go away! Out, out! Begone! Wait."
Luke hadn't yet moved. "Okay?" he offered.
Lorelai took several calming breaths, then asked through gritted teeth, "Why are you in my house? I locked the door. Both doors."
"When I knocked, I heard a yell, so I looked under the frog for the key."
Lorelai hung her head. "Memo to self," she muttered angrily, "new hiding place. Stupid frog. Stupid key."
Luke was studying her ceiling. He seemed transfixed.
Rolling her eyes, Lorelai shuffled cautiously over the plastic, and stopped. She had no way to get to the bathroom without dribbling paint through the living room and kitchen. If her house had any downside, it was that the central chimney and old floor plan meant she didn't have a door directly from her bedroom to her bathroom, despite their shared wall. She meant to put one in, eventually, but there was a small problem of the bathtub taking up that wall. Charm came at a price, and the price was convenience.
"On my couch, there is a very long roll of plastic," she told Luke coldly. "Lay it on the floor so I can go clean up. Now, please."
"Are you sure?" hesitated Luke, tearing his eyes from her ceiling, and down to her paint-slathered torso. The paint was causing her shirt to cling.
"Hey! Eyes up, buster! Plastic! Now!"
Luke nodded, and removed himself from the bedroom door.
Lorelai looked at her shorts and shirt. Her legs. Her arms. She swore under her breath.
"Done!" said Luke.
"Leave!" ordered Lorelai. "Just… I have to clean up, and I don't need you lurking around. And put the key back under the frog. I'll find a different place for it, just…"
"Right," said Luke, and the vinyl sheeting crinkled underfoot as he left.
She plodded to the bathroom. She dropped the shorts and underwear into the trash, used nail scissors to start a cut in the t-shirt that allowed her to peel it off without pulling it over her head, and deposited it and her bra with the other ruined clothes. After turning her loofah blue, three wash-and-rinse cycles of her hair, and scrubbing until the water ran cold, she felt safely less like a Smurf. A quick check in the mirror showed all well, and she cuddled into her bathrobe, trudged across the kitchen to the laundry room. Originally, four tiny rooms had come off the big eat-in kitchen, when it was built. Two became the bathroom at some point. One became a laundry room. The fourth held the water heater, breaker box, and similar. It was nice, to have a short walk to the dryer to find clean clothes. She pulled them on, and turned to the task of cleaning up vinyl-plastic-whatever sheeting.
It was all gone, and Paul Anka was hiding somewhere. That meant one thing.
"Luke," she called. "You can come out. It's safe. I won't kill you. Yet."
He emerged from her living room, rubbing his neck. "I, uh, it was kinda my fault, so I…"
"Thank you," said Lorelai gravely. "Tea? I promise nothing terrible will happen."
"Sure," he said, looking puzzled, and sat at the same old table in a very different kitchen. "I like the thing on your ceiling."
Lorelai shrugged as she waited for her little gadget to make hot water. She gave the mug to Luke, and pointed. "Tea caddy on the table. Take your pick."
He chose at random. She leaned back, waiting for more water to be heated in sixty seconds.
"Who we are," said Luke, "should show in what we do."
"Yeah, that's been a problem for me," shrugged Lorelai, grateful when her gadget beeped. She could turn away, hide her blush and her humiliation. "I don't put on a very good show, so to speak. I mean, I do, because hey, I gotta perform or nobody likes me, but with us. With us… I was too scared to lose my chance with you, too scared to keep being me, and I didn't know how to be… Well, whatever it was you needed." She was proud that she spoke without her voice shaking. Her hands were another matter. "I… I have to… Apologize. I am so sorry, Luke. I was so focused on the idea of a wedding, of that whole package, and I made some big mistakes. Max, for one. Turning into a doormat last year, for another." She laughed humorlessly, studying her mug of hot water as if it held cosmic wisdom. "I had it in my head, you knew who I was under all the show, all the… I dunno, I guess it just comes down to anxiety? Nerves? Whatever."
"Insecurity," supplied Luke.
Heat crept up her neck to her face. "I didn't even realize how much I didn't know you, till you wrote all those notes."
Luke's voice was uneven when he replied, "I didn't let you know."
"Well, I didn't let you know how I felt, how I really felt. I thought, at the Vineyard… After the party…" She trailed off, and finally chose a tea, tore the packet, dunked the bag into her mug. She smiled awkwardly at him. "See, if I knew then what I know now? From the notes you kept sending? Maybe I'd have known how to say the right thing or… Maybe I should've known anyway… Or talked to Liz on how to talk to you. I don't know. I felt like whatever I did, it was gonna be the wrong thing to do. No matter what I did. That's not something I handle too well."
The tone of Luke's snarled, "Emily," jolted Lorelai into meeting his gaze.
"It's not my mother's…"
"Look, growing up, my parents loved us. We screwed up, we could still get hugs and approval and everything I want to give April and missed out on," he began, and she eased back, recognizing a rant in progress. "I wrote all that to you, but the point is, you come off so strong, so independent, I figured… No, I let myself figure I could put you away till I was ready. I stuck myself in a good deep rut, and you showed me there was a way out, and I turned my back. Because that wasn't the way it should be. It should be the way I wanted it. I'm the one who shouldn't have to… I don't know what! I don't even know anymore!"
"Luke, calm down, you're scaring the dog," said Lorelai in her most reasonable customer-service voice, and it worked. He sat down and stopped gesticulating wildly all over her kitchen. Paul Anka, however, remained in the living room, whining softly.
They sipped tea.
"Thank you for cleaning up all the paint and plastic," said Lorelai finally. "You didn't have to do that."
"My mess, I should clean it up."
"Oh God," she groaned, "here we go, hero-martyr Luke. Can't you just be a person? Say, hey, I scared you and wanted to do a nice thing and clean up because me scaring you is why you got paint all over? I am not your mess to clean up! I'm mine! I lost you, I lost our baby, I lost my only hope that my mom would ever think I'm not a slutty screw-up, do you know how much I hate how much of my life was trying to make her happy while I was making sure I was happy when there is no way to do both?"
She paused for breath, and squeaked out on the exhale, "Sorry. Misdirected that a little."
Luke stood. She shook her head, sniffling. So much for dignity, and conversation. Here she was, Lorelai-the-idiot Gilmore, blabbing out what no one wanted to hear or know, and yelling at all the wrong people. She'd turned into her mother. The thought made her grab her tea mug to hide her shudder.
"I wanted to have everything but not have anything change," said Luke, removing her mug from her hands before she spilled hot tea on herself.
"That almost made sense," she snuffled, and turned away because her tears were irritating her. She had hoped to be past crying by now. "Well, I wanted to have the whole package, but I really wanted to have a marriage with you, and kids with you, and that's different. And that doesn't make sense."
"No, it does. I'll let you… Y'know. But I came over to ask if I could spend my dark day…" He stopped, harrumphed. "If I could spend the anniversary of my dad's death. With you. Having this kind of talk, only no paint."
Too tired for subtlety, Lorelai settled for a blunt, "Why?"
His eyes squinted up. "Because… What I wear and where I live… That's not who I am. And I know stuff but I don't let myself believe it."
That made no sense to her whatsoever. On the other hand, life rarely did make sense. "Separate cars," she said sternly. "But okay. I'll clear my calendar."
He flashed a small warm smile, the one she'd once thought was only for her, and said softly, "Thanks. I'll, uh, leave a note. When and where and stuff."
She nodded, and saw him out in silence.
Paul Anka crept onto the couch with her.
"I wish I could quit him," she told the dog, and buried her face in his fur while she cried.
GG GG GG
Richard Gilmore arranged a last book on its shelf in the study.
He looked around the room. Warm-hued wood below the wainscoting, shelves above, a deep-set bay window suitable for a cozy seat, had sold him on the entire house. It was a typical old Colonial brick house, rich with woodwork grown dark from age, walls in neutral shades that allowed a decorator to install deep-hued draperies and upholstery. He owed Lorelai thanks for finding the woman, and the discounts on certain pieces from the humorless Mrs. Kim. Simple was better, for a man of his age, and it felt refreshing to have such space made to his order.
A service came in to clean thrice a week, and twice a day he received meals from a caterer. He considered a hot breakfast necessary to his day, but lunch was easily obtainable at some café. Supper, too, was a needed hot meal. They came in the back, to the kitchen, and assembled ingredients. He was served at table. He left the dishes by the sink for the caterer to retrieve. So far, it worked very well,
Perhaps his favorite outdoor feature of the home, other than the dignified oaks shading it, was the patio. It looked over a sloping lawn that ended at a large creek. On a warm afternoon, he could sit and ponder the movement of wind and water while pretending to read a book.
Richard had no idea how tired he was, until he retired from Hartford society life. Oh, he went to the club for golf and a brandy now and then, but the endless rounds of suppers, parties, fundraisers, openings had worn him more than he'd known. It had irked him immensely to be shoved out of business, yet he did not miss the piles of invitations. A few outings a week, and he was quite content.
Rory walked into the study, carrying cups of tea. "Here we go, Grandpa! Are you sure about…"
"Quite," he interrupted. "Thank you, my dear, this hits the spot. I shall enjoy giving occasional presentations, and a bit of consulting, but I do think re-learning a career at my age might be more stress than I can currently endure."
Rory's face fell. He hated that. Her encouragement to examine options like teaching had been welcome. He simply didn't have the needs he used to have, and discovered that lounging about his own home was deeply different from the same at the Hartford mansion he'd ceded to Emily. He did not feel limited here, as if portions of the house were not truly his, but belonged only to social gatherings, or to Emily. And, as he explained to Rory, "I have not made my own schedule in far too long. I intend to enjoy it. I can always reconsider."
"Okay, Grandpa, we just want you to be happy."
"And I, you," said Richard tranquilly. "Your mother is doing well?"
Rory's eyes were blue swamps of worry. "I wish he'd leave her alone. I wish Grandma would leave everyone alone. I love Grandma, but…"
"Yes, sometimes love feels more like a noose than wings," agreed Richard and patted her hand. "Now, now, my dear. This at least derailed the plan to put your name on a building at Yale."
Rory squeaked in a breath. "You were going to do what?"
"In my defense, we meant it as a show of our pride in your accomplishments," gulped Richard, unaware of what nerve he'd struck, but apparently unable to avoid it. Rory blazed up in a gesturing, pacing fury.
"Grandpa! I don't even… What did I… I mean, okay, buy some books for the library but a building?" Rory spun, and looked remarkably like her mother in a temper. "You don't give more money to Yale with my name on it, not one penny more, than you invested in Mom's inn! That's it! Not one plugged nickel more!"
"Plugged nickel," repeated Richard, bemused by the archaic phrase. "What exactly upsets you in this?"
"Because! It does! Mom! Grandma!" She flapped her hands inarticulately, then balled them on her hips. "Okay, let me put this in Paris words."
Bewildered, Richard leaned back in the fine leather-clad chair and inquired, "French?"
"Geller," snapped Rory, stomped a foot, and took a breath. "What we have here is a classic paradigm of family dysfunction, in which triangulation dynamics apply because the fourth party, namely you, has remained uninvolved, allowing two against one to apply, and, if pushed to join the triangle because I left it, you never chose your daughter over your wife." She huffed. "There. How was that?"
"I think we'll donate to the psychology department," said Richard unthinkingly. "Triangulation dynamics?"
"Given three people, two will gang up on a third. Paris did a huge paper and presentation at Chilton about it," Rory replied, and bit her lip. "Um. Sorry I raised my voice. I can't really get into that Paris mindset without the adrenaline."
"Understandable. Sit down."
She did, and clutched her mug of tea.
"Four of us doesn't allow for a triangle," mused Richard, giving her time to regain her composure.
"It does if the fourth person stays out of it. It's almost like three against one, except… Well, two of those are the same, so it's still the same, and I really messed this up, but you get the idea?"
"I do." A rush of blood threatened to overwhelm Richard, a rare expression of shame. "And now?"
"Now I don't know. Grandma's alone, you're alone, Mom's alone…" Rory finished the tea in a gulp. "We have Sunday dinners with you and I have Friday dinners with Grandma and this feels worse than watching kids with fathers show up at school, because I could at least pretend my dad wanted to be there, and I'm too old to pretend now."
Touched, Richard studied his granddaughter, and announced, "Yes, we're all too old to pretend. That hasn't stopped us. What do you say we pretend for the rest of today that there are no problems whatsoever in the world, and sample the pumpkin squares the caterer left, and read the classics?"
Rory flew to her feet. "Pumpkin squares? I love your caterer!"
Richard chuckled to himself. He swirled the remaining tea in the mug, wishing it was brandy, but some things had to change besides his address. He only hoped that change was also progress.
AN: Triangulation dynamics is a real thing. It's essentially what Rory said. Two against one, out of three, in some way.