Disclaimer: And now, the end is near, and I can see the final curtain… But it's not mine. Just doing it my way.
AN: Either "macaron" or "macaroon" is considered a correct spelling. You'll see why I mention it. Macaron is the French almond-meringue cookie I love. The macaroon, while considered the correct spelling also, is more recently used by foodies to refer only to the US Southern coconut cookie, which I dislike intensely. If I write macaron, I mean the dainty almond and meringue yummies I thought were the only macaroon/macaron, until rudely introduced to the US Southern coconut cookie. Normally, I would not bother with all this, but I hate to mislead people about food, and our gals are foodies in their way...
FOLLOWS IMMEDIATELY FROM END CHAPTER 26.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
"Michel, step away from the macarons. Now."
Michel's hand drifted back from the ornate confectionery box. "Very well, but you haven't the palate to appreciate the lavender, or the rose, or…"
Lorelai pinched the bridge of her nose, and ground out, "Take the purple, the bright pink, and those weird green ones that look like alien eggs."
"That is pistachio, you heathen!" Michel snatched up the purple (lavender) and bright pink (rose) and pistachio macarons. "You have the taste of a peasant!"
Tension rendered her voice tighter than her shoulders. "Fine, you eat them all, and worry about your waistline."
Michel considered, smoothed his tie, and said, "Fair enough," and shut her office door with unusual respect.
Lorelai investigated the remaining macarons. A pale green one seemed to be green tea. Two were chocolate. Another would be berry of some sort. From the card that came with them, from a grateful bride, it was all Lorelai's own fault for suggesting macarons as edible wedding favors that could be color-coordinated.
Of course, Lorelai knew it because she grew up with Emily Gilmore, who wouldn't serve food that (horrors!) clashed.
She bit into a cookie, and studied a book of ribbon samples she had herself assembled for brides. Solid colors in grosgrain tended to be her favorite, but there were some pretty satins, and a printed ivy pattern on sheer white that looked like a good choice for a spring wedding on her planner.
Her throat tightened. She wasn't allergic to almonds. She simply missed Rory. Ivy meant Ivy League meant Yale meant Rory graduating and off living independently. It was proper, but on Rory's birthday, she felt lonely for her little girl.
She flipped to another heavy page of the album. She carefully laid in a strip of sheer ribbon with roses on it, with manufacturer's information and retail source on a card under it, dated. It was tedious work, updating sample books, but she needed mindless busy-ness. The fact she'd succumbed to macarons didn't even raise a twinge of guilt. She hadn't touched hamburgers or fries or waffles for months. Over a year, in fact. Macarons were small stuff, compared to Red Vines and Al's grab bags.
"And it's okay to have a bad day," she reminded herself sternly. She closed the box. She reopened it. She decided the green tea macaron was good but not that good. She could afford to eat the berry. That left her two chocolate, and a soft green she knew was mint, and a boring one that would be wonderfully vanilla. Exactly the right amount and kind of wallowing food with a cup of hot chocolate at home. Good hot chocolate, she promised herself, made the idiot-proof way she needed. She would ask the kitchen for it.
"Why do you have those books? I've always wondered."
As if she'd not wanted to smash his face into a pie (and not a cream pie, at that), Lorelai told Luke, "I talk to a lot of event planners and I organize a lot of events, and the Inspiration Albums are a good way to get an idea or two. Sookie has some in the kitchen."
Luke shuffled into her office. "You, uh, oiled the hinges. You didn't hear me open the door."
"Some squeaks are charming, and some are annoying." She sat back, unsmiling. "I can offer you macarons."
She hated the way he reared back as if she'd sneezed all over his morning oatmeal. "Those are sugar bombs. What about eating healthy?!"
"I could get a large pizza and a six-pack," she said acidly, and set the box of macarons into a drawer, closing it with a decisive thud. "Luke, I realize I walked out, but I really didn't want to do this in the diner. Or here. Or at all. Ever again. What the hell, Luke?"
"I dunno, okay?" he groaned and shoved at his thinning hair, flinging his ball cap to the couch. "I just, I, this, you and April and your face and Rory!"
"Very coherent," applauded Lorelai sardonically, using what even Richard called that silly little golf clap. She tipped her head, and folded her arms over her ribs. "Will you answer a yes or no question with a simple yes or no?"
"Why?"
"And you flunk the exam," sighed Lorelai, angry and mournful and plain exhausted. "I'll give you a minute to catch up and process and all that."
She fixed her eyes on her wristwatch. She mentally counted to two hundred in the time it took the watch to tick off sixty seconds.
When she looked at Luke, he was forcibly unfisting his hands. "Okay. Good point. I can answer a yes or no question by saying yes or no."
"Did you bribe Michel to get in?"
"No. He wasn't out there."
Lorelai's eyebrows quirked up in surprise. "Huh. Well, he lives, and he stays employed, hurray for Michel."
"Can I sit?"
She nodded to the couch.
He sat, directly on his ball cap, and squirmed it out from under himself with a slightly pained grimace. "Thanks. It's just. I don't. I..."
Lorelai dredged up a few last particles of courage and patience. "Luke, I know I wasn't waving pom-poms. I have Rory on the brain. Missing her, and taking pictures, and how great it was when she needed me every day. Or ten times an hour." She cradled an imaginary infant. "She was so tiny and so happy to listen to my heart beat, that was all she needed sometimes to fall asleep, and I actually wasn't thinking about the baby I lost."
"We lost," gritted Luke.
"It didn't feel like it, Luke," she cried passionately. "Where was all this follow-Lorelai-to-talk stuff then?"
His eyes had somehow paled, as if he'd been turned to ice on the inside. "I…" left his mouth, and was followed by nothingness.
"Yeah. You," said Lorelai angrily, distantly aware she needed to calm down but unable to do so. "You. I got notes, but you were dating your kid's swim coach! I get phone calls, well, what're you doing that I don't know? Right, getting family portraits with Anna and April! You mention Kirk's latest jam obsession, but not that?"
"I can't tell you everything!"
With a speed and precision worthy of Paris in a fencing match, Lorelai countered, "When it's April."
"Uh," said Luke. He was pale, then flushed, and finally a sort of mottled color Lorelai couldn't quite place, but she knew when she looked that way, she wanted to disappear from the planet.
Lorelai stood, and yanked on his flannel, forcing Luke to his feet. "Uh? Uh? That is not an answer! It isn't even a word! Words, Luke, because your actions are still telling me I'm not special to you!"
She shook, hating the waste of her time and her hopes, her energy and emotion.
"I, you, we're special! You're special! I just, I... April... With... And..."
"Come back when you learn to talk," growled Lorelai, and propelled the man to his feet. "Dammit, Luke, the rules have to apply to both of us or they aren't rules and we're not an us!"
"Lorelai," he said, and fell silent. He reached for her. She recoiled, eyes in slits.
Michel strolled into her office as if he owned the inn. "You are disturbing my work," he complained, and cocked an eyebrow at Luke. "It makes my life much easier if she is not upset."
Frustration pitched Lorelai's voice shrill and high. "Michel, stop eavesdropping!"
"It is how I learn things," said Michel casually and cocked an eyebrow at Luke. "Begone, greasy food pimp."
Luke flushed bright red. "Watch it!"
For reply, Michel made a uniquely French noise of dismissive contempt.
"Lorelai," said Luke, and her heart twisted around itself. He sounded miserable. The wounded knight in tattered flannel.
He did not, however, sound apologetic. He didn't sound as if he had an explanation for why formal portraits with his daughter were not to be mentioned to her. They were photographs. She told him about a cute pair of shoes she'd been unable to afford, for the love of all chocolate.
"Lorelai."
"We keep ending up in this place," she said heavily.
"I don't want to," said Luke in a cracked voice. "It's... The thing with April... All the custody and Anna and April and... It's not... I don't know how to talk about it to you."
"But you can tell Lane or Kirk," sighed Lorelai. Tears splashed down her face, surprising her. "Will I ever know?" she asked, sincerely curious under her weariness. "Why? Will I ever know why you keep saying you love me and keep acting like you don't? Can't you tell me whatever it is that means I can't be part of your life?"
From the way Luke inhaled, put a hand out, he felt as if he'd been stabbed. Lorelai dully waited for an answer, or a departure.
He left, red-faced, vein throbbing. While he walked on two legs, he seemed hunched, crouched in pain. She understood the feeling too well.
"Go home," said Michel immediately. He opened the proper drawer and handed over the macaron box. "You are useless here."
She smiled at him and kissed his cheek. He sputtered indignantly. "Thanks, Michel, and yes, this means you can have an extra day off."
"But of course." He wiped his cheek with a silk square.
GG GG GG
Richard Gilmore adjusted his bow tie (a cheery gold color with tiny red oak leaves on it), and nodded to Miss Cartman. "Thank you for agreeing to linger despite the change of routine. I must seem interfering and ridiculous."
"You're a dad," shrugged Miss Cartman, tweaking the arrangement of a salad fork. "There we go. Dinner for three, no alcohol, and if I hear raised voices, I offer the next of five courses."
He grinned to himself, but was outwardly expressionless. "Thank God for five-course dinners. Soup?"
"Nutmeg-butternut squash."
"Interesting. Appetizer?"
"Apple-marinated chicken breast with herb sauce, sorry, no, that's the entrée, with roasted potatoes." Miss Cartman blushed. "I'm thinking ahead of myself. I apologize. The appetizer will be bread rounds topped by toasted goat cheese and walnuts. The salad is mixed dark greens, with roasted red bell pepper dressing. And if you make it that far…"
Richard chuckled. "Yes, if, indeed. Yalta's organizers had it quite easy by comparison."
"Dessert will be fresh yogurt topped in honey and dried cranberries and a bit of sweet cherry juice."
"That all sounds very healthy," remarked Richard, "as well as suspiciously tasty. I'm not certain I see the, ah, thematic connection?"
"Seasonal butternut squash, lightly spiced, before a salty-savory nut and cheese on bread, since nuts ripen in autumn. The salad is fairly bland but the roasted peppers give some warm flavor, if that makes sense?"
"Yes and no," said Richard encouragingly. "The rest?"
"Apples, which are seasonal, with potatoes, also traditionally harvested near this time of year, and as it happens, apples and potatoes have been cooked together, usually with onions, for a main course, at my grandmother's house."
"That leaves us with the yogurt, and I think I can understand cranberries for myself. I see. I am nervous."
The non sequitur did not faze Miss Cartman. "You're negotiating an emotional minefield. It's understandable. I'll be in your kitchen, good luck."
He nodded genially at her. He practiced measured, calm breathing. He wondered if his daughter would forgive him for this ambush.
He decided she would. Eventually. Maybe. Rory said she would.
"Oh dear," he said anxiously as the doorbell chimed. He wiped his hands covertly on his trousers, ridding his palms of nervous sweat.
He opened the door.
A mannequin-stiff, necktie-wearing Luke Danes said, "Okay, you sent a car to drive me here. For supper. Am I going to end up floating in a river?"
"Come in, Luke, and I did that as a, ah, necessary tactic in my grand strategy."
The man was safely inside the house, or he might have run. "Lorelai's coming," he breathed. "You lied."
"And here she is," beamed Richard as headlights flashed up the driveway. "Go, sit!"
"I'm not ready for this!" yipped Luke Danes. "I'm not ready to..."
"My boy," snapped Richard, dropping his congenial façade, "become ready. I maintain sufficient compassion for your situation to not have you, as you implied, swim with the fishes, but do not try me."
Luke whistled a low indecisive note, then walked into the dining room.
"How on earth did Emily do this without falling to bits?" wondered Richard aloud, then welcomed his daughter with a hug. "Lorelai! My goodness, you look hungry, let's go to the dining room."
Half a dozen heartbeats later, his daughter stared at him with a look he remembered Trix giving him. "Dad, what… Oh, no. Dad. You said you wanted to cheer me up, not ambush me!"
Luke said uneasily, "Hey."
Lorelai's feet moved.
"Sit!" thundered Richard.
Both sat. Richard sat. He smiled thinly.
Miss Cartman entered with a tray of bowls, each holding soup. She filled the water glasses and retreated.
"It's orange," objected Luke.
"It's squash," said Lorelai irritably. "Vegetable. You can cope."
"It looks like gravy."
Lorelai rolled her eyes, spooned some up and sighed. "It's like liquid pumpkin pie."
"Quite," agreed Richard.
Luke took one mouthful, and shook his head.
Richard wished he'd arranged with Miss Cartman to break silences. It seemed shouting would be his least worry.
"Very well, let me break the stalemate," he declared when it was obvious the soup course was done, and he clanked his spoon on his bowl rather loudly in hopes of Miss Cartman understanding her cue and her role. "Everything on this menu is to the standards of my cardiologist, Luke, you needn't worry for your innards. As for this mess the two of you continue to create…"
Miss Cartman whisked in with a tray bearing the appetizers, and vanished with the bowls.
Lorelai bit into the appetizer before her. "I have to get this for Sookie. Dad, he's had years to talk to me, I keep asking what it is that makes this all this. Why it's like he can't let April and me be in the same universe!"
"Not everyone can talk on command!" yelped Luke. "And that stuff's too salty to be healthy."
Richard had managed two bites of his appetizer (unique, he concluded) before Miss Cartman replaced appetizers with salads. At commendable lightning speed.
"Oh my God, Luke, it's been two years since you found out about April, and I've spent, what? Less than two hours around her, not counting her birthday party, which I don't, because it was her party, not normal everyday stuff!"
The kitchen door popped open. Richard shook his head. Miss Cartman discreetly slipped out of view, leaving him to have salad in relative peace.
The hurt in his daughter's eyes, and the stony fear in Luke's, clarified much for Richard. He boomed, "Enough! Luke, let me translate this for you. If she is not good enough to know your daughter, then she is not good enough for you."
Lorelai sob-hiccupped through her napkin, "Dad. That's scary mind-reading."
"Well, why not tell me she thinks that?" Luke demanded loudly, and smacked the table.
Reminded of Emily, Richard growled majestically, "You are in no place to chastise others for reticence!"
Lorelai offered, "Don't throw stones, you live in a glass house, too."
Luke snapped nastily, "I know what his words meant, I'm processing."
"No," said Lorelai and Richard in unison. She blinked, and let him continue, "You are trying to find an excuse. There is quite a difference."
Luke's flush deepened to cranberry. "I don't have to listen to…"
"Walk out of this," warned Richard softly, "and you will never find insurance again. You will discover food inspectors every day. You will possibly be audited every year for a decade. If you have valid reasons, then I will respect those. This balderdash, however, is contemptible, and I will ruin you for the mere pleasure of doing so."
Lorelai shrank as Richard turned to her.
"Yes, Lorelai, you have your fault in this," said Richard idly, patting her white-knuckled hand. "I think the greatest one is thinking that this man respects you."
He said it to test Luke, not hurt his child, but Lorelai flinched as if kicked in the stomach. "Again with the spooky telepathy," she tried to joke, and turned her head away from him, hiding her face behind her hair. He knew this meant she was trying not to cry, and failing. It scorched his heart.
"Well?" challenged Richard of Luke.
The other man gesticulated violently. "I respect the hell out of her! She's, what she's done, had to do, and…"
"Then you respect her enough to tell her the truth? Why you cannot commit and remain committed to your relationship? She knows all your reasons?"
"I've told her everything!" growled Luke.
"All of everything?" probed Richard delicately, and this time allowed Miss Cartman to clear the table. She didn't bring the entrée. She had remarkably good instincts on the likelihood of it being eaten, he reflected.
"Not all," said Lorelai in a tiny, limping voice. "I can tell. He sounded like that… After April. When he wasn't telling me about her. When he told me all these reasons I couldn't be near her. When he said he wasn't the lucky guy. I'm too much of a screw-up, that's all it means, Dad. I don't deserve to know."
Richard turned on Luke with the wrath of a Gilmore derided, and his tirade dissipated mid-thought.
Luke's complexion had gone ashen, and he was hanging onto the table as if it alone anchored him to the planet.
"No," whispered Luke Danes. "No."
Deciding to chance it, Richard tapped a bit of flatware against his water glass. Miss Cartman came in a few minutes later with the entrée, but only for him. She raised her eyebrows. He shrugged, so to speak, with his own. The silence was endurably painful, not dangerous, as far as he could tell.
She refilled his water glass in order to murmur by his ear, "I've chocolate mousse in reserve, Mr. Gilmore."
"Thank you, Miss Cartman," he said at a normal volume. "That sounds excellent. And some green tea, I think, for all of us, with dessert."
"Of course, Mr. Gilmore."
He enjoyed his entrée. He left room for dessert by skimping himself on the roasted potatoes. His head knew he'd have the yogurt, but his stomach continued to hope for chocolate mousse. If that wasn't a metaphor for life, he mused, then nothing was.
His musings were broken by speech.
"It's not about what you deserve," said Luke in a coffin-wood tone. "It's sick." He ran his hands over his head, down his trouser legs. His breathing came heavy and frantic. "You want to know, okay, here it is… I act like I don't want you back because you'll always know. You'll always know I'm the guy who hurt you like that. You'll always know what I did. What I'm not. I can't stand facing you, okay? I made a big speech about lying and that's all I did, and I can't stand it, okay? You, April, same place, I can't... There's no way to pretend I... I'm too… I'm too ashamed!" Luke shuddered and pounded his leg with a fisted hand. "And it's... I'm ashamed! I'm ashamed!"
The words sounded torn from him, blood-laden. Richard almost told him to stop, then quietly took his plate and walked into the kitchen.
Miss Cartman whispered urgently, "Mousse? Police?"
He sat at the breakfast bar he never used. "Spy on them for a few minutes, please. If they hug, then yogurt for three. If they do not, then mousse, for two."
"That makes sense," said Miss Cartman, and quietly peeped out the kitchen door.
Richard reached out to complete eating his appetizer, since it was now calm enough to do so without interruption. When he'd finished, Miss Cartman smiled dazzlingly and said, "Yogurt!"
"Thank God," said Richard, and went out to join them for dessert.
GG GG GG
AN: I based Luke in this fic largely on the fact my husband said, "Guys don't get ashamed, they get angry and argue they didn't do anything wrong." A typical human behavior, in other words. My husband watches the show with me solely to heckle it, I should mention. *sigh*
If you think being ashamed of yourself can't screw you up and your whole world? Consider: Luke's ashamed his kid had to find him; ashamed he wasn't told he was a dad; ashamed he stalled on telling Lorelai; ashamed he cut her off; ashamed he got angry and stupid…. And everything that happened in this fic, too! Now, imagine you couldn't be let near your kid, your own actions are part of that (even if unintentionally), and you keep stalling on owning up that perceived shame to your future wife, adding more shame onto it by not being honest... Granted, my psychologist pal says Luke's motive for that whole S6 mess was misdirected anger, but I figure if you misdirect anger, you can be ashamed of doing so. Thus, till Luke rips that truth out of himself? He can't get "unstuck". It made sense when I wrote it.