Lorelai, Anna, and Rory are walking past the gazebo toward Luke's. "What?" Anna hissed, tired of feeling her mom stare.

"Are you tilting?" She continued to stare with her head turned sideways.

"This again." She sighs.

"Mom, leave her alone." Rory scolds.

"I think you're tilting." Lorelai insisted.

"I think you're tilting your head." She had been pestering her about the weight of the cast since she got it.

"Do you wanna hold onto my purse, it might even you out?" She held out the item.

"You want the cripple to hold your things." Anna glares.

"I'm gonna get a pen and put it on top of your head and see if it rolls off." She dug in her purse.

"You are making this painful. Not the broken wrist, but you." Anna points an accusing finger at her.

"It's a sprain," She playful rolled her eyes, before pulling out a piece of paper. "Will this make you feel better?"

"What is that?" She eyes it.

"I got the recipe for the Risotto from the maid." She held it out.

"The one from last week. Give me. Give me." She cheers as she grabs it.

"Good. . .now, can I put a pen on top of your head?" She went back to digging through her purse.

"I will bite our hand." She snapped her teeth together.

"Ah… I'll risk it." She giggled, reaching over. Anna hurried away.

"Forget the pen," Rory gets in between them. "Are you ready to face Luke?"

"Yes, I need to apologize. Luke didn't deserve me blaming everything on him. I know Luke wouldn't throw him out. I just didn't want to believe he would do that to me." Anna had heard all the versions of Jess's departure. In every story, even the wild ones of Jess killing someone in the car accident, Luke gave him a choice. Her dad confirms that he heard it from Luke himself when she asked him.

"I'm sure Luke's not mad at you." Rory gave her mother a look to say he might be mad at you, to which Loralei ignored. They reach Luke's Diner and there is a crowd out front.

"Hey, is there a line?" Lorelai asked Kirk.

"Closed." He answers.

"What?" Anna narrows her eyes.

"It's closed." He clarified.

"Luke's closed?" Lorelai couldn't believe it.

"Luke's is never closed." Rory stared at the side of her mother's face.

"He opens on every holiday, his birthday, even when he is sick, he has Caesar or I running it." She felt guilty.

"Are you sure it's closed?" Loralei asked.

"Well, first I read the sign and then I tried the door in case it was some sort of elaborate ruse," Kirk told them.

"Designed to keep only you out?" Lorelai didn't think Luke would pull a prank.

"There's precedent." He nods.

"Well, Luke's gone fishing. I think that's great." Lorelai read the sign.

"It is?" Anna asked.

"Yes. He works hard, he needed a break, he took it. I think it's good, healthy." She looks at Kirk for support.

But, she got none. "For who? I have blood sugar issues."

"Mom..." Anna said.

"Don't." She shook her head.

"It's because I yelled at him." She looks down at her feet in shame.

"No, it was probably his and mom's argument." Rory squeezed her sister's shoulder while giving Lorelai a pointed look.

"It's neither, Rory. He took a trip. Don't read anything into it." She scoffs.

"It's because of the other night." Anna sighs.

"No, it isn't. And even if it is, it'll go away. Everything'll be fine." She reassured her.

"Speak for yourself. I left my wallet in there yesterday." Kirk pointed into the diner.


Lorelai, Anna, and Rory are at the Hungry Diner, standing near the door. "Why are we standing here?" Lorelai asked.

"Because the sign says wait to be seated." Rory nods to it.

"Yeah, but we're not automatons, we are rule-breakers, and there are like fifty open tables." She waves to the empty restaurant.

"You're exaggerating." She rolled her eyes.

"One, two, three, four, fifty, no I'm not." She pointed at them as she counted.

"Yeah, there are a lot of empty tables. But, maybe there aren't enough people to man them. They are not gonna sit you in an area that no one is manning." Anna notices there were only two workers.

"We should be eating, I'm hungry, this is crazy. Don't they want us eating? Isn't that what the point of The Hungry Diner is... to feed the hungry diner? Or is the point of The Hungry Diner to keep the hungry diner hungry, in which case they should call it The Eternally Hungry Diner 'cause you're not gonna get any food here, loser." She grumbles.

"That would be quite a sign." Rory let out a dry chuckle.

"Ugh, I'm giving one of these paper-topped turkey heads three seconds to seat us or I swear, I'm gonna start to..." She glares at the workers.

"Three?" The waitress walks up to them.

"Yes, please." She nods.

"You're gonna what?" Rory asked. They follow the waitress toward a table.

"What?" She turned back to look at her.

"Well, you said you were gonna do something if somebody didn't help us in three seconds," Rory repeats what she said three seconds ago.

"Yeah, I want to hear this creative threat." Anna nods.

"I did?" She tilts her head.

"Yes, you did, and then the waitress came over and you never finished saying what you were gonna do." They followed their mother as she followed the waitress.

"Honey, we gotta get some food into you, you're imagining things." She gasps in fake concern.

"What were you gonna do?" Anna asked again.

"Shh! You're getting screwy!" She whispers.

"Mom." Rory hissed.

"Mom? I'm not your mom. Do you need help, little girl?" She walks faster to sit down at the table.

"Oh my God." The sisters took a seat also.

"How's this?" The waitress asked.

"It's, uh, perfect, thanks." They smiled.

"Can I bring you some coffee to start?" She asked.

"To start and finish." Lorelai was not joking.

"Need a little pick me up?" Her tone was overly cheerful.

"Do I!" She nods.

"Back in a jiffy!" She leaves.

"Okay, when she comes back, we're gonna grab her, hold her down and you tell her ugly things about the world." She leaned across the table to whisper.

"Why don't you get your daughters to help you out with your evil plan?" Rory crossed her arms over her chest.

"Okay, now, make nice." She opens the menu. "Oh, how convenient. They have pictures of all the food in case you've been living in a cave for the last fifty years and you have no idea what a stack of pancakes looks like."

The waitress brings them their coffee. "Oh, excuse me, I'm sorry." Lorelai stared down in horror. Anna picked up the cup that looked like it belonged at a child's tea party.

"Yes, Sweetie?" She asked.

"What are the tiny cups for?" She asked what her daughters were thinking.

"They're coffee cups, they're for coffee." She said it slowly.

"What, are you running out or something?" Lorelai squints.

"I'm sorry?" She wasn't sure what was going on.

"Never mind. Listen, we are very sleepy this morning, so would you happen to have something in a larger size, say a mug, a tureen, a small bowl of some kind?" She needs more.

"A coffee bowl?" She looks more confused the more Lorelai talks.

"Yes, a coffee bowl." She nods.

"Bring three, please." Anna smiled.

"We don't have coffee bowls, I'm sorry." She frowns.

"Okay, well, then would you mind bringing. . .what do you think... two, three?" She looked over at her daughters.

"Yeah, three for each of us," Anna said after getting the nod from Rory.

"Oh, and could you leave the pot in the meantime?" She looks at the item in her hand. She put it down before walking away. "Well, it looks like coffee smells like coffee. . ."

They take a sip and make a face. "The comparison stops there!"

"This sucks." Lorelai whines.

"Just put a lot of stuff in there so you can't taste it," Rory suggested.

"How am I gonna fit my three sugars into Barbie's Malibu dream cup here? It'll be all sugar and no coffee." Lorelai sighs.

"Sugar coffee is better than this." Anna grabs the sugar packets to put in.

"Man." She glances over and sees Michel at another table. "Well, well, well."

"What?" They looked to see their mom's coworker.

"I'll be right back." She walks over to Michel, who is reading a magazine.

"So, what are you going to tell people at school?" Rory nods to her cast.

"Oh, I already have a bunch of made-up stories: falling from a tree while trying to save a cat, getting attacked by a bear, having to fight off a love-sick stalker. I can't decide. I think I'll just tell all of them to different people." She shrugs.

"Well, I'm happy you're having fun with this." She sips the sugar coffee. "I don't know which is worse."

"What, the stories or the coffee?" She asked.

"The coffee," She grimaced as she took another sip. "I don't know why I keep drinking it."

"Because horrible coffee is better than no coffee." Anna reasoned.

Lorelai sits down with them. "Hey, know what? I'm beginning to like this place." She smiled after chasing Michel off.

"I'm glad. Mom, I need to ask you a favor." Rory told her.

"Ask away." She nods.

"I need you to get me out of dinner tonight." She gave her request. Anna and Lorelai looked at her with wide eyes.

"Oh, Rory." She sighs.

"Dean's coming home and he doesn't know about the accident and if I'm not there the second he gets home then someone else is gonna tell him about it and then that would be..." Rory needed to do this to save her relationship that was on the rocks.

"Horrible." She agrees.

"I hate to ask you this." She knew her grandmother would have a fit.

"Ah, forget about it." She waves her hand. "Anna, why don't you skip it too. I'll just say you both got the flu. It's going around."

"Really?" Anna knew how much her mom hated being alone with her parents.

"That way it'll give me a little extra time to work on my story about why Anna's wearing a cast." She explains how this benefits her.

"Yeah? What have you got so far?" Rory wonders.

"Really big bees." She told them.

"Let's say I was saving a cat in a tree." She gave one of her ideas.

"That's good." She nods.


Anna was sitting with her friends at lunch. "So, I've heard ten different stories about the cast, which one is true?" Roger asked.

"None of them." She smiled.

"I knew it." Thomas took a ten from Roger.

"I thought it was the bee one." He sighed.

"What?" She gasps, not knowing that one.

"Rory said you freaked out over a bug and tripped over your own feet." He couldn't believe Rory's innocent face lied to him.

"Ah, I told her to make up a few if anyone asks, but to make me look like a fool." She glared at Rory reading a book across the cafe.

"So, what happened?" Eleanor asked.

"I got into a car accident. An animal ran across the road and the car swerved. I wasn't wearing my seat belt." She explains.

"Why, weren't you wearing it?" Henry asked, seeing as she always put it on when she got in the car with them.

"Jess let go of the wheel to eat his ice cream and I had to grab it." She spat out his name bitterly.

"Jess was driving? Is he okay?" Thomas asks.

"Who cares? He left town in the middle of the night, and didn't even say goodbye." She sneered, getting a gasp from her friends.

"That bastard." Eleanor slammed her hand on the table.

"I don't want to talk about him. He doesn't care about me, so I'm not wasting any energy on him. I feel bad about Rory's car, it's totaled. And I yelled at Luke. I've made a mess of things." She sighs.

"Luke will forgive you." Thomas, who spent a good amount of time at the diner, assured her.

"I hope so." She looks down at her food.


Lorelai was at Friday night dinner. Rory was waiting for Dean at his house. Anna was trying to read On the Road by Jack Kerouac, but Jess's handwriting was hard to ignore. The more she glanced at it the more frustrated she got. "Vandalizing my things." She threw the book to the side.

She got up to go into the kitchen. She grabbed the ice cream container and a spoon. She heads to pig out on the couch when she looks into Rory's room to see papers and a pen on her desk. She remembers Rory writing Dean a letter to explain the situation. She headed up to her room and put the ice cream down. She took out a paper and pen. She wrote Jess an angry letter while she ate ice cream.


Later that night, Lorelai, Anna, and Rory are sitting at the kitchen table. Lorelai is covering Anna's cast in saran wrap. "And then we just watched TV," Rory told them about her night.

"Oh, you mean you watched TV. Use the air quotes, Sweetie." Lorelai teased.

"His little sister was there." She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, so you watched TV. . .go on." She waves for her to continue.

"And then he walked me home." She gave the end to her night.

"That's it?" She asked.

"That's it." She nods.

"Did he kiss you goodnight?" Anna wonders.

"Yup." She smiled.

"He didn't ask about the other night at all?" Lorelai found that hard to believe.

"Nope." She shook her head.

"Didn't ask about the car?" Anna felt the most guilty about that.

"Not once." She was on edge all night waiting for him to blow up but he never did. "I thought he would yell and scream. I thought he would wanna break up, but instead, he gave me his corn."

"He did? When?" They acted like they thought it was a code word.

"At dinner." She told them.

"Oh, so you were already eating. It wasn't just out of the blue, and I give you my corn. Okay, got it." Lorelai tied the plastic to Anna's arm.

"Maybe it hasn't sunk in yet, maybe he'll be mad tomorrow." Rory didn't feel like she deserved Dean's understanding.

"Maybe Dean is even more terrific than we thought he was." Lorelai shrugs.

"It's not covering the whole cast." Anna looks at her arm when her mom takes her hands off it.

"Relax, I'm not done." She gets another box of Saran wrap.

"Do you think he's okay with it?" Rory asks.

"Sounds like it." Anna nods.

"If the situation were reversed, I don't think I'd be okay with it." She admits.

"If the situation was reversed, I don't think Dean would've let Jess drive his car." Lorelai went back to wrapping up her arm.

"I guess I should just be grateful then?" Rory decided to look on the bright side. "What are these?" She points to a stack of papers.

"These are resumes for your Grandpa's new secretary." She pats the pile.

"There are like a hundred of them." The sibling stares at the high pile.

"Yes, well, the world is full of eager young people waiting to have the life sucked out of them by Richard Gilmore. Okay, I'm finished… what do you think of that?" She asked Anna.

"Can you do it next time?" Anna turns to Rory. She agreed that she would.

"Now go take your shower." She waves her off. Anna got up to head towards the stairs when her mom called her. "Hey?" Anna turns around to let her know she was listening. "I know you wallowed and talked everything out with her dad. But, if you want to talk about it. I'm here. We're here. You don't have to pretend everything is alright."

"Mom, I told you. Everything is fine. He made his decision. I have accepted it." She walks out, not listening to the joke of keeping her arm out of the microwave.


Rory, Anna, and Lane are walking down the street. "Dawn Powell? I've never heard of her." Lane looked down at the book in her hand.

"Nobody has, which is a shame because she wrote sixteen amazing novels, nine plays, and there are some who claim that it was Powell who made the jokes that Dorothy Parker got credit for," Rory told them of her most recent find at the bookstore.

"Blasphemy." Lane gasp.

"I know. I'm trying not to hold it against Dawn though until I have proof that she was involved with the whole smear campaign." She glanced at the book in her friend's hands.

They walk past an empty shop. "Hey, look! They finally took the boards off the windows." Lane pointed at it.

"Oh, I wonder what it's going to be." Rory walks up to the window to look in. "What's that in the corner?" The girls push their faces up to the glass to get a better look.

"I think it's. . .a bass. It's a bass! And look, there are guitars on the wall! Oh my God, it's a music shop!" Lane felt like her dream was coming true.

"Wow, that is much better than the ceramic circus store we thought was going in there." Rory peeks in.

"Look at Stars Hollow stepping into the rock scene." Anna looked at all the instruments.

"I can't believe it. I wonder how soon it's going to open." Lane smiled.

"If you keep pushing on the glass like that, much sooner than anticipated." Rory teased.

Anna saw Taylor out of the corner of her eye fixing his fruit display that was outside. "I'll be right back. I want to apologize to Taylor."

"I'll come with you." Rory followed her across the street. "Taylor?"

"Rory, Anna, hello!" He smiled.

"Hi. Listen, I just wanted to..." Anna felt humiliated at having to address the situation.

"Oh no, just look at that arm!" He stares at her cast.

"It's fine." She reassured him.

"Does it hurt?" He asked.

"No, not much." She shook her head.

"Well, I hope you're not getting addicted to painkillers like those Hollywood people do." He knew how doctors love to prescribe them nowadays.

"Um, I'm not, don't worry." She wasn't given any, to begin with.

"Good, because pain is your body's way of saying I'm not okay now, but I will be soon," Taylor told her.

"I will remember that." She nods.

"You don't wanna shut your body up too soon. That's called death." He went on. If she didn't know Taylor she would think he was joking. But, she did know him so she knew he was serious. Weirdly it made it even funnier, so she had to hold back a laugh.

"Right. Um, Taylor, listen, we wanted to apologize to you." Rory started it for her.

"About what?" He asked.

"About the other night. You know, my car hit the bench that had your brand new Doose's Market sign on it and I know how much that sign meant to you and I'm just so, so sorry that it was ruined. We're sorry." She grabbed her sister's hand.

"Oh, well, it wasn't your fault." He felt bad that they were feeling guilty. If he knew they were, he would have visited them.

"But my car hit the bench." Rory felt like she was partly to blame.

"Your car hit the bench because Jess was driving." He knew who was to blame.

"Oh, well, yeah, but..." Anna wished she insisted on eating at the ice cream parlor.

"That boy is a walking natural disaster, they should name a tornado after him. You're better off without him. You wait and see." He pointed at Anna.

"But he didn't cause it, Taylor, there was..." Rory defends him when Anna just sighed.

"Rory, you don't have to explain a thing to me. I know that there is absolutely no way that you would be involved in something like that if it weren't for that Sal Mineo wannabe, believe me. Chachi, and Chachi alone, will be held responsible for that incident, okay? Good. Now take a peach." He handed each other a fruit.

"Thanks." They nod.

Taylor walks away as Lane walks over. "So, is he mad?"

"No, not at us." Anna put the peach in her pocket.

"Well, that's good." She smiled.

"Yeah, that's good." Rory sighed, feeling bad for Jess while Anna feels herself getting angrier at him.


Lorelai gets some food from a takeout window. "Here." She hands it to Rory who was sitting in the passenger seat.

"You know, there will be food there." She spoke of Richard's grand opening of his consulting office.

"Finger food, aka snooty little balls of attitude." She got into the jeep. "I need real food, peasant food. Hearty bread, meat, cheese, a little pickle chips, a sauce, a special sauce. This is the food that sustains me, this is the food of my..."

"Oh my God, just eat the burger already!" Rory yelled, having enough of it.

"How crabby." She grabbed the burger from the bag.

"I'm not crabby." She hands one back to her sister.

"I didn't even get through my special sauce speech. That's crabby." She put some hair behind her ears.

"Sorry." Rory sighs.

"Does your arm hurt?" She looks back at Anna.

"Stop asking me that." She was annoyed with everyone asking. "I'll let you know if it's hurting."

"Alright, I got two crabby teens... We won't stay very long. Just long enough to get five or six withering stares from my dad, and be taken down three or four notches by my mother, then we're outta there. Ugh." She let out a noise of disgust when she bit into the burger.

"Not good?" Rory asked.

"Not good! I swear, Luke better come back soon or I'm gonna starve to death." She threw it back in the bag along with Anna.

"I'm sorry." Anna apologized.

"For what?" She started the jeep and drove off.

"Luke's gone because of me." She felt the worst about that. She kept replaying the horrible things she said to him in her head.

"Oh, honey, he is not." She disagreed.

"Yes, he is. I got into an accident and then I yelled at him, and you guys got into a fight." She didn't blame him for not wanting to see her face.

"Susanna, it isn't your fault. If it's anyone's fault. . ." Lorelai got cut off by Rory.

"It's Jess' fault." She finished for her.

"Well, yes." She nods.

"Why does everyone in this town think that it is all Jess' fault? It's not his fault it was an accident. They happen all the time. No one got seriously hurt." Rory rants.

"Hey, let's not talk about this, okay?" She glanced at Anna in the rearview mirror.

"It's so horrible the way people villainize him. He swerved to avoid an animal. He is not a bad guy. I'm the only one who seems to care about the truth. You have to be frustrated too." Rory turns back to look at her.

"Rory," Lorelai warns.

"What? How come you're letting her sit in silence when you made me talk everything out with you? When I broke up with Dean, you said this behavior is unhealthy, but you're letting her sit in it." She wanted Anna to express herself. To get out of the dark cloud, she was pretending not to be in.

"Rory, shut up." Anna snapped. "Do you know how enraged I am to hear you speak about him like he's some kind of victim? He is a coward. He ran away from the problem. He left me to face the music alone. You think I like having to listen to how I'm some dumb small-town girl who fell for the city slicker's words."

"City Slicker?" Lorelai questioned the phrases she used.

"Kirks' words." She rolled her eyes. "He didn't even care to call to say he got to New York safely. He didn't have the decency to say goodbye. You don't know what it's like to put all your emotions and time into someone, and not even know if you meant anything to them." Tears rolled down her face as the jeep fell in silence.


Anna walks into the crowded office after coming from the bathroom to mix her makeup. "You can't even walk without bumping into someone. Excuse me." She made her way through the crowd to where she saw the females in her family.

"Hi, Grandma." She greeted her.

"That is a cast. She hurt her arm." She turns to Lorelai.

"Oh, yeah I got it when I fell out of a tree trying to save a kitten. Don't worry, the kitten is fine." She lied.

"Well, as long as the kitten is fine." She rolled her eyes before turning to Lorelai. "Where were you?"

"She was at the Inn. I don't know what I was thinking." She shrugs.

"Next time, call the fireman, that's their job." Emily sighs.

"Do they come out for a kitten?" She asked.

She stopped to think. "I don't know, but you certainly can't do it."

"I guess, that's fair." She looks down at her cast.


"Luke." She walks into the diner to see the man getting it ready to be open.

"Anna." He stares at her as if he wasn't sure she was real or not.

"I want to say sorry." She walks over to the counter he was standing behind.

"You don't have to be sorry." He shook his head.

"Yes, I do. I yelled and accused you of horrible things." She tears up thinking about it. "You don't deserve that. Not after everything you have done for me. Me blaming you was wrong."

"You were just frustrated." He pushed a cup of coffee over to her.

"That is not an excuse. I know you wouldn't have thrown him out. When I was saying it I knew I was wrong but I didn't want to face the truth." She sips the coffee, it feels like coming home. "Did he get there okay?"

"Yes, he did." He nods. "Now, are you going to help me or drink coffee all day?" He threw a rag at her. She smiled as she caught it to help him get the place ready.