chapter seventeen! the late dinner
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"Grandma, please,"
Thea pleaded, hungrily staring at the bowl of soup in front of her,
"We're starving."
"We're waiting for your grandfather," Emily snapped once more, sick of having to repeat herself.
"It's gonna get cold," Thea pointed out, drumming her fingers against the cotton tablecloth the hunger overwhelming all of her senses.
"We are waiting for your father," Emily repeated once more.
"We've been waiting forever," Lorelai groaned, pulling her purse onto her lap, praying there was some sort of snack hiding inside.
"We've been eating late all week," Thea groaned, Emily shot her granddaughter a disappointed look at that comment, "He comes in so late all the time from fixing that car."
"We have not been waiting forever,"
"Forever. Godot was just here. He said, 'I ain't waiting for Richard,' grabbed a roll, and left. It's been forever," Lorelai witted, looking down at her empty plate once more.
"When we gather as a family, we eat as a family. We don't eat in shifts - you know that and Richard certainly knows that," Emily reminded her family, hoping that would stop their grumbling for a while.
"When did he get that antique car anyhow?" Rory asked, looking over at her grandmother.
"A couple of horrible weeks ago," Emily answered, with a sigh.
"What happened to the oil painting hobby of his?"
"Ah, you know your father. When he couldn't foresee rivalling Cezanne, he lost interest so he bought that car," Emily explained, quickly stopping when she saw Lorelai's actions, "Lorelai!"
Lorelai groaned, spitting out the piece of candy she had just placed in her mouth, "Mom, it's not dinner, it's just my private stash."
"It's eating and we're not eating,"
"You know, you're bound by the rules of the Geneva Convention, Mother, just like everyone else," Lorelai, upon spotting her father entering the dining room, "Hey, no one told me it was casual Friday."
"Hello everyone," Richard greeted stepping into the dining room in his grease-covered overalls, his eyebrows furrowing when he saw the untouched bowl of soup on the table, "You haven't started?"
"Of course, we haven't started, we were waiting for you," Emily sighed, turning her head to look at her husband, "I thought you were almost done."
"Well, I was but this car has a mind of its own," Richard explained, wiping his hands on a cloth he'd pulled from his pocket, "As I turned to leave it began spraying some sort of green solution at me."
"Yuck," the twins spoke in unison, shooting each other a look. Both Thea and Rory hated it when they accidentally spoke at the same time, they hated
"Yuck, indeed. Well, go on, start," Richard requested, waving towards the table.
"Ooh!" Lorelai cheered.
"No sense in waiting for me,"
"Coolness!" Thea smiled, picking up her knife and fork.
"Stop!" Emily pleaded, shaking her head at her daughter and granddaughter's behaviour.
"Gomer said!" Lorelai defended, gesturing over at her father.
"We are waiting for you, Richard. In thirty-five years, I have never ever started a dinner without you unless you were out of town or seriously ill," Emily started, waving her hand and dismissing the maid, "Elsa, take everything away and keep it warm! Now please go upstairs and get ready so we can all enjoy a nice family dinner... together."
"I'll be right back," Richard dismissed, leaving the dining room.
"Right back, Dad, like right back," Lorelai pleaded, "In fact, change on the way upstairs. And make it a Navy shower - quick soap, quick rinse and no excessive posing! Hungry."
• • • • • • •
"So is everything in the materials clear to everyone?"
Rory asked, lifting her head from the booklet she'd been given and looking around at the group the business teacher had forced together.
"Pretty much,"
"Oh, were we reading these now?" Louise cluelessly asked, lifting up the booklet that had been placed in front of her.
"Yeah, that's why we've all been kind of quiet for the past ten minutes," Thea gently answered, dropping her pen onto the booklet.
"I thought it was, like, prayer time or something," the blonde explained, with a small shrug.
"Good grief," Paris grumbled.
"I'm still reading mine," Madeline spoke up, looking up at the shocked looks from her group.
"What?" Thea asked, furrowing her eyebrows.
"I read slow so I don't miss anything,"
"It's not the Bhagavad Gita, Madeline. It's simple instructions for the business fair," Paris snapped, looking blankly at the girl across the circle.
"Someone's not taking to Elba too kindly," Louise snickered, looking between Madeline and Thea.
"What does that mean?" Paris snapped, leaning forward slightly in her chair.
"Just that Rory's the leader of this group, Napoleon, and you're not," Louise simply explained,
"Excuse me, leader? You wanna lead here, you've got anarchy," Paris harshly suggested.
"I'm just enjoying the show," Rory smirked, smuggling crossing her arms.
Brad moved over to the table, nervously stopping beside the table, "Hi, I think this is my group."
"Brad, hey," Thea greeted, a smile covering her deep pink lips.
"Oh, you remember me," Brad stuttered, squirming in his place.
"Of course I do," the younger Gilmore smiled, shocking the boy once more.
"Cool,"
"So, you're back at Chilton now?" Rory asked, offering him a soft smile.
"Oh, yeah," Brad answered, with a swift nod, "My psychiatrist convinced my parents that I should face my fears instead of running away from them and my rabbi agreed, so here I am."
"Well, nice to have you back. Take a seat," Rory offered, waving towards the empty chair beside Paris.
"Paris," Brad carefully breathed out, ready to face his fears and take the seat beside Paris, "Her name is Paris, right?"
"Brad, let me catch you up here. There's going to be an intra-school business fair in three weeks. Each group has to come up with a consumer product that's geared towards high school kids," Rory simply explained.
"Neat,"
"So we pick our product and we make a prototype of it, then we use our imagery million dollar budget to mass produce, market, and distribute it, and we'll present all of this at the fair," Rory continued to explain,
"Cool," Brad nodded once more.
"Hey, Brad? Your festive interjections are a real kick in the pants, but we're low on time, so can it," Paris harshly interjects, snapping her attention to the boy who had just rejoined the school.
"That's it," Rory quickly dismissed before Paris could get any more digs in,
"In two days we're going to reconvene and pitch product ideas. Class dismissed?"