Who: Lorelai Gilmore and Merry Brandybuck What: Spying and hijinks When: During Frodo and Merrill’s date Where: The Dragonfly kitchen Rating: PG Status: Complete
“Do you think he’s going to ask her?” Lorelai whispered to Merry as they watched the happy couple ordering their dinner.
“Oh, it’s going to be like Prince William all over again,” Sookie said, pouting.
This earned a cock-eyed look from Merry. Then, he shrugged. He had to admit his cousin was a handsome guy and the accent probably was a bonus, too. He looked back at Lorelai. “Oh, I don’t think it’s a proposal that’s coming. Do you?”
“You don’t?” Lorelai asked. “Look, they’re so cute, and all the flowers.. It would be the perfect time for it.” As if on cue, a waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne and a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries. “No, not yet,” Lorelai told him, shooing him away. Okay, it was possible she had overplanned a bit.
And thus another cock-eye glance was earned from Merry. “Good lord, Gilmore,” he broke out chuckling and sipped his wine.
“What?” Lorelai made a face at him. “He’s sweet and I want everything to be perfect for them. He’s your cousin! You want it to be nice, right?”
Merry gestured to the window. “They’ve only been dating for a month! They haven’t even--” He bit his tongue. He waved his hands in the air, as if he could wipe out those last few words. “That’s-- No-- Nevermind. I mean, I’m sure he’s going to marry her, if she’ll have him, but one thing at a time.”
Lorelai raised a brow. “Ooh, scandalous!” She and Sookie commenced faux-shocked gasps and giggling. Unfortunately, Merry was in the company of two grown women with the collective maturity of a high school boy’s locker room.
He sipped his wine and rolled his eyes. “Oh please...” Frodo was the sweetest guy he knew, possibly the sweetest person he knew. “But thank you, Lorelai, you’ve done a superb job, from what I can see. And the place looks amazing.”
Lorelai’s giggling faded and she gave Merry a sweet smile. “Thanks.” He was one of the people who had a good idea of just how much work Lorelai had put into the Dragonfly--horrible hours of business classes, and all--and she was glad for the chance to show off the final product. “I’ll have to give you the full tour sometime.”
He smiled. “I feel like I’m already getting the behind the scenes tour, but you don’t typically take your guests into the kitchen, do you?”
“Not usually,” Lorelai said, smirking. “Sookie’s pretty particular about that sort of thing. Besides, it wouldn’t be a good spot for spying if everybody knew about it.”
Merry took another peek out the window. He had a good view of his cousin, but an obscured one of Merrill. Frodo seemed to be enjoying himself, though there were moments of sheer panic every now and again. “Poor guy...” he murmured, stepped back from the window. He was starting to feel like voyeur. He swirled the wine in his glass and drank it down. “Not a bad vineyard, by the way,” he commented. Maybe he was changing the subject.
Lorelai nodded, sipping her own wine. “You certainly can taste the notes of... grapes.” Okay, Lorelai was a terrible wine snob. She was sure Emily and Richard could tell you everything that had happened to the wine from grapeseed to footstomping to where it was stored, but Lorelai never picked up that skill. Coffee on the other hand, she had a very discerning nose.
Merry was well-versed in all kinds of snobby things, though people tended not to expect it, given where he was from. Rich folks were rich folks, he supposed. “You’re not going to offer me another?” he teased.
Lorelai tended to deliberately avoid anything she associated too much with the Richard-and-Emily lifestyle, but good wine was good wine. Between Sookie’s gourmet taste and Michel’s general air of superiority, the Dragonfly was versed with people who made the best wine selections, and Lorelai knew she could trust them. “Would you like another, Merry Brandybuck of the Virginia Brandybucks?”
To this, Merry didn't quite know what to say. So he raised an eyebrow and emitted a wine-influenced giggle. It was at that point he realized he was having fun for the first time in... months, quite honestly.
"She's been sneaking drinks all day, hasn't she?" he asked Sookie.
"Oh, she does this when she has wine," Sookie said, waving a hand dismissively. She lowered her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "I think she's mocking her mother even though her mother isn't here."
Lorelai rolled her eyes and refilled Merry's glass and then her own. "Oh, please. Emily Gilmore knows when she is being mocked, even if it's forty miles away. She's got that sonar bat-hearing, but for sarcasm."
It wasn’t the first time Merry was hearing about Lorelai’s mother. Once or twice, she’d come up at “school” and he’d pieced together that the two had a strained relationship. At the very least. He’d held back speaking about his father.
He hummed a low note and tapped his glass against the neck of the bottle when it was full enough. “Her ears must be ringing.”
Lorelai rolled her eyes. “She’s probably wondering why the maid hasn’t answered them yet,” she grumbled. “Okay, new topic!” She was sure Merry didn’t want to hear her complain about her mother all night.
Merry snickered. “Hey, any chance I might get some food to go with this wine, before I’m on the floor?”
“You’ll have to make puppy dog eyes at Sookie for that one. I don’t even get to snack back here,” Lorelai said.
“That’s because you try to sneak ingredients, and it throws everything off,” Sookie told her, shaking her head. “Hang on, Merry, I’ll find you something.” Sookie walked over to one of the stoves and started whipping something up for him.
He thought of calling after Sookie and tell her not to go to any trouble. Politeness dictated it. But he was hungry. Sometimes hunger trumped everything. And he had been steadily overeating and putting on weight since starting at his father’s company. Stress eating. He definitely had a spare tire starting.
Merry glanced back out the window. “Oh... believe it or not, I think my cousin just turned down desert.”
“It’s too late,” Lorelai said before Merry had a chance to protest. “You’re getting a ridiculously gourmet snack and there’s nothing you can do.” Once Sookie had gone into cooking mode, it was dangerous to try and pull her out of it.
Lorelai looked out, frowning. “Are they leaving?” This was it! Last chance to get down on one knee... Come on, Frodo!
Merry frowned, realizing he was disappointed as well. “I think so. I don’t think people usually propose after they’ve paid their bill.”
The waiter appeared again with the champagne and the chocolates, and Lorelai had to suppress an eyeroll. This guy needed to work on his cues. “Here, give me that,” she said, taking the tray. Might as well not let them go to waste. She took one of the chocolate strawberries, then held the tray out to Merry, offering him one.
Merry took one without hesitating. They might have been the largest strawberries he had ever seen. “Can’t trash these,” he said. “Poor Frodo, turning down food. He’s like a cat in a room full of rockin’ chairs. I’ve been giving him pep talks for weeks.” Yes, the wine was doing the talking now.
“Aww, poor guy,” she said, though she couldn’t help smiling. It was kinda sweet. “Been that long, huh? Well, he’ll be fine.” She waved a hand. “Like riding a bike.” Were they really discussing this?
Oh, god. Were they? Merry cringed. “More like... just getting the trainin’ wheels taken off.” (What the training wheels would have symbolized was anyone’s guess.)
Lorelai raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? Wow.” That was kind of a shocker. After all, a girl didn’t get pregnant at sixteen with training wheels on (whatever the training wheels were). “Wow.” She took a bite of another strawberry. “Wow.”
Merry suddenly felt somewhat indignant. “It’s not that Wow, is it?”
“No, I mean. I’m hardly the yardstick to measure against, but. No, you’re right, everybody’s different, there’s no Wow. But--” She bit back another ‘Wow’. “No wonder he’s nervous, she’s gorgeous.”
“Isn’t she?” Merry agreed. He could have jokingly added something like, too beautiful for him, but they looked so damn good together. They would have pretty babies. Small, adorable ones.
Oh, the wine was making Merry get ahead of himself. But the way Merrill looked so adoringly at his cousin who so much deserved it, after everything Frodo had been through in life, Merry couldn’t help it.
Lorelai giggled a little, having had her own fair share of wine. “Oh, they’re going to have a great time,” Lorelai said, smiling. She was suddenly glad she’d put in all the extras. Somehow they were even cuter now.
Merry smiled again. “It’s like waiting on the pandas at the zoo...” He reached over and plucked another strawberry for himself. “Anythin’ else that you want to show me before I skip on out? An employee bathroom, maybe? A linen closet?” His Texan accent got thicker the more he drank, too.
Lorelai laughed. “Oh, we have excellent linen closets. Perfect for teenage make out sessions. Hey, food!”
Sookie was carrying two appetizer plates of some sort of folded pastry and lightly fried vegetables. “Shrimp Wellington and stuffed squash blossoms!” she announced, handing them each a plate.
Merry laughed. “What the-- did you just make that from scratch? Why am I asking that? Of course you did!” He picked one of each. “I’m eating in reverse. Dessert first. Now appetizers...”
“Well, we were already making the squash blossoms,” Sookie said, as if it was no big deal.
Lorelai took the plates and set them down next to the strawberries. “Thank you, Sookie, these look great.” She wasn’t a big fan of the squash family, but Sookie somehow managed to make everything delicious. “Hey, you don’t mind the behind-the-scenes thing, right? I mean, we can get you a table out there, if you want.”
"It's like seeing how the sausage gets made, which I'm sure is excellent here, by the way." It wasn't a request for more treats, but it may have sounded like one. Merry helped himself to another blossom. "But how do you have time to spend hiding in here with me? Don't you have a job now, Lorelai?"
"Technically I got off at five." Lorelai could've found a million things to do if she wanted to--it was opening night, her job was never done--but Lorelai could put boundaries around her goof off time.
"In all honesty, though, I should probably head out," he said after a chuckle. "I feel like I'm pressing my luck as it is."
He could only rationalize crashing his cousin's date for the hors d'oeuvres for so long.
"You sure you don't want to stay for the sausage?" Was she inviting him to breakfast? Or implying.. No! Lorelai had no sausage. Lots of wine, but no sausage. "I mean, it's an inn. If you want to stay."
"No," Merry quickly answered, a little horrified. "I mean, thanks for the offer, but I can't risk him finding me. He'd die of embarrassment."
He finished his second wind and set the glass down on what seemed to be a clear area. "But thank you. This was fun."
"Oh. Yeah, true. Didn't think about that." Or anything else, apparently. All sense had left her brain.
"Yeah, I'm glad you joined in on the stalking. Fun night."
Typically, Merry was not a "hugger," more of a "handshaker," but after everything that had transpired, it seemed too cold of a gesture. So he offered Lorelai one of those handshakes that turns into a one-armed hug. It was not as awkward as it might have been.
"Excellent work," he said. "Really. I mean it. Very proud of you."
"Thanks, Merry," she said, touched. She hugged him back. Lorelai was a hugger, and the little one-armed thing was comforting.
"Come back for the whole tour sometime, okay?"
"Absolutely," he said. His eyes made a final scan of the kitchen. "Say goodbye so Sookie for me, 'kay? She looks a bit busy. Don't want to get in the way of that knife."
He pushed on the door, and gave a final look over his shoulder. "Oh, and your daughter, too."
"I will," she said, smiling and giving him a wave.
"Tell your cousin this is a great spot for a wedding," she said, grinning.
Merry's blonde head poked back through the door one more time. "I'd keep my calendar open."