Her Independence Day

"Cake!" exclaimed Rory, clapping her hands in delight.

"Yes, Punkin, there will be cake, and ice cream, and other good things." Lorelai hefted her eighteen month old daughter in her arms as she exited the Independence Inn after a particularly hard day's work.

It seemed that every room had guests who left both water and sodden towels on the floor of the bathrooms. On top of that, her partner that day was Lilian, a real goldbrick. She took every opportunity for a cigarette break or to run back to the supply closet, leaving Lorelai to work extra hard just to keep on schedule.

With a well-behaved daughter toddling behind, Lorelai still managed to enjoy the day. She'd been working at the Inn for well over a hundred days and had finally seen her tiny bank account grow past the point of enough money to keep Rory in diapers and food.

To add to her pleasure, the weather was perfect. Sunshine, if a little chilly and a fresh breeze carried away from the potting shed the sounds of the industrial washing machines she had just filled with the day's sheets, which made it easier to forget about work and think about their evening.

Mia had invited them to her house for a little private party to celebrate Lorelai's eighteenth birthday, her first birthday since she and Rory had moved to Stars Hollow many months ago.

"Mia's cooking dinner for us, just like she did for Sookie. Sookie will be there, and John and Teresa are coming and they are bringing their new baby! That makes you the old baby!" giggled Lorelai, delighted when the uncomprehending Rory joined in on the laughter.

"So, my old baby, let's go find some pretty clothes to where to my birthday tonight."

Lorelai turned the handle on the potting shed door and walked in, humming the happy birthday song.

Startled when she realized they were not alone, Lorelai pressed Rory tightly to her chest. "Stranger danger! Stranger danger! " she whispered to herself and to Rory as she began to back out of the shed, rethinking the notion that Stars Hollow was a place where you don't need to lock your doors.

"When you finished traumatizing the child about her neighbors, I'd appreciate some help over here."

The laconically wry voice came from the man kneeling underneath her tiny sink. He was apparently trying to install a small cabinet against the wall.

"You're no neighbor I ever saw before," she retorted, certain that she would never have forgotten his well-shaped butt.

"Yeah, well, I've been out of town," he replied.

"Which is exactly what a dangerous stranger would say, now isn't it?"

He snorted. "Sure, right! I've come here to burglarize this place, but first I figured I'd install some shelves so you'd put the, uh, stuff to be burgled in a convenient location." Frustrated, he tapped his thigh with the screwdriver, his head still hidden in the cabinet. "All I need you to do is push the cabinet against the wall so I can attach it safely."

Lorelai knelt next to him, Rory still clasped in her arms. Luke pulled his head out of the cabinet, only to meet Rory's blue orbs close up. "Woah!" he exclaimed, pulling back, landing awkwardly on his butt.

Lorelai laughed, then waved Rory in his face. "Looks like stranger danger works both ways. Rory, say 'Boo!' and make your scary face."

Rory obligingly scrunched her fingers into claws and squeaked out a baby "Roar?" to Luke. Then it was Rory's turn to be surprised, because Luke barked out a laugh so loud that Rory hid her face in her mother's shoulder.

Lorelai collapsed in laughter. "You two scaredy cats!"

Luke grinned. "Uh, she's OK?" he asked, concerned that he had actually scared Rory a little.

"You betcha! She's my little brave warrior, aren't you, sweets?" Lorelai bounced Rory on her knee a little, chucking her gently under her chin.

Grinning at Luke, she continued. "Now that there's no stranger danger, we only have to figure out why the crazy man breaks into houses and installs cabinetry."

"Aw, jeez," said Luke, standing up and looking at his watch. "Mia asked me to stop by and install those shelves while you were out. It's a surprise or something, I guess." He shrugged, not knowing what to say next.

"And this cabinet? Did it magically appear out of nowhere?" Lorelai straightened her backbone, and Luke could see her expression change from happy to suspicious.

He waved his hand indicating that she should finally hold the cabinet steady. With Rory on one hip and her hand on the other, Lorelai was determined that there would be no charity.

"Just help me for a minute, will ya?" he grumbled. "This is an overstock from my father's hardware store. Somebody ordered it, then didn't like it, and we've been stuck with it for years. I figured that it would get some use here."

Setting Rory down on the floor to toddle off to her toy basket, Lorelai helped Luke move the cabinet in place and he quickly drove the screws home.

Not giving up on her pride just yet, she knocked scornfully on a new end table that was positioned as a coffee table in front of her tiny, worn 1960's sofa. "And this? It looks brand new. Was this just lying around your magical warehouse filled with tiny furniture?"

Luke snorted derisively. "You mean the one next to the ceramic unicorn store? Sure, whatever." He cocked his head. "Mia asked me to cut down one of her old tables, so I did and dropped it off."

Lorelai sniffed. "Smells like it's been refinished."

"Yeah, well, I wanted it to match the shelves."

"And it's from Mia?"

"Yep."

"And you're done breaking in and decorating? You're abandoning your life of crime? Turning over a new leaf?"

He chuckled as he checked the organization of his tools in the toolbox. "Yep. Got a shot at the big time, so I'm on the straight and narrow."

"The big time?" she laughed. "What? Stars Hollow needs a new commemorative plate store?"

"Nah. I'm taking a few weeks off from UConn to join a Red Sox closed tryout. A scout set it up for me. Bus leaves for Florida tomorrow."

Suppressing the warm and fuzzies she got from seeing Luke's excited grin as he told her his big news, Lorelai wrinkled her eyebrows. "Now I know you think you said something that made sense, but to me it was all about shopping for socks. And you don't seem like the kind of guy who goes to Florida to try on socks."

Luke sighed and repeated the explanation he'd had to use for Mia and about half of Stars Hollow who'd heard about his chance to play baseball in the big leagues. "OK. It's baseball. I'm a pitcher and the scout says I'm good enough. So I'm gonna give it all I got."

Lorelai shook her head trying to let the pieces fall into place. "Indian scout, pitchers of margaritas, and baseball, right?"

Removing his cap and running his fingers through his hair, Luke tried to find a new way to explain it. Before he could utter a word, he noticed her sparkling eyes and irrepressible grin.

"You're just BSing me, aren't you?" he muttered, fingering the handle of his tool box, half-hoping for a quick escape.

She grinned and patted him on the shoulder. "Couldn't resist. Everybody's got to have a dream, you know?" She looked around the room. "This is my dream, and I'm making it come true one bit at a time."

He looked around the barely-habitable space. Not knowing what to say, he just looked blankly at her.

"Fine," she said. "It may not meet the standards of a high-faluting baseball thingamajiggy person, but it's a start."

Lorelai ran over to the sofa, then eventually to every corner of the potting shed. "This is my sofa. First thing we got when we moved in. And that's my bed. Those are the building blocks of my dream. I want to have a life that is controlled by me; raise my daughter with all the joy and happiness I have to give her. Those things take a lot of work. And a sofa, and a bed, and a, a, … a bowl of nuts and a nutcracker!" she ended with a flourish.

"A bowl of nuts and a nutcracker?" Luke asked, captivated by her passion for her very mundane dream: a home and a happy family. Things he'd had until just a few years before. Now all he had was a crazy absent sister, another good year at the university and the one-in-a-million dream of a big league career.

"Yes!" she cried excitedly. "When I have my own home, and a reasonable income, and Rory is happy, healthy and loving her life, I'll put a bowl of nuts on my coffee table, and a nutcracker, and I'll look at that bowl every day, and remember my dream, and what I did to get there."

She smiled again, and Luke's heart was flipped along with it. "It's my birthday, but not just any birthday. I'm 18 today, and that's another part of the dream come true. I'm an adult, and neither my parents nor anyone else can take Rory away from me, or call me a runaway and call the police to take me back to that wasteland called Hartford's West End." Her pride and happiness warmed the whole room.

"Well happy birthday," Luke said amicably, fastening the closures on his toolbox. "And congratulations on getting this far. Independence is a big step." He carefully avoided the reality of independence when it's thrust upon you by a mother who died too young and a father who never seemed to recover from his last illness.

Wanting to turn his mood around, he added, "My parents had a nut bowl and a nutcracker. Dad and I made it together. We took a slice of a tree, hollowed it out to a bowl and added a little stand to hold the nutcracker. The sides of the bowl were the bark of the tree. My mother loved that bowl. I guess in some way, it was a symbol for her, too, kinda like yours is for you."

Lorelai smiled even brighter. Not many people could look at the potting shed and see the hopes and dreams she had, and how right she was to be proud of how far she'd come already.

"Well, Mister Not-a-Stranger," she began.

"Luke," he interjected. "Luke Danes."

She nodded. "Luke. I tell you what. If you'll let me and Rory get ready for the party Mia's throwing for us, I promise to buy your baseball card when it comes out, and when the hotshot baseball star finally comes back to visit us lowly villagers of Stars Hollow, I'll invite you into my own home and let you crack all the nuts in my nut bowl."

He picked up his tool box, surprised that he was wishing he could stay longer, but knowing he had to check his equipment and pack before tomorrow. "Deal. Enjoy your shelves."

Lorelai snatched a peacefully playing Rory off the floor and escorted Luke the three steps to the front door. "Thanks for the shelves and the cabinet and stuff," she said gratefully as she and Rory waved goodbye.

"Luke was still there when we got home," said Lorelai. "He was installing a cabinet under the sink. Said something about it being left over from the hardware store?"

Mia nodded. "He's always doing stuff like that. No matter what I ask him to do, he always finds a way to do a little extra."

"Is he still with Rachel?" asked Sookie.

"No, she found a new guy who's also a freelance reporter, so they took off for the Middle East, or Egypt, I think," said Teresa, John's wife, who was on the floor playing with Rory and her own little Philip. "I met him once. Looks a little like Luke, but of course, does that whole globetrotting thing. Small town life isn't for them."

"Not for Luke either," surmised Lorelai as she told them about his baseball tryout in Florida. "This Rachel will probably regret what she left behind one day."

"Look!" cried Sookie. "John's got the grill going. Let's take our music outside and dance while he cooks our burgers.

"Right, Sookie," laughed Lorelai. "You won't get through the first song before you've taken over the grill!"

"I just want to Macarena!" lied her friend. "And keep an eye on things. I might be willing to help him out if he needs to go inside for another beer or something."

Lorelai and Teresa lifted their babies and watusied out the door to the back deck.

"When she dance, they call her Macarena! When Rory dance, she do the Macarena!" Lorelai, her arms laden with baby and birthday gifts, danced her way back to the potting shed. Slightly tipsy from the occasional glass of champagne she'd enjoyed, she nearly tripped over the object at the door.

"Look, Rory! Some gnome left us a gift!"

Bending over to pick the package wrapped in the Sunday funnies, she dropped pretty much everything except Rory. Opening the door, putting Rory down, and shoving everything else into the building, she picked up the heavy gift and carried it to her new table.

She carefully removed the paper, planning on reusing it someday soon.

She laughed out loud when she realized she was holding a nut bowl carved from a single slice of wood. She flexed the old-style nutcracker and sniffed the few nuts he'd managed to find and put in the bowl. When she later looked at the bottom of the bowl, she'd discover the clumsy scrawl of an eight year old using a woodburning tool for the first time, declaring for posterity who had made the bowl.

Tucked inside the bowl was a plain white card, inscribed only with "Happy Independence Day."