You go back, Jack, and do it again.
Wheel turnin' round and round.
You go back, Jack, and do it again.
-Steely Dan, Do It Again
The sun is low as she finally finds the right fricking road. By then all she has is Lorelai's directions. The GPS can't find the place so she has to stop several times to squint at her mother's hand writing on the back of an envelope. It seems she's been on the road all day. The drive was supposed to take five hours but has almost doubled. To be fair; not even in her state of restlessness could she drag herself up in time to avoid the traffic, and she's not used to driving far stretches by herself, so she's had to make more stops than what might have been necessary; for many coffees and subsequent bathroom breaks. Highway 91 was easy enough, but as soon as she got off it and started working her way laterally across the map it's gotten increasingly difficult to follow directions. It takes a wrong turn and some very upsetting forest roads before she's finally on the right track. To be honest, this road isn't much better than the last one but has the perk of being the right one, so she handles it better.
A cabin finally appears, or maybe that's too generous a term. A large shed seems more like it. Box-shaped, placed on blocks to accommodate the rugged terrain. The road turns abruptly towards the house and she has to step on the break to avoid another car that's blocking the driveway. It's a black going on grey old Saab. There is no more road beyond this address, so there's no real reason for a car to be here and there's no way Luke would leave an extra vehicle exposed to the elements like that when he's only here about twice a year.
Her thoughts scramble for a few seconds before landing at possible helpful neighbor, or serial killer... in a Saab. She turns the engine off and slowly opens the door, turning her head, eyes darting over her field of vision. She gets out and doesn't close the door, but opens the trunk, picking out the tire iron. With it in hand she warily walks up the driveway. On the surface the place is only idyllic; warm rays of sun peeking through the foliage, golden to green, reaching the mossy forest floor. The constant chirping of birds, and the lower buzzing if insects, sometimes close and visible as fluttering shadows in the air. But inside she's visualizing every horror movie she's seen.
She's almost at the cabin's front door when she feels a tug in the middle of a step. Something traps her tire iron holding hand and forces her to a stop. She hears a familiar voice right behind her.
"Woah."
She twirls around and finds herself face to face, hand in hand with Jess, who's sporting a pretty impressive beard, which leads to an extra micro second of terror before she recognizes him.
"Holy sh- You scared me!"
"Hey, you're the one with the weapon."
"For self-defense!"
"And by day it's just a tire iron. Now put it down."
She sighs and drops it. He lets go of her wrist. She regroups. If Jess is here this weekend might be very different from what she's imagined. There's no way her mom knew this. And, damn it, she's going to have to drive back to Connecticut immediately, right?
"What are you doing here?" She half-whines. "And more importantly how did you get in? I've got the only set of keys."
"I do not need keys," he says, tone almost insulted. "Especially not to some dump that hasn't had it locks changed since the forties."
"Great. Jess Mariano, the felon. You here to practice home invasion techniques?"
He snorts.
"Hardly. Come on, I'll show you."
He turns and walks further up the pathway, but takes off to the side of the cabin before reaching the door. She follows. They make their way to the back, across a cobbled terrace overgrown with weeds. As they reach the edge he gestures to the clearing behind the house, and points to a tool on the ground.
"Did you – Geez, is that a scythe?"
"Yup. It did not occur to me that I would have to do this type of work to even get to the path to the lake, or I would have brought a mower. Instead I had to use what's available. This was all Hops this morning, hopeless to make your way through." He pulls up his sleeve to reveal his wrist, bruised by thorns.
"So you're, what? Fixing the place up?"
"Well, Luke never does it! I've been up here with and without him like ten times and it always looks like shit and all he talks about is what needs fixing and that he's just about to do it. He doesn't have the time, I do."
"Does he know about this?"
"Do you think he'd let me if he did?"
"I guess not." She pauses for reevaluation. "It's really nice of you."
"I'm a nice person," he allows with a crooked smile.
She smiles against her will, the first time in a while.
"What about you? You're probably the last person I'd expect to show up out here."
Darn. She grasps for a response.
"Uhm… I've been feeling like I can't," she interrupts herself. "I just… needed a change of scenery. My mom said Luke had a cabin he didn't use, gave me the keys."
He nods. She sighs.
"But I guess, it's taken, so I'll just-"
"No!" He looks genuinely upset by the prospect of her leaving. "No way. You'd blow my cover if you left. And your mom would kill me if I let you get back in that car at this hour. It'd take you 'til after midnight to get to Stars Hollow, if you're that lucky, I got lost the first three times I was up here."
She stares at him, head askew, considering it.
"Look, if you feel you gotta go, fine. Just wait 'til tomorrow. I was gonna start on dinner now anyway."
"But what about the space?" She starts hesitantly. "I'm having a hard time believing Luke has the place prepared for more than one person."
Jess smiles with obvious relief at her half-concession.
"True. But the place was built for the outdoors anyway. The only trouble is sleeping arrangements, but there's a couch, push comes to shove I can sleep in my car. We'll figure it out."
She gives in.
"Okay."
"You need help bringing your stuff in?"
"No."
"Okay. Go fix what you need to and come on in. I'll start on dinner and give you the very short tour."
He follows her around to the front and heads up the stairs and in through the door. She returns to her car and the trunk. She questions bringing her supplies to the house, self-conscious all of a sudden. She shopped for the trip on instinct, which she knows isn't very good, but she didn't know her incompetence would be exposed to someone with likely better priorities. Then she swallows the feeling and grabs the bag, it's not as if she'll bring it back to civilization anyway. She grabs her overnight bag too and heads into the cabin.
The hallway is the kitchen, and everything else for that matter. The cabin is really just one room. The tiny kitchen to the left, where Jess hunches, opening a can of something. One of two small windows is over the stove and lets one see the driveway. The other is at the end of the room, just over the bed – really a mattress laid out on what looks like a big wooden box, with knobs along the side, implying storage. The setup reminds her of the interior of an RV, at least the ones she's seen pictures of. Between the bed and kitchen is a small square table of untreated wood, thankfully with chairs on opposing sides.
The couch is opposing the bed, and she walks up to it and puts down her bag. The cloth in brown tones, zig zagging between orange and green and the structure seems suspiciously like loop pile carpet. More to the point; it's small. Maybe five and a half feet across and about two deep. She skeptically regards it. Then sits down. The springs give off a loud moan. Jess turns at the sound and walks over looking a bit embarrassed.
"Sorry. I should have warned you." He reaches out a hand to help her up which she grabs. Standing up, hand in hand, they regard each other awkwardly. She considers commenting the so-called couch but decides against it, it's too late to back out anyway. By now the visible strips of sky looks distinctly pink through the window.
"Are you okay with beans and bacon? It's probably the last chance to eat it before it goes bad."
"It's fine," she says. "How long have you been here?"
"Got here Monday night. Checked the place out on Tuesday to see what needed doing, then drove to town to shop for supplies. Started working today."
"So, how are modern comforts around here?"
He smiles amused.
"Limited. There's small fridge with a freezer pocket, but it runs on the generator out back, which has probably been there as long as the locks, and is just as reliable."
"Oh."
"Yeah. And about the bathroom: it's an earth closet with a septic tank."
"You're kidding."
"Nope. You have to enter through a separate door. Here, I'll show you."
He leads the way out the front door and down from the minuscule porch, then around the right side of the cabin to a door, and swings it open. There's a wooden bench with a white ring in it. She looks around. It looks clean and doesn't feel drafty. Smells like a toilet, for sure, but better than the public restrooms she visited on the way here. A bit like pine. Then she sees a Wunderbaum attached to the cord of a naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling. She lets out a laugh and shakes her head.
"And no running water?"
"You use the pump out front for everything."
"I don't suppose you could put in some pipes and make this an indoor bathroom while you're at it?"
"Yeah right. I'm not that useful."
She looks at him.
"Sure you are. I was not prepared. I'm starting to feel really blessed that you were here."
He smiles broadly, rare.
"I better fix the food."
"Can I help?"
"Nope. Sit on the porch for a while if you like, I assume you brought a book or ten. It's better to make use of the daylight while you can. When it gets dark it's really dark."
She follows his advice but never gets around to even opening her book. Instead she stares out into the woods. It's darker now, and the sounds have changed. The porch on which she's sitting has a roughly carved bench sticking out from the cabin's timber, and a table of the same construction. It seems to be used mostly for cleaning mushrooms and berries, and possibly even gutting fish, judging from the old stains covering the table. She thinks about how this wasn't at all what she expected, but immediately counters herself with the question why. It makes perfect sense that Luke wouldn't change anything unless he had to. At home he has to compromise with her mother and he's always been a traditionalist. For a second she considers that maybe the work Jess intends to do on the place might not really be welcome.
And then she thinks about her grandfather.
The trunks of the trees have lost a lot of color from the fading light, and it's more difficult making sense of them now. It's a world of jagged stripes.
Before falling to deep into thoughts Jess opens a crack in the window.
"Food's ready. Better eat inside, the bugs get pretty annoying in the evening."
She sneaks a peek at him through the window as he puts food on their plates by the kitchen counter. It's been years since they last met and she's fascinated by the subtle changes as well as the more obvious ones; he's broader, distinctly heavier, longer hair, but the movements, expressions, the same, the eyes. They find her at that moment and she twitches.
"Coming."
She walks inside and sits down at the table, putting her book next to her. He glances at it while putting down the plates.
"I really liked that one," he says.
"Yeah, I'm enjoying it a lot, he's so much better in his shorter novels."
"You think?"
"Yeah! I tried reading American Gods and it was just too dense for me."
"Okay." He puts up his hands, gesturing for her to stop. "Blasphemy. And too dense, miss I-read-the-fountainhead-at-age-ten? What are you talking about?"
"Well, his language is so minimalistic, ambiguous, like, it demands a lot from the reader's imagination, so it's really hard reading such a big book in that style."
"You're nuts."
"No, hear me out; when you're dealing with someone like Rand, to build on your eloquent remark, there's no ambiguity, it's all there; her truth. It's not open to interpretation. So, it's like reading the Iliad, or something. But with Gaiman you constantly have to apply yourself, add your own take to give the story meaning, and that's… hard work, sometimes. I think that's why I prefer his shorter novels, because they create spaces for you to exist-" She hears how she sounds but decides to just go with it, gesturing excessively and vaguely as she speaks. "Just not actual places, but places inside, where you can plant your own seeds, and actually… watch them grow."
He tosses a dish towel at her, and she laughs, while his smile decreases in size but turns warmer.
"I'm glad you're here," he says.
The food is okay. Her culinary experience is almost entirely based on different types of semifinished products, but always by choice rather than necessity, and classic canned foods or army surplus has never really been on the proverbial table.
She gets stuck looking at him and he raises his eyebrows mid-chew.
"What's with the beard?" She says. "You look like Paul Bunyan."
"So… bad?" He replies.
She opens her mouth for a witty retort, but pauses and squints at him.
"No." She finally says.
"Good. But there's no real answer, I'm having sort of a summer hiatus for editing a few books and don't need to meet anyone important until next month."
She smiles mischievously.
"And what happens then besides the beard going? What does Jess Mariano say? What does he wear?"
"Hey, if you wanna mock me, that's fine, but I'm betting twenty bucks you don't walk around with shaved legs unless you're on your way to an interview or date."
"You comparing facial hair to leg hair?"
"Shouldn't I?"
"I don't know. Do you shave your legs for any occasion?"
"Fair enough. I might if I had to wear pantyhose."
"Of course you would. And if I could grow facial hair I would immediately acquire a mustache."
"Like Twain."
"Obviously." She pauses. "But no, you're right about the leg hair."
He laughs.
"So, what's on the agenda for tomorrow?" She asks.
"More gardening, I think. Was gonna fix the terrace today as well, but I'm behind schedule 'cause of that damn scythe."
She chuckles.
"So, I'll do that and try to clear a bit of the mess around the founding too. In fact, I better get to bed."
"Okay, I'll make up the couch."
"I'm taking the couch!"
"No way! That thing is teensy and you have a couple of inches on me at least."
"Lies!"
"Stand up and let's see you, mister!"
He gets up, and she stands up also. The ceiling of the cabin is low, and she thinks if she stands on her toes, she can almost bump it with her head. She takes a brave step up to Jess who's consciously slumping to seem shorter. She reaches her hand behind his back and drags a fingernail along his spine. His body jerks, and stretches to its full length at the touch while he's laughing through his nose. They´re a couple of inches apart and she looks up into his eyes, smiling triumphantly. Granted, the difference isn't huge, but none the less there. He looks back at her and gives her a surprisingly warm smile.
"Fine," he sighs. "There are extra sheets in the drawer under the bed."
She makes the couch and heads out to use the toilet. She stops in her tracks on the porch, and nearly turns to run from the red spaceship protruding through the trees. It actually takes her a moment to register that it is in fact the moon rising she's looking at. She manages to keep herself from looking around for werewolves, but it simply seems supernatural.
"Jess!" She calls.
The door opens and next thing he's standing beside her.
"Wow," comes from him. She turns her head to look at him in surprise, he's rarely sounds taken by anything. He looks genuinely impressed. Then he opens his mouth and howls quietly while turning his eyes to her.
"Right?" She smiles.
The couch is disastrous. Lumpy, creaky, too short, and the cloth is itchy even through the sheet, making her skin crawl. After an hour of tossing and turning, her thoughts grow increasingly paranoid. Who uses this material on a piece of furniture that stands in an empty shed the better part of a year? God knows what she's sharing the couch with. The thought makes her mind race and body sweat, despite the crispier night air. She turns another time, trying to find a comfortable balance between hot and cold. The springs creak accordingly.
"You really should learn Stairway to Heaven on that thing." Comes Jess' voice from the dark.
"Chopsticks is more likely." She retorts.
"Are you comfortable there?"
"No." She pouts.
"We'll switch," he immediately offers.
"No!" she barks. She feels so useless. She'd be the first gazelle eaten in the zombie apocalypse. And he's so nice, and now he'll be missing sleep because of it. "Is there room over there?"
A silent pause follows.
"Yeah. At least I think so. You could give it a try."
She grabs her blanket and gets up.
She gets in bed beside him. It's not so bad, the bed is wider than it looks and the warmth radiating off him is actually nice, the temperatures drop distinctly at night, apparently.
"Are you okay?" Comes Jess voice from the darkness after a while, polite more than anything else.
"Yeah. Thanks," she says.
Seems so small to give as an answer when the bed, as well as his company makes her feel so much better; calm and warm. Her chest aches slightly from just the physical sensation.
"I heard about your grandfather."
She freezes, like she has every time Richard Gilmore has come up in conversations the last few weeks, calculating her reaction for a second before realizing that no one's watching. It's pitch black, and she's next to Jess, who she could never hide anything from anyway. A loud sob bursts out of her. And then she's crying like she hasn't in all the time since he passed. Body shaking, fighting for air. Ugly cries making their way from her chest up her throat. Too lost to it to care. She doesn't know how long it goes on, but a warm hand, fingers trailing the side of her face to her neck and gently squeezing it, make the sobs fade. Using his hold on her, he turns her face to his, and she feels his forehead against hers a moment later.
"I'm so sorry," he says.
They fall asleep like that.
She dreams of dark earth. It moves like a quake. Covering everything. Mindscape after mindscape is drowned by it, until there's just one scenery left. A young girl by a table in a meadow, a glass of lemonade. The darkness doesn't even slow down before swallowing her whole. She wakes up gasping. She stares into the black and twists her body closer to Jess to anchor herself to something real.