A/N Just as I have promised that this is a Lit story...I will vow on a pot of coffee that Anna is NOT the Anna we see in Canon...this is my Anna and I promise she has a brain her head and is a reasonable mama bear (oxy moron). Enjoy and I love my beta's they are the wind beneath my wings. Reviews are coffee to the soul.
"No damn cat, and no damn cradle."
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
Jess became very silent when Doris brought up the subject of his father. He knew he had to talk about it. This topic, he knew Doris would not let him sweep under the rug.
But he just couldn't bring himself to say the words out loud. So, instead, he did the next best thing.
Jess sat on his bench in Washington Square Park, pencil in hand, and let the memory flood over him...
Venice Beach, CA 2003:
It had been a few weeks since Jess moved. Subtle similarities between father and son emerged that even a casual observer would see as an obvious connection. It started with little, innocuous things-they both chain-smoked and drank A LOT of black coffee in the morning; and they rarely said a word to anyone until the coffee was gone...just sat at a picnic table right outside the kitchen door, out of respect for Sasha and Lily's lungs, paperback spread open with the left hand, the right alternating between pencil, cigarette, and coffee cup.
It still unnerved Jess, and, noticeably, Jimmy, when they happened to tap the ash off their cigarette at the identical moment, or when the sound of coffee slurped happened in stereo. Not that it happened all the time-just often enough to be creepy.
"I, uh," Jimmy cleared his throat, breaking the silence one morning as the coffee was still brewing, jolting Jess out of the book he was reading. "I'd like you to come with me somewhere tonight. I mean, it's entirely up to you. I can't make you go, but I would like you to come…with me."
Jess narrowed his eyes "For –what?"
"Just be ready at six," Jimmy said, before he went inside to get his coffee. He came back with a mug covered in Van Gogh sunflowers and a tattered copy of Cat's Cradle, annotated in several different colors of ink and faded graphite.
Jess had a difficult time sinking back into the lands of the Lilliputians while Jimmy sat, teeth dented yellow pencil hovering over father and son on the day the bomb dropped.
Much as Jess needed Luke's moral support in that echoing school gymnasium full of junior scientist hopefuls and doting parents, even if he needed that moral support was of necessity half the gymnasium away, once they entered Stars Hollow, Jess preferred to be alone with his thoughts to continue digesting the details and implications of April's report. When he got back to the apartment above the diner, he checked his cellphone-which he'd inadvertently left on the nightstand. There were three missed calls and, consequently, three voicemails waiting for him. One from Matt:
"Hey, Ed called -he's signing the contract. He mentioned plans to leave to town for the holiday and he said he wanted to meet again -Wednesday morning for coffee. Good job, man. This is a big signing for us."
The second from Jimmy:
Hey Jess, just wanted to say 'hi' and Happy Thanksgiving. Sasha and Lily say 'hi' too. I...uh...missed your birthday again...so happy birthday. Twenty-two is a big one. Hope you did something fun. Anyway, hope you're doing good. Call me soon.
Jess' stomach clenched. After not hearing from Jimmy for months, he chose now to call? Of course; Jimmy always had excellent timing. He was surprised Jimmy remembered his birthday at all, even if he was a year off and a month late.
The third message was the shortest:
Twenty-one...you're twenty-one. Happy Birthday. Sorry...I did know that. Don't do anything I would do… Um...right.
Yep, father of the year.
Jess hung his head with a deep sigh. April's appearance and subsequent confirmation, at least tentatively, as sharing his DNA, brought up ten million questions that were now swirling around in his head. Had Jimmy once lived twenty miles away from Stars Hollow? For how long? And how much worse did that make it that, by his own admission, he never once in all those years so much as checked to see if his son was dead or alive? Did he know about April and show just as little concern for her existence? Or had April's mother kept him from knowing? And if so...why? What had he done to her, or what did she know about him that made her afraid to tell him that he had a child?
Once the grand disaster of his nineteenth year was dead and buried, Jess came to consider Jimmy as hardly more than a distant acquaintance who had allowed him to visit for an extended period of time. His stay in California had come to an end with Jess telling Jimmy that "It just [wasn't] home," and he desperately missed New York. Jimmy had handed him a manilla envelope with cash inside as he left, refusing to take no for an answer. As if that would somehow make up for something-assuage his conscience by convincing himself that he was taking care of his son...that he wouldn't find himself high and dry on the wrong side of the tracks, for at least...what? A week?
These days, they talked on the phone occasionally. Like he did with his mother, Jess made sure he could get ahold of him. Jimmy would call on the occasional holiday and the day he married Sasha, but mostly there relationship was unchanged from the day they met. Jimmy would say that he hoped Jess would come visit again sometime, 'cause Lily missed him. Lily… the one kid Jimmy was kind of there for.
Jess shook his head and picked up the stack of papers once again, leafing through them and trying not to resent his step-sister. Not like it was her fault. And she was a sweet kid. But why did she have to be the only child whose feelings Jimmy Mariano had ever verbalized concern over?
And if April knew about Lily...what would that do to her?
Jess pushed the thought from his mind, burying himself instead in the scientific jargon in black and white in front of his previously unseeing eyes. The detail in April's report was seriously impressive-even the parts that didn't talk about genomes, chromosomes and silica-based nano-beads.
Of specific interest was her section on how she chose her samples. One of the subjects from whom a sample was taken was her mother's college friend. The other was an ex-boyfriend. And then there was Jimmy...the guy whose picture was stuck in the last pages of her mother's journal, the words "Classic Mariano" scrawled across the back. With much scouring of said journal, she found exactly one page that made mention of a "Jimmy Mariano," mostly ranting about his infuriating stubbornness, with little explanation of the nature of their relationship.
She also gave scientific explanations as to the perceived likelihood/unlikelihood of each man being her father. Because that's not disturbing. Her report also detailed the computer program she accessed through her school to morph the old picture of Jimmy into a projection of what he might look like now. Yeah...no might about it. That was Jimmy.
Reading and rereading the report, it appeared that April was interested only in the scientific aspect of her patrilineage. None of this indicated, in any concrete way, a desire to meet or to get to know this man, whoever he might be. What her private thoughts or motivations for this were, she might not even realize on a conscious level; and it certainly wasn't his business to draw them out. So he decided he would do nothing. After all, confiding in Luke aside, this was not a matter he wanted to be public knowledge if it didn't have to be.
Lorelai nearly spit out her coffee when Jess walked downstairs dressed in his business suit.
"Morning," she choked.
"It's for work," he sighed, when he saw Lorelai eying his outfit.
She hesitated a moment. "The jacket doesn't fit you."
"I'm well aware of its incongruity, thank you," he returned dryly.
"No, I mean literally. It doesn't fit."
Jess stifled his irritation. "I got it at a thrift store. It's my size," he said with a deliberate lack of inflection so that sarcasm wouldn't bleed into his words. He'd thought they made progress the last time they talked. But, even dressed in a suit, ready to go to a business meeting, she still found something to criticize.
"Yeah, but the fabric shouldn't hang loose in the back or...sag, and the pants need to be hemmed. It's not so bad from the front, but from behind it looks like a little boy wearing daddy's clothes."
He mentally sighed. It wasn't as if he could do something about it. "I'll, uh, keep that in mind, for the next one."
"Rory's home. She came home a few days ago," Lorelai blurted out a moment later. "You just missed her."
"Yeah, I heard," Jess said, staring into his coffee cup. "I have to go," He mumbled before walking out the door. "Would you tell Luke I'll be back later?"
"Come on," Jimmy said, pulling into the beach parking at the end of Rose Street and grabbing a few beach chairs
Jess simply raised an eyebrow.
"Just come with me. There's something I've been trying to tell you and it's…it's better to do it here," Jimmy stammered nervously.
Jess walked behind his father, not really knowing why he was following this man's footprints through the sand, but nonetheless, here he was. Jimmy walked straight up to a group of about fifteen people standing on the beach. Everyone seemed to know him. Jess hung back as they all arranged their beach chairs on the sand, in a circle. When they were set up, Jimmy glanced back at him and his eyes flitted to an empty chair beside him, but Jess pretended not to notice...until he couldn't. They were being watched, and waited upon. Begrudgingly, he took a seat.
The first person to stand up to talk was an older man, Rob. He read the Preamble. When it was time for newcomers to introduce themselves in the traditional fashion, Jimmy noticed the horrified look that crossed Jess' face, and quickly stood up, introducing Jess as his son, a visitor.
This was an AA meeting. Jess looked at Jimmy, who had sat back down again and was busy going through a book he must have had in his back pocket. So this was it -this was what he'd come all the way from Connecticut for...to discover about his father.
Jess had the signed contract in his messenger bag as he walked into the diner just before lunch. He was going to pack his duffel, say goodbye to Luke, and drive back to Philadelphia.
"I could alter it for you," Lorelai called after him from her stool at the counter.
Jess lifted his head, dazed. "What?"
"The jacket," she clarified, "pants, too. Sometime when you don't need to wear a suit for a few days, you could bring it to me and I could alter it to fit you." She paused for a beat. "Take your measurements. Play Mottel the Tailor."
He tried to suppress a smirk, imagining Lorelai with a fake beard and spectacles. He nodded slowly and murmured, "Wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles..."
Lorelai's bitten back smile almost mirrored his own. "You too."
"Oh, hi," Luke greeted Jess, walking through the curtain while adjusting his shirtsleeves. "Someone named Chris called here for you. He mentioned that you didn't pick up your cell phone and that it was important."
Jess' mouth twisted, slightly panicked that Chris was calling him at the diner. "I should go call him back," Jess said, heading upstairs.
"Hey," Chris greeted him.
"Sorry, I left my phone –"
"Don't worry about that. You got a phone call this morning from a woman named Anna Nardini."
"Nardini?" Jess grumbled. "Lovely."
"Everything okay?"
"I'll tell you when get I back to Philly," he sighed. "Did she leave a number?"
"Yeah," Chris said and gave him the number Anna had left. "Oh, by the way, just go ahead and do the line editing for Ed."
"Uh…oh…okay," Jess stammered, his fingers slipping as he wrote the last digit, and then tried to fix it.
"Matt and I are both slammed right now. Unless you don't want to and you want to go back to reading the slush pile."
"No, no that's fine. I just haven't done it from start to finish yet."
"You do all the time for the 'zine. Just… if you get stuck or have questions, let us know. You've read that manuscript like three know it better than either of us. So we voted that you take it."
"Right okay, I..thanks." Jess said in shock that he was being given the responsibility to edit an entire manuscript. Up to that point he had only worked on Truncheon's literary magazine and read through the slush pile of submissions they got.
"You're still coming to my grandma's for dinner, right?"
"That's still the plan." Jess nodded, as if it were a helpful telephone gesture, catching himself with mild chagrin.
"Good. You need to get out of the house. And my cousin Shelly is going to be there," Chris intoned with an unsubtle pointedness.
"You are not hooking me up with your cousin…goodbye Chris," Jess rolled his eyes.
"You're a monk."
"I'm busy."
"Goodbye."
The anger bubble in Jess' stomach grew as he sat through the requisite traditions of the meeting. When Rob called for volunteers, Jimmy got up. In other circumstances, Jess would have walked away already.
"My name is Jimmy, and I'm an alcoholic."
"Hi Jimmy," the group said.
"I brought my son with me tonight because I want him to know...that I screwed up...I mean, he knows I screwed up but I want him to understand why I screwed up, or part of why anyway... "
Jess stayed frozen in white-hot anger while Jimmy went on about how he abandoned him. "And...There were a lot of times...that I tried to work the steps, and I mostly did, but-I couldn't really, until I could look him in the eye and say I know what I did, leaving him high and dry like that. I figured he was better off. So that's...why I brought him here tonight." He finished talking, nodded, as if that somehow concludes his confession, or explanation, or apology-without-an-apology.
Jess dialed the number Chris had given him and Anna introduced herself as April's mother. She insisted he come to her business in Woodbridge. She said it would be best if they met, and then hung up before he had an opportunity to argue with her.
"What's wrong?" Luke asked when he came up to the apartment. Jess had papers and books spread out in front of him, but was staring off into space, lost in thought.
"April's mother, Anna, wants to meet today."
"Do you want me –?"
"Yes, come with me," Jess sighed, "please."
"When Lane gets here, we can go," Luke said without hesitation."Why does her mother want to meet you?"
"I don't know," Jess said, squeezing the bridge of his nose to ward off a headache, and losing the battle. "But I have a few questions of my own."
Luke nodded, "I'm sure you do." Luke paused hoping Jess would elaborate. "You want lunch?" he asked when Jess didn't elaborate.
"Not hungry," he murmured, eyes still closed.
"Thanksgiving is tomorrow. You should stay," Luke urged mildly.
"I have plans already, and I have to work Friday," Jess shook his head.
Luke stood, nodding...stopped, went to walk out the door, and paused, "I'll be downstairs if you need anything"
"I know," Jess paused, hearing the unspoken words. "Thank you."
After the meeting, while everyone drank their coffee, Jess slipped away and found a bench overlooking the ocean and lit a cigarette.
"You're upset?" Jimmy asked, sitting down next to him.
"I was in a 'better place' with you gone-are you serious?" Jess launched into Jimmy. "Like Liz wasn't gonna find more losers to take your place?"
"She sent you to live with her brother."
"When I was sixteen!"
"When I left, I thought Liz would go back and live with her dad!"
"Well, she didn't! She stayed in New York and dated every loser in the East Village. William passed away when I was four. Ever think of checking?"
Jimmy nodded, looking at the ground. "Yeah...yeah, I did."
"You checked?"
"...I thought about it."
"So, what am I, just a step in your recovery?" Jess asked through gritted teeth. "Is that why you finally let me stay?"
"Not at all," Jimmy defended.
"Bull!"
"You're not just a step, Jess! I wanted you to understand! I want to try and have a fresh start here… with you. I'm trying."
"You know what? It doesn't count! You didn't say any of that to me!" Jess was indignant. Furious at himself that he still had the capacity to feel betrayed. "You said it to a bunch of people I've never met, people who are there to give you a slap on the back and tell you that you did a good job. So whatever kind of badge you were trying to earn..." Jess shook his head with a look of disgust, "you didn't get it."
"You have every right to be angry to with me. I don't blame you one bit. But at the very least, Jess," Jimmy paused as the lump in his throat grew. "I wanted you to know the effort I had put…am still putting into my sobriety."
Jess and Luke sat in his truck outside a red house in Woodbridge.
"This is the address Anna gave me," Jess started."Thank you for doing this," Jess said suddenly.
"Do you want me to stay in the car?"
He nodded and took a deep breath. "If I'm not back out in twenty minutes, maybe call my cell."
Jess knocked on the door to be greeted by a woman in her thirties with dark, shoulder length hair.
"Jess?"
"Anna?"
"Come in," Anna smiled at him. Her house was filled with clothes, pillows, fabrics and candles.
A wave of nausea swelled over Jess, and he could only hope it would ebb. He could visualize a collection of clowns on the far wall, next to a newspaper clipping of the Inferno's grand reopening.
"Tea?"
"Uh, sure." Jess inhaled and exhaled, deeply and quietly.
"Thank you for coming all the way out here to meet me." It was a business meeting smile-not ingenuine, but offered for a purpose.
"You didn't give me much of a choice," he countered, easing himself into an overstuffed chair she gestured toward.
"I wanted to apologize to you." She poured from a china teapot encircled with roses, to a matching cup with its own saucer, and stirred in honey without asking whether he wanted any.
Jess raised an eyebrow, "For what?"
"I'm sure this isn't the way anyone wants to find out about a family member. April got obsessed with winning that science contest, and she's really a smart, driven kid. She's already written a short novel, and she's got her own website. She went through my old journal and put the whole thing together and, frankly, didn't tell me anything about it till way after the fact.
"Wow, she's a writer," Jess mumbled, fiddling with his teacup. "It's a little surprising," he said out loud.
"I would not have allowed her to track you down for a science fair. Especially, if I knew she was going to go after strangers for hair samples."
"Jimmy didn't know did he?"
"I never told him," Anna confirmed making direct eye contact with Jess. "I…well I...I had my reasons." Her glance wavered for a moment, and she swallowed, pursing her lips, returning her eyes to his. "I don't regret it. We want for nothing and always have."
"Well, he's never been on the short list for father of the year." Jess grimaced lightly and lifted his shoulders in a half apologetic shrug. "I'm not that close with him. I lived with him for a few months and we talk a few times a year, but that's it."
"Is he good? Is he happy?" She seemed eager and guarded at the same time...which fit, considering Jimmy.
"I'm not sure about happy, but he's doing good -about as good as Jimmy's ever done. He's remarried and has his own business on the Santa Monica Pier."
"He loved the beach," Anna mused with half a smile.
"Does April want to know Jimmy? I mean, now that she knows who her father is? She went through all this trouble..." Jess trailed off.
"I've decided to leave it up to her," Anna sighed heavily. "I still don't like any of it, but if she's really determined -she's old enough now that I can't stop her."
Jess nodded as she spoke. He still had a million questions to ask, but couldn't ask a strange woman he just met.
"And if she asks me to put her in touch with Jimmy, what should I say?" Jess finally asked.
"If she's still really set on it then…then you can tell her how to get in touch with him." Her tone matched the flop of her arms, weary, yet reluctantly resigned
"I can do that if you're okay with it. But just, if you need to get in touch with me…don't call my work," Jess said jotting down his cell number.
Jess waited nervously as Doris read his account of the meeting on the beach at Hiroshima.
"What happened afterwards?" She finally asked.
"Nothing, I wrote a letter to Liz and Jimmy and I never brought it up again," Jess answered simply.
