Chapter 13: Pueblo chico, infierno grande…
Jess woke up to the incessant beeping of Luke's alarm clock, coupled with the incessant vibration of the cell phone on top of the dresser.
He took the phone first, tried to answer it, but no one was on the other line. He opened his eyes to slits and saw that it, too, had an alarm set.
"Damn Luke," he muttered, sitting up to shake off the groggy morning feel.
Five in the morning.
He walked into the bathroom and splashed water on his face. In the mirror, he found himself oddly different. He smiled, thinking of the scene in the movie he and Rory had watched on the couch a week back. "Jess Mariano, Jess Mariano, Jess Mariano, Rory Gilmore, Rory Gilmore, Rory Gilmore…" He shook his head, letting the water drip and fly up to the mirror. "Agh, I'm going insane," he added, running a hand through his hair.
He pulled on a t-shirt and a pair of beat-up jeans, and stepped into his shoes.
Grabbing the keys to the diner, he thought to himself it might turn out to be a good day.
- - - - - - -
He turned the lights of the diner on, turned on the gas, turned over the chairs. Wiped the counter.
He put the sodas in the freezer, popped the oranges into the squeezing machine.
And then he went to open the door.
The first surprise was the amount of people walking the street at six in the morning. All seemed to be headed to a small stand on the square, where Kirk sat behind a huge stack of newspapers.
He'd never know Stars Hollow to be a place that kept up with current events.
He unlocked the door and opened the blinds. He turned the closed sign to open as the sunlight started to filter through the windows.
And at that very moment, a newspaper boy in a bike tossed a paper at the diner door.
Well, if there was a paper-boy, what was Kirk doing selling extra copies? Back issues?
Questioning Kirk had never yielded positive results so he just swung the door of the diner open and picked up the copy, which was inside a plastic bag for safekeeping.
Stars Hollow Gazette, brought to you by Doose's Market.
Pretty thick to be the Stars Hollow Gazette.
Jess walked into the kitchen unfolding the paper, looking to get himself some coffee and wait for the deliveries to start rolling in.
And then he saw it, right below the marquee and a small print that read "Our Largest Issue Ever".
A headline that read, "Jess Mariano is back."
And not far below, a picture of him and Rory, from when he'd won the basket she'd made at the auction, almost ten years before.
Jess let out a scream of "Fuck" that luckily did not make it outside the diner's encasing, or he would surely have made the front page of the next Gazzette.
He looked on. Almost every page of the paper was related to his presence. His car being egged, the chalk outline incident outside Doose's, an interview with Babette, a short pros and cons comparative list of Dean vs. Jess.
He looked the pages over for the writing credits and found none.
In a style not unbecoming Luke's nephew, he walked across the diner, out the door, across the street, through the square, to Kirk's table, where Andrew from the bookstore and Gypsy were buying their early paper.
"Here for extra copies, Jess?" Gypsy asked.
Jess glared at her, and cut in line, slamming a copy in front of Kirk. "What the hell is this, Kirk?"
"It's… It's…" Kirk stammered. "It's the Stars Hollow Gazette, renovated since the town crier gave up his job 150 years ago. One of the oldest papers in the tri-state area."
"Kirk, don't make me hurt you," Jess clarified. "You know exactly what I mean. What is all this crap about me? Is Taylor trying to run me out of town?"
"Well, yes, actually. But this just made good business sense," Kirk explained.
"Who wrote it?" Jess asked.
"Well, the Stars Hollow Gazette is the product of a collaborative effort by a skilled team of reporters that work diligently…"
"Who wrote it, Kirk?"
Kirk cowered behind the stack of papers. "Taylor and I did," Kirk answered. "But part of it is just rehashing of news from the last time you were here."
"I was in the Stars Hollow Gazette the last time I was here?" Jess asked. "Unbelievable."
"Yes, but the circulation was much smaller," Kirk volunteered.
People behind Jess started to get rowdy. Jess looked behind them. "Hey, go home. The paper boy's already doing rounds," he called behind him at the line forming.
"Yeah, but I want one for my scrapbook," Gypsy replied.
Jess thought it over, then turned back to Kirk. "How much for the whole stack?" Jess asked, taking out his wallet.
"Well, I don't know, I'd have to count…" Kirk said, trying to measure the stack by eye.
"Ballpark it, Kirk," Jess insisted.
"Twenty dollars."
"I'll give you fifteen," Jess negotiated, waving the three five-dollar bills in front of Kirk.
"Sold," Kirk said, standing up and taking the money. He folded his chair. The crowd behind Jess groaned.
Jess took the stack of papers. "One more thing, Kirk," Jess added. "Tell Taylor I'm going to find him. He and I need to have a little talk. Got that?"
Kirk nodded as Jess headed back to the diner, thirty newspapers under his arm.
- - - - - - - - -
Rory woke to the sound of her cell phone vibrating on her bedside. It was a soft buzzing sound, and it woke her gradually. There still wasn't all that much light out. Sleepily she reached for the phone and answered without glancing at the number.
"Hello?" she said into the phone.
"Hey," Jess replied. "It's me."
Rory sat up a little, a smile creeping on her lips. "Good morning. You're up early," Rory commented, her eyes still closed.
"Yeah, sorry about that," Jess apologized. "Just wanted to warn you about something."
Rory yawned lightly. "Sorry, sorry, I'm listening."
"I didn't mean to wake you, but I wanted to catch you before your dad got there."
Rory nodded, then realized the futility of this action. "Right. Ok. I just nodded. Duh. Uhm, what did you want to warn me about?"
"I'm in the Stars Hollow Gazette. Well, actually, we are."
Rory's eyes flew open. "What, from last night?"
"No. NO. Uhm, just a lot of crap and a couple of old photos. Kirk said it was rehashed from the last time they did an issue on me. I never knew."
"Well, it had a very small circulation," Rory explained, smiling into the phone.
Jess appeared surprised. "You knew about this?"
"Well, about last time yes. About this time, I suspected something like this would happen. If you merit a town meeting…"
Jess placed his forehead against the wall of the diner.
"Jess. You ok?"
"Yes. No. This just sucks."
"Yeah. Pueblo chico, infierno grande."
"Huh?"
"Just something my Spanish teacher used to say. Small town, big hell. Just… there's no privacy here, remember? If there was a news channel, we'd be on it, caught on the bridge's candid camera."
Jess panicked. "There's a camera there?"
Rory laughed. "Jess?"
"Yeah?"
"Take a deep breath."
"Ok."
"This is what happens here. Sooner or later they'll learn to get you," Rory encouraged. "And you won't be newsworthy anymore."
"It's been ten years, Rory."
A plate crashed in the diner.
"Not for them, it hasn't," she explained. "Are you in the diner?"
"Just opening. Cesar's doing… something… in the kitchen."
Rory bit her lower lip. "Would you like me to come over?"
Jess knocked his head against the wall repeatedly. Yes, of course he would.
"What's that noise?" Rory asked.
"Uh, just… dishwasher. Uhm, no, you don't have to come, Rory. Actually, it's probably better if you don't. One-man freak-show gets less stares than the whole circus, you know?"
Rory laughed. "I do. Though I resent being compared to the bearded lady."
"So you'll call later?" Jess asked.
"You're such a girl," Rory replied.
"Ouch."
"I'll call you later, baby," Rory said, deepening her voice. "Like, whenever."
"I'll be waiting by the phone," he quipped. She laughed into the phone line.
The bell of the door rang, announcing a new customer. "Hey, Rory, I gotta go. Hungry people who couldn't get their paper this morning."
"Ok. Hey, Jess?"
"Yeah?"
"Welcome home."
- - - - - - - - -
Jess took an order and walked back behind the counter. Lane was waiting tables this morning, looking at him funny every chance she got. She was itching to ask about the date, but knew she had to reserve questions for Rory, not him. He'd asked the perfunctory questions about Zach and the kids, volunteered little, offered to take the twins for a day the week after they went to the grandparents.
Waiting for the two burgers and one order of onion rings, Jess went over everything he still needed to ask Rory, everything Rory would ask of him. He'd never explained to her why he'd left California, he'd never told her about his taking to the road for a year with nowhere to go after he'd last seen her. He'd told her so little it seemed as if it would take a lifetime just to explain what had been happening in his life since then.
But she hadn't seemed to mind not knowing, as long as it meant she got to keep some things of her own quiet.
But now, and this Jess could admit to himself as a girl thing, now that they'd kissed, he felt again as if he needed to know everything about her.
This obsession, it was dangerous and it had led him down dark spirals before. He still admired her so, that her disappointment was one thing that rested deep in his mind. And all the rest of her stayed lodged in his mind throughout the day, distracting him to the point of -
"Hey, Jess, wake up," Cesar said, almost in his ear. "Six is up."
Jess nodded, taking the plates over to their rightful owners.
"You ok?" Lane asked. "You spaced there for a second."
Jess shook his head. "Just haven't slept much these last few weeks, is all."
"Do you want to take a break now?" Lane suggested. "I could cover your tables."
Jess smiled at her, in a way that made Lane understand, for a flash of a second, what Rory saw in him. "Nah," he said. "We'll rest when we're dead, right?"
Lane smiled back, raising a fist. "Rock and roll," she added, heading towards table 8, where a man waved a menu at her.
- - - - - - - - -
"Roryroryroryroryroryroooooooooryyyyyyyy!" came a battle cry, roaring through the front door and tearing down the house with a cowboy hat on.
"Well, if it isn't Georgia Blue!" Rory called from the kitchen. "How are you, kid?"
"I'm a lady now, my mom says," Gigi countered.
"Well, you sure do look like one," Rory conceded.
"Where's Lorelai? I killed her in the living room last time I was here," Gigi explained.
"She mustn't have gone far. Go look back there," Rory volunteered, as her father walked into the kitchen.
Christopher Hayden hadn't aged a bit. His eyes were the same, unfazed by divorce, but shocked at the sight of his adult daughter, while his other child ran to play cops and robbers in the living room with his ex-wife.
"Hi, dad," Rory said, giving him a small wave. Their relationship had always been odd… good times and bad, on and off periods.
"Wow, kid, you look…" he started, unsure how to finish. He walked up to her and gave her his best rendition of a fatherly hug. "I like your hair."
"You lie."
"I do… it has an air about it. Sigourney Weaver in Alien."
"It's not even close to being that short," Rory rolled her eyes. "But I see my future in a couple of movies, and I don't like it."
"You do look good, though," Christopher added. "So your mom told you, right?"
"About the divorce?" Rory asked. Her father nodded. "Yeah. It's nothing three years of therapy won't cure."
"You two never took me seriously," he reprimanded.
"I never did what?" Lorelai asked, walking into the kitchen. Gigi was settled on the couch watching a movie.
"You un-died?" Rory asked.
"She let me rise from the dead to find her a pop tart," Lorelai explained, looking inside the cabinets. "So you were saying?"
"Dad thinks we never took him seriously," Rory said, bringing her mother up to sped.
Lorelai gave Chris a kiss on the cheek. "I did too, Christopher. Except that one time when you asked if I would marry you."
"You laugh now, but this hurt a year ago," Christopher countered.
Lorelai nodded. "But we're both better now, aren't we?"
Chris nodded as well, conceding. "We've always been better apart than together." He shrugged, lifting the cloud of seriousness off the conversation. "So what's this I hear about you taking a break?" he asked Rory.
"Oh, just… a vacation from all that traveling," Rory explained.
"Is it wise, so early in your career?"
"When else would it be wise?"
"Good point."
Rory grabbed a pop tart out of the box for herself.
- - - - - -
It was dark out when Annie arrived holding two bright orange goldfish and tracking mud into the diner.
Her hand held high above her head, she gave Jess a grin with one front tooth missing.
"Hey, when did that happen?" Jess asked, taking hold of the goldfish so Annie could give his legs a hug.
"Last night," she answered, holding him tight.
Luke, carrying the gear in, shrugged. "I think she swallowed it when she was brushing her teeth."
"I did not," Annie replied, indignant. "It disappeared."
"It did?" Jess asked, humoring her by widening his eyes.
"Went POOF," she explained. "And in the morning the Tooth Fairy brought me Brian and Lee," Annie added.
"Because they're twins," Luke explained.
Jess looked the two goldfish over. "Some Tooth Fairy," he said, taking Annie's hand to lead her upstairs.
"It's the River tooth fairy," Luke explained
Jess smiled at his Uncle. "Yes, town tooth fairies bring other kinds of stuff."
"Cats?" asked Annie.
Jess cursed his own words in his mind. "We'll see when the time comes. Let's go find these twins a home."
- - - - - - - - -
Annie sat on the floor to take off her muddy boots while Jess looked for an acceptable fishbowl. He found a medium sized jar and rinsed it. That would have to do until morning. He was in the process of pouring out the fish into the bowl when the phone rang.
"Kid, can you get that?" Jess asked, trying not to lose any fish down the drain.
Annie ran to the phone barefoot, and took it off the hook.
"Say hello," Jess instructed.
"Hello," Annie said into the receiver. Silence.
"Ask who it is," Jess suggested.
"Shh, I can't hear what they say if you talk, Jess."
"Sorry," he said, giving Annie an amused look. Two fish inside the fishbowl. So far, so good.
"It's for you," Annie said, handing the phone to Jess. Jess dried his hands and took the phone.
"Hold on a sec," Jess said into the receiver. Pointing to Annie's room, he said, "Go put on some socks"
Annie skipped over to her room. He held the receiver against his ear again. "But I'm already wearing socks," Rory's voice mocked from the other end of the phone line.
"Hey," he said, a smile creeping over his face.
"Hey," she replied. "So, she's back?"
"With one less tooth and two new goldfish courtesy of the River Tooth Fairy."
"Cute," Rory couldn't help saying.
"What do you feed fish?" Jess asked.
"Fishfood," Rory replied, wisely.
"Right. And I'd find that where?"
"Pet store."
Jess sighed. "I hope Brian and Lee make it overnight without food."
"Brian and Lee?"
"From now on, all twins are Brian and Lee."
Rory laughed. "Well, I think they'll make it through the night."
Jess carried the makeshift fishbowl into Annie's room. "Rory, will you give me a sec?" he asked.
"Sure."
Jess put down the phone and placed the makeshift fishbowl on a small table not far from Annie's bed. "So, kid, you want to take a bath now?"
"Tomorrow morning, pleeease? Uncle Luke made me wake up soooo early. I'm soooo tired."
Jess nodded, kissing the top of her head. "Ok. Then it's lights out."
"But I wanna read," she argued.
"Either you're too tired or you aren't. Pick."
"Just a little while?" she insisted. "Pleeeease?"
Jess grabbed the phone and nodded. "Five minutes."
Annie nodded and settled to read. Jess walked out of the room.
"Hi again," Jess said.
"Oooh, strict."
"Someone has to set the rules here. Tonight it's books, tomorrow she wants to date a Harvard man."
Rory laughed. "That would be your nightmare."
Jess rolled his eyes. "So how was visiting with your dad?"
"Well, it went ok, Gigi's huge now."
"Your sister?"
"Yeah. I feel sort of guilty now that I haven't seen her grow up. She's a lady now," Rory said.
"Ah, you'll catch up."
"Hey, are you implying I'm not a lady yet?"
"Hey, change of subject now."
Rory smiled. "Good."
"So…"
"So what are your plans for tomorrow?" Rory asked.
Jess took a shocked breath. "Are you asking me out on a date, Gilmore?"
"In your dreams, Mariano." Rory took a look at the picture of her and Jess in the Stars Hollow Gazette before turning the page to the Pro-Con lists. "Hey, you're not too popular with the editor of this thing."
"Aw, please, don't read that crap," Jess insisted.
"Closing it right now," Rory said, skimming Jess's pro list.
"Liar," Jess said, laughing. "So, why did you want to know about my plans?"
"Well, my reasons are threefold," Rory explained.
"Expand."
"Number 1: I don't want Annie's fish to starve in an old mason jar."
"Point taken. Next."
"Number 2: We have forms to fill."
Jess smiled into the phone. "That would be nice," he conceded.
He looked at his watch and walked over to the door of Annie's bedroom, killing the light.
"And thirdly… " Rory started.
"Aw, Jess," came a cry form inside Annie's bedroom. "You're mean."
"G'night, kid," he said back. "I'm sorry, you were saying."
"I concur with Annie. You are mean."
"No such animal," Jess replied, slumping on the couch.
"I was saying that, thirdly, I have a surprise for you," Rory finished.
Jess sat up straight at that. "You do?"
"Yes," Rory said, calmly.
"Is it R-rated?" he asked, jokingly.
Rory bit down on her lower lip. "Don't you wish."
"I do," Jess countered. Nice to know his bravery was coming back.
Rory shook her head. "It's PG. Tops. Kid can come with."
"Just as well," Jess said, feigning hurt.
"So, what time should I stop by?"
"I'll be up early to help Luke out. Drop by for lunch?"
"Good. That gives me time to catch up with Lane."
"Great. You're trying to keep me on the front page of that town rag, aren't you?"
Rory smiled. "Remember to take deep breaths and repeat, I will not freak out."
"I will not freak out…" Jess took a deep breath. "Goodnight, Rory."
He hung up the phone and, all of a sudden, noticed a rush of steps, followed by a loud thud on the floor of the apartment. Jess turned to find Luke standing over the pile of newspapers.
"Can you explain to me what a hundred copies of the Stars Hollow Gazette were doing in my storeroom?" Luke asked.
Jess shook his head. "Long story. You can read all about it on page 5."
TBC…
- - - - - - - --
Author's note: Well, that was some more transitional semi-fluff. Expect me to live up to my rating within the next few chapters (yey!). It won't get TOO graphic, but be warned, it will get some graphic. I love that you guys are leaving me such cool feedback, it fuels this baby up.
Hey, I'm also in the mood for writing a one-shot. Do you guys have any ideas you'd like me to explore? Feel free to drop me a line.
Hope you enjoyed it.