THE LOOK OF LOVE: Part III

By starc*mpass

NOTES/FEEDBACK: Okay I lied in Chapter 2 :D I'm a shameless hussy (if you're on FF: Please vote for Boston Public!!! YEAAAHH!!! :D) and I want to know how terrible or terrific you find this chapter :) . Heehee. This chapter is shorter than the past 2, but it's less conversation-intensive. It's more on Jake's ramblings.

NEW YORK, Fall Semester

[New York Baby by Leona Naess playing]

New York in the Fall is said to be one of the loveliest things in the world. It is so gorgeous that they even named a movie after it. New Yorkers may agree or disagree, but on this perfect crisp Fall day, the streets of this city are swarming with the typical hordes of often disagreeable strangers struggling through the crowd trying to get past each other. Granted that it's rush hour, most people are going home.

Moving along with the disgruntled crowd is a sober young girl, dressed in the classic uniform of a schoolgirl. On her feet are a pair of scuffed black loafers and socks that just about cover an inch and a half over her ankles. Her regulation skirt of maroon and navy blue plaid ended just above her knees. Her blazer with the school logo on the right breast opened to reveal the regulation button down white shirt and school tie. She seemed to be thinking deeply about something, her serious green eyes were caught in a faraway gaze that would lead most people to believe that she had only been wandering aimlessly about the streets of the city.

She paused before turning a corner and adjusted the strap of her army green messenger bag. A stray lock of hair fell into her eyes and she blew it away with the corner of her mouth. The truth was that THIS girl knew the city like she knew the back of her hand. Her eyes flicked away from where she had been looking as she entered a building with a large green awning, briefly smiling at the pot-bellied doorman as she stepped in. The doorman smiled back.

"Had a bad day, Miss Jackie?" he asked her. She laughed roughly.

"The worst, Harry. Thanks for asking!" she called over her shoulder before entering the elevator. Harry merely chuckled in response.

"Consuela! I'm home!" Jake called from the doorway.

"In the kitchen!!!" a woman's heavily accented voice hollered back in response. Jake shrugged and headed over to the kitchen. Consuela was a heavy-set, middle-aged maternal lady, and she sat on a tall stool watching the Spanish soaps, dabbing a tissue to her eyes. English subtitles flashed at the bottom of the screen as the actor on the screen passionately spoke to his lover. "How was school?" she said, turning off the TV set and turning to Jake. Jake shrugged, a grim expression on her face. "Not good day, eh? Well, Consuela made you your favorite cookies, if that make you feel better. Check the jar, still warm from the oven." Jake eagerly pulled the cookie jar closer to her as Consuela poured her a tall glass of milk.

"It wasn't very entertaining." Jake sighed. "Mmmmm…did you just make these?" Consuela pushed the glass towards her and nodded.

"Your dinner is in the microwave. You better promise me that you will eat it!" Consuela said, wagging a finger at her. Jake nodded and hugged Consuela affectionately.

"Gracias, Consuela." Consuela shook her head and turned to face her.

"Aiyayay Jackie!!! You promise you will! You are getting TOO SKINNY! Look!" she exclaimed and turned Jake sideways. "You are as thin as a tortilla! You need meat in your bones!" Jake laughed roguishly.

"Consuela, you exagerrate!"

"Ay muchacha! Consuela does NOT exaggerate! Now go do your homework and I will clean up here." Jake nodded, still laughing and started moving towards her room. "And remember to eat dinner!" Consuela called after her.

YOU'VE GOT MAIL. Three little words that have caused so many others an almost impossible range of emotions that it too had been used to name a major motion picture. Back in her bedroom, Jake Pratt anxiously opened her inbox and found a message waiting for her.

--------- message ----------

insert date here, 4:38 PM

From: Hamilton Fleming caughtonfilm@rawley.net

To: Jake Pratt noreply@email.com

Hey Pratt! How have you been? Boy, when you say "no reply" you really mean it don't you? LOL. Well, jokes are half-meant, so I'm not sorry. Haha. Everyone's still asking about you. Half the semester is over and they still wonder where you've gone. Funny thing is, Will, Scout and I have nothing to tell them either.

What's up with you? Are you keeping busy, so busy that you can't even reply to your old friends? Haha again. Well, Finn's got us up to out ears in both water (Crew) and required reading. Crew is exhausting and the new coxswain guy is a real butthead. No one likes him, and it really bites to have to listen to him.

Hey, remember your Bella and Will theory? Well, I took some pictures of them yesterday and it looks like you might be right. Haha, the shots look cool though. I hope I got them right. I'll scan them and send them to you. Tell me what you think.

Things aroung the Fleming homestead are really weird, but since I live in the dorms now (I room with Will, and Scout's across the hall with this guy named Oz He's pretty cool, but seriously obssessed with this Katherine Moennig girl. Oh, don't get me wrong, she's gorgeous…but the room's like a shrine to her or something…) I'm spared from all the crap going on.

Okay, this is my "journal entry" for the week. Mailing you is like mailing a shrink, only I'm not as pathetic as I might. Haha.

Ham

"forgotten but not gone, you drink it off your mind. you talk about the

world like it's someplace you've been." – the Goo Goo Dolls "Broadway"

---------- END OF MESSAGE ----------

[Lonely Cola Cherry Cola Girl by Bic Runga begins]

Jake resisted the terrible urge she had to click REPLY and instead closed the email. She had all 20, now 21 emails from him in her inbox. She refused to delete them, and didn't dare to answer them. It had been 3 months and 18 days since she'd left New Rawley, but who was counting? It's seemed like FOREVER to Jake.

Lonely Lola Cherry Cola Girl, how much do they pay you for your smile?

Alone in your own creaming soda world, maybe you were happy for a while…

Well, to be fair, being back in New York as a girl, with new friends (who KNEW her real gender) made her happy. But she did miss the company she'd left behind. If she'd been to New Rawley as a girl, maybe she'd been happier. But THAT hadn't been part of the plan. And the plan had still backfired on her. Jake sighed.

Lola you're a star tonight. Don't let them pluck you from the sky.

Lonely Lola everybody knows, everybody calls themselves your friend.

But later on tonight when it gets cold, Lola who's a-gonna hold you then?

She missed the Rawley kids terribly. She missed kicking Scout's butt on the Playstation, hanging out with Bella in the garage, playing board games with Will and Hamilton. She missed Hamilton. PERIOD.

There's something in your eyes tonight. Forget them, and take them in your stride.

No one in New York knew her like Hamilton did. Well, yes, maybe it was true that he didn't know that she was Jacqueline Pratt. But he knew Jake. And that was more than most people (other than Consuela) could say that they knew about her.

My friends told me bout how you've been getting out but no one seems to know your name. Slide on through the crowd and let them talk aloud, they only want to hold ya but do they really know you Lola?

Jake sighed heavily. She was tired of doing this to herself, constantly backtracking into the zone of Rawley. Sometimes she thought that she might be forty years old one day, over the hill, bitter and alone with her memories of that summer, with that boy with beautiful eyes and the one kiss she'd ever had with him. The one that got away. She mentally smacked herself. Pathetic, that's what she was.

So you say you're lonely, Lola, sure. Everybody gets that way sometimes.

If only Lola, you could know the cure, Wait it out and Lola, you'll be fine

Jake found herself standing in front of her full-length mirror, half-undressed and staring back at her reflection. As if awed, her fingers reached out to touch the glass almost believing herself back on the grass of Rawley, listening to Finn discussing Narcissus.

It's easy if you try tonight, don't sit there and keep on asking "why?"

Finn had been talking about Narcissus when he'd asked them if they'd actually thought that Narcissus was so self-absorbed that he'd fallen in love with himself. Will had promptly answered his question. Yes, he'd said, but only to a certain degree. Narcissus was not enamored with his physical self, but something inside him that he'd never thought he'd had. It would seem like it was the first time he'd actually seen his true self to such a degree.

My friends told me bout how you've been getting out but no one seems to know your name.

She shook herself out of her reverie, her fingers still touching the glass before her. She pulled them away quickly, as if burned but she never took her eyes of the mirror. She was Narcissus, and Hamilton was the lake. Jake laughed inwardly, somehow amused by the sad description she had for herself. The only analogy she had been able to think of was yet another person of the opposite sex with a tragic story. But it was true.

Slide on through the crowd, and let them talk aloud, they only want to hold ya, but do they really know you Lola?

I AM NARCISSUS, she thought wryly. Hamilton always managed to uncover things she possessed, magnify aspects of herself to her and made her realize that maybe she was worth something after all. Without even thinking about it, He'd passed brick wall and alligator-infested moat she'd built around herself undetected, and worked his way in. The result? She could not get him off her mind. And THAT made her Narcissus.

Do they really know you Lola?

One last look at her reflection and she closed the door to her closet. Then, she shut the laptop that sat on her desk and sauntered over to her window. Gazing out at the world below, she leaned her cheek against the cold pane and wondered about Hamilton.

Do they really know you Lola?