Disclaimer: I do not own Gilmore Girls, its settings nor its characters. I don't even own the title of the story, which belongs to my friend Rinny. Oh, unfortunately I am not affiliated with J.D. Salinger in anyway. Pity me.
Thanks To: Roxy. Without her, I just would have let the fic stay dead.
*
Rory looked at her watch for what had to be the hundredth time. A Saturday wasted at home. She didn't think that had happened since she was seven and sick with the Chicken Pox. The only consolation was that she could read, which was exactly what she was amusing herself with at the moment.
After getting off the phone with both Tristan and her father, she had wandered back into her room and pulled out her Salinger collection. She started off with The Catcher and The Rye, considering that it was the only non-Glass related book he had. Her second book, the one she had just finished was Raise the Roof Beams High Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction. Now she was on story one of Nine Stories, the one called A Perfect Day For Banana Fish. Her favorite Glass-related story.
Now this is why when she didn't hear the door open and close when it did.
"Rory?"
Rory's head snapped up to find her mother there.
"Mother," she closed her book. "I wasn't sure when you'd get back."
"Well here I am," Lorelai managed an
awkward smile. "So were the kids okay for you?"
"They were once I found where you hid the coffins," Rory replied dryly, standing up. "After that they were as silence as a corpse."
"Heh," Lorelai was pretty sure that was a joke. "Where are they really?"
Her daughter shrugged, "Upstairs with a video."
"What video?"
"Bob The Carpenter," Rory blinked. "Something to that effect."
"The Builder?"
"Along those lines."
"Apparently they are never too old for that," Lorelai commented with a shake of her head. "Pity me."
"Yeah, well," Rory fidgeted. "When
does Jess get off of work?"
"From the diner?" Lorelai asked, frowning. "It's more of a whenever Luke no longer needs him kind of thing."
Rory backed away from her mother and towards the door; "I'm going to go catch up with him then."
*
Jess leaned against the brick wall of the pawnshop that also doubled as a wall for Stars Hollow's sole alleyway. He pulled a cigarette out of the front pocket of his jean jacket, light it, and then took a drag off of it. Once that ritual was completed, he turned to Rory.
"Is there a reason you forced me out of the dinner?" Jess questioned, taking another drag before Rory took it from him.
Rory took a drag off the cigarette before answering, "Were you really enjoying it that much?"
"I didn't think you smoked, Gilmore," Jess took it back from her.
"Hayden," Rory corrected him, blowing a stray hair out of her face. "I don't. Well, only after high stress situations."
"Oh," Jess said knowingly. "You
babysat the kids. I forgot."
"Does Lorelai, like, do this a lot?" She asked, running a hand through her brown hair. "Just hoist the kids on some unsuspecting and sleeping person without first consulting them first?"
He shrugged, "How else could she get a sitter? Ramsay and Keely- the kids from hell."
"Literally," Rory mumbled. "I don't
get it. I was perfectly well behaved as a child."
Jess's eyes looked her up, then down. "I see you are making up for it now."
"Ha ha," Rory glared at him as she wrapped her arms across her chest. "I hate it here."
"Only the certified insane like it," Jess told her. "It reminds them of the voices in there head."
"I wish the voices would go tell them to go shoot themselves."
"Create a ghost town?" Jess asked. "How New Bostonian."
"Vermont?"
"Heard about it?"
"Read about it," Rory clarified. "Though if it's going to be a blizzard, I'd rather be in California with my father."
"You have one?" Jess teased.
"What you see me as an immaculate conception child?" Rory paused. "I don't really see Lorelai as a Virgin Mary candidate."
"Me either," Jess agreed. "It's just no one talks about him."
"My mother seems to like to pretend he doesn't exist, but that's just the way I interpret it."
Jess threw down the cigarette to the ground and snubbed it out with his foot. "So where to now, Rory? Off to see the boyfriend?"
"Tristan's not my boyfriend," Rory
reminded him. "He's just…"
"A companion?"
"Something like that," Rory looked out of the opening of the alley. "And no, I'm not."
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder loosely, "Then come, I know of a few things that'll really piss the town off."
"Really?" Rory asked, intrigued. "And to think, no one will suspect me."
Jess snorted, "Yeah, you're an angel, Hayden."
She gave him an innocent smile, "You better believe it, Mariano."
He might not, but if the rest of the town did…so much the better.
To Be Continued…