Chapter 2
The two of them went about their morning routines separately, exchanging "hellos" in the hallways. Then they met for lunch in the library, where they worked on homework and got to know one another.
This went on for a few months, the passing time being marked by change in the weather, going from hot late summer to biting chill of early, wet winter. With winter came the holidays. This bothered Jess, because he'd bought Lorelai a present. He was nervous about the present: on the one hand, he was sure she'd like it. But on the other…well, he just didn't get her sometimes.
She never talked about her life, or barely, anyway. The only anecdotes from her past were her first times reading certain books, or mocking her own attempts at fiction. The few times he'd tried to ask her about her parents or her other family, she just…froze. That was the only way he could describe it. Her face and voice lost all expression, and she became little more than a robot. The first time he'd asked a question she didn't want to answer, it had taken until nearly the end of the school day to get her to react to anything again. The second time, the façade had broken before the end of History, but it scared Jess enough that he didn't want to try again.
Not that he was overly chatty about his own life, but he wasn't afraid of it, like she seemed to be. He answered her questions if she asked them. He, his mother, and his father lived in an apartment that wasn't much. They'd lived in several different apartments, in varying degrees of "nice" all his life, in various parts of the city. He and his parents didn't have an extraordinary relationship one way or the other: they were both busy and working, but they didn't treat him badly.
On the last day before the Winter Break, they met in their usual spot. Lorelai had her backpack next to her on the couch and was reading Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Jess cleared his throat. "I believe your backpack has taken my seat," he said, startling her.
"Jess!" she said, exasperated. "I thought I told you not to do that any more!"
"You did." He smiled slightly. "Doesn't mean I listened."
"And you've just put your finger on the reason my bag is in your spot." She turned back to her book, smirking a little in triumph.
Jess went over and tossed her bag carelessly to the floor. "Hey!" she protested loudly.
"Shh! You want the librarian to come over here?"
"No." She bent and picked up her pack until it as right side up again. "You should be a little more careful with other people's things," she muttered.
He sat sideways on the couch, facing her, with what he was sure was a smirk on his face. She looked at him suspiciously. "What's that look for?"
"What look?"
"That 'feline in the aviary' look."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. You're delusional." Nonetheless, he continued to smirk at her, the expression almost widening into a smile.
"Out with it," Lorelai snapped.
He shrugged, and let one of his hands slide behind him. "Guess what I'm hiding?" he said.
"I'm not in the mood for games, Jess. But, given you're you, I'll guess it's a book."
He let his face fall. "Okay. For not playing games, you're playing really well. Merry Christmas," he added, producing the present.
The surprise on her face was wonderful to him. Then she squealed happily and began tearing at the paper. "Oh, jeez. You're one of those freakish wrappers who doesn't leave one seam untapped, aren't you?" she demanded as she began ripping at the newspaper-wrapped present.
"I have confidence in your ripping abilities," he said. Finally, she got all the paper off the gift and she gasped.
"Oh, Jess, you shouldn't have!" she said, turning the book over and over in her hand. "I love it! I can't believe you found an old hardback edition of Anna Kerenina." She looked at the date in the front cover of the book. "Nineteen twenty!" She looked up at Jess with wide eyes. "Where did you find it?"
Jess shrugged. "Just at this little second-hand bookstore. You know, I expect you to let me borrow that," he said.
"Are you kidding? This is never leaving my sight! This is a treasure!" She looked up at him, her eyes bright with happiness. Then she threw herself forward and hugged him around the neck. They stayed like that for long moments, reveling in the feel of each other.
She felt so good when she was around him. Safe, comfortable, happy. Like she hadn't been in a long time. Oh, she could pretend just fine, but to actually feel like she pretended was incredible. It didn't hurt that he was cute, nice…and he smelled good. She almost giggled at the thought, then breathed in the scent of soap and his leather jacket.
When they finally separated, Jess cleared his throat. "So, I was wondering. If you're not doing anything over the holidays, maybe we could hang out sometime. Catch a movie, or…hang out. Yeah."
"Go peruse bookstores," she said, smiling at his fumbling. It was very endearing.
"Yeah. Stuff." If he'd been standing, he would have scuffed the toe of his sneakers in the dirt, she thought.
"Sounds great," she said. Then she reached down in the bag and pulled out a wrapped present of her own, though not as thorough as his. But she used real wrapping paper, so she figured that made up for it. "So, I'm not as picky a wrapper as you are," she said defensively as she threw it in his lap. "Doesn't mean the present isn't as good."
Jess tore open the paper without hesitation, and cocked his head to the side as he read the title. "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk?" He smiled up at her. "Cool. Thanks. You read it yet, or did you buy it on blind faith?"
"The second one," she said. Suddenly the bell rang, and they scurried to clean up the wrapping mess before heading to class.
The traffic flowed over the street in a fairly regular pace, while pedestrians hurried along their merry way. Lorelai saw this out the window of her new home, watching with the odd detachment she'd felt since August 14; the night her life was turned upside down and inside out.
When she'd been told where her foster home was, she'd had visions of ghettos, but that had just been her recent streak of pessimism acting up. The neighborhood Janet and Larry—her foster mother and father—lived in was actually quite nice. As run-down as was to be expected for a city like New York, with graffiti adorning some walls, but not all of them. The removal from all things familiar was almost a blessing; it helped soothe her feeling that she didn't know who she was any more.
The holiday break was beginning to get boring. Both her foster parents worked during the day, so she was left in an apartment she was only now getting used to. The computer only took up so much time, and she didn't really like it all that much to begin with outside of word processing programs. She had realized before that daytime TV sucked, but hadn't fully grasped that concept until sitting through two minutes of "Jerry Springer." After three days, even her books weren't helping to dispel the boredom. She'd degenerated to staring out the window and contemplating her lack of existence, which only served to depress her more.
Finally, she got fed up and called Jess. She'd memorized his number, originally calling him for homework, but progressing to calling him for any reason.
"Hello?" Jess answered.
"Save me," she said desperately.
"I knew you'd be calling me soon," he said smugly. "Cooped up in that large apartment with nothing to do."
"Tell me you have suggestions and aren't just rubbing my nose in the fact that I can't think of a single thing to do," she snapped.
"Oh, I've got a suggestion all right," he said. "Why not go out on the town?"
"I don't know too much about this 'town,'" she said mockingly. "Maybe I could convince a native to give me a tour?"
"Now where would you find one of those?" he mused.
"Well, one happened to scare me to death in the library a few months ago. Maybe I could call him."
"I think I know him, don't I?"
"I believe you're vaguely acquainted."
"Okay, let's stop. This is getting stupid."
"Getting?" She sighed. "Seriously, though. Care to show me some of your haunts?"
After making fun of her lingo, they decided to meet in front of the school in an hour. Lorelai stood and contemplated the weather visible out her window. Not too cold, but definitely not warm, either. She'd wear jeans, her good boots, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a sweater. "That should do it," she muttered to herself and got dressed.
She stood patiently in front of the school for several minutes before he showed up.
"Ugh," she said in greeting. "You realize you are late?"
"I am not," he said, hiking himself up to sit next to her on the cement wall. "I said an hour, and I meant an hour, not fifty-seven minutes. Lighten up, Collins," he added, nudging her ribs with his elbow.
"Sorry," she sighed. "I'm just a little cabin-feverish."
"I know the feeling," he said.
"No you don't," she retorted. "I mean, come on, you can always think of something to do. That's a benefit of having a creative mind." He had no reply for that, given that he spent most of his time writing. But he still hadn't told her that. Maybe he never would, he didn't know. "So, where are we gonna go?"
"My favorite places." He began to lead her away. "First," he said, leading her down to the underground, "we're taking the subway."
"I'm not a complete moron," she said, giving him an arch look. "I've taken the subway before."
"How many times?"
"Twice," she said with obvious pride. "Janet took me shopping one time and decided to take the subway both ways. Do not laugh at me!" She swatted him on the arm when he finally gave in to his desire to crack up.
"Jeez. But it doesn't matter. We'll turn you into a jaded New Yorker before you can say 'the Big Apple.'"
"The Big Apple," she responded.
"How original. Come on." He went through the ratcheting machine and waited for her on the other side.
"I hate those things," she complained after almost running through the arms. "I'm always afraid they'll stop working halfway through the loop and I'll be stuck there until someone comes along and fixes it."
"Don't worry," Jess responded. "If that ever happens I'll be right behind you to kick you clear."
"I'd appreciate that," she said, playing along.
They stepped onto the train but didn't spot any empty seats so they stood on opposite sides of a pole. Lorelai's fingers were turning white by the time the train actually took off. "Your hands are going to be numb," he noted. He reached down and began to pry the fingers of one hand off the pole. Just as they were separated, the train jostled a little scaring her, and she ended up gripping his hand tightly.
When she realized what had happened, she blushed and tried to pull away, but he just grinned and held on. They ended up holding hands all the way up to street level again. "Okay," she said slowly. "So, where are we going?"
"My favorite record store," he said.
They spent a good hour and a half going through the store's entire inventory of CDs, tapes and vinyl. "That was incredible," Lorelai said as they left, holding hands again. "My God, that was just amazing! I never knew places like that existed! Did you see that one guy's hair? How did he get it to stick up like that?"
"What I want to know is why would you want ringlets to stand up in the first place? He looked like he had a bunch of slinkies on his head."
"You're no fun," she said.
"Better be nice to the man who's buying you lunch," he said.
"Ooh, lunch," she moaned, holding a hand to her stomach. "I'm starving! Can we have coffee, too?"
"How did you get started on this coffee thing, anyway?"
"I have no idea," she said. "I just love it, and I've been drinking it as long as I can remember. My mom used to let me drink hers, and then I started stealing some when she made it for her and dad in the mornings…." She trailed off, and looked as if she was going to freeze up again. But she just sighed heavily and turned to face him, a falsely bright smile in place. "So, about that coffee?"
It was progress, he thought. And it was some information: she'd had both parents, at least for a while. "There's a coffee shop right down the road from where we're going," he told her.
To her surprise, he pulled her into a small take-out restaurant. "What do you want?" he asked her, gesturing at the multi-language menu.
"This is Chinese?" He nodded. "Ooh, lo mein noodles with sesame chicken. Oh, and a couple of eggrolls."
"Got it," he said and placed both their orders in, what seemed to Lorelai, record time. Within five minutes, they had a sack full of food. He gestured her ahead of him into a park, where he sat on a bench and opened the sack. Without hesitation he dug into the chow mein he'd gotten with spicy pork and stir-fried vegetables. Shrugging, Lorelai sat next to him and dug into her own food.
"This is really good," she said. "You know what would make this meal complete? Coffee."
He laughed, but didn't pause in his eating. When they were both done, they threw their trash away and opened their fortunes. "You are having a good day," Lorelai read. She frowned at the card. "That's not a fortune! That's a fact!" She grinned at Jess as he fished his piece of paper out.
"You are a quiet and unobtrusive person," he read. Lorelai let out a huge guffaw at that. "Dey don't know me vewy well, do dey?" he deadpanned, then threw the fortune into the trash with the rest of their wrappers.
"Why don't we just let them have their delusions," she said, still giggling slightly at the fortune. "Now, where's my coffee?"
He rolled his eyes but led her to a dimly lit café. The walls were copies of Monet paintings done on a large scale, but the atmosphere was friendly and arty. "This is cool," Lorelai said. Then she realized she was at the head of the line. "I'll, uh, have a large café mocha double espresso," she said, reading off of the menu.
"Do you ever sleep?" he asked her, appalled at the amount of caffeine in that drink.
"Not that I can remember, no," she said, accepting the steaming cup from the slightly harried looking college-age guy behind the counter.
"I'll have a chai, please," he said. "Medium."
"Chai?" she asked.
"It's a kind of tea. It's really good. You should try it."
"Uh, no thanks," she said dubiously, looking at the milky liquid in his mug. "I'll stick with coffee."
"You're a nut," he told her as they found a two-seat table.
"I know," she answered, and smiled at him as she took another drink of her coffee. "That's why I like Ayn Rand."
"Not that again!" Jess groaned. "Come on, I made that comment nearly three months ago! Let it die!"
"Never!" she said stubbornly. "I never, ever let things die. I will nit pick anything until it begs for death, and then I'll resurrect it and keep going." He gave her a long, hard look, and she shrugged. "What can I say? I like Ayn Rand."
Jess chose to say nothing.
At around seven that night, Jess walked her to her door. They'd never been to each other's houses before, and Lorelai still had no idea where he lived. She considered inviting him in, but thought better of it. She, and her foster parents still weren't quite sure of each other, and she didn't know how they'd react to find Jess in the apartment with her.
They stood awkwardly, she with her key in hand. "I had a lot of fun today," she said. "I can't believe how bad that movie was. And I can't believe you got us thrown out!"
"Hey, you were throwing that popcorn with me. The people below us didn't know what hit them. Admit it: it was fun."
She mock glared at him, and he attempted to smile winningly back. "I was never kicked out of a movie before I met you."
"Meaning your life was boring before you met me." He managed to supress the wince he felt, anticipated her freezing. Instead she smiled very slightly, and looked a little sad. But it was an expression, which was progress. "So…," he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, desperate to change the subject. "I guess I'll see you later, huh?"
Suddenly she leaned forward and kissed him, very gently, on the lips. He was too shocked to react much, and by the time he had his hands out of his pockets she'd backed away, studying him nervously. He smiled broadly—and somewhat goofily—at her, and she smiled shyly back. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Later, I guess."
She turned and fumbled with the door, her hand shaking slightly. Laughing at herself, she finally managed to shove the door out of the way. "Uh, later, Jess," she said, standing in the open doorway.
"Yeah," he said. "Later, Lorelai."
He was still smiling when she closed the door on him. The smile turned into an idiotic grin as he made his way down her steps and away from her building.
The grin had faded into his usual bland expression by the time he reached his own apartment. He unlocked the four separate locks on the door and shoved it open. His neighborhood wasn't quite as nice as Lorelai's, a little more crime-ridden, but not as bad as many he'd seen in the city.
He grimaced down at the unswept linoleum floor, at the pieces of trash laying around where neither he nor his parents had bothered to pick them up. The apartment was empty except for him. His mom worked fairly regular hours, but she didn't get off work until nine. His dad worked insane hours with no set criteria, so he could be working until midnight or until five in the morning. Jess figured he should do something, so he sighed and began to pick up the various wrappers or scraps of paper around, shuddering at the thought of Lorelai coming into his apartment and finding it like this. A little messy was one thing; complete disarray another. The trash bag needed to be changed, so he did that, too.
When the apartment was vaguely presentable again, at least in what he liked to call the common room—kitchen, dining room and living room combined into one—he headed into his sanctuary, small though it may have been.
His room and the bathroom shared one side of the apartment; his parent's the other, with the common room in between. He stepped inside and immediately grabbed at his notebook and pen.
Mysteries were his thing right now. Preferably dark, dangerous mysteries. None of those parlor stories, where someone gathered all the info and solved it, this was gritty street crime. Thanks to his research, Jess knew how to pick a lock, tail someone without getting caught, and basic surveillance methods. His main character was the stereotypical cynical private eye. But Percival "Civil" Archer wasn't just any Sam Spade wannabe.
That's what he told himself, anyway.
After reading the last few paragraphs he'd written before Lorelai called, he continued writing, getting absorbed in the unfolding mystery, with all the twists, turns and dangerous cul-de-sacs Jess was just beginning to see.
Jess enjoyed everything about writing: the challenge of it, the thrill of making characters out of both people he knew and people he imagined. The shivery feeling he got when the dialogue in the scene came out just like it sounded in his head, when the descriptions flowed from his pen so smoothly he didn't notice time passing.
He was finally ripped out of his creative haze by the rumbling of his stomach and the ache in his hand. He knew he'd been writing a while, but he didn't realize quite how long before he looked at the clock and blanched that it read midnight. Shaking his head ruefully, he went to find something to eat.
His mother was sitting on the couch, asleep with the TV on. Funny, he hadn't heard her come in. "Mom," he said, shaking her gently. "Mom. Come on, mom, wake up." She groaned, yawned and covered her mouth with her hand.
"Jess. When'd you get home?"
"I've been home since seven," he said. He knew she thought it was a lie. She had this view of him that he was always staying out late and lying about it. Okay, so he did that sometimes, but not all the time. "Thought you might like to go to bed. You'll be more comfortable there," he added and went into the kitchen portion or the room. He looked in cupboards and the refrigerator before settling on microwave corn dogs.
"Yeah, I guess I will," Liz said after a while, shuffling past him into her own room. "Your father's not getting off work until three, so there's no use waiting up for him. Night, Jess."
"Night." He bit into the corn dog, already trying to get back into the story. Hell, he was on vacation.
