He emerged from his hibernation a few days later when he was hit with the brick wall of writer's block. One minute he was writing furiously—absently wishing he had a computer to type on, but liking the feel of a paper and pen beneath his fingers—and the next his pen was absolutely still. He stared at the half-blank paper, realizing he had no idea what to do next. Civil had just been attacked, but Jess didn't know what he was supposed to do next.
He tried to go over a few possible scenarios in his mind, but when he tried to write one out, the words wouldn't come.
Lack of human contact was the cause he finally arrived at. It couldn't be that he'd lost the story. It was just that he hadn't talked to anyone besides a few passing comments to his parents while they were home. He'd give Lorelai a call, see if she wanted to do something again.
A female who wasn't Lorelai answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Uh, hi," he said, awkwardly; Lorelai had always answered the phone before. "Is Lorelai there?"
"Hold on a minute." Apparently Janet—that's who it had to be, after all—didn't cover up the phone. "Lorelai, there's someone on the phone for you. A boy."
"It's Jess," Lorelai said dismissively. Her voice was quiet, almost background noise, but he could hear it. "He's my friend from school. I told you about him."
"Oh," Janet said, a teasing note in her voice. "That Jess."
"Can I have the phone, please?" Lorelai asked, her voice getting louder.
"Of course," Janet answered.
"Jess?" Lorelai said into the receiver.
"Hey."
"Yep, it's definitely you. What have you been up to the last four days? Holed up in your room?"
The fondly exasperated tone of her voice gave him hope. "Well, yeah," he said. "What else did you expect from me?"
"Not much. So, what'd you call for?"
"Just wondering if you wanted to do something."
"Hold on," Lorelai said, sounding slightly disgruntled. "Two people are trying to talk to me at once." Jess heard murmuring in the background, but couldn't understand any words. "Uh, Janet wants to know if you'd like to come over here and hang out. She and Larry have this huge collection of videos. I seriously think they've got every movie ever filmed, whether it should have been made or not."
He was sure he began grinning like a moron at the invitation. "Uh, sounds great," he said. "When?"
More murmurs, then, "How about now? I mean, if you're not doing anything?"
"How about an hour?" he asked, glancing down at himself. He'd been neglecting personal hygiene in favor of writing, and he really needed to take a shower.
"An hour's fine," she said.
"Want me to bring anything?"
"Nah. Just you, and your witty, sarcastic comments. Can't watch movies without those."
"Too bad it's just going to be us," Jess said. "No one to throw popcorn at."
"Except each other," she pointed out. "By the way, don't."
"Aw, you're no fun. But I'll refrain from tossing kernals at you."
"Thanks. I really appreciate that. See you in a little while."
"Bye."
Jess hopped off his bed and went for the bathroom, glancing at the clothes strewn around on the way out. So, he thought in the shower, meeting the folks. Well, in Lorelai's case, foster-folks.
He inspected his reflection in the mirror. Shaving wasn't a daily necessity, more like weekly, and it was that time of the week, he decided.
He checked his watch as he headed out the door, realizing he had enough time to walk there instead of hopping the subway. It was a nice day; for all that it was the middle of winter. The sun shone, the air had a definite bite to it, and was almost the clearest he'd ever seen in New York.
Finally, though, he was knocking on the same door Lorelai had closed behind her four days ago. It opened to reveal Lorelai, standing with an older woman who was obviously waiting for an introduction.
"Hey, Jess," Lorelai said, standing aside. "Come on in."
"Thanks," he said, making his lips quirk up in an attempt at a smile.
"Ah," Lorelai said a little awkwardly. "Janet, this is Jess. He's in three of my classes at school."
Janet smiled and reached out to shake Jess' hand. "Of course. Lorelai mentions you frequently. She says she hasn't met anyone else who has read as much as she has."
Jess smiled, genuinely if slightly. "Nice to meet you," he said.
There was an awkward pause before Janet said, "You did say he wasn't very chatty. Well, I guess I'll let you two get to your movies."
"Actually," Jess said. "I was kinda hoping to show Lorelai around the city some more. We're not going to have many more days like this one this year, and there's a lot she hasn't seen."
Janet glanced towards the windows and smiled. "It's fine with me as long as it's fine with Lorelai."
"Sounds great." The girl under discussion grinned at Jess. "Just let me get my coat."
"And your cell," Janet said.
"And my cell," Lorelai repeated obediently as she opened a small closet to their left. She pulled on a lightweight jacket that matched the streaks in her hair. Then she stuffed something into one of the pockets. "Cell accounted for."
"You have money in case the cell breaks?"
"Yup," Lorelai nodded.
"Money for the subway?" Again she nodded in response. "All right," Janet finally said. "Be sure to be home around dark?"
"Maybe we can watch movies then," Lorelai said.
"We'll see if we can even stay awake by then," Jess said. "It was nice to meet you, Janet," he added as he and Lorelai left the apartment.
"You, too, Jess," her foster mother called after them. "Have fun." The door closed with a light click.
"So," Lorelai said. "Where to?"
"Here and there," Jess said enigmatically. He took her arm and walked her out of the building and down the road. "How much money you got?"
"About twenty," she said quietly, not wanting to advertise the fact that she was carrying cash.
"Good," he said, and refused to answer any of her increasingly persistent questions about where they were going. "You'll find out," he kept saying, making Lorelai want to tear at her hair. Or his.
"Is it so much to ask that you give me a straight answer about anything?" she finally demanded.
Jess merely nodded, smiling to himself. "Fine," Lorelai said, and fumed silently as they walked on. They took the subway, making Lorelai realize that she wasn't nearly so nervous this time around, though they did emerge from the underground holding hands again.
"Here we are," Jess said, stopping in front of a blank off-white storefront. It was a small building, almost buried among the taller ones around it. He entered, blocking Lorelai's view of the interior until he stepped aside. When she got her first good look around, she couldn't even manage a gasp.
After jawing for a long moment, she demanded, "What is this place?"
"Heaven," Jess said. "They have every book you'd ever think to want in here, probably in both used and new condition. This is where I found your copy of Anna Kerenina. Their organization needs some work, but it is fun to see what you find where."
Lorelai took a few staggering steps into the warehouse-like building. The place was huge, and she just didn't know where to look first. The first things you noticed were the books, but a close second were all the people; hundreds of them crammed in between the shelves and in the aisles. All kinds of people, from scholarly-looking grandfather-types browsing in the biographies to young punks with rainbow hued hair sheepishly inspecting the romance novels. Then there were the books themselves. The sheer numbers made her want to swoon for the first time in her life. Every aisle came with a stepladder because the shelves reached nearly to the ceiling fifteen feet above their heads.
"And you come here regularly?" she demanded, feeling almost like a person going down happily for the third time. Instead of waiting for his reply, she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the first row, scanning the shelves she could see for titles or authors she recognized.
They took turns dragging each other up and down aisles, from genre to genre, from fiction to non-fiction to poetry. After three hours and much angst over how very few books they could buy, they left the store.
"That is the most horrible place I've ever been in," Lorelai said, sounding exhausted. Her feet were killing her and her wallet was empty of even her emergency cash. She never spent her emergency cash: it wasn't like her. But she'd spent it to make up the difference on their purchases. She got several Ayn Rand books that she had only borrowed from the library. There was a slim volume of poetry in there—Edna St. Vincent Malay—and a book that Janet had expressed an interest in to round out the purchase. Jess had a few anarchy-friendly titles, but limited himself to that for a while. "I can never go in there again unless I'm flat broke and can't afford to buy anything. Even then, I'll probably crawl around on the floor until I find enough loose change for one book!"
"I know," Jess said, grinning half-heartedly. He was tired, too. Even after several years of visiting the store, he'd had no idea it was that big. "I think we must have walked five miles today," he remarked, wishing he had thought to wear tennis shoes instead of boots.
"Do not remind me," Lorelai groaned. "And let's not forget all the stairs we climbed. I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it home at all tonight."
"You better," Jess said. "I don't like to play chivalrous knight, so don't expect me to carry you."
"I don't expect you to carry me," Lorelai said indignantly. "I expect you to call a taxi to drive me home."
"Yeah, right," Jess snorted. "Taxis are so easy to get in New York."
"Well they make it look easy on TV," she defended herself.
"This is reality, Lor." She nodded at him, too weary, and almost unconsciously, her arm slipped around his waist. She leaned on him, her eyes drooping to half-mast. He smiled, but didn't comment for fear that she would realize what she was doing and stop. His arm mirrored hers, and they shuffled along all the way back to Lorelai's apartment.
Lorelai opened the door and gestured him inside, calling, "Janet? Larry?" There was no answer, and Lorelai inspected the kitchen for a note. She found one stuck to the fridge. "Went to a movie. Probably will go to dinner after. Have fun. –Janet and Larry."
"Let's find something to eat," Lorelai said, beginning to search through the cabinets. "Since we can't eat in the living room, let's decide on what movies to watch before we get in there."
"All right," he said. "What do they have?"
She shook her head as she dug in the fridge for sandwich fixings, having decided that would be the quickest meal possibility. "Easier to just say a movie. They'll have it, unless it's some really obscure, really old foreign movie." In between bites of the sandwiches they made, they bounced around titles of movies. "Romancing the Stone," Lorelai said.
Jess shook his head. "Not in the mood for cheesy eighties adventure-romance. Rocky."
"What happened to no cheese?" Lorelai demanded. "A Far Off Place."
"What's that about?" When Lorelai explained about three kids in Africa who are being pursued by poachers, Jess shruggd. "Never seen it, but it sounds okay. It goes on the list. Clueless," he suggested.
"You're suggesting that?" Lorelai demanded.
"It's based on a Jane Austin book," he said defensively.
"I forget you're one of those guys that admits to reading Jane Austin. All right. Clueless is on the agenda. My turn. Princess Bride."
"Done," he said, and swallowed his last bit of bread. They settled in on the couch facing a truly stupendous home theater system. "Wow," he said, casting an appreciative gaze around at the numerous speakers set up at strategic points in the room. "Which of your foster parents is the tech nut?"
"That would be Janet. She basically runs the Best Buy west of here. It's great. Everything's at a discount." She palmed three large remotes, manipulated them, and finally settled back to watch the first movie.
The laughter through Clueless kept them awake, even as tired as they were. The coffee Lorelai brewed between movies supplemented the adrenaline that went with the second movie. But then they crashed hard, falling asleep somewhere after the Cliffs of Insanity but before the Fire Swamp.
Janet and Larry came home to find Lorelai and Jess asleep on the couch. Janet studied them for a long moment. She had a lot of affection for the girl who was under their care, as she knew her husband did. She'd been dealt a few harsh blows in a row, and she deserved some happiness. And the boy was very, very sweet on her.
They'd probably started out sitting on different cushions, she mused, looking at their positions. Gravity had taken over, though, and Lorelai was lying against Jess, who was draped over the arm of the couch. Janet and Larry had been married for a long time, and knew each other very well. With a small exchange of glances, they nodded in perfect accord.
The slam of the door jarred Jess out of his dream, and he jerked to a seating position, causing Lorelai to slide into his lap. She made a distressed noise and scrunched her eyes tighter closed before saying, "What happened?"
"Hello?" Janet called out cheerfully. "Lorelai, where are you?" Lorelai shot upright, and frantically checked herself to see that she was still presentable.
"Uh, in here, Janet," she said, glancing at Jess in near panic. Jess shrugged, tried to disguise the helpless expression on his face.
"Oh, hello," Janet said, and smiled at the teenagers. "How was your afternoon?"
"Exhausting but incredible," Lorelai said honestly. "I think my feet are going to fall off."
"It's your fault," Jess said. "You're the one who insisted that we peruse every single aisle twice, in-depth." Lorelai stuck her tongue out at him in response. Smirking, Jess glanced at his watch. "Oh, jeez," he said. "I didn't realize it was so late."
"What movie did you guys end up seeing, anyway?" Lorelai asked as she and Jess got up from the couch.
"Oh, that new action flick. We decided to treat ourselves to dinner afterwards, it was so horrible," Larry said, speaking for the first time. "Seeing the late hour, Jess, why don't I give you a ride?"
Jess was all set to refuse when he caught Janet giving him a very pointed warning glance. Even he wasn't immune to such looks. "Yeah. Sure. Thanks." He desperately hoped he wouldn't be subjected to one of those "man to man" chats. It was bad enough watching one of those things on TV; he didn't want to experience one in real life.
To his surprise, Larry actually talked about Lorelai during the drive home, which took longer than necessary because of an accident blocking traffic. But Larry finished off by saying something cryptic: "She's had one rude shock in her life, piled on top a lot of hurt. Don't add to that, okay?"
Jess shook his head. "I wouldn't ever deliberately hurt her."
Larry sighed. "I guess that's all anyone can ask, right?"
Jess shrugged. "I guess. Thanks for the ride."
He let himself into the apartment quietly, and was relieved to see that if his mom was home, she hadn't fallen asleep in front of the TV again. His dad was undoubtedly working late again. Too tired to even think about writing, he began to strip for bed. Just as he was taking off his shirt, the solution to his writer's block struck him hard. He nearly reeled from it, but recovered and grabbed his notebook.
Later, he found himself falling asleep in his notebook, and was sure there were ink marks where his face had lain for a moment. He thought it was just a moment, anyway. He couldn't be sure. But Civil had reached an impasse in his investigation, and things were building up without his knowledge that would soon be breaking. Jess decided to let the story pause for a few hours' rest and hit the sheets.
He fell asleep with a smile on his face, thinking he'd never been so happy and so exhausted at the same time.
