Are You Happy Now?

A number of months had passed since their first tentative meeting and neither could stop their thoughts from wandering towards that night.

"Goodnight, Dodger," continued to ring in Jess's head and would often leave him tossing and turning in his sleep.  He would awaken in the night, frustrated by a girl he barely knew. You know her all right. You know that she reads Ginsberg, and understands it. You know she appreciates those notes you left for her. You know that she tucks her hair behind her ears when she's nervous. You know that you are resembling a stalker.

"Jesus already!" Jess muttered to himself. "I need a glass of water." He got up slowly, as not to wake Luke, and walked towards the kitchen. He grabbed a glass out of the cabinet above the sink and poured himself some water from the tap. When the glass was full with water, Jess downed the water in three gulps. Surprised by his own thirst, he sat down on one of the wooden chairs tucked neatly towards the dining table. If you could even call it that. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I need to get this girl out of my head.

With constant thoughts of Rory now keeping him utterly awake, Jess decided to read.  Jess glided towards his bookshelf. I knew those sixteen years in New York would teach me something. With an ethereal glow from the moon shining through the apartment's windows, it wasn't difficult for Jess to find the novel he was searching for. 'HOWL and Other Poems'. The flimsy book was now more tattered and used than ever. It was only 'tattered' before he came to Stars Hollow. After "borrowing" Rory's copy and leaving his own Twain-like notes within the margins, Jess decided it was time to reread his own. Of course, since that night, he had been rereading Ginsberg religiously. It was his new Bible. If I was religious and all. It's really getting unhealthy Mariano, the way you pine for this girl like there's no tomorrow.  You know she's got a boyfriend. He's the size of a goddamn Redwood tree! You know what? Stop talking to yourself and read for Christ's sake. Jess did as he was told.

The weight of the world
          is love.
Under the burden
          of solitude,
under the burden
          of dissatisfaction

          the weight,
the weight we carry
          is love.

As Jess read to himself, once more his thoughts returned to Rory. Ginsberg, how could you articulate this exact emotion into such tangible and comprehensible words? I can barely … identify it and here you are preaching it to the world. If only I had understood back then, but what am I talking about? It sounds as if I'm in love with this girl that I've only had one actual conversation with. And  she surely doesn't  know a thing about me. She's this pure virgin in white, unsullied dresses with that ridiculously luminescent halo atop her head and me? I'm surely no devil with horns and a pitchfork but I'm definitely not up to her level. Hell, I barely stand on the same level as scum. Jess was getting angry and frustrated. Who was this girl to make Jess think these things? You don't even know her! Don't waste your time thinking stupid things, work on getting the town in a fuss. Listen to yourself Mariano. You just thought the word 'fuss'. Since when did you say 'fuss'? Since it's three, Jess refocused his eyes towards the bright red numbers on the microwave, thirteen in the morning. Jesus. You need sleep. Not only are you talking to yourself, but you're identifying the fact that you're talking to yourself.

Jess yawned as he trudged himself in the direction of his bed, he had one lasting thought. You can't run away from yourself…
___________________________________________________________________

[It is now winter in Stars Hollow. More months have passed since that night. Currently, Rory owes Jess an egg roll and they are at the acclaimed Bracebridge dinner at the Independence Inn.]

Rory saw Dean and Clara enter the sleigh and couldn't help but sigh.  As she trekked herself over to the line of people awaiting their own sleigh ride, her thoughts began drifting to a certain broody brunette. Why would he do something like that? For me, no less? Maybe he's attempting to tarnish my great name in this town. "Yeah," Rory said to herself, dejectedly, "that's it."

Rory, lost in her thoughts, did not notice Jess atop the Independence Inn porch.  He was evidently staring at her. It's so easy. She doesn't even see. Jess reflected. Looks like she's alone, maybe I can— And before Jess could think another thought, his feet had already dragged him towards her sleigh.

"That it miss?" The driver of the sleigh inquired.

Stirred from her thoughts, Rory realized it was her turn.  Climbing into the sleigh, she replied, "I guess I'm alone."

The sleigh began moving.  The ground and trees were covered with pristine snow. Under the moonlight, Stars Hollow seemed to glimmer. I love this place, Rory thought. Her thoughts were put aside when Jess jumped into the seat beside Rory.

"What are you doing?" Rory asked, harshly.

"Well, I heard it was two to a sleigh - no more, no less. You were breaking the rules," Jess responded, while pointing his index finger at her.

"You could've hurt yourself," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I live on the edge. I can jump out if you want."

"Doesn't matter to me."

"Are you mad at me or something?"

"What do you think?" Rory remarked, heatedly.

"I can't read your mind." Jess replied coolly.

"You got into a fight with Dean."

"Dean?" Now where does that name ring a bell?

"My boyfriend."

"Ah." The Redwood. "He's still your boyfriend?"

"Okay, you can jump out now."

"Fine." He removed the quilt from his lap, grabbed the side of the sleigh, and positioned himself to jump.

Ohmigod. What is he doing? He's not actually going to jump is he? What if he hurts himself? "Wait!"

"Yes, milady?" Jess asked, with a quizzical smirk.

Rory was obviously wondering the same thing. Why had she stopped him? It's not like you care. Either way, she had to find some sort of excuse to cover her slight seizure. That's the only explanation. My brain was having a seizure and, it seems that, when I seizure, I scream 'wait'. Ok, good to know for future reference. "Before you reach your untimely death, I'd like to know why you were fighting my boyfriend." Nice save, Gilmore.

"I wasn't fighting him. I was fighting someone else. He jumped in on his own."

"He was trying to help you," Rory defended.

"Oh, he should go into government service if he's so interested in helping people. But me, he can stop worrying about." Jess stated simply.

Rory couldn't help but wonder.  Is he as tough as he seems? If so, who could he have been fighting? The most 'gangster' like person we have in town is Chuck Presby. He's a total Buzz Gunderson. Acting tough to save what little reputation and face he has. "Why were you fighting in the first place?"

"'Cause Chuck Presby's a jerk."

Huh. "You were fighting Chuck Presby?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, he is a jerk."

You're not kidding. That stupid ass said New Yorkers have no idea what their doing. Of course he was wrong and I showed him by giving him a left hook to his jaw. Let's see if the idiot can even pronounce 'New York.' "This whole town is weird and full of jerks."

"Then why are you still here?" Rory asked, mildly insulted.

"What do you mean?" Jess questioned, truly puzzled.

"I mean, school's out and you don't like it here, so why don't you just go home?"

Comprehension dawned on him. Rory Gilmore, if you only knew. "My mom didn't want me to."

"I don't believe that."

"That's your right, I guess."

"Did Luke say she didn't want you to?"

Right, Luke. The one that told my mother I was helping him with shelves. Like I would believe him… "Luke told me it was his idea that I should stay. It wasn't his idea."

As their sleigh turned a corner, they had reached the center of the town.  The spotless snow was covered with snowpeople.  A few decent attempts at snowpeople, Jess thought.  "That's good," said Jess, pointing at an eccentric looking snowwoman.  She had a black wig atop her head with an intense pink cardigan.

"What?"

"Your snowman. Snowwoman, actually."

"You know which one is ours?" Rory asked with a genuine smile.

"It definitely has the most personality. Kind of looks like Bjork."

Rory's smile widened. "That's what we were going for."

"Yeah?" Jess commented, amused at how giddy she appeared to be getting.

Rory suddenly became crestfallen when the sleigh rode by the elaborate but ostentatious snowman resembling Ebenezer Scrooge. "But everyone thinks the one on the end is gonna be the winner."

"Really? It's so overdone."

"I agree."

"You should win."

"No argument."

We get along well. Considering this is our second conversation, I'd say we're doing pretty well. "Hey, what do you and Dean talk about?" Way to ruin things, Mariano.

"What?" Rory was flustered by the arbitrariness of the question, but most importantly, by the question itself.

Jess could see Rory was becoming uncomfortable. Nice one, really. You just couldn't leave well enough alone could you? He tried to alleviate the situation by asking, "I mean, does he know Bjork?"

Well, um, sure. Way to be articulate there Rory. Mom would be so proud to know that all the money she's spending for Chilton is coming in handy in your vast vocabulary. "I've played him some stuff."

Jess was touching a nerve and he knew it. He persisted. "Hm. So you got a teacher-student thing going?"

Rory was annoyed. He's doing this on purpose. "Stop."

Jess smirked. He was getting somewhere. "No, really, I'm curious. What do you guys talk about?"

Fine, if you want to pester, I'll just answer vaguely and indiscreetly. "Everything."

"Like?"

"Just everything, tons of stuff, whatever."

"It's just in the brief non-pugilistic time I've spent with him in class, he just doesn't seem like your kind of guy."

"Well, he is my kind of guy. He's exactly my kind of guy." Was she telling herself lies? Or was this the truth? Maybe, she thought, these lies will become the truth.

"Okay." Well, could you look me in the eye and tell me you're happy with him? "I guess I don't know him that well."

"You don't. You don't." With that, Rory turned away. What am I thinking? Of course he's my kind of guy…

Didn't think so, Jess thought.  And they rode back to the Inn in comfortably awkward silence.
___________________________________________________________________

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. [A smacking sound is heard.] Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Dammit! Shut off!" Lorelai screamed.  She was trying, with no avail, to turn off the alarm clock that displayed a time of 6:02. "Ugh! I can't believe you let me do something as stupid as this, Rory."

"Five more minutes, Mom." Rory said, groggily.

"No way, Jose. If Mommy has to get up at," Lorelai glanced at the clock, "6:04 in the morning, then so do you sweetie. It's one of the perks of being my offspring. Now get up!"

Rory brought the pillow that was above her arm to sit primly atop her head. A muffled 'unh-uh' came from below the mess.  Lorelai removed the blanket from Rory's bed and, with much effort, finally removed the pillow from Rory's head.

Rory pouted as she said, "I hate you."

"Aww, Mommy loves you too." As Lorelai said this, she dragged Rory from the bed. Once she got her standing on her feet, she shoved her in the direction of the bathroom.

"Get yourself presentable."
___________________________________________________________________

Rory, dressed in a winter jacket and jeans, walked blearily down the Inn's stairs to the lobby.  Since it was still early and no one but Lorelai and Rory were awake, Rory decided to take a walk. Besides, at the rate it takes Mom to get ready … I'd say that gives me a good half an hour or so to walk.  As Rory exited the Inn, her thoughts strayed to one topic she tried desperately to avoid. Jess. No! No! Think other things. School. Paris. The Franklin. My interview with Mr. Medina. No, no, no! Even worse. Ok, let's try school again. School. Books. Books I like reading. 'HOWL and Other Poems' – the book Jess wrote notes in. Notes encapsulating feelings and emotions and just notes about the poetry. Bad Rory, bad! Bah! This sucks. You have a boyfriend I'll have you know. I need to think about something else. Where am I?

Rory's feet carried her to the center of town, directly in front of the snowperson competition. Look, there's Kirk's snowman. Typical Kirk. Carrots for eyes and charcoal for the nose and mouth. Ah, yes. And Taylor's. The perfect little snowman. Three round snowballs stacked on top of each other. My God, is that his wool sweater on Kirk's snowman? Mom's right. Kirk gets way too involved in these things. And there's our lovely snow-Bjork. Stupid pretentious, flamboyant Scrooge resembling snowman. And as Rory thought her last thought, she turned towards the sculpted Ebenezer only to find a mass pile of fallen snow.

"What the—"

"Yes?"

Rory gasped. It was the person she wanted to see the least and the most, all at the same time. Talk about a dichotomy. "Don't do that!"

"Sorry. I didn't know you were so squeamish."

"I'm not. I just don't appreciate being startled. Do you?"

"No. Not entirely."

"Yeah, I didn't think so. What are you doing up so early anyway?" Rory asked, eager to get away from the fact that her heart was still beating rapidly. She couldn't decipher if it was from her proximity to Jess or the cold or the fact that he really had scared the living daylights out of her.

"Now Rory, I thought you were smart." Jess paused for a moment, to see Rory's reaction. She was about to stand up for herself when Jess interceded. "I live with Luke. The man that always gets up at a quarter to five whether it's a workday or not. Now really Rory, are you telling me you didn't realize that?" Jess grinned.

He's patronizing me. Fine, well, "read any good books lately? Or, in your case, reread?" They began walking.

"I have actually. I reread D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover last night."

"Oh! I've heard about that. He's the one with the wife that had an affair with a German and then left Lawrence to marry the German, right?"

Startled that he knew about Lawrence's life, Jess chuckled. "Yeah, that's him. Impotent, too. Lucky guy." He smiled.

He has a nice smile. Rory chuckled as well. "Yeah, well, you can't win 'em all, right?"

Jess was still smiling. "Guess not."

They continued walking in a relaxed silence. Until, "so really, why were you out there Jess?"

God I love how my name sounds when she says it. Shut up you idiot! Look at you! You're drooling over your own name. You're deranged. "Noting the loveliness of the weather."

"Right," Rory said, disbelievingly. "Fine. If you don't want to tell me…"

"Do you really want to know?"

Don't show your excitement. "If you want to tell me."

"I was rigging the competition."

"You were rigging the competition? What compe—?" Oh. Everything came together in the blink of an eye. No one in town is up. They're all too stuffed and tired from last night. Jess is up. He could have stayed in bed if he really wanted to. The first place snowman is demolished. That means… "Oh."

"Yup." Jess remarked, offhandedly.

"Why? You have nothing to win by doing that."

"Yeah, well, since I can't make any more chalk outlines, how else is a guy supposed to cause trouble and have some fun in this town?" Jess smirked, once again.

"Well, don't think I'm condoning this sort of behavior but," Rory paused, unsure what to do, "thanks," she ended lamely.

"Who says I did it for you?"

Embarrassed Rory quickly retorted, "what? I never said that. I was just saying thanks for the sake of saying it. Who says I don't like to hear my own voice?"

"I never pictured you to be so narcissistic, Rory."

"Well, there are some things nobody knows."

"Looks like it."

"Yup." They had arrived back at the Inn. "Well, I'd better get inside and get ready, you know, being the co-hostess and all."

"Yeah, well, go host then."

Rory smiled. "Yeah, right. So, I'll see you later?"

"Later it is."

"Ok then. Well, bye." And she moved upstairs, leaving Jess alone in the empty lobby.

Well, I guess I'd better go to. Luke is probably wondering what took me so long to get my toothbrush. With that lasting thought, Jess took two steps at a time towards his room.
___________________________________________________________________

The lobby was bustling with activity. Bellhops were aiding Stars Hollows residents with their luggage while Michel was unresponsively checking them out. Lorelai and Rory were saying their 'goodbye's and 'thank you for coming's to all the departing guests when Clara, Dean's younger sister, ran up to Rory and hugged her.

"Thanks Rory," she said, heartedly.

Hugging her back, "Clara, I'm glad you came." Dean had come up behind Clara to pry her off Rory.

"So I'll see you later," Dean stated to Rory, slowly inching his head towards hers.

"Don't kiss," Clara complained.

"Aw, come on," said Dean, exasperated.

"Don't kiss." Clara pleaded. To keep her happy, Dean covered Clara's eyes with his right hand and leaned in to kiss Rory.
 
"Come on," Clara whined, dragging Dean towards the exit.

"So I guess we're off," Dean declared, reluctantly.

"I guess so," Rory replied.

Clara marched off towards the entrance with Dean grudgingly behind her.  As Clara began conversing with Lorelai, Dean took the opportunity to glance in Rory's direction. Much to his dismay, he witnessed a friendly smile occur between Rory and Jess. He frowned openly. It doesn't mean anything. Rory's too nice to not smile at anyone, he thought. Clara began pulling at Dean's arm again, he was brought back to the scene in front of him.

"Bye you guys!" Lorelai exclaimed. "Thanks so much for coming. I hope you had a fun time." Dean, Clara and their mother left, smiling and thanking Lorelai again for inviting them. When they left, Lorelai turned to Rory and said, "ugh, let's go home."
 
"Are we coming to get our bags later?"

"Why?"

"Because we're walking home. I don't want to carry 'em."

With a mischievous smile, Lorelai posed, "who says we're walking?"

Lorelai led Rory out of the Inn and to the area of the horse-draw carriages.

Still rather confused, "what are we doing here?"

"Get in."

"Why?"

"Why so many questions? Now do as Mommy says and she won't have to nag."

Rory did as she was told. To her surprise, she found their bags stored in the front compartment of the sleigh. "Nice thinking."

"It comes naturally," Lorelai teased. "Ready when you are, Joe."

And with a 'hee-yah' the carriage began moving. Midway through town, Lorelai remarked, "this is the only way to ride."
 
"I wholeheartedly agree."

Pointing to the recently fumbled snow pile that was once a detailed Ebenezer Scrooge, Lorelai exclaimed, "whoa, what happened there?"
 
"I have no idea," responded Rory, struggling with great effort not to smile.

"Bad news for ringer guy. But guess who wins by default?" Lorelai beamed.

"I guess that would be us."

They continued on the ride in silence, Lorelai smiling and Rory's head turned toward the ex-Scrooge. Positive Lorelai wasn't paying attention, Rory broke out in a huge smile and turned back to the front of the carriage thinking, this was one of the best holidays I've ever had.