Readers:
This second chapter was never meant to exist. It was never my intention to continue the story, but a combination of insightful reviews and a sleepless night prompted me to think further. I hope it stands up to what you are expecting. Tell me what you think.
With all due respect,
authors-anonymous
---
Lane was sitting cross-legged on a costume case in the Gilmore-garage gone rehearsal-space. Brian and Zack were arguing about the members of the original Sex Pistols ("Before they became the Pistols-" Zack was saying. "Before they became the Pistols they weren't the Pistols. The 101'ers-" Brian argued.). Dave had wisely decided to stay out of it. He was leaning against a wall, tuning his guitar.
"No way man!" Zack said, standing up. "The 101'ers got their name-"
Brian also stood up. "No-"
"Guys!" Dave yelled, putting down his guitar. They looked at him. "Let's quit while we're ahead. Right. We played a good set today- good downbeats Lane," he added shooting her a glance, "but we need to work on 'Anarchy'. It's sloppy."
Zack started to say something, undoubtedly about who originally wrote it, but Dave interrupted him. "So, next Thursday, three thirty."
The band began packing up, but both Lane and Dave hung back.
"Hi," Dave said, after closing the door securely, with Brian and Zack on the other side.
"So, my downbeats were good?" Lane joked, pulling him down next to her. "How about-" Dave cut her off with a long kiss. "So, good?"
"Very." Dave wrapped his arms around Lane and pulled her into his chest. Somberly he brushed her hair behind her ears, placed feathery kisses on her head and neck.
"Dave?"
"Mmmhmm?" he asked, still gently caressing her.
"What is it?" Lane turned to look at him. He didn't look at her, but allowed her to take his hands in hers and drape her leg over his. Dave was silent. "Dave?"
When he finally began to speak, it wasn't in his usual good-humored tone. Flatly, he replied, "Today is the anniversary of Marky's death."
Lane jerked. "What?" Then quietly she asked, "Who was Marky?"
She hadn't really expected him to answer. Dave looked into her eyes, gripped her hands tighter, pulled her towards him. "Marky," he said, "was my brother."
"Oh..." was all Lane could think to say. Dave grinned at her humorlessly.
"Yeah. Four years ago, today. He..." Dave blinked. "...killed himself. In our bedroom." His voice cracked, and Lane wrapped her arms around him. "He was really quiet about it too. I was in the shower."
"Why?" Lane asked, looking into Dave's anguished face.
"Mom and Dad...my parents...they had told him that they couldn't afford for him to keep having music lessons." Dave was no longer looking at Lane, his eyes unfocused, remembering. "We were having dinner, and they just said it. He stormed off upstairs. I was still a kid, then. Marky was two years older than me."
Lane didn't say anything, nuzzled into him.
"Music was his life. He had a bass guitar signed by John Cale. It took him two years to save up for it. Birthday money and Christmas money and allowances and everything. He loved it." Dave was absently fingering 'Stephanie Says', still unfocused. "He played everything. Bass, guitar, drums, flute. Violin, clarinet. He was an amazing guitarist. Taught himself. He used to spend hours in this music store on Main Street, just watching these old guys playing around."
"He sounds like a great guy," Lane whispered.
"Oh, he was. He was going to get into some music school on the coast, no questions asked. It's really stupid," Dave said, a few tears running down his face into Lane's hair, "but I guess...I guess that he didn't think he could do it without lessons. He'd just gotten a new teacher, some guy who knew his stuff. Four hour lesson a week. Five hundred a month. Mom had just lost her job too. There wasn't five hundred extra dollars a month." Dave was now fully crying. "Lane, he was a genius. He knew everything. He taught me how to play, how to sing. He was just lying there, on the carpet. You couldn't even tell, there wasn't any blood."
Lane was crying now too. "How did he do it?"
"He stabbed himself in the chest. What did the doctors say? Twelve times? I don't remember. A lot. He wouldn't have done it if he could have had lessons."
"Dave, that isn't true. There must have been something else."
Dave swallowed, shuddered against Lane. "They buried him with his guitar. The one signed by John Cale. They weren't going too, but I convinced them."
Something occurred to Lane. "Those pictures-"
"Are from the new house," Dave explained, rubbing her arms. "We moved. My parents...I couldn't..."
It was Lane's turn to place kisses on his face and hair. Both had stopped crying. Somehow Lane had managed to straddle Dave without thinking about it, and was pressed down against him. Dave wound his fingers through her hair, pressing her face down into his. Urgently, he opened her mouth, and she responded, caressing him with her tongue. He moved his hands up her shirt, quickly unfastening her bra. Without taking off her shirt, he ran his fingers over her breasts, rolled her nipples between calloused fingers, moved his mouth down to her neck.
As suddenly as he had started, he stopped. Dave wrapped his arms around her, pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered things about Marky. How his mother was always threatening to cut his hair. What his favorite CDs were. How his parents were planning to surprise him with a record player for his seventeenth birthday.
---
"Lane!" Mrs. Kim called up the stairs.
"Yes Mama?" her daughter responded, coming out of her room.
"I need you to-" Mama Kim stopped short. "Why are you not dressed yet? It is five. Your dress is in your room."
"Mama, I don't feel so well."
"Fine. You will sit down with me. Lesley will help with the-"
"Mama, I really don't-" Lane tried again.
"Nonsense. You are young, healthy. Go put on your dress."
Lane watched her mother hurry away. Angrily, she went into her room, picked up the hideous green velveteen invention her mother had put over her chair. Puffed sleeves, big bows. Hideous.
Disgusted, Lane picked up the phone and dialed Dave's well rehearsed numbers. It rang eleven times before the answering machine picked up. Lane dejectedly dropped the phone on the bed and pressed her forehead against the window. Yet another Kim household event. The cars were already parking up the street. Taylor had long stopped trying to ban the influx of relatives. Mrs. Kim was frightening when provoked.
Lane lay down on her bed, closed her eyes. 'Where were you Lane?' her mother had asked when she arrived home fifteen minutes late the day before. 'Well Mama, I was comforting my boyfriend. See, his brother died. We were talking, and one thing led to another. We were lying on the garage floor when I realized that I was late.' Lane smiled. 'Dave was wearing boxers with accordions on them. You never let me buy pretty panties. He didn't see them yesterday, but when he does, I'm sure he'll notice how white they are.'
Chatter from downstairs drifted up. Her aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, sisters-in-laws. Insistent chatter, breaking down language barriers.
'He's not a doctor Mama. He's not Korean. But I love him anyway, and he loves me. He makes me so happy Mama. I think we might try to go to the same university. His family doesn't have very much money, but he had a part- time job for a few years, so he's saved up quite a lot. He's really smart, Mama. He might even get a music scholarship. And our band is getting really good. What, you didn't know I was in a rock band Mama? Well I am. What do I play? The drums. They're red. I'm still paying them off, but one day they'll be mine. Yes Mama, I really love him. I might even sleep with him. No Mama, it's not a sin, not if I love him it isn't.'
"Lane!"
Sighing, Lane picked up the dress and replied loudly, "Coming Mama!" Zipping up the back, she quietly added, "But not for long."
---
If there was one thing Lane Kim excelled at, it was plotting. She had learned the skill at an early age, perhaps birth or earlier. Since then she had honed her skills with delicate precision, or she wouldn't have emerged from the womb in such a timely and painless manner. She actually didn't know if had been painless, but Lorelai was constantly complaining about labour, and Lane had never heard her mother even say the word. But then, Mama Kim and Lorelai were worlds apart.
This plot was the plot of all plots. It was more than a simple house- arrest break out or a forbidden compact disk smuggling scheme. This was deceit, pure and simple. Lane needed to escape her Mother's vigilant radar for twenty four hours. Lane had long stopped depending on divine forces to achieve her ends. Experience and misfortune had long ago taught her that the elements were not her friends. Somehow, last night that plan had been inconceivable; now, tangible.
The question had been: How can I not come home for one night? The answer: A well timed walk. The plot: To convince Mrs. Kim to let Lane go on an overnight trip to New York. The scheme: A religious ad, 'Missionary work in the Slums of New York City: Volunteer and Soul-Save.' The twist: Lane would stay at Dave's.
It was a golden opportunity that Lane couldn't, and wouldn't, be persuaded by any means to pass up. She had walked past the church, the weathered bulletin board boasting no new adds save one- the said pamphlet. Complete with a phone number for questions, a free breakfast and a nights lodging in one of NYC's own homeless shelters, the two day retreat was a stroke of good fortune. Mama Kim would surely take the bait. She had too.
"Mama?" Lane asked, much later that evening.
Mrs. Kim looked up from her synthetic dinner preparations. "What?"
"Um, I found this program on the Church bulletin board today," Lane began, pulling out a copy from her back pocket. "It's a religious retreat."
Lane's mother had bitten. "Where?"
"New York City," Lane said, and quickly added, "It's a volunteer program that feeds the homeless and helps them find God."
"Find God? In New York?" she sounded skeptical.
"Oh, yeah Mama!" Lane said, feigning enthusiasm, "the volunteers stay at a shelter for a night, feed the homeless, and preach." Well, Lane assumed they would preach, the brochure hadn't actually specified what they would do after the feeding.
"Overnight?" Lane's Mother repeated, aghast. She put down the grater. "Let me see that." With her usual methodical quickness, she skimmed the paper, frowned, and handed it back to her daughter. "We'll see."
---
"I am a genius!" Lane said, when Dave arrived early the next morning. She didn't even give him time to kiss her before launching into her plan.
Dave was slightly taken aback. "Isn't that a bit complicated?"
"What's complicated about it?" Lane asked, taking his hand in hers. "The bus leaves from Hartford on Friday afternoon and arrives back Saturday evening. I gave them the wrong telephone number in case they decide to call to see where I am."
"But Ling?" Dave asked.
"Ling Kim. Just in case. Besides, would someone who wrote down a telephone number with a few misplaced digits necessarily get the name of a volunteer right?"
"Wouldn't it have been easier to say you were staying at Rory's?"
"I'm not allowed to stay overnight. I mean," she continued, pulling the blanket tighter around her, "I did once, for Rory's twelfth birthday, but Lorelai had to plead with Mama first. Even then, she still phoned every half hour and stopped by twice."
Dave turned Lane's head and kissed her. "You are a genius."
Lane smirked. "I know."
"Maybe I'm on the slower side, but would you mind filling me in on something?"
"What?" Lane asked, looking up at him.
"What do you intend to do during your absence?"
"Oh, well, I was-" Lane stopped.
"You were...?" Dave prompted.
Lane broke his gaze and looked down. Swallowed. Took a breath. Said, "I was planning to stay with you."
It was Dave's turn to look down. "Huh," he said after a moment.
"I guess I didn't really think this through," Lane said quietly. "I didn't even tell you, or ask, or- I can cancel," she said quickly. "I'll phone in the morning." Dave didn't respond, and Lane's heart sank. "Yeah, in the morning. First thing. Eight o'clock."
"Well, you could," Dave said, "...but wouldn't Ling be upset?"
Lane looked up hopeful. "Well, she did have her heart set on it."
Dave kissed Lane, brushed a stray hair behind her ear. He stood up and swung himself nimbly onto the tree, like he had done so many times before. "Mom, Dad, this is Lane. She's in the band. She needs a place to crash tonight, is that okay? 'Oh, of course sweetheart!'" Dave said in a slightly higher voice. "'Is everything alright Lane? Are you in trouble?' No Mom, Lane's parents just went out of town this weekend and she was going to stay with someone else, but something came up. Her mother didn't want her to stay alone in the house, so... 'Oh, it's no problem at all Lane! The guest bedroom is all made up. Do you like one pillow or two?'"
It went off almost as Dave had said. With one convenient, unlikely, and morbid twist.
---
Lane was sitting on Dave's bed, absently strumming his guitar. Around her was a growing pile of CD's, and a scrambling Dave, muttering about his lack of organization. There was a timid knock on the door.
"Dave?"
"Uh, come in!" Dave called, his voice muffled from his close proximity to the floor.
His decidedly non-militant mother opened the door. "Dave, there's an emergency, I have to go to the hospital."
"What?" he asked, sitting up.
"Emily was just admitted. I'm sorry, I don't mean to dessert you, but your Father is going to drive me down, we'll be gone for most of tonight-" on she spoke, of travel arrangements and cold casseroles. Lane squeezed herself against the wall. Unbidden, she had conjured up a vision of her Mother, sitting at the kitchen counter, the pamphlet squeezed between two clenched fists, white from anger. 'We don't have a Lane Kim registered, but we do have a Ling, and she never arrived.'
"It's a sign," she confided in Dave after his weepy mother had left.
"What is?"
"This!" Lane said, waving her hands around vaguely. "I'm being punished."
Dave pulled Lane into his embrace. "Emily was our neighbor at the old house. Her family lives in Canada, so we're the closest she has."
"What's wrong with her?" Lane whispered.
"She slipped in the kitchen and broke her hip. The hospital phoned."
"So, she'll be okay?" Lane asked.
"Yeah. She'll be fine." Dave tipped Lane's head up gently and pressed his lips to hers. Happier now, Lane bit his lower lip gently, moaned when he began to unbutton her shirt.
"You are the most beautiful girl in the world..." Dave whispered into her ear.
"You're not so bad yourself," Lane responded, gasping when he bit down on her neck.
Somewhere in the process of displaying her increasing love for him, Lane had managed to discard both of their shirts and her pants, unbuttoning his. "Oh, Dave!" she moaned loudly, when he ran his fingers up her legs, stopping briefly at the junction.
"I love you Lane," Dave panted, kissing her swollen lips. Grinning, Lane rolled them over, taking command.
Dave chuckled at the determined look on her face. "You look like you're about to invade France."
"Shut up Dave," she said, running her hands over his chest and down to his waist line. With deftness that surprised even her, she began to pull down his remaining garments.
"Lane..." he said warily.
"Dave..." she mimicked, not stopping the task at hand.
"Lane," he said sharply, grasping her hands. Startled, she looked up. "We should probably, uh, go get some dinner."
Without a word, Lane stood, grabbed her clothes from the floor. She mumbled something, left the room.
"Fuck," said Dave, putting his head in his hands. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
---
They were sitting in a booth at a nameless cafe. Dave was having a one- sided conversation while Lane sat practically mute, chewing silently on her noodles. Dave wasn't eating.
She had staying in the bathroom for nearly an hour, mulling. She had been rejected. From what she had gathered from teenage movies, she was the one who was supposed to stop any sexual activity.
She had sat on the rim of the bathtub, crying for a good half hour. Dave had the decency not to knock on the door, not to persuade her emergence. Lane looked into the mirror. Her hair was mussed, her lips bruised, her body scratched and marked. By him. It was enough to provoke another crying bout.
On his bed, Dave could hear his girlfriend crying, but instinctively knew that she would resent him even more if he tried to comfort her. It was horrible, like seeing a kitten getting hit by a car, or finding a dead rat in the bottom of a newly finished cereal box. Dave wanted to throw up.
When she came out, Dave could clearly see her red eyes. They drove for a few minutes, parked at the first restaurant they passed, and were now silent. Silently, Dave motioned for the bill. He silently paid for the both of them. A small tip, nothing much was ordered. He took the leftovers he was offered, said thank you. Lane didn't even look up. Silently, the two got in the car. Silently, drove home. Silently sat, staring at the television. Silence.
Eventually, Dave turned to Lane. "Lane, I-"
"I don't really feel like talking Dave. Actually, I'm kind of tired. I'm going to go to bed, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, she walked out of the room. Dave sighed, turned off the television.
"Lane," he said again, standing in the doorway of the guest bedroom where Lane was pulling things out of her bag. "You don't need to stay here."
"And what should I do?" Lane asked, turning around angrily. "Go home? Stay in a motel?"
"I meant in this room. Take my bedroom."
Lane turned back to her backpack. "No thank you, I'm fine here."
Dave walked over, picked up her bag, walked over to his bed, put it down. "Much better."
Lane was leaning against the doorframe. "What about you?" she asked, in spite of herself.
"I've got it covered," he said, closing the door behind him. Lane got into her pajamas, making her bags as neat as possible. Despite better intentions, she started to cry again. This was horrible. She had ruined everything.
---
Dave's mother had phoned. They were going to stay overnight at the hospital. Dave came with two mugs of hot chocolate and sat on the bed next to her, not touching. When he had put on Chicago, Lane hadn't missed the symbolism.
"So, ready for bed?" Dave asked, feigning a yawn.
"Sure," Lane replied, tugging on her sleeve absently.
Dave stood up. "I'll be right back."
Lane started. He hadn't meant-, but he had said-. It just didn't make sense. Dave returned, carrying a rolled up sleeping bag. He untied the straps, rolled it out. Lane watched him, clad only in boxers and a Rolling Stones t-shirt, climb in, turn out the light. She lay under his covers, inhaling him.
Dave knew that she wasn't sleeping. It wouldn't have been possible, under the conditions. He had been planning to stay in the guestroom, but on impulse changed his mind. His eyes were adjusting to the dark. Her neatly folded clothes became visible on his chair. Pants, shirt, bra, socks. His own clothes were still in the bathroom, where he had left them.
Lane slipped out of bed. Dave didn't move. Quietly, she walked over to his CD player, where he hadn't yet bothered to remove Chicago. It was softly playing when she lay down next to Dave.
"Dave?" she whispered. His arm slipped around her, but he didn't say anything. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin everything."
Dave looked over at her. "I know." He kissed her eyelids softly, taking his time. When she opened her eyes, he looked into them. "Come here," he said, smiling. Lane also smiled, and slid into the sleeping bag. They intertwined, his arms around her, her head on his chest and leg over his.
"Goodnight Ling," Dave whispered, before falling asleep.
This second chapter was never meant to exist. It was never my intention to continue the story, but a combination of insightful reviews and a sleepless night prompted me to think further. I hope it stands up to what you are expecting. Tell me what you think.
With all due respect,
authors-anonymous
---
Lane was sitting cross-legged on a costume case in the Gilmore-garage gone rehearsal-space. Brian and Zack were arguing about the members of the original Sex Pistols ("Before they became the Pistols-" Zack was saying. "Before they became the Pistols they weren't the Pistols. The 101'ers-" Brian argued.). Dave had wisely decided to stay out of it. He was leaning against a wall, tuning his guitar.
"No way man!" Zack said, standing up. "The 101'ers got their name-"
Brian also stood up. "No-"
"Guys!" Dave yelled, putting down his guitar. They looked at him. "Let's quit while we're ahead. Right. We played a good set today- good downbeats Lane," he added shooting her a glance, "but we need to work on 'Anarchy'. It's sloppy."
Zack started to say something, undoubtedly about who originally wrote it, but Dave interrupted him. "So, next Thursday, three thirty."
The band began packing up, but both Lane and Dave hung back.
"Hi," Dave said, after closing the door securely, with Brian and Zack on the other side.
"So, my downbeats were good?" Lane joked, pulling him down next to her. "How about-" Dave cut her off with a long kiss. "So, good?"
"Very." Dave wrapped his arms around Lane and pulled her into his chest. Somberly he brushed her hair behind her ears, placed feathery kisses on her head and neck.
"Dave?"
"Mmmhmm?" he asked, still gently caressing her.
"What is it?" Lane turned to look at him. He didn't look at her, but allowed her to take his hands in hers and drape her leg over his. Dave was silent. "Dave?"
When he finally began to speak, it wasn't in his usual good-humored tone. Flatly, he replied, "Today is the anniversary of Marky's death."
Lane jerked. "What?" Then quietly she asked, "Who was Marky?"
She hadn't really expected him to answer. Dave looked into her eyes, gripped her hands tighter, pulled her towards him. "Marky," he said, "was my brother."
"Oh..." was all Lane could think to say. Dave grinned at her humorlessly.
"Yeah. Four years ago, today. He..." Dave blinked. "...killed himself. In our bedroom." His voice cracked, and Lane wrapped her arms around him. "He was really quiet about it too. I was in the shower."
"Why?" Lane asked, looking into Dave's anguished face.
"Mom and Dad...my parents...they had told him that they couldn't afford for him to keep having music lessons." Dave was no longer looking at Lane, his eyes unfocused, remembering. "We were having dinner, and they just said it. He stormed off upstairs. I was still a kid, then. Marky was two years older than me."
Lane didn't say anything, nuzzled into him.
"Music was his life. He had a bass guitar signed by John Cale. It took him two years to save up for it. Birthday money and Christmas money and allowances and everything. He loved it." Dave was absently fingering 'Stephanie Says', still unfocused. "He played everything. Bass, guitar, drums, flute. Violin, clarinet. He was an amazing guitarist. Taught himself. He used to spend hours in this music store on Main Street, just watching these old guys playing around."
"He sounds like a great guy," Lane whispered.
"Oh, he was. He was going to get into some music school on the coast, no questions asked. It's really stupid," Dave said, a few tears running down his face into Lane's hair, "but I guess...I guess that he didn't think he could do it without lessons. He'd just gotten a new teacher, some guy who knew his stuff. Four hour lesson a week. Five hundred a month. Mom had just lost her job too. There wasn't five hundred extra dollars a month." Dave was now fully crying. "Lane, he was a genius. He knew everything. He taught me how to play, how to sing. He was just lying there, on the carpet. You couldn't even tell, there wasn't any blood."
Lane was crying now too. "How did he do it?"
"He stabbed himself in the chest. What did the doctors say? Twelve times? I don't remember. A lot. He wouldn't have done it if he could have had lessons."
"Dave, that isn't true. There must have been something else."
Dave swallowed, shuddered against Lane. "They buried him with his guitar. The one signed by John Cale. They weren't going too, but I convinced them."
Something occurred to Lane. "Those pictures-"
"Are from the new house," Dave explained, rubbing her arms. "We moved. My parents...I couldn't..."
It was Lane's turn to place kisses on his face and hair. Both had stopped crying. Somehow Lane had managed to straddle Dave without thinking about it, and was pressed down against him. Dave wound his fingers through her hair, pressing her face down into his. Urgently, he opened her mouth, and she responded, caressing him with her tongue. He moved his hands up her shirt, quickly unfastening her bra. Without taking off her shirt, he ran his fingers over her breasts, rolled her nipples between calloused fingers, moved his mouth down to her neck.
As suddenly as he had started, he stopped. Dave wrapped his arms around her, pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered things about Marky. How his mother was always threatening to cut his hair. What his favorite CDs were. How his parents were planning to surprise him with a record player for his seventeenth birthday.
---
"Lane!" Mrs. Kim called up the stairs.
"Yes Mama?" her daughter responded, coming out of her room.
"I need you to-" Mama Kim stopped short. "Why are you not dressed yet? It is five. Your dress is in your room."
"Mama, I don't feel so well."
"Fine. You will sit down with me. Lesley will help with the-"
"Mama, I really don't-" Lane tried again.
"Nonsense. You are young, healthy. Go put on your dress."
Lane watched her mother hurry away. Angrily, she went into her room, picked up the hideous green velveteen invention her mother had put over her chair. Puffed sleeves, big bows. Hideous.
Disgusted, Lane picked up the phone and dialed Dave's well rehearsed numbers. It rang eleven times before the answering machine picked up. Lane dejectedly dropped the phone on the bed and pressed her forehead against the window. Yet another Kim household event. The cars were already parking up the street. Taylor had long stopped trying to ban the influx of relatives. Mrs. Kim was frightening when provoked.
Lane lay down on her bed, closed her eyes. 'Where were you Lane?' her mother had asked when she arrived home fifteen minutes late the day before. 'Well Mama, I was comforting my boyfriend. See, his brother died. We were talking, and one thing led to another. We were lying on the garage floor when I realized that I was late.' Lane smiled. 'Dave was wearing boxers with accordions on them. You never let me buy pretty panties. He didn't see them yesterday, but when he does, I'm sure he'll notice how white they are.'
Chatter from downstairs drifted up. Her aunts and uncles, grandparents, cousins, sisters-in-laws. Insistent chatter, breaking down language barriers.
'He's not a doctor Mama. He's not Korean. But I love him anyway, and he loves me. He makes me so happy Mama. I think we might try to go to the same university. His family doesn't have very much money, but he had a part- time job for a few years, so he's saved up quite a lot. He's really smart, Mama. He might even get a music scholarship. And our band is getting really good. What, you didn't know I was in a rock band Mama? Well I am. What do I play? The drums. They're red. I'm still paying them off, but one day they'll be mine. Yes Mama, I really love him. I might even sleep with him. No Mama, it's not a sin, not if I love him it isn't.'
"Lane!"
Sighing, Lane picked up the dress and replied loudly, "Coming Mama!" Zipping up the back, she quietly added, "But not for long."
---
If there was one thing Lane Kim excelled at, it was plotting. She had learned the skill at an early age, perhaps birth or earlier. Since then she had honed her skills with delicate precision, or she wouldn't have emerged from the womb in such a timely and painless manner. She actually didn't know if had been painless, but Lorelai was constantly complaining about labour, and Lane had never heard her mother even say the word. But then, Mama Kim and Lorelai were worlds apart.
This plot was the plot of all plots. It was more than a simple house- arrest break out or a forbidden compact disk smuggling scheme. This was deceit, pure and simple. Lane needed to escape her Mother's vigilant radar for twenty four hours. Lane had long stopped depending on divine forces to achieve her ends. Experience and misfortune had long ago taught her that the elements were not her friends. Somehow, last night that plan had been inconceivable; now, tangible.
The question had been: How can I not come home for one night? The answer: A well timed walk. The plot: To convince Mrs. Kim to let Lane go on an overnight trip to New York. The scheme: A religious ad, 'Missionary work in the Slums of New York City: Volunteer and Soul-Save.' The twist: Lane would stay at Dave's.
It was a golden opportunity that Lane couldn't, and wouldn't, be persuaded by any means to pass up. She had walked past the church, the weathered bulletin board boasting no new adds save one- the said pamphlet. Complete with a phone number for questions, a free breakfast and a nights lodging in one of NYC's own homeless shelters, the two day retreat was a stroke of good fortune. Mama Kim would surely take the bait. She had too.
"Mama?" Lane asked, much later that evening.
Mrs. Kim looked up from her synthetic dinner preparations. "What?"
"Um, I found this program on the Church bulletin board today," Lane began, pulling out a copy from her back pocket. "It's a religious retreat."
Lane's mother had bitten. "Where?"
"New York City," Lane said, and quickly added, "It's a volunteer program that feeds the homeless and helps them find God."
"Find God? In New York?" she sounded skeptical.
"Oh, yeah Mama!" Lane said, feigning enthusiasm, "the volunteers stay at a shelter for a night, feed the homeless, and preach." Well, Lane assumed they would preach, the brochure hadn't actually specified what they would do after the feeding.
"Overnight?" Lane's Mother repeated, aghast. She put down the grater. "Let me see that." With her usual methodical quickness, she skimmed the paper, frowned, and handed it back to her daughter. "We'll see."
---
"I am a genius!" Lane said, when Dave arrived early the next morning. She didn't even give him time to kiss her before launching into her plan.
Dave was slightly taken aback. "Isn't that a bit complicated?"
"What's complicated about it?" Lane asked, taking his hand in hers. "The bus leaves from Hartford on Friday afternoon and arrives back Saturday evening. I gave them the wrong telephone number in case they decide to call to see where I am."
"But Ling?" Dave asked.
"Ling Kim. Just in case. Besides, would someone who wrote down a telephone number with a few misplaced digits necessarily get the name of a volunteer right?"
"Wouldn't it have been easier to say you were staying at Rory's?"
"I'm not allowed to stay overnight. I mean," she continued, pulling the blanket tighter around her, "I did once, for Rory's twelfth birthday, but Lorelai had to plead with Mama first. Even then, she still phoned every half hour and stopped by twice."
Dave turned Lane's head and kissed her. "You are a genius."
Lane smirked. "I know."
"Maybe I'm on the slower side, but would you mind filling me in on something?"
"What?" Lane asked, looking up at him.
"What do you intend to do during your absence?"
"Oh, well, I was-" Lane stopped.
"You were...?" Dave prompted.
Lane broke his gaze and looked down. Swallowed. Took a breath. Said, "I was planning to stay with you."
It was Dave's turn to look down. "Huh," he said after a moment.
"I guess I didn't really think this through," Lane said quietly. "I didn't even tell you, or ask, or- I can cancel," she said quickly. "I'll phone in the morning." Dave didn't respond, and Lane's heart sank. "Yeah, in the morning. First thing. Eight o'clock."
"Well, you could," Dave said, "...but wouldn't Ling be upset?"
Lane looked up hopeful. "Well, she did have her heart set on it."
Dave kissed Lane, brushed a stray hair behind her ear. He stood up and swung himself nimbly onto the tree, like he had done so many times before. "Mom, Dad, this is Lane. She's in the band. She needs a place to crash tonight, is that okay? 'Oh, of course sweetheart!'" Dave said in a slightly higher voice. "'Is everything alright Lane? Are you in trouble?' No Mom, Lane's parents just went out of town this weekend and she was going to stay with someone else, but something came up. Her mother didn't want her to stay alone in the house, so... 'Oh, it's no problem at all Lane! The guest bedroom is all made up. Do you like one pillow or two?'"
It went off almost as Dave had said. With one convenient, unlikely, and morbid twist.
---
Lane was sitting on Dave's bed, absently strumming his guitar. Around her was a growing pile of CD's, and a scrambling Dave, muttering about his lack of organization. There was a timid knock on the door.
"Dave?"
"Uh, come in!" Dave called, his voice muffled from his close proximity to the floor.
His decidedly non-militant mother opened the door. "Dave, there's an emergency, I have to go to the hospital."
"What?" he asked, sitting up.
"Emily was just admitted. I'm sorry, I don't mean to dessert you, but your Father is going to drive me down, we'll be gone for most of tonight-" on she spoke, of travel arrangements and cold casseroles. Lane squeezed herself against the wall. Unbidden, she had conjured up a vision of her Mother, sitting at the kitchen counter, the pamphlet squeezed between two clenched fists, white from anger. 'We don't have a Lane Kim registered, but we do have a Ling, and she never arrived.'
"It's a sign," she confided in Dave after his weepy mother had left.
"What is?"
"This!" Lane said, waving her hands around vaguely. "I'm being punished."
Dave pulled Lane into his embrace. "Emily was our neighbor at the old house. Her family lives in Canada, so we're the closest she has."
"What's wrong with her?" Lane whispered.
"She slipped in the kitchen and broke her hip. The hospital phoned."
"So, she'll be okay?" Lane asked.
"Yeah. She'll be fine." Dave tipped Lane's head up gently and pressed his lips to hers. Happier now, Lane bit his lower lip gently, moaned when he began to unbutton her shirt.
"You are the most beautiful girl in the world..." Dave whispered into her ear.
"You're not so bad yourself," Lane responded, gasping when he bit down on her neck.
Somewhere in the process of displaying her increasing love for him, Lane had managed to discard both of their shirts and her pants, unbuttoning his. "Oh, Dave!" she moaned loudly, when he ran his fingers up her legs, stopping briefly at the junction.
"I love you Lane," Dave panted, kissing her swollen lips. Grinning, Lane rolled them over, taking command.
Dave chuckled at the determined look on her face. "You look like you're about to invade France."
"Shut up Dave," she said, running her hands over his chest and down to his waist line. With deftness that surprised even her, she began to pull down his remaining garments.
"Lane..." he said warily.
"Dave..." she mimicked, not stopping the task at hand.
"Lane," he said sharply, grasping her hands. Startled, she looked up. "We should probably, uh, go get some dinner."
Without a word, Lane stood, grabbed her clothes from the floor. She mumbled something, left the room.
"Fuck," said Dave, putting his head in his hands. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
---
They were sitting in a booth at a nameless cafe. Dave was having a one- sided conversation while Lane sat practically mute, chewing silently on her noodles. Dave wasn't eating.
She had staying in the bathroom for nearly an hour, mulling. She had been rejected. From what she had gathered from teenage movies, she was the one who was supposed to stop any sexual activity.
She had sat on the rim of the bathtub, crying for a good half hour. Dave had the decency not to knock on the door, not to persuade her emergence. Lane looked into the mirror. Her hair was mussed, her lips bruised, her body scratched and marked. By him. It was enough to provoke another crying bout.
On his bed, Dave could hear his girlfriend crying, but instinctively knew that she would resent him even more if he tried to comfort her. It was horrible, like seeing a kitten getting hit by a car, or finding a dead rat in the bottom of a newly finished cereal box. Dave wanted to throw up.
When she came out, Dave could clearly see her red eyes. They drove for a few minutes, parked at the first restaurant they passed, and were now silent. Silently, Dave motioned for the bill. He silently paid for the both of them. A small tip, nothing much was ordered. He took the leftovers he was offered, said thank you. Lane didn't even look up. Silently, the two got in the car. Silently, drove home. Silently sat, staring at the television. Silence.
Eventually, Dave turned to Lane. "Lane, I-"
"I don't really feel like talking Dave. Actually, I'm kind of tired. I'm going to go to bed, okay?" Without waiting for an answer, she walked out of the room. Dave sighed, turned off the television.
"Lane," he said again, standing in the doorway of the guest bedroom where Lane was pulling things out of her bag. "You don't need to stay here."
"And what should I do?" Lane asked, turning around angrily. "Go home? Stay in a motel?"
"I meant in this room. Take my bedroom."
Lane turned back to her backpack. "No thank you, I'm fine here."
Dave walked over, picked up her bag, walked over to his bed, put it down. "Much better."
Lane was leaning against the doorframe. "What about you?" she asked, in spite of herself.
"I've got it covered," he said, closing the door behind him. Lane got into her pajamas, making her bags as neat as possible. Despite better intentions, she started to cry again. This was horrible. She had ruined everything.
---
Dave's mother had phoned. They were going to stay overnight at the hospital. Dave came with two mugs of hot chocolate and sat on the bed next to her, not touching. When he had put on Chicago, Lane hadn't missed the symbolism.
"So, ready for bed?" Dave asked, feigning a yawn.
"Sure," Lane replied, tugging on her sleeve absently.
Dave stood up. "I'll be right back."
Lane started. He hadn't meant-, but he had said-. It just didn't make sense. Dave returned, carrying a rolled up sleeping bag. He untied the straps, rolled it out. Lane watched him, clad only in boxers and a Rolling Stones t-shirt, climb in, turn out the light. She lay under his covers, inhaling him.
Dave knew that she wasn't sleeping. It wouldn't have been possible, under the conditions. He had been planning to stay in the guestroom, but on impulse changed his mind. His eyes were adjusting to the dark. Her neatly folded clothes became visible on his chair. Pants, shirt, bra, socks. His own clothes were still in the bathroom, where he had left them.
Lane slipped out of bed. Dave didn't move. Quietly, she walked over to his CD player, where he hadn't yet bothered to remove Chicago. It was softly playing when she lay down next to Dave.
"Dave?" she whispered. His arm slipped around her, but he didn't say anything. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin everything."
Dave looked over at her. "I know." He kissed her eyelids softly, taking his time. When she opened her eyes, he looked into them. "Come here," he said, smiling. Lane also smiled, and slid into the sleeping bag. They intertwined, his arms around her, her head on his chest and leg over his.
"Goodnight Ling," Dave whispered, before falling asleep.