Title: Bruins and Rebels | Chapter Three | Fast Food and Second
Chances
Author: Nate
Pairing: Paris/Jess, and couplings with the ancillary characters introduced in later chapters.
Spoilers: The big one would be the Jess/Milo spin-off series, which takes the Jess character to Venice, CA with his father. Otherwise it's unlikely I'm spoiling any of the upcoming plots. The earth-shattering and horrible news from The Big One is included and a major factor in the story.
Rating: PG-13 so far (this time there's swearing, sexual innuendo and dirty thoughts. But you expect that with a Dipper fic, now dontchya ;)?)
Disclaimer: Amy Sherman-Palladino, Hofflund-Pollone and Warner Bros. Television along with the newer companies involved with the spin-off own the Paris and Jess characters. Other trademarks are owned by their respective companies. No one, not even Paris, wants to own her style of cooking though, we can be assured of that.
Archiving: Usual suspects; FF.net and LWL. Make sure to ask if you want to archive it yourself.
Summary: Paris finds out that college life can be tough when her professor catches her not paying attention. After that, she goes into Santa Monica on a food run for her and Brianna, and bumps into someone she knows from Hartford. Paris finds herself doing some soul-searching after leaving, and starts to feel conflicted between her new life in LA, and Rory.
Author's Notes: Sorry about the delay, but this is one of those long chapters readers of the Project are used to when it comes to me, so settle in and see what develops. I've also been busy with more work than usual while I wrote this story, along with a couple of unexpected writer's blocks. Thank goodness for my new Liza movie Lullaby, that got me out of those ruts really fast, especially when it came to a couple of sequences (Liza in a long sleeping t-shirt and no pajama pants + bare legs=my nirvana).
Thanks to Chris and Ash for the betaing (and I'm sure I really did need it this time), and Jamie for finally coming back from India, yay! And Mala for complimenting me on the whole portrayal of backstage at Jeopardy!in chapter two, I'm glad it was true-to-life as I wanted it to turn out.
I also hope the IM conversation in the middle of this chapter isn't a distraction, I've tried to learn from other failed 'IM fics' and only use this device sparingly and as neat as I could, I'm not about to picture the girls using 'IM talk' that is prevalent and distracting to the reader (Come on, they're prep school girls, not boy-crazy airheads from your average TRL audience. Paris probably frowns on this whole 'IM English' thing in the first place.) If you feel I made an error in judgment in putting IM conversations in the story, feel free to review telling me you don't like it. It's only an experiment in this chapter, and if it doesn't take well, I just won't use it anymore.
Enjoy the story :)!
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Brianna woke up out of a deep sleep as her ears received the loud tone emanating from somewhere within the dorm. Trying to open her eyes slowly to prevent light shock, she turned to the right, facing her nightstand, and the big green numbers of her alarm clock, reading 6:45 am. Not used to the sound of the clock she picked up at Walgreens the day before, Brianna pounded down on the large snooze button with her hand, trying to shut off the clock so she could get ten more minutes of sleep. Paris was going to wake her at 7 if the clock didn't get her to rise and shine, and Brianna was still exhausted from the orientation of the campus libraries that she was on the night before, and had run overtime. She didn't get back to the Saxons until 11pm, and had to cook a Hot Pocket and get ready for bed as the already sleeping Paris mumbled in her slumber about working for the Los Angeles Times, and becoming their editor.
Brianna kept hitting the snooze button, but the alarm wouldn't let up, it kept sounding and keeping Brianna up.
"Come on you, shut up, Bree wants to sleep for ten more minutes," she murmured. Her vision fuzzy, she fumbled for the electrical cord connecting the clock to the outlet in an attempt to shut the alarm truly off. Her fingers traced the cord down the line until she felt the back of the nightstand, and the ribbing as the cord merged with the plug. With a hard tug, she pulled the plug out of the wall, and hoped that would be the end the alarm clock's wailing.
All that did however, was blank out the display, and the alarm continued to whine. A very tired Brianna, wearing an oversized Raiders jersey, stumbled out of her bed in a sleepy fog, wondering what was causing that loud noise. If it isn't the alarm clock, and Paris is already up...
It took her a couple moments, then she grasped what was happening.
"Oh shit!"
She was fully jarred awake as she heard what she thought were the sounds of her roommate coughing and wheezing in the kitchenette area over the real cause of the loud noise ringing through her ears, the wail of the fire alarm lurking above her bed on the ceiling. Her eyes started watering as she realized that a hazy smoke was filling the room, and the source of said smoke was the two-element hot plate Paris had bought at Kohl's two days before because of the lack of a range in the dorm. She stormed across the room with her hand covering her mouth, and made her way to the kitchenette area, where she found the blonde in the same position of panic she was the morning before, hands over her mouth and hyperventilating several "Oh my God!"s.
"Paris, what have I told you about cooking breakfast?!" Brianna screamed above the wail of the smoke detector. "It's nice of you to think of me when you make SoySages and Egg Beaters, but we have plenty of cereal in the cupboards, a bowl of Froot Loops and a glass of OJ fills me up just fine!"
Paris looked down at the burned remains of what was to be the morning meal, and grabbed the handle of the pan so she could run it over to the sink. "I'm so sorry Bree, I thought yesterday was just a fluke and that I was gonna do fine today!" She turned on the water in the sink, and ran it over the pan, wettening the cinders of her second attempt at homemade breakfast for her and Brianna. The sound of a sizzle from the hot pan reacting to cold water sounded from the sink, and Paris kept the water on as she looked the part of a nervous wreck. Brianna ran over to open up the room's window, as Paris somehow found the courage to walk over to the front door and open it up after monitoring to make sure the food in the sink wouldn't catch fire. The smoke detector ended its piercing wail a minute later, as Paris sat in her computer chair, contemplating what went wrong as she breathed in and out.
Brianna came out of the bathroom dressed five minutes later, but in a little shock from the way she was woken up. Her hair a tangled mess, she nonetheless decided that she had to sit down with her roommate and talk to her about when they wanted hot food in the morning, going to the student union or a fast food restaurant on the fringes of the campus was probably a better choice. She sat down on the futon couch in the middle of the room that faced the TV and computer desk, and looked at Paris. But she wasn't mad at the girl, rather she was smiling at her.
"Paris, now I know why you turned down that French cooking school, get you near an open flame or range and you turn yourself into a wreck. Now be honest with me, how did you do in home ec?" Bree was laughing, as Paris tried to keep her stubborn pride up.
"Well you see Bree, my teacher--Er, well I did good with cold food--My mother encouraged me..." Paris couldn't keep it up anymore, and looked forlornly towards the carpet below. "Oh fine, you got me, I was transferred out of the class after six days when one of my projects not only stunk up the classroom, but started afire the moment I opened the oven. My headmaster gave me a special waiver to take a out-of-school community project for the home economics credit and gave me a study hall in place the class, so I got an A even when I should've gotten an F. Probably with a minus after the F. He didn't want to see me break down over getting an F, so he accommodated me that way."
"I got the F," Brianna admitted as she chortled back her laughter. "I was the worst damned cook in the history of Antioch Jr. High! I lost a role in a Leave it to Beaver play that my drama teacher was directing because everyone was picturing me as June Cleaver burning down their TV house when we were rehearsing, my teacher finally took me out of it. After that my nickname was Firestarter. I was so scared of cooking after that I stuck to macaroni and cheese, ramen, and anything microwavable, which is why I was so against the hot plate. I guess my intuition was right, wasn't it Par?"
Paris finally looked back up at Brianna, and smiled back at her roommate as she ran her fingers in her hair. A small smile managed to eek it's way onto her face, and she was finally calmed down enough to form full sentences again. "Very right, my cooking days are over for now. I say we take classes at the Learning Annex when we can find some time during the evenings, I'm sure they have many more fire extinguishers than we could ever have Bree."
"So what was your thinking that you would've done better with the cooking thing now than you would've in Chilton Paris?" Brianna asked as she grabbed a brush off from her side of the computer desk and started to run it through her hair.
"I don't know, who knows what I was thinking? I mean I've been an independent woman for just a week, and I feel like I have to play the part. Thus I've had this weird urge to cook, even though I've been raised on private chef-made food since I was born. I guess my mother passed on the lack of aptitude at cookery onto me, and I've just now realized it." The last of the hazy smoke fled out of the window, and Paris looked towards it, the sun casting its morning rays into the room. "I'm sorry I woke you up like that Bree, I'm sure it's not about to happen again."
Brianna faked a pout at Paris. "It's OK, but now I'm not going to know if my alarm is going to work until tomorrow morning. Waking up to the sound of my alarm clock was going to be the highlight of my morning." She looked forlornly towards the blank face of her alarm clock, which she would have to reset after her and Paris got back from class.
"How about I drive you down to that great doughnut place on Kinross and we get a baker's dozen, along with some coffee, my treat." Paris took some money out of her pocket, and Brianna looked back at her friend. Her mood had brightened considerably.
"I say this day is starting to look up Miss Gellar, it's well-known to my friends in Antioch that a trip to the Krispy Kreme on Century for their sweet decadence has always brightened my day, no matter my mood." Brianna got up and grabbed her cardigan sweater off her computer chair. "But from now on Paris, promise me that the hot plate will only be used to warm up soup and boiling noodles, and the occasional hot sandwich."
"Scout's honor Bree, the hotplate has seen its last culinary disaster from the likes of me." Paris got up from her chair, and walked with Brianna to the door. "Now come on, we don't want a repeat of last Friday when Doug and Ronnie beat us to the éclairs and glazed donuts, not to mention the vanilla cream soy lattes."
"We'll wipe the floor with them this time!" Brianna growled, baring her teeth like a dog. "By the time Dumb and Dumber get there, the only thing they'll get to choose is stale day-old doughnut holes!"
Paris gave her roommate an odd look of amusement. "O-Kay, remind me to let you cut in line when we visit Krispy Kreme." The two roommates walked out of the room, ready to face their fourth day at UCLA, and two mornings till their first true weekend at the college.
Damn it, will this class ever end? Paris thought to herself as she watched Professor Jimenez lecture about journalistic ethics from the middle levels of the medium-sized lecture hall the class was being taught in. She was surrounded by 150 other students, and just seemed like another face in the crowd. Five other girls in her row alone had nose piercings, and a couple of them even had on added holes in their eyebrows, which disgusted the Connecticut girl. She could never see the point of piercing a part of her face which would surely block out her field of vision. Still a year ago, she couldn't even picture having a piece of jewelry coming out of her nose, and look what happened with that.
She figured when she took the ethics class that the first few lessons were basically going to rehash what she learned in school, but not to the degree that her professor was going to go over the same facts that were already old hat by 11th grade to her. Suddenly the Santa Monica Pier and the bright sunshine outside the walls of the lecture hall seemed to be calling out Paris' name, and she was wondering why her stubborn perfect attendance policy continued to go through into her college years. Professor Jimenez was making the same points about non-biased war reporting that Mrs. Stewart had taught her in the tenth grade, and finally Paris had stopped typing notes in her laptop, because she had the exact same notes already in her documents folder.
She looked down at the Mac desktop as she minimized the notepad window, and the little yellow man above the words AOL Instant Messenger was screaming "Open me!" in her inner monologue. Rory had emailed Paris from her brand-new yale.edu address about three days before to say that Yale was a great experience so far, and then to drop her AIM handle of Mocha108Yalie and telling Paris she could instant message her anytime she felt like it. Paris double-clicked on the icon, and looking waringly at the professor rambling on and on about the CBS ethics code Edward R. Murrow instituted at the network in the 1950s, typed in her screenname slowly. She wasn't about to win points for handle originality, PGellar167 just didn't really scream any kind of individuality out at people she'd meet online.
She logged onto the IM client, and found that two out of six buddies were logged on at the moment, suggesting that Rory and Brianna (aka AntiCABree) were also finding their two lessons just as boring as Paris was finding hers. She smiled as she found that Madeline and Louise were too invested in their lessons to really care about a mid-morning IM chat. Her nanny Francisca was also on her buddy list because they'd both made a promise to keep in contact with each other about every month between LA and Portugal. And Tristans screenname was also listed, but she kept his name on more for nostalgia's sake than having actual conversation. Paris hit the volume key furiously several times to silence the ensuing bells that were sure to sound as she and Rory would talk to each other. She decided that Rory would have the first move to ask how she was doing, and moments later, a window with Rory's handle popped up onscreen.
Mocha108Yalie - Hey Paris, what's going on :)?
Ahh, she's there. Paris smiled to herself again, and composed a response to Rory's missive.
PGellar167 - Hello Rory, just testing out the UCLA WiFi, I've got a really strong signal.
Rory saw right past Paris' excuse though.
Mocha108Yalie - How boring is your class that you're messaging me during mine?
"Curses." Even across 3,000 miles, Rory Gilmore was no dummy, as Paris whispered the word under her breath. No one was onto her, so she continued the conversation.
PGellar167 - Don't tell me. You're also in a journalism ethics class. And the material is so beneath you they might as well give you crayons and apple juice because the teaching is so primary.
Mocha108Yalie - I feel like I've heard all of this before Par. I know in two weeks we'll start getting into the heavy stuff, but for now I could play a tape of Stewart's lesson and end up hearing my male teacher have a perfect dub with her lecture.
PGellar167 - I'm not complaining about the teaching, but more the syllabus. If I would've known the first week and a half would've been just a quiz on 10th grade ethics, I would've taken another class instead, or spent my time here catching up on my non-academic reading.
Mocha108Yalie - Paris, we must be the only two girls on the internet who use actual English when they talk to each other. We have to be a very boring conversation to watch.
Don't laugh. Paris stopped herself before she could laugh aloud at Rory's comments, and was waiting for the perfect timing to bring in her new California friend.
PGellar167 - Very. Although I could stir up the masses if I told you about the nightmare I had of you making out with 'Ray of Light' Madonna on the disco floor in her video about four nights ago.
Mocha108Yalie - (gasps) Paris!!
PGellar167 - (seductively) Come on Rory, you know you want her.
Mocha108Yalie - Whatever Miss 'I Want an Older Woman!'.
PGellar167 - Hey, Madonna's 47, Sheryl's only 40! You're the one with the whole granny complex!
Mocha108Yalie - God, I thought we were done with the whole latent gayness thing! If you want to soak up the sun with Sheryl Crow so much, write her and ask if she wants you, I'm sure once she sees your picture she won't refuse!
PGellar167 - lol, I'm not that gutsy Gilmore.
Mocha108Yalie - Sure, and Summer got an invitation to Oxford ;). I know you, you'll write this kiss-ass letter describing how Miss Crow has been such an influence in your life, and you'll sneak in a little line in the middle that says 'oh, and if you asked to have a same-sex affair, I'm your girl Sheryl, please?' I know you well Paris, you'll sneak hidden meanings into your writings, and somehow they stick with people so inexplicably.
PGellar167 - (blushes) Fine, you got me. But I wouldn't be that crude at asking her to join me, I'd probably just say that she was one of the few women I'd sleep with without hesitation.
Mocha108Yalie - And if not, you'll be persuasive, won't you Par?
PGellar167 - That's why I'm called the queen of debating, live and learn Gilmore.
Paris took a breath and was about to read Rory's response, when another AIM window made itself known.
AntiCABree - I can still taste those delicious doughnuts Paris, we must eat there again one of these days. Damn they make some great bakery!
Paris told Rory to hold on for a couple minutes, and she started up a quick convo with Brianna.
PGellar167 - We have 8 more in the dorm, we'll finish them off later Bree.
AntiCABree - Actually only six. Big appetite this morning, hope you don't mind if I had four.
PGellar167 - I don't mind Bree, just save a couple for tomorrow morning since we have that early lecture.
AntiCABree - Will do then Par. Talking to anyone else?
PGellar167 - Just Rory from New Haven, want to join in and meet her?
AntiCABree - Id love to, but I can't, the lecture's about 15% of my grade. I thought Id just come on quick and ask you to pick up dinner at In-and-Out later down in Santa Monica, I just have this huge urge for a 3x3 with a large fry. Im going right to the library from my political science block this afternoon, so Im not going to see you till about 9.
PGellar167 - Ill stop by there first before I get home, then I have to stop at Sav-On and pick up some...needs. Its not coming for another week or so, but I like to be prepared for when it arrives.
AntiCABree - lol, just keep yours separated from mine, different personal care items for different girls.
PGellar167 - Got it. BTW, you bookmarked that page of In-and-Out burger varieties from the web, right? Can you email that link to me, it's going to be my first time ordering and I don't want to walk into that store and end up with something altogether wrong. That 'well done' fry line is definitely going to be used, but I don't know what kind of burger I want yet.
AntiCABree - I'll have it in your box by the time you get home Par.
PGellar167 - Thanks Brianna, you're the best roommate a girl can ask for :).
AntiCABree - Your welcome, and I think the same of you Paris. Say hi to Rory for me.
PGellar167 - I sure will. See you later.
AntiCABree - Bye.
Paris closed Brianna's window and was about to reopen Rory's chat window, when Professor Jimenez happened to call her name.
"Miss Gellar, you seem to be so engrossed in your notes that you should know what effect Terry Anderson's kidnapping had on the ethics policies of the Middle East news bureaus in the 1980s, print and electronic. Please share." He pointed at her, and 150 pairs of eyes suddenly focused on the blonde in the middle of the room.
Her mind was a complete blank, and she sounded more Valley Girl than Hartford Academic. "Um, they got tougher?" Paris felt like a total idiot, and learned that Jimenez's job was to throw her a loop to keep her on her toes in his class. Stewart never said anything about Terry Anderson!
Prof. Jimenez smiled smugly at her, and she sunk in her chair as everyone looked at her and laughed, some loudly and some lightly. "I'll ask someone else this time, but next time Miss Gellar I suggest you have an answer that's much more well thought out and unobstructed from your oh-so-important internet conversation about boy bands and lipstick shades. Next time I catch you in mid-conversation you'll be using a pen and paper for notes instead, do you understand?"
"Yes Professor Jimenez," was all Paris could say as she promised herself that this was going to be the last time she slacked off in college. The lessons might be novice to her, but the questions in the quizzes had the same amount of points as the harder ones in the end.
When she checked her email later, she found a message from Rory that said that she had been caught in the IMing act too a few minutes later, and been embarrassed in front of her whole class. The midday conversation they shared would be but a one time thing. Not that Paris was against the decisions of the teachers, her and Rory were at their respective schools to learn, not chat with each other cross country. Like birds of a feather, we're always staying together, Paris mused to herself as she changed out of her school wear of light slacks and a blouse, into some tight blue jeans and a lime green tank top. She did a little extra primping than she usually did when she went out, seeing as it was her first time going out into the world of southern California. A little extra eyeshadow there, some added blush on her cheeks, and a slightly deeper shade of pink instead of her regular shade of lipstick that matched her exact lip color, and Paris thought she looked nice. She admired herself in the mirror, and thought there was still something missing from her new look.
"Huh, there's something I need yet, what is it?" She pondered the quandary, wrinkling her eyebrows and watching her reflection in the mirror, looking for that something that would work. It wasn't the Star of David on her necklace, nor was it that she should change over to a different type of nose stud, like a sapphire or other stone.
A couple minutes later, she figured out what was missing as she stared at her image in the bathroom mirror. "I need to braid my hair, that's it." Confident with her beauty which was just now starting to shine outside the confines of stuffy Hartford society, she twisted the strands around in back, trying to recall each and every detail Francisca gave her when she'd braid her charge's hair when Paris woke up in the morning.
I just hope it doesn't end up like breakfast did, she thought to herself, giggling a little as step by step flew by in Portuguese in her head at each step in the braiding process. It came out so much better than the morning meal, and Paris admired her back as she placed the final rubber band at the end of the ponytailed braid she had just made all by herself.
"Hmm, quite a good job Paris." With her self-consciousness appeased, she grabbed the In-and-Out menu printout from the printer, put it in her purse, and walked out of her dorm room, locking the door so that nothing could be stolen.
As she turned around though, she found herself face to face with her new enemy, Doug from 319.
Well, more like her face was staring at Doug's, and Doug was looking down towards her...necklace.
"Hey Merriweather, get out of my way," she said scowling as she tried to bypass the guy in front of her. "Don't you have anything better to do than bug the hell out of me and Brianna?"
"I checked my datebook Eiffel Girl, there's nothing else to do. And damn, where did you get those nice ta-tas, someone blessed you!"
"Mother Nature, and in your dreams dumbass." Paris rolled her eyes and put her arms around her chest, trying to bring down Doug's libido.
"What, you don't like me calling you Eiffel Girl?"
"Do I look like I have a freakin' beret on, it's Paris, plain and simple! Unless you want me to give you a crude vasectomy with the toe of one of my running shoes I suggest you can the macho act, it doesn't work!" She saw Doug cower and cringe as the image of Paris kicking him in the groin hit his mind hard.
"OK, Paris, don't do it, nothing is more important to me than my boys!" Doug turned around and started walking back to his room as Paris followed. "Listen, how about next time we share the baker's dozen, Ronnie was pissed when I came home with nothing but holes."
"Only if you give me and Bree $10 a week and promise to stop with the machismo. I'll buy Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you and Ronnie have Tuesdays and Thursdays, that's $5 for 13 each day. We have to live down the same hall for the next year, so I'd rather make peace, not war."
"Isn't that make love, not war?" Doug said with a smug grin. That statement made Paris look down at the tip on her right shoe.
"Doug, come on, I'm serious. I think under that attitude there's a nice guy under there, and I'd rather share doughnuts with you guys than either have to pay a full price for a certain number or waste six of them because we don't have that much of an appetite."
Doug thought about Paris' plan for a moment, and found it to be of his liking. "OK Paris, we'll buy on Tuesday and Thursday, and you girls get the rest. Also the two buying get to keep the extra doughnut." Doug held out his hand. "Do we have a deal?"
"We have a deal Doug." Paris had a stoic front and started to shake Doug's hand, but quickly realized that his shake felt a little clammy and unnatural, and that it seemed to have a slimy feel to it.
"DOUG!!! You spit in your hand before you came to torture me, didn't you?" She reeled back her hand, and took a moist towellette out of her purse hanging from her right shoulder.
"Sorry, sorry Gellar, I intended to torture you before, but I don't wanna anymore!" Doug was truly sorry, but Paris wasn't having any of it. "That better be the last time Merriweather, or else you might find yourself with a black eye in addition to a lack of child-making ability." She glared at him as she walked down the hall, and Doug became the Brad Langford of UCLA. Paris' dark browns pierced deep into him, and his few days of making fun of the girl from Hartford, and by proxy her Bay Area roommate had ended with that staredown.
The boy from near San Diego sulked his way back into his room, feeling defeated beyond any shadow of a doubt. Doug shut the door and slumped onto his bed, he had to let his friend across from his dorm know that they couldn't make fun of Paris and Brianna anymore.
Besides, that Brianna is pretty cute, I couldn't tease someone as beautiful as her, he thought as he took a rubber ball out of his pocket and threw it up towards the ceiling.
Paris looked over the printout of In-and-Out ordering tips on her steering wheel, trying to figure out what would be the perfect meal for her to take out from the burger stand just off Wilshire. Her stomach was starting to rumble, and her roommate's urging that she wouldn't become an unofficial Californian without a trip to the ubiquitous burger chain that was just as much a part of SoCal as surfing and Hollywood was finally getting to her. As much as she campaigned against the evils of junk food in her run for student body president, her resolve to only eat healthy was fading. Sleepovers at the Gilmore home started luring her towards the darkside, and she had eventually warmed to the food that Luke served. The reality of college eating was hitting her hard too; It may have been almost nothing to have a meal of soy everything at the Manor, but when it was coming to being on her own and having to budget out her sustenance for a month in school, Paris' calculations came out higher than she ever expected.
Of course there was the added factor of Rory's habits somehow becoming her own. Just like Rory at Yale, Paris' other constant companion besides her PowerBook was a travel mug filled to the brim with coffee, be it from the Starbucks just off campus, 7-Eleven or the doughnut shop her and Brianna were frequenting. Not about to reprise her earlier cooking disaster with coffee grounds, others always supplied Paris' caffeine supply, and she drank the stuff like it was a fine wine, with a lump of sugar and soy milk the only addition to the drink. Despite her best efforts, Rory Gilmore had somehow become a part of Paris' life, and the blonde wouldn't want things to have gone any other way. She had picked up a bad habit, but a wonderful friend in the process.
Paris read the sheet of paper silently, and finally came up with her perfect meal. "A 2x2 with well done fries and a Diet Coke," she told herself as she got out of her car and walked into the store without the printout. She was trying to find a perfect substitute for that unique delicacy that was Luke's version of the french fry. Luke's burgers were just fine to her, but put a plate of golden brown crinkly fries fresh out of the fryer in front of Paris, and Luke was as much of a food god to her as Lorelai's assertions that he was a sex god. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, that was her idea of french fry nirvana, and Luke was her supplier for that need. Ever since that one time she shared dinner with Rory and Jess, french fries became a favorite food, just like her obsession with macaroni and cheese. Salt combined with pepper on a plate with some Frank's RedHot on the side, and the girl couldn't stop eating them.
She stopped at the door as she realized who had turned her on to fries in the first place, and the unique way of eating them taught to her by a master. Jess, do I ever miss that boy, she mused as she walked in. Occasionally, her dreams would be plagued by a replay of that one and only meeting at Gilmore house she had with Luke's nephew, and their conversations about one Jack Kerouac. Paris hated him with a passion, Jess would take him for a lover if so asked to. They argued for about fifteen minutes about the subject, until the two were disrupted by Dean's need to butt in and wonder why Jess was there in first place. After Jess had fled, Paris made up some excuse about wanting to date Jess and having a crush on him, then failing miserably to win his heart because he wasn't into her.
But it was almost the entire truth. The part about her hearing about him from Rory a few months ago was a total lie, seeing as she had just met the boy an hour ago, save for him just being a bystander to her at the Bracebridge dinner. But the rest, especially the part where she wanted to go out with him, was a fact. Rory was someone good to argue about books and current events with, but she could see Gilmore every day at school.
Jess however, was an enigma wrapped in a nice body that Paris found herself admiring quite a bit during their arguments aboiut the Beat writers. He wasn't smart in the usual way of getting all A grades, but he could talk about literature like it was the jewel of the Western world that needed to be shined every day when he woke up. His eyes, a matching chestnut shade to those of the academic beauty, she found herself lost in them several times and was distracted by all she could see inside of them. And his body...Paris was not one to fall into lust that easily with a guy, it was what was on the inside that counted to her. But a corrupted thought of getting ahold of that outside, especially in the gluteal, pectoral and pelvic areas of Jess Mariano's body, flew through her so fast, she almost fainted from the hot flash she got when she had dreamed of him that night on Rory's couch, and them having a very interesting game of Strip Trivial Pursuit.
She decided the day after that Rory might be a more perfect match with Jess than her, so Paris backed down and let fate play its cards for her. If she didn't get Jess, it was never meant to be, and she could move on. But if he paid attention to her, as Dr. Seuss would say, 'oh the places you'll go!'.
Then Jamie got in the way, and took her focus away from Jess Mariano in the snap of a finger. He was a big sweet talker, and she thought she loved him after she spent the holidays with him in Philadelphia, but things went too fast for her. She actually wanted to save herself until at least graduation, but Jamie pressured her that night she drove down to his dorm in New Jersey after signing off the call with Charleston and Rory about the speech.
Her description of the act to Rory as 'very afterschool special' couldn't be more apt. The two dry humped for about a half-hour, and then they started fondling, heavy petting, and tender kissing that was so boring that Paris probably would've slept through her first time if Jamie hadn't kept the lights on in the dorm ("I'm scared I might hurt my delicate flower," the boy said to her as he refused her request to be a little rougher with her, causing Paris to roll her eyes on the inside). The only fire that was actually lit up that night was Paris trying to light a candle for a last gasp at romantic ambiance, but Jamie saying no because he was allergic to them. The fireplace was an exaggeration on Paris' part, she really didn't want to tell Rory her first time was in a depressing 7x7 cinder blocked dorm room painted spartan white with the ugliest draperies from the 70s Paris had ever seen. And worse, Jamie's roommate walked in on them a couple times to get some books and ruined the mood.
As for the sex, she might as well have been laying in a separate bed pleasuring herself, because he just made love to her in the ultimate position of boringness, the missionary position. Scratch that, he just rose up and down into her mimicking sex as if he was a rubber stamp and she the paper he was going to make his mark on. The whole thing was over in less than five minutes after he put on his condom, and as Paris fell asleep that night in her 'lover's' arms, she was thinking about how wonderful a lover Jess could be and how he'd actually leave a mark on her as the best sex she ever had. It would be more Letters to Penthouse than afterschool special, I don't doubt that, she thought as she drifted off to sleep, thinking the only thing that Jamie had done was broken her physical seal. He hadn't broke through to that special spiritual virginity lurking within Paris' soul, and that would eventually be the death knell of her first relationship.
Back in the present time, Paris sat against the outside wall of the restaurant, quickly willing the images of Jamie out of her mind. She was at In-and-Out Burger to get food, not reminisce about her failures with boys.
Paris walked into the restaurant, and waited in the line in front of the counter for a few minutes, amazed at the speed that the orders were being taken and were served. It was a fast food restaurant all right, but all the burgers and fries were made fresh and served with care rather than the usual rushed and uncaring paces that would be seen at other fast food establishments. Paris hadn't gone to any of those places because the food always ended up cold when she got it, and it wasn't made very well in the first place.
Finally first in line, she walked up to the counter and looked up at the menu. Even though she knew what she wanted, Paris wanted to make sure she got everything right.
"Welcome to In-and-Out Burger, for here or take out ma'am?" The cashier up front smiled at Paris, and she rattled off her order.
"One 2x2, one 3x3, two orders of fries and a Diet Coke, make one of the fry orders well done, all to go." The register girl nodded, told Paris the total, and took Paris' money, then headed over to the fountain dispenser and filled a cup with soda. Paris watched the workers speedily make up her two orders, and in about a minute and half, her order was all done.
"Enjoy ma'am, and thank you for choosing In-and-Out Burger," the cashier said as she handed Paris two bags of her order, along with the drink.
"I probably will, that was some good service," Paris responded back happily, clearly impressed with the speedy and courteous service she had just gotten. "I'm sure you'll be seeing me again if this food is delicious."
She turned back around after taking the food, and walked towards the front door, reading the little spiel on the bag about the history of In-and-Out and their commitment to quality. She kept trying to strain to look at the words below her, only monitoring the floor on the bottom to know when she was at the door.
Paris didn't hear the door open in front of her, and didn't see the boy about to walk right in her path until just a few moments before they were going to crash. She looked clearly distracted, and upon seeing the shadow form of a man on the ground, she stopped walking and proceeded to try to let the man pass in front of her.
The man had stopped walking into her too. But not for the reasons of trying to avoid a collision.
"Oh, sorry, I'll get out of your way sir," Paris told the boy before she tried to shuffle left of him.
"No, it can't be," the boy said back, perplexed. "It just can't."
"Can't what?" Paris wondered why the guy wasn't moving. She hadn't looked back up yet.
"It can't be you." The boy smiled at Paris and took the Diet Coke she was holding out of her right hand. "You're Paris, right?"
Startled by the mention of her name and the boy insisting on helping her carrying her food, her attention had started to make it's way towards the boy. "Yeah, I'm Paris, how do you know--" She glanced up towards him, and lost all of her words as the features of the boy in front of her slammed into her mind.
She reeled back from him and walked backwards towards one of the booths in the middle aisle.
"You know who I am, right?"
Paris was in a state of disbelief. The black hair that felt so wonderful to run her fingers through, the squarish jaw, those tempting lips and those brown eyes she could lose herself in. The same boy she announced she had a crush on one night in March 2002 was standing right in front of her, wearing a pair of dark blue worn out jeans and a faded red band t-shirt. "Jess, it can't be you." She forced her eyes closed, trying to make sure this wasn't a dream, that the boy was in the same Santa Monica burger joint she was in.
"You're not seeing things Smartie, it's me, Jess Mariano." He walked towards Paris as she opened her eyes, and she found her way into a booth. She set the two bags of food down, and offered him the seat across from her.
She was still in a stunned state as she tried to restore her normal conversational abilities. "But, well I thought you were going out west, more north though. Rory said you were headed to Portland or Coeur d'Alene when you left back in April, what are you doing here?" She brought the food out of her bag and decided that talking and eating with Jess on the run wouldn't be that prudent.
"I thought so too at first, my father said he was out in Oregon all this time. But then he found a job in LA, so he decided to sell the house he had in Portland and buy a home down in Venice near the beach. He didn't really have room for me in the old house, so now I have my own bedroom and everything."
"I'm just in so much shock right now Jess, you're the last person I expected to see here in Los Angeles. Hell, I didn't expect to see anyone I know already until I got back to Hartford for the holidays." She lay back in the seat and set out her food along her side in the table in order of consumption.
Jess was just as shocked as Paris was with meeting each other once again. He wasn't expecting hugs and kisses and a whole 'I missed you so' vibe, but he was still taken aback that the girl he had just about debated about Kerouac to the death so long ago was sitting in front of him, so far from her home.
"Why are you here Paris?" Jess asked. "Shouldn't you be at Yale with Rory?"
She tried to minimize the question as best she could into a small sentence or two, laughing nervously to bring down the tension. "I decided this was going to be my form of rebellion, so I said to my mother I'm going to UCLA instead of Yale for college, and here I am."
"Did that come with the nose ring?" He smirked at her as his eyes caught the diamond on the side of her schnozz.
"That was my pre-graduation, post-meltdown rebellion," Paris told him, trying to categorize the two rebellions as different events. "It was get this or scream in the tattoo artist's chair as he scrawled an image of a building into my ankle. This piercing did get infected the first time I got it, but I decided to keep it nonetheless."
"Well I might not have imagined you with one back in Connecticut, but here in California, I say you make it look pretty cute." He smiled at her, and Paris tried her best to hold back a blush. Her friends may have commented on it before and said it looked nice, but to have a member of the opposite sex say that to her, it sent that funny warm feeling up her spine that happened when a boy would compliment her.
"Thank you Jess," she said back. "Um, since you were about to eat here did you want to take my roommate's food? It's a 3x3 with regular fries; I can reorder it just before I leave. That way we can eat together and catch up on our current events."
"I was probably going to end up with the same thing, so sure, pass it on over Paris." She shoved the bag towards him, and then took off the light grey sweater she was wearing over her blouse. "I'm going to go get some condiments, need a soda or anything else?"
"Um, Coke would be nice. What are you getting from the condiment bar?"
"A coffee filter so I can mix the salt and pepper, what else?" A smirked played on her lips. "And hopefully some hot sauce, I never did forget it was fast food gospel Jess. You are a wiseman." She turned around and walked away from the table, leaving Jess to reminisce their first meeting all over again.
He watched her at the counter ordering his Coke and asking for a tray, and was amazed at how much they had become fast friends once again. He hadn't seen Paris since probably February when she was in town for another one of Rory's projects, but had spent most of his time upstairs in the office because he was juggling trying to get ready for work for some inane assignment in Algebra 4. One of the reasons he had regretted leaving the Hollow when his father came calling for reconciliation was that he had never been able to build up a strong friendship with Rory's friend.
Or even a relationship, he thought bitterly. There were times during his relationship with Rory that he craved for more than Rory could ever give him. She had a great relationship with her own mother, and despite the distance, Christopher was always there for her when he was needed, despite Sherrie. He didn't have that strong a relationship with Liz or Jimmy. Going out with Rory had been a dream to him, but when he had broken up with Shane and found Rory to be his girlfriend, he realized that this was a relationship doomed from the start. The pesky attraction Luke had for Lorelai had always been in the front of his mind, and that had always gotten in the way with what he wanted to give to Rory. The pressure the townspeople put on him to behave around their 'princess', as someone sitting next to him in class snarked, also got to him after awhile. He wanted a relationship full of love and the other things, and to be that perfect second boyfriend to her. But after awhile, the events in town conspired to bring down the high of being Rory Gilmore's boyfriend. Everytime he would try to be romantic with her, there were Lorelai or Luke, sometimes even Dean, trying to prevent his newest PDA from happening.
After awhile, it became apparent that the attraction him and Rory shared at first was fading, and was being held on by their sexual tension for each other and their love of literature. But even that latter connection was lost because he hadn't had time for books all that much in his haste to pay for the junky Plymouth he was trying to pay off. His need to work more at Wal-Mart had started cutting into his time at school, and it cost him when it came to his grades. By the time his father had come to reconcile with him, his GPA was down to below 1.50, and he was tiring of the massive hours he spent working for the discount giant. He saw his father coming as a perfect opportunity for a fresh start, financially, scholastically and romantically. He was going to miss Rory, but he felt in the end that there was no relationship that could possibly stay strong long distance. So they broke it off as ambically as possible, with him promising a postcard a month to the girl. With his father having an interest in cars, there was no need to keep the ugly brown Plymouth in his stable. He sold it back to Gypsy for $800 and used the money to help him and his father settle in Venice.
And despite what everyone in Stars Hollow thought, he really did want his high school diploma, the teachers were just not trying to help him out all that much though. He was used to the more hands-on help he had received in his special classes back in Brooklyn, which he didn't receive in Stars Hollow High because they couldn't understand him much more than he was a student from New York with a short attention span. Upon arriving in Venice, Jimmy had him registered at Venice Senior High, where he was sure to have a class schedule that would challenge, yet not overwhelm him. Jess may not be the smartest guy in history, but he realized that any college he went to would look more down at him if he took the coward's way out and decided to take the GED test instead of finishing high school.
He let his thoughts wander towards Paris, who was at the condiment bar trying to find hot sauce or a spicy equivalent. Their one meeting had amazed him so much, and her passion at trying to bring down every point he tried fruitlessly to make about his favorite writers got to him so much, he hardly remembered the drama between him, Dean and Rory that happened later. For awhile at least, Paris was in his dreams more than Rory was, and there were times where he wanted Rory to get Paris' phone number and address so he could attempt to pursue her for more debates and maybe a date.
But for once in his life, he decided to back down. All of Rory's babbling about how uptight Paris was, that she had a family that would place his entire being under a microscope and would tell him that he was unworthy for their daughter, it became too much for him to bear. By the time that he had decided to try to ask Paris out, Rory had kissed him at the Duper's wedding after he came back from New York, and changed his thought processes 180° away from Paris. His hormones had gotten the better of him, and cost him whatever chance he may have tried to have with Paris.
The next school year was spent assuming he wanted Rory, and that Paris was now off limits due to her finding Jamie, which made it easier for him to put aside any feelings he had for the blonde. Not that he didn't love Rory, he really did, and leaving her when he went to California was one of the worst events he'd ever had experience. But it was time to start a new chapter, and breaking up on good terms with her was the epilogue to it all.
At that moment though, watching Paris walk back towards him with all of her condimental needs appeased, he knew that him and his romantic tendencies were in for a long ride, because with no one but Jimmy in his way, there was no stopping his second chance to woo Paris.
She sat back down on one side of the booth, and set the coffee filter with perfectly mixed salt and pepper dip in the middle of the table. The cashier up front had gave her one of the few spare disposable ashtrays they had left, and she started squirting ketchup-like packets of hot sauce into the tray of the tin. Jess unpackaged his proffered food from the bag, and was about to try and mix his fries with Paris. Her hand grabbed his wrist before he could attempt it.
"My fries are well done, yours are regular style, so I refuse to let them get mixed up Jess. There's rule number one of eating dinner with me." She smirked at him, and he faked being haughty at hearing such a thing.
"Well I never Paris, you've developed a french fry addiction on par with your craving for macaroni and cheese." He started dipping a couple of fries into the hot sauce tray.
"Blame your Uncle Luke for that one, he was my fry supplier until I left for LA a couple weeks ago. I'm still trying to find that perfect potato that compares or exceeds the way that he whips 'em up." She coated an In-and-Out fry lightly with the dip and sauce, and then sunk her teeth into it, savoring the taste of the starchy confection.
Moments later, the fry had been chewed up and was sliding down her esophagus, a moment that would be considered passé for most regular folk. However for Paris, she had finally found that elusive french fry recipe that was just as good and better than Luke's. She sighed and smiled in contentment, sipping her Diet Coke to cool off her tongue from the spicy effect of the hot sauce. Her urge to do a full-on imitation of Meg Ryan in the orgasm scene was quickly reduced to just a comment about how delectable the food was to her.
"Mmmmmmm, Brianna should've told me about this place earlier, what a fry!" Jess looked at her oddly for a moment, before realizing that this wasn't out of the ordinary behavior for Paris. She was almost a cheerleader for the benefits of wheat germ when they last talked.
"I take it the way to your heart is through your stomach," he joked as he took a bite out of his burger.
"Perhaps it is, although the way I cook I could probably damage that roadway and close it down for a few days. Let's just say me and a hot plate? Not a good combination. Me and a 1500-page biology text, much better partners."
"So we can finally calm down Sara Moulton that you're not about to overtake her on the Food Network, good to hear." He took another couple bites of cheeseburger, and decided to get down to business. "So how are you liking LA so far Par? It must be a cynic's dream come true to live in the true capital of cynicism."
"Actually, the only gripes I have so far are with the transportation. It's hell getting through all that traffic, and then digging out all the money you need to fill up your gas tank, paying $2.30 a gallon for gasoline was unfathomable to me before. Thankfully the Jag's fuel-efficient, and most everything I need is pretty close to campus so I can save on gas mileage."
"But otherwise it ain't as bad as it's all cracked up to be?"
"I'm not about to go all Randy Newman and confess my undying love for this metropolis in song, but it's a great town, heh." Jess laughed at her little joke, then let her continue. "I've had to change a few things about myself, like my clothes and being open to new experiences, and now I'm discovering the reason sunglasses were invented. I had to commute to the downtown library a few mornings ago to do some microfilm research for a crime reporting class I'm taking, and that sun is really bright when you're eastbound on the 10. Then again, I don't miss the rain and clouds that befall Hartford occasionally at all."
"Not a fan of getting wet, are you Gellar?" Jess' words were meant to be innocuous, but somehow the rasp of his voice had turned the sentence into an entendre, floating around her brain. Don't you even dare, we're not going there! Paris scolded herself silently, trying to keep herself from starting to think of Jess in the opposite sex sense once again. Determined, she was going to make sure they were friends, and nothing more. She gave him her stare of death, and he quickly backed down upon realizing how bad that sentence actually came out when uttered.
"Fine, don't answer that." He thought for a moment of a more appropriate inquiry. "You were the last of us two to see Rory, how is she doing? It's been about two weeks since I wrote my last postcard to her."
"She's starting Yale, and doing fine. It's a little tough for her, but I think she'll make it," She hesitated for a moment before asking another question, wondering if he was still pining for Rory, but decided that friendship meant more to her than jealousy over the ex. "I have her AIM screenname, would you like me to give it to you so you can surprise her one day?"
"I'd love to take you up on that offer, but unless you want to buy a computer for me, I'll pass. Internet access just isn't in my dad's budget for now." He breathed in some air, and exhaled slowly. "And to tell you the truth, I'm not ready for a full-on conversation with her quite yet. I don't want to jar her concentration from school, and I don't want to find out the hard way that I burned all my bridges."
"It's OK, I understand." Paris looked at Jess, and a little part of her was relieved that she didn't have to tell Rory about her sudden meeting. "Me and Louise would try to bring you up over the summer, but she really didn't say anything except that she hoped you were doing well out west. She didn't seem to be hiding anything and was really just thinking about school, I think Rory plans to be done with guys for the next year or so. I think you're cool with her Jess, and I just wouldn't dwell on it."
"You're sure Paris?"
"I'm sure, she only holds grudges against people who really piss her off, like Francie from school and your ex Shane. I never saw Shane though, so I'm not going to believe what Rory says about her."
"You shouldn't, Shane is actually a pretty nice girl. A little off in the cranial department, yes, but not so much she had only the intelligence of a balloon. She's going to Minnesota up in the Twin Cities, she wrote me herself and said that she's found love."
Paris gave him a look that said 'I don't believe she's found love'. Jess rolled his eyes back and relented.
"Fine, she found herself a guy she can make out with for hours at a time. But he does love her, and she loves him when it comes down to it!"
"OK, I believe you, Shane's in love!" She was happy being able to have a friendly conversation with Jess like this. "Got a job out here yet? Last time I heard you were working up the Wal-Mart corporate ladder." She bit into her burger and let Jess respond.
"Actually I've moved up in the world, now I'm working at that high-class discount chain they call Target up in Culver City. Nice hours, and they pay a lot more than Mr. Walton could ever afford to me. I work about five days a week, you managed to catch me on one of my off days."
"Nice," Paris mumbled as she swallowed her food. "School hasn't started in Venice yet, right?" Jess nodded back. "How many credits do you need before you graduate?"
"About six or seven, so that's about four classes a day, I'll be out by January if I can keep my concentration up. I'm taking six a day though because there were some interesting literature classes, including one involving 60s writers."
He paused for a moment, knowing that if he took this next step, Paris wasn't going to be that 'blonde classmate of Rory's' anymore. She was going to be a part of his new life in Los Angeles, and he would be powerless to stop it.
Not that I would want to anyways, he thought as his eyes wandered down Paris' form. I didn't know she had so much...definition beneath her blouse. So much for thinking of a former Chilton schoolgirl in chaste terms, now he understood the reason Paris wore a blazer at school to the bitter end.
He continued on anyways. "As a matter of fact, I was headed down to a bookstore downtown after I ate that one of my father's friends recommended to me. I'm going to pick up some reading material and class texts, can't make margin notes in the rented texts at school. Do you have time to come along?"
"Well I still have to stop at Sav-On and pick up some...womanly items Jess." She blushed upon admitting her cycle to him.
He laughed back. "I have the time, the shop doesn't close till about 9. I'll just follow you in my car and we can go into the bookstore together."
"I have a better idea. How about I drive you there in the Jag, and when we're done we just drive back here and you can take your car back to Venice? You know, environmental conservation and such?"
"What about Sav-On?"
"It's not for another week, I'll just stop there on my way back up to Westwood." Jess stared at her as if Paris was a madwoman for planning for her period as if it was an appointment. She cocked an eyebrow. "What? If you were a woman you'd understand."
"I'll never understand women, especially someone as kooky as you Paris. I mean that as a compliment though." He started to eat then, and left Paris to shaking her head at how much Jess could get under her skin.
"You better, I can find out where you live Beat Boy." They both looked at each other, understanding their banter was meant as good natured, and started eating their dinners in relative silence. They continued catching up on each other's lives throughout, and by the time they left the restaurant around 7, their dormant friendship had been renewed strongly in just one short hour.
"Crap, crap, crap!" Paris was in a panic as she parked her car in the Saxons lot. Her dash clock was reading 9:25, and she was sure that when she walked right back into 343 a very annoyed Brianna was going to be waiting for her, grumpy because she hadn't gotten her burger fix yet.
She hadn't done anything with Jess, nothing at all. Yet it took all of her willpower to tear herself away from his company when the loudspeaker in the bookstore nagged at them that they were closing in ten minutes, and they better get out of there or else.
So why was she sitting in that big stuffed leather chair earlier, feeling like she was going to drift off to sleep with the soothing tone of Jess' Brooklyn accent reading aloud the third chapter to a book she was supposed to loathe with everything she had in her?
If she ever happened to cross paths with Jack Kerouac, she was going to wring his neck. And then damn him for making her like him.
The journey into the bookstore started out innocently enough. They walked in around 7:15, and Jess made his way to the 20th century section, while she browsed non-fiction. She paged through the various texts she came upon, including several on the Dark Ages, and one which piqued her curiousity. Jiminez is going to eat his hat after he hears me recite these facts! She looked over the $30 book on journalistic ethics, which seemed to be very detailed and meticulous on it's facts as she skimmed through the pages of the paperback. She also snuck in a couple of mind candy books, one of them a best of compilation from a comedy news quiz show she listened to loyally each weekend on public radio, and a romance novel which she was sure Brianna was going to swipe from her the moment she brought it into the dorm. They had already been like cats and dogs when it came to which book they would get for nighttime reading, Paris still had a small scar on her arm from when her and Brianna had fought on their second night to read a historical romance. It was meant to be fun though, but Brianna's zeal to read the book had overwhelmed the shorter girl, and she went to bed licking her wounds and reading a dull book on World War II.
Her and Jess met up in the middle of the store around eight, and she was ready to go, but Jess decided to make a move to endear him to her further. Even if she was going to kick and scream about it.
He handed her a copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road that he picked off the shelf moments ago, looking at her sincerely.
"For you, I figure you need something to take your mind of school one of these days." He smiled at her snidely, and she looked wide-eyed at the cover of the book.
"Jess, you know I hate Kerouac with every fibre, why would you want to buy me one of his books?" She took the book from him and tried to walk around Jess, in an attempt to put it back. However, the 5'3" girl was no match for the much taller Jess. Even in her short mules.
"And what are you basing this on Paris? At least tell me that you've read the book."
"I have."
"And what forum did you read it in?"
"I read it in school."
"And in what form did you read it in? Was it a copy of the entire book, or in the form of a unit in a literature text where you got two chapters of the book, then some self-absorbed pablum about how the book inspired some 50 year-old tenured loser at Amherst College?"
Paris rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling. Somehow, Jess had cornered her in when it came to her dislike of the Beat Generation. "Two chapters, then onto Ginsburg, that's about all that Literature Horizons 10 from Houghton Mifflin had to say about the subject of writing in the 60s."
"That's pathetic, I thought Chilton asked for the best in textbooks. Seriously, you'd think they'd focus on such great writing like that."
"They spent it all on the plaid skirts," she joked rather morosely. "Besides, I'd sooner subscribe to Weekly World News than read Kerouac."
"Paris, it's like brussel sprouts, you're either gonna like him or you won't." Jess made his way to a reading corner set up in the back of the bookstore, where a dim reading light sat on an end table, highlighting two big overstuffed leather chairs. "Please Smartie, at least give him a chance and let me read some chapters of it to you. I promise you that you won't be disappointed." He offered out his hand, as if asking Paris to give him back the volume so he could read it to her.
In Paris' mind, it reminded her of Francisca reading to her at bedside when she was four, little Rissy tucked into her new 'big girls's bed', as she called it, wearing a My Little Pony nightgown and asking her nanny to read her a story. The woman could read Goodnight Moon wonderfully even with her broken English, and nights after that were spent basking in that wonderful memory, and her younger self wishing everyone and everything from her father, her St. Bernard Dreyfuss, and things like her books, bed and window goodnight. She even remembered saying goodnight to the water heater and ping-pong table one night when she was down in the basement playroom.
That moment really reminded Paris of her situation then, to a point. She wasn't exactly trying to avoid her feelings for a certain well-read Brooklynite when she was four, and she had matured since then. But she was still thinking of Jamie, and how her trust in him that had built up slowly until she bedded him, then was lost when she was told she was wrong. She was scared to even befriend Jess, and was just slightly scared that if she were going to be his girlfriend, she would lose him, just like Rory did when he fled here to Los Angeles.
Her inner monologue was conflicted. She had promised herself no boys until at least sophomore year, that they would just be a distraction. But then again, it's Jess. What do I do?
"Paris?" Jess asked, noticing her state of distraction. "Do you want me to read it to you or not?"
His voice was kind towards her, and she had decided to go ahead and listen to him read the book. I have nothing to lose, if I don't like it I can just tune him out, she thought as she smiled and offered the book to him.
"OK, why not Jess, lead the way." He nodded in kind, and they walked towards the chairs, Paris on the left and Jess to the right diagonal of the table. She settled into the comfy chair, and slipped her shoes off as she prepared herself to be taken into a world she thought she hated when it came to literature. Jess slipped right into the book, forgoing the introduction and reading the words off the page as if they were lyrics to a well-known #1 song. For once, Paris decided to stay silent and not debate the book, as she lost herself in Jess' voice, as if she didn't want anything to distract from that distinct tone of voice.
About a half hour later, Jess was into chapter three, and he had slowed down his reading a little upon noticing the blonde across from him was starting to nod off and seem distracted. He used this opportunity, knowing the words of the third chapter by heart already, to fake reading the words on the page, while at the same time, taking a look at the girl sitting across from him. A year and a half later, and Paris had only seemed to become more beautiful in his eyes. Her figure was just as voluptuous as it was that night, and her choice to forgo the sweaters and cords of her former wardrobe was drawing his eyes down from her face and towards her upper body. The right strap of her white bra was tempting him, peeking out from beneath her top and beckoning him to start a long kiss up from the bare skin of her shoulder, and towards the long column of her neck, where his eyes were drawn to the little brown beauty mark resting perfectly in the middle of the left side of her neck. He never knew such a mole could be erotic, but when it came to Paris Gellar, you had to take eroticism wherever you could find it.
His eyes kept being distracted from the book, yet he kept on reading from his head as Paris drifted in and out of the slumber from his comforting reading, and at the same time wishing that his fingers could run through her long blonde hair, tied back in the braid. He wanted to unfurl it and brush the hair contained for hours at a time for her, listening to her sighs as the brush in his hands ran down the straight hair slowly, and causing tremors of pleasure to course through her scalp. A quick thought of him using the braid for leverage flashed through his mind, but he willed it out quickly. He didn't want to think of Paris in such a corrupt way, he'd rather get to know the real her first than imagine a girl who was unlike the real one in any way. Occasionally, Paris would nod when she was in an awake moment, as if to ask him to keep going, and he complied.
Until tonight, Jess couldn't imagine Paris wearing blue jeans at all. But there she was in a pair of 501's, trimmed to her figure and highlighting her legs to him so wonderfully. His gaze, after being stuck on her knees for a bit for an inexplicable reason, drifted all the way up to her waist, where a tempting sliver of skin awaited him between the shirt and waistband. Great, now we're back on the breasts again! he whined to himself in silence, as his eyes moved back to the book when he thought Paris was about to open her eyes wide again. He stopped looking at the heiress, and read from the book for the rest of the time they spent at the shop. Jess wanted to stay there all night with her, reading aloud the book until he had reached the last page of the work.
But reality set in when the loudspeaker came on and announced the end of the business day. "Please bring your purchases to the front register," the lady over the intercom said, and Paris found herself wide awake, albeit tired. By now the late local news would have ended in Connecticut, and Paris was having a heck of a time getting used to going to bed three hours later than she used to.
She shuffled herself in the chair and stretched out as Jess bent back a page in the book to mark the place he left off for the girl he was buying the book for. Jess averted his gaze as best he could, but he found himself taking a quick glance towards her bellybutton, exposed by her rising shirt, and liking what he had saw. He was hoping he could keep it to himself, but he had slipped up on his staring for the first time. Jess prepared for the oncoming wrath that Paris was sure to give him for staring at her in such a sexually blatant way.
Instead however, Paris smiled at him.
"No, I'm not getting that pierced, if that's the idea in your head there rebel boy."
He laughed, relieved that his wandering eyes weren't being considered a bad thing around the academic beauty. "No offense Par, but your bellybutton is cute enough as it is. Your nose with the shiny piercing though, now that's really looking nice." He helped her bring her books up to the counter, and Paris once again was trying to hold off a blush. He better quit this, Reb's giving me an ego, she thought to herself as he put the books down on the counter. The clerk rung up their purchases, and they walked out of the bookstore, knowing that this was certainly not their last visit to the store in downtown Santa Monica. Paris drove Jess back to the In-and-Out lot so that he could pick up his car. It was then she realized the time.
"God, I really lost track of time Jess, I should've been home at 7:30 so I could get some studying in," she grumbled as she climbed out of her Jaguar, and walked with Jess towards his car.
"Paris, don't panic, you have so much time before you really get into the hard stuff. Take the time to relax, get a tan, do something for yourself." He smiled at her as he took his keys out of his pocket.
"Jess, I never tan well, I think I'm meant to be pale forever."
He shook his head at her, not believing how humble Paris was trying to be about herself. "You're a summer, and you have a little Spanish blood in you, so you're meant to be tan. In Connecticut you could only get a tan when you were working hard for charity in the summer. In LA, you can get one just walking back and forth between classes."
Paris stumbled for words, she had never heard that beauty theory before. And he had gotten part of her ancestry right. "Um, how did you know I have some Spanish in me?"
"I just can sense it in you. There's a drive in you to succeed at everything you do, like General Franco in the Spanish civil war in the 30s. You're stubborn as you possibly can get, and there's passion in you Paris. And if you ask me, you're very colorful, especially beneath the dim light of a bookstore." The words he said he couldn't believe himself, he never talked like this towards Rory or any of the girls in Brooklyn.
But this was Paris, and she was a different creature altogether. She wasn't just a girl to Jess. She was someone who wanted him to be better. Even if she had never said it, she wanted more than Jess Mariano, high school dropout. He knew in order to win her trust he'd have to graduate from high school, and enroll himself in a good college. She wasn't the girl who would let a guy drag her down with him, and he didn't want to be that weight on that shoulder.
"Thank you Jess, I may consider your tanning advice after all," she responded, suddenly feeling that doing something for herself might be a nice thing to consider. She wanted to blush at his compliment again, but three times in one night was just about enough for her.
"I think you should, you're not a southern Californian until you get one that isn't out of the bottle." Paris laughed at his joke, but knew the time for stalling his leaving was soon to end. Her watch now read 9:05, and she was sure Brianna was organizing a search party with Doug and Ronnie back at the Saxons.
"So, I guess this is goodbye," she said, looking down at the ground.
"For now Par, only for now. We'll see each other again soon." He looked into Paris' deep browns one more time, trying to take a photograph for his mind so he wouldn't forget her face in a sea of 16 million others in the nation's second largest metropolis.
"That we will Mariano, I'm sure of it." She looked at him confidently, and knew that somehow, this was only the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
"Well, I'm sure I'm going to see you around town again Paris, so until we meet again, take care of yourself." Jess smiled at her, and offered out his hand, which Paris took into hers and shook.
"You too Jess, have a nice first day at school, and say hi to Jimmy for me, if he's not too busy selling hot dogs on the pier." She held his hand in the shake for a few seconds later than usual, and then let go with a lot of hesitation. It was just as tough for Jess to let go of Paris too, her slender hand felt so right inside of his.
"I'll be sure to tell him that. Goodbye Smartie." He walked away from Paris and towards his father's classic Beetle, leaving Paris staring at him, and somehow a simple stare on her part turned into an extended ogle of his backside.
Stop it Par, right now! This is inappropriate behavior, the angelic part of her conscience was warning her. But her other side was encouraging her on. Who's it going to hurt, not a soul Paris. It's a free show, take it in. And that she did until the boy who had wormed her way back into her life had pulled out of the parking lot, and the only thing she could see with him was the yellow streak of his car going down Wilshire.
She could feel the sexual tension starting to build up in her from the moment she laid eyes on Jess once again, it built up throughout the night within her. And as she started her car and prepared to leave the parking lot, she realized that she had forgotten to ask one important question to Jess.
"Damn it, I forgot to get his friggin' number!" In true Paris fashion, she would have tried to catch up to him on the streets of Santa Monica, but instead settled for pounding her head on the steering wheel, cursing her romantic stupidity once again.
We're just friends, if I want his number it's not for romance. We're just friends, if I want his number it's not for romance...She kept repeating that mantra in her head, but her hopeless romantic side shut it out with two simple words.
Yeah right. She resigned herself, borrowing an old Washington phrase that was used to describe the city's former baseball team, the Senators. She was first in academics, first in book smarts, but last when it came to falling in love.
"No use in delaying the inevitable," she told herself as she pulled into the In-and-Out drive thru to order for Brianna, dreading the reaction of her roommate when she walked back into her dorm.
She walked into her dorm room carrying the books she bought, and Brianna was laying on her beanbag chair, watching a rerun of Law and Order on the TV, but not very interested in the plot. Paris walked in, and her dark-haired girl looked at the blonde, kind of fuming, but at the same time not surprised.
"You got lost in LA, didn't you?" Brianna asked as she got up from the chair, and Paris handed over the bag of food.
"I didn't stray out of Santa Monica Bree, I wasn't lost."
"So what took so long, book buying, a maxi run and a stop at In-and-Out never take three hours." She sat on her bed and took a couple of Paris' books, including the one Jess had bought her.
"I just got distracted, that's all Bree. It's my first time out all alone and I wanted to see the sights." Paris was trying her best to avoid bringing up the real reason she had been late coming home.
"Yeah, so distracted I don't see a Sav-On bag in your hands."
Paris opened up her dresser and took a nightgown out of the bottom drawer. "I just wasn't ready yet, I have six days to go. Nothing happened tonight, it was just a night out on the town in Santa Monica, that's all." She watched Brianna take the food out of her bag and crack open a can of 7Up from the mini-fridge. "You need the bathroom?"
"No, go ahead, I'm comfy." Brianna was already decked out in her sleepwear, green scrub pants and her old Antioch volleyball jersey.
"OK, and I'm sorry again. I just lost track of time, that's all." Paris walked into the small bathroom and shut the door, and started to change out of her clothes. "By the way, Doug agreed to pool on doughnuts for the rest of the year, he's going to buy for us and Ronnie Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"That's great, I hope this means they're done with the whole alpha-male act," Brianna shouted as she got comfy on her bed with On the Road. She liked the book, but had always forgotten to buy it back at home.
"I threatened him with a very evil male injury girl, he and Ronnie are done being crude towards us." Paris buttoned up the gown, and walked out of the bathroom, throwing her clothes into a small basket in the corner of the room, marked with her name next to her roommate's own hamper.
"Thank God, one more comment about how I have a butt that won't quit and I was going to not quit kicking his ass." Brianna opened up the book, and as she skimmed it, something fell out from the middle of the book. A piece of folded paper fell into her lap, and her sharp eye noticed within moments what was marked on the paper.
Paris walked up to Brianna's bed, and the girl held up the piece of paper to her friend. "I believe this is yours Par, how did it land in here?" She took the paper reading to Par on the front and unfolded it, thinking it was just a note from Jess of where to find the best passages from the book.
Her mouth dropped open as she read the words to herself in her mind.
Paris,
Had a great time tonight, hope we can do it again soon.
Jess
Phone me @ (313) 565-1652
Address 67 Thornton Ct, Venice
Target hours, Sun-Thurs from 4:30 till 9.
P.S. Now tell me you loathe Kerouac Smartie, I dare you!
P.P.S I knew you'd forget this small little detail, so I wrote this up during one of your sleepy periods at the bookstore, hope you didn't mind.
"No I didn't," she answered aloud, startling Brianna.
"Didn't what?"
"I bumped into a guy I knew from Connecticut tonight, we were out for three hours and that's why I was late." Paris was in a sort of state of shock and awe.
"Really?" Brianna smiled at Paris, wanting to know more. "Got a photo of him?"
"No, I don't, and I doubt we'll be more than friends, it just wouldn't work right now." She took On the Road back from Brianna, and folded the note back into the middle of the volume.
"Yes Paris, I'm sure he offered you his number because he just wants to be friends with you. Uh-huh." Brianna rolled her eyes, and lay back on her bed.
"I'm telling the truth, I can't go out with him, it's that simple. He's my best friend's ex, and there's an unwritten rule that you have to wait at least a year or two before you even consider going out with an ex-boyfriend."
"True Ris, but there's another rule that nullifies it."
"There isn't, I'm sure. It's like the First Amendment to the Constitution, you can't change the wording of the actual document, you can only add on amendments."
"Oh come on, Rory gave up her rights to...name?"
"Jess," Paris said, completing the sentence and letting Brianna continue.
"Yes, she gave up her rights to Jess, and now that you're separated by thirteen or fourteen states, how is she going to find out--"
"Bree, I can't go out with Jess, I don't even know him that well. We saw each other once a few months before they became a couple, and that's it. This is about only the third time I've had a deep conversation with him. And I can't hurt Rory like that."
"Even if you harbor a crush on him?"
"I'm not crushing on him Brianna, we're just friends!" she insisted.
"Yeah, friends who bump into each other in a town they've never been in before, yet don't know who they really are spend three hours out together. Come on Gellar, if you had happened to see Jamie, you would've been avoiding him like the plague and down at the Hall of Justice filing a RO on him. This guy, you've known less than twelve hours altogether, yet you already have his phone number, not to mention his address and work schedule."
"Because we know each other from Connecticut, that's all. He played the friend card tonight, and I'm going to keep it for awhile."
"That's a good idea Paris, but can you honestly say that when you open up that copy of On the Road when you do your bedtime reading, you won't be thinking of an author you loathe, but instead the guy you love because he gave you the book?"
Paris sternly looked down at Brianna, wanting to end the conversation before it could go any further. "I don't love him Daugherty, we're friends, that's it! I'm serious, and not about to go down that road with him." To try to convince Brianna further, she even added in another point sure to shoot down the girl's assertions. "I couldn't go out with him even if I wanted to, my mother would throw a fit because I was dating someone beneath me financially!"
"I thought you weren't buddy-buddy with your mother," Brianna shot back. Paris' futile argument went up in flames. "You can try to deny it Paris, but you want him. All the sudden he finds his way back into your life, and you want to befriend him once again. And there has to be some physical attraction there, from what you've told me about yourself you were a conservative dresser back in Hartford. He has an interest in you, any girl would kill to have boobs like yours Par."
"Don't talk about them, please! I don't like the attention they get from guys!" Paris screamed back at Brianna, now getting annoyed that she was trying to make more of this situation out to be something else altogether. "Geez, it's not like you're UCLA's #1 dater yourself, how do you know all of this stuff?"
"Observation," she said back simply and sweetly. "Forget I brought this all up then, we have to be in class tomorrow at seven, so we should get some rest and not be at each other's throats." She turned around in her bed to face Paris, who was laying down herself. "We'll talk more about this Saturday afternoon, and I'll ease up on you for now about it, alright?"
"Fine, you're right Bree. I'm sorry I yelled at you, I just have this set plan in my head, and involves no dating this year. And um, no more mentions of my breast size, please? I want a guy to be impressed by my intelligence, not my cup size."
"It's alright Par, but you just need to relax a little." Brianna opened up her newest romance novel and started eating her food. "How about we both hit the tanning booths Saturday and have a girl's day out on the town. Help us forget about this first weird UCLA week."
Paris smiled back at her friend, and pulled at her hair to undo her braid in the back. "Sounds like a plan Brianna. I'm not usually a tanner, but it might make me feel more at ease here." She set the rubber bands used to hold the braid in place next to her nightstand, and took her sleep mask and put it on over her eyes. "I'm going to bed then Brianna, goodnight." She turned off her bedside lamp and turned around as her head searched for the cold side of the pillow.
"Night Paris, and your nose, don't forget."
Paris felt around her face and found her nose ring was still in place. She mumbled out a thanks to Brianna as she took it out and set it on the nightstand. Then she settled in for sleep, but not before a couple of thoughts settled into her mind.
Funny she would want me to get a tan, because I was going to ask her anyways, she thought to herself. The second one was about Jess' little line in his note about how she would like Kerouac after he read her his work. She still had a little disdain for the guy's writing, but now she could understand where Jack was coming from when he wrote that book. It hadn't been made all that clear when she was reading the book chapters back in 10th grade. The guy was growing on her, and no longer would she compare his writing to yellow journalism.
Then there was one last one, about Jess. What was she going to do if she kept seeing him, and there were thoughts of loving him? That question plagued her as she fell into her REM state, along with another disturbing scenario where her dream self decided that one of the oversized chairs in the bookstore was the perfect place to conduct a meticulous seduction of him, which included making out with the ruffian and plenty of disrobing.
I think a cold shower is in order tomorrow morning. A very cold shower! She fell asleep, not with Professor Jimenez's class on her mind, but thoughts of a certain black-haired rebel boy getting to her once again, and yearning for her heart.
Brianna looked at her sleeping roommate as she finished reading her chapter and brought the covers closer to her. She couldn't help it, there was something she was seeing in Paris that was different from the girl she had been sharing a room with for the last five days.
"Paris is in love. She just needs time for the realization to sink in." She said it quietly, and set the book down, smiling at Paris as she shut her eyes and went to sleep.
But her last thought of the night was a wish of her own.
Why can't I have a conflict of the heart like her? Brianna thought before she fell into sleep.
"I love you Brianna," a boy down the hall in 319 said to himself as he settled into his bed. Doug Merriweather wanted to be Brianna's boyfriend, and if that meant becoming a better man than he had been towards her and Paris the first week, he was going to make sure he was the best man he could be for Antioch's valedictorian.
Meanwhile in Venice, Jess lay on his bed around midnight, looking up at his ceiling. He had been debating with himself whether slipping the note into Paris' book was the best idea, and was now feeling conflicted. He had never left a phone number for any girl before, because they always knew where his apartment was. But this was LA, and even an overachiever like Paris wouldn't be able to memorize every street on the grid. It was risky, but if it worked, there was no doubt that leaving his phone number and address was going to be a good decision in the end.
"Well, the ball is now in your court Smartie. Here's hoping it comes back towards me," he told himself as he crawled into bed, and wished to himself that he wouldn't have a dream about Paris that night, innocent or corrupted.
His wish didn't come true for him that night. As for the outcome of the dream, think the latter.
To be continued...
Next Chapter: And so it begins, Paris and Jess start to dance around their building feelings for each other caused by that simple meeting in Santa Monica, as Paris tries to balance school with her suddenly blossoming social life. Brianna tries to keep her promise she won't date any guy solid, but Doug's trying hard to pierce the armor that she built up after the Jeopardy! incident, what will happen with them? Meanwhile, Paris meets Jimmy the Hot Dog King, and finds herself in quite a quandary on whether to tell Rory she saw Jess. Will she break down and spill the beans, or keep her mouth shut about it?
Author: Nate
Pairing: Paris/Jess, and couplings with the ancillary characters introduced in later chapters.
Spoilers: The big one would be the Jess/Milo spin-off series, which takes the Jess character to Venice, CA with his father. Otherwise it's unlikely I'm spoiling any of the upcoming plots. The earth-shattering and horrible news from The Big One is included and a major factor in the story.
Rating: PG-13 so far (this time there's swearing, sexual innuendo and dirty thoughts. But you expect that with a Dipper fic, now dontchya ;)?)
Disclaimer: Amy Sherman-Palladino, Hofflund-Pollone and Warner Bros. Television along with the newer companies involved with the spin-off own the Paris and Jess characters. Other trademarks are owned by their respective companies. No one, not even Paris, wants to own her style of cooking though, we can be assured of that.
Archiving: Usual suspects; FF.net and LWL. Make sure to ask if you want to archive it yourself.
Summary: Paris finds out that college life can be tough when her professor catches her not paying attention. After that, she goes into Santa Monica on a food run for her and Brianna, and bumps into someone she knows from Hartford. Paris finds herself doing some soul-searching after leaving, and starts to feel conflicted between her new life in LA, and Rory.
Author's Notes: Sorry about the delay, but this is one of those long chapters readers of the Project are used to when it comes to me, so settle in and see what develops. I've also been busy with more work than usual while I wrote this story, along with a couple of unexpected writer's blocks. Thank goodness for my new Liza movie Lullaby, that got me out of those ruts really fast, especially when it came to a couple of sequences (Liza in a long sleeping t-shirt and no pajama pants + bare legs=my nirvana).
Thanks to Chris and Ash for the betaing (and I'm sure I really did need it this time), and Jamie for finally coming back from India, yay! And Mala for complimenting me on the whole portrayal of backstage at Jeopardy!in chapter two, I'm glad it was true-to-life as I wanted it to turn out.
I also hope the IM conversation in the middle of this chapter isn't a distraction, I've tried to learn from other failed 'IM fics' and only use this device sparingly and as neat as I could, I'm not about to picture the girls using 'IM talk' that is prevalent and distracting to the reader (Come on, they're prep school girls, not boy-crazy airheads from your average TRL audience. Paris probably frowns on this whole 'IM English' thing in the first place.) If you feel I made an error in judgment in putting IM conversations in the story, feel free to review telling me you don't like it. It's only an experiment in this chapter, and if it doesn't take well, I just won't use it anymore.
Enjoy the story :)!
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Brianna woke up out of a deep sleep as her ears received the loud tone emanating from somewhere within the dorm. Trying to open her eyes slowly to prevent light shock, she turned to the right, facing her nightstand, and the big green numbers of her alarm clock, reading 6:45 am. Not used to the sound of the clock she picked up at Walgreens the day before, Brianna pounded down on the large snooze button with her hand, trying to shut off the clock so she could get ten more minutes of sleep. Paris was going to wake her at 7 if the clock didn't get her to rise and shine, and Brianna was still exhausted from the orientation of the campus libraries that she was on the night before, and had run overtime. She didn't get back to the Saxons until 11pm, and had to cook a Hot Pocket and get ready for bed as the already sleeping Paris mumbled in her slumber about working for the Los Angeles Times, and becoming their editor.
Brianna kept hitting the snooze button, but the alarm wouldn't let up, it kept sounding and keeping Brianna up.
"Come on you, shut up, Bree wants to sleep for ten more minutes," she murmured. Her vision fuzzy, she fumbled for the electrical cord connecting the clock to the outlet in an attempt to shut the alarm truly off. Her fingers traced the cord down the line until she felt the back of the nightstand, and the ribbing as the cord merged with the plug. With a hard tug, she pulled the plug out of the wall, and hoped that would be the end the alarm clock's wailing.
All that did however, was blank out the display, and the alarm continued to whine. A very tired Brianna, wearing an oversized Raiders jersey, stumbled out of her bed in a sleepy fog, wondering what was causing that loud noise. If it isn't the alarm clock, and Paris is already up...
It took her a couple moments, then she grasped what was happening.
"Oh shit!"
She was fully jarred awake as she heard what she thought were the sounds of her roommate coughing and wheezing in the kitchenette area over the real cause of the loud noise ringing through her ears, the wail of the fire alarm lurking above her bed on the ceiling. Her eyes started watering as she realized that a hazy smoke was filling the room, and the source of said smoke was the two-element hot plate Paris had bought at Kohl's two days before because of the lack of a range in the dorm. She stormed across the room with her hand covering her mouth, and made her way to the kitchenette area, where she found the blonde in the same position of panic she was the morning before, hands over her mouth and hyperventilating several "Oh my God!"s.
"Paris, what have I told you about cooking breakfast?!" Brianna screamed above the wail of the smoke detector. "It's nice of you to think of me when you make SoySages and Egg Beaters, but we have plenty of cereal in the cupboards, a bowl of Froot Loops and a glass of OJ fills me up just fine!"
Paris looked down at the burned remains of what was to be the morning meal, and grabbed the handle of the pan so she could run it over to the sink. "I'm so sorry Bree, I thought yesterday was just a fluke and that I was gonna do fine today!" She turned on the water in the sink, and ran it over the pan, wettening the cinders of her second attempt at homemade breakfast for her and Brianna. The sound of a sizzle from the hot pan reacting to cold water sounded from the sink, and Paris kept the water on as she looked the part of a nervous wreck. Brianna ran over to open up the room's window, as Paris somehow found the courage to walk over to the front door and open it up after monitoring to make sure the food in the sink wouldn't catch fire. The smoke detector ended its piercing wail a minute later, as Paris sat in her computer chair, contemplating what went wrong as she breathed in and out.
Brianna came out of the bathroom dressed five minutes later, but in a little shock from the way she was woken up. Her hair a tangled mess, she nonetheless decided that she had to sit down with her roommate and talk to her about when they wanted hot food in the morning, going to the student union or a fast food restaurant on the fringes of the campus was probably a better choice. She sat down on the futon couch in the middle of the room that faced the TV and computer desk, and looked at Paris. But she wasn't mad at the girl, rather she was smiling at her.
"Paris, now I know why you turned down that French cooking school, get you near an open flame or range and you turn yourself into a wreck. Now be honest with me, how did you do in home ec?" Bree was laughing, as Paris tried to keep her stubborn pride up.
"Well you see Bree, my teacher--Er, well I did good with cold food--My mother encouraged me..." Paris couldn't keep it up anymore, and looked forlornly towards the carpet below. "Oh fine, you got me, I was transferred out of the class after six days when one of my projects not only stunk up the classroom, but started afire the moment I opened the oven. My headmaster gave me a special waiver to take a out-of-school community project for the home economics credit and gave me a study hall in place the class, so I got an A even when I should've gotten an F. Probably with a minus after the F. He didn't want to see me break down over getting an F, so he accommodated me that way."
"I got the F," Brianna admitted as she chortled back her laughter. "I was the worst damned cook in the history of Antioch Jr. High! I lost a role in a Leave it to Beaver play that my drama teacher was directing because everyone was picturing me as June Cleaver burning down their TV house when we were rehearsing, my teacher finally took me out of it. After that my nickname was Firestarter. I was so scared of cooking after that I stuck to macaroni and cheese, ramen, and anything microwavable, which is why I was so against the hot plate. I guess my intuition was right, wasn't it Par?"
Paris finally looked back up at Brianna, and smiled back at her roommate as she ran her fingers in her hair. A small smile managed to eek it's way onto her face, and she was finally calmed down enough to form full sentences again. "Very right, my cooking days are over for now. I say we take classes at the Learning Annex when we can find some time during the evenings, I'm sure they have many more fire extinguishers than we could ever have Bree."
"So what was your thinking that you would've done better with the cooking thing now than you would've in Chilton Paris?" Brianna asked as she grabbed a brush off from her side of the computer desk and started to run it through her hair.
"I don't know, who knows what I was thinking? I mean I've been an independent woman for just a week, and I feel like I have to play the part. Thus I've had this weird urge to cook, even though I've been raised on private chef-made food since I was born. I guess my mother passed on the lack of aptitude at cookery onto me, and I've just now realized it." The last of the hazy smoke fled out of the window, and Paris looked towards it, the sun casting its morning rays into the room. "I'm sorry I woke you up like that Bree, I'm sure it's not about to happen again."
Brianna faked a pout at Paris. "It's OK, but now I'm not going to know if my alarm is going to work until tomorrow morning. Waking up to the sound of my alarm clock was going to be the highlight of my morning." She looked forlornly towards the blank face of her alarm clock, which she would have to reset after her and Paris got back from class.
"How about I drive you down to that great doughnut place on Kinross and we get a baker's dozen, along with some coffee, my treat." Paris took some money out of her pocket, and Brianna looked back at her friend. Her mood had brightened considerably.
"I say this day is starting to look up Miss Gellar, it's well-known to my friends in Antioch that a trip to the Krispy Kreme on Century for their sweet decadence has always brightened my day, no matter my mood." Brianna got up and grabbed her cardigan sweater off her computer chair. "But from now on Paris, promise me that the hot plate will only be used to warm up soup and boiling noodles, and the occasional hot sandwich."
"Scout's honor Bree, the hotplate has seen its last culinary disaster from the likes of me." Paris got up from her chair, and walked with Brianna to the door. "Now come on, we don't want a repeat of last Friday when Doug and Ronnie beat us to the éclairs and glazed donuts, not to mention the vanilla cream soy lattes."
"We'll wipe the floor with them this time!" Brianna growled, baring her teeth like a dog. "By the time Dumb and Dumber get there, the only thing they'll get to choose is stale day-old doughnut holes!"
Paris gave her roommate an odd look of amusement. "O-Kay, remind me to let you cut in line when we visit Krispy Kreme." The two roommates walked out of the room, ready to face their fourth day at UCLA, and two mornings till their first true weekend at the college.
Damn it, will this class ever end? Paris thought to herself as she watched Professor Jimenez lecture about journalistic ethics from the middle levels of the medium-sized lecture hall the class was being taught in. She was surrounded by 150 other students, and just seemed like another face in the crowd. Five other girls in her row alone had nose piercings, and a couple of them even had on added holes in their eyebrows, which disgusted the Connecticut girl. She could never see the point of piercing a part of her face which would surely block out her field of vision. Still a year ago, she couldn't even picture having a piece of jewelry coming out of her nose, and look what happened with that.
She figured when she took the ethics class that the first few lessons were basically going to rehash what she learned in school, but not to the degree that her professor was going to go over the same facts that were already old hat by 11th grade to her. Suddenly the Santa Monica Pier and the bright sunshine outside the walls of the lecture hall seemed to be calling out Paris' name, and she was wondering why her stubborn perfect attendance policy continued to go through into her college years. Professor Jimenez was making the same points about non-biased war reporting that Mrs. Stewart had taught her in the tenth grade, and finally Paris had stopped typing notes in her laptop, because she had the exact same notes already in her documents folder.
She looked down at the Mac desktop as she minimized the notepad window, and the little yellow man above the words AOL Instant Messenger was screaming "Open me!" in her inner monologue. Rory had emailed Paris from her brand-new yale.edu address about three days before to say that Yale was a great experience so far, and then to drop her AIM handle of Mocha108Yalie and telling Paris she could instant message her anytime she felt like it. Paris double-clicked on the icon, and looking waringly at the professor rambling on and on about the CBS ethics code Edward R. Murrow instituted at the network in the 1950s, typed in her screenname slowly. She wasn't about to win points for handle originality, PGellar167 just didn't really scream any kind of individuality out at people she'd meet online.
She logged onto the IM client, and found that two out of six buddies were logged on at the moment, suggesting that Rory and Brianna (aka AntiCABree) were also finding their two lessons just as boring as Paris was finding hers. She smiled as she found that Madeline and Louise were too invested in their lessons to really care about a mid-morning IM chat. Her nanny Francisca was also on her buddy list because they'd both made a promise to keep in contact with each other about every month between LA and Portugal. And Tristans screenname was also listed, but she kept his name on more for nostalgia's sake than having actual conversation. Paris hit the volume key furiously several times to silence the ensuing bells that were sure to sound as she and Rory would talk to each other. She decided that Rory would have the first move to ask how she was doing, and moments later, a window with Rory's handle popped up onscreen.
Mocha108Yalie - Hey Paris, what's going on :)?
Ahh, she's there. Paris smiled to herself again, and composed a response to Rory's missive.
PGellar167 - Hello Rory, just testing out the UCLA WiFi, I've got a really strong signal.
Rory saw right past Paris' excuse though.
Mocha108Yalie - How boring is your class that you're messaging me during mine?
"Curses." Even across 3,000 miles, Rory Gilmore was no dummy, as Paris whispered the word under her breath. No one was onto her, so she continued the conversation.
PGellar167 - Don't tell me. You're also in a journalism ethics class. And the material is so beneath you they might as well give you crayons and apple juice because the teaching is so primary.
Mocha108Yalie - I feel like I've heard all of this before Par. I know in two weeks we'll start getting into the heavy stuff, but for now I could play a tape of Stewart's lesson and end up hearing my male teacher have a perfect dub with her lecture.
PGellar167 - I'm not complaining about the teaching, but more the syllabus. If I would've known the first week and a half would've been just a quiz on 10th grade ethics, I would've taken another class instead, or spent my time here catching up on my non-academic reading.
Mocha108Yalie - Paris, we must be the only two girls on the internet who use actual English when they talk to each other. We have to be a very boring conversation to watch.
Don't laugh. Paris stopped herself before she could laugh aloud at Rory's comments, and was waiting for the perfect timing to bring in her new California friend.
PGellar167 - Very. Although I could stir up the masses if I told you about the nightmare I had of you making out with 'Ray of Light' Madonna on the disco floor in her video about four nights ago.
Mocha108Yalie - (gasps) Paris!!
PGellar167 - (seductively) Come on Rory, you know you want her.
Mocha108Yalie - Whatever Miss 'I Want an Older Woman!'.
PGellar167 - Hey, Madonna's 47, Sheryl's only 40! You're the one with the whole granny complex!
Mocha108Yalie - God, I thought we were done with the whole latent gayness thing! If you want to soak up the sun with Sheryl Crow so much, write her and ask if she wants you, I'm sure once she sees your picture she won't refuse!
PGellar167 - lol, I'm not that gutsy Gilmore.
Mocha108Yalie - Sure, and Summer got an invitation to Oxford ;). I know you, you'll write this kiss-ass letter describing how Miss Crow has been such an influence in your life, and you'll sneak in a little line in the middle that says 'oh, and if you asked to have a same-sex affair, I'm your girl Sheryl, please?' I know you well Paris, you'll sneak hidden meanings into your writings, and somehow they stick with people so inexplicably.
PGellar167 - (blushes) Fine, you got me. But I wouldn't be that crude at asking her to join me, I'd probably just say that she was one of the few women I'd sleep with without hesitation.
Mocha108Yalie - And if not, you'll be persuasive, won't you Par?
PGellar167 - That's why I'm called the queen of debating, live and learn Gilmore.
Paris took a breath and was about to read Rory's response, when another AIM window made itself known.
AntiCABree - I can still taste those delicious doughnuts Paris, we must eat there again one of these days. Damn they make some great bakery!
Paris told Rory to hold on for a couple minutes, and she started up a quick convo with Brianna.
PGellar167 - We have 8 more in the dorm, we'll finish them off later Bree.
AntiCABree - Actually only six. Big appetite this morning, hope you don't mind if I had four.
PGellar167 - I don't mind Bree, just save a couple for tomorrow morning since we have that early lecture.
AntiCABree - Will do then Par. Talking to anyone else?
PGellar167 - Just Rory from New Haven, want to join in and meet her?
AntiCABree - Id love to, but I can't, the lecture's about 15% of my grade. I thought Id just come on quick and ask you to pick up dinner at In-and-Out later down in Santa Monica, I just have this huge urge for a 3x3 with a large fry. Im going right to the library from my political science block this afternoon, so Im not going to see you till about 9.
PGellar167 - Ill stop by there first before I get home, then I have to stop at Sav-On and pick up some...needs. Its not coming for another week or so, but I like to be prepared for when it arrives.
AntiCABree - lol, just keep yours separated from mine, different personal care items for different girls.
PGellar167 - Got it. BTW, you bookmarked that page of In-and-Out burger varieties from the web, right? Can you email that link to me, it's going to be my first time ordering and I don't want to walk into that store and end up with something altogether wrong. That 'well done' fry line is definitely going to be used, but I don't know what kind of burger I want yet.
AntiCABree - I'll have it in your box by the time you get home Par.
PGellar167 - Thanks Brianna, you're the best roommate a girl can ask for :).
AntiCABree - Your welcome, and I think the same of you Paris. Say hi to Rory for me.
PGellar167 - I sure will. See you later.
AntiCABree - Bye.
Paris closed Brianna's window and was about to reopen Rory's chat window, when Professor Jimenez happened to call her name.
"Miss Gellar, you seem to be so engrossed in your notes that you should know what effect Terry Anderson's kidnapping had on the ethics policies of the Middle East news bureaus in the 1980s, print and electronic. Please share." He pointed at her, and 150 pairs of eyes suddenly focused on the blonde in the middle of the room.
Her mind was a complete blank, and she sounded more Valley Girl than Hartford Academic. "Um, they got tougher?" Paris felt like a total idiot, and learned that Jimenez's job was to throw her a loop to keep her on her toes in his class. Stewart never said anything about Terry Anderson!
Prof. Jimenez smiled smugly at her, and she sunk in her chair as everyone looked at her and laughed, some loudly and some lightly. "I'll ask someone else this time, but next time Miss Gellar I suggest you have an answer that's much more well thought out and unobstructed from your oh-so-important internet conversation about boy bands and lipstick shades. Next time I catch you in mid-conversation you'll be using a pen and paper for notes instead, do you understand?"
"Yes Professor Jimenez," was all Paris could say as she promised herself that this was going to be the last time she slacked off in college. The lessons might be novice to her, but the questions in the quizzes had the same amount of points as the harder ones in the end.
When she checked her email later, she found a message from Rory that said that she had been caught in the IMing act too a few minutes later, and been embarrassed in front of her whole class. The midday conversation they shared would be but a one time thing. Not that Paris was against the decisions of the teachers, her and Rory were at their respective schools to learn, not chat with each other cross country. Like birds of a feather, we're always staying together, Paris mused to herself as she changed out of her school wear of light slacks and a blouse, into some tight blue jeans and a lime green tank top. She did a little extra primping than she usually did when she went out, seeing as it was her first time going out into the world of southern California. A little extra eyeshadow there, some added blush on her cheeks, and a slightly deeper shade of pink instead of her regular shade of lipstick that matched her exact lip color, and Paris thought she looked nice. She admired herself in the mirror, and thought there was still something missing from her new look.
"Huh, there's something I need yet, what is it?" She pondered the quandary, wrinkling her eyebrows and watching her reflection in the mirror, looking for that something that would work. It wasn't the Star of David on her necklace, nor was it that she should change over to a different type of nose stud, like a sapphire or other stone.
A couple minutes later, she figured out what was missing as she stared at her image in the bathroom mirror. "I need to braid my hair, that's it." Confident with her beauty which was just now starting to shine outside the confines of stuffy Hartford society, she twisted the strands around in back, trying to recall each and every detail Francisca gave her when she'd braid her charge's hair when Paris woke up in the morning.
I just hope it doesn't end up like breakfast did, she thought to herself, giggling a little as step by step flew by in Portuguese in her head at each step in the braiding process. It came out so much better than the morning meal, and Paris admired her back as she placed the final rubber band at the end of the ponytailed braid she had just made all by herself.
"Hmm, quite a good job Paris." With her self-consciousness appeased, she grabbed the In-and-Out menu printout from the printer, put it in her purse, and walked out of her dorm room, locking the door so that nothing could be stolen.
As she turned around though, she found herself face to face with her new enemy, Doug from 319.
Well, more like her face was staring at Doug's, and Doug was looking down towards her...necklace.
"Hey Merriweather, get out of my way," she said scowling as she tried to bypass the guy in front of her. "Don't you have anything better to do than bug the hell out of me and Brianna?"
"I checked my datebook Eiffel Girl, there's nothing else to do. And damn, where did you get those nice ta-tas, someone blessed you!"
"Mother Nature, and in your dreams dumbass." Paris rolled her eyes and put her arms around her chest, trying to bring down Doug's libido.
"What, you don't like me calling you Eiffel Girl?"
"Do I look like I have a freakin' beret on, it's Paris, plain and simple! Unless you want me to give you a crude vasectomy with the toe of one of my running shoes I suggest you can the macho act, it doesn't work!" She saw Doug cower and cringe as the image of Paris kicking him in the groin hit his mind hard.
"OK, Paris, don't do it, nothing is more important to me than my boys!" Doug turned around and started walking back to his room as Paris followed. "Listen, how about next time we share the baker's dozen, Ronnie was pissed when I came home with nothing but holes."
"Only if you give me and Bree $10 a week and promise to stop with the machismo. I'll buy Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you and Ronnie have Tuesdays and Thursdays, that's $5 for 13 each day. We have to live down the same hall for the next year, so I'd rather make peace, not war."
"Isn't that make love, not war?" Doug said with a smug grin. That statement made Paris look down at the tip on her right shoe.
"Doug, come on, I'm serious. I think under that attitude there's a nice guy under there, and I'd rather share doughnuts with you guys than either have to pay a full price for a certain number or waste six of them because we don't have that much of an appetite."
Doug thought about Paris' plan for a moment, and found it to be of his liking. "OK Paris, we'll buy on Tuesday and Thursday, and you girls get the rest. Also the two buying get to keep the extra doughnut." Doug held out his hand. "Do we have a deal?"
"We have a deal Doug." Paris had a stoic front and started to shake Doug's hand, but quickly realized that his shake felt a little clammy and unnatural, and that it seemed to have a slimy feel to it.
"DOUG!!! You spit in your hand before you came to torture me, didn't you?" She reeled back her hand, and took a moist towellette out of her purse hanging from her right shoulder.
"Sorry, sorry Gellar, I intended to torture you before, but I don't wanna anymore!" Doug was truly sorry, but Paris wasn't having any of it. "That better be the last time Merriweather, or else you might find yourself with a black eye in addition to a lack of child-making ability." She glared at him as she walked down the hall, and Doug became the Brad Langford of UCLA. Paris' dark browns pierced deep into him, and his few days of making fun of the girl from Hartford, and by proxy her Bay Area roommate had ended with that staredown.
The boy from near San Diego sulked his way back into his room, feeling defeated beyond any shadow of a doubt. Doug shut the door and slumped onto his bed, he had to let his friend across from his dorm know that they couldn't make fun of Paris and Brianna anymore.
Besides, that Brianna is pretty cute, I couldn't tease someone as beautiful as her, he thought as he took a rubber ball out of his pocket and threw it up towards the ceiling.
Paris looked over the printout of In-and-Out ordering tips on her steering wheel, trying to figure out what would be the perfect meal for her to take out from the burger stand just off Wilshire. Her stomach was starting to rumble, and her roommate's urging that she wouldn't become an unofficial Californian without a trip to the ubiquitous burger chain that was just as much a part of SoCal as surfing and Hollywood was finally getting to her. As much as she campaigned against the evils of junk food in her run for student body president, her resolve to only eat healthy was fading. Sleepovers at the Gilmore home started luring her towards the darkside, and she had eventually warmed to the food that Luke served. The reality of college eating was hitting her hard too; It may have been almost nothing to have a meal of soy everything at the Manor, but when it was coming to being on her own and having to budget out her sustenance for a month in school, Paris' calculations came out higher than she ever expected.
Of course there was the added factor of Rory's habits somehow becoming her own. Just like Rory at Yale, Paris' other constant companion besides her PowerBook was a travel mug filled to the brim with coffee, be it from the Starbucks just off campus, 7-Eleven or the doughnut shop her and Brianna were frequenting. Not about to reprise her earlier cooking disaster with coffee grounds, others always supplied Paris' caffeine supply, and she drank the stuff like it was a fine wine, with a lump of sugar and soy milk the only addition to the drink. Despite her best efforts, Rory Gilmore had somehow become a part of Paris' life, and the blonde wouldn't want things to have gone any other way. She had picked up a bad habit, but a wonderful friend in the process.
Paris read the sheet of paper silently, and finally came up with her perfect meal. "A 2x2 with well done fries and a Diet Coke," she told herself as she got out of her car and walked into the store without the printout. She was trying to find a perfect substitute for that unique delicacy that was Luke's version of the french fry. Luke's burgers were just fine to her, but put a plate of golden brown crinkly fries fresh out of the fryer in front of Paris, and Luke was as much of a food god to her as Lorelai's assertions that he was a sex god. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, that was her idea of french fry nirvana, and Luke was her supplier for that need. Ever since that one time she shared dinner with Rory and Jess, french fries became a favorite food, just like her obsession with macaroni and cheese. Salt combined with pepper on a plate with some Frank's RedHot on the side, and the girl couldn't stop eating them.
She stopped at the door as she realized who had turned her on to fries in the first place, and the unique way of eating them taught to her by a master. Jess, do I ever miss that boy, she mused as she walked in. Occasionally, her dreams would be plagued by a replay of that one and only meeting at Gilmore house she had with Luke's nephew, and their conversations about one Jack Kerouac. Paris hated him with a passion, Jess would take him for a lover if so asked to. They argued for about fifteen minutes about the subject, until the two were disrupted by Dean's need to butt in and wonder why Jess was there in first place. After Jess had fled, Paris made up some excuse about wanting to date Jess and having a crush on him, then failing miserably to win his heart because he wasn't into her.
But it was almost the entire truth. The part about her hearing about him from Rory a few months ago was a total lie, seeing as she had just met the boy an hour ago, save for him just being a bystander to her at the Bracebridge dinner. But the rest, especially the part where she wanted to go out with him, was a fact. Rory was someone good to argue about books and current events with, but she could see Gilmore every day at school.
Jess however, was an enigma wrapped in a nice body that Paris found herself admiring quite a bit during their arguments aboiut the Beat writers. He wasn't smart in the usual way of getting all A grades, but he could talk about literature like it was the jewel of the Western world that needed to be shined every day when he woke up. His eyes, a matching chestnut shade to those of the academic beauty, she found herself lost in them several times and was distracted by all she could see inside of them. And his body...Paris was not one to fall into lust that easily with a guy, it was what was on the inside that counted to her. But a corrupted thought of getting ahold of that outside, especially in the gluteal, pectoral and pelvic areas of Jess Mariano's body, flew through her so fast, she almost fainted from the hot flash she got when she had dreamed of him that night on Rory's couch, and them having a very interesting game of Strip Trivial Pursuit.
She decided the day after that Rory might be a more perfect match with Jess than her, so Paris backed down and let fate play its cards for her. If she didn't get Jess, it was never meant to be, and she could move on. But if he paid attention to her, as Dr. Seuss would say, 'oh the places you'll go!'.
Then Jamie got in the way, and took her focus away from Jess Mariano in the snap of a finger. He was a big sweet talker, and she thought she loved him after she spent the holidays with him in Philadelphia, but things went too fast for her. She actually wanted to save herself until at least graduation, but Jamie pressured her that night she drove down to his dorm in New Jersey after signing off the call with Charleston and Rory about the speech.
Her description of the act to Rory as 'very afterschool special' couldn't be more apt. The two dry humped for about a half-hour, and then they started fondling, heavy petting, and tender kissing that was so boring that Paris probably would've slept through her first time if Jamie hadn't kept the lights on in the dorm ("I'm scared I might hurt my delicate flower," the boy said to her as he refused her request to be a little rougher with her, causing Paris to roll her eyes on the inside). The only fire that was actually lit up that night was Paris trying to light a candle for a last gasp at romantic ambiance, but Jamie saying no because he was allergic to them. The fireplace was an exaggeration on Paris' part, she really didn't want to tell Rory her first time was in a depressing 7x7 cinder blocked dorm room painted spartan white with the ugliest draperies from the 70s Paris had ever seen. And worse, Jamie's roommate walked in on them a couple times to get some books and ruined the mood.
As for the sex, she might as well have been laying in a separate bed pleasuring herself, because he just made love to her in the ultimate position of boringness, the missionary position. Scratch that, he just rose up and down into her mimicking sex as if he was a rubber stamp and she the paper he was going to make his mark on. The whole thing was over in less than five minutes after he put on his condom, and as Paris fell asleep that night in her 'lover's' arms, she was thinking about how wonderful a lover Jess could be and how he'd actually leave a mark on her as the best sex she ever had. It would be more Letters to Penthouse than afterschool special, I don't doubt that, she thought as she drifted off to sleep, thinking the only thing that Jamie had done was broken her physical seal. He hadn't broke through to that special spiritual virginity lurking within Paris' soul, and that would eventually be the death knell of her first relationship.
Back in the present time, Paris sat against the outside wall of the restaurant, quickly willing the images of Jamie out of her mind. She was at In-and-Out Burger to get food, not reminisce about her failures with boys.
Paris walked into the restaurant, and waited in the line in front of the counter for a few minutes, amazed at the speed that the orders were being taken and were served. It was a fast food restaurant all right, but all the burgers and fries were made fresh and served with care rather than the usual rushed and uncaring paces that would be seen at other fast food establishments. Paris hadn't gone to any of those places because the food always ended up cold when she got it, and it wasn't made very well in the first place.
Finally first in line, she walked up to the counter and looked up at the menu. Even though she knew what she wanted, Paris wanted to make sure she got everything right.
"Welcome to In-and-Out Burger, for here or take out ma'am?" The cashier up front smiled at Paris, and she rattled off her order.
"One 2x2, one 3x3, two orders of fries and a Diet Coke, make one of the fry orders well done, all to go." The register girl nodded, told Paris the total, and took Paris' money, then headed over to the fountain dispenser and filled a cup with soda. Paris watched the workers speedily make up her two orders, and in about a minute and half, her order was all done.
"Enjoy ma'am, and thank you for choosing In-and-Out Burger," the cashier said as she handed Paris two bags of her order, along with the drink.
"I probably will, that was some good service," Paris responded back happily, clearly impressed with the speedy and courteous service she had just gotten. "I'm sure you'll be seeing me again if this food is delicious."
She turned back around after taking the food, and walked towards the front door, reading the little spiel on the bag about the history of In-and-Out and their commitment to quality. She kept trying to strain to look at the words below her, only monitoring the floor on the bottom to know when she was at the door.
Paris didn't hear the door open in front of her, and didn't see the boy about to walk right in her path until just a few moments before they were going to crash. She looked clearly distracted, and upon seeing the shadow form of a man on the ground, she stopped walking and proceeded to try to let the man pass in front of her.
The man had stopped walking into her too. But not for the reasons of trying to avoid a collision.
"Oh, sorry, I'll get out of your way sir," Paris told the boy before she tried to shuffle left of him.
"No, it can't be," the boy said back, perplexed. "It just can't."
"Can't what?" Paris wondered why the guy wasn't moving. She hadn't looked back up yet.
"It can't be you." The boy smiled at Paris and took the Diet Coke she was holding out of her right hand. "You're Paris, right?"
Startled by the mention of her name and the boy insisting on helping her carrying her food, her attention had started to make it's way towards the boy. "Yeah, I'm Paris, how do you know--" She glanced up towards him, and lost all of her words as the features of the boy in front of her slammed into her mind.
She reeled back from him and walked backwards towards one of the booths in the middle aisle.
"You know who I am, right?"
Paris was in a state of disbelief. The black hair that felt so wonderful to run her fingers through, the squarish jaw, those tempting lips and those brown eyes she could lose herself in. The same boy she announced she had a crush on one night in March 2002 was standing right in front of her, wearing a pair of dark blue worn out jeans and a faded red band t-shirt. "Jess, it can't be you." She forced her eyes closed, trying to make sure this wasn't a dream, that the boy was in the same Santa Monica burger joint she was in.
"You're not seeing things Smartie, it's me, Jess Mariano." He walked towards Paris as she opened her eyes, and she found her way into a booth. She set the two bags of food down, and offered him the seat across from her.
She was still in a stunned state as she tried to restore her normal conversational abilities. "But, well I thought you were going out west, more north though. Rory said you were headed to Portland or Coeur d'Alene when you left back in April, what are you doing here?" She brought the food out of her bag and decided that talking and eating with Jess on the run wouldn't be that prudent.
"I thought so too at first, my father said he was out in Oregon all this time. But then he found a job in LA, so he decided to sell the house he had in Portland and buy a home down in Venice near the beach. He didn't really have room for me in the old house, so now I have my own bedroom and everything."
"I'm just in so much shock right now Jess, you're the last person I expected to see here in Los Angeles. Hell, I didn't expect to see anyone I know already until I got back to Hartford for the holidays." She lay back in the seat and set out her food along her side in the table in order of consumption.
Jess was just as shocked as Paris was with meeting each other once again. He wasn't expecting hugs and kisses and a whole 'I missed you so' vibe, but he was still taken aback that the girl he had just about debated about Kerouac to the death so long ago was sitting in front of him, so far from her home.
"Why are you here Paris?" Jess asked. "Shouldn't you be at Yale with Rory?"
She tried to minimize the question as best she could into a small sentence or two, laughing nervously to bring down the tension. "I decided this was going to be my form of rebellion, so I said to my mother I'm going to UCLA instead of Yale for college, and here I am."
"Did that come with the nose ring?" He smirked at her as his eyes caught the diamond on the side of her schnozz.
"That was my pre-graduation, post-meltdown rebellion," Paris told him, trying to categorize the two rebellions as different events. "It was get this or scream in the tattoo artist's chair as he scrawled an image of a building into my ankle. This piercing did get infected the first time I got it, but I decided to keep it nonetheless."
"Well I might not have imagined you with one back in Connecticut, but here in California, I say you make it look pretty cute." He smiled at her, and Paris tried her best to hold back a blush. Her friends may have commented on it before and said it looked nice, but to have a member of the opposite sex say that to her, it sent that funny warm feeling up her spine that happened when a boy would compliment her.
"Thank you Jess," she said back. "Um, since you were about to eat here did you want to take my roommate's food? It's a 3x3 with regular fries; I can reorder it just before I leave. That way we can eat together and catch up on our current events."
"I was probably going to end up with the same thing, so sure, pass it on over Paris." She shoved the bag towards him, and then took off the light grey sweater she was wearing over her blouse. "I'm going to go get some condiments, need a soda or anything else?"
"Um, Coke would be nice. What are you getting from the condiment bar?"
"A coffee filter so I can mix the salt and pepper, what else?" A smirked played on her lips. "And hopefully some hot sauce, I never did forget it was fast food gospel Jess. You are a wiseman." She turned around and walked away from the table, leaving Jess to reminisce their first meeting all over again.
He watched her at the counter ordering his Coke and asking for a tray, and was amazed at how much they had become fast friends once again. He hadn't seen Paris since probably February when she was in town for another one of Rory's projects, but had spent most of his time upstairs in the office because he was juggling trying to get ready for work for some inane assignment in Algebra 4. One of the reasons he had regretted leaving the Hollow when his father came calling for reconciliation was that he had never been able to build up a strong friendship with Rory's friend.
Or even a relationship, he thought bitterly. There were times during his relationship with Rory that he craved for more than Rory could ever give him. She had a great relationship with her own mother, and despite the distance, Christopher was always there for her when he was needed, despite Sherrie. He didn't have that strong a relationship with Liz or Jimmy. Going out with Rory had been a dream to him, but when he had broken up with Shane and found Rory to be his girlfriend, he realized that this was a relationship doomed from the start. The pesky attraction Luke had for Lorelai had always been in the front of his mind, and that had always gotten in the way with what he wanted to give to Rory. The pressure the townspeople put on him to behave around their 'princess', as someone sitting next to him in class snarked, also got to him after awhile. He wanted a relationship full of love and the other things, and to be that perfect second boyfriend to her. But after awhile, the events in town conspired to bring down the high of being Rory Gilmore's boyfriend. Everytime he would try to be romantic with her, there were Lorelai or Luke, sometimes even Dean, trying to prevent his newest PDA from happening.
After awhile, it became apparent that the attraction him and Rory shared at first was fading, and was being held on by their sexual tension for each other and their love of literature. But even that latter connection was lost because he hadn't had time for books all that much in his haste to pay for the junky Plymouth he was trying to pay off. His need to work more at Wal-Mart had started cutting into his time at school, and it cost him when it came to his grades. By the time his father had come to reconcile with him, his GPA was down to below 1.50, and he was tiring of the massive hours he spent working for the discount giant. He saw his father coming as a perfect opportunity for a fresh start, financially, scholastically and romantically. He was going to miss Rory, but he felt in the end that there was no relationship that could possibly stay strong long distance. So they broke it off as ambically as possible, with him promising a postcard a month to the girl. With his father having an interest in cars, there was no need to keep the ugly brown Plymouth in his stable. He sold it back to Gypsy for $800 and used the money to help him and his father settle in Venice.
And despite what everyone in Stars Hollow thought, he really did want his high school diploma, the teachers were just not trying to help him out all that much though. He was used to the more hands-on help he had received in his special classes back in Brooklyn, which he didn't receive in Stars Hollow High because they couldn't understand him much more than he was a student from New York with a short attention span. Upon arriving in Venice, Jimmy had him registered at Venice Senior High, where he was sure to have a class schedule that would challenge, yet not overwhelm him. Jess may not be the smartest guy in history, but he realized that any college he went to would look more down at him if he took the coward's way out and decided to take the GED test instead of finishing high school.
He let his thoughts wander towards Paris, who was at the condiment bar trying to find hot sauce or a spicy equivalent. Their one meeting had amazed him so much, and her passion at trying to bring down every point he tried fruitlessly to make about his favorite writers got to him so much, he hardly remembered the drama between him, Dean and Rory that happened later. For awhile at least, Paris was in his dreams more than Rory was, and there were times where he wanted Rory to get Paris' phone number and address so he could attempt to pursue her for more debates and maybe a date.
But for once in his life, he decided to back down. All of Rory's babbling about how uptight Paris was, that she had a family that would place his entire being under a microscope and would tell him that he was unworthy for their daughter, it became too much for him to bear. By the time that he had decided to try to ask Paris out, Rory had kissed him at the Duper's wedding after he came back from New York, and changed his thought processes 180° away from Paris. His hormones had gotten the better of him, and cost him whatever chance he may have tried to have with Paris.
The next school year was spent assuming he wanted Rory, and that Paris was now off limits due to her finding Jamie, which made it easier for him to put aside any feelings he had for the blonde. Not that he didn't love Rory, he really did, and leaving her when he went to California was one of the worst events he'd ever had experience. But it was time to start a new chapter, and breaking up on good terms with her was the epilogue to it all.
At that moment though, watching Paris walk back towards him with all of her condimental needs appeased, he knew that him and his romantic tendencies were in for a long ride, because with no one but Jimmy in his way, there was no stopping his second chance to woo Paris.
She sat back down on one side of the booth, and set the coffee filter with perfectly mixed salt and pepper dip in the middle of the table. The cashier up front had gave her one of the few spare disposable ashtrays they had left, and she started squirting ketchup-like packets of hot sauce into the tray of the tin. Jess unpackaged his proffered food from the bag, and was about to try and mix his fries with Paris. Her hand grabbed his wrist before he could attempt it.
"My fries are well done, yours are regular style, so I refuse to let them get mixed up Jess. There's rule number one of eating dinner with me." She smirked at him, and he faked being haughty at hearing such a thing.
"Well I never Paris, you've developed a french fry addiction on par with your craving for macaroni and cheese." He started dipping a couple of fries into the hot sauce tray.
"Blame your Uncle Luke for that one, he was my fry supplier until I left for LA a couple weeks ago. I'm still trying to find that perfect potato that compares or exceeds the way that he whips 'em up." She coated an In-and-Out fry lightly with the dip and sauce, and then sunk her teeth into it, savoring the taste of the starchy confection.
Moments later, the fry had been chewed up and was sliding down her esophagus, a moment that would be considered passé for most regular folk. However for Paris, she had finally found that elusive french fry recipe that was just as good and better than Luke's. She sighed and smiled in contentment, sipping her Diet Coke to cool off her tongue from the spicy effect of the hot sauce. Her urge to do a full-on imitation of Meg Ryan in the orgasm scene was quickly reduced to just a comment about how delectable the food was to her.
"Mmmmmmm, Brianna should've told me about this place earlier, what a fry!" Jess looked at her oddly for a moment, before realizing that this wasn't out of the ordinary behavior for Paris. She was almost a cheerleader for the benefits of wheat germ when they last talked.
"I take it the way to your heart is through your stomach," he joked as he took a bite out of his burger.
"Perhaps it is, although the way I cook I could probably damage that roadway and close it down for a few days. Let's just say me and a hot plate? Not a good combination. Me and a 1500-page biology text, much better partners."
"So we can finally calm down Sara Moulton that you're not about to overtake her on the Food Network, good to hear." He took another couple bites of cheeseburger, and decided to get down to business. "So how are you liking LA so far Par? It must be a cynic's dream come true to live in the true capital of cynicism."
"Actually, the only gripes I have so far are with the transportation. It's hell getting through all that traffic, and then digging out all the money you need to fill up your gas tank, paying $2.30 a gallon for gasoline was unfathomable to me before. Thankfully the Jag's fuel-efficient, and most everything I need is pretty close to campus so I can save on gas mileage."
"But otherwise it ain't as bad as it's all cracked up to be?"
"I'm not about to go all Randy Newman and confess my undying love for this metropolis in song, but it's a great town, heh." Jess laughed at her little joke, then let her continue. "I've had to change a few things about myself, like my clothes and being open to new experiences, and now I'm discovering the reason sunglasses were invented. I had to commute to the downtown library a few mornings ago to do some microfilm research for a crime reporting class I'm taking, and that sun is really bright when you're eastbound on the 10. Then again, I don't miss the rain and clouds that befall Hartford occasionally at all."
"Not a fan of getting wet, are you Gellar?" Jess' words were meant to be innocuous, but somehow the rasp of his voice had turned the sentence into an entendre, floating around her brain. Don't you even dare, we're not going there! Paris scolded herself silently, trying to keep herself from starting to think of Jess in the opposite sex sense once again. Determined, she was going to make sure they were friends, and nothing more. She gave him her stare of death, and he quickly backed down upon realizing how bad that sentence actually came out when uttered.
"Fine, don't answer that." He thought for a moment of a more appropriate inquiry. "You were the last of us two to see Rory, how is she doing? It's been about two weeks since I wrote my last postcard to her."
"She's starting Yale, and doing fine. It's a little tough for her, but I think she'll make it," She hesitated for a moment before asking another question, wondering if he was still pining for Rory, but decided that friendship meant more to her than jealousy over the ex. "I have her AIM screenname, would you like me to give it to you so you can surprise her one day?"
"I'd love to take you up on that offer, but unless you want to buy a computer for me, I'll pass. Internet access just isn't in my dad's budget for now." He breathed in some air, and exhaled slowly. "And to tell you the truth, I'm not ready for a full-on conversation with her quite yet. I don't want to jar her concentration from school, and I don't want to find out the hard way that I burned all my bridges."
"It's OK, I understand." Paris looked at Jess, and a little part of her was relieved that she didn't have to tell Rory about her sudden meeting. "Me and Louise would try to bring you up over the summer, but she really didn't say anything except that she hoped you were doing well out west. She didn't seem to be hiding anything and was really just thinking about school, I think Rory plans to be done with guys for the next year or so. I think you're cool with her Jess, and I just wouldn't dwell on it."
"You're sure Paris?"
"I'm sure, she only holds grudges against people who really piss her off, like Francie from school and your ex Shane. I never saw Shane though, so I'm not going to believe what Rory says about her."
"You shouldn't, Shane is actually a pretty nice girl. A little off in the cranial department, yes, but not so much she had only the intelligence of a balloon. She's going to Minnesota up in the Twin Cities, she wrote me herself and said that she's found love."
Paris gave him a look that said 'I don't believe she's found love'. Jess rolled his eyes back and relented.
"Fine, she found herself a guy she can make out with for hours at a time. But he does love her, and she loves him when it comes down to it!"
"OK, I believe you, Shane's in love!" She was happy being able to have a friendly conversation with Jess like this. "Got a job out here yet? Last time I heard you were working up the Wal-Mart corporate ladder." She bit into her burger and let Jess respond.
"Actually I've moved up in the world, now I'm working at that high-class discount chain they call Target up in Culver City. Nice hours, and they pay a lot more than Mr. Walton could ever afford to me. I work about five days a week, you managed to catch me on one of my off days."
"Nice," Paris mumbled as she swallowed her food. "School hasn't started in Venice yet, right?" Jess nodded back. "How many credits do you need before you graduate?"
"About six or seven, so that's about four classes a day, I'll be out by January if I can keep my concentration up. I'm taking six a day though because there were some interesting literature classes, including one involving 60s writers."
He paused for a moment, knowing that if he took this next step, Paris wasn't going to be that 'blonde classmate of Rory's' anymore. She was going to be a part of his new life in Los Angeles, and he would be powerless to stop it.
Not that I would want to anyways, he thought as his eyes wandered down Paris' form. I didn't know she had so much...definition beneath her blouse. So much for thinking of a former Chilton schoolgirl in chaste terms, now he understood the reason Paris wore a blazer at school to the bitter end.
He continued on anyways. "As a matter of fact, I was headed down to a bookstore downtown after I ate that one of my father's friends recommended to me. I'm going to pick up some reading material and class texts, can't make margin notes in the rented texts at school. Do you have time to come along?"
"Well I still have to stop at Sav-On and pick up some...womanly items Jess." She blushed upon admitting her cycle to him.
He laughed back. "I have the time, the shop doesn't close till about 9. I'll just follow you in my car and we can go into the bookstore together."
"I have a better idea. How about I drive you there in the Jag, and when we're done we just drive back here and you can take your car back to Venice? You know, environmental conservation and such?"
"What about Sav-On?"
"It's not for another week, I'll just stop there on my way back up to Westwood." Jess stared at her as if Paris was a madwoman for planning for her period as if it was an appointment. She cocked an eyebrow. "What? If you were a woman you'd understand."
"I'll never understand women, especially someone as kooky as you Paris. I mean that as a compliment though." He started to eat then, and left Paris to shaking her head at how much Jess could get under her skin.
"You better, I can find out where you live Beat Boy." They both looked at each other, understanding their banter was meant as good natured, and started eating their dinners in relative silence. They continued catching up on each other's lives throughout, and by the time they left the restaurant around 7, their dormant friendship had been renewed strongly in just one short hour.
"Crap, crap, crap!" Paris was in a panic as she parked her car in the Saxons lot. Her dash clock was reading 9:25, and she was sure that when she walked right back into 343 a very annoyed Brianna was going to be waiting for her, grumpy because she hadn't gotten her burger fix yet.
She hadn't done anything with Jess, nothing at all. Yet it took all of her willpower to tear herself away from his company when the loudspeaker in the bookstore nagged at them that they were closing in ten minutes, and they better get out of there or else.
So why was she sitting in that big stuffed leather chair earlier, feeling like she was going to drift off to sleep with the soothing tone of Jess' Brooklyn accent reading aloud the third chapter to a book she was supposed to loathe with everything she had in her?
If she ever happened to cross paths with Jack Kerouac, she was going to wring his neck. And then damn him for making her like him.
The journey into the bookstore started out innocently enough. They walked in around 7:15, and Jess made his way to the 20th century section, while she browsed non-fiction. She paged through the various texts she came upon, including several on the Dark Ages, and one which piqued her curiousity. Jiminez is going to eat his hat after he hears me recite these facts! She looked over the $30 book on journalistic ethics, which seemed to be very detailed and meticulous on it's facts as she skimmed through the pages of the paperback. She also snuck in a couple of mind candy books, one of them a best of compilation from a comedy news quiz show she listened to loyally each weekend on public radio, and a romance novel which she was sure Brianna was going to swipe from her the moment she brought it into the dorm. They had already been like cats and dogs when it came to which book they would get for nighttime reading, Paris still had a small scar on her arm from when her and Brianna had fought on their second night to read a historical romance. It was meant to be fun though, but Brianna's zeal to read the book had overwhelmed the shorter girl, and she went to bed licking her wounds and reading a dull book on World War II.
Her and Jess met up in the middle of the store around eight, and she was ready to go, but Jess decided to make a move to endear him to her further. Even if she was going to kick and scream about it.
He handed her a copy of Jack Kerouac's On the Road that he picked off the shelf moments ago, looking at her sincerely.
"For you, I figure you need something to take your mind of school one of these days." He smiled at her snidely, and she looked wide-eyed at the cover of the book.
"Jess, you know I hate Kerouac with every fibre, why would you want to buy me one of his books?" She took the book from him and tried to walk around Jess, in an attempt to put it back. However, the 5'3" girl was no match for the much taller Jess. Even in her short mules.
"And what are you basing this on Paris? At least tell me that you've read the book."
"I have."
"And what forum did you read it in?"
"I read it in school."
"And in what form did you read it in? Was it a copy of the entire book, or in the form of a unit in a literature text where you got two chapters of the book, then some self-absorbed pablum about how the book inspired some 50 year-old tenured loser at Amherst College?"
Paris rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling. Somehow, Jess had cornered her in when it came to her dislike of the Beat Generation. "Two chapters, then onto Ginsburg, that's about all that Literature Horizons 10 from Houghton Mifflin had to say about the subject of writing in the 60s."
"That's pathetic, I thought Chilton asked for the best in textbooks. Seriously, you'd think they'd focus on such great writing like that."
"They spent it all on the plaid skirts," she joked rather morosely. "Besides, I'd sooner subscribe to Weekly World News than read Kerouac."
"Paris, it's like brussel sprouts, you're either gonna like him or you won't." Jess made his way to a reading corner set up in the back of the bookstore, where a dim reading light sat on an end table, highlighting two big overstuffed leather chairs. "Please Smartie, at least give him a chance and let me read some chapters of it to you. I promise you that you won't be disappointed." He offered out his hand, as if asking Paris to give him back the volume so he could read it to her.
In Paris' mind, it reminded her of Francisca reading to her at bedside when she was four, little Rissy tucked into her new 'big girls's bed', as she called it, wearing a My Little Pony nightgown and asking her nanny to read her a story. The woman could read Goodnight Moon wonderfully even with her broken English, and nights after that were spent basking in that wonderful memory, and her younger self wishing everyone and everything from her father, her St. Bernard Dreyfuss, and things like her books, bed and window goodnight. She even remembered saying goodnight to the water heater and ping-pong table one night when she was down in the basement playroom.
That moment really reminded Paris of her situation then, to a point. She wasn't exactly trying to avoid her feelings for a certain well-read Brooklynite when she was four, and she had matured since then. But she was still thinking of Jamie, and how her trust in him that had built up slowly until she bedded him, then was lost when she was told she was wrong. She was scared to even befriend Jess, and was just slightly scared that if she were going to be his girlfriend, she would lose him, just like Rory did when he fled here to Los Angeles.
Her inner monologue was conflicted. She had promised herself no boys until at least sophomore year, that they would just be a distraction. But then again, it's Jess. What do I do?
"Paris?" Jess asked, noticing her state of distraction. "Do you want me to read it to you or not?"
His voice was kind towards her, and she had decided to go ahead and listen to him read the book. I have nothing to lose, if I don't like it I can just tune him out, she thought as she smiled and offered the book to him.
"OK, why not Jess, lead the way." He nodded in kind, and they walked towards the chairs, Paris on the left and Jess to the right diagonal of the table. She settled into the comfy chair, and slipped her shoes off as she prepared herself to be taken into a world she thought she hated when it came to literature. Jess slipped right into the book, forgoing the introduction and reading the words off the page as if they were lyrics to a well-known #1 song. For once, Paris decided to stay silent and not debate the book, as she lost herself in Jess' voice, as if she didn't want anything to distract from that distinct tone of voice.
About a half hour later, Jess was into chapter three, and he had slowed down his reading a little upon noticing the blonde across from him was starting to nod off and seem distracted. He used this opportunity, knowing the words of the third chapter by heart already, to fake reading the words on the page, while at the same time, taking a look at the girl sitting across from him. A year and a half later, and Paris had only seemed to become more beautiful in his eyes. Her figure was just as voluptuous as it was that night, and her choice to forgo the sweaters and cords of her former wardrobe was drawing his eyes down from her face and towards her upper body. The right strap of her white bra was tempting him, peeking out from beneath her top and beckoning him to start a long kiss up from the bare skin of her shoulder, and towards the long column of her neck, where his eyes were drawn to the little brown beauty mark resting perfectly in the middle of the left side of her neck. He never knew such a mole could be erotic, but when it came to Paris Gellar, you had to take eroticism wherever you could find it.
His eyes kept being distracted from the book, yet he kept on reading from his head as Paris drifted in and out of the slumber from his comforting reading, and at the same time wishing that his fingers could run through her long blonde hair, tied back in the braid. He wanted to unfurl it and brush the hair contained for hours at a time for her, listening to her sighs as the brush in his hands ran down the straight hair slowly, and causing tremors of pleasure to course through her scalp. A quick thought of him using the braid for leverage flashed through his mind, but he willed it out quickly. He didn't want to think of Paris in such a corrupt way, he'd rather get to know the real her first than imagine a girl who was unlike the real one in any way. Occasionally, Paris would nod when she was in an awake moment, as if to ask him to keep going, and he complied.
Until tonight, Jess couldn't imagine Paris wearing blue jeans at all. But there she was in a pair of 501's, trimmed to her figure and highlighting her legs to him so wonderfully. His gaze, after being stuck on her knees for a bit for an inexplicable reason, drifted all the way up to her waist, where a tempting sliver of skin awaited him between the shirt and waistband. Great, now we're back on the breasts again! he whined to himself in silence, as his eyes moved back to the book when he thought Paris was about to open her eyes wide again. He stopped looking at the heiress, and read from the book for the rest of the time they spent at the shop. Jess wanted to stay there all night with her, reading aloud the book until he had reached the last page of the work.
But reality set in when the loudspeaker came on and announced the end of the business day. "Please bring your purchases to the front register," the lady over the intercom said, and Paris found herself wide awake, albeit tired. By now the late local news would have ended in Connecticut, and Paris was having a heck of a time getting used to going to bed three hours later than she used to.
She shuffled herself in the chair and stretched out as Jess bent back a page in the book to mark the place he left off for the girl he was buying the book for. Jess averted his gaze as best he could, but he found himself taking a quick glance towards her bellybutton, exposed by her rising shirt, and liking what he had saw. He was hoping he could keep it to himself, but he had slipped up on his staring for the first time. Jess prepared for the oncoming wrath that Paris was sure to give him for staring at her in such a sexually blatant way.
Instead however, Paris smiled at him.
"No, I'm not getting that pierced, if that's the idea in your head there rebel boy."
He laughed, relieved that his wandering eyes weren't being considered a bad thing around the academic beauty. "No offense Par, but your bellybutton is cute enough as it is. Your nose with the shiny piercing though, now that's really looking nice." He helped her bring her books up to the counter, and Paris once again was trying to hold off a blush. He better quit this, Reb's giving me an ego, she thought to herself as he put the books down on the counter. The clerk rung up their purchases, and they walked out of the bookstore, knowing that this was certainly not their last visit to the store in downtown Santa Monica. Paris drove Jess back to the In-and-Out lot so that he could pick up his car. It was then she realized the time.
"God, I really lost track of time Jess, I should've been home at 7:30 so I could get some studying in," she grumbled as she climbed out of her Jaguar, and walked with Jess towards his car.
"Paris, don't panic, you have so much time before you really get into the hard stuff. Take the time to relax, get a tan, do something for yourself." He smiled at her as he took his keys out of his pocket.
"Jess, I never tan well, I think I'm meant to be pale forever."
He shook his head at her, not believing how humble Paris was trying to be about herself. "You're a summer, and you have a little Spanish blood in you, so you're meant to be tan. In Connecticut you could only get a tan when you were working hard for charity in the summer. In LA, you can get one just walking back and forth between classes."
Paris stumbled for words, she had never heard that beauty theory before. And he had gotten part of her ancestry right. "Um, how did you know I have some Spanish in me?"
"I just can sense it in you. There's a drive in you to succeed at everything you do, like General Franco in the Spanish civil war in the 30s. You're stubborn as you possibly can get, and there's passion in you Paris. And if you ask me, you're very colorful, especially beneath the dim light of a bookstore." The words he said he couldn't believe himself, he never talked like this towards Rory or any of the girls in Brooklyn.
But this was Paris, and she was a different creature altogether. She wasn't just a girl to Jess. She was someone who wanted him to be better. Even if she had never said it, she wanted more than Jess Mariano, high school dropout. He knew in order to win her trust he'd have to graduate from high school, and enroll himself in a good college. She wasn't the girl who would let a guy drag her down with him, and he didn't want to be that weight on that shoulder.
"Thank you Jess, I may consider your tanning advice after all," she responded, suddenly feeling that doing something for herself might be a nice thing to consider. She wanted to blush at his compliment again, but three times in one night was just about enough for her.
"I think you should, you're not a southern Californian until you get one that isn't out of the bottle." Paris laughed at his joke, but knew the time for stalling his leaving was soon to end. Her watch now read 9:05, and she was sure Brianna was organizing a search party with Doug and Ronnie back at the Saxons.
"So, I guess this is goodbye," she said, looking down at the ground.
"For now Par, only for now. We'll see each other again soon." He looked into Paris' deep browns one more time, trying to take a photograph for his mind so he wouldn't forget her face in a sea of 16 million others in the nation's second largest metropolis.
"That we will Mariano, I'm sure of it." She looked at him confidently, and knew that somehow, this was only the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
"Well, I'm sure I'm going to see you around town again Paris, so until we meet again, take care of yourself." Jess smiled at her, and offered out his hand, which Paris took into hers and shook.
"You too Jess, have a nice first day at school, and say hi to Jimmy for me, if he's not too busy selling hot dogs on the pier." She held his hand in the shake for a few seconds later than usual, and then let go with a lot of hesitation. It was just as tough for Jess to let go of Paris too, her slender hand felt so right inside of his.
"I'll be sure to tell him that. Goodbye Smartie." He walked away from Paris and towards his father's classic Beetle, leaving Paris staring at him, and somehow a simple stare on her part turned into an extended ogle of his backside.
Stop it Par, right now! This is inappropriate behavior, the angelic part of her conscience was warning her. But her other side was encouraging her on. Who's it going to hurt, not a soul Paris. It's a free show, take it in. And that she did until the boy who had wormed her way back into her life had pulled out of the parking lot, and the only thing she could see with him was the yellow streak of his car going down Wilshire.
She could feel the sexual tension starting to build up in her from the moment she laid eyes on Jess once again, it built up throughout the night within her. And as she started her car and prepared to leave the parking lot, she realized that she had forgotten to ask one important question to Jess.
"Damn it, I forgot to get his friggin' number!" In true Paris fashion, she would have tried to catch up to him on the streets of Santa Monica, but instead settled for pounding her head on the steering wheel, cursing her romantic stupidity once again.
We're just friends, if I want his number it's not for romance. We're just friends, if I want his number it's not for romance...She kept repeating that mantra in her head, but her hopeless romantic side shut it out with two simple words.
Yeah right. She resigned herself, borrowing an old Washington phrase that was used to describe the city's former baseball team, the Senators. She was first in academics, first in book smarts, but last when it came to falling in love.
"No use in delaying the inevitable," she told herself as she pulled into the In-and-Out drive thru to order for Brianna, dreading the reaction of her roommate when she walked back into her dorm.
She walked into her dorm room carrying the books she bought, and Brianna was laying on her beanbag chair, watching a rerun of Law and Order on the TV, but not very interested in the plot. Paris walked in, and her dark-haired girl looked at the blonde, kind of fuming, but at the same time not surprised.
"You got lost in LA, didn't you?" Brianna asked as she got up from the chair, and Paris handed over the bag of food.
"I didn't stray out of Santa Monica Bree, I wasn't lost."
"So what took so long, book buying, a maxi run and a stop at In-and-Out never take three hours." She sat on her bed and took a couple of Paris' books, including the one Jess had bought her.
"I just got distracted, that's all Bree. It's my first time out all alone and I wanted to see the sights." Paris was trying her best to avoid bringing up the real reason she had been late coming home.
"Yeah, so distracted I don't see a Sav-On bag in your hands."
Paris opened up her dresser and took a nightgown out of the bottom drawer. "I just wasn't ready yet, I have six days to go. Nothing happened tonight, it was just a night out on the town in Santa Monica, that's all." She watched Brianna take the food out of her bag and crack open a can of 7Up from the mini-fridge. "You need the bathroom?"
"No, go ahead, I'm comfy." Brianna was already decked out in her sleepwear, green scrub pants and her old Antioch volleyball jersey.
"OK, and I'm sorry again. I just lost track of time, that's all." Paris walked into the small bathroom and shut the door, and started to change out of her clothes. "By the way, Doug agreed to pool on doughnuts for the rest of the year, he's going to buy for us and Ronnie Tuesdays and Thursdays."
"That's great, I hope this means they're done with the whole alpha-male act," Brianna shouted as she got comfy on her bed with On the Road. She liked the book, but had always forgotten to buy it back at home.
"I threatened him with a very evil male injury girl, he and Ronnie are done being crude towards us." Paris buttoned up the gown, and walked out of the bathroom, throwing her clothes into a small basket in the corner of the room, marked with her name next to her roommate's own hamper.
"Thank God, one more comment about how I have a butt that won't quit and I was going to not quit kicking his ass." Brianna opened up the book, and as she skimmed it, something fell out from the middle of the book. A piece of folded paper fell into her lap, and her sharp eye noticed within moments what was marked on the paper.
Paris walked up to Brianna's bed, and the girl held up the piece of paper to her friend. "I believe this is yours Par, how did it land in here?" She took the paper reading to Par on the front and unfolded it, thinking it was just a note from Jess of where to find the best passages from the book.
Her mouth dropped open as she read the words to herself in her mind.
Paris,
Had a great time tonight, hope we can do it again soon.
Jess
Phone me @ (313) 565-1652
Address 67 Thornton Ct, Venice
Target hours, Sun-Thurs from 4:30 till 9.
P.S. Now tell me you loathe Kerouac Smartie, I dare you!
P.P.S I knew you'd forget this small little detail, so I wrote this up during one of your sleepy periods at the bookstore, hope you didn't mind.
"No I didn't," she answered aloud, startling Brianna.
"Didn't what?"
"I bumped into a guy I knew from Connecticut tonight, we were out for three hours and that's why I was late." Paris was in a sort of state of shock and awe.
"Really?" Brianna smiled at Paris, wanting to know more. "Got a photo of him?"
"No, I don't, and I doubt we'll be more than friends, it just wouldn't work right now." She took On the Road back from Brianna, and folded the note back into the middle of the volume.
"Yes Paris, I'm sure he offered you his number because he just wants to be friends with you. Uh-huh." Brianna rolled her eyes, and lay back on her bed.
"I'm telling the truth, I can't go out with him, it's that simple. He's my best friend's ex, and there's an unwritten rule that you have to wait at least a year or two before you even consider going out with an ex-boyfriend."
"True Ris, but there's another rule that nullifies it."
"There isn't, I'm sure. It's like the First Amendment to the Constitution, you can't change the wording of the actual document, you can only add on amendments."
"Oh come on, Rory gave up her rights to...name?"
"Jess," Paris said, completing the sentence and letting Brianna continue.
"Yes, she gave up her rights to Jess, and now that you're separated by thirteen or fourteen states, how is she going to find out--"
"Bree, I can't go out with Jess, I don't even know him that well. We saw each other once a few months before they became a couple, and that's it. This is about only the third time I've had a deep conversation with him. And I can't hurt Rory like that."
"Even if you harbor a crush on him?"
"I'm not crushing on him Brianna, we're just friends!" she insisted.
"Yeah, friends who bump into each other in a town they've never been in before, yet don't know who they really are spend three hours out together. Come on Gellar, if you had happened to see Jamie, you would've been avoiding him like the plague and down at the Hall of Justice filing a RO on him. This guy, you've known less than twelve hours altogether, yet you already have his phone number, not to mention his address and work schedule."
"Because we know each other from Connecticut, that's all. He played the friend card tonight, and I'm going to keep it for awhile."
"That's a good idea Paris, but can you honestly say that when you open up that copy of On the Road when you do your bedtime reading, you won't be thinking of an author you loathe, but instead the guy you love because he gave you the book?"
Paris sternly looked down at Brianna, wanting to end the conversation before it could go any further. "I don't love him Daugherty, we're friends, that's it! I'm serious, and not about to go down that road with him." To try to convince Brianna further, she even added in another point sure to shoot down the girl's assertions. "I couldn't go out with him even if I wanted to, my mother would throw a fit because I was dating someone beneath me financially!"
"I thought you weren't buddy-buddy with your mother," Brianna shot back. Paris' futile argument went up in flames. "You can try to deny it Paris, but you want him. All the sudden he finds his way back into your life, and you want to befriend him once again. And there has to be some physical attraction there, from what you've told me about yourself you were a conservative dresser back in Hartford. He has an interest in you, any girl would kill to have boobs like yours Par."
"Don't talk about them, please! I don't like the attention they get from guys!" Paris screamed back at Brianna, now getting annoyed that she was trying to make more of this situation out to be something else altogether. "Geez, it's not like you're UCLA's #1 dater yourself, how do you know all of this stuff?"
"Observation," she said back simply and sweetly. "Forget I brought this all up then, we have to be in class tomorrow at seven, so we should get some rest and not be at each other's throats." She turned around in her bed to face Paris, who was laying down herself. "We'll talk more about this Saturday afternoon, and I'll ease up on you for now about it, alright?"
"Fine, you're right Bree. I'm sorry I yelled at you, I just have this set plan in my head, and involves no dating this year. And um, no more mentions of my breast size, please? I want a guy to be impressed by my intelligence, not my cup size."
"It's alright Par, but you just need to relax a little." Brianna opened up her newest romance novel and started eating her food. "How about we both hit the tanning booths Saturday and have a girl's day out on the town. Help us forget about this first weird UCLA week."
Paris smiled back at her friend, and pulled at her hair to undo her braid in the back. "Sounds like a plan Brianna. I'm not usually a tanner, but it might make me feel more at ease here." She set the rubber bands used to hold the braid in place next to her nightstand, and took her sleep mask and put it on over her eyes. "I'm going to bed then Brianna, goodnight." She turned off her bedside lamp and turned around as her head searched for the cold side of the pillow.
"Night Paris, and your nose, don't forget."
Paris felt around her face and found her nose ring was still in place. She mumbled out a thanks to Brianna as she took it out and set it on the nightstand. Then she settled in for sleep, but not before a couple of thoughts settled into her mind.
Funny she would want me to get a tan, because I was going to ask her anyways, she thought to herself. The second one was about Jess' little line in his note about how she would like Kerouac after he read her his work. She still had a little disdain for the guy's writing, but now she could understand where Jack was coming from when he wrote that book. It hadn't been made all that clear when she was reading the book chapters back in 10th grade. The guy was growing on her, and no longer would she compare his writing to yellow journalism.
Then there was one last one, about Jess. What was she going to do if she kept seeing him, and there were thoughts of loving him? That question plagued her as she fell into her REM state, along with another disturbing scenario where her dream self decided that one of the oversized chairs in the bookstore was the perfect place to conduct a meticulous seduction of him, which included making out with the ruffian and plenty of disrobing.
I think a cold shower is in order tomorrow morning. A very cold shower! She fell asleep, not with Professor Jimenez's class on her mind, but thoughts of a certain black-haired rebel boy getting to her once again, and yearning for her heart.
Brianna looked at her sleeping roommate as she finished reading her chapter and brought the covers closer to her. She couldn't help it, there was something she was seeing in Paris that was different from the girl she had been sharing a room with for the last five days.
"Paris is in love. She just needs time for the realization to sink in." She said it quietly, and set the book down, smiling at Paris as she shut her eyes and went to sleep.
But her last thought of the night was a wish of her own.
Why can't I have a conflict of the heart like her? Brianna thought before she fell into sleep.
"I love you Brianna," a boy down the hall in 319 said to himself as he settled into his bed. Doug Merriweather wanted to be Brianna's boyfriend, and if that meant becoming a better man than he had been towards her and Paris the first week, he was going to make sure he was the best man he could be for Antioch's valedictorian.
Meanwhile in Venice, Jess lay on his bed around midnight, looking up at his ceiling. He had been debating with himself whether slipping the note into Paris' book was the best idea, and was now feeling conflicted. He had never left a phone number for any girl before, because they always knew where his apartment was. But this was LA, and even an overachiever like Paris wouldn't be able to memorize every street on the grid. It was risky, but if it worked, there was no doubt that leaving his phone number and address was going to be a good decision in the end.
"Well, the ball is now in your court Smartie. Here's hoping it comes back towards me," he told himself as he crawled into bed, and wished to himself that he wouldn't have a dream about Paris that night, innocent or corrupted.
His wish didn't come true for him that night. As for the outcome of the dream, think the latter.
To be continued...
Next Chapter: And so it begins, Paris and Jess start to dance around their building feelings for each other caused by that simple meeting in Santa Monica, as Paris tries to balance school with her suddenly blossoming social life. Brianna tries to keep her promise she won't date any guy solid, but Doug's trying hard to pierce the armor that she built up after the Jeopardy! incident, what will happen with them? Meanwhile, Paris meets Jimmy the Hot Dog King, and finds herself in quite a quandary on whether to tell Rory she saw Jess. Will she break down and spill the beans, or keep her mouth shut about it?