A/N: Okay, So I lied. This chapter is a combination of There's a Rub and Teach Me, Tonight. Odd, I know, but trust me, I think its worth reading. The end is kind of a cliffhanger so don't hurt me. I want to thank you for all of your reviews, constructive and praising. You all mean so much to me! Again, I wanna apologize for the problems with chapter 6. If you haven't read the revised version. Please do so! Finally, R/R.
Disclaimer: Milo says that I only own him! In the words of the Girls, "Dirty!"
So, without further ado . . . .
"' If you really want to hear about it, the first you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth . . .'"
Lorelai and Jess smirked widely, yet silently watched with amusement as Luke struggled through the famous sentence. The two observed the man in flannel intently as he grimaced, raised his eyebrows, and read the words wide-eyed.
"I believe they call that pensive-face." Whispered Lorelai, quite loudly to her son.
Jess chuckled. "He'll brood some more when Holden Caulfield starts skipping through the wheat fields."
She smiled at his joke before looking back to Luke, who had finally acknowledged their presence, but still tried to ignore them. Nevertheless, no one could ignore the Gilmores', especially the elder, female Gilmore.
"Jeez, can't a man read a book in private without being ridiculed and distracted!" He out-bursted, as if he was actually angry that his most reliable customers were interrupting his reading.
They grinned, always entertained by Luke Danes' melodrama, and Jess spoke first. "Not to question your motives or anything, Luke, but you do know you're reading Salinger and not this month's issue of MAD, right? Alfred E. Newman would be crushed!"
He peered at them over the spine, obviously unamused.
"But, Luke, he would never desert Alfie! Alfie is crying because you're trying to replace him with that damned Caulfield and his fascination with children and sex. I just don't think Alfie's a pedophile, Luke." Lorelai quipped.
"Mom, don't ruin the book for him! It could be self-help for him. He might learn to like kids or go on a date for the first time in . . .how long has it been, Luke? Over a year?"
Luke scowled. "Would you two leave me alone! Rory caught me reading The Firm, and she was disgusted that I would actually consider John Grisham. She tossed me this and said, and I quote, you'll like it. He'll remind you of me."
Jess smiled. "Rory? Act like Holden Caulfield? Never!"
He rolled his eyes at the teens sarcasm. " While I've got your attention, Smartass, can I ask you a favor?"
"I'm not giving you the Cliffs Notes for Catcher in the Rye just so you can deceive Rory into actually believing you read it."
Luke rubbed his stubbled chin and leaned over onto his elbows to get closer. " I want you to tutor Rory."
Then, it was Jess who grew pensive for a moment. "What?"
"Thursday nights. Her guidance counselor says she needs some academic motivation. She likes you. She hates everybody in this town except you. I think she'll listen to you."
Lorelai interrupted, worried as to what Luke was getting her son into. "Luke, I don't think this is such a good idea. Jess has his own studying to do. Chilton and The Franklin and Dana keep him busy enough as it is. I don't think he needs tutoring sessions with Rory to add to his already extremely long list."
She secretly hoped that she didn't sound too pessimistic. She was honestly worried about her son. Nope, the idea that it was Rory that he would be tutoring didn't factor in at all. Nope, not one little bit.
"Look, just one night a week, Lor." He begged, inwardly trying to come up with something that would convince her to allow her son to tutor his niece. What does Lorelai love? The Bangles. Highway to Hell. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Shoes. Sour Patch Kids. Coffee. Coffee? Coffee! "And I'll throw in free coffee until Rory gets her grades up!"
Lorelai and Jess both grinned like idiots. "Well, that's a horse of a different color!" She quoted, never refusing free coffee. She would never!
"On one condition, other than the coffee, of course." Jess added.
Luke hissed. "God, I'll throw in free cherry danishes on Danish Day. I'm desperate, Jess!"
"No! That's not what I meant. I don't need a cherry danish," He realized what he was saying, " What a minute? Did you just say free danishes?"
"Yes! Free Danish! What else do you want?"
He smirked at the elder man behind the counter. He picked up the book he had previously lain on the counter. "I want you to finish the book. She's right. It's a total classic. Everyone should read it."
He snatched the book from his hands and put it back on the counter. He then grabbed two coffee cups and poured them their regular fix. He set the full mugs before them before going back to the novel and flipping it to the first page once more. And, for one morning, the two sat in silence. Luke then settled on his stool and perused until finding the spot where he left off.
"' . . . In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all — I'm not saying that — but they're also touchy as hell . . .'"
"So," Walker paused, crossing the front of the room, relentlessly like the Energizer Bunny, " What do you Orwell meant? That it was a room full of humans? Had Napoleon and the rest of the animals turned into animals all in one magic moment?"
"Who cares?" A voice called from the din of students. "Yeah!" Another voice agreed. "Why are we studying about animals anyways? This is literature!" A student asked.
Rory had just about had enough. She looked up from her copy of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. These students' comments were about to cause her to crack.
"Of course, it's literature. But Orwell was writing about more than just a bunch of barnyard animals that had intelligence and could talk. Oh, no he was trying to get the reader to look beyond the surface. Are any of you looking beyond the surface?"
"Beyond what surface? All I see is animals." A student answered.
She had officially been cracked. "Of course you do 'cause you're a moron!" She exclaimed, slamming her book on the desk top.
Mr. Walker's and the students' eyes fell upon her.
"Explain, Miss Mariano." He stated, waiting for her to respond.
"Yeah, New York!" She hated it when people called her that. Just because she was born and grew up in the City doesn't mean that it was engraved on her birth certificate.
"Gladly!" She snarled, turning towards the obvious jock that she had know clue what sport he played or what his name was. "I'll try to speak in small sentences using small words so you're able to understand what I'm saying. George Orwell was a political writer. Most people, and I mean not including you, know this fact before reading Animal Farm. The pigs, Napoleon, Squealer, et cetera, represented the leaders of the Totalitarian Dictatorship! Oops, I'm sorry. I spoke in more than three syllables at the time. I won't do it again, I promise. As I was saying, The pigs were those mean, scary men named Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky. Those names ring any bells? Yeah. Orwell was criticizing the Totalitarian State by saying that the inhumane beliefs of these nasty men were animalistic! That they should be treated like the animals they are! Does that clear anything up for you!"
Mr. Walker's eyes looked as if he had just returned from a visit to the eye doctor. This was possibly the first time he had ever heard this girl speak in full sentences let along a huge monologue about George Orwell, maybe he had underestimated this girl. He realized, she wasn't ignorant. She just didn't care.
"My, Rory," he finally said, breaking the total silence in the room, "That's very good. Very good. Can you tell us anything else about Animal Farm?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know really. There was something about a windmill, and Four legs being good and two being bad or something like that." Her facial expression once again became indifferent, and she crouched back into her desk, pulling out her Stoppard play once more to read.
Just before Walker was about to respond, a knock at the door came. He muttered for whomever it was to enter, and Kirk walked into the classroom carrying a bouquet of a dozen red, long-stemmed roses. Sticking out on one of the florists' nifty tools was a white card with Dana Forrester's name written on it. She blushed when he sat the flowers on her desk. Kirk then excused himself while the girl's 'ooh'-ed and 'aww'-ed over the beautiful flora.
A myriad of calls could be heard. Who sent them? What's the occasion? Was it her birthday? Smiling, Dana opened the tiny envelope and pulled out the card.
That night when joy began
Our narrowest veins to flush,
we waited for the flash
of morning's leveled gun.
But morning let us pass,
And day by day relief
Outgrows his nervous laugh,
Grown credulous of peace,
As mile by mile is seen
No trespasser's reproach,
And love's best glasses reach
No field's but are his own.
I'm sorry, and I love you
- Jess -
"What's it say?" A female voice beside Dana asked.
She smiled, her complectionglowing warmly, and recitedwords written on the card.
"Auden."
The group of giggling girls turned towards Rory, glaring at her as if she'd told one of their secrets. Something taboo
"Auden," Rory repeated, "The poem. It's That Night When Joy Began by W. H. Auden. He's one of my favorites. Poets, I mean."
One of Dana's friends spoke, "Well, what does that love's best glasses line mean? I think it's pretty!" She gave her a toothy smile.
Rory rolled her eyes, retrieved a medium-sized hardbound from her bag, and tossed it on Dana's desk. "You figure it out."
The blonde looked down and read the title — The Compact English Poet: 1830 - 1915.
"Give me caffeine, Diner Man!" Lorelai playfully ordered, taking a stool in front of Luke Danes at the counter.
He grunted, as usual, in response, but not before pouring her a large mug of regular. "I thought you were going to that spa with your mother."
She grimaced. "Don't remind me. She's picking me up in an hour. It's gonna be hell!"
"What? A nice, relaxing weekend at the spa enjoying mud wraps, seaweed salt scrubs, and some Swedish guy with huge arms muscles the size of watermelons giving you a rub down with some kind of scented oil? I can see a whole lot of screaming and gnashing of teeth going on."
"Right, well, while Gunter, my hunky Swedish masseur, is wrapping my body in seaweed, my mother's incessant yaps of why her Egyptian cotton towel isn't soft enough or how Gunter's brother, Yan, needs to move a little to the right will be in the background, completely drowning out Kenny G 's Greatest Hits that is sure to be blaring from the speakers above our heads."
He glared at her. "And on that note, I wanted to thank you for letting Jess tutor Rory tonight. Maybe he can knock some sense into her. She's been doing a lot better since the two of them have started hanging out. She's helping out more. Lane said she actually went to school today. And got into an argument with a football player about . . .I think she said pigs?"
Then, a sharp bell tolled above the door and the second Gilmore padded inside the Diner and sat down in the stool next to his mother.
"Ready for your big mother/daughter weekend?" He asked, smirking, then grabbed the mug Luke had poured for him, without even asking.
Lorelai scowled. "You think you're so funny? I could put you up for adoption."
"It's a hard-knock life, Mom!" He quipped, never losing his smirk.
"Thank you, Little Orphan Annie, and no, I'm not ready for my weekend! You think its so great. Missing out on Friday Night Dinner. You get to spend a leisurely few days studying, reading, spending time with your girlfriend, eating that God-awful Sandeep's crap while watching a Monster Garage marathon! You try spending a weekend locked up in a hotel room with Emily Gilmore! You'd be praying for Rooster and Lily St. Regis to come kidnap you at anytime!"
He rolled his eyes. "Mom, Grandma is not that bad."
"Says Daddy Warbucks?" She joked.
"Whatever. So, Luke, is Rory upstairs? I was gonna ask her what time she wanted to get started."
He nodded, and Jess pulled back the curtain and walked up the stairwell, smiling as he heard the playful banter of the two adults he had just left. When he reached the door to the apartment, always curious as to why Luke still left it as Williams' Hardware's private office, he heard the familiar beginning bars of a punk anthem clamoring from the inside. He opened the door to a sight that turned his face a bright shade of crimson.
With a John Hersey classic in her left, A Bell For Adano, and a pencil in her right to jot down any necessary notes in the margins, she tapped her bare foot to the music and mouthed the words.
"Breaking rocks in the hot sun, I fought the law, and the law won. I needed money 'cause I had none. I fought the law and the law won. I left my baby, and it feel so fine. I guess my race is run. She's the best girl that I ever had . . ."
"I fought the law, and the law won?" Jess finished the line for her.
She turned her head away from the book, and noticing it was him, immediately stood from her lax position on the floor. He immediately felt the lump in his throat and trying desperately trying, unsuccessfully, to remove his gaze from the pink stripes in her underwear. His eyes moved from her bare feet, legs, and then stopped at the pink stripe. Eventually, his eyes moved to her upper body, clothed in a thin wife beater, to her unmake-upped face, her blue eyes covered in reading glasses with black rims, to her hair, balled in a messy bun on the top of her head with loose tendrils framing the side of her jaw. She looked completely all-natural and extremely beautiful.
"I didn't know you wore glasses." He finally said, breaking the silence.
She shrugged.
"I didn't know you read in your underwear either."
She blushed, looking at her feet self-consciously. "Yeah, well, you should try it. It's pretty cathartic."
"Kinda like burning bras?" He attempted.
"Rock on, Susan B. Anthony!" She exclaimed, throwing the Devil horns in the air. "You wanna hand me that skirt on the bed?" She pointed to the denim mini that had obviously been longer before she had gotten to it with a pair of scissors.
"So," She began, pulling the skirt from his hands and up her legs, " I hear you're gonna be doing a little teaching?"
"Maybe." He stated simply.
She then pointed to a grey Rolling Stones tee, inscribed with the famous Andy Warhol tongue, that had been laying next to the skirt. He handed it to her without words, and she slipped it on over the tank.
She smiled, satisfied. "So, now that I'm fully dressed, will you please be a little less vague and say what time you want this little tutoring session to begin?"
"Whatever is good for you."
"So never?" She chastened, throwing a hand in the air for added effect.
"Rory, be serious." He replied, putting on his sedulous mask.
"Jess, why is school all that important?" She was trying to avoid the subject.
"Why are you answering everything in the form of a question?"
She smirked. "I'll take "You're Easy to Play With" for a thousand, Alex!"
He rolled his eyes. "Thank you, Johnny Gilbert, but seriously, I'm doing this for Luke. I don't wanna disappoint him."
"What does Dana say about our study date?"
This floored him. He wasn't sure whether or not he should be offended.
"She doesn't know." He finally choked out the words.
She crossed her arms defensively and rolled her eyes before slipping on her suede Uggs and retreating out the apartment door. But before she left the room, Jess could have sworn that he had heard her mockingly reply, "Figures."
He was writing diligently in the notebook sitting on their kitchen table, but glanced back towards the textbook every so often to read and refer. Jess then looked up to see her shuffling a deck of cards.
"You ever played Presidents and Assholes?" She asked, completely ignoring the literature book sitting in front of her.
He gave her a pointed glared.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Okay, how 'bout poker? A little Texas hold 'em or five-card draw?"
He continued to peer at her.
"Go Fish?"
"Rory, you're supposed to be writing about Othello." He stated, taking the deck from her hands.
"I did write!" She exclaimed, handing him the piece of notebook paper.
He studied her words on the sheet before looking up at her unamused. "This isn't Shakespeare."
"It's not?" She replied innocently.
"These are lyrics to a Clash song."
"Ah, but which Clash song?" She challenged, leaning her elbows on the table.
"I thought I was the one doing the teaching."
She looked at her watch. "10, 9, 8 . ."
"You're supposed to be studying."
"7, 6, 5 . ."
"Rory."
"4, 3, 2 . ."
"Oh, Oh, Guns of Brixton!"
"A plus." She stated, taking the sheet of paper from his hands.
And then the doorbell rang. "I'll get the door, and you make yourself look like your reading Othello."
She smirked before he ambled through the living room to the door.
" I got an A minus. I've never gotten an A minus before." The girl standing on the porch told him.
"Paris, what are you doing here?" He asked, realizing he had not one but two girls in his presence.
"My parents are going through a nasty divorce. They argue. I can't concentrate. I make A minuses in Physics. I need you to help me study!"
To him, she had never seemed more vulnerable. "Paris . . ." His voice faltered. "Come on in. You can't stay long."
"Whatever, Gilmore." She followed him into the Gilmore house and eventually to the kitchen. Paris raised a questionable eyebrow when she discovered Rory sitting at the table with her nose, on what Jess assumed to be her forty-first time, behinda copy of Howl.
"Ginsberg? Surely you jest?"
Rory never looked up. She recognized the voice from her few moments spent at Chilton and didn't deem her question necessary for a response.
"Jess has told me a lot about you. You smoke and have a tattoo, but you're only real crime is that you like the Beats."
She finally looked up. "Kerouac's my bitch. What can I say?"
"So, Gary Snyder or Japhy Ryder, whoever you are, you read this crap about jazz or sex or soup, and I bet you've never picked up Jane Austen."
"Somehow, I prefer Carl Solomon over Mr. Darcy."
Jess decided he would interrupt their literature tiff. "Rory, what happened to Shakespeare?"
"He bored me. I bet his generation was destroyed by madness too, or maybe it was insanity. I'm not really sure." She deadpanned, placing the paperback she had just quoted on the table.
"Rory, as much I wish your test was on Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, at least you've read about them fifty-thousand times, I'm sorry to say its not. Therefore, I would start brushing up on this, to quote what you said an hour ago, Elizabethan shit." Jess recommended, seriously wanting to give up.
"But, Jess, everything belongs to me because I am poor." She quoted, once again, smirking and crossing her arms.
He threw up his arms like someone would throw up a white flag, sat down in one of the unoccupied chairs, and gave a heavy sigh. Luke would have to find someone else to tutor her.
Just as the room grew still, he heard the front door swing open and then a familiar voice, soft but then grew louder as it drew closer.
"Jess? I let myself in with the key in the turtle. I know you said you were studying tonight, but I wanted to surprise you. I brought some food from Luke's. There's burgers, fries, mac and cheese . . ." The blonde stopped talking upon entrance to the kitchen.
There was an awkward, pregnant pause, and after what seemed like an hour of agonizing silence, Paris spoke. "You must be Dana! Paris Ghellar." She held out a rarely given friendly hand.
She plastered a fake grin on her lips. "Dana Forrester," She turned to her boyfriend, "Can I see you a minute? Alone!"
Without uttering a word, he followed her into the living room.
"What the hell!" She exclaimed.
"I'm sorry. Luke asked me to. I was doing him a favor. Paris just showed up."
"Luke asked you to do what?"
"Tutor Rory. I couldn't really say no to him. I've never been able to. I didn't tell you 'cause I didn't want you to make a big deal out of it which I knew you would."
"You're damn right I'm gonna make a big deal out of it! You chose to spend an evening tutoring her over spending the evening leisurely with me! Your girlfriend! Yeah, remember me?"
"I was just doing Luke a favor!" Jess exclaimed.
"Whatever, Jess. I'm leaving. Study hard!" She added the last part with such sarcasm, he thought he saw it oozing out of the corners of her mouth. He winced as the door slammed then padded back to the two girls sitting around the kitchen table. When he arrived, the two had gathered all of their books and schoolwork, both ready to leave.
"Sorry about Dana. She seems lovely. I'm just gonna go." Paris retreated, and he barely had time enough to mutter a good-bye before he heard the door close once again.
He turned towards Rory. "And what about you?"
"I'm sorry. About Dana and what happened earlier. I didn't want to cause all kinds of problems for you. So, I'm just gonna go."
"What about our study session? Luke will flip."
"Yeah, but it will be my problem not yours. I'm just gonna go. See ya, Gilmore."
She had turned and begun to walk out when he called her name once more.
"Hey Rory," She turned around, "I still love Howl."
She smiled, saying nothing, and finally walked out of the kitchen and the house. Then, as she closed the door, the phone rang.
"Hello? Mom! Wait, Wait, Wait. . .Slow down! Hold on, what about cucumbers in the water? Grandma what? She picked up a guy in a bar? Mom, you're talking way too fast! Wait, who swerved? What about a furry thing?"
My, this chapter took a whole lot out of me! Yes, I did take the liberty of combining the two episodes and molding them to fit the story and my liking. I really loved writing this chapter, and I hope you like it as much as I do, considering this is the longest one to date. So, basically just R/R. Thanks for all of your encouragement! Peace and love — moi.