Chap 09
A/N: Okay, first I want to apologize for taking so long. Secondly,I want to thank ago spero, Encarta and smile1 (who are really great writers), lilyLOVESwb (who promised that would read it ), music4mysoul, Gythien Elven Baby and eighty9octane for the amazing reviews. Thank you for your patience and plase review
"So, this time we're doing something different in our literature class. Instead of doing our regular paper work and test every month, we're going to do a project. Each month you'll be paired up with a different classmate and you're going to do a complete research about an author, pointing out what you think to bemore interesting about his or her work and life."
The class was filled with whispering girls, trying to pair themselves up to their best friends or crushes. But the teacher cut their excitment adding, "After the end of each month you're going to be paired with another classmate with whom you're going to do a new research about another author. I'm choosingthe pairs, and also the author, if you don't choose for yourselves."
By this point the whole class was groaning and complaining, but the teacher was unaffected. By the end on the third month I expect a paper on my desk, contrasting these authors work and life, how their lives affected their work and vice versa and the author you chose as your favorite out of the three, justifying your preference, of course."
A thtis point the class groaned louder and was asking to do the regular paper work and test every month. The teacher laughed, quietly, not the least surprised by their reaction. Who wants a challenge when they can do the same crapy paper work over and over again?
She noticed that the anti-social, moody, black haired boy who sat on the back was the only one who didn't complain even once.
She continued, "Okay, the pairs are going to be...Lindsay and Daniel, Shane and Jake..." the teahcer went on until there were only fout people left, "Rory and Dean and Jess and Lane."
As soon as she finished the bell rang adn the students ran out of the door.
"Okay, I expect at least that all of you have already chosen an author and started reading one of his or her books' by next class," she almost screamed, trying to catch the students attention while they made their way through the door.
"Hey, partner," she nudged him on the side with her elbow while they wealked down the corridor.
"Hey. Want to start working on the project today?"
"Sure, what do you have in mind?"
He threw an arm around her shoulder in a friendly way and smirked, "You know there are some beat authors that would be very interesting to work with..."
Lane made a face and he squeezed her arms, "C'mon, keep your mind open for all options."
"Why do I feel you mean 'my preferences' when you say 'all options'?"
He shrugged with a smirk in place, "I have no idea what you are talking about."
She simply nodded, "Aham, sure, no idea."
He sighted and stopped walking, making her also stop and face him, "Lane, do you like to read?" he asked seriously.
She shrugged, "It's not in my list of favorite things to do on a Saturday night, no."
"Exactly, so why wouldn't you let me choose the author? I promise it won't be evenhalf boring," he tried to convince her.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she gave in, "but I still want to have a say on it."
"Of course," he agreed.
"So, we're on for this afternoon?"
She glanced at him, "Why not?", and opened her locker, putting some books on it and then locking it. "Where are you headed?" she asked.
"To the diner I'm supposed to help Luek during lunch rush. Wanna join me?"
"Sure, I'm starving."
And they walked down the rest of the corridor, nudging each other, joking and laughing, leaving Rory staring after them from her locker, with an unsetling and irritating feeling within her.
"Okay, so this is my house," Lane said when they reached the porsh where there was sign with 'Kim's Antique' written on it.
Lane stopped walking and turned to Jess with dead serious face, "Before we go in, there are some things that you probably should know."
He looked at her, amused, as shetalked about her family. "First of all you should know my family is very religious, they do not take jokes, music, books or even TV programs lightly at all. If you joke about anything that may be considered evil you are doomed to listen a long and painful lecture about how you are going to burn in hell for that." She paused while he looked funny at her and then continued, "Secondly, there is no touching in this house, no touching at all. If you touch Mama you won't ever see the light of the day again and if you touch me we will be married by dinner," she informed him.
He nodded slowly, as if trying to process somethign that went beyond his knowledge, "O-kay."
"Okay then, with that said I think you know the basic things to go inside this house and be able to also leave it eventually," she nodded, more to herself than to him, "I think you're ready, we may go in now."
They stepped into the house and Lane called, "Mama, I'm home! I brought a classmate with me!"
Sudenlly a mad-looking asian woman appeared from behind a desk, as if she came out of nowhere and Jes jumped, almost knocking as chair down.
"You break it, you pay it," came the harsh tone from Mrs. Kim.
He balanced himself on his own feetbefore holding the moving chair, "I'm sorry", he said out of breath, noticing Lane wasn't kidding about her mother.
Mrs. Kim offered a hand to him, "Mrs. Kim", she greeted.
He looked at her hand, remembering the no touching rule that Lane had told him, "Jess Mariano", he said nodding, but not shaking her hand.
Lane giggled quietly at his disconfort before interrupting, "Mama, Jess and I got paired up in this Literature project. We're going to my room now to start working on it," Lane told her mother as if she was telling a small child something obvious but that still should be explained very carefully.
"You and a boy alone in your room? No way. I'm going with you," the older woman said as she rushed both teenagers up the stairs.
Lane tried to convince her mother it wasn't necessary, "Mama, we're only going to study, nothing more. He will be on the opposite side of the room. And you have to be downstairs in case a customer arrives."
"There haven't been any customers so far...if anyone arrives, the bell rings," she said in the same harsh tone.
They reached Lane's room and Mama Kim sat on a chair in the corner to observe them while Lane went to her stack of books and Jess looked around uncomfortable.
Lane tried to make the best of the situation, showing Jess some options for their project (obviously she would only show him books that Mrs. Kim would approve of) and Jess kept nodding and making vague comments about the books.
Twenty painful minutes later the bell finally rang and Mrs. Kim quiet relutantly got up and went downstairs to 'welcome' the new client.
Jess almost colapsed on Lane's bed as soon as the door closed behind the older Kim, releasing a breath he had been holding the whole time.
"God, is she always like that?"
"No! Usually she's much worse. Today she is in a good mood."
"Huh, she must have gotten lucky."
"Eww... the thought of Mama and Papa Kim doing it!"
He raised an eyebrown, "I didn't say she had done it with him," he pointed out.
Lane's jaw fell in shock, "Oh, no, now you crossed all lines," she said, pointing an accusatory finger at him.
He held his arms up in surrender, "Okay, I'm shutting up now. After all, you're the only one in this town that doesn't look at me like I have corns and a tale."
She glanced at him while going through some books that he had brought with him, "I remember a certain friend of mine who used to treat you way worse before. Did you two talk?" she asked with a knowingly smile.
He smirked and threw himself on her bed again, "I have no idea about what you are talking."
"She is going to tell me anyway," she said in a sing-song.
"She didn't tell you so far, "she pondered.
"So, something did happen," she affirmed, raising an eyebrown.
"I think we could work with Jack Kerouac. It'd be a good start," he completely changed the subject, ignoring her comment.
"Did you make a deal? What's going on between the two of you?"
"Or maybe Hemingway, if you don't comfortable enough with Kerouac. But I must say, it won't have the same potential."
"Are you two friends now? Maybe more?"
"Of course, we could go through your stack of books again and try to find something readable. I just thought - and hoped - that you were showing me those creepy religious books because of your mother, but if you really like them..."
"Oh, you're so infuriating!", she exploded.
Jess only smirked, knowing he had won, "So, what do you say about Kerouac?"
He found her reading at the gazebo, which wasn't exactly surprising. Maybe it was just a coincidence he ended up heading that way even though he knew she liked to go there to read. Sitting next to her, he tooka book from his back pocket and pretended to be reading until she finally admitted she hadnoticed him.
"What are you reading?" she asked just a little bit curious.
He showed her the cover of The Dharma Bums. She didn't seem to be the least impressed. "You?", he asked , arching his eyebrows.
She turned hercopy of Jane Eyer to him and in a second he had a disusted expresion on.
"What?" she asked annoyed.
"Nothing. Nothing at all," he said in a uncommited voice. "Just thought it was...interesting that you chose to work with Charlotte Bronte."
"Well, yeah. Dean didn't really have an opinion about authors, I mean, books aren't really his thing..."
He nodded, knowing it wasn't something she was looking forwards to discuss, especially with him.
"I was actually wondering if you had some Jack Kerouac books to let me borrow," he changed the subject.
"Oh, why now? I thought you already had read all of them!" she said sardonically.
"I have read most of them, but I'd always borrow them from the public library or from a book store... I just bought this one..."
"Borrow from a bookstore?"
"Don't ask," he said with a smirk. "Anyway, I jsut have this one, but she'll have to readmore than just one book..." Roryhad a confused expression on, so he sighted and started explaining,"They are not for me. Lane will have to read Jack Kerouac too, so I figured you could lend her some books."
"Oh, right, you and Lane are working together."
"Yup, she's pretty cool. It's a wonder how she turned out to be this way with a mother like that."
Rory nodded, laughing, "Yeah, Mrs. Kim can be very intense sometimes."
"Intense?" he said sarcasticaly. "She was this close of accusing me of getting her daughter pregnant."
Rory laughed again, but this time it was a forced laugh, "I guess it's going to be pretty tough and painful to do this project with Lane."
Jess shook his head, "I don't think so. I mean, we don't always haveto meet at her house, we can do it at your house, the diner, almost anywhere... Besides, she's worth it. She is one of the only people in this town who doesn't hate me."
"Yeah, I guess," she agreed.
"Can I ask you something?"
She smirked at him, "Isn't that a question?"
He mirrored her smirk, "I'm just trying to be polite and giving you a way out before asking something you won't want to asnwer," he said truthuflly.
"And since when you are polite?"
"Point taken," he nodded. "So, do you envy Lane?"
"What?" she asked loudly.
"Do- you- envy- Lane?" he almsot spelled the words for her, as if she was a child.
"Why would I envy her? Just because you two get along so well and are always together? I mean, we're still best friends," she said unsure. "And you and I are friends. At least I think so... I mean, we've never talked about it or anything, but we are, right?" she asked, looking at his eyes anxiously.
His smirk grew, "Yeah, we're friends," he said neutral. "But I was actually talking about Lane's freedom," he explained. "From what you've told me the other night you're not free even though the whole town loves and supports you. They have all these expectation of you, and you feel like you have to reach them. Now, although Lane has a demanding, crazy, manipulative, religion and dicipline obesessed, control freak mother, she still got her freedom. She is able to be herself - even if she hides it from her mother, cuz she knows it would be too much for her. She doesn't care about what the whole town thinks and she is happy with herself."
"You think I'm not happy?" she questioned.
"I didn't say that," he defended.
"Cuz I am. I am so damn happy. I have a boyfriend who loves me, the town sees me as their daughter and look out for me, I go to a prestigious school, I have a nice family...I have all things I need to be happy," she concluded.
"Okay," he said quietly when she finished her rambling.
When she spoke again her voice was small and fragile, lower than a whisper, "So, why I'm not happy? Why all these things feel more like responsabilities to me?"
He shrugged, "I don't know. I can't really say that I've been trully happy."
"But you said..."
"I said Lane is happy being herself. I never said anything about me."
"I wish things were different," she admitted.
"You can make things different," he offered.
"No, I can't," she shook her head. "I should get going," she said suddenly.
"I didn't mean to offend you,"he said quickly, as if apologizing.
She smiled at him, "You didn't. I jsut want to be alone right now. Thank you for the talk, though."
"My pleasure."
She slipped from her sit besides him and ran down the street, heading for her house when she ran into Dean. He made her stop and they talked for a couple of minutes. Rory seemed exasperated and frustrated, while Dean looked annoyed - almost angry - throwing his arms on the air. She finally looked away, relutantly agreeing. He smiled as if nothing had happened and they started walking down the street together, hand in hand.
Jess shoock his head from where he stood, sat on the bench at the gazebo, while he watched the couple fading in the distant. He knew her well enough to know she didn't agree because she wanted to be with him. She did it just because she didn't want to have a fight with her 'perfect' boyfriend. She wasn't ready to make things change and that disappointed him so much. 'Maybe another day', he thought hopeful. He sighted and then continued his thought more realistic, 'Maybe never.'
A/N: Okay, I'm sorry this chap isn't as good as the last one, but that's the best I could do for now. I hope to update soon, but I can't promise anything. And if you want to read some good lits, check Bru Gravem's stories She's a good friend and I really love her stories. And please, review
