Chalk

After a couple weeks of school, Jess had begrudgingly agreed to go along with Luke's plan, including working in the diner, and he quickly caught on to the fact that Rory and her mother ate breakfast at Luke's almost every day. On this particular morning, he decided to wake up earlier than usual to have sufficient time to groom. Busy ignoring any relation between any of these events, Jess headed downstairs and was met by Luke, looking at his watch.

"Jess, you were supposed to be down here–"

Luke cut himself off and stared at Jess's shirt.

"What the hell is that?" Luke asked bluntly.

"What?"

Luke pointed at Jess's Metallica t-shirt.

"That."

"That…is a shirt," said Jess slowly.

"Change."

"What?"

"Go upstairs and change your shirt."

"I like this shirt."

"How can you like that shirt?"

"It brings out my eyes," said Jess sarcastically.

"Hey, part of the deal of you staying here is that you work here, and when you work here, you will wear proper work attire, and that is not proper work attire. Go upstairs and change into something that won't scare the hell out of my customers," Luke hissed.

Jess struggled not to roll his eyes. "Whatever you say, Uncle Luke."

He walked back upstairs, peeled off the Metallica shirt, and quickly realized he didn't have many better options to choose from. At least none that he didn't mind getting splashed with grease. He threw on his green camo sweater, knowing he'd regret it later as he ran around the diner, and headed back down.

Luke shoved two plates into his hands as soon as he got behind the counter and pointed him to a table. Jess stayed busy for the next half hour until he had to leave for school, but he happened to see Rory glance at him and smile before she left. He looked after her through the window as he took a plate of food to a table.

"Hey. Hey! Is that my toast?"

Jess looked down at the strange man that was looking expectantly at the plate in his hand. He knew he'd heard the guy's name before because he'd been struck by how perfectly it matched the person it belonged to. He thought it started with a "k" but couldn't remember what it was.

"What?" Jess asked, distracted.

"Is that my toast?"

"Oh. Yeah. Here."

Jess started to put the plate down.

"What were you looking at?"

"What?"

"What were you–wait, this looks like wheat."

"...What?"

"This looks like wheat."

"What does it matter? It's bread. It's hot. Eat it."

"But–"

Jess walked away and back to the counter towards his uncle.

"I have to go to school."

"And what happens after school?"

Jess clenched his teeth.

"I put on my Sunday best to serve the citizens of Stars Hollow, sir."

"Ha ha. Be back at 3:30."

"Whatever you say, Uncle Luke," he repeated, an edge in his voice.

Jess turned and walked out, trying to rein in his normally brisk pace. He was dreading another day at Stars Hollow High. He knew that his teachers would stubbornly try to force him to participate and that it would be a long while before his classmates stopped gossiping about the new kid from New York. However, after he rebuffed several attempts by his last period teacher to include him in the class discussion of Tuesdays with Morrie, he managed to finish Fear and Loathing, so the school day wasn't a total waste.

He strolled back to the diner as slowly as he could after school let out, but even then, couldn't manage to be very late. It was busy again when he walked in, which kept him occupied until it was dark. After it began to slow down, he started to clean up, and then saw Rory walk past the window outside in a jean jacket and a poofy white dress that made her look like a sentient cotton ball.

What…is she wearing?

He shook his head in disbelief and made a mental note to mock her about it the next time they ran into each other. He'd been waiting for her and her mother to make an appearance, so he told Luke he needed to run upstairs for something. He went up to the apartment and rummaged around for one of Luke's flannels and a baseball cap. He rolled up the sleeves, put the cap on backwards, and headed back down to the diner to finish closing up. It didn't take long for Luke to notice.

"What do you think you're doing?" his uncle asked testily.

"Working," Jess said innocently.

"So you think this is funny, huh?"

"I'm sorry, I thought this was a uniform."

"Okay, you know what? That's fine. Have your little joke. Doesn't bother me at all. You just go over there and clean off that table, okay? I'm ignoring you. You do not exist."

Jess nodded politely and said, "Okay." He started to wipe off the table and glanced at Rory to gauge her reaction. How long would it take for Luke to snap?

"...That's it. Get upstairs and change."

Seven whole seconds. Impressive. I was betting on five.

"Whatever you say, Uncle Luke."

He looked at Rory again and smiled when he found her looking back at him. He turned and walked back towards the stairs.

"It's 'Luke', just 'Luke' – 'Mr. Luke' – in fact, don't address me at all!" his uncle shouted after him.

Walking up to the apartment, Jess found himself still smiling and quickly rearranged his expression until it was familiar and indifferent once again. He shook his head slowly at himself and considered his current living situation. He and Luke had reached a prickly and unspoken agreement; Jess barely toed the line and Luke didn't pester him–much. But doing things that annoyed Luke and happened to make Rory laugh at the same time was one of the few small pleasures he had in this town, so it was hard to resist when an opportunity presented itself.

He did not go back down after changing into his gray sweats and the Metallica shirt he'd had to discard that morning. The way Luke was clearly into Lorelai made him nauseous, and every time Lorelai caught Jess trying to talk to Rory, he could feel the daggers she stared at him. He laid down on his mattress on the floor and picked up Slaughterhouse-Five. He opened it absentmindedly and tried several times to read the first page, but his mind kept wandering. For one thing, he was down to the last couple of books he'd brought, and the ones that Liz had brought with her when she came to court had, predictably, been the shortest ones in his possession: Howl, which he'd just read, The Old Man and the Sea, and A Coney Island of the Mind. She was sending the rest of his stuff piecemeal. He'd be in need of other forms of entertainment soon. He smiled slightly as he remembered pulling the fire alarm at school to get away from that girl who had followed him out of class to ask him why he read so much and who Iggy Pop was and why he never talked to anybody. Fun in the short term, but once they found out he'd done it, he was sent to the principal's office where he had to evade yet more questions. The rest of his fun would have to be done outside of school. He remembered the chalk he had stowed away in a jacket pocket and the plan he'd had for it. Imagining the nuclear meltdown that Taylor would have was very soothing. Like Lorelai, Taylor made his dislike for Jess very obvious. He gave up trying to read and instead thought about how best to follow through with his idea.

When he heard Luke coming up the stairs, he rolled over on his side and pretended to be asleep. No one in this town seemed to stay out past eleven o'clock, and Luke slept like a log, so he wouldn't have to wait long to sneak out with the chalk.

The next morning, Jess helped Luke in the diner until seven when Lorelai walked in, alone.

No mother-daughter breakfast today? I didn't know the umbilical cord stretched that far.

Luke told him he was meeting Lorelai to help her with her inn and that Jess would need to take orders and run food for a while.

"You're giving out free business advice, now, huh?"

"So?"

"Nothing. I'll make fresh coffee."

Jess had learned that Lorelai was much more tolerable when properly caffeinated and that she complained less when the coffee was fresh. Every interaction with her, even the indirect ones, confirmed his suspicions about her. But there was less noise this way, so he put the coffee on and made an effort to make it seem like he was paying attention to the customers.

He kept an eye on his watch. He knew that Taylor always got to the market around eight in the morning and he needed not to be seen nearby, at least for now. At 7:45, he wandered over to where Luke and Lorelai were talking.

"Coffee?"

"Oh, yeah, thanks," she said. Obligation forced her to ask, "How are you, Jess?" Insincerity dripped off every syllable.

"Well, I'm not bleeding or anything."

"Oh, then, it's gonna be a good day, huh?"

"It's 7:45," he said pointedly to Luke.

"So?"

"So do you want me to go to school or do you want to openly defy child-labor laws?"

"Go."

He put the coffee pot down next to Lorelai. Olive branch or laziness? Neither he nor Lorelai were sure.

"Stay out of trouble," Luke said pointedly.

"I guess that means calling off the chickie run down at the salt flats."

"Out!"

Prickly was definitely the best way to describe his relationship with his uncle. Jess grabbed his things and walked across the street to the school. The day went by slowly, as Jess couldn't wait to get out and see what kind of reaction his prank had induced in the town.

When the final bell rang, Jess headed outside and saw a crowd gathered in front of Doose's Market. He propped himself up against a lamppost to enjoy the show. His enjoyment of the spectacle doubled when he noticed Rory approaching all the commotion. This time, though, she didn't seem so amused. He smiled anyway and walked back to the diner to try to force himself to look over his homework and start his shift at the diner.

When he came downstairs later, he saw Luke trying to fix the toaster that had given out that morning.

"You're making that worse."

"Big help. Thanks."

Jess had had to learn to fix that kind of stuff in Liz's apartment because everything they owned was second-hand trash, so he could actually help, but…

He had already noticed Rory in the corner by the window with her mom and…grandmother, possibly? Whoever she was, she called out, "Luke, that's your nephew?"

"It's Liz's kid. Jess, this is Mia. She owns the Independence Inn."

Oh, so, not grandmother. Mom's boss. Awfully friendly for a boss.

"Huh."

"That's 'hello, nice to meet you' in slacker."

Jess struggled not to roll his eyes but felt oddly embarrassed at the same time.

"You don't need me down here, do you?"

He heard Luke apologize for him as he walked away, but there had been no point in sticking around; he could sense that they were about to take a leisurely stroll down memory lane, and they weren't his memories.

The next day, Jess saw Rory and a towering, floppy-haired, Gumby-type character he recognized from school walking towards the market. He had been wondering if she had a boyfriend. Gumby walked into the store, and Jess took advantage of his absence.

"Should you be standing here all alone? I hear this is a pretty dangerous corner."

"I'm fine," she said coldly.

"Feeling succinct today?" he asked, noticing that she seemed angry.

"Pretty much."

"Hmm. Did I do something to offend?"

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"No."

"Good."

She turned to look at him and said, "You might want to ask that same question to Luke, though."

"Meaning?"

"You've got this whole town down on him."

"Really? How'd I do that?"

"You know how you did that."

Jess feigned ignorance and decided to take a dig at the town. "Mm, I'm familiar with the blue-book laws of this town, so you could be talking about a lot of things–dropping a gum wrapper, strolling arm-in-arm with a member of the opposite sex on a Sunday…"

Rory motioned down towards the chalk outline of a body that was still visible on the sidewalk.

He took a small step back and admired his handiwork. "Ahhh. What about it?"

"You did it. The whole town knows you did it. They had a meeting about it."

"You actually went to that bizarro town meeting? Those things are so…To Kill a Mockingbird."

"Yes. I went, and Luke went. And when he got there, everyone ganged up on him. They all want you gone."

'They', not 'we.' Interesting.

"Wow, bummer," he said sardonically.

"And he's standing there yelling at everyone and defending you and paying Taylor back for his lettuce losses–"

"His what?" Jess interrupted, confused.

"And now Luke's a pariah, and it's all because of you."

Rory looked at him expectantly. Jess raised his eyebrows briefly and looked away.

She scoffed. "What a shock. You don't care about any of this."

"I didn't say that," he said, indignant.

Everyone always assumes they know what I'm thinking.

"Go! I'm tired of talking to you," she said irritably.

"Fine," he muttered.

Jess started to walk away when he heard Rory start up again.

"You care nothing about Luke and his feelings!"

He smiled and turned back around.

"You got a second wind, huh?"

"All he does is stick up for you, and all you do is make his life harder. I guess that's what you have to do when you're trying to be Holden Caulfield, but I think it stinks. Luke has done a lot for my mom and a lot for me, and I don't like to see him attacked." She paused and considered him before deciding to dismiss him again. "Okay, second wind over."

"Didn't know they were coming down so hard on him."

"Funny, I never pegged you as clueless. My mistake."

"Okay. I get it."

He saw her face turn quickly sardonic.

"No, no, I do, I get it," he reassured her. "…So, did you at least think it was funny?"

He enjoyed watching her try not to laugh.

"That is so not the point."

"Ahh, you thought it was funny."

Before she could continue trying to deny it, Gumby walked back out of the market.

"Oh, uh..hey," said Gumby.

Rory jumped in to introduce them. "Uh, Dean, I don't think you two have met. This is Jess. This is Dean."

"Boyfriend?" Jess asked.

"Of course."

"Sorry. You didn't say," he drawled pointedly before turning to Dean and asking, "How ya doin'?"

"Good. Good," said Dean obtusely. Jess noticed that Rory looked somewhat uncomfortable.

She got it. He clearly didn't. That's a good sign…for me, anyway.

"Okay, see ya around," said Rory.

"Seems to turn out that way, doesn't it?" He looked at Dean as he asked this question and waited until he saw the light start to flicker on in Dean's eyes. Then he turned and walked away.

Later that night, as he stood over the counter in the diner fixing the toaster, his thoughts wandered back to Rory. It was true that he hadn't met many other people who enjoyed reading, even in New York. But he also appreciated that he didn't notice the tension and pressure around her that he normally felt around…well, everyone else. She hadn't made any snap judgments about him and actually seemed curious about him, even interested. He remembered how she had scowled at him over what the town had done to Luke and how that scowl had melted so easily into a smile. He couldn't remember the last time someone had genuinely smiled at him. Her whole tirade earlier that day had been about Luke, anyway, and once she'd made her point, she didn't stay angry. She didn't hold a grudge.

He checked to see if the toaster was working. It would hold out for a while, as long as Luke didn't smash the handles too hard. Jess realized that that may be too much to ask, though. Luke was very gruff with everything and everyone around him. But Rory hadn't been wrong; Luke had stuck up for him so far, no matter what he'd done…or what had been rumored he'd done. As they'd been eating dinner the night before, Luke had broken the silence, asking him what Miss Patty had meant by saying that Jess had "hooted" one of her dance classes.

"...What?"

"She said you 'hooted' one of her dance classes."

"Aw jeez, I did not hoot. I was walking by during geriatric hour and…whistled."

Luke screwed up his face in disgust.

"You…whistled?"

"Ugh, gross. It wasn't a guy-in-a-hard-hat whistle. It was a Wile. E. Coyote, anvil-falling-off-a-cliff, imminent death whistle."

"Ah…well…don't do that again. Especially around Miss Patty."

"Thanks for the tip."

The list of things he shouldn't do and the crazy people he shouldn't make direct eye contact with in Stars Hollow kept getting longer and longer, becoming more tempting by the minute. But he remembered the conversation that he'd had with Rory. He'd told her that he understood what she'd said about making Luke's life more difficult, and it was true, he had. He told himself that he would try harder not to make the town resent him and Luke by extension.

Jess put the toaster back in its place next to the little white one Luke had bought to tide them over and snuck back up to the apartment.

The next morning, Jess was cleaning the counter in front of the Gilmore's table when he heard Rory ask Luke for her toast.

"Ah, it's gonna take a while. The big toaster's broken so I got stuck with just this dinky one."

Jess turned around and looked at Luke, exasperated. Hadn't he noticed the lack of screwdrivers sticking out of it this morning? He pointedly pushed the newly repaired handle down and up again without saying a word.

"How'd that happen?" Luke asked, surprised, testing the toaster.

Of course he immediately starts smashing it.

"You're gonna break that."

"It was broken before."

"Well, it must've got better."

"Inanimate objects don't usually get better. Did you fix this?"

"Please," Jess scoffed.

"Jess?"

"I have no idea what you're babbling about. I don't fix things."

"But yesterday–"

"I got school," Jess said quickly.

He walked away from Luke to grab his things and glanced at Rory on his way out the door. They smiled at each other, and he had to admit it. It was a nice moment, fixing something for Luke and seeing the surprise on his face. He couldn't come clean about it, of course, and it wasn't a concrete apology, but hey, it was something.

Jess managed to keep his head down for a while after that at school, mostly because his teachers were beginning to resign themselves to his complete lack of interest. None of them had ever commented on his penchant for reading, and Jess thought cynically that it was probably because they didn't recognize any of his books. His classmates, for the most part, had also taken the hint, although there were a few jerks who pushed his buttons. But so far, Jess had bitten his tongue.

One day, a little more than a week before winter break, Jess noticed that he and Luke had worked through the dinner rush and closed up together, mostly amicably. The toaster thing seemed to have softened some of Luke's harder edges where Jess was concerned.

Later in the evening, while they ate dinner, Luke was the one who broke the silence.

"So, Jess, I talked to your mom the other day."

Jess shifted in his seat but didn't say anything.

Luke continued. "She, uh…well, she was calling about the winter break you have coming up."

Jess raised his eyebrows, skeptical.

"Yeah, y'know, she wanted me to ask you if you'd like to go back and stay with her until school starts up again, but I told her I didn't think it was a good idea."

Jess looked at Luke, weighing what he'd just said.

"You know, 'cause you're just getting settled into a routine here in town and everything, and I don't think it's a good idea to screw that up right now."

Jess didn't say anything.

"But if you really want to spend the break in New York, I can call her back and tell her, 'cause it was my idea that you stay. She wanted you to go home."

"I'm fine staying."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Luke breathed a quiet sigh of relief, but Jess knew he was lying. He appreciated the attempt to save his feelings, but Liz had never wanted him around before, and he saw no reason why that should change now. He doubted that she had even called. Whoever said that thing about absence and hearts and whatever clearly didn't know what they were talking about. Anyway, it didn't bother him anymore. Not really. He shifted in his seat again. The sadness and the anger which had been gradually abating were rising to the surface again. He clenched his teeth and kept his eyes carefully on his plate.

"So…I, uh, I noticed you're rereading that book of yours."

Jess nodded. His sarcasm had had no effect on Luke's habit of remarking on things he had observed Jess doing, so he often didn't bother with it anymore.

"And you only brought three or four with you."

"Your observational skills are really getting good, Uncle Luke," Jess said acidly. Distracted by thoughts of his mother, he was unable to bite his tongue.

Luke ignored this. "Well, I was thinking maybe we could drive into Hartford or somewhere over the break and, I dunno, you could get a couple more books or some clothes or whatever you need. I have a few things to get there anyway, so I thought…"

Jess looked up, surprised.

"Okay," he said after a moment.

Luke nodded at him. "Okay."

As they cleared the dishes and got ready to go to sleep, both uncle and nephew noticed that the silence that fell between them was friendlier than it had been, more comfortable. Luke was sure he had discovered the key to being a parent, and Jess, equally sure that the brief treaty between them would be interrupted by some upheaval, nevertheless vowed to keep the peace as long as possible. They laid down in their beds, and the sound of snoring soon filled the apartment.