"Hey, look! They finally took the boards off the windows."
"Oh, I wonder what it's gonna be."
"I don't know…"
It had been a week since the car accident. Rory's cast was dotted with stickers and signatures, and wherever they went as she and Lane walked, Rory was accosted by do-gooders, fussing and asking about her condition and spitting out Jess's name like it was a mouthful of EZ Squirt.
The only person Rory hadn't directly spoken to yet about the incident, as far as Lane knew, was Taylor. They'd been strategizing exactly how to go about that. Taylor had almost bulldozed Kirk for breathing on the new Doose's sign last week, all shiny and hand-painted, and Kirk had responded by volunteering for guard duty on his way across the street. He'd redirected traffic and shouted at other pedestrians to keep a minimum of twenty feet between themselves and the sign at all times as it was being installed.
And now the sign had been destroyed. Rory's car had done the bulldozing, spinning and hitting the bench that held Taylor's pride and joy. He'd have to find something else to waggle his head over. Rory might well have been the only person in town never to have made a black mark in the magistrate's book, and she was, in her quiet Rory way, dreading the inevitable change to that record.
As they walked through town post-school hours, chatting about borrowed books and the upcoming summer, Lane caught her best friend's eyes wandering. Looking for accusers. Looking for stares from passers-by. She didn't seem convinced the fallout was fading. Even while they were checking out the in-progress store front for the fiftieth time that month, Rory's attention kept straying from the newspapered glass.
Lane, for her part, was compartmentalizing harder than Coltrane in Giant Steps.
Jess was gone. Jess was gone, but there were other things to worry about—things right in front of her face. Rory's arm hurt, her car was busted, and Dean got back to town in exactly ten hours. They would need closure. Rory would need comforting, especially after whatever explosion Dean might let loose upon understanding what all had transpired since he'd foolishly parked himself at his grandmother's house, leaving Stars Hollow unprotected from his danger-inclined NYC counterpart. Lane had best friend work to do, and school to finish, and summer to look forward to.
Jess is gone and he didn't say goodbye.
So what? It was a question she posed to herself daily. There's nothing you can do about it. That's that, buh-bye. Jess was in New York. He was far away from the glares of the small-town Peanuts Gallery, and safely out of reach of the long arm of Taylor Doose. Rory was here, and Rory needed her. Rory wouldn't have left town without explaining why. And now there would be no further question of whether or not Daisy Buchanan secretly walked among them in a plaid skirt and round blue eyes, so that was a plus.
It still stung. Lane still felt queasy when she thought about the Movie Festival and Babette's voice carrying over the grass.
But she was Coltrane and after a week, the stinging had gotten easier to shove to one side. Especially at that moment, when Lane pressed her nose against the glass of the mystery storefront and her stomach flipped over.
"What's that in the corner?" Rory was asking, standing on tiptoes to see inside too.
"I think it's…a bass. It's a bass!" Lane could make out the black, shiny edges against one wall, and distinct long, similar shapes higher up. "And look, there are guitars on the wall!"
Guitars. A bass. She spun around to face her friend.
"Oh my god, it's a music shop!"
Rory grinned. "Wow, that is much better than the ceramic circus store we thought was going in there!"
"I can't believe it," said Lane. "Stars Hollow has taken its first steps toward being cool. I wonder how soon it's gonna open?"
"If you keep pushing on the glass like that, much sooner than anticipated," teased Rory.
Then her hair swished and she turned, catching sight of something across the street.
"Hey, hold on a sec?"
Lane turned too, hand still plastered against the window. "Why, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'll be right back."
Rory was headed toward Doose's, and the owner himself was resituating vegetables and fruits outside. Taylor had always reminded Lane of a sort of human vegetable himself—insisting he was good for you, yet leaving a bad taste in your mouth post-encounter. He was fussing with the tomatoes, his back to Rory, and Lane kept one ear veritably pricked up in case her BFF needed backup. In her delicate state, Rory might not be able to handle a dressing-down even from a perpetual-cardigan kind of guy.
Her eyes, however, were roaming the music shop. It was almost black inside, very difficult to see anything, but what Lane did see had her heart doing The Stroll. Shelves of records and magazines, a jar of guitar picks on the tarp-covered front desk. There was an Elvis record—quite possibly signed—behind glass on the westward wall. Guitars for miles. Finally, something on these streets that was actually, properly worthy of being late getting home every day.
No amount of drool would open that store any faster. Lane forced herself to turn on one heel, joining Rory.
Taylor was just leaving as she caught up. He pressed a fresh peach into Rory's hand and waved at Lane as he passed by, all wrinkles and nose up in the air.
"Thanks," mumbled Rory, but Taylor was already crossing the street.
Lane glanced from Doose to Rory, looking for any signs of tight shoulders or stocks or mandatory feather-dusters. Some means of punishment or signs of a struggle. Maybe he'd attempt to tar and feather the Gilmores at the next town meeting.
"So—is he mad?"
Rory pursed her lips. "No, not at me."
"Well, that's good!"
"Yeah." Rory sighed. "That's good."
They headed toward Elm Street, Rory's plastic white Stars Hollow Books bag swinging against her leg. The days were getting warmer, almost hot, and Lane saw Sookie bustle by the gazebo, sweating, her arms full of something green. Behind her, Jackson had his head buried in a clipboard, and he was checking things off as he walked and she shouted. Only a week until the big wedding. At least Mama Kim's dress approval list usually included air flow.
Rory broke the silence. "Y'know, I was in the car too."
"Sorry?" Lane's head snapped back to attention.
"I was in the car too, it wasn't just…" Rory sighed again, louder, this time through her nose.
"Jess," Lane finished. The Coltrane setlist in her head got scrambled.
"Jess," agreed Rory.
Another few steps of quiet. Lane swung her arms, staring at the sidewalk. Piecing back together the setlist, hitting play with a hard mental finger-jab.
She glanced sideways at Rory. "Hey, in another week, no one'll even remember it happened."
Rory rolled her eyes, brandishing her cast. "As long as I have this on, feels like they'll never stop talking about it."
"We'll just have to do something to redirect the gossip, that's all."
"Maybe I can get Kirk to propose to Mom." Rory raised her eyebrows, another grin starting to form.
"And I'll start telling people Andrew's secretly working for the CIA."
"Which explains why he can't get a date."
"Well, it's nicer than the real reason—"
"He's just boring."
"He's just boring," agreed Lane, grinning back. "So really this is a double good deed."
"I like where your head's at."
During his brief stint in his uncle's small town, Jess had missed the sounds outside the apartment window in the city—the incessant revving of angry engines, the honking of car horns, the grumbling of pedestrians, the occasional police sirens. He'd missed the overwhelming stench of the place, smoke and hot food and bad decisions. He'd even missed the every-Tuesday hollering of the whack job in the blue beanie who hung out at the traffic light down the street.
"Jess, did you move my purse?"
He had not missed Liz.
She whirled into the main living area, fussing with a faded-green scarf thing around her neck, taking the term 'throw pillow' literally in search of her purse. Half her nails were done in the same green, and her mascara was smudged under one eye. Smelled like she was wearing the entire bottle of perfume that evening. It didn't hide the scent of smoke.
"Hey," she said, swatting at his shoulder lightly. She almost tripped over the ottoman he was sitting on on her way past. "C'mon, it's the one with the fake leather?"
"Haven't seen it."
That was only true for the next two seconds. The moment his eyes left the thirtieth page of In Cold Blood, they snagged on Barley's hand coming out of the faux-leather purse in the kitchenette. The renaissance man's shoulder was facing them, his right fist closed around a wadded-up $40, which went mechanically into his back pocket.
He caught Jess watching and put a finger to his lips, winking. Jess held his gaze for another heartbeat, jaw working, and let himself drift back into Kansas.
"This the one?" Barley croaked out, and Jess glanced up again to see him jabbing a thumb toward the purse on the table like he'd just noticed it sitting there.
"Oh, thank God!" Liz straightened, clapping her hands together. "Y'know, sweets, I am always losing that thing? You are my hero, see, y'see, Jess, this is why he's the one. I just knew it. And that purse has got all my credit cards in it too, and even, you know, one of those coupons to Sarge's for the buy-one-get-one-free latkes—"
"Well, good thing I found it, then, huh?" Barley dodged the massive, unbalanced hug Liz was coming to give him, heading for the door. "Now c'mon, Liz, we're burning moonlight."
"I'm right behind you, babe, gimme two seconds."
"We're gonna be late."
"Your friend's'll still be there at dawn, Barley, they can wait a few seconds," chortled Liz.
"Here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna count to ten, and then I'm leaving without you."
The door slammed shut.
"He's not leavin' without me!" Liz said it like she was holding in a laugh, like she and Barley had been married thirty years and she was playing along with an inside joke. The moment the whittler was out of the apartment, she rounded on Jess. "Hey, leave the door unlocked, wouldja, hon? I don't know where my keys went. Probably Marty has 'em again. I gotta call him, he still owes me a drink. You ever had a latke?"
"No."
"Well, you gotta try one one of these days, I'm tellin' ya, they will change your world." Liz raked a hand through her hair, which did nothing to make it look less disheveled. "Anyway, just unlock the door for me, okay? And stay outta the Funyuns, those're Barley's. Man, is he crazy about his Funyuns."
Jess tried to focus on the next paragraph, Liz's voice a raspy hum in the background. Like the machines knocking together at a laundromat—loud and off-kilter, but eventually white noise.
By this time she was halfway out the door, and she paused on the stoop, sticking her head back in. "You didn't go to school today, did you?"
"Why?"
She sighed. "'Course you didn't."
"Why are you asking?" Jess kept his back to her.
"Because that blonde Mrs. Flana-somethin' keeps callin' here, and she only does that when you skip, and I gotta say, if I have to hear her Charlie Brown voice on the other end of that thing one more time this week, I am gonna end up throwing the whole phone down the john. So if anybody calls, do not answer, cuz I got enough to deal with."
She popped back out and shut the door.
Then, a heartbeat later, it opened again.
"Hey."
He turned, and they met eyes.
"Don't forget to keep this unlocked."
Then she was gone. She and the whittler extraordinaire.
Jess went to the door, listened until Liz's voice and Barley's steps had disappeared down the stairwell, and slid the door chain through its track. Then he flicked the deadbolt and headed for the fridge. A carton of expired nonfat milk was on the bottom shelf. Moldy celery was in the vegetable drawer, which had been left half-open, so the whole thing reeked. Leftover Chinese takeout was still in its Styrofoam box on the top shelf, rotting there since before he'd gotten back to New York.
He closed the fridge and made for the pantry. Behind Barley's sacred, brightly-colored Funyuns sat a twisted-up bag of saltine crackers.
That was it. There was nothing else in the kitchen.
For a second, he contemplated taking the Funyuns. He would never actually eat them, but it might be worthwhile to throw them in the trash and let Liz think he had. Sometimes, when she was fired up enough, she would actually look at him while she talked. If she was really mad. A missing bundle of cash and a missing bag of her boyfriend's terrible taste might do the trick, combined. Just add water. And a locked door.
He was too hungry to whip up a confrontation. Saltines in hand, Jess went to his room.
Today would've been his first day back to school in the city, but old habits die hard. There was less than no point to compulsory education, not even now that he was home. Not only were half the teachers in the place either high or absent; none of his pre-Stars Hollow friends had contacted him since the day Liz had shipped him out. He doubted he'd even see any of them if he had decided to attend. At this hour, they'd all be at the nearest bar, or the movies, and he just couldn't summon the interest.
"You could do anything you wanted, you could be anything you wanted!"
Rory was smart, but she wasn't always right. There was nothing to do, and nothing to be. Especially not here.
And the saltines were stale.
It was after eleven, and his book had stopped gripping him long before Liz and her renaissance man had left the apartment. Jess tossed the bag on the floor and went to his stereo. The only thing he could think of to kill time now was sleep.
For that, he needed music.
He rifled through his albums. Nirvana, Sound Garden, Coldplay, Foo Fighters, New Order. He needed something loud enough to drown out thoughts, but nothing heavy enough to attract attention from would-be autocratic neighbors or crackheads checking for loose door handles. Alternative rock was the way to go.
Jess watched his own hand skip backward, bypassing There Is Nothing Left To Lose and tugging out Parachutes. He hadn't played it since that night on the bench. That meant he'd only heard it once, so it was the perfect choice. Looking at it, he felt the barbed wire that had been around his chest for a week loosen a bit.
And of course, it only took him the length of the first four tracks before Stars Hollow started growing up his mind's eye like the celery mold in the fridge.
"So I wanna live in a wooden house,
I wanna live life and always be true…"
The night before this one, he'd woken up tasting donuts from Luke's diner. Even now, he couldn't beat off visions of chicken pot pie that were inexplicably always in his uncle's fridge upstairs.
His stomach growled. Traitor.
More than once, he'd caught a glimpse of brown hair at just the right length on the streets outside and he'd had to do a double-take, convince himself it wasn't Rory coming to find him. As if she would, after the mess he'd made. Too risky. She probably didn't hate him—not according to the looks and the don't worrys she'd given him on her way into the ambulance that night. Still, it was too much to hope for that she'd upgrade her surroundings just to see him.
The percussion in this song tricked you. Like the musical equivalent of a pair of butterfly wings.
Unbidden, he found himself wondering what Lane would think of that. She'd like the strings here too. They were hazy.
When he paid at his favorite hot dog stand, he wanted to share it with blue eyes and a winning smile from a mouth that never stopped eating, just like her mother. When he passed Westway, he pictured Luke's face turning purple at the health code violations. At the rant he'd start when he saw how long the coffee had been sitting on its burner. When he went into The Strand, it was like Rory was everywhere, in all the ink and all the hardwood floor panels, even if he knew for a fact she'd never been.
"And I wanna fly,
And never come down…"
It wasn't the small-town atmosphere that kept fungusing its way into his thought life here. New York and its blaze would forever be superior to Taylor's meticulous grass heights and novelty mailboxes. It was something else, something he couldn't quite dodge.
And it was at its worst with Lane.
Because when Rory's essence clogged up The Strand, his eyes bounced and he needed air, and when Luke's tirades tried to echo in his ears at every available over-decorated shop window and traffic jam, the barbed wire tightened around his chest and he had to walk faster.
But when Jess dropped cash into someone's open bass case on the sidewalk, or stopped inside The Red Lion, or ate a handful of piping-hot fries in the park, or saw the glint of someone's glasses in the afternoon sun, he didn't feel any barbed wire. He could breathe just fine.
"We never change, do we?
No, no,
We never learn, do we?"
Jess twisted the volume knob, higher, higher. Trying to drown out the Stars Hollow mold. When it didn't work, he reached for the Next button, and Lane's voice piped up in his ears, underneath all the music. No skipping. He drew back, dropping onto the bed with his arms tight over his chest and his back to the stereo.
"So I wanna live in a wooden house,
Where making more friends would be easy…"
Eventually, sleep would shut it all down. And unlike his mother, the music would be there when he woke up.
"Mama, I swear, I did it all."
"History?"
"Yes."
"Geometry? Literature?"
"Yes and yes. Ma'am."
Mama Kim passed Lane the phone, eyeing it as if it would grow teeth and latch itself onto her daughter's ear the moment she let go. "All right. Twenty minutes."
"Twenty? Really?" Lane felt a grin brighten up her whole face. She couldn't remember the last time Mrs. Kim had allowed her to talk to Rory after-hours for more than ten minutes. Not since Henry.
Mrs. Kim's mouth twitched, only once. "You sold two doorknockers today. Good work ethic."
Good work ethic would have made Lane feel warmer if she wasn't ninety-two percent sure her mom was only noticing her work ethic after finding (and practically worshiping) her aptitude test over the weekend. Mrs. Kim was riding the high of "a genuine aptitude for sales", completely unaware that Lane had zero plans to inherit the family business. Instead, she planned to kill that future with a metaphorical blowtorch and dance on its grave by becoming the most famous female drummer ever to put foot to bass pedal.
I'm going to be a drummer. I'm going to be a drummer.
For the last twenty-four hours, she'd been thinking it so loudly, she was sure her mother could hear it through her skull.
"Plus," added Mrs. Kim, near-smile fading, "gives you an opportunity to remind her what happens when careless girls trust careless boys."
When Mama Kim had gone to do the dishes, Lane bit her lip, pressing the phone hard against her ear as she took the stairs two at a time.
"Don't tell me you heard that," she said, already knowing the answer.
"Yeah," Rory muttered on the other end. Her exhale crackled through the receiver. "I didn't think it was possible to have another reason for her to break out the crucifix every time I come over to your house."
"Actually, up until this morning there was a moratorium on your coming over until the cast is gone."
"Really?"
"My mom said every time I saw that cast, I would be in danger of getting wild ideas of driving and fraternizing with members of the opposite sex and eating ice cream when I should be hitting the books."
"Wow."
"But then I told her that instead, every time I saw the cast, I'd have a tangible illustration of the consequences of breaking my parents' rules. So now you're back in."
"Thanks for that."
"No problem." Lane sat back on her bed, fiddling with the corner of her pillowcase. "Hey, did I tell you what color my future iconic drum set is?"
"Red."
"The one I found at Sophie's and the one I will, mark my words, be playing on the cover of every album on which my likeness will feature for our generation?"
"Red."
"The one I will make history behind as I climb the ranks, top the charts, and prove to everyone that Shin Joong-hyung is no longer exclusively the Korean synonymous with rock?"
"It's red."
"Oh. Red. That's right."
Lane sat up, eyebrows knit together. Her best friend sounded like a deflated balloon. Dean was back from his grandmother's and according to Rory, all had gone smoothly. He wasn't mad; he had even invited her in for dinner after hearing about the car. Lorelai still avoided Luke's diner, but she and her daughter were as synchronized as ever. Everything seemed to be scarring over, healing in Rory's life, and yet the air went out of her so quickly lately. Something was up.
"Are you okay?" Lane asked.
"Yes."
"Rory."
"It's just—" And suddenly the Gilmore faucet was switched on, and Rory was ranting. "It's this whole car thing, Lane, it's—I can't take it anymore! Dean isn't mad at me, Taylor isn't mad at me, my own grandmother wasn't mad at me when she found out, and instead she takes it out on Mom and even then, even then, Lorelai wasn't mad at me! Lorelai Gilmore gets busted by Emily Gilmore for something she didn't do, something I did, and guess what, it's all still Jess's fault!"
Lane stilled, gripping the phone tighter. Coltrane started playing hard in her head.
Rory was still talking. "It's my car, you know? It was my decision to keep driving, it was my decision to stop studying and go get ice cream and go get in an accident, and—he may have done some stupid things while he was here, but he did not push me into the door at full-speed, hold me down, and strap a cast around my fractured arm, he didn't. It's like he's Zipkin or something! I mean, has everyone here forgotten the definition of the word accident? Pick up a Dictionary, people! I can't believe that in this whole stupid town, that Luke is the only one who doesn't blame Jess, Luke." She inhaled. "It's crazy."
"Well," Lane said, slowly, blinking, "i-if it makes—"
"He said we should head back to Luke's, Lane, he said we should go back because he promised to study after we got ice cream, and I was the one who said not to go back, okay? It's not his fault."
"Rory."
"And I am not some helpless little girl who's just—getting dragged around by a guy—"
"Rory—"
"But it's not his fault!"
"I know." Lane practically bit off her lower lip, glancing at the door. She'd said it too loud. No reason to bring Mama Kim in, give her a reason to revoke the twenty-minute privilege.
For a startling two seconds, Rory was silent on the other end of the phone. The Coltrane album had switched off some time in the last few minutes, and in the quiet, Lane was just now noticing it had gone.
"You know?" Rory asked.
"Yeah." Lane climbed further back on the bed, leaning her head against the pillows. "I mean, an animal jumped out in the road, what else was he gonna do?"
Rory's voice sounded faraway. Distant. "You don't blame Jess?"
"No." Lane glanced involuntarily at her bedroom window. "Why? Do you want me to?"
"No. I…I'm just…surprised. I guess. I thought you—I mean, everyone in town kinda hates him, you know? I just thought…" Rory let out a little huff, and Lane heard a tiny smile—but it didn't fit her tone. Like someone had pulled a smile out of the freezer and it was still thawing. "Good. Great. You shouldn't."
"Okay." Lane cleared her throat. "Because you know—if you wanted me to hate him too—"
"No, I…"
"Say the word, Kim hate is instant-hate. I am in possession of microwaveable hate here. Sixty seconds on high and we are good to go."
Then Rory's smile sounded genuine. "Lane, it's fine. Really. I guess I just assumed—well, all you ever heard about him was most likely the bad stuff, so…"
"Right."
Another glance at the window and Lane suddenly couldn't sit still anymore. She had to get up, pacing the floor like Kirk before anything by Whitney Houston came on in the market. All you ever heard about him was the bad stuff. True. No one in Stars Hollow had anything good to say about the kid who gnome-napped and smoked on Sundays.
But she'd seen otherwise. She'd experienced more than just town gossip. She knew Jess—and Jess wouldn't have crashed Rory's car on purpose, whether Dean had built it for her or not.
It's totally not his fault.
And with a rush of queasiness, Lane realized she'd lied to her best friend. She discovered she couldn't summon hate for Jess. Not even the instant kind, higher in calories and lower in benefits.
Doesn't matter anyway, Lane reminded herself as Rory began again, saying something about Luke, something about Lorelai. She was hardly listening anymore. She didn't have to explain why it was so easy not to cast Jess as the villain. She'd probably never have to tell anyone they'd ever been friends—or something like friends, anyway. Thanks to the crash and the animal that had caused it, that was all over.
Gone for good, right?