Author’s Note – Someone brought this up, so I’m going to quickly explain: Dean and Rory did not break up at the festival. He didn’t start building her a car, and he wasn’t planning on saying “I love you.” I figure if Jess arrived earlier, his jealousy would be brought out earlier too.

Also, I’ve taken some liberties with the timeline, but Angeleyez kindly set me straight on a major screw up: I had Jess entering as a Senior, when in fact he should be entering as a Junior. So, I’ve corrected that.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

Chapter Four – Come You Naughty Surface

 

-

 

For some, the truth was easy; for Jess, lying was easier. He didn’t understand their acceptance of reality; they didn’t understand his repulsion to it. They willingly revealed their lives, their personal, private lives, with honesty while he concealed his with sarcastic half-truths and careful evasion. Sometimes he wondered why anyone else but him could talk about their dreams, their frustrations, without embarrassment or dread. Then he stopped wondering, kept lying, kept accumulating the lies.

 

His ability to lie came from his ability to believe it. Once he believed it, he could visualize it, remember it. When Rory came into the diner on the first day of summer break, he remembered. He wasn’t lying to her, though, only precisely averting the truth.

 

“Hey,” he greeted as she sat down at the counter, routinely poured her a cup of coffee. “Where’s your mom?”

 

“School may take a break, but the inn does doesn’t.”

 

“Your school takes breaks?” he asked, feigned shock.

 

“Yes. They break, we don’t. They send us some summer assignments in the mail.”

 

“Because once you pop the fun don’t stop,” Jess said blandly.

 

“What about you?” she asked.

 

“What about me?”

 

He leaned forward on the counter, wanting to tell her, wanting to hide it, wanting to surprise her the first day back to school, wanting her to figure it out before then. He debated between the realistic and the idealistic, the practical and the fantasy.

 

“Did Chilton send you any more letters? Like a summer reading assignment?” Rory asked.

 

But he couldn’t just blurt it out either. He built up the suspense; now he couldn’t let the climax disappoint.

 

“You gonna order anything?” He pulled out his order pad and a pencil from behind his ear.

 

“Smooth transition,” she said.

 

“Didn’t think you were serious.”

 

She placed her order. Jess slid the order back to Caesar.

 

“Well I was.”

 

The mail hadn’t been dropped off yet. He could answer without balancing along the edges of truth.

 

“Nope.” And so her assumption wouldn’t be pushed further toward the positive, added, “Should they be sending me another letter? Did you get two acceptance letters? I mean, I filled out two, but I thought they’d figure out that there’s no one in the world really named ‘Holden Caulfield.’”

 

“Maybe they just can’t resist a prep school dropout.”

 

Caesar called to Jess. As Jess retrieved the plate of food, the bell above the door jingled. He glanced over reflexively, without curiosity, and saw the mail carrier. Jess slid Rory her food. The mailman dropped a small stack of envelopes held together by a rubber band on the counter, stayed to see Jess pick them up, and left. He casually fingered through them, not pausing when he saw the Chilton logo on the return address of one, not concealing them from Rory in case she peeked, but she ate her food, watched, respected his privacy when he didn’t want her to.

 

Determined, Jess yanked the Chilton letter out, ripped it open, hid his self-consciousness under irritation. He glared as he read. Just as Rory had said, there was a summer reading assignment. For incoming Juniors: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and a reading log. They included specific instructions on how the reading logs were to be done, how many they expected to be done. On the back of the letter, Chilton stated that it required all of its students to have proof of completion of forty hours of community service; they were to bring it with them on August 12^th, the first day of school. 

 

Jess dropped the letter, picked up the coffeepot, stiffly refilled drinks around the diner. As he did he slid his eyes toward Rory’s back to see if she would pick up the letter, but she didn’t. She bent over the counter, eating. She could have been reading it, but he couldn’t tell from her posture. When he slipped the pot back onto the machine, her eyes were on her food. Jess folded the letter back into the envelope and stuffed it into his pocket.

 

“Hey, Jess, do you want to go to the bookstore? Pick up a couple books?”

 

He glared at her, hearing instead, “Do you want to pick up The Fountainhead for school?” She smiled, innocent, and Jess thought she hadn’t read the letter afterall.

 

“And congratulations, Jamal.”

 

His mind rapidly sifted through novel titles and characters. Nothing clicked, so he ignored the reference.

 

Rory knew. He didn’t want the congratulations, didn’t know what to do with it. Rachel came downstairs, greeted him pleasantly. He grabbed the mail and retreated with it upstairs without returning the greeting or the pleasantness.

 

-

 

“You’re going to build a house?” Dean asked.

 

“It’s for charity. Plus I need forty hours of community service before I go back to school.”

“Well, how long are you gonna be gone?”

Rory shrugged. “I don't know. Why?”

“You’ve been busy with finals for the past two weeks. I’ve hardly seen you. Jess has seen more of you than I have,” he said so casually that the underlying whisper of jealousy went unnoticed. “I just thought we could hang today. Maybe see a movie, get something to eat. We could go to a bookstore. I'll watch you browse for six or seven hours.”

“I would love to but I have to do this thing today.”

“Blow it off,” he said.

Rory’s eyes gaped at him. This was important. He would be there later; this opportunity wouldn’t be. She shook her head, saying, “I can't.”

“Did I mention the bookstore for six or seven hours?”  

She did want to go to the bookstore, but not with him. With him, she felt timed, like she could only browse so long. But she owed him hang out time. Fleetingly she thought that wasn’t right, that she shouldn’t feel obligated, but it was still her first relationship, and this was reality, not the plot in a fiction book. Everyone felt some sort of obligation in a relationship that succeeded friendship.

“How about tonight?” Rory suggested, and tried to want it too. “We can get a pizza and go on Amazon. You'll be just as bored watching me ordering books, I promise.”

“Deal.”

“Good. I have to go.”

Rory quickly moved around him, checked her watch to make sure she hadn’t missed the bus. She had ten minutes.

In the diner, Jess threw down the wash rag he had been cleaning tables with when he spotted Rory’s yellow backpack.

“I’m out!” he called and darted out of the diner, Luke shouting, “Hey, where are you going?” at his back.

Rory took a seat on the bench at the bus stop. Jess walked over casually, hopped over the back of the bench and landed next to her.

“You know there’s no school today, right?” he asked.

“I’m going to build a house.”

“That ‘Rebuilding Together’ thing? Why do that when you can save the manatees?”

“Because we actually have houses. Besides, I heard from a source that it looks great on your college transcript,” Rory said.

“Huh.”

“Yeah. So what are your community service plans?”

“Building a house. I hear it’ll look great on my college transcript,” he mimicked sarcastically. But even as he said it he wondered if he would have a transcript to put it on. College seemed far off and intangible; unreachable for him. However, he could waste a couple hours hammering nails.

Not for Chilton, but to get away from Stars Hollow – for himself, to prove that he wasn’t trapped, to disappear into normalcy rather than stick out among eccentricity.

The bus pulled up next to the curb. They got on, paid, sat down at the back of the bus.

“So, The Fountainhead, have you read it before?” Rory asked him.

“Couldn’t make it through it.” Because one of his buddies in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />New York caught him reading it, scoffed at it. Jess told him he’d found it on the bench, it was something to do, got up and left the novel. When he came back for it, it was gone, and he never got another copy. The story still swirled vaguely in his mind. He could live without finishing it, but now the desire to know the ending sprung up and hovered in his mind.

“I read it once when I was ten.”

“Ten?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I didn’t understand a word of it so I had to reread it last year.”

Maybe he could read the book. Not for Chilton, though, just so he could know the ending.

“Ayn Rand is a political nut.”

“Yeah, but nobody could write a forty page monologue the way that she could,” Rory said.

“And no one could write an honest paragraph the way Ernest Hemingway could.”

“No, see, what you call ‘honest’ I think I call ‘male chauvinism.’”

“Oh please,” Jess groaned. “Just because Hemingway didn’t use adjectives and pretty words and didn’t write happily ever afters doesn’t make him macho.”

“No, but the women he wrote were so artificial. So stereotyped. He didn’t give them any real role other than being the girl to his guy.”

“That’s because you never saw it from their point of view. You only saw how they affected the men.” He held his consciousness down, kept talking, not thinking about what he said, and then he did think, and he tried not to, and he pretended not to care. “Hemingway didn’t believe in love, so his characters didn’t either. They denied it. He proved that you don’t need love to live.”  

He felt almost embarrassed, like he had revealed too much of himself and needed to take it back before Rory asked about it. But, she didn’t ask, didn’t assume anything about him by what he said. Instead, she said:

“That’s depressing.”

“Life’s depressing,” he stated casually.

Again, she avoided a comment that he wished to retract. “But you make an interesting argument. So, I’ll make you a deal: I will give the painful Ernest Hemingway another chance and you will…”

“Pick up a copy of The Fountainhead.”  

“And?” She raised her eyebrows.

“And what?”

“And,” she drawled, waited for him to fill in the blank. He didn’t, so she finished, “…you’ll do the reading log.”

Jess smirked at all the ways he could interpret – or misinterpret – how to do the reading log.

“Correctly,” Rory added.

“That’s worth two Hemingway books.”

 

“Fine,” she agreed quickly.

 

He didn’t want the deal; he wanted to honor it. He wanted the deal; he didn’t want to honor it. He didn’t want anything, yet he did, and he told himself he wouldn’t do it while, in the part of his mind that he paid so little attention but frequently listened to, he knew he would do it. But he didn’t want Rory to know.

 

“And you’ll still have to read The Fountainhead and do the reading log.”

 

“I’m aware.”

 

“You’re torturing yourself,” he said.

 

“A smile price to pay.”

 

The city bus reached their stop. They got off, walked side by side to the construction site. Jess fell back a step, let Rory look around, figure out where they were supposed to go. She looked at him, shrugged, found the nearest worker and tapped him on the shoulder.

 

“Excuse me,” she said.

 

He let go of his saw, left it in the piece of lumber he had been cutting.

“Hey, you're touching a man with a saw. You don't touch a man with a saw. What are you thinking?”

“I'm sorry,” Rory said.

“I could've hurt myself. I could've hurt you. There's a ton of hurt that almost happened here,” he told her.

“I really am sorry. I've never been on a job site before. It's nice.”

“Okay, where are you two from?”

“Chilton. I’m Ro–”

“Come on Chiltons,” he said, leading them into the foundation of the house.  

“No, it's Rory. Chilton's my – our – school.”

The man turned suddenly, as if he was stressed and they only added to his stress. “You two got a hammer?”

Jess quickly scanned the site. No hammers, no tools of any kind left out, just a couple spilt nails next to a bag of nails, piles of wood and heavy sacks of powdered cement.

“Oh, yes, sir.”

Jess looked around, began to wander around curiously. He bumped into the construction worker, grabbed the head of the hammer and nimbly lifted it straight out of his belt.

“Where is it?” the man asked.

Jess turned around, hand dropping the hammer into his back pocket, head still rotating back and forth, seeing without noticing. Rory pulled out a hammer covered in pink feathers and body jewelry. He casually strolled back to her, hands folded behind his back, acted amused at her explanation for the dressed-up hammer.

 

“And you?” he asked Jess. He pulled out the hammer, held it up for the man to see. The man nodded and gave them routine instructions, pointed to where they could get hard hats and goggles, and left them.

 

“He left us? Just like that?” Rory asked. “But, I’ve never built a house before. Have you ever built a house before? Someone has to live in this house. They could have pets or children or breakables.”

 

“Yep,” Jess said, picked up a nail, handed it to her.

 

“And where did you get that hammer? Unless you just happen to carry around a hammer in your pocket all the time.”

 

“What if I do?”

 

Rory stared, pursed her lips.

 

“I’ll trade it in for my button when we’re done,” he said flatly. She didn’t move. “So, shall we?” he asked, indicating the framework.  

 

Rory held the nail awkwardly on the wood, the hammer even more awkwardly.

 

“This is my wall.”

 

Rory pulled back. Paris frowned. Jess raised his brows.

 

“I wouldn’t brag about that,” he said.

 

“Oh, and why not?” Paris snapped.

 

“You didn’t leave any room to extend the wall. There’s going to be a hole in the corner,” Jess said slowly, condescending. “We’re going to have to tear down this side of your wall and redo it.

 

“Who are you? Bob Vila?”

 

“To your Tim Taylor,” he replied calmly.

 

Paris turned back to Rory. “So, you traded in Mars for Vulcan. Lovely.”

 

“I’m sorry, Juno,” Jess said, without sincerity and with much sarcasm. “Did you want something or are you just feeling territorial today?”

 

“Yes. I want you to get away from my wall. Go work cement or something. What are you doing here anyway?” she directed at Jess. “Are you trying to get into Harvard?”

 

“What does that have to do with anything?” Rory asked.

“You’re so naïve, Gilmore. When you apply to an ivy league school, you need more than good grades and test scores to get you in. Every person who applies to Harvard has a perfect GPA and great test scores. It's the extras that put you over the top. The clubs, charities, volunteering. You know.

“Oh, yeah, I know,” she said uncertainly.

“I started volunteering in fourth grade. I handed out cookies at the local children's hospital. By ten, I was leading my first study group. The youngest person in the group was twelve.”

“Wow.”

“I've been a camp counselor. I organized a senior illiteracy program. I worked a suicide hotline. I manned a runaway center. I've adopted dolphins, taught sign language, trained seeing-eye dogs. Hey! What the hell are you doing?” she screamed at Jess.

He dug the wedge of his hammer into the wood and yanked out a nail.

“Fixing your wall.”

Rory pressed on. “But when did you have time to have a life?”

“I'll have a life after I graduate from Harvard. Now if you'll excuse me, the drainage on the south side of this place sucks.”

As Paris stomped off, Jess pulled out another nail, cracking and splintering the wood. Rory tried to help, but she couldn’t fit the wedge behind the head of the nail. Silently, purposely, Jess grabbed Rory’s hammer, adjusted her grip, put his hands over hers and swung it down, caught the head and helped her work it out.

“Thanks,” she said.

Jess nodded and ignored the rest of her work, ignored a sudden, inexplicable nervousness, and concentrated on his own task.

-

“I ache,” Rory said as she stepped off the bus, her head turned toward Jess.

“You reek,” he said behind her, then stopped. “Dean.”

Dean stood, scowled at Jess, looked angrily, incredulously, at Rory. “You blew me off to spend the day with him? Rory?”

“It wasn’t planned,” she said suddenly, desperately, gesturing pointlessly and emphatically. “I just sat down on the bench, and then he sat down next to me, and he tore down Paris’ wall, and we got buttons,” she added brightly, but with a sense of falseness, as she showed him the button pinned to her overalls.

“Because Jess just can’t resist building a house,” Dean said, narrowing his eyes at Jess. “Can you?”

“Well–”

“Jess needed the community service hours, that’s it,” Rory said.

“Fresh out of juvie?” Dean asked him.

“Nope, just heading in. I figure if I do all of my community service now than I’ll be set for later.”

“Jess,” he warned.

“Relax,” Jess said. “We built some walls and mixed some cement. They initialed our papers when we were done. So don’t get all West Side Story on me.” Then, to Rory, he said, “See ya later,” shoved his hands into his pockets and walked off.

Dean bent down to get closer to eye level. “Rory?”

“Jess is going to Chilton.”

“What?” It sounded controlled, shocked, angry, confused.

Rory didn’t know how to answer it, so she swerved around it, began walking home as she talked about concerns that had pestered her all day, had left her uneasy and worried.

“I can’t hang out tonight. I’m sorry. I still have thirty five more hours of community service to get done, and apparently I’m ten years behind on my extracurriculars.”

“What are you talking about?” Dean asked.

“I’m talking about Paris. She has been accumulating these things since she could walk. I mean, she has a list of good deeds that could bump Mother Teresa off the Harvard list. I've been studying my butt off my whole life and I really thought that that was enough, but then Paris tells me that everyone makes good grades and it's the extras that put you over the top. And I thought that she was messing with me like she always does, but she's right. I mean, it makes total sense.”

“What does? You’re not making any sense.”

“Good grades aren't enough. I need to do things. I need to volunteer. I need to work for charity. I need to help the blind, the orphans – I don't know. I just need to do something.”

“Well why don’t you get Jess to help you? I’m sure he’d be happy to help you ‘help the blind.’”

“Dean,” she began.

“No. It’s fine. You’re blowing me off tonight. For the rest of summer.”

Rory stopped walking, wordlessly pleaded with him to understand, not to be overdramatic about this. “No. I just need to organize, plan. I need to make a schedule.”

“Well don’t worry about fitting me into your ‘schedule,’” he said.

“What? What are you talking about?” she asked, but then seemed to whiff the dark, underlying sentiment. “Are you–” She didn’t want to ask; she had to ask. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Well you’re obviously too busy with summer school and Harvard and building houses with Jess.”

“Dean. That’s not fair. This is important…” she said meekly, wished for him to be supportive, knew how good and valid her reasons were and couldn’t comprehend why he didn’t seem to understand. He always understood.

“More important than me. So I’ll just get out of your way,” he said and brushed passed her hurriedly.

Rory went home sullenly, hurt, upset, confused. She wiped at her eyes a few times on the sidewalk. When she opened the door of the house, she started to cry, softly called for her mom. Lorelei appeared, frowned, and took her into her arms.

Harvard was more important to her than Dean, which only made her cry harder. It was mean and selfish to think like that – wrong, too, she thought – and she didn’t want to admit it to anyone, to herself. She thought that they should be equal, but in her mind they weren’t. She wondered if Jess would understand, and cried louder because she thought of Jess when she should have been thinking of how miserable she was because of Dean, because it was everything else but the breakup that made her miserable.

The breakup took all the blame.