Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction based on characters from the Warner Bros. television show 'Gilmore Girls'. I don't own any of it.
Chapter 1 – The Park
Just picture the scene: Jess is just loitering on a park bench, reading of course. He's wearing his leather jacket. It's a bright, sunny day, and you'd think he'd be hot. Not so, Jess Mariano.
The grass is green, the birds are singing and of course, along comes a small little girl with chestnut hair in pigtails, curling a la Cindy Brady. She has wide blue eyes, is wearing a red and white striped sundress with spaghetti straps and is eating an ice cream… in a cone. It's dripping down the side of the cone and onto her hand. A pink wet tongue makes its way out of her mouth, attempting to remedy the situation. It doesn't help.
Over her ice cream cone, she spots the man in the leather jacket and thinks he looks nice. He's reading a book. She can't read, yet. But her mommy is trying to teach her. She thinks it would be a good idea if he taught her a little. He seems to be pretty good at it. How happy would her mommy be if she could read just a sentence? She liked making her mommy happy.
"Hey Mister," she says.
He ignores her. Perhaps he's doing it on purpose. Perhaps he is truly that engrossed in his novel.
"Mister," she repeats, not used to being ignored.
He turns a page and she thinks he's going to acknowledge her, but he merely sets his hand down on the bench beside him.
She huffs, frustrated. Deciding that covering his hand with an ice cream and saliva one of hers probably isn't the best idea (her mother is always complaining about her putting sticky hands on her dresses), she climbs up onto the bench beside him.
He is clearly ignoring her on purpose.
She clears her throat just like a grown up. "Ahem."
Thoroughly distracted, Jess turns to face her, shutting his book on one of his fingers to keep his place. "Didn't your mother tell you not to talk to strangers?"
She cocks her head to one side and ponders this question for a moment. Her mother has said not to take candy from strangers. And not to get into cars with strangers. But currently her mommy is asleep. This man doesn't even want to talk to her. And besides, he looks a bit like her daddy. "Do you have any candy?" she asks.
"No," he states curtly.
"Then I don't think my mommy will mind."
He reopens his book. Perhaps he should try the ignoring game again.
Her ice cream drips onto his hand. He sighs, and pulls a tissue from his pocket, first wiping his hand, then hers. "Eat your ice cream."
Content for the moment, and forgetting why she spoke to him in the first place, the little girl sits beside him, legs sticking out straight and sandaled toes wiggling. She crunches on her cone happily, humming a little tune he can't place.
He is finally able to finish the page he's been trying to read for the past ten minutes.
Her cone is finished. All she is left with is chocolate smears and sugar cone crumbs. She watches as Jess turns another page. Grumpily she gets up and waves a hand in front of his face to get his attention. "Hello?"
"What is it?" he snaps, glaring at her.
It almost makes her cry. Her chin wobbles. Her eyes well with tears. "I just wanted to ask what you were reading!" she whines.
Jess looks around. No one appears to have noticed that he just made a little girl cry. No mother is swooping in for the kill, shrieking like a banshee. "Please don't cry," he begs, holding his arms up in surrender.
She sniffs, and seems to calm down.
"This book's called 'The Great Gatsby'."
She smiles. "My mom has that one."
Jess nods. She can talk, but it doesn't mean he has to listen.
"Can you read it to me?" she asks.
He thinks about it for a moment. It's not entirely appropriate for a little girl. But on the other hand, she won't understand it. "How old are you?" he asks.
She holds up the three fingers on her left hand and the thumb on her right. "Three and three-quarters. My birthday's in three months."
"Can you read?" he asks her.
She shakes her head, pigtails bouncing. "No. But my mommy's trying to teach me."
"Where is your mommy?" he asks, curiously.
She shrugs, and uses the toe of her right foot to scratch her left leg. She tilts off balance and starts to fall before Jess catches her.
She giggles. "Do it again."
His heart had been beating furiously, worried for her safety. "I don't think so," he states.
The little girl frowns, then pouts. "Pretty please?" she looks up at him with puppy dog eyes that must have melted a million men before him.
He shakes his head.
She sits down on his lap grumpily and crosses her arms across her chest.
Jess is extremely uncomfortable with this situation. "Don't you think your mom will be worried about you?"
"She fell asleep," the girl states.
"What about your dad?"
"He's working." She says this petulantly, as though this isn't the first time he's been working instead of being at the park with her and her mother.
He knows that feeling. The one you get when someone you really care about isn't there when you want them… It's even worse when you need them.
They sit in peace for a moment, before the girl grows bored of her position and shifts so that she is now facing Jess. "I'm bored," she states.
Jess almost laughs. She says this with the most deadpan expression. It is very unbefitting of a girl of only three and three-quarters. You wouldn't think that mere moments ago she'd had an ice cream and nearly plummeted to her death off a park bench.
"Do you have any colouring in books?" she asks seriously.
"No, sorry," he holds up his hands, showing that he has nothing else.
He has a pen in his shirt pocket, though. She can see it where his jacket has been pushed back. She pilfers it, going to draw on something.
"Give that back, please," Jess asks, holding out a hand.
She shakes her head. "I want it."
"But it's mine," Jess is almost reduced to her level.
"Why do you have it anyway?" she asks. It is incomprehensible to her that he would carry a yucky black fountain pen instead of a set of colourful crayons.
He opens his novel and shows her. "I like to write things in the margins."
She frowns. "My mommy says that's a bad thing. The only books you're supposed to write in are colouring books."
He shrugs. "Lots of people think like your mommy."
"My mommy's not like lots o' people," she grumbles, crossing her arms and hiding the pen from his view.
"She's got you," Jess admits. "Not a lot of people have you."
Her smile comes back across her face. "I like you."
"That's nice," he dismisses it.
"Aren't you gonna say it back?"
He ponders this for a moment, looking at her as she grows increasingly distressed. "I like you, too," he admits finally. He looks at his watch, worried about the fact that he might not have just said that to appease her… that he may have said it because he honestly meant it. She has been here for nearly half an hour. Where is her mother? Has she been abandoned? He does not want to have to deal with that. "Can I meet your mother?" he asks, finally. The only way he is going to be able to get rid of her is to deposit her with her mother.
She smiles brightly at him. "Okay! I think she'll like you," she says as she clambers off the bench. "She likes to read, like a lot. And you like to read. She's trying to teach me how to read. That's why I wanted to talk to you. Because I want her to be proud of me. She'll be proud of me if I can read."
Jess is baffled. All of a sudden she began rambling and he isn't quite sure what to make of it. There was a missing sentence there somewhere. Or a missing word. Something wasn't there that would make him understand what it was that she was saying.
She looks up at him and huffs. "Well?" If she knew how to roll her eyes, she'd be doing that right now. "Are we going or what?"
He slowly rises from his seat, shutting his novel, and placing it in his back pocket. He needn't mark his place. He's read the book a million times before.
She grabs his hand with a sticky one of hers. He winces internally. He can't wait to get rid of her finally and go home. Far away from small children and ice cream cone smears.
She tears off as fast as her little feet can carry her, and as fast as Jess will let her go. She is still clinging to his fingers.
Jess is alarmed by the distance she traveled by herself with only an ice cream cone for company. Anything could have happened to her. Jess obviously wasn't the best choice of parent in the world, but even he knew not to leave small children unattended in a park. There were all sorts of people in the world who would do all sorts of things to innocent little kids. Jess knew about that.
The little girl slows down. She raises the pointer finger on her other hand and indicates to a woman lying on the ground. There is a book lying over her face, and her brown hair is splayed over the picnic rug. She is wearing a pastel yellow sundress. Her feet are bare and strappy sandals are discarded by the rug. "That's my mom," the girl says, though by this time Jess has worked it out.
"Does she often do this?" Jess asks. "Fall asleep, I mean."
The girl shrugs and lets go of his hand. "Daddy hasn't been around much this week."
Jess wanders over to the woman, sitting beside her and removing the book from her face. He almost gasps as he examines her face. It is a familiar face. But one he hasn't seen in years. Her complexion has turned slightly sallow. There are heavy bags under her eyes and her cheekbones stick out too prominently.
The girl watches as Jess examines her mother's face. "What are you doing?" she asks, quietly.
It isn't quiet enough, though. Her mother stirs and opens her eyes. Cornflower blue meet earthy brown.
"Rory," he breathes.
A/N: Who wasn't expecting that?
So how was it? I don't usually write in present tense, but it just kind of came out. At first it was only going to be a summary, but it evolved into full sentences and descriptions. After this chapter I have not a clue which tense I'll use. I think I'll keep up the present for the present. But knowing me I'll probably get tired of it. And there are bound to be moments when present tense would just be strange.