Do You See Her Face? (A Jess Mariano Fanfiction)

Ginsberg, Again

Disclaimer: All Gilmore Girls content belongs to Amy Sherman-Palladino.

.   .   .

A sleepy Thursday at the diner and Ella was almost finished with her sketch of the streetlamp across the way. Upon doing the preliminary line work, she found it dull, so she had added a UFO circling above it to spice up the drawing. The clinking of mugs filled her ears, but the diner was only moderately populated. Luke was busy filling out some spreadsheet, stealing glances over at the staircase every few minutes. Jess was due downstairs at any moment. Near the front window, Rory sat with piles of notes and textbooks out in front of her. Having overhead Luke and Lorelai, Ella knew Rory had been tasked with tutoring Jess, who was in danger of repeating the eleventh grade. Ella did not envy Rory. She'd only run into Jess a handful of times in the hallways of school, and though they had no classes together, she'd certainly heard tales of his insubordination and mischief. Just as she had finished the shading on the face of the alien through the window of the spaceship, Jess bounded down the stairs. His face brightened when he saw Ella at the counter, immediately taking up the stool across from her.

"Okay, honey, prepare to be amazed," he began, shuffling his deck of cards before she had even looked up at him.

She scoffed at the name, shutting her battered sketchbook in fear of him catching a glimpse of her work. "Dazzle me."

It only took him one attempt to guess her card and she smiled proudly.

"It's Houdini himself," she appraised.

"And..." he trailed off, grabbing a shiny red apple and a dish towel from a ways down the counter. Showing her the empty sides of the towel, he feigned the apple appearing out of nowhere from beneath it.

Her smile grew, taking the apple as he held it out to her. "Also good. But I'm not the teacher you should be giving the fruit to now, am I?"

Jess sighed heavily as she munched on the apple. "I swore off institutional education long ago."

She rolled her eyes. "Calm down, Nietzche. You'll only have to get over yourself for a couple hours so you can stay in this small town utopia." As she spoke, she gestured to the town around them.

"Well, it's off to the salt mines, I guess," he said, head hanging low in resignation.

Ella chuckled at his theatrics and gave his shoulder a gentle push in Rory's direction. "Yes, I pity you. Now, go."

. . .

About sixty pages in to White Oleander, though she had read it two times before, Ella was enjoying the decadent prose when the phone broke the silence of her bedroom. A smell of lavender, the plant for luck, calmed her as the candles on one of her crate nightstands burned slowly. The flickering flames were the only ones which lit the room. Clearing her throat, she sat up against her pillows and took the old white phone, sitting on the floor in the corner, off the receiver. She expected Lane, though she didn't call nearly ever. However, Lane's nearly-never calls were pretty much the only ones she ever received on her landline. The separate number was one she had installed herself, after her mother died, a cheap phone bought at Radioshack with her first paycheck from Luke's. She knew she would need a form of communication Fiona didn't have to pay for, to lorde over her during their screaming matches.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Eleanor?"

She furrowed her brows. "Jess?"

"The one and only," he joked through the line, though she could tell his heart wasn't in it. She couldn't hear the smirk in his voice like she usually could.