update.
Love Songs of John Philip Sousa
Gilmore Girls. Lane/Paris. High school. Music makes the people come together.
Written for ijemanja in the femslash_today Sadie Hawkins Dance High School Femslash Ficathon
Lane was just sliding a note under the back door for Rory when a voice shouted, about fifteen decibels louder than was truly necessary, "Hold it right there, bucko! I've got Mace and pepper spray and I've never been afraid to use them!"
Lane sighed, but as she pictured the embarrassment of spending the next few weeks blindfolded and guided across streets by her clucking mother, she put her hands in the air. "It's just me, Paris. Don't Mace me. I wasn't robbing the place, I was just leaving a note for Rory." She turned slowly, hands clearly in view and eyes squeezed shut because she didn't trust Paris farther than she could throw her. And knowing Paris, it was Lane who'd end up flying over the rooftops of Stars Hollow if it came down to it. Lane was strong, but Paris's body was fashioned entirely out of steel and crazy.
"Identify yourself," Paris barked.
"It's me, Paris, Lane. Rory's friend." She opened one eye carefully and watched Paris stow two canisters in a holster attached to her calf. "Have you really used Mace on someone? That's dangerous, you know."
"It's meant to be dangerous. It's not really a threat if it's not. But it's not all that dangerous. Two perverts at the park and a guy who tried to steal a cab from me when I was on my way to a Harvard alumni meet and greet have all lived to tell the tale."
"And what a tale it must be," Lane said, and Paris nodded so proudly that Lane laughed. "Did Rory know you were coming? Because she and Lorelai are out all day today. There's some kind of Gilmore holiday coming up, Rory left a message with my mom so I don't think I got more than the gist, but maybe something like the Anniversary of the Invention of Parade Floats? Something might have gotten lost in translation, I don't know."
"The thing about Rory is there's a more than even chance that that's exactly right. I've never noticed a more than average enthusiasm for parade floats, at least not more than average for Rory, but -- "
"Anyway, she and her mom are out shopping for it all day."
"Damn it," Paris said. "She has my copy of Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, I know she said she doesn't but she does, and it's not like I couldn't get another one at the library or the bookstore or actually, I think I have a spare copy at home, but I annotated the one she has and while there's something to be said for approaching a familiar text with fresh eyes, there's less to be said for it when there's a paper due in three days and --"
"I can let you in," Lane said. When Paris looked at her she put her hands in the air. "Keep your gun in your holster there, cowgirl. I promise I'm allowed to know where the spare key is."
After Lane unlocked the door she stepped out of the way, expecting Paris to rush straight into Rory's room to start ransacking the bookshelves. But instead Paris dawdled in the kitchen, flipping through a magazine on the table with one finger, opening and closing the refrigerator door.
"You won't find much in there," Lane said. "I think most of Rory's books are in her room."
She led Paris into Rory's room, and once there Paris searched through the shelves and the books on Rory's desk with the thoroughness Lane had expected. "It's not here," Paris said, throwing a paperback copy of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh on the floor for no reason other than spite, as far as Lane could see. Lane bent down and picked the book up, running her fingers over the cover to flatten a crease in the corner where it had bent. Rory had lent her this book, and she'd liked it. "Of course it's not here, I don't know why I thought it would be, Rory's probably hiding it, secreting it on her person just to keep me from using it for my paper. Oh, that's not what she'll say, of course not, when I confront her she'll say she had no idea I wanted it, she was just building a parade float in honor of great medieval historians and she wanted to copy the picture from the back flap in decoupage, but I know why she really kept it. Of course she'll never admit that she just didn't want me to have it, that she wants me to fail so that she can succeed, so that she can continue to play Mozart to my Salieri, of course she'll never say that."
"Duh," Lane said when Paris stopped for breath. "Of course she'll never say that, because she'd never even think that. Not in a hundred million years."
"I know," Paris said, and crumpled onto Rory's bed in a way Lane never would have expected of someone made of steel. "Sometimes I think it would be easier if she did."
Lane sat down next to her. "Why?" she said.
"Look," Paris said, "thanks for letting me in and all that, but you can just leave me here and I'll wait for Rory on my own, I'm sure you have better things to do. I can't really imagine what, but I'm sure they're important to you so you can just go ahead. You don't need to worry about me." Paris patted the holster strapped around her leg. "I can handle any intruders."
"I'm a lot more worried about the intruders," Lane said. "I don't want to leave you alone with them, because, you know we intrude a lot in Stars Hollow. It's like our town hobby. And the last thing I need is to hear that you Maced Kirk, or Babette, or Miss Patty -- although I think Miss Patty could probably take you. She'd put up one heck of a fight, at least --"
"I promise I won't Mace anyone," Paris said without looking up. "Although it'll be on your head if Rory walks in here to find me murdered by a gang of small town thugs too stupid to even dump the body. I'll just sit here and listen to my music and wait for Rory --"
"Why?" Lane said again.
"Well, because Rory's not here and I want to talk to her," Paris said, slowly and loudly, as if she were talking to a three-year-old who'd been raised by particularly slow wolves.
"Why would you want to wait for someone who's out to get you, who steals your book to sabotage you, who wants to see you --"
"I know," Paris snapped. "I know she didn't do that, but I get -- angry, sometimes, and verbal abuse helps. People say it doesn't but it really does. Someone should write that self-help book. I'd buy it."
"What are you mad about?"
"You wouldn't understand," Paris said.
"Okay," Lane said.
"I mean, I know you look at me and you think, man, that Paris, she's got it together, the whole package, the whole life plan. She's going to take this world by storm --"
"Are you psychic?" Lane said, and Paris sat up, her face flushed.
"Look, I knew you wouldn't understand. How could you understand what it's like to be under pressure, to be perfect day after day and still worry that it's not enough to get you into the college you need to get into, to get you into the life you need to get into? How could you understand how angry it makes someone to feel like they have to spend every minute fighting, and not just because they like to but because they have to in order to measure up to some impossible standard? I mean, I'm sure you'll be very happy in this little town being a milkmaid or whatever --"
"A milkmaid?" Lane said. "Look, lady, you don't have to tell me about pressure. You don't have to tell me about raging against the machine. You're worried about what college you might not get to go to? Ask me where I'll probably be going. No, wait, I'll just tell you -- it's Seventh-Day Adventist college."
"Seventh-Day -- is that Christian college?" Paris asked, and Lane nodded fiercely. "Just to be clear here, we're not talking about the intellectual-ferment, Oxford-in-the-days-of-C.S.-Lewis-and-Tolkien type of Christian college here?"
"Oh no we're not," Lane said. "We're talking about no fraternizing with boys, modesty vests and Peter Pan collars up the wazoo -- or not up the wazoo, of course, because proper young Christian ladies don't have wazoos, or at least would never cop to having them. Believe me, I'd happily take a stay in Narnia and a couple of hobbits over that!"
Paris put her hands up in front of her. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure. I didn't want to be accused of being a smug, self-righteous, elitist God-lover-hater again. I mean, I am one, but somehow when other people say it it doesn't sound like as much of a compliment."
"Yeah, well," Lane said. She punched Rory's pillow without much force.
"I'm sorry you might have to go to Seventh-Day Adventist college," Paris said.
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry you might have to go to a second-tier Ivy," Lane said, and held the pillow up in front of her. "I was kidding! Kidding!"
"Not even in jest," Paris said. She slumped back onto the bed and put her headphones on. "Anyway, I do want to wait for Rory and I promise I'll only pepper intruders with witty insults, so you can leave me alone. It's all right."
Lane got up to leave, then looked at Paris lying alone on Rory's mussed bedspread. "What are you listening to?" she said.
"It's just -- it's my soothing music," Paris said. "It's what I listen to when I'm agitated. Which, frankly, is a lot." Lane held out a hand for the headphones and Paris passed them to her. Lane put them on and listened for a moment, then took them off quickly.
"What -- um, is that what I think it is?"
"John Philip Sousa," Paris said. "I like a martial air. I find it gets the blood flowing. And it has tubas. Music today doesn't honor the tuba the way it used to, which is a shame, because I find tubas very comforting."
"Who doesn't?" Lane said.
Paris smiled at her. "You want to listen again?"
Lane took a step back. "No, no, that's okay, I just -- it's ironic, maybe, or maybe not, I always get mixed up about that, but your soothing music makes me a little agitated. I just can't believe that in this day and age, after we've come all this way, that an agitated young woman would find nothing to turn to but old J.P. Sousa, who has his virtues, I'm sure, but speaking to the souls of put-down, put-upon women isn't one of them. Man, somewhere Kim Gordon is -- well, I don't think Kim Gordon weeps, but somewhere Thurston Moore is weeping when he thinks of this, and Kim Gordon finds it all a sad and telling sign of the times."
"Friends of yours?" Paris said. Lane stared at her.
"Please God, tell me you're kidding. Please God, and this isn't rhetorical, this is an actual prayer, God, from an actual Christian girl who'll be going to an actual Christian college, make her tell me she's kidding." Lane looked at Paris and sighed, then started digging through her backpack. "Man, and they say bad things happening to good people makes people doubt God. If you want to see a real crisis of faith, try showing someone a person -- in America! with access to a CD player! and ears! -- who has never heard of Sonic Youth. Here," Lane said, holding out her own headphones to Paris. "Listen to this, and let us never speak of what just happened."
Usually Lane was leery of watching someone else listen to music she loved for the first time. It felt too much like watching someone read her diary, if she had kept a real diary and not just a fake one kept not-too-carefully hidden for her mother to find and peruse ("Dear Diary, Good day today. Prayed three times. Counseled slutty girl at school -- she tongue-kissed a boy!! -- to turn to Jesus.") There were only a few people she was comfortable watching as they heard Lane's latest finds or longtime loves, only Rory and, well, Rory. But she was curious to see what Paris would make of the music. After all, it was almost a science experiment, to see what someone who had apparently been raised by tone-deaf wolves would make of their first exposure to good music. Lane had a scientific duty to watch.
Paris's face seemed to sharpen as she listened, her eyes narrowing and her lips tightening, as if she were determined to figure out what she was hearing and summarize it in a few key sentences for a high grade. Lane poked her in the arm and when Paris looked up, Lane mouthed, "Just listen." She didn't really expect Paris to try it, but Paris obediently closed her eyes. As Lane watched, Paris's face lost its fierce hunger and relaxed into something Lane had never thought she'd see. Paris didn't sing along with the lyrics or nod her head to the beat, but sat still and listened to the music Lane had given her. She looked happy, Lane thought.
When Paris opened her eyes to find Lane watching her, she gave her a big thumbs-up. Lane laughed. Paris went back to listening, her eyes open now but with a faraway look, as if she were focused on nothing but the music. After a few moments the song must have ended, because Paris shook her head once and then hit fast forward, a couple of times, so that Lane lost track of what she was listening to.
"What's this one?" Paris yelled above the music in her ears. "I like this one."
"I don't know," Lane said. "Sing a little," but Paris held her hands up helplessly. She couldn't hear over the music.
"Fine," Lane said, "here, let me listen," and she leaned in, her face close to Paris's so she could try to hear. She took one headphone from Paris's ear and pulled it roughly over her own. Paris didn't protest. Instead, she put one hand up to the side of Lane's face and tucked Lane's hair back over her ear, gently, straightening it out where the headphone had messed it up. Paris let her hand hover against Lane's neck when she was done, her fingernails just grazing Lane's skin. It was funny, Lane thought, how such a simple gesture could feel so intimate, almost more intimate ...
When Paris kissed her, Lane kept her eyes open. She saw it coming, how could she not with her face so close to Paris that she almost felt Paris's eyelashes as they fluttered closed. Lane had time to think, deliberately, Paris is going to kiss me. Paris is going to kiss me, here on Rory's bed with Sonic Youth in my ears, in our ears, Paris is going to kiss me and then Paris kissed her, her eyes shut and Lane's eyes open.
Paris pulled back, so abruptly that the headphones tumbled to the floor between them. "This isn't -- I wasn't -- do you know how good this kind of exploration will sound in a college essay? The admissions committee will be so relieved not to read yet another wretched story about how I met a homeless person and they changed my life even though they couldn't be bothered to change their socks. And it's not just for me, you know. This is going to be good for you, too. Just imagine how scandalized your college is going to be if they hear --"
When Lane kissed her, Paris closed her eyes. Lane kept her own eyes open again, but this time she opened her mouth too. As Lane's lips parted Paris let her tongue touch against each corner, gently, the way Lane would let her fingertips rest against the doorway when she got up from her bed in the dark, reassuring herself that the world she knew so well in the daytime was still there even in the strange country of the night. It was so sweet Lane shivered. She reached out and brushed Paris's hair back behind her ear and then let her hand curve against Paris's neck. Paris made a noise, not a soft one, but a groan so harsh it was almost a grunt. Lane almost laughed and then Paris pressed against her, her tongue gliding against Lane's, once just lightly and then hard and fierce and it was no surprise, not really, this is how Lane would have guessed that Paris would be. The surprise was how eagerly Lane pressed back against her, clutching Paris to her. Though that was no surprise, either, not deep down, not really.
Paris kissed her and Lane kissed back and it was no surprise.
Suddenly there was the sound of a car outside and Lane remembered that there was someone, lots of someones, for whom this would all be a very big surprise indeed. She pulled back and Paris went with her, just for a moment, leaned in with her mouth so close to Lane's that she could kiss her again but she didn't.
"Okay," Lane said. She ducked out from under Paris and stood up. "Okay --"
"This wasn't for a college essay," Paris said. She stood up too. "I mean, you probably figured that out by now, and anyway, I don't think it'd really do me much good with the admissions committee unless I'd, like, asked you to prom and tried to marry you and we'd taken the case to the state Supreme Court. And they probably wouldn't be all that scandalized about you at your school -- well, I mean they would be but I'm sure this wouldn't be the first time, they'd probably ship you away to some program where they'd de-gay you by making you put on makeup and get your hair done and sit around with a bunch of other girls who liked to kiss other girls, which would seem to be a little counter-productive but hey, maybe that's -- "
"Paris," Lane said, and Paris looked at her.
"Look, I didn't mean anything -- I just assumed, when I said that, that you were a girl who liked to kiss other girls, but if you're not, that's fine. I mean, you are, clearly, who are we kidding, we were both just there, but if you need to stay on the down low --"
Lane leaned in and kissed Paris, quickly, and she would have told herself that it was just to shut Paris up but she knew that wasn't the truth. It was a side benefit, but it wasn't the truth. "Paris," she said, "I'm not on the down low. I like to kiss other girls, I just -- I didn't know that before today. But I -- I like to kiss other girls."
"Good," Paris said. "Because I like to kiss --" and then the kitchen door slammed and Lorelai's voice bounced through the room.
"Damn it," Paris said, and then, low, "I like to kiss you."
"Good," Lane said, and Lorelai called,
"Is someone here? If it's burglars, stay out of my closet, but I have a variety of expensive but hideous gifts in the garage if you'd like to go out and take your pick. No, really, you'd be doing me a favor --"
"Damn it," Paris said again. "Listen, I've got the Mace and the pepper spray, I could probably buy us a few minutes --"
"No!" Lane said, because Paris looked like she meant it. It was kind of flattering.
"Then you're going?"
"They're going to Rory's grandparents tomorrow night," Lane said as she picked up her backpack. "Forget another book and I'll meet you."
She walked out into the kitchen and Lorelai said,
"Lane! I didn't know you were here -- I thought it was burglars. But listen, you can go ahead and help yourself to something from the island of lost taste out in the garage, even if you weren't burgling. It's probably a good idea to reward non-burgling behavior, after all. Not that you would only refrain from burgling if you had an incentive --"
"Paris is here too," Lane said as Rory stumbled in with her arms full of Styrofoam and streamers. "Be careful, because she's strapped."
When she put on her headphones, Lane was greeted by the sonorous strains of John Philip Sousa. She turned up the volume as she walked out the door. There was something comforting about a tuba.
Gilmore Girls. Lane/Paris. High school. Music makes the people come together.
Written for ijemanja in the femslash_today Sadie Hawkins Dance High School Femslash Ficathon
Lane was just sliding a note under the back door for Rory when a voice shouted, about fifteen decibels louder than was truly necessary, "Hold it right there, bucko! I've got Mace and pepper spray and I've never been afraid to use them!"
Lane sighed, but as she pictured the embarrassment of spending the next few weeks blindfolded and guided across streets by her clucking mother, she put her hands in the air. "It's just me, Paris. Don't Mace me. I wasn't robbing the place, I was just leaving a note for Rory." She turned slowly, hands clearly in view and eyes squeezed shut because she didn't trust Paris farther than she could throw her. And knowing Paris, it was Lane who'd end up flying over the rooftops of Stars Hollow if it came down to it. Lane was strong, but Paris's body was fashioned entirely out of steel and crazy.
"Identify yourself," Paris barked.
"It's me, Paris, Lane. Rory's friend." She opened one eye carefully and watched Paris stow two canisters in a holster attached to her calf. "Have you really used Mace on someone? That's dangerous, you know."
"It's meant to be dangerous. It's not really a threat if it's not. But it's not all that dangerous. Two perverts at the park and a guy who tried to steal a cab from me when I was on my way to a Harvard alumni meet and greet have all lived to tell the tale."
"And what a tale it must be," Lane said, and Paris nodded so proudly that Lane laughed. "Did Rory know you were coming? Because she and Lorelai are out all day today. There's some kind of Gilmore holiday coming up, Rory left a message with my mom so I don't think I got more than the gist, but maybe something like the Anniversary of the Invention of Parade Floats? Something might have gotten lost in translation, I don't know."
"The thing about Rory is there's a more than even chance that that's exactly right. I've never noticed a more than average enthusiasm for parade floats, at least not more than average for Rory, but -- "
"Anyway, she and her mom are out shopping for it all day."
"Damn it," Paris said. "She has my copy of Tuchman's A Distant Mirror, I know she said she doesn't but she does, and it's not like I couldn't get another one at the library or the bookstore or actually, I think I have a spare copy at home, but I annotated the one she has and while there's something to be said for approaching a familiar text with fresh eyes, there's less to be said for it when there's a paper due in three days and --"
"I can let you in," Lane said. When Paris looked at her she put her hands in the air. "Keep your gun in your holster there, cowgirl. I promise I'm allowed to know where the spare key is."
After Lane unlocked the door she stepped out of the way, expecting Paris to rush straight into Rory's room to start ransacking the bookshelves. But instead Paris dawdled in the kitchen, flipping through a magazine on the table with one finger, opening and closing the refrigerator door.
"You won't find much in there," Lane said. "I think most of Rory's books are in her room."
She led Paris into Rory's room, and once there Paris searched through the shelves and the books on Rory's desk with the thoroughness Lane had expected. "It's not here," Paris said, throwing a paperback copy of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh on the floor for no reason other than spite, as far as Lane could see. Lane bent down and picked the book up, running her fingers over the cover to flatten a crease in the corner where it had bent. Rory had lent her this book, and she'd liked it. "Of course it's not here, I don't know why I thought it would be, Rory's probably hiding it, secreting it on her person just to keep me from using it for my paper. Oh, that's not what she'll say, of course not, when I confront her she'll say she had no idea I wanted it, she was just building a parade float in honor of great medieval historians and she wanted to copy the picture from the back flap in decoupage, but I know why she really kept it. Of course she'll never admit that she just didn't want me to have it, that she wants me to fail so that she can succeed, so that she can continue to play Mozart to my Salieri, of course she'll never say that."
"Duh," Lane said when Paris stopped for breath. "Of course she'll never say that, because she'd never even think that. Not in a hundred million years."
"I know," Paris said, and crumpled onto Rory's bed in a way Lane never would have expected of someone made of steel. "Sometimes I think it would be easier if she did."
Lane sat down next to her. "Why?" she said.
"Look," Paris said, "thanks for letting me in and all that, but you can just leave me here and I'll wait for Rory on my own, I'm sure you have better things to do. I can't really imagine what, but I'm sure they're important to you so you can just go ahead. You don't need to worry about me." Paris patted the holster strapped around her leg. "I can handle any intruders."
"I'm a lot more worried about the intruders," Lane said. "I don't want to leave you alone with them, because, you know we intrude a lot in Stars Hollow. It's like our town hobby. And the last thing I need is to hear that you Maced Kirk, or Babette, or Miss Patty -- although I think Miss Patty could probably take you. She'd put up one heck of a fight, at least --"
"I promise I won't Mace anyone," Paris said without looking up. "Although it'll be on your head if Rory walks in here to find me murdered by a gang of small town thugs too stupid to even dump the body. I'll just sit here and listen to my music and wait for Rory --"
"Why?" Lane said again.
"Well, because Rory's not here and I want to talk to her," Paris said, slowly and loudly, as if she were talking to a three-year-old who'd been raised by particularly slow wolves.
"Why would you want to wait for someone who's out to get you, who steals your book to sabotage you, who wants to see you --"
"I know," Paris snapped. "I know she didn't do that, but I get -- angry, sometimes, and verbal abuse helps. People say it doesn't but it really does. Someone should write that self-help book. I'd buy it."
"What are you mad about?"
"You wouldn't understand," Paris said.
"Okay," Lane said.
"I mean, I know you look at me and you think, man, that Paris, she's got it together, the whole package, the whole life plan. She's going to take this world by storm --"
"Are you psychic?" Lane said, and Paris sat up, her face flushed.
"Look, I knew you wouldn't understand. How could you understand what it's like to be under pressure, to be perfect day after day and still worry that it's not enough to get you into the college you need to get into, to get you into the life you need to get into? How could you understand how angry it makes someone to feel like they have to spend every minute fighting, and not just because they like to but because they have to in order to measure up to some impossible standard? I mean, I'm sure you'll be very happy in this little town being a milkmaid or whatever --"
"A milkmaid?" Lane said. "Look, lady, you don't have to tell me about pressure. You don't have to tell me about raging against the machine. You're worried about what college you might not get to go to? Ask me where I'll probably be going. No, wait, I'll just tell you -- it's Seventh-Day Adventist college."
"Seventh-Day -- is that Christian college?" Paris asked, and Lane nodded fiercely. "Just to be clear here, we're not talking about the intellectual-ferment, Oxford-in-the-days-of-C.S.-Lewis-and-Tolkien type of Christian college here?"
"Oh no we're not," Lane said. "We're talking about no fraternizing with boys, modesty vests and Peter Pan collars up the wazoo -- or not up the wazoo, of course, because proper young Christian ladies don't have wazoos, or at least would never cop to having them. Believe me, I'd happily take a stay in Narnia and a couple of hobbits over that!"
Paris put her hands up in front of her. "I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure. I didn't want to be accused of being a smug, self-righteous, elitist God-lover-hater again. I mean, I am one, but somehow when other people say it it doesn't sound like as much of a compliment."
"Yeah, well," Lane said. She punched Rory's pillow without much force.
"I'm sorry you might have to go to Seventh-Day Adventist college," Paris said.
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry you might have to go to a second-tier Ivy," Lane said, and held the pillow up in front of her. "I was kidding! Kidding!"
"Not even in jest," Paris said. She slumped back onto the bed and put her headphones on. "Anyway, I do want to wait for Rory and I promise I'll only pepper intruders with witty insults, so you can leave me alone. It's all right."
Lane got up to leave, then looked at Paris lying alone on Rory's mussed bedspread. "What are you listening to?" she said.
"It's just -- it's my soothing music," Paris said. "It's what I listen to when I'm agitated. Which, frankly, is a lot." Lane held out a hand for the headphones and Paris passed them to her. Lane put them on and listened for a moment, then took them off quickly.
"What -- um, is that what I think it is?"
"John Philip Sousa," Paris said. "I like a martial air. I find it gets the blood flowing. And it has tubas. Music today doesn't honor the tuba the way it used to, which is a shame, because I find tubas very comforting."
"Who doesn't?" Lane said.
Paris smiled at her. "You want to listen again?"
Lane took a step back. "No, no, that's okay, I just -- it's ironic, maybe, or maybe not, I always get mixed up about that, but your soothing music makes me a little agitated. I just can't believe that in this day and age, after we've come all this way, that an agitated young woman would find nothing to turn to but old J.P. Sousa, who has his virtues, I'm sure, but speaking to the souls of put-down, put-upon women isn't one of them. Man, somewhere Kim Gordon is -- well, I don't think Kim Gordon weeps, but somewhere Thurston Moore is weeping when he thinks of this, and Kim Gordon finds it all a sad and telling sign of the times."
"Friends of yours?" Paris said. Lane stared at her.
"Please God, tell me you're kidding. Please God, and this isn't rhetorical, this is an actual prayer, God, from an actual Christian girl who'll be going to an actual Christian college, make her tell me she's kidding." Lane looked at Paris and sighed, then started digging through her backpack. "Man, and they say bad things happening to good people makes people doubt God. If you want to see a real crisis of faith, try showing someone a person -- in America! with access to a CD player! and ears! -- who has never heard of Sonic Youth. Here," Lane said, holding out her own headphones to Paris. "Listen to this, and let us never speak of what just happened."
Usually Lane was leery of watching someone else listen to music she loved for the first time. It felt too much like watching someone read her diary, if she had kept a real diary and not just a fake one kept not-too-carefully hidden for her mother to find and peruse ("Dear Diary, Good day today. Prayed three times. Counseled slutty girl at school -- she tongue-kissed a boy!! -- to turn to Jesus.") There were only a few people she was comfortable watching as they heard Lane's latest finds or longtime loves, only Rory and, well, Rory. But she was curious to see what Paris would make of the music. After all, it was almost a science experiment, to see what someone who had apparently been raised by tone-deaf wolves would make of their first exposure to good music. Lane had a scientific duty to watch.
Paris's face seemed to sharpen as she listened, her eyes narrowing and her lips tightening, as if she were determined to figure out what she was hearing and summarize it in a few key sentences for a high grade. Lane poked her in the arm and when Paris looked up, Lane mouthed, "Just listen." She didn't really expect Paris to try it, but Paris obediently closed her eyes. As Lane watched, Paris's face lost its fierce hunger and relaxed into something Lane had never thought she'd see. Paris didn't sing along with the lyrics or nod her head to the beat, but sat still and listened to the music Lane had given her. She looked happy, Lane thought.
When Paris opened her eyes to find Lane watching her, she gave her a big thumbs-up. Lane laughed. Paris went back to listening, her eyes open now but with a faraway look, as if she were focused on nothing but the music. After a few moments the song must have ended, because Paris shook her head once and then hit fast forward, a couple of times, so that Lane lost track of what she was listening to.
"What's this one?" Paris yelled above the music in her ears. "I like this one."
"I don't know," Lane said. "Sing a little," but Paris held her hands up helplessly. She couldn't hear over the music.
"Fine," Lane said, "here, let me listen," and she leaned in, her face close to Paris's so she could try to hear. She took one headphone from Paris's ear and pulled it roughly over her own. Paris didn't protest. Instead, she put one hand up to the side of Lane's face and tucked Lane's hair back over her ear, gently, straightening it out where the headphone had messed it up. Paris let her hand hover against Lane's neck when she was done, her fingernails just grazing Lane's skin. It was funny, Lane thought, how such a simple gesture could feel so intimate, almost more intimate ...
When Paris kissed her, Lane kept her eyes open. She saw it coming, how could she not with her face so close to Paris that she almost felt Paris's eyelashes as they fluttered closed. Lane had time to think, deliberately, Paris is going to kiss me. Paris is going to kiss me, here on Rory's bed with Sonic Youth in my ears, in our ears, Paris is going to kiss me and then Paris kissed her, her eyes shut and Lane's eyes open.
Paris pulled back, so abruptly that the headphones tumbled to the floor between them. "This isn't -- I wasn't -- do you know how good this kind of exploration will sound in a college essay? The admissions committee will be so relieved not to read yet another wretched story about how I met a homeless person and they changed my life even though they couldn't be bothered to change their socks. And it's not just for me, you know. This is going to be good for you, too. Just imagine how scandalized your college is going to be if they hear --"
When Lane kissed her, Paris closed her eyes. Lane kept her own eyes open again, but this time she opened her mouth too. As Lane's lips parted Paris let her tongue touch against each corner, gently, the way Lane would let her fingertips rest against the doorway when she got up from her bed in the dark, reassuring herself that the world she knew so well in the daytime was still there even in the strange country of the night. It was so sweet Lane shivered. She reached out and brushed Paris's hair back behind her ear and then let her hand curve against Paris's neck. Paris made a noise, not a soft one, but a groan so harsh it was almost a grunt. Lane almost laughed and then Paris pressed against her, her tongue gliding against Lane's, once just lightly and then hard and fierce and it was no surprise, not really, this is how Lane would have guessed that Paris would be. The surprise was how eagerly Lane pressed back against her, clutching Paris to her. Though that was no surprise, either, not deep down, not really.
Paris kissed her and Lane kissed back and it was no surprise.
Suddenly there was the sound of a car outside and Lane remembered that there was someone, lots of someones, for whom this would all be a very big surprise indeed. She pulled back and Paris went with her, just for a moment, leaned in with her mouth so close to Lane's that she could kiss her again but she didn't.
"Okay," Lane said. She ducked out from under Paris and stood up. "Okay --"
"This wasn't for a college essay," Paris said. She stood up too. "I mean, you probably figured that out by now, and anyway, I don't think it'd really do me much good with the admissions committee unless I'd, like, asked you to prom and tried to marry you and we'd taken the case to the state Supreme Court. And they probably wouldn't be all that scandalized about you at your school -- well, I mean they would be but I'm sure this wouldn't be the first time, they'd probably ship you away to some program where they'd de-gay you by making you put on makeup and get your hair done and sit around with a bunch of other girls who liked to kiss other girls, which would seem to be a little counter-productive but hey, maybe that's -- "
"Paris," Lane said, and Paris looked at her.
"Look, I didn't mean anything -- I just assumed, when I said that, that you were a girl who liked to kiss other girls, but if you're not, that's fine. I mean, you are, clearly, who are we kidding, we were both just there, but if you need to stay on the down low --"
Lane leaned in and kissed Paris, quickly, and she would have told herself that it was just to shut Paris up but she knew that wasn't the truth. It was a side benefit, but it wasn't the truth. "Paris," she said, "I'm not on the down low. I like to kiss other girls, I just -- I didn't know that before today. But I -- I like to kiss other girls."
"Good," Paris said. "Because I like to kiss --" and then the kitchen door slammed and Lorelai's voice bounced through the room.
"Damn it," Paris said, and then, low, "I like to kiss you."
"Good," Lane said, and Lorelai called,
"Is someone here? If it's burglars, stay out of my closet, but I have a variety of expensive but hideous gifts in the garage if you'd like to go out and take your pick. No, really, you'd be doing me a favor --"
"Damn it," Paris said again. "Listen, I've got the Mace and the pepper spray, I could probably buy us a few minutes --"
"No!" Lane said, because Paris looked like she meant it. It was kind of flattering.
"Then you're going?"
"They're going to Rory's grandparents tomorrow night," Lane said as she picked up her backpack. "Forget another book and I'll meet you."
She walked out into the kitchen and Lorelai said,
"Lane! I didn't know you were here -- I thought it was burglars. But listen, you can go ahead and help yourself to something from the island of lost taste out in the garage, even if you weren't burgling. It's probably a good idea to reward non-burgling behavior, after all. Not that you would only refrain from burgling if you had an incentive --"
"Paris is here too," Lane said as Rory stumbled in with her arms full of Styrofoam and streamers. "Be careful, because she's strapped."
When she put on her headphones, Lane was greeted by the sonorous strains of John Philip Sousa. She turned up the volume as she walked out the door. There was something comforting about a tuba.