DISCO NIGHTS !
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
TOMATO, TOMAH-TO
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MAEVE AND JESS were sitting opposite one another on the floor between two aisles, Jess' legs outstretched in front of him and Maeve's knees resting comfortably up at her chest.
The pair were currently eating from their respective small packets of potato chips that they swiped from a shelf about half an hour ago, and had now experienced a momentary lull in their conversation.
Maeve cleared her throat as she spoke up, breaking the comfortable silence as she caught Jess' attention. "So, now that we've exhausted all possible conversation topics within the categories of movies, books, and music-"
"I am not listening to Hole, by the way, no matter how many mixtapes you put them on." Jess critically cut her off mid-sentence with raised eyebrows, pointing at her as he popped another chip in his mouth.
"We can now move on to newer, and possibly more mature, topics." Sending Jess a pointed look as she finished her previous sentence, Maeve chose to disregard his words, internally planning on adding more Hole songs on the next mixtape she'd give to him, just to piss him off.
"Got any ideas, Lydia Deetz?" Jess inquired, eyebrows quirking upwards in anticipation of her answer.
"I was hoping you'd come up with something witty, Vincent Vega." Maeve quipped, observing how Jess' eyebrows slightly furrowed in thought.
A moment went by, and Jess finally thought of a conversation topic. "Why do you lean into the whole, 'picture perfect townie' thing?"
Maeve's eyebrows raised in unexpected surprise at the words. "That wasn't even kind of close to the 'witty' I was thinking, but I guess we're already fast-forwarding to the trauma, cool."
Jess wasn't amused by her attempted joke, and he remained stoic as he tried again. "I'm serious, what's with your whole Sandra Dee persona?"
"Wow, you've read and-or watched 'Gidget', Moondoggie?" Maeve's face filled with surprise as she popped another chip in her mouth, trying to veer the subject off-course to avoid talking about it. "Or were you just referring to one of my favourite movies of all time, the infamous 1978 classic that is 'Grease'?"
"Okay, we're circling back to that later, but Frederick Kohner was one of my mom's guilty pleasures, and she tried to ingrain me into his weird novels and mediocre screenplays before I was old enough to walk out the door and tell her no." Jess shrugged, not missing the fact that this was clearly a sore subject for Maeve.
Maeve's head slightly tilted to the side as she playfully taunted. "Wait a second, you're telling me that you didn't think of Stockard Channing's 'Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee' first, Kenickie?"
"Can't say I did, Rizzo, now answer the question." Jess gestured to the girl in front of him with a nod of his head.
Maeve just inhaled and exhaled a deep breath, reluctantly placing the chip packet down and hesitantly answering the question. "Fine. But I'm only telling you this because I know that if I don't, you won't let it go. Ever since I was old enough to go to school and figure out what I was interested in, everyone just formed this odd, utopian idea of me. It was kind of overwhelming at the start, so, I don't know, I leaned into it, I guess. It eventually stuck, and it's just easier than rebelling and trying to change the collective town's minds."
"So, the rest of them have no idea about blink-182?" Jess furrowed his eyebrows.
"Well, they definitely know about blink-182, they just don't know that I listen to them on a regular basis." Maeve just shrugged as she averted her eyes from his.
Another momentary silence passed between the pair, and Jess decided not to drop the topic, firmly against Maeve's unspoken wishes. "Why do you care so much?"
Maeve's eyebrows raised as her eyes flickered back to meet Jess'. "Excuse me?"
Jess gestured to the girl with a nod once more, eating another chip after he spoke. "Why do you care so much about what they think?"
Maeve defensively scoffed, stuttering out a forced reply as she avoided any eye contact with Jess. "I- I don't care."
Jess' eyebrows raised, unconvinced, as he continued to observe her conflicted expression. "Seems like you do if you're going out of your way to convince everyone you're someone else on a daily basis."
Maeve deeply frowned at the boy in offence, shaking her head in pure refusal. "It's not that I'm acting like I'm someone else, it's still me, just with the exception of an obsession with a few rock bands and way too many movies that nobody else, necessarily, has to know about."
Jess shrugged. "I think that's stupid."
"Your opinion's been duly noted." Maeve deadpanned, glaring at him.
Jess momentarily looked away in brief annoyance as he fought the intense urge to roll his eyes at her, before refocusing his attention on the girl in front of him. "I just mean, all of that effort isn't worth it. I know you, I know all your weird quirks, all the awful music, weird books, and cheesy movies you freak out over, and it's not that extraordinary. Would people actually care if you smoked in the gazebo once a month?"
Maeve's eyebrows bewilderingly raised, and she released a huff that resembled an amused chuckle. "Are you kidding? Where do you think you are, Jess? If anyone in this town even catches a whiff of cigarette smoke coming from my general vicinity, they'd send me to the nearest psych ward immediately. 'She must've let all of that academic stress get to her', they'd say. 'Oh, the poor girl, Tim's absence really scrambled her brain, she has to be admitted, this instant!', would be the first comment under the 'Maeve Davis: A Perfect Girl, Gone Wrong' article in the Stars Hollow Gazette."
"Your dad?" Jess didn't know what to say to the majority of her mini-rant, and he opted to simply question her on the final part.
"My deadbeat dad, that you had the pleasure of meeting the other night," Maeve's lips were now graced with a tight-lipped smile, the gesture not meeting her, now hardened, tone, as she waved her hand dismissively. "Left when I was ten, deserted me to live with my grandma—which was the best decision he's ever made, by the way—, and doesn't even bother to call regularly, blah blah blah."
"Better than not knowing him at all." Jess simply shrugged as he glanced down at his bag of potato chips.
Maeve stopped, raising her eyebrows slowly as she just stared at the boy. "I'm sorry, is this the trauma olympics?"
"Fine, I'll drop it." Jess shot her an exasperated glare, essentially reading her mind and choosing to move on.
His tone shifted into a faux-peppy one as he straightened his posture for added effect. "So, what is your favourite season? Mine has to be winter."
"Ha ha, you're a real comedian," Maeve sent him a blank look, no emotion behind her words. "And spring."
Noticing that Jess was done with his packet of potato chips, Maeve flickered her eyes back up to his face, raising her eyebrows as she held out her half-full packet and gestured to him.
Jess shrugged in acceptance, taking the packet and beginning to eat from it, slightly furrowing his eyebrows as he suddenly thought of another conversation topic. "Where's your boyfriend?"
"I really don't want to repeat myself, but what?" Maeve blinked, a little blindsided by his suddenly invasive questions.
"I'm just saying, you should be doing this stuff with him." Jess' eyes flickered back down to the packet of potato chips in his hands, and there was a very faint—in fact, incredibly distant, would be the words Maeve would use—, undertone of resentment.
For whom, Maeve had no clue.
"Breaking into Doose's with Flynn? Once again, where do you think you are, Jess? Gotham City?" Maeve scoffed, taking his words literally and crossing her arms over her chest as she was starting to get a little defensive over her own life, quickly coming to the conclusion that the previously jokey tone of their conversation was now rapidly shifting into one of some emotion that Maeve couldn't put her finger on.
"Not this specifically, but other stuff." Jess released an impatient breath, getting quite irritated by her lack of understanding of his words, or the meaning behind them.
Maeve furrowed her eyebrows, confusion overtaking her entire expression. "What do you mean?"
"Do you do anything other than laugh at each other's mediocre jokes in the diner?" Jess curtly elaborated, a faint and underlying sense of urgency tinging his tone that Maeve didn't pick up on. "Do you talk about anything else, besides the assigned class work for the day?"
When the girl just opened her mouth to defend her relationship, Jess raised his eyebrows, almost in a mocking way, waiting for her answer as he did so, but when he noticed Maeve wordlessly close her mouth and slightly slump further back against the aisle, he continued in a slightly provoking tone. "Can't think of anything? Or are you just someone else with him too?"
With that, Maeve just stood up, beelining towards the market's doors in a frustrated huff. She couldn't believe his audacity, and while she, on the surface, firmly disagreed with him and believed otherwise, she was simultaneously trying not to think about, or even consider, the fact that he might have been right.
Jess blew out a breath at her actions, regret for starting the whole debate in the first place rooting in his chest as he just watched her leave.
Before Maeve could reach the exit, she stopped, very briefly, to fish out the bobby pin from her pocket and slam it on the counter, wordlessly signifying for Jess to lock the door back up with it on his way out.
Not sending, even a fleeting, glance Jess' way, Maeve just swung open the market's door and made her way outside, crossing her arms over her chest tightly and beginning to hurriedly walk back in the direction of her house and consequently leaving Jess alone.
Jess just stood up, shoving the, now empty, packets of potato chips in his pocket as he began to make his way to the exit, but stopping once he remembered one key motivating factor for this entire market endeavour.
Heading towards the tomato stands, Jess picked up a ripe tomato, shoving it in his unoccupied pocket as he made his way back to the market door, grabbing the bobby pin, swinging the door open, locking it back up with Maeve's bobby pin, and internally questioning his own actions.
In any usual circumstance, Jess would never be this cautious, let alone pick up his own discarded litter from the actual action of breaking into the building in question, yet for some reason, he felt compelled to follow Maeve's orders.
•
The next day, Maeve had walked into work hand-in-hand with Flynn, and had been circling around to stop and talk to him after every customer she served.
Jess, on the other hand, was evidently fed up—well, Maeve interpreted the fact.
They hadn't had a chance to talk all day, and it was clear that Jess was getting increasingly frustrated with every failed conversation attempt, to which Maeve would just ignore him and move to talk to Flynn.
"Maeve," Jess started as he followed her into the back room and closed the door behind him.
It wasn't the most convenient location, nor would Jess care about having this conversation in public, however he simultaneously remembered that he put the tomato in the fridge in the back room the previous night—Luke would question him if he put it in the apartment fridge, and it was a rare sight to see Jess walking into the kitchen for anything other than stealing food, so the back room seemed like the best bet.
"What are you doing?" Maeve furrowed her eyebrows as she whipped around to face him.
Jess didn't even need to ease into the conversation as he knew that Maeve was well-aware of why he ambushed her. "I get it, you and your boyfriend talk about other stuff, you've made your point."
Maeve crossed her arms over her chest defensively as her eyebrows furrowed deeper, and her eyes flickered away from the boy.
Jess blew out an exasperated breath as he walked towards the fridge in the back room, opened it, pulled out a tomato, and closed the fridge door before he made his way back over to Maeve.
"Here's your stupid tomato." Jess just extended his hand out for her to take the tomato, only eliciting surprise from Maeve.
She didn't expect him to actually steal a tomato—she probably should've, considering his reputation, however this particular instance was entirely shocking for her.
Maeve, still paralysed with disbelief, slowly reached out to take the tomato, and her eyebrows lifted as she flickered her eyes back up to meet Jess'.
Forcing herself to actually utter out a response, Maeve smoothly plastered on her usually sarcastic exterior around him and fired one back. "I hope you know that I'm giving this to Caesar."
Jess just shrugged, and Maeve knew that he knew that she had gotten over her minor frustration with him. "Whatever."
Jess waited until Maeve had walked past him and left the room before a small smirk tugged on the corners of his lips, and he followed after her.
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