Jess's Girl

Pure Imagination

Guitars strums.

Lucy looked up from her music book as she sat on the porch of her house. She set her pencil down as the morning breeze strolled past. How does this fit? She thought ; looking back down at her music sheet.

Piano.. It needs piano, she thought to herself. And violin orchestra.

She jot this down quickly and sighed softly when she realized it was just a jumble of different instruments. She growled before biting her and erasing furiously.

“Erase anymore and you’ll burn through the paper.” she heard a voice.

She looked up. Jess stood there; hands in his pockets, looking like he had been there a while. “What are you doing?” she couldn’t help but smile.

Jess was surprised to get a smile from her. He thought about this briefly before looking back at her, “Do you like music?”

“Yes?” she said unsure where this was going; seeing as she refused to answer her other question, “You?”

“I’m impartial to it.” he shrugged. “Why’d you ask then?” she asked. Jess shrugged again, “I always see you with that book. And your always wearing your earbuds.” he said. Lucy looked at him, “You’ve been watching me, Mr. Mariano?” she smirked.

“I can’t afford not to. It’s a small town. I’ve seen you a lot. I’ve seen Kirk and Babbette and the others a lot too. It’s just that uninteresting here.” he shrugged like it was no big deal. Lucy smiled, “You’ve been watching me.” she concluded. Jess rolled his eyes, “Sure.”

Lucy giggled and looked at Jess’s now annoyed posture. “Why do you do that anyway?” Jess looked around the place as he asked. “Do what?” she asked. “Listen to music all the time.” he said. She bit her lip hard and thought of a smart answer. Jess noticed her tug her long sleeves down past her hands. Why would she do that? Why was she wearing a sweater in almost 100 degree heat?

He looked at her and cocked his head to the side in thought and bit his lip. Lucy finally answered, “I think in pictures.” she spoke, “And the most when I listen to music. The instruments tell a story, and the beats are the footsteps in it. There’s a lot of story in a song. Sometimes it’s easy to find, sometimes it takes a few times of listening to figure it out. I think that’s better than, reading a book.” she finally looked up at him; her confidence in the topic lessening after seeing his skeptical look. “Escapism at it’s finest..” she finished

.

Jess scoffed, “A book is way better. No one wants to listen to a broken hearted hippie on guitar.” he said tastelessly. She chuckled accepting the challenge, “And you’d rather read the scratchings of a mentally unstable alcoholic?” she looked at him.

Jess looked back at her and smirked, “Touche.” he gave a nod; thinking, “William Faulkner?” he guessed.

She nodded slightly, “Or, Truman Capote...James Joyce...Charles Bukowsky...Ernest Hemingway..?” she listed only proving her point.

“Hemingway is a god.” Jess corrected her.

“..Edgar Allan Poe..” she continued. Jess chuckled, “You can stop there I get it.” he said, “Besides, I don’t take to kindly to Poe.” he said.

“No?”

“I hate poetry.” he said.

She nodded softly, “Well. I find some of his best works are like lyrics to a song.” she gave her hoenst opinion.

“Such as?”

“A dream within a dream.” she said.

Jess nodded the silence taking a turn in the moment before he spoke up, “Then would you mind enlightening me,” he said as he went to sit down beside her on the porch, “of this escapism, you speak of?”

Lucy smiled, “Why? Are you trying to escape something?” she asked.

“How could you tell.”

Lucy giggled before looking down at her hands. She took out one of her earbuds and gave it to him. Jess looked at it before taking it and placing it in his ear closest to her. He leaned in closer to her so the bud didn’t fall out. She turned pink at how close he had gotten. Lucy then quickly took out her phone and played her favorite movie score.

“There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there you’ll be free, if you truly wish to be..”

Jess rolled his eyes, “Willy Wonka?”

“Sh.” she told him as Gene Wilder kept singing. Lucy smiled and listened as the xylophone played those four municipal notes. She sat back and leaned her head to the side in thought. Jess looked at her and how much calmer she seemed listening to this song.

“You like this song a lot.” he observed aloud.

Lucy nodded, “It’s my childhood.” she chuckled, “I would go over to Ms. Gilmore’s house whenever dad...” she stopped herself short. “I never had a tv or any movies. And she introduced me to Gene Wilders. After that, I would find every opportunity as a kid to watch it.” she smiled fondly to herself, “That movie was my childhood.”

Jess noticed her self correction just a moment before. Another curious moment he found. “Well.” he listened to the music. “I think that Gene Wilder's as a solo artist was very underrated.” he looked at her with a smirk. Lucy looked back at him with a similar smile, “Puttin’ On the Ritz, Pure Imagination? How can you not fall in love with him.”

“Well for one, I don’t swing that way.” he joked. He received a punch in the arm from her. He chuckled, taking the earbud out and standing; resuming his hands in his pockets, “Well.” he said shortly, “You’re very intellectual in music, but how intellectual are you in books?”

“Not very compared to you, I’m assuming.” she smiled. Jess nodded, “Probably not,” he said, “There’s only one way to fix that.”

“What?” she asked him to tell. He shrugged cooly, “You’ll just have to swing by the diner sometime for a little talk.”

“A book club?” she raised a brow.

“Something like that.” he spoke with a fake innocence before walking away. She watched him walk off, him and his stature. She bit her lip hard before getting up and going back inside her house.

“Who was at the door, LuLu?” she heard her grandpa’s voice. Lucy set her music book down and her phone before fetching him some water, “Just a boy.”

“A boy? You talked to a boy?”

“Yes, they’re half of the population, imagine that Grandpa.” she said before heading to his chair in the living room where he often inhabit. She handed him the glass of water and as his shaky fingers took it she sat beside him. “Have you had a good day today, LuLu?” he asked in his toad like voice.

Lucy gave a small smile, “I’d like to go to school PaPa.” she said; starting the conversation up for the umpteenth time in her life. Her grandpa sighed and stood up. He shook his head, “Lucy, you know I would. But since you refuse to go to therapy, there’s no way we can tell your better enough to go.”

“I haven’t had an episode in a while, gramps.” she insisted. He shook his head again in complete denial. “And besides, we can’t afford a therapist. It’s not worth it to put a mortgage into some stranger to listen to my problems.”

“But they’re problems you have to address Lucy.” he said and looked at her. “If you’re ready to go to school, we’ll try it. But if it doesn’t work, the minute it doesn’t work, you’re going to therapy.” he said. “Deal?”

“Deal.” she nodded.