Melody Powers and the Crystal Boutique
Disclaimer: Daria and associated characters are owned by MTV and Viacom. This is fan fiction written for entertainment only. No money or other negotiable currency or goods have been exchanged.
This is the one shot of which the original version of chapter 04 of my story To Annoy a Mockingbird came from.
** I ** II ** III ** IV **
It had taken Melody Powers, Defense Lawyer and occasional lawbreaker more than half an hour to reach to roof of the mall, and another hour of timing the suspiciously well trained rent-a-cops to find a hole big enough on their patrols to sneak inside the Grassfield Mall. The easy part was over.
To see Daria on a public setting was a weird occurrence by itself, the fact that it was a school related activity make it even weirder, but what make such an appearance a truly bizarre even worthy of an special episode of Sick, Sad World was the sight of the small writer standing on the stage. On her hand was her latest story, a legal thriller, just without the legal part, and with mindless violence thrown in for fun, perfect for teens with a short attention span.
As Melody played with her set of lock picks, she reassured herself on the importance of her self-appointed mission, how would she exonerate John Grissham from the murder, if no one dared to investigate Velle and her chain of thrift stores 'Crystal Boutiques'. At last, with a final click the door to the office of the store was opened.
To Daria's mind the worst part of being here was that in a very indirect manner her suffering and the suffering of many other students of LHS was her fault. When discussing the theft that had forced the closure of .com, the school sponsored cybercafé, she had made one of her patented cynical commentaries, using a tone of voice that would left pretty clear her lack of interest in the matter to a five year old, the problem was that she forgot that O'Neill had been emotionally left behind well before the terrible three.
It was weird, while she was sure this was Velle's office there was something wrong in there, the documentation in the desk was too bland, too unsubstantial for the supposed volume of work, this was not the office of the CEO who controlled over 50 stores in the U.S. alone… this was a front. But a front for what?
Instead of taking her remark as an obvious form of sarcasm O'Neill had taken them as a suggestion to go back to the roots of civilization when humans were forced to tolerate each other and talk between themselves until one of them snapped and killed the rest with a rock. This had to evolve on his little mind as a project to reopen the place as a traditional coffeehouse, one with live entertainment.
After her failure on Velle's office Melody decided to try looking on some of her lackeys' offices, with luck there could be at least a clue of what was goi… what was that? The noise came from the store proper, but at this hour there shouldn't be anyone there. Carefully Powers went to the door that connected the administrative section with the store and crossed over.
Under pressure by her mother to get some additional extracurricular activities Daria chose to support the coffeehouse by the noble act of selling chocolates, and her hard won self-respect, door-to-door. And because misery just love company she had managed to convince Jane to join in with the promise of an additional credit in English and the chance of looking for some freaks to add to their photographic and anecdotal collection. Be careful what you wish for…
Inside the store four young girls that Melody recognized as the Runway models that she met on last week's Crystal Boutique Fashion Parade, but they were quite different from the catty airheads that would criticize her clothing and didn't now what a textbook was for. Now they were pushing a heavy cart full of clothes, with no concern for their appearance and a thousand-yard stare. The single most frightening thing however was the absolute silence in sharp contrast from the rumor mongering and idiotic little giggles that followed them everywhere, even the bathroom.
It was on the very first house of their selling route where they found Mrs. Johanssen, a woman of not so sunny disposition who looked as a close relative of the whales. When told the word chocolate she was as captive an audience can be, offering to buy their entire stock plus whatever other candies they could get their hands on. At time point the voracious woman began to copiously sweat, while her pupils dilated and a slight shake of her body became noticeable. Under further interrogation she confessed her Hypoglycemia as well as the strict orders of her doctor to avoid sugar and eating in excess.
The clique went forward on their duty, collecting certain clothes from the racks without any apparent reason, a sock from here, some loafers from there, all while Powers closely followed them, hiding behind those same racks, trying to find a clue of what the hell they were doing, until they suddenly changed their pattern and when directly to the dressers in the Junior Ten's section. It was then when by accident Melody finally made a noise.
At that point it became obvious to the girls that they had the moral obligation to deny her offer, no matter how much more she was willing to pay for the chocolate bars; in fact her anger was such than during a fit worthy of a three year old she suffered a mild seizure. After confirming she was alive and breathing well enough that there would be no need for mouth-to mouth ventilation, which was a relief since neither girl had a lot of practice on First Aid and they had even less interest in kissing a complete stranger, they went inside the house and dialed 911, while Jane took care of the woman while taking snapshots of her prone body. They would later learn from the EMTs that as far as they were concerned the visit to Mrs. Johanssen was a weekly business.
When the models heard the sound of the fall of the precariously balanced mannequin, Melody was hiding behind one of the displays near by, when one of the zombies peeled herself from the rest she forced herself not to breathe and take cover to avoid discovery. It was only after she was sure than her enemy had lost the interest that she finally raised her head, just to discover that the models and their cart were gone without a trace…
On the next day less than five minutes had passed from their arrival to the school when Jane and Daria were called from the economics class to Principal Li's office, which was curious since they still had the rest of the week to gather the rest of the money for the coffeehouse and to their knowledge they hadn't being caught doing anything wrong yet. The reason that Li had to recall them was unexpected, it seemed that Mrs. Johanssen was determined to be as much a pain in the ass as possible, she had being released from the hospital and had immediately called the school to complain about the nasty green jacketed girl and the black haired buffoon. Li then expressed her lack of understanding of the value of human life and her perfect understanding of the value of chocolate bars, complaining about not only for bothering a client who had cooperated to support LHS in the past, but even worse for refusing the increased payment and denying the needed revenue. Daria's answer was that she had been a Good Samaritan.
This was impossible; there was no way they could have disappeared in the short moments she was too busy hiding, the exits were to far away and the cart itself was too big to cover anywhere. Calming herself she then went to the last place she saw them and started looking out for clues. Luckily the wheels of the cart had left a faint trace she could follow, although it ended on the death end that was the "Fitting Room Eight".
Daria then explained the State's 'Good Samaritan Laws' and how they protect from fear of being sued or prosecuted those who choose to tend to others who are injured, ill, in peril, or otherwise incapacitated; and how under those laws their decision to deny chocolates to a diabetic and instead to call for help was fully justified. Then before Li could counter the previous statement then Daria continued with her exposition of the 'Duty to Rescue' concept, which arises in a circumstance in which a party can be held liable for failing to come to the rescue of another party in peril. While neither of those laws directly applied on this particular circumstance, Li didn't know that, nor was she willing to put LHS on the spot under a negative light.
Fitting Room Eight was a reserved dressing room, used by the ugly and unpopular people so that they couldn't pollute the regular clients; they even had a plaque explaining that on the door, and it didn't make any sense, Crystal Boutique already reserved the entrance to their facilities to a few rich and famous, there wasn't any need for such an obvious dressing room.
However she was still hoping to get her pound of flesh from our lack of funds, for those reasons for the first time in a long time Daria was happy to find that Quinn had surpassed her in something. After all it is not a common occurrence that a student, no matter her grade, could sell Five Thousands Dollars worth of phone cards, therefore reaching all by herself the target figure needed to open O'Neill's little hippie dream. And letting both Jane and Daria without a fundraising activity to get the extra credit and the out-of-music-class card.
Examining the dressing room Powers immediately noticed that for being a place reserved for whatever outcasts they couldn't kept out, and she was so suing the place for discrimination as soon as she was out of here, was the biggest fitting room she had ever seen, dwarfing the rest by a wide, wide margin. Working on a hunch, she started softly knocking the walls, until one of them sounded different, less solid. It was then when she noticed that the hanger was out of place, a little too low and off-center to be comfortable; it could be another way to annoy the ugly people out of the establishment, but…
In order to keep their participation on the coffeehouse project, Daria and Jane had been forced to do something else top earn their credits. For Jane is was a boon, since she had been able to squeeze Li for the right to do the banners and décor of Café Lawndale to a cheaper cost; in addition of being able to use her artistic abilities and to make the official color of the place a beautiful Puke Green, she was going to kept the remaining supplies for her own art. On Daria's case things weren't as easy, since her artistic abilities were more in the realm of the written world and that would mean to read her stuff on stage since she couldn't get O'Neill to distribute photocopies of her work. And there was the fact that she lacked appropriate material for the opening, maybe if she wrote something new…
When she pressed the hanger the false wall opened itself, revealing a ramp going down on a more or less gentle slope, a faint sound of machinery being heard alongside a sensation of heat. Following the road she finally reached a steel door, and beyond it a scene out of the third world… It was a sweatshop, filled to the brim with rail thin girls working on the sewing machines or with huge scissors, piles of fabric and clothes all around them, Melody noted with disgust that the children were bond to the tables with a rope tied to their ankles, and that from time to time some of the older women inside would hit those who didn't work fast enough.
During the opening night both friends sat in one of the tables on Café Lawndale, Daria was waiting her turn with some well hidden nerves, nerves that weren't helped at all by some of Jane's commentaries about breaking a leg or an arm when the tomatoes finally came into play. After one of the stoners song some lines before destroying his own guitar on stage; Brittany and Kevin attempt to do Romeo and Juliet's balcony scene and some excellent lines of poetry courtesy of Andrea it was finally Daria's "Melody Powers and the Crystal Boutique" turn.
Melody hid behind one of the stacks of clothing, using her small camera to get as many snapshot s as possible of the illegal factory, this had officially become bigger than her, bigger than another corporation playing hardball with their suppliers, the knowledge that such a place existed under the Crystal Boutique would be enough to destroy Velle's imperium in a single stroke. It was then when she saw one of the doors open and carrying their loot from upstairs the Fashion Mafia… no it was wrong to call them that, they were victims as well, got the dresses out carefully laying on top of one of the tables the clothes, and then cutting them open to subtract small pouches filled with a white powder.
To the shock of the people inside Café Lawndale Daria was for the first time in their collective memory putting some emotion to her voice other than annoyance or sarcasm; she had learned long ago from both her mother and a plethora of movies that the clue of success on the court was to convey the right amount of emotion on the correct moment, and that was exactly what she was aiming for with this hastily written piece of fiction, adapted from a much more detailed novella on the works.
Drugs, now it all made sense, the Crystal Boutique was used as a front to get high quality heroin to the high society of Grassfield, they used selected clothes to hide the cargo and restricted the clientele to limit the number of people that could discover them. Then they used illegal and desperate girls to do both be couriers and do the heavy lifting, getting the most beautiful ones to work as models while virtually brainwashing them and then keeping them high between parties. Now she needed to get out with the photos and call the coppers to deal with… There was a shadow moving behind her, she needed to…
The patrons of the coffeehouse were silent, high on adrenalin borrowed by Melody Powers, and as a man they all jumped when the buzz of the clock used to time and limit the performances sound off. Without missing a step Daria closed her notebook and thanked the audience for their attention before getting down the stage. It was a few seconds later than people started complaining wishing to know what happened to the lawyer. Daria, who much to her surprise, had enjoyed being the center of attention for once decided to invite them the next week for the second part, therefore committing herself to the Café Lawndale for the foreseeable future. After that Kevin decided to start a mob to burn down the Crystal Boutique, something that was going to be quite hard as they didn't exist.
It was the next morning, reading the newspapers with her father, when Daria realized that maybe Kevin and his band of misfits were both more stupid and more determined than she ever gave them credit for. On the front page there was a photo of Cashman's and J.J. Jeeters, graffiti on the walls, broken shards of glass and strips of fabric everywhere. Luckily enough no one had been arrested and therefore no one would be able to officially connect the vandalism with her piece of pop literature. On a brighter note, buried in the cultural section there was a small article detailing the success of the Café Lawndale and the work of the students, alongside an interview with Timothy O'Neill who was probably crying tears of pride right now. To tell Quinn about how her cooperation had helped her to be part of the coffeehouse was on the other hand a bittersweet memory, in one hand she hated to acknowledge the occasional usefulness of her baby sister, on the other hand her screams of terror when she told her of the fate of her favorite fashion spots were sweet music to her ears.
