11/11/01 I'm currently working on Part 3 of BLOOD OATH OF PATRIOTS,
but this story popped into my head and wanted out. So I'm going to
post it here in parts, and ask you all to be my beta readers. I'm
particularly interested in whether I got the characters and their
family interrelationships right. The rest of the story will be along
very quickly, I promise. Oh, and I'm posting this in MS Word format,
to see how it works. -GH
p.s.- Do you think the title should be CHICK of the BURNING SANDS, or the way I have it? It is, of course, a play on SHIEK of the BURNING SANDS.
1 THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
1.1 PART IV
1.1.1.1 CHIC of the BURNING SANDS
by
2 GALEN HARDESTY
Daria put down her beach bag and small boom box and looked around. Quinn had had a point. The beach was a very simple environment. Sun, sand, sea, people walking around in few clothes. One could put one's brain on standby here, if not turn it off altogether. She opened the rented green-and-white beach umbrella, jabbed its metal tip into the sand next to a white-painted wooden beach lounge chair. It stood tall and proud for three seconds, then toppled over. Daria sighed. Maybe Dad could do it when he finiished checking them in.
Quinn said, "Gosh, Daria, I really wish you'd gotten that other bikini you tried on. You looked so good in that one!"
Daria thought, "I knew you couldn't keep quiet about that bikini!"
Helen looked at Daria. "Really? Why didn't you get it?"
"She thought it was too skimpy. It wasn't, really. It was so perfect for her!"
Sensing that her moment was approaching, Daria began building up her nerve. "You can do this. This is normal beachwear for this decadent age. You are not naked. You do look damn good in it." she told herself.
"Daria, you really should try to overcome your shyness and be a little more outgoing. This is exactly why I wanted you to let Quinn help you pick out a suit. In fact, I believe some money changed hands in aid of that..."
"Well, actually, I did get that bikini." Daria turned her back to Helen and Quinn and carefully placed her camera on the arm of a beach lounge chair. She quietly unbuttoned the five large sky-blue buttons on the printed white beach coverup she was wearing, but didn't open it.
"Oh! That's wonderful, dear. Why don't you go up and put it on?"
Whipping off the coverup in a smooth, quick move, she said, "Got it right here."
Helen's eyes and mouth opened wide, and Daria snatched her camera and preserved the moment for posterity. Then she spun and shot Quinn too. Daria wondered what most held her mother's attention, the tiny (Daria thought) blue-green bikini, the fact that she actually had something resembling a figure, or Jane's body art.
Jane had offered to do it in an attempt to cheer Daria up a little. Daria had seen the parent-freaking potential and had in fact cheered up. Their discussion of the possibilities, accompanied by evil chuckling, had helped decide Daria to go for the skimpy string bikini when she saw it, and had served as a catalyst for much of Daria's tactical planning. Loosen up. Don't be shy. Be more attractive. Helen was always telling her that. Well, Daria would do it, she'd decided, and see if Helen really meant it.
There was nothing inherently sexy about Jane's artwork. Around one upper arm she had done a stylized morning glory vine, the kind with lavender flowers, and around the other, a multicolored Celtic border motif. On her right shoulder was a floral design done in Art Nouveau style. She'd done a multicolored cockatooish bird on Daria's back, in such a way that it looked like it was perched on her halter string. Daria thought it looked like it was thinking about untying the knot.
On Daria's stomach Jane had done a clump of flowers, starting with a large one with her navel as its center. A butterfly hovered above them, just below her bikini top, and a bug-eyed cutesy little spider clung to one of the stems. The first thing the viewer noticed about them was that they seemed to be growing out of her bikini bottom.
Several shops along the strip advertised body art, but Daria was willing to bet she couldn't get anything near this good for less than a hundred. Jane had had plenty of ideas for her legs and lower arms, but Daria had vetoed them to preserve the element of surprise. And, she saw now, Quinn and Helen were definitely surprised.
Several thuds and exclamations in male voices caused Daria to turn around. She snapped an offhand shot of a colorful heap a short distance away. The heap separated itself into three young men, earnestly discussing which of them was the clumsiest. Gathering her courage, she set her camera down and went over to offer assistance. Lifting up on the forearm of one as he extricated himself, she asked "Are you all right?"
"I'll live- no thanks to Nutso and Klutzo there. Hi! I'm Harry." His arms were hairier than average.
"That's 'way too easy. I'm Daria."
They were all looking at her, but trying not to ogle. Daria thought she could stand it. "It gets worse. This is Tom, and that's Dick." They exchanged smiles all round.
"Surely you jest."
"I wish. And don't call me Shirley. Sorry. We were uh.." Harry looked down at three dented soft drink cups and a big damp spot on the sand. "just going to get something to drink. Can I buy you a soda?"
Daria estimated these young men to be two or three years her senior, probably college students. The one called Dick was wearing an Auburn t- shirt, sporting a big fierce tiger. Their age would increase Helen's harelip index, the fact that they were cute would torque Quinn's jaw, and if they were in college there was a good chance they had three-digit IQs, and could speak in complete sentences. She wasn't likely to do better any time soon. And, like Quinn had said, she could always throw them back. Engage Beach Bunny mode.
"I'd like that. But before we go, do you guys do beefcake? I'd like to get a couple of photos to torture my friends with."
"Do we do beefcake?!" grinned Tom, "We AM beefcake!" He and Dick each offered Daria a bulgy bicep to hang onto, and Harry did a low crouching pose in front.
Daria adopted the appropriate curvy, hip out, one knee slightly bent pose in the center."Mom, would you get my camera there, and do the honors? Mom?"
Helen blinked twice, picked up Daria's camera, and took the shot.
"How about the classic "Girl-overhead-on-surfboard" shot?" suggested Harry. "Just pose like you're lying on your side on a surfboard. Right hand on the side of your head, elbow up..."
"Like this?"
"Perfect! Now lean to your right and stiffen up..." Harry took a grip on Daria's upper left arm, put his other hand below her right armpit. Tom placed his hands above and below her right hip, and Dick lifted her legs. In a second they had hoisted her above head height.
"Eeek! Take the picture! Take the picture!" squeaked Daria. "One more! Now let me down eeeeasy!" They set her down lightly as a feather. Quinn didn't actually turn green with envy, but she did look like she'd just had all her pink baby tees stolen.
Daria came forward and took her camera from Helen, stuck it in her little drawstring purse, and grabbed her towel. Helen held out a hand. "Daria, that bikini..."
"Is the one Quinn picked out for me, as per your instructions. The one I thought was too skimpy."
"And what are you going to do now?"
"Just what you told me to a minute ago. Try to overcome my shyness and be a little more outgoing." She turned and walked back toward Harry, Dick, and Tom. "Okay, guys, I'm ready to outgo!"
Helen and Quinn stood watching the four walk away until something flew into Helen's mouth, breaking the spell. Quinn grinned at her mother coughing and spitting for a second, then yelped "swimsuit!", turned, and sprinted for the hotel entrance.
Quinn blasted into the hotel room just as the bellhop was leaving, clawed open the smaller of her suitcases, and began digging frantically for her swimsuit. "Uuhhh! A fine time she picks to start taking my advice! I never thought she'd have the nerve! That's not a swimsuit, it's a freakin' phaser! Freakin' stuns every male within fifty feet and she just freakin'walks up and grabs the cutest ones! I can't compete with her in that thing! Oh, crap, did I just say that? Aarrgh!"
Jake, somewhat startled by her energetic entrance, said "Hey, kitten! Where's Daria?"
"She just ran off with half the guys on the beach! The cute half! She's ruining my life again!"
"Gaah! My baby!" Jake ran out. Quinn was half undressed before she noticed that the door was standing open.
As she approached the hotel, Daria spotted Helen lounging in a beach chair. She seemed to be conversing with a woman in the next beach chair. The closer Daria got, the more there seemed to be something familiar about this other woman. Now she was close enough to make out the woman's features in the shadow cast by her floppy beach hat. It was Rita. "Oh. O-O-oh. Comes the dawn!"
For an instant, Helen looked like she'd been caught logged on to a porn site, but quickly recovered. "Daria! Look who I just ran into! Can you believe Rita and Erin are staying at the same hotel we are?" Her look dripped with pleading.
Daria waved and smiled at Rita. "Hi, aunt Rita. It's a small world after all, eh? How long have you been here?" Helen's expression relaxed slightly.
"Just a couple of hours. We must have gotten in almost the same time as you guys."
"What an amazing coincidence!" Daria shot Helen a look that could scrape barnacles at forty fathoms, reclined in a chair on the other side of Rita.
"Really? I thought Mother might have mentioned to Helen that we were going to be here."
"Mom didn't say anything to me about it. How have you been?"
"Oh, fine, fine! You look great in that bikini, Daria! And I know Erin's going to want to know where you got the body art!"
"My friend Jane did it last night, sort of as a consolation gift for me missing the museum trip we had planned. If she came down here for the summer, she could make a fortune."
"She certainly could. Helen was telling me you left with three young men earlier, and Quinn met someone shortly thereafter."
"Yes, they'll be back around shortly. Oh, hi, Quinn. I hear you met a young gentleman."
Quinn stalked up, a disgusted look on her face. She was wearing a rather demure two-piece green checked swimsuit with matching headband/scarf, the top of which came up almost to her neck in front, and casting envious glances at Daria's bikini. "I thought so at first, but he turned out to be a young octopus! What about your three guys, Daria? Did you have to ditch them too?" She seemed to be hoping that was the case.
"No, they're very nice. They're engineering and physics majors, down from Auburn for the day. I came back to get some sunblock. They all offered to slather me up, of course, but they didn't have SPF 45." Daria reached over and drew her beach bag closer, extracted a white squeeze bottle from it, and began applying sunblock to her shoulders.
"So, what did you find to talk to physics majors about?"
"Physics, mostly. You know, Brownian movement, thrust vectors, the three body problem, wormholes, the Big Bang. Stuff like that." Daria smiled slightly at Quinn's facial expression, which indicated misconceptions as to the nature of some of these topics. "Tell me, Aunt Rita, did your parents equate family bonding with long, arduous journeys, or did Mom get that somewhere else?"
"Well, as I recall, Dad would usually grab me and sit me on his lap and grill me. If that didn't work, he'd resort to tickling. Mom's favored technique involved baking brownies or gingerbread. Maybe Helen's having flashbacks to her hippie days in that old VW microbus with Jake, Coyote, and Willow."
Daria looked over Rita at Helen, whose face was turning red. "As soon as we hit Lawndale, we're getting you a case of brownie mix." Behind Helen she happened to notice Jake emerging from the hotel, clad in plaid swim trunks, unbuttoned hawaiian shirt, and straw hat, holding some beverage with a little umbrella in it. She quickly finished applying sunblock, put the bottle away, and donned her sun hat.
Daria wished her dad's first look at her in this bikini could have been somewhere a bit more private, like for instance a stretch of howling wilderness, with him on one side of an impassable gorge, and her on the other. She lay back, crossed her ankles, and covered her face with the hat.
Jake walked up to Helen. "Hi, honey. I'm feeling better now. Sorry I got excited. Uh, has, uh, Daria come back yet? Oh, we have company! Pleased to meet you, Ms. uhh... GAAH!! RITA!! I mean, um, Hi, Rita, fancy meeting you here! How nice to see you!
"And it's always good to see you, Jake." Rita favored him with a lopsided smile. Helen favored him with a mild glare.
"And this lovely young lady must be Erin!" Jake ventured, attempting to regain lost ground. You look spectacular in that bikini, Erin! Uhh, are those tattoos?"
"Jake, that's not Erin." said Helen, giving Jake a very peculiar look.
Confused, and getting the distinct impression that Helen thought he should know this person, even with her face hidden, Jake ran through a list of possible identities for the mystery babe. It was a very short list, and none of the names held up. He decided to cut his losses and just ask. "Uhhh, do I know you, Miss?"
Daria sighed. "No, you don't." She moved the hat down to uncover her face, simultaneously covering most of her chest, though she doubted this would help much. "Hi, Dad."
"G- G- Daria! Y- y- you're w-... you've g- g- d- ... GAAH! Jake grabbed up a beach towel and was starting a lunge for Daria when he was stopped in his tracks by death glares from Helen, Daria, and Rita.
"Jake! Put that down! You're making a spectacle of yourself, and you're embarrassing Daria!" snapped Helen.
Jake stood trembling, eyes bulging, teeth clenched, paralyzed by indecision and cluelessness. Taking pity on him, Daria slipped on her beach coverup, walked to a spot of empty sand between the beach chairs and the hotel, and motioned to him to come over.
"Save it, Dad. It's 'way too late. You can't help me now."
"Huh? What are you talking about? What do you mean, running around almost naked? No daughter of mine..."
"Save it! You should have spoken up last Tuesday, when Mom and I were arguing about this, and you ran and hid in the garage! You left me alone, and she won, and now here I stand almost naked because that's what she wants. You don't think I'd not-quite-wear something like this by choice, do you?"
"I.. I wouldn't have thought so... but why?"
"It turns out Mom set this whole thing up after grandma Evelyn called and told her Rita would be here today."
"Aw, gee, that stinks! I'm sorry, kiddo! Uhh, what can I do to help?"
"Right now, nothing. Why don't you just avoid Mom and Rita and do what you'd do if you were here by yourself. I'm going to have lunch with some nice boys I met. Quinn will probably bag some guy pretty soon. You know what Mom and Rita will be doing. Have fun at the beach. If you can help me later, I'll let you know."
"Just one thing, Daria. Please tell me those aren't tattoos!"
Daria smiled up at her father. "They're not tattoos, Dad. Jane drew them on with marker pens. They'll be gone in three days." She turned and went back to her beach chair. Jake headed back to the hotel for another nerve tonic.
Daria spotted Erin returning from the water in a royal blue bikini. Her hair was done up, how Daria couldn't see under her sun hat, except for a couple of golden ringlets to frame her face. She looked really good, but pensive. Daria got the impression Erin would be more comfortable today on a more deserted stretch of beach, idly searching for pretty seashells. She wondered where Brian was, and recalled that she'd heard no mention of him.
Tom, Dick, and Harry walked up. Smiling, Daria made introductions. Helen's pleasant smile mismatched her eagle-eyed gaze. Quinn gushed, then caught herself. Erin showed a trace of amusement at this.
"Does this place we're going have a dress code?" asked Daria.
"The Claw is right on the beach, and anything that's okay on the beach is okay inside." Dick replied.
"The Claw?" inquired Helen.
"It's a seafood restaurant about a block that way." said Tom. They're known for their steamed crabs."
Daria checked to make sure Jake was out of sight, then removed her coverup and hung it on the back of her beach lounge chair. She pulled the sunblock out of her beach bag. "Could anyone put some of this on my back?"she inquired, and immediately had three volunteers.
Quinn watched them go, pining for her three J's. "Mom, can I borrow your card for a little bit? I need a new swimsuit."
"Quinn, that's ridiculous. That suit looks fine on you, and this is only the second time you've worn it. Now is the time to be enjoying the beach, not shopping."
"But Mo-omm! It's so frumpy! It makes me look like an old maid! It's ruining my life!"
"Quinn, you are not going to scour the strip looking for a bikini skimpier than Daria's! You're not ready yet. And I want to speak to you later about your judgement in recommending that suit for Daria. Anyway, it's time for lunch. Go find your father, and don't say anything to set him off again! I could kick your.."
As Quinn trudged off bewailing her ruined life, Rita remarked, "Daria seems very comfortable and self-assured around those college boys. Didn't you say she was a bit shy?"
Helen turned and looked at the retreating figure of her daughter, such of it as could be seen past her solicitous male companions. She blinked a few times and smiled an uncertain smile. "I guess I was wrong about that."
Daria stared out to sea. There was remarkably little of the sea to see, on a moonless night like tonight. The beachside lights of the hotels dimly illuminated the sand, and the lines of foam on the wavelets that softly caressed the shore, but the water was so calm tonight that there weren't any waves steeply angled enough to throw reflections back to her here on the beach. The horizon was indicated only by where the stars stopped, and by the tiny yellowish lights of a solitary distant vessel.
The night sea breeze gently caressed her cheek and toyed with her hair. The traffic noises on the strip were muted by the near solid wall of hotels and the lateness of the hour,so that the chuckle and murmur of the tiny wavelets could actually be heard over them. Occasionally a large fish would announce its presence in the black water not too far from shore. Blacker by far were Daria's thoughts, and much too painful for this gentle, peaceful night.
What the hell had Rita ever done to Helen so bad that Helen felt the need to use Daria as a club to beat her with? If Helen hated Rita that much, why didn't she just write her off, cut her out of her life? Or was something else involved? Or someone else? "Hell yes, there's someone else involved- me! How can I get uninvolved? Who do I have to kill?" The squeak of sand told Daria of the approach of a foolhardy person with poor timing.
"Daria?"
silence
"Daria?" said Helen again. "Are you all right?"
"No."
"Daria, if I'd told you Rita was going to be here, it would have been even more difficult to get you to come."
"Well, of course! It would have been blatantly obvious to everyone that the only reason you wanted me along was for ammo in your lifelong battle to one-up Rita. But you knew it, you knew it was wrong, and you went ahead and did it to me anyway. How could you?"
"Is it so wrong for me to be proud of my daughters? To want to show them off? To brag on them?"
"No. Is it so wrong for you to dragoon me, yet again, for cannon fodder in your sibling wars? To wreck my long-established plans and force me to serve your jealousy-based whim? I'm not some Tiffany lamp you scored at an auction, I'm a person!"
Only silence answered her, a silence Daria, at length, chose to break. "What I don't get is, why? Rita is a thoroughly beaten foe. You have a successful career, a successful marriage, two daughters, either of whom stacks up well against Erin. The only thing she has that you could possibly envy is her relationship with your mother, and that's only because you avoid her as much as possible."
Another, shorter silence ensued, this time broken by Helen. "Oh, Daria, you don't understand. Rita was always the pretty one, the perky one, the popular one. I cared about human rights, Rita cared about the right handbag. I cared about starving children, Rita starved herself to stay thin. Mother told me I was being silly, and told Rita how pretty she was. I got the good grades, but Rita got the attention and encouragement."
"I don't understand that?! Substitute the name Quinn for the name Rita, and it's the story of my life! I can't believe you even said that!" Receiving no reply,Daria continued. "Surely there was a time when a young Helen Barksdale swore a mighty oath that she'd never treat her children the way she'd been treated. So what happened?" Daria continued to gaze out over the black ocean as she waited for a reply, but she heard only some sniffs and other small sounds vaguely indicating that Helen was upset. At length she spoke again.
"It looks to me like your real problem is not with Rita, but with your mother. You feel she owes you. Everything that Rita got, that you felt you deserved, but didn't get, she still owes you. You're withholding your affection from her until she pays up. But she's lonely. When you rebuff her, she turns to Rita for that affection, at least partly to try to make you jealous. She gives Rita her affection and money, and makes sure you know it, hoping you'll show up for your share. But this makes you even more resentful, and drives you further away. I don't think grandma understands that."
Helen broke her silence. "Daria, that is so... so perceptive! So dead on the mark! How do you do that?"
Daria turned to face Helen, her eyes moist. "It's easy. It's so horribly easy. We're in the early scenes of that same play, right now. I play you. Quinn plays Rita. You're your mother. "Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it." Behold your future. Only I won't let myself be jerked around like that. I'll just cut you off cold." She turned and walked off down the dim narrow pathway of firm damp sand between land and sea, and gradually vanished into the night.
Helen stared unseeing into the darkness that had swallowed up her firstborn daughter, contemplating a future almost too bleak to contemplate. After several minutes, she turned and slowly began walking in the opposite direction along the line of farthest reach of the little wavelets.
Farther up the beach, at the line of small detritus that marked the day's high tide, a larger lump shifted restlessly. It hugged its knees tightly, its long carrot-orange hair stirring slightly with the sea breeze. Quinn's sad eyes followed Helen's receding form, then turned and vainly sought for Daria in the opposite direction. Finding nothing, they turned to the lights of the lone vessel far out at sea, creeping along the unseen horizon. "But I don't want to be Rita!" she moaned softly into the noncommittal night.
Coming soon!
THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
PART V
SHOWDOWN at the SEASIDE BAR AND GRILL
2.1 Disclaimer
"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)
Galen Hardesty [gehardesty@yahoo.com]
p.s.- Do you think the title should be CHICK of the BURNING SANDS, or the way I have it? It is, of course, a play on SHIEK of the BURNING SANDS.
1 THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
1.1 PART IV
1.1.1.1 CHIC of the BURNING SANDS
by
2 GALEN HARDESTY
Daria put down her beach bag and small boom box and looked around. Quinn had had a point. The beach was a very simple environment. Sun, sand, sea, people walking around in few clothes. One could put one's brain on standby here, if not turn it off altogether. She opened the rented green-and-white beach umbrella, jabbed its metal tip into the sand next to a white-painted wooden beach lounge chair. It stood tall and proud for three seconds, then toppled over. Daria sighed. Maybe Dad could do it when he finiished checking them in.
Quinn said, "Gosh, Daria, I really wish you'd gotten that other bikini you tried on. You looked so good in that one!"
Daria thought, "I knew you couldn't keep quiet about that bikini!"
Helen looked at Daria. "Really? Why didn't you get it?"
"She thought it was too skimpy. It wasn't, really. It was so perfect for her!"
Sensing that her moment was approaching, Daria began building up her nerve. "You can do this. This is normal beachwear for this decadent age. You are not naked. You do look damn good in it." she told herself.
"Daria, you really should try to overcome your shyness and be a little more outgoing. This is exactly why I wanted you to let Quinn help you pick out a suit. In fact, I believe some money changed hands in aid of that..."
"Well, actually, I did get that bikini." Daria turned her back to Helen and Quinn and carefully placed her camera on the arm of a beach lounge chair. She quietly unbuttoned the five large sky-blue buttons on the printed white beach coverup she was wearing, but didn't open it.
"Oh! That's wonderful, dear. Why don't you go up and put it on?"
Whipping off the coverup in a smooth, quick move, she said, "Got it right here."
Helen's eyes and mouth opened wide, and Daria snatched her camera and preserved the moment for posterity. Then she spun and shot Quinn too. Daria wondered what most held her mother's attention, the tiny (Daria thought) blue-green bikini, the fact that she actually had something resembling a figure, or Jane's body art.
Jane had offered to do it in an attempt to cheer Daria up a little. Daria had seen the parent-freaking potential and had in fact cheered up. Their discussion of the possibilities, accompanied by evil chuckling, had helped decide Daria to go for the skimpy string bikini when she saw it, and had served as a catalyst for much of Daria's tactical planning. Loosen up. Don't be shy. Be more attractive. Helen was always telling her that. Well, Daria would do it, she'd decided, and see if Helen really meant it.
There was nothing inherently sexy about Jane's artwork. Around one upper arm she had done a stylized morning glory vine, the kind with lavender flowers, and around the other, a multicolored Celtic border motif. On her right shoulder was a floral design done in Art Nouveau style. She'd done a multicolored cockatooish bird on Daria's back, in such a way that it looked like it was perched on her halter string. Daria thought it looked like it was thinking about untying the knot.
On Daria's stomach Jane had done a clump of flowers, starting with a large one with her navel as its center. A butterfly hovered above them, just below her bikini top, and a bug-eyed cutesy little spider clung to one of the stems. The first thing the viewer noticed about them was that they seemed to be growing out of her bikini bottom.
Several shops along the strip advertised body art, but Daria was willing to bet she couldn't get anything near this good for less than a hundred. Jane had had plenty of ideas for her legs and lower arms, but Daria had vetoed them to preserve the element of surprise. And, she saw now, Quinn and Helen were definitely surprised.
Several thuds and exclamations in male voices caused Daria to turn around. She snapped an offhand shot of a colorful heap a short distance away. The heap separated itself into three young men, earnestly discussing which of them was the clumsiest. Gathering her courage, she set her camera down and went over to offer assistance. Lifting up on the forearm of one as he extricated himself, she asked "Are you all right?"
"I'll live- no thanks to Nutso and Klutzo there. Hi! I'm Harry." His arms were hairier than average.
"That's 'way too easy. I'm Daria."
They were all looking at her, but trying not to ogle. Daria thought she could stand it. "It gets worse. This is Tom, and that's Dick." They exchanged smiles all round.
"Surely you jest."
"I wish. And don't call me Shirley. Sorry. We were uh.." Harry looked down at three dented soft drink cups and a big damp spot on the sand. "just going to get something to drink. Can I buy you a soda?"
Daria estimated these young men to be two or three years her senior, probably college students. The one called Dick was wearing an Auburn t- shirt, sporting a big fierce tiger. Their age would increase Helen's harelip index, the fact that they were cute would torque Quinn's jaw, and if they were in college there was a good chance they had three-digit IQs, and could speak in complete sentences. She wasn't likely to do better any time soon. And, like Quinn had said, she could always throw them back. Engage Beach Bunny mode.
"I'd like that. But before we go, do you guys do beefcake? I'd like to get a couple of photos to torture my friends with."
"Do we do beefcake?!" grinned Tom, "We AM beefcake!" He and Dick each offered Daria a bulgy bicep to hang onto, and Harry did a low crouching pose in front.
Daria adopted the appropriate curvy, hip out, one knee slightly bent pose in the center."Mom, would you get my camera there, and do the honors? Mom?"
Helen blinked twice, picked up Daria's camera, and took the shot.
"How about the classic "Girl-overhead-on-surfboard" shot?" suggested Harry. "Just pose like you're lying on your side on a surfboard. Right hand on the side of your head, elbow up..."
"Like this?"
"Perfect! Now lean to your right and stiffen up..." Harry took a grip on Daria's upper left arm, put his other hand below her right armpit. Tom placed his hands above and below her right hip, and Dick lifted her legs. In a second they had hoisted her above head height.
"Eeek! Take the picture! Take the picture!" squeaked Daria. "One more! Now let me down eeeeasy!" They set her down lightly as a feather. Quinn didn't actually turn green with envy, but she did look like she'd just had all her pink baby tees stolen.
Daria came forward and took her camera from Helen, stuck it in her little drawstring purse, and grabbed her towel. Helen held out a hand. "Daria, that bikini..."
"Is the one Quinn picked out for me, as per your instructions. The one I thought was too skimpy."
"And what are you going to do now?"
"Just what you told me to a minute ago. Try to overcome my shyness and be a little more outgoing." She turned and walked back toward Harry, Dick, and Tom. "Okay, guys, I'm ready to outgo!"
Helen and Quinn stood watching the four walk away until something flew into Helen's mouth, breaking the spell. Quinn grinned at her mother coughing and spitting for a second, then yelped "swimsuit!", turned, and sprinted for the hotel entrance.
Quinn blasted into the hotel room just as the bellhop was leaving, clawed open the smaller of her suitcases, and began digging frantically for her swimsuit. "Uuhhh! A fine time she picks to start taking my advice! I never thought she'd have the nerve! That's not a swimsuit, it's a freakin' phaser! Freakin' stuns every male within fifty feet and she just freakin'walks up and grabs the cutest ones! I can't compete with her in that thing! Oh, crap, did I just say that? Aarrgh!"
Jake, somewhat startled by her energetic entrance, said "Hey, kitten! Where's Daria?"
"She just ran off with half the guys on the beach! The cute half! She's ruining my life again!"
"Gaah! My baby!" Jake ran out. Quinn was half undressed before she noticed that the door was standing open.
As she approached the hotel, Daria spotted Helen lounging in a beach chair. She seemed to be conversing with a woman in the next beach chair. The closer Daria got, the more there seemed to be something familiar about this other woman. Now she was close enough to make out the woman's features in the shadow cast by her floppy beach hat. It was Rita. "Oh. O-O-oh. Comes the dawn!"
For an instant, Helen looked like she'd been caught logged on to a porn site, but quickly recovered. "Daria! Look who I just ran into! Can you believe Rita and Erin are staying at the same hotel we are?" Her look dripped with pleading.
Daria waved and smiled at Rita. "Hi, aunt Rita. It's a small world after all, eh? How long have you been here?" Helen's expression relaxed slightly.
"Just a couple of hours. We must have gotten in almost the same time as you guys."
"What an amazing coincidence!" Daria shot Helen a look that could scrape barnacles at forty fathoms, reclined in a chair on the other side of Rita.
"Really? I thought Mother might have mentioned to Helen that we were going to be here."
"Mom didn't say anything to me about it. How have you been?"
"Oh, fine, fine! You look great in that bikini, Daria! And I know Erin's going to want to know where you got the body art!"
"My friend Jane did it last night, sort of as a consolation gift for me missing the museum trip we had planned. If she came down here for the summer, she could make a fortune."
"She certainly could. Helen was telling me you left with three young men earlier, and Quinn met someone shortly thereafter."
"Yes, they'll be back around shortly. Oh, hi, Quinn. I hear you met a young gentleman."
Quinn stalked up, a disgusted look on her face. She was wearing a rather demure two-piece green checked swimsuit with matching headband/scarf, the top of which came up almost to her neck in front, and casting envious glances at Daria's bikini. "I thought so at first, but he turned out to be a young octopus! What about your three guys, Daria? Did you have to ditch them too?" She seemed to be hoping that was the case.
"No, they're very nice. They're engineering and physics majors, down from Auburn for the day. I came back to get some sunblock. They all offered to slather me up, of course, but they didn't have SPF 45." Daria reached over and drew her beach bag closer, extracted a white squeeze bottle from it, and began applying sunblock to her shoulders.
"So, what did you find to talk to physics majors about?"
"Physics, mostly. You know, Brownian movement, thrust vectors, the three body problem, wormholes, the Big Bang. Stuff like that." Daria smiled slightly at Quinn's facial expression, which indicated misconceptions as to the nature of some of these topics. "Tell me, Aunt Rita, did your parents equate family bonding with long, arduous journeys, or did Mom get that somewhere else?"
"Well, as I recall, Dad would usually grab me and sit me on his lap and grill me. If that didn't work, he'd resort to tickling. Mom's favored technique involved baking brownies or gingerbread. Maybe Helen's having flashbacks to her hippie days in that old VW microbus with Jake, Coyote, and Willow."
Daria looked over Rita at Helen, whose face was turning red. "As soon as we hit Lawndale, we're getting you a case of brownie mix." Behind Helen she happened to notice Jake emerging from the hotel, clad in plaid swim trunks, unbuttoned hawaiian shirt, and straw hat, holding some beverage with a little umbrella in it. She quickly finished applying sunblock, put the bottle away, and donned her sun hat.
Daria wished her dad's first look at her in this bikini could have been somewhere a bit more private, like for instance a stretch of howling wilderness, with him on one side of an impassable gorge, and her on the other. She lay back, crossed her ankles, and covered her face with the hat.
Jake walked up to Helen. "Hi, honey. I'm feeling better now. Sorry I got excited. Uh, has, uh, Daria come back yet? Oh, we have company! Pleased to meet you, Ms. uhh... GAAH!! RITA!! I mean, um, Hi, Rita, fancy meeting you here! How nice to see you!
"And it's always good to see you, Jake." Rita favored him with a lopsided smile. Helen favored him with a mild glare.
"And this lovely young lady must be Erin!" Jake ventured, attempting to regain lost ground. You look spectacular in that bikini, Erin! Uhh, are those tattoos?"
"Jake, that's not Erin." said Helen, giving Jake a very peculiar look.
Confused, and getting the distinct impression that Helen thought he should know this person, even with her face hidden, Jake ran through a list of possible identities for the mystery babe. It was a very short list, and none of the names held up. He decided to cut his losses and just ask. "Uhhh, do I know you, Miss?"
Daria sighed. "No, you don't." She moved the hat down to uncover her face, simultaneously covering most of her chest, though she doubted this would help much. "Hi, Dad."
"G- G- Daria! Y- y- you're w-... you've g- g- d- ... GAAH! Jake grabbed up a beach towel and was starting a lunge for Daria when he was stopped in his tracks by death glares from Helen, Daria, and Rita.
"Jake! Put that down! You're making a spectacle of yourself, and you're embarrassing Daria!" snapped Helen.
Jake stood trembling, eyes bulging, teeth clenched, paralyzed by indecision and cluelessness. Taking pity on him, Daria slipped on her beach coverup, walked to a spot of empty sand between the beach chairs and the hotel, and motioned to him to come over.
"Save it, Dad. It's 'way too late. You can't help me now."
"Huh? What are you talking about? What do you mean, running around almost naked? No daughter of mine..."
"Save it! You should have spoken up last Tuesday, when Mom and I were arguing about this, and you ran and hid in the garage! You left me alone, and she won, and now here I stand almost naked because that's what she wants. You don't think I'd not-quite-wear something like this by choice, do you?"
"I.. I wouldn't have thought so... but why?"
"It turns out Mom set this whole thing up after grandma Evelyn called and told her Rita would be here today."
"Aw, gee, that stinks! I'm sorry, kiddo! Uhh, what can I do to help?"
"Right now, nothing. Why don't you just avoid Mom and Rita and do what you'd do if you were here by yourself. I'm going to have lunch with some nice boys I met. Quinn will probably bag some guy pretty soon. You know what Mom and Rita will be doing. Have fun at the beach. If you can help me later, I'll let you know."
"Just one thing, Daria. Please tell me those aren't tattoos!"
Daria smiled up at her father. "They're not tattoos, Dad. Jane drew them on with marker pens. They'll be gone in three days." She turned and went back to her beach chair. Jake headed back to the hotel for another nerve tonic.
Daria spotted Erin returning from the water in a royal blue bikini. Her hair was done up, how Daria couldn't see under her sun hat, except for a couple of golden ringlets to frame her face. She looked really good, but pensive. Daria got the impression Erin would be more comfortable today on a more deserted stretch of beach, idly searching for pretty seashells. She wondered where Brian was, and recalled that she'd heard no mention of him.
Tom, Dick, and Harry walked up. Smiling, Daria made introductions. Helen's pleasant smile mismatched her eagle-eyed gaze. Quinn gushed, then caught herself. Erin showed a trace of amusement at this.
"Does this place we're going have a dress code?" asked Daria.
"The Claw is right on the beach, and anything that's okay on the beach is okay inside." Dick replied.
"The Claw?" inquired Helen.
"It's a seafood restaurant about a block that way." said Tom. They're known for their steamed crabs."
Daria checked to make sure Jake was out of sight, then removed her coverup and hung it on the back of her beach lounge chair. She pulled the sunblock out of her beach bag. "Could anyone put some of this on my back?"she inquired, and immediately had three volunteers.
Quinn watched them go, pining for her three J's. "Mom, can I borrow your card for a little bit? I need a new swimsuit."
"Quinn, that's ridiculous. That suit looks fine on you, and this is only the second time you've worn it. Now is the time to be enjoying the beach, not shopping."
"But Mo-omm! It's so frumpy! It makes me look like an old maid! It's ruining my life!"
"Quinn, you are not going to scour the strip looking for a bikini skimpier than Daria's! You're not ready yet. And I want to speak to you later about your judgement in recommending that suit for Daria. Anyway, it's time for lunch. Go find your father, and don't say anything to set him off again! I could kick your.."
As Quinn trudged off bewailing her ruined life, Rita remarked, "Daria seems very comfortable and self-assured around those college boys. Didn't you say she was a bit shy?"
Helen turned and looked at the retreating figure of her daughter, such of it as could be seen past her solicitous male companions. She blinked a few times and smiled an uncertain smile. "I guess I was wrong about that."
Daria stared out to sea. There was remarkably little of the sea to see, on a moonless night like tonight. The beachside lights of the hotels dimly illuminated the sand, and the lines of foam on the wavelets that softly caressed the shore, but the water was so calm tonight that there weren't any waves steeply angled enough to throw reflections back to her here on the beach. The horizon was indicated only by where the stars stopped, and by the tiny yellowish lights of a solitary distant vessel.
The night sea breeze gently caressed her cheek and toyed with her hair. The traffic noises on the strip were muted by the near solid wall of hotels and the lateness of the hour,so that the chuckle and murmur of the tiny wavelets could actually be heard over them. Occasionally a large fish would announce its presence in the black water not too far from shore. Blacker by far were Daria's thoughts, and much too painful for this gentle, peaceful night.
What the hell had Rita ever done to Helen so bad that Helen felt the need to use Daria as a club to beat her with? If Helen hated Rita that much, why didn't she just write her off, cut her out of her life? Or was something else involved? Or someone else? "Hell yes, there's someone else involved- me! How can I get uninvolved? Who do I have to kill?" The squeak of sand told Daria of the approach of a foolhardy person with poor timing.
"Daria?"
silence
"Daria?" said Helen again. "Are you all right?"
"No."
"Daria, if I'd told you Rita was going to be here, it would have been even more difficult to get you to come."
"Well, of course! It would have been blatantly obvious to everyone that the only reason you wanted me along was for ammo in your lifelong battle to one-up Rita. But you knew it, you knew it was wrong, and you went ahead and did it to me anyway. How could you?"
"Is it so wrong for me to be proud of my daughters? To want to show them off? To brag on them?"
"No. Is it so wrong for you to dragoon me, yet again, for cannon fodder in your sibling wars? To wreck my long-established plans and force me to serve your jealousy-based whim? I'm not some Tiffany lamp you scored at an auction, I'm a person!"
Only silence answered her, a silence Daria, at length, chose to break. "What I don't get is, why? Rita is a thoroughly beaten foe. You have a successful career, a successful marriage, two daughters, either of whom stacks up well against Erin. The only thing she has that you could possibly envy is her relationship with your mother, and that's only because you avoid her as much as possible."
Another, shorter silence ensued, this time broken by Helen. "Oh, Daria, you don't understand. Rita was always the pretty one, the perky one, the popular one. I cared about human rights, Rita cared about the right handbag. I cared about starving children, Rita starved herself to stay thin. Mother told me I was being silly, and told Rita how pretty she was. I got the good grades, but Rita got the attention and encouragement."
"I don't understand that?! Substitute the name Quinn for the name Rita, and it's the story of my life! I can't believe you even said that!" Receiving no reply,Daria continued. "Surely there was a time when a young Helen Barksdale swore a mighty oath that she'd never treat her children the way she'd been treated. So what happened?" Daria continued to gaze out over the black ocean as she waited for a reply, but she heard only some sniffs and other small sounds vaguely indicating that Helen was upset. At length she spoke again.
"It looks to me like your real problem is not with Rita, but with your mother. You feel she owes you. Everything that Rita got, that you felt you deserved, but didn't get, she still owes you. You're withholding your affection from her until she pays up. But she's lonely. When you rebuff her, she turns to Rita for that affection, at least partly to try to make you jealous. She gives Rita her affection and money, and makes sure you know it, hoping you'll show up for your share. But this makes you even more resentful, and drives you further away. I don't think grandma understands that."
Helen broke her silence. "Daria, that is so... so perceptive! So dead on the mark! How do you do that?"
Daria turned to face Helen, her eyes moist. "It's easy. It's so horribly easy. We're in the early scenes of that same play, right now. I play you. Quinn plays Rita. You're your mother. "Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it." Behold your future. Only I won't let myself be jerked around like that. I'll just cut you off cold." She turned and walked off down the dim narrow pathway of firm damp sand between land and sea, and gradually vanished into the night.
Helen stared unseeing into the darkness that had swallowed up her firstborn daughter, contemplating a future almost too bleak to contemplate. After several minutes, she turned and slowly began walking in the opposite direction along the line of farthest reach of the little wavelets.
Farther up the beach, at the line of small detritus that marked the day's high tide, a larger lump shifted restlessly. It hugged its knees tightly, its long carrot-orange hair stirring slightly with the sea breeze. Quinn's sad eyes followed Helen's receding form, then turned and vainly sought for Daria in the opposite direction. Finding nothing, they turned to the lights of the lone vessel far out at sea, creeping along the unseen horizon. "But I don't want to be Rita!" she moaned softly into the noncommittal night.
Coming soon!
THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
PART V
SHOWDOWN at the SEASIDE BAR AND GRILL
2.1 Disclaimer
"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)
Galen Hardesty [gehardesty@yahoo.com]