Fledglings' Frustration
A "Daria" fanfic
(Daria ©MTV. And furthermore, all the subsequent rock lyrics wailed out by Mystik Spiral / Trent / various other merrie minstrels are © their respective composers. I'm just havin' some non-lucrative fun here.
Chapter I
"…I dunno, I don't think Parisians could throw any more misanthropy our way than what we've become accustomed to here."
"I still say we should pretend to be Australian. Seriously, we'll doff our cork hat thingies to the Frenchies and throw in a few anecdotes about riding kangaroos to school. They'll be all over us."
"Weren't we planning on actually seeing the sights? I could do without a drove of hirsute Frenchmen falling at my feet."
"Speak for yourself, Morgendorffer."
"No thought spared for that shy, slender-hipped blonde boy from your art history tutorials, then?"
"Who, Hayden? Oh, he was a passing fancy."
"Just like the other two before him. Keep up this pace and you'll overtake my sister."
Jane couldn't help but laugh. "Quinn? Only if we're talking about getting boys to max out their dads' credit cards. The most intimate contact she's ever had with another person is sharing the same nail polish with her fellow fashion fiends."
"Suddenly, I feel very nauseous."
It was strangely endearing. Daria wasn't exactly a prude, but Jane couldn't help but muse on how her best friend- so brutally honest and unfailingly inquistive- was as physically timid as some small, wild animal fearful of predators. In fact, both the Morgendorffer sisters seemed to share a revulsion towards intimacy. The only harsh words about Quinn that had ever been (openly) spoken at Lawndale High had been the grumblings of boys in the bloom of high adolescence, their libidos repeatedly stifled by the flighty redhead.
Jane had thought freshman year at college would have helped Daria settle into her own skin a little more. During their time in Boston, there had been weekly reports about like minds, fellow literati and educators who were actually passionate about what they taught. Raft University had sounded, to Jane, like a place where Daria was accepted as one of the group for the very things that had singled her out as a misfit in high school. And yet, twelve months later, here she was. Her outlook just as saturnine, her façade just as stand-offish. There was a certain innocence to her pious proclamations on other peoples' relations. And, happily, it still complemented Jane's worldly, sanguine nature beautifully.
In celebration of completing their first college year unscathed, the two girls had agreed on a two week stay in Paris. They would see the city of lights in true student style: a budget airline, a youth hostel and shared bathrooms. The majority of their carefully hoarded money would go towards trips to museums and galleries, and, in Jane's case, taking advantage of the leniently low legal drinking age. Daria had screwed her nose up at the notion of champagne and absinthe. Jane really did try not to feel smugly maternal over her upon this reaction. After all, Daria got enough of that from her own mother.
"I'll see if we can get away with collapsing in front of the TV with a pizza," Daria murmured, reaching into one of her overstuffed bags and rummaging for her keys.
"Don't count on it, young lady. That matriarchal chieftain of yours will insist on hanging on your every word, as you regale her with stories of how wholesome campus life is," Jane smirked.
The brunette fired off a mock scowl as the two friends dragged themselves through the front door of Casa Morgendorffer.
"Mom? What are you doing here?"
Amanda Lane looked up from her mug of unsweetened tea and smiled broadly at her youngest child. "Hi, sweetheart. How was college?"
"Um, good…"
Subdued in their surprise, the pair allowed a fretfully eager Jake to take their bags and dump them by the staircase. Helen likewise jumped up from her place on the couch next to Amanda, pouncing upon the girls with every bit of the previously predicted parental fervour. "Our girls, home from freshman year! Oh, do come and sit down! Can we get you some tea? Coffee? Snacks?"
Daria really couldn't hate her mother for this. It was admittedly kind of nice to see a demonstration of familial affection, regardless of the suffocating manner of it. She bit her tounge against any acerbic comments as she allowed Helen to drag everyone into the kitchen. The espresso machine was put on again, and hot drinks and nibblies were laid out for the weary travellers.
The three parents leaned across the kitchen table, wholly wrapt in the (at times) sanitised accounts of Raft University and Boston Fine Arts College that Daria and Jane were obliged to share. Some of these were stories that had already been told via the infrequent phone and e-mail communications during the semester, but despite their exhaustion, the girls were feeling charitable enough to recap this old material. The Paris trip was not mentioned. Neither Jane nor Daria really had the energy to touch upon such an act of adult self-determination so soon after returning to the fold.
Helen took over talking once the girls were too hungry to put off a proper repast. As she served up plates of supermarket tagliatelle and delicatessen salad, she reiterated the news of Jake's semi-retirement. Just after Christmas, one of the more dutiful cardiologists from Cedars of Lawndale had reminded Jake that as a middle aged male with somewhat delicate nerves, he was still not entirely out of the woods in respect to his heart attack some years previous. Considering that the Morgendorffers had one child off to college and another on the verge of going, Helen had decided that the family income could afford to shrink a little. Jake had already shut down his firm and was now a part-time consultant at a middling business downtown. Of course, this had translated into a smaller allowance for Daria. But for the sake of propping up her father's (somewhat) ailing condition, not to mention the prospect of scaling the stairs of Montmartre, the girl magnificently conceded to settle for economising.
"Your mother also has some big news, Jane," Helen announced, turning her expectant grin on Amanda. The woman was fiddling with one of her dangly hand-made earrings, an absent smile on her face, her store-bought meal untouched.
"Excellent," Jane declared. "Didya finally master the finer points of slipcasting in porcelain?"
Amanda shook her head placidly in response. "Actually, honey, it's something way better."
Daria saw Amanda's gaze meet with Helen's, and her gut seized. In the absence of the daughters, it seemed the mothers had been conspiring…
"Helen introduced me to a fabulous woman by the name of Deena Decker."
"That time management consultant?" Daria couldn't help blurting out.
"Actually, Daria, Ms. Decker is now a financial advisor," Helen corrected.
"So she finally realised that time is money." The quip went ignored.
"Oh, she's brilliant," Amanda continued. "She helped Vincent and I to track down all our scattered equity and superannuation. Did you know that I qualify as a small business owner? And I can claim all my pottery expenses back on my tax return?"
Daria and Jane shared a look. Amanda Lane talking of tax returns definitely portended ill.
"Vincent and I have always wanted to move out to Arizona and build our own eco-friendly adobe. And that dream is finally becoming a reality!"
"Keeping up with the Joneses," Daria monotoned.
"Anything but," Amanda replied with a chuckle. "Oh, it will be such a change of pace to finally get out of the suburbs."
"Um, Mom?" Jane's fine eyebrows crinkled.
"Wait until you see the quality of light in the Southwest, Jane. I'm sure you're bound to be just as inspired to create as I was when I first went."
The younger Lane woman drew in a sharp breath before asking her next question. "And… what about our house? As in, the one here in Lawndale?"
Amanda waved a carefree hand. "Oh, we're selling that old place. Its land value has skyrocketed since the seventies. The realtor told me that he's already got someone who's keen on the property to demolish and rebuild."
However, there was to be at least some mercy that evening. Sort of. Responding to Jane's deer-in-the-threshing-machine expression, Helen spoke up: "Oh, don't worry, Jane. Jakey and I talked it over, and we'll be happy to install you in the spare room if you'd prefer to spend the Summer here."
"Yeah, we wouldn't dream of splitting up the dynamic duo," Jake helped, in an overly sprightly tone. "You can contribute by helping me set the table for dinner, Jane-o!"
Jane's pupils only contracted further.
"Be that as it may, young lady," Amanda intoned, doing a passable imitation of Helen's authoritative tone, "You are going to get a Summer job. Your father and I just won't have the funds to spare while we're working on the adobe, especially considering we won't have the time to work on any new art projects. You will pay board to Helen and Jake, and be responsible for your own money at college next year. Consider this a lesson in voluntary minimalism, something that every artist needs to be versed in. I know you'll make me proud."
Once she had the faculty to move again, Jane needed to lean on Daria's arm as the two escaped to the confines of the padded bedroom upstairs. It seemed that the inevitable had happened: The one mother in Lawndale who had been agreeably blasé and laid back had finally succumbed to the prevailing trend of being an ambitious, asset-driven task master.
Listlessly flopped upon her stripped mattress, Daria regretfully tore up the well-thumbed brochure on France she had picked up from the travel agent. "Au revoir, Paris," she exhaled.
Jane was balled up on Daria's desk chair, in the closest thing to a foetal position that she could manage. "A Summer job," she lamented. "Just when I thought I'd escaped the stupid suburban impositions of Lawndale to live la vie boheme, life has to crap out on me and remind me just how bourgeois my roots really are."
"And you get to spend it with my family, to boot," Daria said apologetically. "I don't suppose it makes any difference if I offer penitence on behalf of my mother… I think whatever fever your mom has could only be due to unsupervised contact with a high strung, middle class attorney."
"If only she had your inborn immunity to it," Jane replied.
The girls spent the rest of the evening balming their blight with a hearty dosage of 'Sick Sad World'.
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," Daria thought to herself.
DDDDDDDDDDDDDD
"Life sucks!" Trent bemoaned, moodily swiping at the strings of his guitar with long fingers.
Jane raised an eyebrow. "Well. Even though Mom and Dad have lost their minds, it's good to see that you haven't sold out your disaffected Gen-X values."
The Lane siblings were hanging out with Daria and Jesse, sprawled across a collection of patched, overstuffed sofas in the granny flat at the back of the Moreno family's property. Just as Jane was now at the mercy of the Morgendorffers, Trent had moved in with his own best friend, instructed by Amanda to pay board. Jesse's mother had a somewhat more indulgent attitude, insisting on stuffing Trent with home-cooked meals and doing his laundry without any expectation of recompensation. She did, however, agree that some form of regular employment would be a steadying influence on the young man.
"My dad's gotten him a job at the Payday," Jesse explained. "He's gotta wear a uniform and everything."
"What about the Spiral?" Jane queried.
"Indefinite hiatus," Trent said mournfully, hunching further over his guitar. "Funny thing is, I kinda felt we'd reached a creative block anyway. And Nick has mentioned he wants to spend more time with his kid."
Jane shrugged. "Maybe the time out will revive the collective muse."
All Trent could do was shudder. "A wage slave. Ew. Next thing you know I'll be applying to business school or something."
"I don't think so," came a clear, even voice from the corner.
All heads turned to Daria. "Come on, Trent. It's obvious how passionate you are about your music, no temporary day job could take that away from you. There are plenty of successful musicians who had to do monkey work when they were starting out. I once read that Pavarotti used to work as an insurance salesman. Besides, to make it as a professional, you need to have some sense of time management and responsibility. A record label isn't gonna want to sign a band that can't keep to a schedule, whether it be a studio recording or a world tour. Why not learn those skills now while you're undergoing an artistic dry spell? And get paid while doing it?"
Trent was silent for a long while, his dark eyes drifting out the window behind Daria's head. Jane tensed a little. Her brother had a very long fuse, but she could swear that such a blunt reprimand against his bohemian slacker ideals was due to incite a reaction.
"You know…" he finally said, his voice deep and deliberate, "…I never thought about it like that."
The other three did something of a double take.
"It would be nice to have a steady source of cash. For, you know, gas money and stuff. And maybe entering the Underworld of capitalist greed will give me new inspiration for my music. Because, like, pain is beauty."
"You'll be a regular Orpheus," Daria remarked, her rare half-smile making an appearance.
"You really are one of the smartest people I know, Daria," Trent affirmed.
Daria mumbled an incoherent thanks, and Jane swore she detected the lightest shadow of a rosy hue tinge the girl's pale cheeks. Oh dear. Surely not!
DDDDDDDDDDDDDD
"Of course not," Daria asserted, folding her Pizza King serviette into a cheese-stained origami crane. "It's not like I asked for his hand in marriage, I just spoke my mind to him. You know, like I do with pretty much everyone?"
Was it Jane's wishful thinking, or was that tone of voice more than a little defensive? "Even so, Daria, it did sound like the words of someone who cares about him."
"I care for him by proxy. He's your brother," the brunette pointed out.
"So is Wind, but I've never seen you offer him marriage advice."
"Oh, shut up, Lane." She rolled her eyes from behind her thick lenses.
Even after all this time, Jane never failed to be intrigued by this soft spot of Daria's. Having been witness to what was obviously the clever girl's first attraction to a boy, and the frequent fluster that this resulted in, had made Jane realise just how serious her vigil against vulnerability was. Many other people had been put off by this. As for Jane, it had made her appreciate that the things Daria deigned to share with the lucky few in her closest circle were a gift given with the deepest sincerity.
"Oh, hey!" The girls' heads turned at the sudden salutation by a familiar voice.
Tom Sloane slid down next to Daria in the dining booth, easing his way with a smile that was straining to be affable. "How've you two been?"
A self-conscious "Hey, Tom" glossed over the abrupt awkwardness of the meeting. As the three diners picked at their pizzas, a string of anecdotes about college life were exchanged. The BFAC and Raft stories were so old hat by this stage, that the girls were able to weave the narratives on auto-pilot. They both listened a little too keenly to Tom's tales of life at Bromwell. It seemed Tom was mostly trying to play down the atmosphere of privelege, and criticising it thoroughly when he had no choice but to acknowledge it. An unsettled silence followed the close of the updates, which was artlessly filled in by munching on a second helping of pizza, and the odd wisecrack about the latest homogenised Hollywood blockbusters released for the Summer.
Just as Daria was gaining momentum in eviscerating the latest Americanized trussing of Dickens' 'David Copperfield', the strident whine of a ringtone split the air.
"Pardon," Tom mumbled, retrieving his phone from his pocket and retreating to a corner of the restaurant.
"Well isn't this a warm and cozy reunion," Daria asided softly.
Jane also kept her voice down. "What do you expect, Daria? Now he's both your ex and mine. Made even more distant by a year at a snooty ivy league college. Maybe he's just trying to revive the glory days when he provoked your temper instead of your unease."
"I suppose so," Daria sighed.
Tom returned to the table. "That was my girlfriend Felicity. She's picking me up to go see a movie at Playhouse 99."
"Your girlfriend?" Jane gaped.
"Yeah, Felicity. We met in a lecture on macro-economic theory. She's in a sorority."
"What are you going to see?" Daria asked.
"Um, the new 'David Copperfield'," Tom replied. "She's never read Dickens and I thought it might be a good layman's introduction for her."
"Because nothing sets the mood for the workhouses of Victorian England like a stream of Californian accents," Daria jeered.
A nervous laugh escaped Tom's mouth.
At long last, at the sound of his girlfriend honking her sporty coupe from without, Tom made a break for the restaurant doors with a subdued "See ya 'round."
"Well, that was painful," Jane remarked needlessly.
Daria frowned. "I feel kinda bad for the guy. It's obvious he doesn't want to turn into just another trust fund snot, but dating ditzy sorority girls seems to just be hammering the proverbial nails into that very coffin." She slumped forward in her seat, tearing apart the now wilting origami crane. "It would have been nice, if just once, I could have felt completely comfortable around him."
Jane started a little at this. "You never felt comfortable with him?"
Daria shook her head.
"But you went out with him for twice as long as I did. I just assumed you would have settled into the relationship."
"I really liked him," Daria insisted. "He was so nice, and we had so much in common, and he tried so damned hard to make things work between us. To make us a proper boyfriend and girlfriend. But… I guess I just never really felt it. It probably would have worked out better if we'd just been friends."
Things began ticking over in Jane's mind. "I see," she murmured, and she chewed on her remaining crust of godfather supreme, contemplating. "Maybe… maybe the initial attraction had more to do with forbidden fruits."
Daria crossed her arms. "If you dredge up any more Biblical metaphors, I'm leaving the table."
Jane laughed. "Okay, okay. But think about it. He was the first attractive male you'd ever met who had a sense of humour and interests identical to your own. And, at first, he was off limits. Maybe that was the appeal."
"Okay," Daria answered, a wary edge to her voice.
"But look at you now. At Raft, you can't move for the legions of bookish hunks. You've built an acquaintance with many, and none of them strike your fancy."
This rationale made Daria consider a very ghastly idea. "Oh God," she moaned, "I'm more like Quinn than I thought. Stealing my best friend's date and keeping other guys at arm's length? I may as well dye my hair red and start obsessing over heeled shoes.
"Hey, hey, hey, you're reading too much into this!" Jane cried. "What I was going to say was that there was no lasting chemistry between you and Tom. You two gave it a shot and found there wasn't enough to sustain the relationship. If there was, you would have somehow managed to bridge the distance at college. No matter how gaping it was. And instead of that Felicia or Felicity or whoever, Tom would be taking you to see 'David Copperfield' tonight."
"Perish the thought," Daria shuddered.
"See? It just wasn't meant to be. Don't feel guilty if you're not still hung up on him. It doesn't make you shallow."
Daria sighed into her now flat soda. "I see your point. Truth be told, if I'm pining for anything, it's the days at your old house when I used to hang out with you guys. Now that the place is gonna be demolished, it's like our one truly safe haven in Lawndale is gone."
"What do you mean, 'us guys'?" Jane inquired, a leer starting to form on her lips.
"Who else? You and Trent, of course," Daria regretted the words the moment she had uttered them.
"Sounds like you're hung up on someone, alright!"
"Now who's reading too much into things?"
Feeling both merciful and talked-out, Jane decided to let it go.
DDDDDDDDDDDDDD
As Jane brushed her teeth in the Morgendorffer sisters' bathroom that night, listening to the high-pitched strains of Quinn chattering on the phone and Helen and Jake bickering downstairs, she reflected on what Daria had said about the old house. It was the ultimate refuge during their high school years. As difficult a time as adolesence had been, it was hard not to feel nostalgic for those many afternoons. The pungent smell of linseed as she worked at her easel. Her best friend drooping over a novel on the bed, supplying colour commentary on whatever events were transpiring at school. The indecipherable droning of Mystik Spiral's practice sessions occasionally floating up from the basement. Those moments were nothing if not content.
Jane had seldom needed to worry about money. Though appearances suggested otherwise, the Lane family did quite well financially. Vincent's work as a photographer, despite the irregular schedule it commanded, was respectably lucrative. Jane always maintained a silent pride that her father's panoramic shots of far flung wildernesses often made it into magazines like National Geographic. It was only during the odd dry spell in his workload that making ends meet became a more pressing priority. Though most of the family income went into Vincent's extensive international travels, there was almost always enough in the savings account to at least pay the bills and maintain a supply of TV dinners, wonder bread and junk food. As the Lane children had grown up and left home, their parents had become increasingly preoccupied with their respective careers. By the time Jane was sixteen, the upkeep of the house had mostly been left to she and Trent.
And now, Vincent and Amanda had deemed themselves genuine empty-nesters. Jane was a college student- the first in the family- and Trent was pushing twenty-five. They were now adults themselves. After raising five rowdy children, her parents were forsaking their disused home that had once been brimming with commotion, to finance their escape to the peace of the painted desert.
Replacing her tootbrush, the raven-haired artist looked her reflection square in the eye. She decided that she would manage this. The independence that had been inadvertently cultivated in her meant she was well prepared. If Trent, king of the layabouts, had resolved to hold down employment, then she would too. She still had the business card for Gary's Galleries in her wallet. Tomorrow, she would touch base with the old fellow. The reproductions she had done during high school had paid good money, and this Summer would allow plenty of time to rake in a healthy wad of savings.
"Look out, adult working world," she declared, raising a resolute fist, "here comes Jane Lane!"
Walking by the bathroom door, Quinn made a face. "Whatever. Weirdo."