Thank you for your comments and suggestions. Please Keep them coming.
Remember, I want you all to be beta reader for this fic, and tell me what
you think I should add, subtract, or change. Thanks. GH
1 THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
PART V
SHOWDOWN at the SEASIDE BAR AND GRILL
by
1.1 GALEN HARDESTY
An hour later, a tired and wrung-out Daria approached the seaside entrance
of her hotel. The fine dry white sand seemed to suck the last of the strength from her weary legs. The hard concrete patio was a relief when she finally reached it. Entering the lobby, she paused and put a hand to her forehead, trying to remember their room number.
"Daria!"
Daria turned toward the sound of her name. Helen arose from a settee beside a potted palm, came toward her. Daria turned away, slumping against the side of the arched entryway.
"Daria, we need to talk." Helen held out Daria's coverup.
Daria handed Helen the beach towel from around her waist, accepted the coverup, put it on, not caring whether anyone was watching. "Mom, I'm very tired."
"I'm tired too, honey, but we can't just leave this where it is. Neither of us would get any sleep tonight."
"Speak for yourself. I'm used to going to sleep racked with disappointment, resentment, and bitterness. I do it all the time. I have no choice."
"Daria!" Helen looked wounded. Deep down, Daria felt a little bit ashamed. But not very. It was true, after all.
"All right, so talk."
"Let's go in here. It's more private, and I could use a drink." Helen steered Daria toward the hotel lounge.
Jane sat alone at a restaurant table, shuffling through the art postcards she'd bought earlier, while waiting for the dinner she'd ordered. She'd enjoyed the art museum, but she knew she'd have enjoyed it much more with Daria. Daria appreciated art almost as much as Jane, even though she couldn't paint as well. Daria would have appreciated Jane's commentary on the artists and their styles and techniques, and Jane would have enjoyed Daria's droll observations on the paintings, the artists' mental quirks, their fellow patrons, and whatever else her rapier wit might skewer.
Jane sighed, shook her head sadly, and wondered what Daria was doing now. Probably not eating dinner. It was after eight. Jane paused at the postcard of "The Absinthe Drinker" by Degas, a melancholy scene in a tavern or bar, very brown. Jane was pretty sure Daria would know exactly what Absinthe was. The disturbingly unbalanced composition focused on an almost-pretty young woman seated demurely at a table with a stemmed glass of cloudy off-white liquid in front of her, and a totally spaced-out non- expression on her face, overlaying some terrible sadness.
Jane shuffled to the next postcard. Also titled "The Absinthe Drinker", this was an early Picasso in the Impressionist style, depicting an old, vulture-like woman with incredibly claw-like hands, glaring intently into a glass of evil-looking green liquor, and toying with a sugar lump.
Jane looked from one painting to the other. They somehow suggested Daria and Helen to her. Jane was disturbed to realize that she wasn't sure which suggested who, or why.
Inside the lounge, Helen signaled to a waiter and they slid into a dimly lit booth. Daria said "I'll have a coke. You have what you were going to have, plus a shot of bourbon." At Helen's shocked look, she said, "Well, what did you expect? You drink, Dad drinks. You're both former drug- crazed hippies. I never had a chance." Helen's expression became even more shocked, then very sad. She looked like she was going to cry.
Daria relented. Laying a hand on Helen's forearm, she said, "I shouldn't have said that. Up to now, I've only had a taste, a couple of times. I'm very protective of my brain cells. But if this talk is going to accomplish anything useful, I need to mellow out some, and I left my herb garden at home. I'm still in a foul mood."
After a moment, a waiter came over. Helen said, "I'll have a Jack Daniels Black, neat, and a sloe gin sling." The waiter nodded, wrote on his pad, and turned to Daria. "Coke, please." The waiter said, "Right away." and left.
Helen rubbed her face and looked at her daughter. "All right, where are we?"
"We're at the beach, so you can accidentally run into Rita and rub her nose in how financially well off you are, how stable your marriage is, how beautiful Quinn is, and how smart I am. To achieve this, you've wrecked imprtant long-standing plans of mine and Jane's, made it painfully obvious that you don't respect me as a person, and trashed our relationship for the foreseeable future."
"Is it really that bad?"
"As of now, my plans are to tolerate you till I'm through college, then never see nor speak to you again. In other words, to use you like you're using me while I need you, but then to cut you out cleanly so you won't be a continuous thorn in my side like your mother is to you."
Helen looked like she'd been punched in the gut. Tears ran down her cheeks. Daria pretended to study a snack menu. Then Helen quickly wiped her eyes with a napkin as she saw the waiter approach with the drinks.
After the waiter had left, Daria unwrapped her straw and stuck it in her coke, still not looking at Helen. She took a long sip, then just stared at the crushed ice on top for a while, prolonging a chance moment with no clear thought in her head. Then looking around to be sure the bartender wasn't watching, she picked up the shot glass, emptied half its contents into the coke, and set it back down. She stirred it with the straw, then tasted it. The bourbon definitely added a complex, pleasant flavor to the cola, and a bit of body.
Daria looked up at Helen, who was taking a large swallow of her reddish pink thing, a fresh tear starting down her cheek. This was taking too long. She lifted the shot glass and downed the rest of its contents. Almost immediately, her brain felt like it was being gently sloshed around in a bucket. She swayed slightly, grabbed the edge of the table, and blinked. This must be the origin of the term "sloshed". "Damn." she said.
Helen looked at her with an unreadable expression on her face. "Strong?" she asked.
"Yeah, but that's not what I was damning."
"What, then?"
"I like it."
"Huh?"
"I just found out I like the taste of Jack Daniels straight. I didn't need to know that." She felt a tear slide down her own cheek.
"Oh, sweetie..." Helen looked like she was about to grab Daria and try to hug her over the table. Daria pulled back and glared at her. "Don't you sweetie me, you user!"
Looking devastated, Helen said, "Daria, is that really the way you want it? To never see me again?"
"Of course not. If it were, I'd be up in the room asleep, instead of down here sacrificing my brain cells." Daria sipped coke through the straw. "Och, brrain cells, I harrrdly knew ye." she mumbled, then glared at Helen again. "But I'm tired of being used, taken for granted, trampled underfoot, and misunderstood. If that's not the way you want it, things have to change. What you did was wrong."
Helen started to say something, thought better of it. "All right. What I did was wrong. I ignored your desires and feelings. I ignored your rights. I brought you here to show you off to Rita. I should have let you go ahead with your plans. I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"
Daria looked at her mother and smiled a tiny bit. There was still hope. "if you're sorry, are you willing to make restitution?"
"Well... yes. What do you mean by restitution?"
"Three things. Treat me right. Restore what you took from me. And compensation for treating me wrong. A peace offering, if you like."
"How do I treat you right? What do you mean by that?"
"Treat me like I'm me, Daria. A unique human being, valuable and valued in my own right. I'm not a brainy but socially retarded Quinn, in need of a makeover, a new wardrobe, and charm school."
"Daria, I'm very well aware that you're unique. I do love you and value you for who you are. It isn't wrong for me to want you to be more attractive."
"YES, DAMMIT, IT IS!!" Daria glared bloody violent demise across the table. Her hands twitched for Helen's throat. Her canines glinted in the dim light. Helen recoiled from the vehemence more than the volume of Daria's outburst, realizing immediately that she'd struck a major raw nerve.
"Alright, dear, alright! Tell me what's wrong with it!" Helen made down- boy motions at her daughter, who struggled to get her rage pent up again.
Daria glanced around, noted with surprise that no one was staring at her. She took a long sip of bourbon flavored coke and a deep breath. "It's wrong because you always just say it like that and leave it there, like it was a self-evident universal truth, totally obvious and requiring no further discussion. "Be More Attractive." Attract what? From where? For what purpose? You never discuss, never specify, never explain. So discuss already."
The waiter came over, and Helen made an "another round" gesture. "Well, boys, of course, Daria. You're a very pretty and interesting teenage girl, and you should be dating at your age."
"Boys. From where?"
"Well, from school, sweetie. Must we belabor the obvious?"
"The only thing obvious here is the fact that you've never thought this through. And yes, we must belabor it. We're going to run it down and beat it to death, once and for all, and then we're never going to speak of it again. Right?"
Helen returned Daria's glare. "We'll see. Proceed."
"There are at Lawndale High four male students intelligent enough to be potential dates for me, theoretically. Two have such serious psychological problems that they date no one, and no one wants to date them. A third simulates an equally serious set of mental disorders as a defense mechanism. This works so well that he is the most despised student at school. The fourth is Michael Jordan MacKenzie, honor student and captain of the football team. Jodie Landon's boyfriend. All the rest are my intellectual inferiors to such a great extent that we have practically nothing in common.
So. There is no one at Lawndale high I would want to date. There is no point in my attracting boys if I'm not going to date them. Therefore I make myself deliberately unattractive. It saves time, energy, and misunderstandings all around. Do you understand?"
"I see what you're saying, Daria, but you could be driving away some bright, interesting boys you don't know about yet. It's not like you have everyone's IQ scores on file."
"But I do."
"What?"
"I have everyone's IQ scores on file. And SATs. And PSATs."
"Daria, are you pulling my leg? And if not, where and how did you get them?"
"I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me."
Helen thought, "Great. I've raised a criminal mastermind."
The waiter brought the second round of drinks. Helen asked, "What are you doing with all those scores?"
Daria looked down at her lap and said nothing. Her shoulders slumped a bit.
"Daria?"
"Looking for potential dates." Daria said softly. She paused, didn't look up. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But in the land of the stupid, the smart chick is lonely as hell." She took a sip of bourbon, showed no reaction.
"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry! It's nice to know you're interested, but you're going about it in such a clinical way! Boys aren't lab rats, you know. Those numbers don't tell you everything! And even if they did, it couldn't hurt you to be a little more attrac-
"YES, DAMMIT, IT COULD!! $#;+! You did it again!!" Daria glared balefully at her mother, trying to decide how much of her mother's look of wounded innocence was genuine. "Look, when you say "Be more attractive, don't you see that you're really saying "Tear down your defenses"? Well, I'm not gonna do that without a damn good reason! I put a lot of time and effort into my armor, and it works for me, and I'm keeping it until I don't need it any more, or until I have a really good reason to take it off!"
"But Daria, honey, don't you see that as long as you wear that repulsive outfit, you have no chance of meeting any bright boys that may come along, from wherever? That's a high price to pay for repelling the stupid ones."
"That's not true. It doesn't work on the bright ones, just the dullards. Mack MacKenzie and I are friends. He sees through my disguise. He knows I'm not homely. And the smartest guy in school is constantly bugging me for dates."
"What? Why haven't I heard about this? Why don't you date him?"
"Picture Austin Powers, you know, from the spy movie? Picture him with curly orange hair, and even more obnoxious. Now combine that with one of those neurotic little dogs that runs up and humps your leg. That's Upchuck. I'm not that lonely."
"Upchuck?"
"Charles Ruttheimer the third. The aforementioned most despised student at Lawndale High. Look, I think you saw today that I can be attractive if I want to, and that I can hold the interest of men who are interesting to me. From now on, you leave it to me decide when, where, and whom to attract. Agreed?"
Helen sighed. She couldn't believe she had lost on this point. "All right, Daria. Agreed."
"Moving on, then. 'Treat me right' also means don't spend ten times as much money on Quinn as you do on me."
Helen had a sinking feeling in her net worth. She was almost guaranteed to lose here. "I believe you're exaggerating, Daria."
"I don't claim to have the exact multiple at my fingertips. We can run an audit when we get back home. In the interests of fair play, I'm sure you wouldn't mind going back over the last, say, four years, toting up what you spent on each of us, and equalizing things with a cash payment to the slighted offspring, whoever she might turn out to be?"
The sinking feeling became a giant sinkhole opening up beneath Helen's financial edifice. "Daria, I can't do that."
"AHA! You've just admitted that you know it's true, and that you have a pretty good idea of the magnitude of the discrepancy." Daria's eyes bored into Helen's. "The magnitude of the injustice."
Helen squirmed internally. Daria had well and truly nailed her. The bourbon didn't seem to be affecting her mental sharpness at all. Did the kid have a hollow leg? "What do you want me to do, Daria?"
"For now, just admit that the problem exists, and agree to do something. This will take more and clearer thought to resolve than we can give it tonight. And remember, you're on both sides of this one. Your mother owes you a lot more than you owe me. Think about it from that perspective. And there's no time like the present to start equalizing your outlays. Either spend more on me, or less on Quinn, or a bit of both, starting now."
"Even that's going to be tough. You know how important clothes are to Quinn, and you're almost allergic to them."
"My cabin fund is very important to me. And I'll be needing a new wardrobe for college. I'll get a new piggie and start a clothing fund."
"You? New clothes?"
"At whatever college I go to, the students will range from "bright" upward. I won't need to repel guys like that. Just don't expect me to join the Harvard Fashion Club."
"Oh! My heart! The shock!" Helen clutched her chest and swayed.
"Ha, ha. The point isn't what the money gets spent on, but that I don't get shafted."
"That's a good point, Daria, but not the only one I have to consider. Allowances are for motivation, not just money distribution.
"You might want to consider rewards for grades. A lot of parents do that."
"You'd certainly be getting the lion's share of that, but you don't need any encouragement to get good grades."
"Quote: I got the good grades, but Rita got the attention and encouragement. Unquote. You know the result of that. Do you suppose that if Quinn saw me being rewarded for my academic performance, her grades might improve? Especially if she needs that money for clothes?"
"It's certainly worth considering. Like you said, the subject needs more thought than we can give it tonight. What else?"
"Treating me right also means never doing this to me again. Or anything resembling this."
"Don't worry. After the last few days, and today in particular, I wouldn't dream of it."
"I went a lot easier on you than I'd planned to, you know."
"I noticed you behaved very decently when you saw me talking with Rita, and I appreciate that."
"I could have burned you so bad right then."
"I wondered why you didn't."
"I'm not sure. Maybe I was afraid it would burn our bridge. Maybe I've absorbed some of your attitude toward her. Mostly, I didn't see any long- term benefits for any of us in handing her a big win. But now I'm worried that I might be handing you a win. I think I impressed Rita, and here you're getting your bonding, in a mean drunk sort of way. I sure as hell don't want to encourage you to try this again."
"You needn't worry. This is a lot more like plea bargaining than bonding, and I have a feeling that I'm not out of the woods yet. I do solemnly swear that I will never again pressgang you to fight in my sibling wars. Okay?
"I'll take that as coming from my mother, rather than from a conniving weaselly lawyer. On that basis... okay."
"Great. Now,what do you want me to restore?"
"The museum trip."
"Gladly. But you said you could never get that back, because Jane has seen the museums now."
"I had an idea. I've heard that Chicago has a very nice set of museums."
"But it's so far away!"
"Jane has a cousin who lives in one of the Chicago suburbs- Wheaton, I think. She could help us if something came up."
Helen looked at Daria, thinking.
"It wouldn't be too expensive if I had a good reliable car."
Helen smiled. "I'd love to have you on my negotiating team. It sounds doable. Now I wonder what you might have in mind for that peace offering."
"The car."
Helen gave a wry smirk. "I'm a little tapped out right now, dear."
"You were going to buy me a car, weren't you?"
"For your birthday, or Christmas, we hadn't decided."
"So you'd just be moving up the timetable a little. You wouldn't be out anything extra, other than a replacement birthday present."
"I'll talk to your father and see what we can do. But you did put a sizeable hole in my discretionary cash."
"Umm... tactically, this is dead wrong, but... the telescope I ordered wasn't exactly the telescope I designed. I could squeeze some money out there, and still get the performance I want."
"The telescope you designed? You didn't order it out of a catalog?"
"No, they're going to build it to my specifications. I designed the optical system to give the best combination of magnification and rich field for my purposes, while using reasonably priced off-the-shelf eyepieces and minimizing the aberrations common to Newtonian reflectors, particularly coma and diffraction. And I designed the focusing system to..."
Helen's eyes glittered. "Darling, where did you learn to design astronomical telescopes?"
"Out of books. Once you understand the principles, it's mainly a matter of keeping track of interrelated factors and..."
"Daria sweetie, I really want to hear this, but it is getting late, and we are tired, and... do you think you could tell us about it in the morning, over breakfast?"
Daria read Helen's expression carefully. "Would "us" perchance include Rita?"
Helen's expression took on an easily read look of pleading. "Yes, dear. Us would."
Daria smiled wryly. "Sure, why not? We're in agreement on the matters we were discussing?"
"Yes, Daria. Fair and equal treatment. Trip to Chicago. Car. You can start looking for one when we get back."
"Great. And of course, you wouldn't try to sneak the cost of the car, the trip, or my credit card purchases into the financial equality calculations."
"Daria! You're killing me!"
"Hey, you know how things like that can breed resentment in a mother- daughter relationship. Besides, we'll make your mother pay for it. And besides besides, you just got back your invitation to my wedding, and your grandma's license."
Leaving the rest of her drinks, Daria slid out of the booth. Helen met her with open arms, wrapped her in a hug. "Oh, darling, I'm so glad we got this straightened out!"
"Hey, get a room!" Daria groused weakly, too tired to flinch away.
"Good idea." Helen laughed, throwing an arm around Daria's shoulders. They tottered toward the elevator together.
Coming soon!
THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
PART VI
THE MORNING AFTER
1.2 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]
1 THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
PART V
SHOWDOWN at the SEASIDE BAR AND GRILL
by
1.1 GALEN HARDESTY
An hour later, a tired and wrung-out Daria approached the seaside entrance
of her hotel. The fine dry white sand seemed to suck the last of the strength from her weary legs. The hard concrete patio was a relief when she finally reached it. Entering the lobby, she paused and put a hand to her forehead, trying to remember their room number.
"Daria!"
Daria turned toward the sound of her name. Helen arose from a settee beside a potted palm, came toward her. Daria turned away, slumping against the side of the arched entryway.
"Daria, we need to talk." Helen held out Daria's coverup.
Daria handed Helen the beach towel from around her waist, accepted the coverup, put it on, not caring whether anyone was watching. "Mom, I'm very tired."
"I'm tired too, honey, but we can't just leave this where it is. Neither of us would get any sleep tonight."
"Speak for yourself. I'm used to going to sleep racked with disappointment, resentment, and bitterness. I do it all the time. I have no choice."
"Daria!" Helen looked wounded. Deep down, Daria felt a little bit ashamed. But not very. It was true, after all.
"All right, so talk."
"Let's go in here. It's more private, and I could use a drink." Helen steered Daria toward the hotel lounge.
Jane sat alone at a restaurant table, shuffling through the art postcards she'd bought earlier, while waiting for the dinner she'd ordered. She'd enjoyed the art museum, but she knew she'd have enjoyed it much more with Daria. Daria appreciated art almost as much as Jane, even though she couldn't paint as well. Daria would have appreciated Jane's commentary on the artists and their styles and techniques, and Jane would have enjoyed Daria's droll observations on the paintings, the artists' mental quirks, their fellow patrons, and whatever else her rapier wit might skewer.
Jane sighed, shook her head sadly, and wondered what Daria was doing now. Probably not eating dinner. It was after eight. Jane paused at the postcard of "The Absinthe Drinker" by Degas, a melancholy scene in a tavern or bar, very brown. Jane was pretty sure Daria would know exactly what Absinthe was. The disturbingly unbalanced composition focused on an almost-pretty young woman seated demurely at a table with a stemmed glass of cloudy off-white liquid in front of her, and a totally spaced-out non- expression on her face, overlaying some terrible sadness.
Jane shuffled to the next postcard. Also titled "The Absinthe Drinker", this was an early Picasso in the Impressionist style, depicting an old, vulture-like woman with incredibly claw-like hands, glaring intently into a glass of evil-looking green liquor, and toying with a sugar lump.
Jane looked from one painting to the other. They somehow suggested Daria and Helen to her. Jane was disturbed to realize that she wasn't sure which suggested who, or why.
Inside the lounge, Helen signaled to a waiter and they slid into a dimly lit booth. Daria said "I'll have a coke. You have what you were going to have, plus a shot of bourbon." At Helen's shocked look, she said, "Well, what did you expect? You drink, Dad drinks. You're both former drug- crazed hippies. I never had a chance." Helen's expression became even more shocked, then very sad. She looked like she was going to cry.
Daria relented. Laying a hand on Helen's forearm, she said, "I shouldn't have said that. Up to now, I've only had a taste, a couple of times. I'm very protective of my brain cells. But if this talk is going to accomplish anything useful, I need to mellow out some, and I left my herb garden at home. I'm still in a foul mood."
After a moment, a waiter came over. Helen said, "I'll have a Jack Daniels Black, neat, and a sloe gin sling." The waiter nodded, wrote on his pad, and turned to Daria. "Coke, please." The waiter said, "Right away." and left.
Helen rubbed her face and looked at her daughter. "All right, where are we?"
"We're at the beach, so you can accidentally run into Rita and rub her nose in how financially well off you are, how stable your marriage is, how beautiful Quinn is, and how smart I am. To achieve this, you've wrecked imprtant long-standing plans of mine and Jane's, made it painfully obvious that you don't respect me as a person, and trashed our relationship for the foreseeable future."
"Is it really that bad?"
"As of now, my plans are to tolerate you till I'm through college, then never see nor speak to you again. In other words, to use you like you're using me while I need you, but then to cut you out cleanly so you won't be a continuous thorn in my side like your mother is to you."
Helen looked like she'd been punched in the gut. Tears ran down her cheeks. Daria pretended to study a snack menu. Then Helen quickly wiped her eyes with a napkin as she saw the waiter approach with the drinks.
After the waiter had left, Daria unwrapped her straw and stuck it in her coke, still not looking at Helen. She took a long sip, then just stared at the crushed ice on top for a while, prolonging a chance moment with no clear thought in her head. Then looking around to be sure the bartender wasn't watching, she picked up the shot glass, emptied half its contents into the coke, and set it back down. She stirred it with the straw, then tasted it. The bourbon definitely added a complex, pleasant flavor to the cola, and a bit of body.
Daria looked up at Helen, who was taking a large swallow of her reddish pink thing, a fresh tear starting down her cheek. This was taking too long. She lifted the shot glass and downed the rest of its contents. Almost immediately, her brain felt like it was being gently sloshed around in a bucket. She swayed slightly, grabbed the edge of the table, and blinked. This must be the origin of the term "sloshed". "Damn." she said.
Helen looked at her with an unreadable expression on her face. "Strong?" she asked.
"Yeah, but that's not what I was damning."
"What, then?"
"I like it."
"Huh?"
"I just found out I like the taste of Jack Daniels straight. I didn't need to know that." She felt a tear slide down her own cheek.
"Oh, sweetie..." Helen looked like she was about to grab Daria and try to hug her over the table. Daria pulled back and glared at her. "Don't you sweetie me, you user!"
Looking devastated, Helen said, "Daria, is that really the way you want it? To never see me again?"
"Of course not. If it were, I'd be up in the room asleep, instead of down here sacrificing my brain cells." Daria sipped coke through the straw. "Och, brrain cells, I harrrdly knew ye." she mumbled, then glared at Helen again. "But I'm tired of being used, taken for granted, trampled underfoot, and misunderstood. If that's not the way you want it, things have to change. What you did was wrong."
Helen started to say something, thought better of it. "All right. What I did was wrong. I ignored your desires and feelings. I ignored your rights. I brought you here to show you off to Rita. I should have let you go ahead with your plans. I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"
Daria looked at her mother and smiled a tiny bit. There was still hope. "if you're sorry, are you willing to make restitution?"
"Well... yes. What do you mean by restitution?"
"Three things. Treat me right. Restore what you took from me. And compensation for treating me wrong. A peace offering, if you like."
"How do I treat you right? What do you mean by that?"
"Treat me like I'm me, Daria. A unique human being, valuable and valued in my own right. I'm not a brainy but socially retarded Quinn, in need of a makeover, a new wardrobe, and charm school."
"Daria, I'm very well aware that you're unique. I do love you and value you for who you are. It isn't wrong for me to want you to be more attractive."
"YES, DAMMIT, IT IS!!" Daria glared bloody violent demise across the table. Her hands twitched for Helen's throat. Her canines glinted in the dim light. Helen recoiled from the vehemence more than the volume of Daria's outburst, realizing immediately that she'd struck a major raw nerve.
"Alright, dear, alright! Tell me what's wrong with it!" Helen made down- boy motions at her daughter, who struggled to get her rage pent up again.
Daria glanced around, noted with surprise that no one was staring at her. She took a long sip of bourbon flavored coke and a deep breath. "It's wrong because you always just say it like that and leave it there, like it was a self-evident universal truth, totally obvious and requiring no further discussion. "Be More Attractive." Attract what? From where? For what purpose? You never discuss, never specify, never explain. So discuss already."
The waiter came over, and Helen made an "another round" gesture. "Well, boys, of course, Daria. You're a very pretty and interesting teenage girl, and you should be dating at your age."
"Boys. From where?"
"Well, from school, sweetie. Must we belabor the obvious?"
"The only thing obvious here is the fact that you've never thought this through. And yes, we must belabor it. We're going to run it down and beat it to death, once and for all, and then we're never going to speak of it again. Right?"
Helen returned Daria's glare. "We'll see. Proceed."
"There are at Lawndale High four male students intelligent enough to be potential dates for me, theoretically. Two have such serious psychological problems that they date no one, and no one wants to date them. A third simulates an equally serious set of mental disorders as a defense mechanism. This works so well that he is the most despised student at school. The fourth is Michael Jordan MacKenzie, honor student and captain of the football team. Jodie Landon's boyfriend. All the rest are my intellectual inferiors to such a great extent that we have practically nothing in common.
So. There is no one at Lawndale high I would want to date. There is no point in my attracting boys if I'm not going to date them. Therefore I make myself deliberately unattractive. It saves time, energy, and misunderstandings all around. Do you understand?"
"I see what you're saying, Daria, but you could be driving away some bright, interesting boys you don't know about yet. It's not like you have everyone's IQ scores on file."
"But I do."
"What?"
"I have everyone's IQ scores on file. And SATs. And PSATs."
"Daria, are you pulling my leg? And if not, where and how did you get them?"
"I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me."
Helen thought, "Great. I've raised a criminal mastermind."
The waiter brought the second round of drinks. Helen asked, "What are you doing with all those scores?"
Daria looked down at her lap and said nothing. Her shoulders slumped a bit.
"Daria?"
"Looking for potential dates." Daria said softly. She paused, didn't look up. "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But in the land of the stupid, the smart chick is lonely as hell." She took a sip of bourbon, showed no reaction.
"Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry! It's nice to know you're interested, but you're going about it in such a clinical way! Boys aren't lab rats, you know. Those numbers don't tell you everything! And even if they did, it couldn't hurt you to be a little more attrac-
"YES, DAMMIT, IT COULD!! $#;+! You did it again!!" Daria glared balefully at her mother, trying to decide how much of her mother's look of wounded innocence was genuine. "Look, when you say "Be more attractive, don't you see that you're really saying "Tear down your defenses"? Well, I'm not gonna do that without a damn good reason! I put a lot of time and effort into my armor, and it works for me, and I'm keeping it until I don't need it any more, or until I have a really good reason to take it off!"
"But Daria, honey, don't you see that as long as you wear that repulsive outfit, you have no chance of meeting any bright boys that may come along, from wherever? That's a high price to pay for repelling the stupid ones."
"That's not true. It doesn't work on the bright ones, just the dullards. Mack MacKenzie and I are friends. He sees through my disguise. He knows I'm not homely. And the smartest guy in school is constantly bugging me for dates."
"What? Why haven't I heard about this? Why don't you date him?"
"Picture Austin Powers, you know, from the spy movie? Picture him with curly orange hair, and even more obnoxious. Now combine that with one of those neurotic little dogs that runs up and humps your leg. That's Upchuck. I'm not that lonely."
"Upchuck?"
"Charles Ruttheimer the third. The aforementioned most despised student at Lawndale High. Look, I think you saw today that I can be attractive if I want to, and that I can hold the interest of men who are interesting to me. From now on, you leave it to me decide when, where, and whom to attract. Agreed?"
Helen sighed. She couldn't believe she had lost on this point. "All right, Daria. Agreed."
"Moving on, then. 'Treat me right' also means don't spend ten times as much money on Quinn as you do on me."
Helen had a sinking feeling in her net worth. She was almost guaranteed to lose here. "I believe you're exaggerating, Daria."
"I don't claim to have the exact multiple at my fingertips. We can run an audit when we get back home. In the interests of fair play, I'm sure you wouldn't mind going back over the last, say, four years, toting up what you spent on each of us, and equalizing things with a cash payment to the slighted offspring, whoever she might turn out to be?"
The sinking feeling became a giant sinkhole opening up beneath Helen's financial edifice. "Daria, I can't do that."
"AHA! You've just admitted that you know it's true, and that you have a pretty good idea of the magnitude of the discrepancy." Daria's eyes bored into Helen's. "The magnitude of the injustice."
Helen squirmed internally. Daria had well and truly nailed her. The bourbon didn't seem to be affecting her mental sharpness at all. Did the kid have a hollow leg? "What do you want me to do, Daria?"
"For now, just admit that the problem exists, and agree to do something. This will take more and clearer thought to resolve than we can give it tonight. And remember, you're on both sides of this one. Your mother owes you a lot more than you owe me. Think about it from that perspective. And there's no time like the present to start equalizing your outlays. Either spend more on me, or less on Quinn, or a bit of both, starting now."
"Even that's going to be tough. You know how important clothes are to Quinn, and you're almost allergic to them."
"My cabin fund is very important to me. And I'll be needing a new wardrobe for college. I'll get a new piggie and start a clothing fund."
"You? New clothes?"
"At whatever college I go to, the students will range from "bright" upward. I won't need to repel guys like that. Just don't expect me to join the Harvard Fashion Club."
"Oh! My heart! The shock!" Helen clutched her chest and swayed.
"Ha, ha. The point isn't what the money gets spent on, but that I don't get shafted."
"That's a good point, Daria, but not the only one I have to consider. Allowances are for motivation, not just money distribution.
"You might want to consider rewards for grades. A lot of parents do that."
"You'd certainly be getting the lion's share of that, but you don't need any encouragement to get good grades."
"Quote: I got the good grades, but Rita got the attention and encouragement. Unquote. You know the result of that. Do you suppose that if Quinn saw me being rewarded for my academic performance, her grades might improve? Especially if she needs that money for clothes?"
"It's certainly worth considering. Like you said, the subject needs more thought than we can give it tonight. What else?"
"Treating me right also means never doing this to me again. Or anything resembling this."
"Don't worry. After the last few days, and today in particular, I wouldn't dream of it."
"I went a lot easier on you than I'd planned to, you know."
"I noticed you behaved very decently when you saw me talking with Rita, and I appreciate that."
"I could have burned you so bad right then."
"I wondered why you didn't."
"I'm not sure. Maybe I was afraid it would burn our bridge. Maybe I've absorbed some of your attitude toward her. Mostly, I didn't see any long- term benefits for any of us in handing her a big win. But now I'm worried that I might be handing you a win. I think I impressed Rita, and here you're getting your bonding, in a mean drunk sort of way. I sure as hell don't want to encourage you to try this again."
"You needn't worry. This is a lot more like plea bargaining than bonding, and I have a feeling that I'm not out of the woods yet. I do solemnly swear that I will never again pressgang you to fight in my sibling wars. Okay?
"I'll take that as coming from my mother, rather than from a conniving weaselly lawyer. On that basis... okay."
"Great. Now,what do you want me to restore?"
"The museum trip."
"Gladly. But you said you could never get that back, because Jane has seen the museums now."
"I had an idea. I've heard that Chicago has a very nice set of museums."
"But it's so far away!"
"Jane has a cousin who lives in one of the Chicago suburbs- Wheaton, I think. She could help us if something came up."
Helen looked at Daria, thinking.
"It wouldn't be too expensive if I had a good reliable car."
Helen smiled. "I'd love to have you on my negotiating team. It sounds doable. Now I wonder what you might have in mind for that peace offering."
"The car."
Helen gave a wry smirk. "I'm a little tapped out right now, dear."
"You were going to buy me a car, weren't you?"
"For your birthday, or Christmas, we hadn't decided."
"So you'd just be moving up the timetable a little. You wouldn't be out anything extra, other than a replacement birthday present."
"I'll talk to your father and see what we can do. But you did put a sizeable hole in my discretionary cash."
"Umm... tactically, this is dead wrong, but... the telescope I ordered wasn't exactly the telescope I designed. I could squeeze some money out there, and still get the performance I want."
"The telescope you designed? You didn't order it out of a catalog?"
"No, they're going to build it to my specifications. I designed the optical system to give the best combination of magnification and rich field for my purposes, while using reasonably priced off-the-shelf eyepieces and minimizing the aberrations common to Newtonian reflectors, particularly coma and diffraction. And I designed the focusing system to..."
Helen's eyes glittered. "Darling, where did you learn to design astronomical telescopes?"
"Out of books. Once you understand the principles, it's mainly a matter of keeping track of interrelated factors and..."
"Daria sweetie, I really want to hear this, but it is getting late, and we are tired, and... do you think you could tell us about it in the morning, over breakfast?"
Daria read Helen's expression carefully. "Would "us" perchance include Rita?"
Helen's expression took on an easily read look of pleading. "Yes, dear. Us would."
Daria smiled wryly. "Sure, why not? We're in agreement on the matters we were discussing?"
"Yes, Daria. Fair and equal treatment. Trip to Chicago. Car. You can start looking for one when we get back."
"Great. And of course, you wouldn't try to sneak the cost of the car, the trip, or my credit card purchases into the financial equality calculations."
"Daria! You're killing me!"
"Hey, you know how things like that can breed resentment in a mother- daughter relationship. Besides, we'll make your mother pay for it. And besides besides, you just got back your invitation to my wedding, and your grandma's license."
Leaving the rest of her drinks, Daria slid out of the booth. Helen met her with open arms, wrapped her in a hug. "Oh, darling, I'm so glad we got this straightened out!"
"Hey, get a room!" Daria groused weakly, too tired to flinch away.
"Good idea." Helen laughed, throwing an arm around Daria's shoulders. They tottered toward the elevator together.
Coming soon!
THE BEACHES of BARKSDALE
PART VI
THE MORNING AFTER
1.2 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]