Fledglings' Frustration
Chapter VI
The echoed cracking and shrieking of roman candles and bottle rockets perforated the muggy air. Great billows of smoke hung in the lengthening shadows of the coming evening.
Inside her room, Daria quietly and deliberately opened the bottom drawer to her dresser, and extracted a black nylon bag.
She scuttled into the bathroom, locking the door tight. She caught her reflection over the sink, at first alarmed and then dissatisfied at the pale, dour organism looking back at her.
The bathroom was something of a soundproof shell, the fireworks outside were now at best faint rumbles. She dove into the black bag and took out its few paltry contents.
In the ten minutes she spent before the mirror, she managed to tweeze the edge of her eyebrows, comb the tangles out of her hair, slather on a few smears of pimple cream, delicately glaze her lashes with a generic mascara and apply a demure shade of lip gloss.
It seemed that this effort had made absolutely no difference. The more overt part of her psyche was relieved by this. Yet beneath her impassive expression, some other derelict spirit railed and howled in frustration and longing, as dulled and deep as the resounding thunder of the fireworks outside.
A coarse thumping rattled the door. "Daria! Come ON!"
She opened it to behold Quinn, dressed to the nines in an elaborate and form-fitting ensemble.
"I believe in being fashionably late, but I don't wanna leave Stacy to put up with Sandi and Tiffany for too long. Tonight's meant to be fun."
As she followed her younger sister down the stairs and out to the awaiting car, Daria stared blankly at the intricately painted toenails peeping out of Quinn's golden strappy heels. Red, white and blue. But of course.
The whole Morgendorffer family had been invited to Andrew Landon's 4th July barbecue. The event had gained momentum and notoriety over the few years since its inception, and now it had become the veritable Lawndalian social event of the season. Even big enough to allow inclusion of Helen and Jake, who had repeatedly attempted to ingratiate themselves to the Landons without luck.
As Daria sat in the backseat of the Lexus, squashed between Quinn and Jane, she felt more like a teenager than she had for a long time. College had given her such a notion of independence and cerebral cultivation, that it felt somewhat jarring to be reminded that she was still a dependent below the legal drinking age. Here and now, she was one of the kids in the backseat, looking forward to an evening of cherry soda and chit-chat with her old classmates, while the grownups discussed stock options and drank wine.
Or, more likely, she could look forward to cherry soda and sitting in a quiet corner with Jane, making wisecracks about her old classmates, being duly ignored by them.
The encroaching thumpa-thumpa of tired 80s floor-fillers as they drove the few blocks to the Landons' indicated that the party was already in full swing.
"Oh good," Daria grumbled as she got out of the car, "I just haven't heard enough from the B52s in my life."
Jane smirked askance. "Wait til ya see the live band Mister Landon's got for tonight. I hear they're awesome."
Daria's blank veneer didn't slip. She focused on a splatter of grey firework debris dispersed upon the the sidewalk. Inwardly, she reined her wild apprehensions into casual curiosity. Did this mean the Spiral were back to perform another gig? Or was Jane merely toying with her? The last Daria had heard, Trent had achieved the heretofore unthinkable task of balancing his job at the Payday with his newfound calling of teaching the neighborhood kids to play guitar.
"I'm so glad you came!" Jodie rested her hand upon Daria's shoulder. Out of respect she resisted the urge to shy away from the contact.
"It's good to see you, Jodie," Daria conceeded. "What Herculean tasks has your dad set for you this Summer?"
"Actually, I found my own summer job, working in Doonan at the mall."
"Doonan? That ritzy boutique?" The bespectacled girl made an effort not to sound disapproving.
"It's really great, actually," Jodie asserted. "The manager is a lovely woman, and the clothes are manufactured from eco-friendly materials. And they're so much classier than the tarty things they sell at Cashman's. I reckon even you'd like them!"
"No thanks. It's strictly cowls and hair-shirts for me."
Jodie giggled. "Apart from that, I've just been voulenteering at my brother's playgroup. All those little kids are pretty tiring, but it's lots of fun. I've been reading out so much Dr. Seuss that I think it's actually improved my elecution. How about you?"
Daria passed her memory over the sluggish succession of vacant June days. Computer games and thick novels, mostly.
"Um, I've been thinking of writing a short story."
"That's cool! You know, you really should start getting your stuff published, for real. I'm sure some your professors at Raft would make good contacts to the industry."
Daria shrugged, half flattered and half ashamed. "Maybe."
The next moment, Jodie was absorbed back into the crowd by a clique of prim, poised cohorts from Turner University. She waved a brisk goodbye, and Daria elbowed her way through the mingling masses, looking for a vacant corner in which to sit and nurse her styrofoam cup of cherry soda.
Traversing the crowded sitting room, she found Jane, who was being accosted by Mr. O'Neill.
"…Uh, I don't think Mister Demartino will be able to make it tonight." Jane's eyes found Daria, and communicated desperation.
"What a shame," O'Neill replied dolefully, "I was so hoping to see him again. I wanted an update on his new free-wheeling, adventurous life!"
"I'm not sure if there's much adveture involved in scanning videos and staring at the walls all day," Jane told him. "He did kill a mouse that was scurrying around the back room yesterday, though."
O'Neill's hand went to his mouth. "Oh dear!"
"That's nothing," Daria declared. "I caught a mosquito out of the air with my fist the other night."
"No fair. It had probably become incapacitated by the fumes of your Dad's cooking," Jane rebutted.
O'Neill lit up as he recognised his favourite former student. "Daria! How lovely to see you! Has your budding young literary talent found fruitful guidance from the professors at Raft?"
"They've done nothing to compromise my maidenish honour, if that's what you're worried about," Daria gibed.
"Oh, no no no," O'Neill backtracked, "I just wonder whether some of them might not be valuable mentors and contacts for your debut in the professional literary world."
Daria shrugged and said "maybe" again, wanting more than ever to shrink away from the sweaty, pulsing mass of chatting and shimmying party goers.
"So… Mister Demartino said he'd been working down at the harbour in town," Jane piped up, making a gallant effort at rescuing her best friend from any further interrogation.
"Yes!" O'Neill's eyes sparkled with appreciation. "Anthony always wanted to join the Merchant Navy when he was a lad, but circumstances prevented him from following his dream. Now I think he's found a job that he really enjoys, loading and unloading cargo for shipping companies. He says it's good honest work beside the ocean. The video store position has been in aid of saving up to take that vocation overseas."
"Overseas?" Jane found herself a little dismayed.
"He told me he's thinking of working in Antwerp for a while," O'Neill continued, "And then maybe heading somewhere warm like Málaga. I think he has the soul of a Gypsy," the man marvelled, sounding unintentionally as if he were narrating a trailer for a Disney film.
"I feel that he does," Jane agreed reflexively.
The two girls eventually managed to wrest themselves away from O'Neill's cloying felicity. Loading up on paper plates of food, they took advantage of a mericfully abandoned canopy swing by the pool. As Jane munched away on her burger and bobbed along to the music (which by now had moved along to 90s Eurodance), Daria noticed that a drum kit and a collection of amps were being set up on the spacious, fairy-lit patio.
"What's all that about?" She wondered out loud.
"Hmf?" Said Jane, her mouth bulging with charred minced beef.
Daria rolled her eyes. "Whaddaya think, Lane? The purple unicorn over there drinking from the pool? I mean the band equipment."
Jane finished her mouthful. "I already told you, ya dope. Mystik Spiral are playing tonight."
Daria's eyebrows munitiously jumped above the rim of her glasses.
"They're back together?" She asked.
The next moment, the blaring hi-fi was silenced, and Andrew Landon took to the freshly constructed stage, grasping the microphone.
"Everyone, if I could have your attention please?..."
The ensuing exposition was a puff piece on the man's neighbours, co-workers and fellow members of Lawndale County citizens' board. The corny jokes that ornamented it earned both weak laughs and drunken, full-bodied guffaws from the crowd. Daria's head lolled upon her shoulder, the sugar crash, warm air and droning of Mister Landon sending her into a sleepy stupor.
The languorous pall was lifted with the words: "…Now let's get on with the party! Happy Independence Day, everybody!" and a wave of uneven applause.
Jane elbowed Daria in the ribs and indicated the lean, long-legged figure who stepped up to the mic, cradling a stressed and sticker-clad guitar.
"I looked too long and lost her hand
So now you're primed to drag me down
My service may be yours, old man
But don't think you can trust me now
I'll muck out grime from Tartarus
I'll feed the subterranean fire
I'll preen the ticks off Cerberus
But during lunch I'll play my lyre
Ha! Did you think I'd break?
Old man, you are mistaken
I smell the flowers of Elysium…
Sing triumphant
My muse still burns deep down in me
Sing triumphant
Of my Orphean comedy!
Sing triumphant
I'm still the man I want to be
I write my own fate
In this Orphean comedy!..."
Daria couldn't help but snigger mirthfully to herself as she joined in the riotous applause. This new song was punchy and energised, and amongst the powerful guitars and feisty percussion, she thought she detected a subtle yet sprightly homage to a certain famous overture also dedicated to the ancient music god. And the lyrics, though steeped in metaphor and willful self-determintion, were still so lovably Spiral-esque.
Knowing her voice would be lost in amongst the general cacophony, Daria joined in the refrain of "More! More!"
Flashing his warm blue eyes at his enchanted audience, Orpheus broke into another vigorous melody, playing his lyre and singing his beautiful laments well into the night.
DDDDDDDDDDDDDD
The party was starting to wind down, so it had become less of a challenge to push through the mellowed clumps of suburbanites, dozy and full of food and thinking of their soft beds.
Daria's eyes scanned the faces inside the sitting room. Where was he?
As the hi-fi rotated between its salver of CDs, a lull in the thumping music revealed the soft, telltale strumming of a guitar floating up from the sunken rec room.
Not wasting any more time, Daria followed the honeyed music to its wellspring.
"Put your index finger there, and your pinky there…"
"Like that?"
"Just like that."
With a laboured strum, a mournful minor chord flourished its way out of the guitar.
"Now your guitar gently weeps."
A peal of nymphish female laughter filled the closed-off room.
Daria stood at the door, watching an impromptu music lesson in progress. A congregation of Trent's students were draped slavishly in a circle around him, all of them lithe, gorgeous women ranging from little Beatrice Moreno to Stacy to Michelle Landon's flirtatious secretary. The only male in the group was Sandi's little brother Chris, who was just as rapt in gazing at his teacher as the others were.
Trent bowed over a wing chair, where Brittany's cheer squad pal Angie sat, the musician's treasured electric guitar in her clutches. His long, large, lovely fingers lay softly upon hers, positioning them to play a succession of chords.
He sang as she conscientiously played along:
"I look at you all
See the love there that's sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps…"
A ragged exhalation from Daria alerted them all to her presence.
"Hey!" Trent welcomed. "Wanna come and hear some more?"
Daria shook her head, averting her face from the alarming collection of stares that were suddenly upon her.
"No, it's okay. I needed to ask you about something… it can wait."
She turned to leave, but Trent beckoned: "No, please. You can ask me now, it's no problem."
She interlaced her hands in front of her, staring at the rug beneath her feet.
"Well… I've been told I have to either take a class or get a job for the rest of the summer… I was wondering if I could take guitar lessons with you…?"
Trent's face fell under genuine regret. "Oh, sorry Daria. But between all my other students and getting the band back together, I kinda don't have a space free at the moment. But, you know, maybe sometime later."
Daria nodded a little too insistently, and briskly turned away.
"Yeah, sure. That's fine," she mumbled.
She kept her eyes fixed to the floor. She climbed the stairs to the sitting room, struggled through the throng towards the back patio, into the night, across the lawn, off the property, down the street and trudged the few lonely blocks back home, fully feeling the severe gravity of her solitude.