Mack the Esteemer (X)

Saturday was in full swing, and Daria had enjoyed surprising Mack and Jane with her wardrobe choice of a simple green shirt, black bell-bottom pants, her usual boots, an old jean jacket she used to wear in Highland, and her new smaller oval glasses, and of course her nose cast.

Now after Jane had given her a brief tour of 'Casa Lane' and all three of them were now in her room, the TV was showing Hackers on a low volume while Jane finished showing off her latest paintings and a strange pair of statues that she claimed had taken hours to build.

"They're going to be the subject of a painting." Jane explained while waving around a glue gun that resembled a laser beam.

"Put down the weapon Jane," Mack teased, "Nice and slow, the paint fumes are getting to you."

"Scoff all you want!" Jane mocked while adding a couple buttons to the strange mess of objects, "But these babies will make for a fascinating piece."

"Scoff." Daria intoned with a slight grin just before a very loud boom shook the room and caused the larger of the two statues to wobble and then fall apart on top of the other one.

Daria then added, "There but for the grace of noise goes your new masterpiece."

Jane growled, "Dammit Trent!" before storming out of the room.

"Who's Trent?" Daria asked of Mack who explained as they followed her as more noise emerged from what turned out to be the Lane's basement.

"Trent is Jane's older brother," Mack yelled over the guitars, "I'm guessing he and his buddy Jesse are having a jam session for their band."

Before Daria could ask, "What band?" they reached the open door that lead down to the lowest level of the house, which apparently doubled as a potter's crafting room and display area.

A nice drawling voice could be heard singing before Jane yelled, "YO TRENT! MIND TURNING IT DOWN A BIT?!"

The guitar playing stopped just as Daria reached the bottom of the stairs and she saw a lanky twenty something with tribal band tats on his arms, piercings, wild black hair and a soul patch beard.

Next to him was a muscular guy with long flowing brown locks wearing a leather vest with no shirt, black pants, and combat boots.

The lanky guy said, "Are you kidding, oh hey Mack..." He then peered at Daria for a moment and then said, "Do I know you?"

Jane laughed, "Trent this is my friend Daria, Daria this is my brother Trent, and the lug next to him is Jesse."

"Hey." Daria replied casually.

After some more introductions, Trent asked what they thought of the song.

"Well it has a beat and you can dance to it." Daria said politely, then Mack made her laugh by whispering, "If you have no shame."

"You guys should come to our Mystik Spiral gig tonight." Jesse said to them while putting his guitar down.

"Mystik Spiral? Sounds like a Doors cover band." Daria thought aloud before she could stop herself.

Trent went, "Hmm... I think you're right, maybe we should spell Mystik with two Y's."

Mack grinned and replied, "You should sleep on it."

Trent started to laugh but wound up coughing, "Sounds like a plan, Mack."

"Speaking of plans," Jane butted in, "We were going to get some pizza for lunch, you guys interested?"

"Yeah." Jesse spoke up with a slight smile at the thought of food.

Trent's head bobbed, "What Jesse said."

Daria smirked at the two of them and whispered to Mack, "If I didn't know any better I'd swear that they were Jane's younger idiot brothers."

Mack laughed as they left the basement, "That's what I thought at first, but Trent's sacrificed a lot for Jane so try not to judge him."

There was a moment's pause and Mack rethought that, "Ok, don't judge him too harshly."

Daria laughed and replied, "Fair enough."

As they headed to the front door to leave Daria thought about Trent and Jesse, "They are both good looking I'll admit but neither of them holds a candle to Mack."

Mack glanced at the doors of Pizza Prince as Trent and Jesse walked in with two other guys that Daria didn't recognize and was informed that the one with blond hair was Nick and the bald guy was Max.

Trent led them to the booth where Mack and Daria were at with Jane and joined them, one of the servers took one look at their group and rushed to the back saying loudly, "Mystik Spiral plus three!"

Daria raised an eyebrow at that, Jane smirked and explained.

"Max's uncle owns the joint," Jane said as the server rushed back with a tray full of drinks, "So combine their big appetites with a tab and..."

"Ah I see." Daria stated as the serve handed out sodas and then took their pizza orders, to which Trent then added at the end, "And we'll want to take some home with us too."

The server nodded firmly and jotted something down on his pad before rushing back to the kitchen yelling, "Tony it's a Code 3!"

Mack explained before she could ask what that meant, "There's a code system for how much food the band wants, it goes all the way up to five."

"And how many Code 5's have there been?" Daria asked with a raised eyebrow and everyone gulped and looked stricken, even Jane.

"One." Nick said flatly with a shudder.

"God that night's a blur," Max added while rubbing his forehead with sympathy pain, "And the morning after too."

"Okay," Daria said quietly, "That explains a lot."

Mack smiled and when everyone else was distracted talking about other stuff, he asked Daria about going to church with him and his parents the next day.

"Wow," Daria replied, "A couple days into our relationship and I'm already being recruited."

Mack laughed, "No nothing like that, my parents go about once a month and Minister Hughes usually keeps his sermons upbeat, but it is a black majority congregation."

Daria nodded, "Ah, so careful with sarcastic commentary and all that... Gotcha."

"So you'll come with?" Mack asked and after a moment Daria nodded yes.

"Just forewarning," she added with a raised finger, "I'm an agnostic and if you're going to try and convert me..."

"I'm not," Mack replied firmly, "and besides I'm something of a skeptic myself but it makes my parents happy to see me with them and like I said, it's usually upbeat."

"But the Landons are also members," he added and then rushed with, "But after what's happened I doubt they'll come, or if they do I highly doubt Jodie will be with them."

Mack made a face and sneered, "Since she's damaged their precious 'image' of being picturesque and an 'example' to their people."

He put the words image and example in air-quotes.

Daria nodded in acknowledgement just as the food arrived and everyone began to dig in.

While sucking down sodas and pizza without shame, Daria heard Trent mention, "We're going to head to Alternapalooza in a couple weeks."

"We're taking the Tank!" Max cheered and almost knocked over his pop, "It's indestructible!"

Mack and Jane both suppressed snickers, and Daria wondered about the so-called indestructible qualities of Max's 'Tank'.

Mack said carefully, "With the money me and Daria are getting from the school district, we'll probably have a couple new cars by then, if you guys give us gas money we'll drive you up."

"Cool." Trent drawled before Max could object, "We're there!"

Daria whispered to Mack, "I'm still learning to drive."

He whispered back, "I figured, but we'll have one of the guys do the driving for you instead."

Trent chose that moment to pass out and fell into his food and the look on Daria's face caused Mack to add, "We'll have narcoleptic boy in the back."

As they exited Pizza Prince, Daria commented about the number of people who had come up to them mid-way through the meal to ask how she was doing.

"I didn't think getting punched in the nose could make you popular." she snarked to Jane as they left, Trent and Jesse carrying a large stack of leftover pizza in boxes.

Jane shrugged, "I think it was a combo of your 'Sexy Daria' thing and getting decked."

Daria snickered, "The words Sexy and Daria do not belong together."

Mack thought to himself, "Oh yes they do."

After getting back to Casa Lane, Mack then escorted Daria to his father's borrowed car and showed her around town a bit.

He pointed out some of the other teen hangout spots, like Trendee's ("That's the overpriced place the popular kids go in order to look cool." Mack commented), the Mall he bypassed since neither of them needed clothes or food, High Hills Park, which perked Daria's interest due to the rumors of secret Satanic worship at night, then Dega Street, which truly was interesting.

Then he showed her the storefront for the family business Mackenzie Hardware.

The store was a grey and white brick combo, the sign promoting it was large and in red lights, the parking lot was busy since it was Saturday afternoon but Mack found a spot.

The inside was filled with shoppers and Daria noted that the store itself was of a decent size but not over the top huge, and even with the crowd was kept as clean and tidy as possible.

The employees recognized Mack on sight and greeted him warmly, and when informed that she was his current girlfriend also got the nod of approval.

"You wanna talk to the boss?" an employee with the nametag of 'Gladys' asked, but Mack shook his head.

"Just showing my girl around." Mack explained before moving on.

She took in the wide selection available in the various aisles while Mack discussed how his father built it up.

"He had always dreamed of running a shop like this," Mack explained as they slipped into the break room, "But until Mom hit the lottery it was just that, a dream."

Mack beamed as he talked, "Even before we got all our ducks in a row, he was saying how we were going to put the money to good use, a college fund for me and a family business so we'd never have to be where we were."

"It wasn't a bad life," he added with a wistful sigh, "It was just a working class sort of deal, scrapping by with Dad working on a construction crew and Mom as a secretary. I guess you could say it hasn't changed but that we've just moved on up."

Daria laughed with him on that one, "So how much of a struggle was it to get this place going?"

Mack replied, "Not as much as you would think, since the other place, Deuce Hardware had all kinds of issues with keeping up with demand and the service sucked. I'm proud to say that within a year of opening that Dad put them out of business."

Then a big voice interrupted them, "And I am too son!"

"Hey Dad," Mack greeted his father as the large man entered the break room.

"Hello Mister Mackenzie." Daria answered nicely as George took a seat with them at the table.

"Please Daria you can call me George." Mack's father said with a big smile, and Daria nodded at that and corrected herself, "Hello George."

When Mack confirmed that he had shown Daria the store and was telling her how he built it, George smiled with satisfaction, "They say pride is a sin, but I don't feel sinful when I say that I've made something here to be proud of."

"You should be proud." Daria replied honestly, "It's takes a lot of guts to go after a dream like this, especially since the rate of attrition for small businesses is brutal."

"Now that's the truth," George stated with a nod, "Heh I remember old Landon saying that I should just invest all the money in stocks, that he didn't want to see me be destroyed by the business world."

Mack added with a worried glance at Daria, "Yeah, he always had to pretend he was doing people a favor by putting them down."

George laughed at that, "The truth strikes again! Well I showed that stuck up social climber, business is booming, we've got a nice house, and my boy's future is bright and secure. What more could I ask for?"

Daria gave a full blown smile at that but said nothing, but she did take Mack's hand into her's underneath the table just held it for a while.

She talked to Mack's father for a little bit after that, and learned that he had made friends and connections with the other business leaders and with the Crewe Neck set.

George told them the latest from that little 'old boy's world', "Heh at the last Business Leader's Luncheon I remember telling Linda Griffin how to improve her gutters and she was so thankful that she cut me a deal on TV advertising at the local news channel."

He laughed again and took a chance and told them about witnessing the Sloanes in action, "Angier and Kay are really nice people, and they're always doing some project or another at their home and I seem to have become their go-to guy for supplies and info on good construction teams to do it."

Mack smiled at that while thinking to himself, "Tom and Elsie are cool too, but I think I'll keep Daria away from them, especially Tom until our relationship is more solid."

It's not that he didn't like or trust Tom, he just suspected that Tom might be a kind of guy that could sweep a girl like Daria off her feet.

"And that's not happening on my watch." Mack thought to himself firmly as his father wrapped up his story telling session.

"Well I think I'll stop boring you with my gossip," George said while getting up and gave his son a hug and a pat on the back before leaving, "You kids have fun and..."

Mack suspected what his father was going to ask, "Yeah Dad, Daria's coming with us tomorrow."

"Great!" George replied happily, "I'll see you two later, bye!"

Two friendly goodbyes echoed as George Mackenzie left to get back to work, and after a minute Mack and Daria departed the break room and then left the store.

As they walked out the front door, Daria pushed back her nerves and followed a wild impulse and had Mack stop in mid-step and kissed him, ignoring anyone passing by.

Mack smiled joyfully once she pulled back and said, "Thanks but what'd I do right?"

Daria beamed, "Nothing... I just felt like doing that."

As they headed to his borrowed car, Mack hopefully asked, "Any chance that you still feel like doing that?"

Daria smirked and replied as they reached the car, "Maybe..."

After getting back home she was ambushed by Quinn who wanted to get her ready for her date at Governor's Park, hours in advance.

It took a while to extract herself from her sister's tentacles, but by pointing out that it was still daylight and that Cashman's did have that sale going on, Daria managed to escape and lock herself in the safety of her room.

She opened her closet and extracted the dress bags and checked each of them and found what she hoped would be a suitable dress for Sunday.

It was a long-sleeved black and white number that went just past the knees, it did show off some cleavage and was tight in places she didn't want to think about, but it was still elegant.

"Will I have to wear a hat?" Daria thought out loud, "I know some churches require it, other's don't..."

She made a note to herself to ask while putting the dress back in the bag and opened up the one containing the white ballroom gown that she would be wearing in a few hours.

She stared at it for a long time, the rich soft silk and satin fabric felt like water flowing through her hands, if the black & white dress seemed a bit risqué, it had nothing on this sleeveless, backless number.

"This is going to take some getting used to." she said to herself while looking at it like a coiled viper that was ready to strike at any moment.

And in a few hours that would be technically true.