Pt 13: The Final Setup
"My God!" Graham wheezed once he and Dave were safely outside of the Morgendorffer's home.
David had a thousand yard stare that would have been very familiar to most Warzone medics and vets, he moved with a zombie crawl towards his car, and the salvation of being very far away from the Terror in the Red Pantsuit.
Graham just kept repeating, "My god!" to himself for an hour until he had regained his ability to function.
The next morning as soon as David's BMW pulled up in front of the Morgendorffer's, Daria was in damage control mode.
Thankfully David seemed to have collected himself in the hours between leaving and coming back to pick her up for school.
Graham however asked if his future meetings with her mother would be that bad or if it wouldn't resemble the Spanish Inquisition.
And no, not the Monty Python version.
"Well we were able to hold back the bit about you taking me to the dance," Daria informed him, "So she won't fall into outright paranoia and assume things that aren't happening."
"Oh," Graham said flatly, "Well that's good, I guess."
"You guess?" Daria began to ask but as David was pulling up in front of Jane's the matter was dropped.
Since it was Friday, the Snarky Foursome's time had already been consumed by the need to help put the gym together for the dance in advance for Saturday.
Jane and Bob the Punk were hanging up posters and a several big banners, some read out the name of the dance, others had mottos like, "Make love, not war." or "It's a groovy time to party!", and Daria's personal favorite "Feed your head."
Daria herself was helping a girl name Jennifer set up the snack table, minus the actual snacks of course, and wondering why they were bothering with this today since it would just get covered in day old dust.
Meanwhile Graham and a couple other guys had been roped into helping Upchuck set up his DJ booth.
Well other than Graham the rest had been relegated to heavy lifting, since he was the only other smart one who knew anything about electronics.
"Now if we just connect the wire… got it!" Graham crowed as the last connection was made.
"We have to test it to be sure." Charles Ruttheimer reminded him and proceeded to plug it in.
"Grab a record and we'll see how this goes." Upchuck inform him while doing some last minutes checks.
Graham swallowed a backbite and went for the nearest box of records and pulled out one at random.
Then when he saw the cover his eyes went a bit wide and he said, "Whoa man, you've got a first issue of Electric Ladyland?!"
Upchuck grinned, "Yes sir, I do."
Graham limply handed him the Jimi Hendrix record and decided to see what else the kid had, and found a treasure-trove of surprises.
"Janis Joplin, the Mamas and the Papas, the Doors, Bob Dylan, I love Bob Dylan… Holy shit! You've got original issues of The White Album and Abbey Road?!"
The awe in Graham's voice at this collector's dream of vinyl majesty was palpable.
Upchuck laughed, "These were the used ones that I found over the years, I've got some never been taken out of the package ones back home."
Then without further ado he turned to his mixing board and played with the mic, "Check 1, 2, 3…"
A few warbles emerged at first before the sound became clear, and then the Jimi Hendrix version of 'All Along the Watchtower' began to emerge.
"I think we're good." Upchuck said with a genuine grin of pride.
Graham couldn't help but smile back at the King of Slime and thought that if he was more like this and less like an Upchuck that he'd probably be better off.
David meanwhile took advantage of the distraction and sat down on one of the couches that had been moved into the gym for the big party.
Sadly his brief period of solo relaxation was interrupted, but by some decent company.
"Hello David," Jodie Landon said as she approached, holding a notepad and a pen in hand, "Just the man I needed to see."
David couldn't resist a little preening at those unintentionally ego boosting words.
Jodie just laughed and added, "I just need to ask a small favor of you."
"Ok, shoot." David replied as she sat down next to him without being prompted.
"Would you mind doing a small interview for the Lawndale Lowdown? About the dance?"
David thought for a second before shrugging his shoulders and replying, "Sure."
Jodie chirped out a "Great!" and then got to work.
During the short interview, David used some of the media training he had been given over the years and turned on the charm, but since the questions were all softballs it wasn't a major concern.
Though he did have fun telling Jodie that the reason he had signed onto the Committee was so he and his friends could all do something together, rather than be split up.
Once she was done with the 'interview', Jodie put the notepad away and then said in a much less formal manner, "Well Dave I have to hand it to you and Graham, you've been good for Daria and Jane. I don't think I've ever seen them so…"
She struggled to articulate what she was thinking.
David just laughed and offered, "Content?"
"Actually yeah, that is a good way to say it." Jodie replied with a grin.
David then smile softly, letting his blue eyes fall onto Jodie's gorgeous brown ones, a hint of intrigue could be seen slowly emerging from the boy.
Unknowingly his hand moved of its own accord and landed smoothly on Jodie's forearm.
It took a moment for it to register for her, but Jodie found that it didn't bother her all that much so she let it slide.
After things were as set up as they were going to get, Daria found her own chance to slip away and get some fresh air.
The sun was slowly setting over Lawndale, the kaleidoscope of color masking the bland nature of the town and giving it a brief beauty.
Daria leaned on the wall next to the doors to the gym and just took it in, letting her thoughts wander.
However her brief moment alone was broken by the sound of someone approaching and Mack's familiar voice going, "Hey Daria."
"Hi Mack." Daria replied without looking away.
Mack joined her, standing about a foot away, but he did break the silence by asking what was up.
"Not much." Daria replied a bit more briskly than she had intended.
Mack just rolled with it and decided to fill her in on what he had been doing, which was most of the same old same old.
Except for his and Jodie's trip into the jungle of Dega Street.
"I think I found a new favorite place to go for an escape." Mack said with a grin.
"You mean a place that Kevin won't follow you, right?" Daria replied.
"You know me well Ms. Morgendorffer." Mack replied with a laugh.
At that point Daria felt obliged to give him a small synopsis of her recent adventures, which wasn't much that he didn't already know.
But when she mentioned David's cousin that proved to be new for Mack.
"Wow sounds like a screwed up family," Mack said with a shrug, "They'll fit right in here in Lawndale."
Daria admitted that this was perfectly true.
"Well I agree with you that they should be treating her better," Mack said very carefully, "But I'm guessing that this isn't the whole story, right?"
Daria nodded, after all David admitted to not knowing all the details himself.
Mack answered, "Well if I were you I wouldn't worry about it too much, unless she gets back into David's life in some manner."
"Sounds good so far," Daria conceded, "Do go on."
Mack smirked, "I'd keep an open mind, but also remember that she did apparently punch her cousin out on the very first meeting. So the Bentley's might be right and this Sue chick could very well be bad news, but right now it's not your or anyone else's problem but theirs."
Daria nodded again and added, "You know Mack, you should consider charging people for your advice."
"I don't think I could get away with it at this point," Mack snarked back, "The Saint can't become a Loan Shark after all."
Daria just chuckled and replied, "Maybe it's time the Saint grew some horns."
Mack just chuckled back, "Maybe."
They then spent a few more minutes in each other's company before Mack admitted to having come to find Jodie and went inside to try and locate his girlfriend.
Daria's friends however came out just as Mack was heading in, and after a brief update they agreed to a pizza pie.
To take away the memories of manual labor in the name of Lawndale High.
Sue Bee was sitting in front of her vanity mirror, her roommate off with her boyfriend on a date.
"Hello David." Sue said in a perky voice with a nice smile on her face.
She then thought it over and said in a more cheerful voice, "Hi David, it's me. I know we got off to a bad start but…"
Sue trailed off, her happy smile fell off and revealed a more pensive expression.
She pulled a drawer on her vanity to reveal a massive pile of lollipops and unwrapped one and began to slowly suck on it.
The soothing sensation of cherry flavored candy on her tongue always helped her get the best ideas.
After a couple minutes she took the sucker out and tried again.
"David I really need to talk to you, please just hear me out." Sue said to her reflection, a bit more desperately than she liked.
She growled and didn't notice that the stem of the sucker had been snapped in half in her hand.
The anger quickly washed away and she began to work herself up into a frenzy.
"Oh God, I'm going to fuck this up again!" Sue breathed, her eyes starting to fill with panic, her breath turned erratic.
It took her a few minutes to calm down.
Then she was back to it, trying to figure out the best way to re-introduce herself to her first real link to the Bentleys.
She couldn't afford another screw up on what was most likely her last real shot at getting back into the family at all.