Dream House
By Ruthless Bunny
Daria woke up to the sunshine pouring into the room. "Damn rosy fingers of dawn." She rolled over and tried to sleep, but Joyce wouldn't let her. The cat had jumped up on the bed and was butting her head against Daria.
"MEOW!" she insisted, her tail swishing in annoyance.
Summertime was supposed to be celebrated by self-indulgent sloth--unless you were taking care of a cat. As she rose from twilight into full consciousness, Daria could hear the arrival of the work crew.
"I'm UP!" Daria batted Joyce away from her and raked her hair with her fingers. She went downstairs in her shorts and nightshirt to get Joyce a bowl of Meow Mix. The guys from "House Fixers" had already put on the coffee and were plotting out their day.
"Morning Sunshine," Kevin said, scarfing down donuts.
"Shut up," Daria growled, getting the cat food out of the pantry.
"So you're in a good mood this morning then?" He laughed at her and continued to review the plans as the rest of the guys unloaded the equipment from the truck.
She glared at him. The major stuff was done before she moved in. The living room floor was resurfaced and shone like a lake in autumn. The bathrooms had been retiled and refitted with gleaming new fixtures. Paint had been applied expertly to the walls, but Quinn wasn't satisfied. The guys seemed to have a perpetual job in the house as projects occurred to her. Today it was the kitchen.
According to a decorating show on Home and Garden Television, the paint on the aluminum cabinets could be buffed off, leaving a modern metallic touch to a thirties design. Quinn was debating whether or not to get old Formica patterned countertop or marble. In the meantime, the cabinets were currently on the back porch and the kitchen looked like a roller rink.
Daria rolled her eyes and planned to drink her tea upstairs in relative peace, or until the work crew started up with the power tools. Joyce was nonplussed and ate her breakfast with satisfaction.
"Hey, Sunshine, tell your sister that I got an amazing deal on her floor tiles. We'll be installing the floor tomorrow.
"Great. What does that mean to me?" Daria sighed, this home improvement stuff was never-ending.
"Well, we'll move the fridge onto the porch and take away the
stove. The cabinets should be back up
tonight. Until Quinn makes a decision
on the countertops though, you can't have water in here. You'll have to keep using that sink in the
scullery." He indicated the
pantry. "That's next you know."
"What?"
"Yeah, she wants us to do something in there..." he meant to continue but she stopped him.
"I don't want to hear any more. Are you guys ever going to be done?" Exasperation took over. It was easy for Quinn to dream up improvements, she didn't have to live with the construction.
"Hey, my wife wants a pool, as long as Quinn wants something, I'm the guy who's going to make it happen." He winked at her and went outside to let the crew know what they were doing.
Daria went upstairs and decided to go to work early. Sticking around would only piss her off.
Daria returned to the house at around three in the afternoon. She found Trent eating lunch in the dining/conference area. He looked lonely sitting at the head of the large rosewood table nibbling at his tuna sandwich. Joyce sat across from him, standing in the middle, taking small offerings of tuna from his fingers.
"So how does it look?" Daria asked, ignoring the cat on the table, a thing civilized people wouldn't allow for an instant.
"What look?" Trent and Joyce were involved in a love-fest.
"The kitchen. How does the kitchen look?" She dropped her bag on the floor.
"Check it out for yourself. The fridge is outside." He informed her.
"Yeah, for tomorrow." She walked into the kitchen and marveled at the conversion. Steel-gray cabinets hung where previously powder yellow boxes had been. The kitchen had a streamlined look now. It was still retro, but modern as well. She hated Quinn for being right, mostly because it involved so much noise. The linoleum floor was littered with chunks of plaster and other detritus from the construction. "Trent!" she yelled into the other room, "what is up with all this trash on the floor?"
He appeared at the doorway, "They're going to get a super vacuum to get it up tomorrow. Why bother fooling with it?" He crunched across the floor to put the plate in the one working sink.
"For Pete's sake." Daria followed him into the scullery and got the broom. "How hard is it to sweep?" She spent about five minutes running the broom and most of the big stuff was off the floor and dumped. They could get the microscopic bits tomorrow. "At least now it won't sound like we're crossing the arctic tundra when we're in here for a snack."
Trent had settled himself on the sofa, a large, comfortable sectional, to watch the afternoon round of mindless drivel. He was moving between a court show and Ricki Lake. Joyce had settled herself near him, on the back of the sofa, she was purring with contentment.
"So when are you going in to work?" Daria liked having him around but she was in a nasty mood and wanted to be alone.
"Don't have to. They got some beer promotion contest or something. Night off." Trent closed his eyes, letting the soporific effect of the sofa do its work.
"Oh. So you had a night off and you didn't tell me?" She said it in a monotone.
"Huh? Why?" Trent was just at the stage of drowsiness where it was nearly impossible to pay attention to conversation, especially conversations you didn't want to have.
"I don't know. It's not like we see a lot of each other with our schedules and if you had a spare evening it would have been nice to make plans or something." Daria shrugged, there was no way not to sound hurt out of proportion and she resented Trent for not 'getting' it and making her explain it.
Trent realized, even in his somnolent state that he was on dangerous ground. Blow it off, sound like an insensitive jerk. Argue back; sound like an insensitive jerk. What was behind door number three? The lady or the tiger? "I just thought it would be nice to spend a quiet evening together. We could get a movie on pay-per-view...or something." He tried to gauge her mood by her expression, which he found impossible.
"Yeah. Okay. I'm going upstairs to soak in the tub. I might nap. We'll talk about it later." She tried not to betray whatever it was that her crabbiness was trying to get her into.
"Great. Later." Joyce jumped down as he started to snore quietly. She padded upstairs to see what Daria was doing.
Daria oblivious to Joyce's entrance prepared a bath. She wasn't entirely sold on taking a bath, but she was aggravated and couldn't really explain why. She hoped that a moment lounging in lavender water would relax her and help her gain perspective. Joyce perched on the lid of the commode and watched with fascination as the water came out of the spout and ran into the tub.
Daria cued up the Brandenburg Concertos on the CD player and sank into the hot, fragrant tub. Today it was hard to appreciate everything she had. Everything she thought would make her happy was on her last nerve.
Her dream house, full of charm and quiet, had been turned upside-down with workmen converting closets into curio cabinets and all other manner of projects. Trent, who Daria felt hung the moon on most days, could also be more helpless than a baby, especially when it came to matters requiring common sense. Her job, the one she felt so honored to be selected for, during the summer was nothing more than mailroom work.
Daria decided that what she really wanted was a pity party. She felt sorry for herself. Daria had a strategy for times like this. Bathe, go to bed with Pride and Prejudice and if hungry, only eat cereal. Except Trent was home and wanted to do something with her. Unless he just slept through the evening. Which might happen.
After a half-hour, the cat, realizing that she was trapped, started kicking up a ruckus about being in the hot, steamy bathroom.
"MEOW!" She batted at the door, expecting Daria to get out of the tub to let her out.
"It's your fault. You weren't invited in." Daria said as Joyce sat in front of the door, swishing her tail.
"MEOW! MERROWWW!" Joyce's eyes narrowed to slits, waiting for her human to do her bidding.
"Shut up!" Daria waved at the cat and sank further into the tub.
The door opened a crack and a rush of cool air came in as Joyce slid through. Daria opened her eyes in time to see the end of the chocolate brown tail disappear. "Thanks Trent."
"Hardly. Having a bad day?" Quinn sat down and stared at her sister.
"Yes. And people joining me in my bath isn't improving my temperament." Daria gave up on the relaxing bath and emerged from the tub, wrapping a towel around her.
"I just home to change. I heard Joyce up here and I thought I'd rescue you."
"Thanks." Daria shimmied into her robe and they left the bathroom and sat on the bed in Quinn's room. Daria leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
"So what's the problem?" Quinn began to sort through her clothes, looking for an outfit to wear out that evening.
"I don't know. Everything is so...." She gestured with her arms, searching for the words.
"Normal?" Quinn was matching eye shadows to a top, trying to decide if she wanted to contrast or to match.
"Huh?" Daria's hair was twisted into a towel turban on her head. She loosened it because she didn't think she heard Quinn correctly.
"Normal. You don't have all of that relationship angst any more. You don't pine away for him when he's gone. You don't wait on pins and needles hoping he'll say something more. It's signed, sealed and delivered. And you're bored." She held up the outfit for Daria's approval. Then she remembered where she was and with whom.
"Cosmo?" Daria replied flippantly.
"Be serious. No, it's all part of the deal. You can't live in a world where you're off balance all the time, but once you start to feel comfortable, you miss the excitement." She disappeared into the closet to dress.
"So what do I do about it?" She reached over to the table by Quinn's bed for some hand cream and began to massage it into her feet.
"How would I know?
That's when I usually change boyfriends. Guys don't throw me off balance." She sprayed a cloud of perfume and walked into it. "Okay, speaking of which, I'm off with Matt
tonight. I'll be back late so don't
worry about me."
"I never do."
Quinn gathered her handbag and bounced out the door to meet her date. Daria astonished herself by realizing that she would miss Quinn when she moved into the dorms. She moved through Quinn's room looking over all the minutiae of Quinn's essence. She squirted some fragrance on her wrists and dabbed a bit behind her ears. Daria continued to rifle her sister's belongings, finding everything new and exciting. She tried a face cream that made her skin glow. She toweled her hair until it was damp and applied some stuff out of a tube. She combed it through and liked the way it made her hair feel silky. Daria's curiosity wasn't about how she might look better, but more about what it was like to do all of this stuff.
Quinn had always been the high maintenance one. Even as a child Daria would be on the sofa waiting for Quinn to finish getting ready. Their mom had delighted in dressing Quinn up, since Daria wasn't hands-on that way. She remembered wishing that there was something that she and Helen could share, the way the Quinn and Helen shared dressing up. In her rivalry for attention, Daria decided that she would never try to beat Quinn at her game, therefore Daria thought of a new game. Daria's game was to be the smartest. In a way the sisters respected their area of expertise. Quinn was the pretty one, Daria was the smart one. There was only one time that the roles reversed, a few years ago in high school Quinn wrote an essay that won praise and Daria had to warn her off of her territory.
At the time Daria thought it was only fair, but now she felt ashamed. What if that episode had caused Quinn not to use her intellect in an appropriate way? Daria's appearance issues were her own, but Quinn was comfortable being smart. She opened a pot of lip-gloss and smeared the cherry flavored goo on her lips.
Staring at herself in Quinn's mirror Daria finally saw what others saw, a pretty young woman. It startled her. Not the pretty part. Daria knew that she was hiding pretty, but the young woman part. When did she become an adult? Had she been one for a while?
Daria went back to her room and lay on her bed. Joyce had curled up in her laundry basket, only her ears stood up over the rim. Daria thought about how she had changed since coming to college.
New people, new situations, new attitude. The old game, stand-offish and sarcastic didn't work in her new environment. College was different from high school, especially Ivy League college. Daria wanted to know and like her classmates. Everything she thought she knew about people had been proven wrong in just twelve months.
Steve, Mike, Gayle, Courtney, Melissa. A list of people that on the surface would have repulsed her, she wouldn't have given any of them the time of day based upon their one-line descriptions. Lab geek, jock, sorority girl, roommate, Christian RA. On the surface...that's what had changed. She was willing to go deeper.
Daria had gone from an isolated high school loner to a young woman with friends. Sure, she still had Jane and Trent but beyond that Daria had found a place where she could be who she was and still be popular. A thrill shot through her. She was popular...on her terms.
Daria cast her mind back and tried to think of the last time she felt the need to cut someone down. Not only was there no one who deserved it, she didn't want to be that kind of person anymore. She did need friends, she did need colleagues. It wasn't merely that Quinn had changed; it was the fact that Daria had changed too. For the better.
The things that had so annoyed Daria during the day suddenly reminded her of how far she had come. She had a boyfriend to get on her nerves, a sister to share secrets with and a cat who liked her laundry. She tried to find a silver lining in workmen who woke her up with the sounds of pneumatic drills, but for the most part Daria was happy with her life.
She got up from the bed, threw on a sundress and went downstairs to wake Trent up. He had managed to tangle himself up in the sofa pillows. The sun was still out although low in the sky. Daria watched him sleep, struggling with herself about waking him, but he had an unexpected evening off and she wanted to take advantage. "Hey Trent."
He opened his eyes when he heard her voice. "Hmmmm?"
"I thought you might like to take me out. Feel like a slow boat ride on the river? How about a lobster?" She stood silhouetted in the sunlight as he squinted up at her.
"Yeah, that sounds perfect." He hoisted himself off the sofa and kissed her on the forehead. "Lobster."
Daria shrugged. It wasn't romantic, but it was right for her.