Daria glared at her roommate's back from beneath lowered eyebrows. Charlene was seated at her desk and had a textbook open in front of her, but Daria had a hard time believing that she was actually able to read anything with her head bobbing around like that. Pop music and a high, shrill teenage voice, whining to the world about being misunderstood, leaked out of her headphones. Well, thought Daria, at least she used headphones. Her last roommate couldn't seem to understand that not every college student loved Death Metal at max volume. When Daria studied or worked to music, it was usually something by Beethoven for writing or Bach for math. She was for this reason considered deeply weird. Apparently no one else in the dorm was aware of the enhanced concentration and retention that could be gained in this way. Right now, Daria wished she had a CD of pink noise to play through her own headset to drown out what was leaking out of Charlene's. But not nearly as much as she wished she was back in her room with the padded walls at home, blissfully alone.

Daria was about to get up and root out a Beethoven CD when there was a soft knock at the door. A glance confirmed that Charlene had heard nothing. Daria sighed, threw off the blanket she'd wrapped around herself, uncoiled from her cross-legged position, and rose from her bed. It's probably Jane anyway, she thought as she walked the three steps to the door. She knows me well enough to know I'll be moping in my room with a book.

Daria opened the door. It was indeed Jane standing there. I guess I know her pretty well, too, she thought. She leaned out into the hallway and looked up and down it. "Where's your friend the doorbuster?"

Jane looked miserable. "I'm really sorry about that, Daria. He said he'd be gone all afternoon. He shouldn't have been back till after six."

Daria stared at Jane for a couple of seconds, then silently took a step back. Jane took it as an invitation and entered the small, somewhat cramped dorm room.

"I brought your paint set and your painting," Jane began diffidently, holding them out.

Daria took the items and laid them on her desk, saying nothing, then gestured to Jane to sit in the desk chair.

Jane sat down, and Daria sat on her bed and tucked her stockinged feet under her.

Daria looked at Jane's sad countenance for a couple of seconds, then asked, "Who the hell was he, anyway?"

"His name's Geoff. He lives there."

"In the loft? With you? I saw stuff in there that I knew wasn't yours, but I sort of assumed that it would belong to another girl." Daria glanced at Charlene, who remained oblivious. "So are you… more than just roommates?"

"You mean, are we doing the bone dance? The horizontal hokey-pokey? Making ends meet?" Jane smirked. "No. The other guys would feel left out."

"Other guys? Daria looked at Jane, surprised. "How many guys are we talking about here? I wouldn't have thought there was room for more than two."

Jane said, "There are four of us in there now. Traditionally, that's considered capacity, but there have been as many as seven. It works because we're all art students, and because there are a set of rules and traditions that we all accept and follow."

"Traditions?"

"Yeah. That loft has been occupied by BFAC students for a long time now, and there's kind of a micro culture that's handed down from tenant to tenant. We're all here for the same thing, and we're all on a tight budget. It's almost like a little tiny commune."

"Hm. It sure didn't take you long to go all left-bank and bohemian. But why did he barge in like that? And how? I saw you lock the door."

"Believe me, I asked him that. He said he thought the doorknob was just stuck again. Apparently, that door was jimmied sometime in the past, and now if you put your shoulder against the doorframe and pull the knob the other way, everything gives enough so that the door will open even if it's locked. I'm sorry, Daria. I didn't know."

"I guessed it'd be something like that." Daria sighed and stared at her book for a minute. "Apology accepted."

Jane smiled with relief. "Geoff is sorry too. He says he'd like to apologize in person."

"Tell him I accept his apology, but we must never meet. If I ever come face to face with him, I'll have to kill him. That, or die of embarrassment."

"Come on, Daria. I thought you were over that."

"I'm over it enough that I can model for you without blushing to death, but I'm still not a nudist or a stripper. Being caught naked in a strange garret in a strange city by a strange man isn't quite the same thing as being caught naked in my bedroom by my mother," Daria replied, staring fixedly at the book in front of her.

Jane gazed sadly at her friend. Plainly, Daria was still upset over the incident. "I feel really awful about that, Daria. Is there any way I can make it up to you?"

Daria looked up at Jane and smiled minutely. "Don't worry about it," she replied.

"The way you stormed out of there, I thought you were so furious you might not speak to me for a week."

"The term 'murderous rage' comes to mind. At first, I was startled and scared. Some total stranger bashes in the door and catches me naked. I didn't know what was going on. When you called him by name, I guessed he wasn't some dope-crazed rapist. That left me very embarrassed and angry." Daria looked down at her lap. "I figured there was probably going to be some semi-reasonable explanation, and that I should calm down and deal with it rationally. But I was just too upset to talk to anyone right then. I wanted to kill him, and then maybe you too. I think I told you once that I'd rather be hit by a train than be embarrassed like that. I couldn't regain control that fast. I had to get away so I could cool down."

"Why did you hide on the bus?"

"I wasn't hiding. I was tying my bootlaces."

"Oh. How in the world did you get down four flights of stairs that fast with unlaced boots?"

Daria shrugged her shoulders. An awkward silence ensued. To break it, Jane picked up the unfinished landscape from the desk. "This is looking really good. I wish you could have finished it. Is it a problem to finish a watercolor when it dries before it's done?"

Daria was a bit surprised to find that she knew more than Jane about any type of painting. It occurred to her that this might just be a conversational gambit on Jane's part. Well, if so, she'd play along. "It would have been if I'd been painting wet-in-wet, but I wasn't. I painted the sky wet-in-damp, but once that was finished, I can let it dry and go back into it as many times as I want, as long as I don't get a passage too wet and make a balloon. I couldn't have finished it in the garret anyway. I was about ready to stop painting before that guy barged in. I was having trouble holding the brush steady because I was shivering."

Jane sighed and laid the piece of heavy watercolor paper back on Daria's desk. "Yeah, and I'm afraid you're right about it getting colder in that garret. Jim said that a couple of times last winter, early in the morning, he could see his breath. And of course, it gets hot in the summer."

"I thought you had enough money to get a better place than that."

"So did I, but books and materials set me back a lot more than I expected." Jane pointed at the opened book lying face down on the end of Daria's bed. "Whatcha reading?"

"The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov. It was written in the thirties under Stalin. The main character is the devil. It's awful in spots and funny in spots, but I don't know what it means. Not yet, anyway."

"Why do you read stuff like that?"

Daria gazed thoughtfully at the book for a few seconds. "Sometimes to study the author's style, sometimes for distraction, sometimes just 'cause it's nice to read about people whose lives are more screwed up than mine…"

"Liar!" the choked scream came from Charlene. Startled, Daria and Jane looked up at her. Still moving to her music, She seemed unaware how loud her vocalization had been. Involuntary sing-along, Daria surmised. Charlene still seemed to be looking at her textbook, but Daria could not recall having seen her turn a page yet.

Jane looked at Daria and jerked her head at the door. Daria, sighing, nodded, and began putting her boots on.

Five minutes later, the two friends paused at the bottom of the stairs and surveyed the lounge area. About half the seats were filled, some by girls and boys conversing together, some by single students apparently waiting for someone. A small group was gathered around the TV, which was showing a football game. Without a word, Daria and Jane passed through the lobby and out the door.

Outside, Daria paused and looked around. A fitful, chilly breeze stole away the slight warmth given by the thin afternoon sunshine. Privacy was plentiful outdoors on the Raft campus today, but they would be driven back inside before long. She looked at Jane, and recalled that, a couple of hours ago, she'd fully intended to peel a strip off her when they next met, and she'd had plenty of verbal ammo stored up ready to go. Why hadn't she used it?

She shivered in a cold gust of wind. Boston was a cold place in more ways than one, she realized, and Jane was not only her only friend here, she was the only person in Boston Daria really knew at all. Many things were new and strange for them both, and they'd both left a lot behind, much of which they'd taken for granted, when they'd left the nest. She could get by here without Jane, she knew, but she didn't want to.

Jane turned to Daria. "Pizza? I think I have enough for a slice at Tony's."

Daria smiled a bit. "I found another place nearby. All the pizza you can eat for three sixty-nine. They even have a rudimentary salad bar and dessert."

"Really? That I can afford. Is it any good?" Jane asked.

"Yeah. They're not quite as generous with the toppings as Pizza King, but it's still good. They usually have ten to fifteen different kinds of pizza on the line."

"Well, I gotta at least try it. Lead on, Morgendorffer."

Daria turned and set off diagonally across the campus. They walked along in silence for a few moments. She remembered how she'd been looking forward to college for so many years, and to the possibilities of making new friends among all these above-average people her age. That hadn't happened yet. Daria had of course been busy, but still…she made a mental note to be more outgoing and receptive. As she filed it away, she heard that little voice in her head say "yeah, right."

No, seriously, she thought back emphatically. The little voice fell skeptically silent.

They halted at the edge of campus for a moment, waiting for a break in traffic, then hurried across the street.

Their shadows on the wall seemed to walk beside them as they walked along the sidewalk on the far side of the boulevard. At the end of the block they turned right, and their shadows stretched far ahead. "So how are you doing at BFAC?" Daria asked.

"Good. Doing great in Oils, learning a lot in Sketching, even doing pretty good in Art History. Got a darn essay due in that, though. Whole class is dreading it."

The corner of Daria's mouth turned up. "Look at it as an opportunity. Write a couple extra essays for other students and trade them for engravings of former Presidents."

Jane chuckled. "That sounds like a Daria thing to do." She looked over at Daria. "Are you doing that?"

The other corner of Daria's mouth turned up. "I've proofread and punched up a few. It's so easy now that everyone has a computer. They hand me a floppy or email it, I run it through my word processor, make a few changes, hand back the floppy in exchange for some lira, everybody's happy."

"I may just do that," Jane replied thoughtfully. "I seem to know the subject better than most of the others in that class. My grammar and structure aren't all that good, though."

"Email 'em to me and I'll take a look at 'em. We take a right here." The two girls rounded a corner. "There it is," Daria said, pointing, "Mama Mimi's Pizza."

~*~

"Mm. I have to say I'm surprised. This ham and pineapple pizza is better than I thought it would be. And that chicken, broccoli, three cheese one is great!" Jane said between bites.

"Yeah, whodathunkit? That surprised me, too," Daria agreed. "The barbecue one doesn't impress me, though."

"Maybe if they'd put some meat on it instead of just barbecue sauce," Jane nodded. "But hey, you can't have everything, they say. This could get to be my favorite cheap pizza place. I wonder how they keep the prices so low so close to a college campus? You gotta know a lot of students come here for their only meal of the day and pig out. I would."

"Illegal aliens."

Jane looked around. "I don't see any. I can see four employees, and they all look like college students to me."

"No, I mean the meat toppings are all made out of illegal aliens," Daria replied, one corner of her mouth turning up slightly.

Smirking, Jane picked up her slice of chicken and broccoli pizza and took another bite out of it. "Hmm. They taste like chicken."