Once Upon A Time At College

Chapter Five

~*~

Daria entered her dorm room, set her can of soda down on her desk, shucked off her backpack, and set it on the floor. Charlene was sprawled on her bed with a book propped on the pillow in front of her, her head bobbing to whatever music was coming out of her earphones. Daria picked up her phone. Checking her messages, she found one from Quinn and one from Jane. She keyed Quinn's message.

"Daria, what did you do to Mom? She was really upset when she got off the phone with you last night, and she was still upset this morning! I'll call you again when I get back from school."

Daria checked her watch. That would be in about forty-five minutes if Quinn came straight home, no telling how long if she had a former fashion club meeting. Daria called up Jane's message.

"Hey, Daria, you busy? Wanna go to the art museum or something? Call me."

Daria punched in Jane's speed-dial code. She heard the phone ring, and then a "Yo."

"Hey, Jane. I found an apartment. You want to come look at it with me?"

"Sure. What's it like?"

"Haven't seen it yet, but it's a two-bedroom third floor walkup just south of campus. It was described as 'nice' by someone other than the landlord. Go a stop past where you usually get off, two stops past where you caught it last night, and I'll meet you there." Daria checked her watch, then slid a bus schedule toward her across the desktop. "The next bus hits your stop in six minutes. Can you catch it?"

"No sweat. See ya." Jane hung up.

Daria slipped the phone into her jacket pocket, picked up her can of soda, and left. Charlene gave no sign of ever having been aware of her presence.

~*~

Jane stepped off the bus onto the strip of sad-looking brown grass. Daria rose from a bench, placed a bookmark in the worn paperback she'd been reading, and slipped it into her pocket. The bus hissed, groaned, sighed, made a rude noise in a low key, and rumbled away down the street.

Jane waited for the noise to abate, then said, "Hey, amiga! Nice day for apartment hunting."

Daria looked around as if just now noticing the relatively warm, sunny afternoon. "Yeah, it's one of those fakeout days. How was your day at BFAC?"

"Art history was so-so, I finished my still life in Oils, but the New Media prof wants us to buy two sets of colored pencils, wax-based and water soluble. I think my old wax-base set will last another picture or two, but those watercolor pencil sets are pricey, especially at the campus store."

"I have a set you can borrow. Are thirty-six colors enough?"

"Plenty. Thanks, Daria. I'm surprised you have so many art supplies."

"I just use them for details and special effects in my watercolor paintings, and once in a while for highlighting. I don't think I've had to sharpen any of them yet."

"I'll go easy on them. Quick work on the apartment. How'd you find it so fast?"

"Word of mouth. It came up in conversation."

Daria's pocket tweedled. She pulled out the phone and opened it. The call was from Quinn. Daria turned to Jane and said, "Hang back a little. I need to take this call." Jane gave her a questioning look, but stopped and let Daria get about twenty feet ahead. Daria pushed the button to connect.

"So what's the matter with Mom?" came Quinn's tinny voice from the phone.

Several witty replies sprung immediately to Daria's mind, but she reluctantly put them aside. "You need to ask her that."

"I did! She wouldn't tell me!"

"I'm not surprised. You should accept her decision. She'll tell you if she thinks you need to know."

"Dammit, Daria! You called here yesterday and told her something good about a scholarship, and then you told her something else, and now she's all torn up about it! What did you do? Tell me, or I'll come up there and jerk it out of you!"

"Quinn, intimidation isn't your strong suit. Even if you could find Raft, you couldn't find me. And even if you found me, you couldn't jerk a ribbon out of my hair, and we both know it.

"Well, I'm the one who has to live with her. You owe me something!"

"No, I don't. Look, if I tell you what I can, you have to promise me that you won't mention any of it, even obliquely, to anyone under any circumstances, until such time as I tell you you can. Do you promise?"

"Damn. As if I had a choice. All right, I promise. What did you do?"

"I helped Mom with a problem."

"How totally vague. What problem, and what did you have to do with it? And if you helped her, why is she so upset?"

Daria carefully considered her answer. "She's upset because it was a serious problem, and she didn't know about it until I told her. I was able to take care of it, so it's not a problem anymore, but she's upset that I had to get involved."

"You took care of it? From there? How? What did you do?"

"Yes, I did. And what I did is my business."

"You still haven't told me what the problem was."

"And I'm not going to. That's Mom's business, to talk about or not as she sees fit."

"Dammit, Daria! I have a right to know!"

"No, Quinn, you don't. Talk to you later. Bye." Daria dropped the phone in her pocket, turned, and motioned to Jane.

Jane jogged up to where Daria waited. "Problem?" she asked.

"Nah. Well, a small family problem, but it's been taken care of. I was just trying to soothe Quinn's fevered brow, so the poor thing doesn't get a wrinkle."

They were skirting the south end of the Raft campus, which was mostly given over to parking lots at this point. "So, this apartment has north light?" Jane asked.

"That's what I was told," Daria agreed. She looked across the street and read the street numbers on a couple of the buildings, then pointed to the first building on the next block. "That's it."

Jane looked where Daria was pointing. It was a three story red brick building with white trim, with the look of a townhouse. There was a picture window and a tall, narrow window on each floor of its front face, looking toward the Raft campus, and therefore north. Jane smiled.

As they continued toward the crosswalk, they saw by the brickwork above the picture windows that each had replaced two smaller windows with rounded tops. All the windows along the side of the building that faced the cross street looked to be original. The two crossed the street and approached the door.

Small, neatly trimmed shrubbery lined the front of the building. Two steps led up from the sidewalk to a small brick-paved porch with ornamental iron railings on either side. There was a welcome mat in front of the massive, dark-stained wooden door. The door had a large Rococo bronze handle instead of a knob, with a large bronze knocker in the same style and a small iron framed window. Daria tried the handle. It was locked. She found a doorbell button and used that rather than try the knocker.

As they waited on the porch, they took in the cast bronze mailbox doors set into the brick wall beside the door. There were nine of them in a three by three grid, each with a name and apartment number. Below the name Ward and 102 was the word 'manager'.

Taking it all in, Jane said, "Um, Daria, this place looks kind of…"

"Expensive?"

"Yeah."

They heard footsteps approaching the door. It opened to reveal a smiling fifty-ish woman in a floral print dress and apron. She was wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. "Hi, may I help you?" she greeted them.

Daria felt herself smiling back. "Hi. I'm Daria Morgendorffer and this is Jane Lane. We…"

"Oh yes, you'll be wanting the key to three oh one. Right this way."

She led them across a small foyer to a door marked 102 and opened it. From a board just inside, she took a ring with two keys and a tag, and handed it to Daria. "I'd come up and show you around, but I'm in the middle of something right now. I'll be up as soon as I can."

"Oh, don't bother. We'll stop by on the way out," Daria replied.

"Well, all right, but call me if you need anything. I'm Mrs. Ward. The number's on the phone." Still smiling, she stepped back in apartment 102 and closed the door.

From the inside, the stairs were in the left front corner of the building. Jane sniffed the air as the two headed toward them.

"Mmm. Did I smell pie?"

"Cookies too, I think." Daria smiled wistfully as she started up the stairs. The smell took her back to special times—too few, too few—in her childhood, when her mother had stolen time from her work and more mundane housekeeping chores to bake something, and it had actually turned out right. Daria decided that, as soon as possible after moving in, she would bake a batch of cookies, and that one day, she would even bake some from scratch. Daria couldn't remember Helen ever having baked anything from scratch, although Helen claimed she had, back during her hippie period.

As they reached the second landing, Daria paused briefly to look out the tall, narrow window over the Raft campus. The colonial-style red brick buildings, some actually dating from colonial times, nestled in comfortable dignity among the stately oaks, elms, and cedars of the campus. The library, built of massive blocks of granite, contrasted yet harmonized with the others. It had been a gift from the local Masonic chapter in the 1820s, according to the inscription on the cornerstone. The many parking lots detracted from the stately effect, Daria thought, but hey, what could you do? You had to park. Daria could just see student parking lot 7D from here, but couldn't make out her car. Poor little thing. Daria seldom drove it other than back and forth to Lawndale, partly because it was so far to walk from her dorm (or anywhere else) to lot 7D, partly because, say what you would about the Boston metropolitan area, they did have a pretty good public transportation system.

Responding to Jane's gentle poke, Daria climbed the last flight of steps to the third floor. Its layout was the same as the other two floors, with apartments 301 and 303 on the right side of the central hallway, 301 in front and 303 in back, and apartment 302 and the stairs on the left. Daria noted in passing that the nameplate beneath the numerals 302 held a slip of paper on which was printed the name Eiffel. Her boots clumped across the oak floor to the door of apartment 301. She inserted the key and turned it.

The first thing Daria noticed was that the apartment was indeed furnished. A medium-sized sofa in some modern style met her eye, and as she walked in, a Danish modern coffee table in light mahogany, its top shaped like a stretched TV screen. There was a small recliner chair whose light blue upholstery didn't quite match that of the sofa, and an old-fashioned wooden rocker with calico cushions. In the corner closest to the stairwell was an entertainment center, empty save for an old medium-sized TV set.

"Dibbies on the rocker!" called Jane from behind her. She pushed past Daria, eagerly plunked herself in the rocker, and began rocking merrily away.

"Fine. I get the reader," Daria said, and sat in the recliner against the East wall. A brass floor lamp to its left had three conical light fixtures on goosenecks. Daria tried out the reclining feature, and found that the back of the chair maintained a constant distance from the wall throughout its reclining range. She smiled contentedly. She'd wanted a comfy chair like this, and a reading lamp to go with it, for a long time. For some reason unknown to her, there wasn't a single comfortable chair in the entire Morgendorffer household.

Jane hopped out of the rocker to check out the picture window. She found the cord and drew back the curtains, to find that there was another set of gauzy white curtains behind them. Jane searched until she found another cord, and drew them back, too.

"This is excellent! Look how much light it lets in! and you won't have to worry about windowpeepers next door."

Daria had gone into the kitchen, which was separated from the living room by a breakfast bar. "Yeah, but Raft has an observatory with a nine-inch Clark refractor. We'll have to check to see that the dome is closed. This is a really nice kitchen for a student apartment. I was expecting more of a kitchenette."

Jane came into the kitchen. "Not bad, not bad at all. It's got plenty of cabinet space, thanks to these high ceilings. Too bad we can't reach those high shelves."

"That's what this chair is for. See, it's a stepladder, too."

Jane examined the indicated chair. "Cool. I'm not crazy about the breakfast bar, though. We'll be banging our knees on the cabinet all the time. And a table is good for more than just eating off of."

"Yeah, but it does save space. And I think there's a fold-up leaf on the living room side…" Daria walked around the end of the breakfast bar back into the living room. "See, this part is hinged. It swings up, and then this brace here fits into this socket to support it, so you can get your knees under it."

Jane squatted beside Daria to see what she was talking about. "Uh huh. I guess I can live with that. Let's check out the rest of the place."

The bedrooms and bath having passed inspection, the girls found themselves back in the living room. Daria looked at Jane. "Well, what do you think?"

Jane looked around again. "It's great! It's almost perfect! I don't even mind about it being farther from BFAC than Raft, since it's close to a bus stop. But decent apartments like this cost mucho dinero in this town. Can we afford it? What's my half of the vig gonna be?"

"Money's not a problem."

Jane stared at Daria for a second. "Did we slip into an alternate universe when I wasn't looking? How is money not a problem?"

"I get this apartment as part of my scholarship."

Jane gaped at Daria, who was smiling that Mona Lisa smile of hers. "Part of your scholarship? Part of your scholarship? Is this the 'I'm blackmailing a Kennedy' scholarship, or the 'I'm Donald Trump's snugglebunny' scholarship?"

Daria smirked. "A wee bit jealous, are we? It also pays my tuition, books, and expenses."

"Ghod!" Jane exclaimed, wide-eyed. "Whaddya have to do for a scholarship like that, maintain a five point oh average, captain the girls' basketball team, and sing and dance at fundraisers?"

"Not quite so bad. I have to keep an eye on another student, see that he's doing well, shepherd him along toward his sheepskin."

"Kind of a 'big sister' sort of thing? Hmm. That doesn't sound too bad. Whoever he is, he could hardly be as bad as, say, Upchuck. I mean, what are the odds?"

There was a thump as Daria's forehead hit the wall. She stood there, eyes closed, not moving, forehead probably making a little greasy mark. Jane stared at her friend, a horrible suspicion growing like crotch rot in her mind.

"Daria," she asked, "who is this 'other student' that you have to babysit?"

Daria slowly crossed the room and sank down in the recliner. "Upchuck."

"You're pulling my leg."

Staring at the floor, Daria shook her head.

Jane groped for words. After several seconds, she asked, "Why the hell did you agree to something like that?"

Still staring at the floor, Daria said, "I couldn't pass it up."

Jane waited for Daria to continue. Daria continued to stare at the floor. Jane finally blurted, "Well, come on, tell me!"

Daria remained silent for a couple of seconds, then began, "This scholarship... and it is officially a scholarship, although it was created for me, is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred grand. Like I said, in addition to this apartment, it pays for my tuition, books, supplies, and all expenses. It's good as long as I can keep Chuck successfully matriculating, up until he gets a doctorate, maybe beyond."

Jane thought about that. "Woah. Daria, it sounds great, but maybe you should think about it..."

"It was a very limited time offer."

"Hmm. Well, if he was rushing you to decide, maybe that in itself is a reason to turn it down. Maybe there's something..."

"It was an offer I couldn't refuse."

Jane stared at Daria, looking for answers in her expression. "You mean, this guy literally made you 'An Offer You Couldn't Refuse?"

A brief angry look crossed Daria's face. "That's not what I meant. It's just too good an opportunity to pass up. It's not hard work. Basically, I just keep track of him, keep him on course, and be someone familiar he can talk to. And report to his dad periodically. I'd be crazy to pass it up, even if I do have to deal with Chuck."

Jane looked thoughtfully at the picture window and then back at Daria. "Well, at least you can come back here at the end of the day, kick back in this fine apartment and forget about him, right? You don't have to tell him where you live, do you?"

That brought a lopsided smile to Daria's face. "Oh, no, I won't have to. He'll be in the apartment next door."

Jane sank into the rocker and just stared at Daria for a minute. Charles Ruttheimer the third in the apartment next door. Knowing Daria as she did, Jane could tell Daria wasn't totally happy about the arrangement, and she was pretty sure there was something Daria wasn't telling her. But Jane could see that Daria had decided to do it, for whatever reason. She recalled some encounters with Chuck from high school days. Realistically, Chuck wasn't all that bad, but he certainly wasn't all that good, either.

Daria looked over at Jane. "I figure I should be able to rack up at least two doctorates in the amount of time it takes Chuck to get one. Like I said, I didn't have unlimited time to mull it over. Opportunity knocks but once. I answered. As for you, you can stay here free as long as I'm here. You don't have to interact with Chuck. You're free to make other arrangements, of course, but I hope you'll stay here."

"What? Daria, are you saying I should just move in here and pay nothing? I can't do that!"

"Well, then, you can, um, buy the pizza."

_______________________________________________

"Hmm. As expensive as pizza is in this town, I don't know if I can afford it. Oh, wait, I forgot. Yes I can, now that I can paint you naked to my heart's content. This is going to be great!"

"Oh, Jane, I couldn't possibly." Daria placed the back of her hand theatrically on her forehead. "I'm still so traumatized from that last time that I'll probably have to take tranquilizers to stand still for a driver's license photo."

"Yeah, right. Admit it, Daria. You love being an artist's model. It gives you that exotic, alluring, slightly wicked air that's been missing from your life. You love to walk across the campus and look at the other students and think, 'I model nude, and you don't know it.'"

"Oh, that is so not true. I'm in constant dread that someone will recognize me from one of the paintings you've already done. Anyway, modeling nude could be seriously detrimental to my political aspirations."

"Ha! You have scruples, therefore you can't possibly have any political aspirations. Besides, if you'd had any, you'd never have posed that first time. Pull the other one."

"Jane, I was just trying to help you raise enough money to stay in school. Now that you won't have to pay rent, that shouldn't be a problem."

"Yeah, right. That's why you insisted on an apartment with this huge north-facing picture window. Don't make me come over there and hug you."

"Don't you dare. I thought the window would be good for house plants."

"Beep! Wrong! You want a south-facing window for that. You're busted, Morgendorffer."

A bit of a smile slipped past Daria's poker face. "I hate you."

Jane grinned. "Now that that's settled, let's eat. You wanna hit Mama Mimi's again?"

"I was just thinking that since I'm on the clock as of today, I've got twenty bucks to spend for dinner. I know a place that has crab legs on special today. Feel like eating something that looks like a giant red spider?"

"Hey, I'm a bohemian art chick. There's hardly anything I won't do."

Daria rose and headed for the door. Jane likewise rose, but turned and gave the rocker an affectionate pat before following Daria out.