Jane fought back an evil smirk. "Trent wants to come up and visit, and look for gigs in the area. Can he crash here?"

Daria blinked, then blinked again. "Uh, sure, I guess so. He does know that we don't have a guest bedroom, right?"

"Oh, yeah. You know Trent. He can sleep anywhere." She lifted the phone back to her face. "Daria says sure. But the sofa here is more like a love seat. Way too short to sleep on. You'll need to bring a sleeping bag and an air mattress."

"I can do that. Tell Daria hello and thanks for me."

"Will do. Call and let us know when you're coming, so we have time to stock the refrigerator. "Bye, Trent." Jane listened for a few seconds, then hung up the phone with a smile. "Trent says hello and thanks. Still have a bit of a warm spot for the boy, eh, Daria? A bit of that old tingly, squishy feeling?"

Daria arched an eyebrow and glared at Jane over her book. "No, but I still have a bit of that old irritated, pissed off feeling about you continuing to needle me about that old crush. I can call him back and cancel that invitation real quick like, you know."

Jane held up her hands. "Just kidding, Daria. I know you're only acting out of the purest motives of friendship and good-deed-doing-ness."

"Damn right," Daria said, then looked thoughtful. "No, actually, I do have a bit of an ulterior motive. While Trent's here, you won't be bugging me to get naked and strike a pose."

"Hmmm…"

"'Cause if you do, I'll just throw you out in the snow and give him your room."

~*~

A hand appeared at Jane's partially open bedroom door and gripped the doorframe. Jane's touseled head appeared next, her other hand rubbing at her squinted-shut eyes. In her customary nightwear of tee shirt and loose shorts, she groped her way down the hallway to the kitchen. "What is that wonderful smell?" she croaked, then attempted to clear her throat.

Daria, clad in a knee-length light blue tee shirt with a picture of Jonathan Swift on the front and faux fur monster-foot slippers, turned from the stove toward Jane. "Ah, the undead rise and walk the earth." She smiled. "Unless you mean the coffee, it's an omelet. But you can't have any till you wash the grave dirt from behind your ears."

"Mnrgh," Jane replied, and disappeared back up the hall. Smile fading, Daria returned to agitating the omelet with a spatula.

A few minutes later, Jane was eagerly attacking a plate full of omelet. "Mmm! This is undoubtedly the best omelet I've ever had! When did you learn to cook?"

"Watching my parents and then not doing likewise, I guess. Cooking was sort of a survival skill at Schloss Morgendorffer, but so was not letting the others know I could do it."

"Well, this is great! What's it called?"

Daria shrugged. "I never named it."

"You mean it's a Daria original?" Jane began examining her omelet more closely. "Hmm…thin-sliced smoked sausage, red and green bell peppers… is that onion?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Any other kinds of pepper?"

"No."

"And tomato…and apparently all sorts of spices. Geez, you must have been up for an hour just washing and chopping ingredients."

"You know me better than that. The bell pepper and onion come sliced and frozen in a bag, and the tomato comes pre-diced in a can with oregano, garlic, and basil. I just added some seasoned salt and a tiny sprinkle of ground red pepper."

Jane shook her head in wonder. "Sheer genius."

"Oh, poo. I just throw together some stuff that I think might taste good together. Sometimes it does. Most of the rest of the time it does after a few adjustments."

"Well, I'm gonna lay in a bunch of those ingredients for when Trent comes up. If he doesn't marry you after he tastes this, I may propose myself."

Daria snorted. "I think you're just easily impressed by any kind of cooked food. And Trent better hurry, because he'll have competition pretty soon."

"Huh?"

"I got an email this morning from Ruttheimer Global Conglomerated Limited. The heir apparent will arrive in two weeks."

Jane paused with a forkful of omelet halfway to her face. "Is Upchuck senior really that big?"

Daria took a sip of coffee before replying. "I really don't know, but some think he'd be in the Fortune 500 if not for some creative accounting."

Jane rose and carried her plate over to the sink and rinsed it. "Well, I'd better get a move on. Got a bus to catch, and I'll be loaded down this morning." She poured herself another mug of coffee.

"How so?"

"I'm taking 'Nude painting a Landscape' in to see if I can get it hung in the BFAC gallery. I've got a good feeling about this one, Daria."

Daria smiled. She liked the painting too, and even shared some of Jane's optimism about it. "Good luck with it. And good luck getting it there on the bus."

~*~

Jane sat in the gallery director's outer office, the fabric-sheathed painting beside her, and desultorily thumbed through the well-thumbed copy of Art Horizons magazine. Jane had never quite figured out who the target audience was for this magazine and others like it. Libraries had them, and places like this, and she occasionally saw them in the larger bookstores, but who needed the information they conveyed? That information mainly consisted of what works of what artists were currently being displayed in what galleries and museums. They seemed to be sort of like fashion magazines for the art intelligentsia, proclaiming who was in and who was out. Jane admired the fine, high-res photographs expensively printed on the heavy, glossy paper and wondered if a photo of a work of hers would ever grace the pages of a magazine like this. If one did, she might never know. They were much too expensive for her to buy regularly or subscribe to. With an exhalation that wasn't quite a sigh, Jane laid the magazine back on the coffee table and reached for a copy of Art In America.

The outer door opened and Ms. Wolfowitz strode in, carrying a clipboard and looking important and busy. Her blazer was just the right shade of brown to complement her tweed skirt, giving her an artsy and sophisticated, yet warm and somewhat approachable look, well suited to her position as the director of the BFAC art gallery. Her tortoiseshell-accented gold half-frame glasses hung from a matching tortoiseshell-beaded gold chain. Her glance took in Jane and her wrapped painting. "Good morning, Jane. You have another painting? Do let me see it."

Jane pulled her painting from its protective cloth cover, stood, and held it up. "I call it 'Nude Painting a Landscape.'"

"What an intriguing concept! A painting of the model painting. It pulls the viewer in by asking her to speculate on what the model's painting might look like, eh?"

"Well, yes, if displayed alone, but what do you think of displaying that painting along with this one?" Jane asked, pointing to the image of Daria's painting. Few details were apparent on Jane's canvas because of the angle at which it was viewed.

Another woman entered the waiting room and stopped, waiting to speak to Ms. Wolfowitz, who looked at the painting, then at Jane. "What, you mean your model actually was painting while you painted her? Is she a BFAC student, too?"

"No, she goes to Raft. She's my friend from high school. But yes, she was painting while she was posing. I have a copy of her painting here." Jane laid her painting down on the coffee table and picked up the portfolio from beside her chair. Opening it, she pulled out a copy of Daria's watercolor. "It's being matted and framed, but it should be ready by now."

Ms. Wolfowitz took the photocopy and studied it. The other woman stepped closer and looked at it too. "Oh, this is just the sort of thing I look for for the magazine. Something different, something with a twist. May I photograph them?" she asked.

Ms. Wolfowitz introduced her. "Jane, this is Anita Goodman. She's a contributing editor for Art Horizons magazine."

"Yes, you certainly may! I'm Jane Lane, pleased to meetcha!"

"I know a little alcove at D'Uberville Gallery that would be perfect to photograph these," Anita said. She handed Jane a card. "Call me and let me know when you can come and bring both paintings. Ask your friend if she can come, too. Most of our photos only show the artwork, but since she's the model for one and the artist of the other, the editor will want to at least look at a shot with her in it. And you, too, of course, Jane."

~*~

Jane sat down with her second plate of curiously shaped, more-or less bite-sized delectables. "Can you believe it? Goodman hadn't even started shooting yet, and this guy walks up and wants to buy them both! And the gallery owner starts negotiating the price like we were two of her most illustrious artists!"

Daria poured herself another cup of hot Chinese restaurant tea. She and Jane were treating themselves to exploring the Dim Sum bar of a quaint little Chinese restaurant they'd found near the D'Uberville Art Gallery. It was in the nature of a celebration. Jane's oil, Nude Painting a Landscape, and Daria's watercolor landscape, hung temporarily just to be photographed for Art Horizons magazine, had been sold on the spot, for sums that had left Daria dazed and Jane ecstatic. "I'd say we're probably fairly well placed on her good list now, even if we were total strangers this morning. How often do you think she makes a sale that fast? I'll bet she'll hang anything you bring her now."

"Well, I'm certainly not going to lose her card, and I hope you don't either, Daria. Even if you don't become an artist, you may want to write about it. And this is two valuable contacts I have in the art world now that I didn't have last week, and I have you to thank for it."

"Oh, pish. You're the artist. I'm just the model."

"Bull cookies. You're both, and you're very good at both, and that's what caught those peoples' attention."

Author's note: I'm updating The Citadel Of Lou Manchu again, starting with Chapter 3. It won't appear on page one till I get to chapter 10, though. Meanwhile, the easiest way to find it is through my author page. –LS

Disclaimer

"Daria" and all related characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a

division of Viacom International, inc. The author does not claim

copyright to these characters or to anything else in the "Daria" milieu; he does, however, claim copyright to all those parts of this work of fiction which are original to him and not to MTV or to other fanfic authors. This fanfic may be freely copied and distributed provided its contents remain unchanged, provided the author's name and email address are included, and provided that the distributor does not use it for monetary profit. (as if.)

Galen Hardesty gehardesty@yahoo.com