Guess who's back, back again.
Guess who's back and still hasn't finished his stupid fucking thesis!
(still don't own things and still don't make money from stuff like this)
Daria and Helen in...
Five Minutes..
"I promised myself I'd never do this again."
"Do what, sweetie?"
"Wake up before noon."
Daria Morgendorffer watched her mom slot the coffee pot back into its warm home and simultaneously thought about how warm her bed probably still was, godbless it, and how she missed the days when snarking off would get her out of conversations instead of right goddamn into them.
Her mom crossed her arms and raised a brow, confirming for Daria that, yep, she was definitely in a conversation now.
"I did tell you to go to bed early, if I recall," Helen Morgendorffer said.
"And that's why you have to use reverse psychology," Daria said. "Us kids are just too rebellious for your sound advice."
"Mmm, so I suppose I should tell you not to go see Dr. Danada too, right?"
"Suppose so. Unless I'm so rebellious that I decide to listen to you." Daria poked at her cold pop tart. "Has anyone rented out the living room couch or are walk-in's allowed?"
Daria saw her mom sigh and went back to poking her pop-tart. Really, if she was gonna blame anyone here, it'd have to be herself. The last time her mom and her had talked about scholarships, she'd said something along the lines of learning that a "scholarship supposedly based on merit can be bought," and that comment obviously wasn't going anywhere without a patented Helen-interrogation. Hell, even Helen circa-Grade 10—a Helen that was so busy with work that Daria was expecting her to marry her own briefcase—would've said something after that crack, but now Daria was dealing with a Helen that was being a proactively positive influence for her daughters rather than a reactively positive influence. It was nice and deeply appreciated and hopefully wasn't adding more stress than Helen already had to suffer through and for the love of god why couldn't Daria just bitch about the application process and how corrupt everything was without it being a thing?
Daria's turn to sigh—this was all sleep deprivation's fault. If she'd just slept through her meeting with Dr. Danada then she'd have enough mental energy to come up with a good reason for not wanting to see Dr. Danada. And she'd probably find a way to buy eggs in Sicily and sell them for a profit in Malta too, while she was at it.
Of course, then Daria realized that, if she really felt that way, she could've at least put up a struggle when her alarm went off. But struggle she did not: she got up, got dressed, and wasn't even conscious of how smarmy this whole scholarship interview consultation thing was until she sat down, tore open a pop tart packet, and then thought about how she'd gotten up early on a Saturday for a really smarmy scholarship interview consultation thing. She wouldn't've even needed to bitch about how corrupt everything was if she'd just stayed in bed—she'd made this a thing.
The pop tart was somehow even colder now and Daria's stomach seemed to think that it was completely full anyways, thanks for asking.
"Honey," Helen said, startling Daria out of her own thoughts. "Daria—I'm not forcing you to do anything. I think it would be good if you went, but you're your own person and the only one who knows if it'll be good for you is you."
"Theoretically," Daria said.
"Theoretically what?"
"Theoretically you're right and I can tell what my own personal preference is from a hole in the ground."
"It can't be that hard," Helen said. "Unless you're planning on digging trenches in university."
Daria turned to look at her mother and, halfway through, decided that glowering at the refrigerator was a better option.
Helen coughed and rubbed at the nap of her neck, imaging a crowd booing her and telling her to get new material. "Ah, well, I certainly won't be quitting my day job or anything but—"
Daria slammed her head into her pop tart.
"All right! So no more jokes for me ever, then!"
"Iff noth phat," Daria said.
"Honey please don't talk through your breakfast."
Daria rose and let bits of pop tart fall of her face. "I said it's not that."
"I figured," Helen said, tearing a piece of paper towel from the rack and handing it to Daria. "Not that I'm saying I'm a laugh riot of course but I certainly didn't think I'd bombed that badly um…" Daria was staring at her now, so Helen started sweeping crumbs onto her hand. "You know, I wasn't saying that you need to know what's good for you now. That's something you learn."
"Maybe," said Daria.
"Almost assuredly," said Helen.
"But I should have a pretty good idea of what's rotten and what isn't by now," Daria said. "Otherwise the blurb on the back of my trading card is all wrong again."
Helen stopped dusting crumbs into her hands. "This is about what you said earlier, isn't it? About merit being bought and all that?"
Aaaaaaaand here we go, thought Daria. Part of her was relieved that her mom clued in and another part of her hated the fact that she felt relieved. This should've been open and shut, right? Scholarships were a crock, the Wizard Foundation was one beer hall meeting away from invading Poland, and Jane had…well something was eating Jane, and Daria hadn't gotten this far without a mental breakdown by ignoring Jane when something was eating her. She should've slept through her alarm and barricaded the door so nobody could disturb her and then exhausted herself on Monday trying not to lord her iron-clad morals over Jodie, unless Jodie pissed her off again in which case she'd slowly leak out just how iron-clad her morals were until Jodie stopped talking to her for a week, by which point the cycle would reset or Brittany and Kevin would force Jodie to remember that conversationists could be a hell of a lot worse than a smug know-it-all with manstopper glasses. Yeah, open and shut, plus or minus a few inevitable complications.
So why the hell did she still wanna talk about it?
"I have it on good authority that money and merit are the same thing," Daria said, poking at where her pop tart would've been if she hadn't headbutted it into the void. "Unless you're saying the Protestant's got something wrong."
"What about the Sloane's?"
Daria took a second longer to respond than she wanted to. "The only Sloane I talked to basically said the same thing. About knowing what's rotten and what isn't, I mean—Tom only looks Protestant so the other WASPs don't sting him."
"Ah," Helen said. She took a seat next to Daria, and Daria watched her try to say something twice. If she could read her mom's mind, she'd have heard the otherwise confident lawyer cursing herself to hell and back for consistently saying the wrong things at the wrong time, asking herself how in the every-loving world she could've thought that her daughter wouldn't have any issues with the way the scholarship process worked. She knew her daughter, dammit, or at least she desperately wanted to, and she should've thought about these issues days in advance.
All said, it was probably good for Daria's own mental health that she wasn't psychic. Daria thought about just getting up and leaving but gravity wasn't letting her. Or something wasn't letting her, anyways, and to Daria's growing annoyance it was looking less like that curvature of space-time and more like it was her own damn brain keeping her rooted.
"Hmm," Helen said eventually and unsure if she was going in the right direction, "understand, Daria, that you're not committing a mortal sin by going to this meeting."
"Dr. Danada's rates look like usury to me," Daria said.
"That's not on you."
"Aiding and abetting," Daria said.
Helen sighed again. "All right all right, let's close that conversation path off." There was a pause and, again, Daria wondered if she should just leave. The problem was that she didn't know where her ass would end up if it left the kitchen stool she was sitting on.
"Sweetie," Helen said, "if it bothers you this much, you don't have to go. Your father and I won't be disappointed—we just want you to be happy."
"I hope you saved up enough birthday wishes to make that come true." Daria flinched. Inside thought inside thought inside thought.
Her mother flinched too but looked like she was trying to play it cool; indeed, she was trying to play it cool, figuring that Daria didn't need to know that her words cut at a particularly sensitive nerve.
Daria opened her mouth to get sounds out into the world and take up precious memory so that Helen could forget that little crack escaped. "The problem is that university seem to like student's wallets more than their minds, and I want you and dad to retire at some point. It's irresponsible for me to drop an opportunity to make someone else pay for my dumb life-choices."
"Oh, Daria honey—you don't need to worry about that." Her mom was smiling and rubbing her shoulder now. Daria flinched a little bit again but otherwise tried to sit still. "We're not poor or anything."
"We're not rich either. And Quinn's still stuck in an arm's race with Sandi. I'm afraid the Fashion Club is going to start levying taxes to pay for it all."
"Quinn's…going to have to learn that lesson at some point, yes," Helen said. Then she scowled. "And that Griffin girl too unless her mother really is just a mobster with lipstick on." Daria gave her mom a look; Helen shook her head. "But I'm sure we'll be able to make do. You just might have some student loans to pay off."
"Joyous."
"Yes I don't really have anything positive to say about that either." Helen gave her daughter's shoulder another squeeze. "But we'll make do—we always have."
Daria stayed quiet even though there wasn't all that much activity going on in her mind. Eventually she said: "I guess having the option would still be nice, though. Don't really have many other choices since there's a three-concussion minimum to get a sports scholarship."
"Of course dear," said Helen.
"I can say no but at least it's something we can all consider, assuming we can't sell Quinn for anything."
"You can always say no, absolutely," said Helen.
"So I'll go to this meeting just to make up for whatever disadvantages my personality might cause."
Helen didn't say anything.
"I'm kidding," said Daria.
"Of course," said Helen.
"Mostly kidding," said Daria.
"I can give you some supplementary 'sucking up to stupid people' tips when you get home," Helen said. Daria returned her smile, but didn't feel all the much better on the inside about the rest of the universe and every crappy thing that resided in it.
And despite everything she'd said, her ass was still planted on the kitchen stool.
"Guess I'd better head out then."
Silence, plus a distinct lack of movement. Asses remained planted.
Daria sighed and then, finally, stood up.
"Yeah," she said. "Guess I'd better head out."
She said "bye" to her mom and love you too and everything and then was out the door, car keys in one hand, Dr. Danada's brochure in the other. The brochure got a face full of car-seat leather as Daria rolled out of the driveway. It was gonna be what it was gonna be. That was all she could do about anything; just accept that it was gonna be what it was gonna be.
But as she neared the end of her street she realized that concern over her parents finances hadn't actually entered her conscious mind until she'd brought it up in the kitchen. It was a legitimate issue—university being a pyramid scheme out to ruin retirements for the parents and the kids—and now that she was thinking about it, wanting to get a $10,000 down payment on whatever degree she wanted made but without burdening her parents made perfect sense. She fully agreed with the reasoning, obviously. The problem was that she wasn't the least bit sure that'd been a motivating reason for her to get out of bed without much fuss in the first place. Something got her out of bed, something inside her seriously wanted to talk to Dr. Danada; but Daria couldn't tell if it was because she unconsciously was worried about her parent's finances or if it was for some way less respectable reason. Like thinking that putting a competitive scholarship down on her C.V. might actually tell the world that she chose to be an outcast in High School but that college? Well, college would be different.
"Dammit," Daria said to herself. She merged into traffic and turned on the radio and realized with gnawing horror that she only had about five minutes to either back out of the meeting or miraculously discover that she'd forgotten about a nightmare where her parents were sent to debtors' prison, or something like that.
Back at home, Helen told herself that she had probably five minutes to call the car phone and let Daria know that the whole thing was off, she didn't have to stoop to the lowest level possible just to guarantee a decent education. Five minutes to tell Daria a lie and say that she'd be able to guarantee her daughter got what she deserved out of the world without compromise or the need to promise her future self that she'd "make up for it" whenever she did something she wasn't proud of. She'd been doing that all Daria's life—compromising, making promises to future Helen—and the mountains and continents simply were not moving, no matter how much Helen willed them to. Life was life and these were the rules and if onlyDaria didn't have to find herself in these sorts of situations. Sometimes Helen wondered, if she had to pick between protecting Daria from murderers or from having to compromise on her principles, what she'd actually pick, even though she knew that situation was as ridiculous as it was depressing.
Five minutes to call the car…Helen looked at the clock.
"Dammit," she said to herself.
FIN
Damn I missed writing for fun. I really, aggressively did.