Nick scratched his head, newly dyed blue, and, for the tenth time, took a look around Trent's basement.
"Um, guys?" he finally sputtered. "Where're our instruments?"
"Some other criminales prol'ly heard how hard we are!" Max began shouting. "And they wanted to stop us before our music could change the—"
"Shouldn't we call Trent and tell him his house was robbed?" Jesse inquired anxiously.
Nick rolled his eyes at this idea. "Nah, he's in Australia. It's not like he'd be able to hear us."
Max and Jessie started snooping about clues by turning over storage crates and looking in the washer and dryer, and Nick ran upstairs to make sure nothing else was pilfered.
Several minutes passed, and Max and Jesse found nothing but unsightly, hand-knitted socks. Nick ran down the basement stairs, his expression more perplexed than normal.
"Nothing else was taken," he reported. "The TV, the computers—"
"Not even the foosball table?" Jesse interjected.
"Not even the foosball table," Nick repeated through clenched teeth.
"I'm still calling the police," Max declared with conviction, and he whipped out his cell phone to do just that.
"No one told you not to," Jesse pointed out, but no one responded to him. He sighed forlornly before looking up Jane's number on his own phone.
Daria was counting the number of drinks Jane had squeezed out of a gregarious graduate student's impromptu and probably contraband bar. She was only three down, but was already dancing wildly to the stylings of some lukewarm local group, much to the discomfort of her fellow clubgoers.
Daria was gripping her beer, her only beer, like grim death, having taken her mother's overzealous lectures concerning roofies to heart more than she'd like to admit. Jane had no such trepidations, evidently, and Daria witnessed her attempting a "Single Ladies"-inspired dance move before nearly slugging a young man who came a bit too close.
Soon enough, Jane retired from the dance floor, and everyone was much relieved. She pulled a stool up next to Daria, panting from exertion and grinning like a loon.
"Someone can't hold their liquor," Daria grimaced.
"Oh, Daria, darling, Daria, don't talk about me like I'm not here," giggled Jane. "You need to unwind, and, and, de-tense your muscles. We should make this a fun-ass girls' night."
"It's all fun-ass and games until the police catch you underage drinking."
Jane rolled her eyes, but not before slurping down some more of her drink. "Nineteen-year-olds drinking is to the cops as intelligence is to MTV viewers."
Daria couldn't suppress her smile when she replied, "I admire your ability to make coherent analogies while completely schnokered."
Jane began giggling again. " 'Schnokered' is an awwwwesome word. Schna-Shh-no-nock…"
"And there goes the coherence," Daria lamented.
Jane bounded out of her seat to begin dancing again, but stumbled over an extension cord that had just been put into use by the underpowered band.
"Assholes, putting power cords everywhere," Jane muttered, stamping back to Daria with a slightly bruised ego.
Daria gave Jane a sympathetic look, mainly to keep her from starting a rant. Jane flung herself back into a stool and began playing with one of the buttons on her pleather biker jacket.
Daria looked off to her side, and noticed a spindly young man approaching them. His unruly mop of black hair contrasted harshly with the smooth lines of his pale face, and he looked quite timid, though Daria had to guess this was at least somewhat artificial. She cringed inwardly, knowing Jane would be enamored with such a creepy personality.
Except that she wasn't. He smiled shyly, though not ambiguously, tapped her on the shoulder, and received only a cold look for his troubles.
"I don't do this often," he started off, his confidence shaken following the cool reception, "but if you could give me your number-"
"And if I could figure infinitesimals, I could rule the world," Jane rolled her eyes. Seeing that the man was still standing there, she gave him a shooing gesture. "I can't enjoy myself when you're standing there open-mouthed like a cod." He walked off in a hurry.
Daria half-expected Jane to smirk in self-satisfaction, but, just like the moment before, reality defied her predictions. Jane, instead, turned back around and sat there looking very somber, or, as Daria reflected, as serious as a drunken person mysteriously covered in confetti can look.
She studied Jane for a moment before informing her, "I think you're as unreadable as James Joyce."
"Didn't he invent that beer?" Jane asked in genuine confusion. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Nothing," Daria sighed. "But I think I have a 'get out of listening free' card for the next time you start a diatribe about corporate sponsorship of art exhibitions."
"Mm-kay," Jane smiled and settled further into her seat.
Her relaxation was cut short, however, when Daria noticed a minimal movement in her jacket pocket.
"I think your phone's vibrating."
"Oh, that's not a phone." Jane began giggling, but, upon seeing Daria's complete lack of amusement, muttered, "Kidding," and pulled her cellphone out.
"Helloooo?" she answered. She paused to listen to the other end, then gave Daria a strange look and covered it with her hand to announce, "I can't really tell, but I think it's Jesse."
Daria raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you just check the caller id?"
"It's hard to see with all the lights flashing around…let's just go outside."
Daria very willingly trailed Jane out the door.
Jane turned on the backlight, and sighed loudly. "It's Jesse."
Putting the phone to her ear, she demanded to know why Jesse saw fit to disturb her evening.
She stood there looking unmoved, and possibly quite irritated, until he said something that triggered a horrified response.
"What? Today?" she shrieked. She put the phone down temporarily and yelled, "Daria, our basement got robbed!"
"Basements don't get robbed, they get burgled," Daria amended her, and Jane made a movement to throw the phone at her.
"Don't be a smartass now, I'm—keep your pants on Jesse, I'm still here!" She shot a deathly look at Daria and jumped back into the tumultuous conversation. "Well—good! But double check my room anyway!" A vexed expression crossed her face here. "No, I don't care that the foosball table is intact."
Daria decided that compassion would be the wiser route to take, and asked, "Did they take anything important?"
Jane shrugged and covered the receiver. "It doesn't look like they took the TV's or anything, but all the Spiral instruments are gone." She frowned and continued, "But I don't exactly trust the three of them to be eagle-eyed about this."
Daria nodded and let Jane go on with her chat.
"I know you're trying hard, Jesse," she asserted unconvincingly, her increasing weariness becoming obvious. "Just please call the police. Please." She ended the call and gave a Daria a look of relief.
Daria stood in silence for a few moments, watching Jane trying to yoga breathe herself back into a good mood. "I'm…sorry about all that."
"It's not your fault that my house…and family…and brother's friends are so fucked up," Jane waved it off. She looked back at the club and cringed. "I don't feel like going back in. I embarrassed myself pretty badly, didn't I?"
"Your moments of clairvoyance more than make up for any of that," Daria assured her. Jane smiled, albeit grimly.
"We need to leave this place," she decided after the pair deliberated for a bit. She started walking off in no particular direction. "Find some new stomping grounds where we can drink ourselves sick. With fewer spectators."
Daria relaxed her tensed shoulders in relief, glad to get away from the swarming, poorly ventilated club. Nevertheless, she told Jane, "I still prefer getting wasted in the safety of my own room."
Jane frowned at this and replied, "Everybody knows safety kills fun like…something…and something else…oh, screw it, I'm too tired for anymore literary devices."
Daria returned this with an agreeable silence, and they continued walking to the closest liquor store, which, of course, was open and bustling at eleven in the evening.
"I'm pretty sure they check ID's," Daria warned Jane, who was eyeing the shop lasciviously.
"We're not buying any alcohol," Jane scoffed. "That creepy guy over there is." She pointed at a man sitting on a bench on the exterior side of the store, wearing a battered flannel shirt and a bulky knapsack.
"Is he homeless, or some uber-cool urbanite?" Daria asked dryly.
"Either way works," Jane replied cheerfully. She walked briskly up to the man, masking her edge of nervousness with an over-the-top aura of coolness. Daria could only shake her head at this.
Whatever it was Jane said to the man, he was clearly enthusiastic about it, jumping out of his seat, snatching the cash she offered him, and running into the store. Bewildered, Jane stood perfectly still and watched him rush in.
She waved at Daria, who relented, and walked up to Jane and sat with her on the bench.
"What are we getting?" Daria asked, her tone indicating that she was still not thrilled with the situation.
Jane shrugged and responded, "I didn't get to talk to him much. He said he'd get something in a pretty package."
"It'd better not be schnapps," Daria grumbled. "The last time you talked me into that, I ended up with someone else's retainer in my mouth and my parent's sofa on fire."
"You didn't like my pyromaniac performance art?" Jane replied with mock surprise. "I guess you lose your artistic taste when you sobered up."
"When it comes to art, I think the emperor has no clothes," Daria deadpanned, "because you burned them off."
Jane started laughing, much more than she would under normal circumstances, and didn't stop until their sketchy associate returned with the booze.
"Thank you," Daria nodded at him brusquely, taking the paper sack. She took Jane's arm and walked away as quickly as possible without drawing suspicion.
"What did he get us?" Jane inquired, straining her neck to look over Daria's shoulder.
Daria stopped in her tracks to open up the bag and peer inside.
"I dunno, a couple little bottles. One looks like tequila," she replied, closing the bag back up, "but no worm in it."
"Damn," Jane remarked profoundly. She stepped up to Daria's side and scanned the periphery. "There's some park over there," she observed, pointing in the general direction. "Let's go find a bench."
It was fast approaching midnight, and, in her continued fear for their safety, Daria made the trip to the nearest bench as quick as possible, and, finding one bottle to be cheap whiskey, unscrewed the cap.
She stared at the liquor, and heaved a dismal sigh. "How are we supposed to drink it?"
"Right out of the bottle, I guess," Jane answered, puckering her brow in uncertainty. Tentatively, she took the bottle into her own hand and muttered, "Here goes nothing." She took a swig and winced.
"Ugh, it burns!" she rasped.
After gagging for a few minutes, she cleared her throat and handed the bottle back to the Daria.
"Try it!" she ordered cheerfully. "It will do wonderful things to your throat."
Daria shot her a dirty look and said nothing. She turned the bottle in her hand a few times, apprehension rising in her stomach.
"Oh, Morgendorffer, you haven't outgrown your tight-assed-ness," groaned Jane. She glanced to her side to see if she'd elicited a response.
Daria sat in silence for a moment before muttering, "Goddamnit." To Jane's glee, she shut her eyes, and tipped the bottle back.