Quinn threw open the doors to her closet, ignoring how her legs trembled after walking all the way back from the mall.
A handful of striped socks flew out of the wardrobe, followed by a pair of muffin-top-inducing jeans. After only a few minutes, dozens of disposable articles of clothing were spattered across the rose-colored carpet. Quinn sank to the floor and couldn't help admiring the rainbow of cheaply-made fabrics and indecorous sequin creations.
She thought of it as a cleansing experience, tossing half her closet out when it became too untrendy and donating it to some poor, unwitting charity. She was physically separating herself from unpleasant memories and (fashion) mistakes of the past, and with her lightened wardrobe would come a lighter soul.
She always seemed to forget, however, that this was a cyclical process; within a few weeks, she'd be at American Beagle Outfitters, or Urbanite Outfitters, or one of a million other outfitters, throwing tissue-thin t-shirts and the shortest possible skirts she could get away with onto the cashier's counter. Her closet would become cramped again, and she wouldn't be able to bring herself to look at all the clashing textures and colors whirling into some awful portrait of her unalterable habits and flaws.
"Quinn? When did you get home?"
Helen swung the door open and started at the sight of the clothing.
"I just cleaned up in here!" She paused, then sheepishly added, "Well, it was more your father doing the cleaning, but there's no reason to be making a mess like this!"
Quinn pulled herself up, quickly muttering "Sorry, they're for donating," and attempted to gather them up into some semblance of organization.
"It's all right," Helen shook her head. "We'll get some garbage bags—if we remembered to get them last time at the grocery." She crossed her arms, trying to wrack her memories. "When was the last time we were at the grocery store? I don't think we've gone in a month…Damnit! No wonder Jake's been going out for dinner so much lately-!"
"Uh, Mom," Quinn cut her off, "I'll take care of the clothes myself. You can go back to work, or whatever."
Helen had instinctively reached for the iPhone in her pocket, but she pulled her hand back. "Oh, no, work isn't the most important thing, sweetie." She mustered a smile. "I think we should have a talk."
Quinn blanched, and exclaimed, "I told you, it was that weird goth girl who left the cigarettes at the party, and no one even tried them, and—"
Helen raised an eyebrow, and dryly remarked, "You hadn't told me that. I actually wanted to talk to you about college."
"Oh." Quinn tucked her hands innocently behind her back, "I guess that's part of the reason I got all those clothes out. You know, if I'm starting out with a clean slate, the stuff I'm bringing with me should be cleaned out, too."
"That's a lovely thought, Quinn," Helen commended her, "but I was thinking in a bit more practical terms."
"Like winter coats and stuff?" Quinn took a few steps toward her bed and sat down, giving her mother a hopeful look.
"Like transportation, safety, finances, and stuff," Helen replied. "Northboro is quite a distance away, and Plath College is a very large school."
Quinn brushed off this comment, reminding her mother, "Daria will be up in Massachusetts, too, so if I have an emergency, I can call her."
Helen shook her head again. "Northboro is still several hours from Boston, and having Daria in an emergency is not the same as having your parent."
"I know," Quinn sighed. "But what do you want me to do? Carry a taser or something with me all the time?"
Helen cracked a smile.
"Don't suggest that to your father," she advised.
"I know." Quinn brought her knees to her chest. "I probably should have thought more about what I'm bringing with me in the fall, but I've been busy with spring break coming up, and this…thing…with my friends."
She looked to Helen, finding herself wishing for once that her mother would pry. Not that one's mother is an ideal confidante, as she told herself, but any opportunity to get the incident at the mall off her chest would be a relief.
Helen's smile grew warmer, and she continued, "I understand, Quinn. I know my senior year was very stressful, and I was going to a small and nearby college." Her eyes narrowed slightly at the thought of Middleton's academic reputation. "You can talk to me anytime, and, I just wanted to make sure that you're certain you're going to the right place."
"Isn't it a little late to change my mind?"
"Well." Helen stopped to consider this. "It might be, but this is a decision that affects the rest of your life! And you did have your heart set on Pepperhill."
Quinn shrugged. "None of my friends are going there now, and—I guess when I thought about it, I wanted a school with a little bit of a better reputation for its academics and stuff. For when I want a job, you know?"
Helen seemed relieved by this assertion, and replied, "Oh, of course, and Plath has a very good post-graduate network." She sighed. "It's a beautiful campus, too. I would have liked to go there, but the application process was so rigorous, and my mother wouldn't put up the money…" Her hand suddenly flew to her pocket. "Damn! I think the office is trying to call me." She flashed Quinn a look of apology before bringing her phone to her ear and walking out of the bedroom. "Noooo, Eric, your calls are always welcome!"
Careful not to look at the increasingly daunting pile of clothes, Quinn slumped down on her bed and listened as her mother's voice faded off into a far corner of the house. She closed her eyes and let her mind fade to grey.
"You're not dead! That's good."
With some difficulty, Daria pulled her head up off of the pillow. She squinted her eyes in the direction of the voice, and recognized her roommate.
"Oh…God, Rebecca, I made it back here last night?" she asked groggily.
Her roommate, who was pulling on her sneakers, nodded.
"Well, more like this morning," she admitted. "I was up all night packing for my trip, and you just stumbled up the hall. You're lucky I had to reschedule my flight, or some weirdo could've picked you up."
Although Daria didn't necessarily buy that she had been up all night "packing," she accepted the rest of the explanation and fell back into her bed.
"What were doing last night, anyway?" Rebecca asked, much to the annoyance of Daria, who thought her roommate was on her way out.
"We had a few drinks is all. And then—I remember walking by some bookstore—" Daria's hand brushed against her phone, still in her pocket, and she felt her mouth go dry. "I ran into this guy I knew. And I got his number."
Rebecca looked at her with disappointment. "That's all?"
Daria nodded, and Rebecca began snickering.
"I love how the craziest thing you do after getting drunk is getting some guy's number. That's so lame it, like, transcends lameness."
Daria tucked her head back into her pillow, and, ignoring Rebecca's tittering, asked, "What time is it?"
"Two in the afternoon," she obliged.
"Damnit." Daria threw off her covers and began looking for her glasses on the night stand. "I have to meet Herbert at three."
Rebecca made a face. "That French guy? He's so creepy. And he smells like dirty laundry or something."
"You didn't know about that? It's the fashion to smell bad, because it's ironic and cool, like when those trendy twenty-year-olds dye their hair grey."
"Really?" Rebecca's eyes fluttered. "That's really strange." She paused. "This is just hypothetical, but do you think I could pull off the grey hair?"
"I think your nose is bleeding," Daria pointed out.
"Oh!" Rebecca grabbed onto her snout and backed out the door. "I guess I'd better, um, run to the restroom!" She shut the door behind her, without the use of her hands, impressively. "See you later!"
"God help you." Daria was left with beautiful, beautiful silence.
Once Daria had pulled on a sweater and pair of cords, she walked briskly out of the dorm and toward the library. She flashed her student ID at the lady in the window, and quickly located the "Arts and Humanities" department.
"He's pretty fashionably late for someone so unstylish," she muttered to herself, taking a seat.
When it became apparent that sitting alone with nothing to do in the library would be unbearable, she found a book off the shelf to read.
"The Art of Lawn Ornaments," she read aloud. Her face twitched.
Flipping through the pages, she was increasingly aware of the intricate, grotesque details of the faces of lawn gnomes, but she couldn't pull away, like the time at the zoo when a duck fell into the tiger exhibit.
She glanced up instinctively, and saw Herbert sitting across from her, in all his lovably stout, thin-haired glory, giving her a perplexed look.
She set the book down on its back, and mumbled, "Oh, hi."
"Hello." He seemed to be willing himself not to look at her book. "I must apologize for being late; I was organizing files for Professor Dupuis."
Daria cocked an eyebrow. "That's nice of you. Especially considering you're not her TA or anything."
"She's busy writing for a national journal," he explained, "and I'm helping with her note-taking. I think we're very close to a breakthrough, if we can just close the final connections between Scholasticism and early Islamic philosophy."
Daria nodded firmly, even though she didn't have the vaguest idea what he was talking about.
As he rattled on about some symposium he'd attended in Vancouver, and how it had compelled him to overexert himself in his coursework, Daria looked about the library, and was quite surprised to see that although there was a sizeable group of students diligently at work, none had tried to shush Herbert, or had even shot him a look of annoyance.
She attributed this to the general confusion about his role at the school. His hair had gone prematurely mousey, so he was mistaken for someone older, and his detached attitude with the students at large only aggravated the belief that he was some sort of imported faculty.
"—of course, I warned Ciel that he shouldn't pad his essay by repeating the same rhetoric over and over, but he refused to listen, and he was summarily called out as a fraud." He gave Daria a very somber look. "That is why nobody in my Aesthetics class has doubted my judgment since."
"That was a riveting story," Daria affirmed. "Have you been doing anything over break besides housekeeping for Dupuis?"
"I've been going out at night, and working on my literature and poetry repertoire," replied Herbert. "Just yesterday, I went to a very casual workshop on the structure of Edgar Allen Poe's poetry."
"I went out last night, too." She began to feel embarrassment creeping in. "I've told you about my friend, Jane Lane, right?"
"Oh, yes."
"Well," Daria sighed. "She talked me into going over into this other town, in this old car her parents bought her last year, and we went to a club, and then we got a man to buy us alcohol." She faltered. "And—I think it was a pretty decent time, barring a few incidents. But…something bothers me when I start to think about it."
"Mm-hm."
"I feel like—it's the first time we've spent a lot of time together recently, and I think the only reason we stuck together so long was because we were drinking. And I don't—I don't want a friendship where we have to be inebriated to stand being spending time with each other."
"I see." Herbert was, for the first time that day, at a loss. "It sounds as if there's an unresolved problem."
"I don't know." Daria's face darkened. "There was, butI thought it was all settled, and—I don't know. It's just hard to watch a friendship metamorphose or what have you like that."
Herbert nodded his head. "That's very interesting. You know what else is? I'm writing a term paper about the technical differences and similarities between Hugo's poetry and prose, and how these could be applied to works by other multi-talented writers." He smiled broadly. "Professor Rossi thinks it could be submitted for publication!"
Daria nodded and felt her eyes go hazy. She sank into her seat, and considered that, intoxicated or no, having Jane in the library at that very instant would have been greatly appreciated.