Daria Gender Flip From Not So Different JTL Version

61. Rivals For Attention

The damage began with Helen talking seriously to Quinn. Sonny knew not to expect any good to come of that.

That his mother should hope for effect from talking seriously to Quinn didn't exactly surprise him. He could think of a few possible explanations for her to behave that way, and all of them bored and depressed him.

That Quinn should choose this occasion to break pattern by taking what their mother said seriously—well, he could think of a few explanations for that, too, when he eventually found out about it, but all of them scared him.

The trigger had been Sonny's receipt of a present from Stacy, a second edition, something whose significance was alien to Quinn. In an act of cruelty to both her children, their mother had explained that it was a sign of maturity to find one person you wanted to date exclusively, somebody caring and compatible who knew and cared how to find you a present that was important to you.

"Dating? Mo-om! Sonny is gay."

Helen pursed her lips together. "Right, what I meant was," She looked at Sonny.

Sonny sighed and realized what she wanted. "Quinn, I'm not gay. Stacy and I are dating. Being the social outcast that I am we came up with the story that I was gay so we could see each other with out hurting her popularity too much."

He waits for the response. His mother waited for a response. Instead, Quinn turned and left the room.

After a second or two of silence, Helen spoke up. 'You know, Sonny', she had continued, 'Dad and I really haven't had the chance to really get to know Stacy.' Sonny heard the footsteps of doom. 'Why don't you invite her over for dinner?'

For form's sake, Sonny had replied. 'Because I haven't taken complete leave of my senses.'

Sonny had not gone on to say that this was the second-worst idea he'd ever heard in his life, ranking right after the one about his parents bringing home a little sister for him from the hospital. Actively trying to discourage his mother was, he knew, a marginal strategy at best. What he had working in his favor was that she would surely rely on him to pass on the invitation and make the arrangements with Stacy, which should give him a fair chance of stalling until his preferred night for having Stacy round for dinner—the one after Armageddon. Well, any night after Armageddon would do: he wouldn't want to be unreasonably picky.

He told Jane as they walked to school. She understood, or at least partly. She knew all about the way Sonny's father carried on, but her first thought was about how that might embarrass Sonny. Sonny had to clarify for her.

'It's more that he'll provide Stacy with a festive night of nightmares. If she just doesn't think he's an..." Sonny can't think of the right descriptive word. His father had many facets that only those like Sonny could see. One night of close exposure wouldn't give the chance to see that. "My dad deserves better than that.' Sonny's eyes slid off to one side. 'Sort of.'

'Well, I don't think you're giving Stacy enough credit. She's met your parent's before."

'Oh, yeah. For all of five seconds at a time.'

Jane gave Sonny a quizzical look. 'I don't suppose you could get your father to go off to Greece for six months to sketch the sunset', she said with unhelpful accuracy.

What Sonny had not mentioned to Jane was Quinn's request to be allowed to invite a boyfriend to dinner if Sonny was inviting Stacy. Sonny had assumed that their mother's limitation, to steady boyfriends only, would rule that out. The frightening news that Quinn was seriously preparing to select a steady boyfriend leaked back to him through Stacy, after Quinn made a formal announcement to an 'emergency' meeting of the Fashion Club.

Sandi had fully supported her, the real reason (the one she didn't tell Quinn, but shared with Tiffany and Stacy) being 'there'll be more guys for the rest of us'. Quinn must not have told the rest of the club that Stacy was seeing him. The whole Club had helped Quinn pick her way through the delicate selection process for the one perfect 'Mr Right': height, hair, skin, popularity, bone structure, color sense, car, wardrobe, musculature, luxury possessions, ability to service Quinn's diverse needs … (Sonny's contribution to the list of criteria, when he heard Quinn talking about it, had been 'ability to fix major appliances', and Quinn had immediately accepted it.) Eventually Quinn held screening interviews at the pizzeria where Sonny and Jane were eating, and they were able to observe her rejecting virtually every boy at the school for failing to meet her exacting standards in one respect or another. (She did it in jig time, too. 'If I were stranded on a deserted island, what is the one item you'd bring me?' 'A boat! With flares, and life boats, and the Coast Guard, and … and the Navy!' 'Wrong wrong wrong! The correct answer is "sunscreen"!')

But Sandi, otherwise the queen of exacting standards, was determined to eliminate Quinn from competition by tethering her to a steady boyfriend, and finally Quinn was induced to come down in favor of Jamie (whichever one he was). When she came into the kitchen to announce this to the family, Sonny wasn't sure whether she'd chosen a favorable or an unfavorable time to do so. He'd been hard at work trying to concentrate on a crossword at the same time as continuing to stall his mother's attempts to get Stacy over for dinner. So Quinn's intervention might possibly have served as a helpful diversion of their mother's attention. On the other hand, Helen had already been partly distracted by her husband's antics in pursuit of his latest manic obsession, a squirrel that had been 'terrorizing the neighborhood' (that is, knocking over the garbage cans: Sonny's father set the bar low when defining 'terrorism'). And then she'd been drawn out of the room altogether by a phone call from her boss, who apparently wanted her advice about a plan to sue UNICEF. Sonny couldn't help thinking that there could be tactical advantages in having multiple distractions assist him against his mother at separate times, instead of all at once. For one thing, once she had gone to take her call, and Jake had gone out into the back yard to set a cage trap for the squirrel, Quinn had nobody left to conscript as an audience for her latest personal 'drama' but somebody who any rational person could have seen was trying to concentrate on a crossword.

Naturally it was only a simple exercise for Sonny to get rid of Quinn. She took his word for it that now she had a steady boyfriend she should be with him all day and on the phone to him all night. Her objection that Sonny himself wasn't always with Stacy he deflected effortlessly by pointing out that it was different because he and Stacy had to maintain their cover.

Unfortunately, even as Quinn left the room, their mother returned. True, at that point she was still on the phone—but a moment later she broke off the call when Jake, out in the back yard, started screaming. Sonny and his mother looked out the window. Their father and husband had his hand inside the trap and couldn't get it loose.

Helen and Sonny looked at each other. They could hear Jake screaming some more. Helen's understanding of the situation was written all over her face. Sonny's face, thanks to a decade of practice, was not so easily readable. He let her speak.

'You're worried about your father's behavior.'

How could Sonny not be? He hadn't tried to deny it to Jane. He'd confess it to his mother if he had to—but did he have to?

'Mom, now that Quinn … says she's got a steady boyfriend, are you going to invite him to dinner as well? You know, to encourage her? You did tell her that once she had a steady boyfriend you'd love to invite him for dinner, and that's when she got one. And with her history she probably needs the encouragement.'

'You want to encourage your sister and her new steady boyfriend? That's what you want? Out of pure altruism?'

Sonny looked at his mother. 'You're not going to believe that, are you.'

'With your history? No. Besides, I think it would be nice to have both of you bring your special friends over for dinner. It would really make a special occasion of it.'

'The thing is'—Sonny hesitated for effect, even though what he was going to say was not strictly untrue—'I don't know how Quinn's boyfriend might react to a social occasion with Quinn's brother.'

"Why not?"

Sonny sighed. "Except for the rare, rarer than a Loch Ness monster spotting, does she even admit I'm related to her. Some times I'm a nanny or a foreign exchange student. When she feels gracious she'll say I'm a distant cousin. I don't know how her date would like eating with her distant foreign exchange nanny."

Sonny's mother didn't hesitate. Obviously not believing him. 'If that's how Quinn's boyfriend feels, it's something we all want to know as soon as possible.'

Unaccustomedly discomfited, Sonny shifted slightly in his chair. 'There is still the other thing you mentioned. I understand Dad …'

'Really?'

'… but now we're talking about not just one person who's not a blood relative, but two. Stacy's at least met him a few times, but Quinn's new boyfriend … well, he might not appreciate Dad's—um—energetic reactions to certain stimuli.'

Sonny's mother was curious to know what stimuli he was talking about. He should have foreseen that.

'Oh, you know', he said limply. 'Everything.'

His mother gave a sigh of acquiescence. 'Sonny, I'll make you a deal. I'll have a talk with your father about his conduct. You call Stacy about dinner. What do you say?'

Was this what growing up felt like? Sonny had mixed feelings. 'Wasn't there a time when our deals involved cash?'


At least Sonny could console himself with the thought that his advice to Quinn about unremitting closeness with her boyfriend had had some effect. He hadn't seen her again that evening at all, but when she came into the room the next day after school, as he was watching Sick, Sad World, she reported that she and Jamie had broken up. Sonny well knew Quinn's inexhaustible capacity for telephone conversation, but the odds were good that her new boyfriend hadn't shared it. Anyway, the news that Jamie had been replaced as her 'steady' boyfriend by Joey made even less difference to Sonny than it would have if he'd made the perfunctory effort to remember how to distinguish her admirers by name.

What Sonny didn't welcome was Quinn picking up the television remote and starting to change channels as easily as she changed boyfriends. With Quinn, what worked once should work again. He suggested that she should be at football practice watching Joey.

'It's too humid', she said. 'My hair might frizz.'

Sonny gave the crank another turn. 'Brittany's there, supporting Kevin. She has hair', he noted.

Sonny was a little put out when Quinn parried: as a cheerleader, Brittany's attendance was required. But he was not without a powerful riposte: no cheerleader herself, Jane nevertheless attended all Tom's luge races. Was the truth that Quinn was just an unsupportive girlfriend? (Of course: but she was hardly going to avow it.) A hit, a palpable hit! Quinn stood up and flounced out: to watch Joey at football practice or to buy frizz-proof hair conditioner, Sonny didn't care as long as he was able to reclaim the remote and Sick, Sad World.

Of course Quinn came back again later, but escaping that eternal return was beyond Sonny's expectations. This time he was trying to read while Quinn, waiting for Joey to arrive for their date, gabbled on the phone to Stacy. Not at all to Sonny's surprise, it was clear from their chatter that Quinn would have preferred to be with Stacy and the rest of the Fashion Club, but by now the 'steady boyfriend' concept seemed to have its teeth sunk in her as securely as a leg-hold trap. Even finding out that Sandi was dating some boy Quinn had thought liked her did not provide enough leverage to release her. She didn't hear the sarcastic remarks Sonny was making, either, although that was no rarity.

It was just Joey's bad luck that Stacy told Quinn about a boy band appearing in concert the moment before he rang the doorbell. She opened the door and told him to take her to the concert instead of the restaurant—the choice she had previously insisted on. Naturally the concert was sold out. Quinn dumped Joey immediately for being unsupportive.

After Quinn slammed the door, Sonny said, 'Wow. A whole day. At least you'll have the memories.'

'I give up!' said Quinn. 'This boyfriend stuff is too time-consuming.'

At that moment their mother walked in to tell Sonny that she'd spoken to his father and that they were all set for dinner on Sunday night, and to suggest to Quinn that she invite her boyfriend as well.

The original suggestion of 'dinner with the family' had been the trigger for Quinn's search for a steady boyfriend. She couldn't tell her mother now that she'd abandoned the idea. She looked as if she'd discovered, just when she thought she'd escaped the leg-hold trap, that she'd chewed off the wrong leg.

Meanwhile, Sonny was thinking about what his mother had said about having 'talked' with his father. She obviously thought that meant something. Sonny was not reassured. He was still on edge on Sunday evening. He went into the front yard to wait there so that he could meet Stacy even before the front door, but when Stacy arrived Sonny had not yet found a strategy. He greeted her and tried to make light of the situation, but she only responded with a disturbingly positive attitude. Sonny persevered with an awkward segue to the subject of his father and his potential to be what Sonny described, with unwonted charity, as 'a little … eccentric.'

Stacy said, 'So I've heard.'

'From who?'

'You!'

Sonny was unsettled (Stacy's grin didn't help). He could only agree limply. Once they were inside he made another hesitant start, fumbling out a second euphemism to describe his father, 'sensitive'.

'So', said Stacy, 'no bright lights or loud noises? Or do you like, use the fabric softner stuff with out chemicals?'

Sonny had nothing left to say except Stacy's name in a warning tone of voice.

'Don't worry', advised Stacy, unsuccessfully, as Quinn came down the stairs. 'I want him to like me too, you know.'

Quinn interrupted to ask them not to embarrass her in front of her 'new serious boyfriend'. It was the first Sonny had heard that she'd taken up with Jeffy. Was she expecting third time to be the charm?

Anyway, if he couldn't explain to Stacy about his father, at least he could respond to Quinn's request not to embarrass her. 'I guess the bear suits are out.'

Stacy asked how long Quinn and Jeffy had been together. After having been on the lengthy end of several phone conversations she should have known.

Sonny wasn't sure if Stacy was taking a dig at Quinn or not. He used to think Stacy was a little, obsessed, with his sister.

'It's not the quantity of time, but the quality.'

Now where could Quinn have learned something like that? Sonny said, 'You'll make a great neglectful mother some day.' Another inspiration struck Sonny, or an old one returning. He'd had fair success planting in Quinn's head the idea that if you had a steady boyfriend you should spend all available time together. How far could he run with that one? Acquisition of adjoining cemetery plots as the ultimate test of commitment? He started playing up as best he could to Stacy, who was thrown for just one instant (not long enough for Quinn to notice) and then joined in like a trouper, even taking Sonny's hand and inventing a nauseating pet name for him on the spot. Sonny made eyes at her, doing the best he could to camp it up. He knew he'd never deceive the genuine article, but Quinn might fall for it. Then Jeffy rang the doorbell, and when Quinn answered she tried (and, unlike Stacy, failed hopelessly) to invent a convincing pet name for him on the spot, and completed his confusion by telling him that they needed to talk about cemetery plots.

Diverting though this was, it didn't get Sonny any closer to a solution of the problem with his father. Once all six were seated at the dinner table, conversation began harmlessly enough with Sonny's mother exchanging with Stacy and Jeffy the banalities of the giver and recipients of hospitality. Then his father joined in to say that it was great to have some more people around the house. He leaned over and nudged Jeffy in the side. 'This place could do with a little more scratching and sweating', he went on. 'Right, Sonny?'

Sonny's eyes widened helplessly and he realized, to his shame, that his head had swiveled involuntarily to direct a mute appeal at his mother. He recovered himself and altered his expression to a more naturally stony one which he expected her to read as 'What about our deal?' She cleared her throat pointedly at her husband, who responded with a puzzled 'Huh?'

Stacy smoothly picked up the slack, saying, 'So, what's new, Mr Morgendorffer?' Oh so very briefly Sonny thought he might know what it was like to like Stacy, but within fifteen seconds of commencing a pro forma response to Stacy's question, Sonny's father was ranting about squirrels again. His wife gave him a warning reminder, but he only protested with wounded innocence, 'But she asked!'

In strict factuality, up to that point Stacy had not explicitly expressed any interest in squirrels; but now she did, siding with Jake, because squirrels had eaten all the wheat thins in the Rowe cellar the previous winter. Sonny remembered Stacy's assurance that she wanted Sonny's father to like her. Sonny hadn't realized at the time that it was a disguised trap. 'Stacy!' he said, with a foolish uselessness that just made him feel worse.

'What?' said Stacy. 'They did.' Now she was playing the wounded innocent too, and plainly with truth on her side.

Sonny's mother made one last effort to save the situation by asking Jeffy about school, but, for the hat-trick, Jeffy too was more interested in talking about squirrels and how to catch them—so interested (and this was a phenomenon Sonny had never observed with any of Quinn's admirers before) that he completely disregarded a protesting Quinn. (Or was that why Jeffy had been her third choice?) Jeffy recommended peanut butter as an effective bait, and this reminded Sonny's father that he'd prepared a fresh batch of Thai peanut sauce the previous night, undeterred by two disastrous failures in the preceding three weeks.

'Jake', his wife said at this news, 'you didn't!' (The smell of the first batch hadn't cleared from the house for three days and she'd banned him from tipping the second batch down the sink for fear of what it might do to the pipes.)

Sonny didn't want to make another addition to the accumulation of limp ineffectual protests. At least he still had satire. 'I thought I smelled something at breakfast', he said, 'but I just thought a neighbor had died.'

His mother had still not accepted that she was playing the role of the apocryphal version of King Canute, but her last attempt at remonstrance was interrupted by her phone's ringing. Her atypical state of mind was illustrated when she made one attempt to get out of talking with the caller, predictably her reliably unreliable boss, but half a minute later she was halfway out of the room, trying to help him understand the difference between UNICEF and Uniroyal.

That left only Quinn's flailing protests to fail to deter Jeffy when Jake asked him to help set up the squirrel trap, and when Stacy spotted the vermin in question in the back yard, all three of them charged outside together.

Sonny went over to the window to watch them at work with the trap. Of course, his worst fears for the evening had not come to pass: something even more ridiculous was happening. He was just saying so, when Quinn gave a great cry of distress.

'Augh! I can't believe that Jeffy just deserted me like that! I'll never have a boyfriend! I'll never be in a relationship like you and Stacy! I'm a complete failure!'

She fled the room wailing, but strangely even this did not make Sonny feel that the evening had not been a total loss. He found himself reflecting that the brotherly thing to do would be to go and console her.

However brothers did that.

But there was a bowl of rolls on the table. So he helped himself to one.

His mother came back into the room, but she was still on the phone hosing her boss down, so Sonny just took a bite of his roll. Then she finished the call, noticed the dinner party's sudden shortfall, and asked Sonny where everybody had gone. When he told her, she asked him for an explanation, and he felt oddly deficient. He did the best he could. But why had his father, Stacy, and Jeffy all charged out together?

'I've heard people talk about this thing called bonding, but if it's always been a closed book to me, I don't suppose the concept's going to enlighten you at all, is it?'

'I was asking about Quinn.'

'Oh. That. Let me see now. I think as usual she's got hold of the wrong end of the stick, because before she ran out she said she was a failure as Jeffy had deserted her and she'd never be in a relationship like Stacy and me; whereas an objective examination of the evidence of what just happened here would show Jeffy treating her almost exactly the same way Stacy treated me.'

'And that was all?'

Sonny twitched, but he wasn't sure whether his mother noticed. It occurred to him that sometimes pranks could be more fun when somebody found out about them. 'Well, it's possible that Quinn … happened to get the wrong end of the stick about some other aspects of how serious relationships are supposed to work …'

Maybe she had seen him twitch. 'Uh-huh', she said. 'Just what would some of these aspects be?'

'Oh, I don't know … maybe things like being together twenty-four hours a day, hanging on each other's every word … his-and-hers cemetery plots …'

'Sonny, how could you mislead your sister like that!' His mother left the room, probably headed for Quinn's room to console her. Maybe she knew how to do that.

'Mother', Sonny replied to her question, but only after she'd gone, 'how could I not?'

He was alone in the room again. He looked out the window and saw Stacy and Jeffy high-fiving each other as his father picked up the cage trap with the rodent 'terrorist' now safely incarcerated in it. The three of them walked off with it. They were headed in the general direction of the car. His father would want to release the creature safely into a natural environment, and Stacy and Jeffy must be going along for the ride.

Everybody had left him. Wasn't that his deepest fear? Why was his mother only concerned about Quinn? He walked back to his seat and sat down again. On the one hand, total abandonment and isolation. On the other, shoestring potatoes. At least he wouldn't starve. In fact, there was an excellent meal to be eaten. If nobody else wanted any, he saw no reason for guilt about not sharing.

He never wavered from this view later.

He was getting ready for bed when the phone rang. After a ring or two Quinn picked it up.

He was surprised when she said it was for him. "Hello?"

"Hey, uh, Sonny." Stacy confessed to him that she'd had a great time with Sonny's father and Jeffy at a go-kart track that Jeffy had directed them to when he realized it was close to the place where they'd released the squirrel. Stacy even started to suggest that Sonny should accompany her there some time, to try go-karting. No doubt she was actuated by the best of motives, but her powers of reason and his memory started working again before she finished the sentence. And Sonny had to admit (to himself, that is, although he did later mention it also to Jane) that Stacy never had one critical thing to say about Sonny's father.

"That's good."

"Um, ok. But uh, I thought maybe, like,"

Sonny was tired, and full, and ready for bed. "We can talk tomorrow. I'm going to bed."

"Oh, ok. Um, goodnight."

"Goodnight."

As for Quinn, her mother succeeded in getting her to see that the acquisition or lack of a steady boyfriend was not definitive of maturity, the important thing being to do what made you happy, whether that meant having one boyfriend or a string of them. Quinn was in a buoyant condition induced by accepting this reassurance when she returned to the dining room. She was surprised that the others weren't there, so Sonny explained.

'Stacy went too?' Quinn said as she took a seat opposite Sonny.

'I guess part of me always knew that some day she'd return to the wild.'

Quinn was still showing a little unwonted disposition to philosophies. 'Sonny, I was thinking that maybe guys and girls just aren't meant to understand each other?' Sonny wasn't sure how to deal with this unfamiliar Quinn, but he was able to relax when she, like him, decided to let her attention be captured by the food.

Of course, she preferred the celery stalks. That was his sister.

The next time they had school, Sonny and Jane were sitting at their usual spot when Stacy sat down next to them. "Uh, this isn't your lunch hour."

"I know Sonny." She fidgeted with her hair. "I, I'm sorry about Sunday night. I like, just left."

Sonny sets his fork down. "You did. But you said you had a good time with my dad."

"I did! I hope he liked me too. I was so nervous. I know I went a little overboard but my father is the same way with those little rodents."

Jane excuses herself for more napkins leaving the two alone.

"It's ok Stacy. Really."

"Are you sure?" He nods. "Ok. I just felt so bad last night. You were, uh, short with me." He nods indicating she had the right word she was looking for. "So you're not mad?"

"No. I was just tired. And full. My mom made dinner for six and I may have had about three of them."

"Okay!" Now her bright smile was back. "I better go! I told the teacher I had to use the facilities." She reaches out and squeezes his hand under the table before getting up and leaving.


Some dialogue from 'One J At A Time' by Ron Corcillo and A J Poulin

A/N Wasn't sure if I should have Stacy go off with Jake and Jeffy but the go kart racing... Love the idea of her being a race car driver. Easily amused.