Last night was really, unforgettably something. So something that Trent didn't know how to play it, that he didn't know what that something was. The Spiral and the Harpies had played a Memorial Day gig, one of those bash parties McGrundy's did to move old beer since Lawndale blue collars thought a workman's holiday meant get drunk by volume and not just by blood alcohol. The last inebriant had been bounced, the stage was clear and the manager was up in the loft with the guys playing Grand Theft Auto.
Trent wasn't into video games. He was into the confident, sexy goddess sitting at the edge of the stage holding a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses.
Monique handed a shot glass to Trent. "To two great gigs!"
The energy had been undeniable, the kind you can only achieve with a live audience around. Neither had had so much of a pinch of substance yet they were both high.
They clinked glasses and knocked back their shots in unison. Trent poured out another two jiggers. He raised his glass, and mostly just to have something somewhat cool to say, he toasted. "In memory of those who've gone before!" Trent thought of Jim Morrison. He knew Monique was thinking about her dad.
She smiled, they clinked. Her eyes shone like brown glass. "Hey, you ok?" Trent asked.
Monique gulped a moment. Trent remembered how much she hated crying in front of people when they were in high school, and he guessed that hadn't changed. The sudden mood change, however, was not what he'd been going for. He needed a diversion. "Max plans to steal that video game." He scooted a little closer to her.
Monique laughed, clearly despite her own sudden mood. "You know his life won't be complete until he's done time. He's a criminale!" She poured herself another shot and knocked it back, this one untoasted.
"One big guy would look at him and he'd wet himself and slip through the bars."
They both laughed. Monique turned her face towards his, and he looked into her still glistening eyes. It felt so familiar, so right. His goddess in black… He leaned towards her.
Monique let out a guffaw, a real, ungraceful laugh of pure involuntary reaction. The best kind of laugh. It made Trent laugh, from the belly, at the sheer joy of post-gig awesome whiskiness. She turned her face up to this, tears still glistening, laughing, and it all felt so familiar – that night after homecoming in high school, sitting underneath the bleachers, laughing when the head cheerleader's lollies fell off. The words rolled out of his mouth before he could stop them. "You don't want me to kiss you, do you?"
Monique's face became inscrutable.
She dropped off the edge of the stage and floated across the room in a ballet of perfect ass and swinging hair. Trent marveled for the thousandth time that she could walk in those spike-heeled boots let alone a two hour set onstage in them. "I'm gonna grab that cab outside!" she called over her shoulder. "See you later!"
Trent slumped on the stage glass in one hand, bottle in the other. He looked down at Monique's abandoned shot. "Yeah, you and me, buddy." He grabbed Monique's shot and downed it.
He was still cursing to himself and wondering what he could do to recover from the situation when ever-in-recovery Nick dropped him off the next day. Or night. Whatever.
Should he talk to her? Talking about stuff was hard. Maybe he'd write her a song. He should have just kissed her.
A girl's voice floated from Jane's room; it didn't sound like Daria but sometimes she did voices, especially when she was making fun of that sister of hers. Some teen stammering and silent adulation would make him feel a bit less idiotic. He schlepped into the room, greeting Jane the way he had for the last six weeks. "Hey Janey. Do you have any money?" If she did, they could get pizza.
He saw her "I'm homicidal" artwork and immediately regretted the question, but before he could backpedal he found himself assessed and rejected by a 15 year old he had yet to speak to.
So this was Quinn.
Daria and Jane hadn't been exaggerating or editing. What a snotty little bitch.
Fortunately, he'd had practice with popular girls from the mid-90s, who were Olympic athletes of snotty compared to Jane's generation. "Who are you?"
The popular girls always hated it when you didn't know who they were. Hell, the popular guys in high school hated that and Trent really didn't know their names – with the exception of Tommy Sherman, whose name he learned in order to better avoid him.
"Quinn," she said in that "get me a soda" voice.
He paused, before pretending to make the connection. "Oh, that's right, Daria's sister." He decided to hang out in the room with Jane to prevent Quinn's murder. It might be justifiable homicide, but the video Daria made of Quinn was too heavily edited to hold up as evidence.
He smiled to himself as Quinn shrieked when he changed the channel from Fashion Vision to Sick Sad World. Since her personality was torture, he might as well use his personality and Jane's to torment Quinn. Fortunately, they expressed themselves through media – a lower effort choice than getting the band over for a last-minute practice.
Amid the repetitive "ews" and frequent unsolicited hairstyle advice, there were three things that Trent learned: first, Quinn did not inhale. Ever. She could maintain chatter at a rate that underwater divers would envy. Second, Quinn had more words for shoes than Eskimos did for ice. Third, Quinn did not actually eat. If she did eat, it had to be through some fucked up osmosis where she passed her hand over her food and nutrition crept in through her tiny, tiny pores.
"Don't tell any of the fashion club you saw me eat PIZZA!" she exclaimed, somehow sniffing the pizza while continuing to talk. "Sandistaceytiffany would just kill me-" at which point, Jane stuffed a breadstick in Quinn's mouth. Trent half wished she'd gone with the steamy hot pizza and left some cheese burns on Quinn's mouth, but he doubted there'd be much luck with that. If she wore heels and platforms as often as she said he did, her pain tolerance had to be phenomenal. He admired Monique's ability to wear her boots for gigs and to walk after – he also had seen what happened to her feet as a result of wearing them all the time. At least in Monique's case, she was suffering for her art.
Jane used the silence to turn to Trent and attempt to take control of the situation. "How was your gig last night?"
Trent noticed that Quinn was actually chewing on the breadstick and she had this slightly dreamy expression, as though she were getting high off of having food. Damn, now that was messed up.
"It went fine, Janey. Really good crowd."
"Max and Nick didn't kill each other?"
"Didn't even try."
"Oh good, they may live so I can catch it on camera another day."
"And I can see that Monique didn't kill you?"
Jane actually liked Monique and had made that clear to Trent, but was well aware that her perfectionism made her tough on him sometimes. Trent wanted to go places, and he kind of knew that Monique actually was going places.
"Well…"
Jane's eyebrows shot up. "Monique almost killed you? I thought the gig went well?"
Trent didn't know what to say. He told his sister everything, but you don't talk to your little sister about chicks.
Quinn, alas, swallowed her food without choking. "You had an almost kiss moment, didn't you? I had three of those with two different boys last week– well, five if you count joeyjeffyjamaica – and it was so awkward because they were going out with Sandi and Stacey – and, well, anyway now you're going to have to get all strategic because a one night stand is just out of the question – not that I do those, ever – and you can't just ask her out, like she'd go out with you the way you dress-"
Edie Brickell began murmuring in his head "Shove me into shallow water/before I get too deep."
"I guess you could kiss another girl in front of her to move things along, but if she's one of those rocker chicks she might just kiss another girl in front of you, or you could ask out her best friend-"
"Um, she's my best friend." Best friends were not monogamous propositions or hierarchical arrangements in the Lane world.
"Oh Trent, don't be silly. Girls and boys can't be friends. It's the Battle of the Sexes, remember? We're at war here, and you need to man up!"
"But I am a man…"
Jane made motions of cleaning up glasses and plates. "That's right – no man left alive! We have to destroy all the men!"
Quinn rolled her eyes. "Oh jeez, conquering is so much more complex than that. It's why it's so much work to be popular and pretty and well-liked. No wonder you don't have a boyfriend, I totally get why Daria doesn't, but you, you wear lipstick-"
At which point, Jane conveniently tripped over Trent's outstretched leg, sending diet Coke flying onto Quinn. "Ewwww!" Quinn shrieked her way to the bathroom.
As the door slammed, the Lane siblings turned their attention back to each other. "Huh," Jane observed. "She didn't melt into a puddle."
Trent smiled.
"Now that we have a few moments away from Glinda the evil witch of pink evil, would you care to tell me what actually happened with Ms. Monique, or would you like me to book you a strategy session with Quinn and Helen?"
Trent had put a lot of effort into avoiding any such discussion with Janey about Monique. He'd even logged six extra hours of sleep that week to escape the conversation. Maybe a session with Quinn wouldn't be so bad, she almost sounded like she knew what she was talking about. No, no, he'd heard about Helen and the stories scared him.
"There was an almost-kiss moment that would have been a kiss but I blew it," he told her.
Jane threw down the paper towel she was using to clear the pizza grease off the coffee table. "Oh god Trent, please don't go there with her!"
"Look Janey, I'm an adult, I can make my own decisions and -"
"Those are decisions I have to live with. I'm still 16. I can't go anywhere too far without you, and that means that when you have drama, I'm stuck with it except on the rare occasions Mom and Dad want to play parent."
Trent pretended to be confused and a little hurt even though he knew Janey was absolutely right. "But I thought you liked Monique."
"I do. Monique has a lot going for her. But you don't have all that much in common, and I don't expect your blowouts from high school not to become blow outs now."
Not have something in common? "We're both musicians, we both live life on the edge. We've known each other since middle school-"
Jane glared at her brother. "You live life on the edge of a couch. Monique lives on the edge of Degas Street and counsels junkies for her day job. Her edge is a lot sharper than your edge."
"Woah."
Jane swept her hands out. "Forget it, I'm done with this. Try to clean up your own mess, OK?" She stalked off, leaving the paper towel bunched on the table amid the pizza boxes.
Quinn reappeared in a fresh shirt, this one with a smiley face but otherwise equally pink. She smelled vaguely like an overripe grapefruit.
"What's that smell?"
"Oh, it's my perfume. Overripe Grapefruit by Demeter."
"Uh, interesting –Janey's up in her room if you're looking for her." Trent wasn't the kind of guy to say please go away, although in that moment, he wished he were.
"Does Daria like you?"
Woah. "What?"
"My sister, Daria. Does she like you?"
Trent shrugged. "Yeah, I guess she does. She's nice and everything when she hangs out here."
"No, I mean does she like you like you?"
Trent risked eye contact with Quinn who for some reason had her mile-a-minute motor on idle. "I don't know Quinn. She's 16 and I hadn't really thought about it."
"Well, I wouldn't go out with you but there's no telling with Daria. She did go out with that guy in a cult for awhile, so I know she likes weirdos."
Trent would take that as a compliment. "Daria's a sweet kid." Too bad she was stuck with a sister like Quinn. Now how the hell did he shut her up? Jane must wonder the same thing all the time.
"I just wouldn't want to see her get hurt, OK?"
Woah. "I wouldn't hurt your sister. She's the best thing that's happened to Janey in a long time."
"Good. Now, if we could clean you up you'd be totally presentable, not for Daria but because Mom gets picky -"
Must escape now. He pulled a trick from his mid-90s high school girls playbook. "Hey, what's up with your hair?"
Quinn shrieked and ran once again for the bathroom. It would be a long night, and the way Quinn was going, he might have to use eyelashes, pores and fingernails. He pulled a newspaper over his face and feinted sleep when he heard the bathroom door open. He couldn't wait until Daria and the Morgendorffers got back from their trip.
- END -