Chapter 4
Mr. DeMartino had gotten the yearbook. He'd let her know during third period history that day.
"I'll be here after school grading PAPERS. Or what passes for them here. You can stay as long as you don't make any noise."
Daria didn't expect noise to be an issue. With that settled, she quietly stepped in after the last bell rang for the day. DeMartino was busy at his desk, teeth clenched together and his red pen like a butcher's knife in his hand. He glanced at her, and then pointed to a dusty yearbook at the edge of his desk.
Muttering a quiet "thanks", Daria took the yearbook and retreated to the back of the classroom. Her heart was pounding, whole body tensed because she might uncover the answer to this… utterly trivial mystery. Except shewantedto know. Wasn't that justification enough?
Once seated, she opened the yearbook and went straight to the index. The yellow pages and uneven typesetting gave it an amateur look not dissimilar to The Trials of Lawndale itself, a far cry from the glossy modern yearbooks that Quinn brought home, weighed down by the sheer amount of ink used on the signatures.
At the index, she searched for the Lawndale Lowdown. Instead, she found the Lawndale Lion Herald, which she guessed had been the newspaper's name back in the eighties. Taking note of the pages where it was mentioned, she checked one after another until she got a photo of the newspaper staff.
They didn't look too dissimilar to the modern newspaper staff. Earnest and a bit on the nerdy side. N, as she imagined him (?) would probably fit in well. She scanned the names.
Pictured, from left to right: Daryl Atkinson, Valerie Cowan, Mark Edwards, Gordon Fang, Patricia Kenners, Enrique Larson, Michelle Marquez, Leslie O'Conner, Simon "Sy" Owens, Danielle Simms, Aaron Weissknopf
No one whose name started with an N. But there was one E. Had E been the journalist? Enrique looked unremarkable: a bit short, with messy dark hair and sharp nose. Judging by his expression, his eyes incurious behind the thick lenses of his glasses, he didn't much care to be there.
Which was more or less how she'd expected N and E to look.
Flipping back to the index, she searched for Enrique Larson and found four pages under his name, including his school paper photo. Going through each one, she found: a photo of two normal-looking kids that just happened to have Enrique standing in the background; a picture of him in the Computer Club; and finally one of a distinctly unenthusiastic Enrique sitting on the bleachers during a football game, looking as if he'd been forced at gunpoint to attend and was starting to wonder if death would have been the better option.
Daria studied the last photo for a little while, knowing more or less exactly what the guy had felt. This damned school. It had never been good and would never get better.
She looked through the pages a while longer, noting a picture of Summer Lane practically buried in plastic New Wave accessories. There was another of Wind as a freshman, looking as nervous and lost as his adult self.
"Mr. DeMartino?" she asked.
"Hm?" He grunted; his bad eye locked on the paper he was grading.
"Do you remember an Enrique Larson?"
"Enrique Larson? LARSON! Yes, I do. The kid was a smartass," he grumbled. "But he was CLEVERER than most of his peers. Heh, I'm not surprised that HE turned out to be the one behind this."
"Did he have a friend whose name started with N?"
DeMartino shrugged. "I don't remember. You could try the PHONE BOOK to see if Enrique is nearby. Though I'm not sure why he'd stay HERE."
"I was thinking I might take a look myself." Daria stood up and gathered the two books, then walked to DeMartino's desk to return the yearbook. "Uh, thanks for all your help."
"Daria, I can't say that you make my choice of CAREER any more meaningful, since you already know everything I'm trying to teach! But you annoy me LESS than the others."
"Please keep this confidential. I don't think I could live with myself if word got out that I made a teacher's life easier."
Daria mulled it over as she walked through the halls. Still no sign of N, but she had one name. It was probably the best she was going to get at this point.
Parked outside a Starbucks in Swedesville, Daria wondered again if she really wanted to go through with this.
Sure enough, she'd found Enrique in the phonebook. He'd sounded normal enough, though more than a little surprised that anyone had foundThe Trials of Lawndale.
"With how cheap the binding was, I'm amazed there's still a surviving copy."
They didn't talk long. She'd learned only that Enrique worked as a regional marketing manager for a mortgage company. Meeting had been her idea, not his. Obviously, she insisted on doing it in a public place. He agreed to wear his University of Maryland sweater as an identifier.
Enrique had been smart. A teenager clever enough to see through the bullshit around him, but apparently not so clever as to escape Lawndale (living in neighboring Swedesville did not count as an escape so far as Daria was concerned). So, she wanted to see what had gone wrong. Why had he given up and worked in marketing, of all things?
It's not like the book was especially good. But somehow, she'd still expected more of Enrique.
Daria stepped out of the car, the tattered old book under her arm. She spotted him, or at least another person wearing a University of Maryland sweater, through the window. He'd already sat down with some overly sweet drink.
He still looked like the old Enrique, kind of. Bold features, thick black hair. Just softer and rounder with age. No glasses, either.
Once inside, she faced him.
"Enrique?"
His eyebrows went up. "Hi! You're Daria?"
"I am."
She sat herself down and put the book on the table. Enrique let out a long breath when he saw it, reaching out to touch the frayed edge.
"I never thought I'd see any of these again. We only made like, three copies. And yeah, we did hide one in the library. Genuinely surprised they didn't find it and throw it out. You mind if I take a look?" he asked.
"It's your book."
"Don't know if I'd still want to claim ownership over this thing," he said, turning the book around and opening it up to the big picture of Lawndale High. "Hey, who's still teaching there?"
"Mr. DeMartino is."
"Ah, good old DeMartino. You guys still take bets on whether or not he'll flip out?"
"I'd say no one's stupid enough to bet against that, but this is Lawndale we're talking about."
He turned the page and reached the cartoon of Doug and Charlene.
"Oh, shit," he muttered, shaking his head. "This… wow, I'm not proud of this one."
"Doug and Charlene probably shouldn't be proud of it either."
Enrique didn't seem to have heard. "Guess we were kind of pricks back then."
"If it's any consolation, Doug's son has taken his place at Lawndale High."
"No kidding? What's the kid's name?"
"Kevin."
"Huh. Honestly, stuff like this is one of the reasons I had pretty mixed feelings when you told me you'd found this. Look, I'm not the same guy I was back then."
And now the regret was coming out, of a life half-lived around compromise.
"Obviously not," Daria said. "You used to be a writer. Maybe one who relied too heavily on pastiche, but still someone who put pen to paper to create something interesting."
She'd sounded more accusatory than she'd intended to. But maybe that'd get to him. Wake him up a little.
"Huh? I mean, I still write for work."
"If shilling for corporate America can be considered writing."
His eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Daria, you're not getting what I'm saying. This book's embarrassing, because it reminds me of who I used to be: a loser who laughed at other people to feel better about myself."
"Or someone who was at least willing to push back against the status quo." Had this guycompletelysold out?
"In what way was I pushing back? It's not like I was making anything better. Me and Ian were just bored and lonely."
"Wait, your collaborator was named Ian?" Daria asked. "I thought it'd be someone whose name started with N."
Enrique shook his head. "You got it mixed up. I'm N. See, we took the first phonetic syllables of our names and used letters that sounded like them. Enrique, Ian."
"I get it. That's clever enough."
"I'm pretty sure anyone who knew us would've figured it out."
"What's Ian doing? Accounting?"
Enrique seemed to deflate a bit. "He died. Drunk driving accident, and he was the drunk guy."
The news hit Daria right in the heart. This talented cartoonist—in fact, he'd been better at cartooning than Enrique had been at writing—was simply another casualty lost in the blur of life.
"Uh, I'm sorry."
"It's okay. We fell out of touch during college. I know he had a harder time of things than me. Guy was always kind of sensitive. Guess that's why he lashed out with this. Guess that's why we did."
A few years earlier, she might've still said something sharp, but here she knew she had to back down at least a bit. Even if Enrique didn't seem to much care about Ian.
"You seemed like you were pretty close," she said.
"Oh, we were! But, you know, college happened, then work. Last time we talked was right before he moved to, uh… D.C., I think? Must've been back in '88. Heard about his death kind of a while after it had happened."
"Did he also go to University of Maryland?"
"Yeah, but we took different majors, fell in with different crowds. You know how it goes. Well, you will know how it goes. Life happens."
"You never pursued any writing?"
"I tried the whole creative writing thing for a while, but it wasn't working out. Don't think anyone reads anymore, anyway. It's all computers now. I still write for work. Good at it, too. That's one of the reasons I became manager. That and I guess I developed good people skills in college."
For a moment, Daria wondered if she'd be better off skipping college. That maybe academia, for all its vaunted intellectualism, would do what high school couldn't and transform her into just another drone. God, people skills? She hated people.
"And here I thought college was for learning."
"Okay, Daria, I'll level with you: you're a lot like I used to be. Someone who thinks they know the score better than anyone else. But there's a lot more to life than being clever. I'm doing well for myself. Got a house, a car, will be married soon. Sure, the job's kind of boring sometimes, but most jobs are. It'll happen to you, too. You're smart and you'll figure it out."
Daria sighed. She pushed the chair back and stood up. "Well, thank you for your time. You've satisfied my curiosity."
"Sure. Uh, you want the book?"
"No. You hold onto it. It's yours, not mine," she said.
"Okay. Honestly, I'm probably going to trash this. It's embarrassing."
"That's your prerogative," she said, and walked back to her car.
Daria got inside and sat in the driver's seat for a few minutes, her hands on the wheel but the keys to the ignition still in her purse. She didn't know what to think.
Maybe Enrique was her future: satisfied in some boring white-collar job and treating each big purchase as some kind of milestone. A life lined out in objects.
Certainly, The Trials of Lawndale hadn't gotten him anywhere. And really, why should it? Because Enrique had been right about that; it was a petty, mean-spirited little book.
So, if Daria didn't want to end up like Enrique, was her alternative someone like Ian? Die early in something stupid and self-destructive?
Maybe she there was just no way to know. Neither Enrique nor Ian had known, at her age, where they'd end up. Neither had mom, dad, Mr. DeMartino or anyone else. College put you on the path to success, supposedly, but plenty fell off that path or ended up somewhere they didn't expect or want to be. In most cases, they'd been the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling pot, not knowing their situation until it was too late or until, like Enrique, they decided they didn't care.
The future stretched out before her, the possibilities limitless and terrifying.
She took out her cell and called Jane.
"Yo," came Jane's voice.
"Hey. You want to grab some pizza or something?"
"Yeah, that sounds good. I need to get out of here anyway; the paint fumes are settling into my brain."
"Feel free to invite any particularly entertaining hallucinations."
Jane chuckled. "Will do, see you in a bit."
Daria hung up, put the phone in her purse, and took out the keys. Something in the sound of the rumbling ignition dispelled her doubts, at least for the moment.
The future was unknown. But the present would always be hers.
The End