34: Powdered Sugar

Sleigh bells jingled merrily on the door of Queenie's Donuts as Daria stepped inside and stamped the snow from her heavy boots. Jane looked up from her black coffee and gave her a little wave. As Daria made her way to the yellow Formica table in the brightly lit shop, Jane glanced at a nearby 50s-style clock—she had an hour until she had to be at work. Lately she had taken to calling Make My Clay either Satan's Junk Drawer, The World's Most Effective Birth Control, or God's Punishment for Daydreams (depending on her mood).

The Poison Parfait was picking up more and more views and had even landed a few more advertisers, but it still wasn't making nearly enough money for Jane to quit her Sisyphean job. And the advertisers hadn't exactly been rock-star quality so far. The wasabi flavored circus peanuts did have a cult following, but the scruffy guy claiming to make hand-tooled wallets had just turned out to be a prostitute.

Daria draped her green jacket over the back of her chair and treated Jane to a little smile as she sat down. Jane took her hand (so cold, she thought) and suddenly remembered what she wanted to show her. "Oh, babe," she said, reaching into her black messenger bag with her free hand, "my dad finished our wedding photos. I've been waiting so we can look at them together."

"What's the over-under on at least one of them featuring his latest muse, the dead possum from the train tracks?"

Jane appeared thoughtful. "His compositions have been a bit possum-centric lately . . . "

Daria gave her hand a brief squeeze and got up. "Okay, I'll be back with a coffee and something heavily glazed. Can I get you anything?"

"Maybe one of those overfilled jelly donuts that looks like it's crapping blueberries."

Daria soon returned with comically large pastries that turned out to be delicious. After they'd spent a few minutes sampling each other's selections and rolling their eyes heavenward, Jane wiped some blueberry carnage from her fingertips and slid the photos from their manila envelope. The one atop the small pile featured the slain deer and opulent crow reciting their vows, but instead of the bone-white tree for a backdrop, they appeared to be floating in a sky of torn paper with tiny burn marks like stars. They exchanged a glance over their donuts, both of them surprised but clearly enamored with Vincent's creation. Daria slid the photo aside so they could see the one beneath it. It was Helen, appearing to glow as she leaned over a table and adjusted a bouquet of dark flowers. She looked otherworldly and was outlined in ghostly silver. Daria looked up with a question in her eyes, and Jane answered, "Solarization."

"It's really beautiful."

Jane felt a little swell of pride and responded with a barely audible, "Yeah."

They went through the rest of the photos one by one, finding among them a nuptial kiss awash in waves of pink light and a full-family portrait superimposed over the venue's room full of preserved birds—but mercifully, no possum. Daria was carefully sliding the pictures back into the envelope when she suddenly paused and asked, "So, did Trent fill you in on last night's cage-match dinner with the in-laws?"

Jane sighed. "Well, in typical Sloane fashion, they immediately presented Trent and Tom with a set of customized family deck chairs for the yacht instead of discussing anything."

"Ah, the genteel way to apologize for treating your grandchild like a show horse of questionable lineage."

Jane raised an index finger and noted, "Kind of like the time Kay ran over Elsie's cat, didn't tell her, and rented out an entire amusement park for her fourth grade class."

"And by the time they got back, the gardener had already made a tasteful memorial for Peaches," Daria added.

"Was that the gardener Kay slept with?"

Daria tilted her head slightly as she considered this. "No, I think it was the other one." They both sipped their coffee, momentarily lost in thought.

A raspy voice broke through the unpleasant reverie. "You must be Jane and Daria." An aproned woman with a long gray ponytail stuck out her hand. "I'm Queenie—well really, I'm Margaret. You girls ready to talk advertising?" They responded in the affirmative as one of them and then the other shook her hand, which was lightly dusted with powdered sugar. "I'll just have a quick cigarette and then take you back to my office."

As the door jingled behind her, Jane wiped her sugared palm on her jeans and rested her chin on her hand. "You know, on the phone she said she loved your story about Santa Claus, Karl Marx and Ayn Rand throwing a baby shower."

"Not as much as she liked your portraits of serial killers as CEOs."

Jane said thoughtfully, "I'm actually kind of optimistic about this one. Queenie's Donuts has been around for twenty years."

Daria reached out and gently brushed a bit of powdered sugar from Jane's cheek. "And after trying the donuts, I'm ninety-six percent sure it's not a front for prostitution."