And When Your Heart Begins to Bleed

Text ©2003 Roger E. Moore (roger70129@aol.com)

Daria and associated characters are ©2003 MTV Networks

Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me, whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: roger70129@aol.com

Synopsis: Daria, Jane, Quinn, Stacy, Sandi, and other students at Lawndale High struggle through a brutal twenty-four-hour period of unforeseen challenges, in this alternate-universe tale created from a list of the “Top Ten Things That Never Happen in Daria Fanfics” (with a few extra ideas thrown in).

Author’s Notes: This story contains graphic and disturbing material; it is probably just below having an R rating. Other author’s notes were moved to the end of the story.

Acknowledgements: My sincere appreciation goes to Mike Yamiolkoski, who came up with the original list of “Things That Never Happen in Daria Fanfics,” and to WacoKid, who came up with the Iron Chef contest that sparked this story. All other contributors of ideas to this story are acknowledged in the “Author’s Notes” at the story’s end.

It’s like a lion at the door;

And when the door begins to crack,

It’s like a stick across your back;

And when your back begins to smart,

It’s like a penknife in your heart;

And when your heart begins to bleed,

You’re dead, and dead, and dead, indeed.

From “A Man of Words and Not of Deeds,”

(English nursery rhyme, anon.)

Chapter One

Daria Morgendorffer awoke on a cold Monday morning in May, her head full of the things she most wanted to forget. Reaching for the off button on the alarm by her bed, she swung her legs from under the covers and sat up, weary despite her heavy sleep. She didn’t brush back the curtain of her brown hair and reach for her glasses as she usually did. Instead, she stared at the floor and did nothing for a length of time. She felt dirty with the knowledge of her stupidity. In a few hours she would face the consequences of a misguided impulse, and she could think of no way around it.

Better, then, to meet her fate as soon as possible and get it over with—unless she could escape from it a little bit longer.

She got out of bed and stumbled over several days’ worth of discarded clothing on her way across her bedroom, planning to take a shower. Her hand was on the doorknob before it occurred to her that the world was decidedly blurry. Grimacing, she went back to the TV stand, put on her glasses, and left the room, shuffling down the hall in her nightshirt. Her parents moved quietly around in their bedroom, preparing for their day at their separate jobs. If Daria hurried, she could get showered, eat, and miss them both.

She opened the bathroom door to find that Quinn had beaten her to it. Her red-haired younger sister was wiping acne medicine over her face with a cotton ball. She wore a pink bathrobe, her long, wet hair wrapped in a towel. The air was full of steam.

Daria was on the verge of making a remark about a mythical zit on Quinn’s neck, solely to get back at her sister for hogging the bathroom first, when Quinn said, “I’m done. Bathroom’s yours.”

“Oh,” said Daria. “Okay.” Her expectation of exchanging witty barbs with her sister collapsed. “So, how did your date last—”

“Gotta run,” Quinn said, looking away. She threw out the cotton ball, picked up her hairbrush and hair dryer, and scooted past Daria to her own room down the hall.

Daria stepped out of the bathroom to look after her, but Quinn hurried into her bedroom and shut the door, locking it. Daria went back in the bathroom, closed the door, and prepared herself for what she suspected would be a very long day. When her shower and toweling off were done, she hesitated before the mirror and looked at her face, examining every aspect of it with great intensity. An unsuspected truth settled over her, a burden that weighed down her shoulders as well as her dreams.

I’m not beautiful, she thought. She turned her face from side to side, eyeing her image. I’ve always known I wasn’t beautiful, but I never really saw how ugly I was until now. I’ve hardly ever given my looks a second thought, except when I pulled off that stunt with Quinn’s boyfriends to get her to stop pretending to be a brain, or when I tried wearing contacts for a while. The reality is right in front of me. I can’t believe I never saw it before. I’m not beautiful or even good-looking. I’m not even handsome in a feminine way. My face has no character or sex appeal at all. None, zip, zero, nothing.

Why did I think I could change that? I really believed the trip I made to the salon in Oakwood Saturday afternoon would reveal a beautiful me hidden under my glasses. I really thought it would. I wanted to look my best for my beloved (a part of her mind began to laugh when that phrase was thought: my beloved). I went to the best salon Quinn knew of, and they did everything they could to bring out that beautiful inner me, but I came home looking like a desperate hooker. The eyeliner, the rouge, my hair, everything—I looked awful, like a nightmare, like a whore, and I washed it off before anyone else saw, the money wasted except to show me the truth of myself, the real inner me.

I’m not beautiful. I’m not wise and thoughtful. I’m not kind. All I have to catch a partner’s attention is my intelligence, but even that sucks as a hook. It wasn’t worth a thing last night, when I took that big chance and said those three magic words to the one I loved. (The one I loved, ran her thoughts again and again, emphasizing the past tense.) I held out my heart, and my beloved looked at me as if I was a fool, because in that moment I was a fool. Daria, said my beloved (gently, carefully, trying not to shatter my heart completely), I don’t love you, not like that. We don’t have any chemistry. I care about you, but I don’t love you in the way you want. We were always meant to be friends. We can’t fit together in any other way, not like you want. Let’s be friends, please, Daria, let’s just go back to being good friends.

The words were out, and my beloved did not take them back. My heart fell from me and died.

Strange, that I did not cry when I went home. Strange, I lost everything I had inside me and did not cry. It didn’t seem to be worth it.

Daria took off her glasses and leaned close to the mirror, looking over every pore on her nose and cheeks. After a long moment, she looked away, ashamed, and put her glasses on again.

I was a fool for the one I thought was my beloved, and what have I to show for it?

No one answered her.

She left the bathroom to get dressed.

Today would only get worse, she knew. It would get a lot worse. The analogy of looking into a bottomless grave was not inappropriate.

Chapter Two

Quinn Morgendorffer sat on her bed and dried her long red hair, staring into space. She then brushed it out until it was a blaze of orange fire, but she didn’t look in the mirror to check. She knew what she looked like. More importantly, she no longer cared. Being beautiful was automatic. She no longer had to think about what makeup to put on or what clothes to wear. Her hands moved of their own volition and did all the work for her, leaving her mind free to think about anything she wanted.

What is it that I want? Quinn thought. I finally have to choose. What is it I really want? She hadn’t a clue. Twenty-four hours earlier she knew perfectly well what she wanted in life. She was the most popular girl in Lawndale High, had all the clothing and accessories any teenage girl could imagine, and had enough dates to keep her in French food until she went to college. Quinn had not a care in the world, and then she went out for a second date with Skylar Feldman. Now, she knew nothing at all.

Skylar on the surface was okay. He was handsome enough and knew his manners. His family was rich and had a boat, and he had all the toys a teenage guy could want, including his own sports car. However, over the last year, Skylar didn’t care about that so much. Lately, he’d not been quite so full of himself, not so inclined to act like he was hot stuff. Now he kept to himself and didn’t talk when he had nothing to say, and that made him sort of interesting. Last Friday, Quinn found an excuse to chat with him. After some hesitation he asked her out for dinner on Sunday night, which was what she wanted in the first place.

Yet—it wasn’t exactly what she wanted, either. Skylar had taken her out once before, several years ago, but he’d dumped her when he discovered she was planning to dump him later for his best friend. Quinn didn’t see the harm in it. She never had any intention of going steady. Why limit your options when you’re on top of the world? Why limit yourself to one guy?

But what if the guy was the right one?

And how did you know if a guy was right, or only looked it?

No one had a good answer for any of these questions. When asked the latter, Quinn’s mother ranted on about a stunt-car driver to whom she’d lost her virginity, God knew how many years ago, until Quinn escaped to the bathroom. Her friends in the Fashion Club had completely different ideas on what constituted a “right guy,” none of them helpful in the least to Quinn’s situation. Tiffany was the worst on the subject. She wanted only a guy who thought she was thin, as if her recent habit of running to the bathroom to throw up lunch would ever attract anyone except gastrointestinal specialists. Clearly, Tiffany needed help, but whether that help should be medical or psychiatric, no one in the Fashion Club could say. Quinn had decided to inform the high-school principal, Ms. Li, about it—anonymously, of course. Rail-thin Tiffany had no spare weight she could afford to lose.

Quinn shrugged it off. Tiffany’s method of finding the right guy wasn’t the issue. The problem was, Quinn had not been looking for the right guy. It hadn’t even been an issue. He had simply shown up, unannounced.

I’m not in love, Quinn thought. I know that for sure. I’m not in love with Skylar, but I do want to see him again. I wouldn’t mind if he came by today and asked me out again. It might even be worth bending my rule about slow dancing and see what he’s like up close on the third date instead of the fifth. If he doesn’t ask me out, I won’t be broken up about it—but I’m pretty sure he’ll ask me. I hope he will, anyway. I want that.

Her hands hovered over her collection of perfumes, settling on her personal favorite. This had better work, she thought, and she was surprised because this was the first time she’d ever not been sure that a guy would ask her out again, the first time she’d ever questioned her ability to catch a guy’s attention and hold it. The difference was that during dinner the night before, Skylar had asked about the real Quinn, which Quinn had assumed would always stay hidden. When Skylar pressed, though, she finally let him see a little of what lay behind her bouncy orange hair and makeup—and Skylar had liked what he saw. He liked the real Quinn. That just blew Quinn’s mind. That anyone would like what was really inside her, that was just impossible.

And that was a rush like nothing else in the entire world.

Well, like almost nothing else.

I’m not in love, Quinn thought, but Skylar listened to me and got me to talk about stuff that was really bothering me, like my grades and college and a career and all that futuristic junky stuff. He didn’t talk about himself or his family’s boat. He didn’t tell me how cool he was. He didn’t try to tell me what I should do about my problems. He just listened. When did guys start to do that, anyway? Maybe he’s a mutant or something.

And—he told me I was intelligent. I couldn’t believe it. He said it like it was a good thing, not like it was a smart-like-Daria geek thing. He said I had a lot going on upstairs, and he said it like it turned him on. Not even my tutor David from last summer said I was really smart. I can’t believe I ever liked him anyway, though he did help me with my schoolwork and said he was proud of me, which was something, I guess. But Skylar also said he believed in me, which David never did. Skylar said I could do anything. When he said that, it made me think I could do anything, absolutely anything in the world. Something inside me went ping, and I felt really, really good. I can’t ever remember feeling good like that. It hit me all the way from my head down to my toes—and everywhere between.

Quinn shivered, then got up from her dressing table and walked to her closet. She put on the first thing she grabbed, then put on the next thing she grabbed, then put something on her feet and went to her jewelry box and put on a few more things—and stopped. The small black box Skylar had given her last night held her attention. After deliberating, she took out the box and unwrapped it. Two gold earrings glittered within. Quinn carefully put them on and looked in the mirror, then left her room, looking her best without half trying.

I’m not in love, but I think it’s time to try going steady for real, she thought. I’ll go steady with Skylar, if he’ll do it. I hope he does. I want that more than anything—even more than—well, maybe even more than that.

Quinn knew she had crossed into a new territory in her world. She had left behind the old and safe and predictable for the new and frightening and exhilarating, traveled to a place where the payoffs and losses and the joy and pain would be spectacular. A new Quinn was in town, and there was no way to undo it.

She never once considered what Jeffy, Joey, or Jamie would think about that. She did not even remember their names.

Chapter Three

It wasn’t until Daria was already outside her home and on her way to school that she realized that she was walking to Jane’s house, as she always did. She stopped and stared down the street, unsure of which direction she should go. Do I really want to do this after last night? Can I possibly face the mess I made? Can I possibly face Jane?

After a long moment, she tentatively kept going for Jane’s. She could have turned around and let Jane walk to Lawndale High by herself, which would have been less awkward than what she was about to do—but what was the point of having a best friend if you made a point of avoiding her?

Unless your best friend wanted to avoid you. Jane probably wanted it that way, too, given what Daria had done last night. Daria could hardly blame her if so.

The fifteen-minute walk to the Lane home seemed to take eons. Daria turned a final corner and looked down Jane’s street—and there was Jane, sitting on the front step of her home, looking back at her. She’d obviously been there for some time. Daria stopped dead on the sidewalk at the curb, focused on her only friend.

After a moment, her only friend got up, brushed herself off, picked up her backpack, and casually strode across three neighbors’ yards to get directly to Daria. As Jane approached, Daria looked away, pretending to be interested in the building rush-hour traffic.

“Wasn’t sure if you’d come around this morning,” said Jane without preamble. “Thought it was better if I came outside rather than have you come in.”

Daria nodded, her face expressionless. “I didn’t know if you want to see me,” she said, looking at the ground.

“Why wouldn’t I? Don’t answer that.” Jane began walking, Daria followed, and soon they were headed side-by-side toward the high school. After a reasonable silence, Jane took a deep breath. “Are you okay?”

“No,” said Daria quickly. “No, I’m not.” She swallowed and added, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Jane shrugged. “It’s not like the end of the world. I hope.”

“It feels like it is,” said Daria. She rubbed her stomach as if in pain.

“Maybe it’s not, though,” said Jane, squinting upward. “Sun’s up, sky’s blue, we’re not dead yet. That last part was supposed to be funny, by the way.”

“That was so stupid of me,” Daria mumbled. She realized she was walking too quickly and forced herself to slow down. “It was just plain dumb. I can’t believe I did it.”

Jane made no immediate response except to take another breath. “Don’t run away from me,” she said after a pause, “but I sorta can’t believe you did it, either. I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just that—well, you surprised me, I guess. That’s all. You wanna talk about it, or should I pick up the rest of the story telepathically?”

They walked together for an entire block before Daria said, “I don’t know what got into me. It started after Tom went off with his family to the Cove on vacation, and you and I were eating pizza in your kitchen. That was two weeks ago from yesterday, I think. Then Trent came in and had a piece with us, and I don’t know what came over me. You left the room to turn down the stereo, and I asked him—” Daria coughed in embarrassment “—if I could write a song for him. For his group, I mean. Spiral.”

“So, the song was for Spiral, and not just for my brother alone?”

Daria cleared her throat and walked another half block without answering. Jane walked patiently at her side.

The words spilled out of Daria in a rush. “I’ve tried writing music a few times, and I can do lyrics, rhymes and things, just not the music, you know. I told him I wanted to find out more about what kind of music Mystik Spiral liked to play, because it would help me work out the lyrics, so I kind of asked him out, and we had pizza a few times, walked around town, just talked. It wasn’t like we were dating, but I guess we were, sort of. Nothing else happened. We just talked, you know? It was nothing.”

“Trent didn’t talk about it much, but I got the idea.”

“We were just talking,” said Daria again. “It was nothing.”

“So nothing happened,” echoed Jane. She thought to ask what Tom had said about all this, but she was quite sure now that Tom was out of the loop regarding this little secret. “Slow down a little.”

Daria forced herself to walk slower. “Sorry,” she said, still not looking up.

“Daria,” said Jane, and she paused, searching for the magic phrase to make this better. “If I understand what happened correctly, things like this happen all the time.”

“No,” said Daria flatly. “No, they don’t. Not to me.”

“So, you and Trent went out last night and talked about the music business over pizza? He didn’t talk to me this morning about what went on last night, but I take it that’s what happened.”

“Yeah,” said Daria in a small voice. “We came right back to your place afterwards. You know that, right? We just came in to talk a little more. About the song.”

“And you asked him what he thought of it,” said Jane.

Daria opened her mouth to speak, but she closed it after no words came out. She reached up and wiped her eyes under her glasses. “I didn’t know you were in the next room,” she finally said. Her voice broke. “I should’ve just shut the hell up and—and gone home and—”

Jane immediately knew what was coming. She caught Daria by her upper arm and steered her away from the intersection that would take them directly to school, pulling her friend toward a side street. Daria followed like a robot, her face screwing up further with every step. Jane put her arm around Daria’s shoulders, over the top of her backpack, and pulled her close, matching Daria’s pace as best she could.

Two steps later, Daria burst into tears. Her shoulders shook as she inhaled with a long, terrible wheeze, then covered her face and sobbed. She slowed but continued walking blindly, guided along only by the pressure of Jane’s body at her side.

Jane swallowed and felt her own eyes burning. They walked down the side street for several minutes as Daria wept. Passersby on foot and in cars glanced at the two but looked away as if they’d suddenly become invisible.

The weeping subsided before long. “I deed a hakerchef,” Daria mumbled, her nose stopped up.

Jane dropped her hand from Daria’s shoulders and pulled a wadded tissue from her jacket pocket. Daria took it and blew her nose several times, stuffing it into her own jacket pocket.

“What did Trent say?” asked Jane.

Daria suddenly laughed through her tears, ending with another round of coughing. “He said it sucked,” she said, forcing a smile.

Jane stared down at Daria’s face. “He didn’t put it that way, did he?”

“No, he didn’t. He was nice about it, but he said the song . . . it just wasn’t the whatever, the genre or class or whatever kind of song that Spiral does. He said the other guys talked about it, and there were some things about it they liked, but they all thought it wouldn’t work. They really didn’t like it very much.” Daria sniffed hard, her smile gone. She struggled to resume her usual deadpan look. “He was nice about it, though, and he gave it back to me and I tore it up and threw it out when I got home, so that’s over with and I don’t have to do something stupid like that ever again.” She sniffed again. “Back to reality for this stupid girl.”

Jane led Daria around another corner, taking her on a block-long circular detour back to the main road heading for school. “You didn’t want me to see your song?”

“No!” said Daria, too loudly. She continued in a more normal voice. “No, I think that for the sake of future generations it should be left buried in that salt mine so no one’s harmed by the deadly radiation it’s giving off.” She nodded to herself. “I’m over it.”

Jane waited. They reached the halfway point in their long detour.

“Was that all Trent said?” Jane asked.

“Was that all he said?” repeated Daria in a dead voice. She sniffed. “Was that all he said, you mean, after he said he didn’t love me?”

Jane turned her head instantly. Daria’s face was turning red again.

“Oh, no,” said Jane in horror. She slowed down.

Daria’s eyes squeezed shut as she lowered her head. “You didn’t hear that part? I told him that I loved him, but he said he didn’t love me back and I said that was okay and I said I was sorry and he said—” Tears fell like a hot rain over her jacket front.

Jane caught Daria by the arm again and pulled her to a stop. There was nothing else Jane could do but put her arms around Daria, as the smaller girl pressed her face to Jane’s chest and howled in her grief and shame. There was nothing else Jane could do, but it was not enough, and she knew it. The pain was too deep and wide.

When Daria cried this time, Jane looked as though she might, too. She was close, but she stared at something over Daria’s shoulder, something beyond seeing that held her back from the edge. Daria wept, Jane stared at that distant thing, and the cars drove by.

Chapter Four

Quinn arrived at Lawndale High in a daze. She didn’t recall putting on makeup before she left, and she stopped twice on the way to school to look in her backpack mirror to make sure she had done so. She wore a frilly white blouse over her skintight jeans, the proper amount of midriff showing, with her white leather cowboy boots and the usual gold bracelets and anklets and rings and necklaces—and the earrings that Skylar bought for her. She was aware of them with every step, all the way across town.

Does he still want to see me? What should I do when I see him? What do I tell other people about us? I always knew what to do when going out with a guy, but if we really go steady, that means—

“Quinn! Ohmigod!” Stacy Rowe appeared out of nowhere from a crowd of students in the hall and ran to her, shaking her by the arm. Her pigtails bounced with excitement. “Quinn, you’ll never ever believe this!”

Quinn pulled back and stared at her in shock. Something looked odd about Stacy’s hair, but she couldn’t pinpoint it. “What?”

“Tiffany! Tiffany called me last night late and said she was in the hospital, at Cedars of Lawndale!”

Quinn forgot Skylar entirely. “What? You’re kidding me! What is she doing there?”

“You know how we were so worried about her last week because she was throwing up after lunch, and Sandi thought she was being anorectic or bulimic or whatever? Well, guess what? It was food poisoning! She was sick because she was eating this no-fat vegetable-substitute chicken salad that had gone bad in her parents’ refrigerator, and she didn’t know it was the chicken salad that was making her sick so she kept bringing it for lunch, you know? And—”

“Well, how sick is she? Does she need to have an operation or something?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Stacy was catching her breath now. “She said they were keeping her in for the night for observations, you know, to see if the antibiotics and everything they’re giving her work. I guess she might come home later today if she stops throwing up. Can you believe that? Ohmigod!”

Just like Tiffany to make herself deathly ill when she thought she was making herself thin, Quinn thought. Stacy herself didn’t seen terribly upset about it; she seemed far more excited to be the one to tell the news. “We should get Sandi and go see her after school, then,” said Quinn, taking command. “Have you seen—”

This fired Stacy up a second time. “Oh! Oh! Sandi’s been looking for you! She said she had to see you about something really important but personal, and I asked her what it was but she said it was club business and I wasn’t supposed to know what it was, but that’s okay because I think it’s about Tiffany but it might be about something else, you know? I don’t know. Anyway, I’m so glad to see you! You look . . .”

Stacy’s voice trailed off. She leaned closer, her eyes growing larger as she stared at the side of Quinn’s head.

“What?” said Quinn, frowning. She reached up and touched her cheek. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, Quinn!” Stacy gasped. “Those are so beautiful!”

The earrings, of course. “Oh, thank you,” said Quinn. She held her hair aside. From her ear hung a bright gold earring in the shape of a smiling sun with a human face and wavy rays stretching out from it. The face had great character to it: the pleasantly jolly look of a person who has been showered in goodness and is content with the world.

“Where did you buy these?” Stacy asked, a look of religious awe on her face. She reached over with care. Quinn felt fingers touch her ear, examining the earring in detail.

“Um, I didn’t.” She swallowed, aware that she was blushing. “Skylar bought them for me.”

Stacy’s gaze shot to Quinn’s face. “Skylar?” she repeated in surprise. “He got you these? Where did he get them? I . . . I could use something like these. They’re so cool!”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even think to ask him.” Quinn moved her head, pulling away from the lingering pressure of Stacy’s fingertips on her cheek. “You said Sandi was looking for me?”

Stacy dropped her hand and seemed to come out of a trace. “Yeah,” she said. She looked around. “She was . . . she was around here just a minute ago, before you came in. I bet she’s in homeroom. The bell’s about to ring.”

“Well, let’s go then. Do you know anything else about Tiffany?”

Stacy became animated again. “Oh!” she said. “Um, she hates the wallpaper in her room, and she said—” Stacy dropped her voice conspiratorially “—she was afraid she’d get fat from staying in bed all day, just like what happened to, you know—”

“Sandi when she broke her leg, right. She’s only going to be there one night, I’m sure . . .” Quinn tilted her head looking at Stacy. Her hair . . . “Did you color your hair? It looks kind of coppery-reddishy.”

“Oh, do you like it?” Stacy grinned mischievously. “It’s a rinse, Crimson Highlighter. What do you think?”

Quinn opened her mouth to say: It isn’t you, Stacy. It clashes with your skin tone and eye color and your blush, and you look like a B-grade sitcom actress on a television set with bad tint control. She didn’t say that, however. She realized that she was sick of playing fashion director for high-school kids twenty-four/seven, telling everyone else what looked good when they should be able to figure it out on their own. Quinn liked being in charge, true, but she had a sense that her life was moving on, and the Fashion Club wasn’t necessarily one of those things that would be moving on with her. People should stand on their own two feet once in a while, and if they made a fashion mistake, so be it. It wasn’t the end of the world. Stacy couldn’t fix her hair at school, anyway.

“Oh—it looks fine!” Quinn said. “I like it!”

Stacy’s face became unnaturally radiant. “Oh!” she gasped. “You mean it?”

For reasons she couldn’t fathom, Quinn had an eerie flashback to a time several years earlier when she had planned to stay overnight at Stacy’s house. Stacy had insisted on dressing like Quinn and acting like Quinn and otherwise turning herself into Quinn to an uncomfortable degree, and Quinn had left in a hurry. Stacy was not so pathologically dependent on others lately as she had once been, but still . . .

“Yeah,” said Quinn. There was no way out of it now. “I mean it.”

“Thank you,” Stacy whispered. Her eyes began to tear up. “I’ll be right back!” she said quickly, moving off. She bumped into another student but kept going. “I have to go to the bathroom—I’ll be right—” She turned and fled.

What the hell’s gotten into her? Quinn looked after her, then shrugged and went on to homeroom. She would see Skylar second period, in Mr. DeMartino’s world history class, and that was sure to be a—

“Raffle?” Quinn started, but it was only Jodie Landon with a handful of blue-and-yellow cardboard tickets. “It’s for the new school library.”

“School library?” Quinn took a ticket and looked at it. “I thought we had one already, sort of. Or did the roof fall in on it again?”

Jodie lowered her voice. “Ms. Li caught wind that reporters were coming to town next month to do a story on the state of public school libraries, and some insider told her Lawndale High was on the investigators’ list. She’s pulling a crash program to fix the place up after she looted the library fund to put up the metal detectors at the school entrances.” Jodie snorted. “I don’t trust her, but this raffle might actually work.”

Quinn gave Jodie a quizzical look. “Is this one of those voluntary we’d-better-buy-a-ticket-if-we-know-what’s-good-for-us things?”

Jodie nodded, her expression bland. “Smart girl. I bet you get handed your own stack of these in homeroom that you have to sell by Friday. We’re all getting them.”

“Whatever.” Quinn fished a dollar from her purse and handed it over for the ticket.

“Better buy ten at least,” Jodie advised, “but buy them out of your own stack. Our grades could be riding on this. She keeps track of sales on the school computer. Have you seen Daria and Jane around?”

Quinn shook her head no. “I’m sure they’re here somewhere. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Jodie wandered off in search of another wandering soul with a dollar to spare.

Thinking about the library made Quinn think about Daria. Daria would appreciate knowing Quinn contributed to a library raffle. Maybe it would help the two of them get along better. It couldn’t hurt. She thrust the ticket in her backpack and headed for homeroom.

The bell rang. Two periods to go until she saw Skylar. She couldn’t wait.

Chapter Five

Half an hour after the first-period bell rang, Daria and Jane walked through the doors of Lawndale High School. Jane glanced at her friend and saw that Daria’s weary face was back to normal, no longer red and swollen. She sighed in relief, then glanced at the front of her red jacket. It was finally dry. Good.

“Better go turn ourselves in to the authorities,” Daria muttered, almost her old self. “Let’s get our stories straight about the kidnapping, first.”

“Black limo, possibly Mafia, locked us in the trunk but we found a crowbar and got out.”

“And they wore ski masks.”

“Black ski masks.”

“Got it.”

“You’ve got what?” asked Ms. Li, from behind them.

Daria and Jane slowed and stopped. Their shoulders slumped, and they turned around as one. Principal Li stood in a recessed classroom doorway, a handful of blue-and-yellow fliers in her hands.

“Um, good morning, Ms. Li,” said Daria. “We were just looking for you.”

“Really?” said Ms. Li. “What was your excuse for being late? I missed part of it.”

“The kidnapping part was a joke,” mumbled Jane.

“It is now, anyway,” said Daria glumly.

“What really happened was that we saw something in the sky,” said Jane. “It was kind of silvery with little flashing lights along the sides, and we were following it in hopes that—”

“I broke up with my boyfriend,” Daria interrupted in her usual deadpan. “I had to talk to someone about it, and Jane helped me out. It’s my fault we’re late.”

Principal Li looked from Jane to Daria and back. “Where did you see this silvery thing?” she asked Jane.

“No, really,” said Daria. “I broke up with my boyfriend. I was having a bad time this morning, and Jane was the only person I could talk to about it.” She hesitated and added, “It was her brother.”

Jane looked back and forth from Daria to Ms. Li, finally letting out a sigh and jerking a thumb in Daria’s direction, nodding agreement.

Ms. Li stared at Daria with deep annoyance. “Even if I believed you, Miss Morgendorffer, breaking up with a boyfriend is no excuse for being late to school! The two of you are supposed to graduate in three weeks! What kind of example are you setting for the rest of the school, wandering in at whatever hour you please?”

“A damn good example!” someone cheerfully called from down the hall.

Daria, Jane, and Ms. Li looked in the direction of the voice. A young man with long, dark hair stood by the men’s room door. He wore a black t-shirt with a bloody skull on it, black jeans with a metal-studded black belt, and dull black military boots. He looked like a young Tom Cruise.

“I don’t think we asked for your opinion, Mister Griffin,” said Ms. Li coldly. “Return to class.”

“Call me Alex,” he said, sauntering over. He eyed Daria and Jane with a smile. “If it was up to me, I’d come to school from midnight to six. It’s easier to download porn and bomb-making handbooks when no one’s looking over your shoulder in the computer room. It’s all educational, right?”

“Someone peed in the gene pool,” Jane muttered, looking Alex over with distaste.

“That’s enough, Mister Griffin!” Ms. Li snapped. “That is not a socially accepted way to start your first day at Laaawndale High School! Report to my office at once!”

“Sure thing,” he said. He looked at Daria and grinned. “Alex Griffin, cynic at large. My stuck-up cousin Sandi’s the head fashion bitch here. I heard you broke up with your boyfriend. Bummer—for him, I mean. What’s your phone number?”

“Mister Griffin,” said Ms. Li in her best warning tone.

“One eight-hundred buzz off,” said Daria with a glare.

“When you get tired of playing hard to get,” said Alex with a smirk, “maybe you and I can get a pizza, watch some TV or something. What’s your name again?”

Daria’s glare deepened. “I’m Reality,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met.”

Alex laughed. “That’s pretty good! Go out with me, all right?”

“When I see you in Hell.”

“Mister Griffin, go straight to my office now or face expulsion!” Ms. Li shouted in fury.

Alex grinned and waved as he walked away in the direction of the office. He looked back at Daria and Jane before he disappeared around the corner. “We outcasts have to stick together, right?” he called.

“If he wants to stick together,” said Jane darkly, “I’ve got a glue gun that will solve all his problems.”

“Miss Lane, that won’t be necessary.” Ms. Li shot an angry glance after the departed Alex Griffin. “Though your idea is tempting, given that young man’s complex and potentially dangerous past. I’ll have to call his parents again.” She turned back to Daria with a severe expression. “As I was saying, you can’t use emotional instability as an excuse to—”

“You’re selling raffle tickets for a new school library?” Daria asked, looking at the fliers Ms. Li held.

“Um, yes, yes we are, but that’s not relevant to—”

“Oh.” Daria reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of bills. She counted them out and handed them to Ms. Li. “Put me down for fifty dollars’ worth, please.”

“Thirty for me,” said Jane, catching on and pulling her own money out.

Her train of thought derailed, Ms. Li looked at the two girls with a flustered expression. “I—I don’t—this isn’t—um—” She hesitated, then gingerly reached out and took Daria’s money. “Well, then, why don’t we go back to the office and I’ll get those for you right away?”

“That would be great,” Daria said with a straight face. “I promise to never again let my boyfriend problems interfere with my education.”

“Same here,” said Jane, “whenever I get another boyfriend.”

“Excellent!” said Ms. Li, collecting Jane’s contribution and leading the two girls down the corridor. “I won’t put this incident in your permanent record, given your much-appreciated support for bettering Laaawndale High! I tell you, school spirit pops up in the most amazing places!”

Daria and Jane looked at each other and rolled their eyes. “Ms. Li,” Daria said, “Jane and I need to get our books for class. If we could stop by and pick up our raffle tickets in a few minutes—”

“Not a problem!” Ms. Li sang, counting their money again as she walked away. Daria and Jane stopped and looked after her.

“Fast thinking,” said Jane. “I’m going to call you the next time that guy from the power company comes by to turn off the electricity because Mom and Dad forgot to pay the bills.”

Daria shrugged. She looked tired and drawn.

“Amiga,” Jane said softly, “are you up to this today?”

Daria ran a hand through her brown hair. “That wannabe poseur just got to me, that’s all.”

“Li will handle him for us.” Jane suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Not to change the subject, and I hate to bring up another troubling male-related issue, but—”

“Tom, I know,” said Daria. She stopped by her orange upper-tier locker, but she made no move to open it. “I don’t know what to do about that.”

“He’s back from the Cove, right?”

Daria took off her backpack and put it on the floor, then spun the combination dial on her locker. “He’s been back for a week. I’ve just been putting off seeing him.” Her face twitched. “Trent and all,” she added.

“What happens next?”

Daria opened her locker and pulled books from it. “I don’t have a clue. I just want to bury the last two weeks and move on.” She put her books in her backpack, then straightened and stared into the darkness in her locker. “Tom’s coming by the house tonight to talk. I was planning to break up with him if . . . if things came out differently, but now I guess I’m not. I don’t know why he still wants to go out with me, anyway. Nothing’s happening between us. Ever since he and his mother took me on that miserable trip to Bromwell, things have gone downhill. He and his mom pretended to fight all the way up and back, but they have a better home life than I do, so I don’t know who they were trying to kid. And no matter what I need from him, every member of his family comes before I do.”

Daria looked down at her boots. “He doesn’t take me anywhere, he doesn’t act like I’m anything special, we just sit around and watch TV all evening. He has that irritating cynical-rebel act down pat, but you know he’s joining his dad’s investment company the second he’s out on the streets with a graduate diploma and a trendy idea in his head. Everything I do, he’s always right and I’m always wrong, and I can’t take it anymore. I’m sick of it.” She shut her locker, then leaned her head against the locker door and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what to do. Maybe we should break up. What do you think?”

“Hmmm.” Jane scratched her nose. “I’m hardly the one to say, all things considered.”

“He’s the only guy who’s ever shown an interest in me.” He’s the only guy who ever wanted to have sex with me, too, she thought. Imagine that. The metal was cool against her forehead.

“There are lots of fish in the sea, Daria,” said Jane after a beat. “Trust me on this.”

Funny that she said that, Daria thought. Don’t just lie there, he said that night we were in his room. You’re like a dead fish. Move around a little. I don’t know what to do, I said, I’ve never done this before. Jesus, Daria, you read books, don’t you? Just be natural, loosen up and be yourself. But I was being myself. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t think he did, either. It hurt, and we had to stop, and that was it. So I’m a lousy lay, and I’m ugly on top of it. Great. That’s just really great. I’ve really got it all together. I can’t imagine why he still wants to see me, after all that. Maybe I should just be grateful.

“Daria?”

“I wish I’d gotten into Raft,” Daria said in a low voice. “If we break up, I’ll be stuck at Bromwell with him for four years, and I don’t think I could take that.”

“At least you’re going to college,” said Jane. “Just make the best of it.”

“You could’ve tried again at BFAC.”

“And wasted four years of my life.” Jane’s expression hardened. “My art doesn’t sell no matter what I do, so why bother? No one even wants to look at it. All that time I spent trying to get into Gary’s Gallery, and pffft! Two months of a big freaking nothing. I should’ve learned my lesson when I flopped at that Art in the Park thing. Better to just stay here and go in with Ms. Defoe on her crafts’ shop idea. I can make a pretty good concrete garden gnome, at least.”

Daria lifted her head from her locker and looked at her friend. “That’s not right, Jane, and you know it.”

Jane snorted. “You have a chance for a real life, Daria. Do something with it.”

Daria frowned, her voice rising. “Don’t give me that crap, okay?”

They stared at each other, bristling.

“Let’s stop before we really screw this up,” said Jane, softening her glare. “Come on. Let’s hit my locker and get our tickets before Ms. Li breaks your charm spell.”

Daria’s anger faded as well, though depression slid into its place. “Sure, whatever,” she said as she walked with Jane to her own locker. The day was not over yet, she knew. She had no idea what she would say to Tom. All she could hope was that he wouldn’t find out about Trent. That would be the end of everything.

Chapter Six

There wasn’t time or opportunity to chat in homeroom, so Quinn waited until the bell rang and she and Sandi Griffin could head off to their first-period French class. “Stacy said you were looking for me,” Quinn said as they went out the door together. “I didn’t check my messages last night when I got in. Is this about Tiffany?”

“Among other things,” said Sandi in her deep nasal voice, leading the way. She looked increasing irked as she negotiated the noisy, crowded corridor. “Let’s escape this cattle stampede,” she said, pointing toward an open janitorial supply room. They ducked inside, and Sandi flipped on the light.

Quinn pushed the door shut to block out the stomping feet and shouting outside, then found and flipped the deadbolt knob. “Whew! It’s as bad as Cashman’s Labor Day Sale out there!”

“But hardly as much fun,” said Sandi. She slipped off her backpack and dropped it on the floor by a wall, then knelt down and unzipped it. “I got something special from Mo-om!” she added in a singsong voice. “Just enough to see us through our busy day!”

“Oh, cool! Thanks!” Quinn took off her backpack as well, setting it by the door. “Stacy told me Tiffany was in the hospital. What is up with that?”

Sandi snorted as she pulled out her overstuffed wallet and unzipped it, flipping it open to her makeup mirror. “Well, it seems that our dear Tiffany managed to find the only germ-filled diet food in her parents’ refrigerator, and that’s about all I know—except of course she was raving on and on when she called me that she’s on the verge of getting fat, and she had the marvelously bad taste to mention how bloated out like a water buffalo I got when I was bedridden with my broken leg. If she didn’t have such an instinct for color, I’d boot her size-two butt out of the club.”

“We should go see her anyway, you know?” Quinn pulled a handkerchief from a pants pocket and blew her nose, then stuffed it partway back in the pocket, ready for instant use. “Maybe tonight, Fashion Club solidarity and all that?”

Sandi sighed, pulling the mirror out of her wallet and putting the wallet back in her backpack. She stood, holding up the mirror to check her appearance. “Oh, fine, why not. We’ll take my car. I’m tempted to take pictures of her in one of those wretched hospital gowns and give them to the yearbook staff. It would serve her right for throwing up in my bathroom last Wednesday during our club meeting.”

Quinn burst into wild laughter. “You can’t be serious!” she said. “Ohmigod, she would die!”

“I’m teasing, of course, but it is tempting.” Sandi set the mirror face-up on an open shelf next to a row of bottles of window cleaner. She reached down and took off her right shoe. “That’s not the only cockroach in my consommé, though. My psycho cousin is here, the one I told you about on Friday.” She stood, pulling up the padded insert in her shoe and pulling out a very small white plastic bag. She dropped her shoe on the floor. “I’ll point him out. He’s one of those weirdo attention-depreciation types. He got evicted from Leeville High last week for fighting, and he’s this close to going back to juvenile court. The worst is that my moronic aunt and uncle want to get him into Lawndale because it’s close to home, but if they did, that would be a bigger disaster than that Thirteen Mile Island nuclear whatever that Ms. Barch keeps on harping about.”

Quinn watched as Sandi held her breath and emptied a small pile of white powder from the bag onto the mirror. “They can’t really get him in this late in the school year, can they?”

Sandi cut the white powder into four narrow lines with an index card from her backpack. She then folded up the little bag and put it back into her shoe, putting her shoe on again. “Oh, Aunt Kay talked Ms. Li into letting him come here on probation until the end of the semester, to see how he fits in, though it won’t count for anything until he goes to summer school.” She reached down into her backpack again, into the pencil holder. “I’m really steamed. He’s such an incredible jerkoid, you just wouldn’t believe.”

“Can I do anything to help out?”

Sandi sighed heavily. “That’s sweet, but no.” She straightened and handed a three-inch paper straw to Quinn. “Just avoid him. He’s ill mannered, to say the least. If he annoys you in any way, tell me.” She shook her head in annoyance. “We’ll survive, I suppose.”

Quinn examined Sandi’s face. “Is anything else wrong?”

“Yeah, but it can wait. You first.”

“Thanks!” Quinn held her breath and stepped up to the shelf with the mirror. Carefully pushing one nostril shut, she inserted one end of the paper straw into her nose and placed the other end at the end of a line of white powder. Quickly, she sniffed in long and deep, inhaling the entire row. In three seconds more, she had switched nostrils and inhaled the other line. Sniffing and rubbing her nose, she stepped back, blinking madly. “Wow! Oh, wow, that’s—wow!”

“It’s from Mom’s desk at home. I took only a little. I don’t know where she gets it, but she gets the best.” Sandi repeated all of Quinn’s gestures to finish off the last two white lines. The two girls then stood back, faces turned up to the ceiling as they breathed in through their noses. The overpowering blasts roared through their heads and lungs and skin and veins, as if their eyes and minds had opened into paradise and they were now more than alive, newborn gods come down from Olympus.

“Jesus, I love that rush,” Sandi moaned. She put her hands to the sides of her head, still looking up at the ceiling light. “I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it.”

Sandi lowered her face and smiled at Quinn. Quinn smiled back. A moment later, they hugged each other in rapture.

“I love you,” whispered Quinn.

“I love you, too,” whispered Sandi. “I owe you so much. I thought I’d never be thin again.”

“I think you’ve paid me back now,” whispered Quinn. They giggled, hugged some more, then kissed.

“Ick!” said Sandi abruptly, pulling away and wiping her mouth. “Thy nose runneth over, girl.”

“Whoa, sorry!” Quinn pulled out her handkerchief and wiped her face. “Oh, well. This is so inappropriate to say right now, but we’d better hurry up before someone tries to get in.”

Sandi was already at work on that. She wiped off and put away the wallet mirror, then put her short paper straw in her mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed it. Quinn did the same with her own straw, grimacing as she did. Within moments, the girls had eliminated all trace of their activity from the supply closet.

“Too bad Ms. Li had to sell those drug-sniffing dogs,” Sandi said, zipping her backpack shut. “I thought those German shepherds were kinda butch.”

Quinn made a motion to undo the deadbolt. “Are we off, or are we off?” she said, grinning.

“Wait,” said Sandi, staggering slightly. She put a hand to a wall to steady herself. “Don’t leave yet. I have to tell you something else.”

“Bad news?”

Sandi nodded solemnly, sniffing back her own runny nose.

Quinn wiped her nose again. “Okay, ready.”

Sandi coughed and looked away. “I did not want to—whew!—I didn’t want to announce this in public, for reasons that will become clear, but when I was out last night, I saw your sister with a friend at Pizza King.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. She goes out with Jane all the time.”

Sandi looked up at Quinn, shaking her head. “She wasn’t with her. She was with an older guy, dark hair, kinda tall and thin, with blue tattoos on his arms. They looked quite animated with each other, in my humble opinion. They weren’t eating much of their pizza, anyway. Daria was looking at this guy like, you know, he really meant something.”

Quinn blinked. “Oh,” she said, frowning. “That sounds like . . . oh.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah, I think. Black hair, kinda messy? Silver earrings and a black goatee? Sloppy clothes?”

“That’s him.”

Quinn put a hand over her face and leaned back against the supply-room door. “Oh, crap. That’s wonderful. That’s just peachy-pie perfect.”

“What?”

“That’s Jane’s older brother, Trent. I thought there was something going on, I just knew that something—” She dropped her hand. “She used to have a thing for him, but I thought she got over that, like, a year and a half ago. She’s—” Quinn stamped her foot in rage “—damn it! I can’t believe she’d do that! What is it with her?”

“Wasn’t she going with that rich slacker kid from the Sloane family, Tim or Tom—”

“Yes, she still is!” Quinn snapped. “Oh, crap, I’m sorry, Sandi, I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just—I can’t believe her! This is so embarrassing!”

Sandi shrugged, unconcerned. “No offense taken. Bearing bad tidings is one of my duties as club president.” She wiped her nose on a tissue. “I thought you should know ahead of time in case it got out.”

Quinn shrugged, too. “Oh, well, what can you do. Thanks, Sandi. I appreciate it.”

Sandi nodded. “When life sucks, it sucks.”

Quinn nodded, too, eyeing her best friend. She made a decision. “I have some news, too,” she said in a whisper. “Good news, though, I hope.”

“What?”

“I’m going to ask Skylar if he’ll go steady with me.”

Sandi’s eyes widened. “Kuh-winn!” she said in delight. She reached in and hugged Quinn a second time. “That’s wonderful! Tell me all the details at lunch!” she said into Quinn’s ear. She suddenly gasped. “Oh! Did he get you these earrings?”

“Yeah!”

“Quinn, you are truly the loved and favored one. That is for sure. But we’d better go!” They gave each other an extra squeeze, then grabbed their backpacks, unlocked the supply-room door, and ran out for French class. They made it in the door three seconds before the second bell, just like always.

Chapter Seven

“Okay,” said Jane, pointing a ketchup-dipped French fry at Daria, “explain to me about this transference thing again. I think I got the idea in class, but the way Ms. Barch was raving on about traitorous husbands chasing nubile belly-dancers, I sorta lost the thread of the discussion.”

“Mmm.” Daria swallowed the last of her hamburger and thought about it. The high-school cafeteria wasn’t very noisy at the moment, allowing for normal conversation. “Okay,” she said slowly, looking over Jane’s head as if reading from a hovering book. “Transference is when you think you see things in someone, personality traits or attitudes or whatever, that are actually traits and attitudes belonging to someone else in your life, someone in the past who was important to you, like your parents.”

Daria took a drink of milk, then put the carton aside. “The trick is, you aren’t aware, consciously, that you’re reacting to all the old issues you had with your parents or whatever. All you know is that this person you’ve met draws a certain response from you, but you don’t right away make a conscious connection with anything that went on in your past. You’re working through old issues, but you don’t know it. That’s sort of what transference is, but I’m not sure I’m saying it right.”

“Sort of like Ms. Barch, maybe,” Jane said, chewing on another fry. “She looks at a guy, like Mack, and you and I and everyone else on the planet, we all know Mack is an all-right guy, but—”

“I think you’ve got it.”

“—when Ms. Barch sees Mack, she’s kind of like subconsciously thinking of her husband who ran around on her and dumped her, ‘cause they’re both guys, so she reacts to Mack in the way she reacted to her husband, being really pissed off at him and maybe getting into the same sorts of messes with him, and with every other guy, that she had with her husband. She thinks Mack’s doing to her what her ex did, only she doesn’t know it’s her subconscious making her do it.”

“Yeah. Usually it’s all about the parents, like we react to certain people in a way that’s like we’re trying to work out old problems we had with our parents, but sometimes it’s a spouse or friend or whatever. Counselors use transference when they do therapy, getting the client to react to the counselor just like the client reacted to someone big in the past, and the counselor gets the client to see this and work out all the old junk consciously, if he can do that. Something like that.”

Jane played with a fry, drawing something on her plate with the ketchup. Daria looked down and saw that she was making a portrait. After a few more seconds, it became clear that it was the Mona Lisa.

“Leonardo would be proud of you,” Daria said.

“I never liked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” said Jane, finishing the picture. “They didn’t have a girl turtle.”

“I meant Leonardo de Caprio,” said Daria. “Keep up with me.” Her budding smile faded as she watched Jane work. “I wonder sometimes if what’s going on between Tom and me is being screwed up by transference. I want him to notice me as I really am and treat me well, like I always wished my dad would do but never does, and maybe Tom reacts to me like he does to his mom—just someone who’s there in the background, caring for his needs and—” Daria stopped and reddened. She hoped Jane would miss the reference to “needs.” That would open up an ugly can of worms.

“We talked about transference when I was at that art colony in Ashfield last summer,” said Jane. She put a handlebar mustache on the Mona Lisa and ate her fry. “I didn’t get it at the time, but I think I do now. There was this pseudo-big-name artist, Daniel Dotson, who had an ego larger than Asia but not quite as interesting, and he talked about artists transferring . . . how did he say that? He talked about artists using transference to put their reactions to the world at large on a canvas, or in a sculpture, or whatever. If something makes you want to scream, you paint it—but, like what you said, you don’t think about it while you’re painting it, you know? You just free your mind and paint. Dotson did this minimalist sculpture he called ‘Paper Plate Massacre,’ and he said it was his transference or something—I forget how he said it, but anyway it was his unconscious reaction to the genocide in Cambodia. Me, I just thought it was a bunch of paper plates stuck on big sticks. Shows you how much I really know about art.”

Daria chose to ignore the last comment. “If he’d called it ‘Flying Saucer Massacre,’ it might have made more sense.”

“Yeah, but then it wouldn’t be art, you know. It can’t be art if it makes sense.”

“So, did you try using transference when you painted?”

“At camp? Mmm, I tried, but every time I painted whatever came to mind, I painted people getting tortured or squashed or torn apart. I don’t remember my parents doing that to me, offhand.”

“Your mom made you join the Girl Scouts.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I bet that was it. You saved me ten years of psychiatrist bills.”

Daria looked up, but Jane was smiling at her. Daria smiled back in relief. It had occurred to her only moments earlier that the source of Jane’s dark paintings last summer might have had to do with Daria herself—specifically, Jane’s feelings of betrayal when Daria kissed Jane’s then-boyfriend, Tom, and nearly destroyed their friendship. Jane had gone off to camp and somehow gotten over it, later encouraging Daria and Tom to date.

However, given the state of affairs between Daria and Tom at the moment, Jane’s change of heart sometimes looked to Daria more like the first stage of a long-range revenge plot. You want my cheating boyfriend? Sure, here he is. I’ll even stick around and be friends with you, because I want to watch the fireworks when you get what he gave me. You earned it. Those explosions sure hurt, don’t they?

Daria shook it off. Jane wasn’t that sort.

She hoped.

“What’s up, amiga?” asked Jane, looking at Daria with curiosity.

“Oh, nothing. Just . . a lot on my mind.”

Jane nodded and picked up the last of her French fries. “You remember Alison, that girl I told you about from art camp?”

Daria looked up from scraping up her applesauce. “Alison? The one who tried to hook up with you?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Jane toyed with the fry, rolling it over in her long, thin fingers. “She wrote to me a couple months ago. Must have gotten my address from Mom or her friend, the camp director. I didn’t give it out.”

“What’d she say?” Daria cleared her throat. “Looking for a pen pal?”

Jane shook her head slowly, still focused on the fry.

Daria felt a sense of dread. “Trying to hook up again?”

“Nah,” said Jane softly.

After a suitable pause, Daria began to think of another subject. Jane didn’t seem to want to—

“She wrote to tell me,” said Jane slowly, “that she was sorry for what she did.”

“For trying to get into your pants?”

Jane’s mouth twitched. “Well, for being my friend, using the friendship to try to get into my pants, then running around and whoring herself for her career afterward, like the whole idea of getting together with me didn’t matter to her at all. She just wanted to get laid, I was there, and that was it. Like I didn’t matter.”

“Oh.” Daria swallowed. “Well, at least she said she was sorry.”

“Yeah,” said Jane. She took a deep breath, then let it out as she sniffed her fry. “She was sort of trying to make amends for everything. Cleaning up her life. Tying up loose ends.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

“She’s HIV positive.”

Daria stopped in the middle of a reply, eyes locked on Jane.

“She got her results right before she wrote,” Jane went on. “One of her one-night-stands called her and said he’d tested positive, and she’d better go get tested, too, so she did, and there it was. She’s not feeling very well now, kind of like she’s got the flu—swollen glands, worn out, no energy, that kind of thing. Just like Ms. Barch said really happens, she’s got it. She picked it up sometime last year, if the guy who called her was the one who gave it to her. It was incubating in her when she got to camp.”

Daria felt the blood drain from her face. “Oh, God.”

“Yup,” said Jane, looking at her fry. “I just missed it. Well, sort of. I don’t think women catch it so much from women, really, so maybe I wasn’t that much at risk if I had spent the night with her, but still, you never know.”

“What—” Daria coughed. “What did Alison want otherwise?”

“From me? I think just forgiveness. She was really sorry, and she said she really liked me, and she asked if I would call her or write or visit sometime, anything at all. She doesn’t have any friends now. Everyone’s abandoned her, and she’s living in an apartment by herself with no job, no friends, nothing, draining off her college fund. She doesn’t paint anymore, just sits there or goes to the doctor or walks around wondering what it’s going to be like to die.”

Neither of them said anything for half a minute.

Daria managed to get her mouth working again. “What did you tell her?”

Jane put the French fry in her mouth and chewed on it. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I tore up the letter and threw it out. I didn’t keep the return address, either. I made myself forget it, and now I can’t remember it for anything.”

Daria stared at Jane. Words failed her.

“She used me,” said Jane, looking down at Daria’s plate. Her jaw tightened and her blue eyes glittered. “She was my friend, but then she took advantage of me, like I didn’t mean anything to her, like she didn’t care how much I hurt as long as she got what she wanted. She and I could have been great friends, maybe even best friends, because she was smart and funny and I thought she really understood me. I thought she liked me, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about me as much as she cared about her. The one time in my life when I needed her most, when I was at the bottom and I thought things couldn’t get any worse, she thought only of herself, and she threw everything we had away. Just threw the whole freaking thing away on a whim. Just like that.”

The silence drew out.

“I hope she rots,” Jane said, her voice low. After a moment, she looked up at Daria’s white face and pointed to the French fries on her plate. “Hey, you gonna eat those, amiga?”

Chapter Eight

Stacy Rowe wandered late into the brightly lit Lawndale High School cafeteria, having returned from a critical errand. She wore her favorite blue-jean jacket and skirt with an egg-white blouse and stylish sneakers not meant for actual athletics. Her damp hair was back to its normal brown color, the red tint gone. As she came in, she looked around for Sandi and Quinn, as they were supposed to discuss a visit to Tiffany in the local hospital that evening, but she saw no trace of either. She was late, so it figured.

Her shoulders slumped. Stacy was depressed, for reasons she didn’t want to face, but it wasn’t worth crying about at this point. She got into the lunch line, picked up a tray, and happened to turn around for a last scan of the cafeteria just as Quinn and Skylar came through the doors at the far end.

Stacy stood stock-still, her gaze taking in the new couple, her visual universe narrowing down to their joined hands. That simple bond said all that needed to be said.

In that moment, Stacy felt a terrible emptiness where her heart had been, as hollow as a cheap doll. She wondered idly if this was what it felt like to be dead.

Quinn and Skylar dropped hands after a few moments to avoid gaining the notice of teachers alert for PDAs, but they continued walking together—toward Stacy. Quinn saw her, smiled, and waved.

And Stacy, who loved Quinn more than she loved her own life, forced a smile, raised a hand, and waved back.

*

What passed through the heart of Lancelot in that moment when he first set eyes on Guenevere? Was it joy, pain, or the two entwined? Did he know then that his life had changed, that both paradise and nightmare lay ahead, waiting only for him to act upon his forbidden love?

Stacy Rowe, she of the pigtails and low self-esteem, hyperventilation and endless worry over what others thought of her, knew a fair amount of Arthurian legend. She read piles of it before age twelve, when her mind was suddenly taken over by alien forces. The lively girl in pigtails—once the tomboy terror who climbed trees, caught frogs, and raced her bike with neighborhood boys—doubted everything about herself, everything she was. The fearless explorer who dreamed of becoming a knight turned twelve and attached herself to Sandi Griffin’s Fashion Club, allowing herself to be abused at every turn in the hope that she would be popular and normal, whatever any cost. She emptied her bedroom of her Arthurian storybooks but—curiously unwilling to throw them out, sell them, or give them away—hid them in her parents’ attic in cardboard boxes and forgot them.

Yet there was something missing from this crazy hunt for the Questing Beast of Popularity and Normality. It wasn’t a new set of clothing, a different pair of earrings, or another pair of shoes. Stacy could not name the missing thing, she did not even know what it looked like, but she knew it wasn’t there.

It remained missing until that September morning in her freshman year of high school when a blue Lexus stopped in front of Lawndale High School. A beautiful teenage girl with long orange-peel hair stepped out of the car and walked toward her, and Stacy Rowe felt both her heart and the world stop. The image of the girl with the orange-peel hair was burned into her mind forever.

Guenevere, said a forgotten voice inside her mind. Driven by sudden impulse, Stacy seized the moment as she had not done in years.

Hi! she cried. You’re cool! What’s your name?

Quinn Morgendorffer, said the new girl with a brilliant smile.

And thus the missing piece in Stacy’s world was found. She did not come to love Quinn right away, but the bright spark was there, as it surely had been for Lancelot, and after a certain length of time Stacy’s mind smoldered, and slowly it began to burn.

She suppressed her feelings for as long as she could. Stacy was not a complete fool, and she knew the consequences of voicing her desires were unspeakable disaster. The most feared parts of her personality she could hide behind a sweet and disarming incompetence, but certain pressures grew worse no matter what she did. She tried sublimating her feelings, attaching herself to Quinn (she told herself) because Quinn had the best advice, the friendliest manner, the best eye for color. For a long time, she thought if she made herself more like Quinn, she might become as popular as Quinn (and cause Quinn to love her back), though it was Quinn’s easy confidence in herself that Stacy admired most. The harder she tried to imitate Quinn, however, the more it drove others away from her, including Quinn herself. Stacy eventually caught on and stopped. Almost.

Yet, as time moved on, Stacy grew. If you love a thing strongly and deeply enough, you will become like it yourself. Stacy became less needy and clingy, more sure of her own mind, and more secure in her opinions. There were slip-ups and slide-backs, embarrassments and crying jags in the school restroom, but over time she advanced, trusted herself more than she trusted Sandi Griffin’s criticisms or the careless advice of others. She took chances, surprised everyone with her role in a magic show, and began to say what she really thought, even when it wasn’t necessarily safe to say it.

Her biggest step was to accept what she was. She could not bring herself to label it, but she learned to live with it and make it a part of her. On a rainy afternoon one day, she went up into the attic and opened one of the boxes there, took out a book, and flipped through it until she found a picture of a knight on horseback killing a dragon and saving a maiden. That’s me, she thought. That’s who I am. She closed the book and put it away, but she came back another day, and on the third visit she took a few of the books and put them under her bed again.

She was becoming complete, though for the sake of a trouble-free life that allowed her to remain in the company of her beloved, she had to make adjustments. She went on a few dates with boys, though they were of no interest except for a couple whose idea of a date was to challenge her at videogames, which she halfway liked. It happened that she came to like one boy in particular, Ted DeWitt-Clinton, because he taught her a good bit of martial arts. Ted was hopelessly naive with girls, but he was a hell of a teacher. Stacy dated him more often than anyone else because they spent all their time testing new judo throws and hand grips on the mat in his basement. He never once tried to kiss her. She liked him a lot for that, and they stayed good friends. If other people read more into the relationship than that, Stacy was content not to correct them.

Her world was stable, though her heart bled. She was not threatened by Quinn’s dating, because she knew Quinn would not settle for any one guy and was, technically speaking, free for the taking. Stacy contented herself with touching her beloved only in occasional hugs or when fixing her hair during their periodic weekend makeover parties. In time, Quinn even privately allowed Stacy to massage her neck and shoulders, aching and weary from carrying around an overstuffed backpack. Stacy’s hands were flexible and strong from working out with Ted—but her hands never strayed to forbidden places when Quinn took off her blouse and bra, sat backwards on a chair, and happily let Stacy work on her back. It was the closest thing to ecstasy that Stacy knew.

This stable world suffered a mild earthquake early that Monday morning when Stacy saw Quinn’s new earrings and sensed something different in Quinn’s manner. It was when Quinn blushed when she mentioned Skylar’s name, however, that Stacy knew something big was in the wind. She forced herself to ignore her fears and carried on a lively conversation until Quinn noticed the change in Stacy’s hair color. Hypersensitive Stacy could tell that Quinn did not approve, but Quinn said she liked it anyway.

Stacy knew right then that she had been stupid. She was backsliding, trying to make herself physically like her beloved, and that was not going to work. Stacy fled in tears to the bathroom, grateful that Quinn had not chewed her out then and there for her gaffe.