FicWad

Daria's Party Addition – 13 – A Wedding, a Storm, and Fallout

By Dr T

Jane could tell Daria was in a foul mood the next Monday morning as they headed towards the school together. "So, what's bugging you the most?" Jane asked. "Missing Jack, waiting for your plans to unfold, getting measured for that gown," (Jane knew Daria would hate that) "having to deal with the idiots at school, or something else entirely?"

Sighing, Daria answered, "As you might guess, some combination of all the above, plus Quinn."

'Well,' Jane thought, "that's hardly a surprising complication.' Aloud, Jane asked, "What's she up to now?"

Daria almost snorted at the question. "Basically, pretty much the same as usual, especially since we moved here – Mom and Dad have given us both sets of conditions, and she whines and wheedles, trying to get what she wants without having to meet the conditions, or at least how to slither around them." Daria usually at least tried to meet the expectations before trying to negotiate any changes. "The difference has been, instead of totally giving in after some token attempts at enforcement, while their enforcement on her is still hit-and-miss, it's at least slightly more hit than they used to be." Daria's mouth almost quirked into a tiny quarter smile. "And except for one major problem, they aren't being tougher on me than they are on her, at least for now. Last year, Mom made the mistake of giving Quinn a credit card and letting her loose to clothes shop for school. This year, she took her herself, and Quinn managed to only go over the announced budget by about seventy dollars. And this year, the over-draft of Quinn's budget didn't come out of mine." Daria frowned. "Well, that's what Mom said – she did take me shopping Saturday, but I haven't actually seen any cash from them since June."

Seeing Jane was about to speak, Daria added, "I've hinted and I've even asked; I am sick and tired of begging them, especially Mother-dear-Mother, to treat me in a manner at least approaching that of how they indulge Quinn, no matter how outrageously she acts." Daria was not going to mention to anyone, not even Jane, that Jack had opened a joint account for them, and that she had a debit card to use if there was a real need. Daria was not about to spend a penny from that account that wasn't essential.

(Neither knew Jack's father would discover it, and about the safety deposit box, although he would say nothing about it, even to his wife. He trusted Jack, and liked Daria, enough to wait and see exactly what they were up to.)

Meanwhile, Jane had winced slightly about the reminder of how much Daria had been short-changed by her parents (especially her mother) in favor of Quinn. 'Sometimes,' she reflected, 'maybe benign parental neglect isn't so bad.' What she responded with, however, was, "What clothes did you actually get?"

"A few new tops and other things, but most importantly, a new pair of boots. I almost wore these out this summer."

Jane glanced down, and saw that, despite being newly polished, Daria's boots were rather worn down and scuffed. The soles were even more worn, although of course Jane couldn't see those.
"Start breaking them in yet?"

"A little; these will last until I get the new pair where I want them."

The pair moved past the drug-sniffing dogs outside the school doors and then through the metal detectors just inside the building, towards their homeroom. After the pledge of allegiance and announcements, they went to their lockers to get their books. Daria's and Jane's class schedules were unchanged from what they had requested, other than Daria's science class – she was still assigned to Ms Barch's class. Most students, and all males, tried to get out of her sections once past their Freshman year, so most girls were stuck in her classes. As usual this early in the school year, Brittany had to help Kevin get into his locker.

"Why did you manage to get a top locker again?" Jane complained, bent over, trying to access the locker under Daria's while Daria was in her way.

"Just lucky, I suppose," Daria teased, shutting her locker and getting out of Jane's way.

"Oh, well…maybe next year."

"Optimist," Daria teased.

"Ha, ha," Jane retorted.

The two friends were startled when they heard a loud squeak from just behind them that they weren't expecting. "Hi!"

Daria recovered first, "Good morning, Brittany. You seem to be in an even brighter-than-usual mood this morning."

"Picture day was last Thursday," Brittany replied, "so we should get the proof and order form today."

"Joy."

Jane smirked; she was willing to bet Daria would be ordering at least one copy for Jack. Jane always just ordered one set of four wallet-sized photos, since she couldn't order just one. Trent always wanted one for his wallet, otherwise she wouldn't have bothered at all. She wondered for a moment if Daria had even bothered posing or just stared at the camera, until she realized that despite usually disliking having her photo taken, Daria might have posed for Jack.

dp

"Alright, Daria, let's see your proof," Helen demanded after she and Jake had cooed over Quinn's for several minutes. Considering the scowling photo Daria had posed for her last Highland photo, they were both curious and worried what this one might look like.

Daria silently handed the proof photo over.

Not unexpectedly, Daria had opted for the plain backdrop. Surprisingly, she had a half-smile and a very soft look. The other three all had the same, correct, thought – 'That look is for Jack."

dp

Between Daria's return to Lawndale and Erin's wedding in mid-September, Daria received news of the various student and first-time writing contests she had entered the previous spring. She had, of course, hoped to do well in all of them, but knew she likely couldn't be that lucky, even if she was the best teen writer of all time – which she knew she wasn't. So, while disappointed and even a bit hurt, overall she felt she did well enough to encourage her hopes to at least become a part-time writer, no matter what career she ended up pursuing in the future. In addition, between the summer dig and the writing, she felt she was well-covered for her extra-curriculars for the year if her other plans didn't work out.

In the end, Daria had won the first prize in one of the short story competitions, which also carried the only monetary prize (granted only $100, but every little bit helped since she had not received any allowance from her parents since early June). More importantly, her short story was going to be published in the sponsoring literary society's journal, giving her an official literary publication when that volume was published in January. While her other five works did not win any grand prizes, all of them placed well enough to be mentioned (the other two short stories each won second place in their respective competition, while one poem won a third place and the other two honorable mentions). While none of the other five would be printed, the other two short stories and the third-place poem were published on the respective websites and so she counted them as on-line publications – something new for all those groups. All would help her in the future, as she started working on what would eventually become her first novel, featuring a modern somewhat realistic archeologist, even if the female protagonist did have a few Lara Croft and Indiana Jones overtones.

In addition to the above, Daria was apprehensive about her cousin's wedding (as was her father), as her mother and Aunt Rita did not get along, and even Aunt Amy usually regressed as much as her sisters when around them. Granted, the worst trigger, their grandmother, was not feeling well and would not be attending, but Daria figured there would be enough triggers to go around.

To Daria's slight surprise, nothing unforetold occurred during the preliminaries or the wedding itself, despite some tense moments with Rita and the fact that the other bridesmaids made Quinn seem focused and intelligent. Daria was glad to connect easily with Amy in person, which had made Helen's eye twitch. At least Helen still did not suspect Daria was in communication with Amy via her secret personal on-line account. As she was more concentrated on the usual games with Rita, however, Helen basically ignored Amy and Daria's reunion in favor of pursuing her main sibling rivalry.

Daria enjoyed the verbal sparring with her escort before the wedding and at the reception, but really did not think much of the groom, and Quinn again showed herself to be the brightest of the other bridesmaids. Daria's drole escort, Luhrman, was easily the nicest groomsman. The wedding itself was elaborate – granted even if Daria thought her own secret wedding had been rather too spartan, she thought this one veered far too much in the opposite direction. It would be possible, maybe even probable, that she and Jack would have a reaffirmation ceremony of some sort if her mother didn't fuss about the marriage whenever she found out about it too much (although Daria knew there would be fallout). This affair showed her plenty she did not want to imitate. She hoped her mother-in-law would feel the same, without the possible overreaction Daria feared from her own mother.

It was once the reception really got going, as the alcohol started to pour, that things started going downhill, although Daria and Amy left before the chaos really erupted. Quinn was stirring up trouble, setting up a groomsman and the preacher (over the top, even for Quinn) as rivals for her attention, Helen was rapidly tying one on while the groom was apparently trying to catch up to Helen's alcohol consumption in a different corner before leaving the reception early. Meanwhile, Rita was fluttering between those impending explosions and several others, trying to keep a lid on things, and Jake was sulking in a corner.

As things started to simmer more openly, Amy took Daria out for cheese fries, but they ended up at a Starbucks instead when they saw Brian entering the bar of the bowling lane they had originally stopped at. "So," Amy asked teasingly once they were settled, "I'm sure you remember you told me originally only that you and Jack were on different digs but in the same state. You only admitted that you were both at the same base camp later on. So, how many times did you sleep with him?"

Daria looked her aunt in the eye and simply stated, "Twice."

That made Amy blink, as Daria had never mentioned their relationship had reached that stage, even if she had suspected it had. Finally, she said, "All things considered, I'm not really surprised that you did; I guess I am surprised that since you did, it was only twice."

Daria waited for Amy to sip her triple shot latte before replying, "Our trailer had bunk beds; they were too narrow to sleep together more often. Too tight, in every way."

Once Amy recovered for the coughing fit that response brought on, she managed, "Are you serious or yanking my chain?"

Daria gave her favorite relative a very slight smirk as she replied, "We shared a twenty-one-foot trailer. We had one set of bunk beds and a tiny shower Jack barely fit into, never mind us ever trying together. Therefore, we never made love in the tiny bathroom or on the top bunk, but we did just about everything we could anywhere else that you can imagine." Including Jack fulfilling his promise to kiss every inch of Daria, several times in fact. She even returned the favor. "Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

Amy could only nod. "My shy niece has grown up," she admitted. Amy then decided it was best to change the subject. "Have you decided to go into the hard sciences now?"

"Yes, and yes, I'm sure Jack's influenced that to some degree," Daria confessed. "However, the paleontological work is even more fascinating than the physical anthropology. At the moment, at least, mammalian evolution is more interesting to me than just human, or even just anthropoidal."

Amy frowned, and asked, "That's not Jack's specialty, right?"

"No, right now his is archosaurs – crocodilians, pterosaurs, dinosaurs, and birds."

"So, complimentary fields at the moment."

Daria smiled slightly. "True."

"How did you find the field work?" Amy wasn't sure how Daria had reacted to the physical aspects of the field.

"The Clovis site wasn't bad, because we knew it was there, but since it was mostly horse bones, not overly fascinating," Daria admitted. "There was both more tedium in the mundane work at the Cretaceous site but also more interesting stuff to find. I'd hate to be the one out surveying areas, just hoping to run across fossils – I think Jack has more of the prospector's optimism than I ever could have. I wasn't thrilled by some of the physical work, but it was fascinating more often than not and worth the effort. I see the appeal of field work a lot more than I thought I would."

"What can you tell me of your other plans? I have gotten the sense since last month that's there's something in the works."

"There is," Daria agreed. "I think it would be better if I can honestly tell Mom that you had no idea what was going on."

"Ah," Amy had to agree, "I see." And she really did. "You'll clue me in when you can?"

"Of course. Hopefully in just a few weeks." 'Well,' Daria mentally added, 'some of it, but not main event.'

dp

When the pair returned to the resort, they found that there had been at least one riot. Amy would later find out (and inform Daria) that there had been three minor fights, a food fight, and a small riot which had then all merged into the major riot – Daria's other aunt, mother, and sister each being directly involved in at least one of the aspects. On a positive personal note, in addition to having the time she'd had with Amy, Daria liked the dress just enough (although not like the fake pearls it came with), and figured it would give her an easy option for the Snow Ball if she and Jack went.

Over the week after the wedding, Daria was not only missing Jack, but Jane was still with Tom some evenings and on the weekend. The friends had managed to have just three afternoons together at Jane's so far that month, with Daria reading on Jane's bed and Jane painting. Those days when the pair instead went for pizza after school or anything similar, Tom always showed up and basically shoved Daria out of the picture. These events, when added to the nerves of waiting first for the wedding and then for her plans to mature, ensured that Daria was not in a good mood the final Friday in September.

Coming down the stairs, Daria was a bit startled to see her parents both staring at the little, rarely used TV in the kitchen. The weatherman for the local station's morning program was saying, "…again, the hurricane's path is still wobbling. It could turn to the north at any point, from the next hour to over the next twelve hours. Until that turns occurs, if it does, it will be following this almost exact westerly path…."

Daria saw that path went directly over Lawndale, and, if unchanged, it would make a direct hit late that afternoon.

Daria was surprised at her parents – both tended to be cautious in such matters, yet both seemed convinced that the storm would turn north in time to avoid affecting Lawndale, at least in any major way. The local schools were not cancelling or changing their school days; neither Jake nor Helen seemed interested in letting Daria stay at home and Quinn was more interested in setting up the best possible date (or possibly dates) for the next day – there was a nearby away football game that evening that all the 'in' crowd would be attending en masse.

Daria kept a sharp lookout as she walked over to Jane's – Tom had picked Jane up a few times when he was running early and she didn't want to be stuck standing on Jane's stoop for 10 minutes before giving up – again. This morning, however, Tom didn't show up and Jane was actually semi-awake and waiting for Daria.

Like Daria's own family, Jane was unconcerned about the fact that Lawndale's forecast had changed from 'Hurricane Watch' to 'Hurricane Warning' during the night. Jane stated something that Daria would hear variations of repeatedly during the day – 'nothing ever happens in Lawndale.' During the day's classes, the faculty seemed for the most part equally unconcerned, although Mr. DeMartino did spend the last five minutes or so of his classes giving hints about what should be done 'just in case.' In Daria's class, only Daria really paid any attention to him.

At lunch, Daria learned that Tom had a number of unspecified 'family obligations' that weekend, which left Jane looking to Daria for some companionship. While welcoming that to a degree, Daria was NOT happy with the way Jane put it, as if Daria was just an unimportant backup. Therefore, while Daria could not care less about the pep rally at the end of the school day, neither did she really feel like sneaking off to the roof to goof off with Jane as they often had in the past. As it turned out, that was a good occurrence, as Ms Li stopped the pep rally before it really got started. The hurricane had still not changed its path, and tropical storm winds were expected in a little over an hour, with the category one winds hitting less than an hour later.

Daria had the now-nearly panicking Jane call Trent from one of the pay phones in the school lobby, but upon waking, he decided to have the band over for a hurricane party. Jane knew that if the power stayed on, the noise from their jam session would be intolerable, and if it went off, their arguments would be worse. In addition, the other members would be bringing beer, and that would be all there was – no food. She therefore asked Daria if she could come over.

Slightly unhappy about the backhanded request, Daria nevertheless acceded. The pair walked over to the Morgendorffers' as the winds started to pick up. They looked around the outside of the house, and put the few things lying around the backyard into the garage. Daria dug out the one ice chest they had, and after they gave it a quick wipe Daria asked Jane to start filling it with what little ice there was, and let the icemaker get started on the next load. Daria went around the house for candles, flashlights, and batteries.

A scowling Quinn came in as Daria came down the stairs with a spare flashlight in hand, wearing a new dark green raincoat, even though the rain was barely starting. Helen arrived a few moments later. Told what Daria and Jane had done, Helen merely nodded, and then asked, "I suppose you didn't have a chance to stop at some store before they sold out of everything?"

"I had the thought and would have had the time," Daria responded, "but I'm broke, so I didn't."

Helen frowned, "What have you been spending your allowance on? I would have paid you back."

"Mother," Daria retorted, "As I have mentioned several times over the last five plus weeks, I have not received any allowance since early June – the week before I left for Utah, in fact."

That made Helen blink. "But…but…." She scowled. "QUINN!"

Quinn, who had been walking through the living area on the way to the kitchen, picked up speed. "I think I'll make some cocoa."

"Quinn! Stop where you are! When I've been giving you Daria's allowance to hold for her since she left, why haven't you been giving her share to her like you were supposed to?" Helen then angrily basically repeated herself. "You were supposed to be holding her summer allowance and giving her her share since she back! What have you done with it all?"

"What do you mean?" Quinn frowned. "You've just been giving me my allowance."

"You think I doubled your allowance?" Helen nearly screamed.

"You didn't double it, although it did increase by, what…seventy-five percent?"

"You gave Quinn a raise in allowance once she earned getting a full allowance again," Daria pointed out. "I presume she got another while I was gone. I, of course, did not get any raises at any time, any more than I received any other money."

During this exchange, Jane decided that it was past time to move out of the line of fire and hide in Daria's room.

Meanwhile, Helen realized that she now had a major tension headache. "Quinn…when you came begging for your allowance first thing every Friday, you offered the first time to hold Daria's and give her hers when she got back home, and took it for her every time since. You knew very well you were stealing your sister's allowance all this time."

"I forgot!"

"Quinn, I suggest you go to your room. No allowance this week, and of course you will NOT be getting that augmented amount next week – in fact, you'll get half of what your allowance should be until you've paid me back."

"But…."

"ROOM!"

Quinn escaped.

Helen then turned on Daria, almost snarling, "And why didn't you say anything?"

"I did," Daria replied, surprising Helen with how calm she seemed. "I asked you that first week about my allowance, and you said, 'ask Quinn.' You did not say anything about Quinn's having my actual allowance, and she has denied knowing anything about it several times. Together, that implied that I was getting none because you were again favoring Quinn as usual and ignoring me. Since I was unsure, I tried to tell you twice since then, and you ignored me each time. I am not going to beg you to be treated fairly anymore."

Helen sighed. At that moment, Jake crashed through the front door. "HELEN! Where are the girls? Are the windows taped? Is everything picked up in the yard? Has…?"

"JAKE! The girls, and Jane, are here. Jane is upstairs, and Quinn is confined to her room. We'll talk about why in a minute. Taping the windows doesn't really do much of anything and mostly just causes a mess. Daria and Jane took care of the stuff in the yard." She turned to Daria. "Why don't you bring Jane down and see what the news is saying about the hurricane." Her face hardened. "Your father and I have to talk about Quinn…again."

Daria did go up the stairs, but went to Quinn's room before collecting Jane. She found Quinn sitting on her bed, looking very despondent. Seeing movement, Quinn looked up and simply said, "If you're here to yell at me, please don't."

"Alright," Daria stated, crossing her arms and leaning against a wall of the bedroom, "I won't yell, or even scold. Still, tell me – you had to know you wouldn't get away with it. What happened?"

"Well, I know this will be hard to believe – I really have had to work at remembering what happened. First of all, believe it or not, the first two weeks I set the extra money aside for you," Quinn explained. "But then, well, I wanted to treat some of the other girls to a movie, and I was a little short, so I used some of, well, your money, but somehow, by then it seemed like, well, extra money I was saving, not your money." She shrugged. "It kind of snowballed from there."

Quinn reached into the drawer of her nightstand, pulling out a large envelope. "Here, this is really yours. Well, I guess I should give it to Mom to count first."

"No, hand it here."

Shame-faced, Quinn handed it over. Daria opened it and deftly counted the money in front of Quinn. Taking a pen from Quinn's desk, Daria wrote, 'Quinn has returned $108 dollars to me.' She signed and dated it, and then handed the envelope to Quinn. "There, evidence of your good faith for Mom, and I have the cash – considering her attitude towards me, it might have taken her a while to 'remember' to give it to me."

Scowling at Quinn, Daria went on, "In some minor ways, you've been taking your cues about me from Mom, but really, a lot of your actions since we moved to Lawndale have been way over the top. You do realize that, right?"

Quinn sighed. "You're right…I don't know why I've done some of these things."

"Quinn, this is far from the first time you've bought things with money, or a credit card, that you shouldn't have used. Tell me honestly, and I promise I won't tell Mom or Dad if you have, but have you shoplifted anything? Something you wanted and couldn't get, even with someone else's money? Or anything like that?"

Her head bowed, Quinn answered, "No…but to be honest, I have been tempted. One reason I treated the girls was because I've treated some of them like boys…."

"As status symbols who would treat you?"

Quinn nodded again, adding, "And I wanted to pay them back for once."

"Do you think these are good behaviors?" Seeing the look on Quinn's face, Daria added, "Yes, even treating boys like fashion accessories with wallets."

Quinn winced. "I…well, no, I shouldn't be doing those other things, especially not the stealing."

"Quinn…do you think you might…want some help in changing some of these behaviors?" Daria asked carefully.

"From you?" Quinn asked.

"No, and I don't necessarily mean a psychologist or psychiatrist, let alone a pseudo-councilor like Ms Manson, but there should be someone really qualified to help you understand yourself and help you out."

Quinn looked at her sister, slightly amazed. "You…you really care, don't you?"

Daria managed not to sigh. "Yes – I often find you aggravating and/or incomprehensible, and when you pull some of your stunts, that's even more true. Still, yes, I care about you; I love you. You're my sister. I want you to live as happy and untroubled a life as possible, and acting as you sometimes do, neither is really possible." Daria straightened up. "If you really want to modify your behavior, I know you can, even if you need a little help." Daria was careful to put what she thought was the best possible spin while being as realistic as possible.

"You're right, but what do I do?"

"You sit here while I talk to Mom and Dad, and then you'll need to agree to see who they find and try if they are at all competent."

"I will," Quinn answered. Daria believed her, and was right to do so.

Daria gave her sister as reassuring a smile as she could, and went down to talk to her parents. It was nearly half an hour later when Daria made it back to her room, following her parents up the stairs on their way to speak with Quinn.

"Should I leave?" Jane asked.

"I don't think so," Daria responded, gesturing at the storm outside her window. "Quinn admitted to me she needs some professional help, and Mom and Dad agreed with me that it might be the best thing to do, at least to try."

"When do you drop your next bombshells?"

Daria sighed, "If I'm lucky, next Friday; maybe the week after."