Daria reached for a slice, but Jesse grabbed it first.
"Hey!"
"There's another couple of pieces," he said in defense. Jane, Tom, and Trent chuckled.
Tom passed her a new slice. "There you go, your Highness. Don't give me that look, I washed my hands."
"This week?"
"Ooh, cold."
"This table is too crowded."
"I dunno," said Jesse, "I'm comfortable."
"Because you're on the end, blocking the exit," said Jane.
"I think she meant me, Jesse," said Tom. Daria nodded in agreement and he added, "Well, lets not spare my feelings or anything."
"Hmmph," she rejoined swallowing "You love abuse. That's why you keep hanging around."
"Oh, yeah," said Jesse. "It has nothing whatever to do with, like, I dunno... Jane?"
Trent snorted his coke out his nose.
"Well, it's either Jane, or her brother's trick nose," said Daria.
Trent coughed, laughed, and choked at the same time.
"You bet," said Jesse. "You know, I am so impressed, how does he do that?"
"Lack of coordination?" said Jane.
"Don't give away my secrets, Janie," said Trent, wiping the coke off his shirt.
"Go ahead, Jesse," said Tom, "ask him if he wants that coke he just spilled."
"Up yours! Hey, Anyway, anyone want to split some nachos?"
"They don't sell nachos here," said Jane. "They sell pizza. That's why they call it Pizza King."
Jesse looked disappointed. "Well, they used to sell 'em here when they called it 'Tony's'"
"It was 'La Fiesta', Jesse." Trent said. "We used to call it 'Tony's' because Tony owned it."
"Oh, yeah. Tony was cool. Always kept the salsa coming. Whatever happened to him, anyway?"
"He got busted, man. Selling dope out the back door." As he said this, the front door opened. He glanced up and an angry look swept over his face.
Daria glanced at the door to see why Trent glowered. All she saw was Tiffany and Stacy.
"Good prices, though," said Jesse.
"The best," Trent answered.
"Fashion fiends at ten o'clock," announced Jane. The pair walked to the booth where Quinn and Sandi had been maintaining a strained civility for the past half-hour.
"Better warn your sister about that one, Daria," said Trent. "What a backstabber."
"God, Trent, you're still not over that?" said Jane.
"No, and I never will be," he shot back. "She made you cry."
If looks could maim, Trent would be a basket case, thought Daria.
"She made you cry?" said Tom, then shut up as Jane turned her gaze to him.
"Like a baby," said Jesse, ignoring Jane's mood. He reached for the last slice, but Jane grabbed his arm in a grip like a vise.
"I did not cry," she hissed.
"What, you want the last slice?" he said.
"Well, damn, Jesse, you only ate half the pizza by yourself," said Tom trying to de-fuse the situation. "Besides, if Jane said she didn't cry, she didn't cry."
"But..."
"That's enough, Jesse," said Trent, "we're going to be late for rehearsal."
"But..."
"Let it go, man."
"Okay," he said, putting the pizza back and looking a little hurt. "See ya."
"Yeah, later," said Trent as they both got up. "Sorry, Janie, didn't mean to... well... whatever."
Jane snorted.
Daria and Tom quietly said goodbye to the pair. After they had left, Jane said, "I don't want to talk about it."
"I didn't say anything," said Daria.
"Yes, well you were going to."
"Never crossed my mind," she lied.
"C'mon, Tom, we're going to be late for the movie."
"Cool, I like standing in the lobby, waiting for a half-hou... ooookay, we're there."
"Later tonight?" she asked Jane.
Jane looked thoughtful, a little calmer. "I can't, I've got a life model class down at the museum. Look, I'll tell you the whole story latter, when I'm a little calmer. And I did not cry."
"Okay, see you in the morning then, if you survive the Pinto of death."
Tom looked haughty. "My chariot is in the shop getting her brakes fixed. We're walking."
"Oh, good," said Daria, "then I will see Jane alive tomorrow."
With a sour look from Tom and a wave from Jane, they were gone. Daria sat there for a moment. She trusted Jane to tell her the whole story, but she felt like Jane was hiding something even from herself.
She thought for a minute longer, then got up. She looked at the last slice of pizza, slightly man-handled by Jesse. "No use in letting it go to waste," she thought.
She flagged the waitress over, whispered her instructions, giving her a five. The waitress took the five and the plate, and Daria went outside.
The waitress took the plate over to Quinn. Quinn looked at it in disgust and gave the waitress a questioning look. The waitress pointed to a table across the room, where the three J's and Kevin were sitting, discussing spring training. Sensing Quinn's gaze, the trio turned and, with goofy smiles on their faces, waved at her.
The fact that Kevin caught some of the fallout was icing on Daria's cake. She turned from the window and started for home, a feeling of accomplishment swelling within her.
"Basically," said Jane without preamble as the pair started for school the following morning, "I thought I had had a friendship going with Tiffany that first year in grade school."
"Gee, and I didn't even have to ask," said Daria. "Where's the fun in that?"
"Silence, ungrateful one. Tiffany started school the same year I did. Because of her age she could have waited a year, but her parents wanted her to get a head start.
"Anyway, I was young and naive enough to think that her feelings of friendship were genuine. She hung on my every word and, unlike the other kids, didn't snub me because of my family's rep.
"Come to find out later that this was because she was a bit slow. Plus, she's a social chameleon, changing her camouflage to suit the company."
"Like she sides with Quinn, then Sandi," said Daria.
"And gets real nervous when confronted. A true sycophant, and I was too young to know. Not to mention the flattery felt good.
"Well, she doesn't do to well in the first grade, so the teachers and her parents felt she should be held back a year. This was annoying, of course, but I got used to it, we'd still be in the same school after all. What I didn't know was that Sandi was waiting like a trap-door spider. Tiffany decides she likes hanging with Sandi and Stacy more, and that was the end of that."
"And Trent's memory of you crying?"
"Don't know where he picked that up from. Must have gotten it mixed up with when I was a toddler. I had quite the set of lungs back then and according to Penny I was very resistant to the idea of potty training."
"Ack! Too much information! So that's the whole story?"
"Okay, I did get in trouble for pushing Sandi over into the sand-box. By then though, Principal King and I were on a first name basis, so being in trouble wasn't too unusual for me."
"First name basis?"
"well, she didn't approve, but that didn't stop me," she smiled. "But I did learn a valuable lesson about listening to 'yes men.'"
"Or 'yes women.'"
"Picky, picky. So, did you do that paper for DeMartino?"
"Yes, did you do that assignment for math?"
"I wonder if we'll be having jello again today?"
"There was a time when all Janie could talk about was Tiffany," said Trent, hunched over his coffee. Jane had just left for her afternoon run, so Daria had a little time to get Trent's side of it. "Tiffany this, Tiffany that. Man, it was like she could shit gold or something. Pardon my French."
"S'okay," Daria smirked.
"Man, they were inseparable, like Siamese twins or whatever. We were cool with it, of course, but the Blum-Decklers didn't like their little darling hanging out with a Lane." His lip curled. "I think that had something to do with Tiffany being held back a year.
"That nearly killed Janie. All that summer, when she wasn't hanging out with Tiffany, she was begging Mom, Dad, and Summer to let her be held back a year too."
"They were both here?"
"Oh, yeah, that was the summer Dad had caught dengue fever in Sri Lanka. He came home to recuperate and Mom stuck around to nurse him back to health. It was almost like having a real family for once.
""But anyway, Janie refused to go back to school the first week, but Penny managed to convince her."
"How did she do that?"
"Threatened her with ritual female circumcision, complete with the gory details. Powerful stuff for a seven-year-old."
Daria blushed. "Or a seventeen-year-old, for that matter."
"Heh, heh, good one Daria. Anyway, she settled down and accepted the fact that she could see her after class and all. Then she started seeing less and less of her.
"You see, Tiffany had hooked up with some other friends and was starting to taste popularity."
"You're saying she was slowly dropping Jane from her circle of friends."
"Sort of, but not completely. You see, sometime that fall they made some sort of 'blood sister' oath, or something."
"Where they cut their wrist and slap them together?!?"
"Naw, nothing that dramatic. Tiffany had talked Jane into pricking their fingers and mingling the blood. I saw them, it was right under that oak tree... no wait, that one died and fell over three years ago... anyway, it was right out there."
"Then?"
"Then they swore to be friends forever. It was cute. You should have seen Janie beaming. She didn't even let Penny's warnings about infections get her down. She had a blood sister, and that was supposed to be forever."
Daria watched as Trent's face darkened at the next memory. She thought about reaching out and giving his hand a comforting squeeze. She blushed and did nothing.
"Then came Tiffany's birthday the next year. Janie had already gotten her a nice little 'My Little Pony' set and kept waiting for the invitation to the party. She started getting suspicious. So one day, after her play period was over, she hid herself on the playground. My class had the same play period as the first grade, so Jesse and I saw the whole thing.
"Tiffany was playing with Sandi and Stacy. Janie went over to confront them, and Sandi told her that Tiffany didn't need to be hanging around with losers anymore. Jane asked Tiffany if this was what she thought too. Tiffany squirmed around, then asked them why they couldn't all be friends since they were all blood sisters now."
"Uh-oh."
"Yeah, Janie and Sandi hit the roof and Sandi wanted to know why Tiffany had performed the secret-sister ceremony with a loser Lane, and Janie got mad that Tiffany had hidden this from her. Tiffany got scared and ran away... come to think of it, so did Stacy... anyway, Sandi took a poke at Janie, then Janie pushed her into the sand box and started whaling the tar out of her."
"Wow."
"That's when the teacher broke it up. Janie was so upset, she didn't go back to school for a week, which sorta worked out since that's how long old lady King had suspended her. She cried herself to sleep a few times, then shook herself and got over it.
"Not me, though. I'll never forgot the look in her eyes..."
The front door slammed and he shut up. Jane came in with a towel around her neck. "Well, isn't this cozy? And what have we been talking about?"
Daria gave her the old "shut-up, Jane" look, but Trent grinned and said, "Just about how bad you smell after a run."
Daria ducked and the towel caught Trent full in the face.