LLH 5.4

“Platinum” by Roentgen

Somewhere, off the beaten path, in Dumpsville, past a chain link fence and two bouncers the Legionnaires found themselves in a gravel parking lot. Parking was ad hoc, and Sandi pulled the yellow Mitsubishi into an imaginary parking space.

Daria found the solid steel door with the faded paint striking -- almost as if the door had been thought of as an afterthought. However, behind the 1 and 1/2 inches of steel, she could hear something that sounded like clapping in syncopation.

The door opened. It sounded more like a heartbeat than music. It was a simple percussive track that must have lasted for over a minute in Daria's consciousness. Immediately, flashes of colored light struck the new arrivals, colored light which struck every space on the floor in five second intervals. Soft music swelled in under the heavy repetitive percussion, almost light easy listening music that could have been sold in the computer.

The message, over and over again, never spoken: come dance. Come dance. Come dance.

On the floor, the crowd swayed to and fro as a soft spoken singer asked,

Sometimes I just want to let you know
It feels like I'm out of control
Sometimes I just want to let you know....

Daria had an ear for music. It was a song that had never been played on radio, "Another Day" by Kings of Tomorrow. Everyone seems to know the music, recognize it, enjoy it despite the annoying electronic drumbeats. The floor was crowded and everyone was feeling the music.

Sandi navigated the crowd as if she had been there a thousand times. Aside from the dance floor there were tables and there was a bar.

"Nice music," said Jane.

"We have to get a table!" said Sandi. Sandi had an eager need to hold court before warming up for the night of dancing.

The line of six snaked through the chatters, partiers, the desperate, the drugged, the curious and the exhilaratingly happy. In a darkened area, they found the bar, old tables with a lava lamp in the center of every circular table.

"Stacy and Tiffany, you should get some drinks!" said Quinn.

Stacy and Tiffany were up to it. "Sure!" said Stacy. "What do you want?"

Sandi was undecided. "What are you guys going to have?"

"I'm having a Long Island Iced Tea!" said Stacy.

"Vodka and Lime Tonnnnnic!" said Tiffany.

"Mimosa for me!" said Quinn.

"Coke and Bacardi!" said Sandi. "Daria, Jane, what are you guys going to have?"

Jane thought. "Just get me a wine cooler? What about you, Daria?"

"Uhhhhh...." Daria had never drank. Hated drinking. Drinking killed brain cells. And it looked like the Fashion Club was going to provide an example.

"Just get her a Coke!" said Jane. Stacy and Tiffany toddled off.

"If you want a drink," said Sandi to Daria, "you can share my Bacardi!"

"Thanks," Daria muttered. Jane was swaying her head back and forth. She turned to Daria. "Do you think we should hit the floor?"

"Sure," said Daria, "and maybe some one will ask you to sing, 'Purple Rain'".

Jane shot Daria a look of annoyance. Daria's comment on Jane's purple themed outfit hurt Jane, but neither of the two acknowledged it.

Sandi and Quinn immediately began chatting about other people and their clothing choices.

"Did you see the Peter Pan blouse that girl was wearing?!" Quinn said loudly, having to shout over the hustle and bustle.

"I liked that!" said Sandi. "She looked messy, but it was like a planned messy!!"

"She looked like that girl in the cafeteria! That frosh that was friend with that Goth girl! Glad you told her off for giving you attitude!"

"To-tal douchebag!" said Sandi. "So Quinn, you remember my suede boots?"

"Sure!"

"I'm looking for a navy dress to wear with them and I went to Junior Five and they didn't have anything! Do you know where I could find one?"

"Funky Doodle?"

"Like I would be seen there!" said Sandi. They both cackled.

Stacy and Tiffany snaked back to the table. Stacy was holding drinks while Tiffany was popping her neck to the music around them. A crowd of guys was snaking behind them.

With the passing out of the drinks, Stacy and Tiffany took their seats to take their part at the Fashion Club court. Five guys showed up at the table.

"Hi! Haven't seen you here!" said the leader, wearing a pinstriped suit with a yellow unbuttoned shirt with a beige T-shirt underneath.

Sandi and Quinn shared a brief glance. Acceptable! "We haven't seen you here, either!" said Quinn.

"I'm Vincent! This is John, Maury, Ben, and Blaine!"

"I'm Quinn, this is Sandi, Stacy, Tiffany, Jane, and Daria!"

"Do you go to school around here?"

"We go to school in Lawndale!" Sandi figured the young men meant "college", but why disabuse them of the notion.

John took his opportunity, calling to Tiffany, "do you want to dance?!"

"Surrrrrre!!" Tiffany stood up and John and Tiffany hit the dance floor.

"Where do you go to school?"

"Lawndale State! Delta Tau Delta! We're all business majors!" (Vincent meant 'marketing', but business sounded better.)

"Cooool!" cooed Stacy.

Ben got his courage up. "Do you dance?" he asked Stacy.

"Sure!" chirped Stacy. Stacy almost bounced out of the seat. Before departing, she took a quick gulp of her Long Island Iced Tea.

"What's your major?" said Vincent.

Before Sandi could answer, Daria said, "Advanced nuclear physics."

The brief rush of blood and annoyance rushed to Sandi's face then went away just as quickly. Vincent ignored Daria's comment completely. "So do you dance, Sandi?"

"Not right now!" said Sandi smiling. "Maybe later. You'll come back, right?"

"Oh definitely!" said Vincent. "See you later!"

Vincent and the other two left. Quinn grabbed Sandi's arm and giggled. "So what do you think?"

"Vincent's trying too hard. There are better guys here! But I liked the pinstripes. He should pin those cuffs, though!"

(* * *)

Unfortunately for Daria, this was how the rest of the evening went. Tiffany and Stacy did most of the dancing, and they led a stream of guys -- Daria counted at least thirty -- back to the table at the bar. All of the Fashion Club members were starting to build up a buzz. Each of them was now on their second drink. If my mom knew Quinn was here, said Daria, there would be a boatload of agony.

Sandi and Quinn were almost in each other arms, both slightly buzzed, laughing wildly over something that some guy said or something that some girl two years ago did. Stacy had virtually moved onto the dance floor, sometimes dancing with as many as six guys at once. Her purse was filled with phone numbers of guys. She made sure never to give a guy her phone number, though, and she went back to the table for refills.

Tiffany said that she thought John was too 'clingy' and that the guys at Platinum were too 'clingy' in general, but that didn't stop her from hitting the dance floor almost as often as Stacy. She quickly moved through the first Vodka and the second and was now on number three.

"Don't worry about these guys!" Tiffany said to Jane and Daria. "They'll ask you out! They're just afraid! But you really need to get rid of those glasses, Daria! And you could afford to smile once in a while! It wouldn't kill you!"

Tiffany was more or less drunk. Daria was astonished by the transformation in Tiffany. Her goofy slooooow drawwwwl had completely disappeared. Her entire manner of speech was transformed. She sounded like a completely person, with a soft California accent. She was aggressive, peppering her conversation with a pointed finger.

But somehow, Quinn had moved into the center of the universe, even at Platinum. An attractive cadre of men were making their way to the six hot babes that had showed up. And every now and then, as if it had been worked out to a science, Quinn would go out for a dance with one of the young men.

One dance only. No touching. No exchange of phone numbers. But Quinn would look into a guy's eyes and even guys five or six years older would believe, if only for the scan of part of dance, that they were the center of Quinn's universe. In her cream colored dress, she looked as if she was in a class all of her own, fragile, beautiful, and wonderful.

Sandi hadn't budged yet.

"Aren't you gonna dance?" said Jane, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"I'm waiting until it gets really crazy!" she said. "Then I go out there and I'm going to dance them all right off the floor!" Sandi took out a small portable fan to blow some of the heat away from the area. The fan had small light emitting diodes attached to the blades so that when Sandi switched the fan on, moving concentric circles blinked back and forth with the whirring of the plastic fan blades.

Sandi pulled off the sweater, and now wore the tank top and jeans. "I think it's hot enough! See you later! Do you care to watch our purses?"

"Uh...sure," said Jane. With that, Sandi disappeared, leaving Daria and Jane all alone.

Jane turned to Daria. "Well...having fun yet?"

"Tons," muttered Daria.

"The least we could do then," sighed Jane, "is get some drinks."

"Should I get your martini shaken, or stirred?"

"Let's just get some Cokes," said Jane. Daria could be a real buzzkill.

Daria looked for any excuse to get up and move around. She took some money from Jane and headed to the bar for a refill.

(* * *)

While Daria was gone, Jane noted how Daria had become further and further withdrawn during the whole Platinum experience. She had retreated into one of her "no conversation" zones. Jane was finding it very boring having to nursemaid Daria. Earlier, Jane had gotten the notion to invite Daria to one of Trent's performances at the Zon later that month but if this was the way it was going to be, Jane would just bail out on Trent's behalf.

A young man sort of wandered in her direction. He wore a blue button-up shirt and khaki pants. He looked a bit preppy to be at Platinum. Not the studied-fashion-preppy that Stacy was pretending to be, but an old school Prep. The look on his face betrayed confidence.

He turned to Jane. "Hey," he said.

"Hey." Jane wasn't that impressed.

The young man could tell that he was violating the Fashionable People's Rule of Personal Space. With Jane all clad in purple, he assumed she was one of the Fashionbots he and his friends had seen sitting there earlier. He usually didn't give such girls the time of day...they never had anything interesting to say and were always angling for a gift, or an invitation for a fancy restaurant, or something.

"I'm just looking for some friends of mine," he said.

"Oh?" said Jane, skeptical. Daria would have told him, 'You have friends?'

He looked annoyed. The crowd kept getting larger and larger. "Should I start waving a flag or should I just send up a signal fire?"

"Maybe you should ask the DJ to make a request."

"I wonder if he knows 'Turn The Music Down For a Few Minutes So I Can Hear Myself Think?'"

Jane chuckled. "I don't think that one has a 12-inch extended loop dance remix!"

He smiled. "You're not with the band here, are you?" indicating Jane's choice of clothes.

"Yeah. I'm DJ Jane. I'm just resting here between shifts."

"What do you do then?" he asked, becoming more interested.

"I'm a singer!"

"Oh really?"

"Yeah! Listen to this!" She began screeching, off key, "Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!!"

"That's really awful," he said. No sense in sugar-coating it.

"You're an honest one, eh? Actually, I'm an artist!"

"Wow, that's cool." It sort of made sense, the way she was dressed and her easy sense of humor.

"But I do like to sing in my spare time!" Jane decided to hit him again. "Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!!" She got a kick out of his annoyance. Not a cruel kick, but a nice, teasing kick.

"Mm, very nice," he muttered, not wanting any more singing. "You like convertibles?"

"Sofas?" Was he coming on to her?

"Cars!"

He was coming on to her! "Why, you got one?" she asked, expecting the trap to be laid.

"Um, no...but the roof of my car is rusting through."

If that was a come-on line, it was the goofiest one ever! thought Jane. Jane relaxed. "Almost the same thing," she said with a smile.

"I think the sad decay of it all might appeal to your artistic sensibility. Want to check it out, maybe get some food?" The young man decided to give up looking for his friends, who had probably hooked up with whatever girls could be culled from the herd. If he was going to be left in the lurch, why not enjoy himself and take someone with him? She seemed interested. They would probably not even know he was gone.

Jane didn't want to go off with this guy...not yet, anyway. "Food, then back here?" There had to be a burger joint somewhere.

"Sound all right?"

"Let me just tell my friend!"

Daria came back with the Cokes. She noticed the new guy standing there as Jane stood up.

"Hey, Daria, this is...uh...."

"Tom."

"Hi," said Daria. Another prep-school wannabe.

"Hey," said Tom. She'd look cute without the glasses.

"His car's falling apart so we're going to go for a ride!" Jane, frankly, couldn't wait to be out of there and away from Daria.

Daria looked at Jane as if Daria were a Christian about to be thrown to the wolves. It was a look of acute distress.

"I'll be right back!" said Jane, trying to assure Daria.

"Wasn't the whole point of this excursion to prove that we could hang with Quinn and her goofy friends?" said Daria.

"True dat. And you know what? I've decided that Quinn and her goofy friends aren't worth hanging with."

Daria looked forlorn.

"It's not like I'm going to be gone all night! Just a burger!"

Daria gave up. Even Jane doesn't want to hang out with me. She sat down with the Cokes as Jane got her purse and prepared to go, without so much as looking back.

The young man -- Tom Sloane -- turned to Daria. "Nice meeting you," he said to Daria before they both disappeared. Looking at Daria's face, Tom got the impression that if Daria could say two words to Tom, the first one would begin with "F" and the second one would begin with "Y".

(* * *)

Quinn walked back to the table. When she saw Sandi enter the dance floor, she knew that it would turn into The Great Dance-Off. Sandi entering a dance floor was an excuse for Quinn leave it. Besides, Sandi couldn't dance to save her life. Quinn thought Sandi exuded a radioactive radius of flop sweat. If she weren't fashionable, no one would dance with her! Daria probably dances better!

The thought brought a smile to Quinn. Looks like Daria's going all out for the Wallflower Award! Fine! That was the point. Here you are, at the hottest club in Lawndale, the whole night could be yours, we made you semi-fashionable, or at least more fashionable than most of the girls here, you have us to help you, and what do you do? Crawl in a corner! Quinn would have bet her mad money that no guy had even tried to ask Daria on the dance floor.

"Hey, Daria," Quinn said, more in a sense of reluctant acknowledgment than social greeting.

Daria muttered something back.

"Where's Jane?" asked Quinn.

"Jane went out for some food," said Daria.

"How?" Sandi had the car.

"She went with some guy," admitted Daria.

"Real-lllly?" asked Quinn, her interest building. Quinn wanted to know who this guy was. One of the guys at Platinum? Quinn figured that if Jane went out with anyone, it would be a part-time Hell's Angel named "Tex" with ugly tattoos. "So what did he look like?"

"He was...brown haired. Or something."

"What was his name?"

"Tom." Daria definitely remembered the name.

"What was he wearing?"

Daria sensed where this was going. "A bearskin. He was also carrying a club."

"Did she say she was coming back?"

"After food."

Quinn figured that Jane wasn't coming back. If I were stuck all night with the Misery Chick, I'd look for a guy, any guy to get me out of here! I'd even go with a freshman!

"So how come Jane went out for food and you didn't go with her?"

I didn't want to interfere. I wasn't invited. Jane had a chance to have fun without me. Shut up. Stop asking me!

Quinn knew there was no point in talking to Daria any further. It was just irritating her. Should I let Sandi know? No. Sandi would just figure out a way to rub it in. I'll tell Sandi something. I'll make something up.

"Look Daria," said Quinn, "you really need to relax, okay?"

"Maybe I should have a mimosa," answered Daria sarcastically. "How many have you had? Could you pass a breathalyzer?"

OO-oooHHHH! Fine! You can spend the night with our purses! You hate this place. You think you're so much better than us! You hate fashionable people. You hate romance, and music, and dancing, and fun! Well just keep on hating them, Daria! None of us need your permission to have a good time! Part of me was hoping that you'd prove Sandi wrong. Ha! You are a loser!

"I'm going back out to dance! See you!" Who knows, thought Quinn, maybe she would challenge Sandi, Stacy and Tiffany for dance supremacy. The losers would have to sit with Daria. It would be an active, wonderful night...and Quinn and the others planned to stay at Platinum for hours...