DANNY Chapter 49 by Roberta J. Cabot This is a story about Daniel, a guy with a unique talent and an even more unique problem: A great singing voice and the looks of his gorgeous sister. And how he and his family deal with his having breasts. And how he ends up as the female lead singer for a high-school cover band as well as a radio DJ. Janet made an appearance and goes crazy, knocking down and hitting Drew, Joanne and Betsy, but escaped before the store cops could catch her. Never a dull moment with Batch Fourteen, and Dan & his gang.

  Chapter Forty-Nine: Photoshoots

***** (Tracey) *****

There were a lot of advertisers that still wanted to advertise with the station, but there were no available spots anymore. In fact, we had bookings for the next six to nine months. So I came up with a couple of ideas which we started right away.

Firstly, we started streaming KRPQ on the net - I got the people from PiperCorp to set it up for us as well as set up our website.

This gave us a new advertising platform. We weren't limited to the twenty-four hour broadcast clock of the station anymore.

After reviewing the relevant laws and practices, though, we realized that we couldn't really make much out of each placed Internet "commercial" or ad. And mom wouldn't stand for a stupid amount of pop-up ads nor attach a commercial for each click, nor use up too much of the desktop real estate for ads just to make up for the advertising shortcoming.

So, my next thought was to introduce the idea of "official partners" - these being companies that would get the privilege of calling themselves our "official partners" in exchange for regular 15 second stinger ads at the station, prominent ad placements in our site including hotlinks, and allowing them the use of our logo et cetera in their marketing collaterals, free mentions in our on-air programs and online content, and that they'd be featured in our station's posters. They also get seven gross posters.

Not gross, as in "ewww!" A "gross" is 144, or a dozen dozen - look it up, it's an actual unit. So seven gross means a thousand and eight posters which they can put up in their shops or offices, with an option for them to purchase extra posters.

So mom identified specific areas for these partners: computer games, cars, fashion, sporting goods, musical instruments, fastfood and pastries, and started spruiking for partners. In a week, we signed up KRPQ's first Official Partners: Cowgirl Jeans and Rockrgrrl, of course - our two big regular supporters - and a bunch of new ones - Dyno Cars, one of the larger auto detailing and custom shops in the country; Empire East Entertainment, an up-and-coming video game company; Alley-Oop, the teen sporting goods chain; Prêt-à-Porter Magazine, the new YA fashion magazine; Julia Anne KupKakes; and M&N Pizza.

Why these companies wanted to advertise with us was something I didn't understand. We were a small-town station, so what could these big companies gain from us? But mom explained that they'd be gaining some goodwill from PiperCorp for a small amount, and, at the same time get a bunch of great advertising posters in the same deal. Mom was a genius.

However, we still needed someone to manage the site and the content for us - mainly someone to make sure the content was interesting and was within our fanbase's areas of interest, and to keep it up-to-date with the latest goings-on in the surrounding schools and neighborhoods.

PiperCorp could do that for us as well but it would be super-expensive. Sure, mom could waive the fees, but that just meant that PiperCorp just absorbed the cost instead of charging the station. So I made a suggestion - what if my friends did that for us? It's a fairly small site with very few pages so it shouldn't be difficult.

Mom wasn't too keen on that - kids running something this important?

But I said that we could get a consultant from PiperCorp to come in once a month to give advice and make site adjustments and such while the guys were basically in charge of content on a day-to-day basis.

Mom said that would work… provided that...

And that's how I suddenly became KRPQ's "communications director" and "assistant station manager" (with mom being the interim station manager - implying that I would eventually become the permanent station manager).

Per my plan, Morgan would be in charge of day-to-day content, with Jerry as his assistant, Mel in charge of the emails, and Mike as "executive staff" (actually Mike was more like a gofer that did follow-ups and odds-and-ends, like talk to the kids at school to follow up contributions for articles or pictures or other content. And to fetch coffees from time to time.) They all reported to Morgan, and Morgan reported to me as their boss for final approval of content prior to posting.

So we got the four their own company issued laptops, phones and IDs, and in lieu of offices, we set up a general work area at the station that we called "the bullpen" - staff can go there and use whatever tables were free, and plug into the station's Internet (wi-fi was discouraged). The usual occupants were our "news staff" which was Harry and Sally, and me and my "communications team" made up of Morgan, Jerry, Mel & Mike. Goodwyn the security guard would be a regular user of the bullpen, too, as well as whichever announcer was next up, and "Robin" on Saturday mornings.

Mom wanted to give Danny and I permanent offices but we nixed that and said we'll be okay to just use the bullpen.

In a week, our fledgeling site had started to accumulate hits, and our social media accounts started accumulating likes and followers. We also got a slew of article contributions and a ton of pictures, with Jerry and Mel doing the appropriate copy-proofing and photo adjustments.

Our success, though, was problematic. Mel found that she was totally overwhelmed with the number of emails and asked me if we could have some more people to help review, cull and collate the ginormous number of emails that were coming in: as expected, the bulk of it - over 30% - was for Robin, and a significant number - over 15% - was for Dannie or the other members of UB, and only the remaining half being station-related stuff. We didn't expect the email for Dannie and UB, though, but, apparently, a lot of our fans assumed UB was part of KRPQ.

So I appointed Nikki and Drew to help Robin-slash-Danny to handle her email, and Joanne to work with the band and manage the email for UB.

To stress the separation between UB and us, I sweet-talked Mom into commissioning a separate site for UB, and as soon as it was up, UB's generic site was heavily modified by the band (but mostly by Danny) into a much more funky and fan-friendly site (the hot-link to our site was, of course, there). And the UB email tapered off (while traffic to UB's site increased five-fold).

In practice, though, no one really had any specific "turf" - everyone helped everyone else - and, typical for our little group, we were somehow able to manage. Mom was quite pleased, and our gang was also pleased since they were paid for easy work that involved, mostly, hanging around each other, which we would have done anyway.

As for the Official Partners program, the next thing was to start making up the posters. Mom personally took charge of that, and worked with the clients and the PiperCorp marketing people. Once the sketches and storyboards were approved, mom solicited my help to look for locations for the necessary photo shoot.

It goes without saying, though, that Robin, Harry, Sally and Talia would be our models, and in some of the posters, we included Dennis and Lou. The gang was used as "extras" and such and, for Rockrgrrl, Alley-Oop and Prêt-à-Porter, they requested UB as well.

I negotiated with Danny and Danielle for the modeling fees we had to pay the gang and the band. It wasn't much since they were just kids and were not professionals. The most expensive talent fee was actually Sally's since she was a professional model and commanded professional-level fees.

Anyway, even with all this, this campaign was dirt-cheap. At least according to mom. It was hard to believe it would work, because the budget mom gave me barely covered it.

Oh, well.

- - - - -

***** (Tracey) *****

After I determined the locations for the shoots, we scheduled them for several consecutive Sundays.

The first Sunday shoot was for Alley-Oop and Rockrgrrl, and was to be shot over in Danny's and Danielle's school. After getting permission from Mrs. Harmon, their principal, and making sure that no one knew, we set it up for that Sunday. Mrs. Harmon did insist on being present, though, but mom didn't mind. In fact, she felt it was important to have someone making sure everything was above-board and was according to regulations.

A big touring bus and a truck full of equipment brought all of us to the school.

First was to the auditorium for the Rockrgrrl shoot.

The stage hands set up the little stage to look busy with a lot of decoration and bunting, and they set up Mongo's drums and June's keyboard.

Danielle, as per plan, stood in for Dannie, and she and Fallon, stood in front with Rockrgrrl guitars - "Dannie" with her candy-pink electric and Fallon with a borrowed electric blue. And for Dale, he just used a walnut acoustic PIMA bass that the people from Rockrgrrl lent us for the day, along with Fallon's electric blue. As usual "Dannie" wore scarves trailing from her wrists.

All of the girls wore super-sexy bolero shrugs over baby tees and shiny leggings. June's were shiny yellow, Fallon's was emerald green and "Dannie's" were bright carmine red. They all wore sky-high peep toe platform stiletto pumps and were hardly able to move - the stilettos were sixteen centimeters, according to the boxes that they came in.

As for Dale and Mongo, they wore muscle shirts with leather pants and construction boots.

Not to be outdone, Danny, as Robin (with her hair colored in a dark brunette wash, and her brows and lashes darkened to match her hair), was wearing a sexy fitted leather girl's moto jacket over a super-tight and stretchy white tanktop-style bodysuit (Danny also wore black-tinted contact lenses to add more of a difference to her Dannie-the-singer persona).

Also, Just like with Dannie and her scarves and flippy hairstyle, it seems Danielle was deliberately developing a "style" for Robin as well by making her wear some kind of jacket over something white all the time. Luckily, the shoot's wardrobe mistress was able to accommodate her.

"Robin" also wore a pair of slouchy booties with chunky platform heels so she was able to walk around easier than the girls from the band, and making her taller than Danielle as Dannie. She snickered at the girls not being able to walk much. Danielle gave her a razzberry.

Also not to be outdone, Talia was wearing something similar to Danny's, but Sally was wearing a sexy, high-fashion cocktail dress while Harry was wearing a brown, scuffed bomber jacket over a shirt and tie, and jeans and cowboy boots - outfits to match their roles as "fashion reporter" and "roving reporter." The three carried prop microphones as well, with the station's logo stuck on them. Dennis and Lou were conspicuously absent because I asked them to work the booth for the duration of the shoot.

As for our "crowd," they were wearing stereotypical school outfits, that is, if the school body was made up of kids with extremely good fashion sense and personal stylists and makeup people.

The crowd was made up of Mel, Nikki, Drew, Joanne, Morgan, Mike, and Jerry. Since there were only seven of them, in desperation, I recruited Danny's three bodyguards. At least they looked close to being teenagers. I also recruited several of the station's bookers, accounting people and admin staff from the office.

That gave us twenty "kids" for our crowd, and the shoot's director was happy. Mom gave me a kiss and a short "good work."

When everything was ready, I stood beside the photographer and asked him how he felt. He called the shoot a cheesecake shot. I asked what he meant, and he gestured at the band.

"Isn't it obvious?" he said. I looked and I guess he was right. As Mike would put it, this was nothing but fanservice. All the kids looked too good, and so were the outfits - they were a little too nice as well as the right amount of, ummm, risque? I looked at Mrs. Harmon, the school principal, but she seemed fine with everything. I whispered "go" to the photographer and floor director, and the shoot started.

The shots weren't very unusual: basically just a staged concert type of scene. What the shoot yielded were several shots: one set was of the band playing on their Rockrgrrl instruments (Mongo and June showcasing the first of Rockrgrrl's new drums and keyboard lines) and our reporters "covering" the concert; another was a set of the band taking a bow as the "kids" threw flowers and our reporters talked to the camera; another was the band apparently just finishing their show and were being accosted by the "fans" asking for autographs. There were others, too, but they were hardly serious shots - they were mostly playing and just making fun of the shoot itself.

Later that week, when I sent the proofs to Katie and Lady Isabel, they said they liked all the shots and actually included two that, frankly, shocked me.

One was a shot of everyone during a break. It was a candid shot that showed, on one side, June teaching Drew how to play one of Drew's favorite songs on the keyboard - I forget the name of the song - and Drew's look of concentration was very serious, indeed. Around them were Dale, Mongo and Morgan, obviously making fun of Drew's playing.

On the other side was Sally, "Robin" and "Dannie" chatting, Danielle-as-Dannie casually holding her candy-pink electric and Danny-as-Robin holding her microphone. In truth, the three were just discussing what they wanted for lunch but in the picture, it was like Robin and Sally were interviewing Dannie.

Around the two, Mel and Jerry were running around them being chased by Mike with Fallon's electric blue guitar, and at the foot of the stage, with feet dangling over the edge, was Harry, Fallon, Betsy and Talia - Betsy's head on Fallon's shoulder.

It was a great shot, and it soon became a kind of collector's poster, at least among fans of Dannie, UB and Robin. In fact, properly cropped, that one shot yielded five other posters.

The other was a shot of Danny, as Robin, looking into the camera quite irritatedly as the gang was all around her making funny faces. It was just after Danny called for everyone to get serious about the shoot so they could all go home early, and everyone reacted typically.

And the reason I was shocked was because these pictures were just pictures of my friends goofing off - outtakes - and wasn't meant to be taken seriously by anyone, much less the client. Apparently I made the mistake of sending all the stage pics in my email to Katie, including the outtakes.

Oh, well.

- - - - -

***** (Tracey) *****

The next shoot later that day was for Alley-Oop, and for that we went to the school's gym.

Danny's school had what was essentially a covered basketball court, with tiered bleachers on one side. This made it ideal for the shoot.

So, after a quickie lunch of takeout Big Macs and fries which we ate in the empty cafeteria, my models all changed into their next costumes.

However, we realized that we were missing one more person - which was basically someone to play the "coach."

Thinking quickly, I decided to call Dennis Oldfield. His shift had just ended by then so he could be our coach.

So, while we waited for him, we started shooting the pictures we had in mind that didn't require the "coach" character.

The first shot was all the girls - Fallon, Betsy, June, Nikki, Mel, Joanne, Talia and Sally all in cheerleader costumes similar to the Arizona Cardinals cheerleader uniforms (that's because of the style they picked - sleeveless croptop, belted short hotpants and white boots, and in the corporate colors of the Alley-Oop company - cardinal red with blue and white trim. So their outfits ended up looking very similar to the uniforms of the Arizona Cardinals cheerleaders), and with Danielle and Danny in the front row, cheering and with pompoms flying. The "crowd's" legs and lower torsos could just be seen in the upper bleachers since they were all standing. In the lower foreground, in blurred half-focus were the "basketball players," (actually, Dale, Mongo, Morgan, Mike and Jerry) making a fast break, with Dale dribbling the basketball across the court.

The next one was a Held Ball situation, and Morgan, wearing a t-shirt with the radio station's logo, was holding the basketball at the same time as Dale was, and he was wearing a t-shirt with the Alley-Oop logo. Surrounding them were their "teams" - on our team was Morgan, Mike, Robin, Mel and Nikki while on the Alley-Oop team was Dale, Morgan, Dannie, Fallon and June. In the background in cheerleader costumes were the rest of the girls cheering. It was a long exposure shot which blurred the people a bit - mostly their arms and legs, indicating movement.

This same shot was re-staged several times, with Danny & Danielle in the clinch in one, and Nikki & June, in another, and Betsy & Fallon in another. The shots with Nikki & June and Betsy & Fallon were so sexy, with well-built twins, and in the other with two redhead hotties, fighting for the basketball.

As soon as Dennis arrived and changed into his coach costume of tracksuit and whistle, we re-staged to do some game-already-in-progress shots, with the guys playing ball, or sitting on the bench cooling off with sports drinks or bottles of water in hand, and other similar shots. The last one was a series of shots where Dennis, now dressed as a referee, tossing a ball in the air and Dale and Morgan tapping the ball away. This was re-done again and again, with Danny & Danielle, and then Nikki & June, and then Betsy & Fallon.

In all of the shots, everyone was, of course wearing Alley-Oop shoes and using Alley-Oop basketballs and sports equipment, and their t-shirts had either the station's or Alley-Oop's logo on them. Dannie's diaphanous scarves trailing from her wrists were a bit of an anomaly, but it was her trademark, and mom and Danielle insisted on them.

When I sent the shots to the client later that week, I remembered my snafu with the Rockrgrrl pics, so I made sure not to include our for-fun-only blooper shots this time. The client came back pretty quickly, however, and picked all of the pics I sent, giving us carte blanche which we can use. Mom was pretty pleased at this and I was pretty proud. This also meant that we were able to up our fee by changing their posters to 500 copies per picture.

- - - - -

***** (Tracey) *****

The next shoot on the following Sunday was a bit easier since it was for the Empire East videogame company, and we were doing it all in the station's offices, on the building's rooftop, and on the street just outside the building.

So, using the computers in the station, we made the bullpen and the admin area look like what we imagined Empire East's programming department to be, with my communications team of Morgan, Jerry, Mel, Mike, Nikki, Mel and Joanne, plus Sally, Harry, Talia, and Robin (Robin was a requirement of the client) as my models. Danny again had brunette hair, courtesy of a dark wash applied by Joanne.

The PiperCorp costumer and dresser had them all in hipster and grunge outfits - that is, if hipsters and punk rockers wore "designer" grunge outfits. Robin, in fact, still looked quite fetching in a halter top, torn leggings, combat boots, cycling gloves and knitted cap. I also used Dennis and Lou, but only for a short time (they were the ones on duty in the booth, after all), and I had them play the "bosses." We then had the others pose in attitudes and poses appropriate for programmers and software geeks working on their desktops and laptops, and though it all felt very staged, the intention was to actually make it look staged to add a campy element to the shoot.

But, counting the number of models, I worried because of our plans for the shoot on the roof and on the street - we had planned to stage mock battles between the characters from Empire East's latest videogame hit called Firebird, but we didn't have enough models. I called mom and told her my idea. Thankfully, she agreed. But she said she wanted to be at the shoot now and watch.

So, I gave Dale and Danielle calls.

My idea was to have the UB guys as our extra models. I thought quickly, and split my models into two groups of equal number. But I needed one more. And then I thought of Kelly, one of Danny's bodyguards. Hmmm…

As soon as the guys arrived, I started splitting them up based on which of the costumes that the company sent fit best. For the "good guys," I made sure that all of them were KRPQ folks: Sally, Talia, Robin, Drew, Nikki, Joanne, Harry, Morgan and Mike. For the "bad guys," I had June, Fallon, Betsy, Danielle-as-Dannie, and I added Mel, and then Kelly - Danny's bodyguard (I made sure, though, that Kelly had a costume that obscured most of her face - she needed her anonymity so she could continue to be Danny's bodyguard). As for their boys, I had Dale, Mongo and Jerry.

I was told that the costumes that Empire East sent were actually made by cosplayer fans of the game, and were "ruggedized" by props specialists the company hired. Thank god they all fit my models. The fans who built the costumes got credited in the posters, and most of them became stars in their own rights within cosplayer circles, and found themselves with commissions to make more costumes.

The characters from Firebird were quite similar to the characters from Overwatch and, because of this, most fans said that Firebird was just a glorified ripoff of that game, but that didn't damage sales at all, and it remained #5 in the market, but slowly climbing in the rankings in the following weeks (I think our posters had something to do with that heehee).

In any case, the shots that we first did were shots on the roof. This was quite useful since we were able to get a lot of fight shots of them against empty sky, allowing post production an easier time to add effects. The next series of shots were done on the street, again with everyone having fun pretending they were like superheroes battling each other.

I knew, of course, that the Empire East guys would be doing a lot of post production to include special effects and such. I was very excited to see the final versions.

The big headache for this shoot was they weren't just static shoots but video - though each clip was no longer than five seconds, so that the effects guys could get "tracking shots," which they needed for their effects and additions.

We didn't shoot a lot on the street, however, since a bunch of cops came over and asked if we had permits to shoot on the street.

I didn't even know that we needed permits. Good thing mom was there, and she was able to haggle with the cops and we weren't fined or anything. However, we had to shut down our photoshoot, and had to be content with what they got, which were only seventy-five percent of what they wanted.

In any case, we had enough shots-slash-clips. Dannie still wore her silky scarves tied to her wrists even though she was in costume as the Death Diva character from Firebird. But even if her version of Death Diva had scarves on her wrists, it seemed to work. So much so, in fact, that in the next build of Firebird, Death Diva was featured with scarves around her wrists.

As we went back to the office upstairs so that my models could change out of their costumes, they were all talking excitedly. Clearly, they enjoyed the shoot.

Darn. Too bad we had to cut it short. Maybe we can go to some Cosplay conventions in the future.

- - - - -

***** (Tracey) *****

The following Sunday was even more hectic since we were doing posters for five companies this time, specifically Cowgirl Jeans, Dyno Cars, Prêt-à-Porter Magazine, Julia Anne KupKakes, and M&N Pizza. In fact, because of time pressure, Danny couldn't get the usual wash for her hair, and had to wear a wig. Good thing Danielle was good with wigs, so it didn't look like Robin was wearing one at all.

Having learned our lesson from the previous Sunday, we had gotten permission to seal off a stretch of high street. This particular portion of the street was lined mostly with high-end retail and commercial shops. Well, high-end for our little town anyway.

Like in most small towns, these stores were closed on Sundays, and there was therefore very little traffic, whether vehicular or pedestrian, so town officials didn't mind us closing this part of the street. They didn't even bother to station any traffic police there, although they did put up the necessary roadblocks and the appropriate detour signs to reroute traffic. As mom said, there were both advantages and disadvantages to small town living.

We also asked permission or, in this case, rented, some of the shops and stores along that street and "staffed" them with our own people. Some of the owners or managers of these establishments decided to watch the shoot, though, and we didn't mind.

We decided to shoot the one for Dyno Cars first.

The first setup we did was the one with the custom hotrod that they lent us, putting it in the drive-through area of one of the takeout places that was closed for the weekend.

Mom's people redressed the place to make it look like a fifties drive-in, and my models, namely the UB guys and my own "communications team" (i.e. Morgan and the gang), were all dressed like the cast from Grease, and we did some shots of them enjoying burgers and shakes and whatnot, which were actually food from McDonald's that our set people rewrapped in generic wax paper and poured the drinks into generic paper cups.

Another one of the shots was Morgan, Dale and Mongo, wearing the uniforms from Dyno Cars and "fixing" the car - Dale with artfully applied smudges on his forehead and cheeks as he wiped his hands while he chatted with Dannie and Robin - Robin wore a black leather jacket, a short-sleeved, Vogue off-the-shoulder stretchy top, high-waisted, faux-leather leggings and red stiletto heels - reminiscent of Olivia Newton-John as Sandra Dee in the last scene from the movie (except that Robin's top was a white bodysuit), and Dannie wore another Sandra Dee-inspired outfit, this time a vintage cardigan-poodle skirt in a bobby socks-type style (although she had scarves tied to her wrists). The car was filled with the rest of the girls in similar 50's style outfits, and Harry, in a fifties-era policeman's uniform talking with Mike and Jerry in their leather jacket "greaser" costumes as they tried to talk Harry out of issuing them a ticket.

In all the shots, the company's logo - a funny green tyranosaurus rex wearing a leather jacket - was prominent on the car doors or in the sign over the garage next door to the drive-in (which was actually the local office of the IRS, redressed to look like the front of a Dyno Cars garage).

The next shoot was for Cowgirl Jeans and the Prêt-à-Porter Magazine. We shot them in the place next door, which was like a mini department store.

We tried to be clever (but not too clever, of course) by making the shoot like the girls were shopping for clothes, and the guys were the stereotypical boyfriends that were being dragged around by their girls while they shopped, this time for Cowgirl jeans, blouses and other articles of clothing.

We, of course, featured the "real" couples in the bunch: Morgan and Drew, and Jerry and Mel. The others doubled as store clerks and such. Again, Dannie had her scarves on her wrists, and Robin had an outfit that featured Cowgirl skinny jeans and a white baby-tee under her sexy fitted, black satin jacket.

For Prêt-à-Porter Magazine, we had redressed the department store's main lobby as a kind of fashion runway, and we had everyone sashaying up and down wearing high-fashion clothes as Sally, Harry and Talia played fashion reporters "covering" the fashion event.

We tried to get as many of the guys on the ramp, which mom liked a lot. She said I should also do some modeling as well, but I demurred, saying we needed the recognizable people like Robin, Dannie and the band in the shoot.

Inside, though, I did want to model, but I was afraid that people would make fun of me, and how I looked like a transvestite or something. So I said what I said to mom.

Again, Dannie had her scarves and Robin was in a tight, stretchy drop-dead-sexy pure-white micro mini dress (if there was a thing as a "little white dress," this was it), a black silk wrap over it and red skyscraper stiletto heels.

The last shoot, which was for Julia Anne's and M&N, we shot in a stylish little restaurant in the floor upstairs.

We started with the girls sitting at a table while the wait-staff (played passably well by Dannie, Robin, Dale and Mongo in proper waiter-waitress attire) plied them with fancy little cakes and stuff. It was funny in that Dannie again had her scarves and Robin was in a Robin version of the waitress uniform - the white uniform blouse with a tight black bolero jacket over it.

Finally, we had the final shoot at the redressed kitchen with the big oven open and Dale and Mongo taking out big pizza pies and Robin carrying a platter out to the customers. We also had shots where Robin was serving some people the pizza. Of course, no one would know that the pizzas that she was dishing up were actually Domino's transferred into fake M&N boxes.

Several variations of these shots were taken, all with the logos of Julia Anne and M&N prominent in the shots. Eventually, though, when mom's watch said it was already five in the afternoon, we wrapped it up.

After finishing off the Julia Anne and M&N shots, mom shooed me and my "talent" away, and after my models got changed, we decided to go to Betsy's to hang out while mom supervised her people as they broke down the sets and packed up their equipment.

In all the shoots, Robin was played by Danny, but I tried to use Danny as "Dannie-the-Singer" whenever possible, such as in shots where Robin wasn't there and Dannie was. It was especially hard for brother-and-sister but I thought it necessary - I had a sense that Danielle playing Dannie wasn't as genuine as Danny playing Dannie. Screwy, huh? lol.

So it was best to have as many "Authentic Dannie" shots as possible.

After all this modelling, the girls (and though they wouldn't admit it, the boys, too) were pretty happy because, besides their fees, all the outfits they wore or used were all theirs now - a little perk that Sally explained was typical to photoshoots. So everyone had little parcels under their arms as their booty while we waited for our cars to be brought back by the valets. Our bodyguards stuck with us, just in case. It was their job, after all.

Mom and her people were all in the restaurant packing up, and us "kids" were all outside, waiting for our cars. While we waited, Jerry and Mel were whispering to each other, and whatever Jerry said, Mel giggled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Predictably, we all went, "oooh!" So Jerry leaned over and gave Mel a peck as well. We all giggled and made Jerry kiss her again.

Morgan, seeing this, grabbed Drew around the waist, bent her over like in the movies, and gave her a super-hot kiss.

Mike cleared his throat. "Dude," he said, "you need to come up for air eventually…" and everyone laughed.

Morgan did come up for air, but it was more because our cars had arrived - my Cruiser, Joanne's minivan, Danny's 'stang and Dale's big F150.

And when the drivers left, it was Danny and Nikki's turn.

Danny waggled her eyebrows at Nikki, and Nikki nodded. Danny went for it and dived in for a kiss. Talk about sexy-hot!

When you see two good-looking women making out, you can react in any of two ways - either you'd get turned on or, if you weren't open-minded enough or didn't like girl-on-girl kinds of things, then you probably would be a little put off, or perhaps even be offended. But I don't think you would with these two, especially if one of the "girls" was Danny.

"Ohmigod," Fallon murmured, looking at the two. For a gay person like her, this was probably the height of sexiness. "Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod…"

Betsy sidled up to Fallon and elbowed her in the ribs. "Calm down, dear," Betsy whispered to her and giggled.

"But…" Fallon gestured at the two, "but…"

"I know, but it's rude to stare."

Obviously, the two were lost in each other, and though I felt a sharp, bitter twist of jealousy, like a knife in my heart, it was clear Danny had chosen her girl. I wished it was me, but what could I do? Fleetingly, I wanted to hurt Nikki, but I couldn't. She was my friend. Wasn't that a little bit of crazy-making? Wanting to hurt my friend?

I looked around and caught Betsy's eye. We knew what we were both thinking and feeling. I shrugged at her, and she started to tear up a bit. Mel, behind her, hugged her from the back, and put her chin on Betsy's shoulder as they both looked on. It wasn't just me, then, I guess.

We looked on in a happy-sad melancholy way. The silence was so loud… But the two didn't really notice.

And then we heard a car revving.

We looked towards that direction and saw a car barreling towards us.

It was moving so fast, there was literally no time to move away, and the car clipped Jerry and I, but they were just glancing hits so we weren't hurt too much. Still, the impact was enough to make both of us spin around and send us falling to the ground.

The car spun around and started making for Danny and Nikki, but Danny, thinking fast, pulled Nikki behind her mustang.

The car swerved to follow them and it hit the Mustang solidly on the passenger side, crumpling that side of the car.

The intruder then pulled back, swerved around sloppily - not in the neat way that police or stunt drivers would - and screeched away.

Danny, after making sure Nikki was okay, jumped into her mustang and roared after the mystery driver.

Morgan and Mike helped pick Jerry and I up, and a couple of the bodyguards came over. The others bodyguards roared off to follow Danny and the attacker.

The ones that stayed had the proper EMT training so they were able to check us out. As far as they could tell, we were both fine, though we were going to have some bruises tomorrow. Mom had called an ambulance and the paramedics checked us out as well when they arrived. They pronounced us okay so I had a long debate with mom if we should still be brought to the hospital. As usual, she won the debate and Jerry and I were whisked to the hospital by the ambulances. Mel and Mike went with us, and we got ourselves checked in.

After yet another thorough physical examination, the doctors said we were just a bit bruised but were fine overall, so we could go home. Mom was able to wangle a doctor's note, though, which meant that Jerry and I could be excused from school tomorrow if we wanted.

Still, mom got Jerry and I a room (although we needed to share it), even though we didn't need to stay. Still, this gave everyone a place to congregate in. When Danny came in, we noted that she had taken off her brunette Robin wig. Once we were all together, Danny told us what happened.

to be continued...

 

click here to read my old Working Girl Blogs, click here to read all of my blogs, click here to read my stories in BCTS, and click here to see my profile & know more about me.