DANNY Chapter 51 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. So the posters turned out great, and Danny signed each of the first run's copies personally before being distributed to the station's Official Partner companies. But he worried about what was happening to Janet. After another talk with Dr. Roberts, he tried to stay away from his friends for fear of them being hurt by Janet again. Tracey convinced him to at least tell them why he was keeping away. Never a dull moment with Batch Fourteen, and Dan & his gang.

  Chapter Fifty-One: Our Friend, The Supermodel

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

As I drove to Betsy's, I told Danny that I had some gifts for the gang, so this was a good excuse for passing by.

"You mean to say the entire gang's at Betsy's?" Danny asked.

"Ummm, yes…"

She giggled. "I smell a setup."

"I'm sorry, Danny," I said. "I guess…"

She leaned over and gave me a little hug.

"I'm just foolin' with you, Trace," she said. "But maybe this is good. I think I need to talk to everyone." She took off her wig and fluffed up her real hair. That wig must get hot after a while.

In a few minutes, we were at the Haley's gate. We were buzzed in and I drove to the guests' garage.

After a bit we were in the living room.

Walter went to me. I whispered something to him, gave him my car keys, and he went away.

"Hey guys," Danny said, and waved to everyone.

"Dude," Morgan said, but no one came closer.

"Listen..." Danny faltered. "Guys, listen…"

Danielle stood up and went to him. "Danny, it's okay. You can tell us anything. We'll be okay." She gave Danny a hug.

"Yeah, dude," Mike said. "Whatever it is we did, we're sorry. Tell us what and we'll fix it, whatever it is."

Danny shook her head. "No, dude. There's nothing. I'm sorry if you guys thought I was mad or whatever - I wasn't. Really, I wasn't. But…"

She sighed and started all over again. "Well, I had a talk with someone - I can't say who it was, but that person told me something. He… or maybe it was a she, heheh… said that something may be wrong with Janet…"

"Janet!" everyone murmured.

"Well, what he… or she," Danny shrugged, "said was that Janet has somehow started obsessing on me. And because of her very unstable situation, she isn't exactly safe to be around. Sorta like that psycho in Fatal Attraction."

"Fatal attraction?" Mel asked.

"It's an old eighties movie," Morgan explained, "with Glenn Close acting all psycho coz she has this thing for Michael Douglas…"

"Ahhh! I know that movie!"

"Who said this, Danny?" Morgan asked.

Danny shrugged. "Sorry, Morgan. I promised him I wouldn't say.

"Anyway, whatever got Janet unhinged has made her dangerous," Danny explained. "Look at the minibus thing, that thing at the department store, and that thing at the photoshoot. And because of her obsession with me, anyone who's close to me - I mean anyone who's nearby me physically - is in danger. So I was staying away from everyone coz… coz I don't want anyone to get hurt because of me. I'm sorry…"

Nikki came over and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Oh, Danny…"

Morgan came up.

"Dude," Morgan said, but Danny didn't let him finish and gave him one of those dude hugs.

"Dude," Morgan repeated, "you didn't need to keep us away. We can take care of ourselves, we'll be okay."

"And besides," Joanne came over and tousled Danny's hair, "you need us. We can help find Janet."

"No!" Danny said. "You're not gonna look for her, Joanne! She's dangerous. Besides the cops are on it. We should leave it to them."

"Speaking of which, what's the latest with the cops, Danny?" Jerry asked.

I cleared my throat to interrupt. "The police have been to our place to update mom," I said. "They said they've returned Mr. O'hara's car. Mr. O'hara is currently having it fixed up. The police also returned some stuff they found at the Arclight - the stuff that the police suspected was what Janet used to sabotage our show - turns out it was Mr. O'hara's tools. For a while, they suspected Mr. O'hara to be involved, but he didn't know anything, plus he and Mrs. O'hara were not at the Arclight at the time.

"The police also found some people that saw Janet. They traced her to a motel just a couple of blocks from KRPQ, where she stayed for a while. Nothing was there, though - Janet had cleared out the day of the last photoshoot. She's also stopped going to her singing and acting classes, and none of her classmates have seen her for a while. And though there've been some reports that she's been seen around town, that was as close as they came to finding her."

"That's all?" Mike asked.

"I'm afraid so."

"Damn!"

I saw Betsy on her phone.

"Hey, Betsy," I said.

"Oh!" she said, and said goodbye to whoever she was talking to. "Sorry, Tracey."

"Who was that on the phone?"

"Oh, I was talking to my dad's head of security. I asked him to come over." She waved Danny's look of protest away. "No big, Danny - he's just at the office next door. He'll be here in a bit."

"But, Bets," Danny said, "why?"

"Well, if you're okay with it, Danny," she said, "I'm thinking of getting them to help us track Janet down."

"But…"

A big, six-foot-eight guy knocked and stepped up to Betsy.

"Hello, Ms Haley," he said and shook Betsy's hand.

"Hello, Mr. Carpenter. Everyone, this is Ian Carpenter. He's the head of our house security. Ian, we have a situation." She walked the big man to the couch, and everyone took turns explaining the situation while he sat.

Ian was clearly a professional that knew his stuff. He asked very direct and very relevant questions which we tried to answer as completely and as clearly as we could, and one couldn't help but be impressed by the way he was able to understand fourteen yammering teenagers.

In the end, he seemed to get the situation, and said that he would get back to Betsy as soon as he's come up with a plan and talked with Betsy's folks.

"Wow," Mike said after Ian had left. "Scary dude."

Mongo shrugged. "I don't know about that," he said. "He's not so scary."

Everyone booed him and he dodged throw pillows.

Danny went to Betsy.

"Bets," he said, "I don't know about…"

"It won't be too complicated, Danny," she said. "It'll probably mean some more bodyguards, sure, but…"

"Betsy," Danny whispered, "I don't think I can afford…"

Betsy gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry about it, Danny. I'll take care of it."

"Elizabeth…" Danny clearly wasn't liking it.

She went closer and whispered into Danny's ear.

"Danny," Betsy said to her, "I don't know if you noticed but I'm filthy rich." She giggled. "My family and I have so much money I don't know what to do with it. Let me do this, okay? Please?"

Danny hung her head and nodded.

Betsy lifted her head by the chin. "You're so cute when you're like this," she said.

No one heard their conversation except me, Danielle and Nikki, and only because we were nearby.

I gave Betsy a big smile and nodded, and she gave me a thumbs-up.

Everyone gathered close to Danny and it was a wonderful sentimental moment.

I then saw Walter standing by the door, and he nodded at me.

"Well," I said, "enough of this. The other reason we came over was because we have something for everyone. Walter?"

Walter came over with a couple of my backpacks.

"Thank you, Walter," I said, and started bringing out what looked like extra-large decks of cards, with cards the size of tarot cards.

"So, mom called me and said people from PiperCorp visited the station today. Seems our posters were done, and they brought the first batch of prints to the office."

"Yeah?" "Wow!" "Cool!"

"Did you bring copies, Trace?" Drew asked.

"I'm sorry, Drew, the posters that they delivered were all spoken for. I got us some extras but they won't be arriving for a while yet. So, for now, I got us the next best thing." I started to hand out the packs.

"Those aren't oversized playing cards, actually," I explained. "They're copies of the posters, one-sixth the size of the originals. Take a look."

They opened up the boxes, and I was very gratified by all the looks on their faces.

"I got lots, so if some want extras…"

"Oh! Me, me, me!" Mike said. I giggled and tossed him two or three more.

"They're so good!" Mel said, looking at them, and giggled. She elbowed Jerry in the ribs. "Say they're good!"

"They're good, they're good!" Jerry said. Everyone laughed and Mel gave him a kiss.

Everyone gathered around the couch and the other sofa and looked through the mini-posters. June and Drew giggled at the ones where they were partnered together. I looked over their shoulder and they looked very pretty there. But what one noticed right away was that they looked similar enough in them that they looked almost like twins.

"Sexy," Morgan commented and Drew gave him a thank you kiss. As an added incentive, June kissed him as well, on the cheek. Which was just another reason for yet another round of teasing.

I had to wonder at the dynamic of those three. The acknowledged couple was Drew and Morgan, and they were awfully sweet with each other. But as the months have gone by, June was often with the two, and seemed as affectionate with Morgan as Drew, and what's more, Drew didn't seem to mind. But June had not said anything one way or the other, and no one dared ask the three

Looking at the four other guys, I thought I saw a gleam of jealousy in their eyes. Having twins as girlfriends was one of the bigger fantasies of boys, and I guess Drew and June looked enough like each other to be twins. Maybe even as close as Danny and Danielle.

But what's more surprising was Mel and Jerry. Only recently did we acknowledge it. Those two were pretty tight, but no one really noticed it until they started working closely together on the website.

I sighed. I wished there was someone for me, too. But, to be honest, I'd rather wait until I'm complete… you know. My FFS surgeries were going to be in a couple of months, and my SRS (SRS is what it says in the books I've read but my doctors say it's now called GCS) is scheduled for next year, right after my eighteenth birthday. I could actually do it this year but my mom said it would be better if it was next year, as I would have come to my majority and no one can question mom then. In her position as a fairly well-known successful corporate executive, something like that could mean professional suicide for her, so I didn't mind waiting an extra year.

Still… I sighed again as I looked at my friends.

- - - - -

***** (Jerry) *****

The following day, Morgan and I spent the afternoon at the office. Me doing the techy computer stuff and Morgan doing everything else. The big job that day, as usual, was adding new content to the site.

And, of course, the new big thing in KRPQ were our "official partners" program. KRPQ's official partners at the moment were Rockrgrrl (our biggest and most consistent sponsor) for music; Cowgirl Jeans for apparel; the new magazine, Prêt-à-Porter, as our fashion partner; Dyno Cars, one of the larger auto rental, detailing and custom shops in the country for automotive; Empire East Entertainment, the newest big video game company for computers and video games; the national sporting goods chain, Alley-Oop for sports; and Julia Anne KupKakes and M&N Pizza as our food and restaurant partners.

But then, we've had them on the site for several weeks now. It's just that no one's been paying attention. But the moment we posted copies of the posters, they weren't ignored anymore.

Morgan wrote some nice copy to go with the posters (which I spell-checked and proofed - Morgan's writing needed it) and I reduced the size of the graphic files prior to uploading. Per Tracey's instructions, I put watermarks on all of them though, but made sure Robin and Dannie weren't overlaid by the watermarks. Tracey explained that Robin and Dannie were our station's main attractions so we needed them… unblemished.

I uploaded Morgan's text and the watermarked pictures, and waited for Tracey to approve them. Morgan texted her and, in moments, Tracey approved them and the online site was instantly updated.

Morgan and I waited and, in minutes, the hits started coming. And coming and coming and coming… Wow. Our partners were going to be very happy.

In the coming days, our pics would be downloaded by fans pretty fast, not counting those who didn't bother to click the "download" button and just copied them straight. We couldn't count those but we had enough official clicks to make the partners happy.

Copies of the posters were also being passed around among the kids in school, so that was another confirmation that the campaign was very successful.

And, by virtue of the posters, my gang became overnight stars. In our school at least. And thank god for Morgan and Joanne for appropriately knocking our egos down to size. Otherwise, I doubt we'd be able to fit our heads through doorways. Sure, Morgan and Joanne were being a bit of a buzzkill, but we needed it.

I felt a bit bad, though, since I didn't feature in a lot of the pictures compared to the others, but that's the way it's been all my life. But, actually, I have never been as happy as now. And all because of Mel.

I've always thought that Mel was the most attractive of the girls in her little group, except for Danny, of course. And that sounds so weird - I mean, I've known Danny since we were kids, and he and Morgan have been sort of the ones I've looked up to in our little gang since forever. And as my buds disappeared over time - you know how it is when people move away and stuff - the only ones that stayed were me, Morgan, Danny and Mike - Morgan becoming more and more the leader, simply because of his leadership skills and, among the four of us, he was the most, I don't know, the most guy-like, I guess you'd say, and the most good-looking (Danny was good-looking, too, but, as a guy, Morgan has a bit of an edge).

Over the years, he'd had lots of girlfriends, but they were all short-lived relationships, and we thought it was because of us - I mean, would a girl want to be seen hanging around guys like us? His social standing in school was definitely affected by his hanging around us three rejects, but he didn't care, even at the expense of his relationships. I guess we all felt grateful for that even though we won't ever admit that to him.

Among all of us, and I'm including the girls, he was the one with the most problematic home-life, with parents that hated each other. Though his folks were still together, he's often told them they should have gotten a divorce a long time ago. But being Catholic, neither wanted to be the one to file for a divorce, so they just stayed together and made everyone else's life a living hell. Morgan had learned to be out of the house as often and as long as possible, and the Fairchilds became his surrogate family, and Danny his surrogate brother.

Those two were as close as brothers - maybe even more than brothers, and I envied their constancy and friendship.

Their bond remained, even when Danny went through his… change. I even thought that their friendship became even stronger, especially when Morgan's "little brother" was now the one that needed his help.

But the nature of the friendship had changed. It was obvious. But then, how could it not change? I mean, just look at Danny! Even so, despite this, Danny's long-time unrequited love affair with Nikki had finally borne fruit, which was great, and Morgan had found his own love in the voluptuous, bodacious Drew Logan.

As for me, my own unrequited and secret crush on Mel never came true. But as Mel sort of lost the constant companionship of two of her best friends, Nikki and Drew, as I had also lost Morgan's and Danny's, I guess there was room for another best friend in her life. And I'm happy enough to fill that role for now. Who knows? Maybe eventually we can become more than just close friends.

But at times like this, that seemed like a forlorn hope. These days, in the wake of the posting of the posters, Mike and I were now known as "Morgan's friends" or "friends of the guys in the posters." Mike, bless his heart, didn't let that faze him and actually basked in the glow of the reflected fame of Morgan and the others. But, for me, my role in the gang as third banana had started to chafe.

Mel commiserated, and spent more time with me to cheer me up. She once said that I was actually very good-looking, and it was a shame about my thyroid condition (meaning I was too overweight), otherwise, I'd have girls all over me.

That gutted me, and I hoped Mel didn't know how much, but maybe she did. She researched my condition a lot, and told me about certain kinds of food that would help, and got me on a diet and exercise program that she had researched and made up.

Truth be told, I would never get up so early on my own, but I thought it a kind of privilege to be jogging with Mel. And, though the visible effects of the diet and the exercise were slow in coming, at least I felt so much healthier and fit. In fact, I've lost maybe fifteen pounds.

You know, I don't really know if we were girlfriend-boyfriend. Maybe we were. Who knows?

- - - - -

***** (Jerry) *****

Over the coming days, the four of us - me, Mel, Morgan and Mike, were together a lot of the time after school since we were working on the site a lot. And because Morgan was there, Drew was there as well.

Mike was usually the butt of our little new team's jokes. I mean more so than usual. That was because all of us had our significant others with us, leaving Mike as the odd man out.

But then, Tracey was often there as well, since she did a lot of stuff for her mom. So we teased Mike a lot about that, that maybe he should make a play for Tracey.

Mike poo-poohed that, simply because Tracey was the big boss's daughter, and was out of his league. "Doesn't seem right, somehow," he said, but actually he was just scared of her mom. Just like we all would have been in his shoes.

But then we found Mike with a fancy silver fountain pen in his shirt pocket. We recognized it as either one of Mrs. P's or Tracey's fancy pens.

Morgan said that we shouldn't be stealing stuff from the office, especially from the boss, so he asked Mike to return it as soon as possible. Mike got incensed, saying that it was given to him by Tracey.

We didn't know if he was being serious or not, so Mel went in search of Tracey to find out if he was telling the truth, and found Tracey working in her mom's office while her mom was away.

She came out of Mrs. P's office with a bemused kind of look.

"So," I said, "did you ask Tracey?"

"Ummm, no…" she said.

"Huh? Why the heck not?"

She then explained that she was fully intending to ask Tracey, but when she went in, she found Tracey working, and wearing Mike's beat up Chicago Cubs baseball cap. Mike never lent that cap to anyone!

"Well…" I said. "Hmmm…"

- - - - -

***** (Jerry) *****

As the people in charge of the site, Morgan and I had a lot of say about what people would see in terms of the goings-on at the station. But, in terms of what the fans were thinking, or what they want, Mel was the authority, since she was in charge of all the incoming emails.

And, according to her, the talk of the town was the posters. And the posters played to the mystique that had started to surround Dannie, and now even Robin, too - the posters had finally put a face to the voice of the Nighthawk. Although she was already seen as well as heard in the Rockrgrrl and KRPQ TV shows, having fifty-two posters had catapulted her to pinup girl status. Dannie, too, as well as the other girls, especially the "twins," June and Drew.

It also didn't help that the stores, restaurants and other establishments around town had them mounted on their windows, walls and doors. Joanne was totally needed to keep the girls grounded and from becoming too full of themselves.

"Speaking of which," Mel said, "I found four emails addressed to the station, and they said that they wanted help in contacting Robin directly. They said they're about business opportunities, and they seem legit."

"Well," Morgan said, "where are they from?"

"Let's see…" She typed some stuff. "They're from ad and modeling agencies. I confirmed the email addresses against their websites and two of them seem totally legit; the other two, I'm not sure."

"I guess you should pass them on to Danielle, and mention which are from legitimate sites and which aren't."

"Should I mention it to Tracey as well?"

"She's probably seen them already because it came through the site's email. Let Danielle take care of it - you've got more emails to look at. Tell Tracey only if she brings them up."

"'Kay."

We forgot about these emails after Mel passed them on since we needed to manage this new obsession of the kids: days after the posters started popping up all over the school and in other places, we found that it was all because of some enterprising kids that had blown them up to poster size and were doing a brisk business of selling them at fifty dollars apiece. At Staples, having a 24x36 poster printed would cost thirty dollars so that meant they'd make almost a forty percent profit on each poster they sell. Of course, the pictures they used still had my watermark. I suppose someone could digitally take them out but, so far, no one's bothered to do that yet. Tracey was on it, and I'm pretty sure these bootleg posters will soon be taken down.

I asked the guys which of the posters were the most popular and, apparently the most popular ones were the Rockrgrrl and Alley-Oop ones. They were also my favorites, but the next favorite were the ones for Dyno's, especially for the girls. I guess they liked the fashion-focused vibe and the funky little fifties outfits, and for the guys - well, it's about cars, after all, and the Dyno hot rods were great, so those posters were a close third.

Throughout the high school, I kept seeing our posters. And, like in cliché TV shows and movies, I saw a lot of our posters in a lot of school lockers, and little cutouts of our pics festooned a lot of books, bags, laptops, tablets and notebooks.

After the frenzy of the KRPQ show had died down, very few were chasing us anymore. So the band was contemplating getting rid of the bodyguards. But with the posters, the "frenzy" came back. With a vengeance. So, instead of terminating the contracts for the bodyguards, Betsy prevailed on her parents to continue the arrangement, and, in coordination with Mrs. Piper, the band continued to have bodyguards shadowing them.

The crowds around us had come back, especially at Betsy's Fallon's, and, of course, outside of Danielle's classrooms. But that now included Drew's, Mel's and, especially, Morgan's classes.

There was even talk about Fallon being tight with the Nighthawk, given Robin's tough-girl black-and-white dress style had echoes in Fallon's own goth-ish style. But Fallon just shrugged it off and few had the courage to ask further.

Mike and I didn't have as many "fans," but we had a few. Mostly, though people just saw us as hangers-on, or as easy ways into our gang's inner circle. But then again, they didn't count on our not being easy marks. Mike, despite his clueless kind of aura, was actually a savvy guy, and he wasn't going to be played for a fool. Me, too, actually.

That didn't make Mike and I very popular, but even so, these people didn't want to risk getting on our bad side and risk being shut off from the gang, so they just opted to remain friendly with us. And since I was now identified with Mel, that bucked up my rep as well.

As for Danny - well, she... he always had a small group of loyal "fans," too, made up of some of the kids from his different classes and the glee club. You would think everyone would gravitate to Danielle given she's supposedly the girl from UB. But Danny's loyal fans remained loyal, even though he was "just" the brother.

Still, Danny was light years away from being the ostracized nerdy little guy that people either bullied or ignored. I guess that went for Mike and I, was well.

Anyway, because of the "resurgence" of all the craziness from before, with people again following us all the time and trying to be part of our group or just trying to get close, the bodyguard contracts were renewed and all the UB band members would continue to have human shadows following them, which was supplemented by Kelly, Tyler and Linton - Danny's own security courtesy of Mrs. Piper.

Speaking of security, Danny also told me that Mr. Carpenter, Betsy's family's head of security, had started his own effort to track down Janet. Our local police had failed miserably in locating her, so Mr. Carpenter's help was definitely appreciated.

So it had more-or-less devolved into how it was before, except that Morgan and the guys and I were so much more busy doing our website work these days (although part of our "contract," as co-signed by our folks, was that we needed to keep our grades up as well, and we weren't allowed to work too late - all within the labor laws regarding minors). We weren't making too much money, either, but we definitely made lots more than what we'd have had otherwise.

Betsy's house had also become our more-or-less regular after-school hangout. Mrs. Haley didn't mind that since that meant her daughter would be home more, where it was safe. So she had the Green Room - her house's largest guest room - outfitted as our own little "clubhouse," as she called it.

The only thing was that she asked Betsy to tell us that we needed to clean up after ourselves, that we shouldn't bring any guests, and that Walter's staff would be going through the room at least once a day and check for "paraphernalia and other not-so-nice substances."

Betsy's dad also had the room's large sliding doors that opened to the rest of the house changed to glass ones that we couldn't lock. He also had the utility door unpadlocked so we could all go directly from the parking garage to the hallway that ran by our "clubhouse." That way, we wouldn't be bothering the rest of the household with our comings and goings. We were also told that there were security cameras covering the hallway, the nearby utility door, and the part of the house just outside the room's window. And although the room was a bit soundproofed (Walter told us the house had soundproofing within the FAA-recommended noise contour with the average decibel level at 65 decibels... whatever that meant), we should still keep our noise to a dull roar.

We didn't mind - we were kids, after all, and it was their house.

There was also a fridge, a microwave, a water dispenser that Walter's people kept supplied, a sound system, our own wifi hotspot, and the two large beds were replaced with a couch, a dozen stackable plastic chairs and a couple of large plastic tables that could be disassembled if needed. There was also a very tiny en-suite bathroom with a tiny stand-up shower, toilet and a tiny sink.

That meant that, though we needed to bring our own supplies, we had everything we needed. It was a small price to pay if it meant we had our own place to hang.

Tracey got us a bunch of the posters which we mounted on the blank walls, and Mike and I brought several power strips and extension cords so that we could supplement the limited number of outlets and recharge our devices and stuff at the same time.

With all of us contributing what cash we could, Drew, Mel and Danielle took charge of buying our "supplies" whenever we ran low, with Joanne as their designated driver. Sometimes, Walter would put some drinks in the fridge, or restock our supply of disposable cups, plates, paper towels etc (all biodegradable, of course), but we tried not to let that happen often by buying our own. He also made sure that our tiny bath was always clean, always had toilet paper and hand soap, and he always had his people throw away the trash and replace the trash bags.

It all seemed ideal, except that Mr. and Mrs. Haley would sometimes visit us from out of the blue. They were trying to be our buddies, I guess, much to Betsy's embarassment, but we tried to be a credit to Betsy and didn't do anything too bad when they were around.

This time, when Morgan, Mike, Mel and I came in after leaving the office, Mr. and Mrs. Haley were there and hanging out with the gang. We were all understandably nervous, and were on our best behavior. But they didn't stay long, thank god. As soon as they left, though, it became less tense.

"Hey, Mel," Danielle came over and gave Mel a casual hug. "I just saw these emails that you sent over." She showed Mel her tablet.

"That was days, ago, Danielle."

She shrugged. "I'm sorry, Mellie. I just saw it now…"

The others asked what they were, and apparently, they were the email from the modeling agencies.

So, while we worked on homework and other things, Danielle and the girls checked the emails out, as well as the new ones that Mel just forwarded. There was even one from a company that Sally Marshall worked with, and this was the one they went crazy over.

"Danny?" Nikki called, "can you come over here?" She waved him over.

Danny theatrically sighed in exaggerated exasperation, and went over.

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.