Chapter 17: Moving on

The end of his sophomore year brought some definitive changes for Danny. With nothing explicit being said, he felt that his relationship with Lucy, their friendship with benefits, was coming to an end, at least as far as the benefits were concerned. Her stays in Philadelphia became more busy and she was spending a lot of time exchanging messages with her partner Chris DiBiasi. Their sex, too, became a little hurried and perfunctory. She still wanted it, wanted the benefits, but he could tell that her other priorities were demanding a big share of her thoughts and attention.

It did not come as a surprise when Lucy begged off the invitation to spend part of the summer in Kitty Hawk. With college finished, Lucy needed to pursue her goals to enter the media business in some capacity, and the YouTube channel she hosted with Chris was one way for her to showcase her talent. Therefore, she was spending the summer with the DiBiasi family, coming up with new material and increasing the frequencies of their postings.

Without Lucy to ground him, Danny also felt that having Helen along on the trip to Kitty Hawk would be difficult for him. The attraction he had always felt for her, unconsciously for the most part, had not abated over the last year and had even increased with the achievements Helen made. She was easily keeping pace with her courses even while being an almost perfect mom to Larissa. She had earned a partial scholarship for her junior and senior years. It was difficult for him to be nonchalant around Helen even when she was clothed in her basic college student attire of jeans and sweaters, but he envisioned more problems when seeing her in a bathing suit or a bikini.

Then, out of the blue, he received an email in one of his old free-mail accounts. It was pure coincidence that he even noticed the message, but he was at loose ends on a Sunday evening and decided to consolidate his communication channels. The email came from Lea Rautilaina’s address but it was signed by both girls. They had plans to visit the US during their summer break and they were asking if he was available for a visit in Philadelphia. It was the first message he had received from them since their cancelled visit after his junior year Triple-P. Admittedly, he had not sent any messages either during that time, assuming that their summer fling was a thing of the past.

Lea actually apologized for not keeping up the contact and admitted that they were mostly interested in a few days of free lodging. They would be traveling alone, since both their relationships had turned sour after graduation from their high school system.

For a few seconds, Danny contemplated moving the mail to the spam folder and terminate the mail account. He needed two more blonde sirens just as much as he needed a hole in the head. Besides, their schedule had them visiting Philadelphia during his planned stay in Kitty Hawk. They would fly into Boston, spend two days there, then take a train to New York for a four day stay, and then on to Philly to spend three days. From there, they would travel on to Washington DC to see the sights, before renting a car to drive north, to Upstate New York, to see Niagara Falls, before heading back to Boston.

With a shrug, he answered the mail using his regular account, writing that he would be away from Philadelphia during their visit, spending time on the Outer Banks with his family. He added a bit of information about attending Penn and being a father to a toddler girl before ending the message by wishing them fun on their visit.

When he woke up on Monday morning, his email in-tray showed a message, and he looked it up. Lea had answered, asking if she and Rita might visit him in the Carolinas instead, after their visit to the District. They had looked it up on Google maps and thought it would be fun to spend two or three days on a beach. There was an image attachment too, and when Danny clicked it, he did a double take. The two gorgeous teenagers were gone and Danny looked at the faces of two decidedly overweight young women. Those four years had not been kind on the Rautilaina sisters! He felt conflicted. All those years ago, the pictures of the twins from his Swiss holiday camp had been a source of his reputation as a ladies’ man. With Chibb’n’Chubb showing up in Kitty Hawk, Ashley and Lynn would rib him mercilessly, and Helen would be hard pressed not to join them. On the other hand, brushing the twins off now would show him up as skin deep and would hurt the girls. With a sigh, he called Marsha and asked for her okay for the twins to visit for three days. She readily agreed, leaving him no way out. At least, they would not distract him!

The drive down to Kitty Hawk was uneventful. Ashley and Lynn were driving separately because Lynn was going to a farewell party for the outgoing seniors of her team. Danny, Helen and Lynn would be the advance team, opening and airing the house, stocking the kitchen and checking for any other needs. Helen did not talk much during the drive, concentrating on keeping Larissa entertained instead, and Danny was content with that. He was mulling some issues instead, mostly his stagnating relationship with Lucy, but also his plans for junior year.

So far, he had been doing great at Penn, collecting credits across the required spectrum, but also finishing advanced math and Physics courses. His grades were still at the top of their class, but in other respects he was not really living the dream. He realized that he had been living at Lucy’s beck and call for the last two years, always available during her visits to Philadelphia, but otherwise leading a rather withdrawn life between studying and doing his share of raising their daughter.

Helen was no better off, he knew, not even having a friend with regular benefits. Her being the mother of a toddler was a deterrent to the average, horny college student, but she also dressed unobtrusively, even modestly, and her makeup was non-existent on most days. Danny suspected that this was also to discourage him from any romantic feelings.

On the positive side, they were working seamlessly together raising Larissa. There had not been a bad word between them in months. Helen had even kept his back free during Lucy’s visits without complaining.

He checked in the rearview mirror and as chance had it, their eyes met.

“Everything all right back there?” Danny asked.

“Fine. Are you tired?”

“Well, I could use a break. How about you?”

“A potty break would be nice. How long until half-time?”

“Fifteen minutes, give or take. Let’s stop at the next rest area. Deal?”

“Okay,” Helen smiled back.

It was three p.m. when Danny stopped the car in front of the house. The shutters were closed, but the driveway had been swept, he could see. Tyler employed a local company to clean the house regularly, and a security firm made a daily inspection. They did all the houses in their street, and so far nothing untoward had happened.

They alighted from the car with Larissa on Helen’s arm and Danny unlocked the front door first. Then he opened windows and shutters to let in light and fresh air before he started schlepping their luggage to their rooms while Helen let Larissa play in the backyard.

Once everything was stowed away, they made a run to the supermarket. Marsha had sent Danny a long shopping list and he had wisely brought along a number of stackable boxes. They spent almost an hour at the supermarket to get everything, and then another hour to stow it all away safely. By then it was time for supper, so Danny took over Larissa while Helen whipped up omelettes and cut up French baguettes. They enjoyed a relaxed meal on the back porch and afterwards went for a stroll down to the beach.

Larissa was ecstatic seeing her biggest sandbox ever, not really remembering last year’s stay, and she tired herself out quickly running through the soft sand on her short legs. Danny had to carry her back to the house where she soon fell asleep.

That left Danny and Helen by themselves, but by tacit agreement they settled on opposing sofas in the living room. Danny read a book on his tablet while Helen had brought a Sudoku book. When they called it a night, Helen gave Danny a grateful smile.

“Thanks for not making this awkward,” she said, and Danny nodded ruefully.

“The same. Have a good night.”

The next to arrive was in fact Irina. Two months ago, she had fulfilled her childhood dream and bought herself her own car. After five years with the Two-Bucks, she had moved up to being in charge of merchandise acquisition. Her title was “Assistant Operations Manager” now, and she felt that the world should see her having success. Ever the bargain hunter, she had looked around used car lots and finally settled on a metallic blue, C series Mercedes. It was two years old, with cream colored leather seats, and all the bells and whistles. Having grown up in the dying stages of the Soviet Union, a Mercedes was the ultimate luxury item for her. Now she parked her shiny status symbol in the driveway, and she even caressed the steering wheel one more time before she alighted, grinning from ear to ear.

“Wow!” Danny said. “You look every bit the successful business woman.”

Irina blushed a little. “That’s not important. What’s important is that I feel like a successful business woman.”

“You go, Irina!” Helen laughed, stepping close and beating Danny to hugging his mother. “I won’t even ask if you had a good drive.”

“I stopped three times to gas up,” Irina admitted. “Just so I could see my reflection in the windows of the gas stations. It drives like a dream.”

“I felt the same when I got the Mini,” Danny recalled. “Let me help you with the luggage.”

After Irina had settled in, she turned into grandmother mode, devoting her attention to Larissa. The little girl reciprocated, enjoying being the center of attention.

Tyler and Marsha arrived a little over an hour later. Tyler whistled seeing Irina’s new ride.

“Marsha, you pay your employees way too much,” he commented jokingly.

“Hah! She saves me a dollar on each dime I pay her,” Marsha shot back, heading straight for Irina and Larissa and hugging both.

Tyler greeted Helen first. “You look lovely, Helen. Danny told us that you were awarded a scholarship. That’s amazing, seeing how you raise a daughter and have to put up with Danny.”

Helen smiled. “Danny’s been a great help, Mr. Westbrook. You can be proud of him.”

“Damn it, I am!” Tyler laughed, wrapping Danny into a hug. “Now shoo! I want to see my granddaughter!”

Their patchwork family was complete shortly before supper time when Lynn and Ashley arrived in Ashley’s car. This was the first meal taken together by all of them in months, and Danny received a lot of praise for his cooking skills. They also settled on a duty plan for the next three weeks. Each day, two of them would be responsible for the kitchen and for cleaning, with Danny having to shoulder those tasks alone on his days. Helen had paired with Irina, and that would have left only Larissa as his partner. Marsha joked that she shared his fate since Tyler’s housekeeping skills had lain dormant for many decades. Tyler of course protested.

“My full breakfasts are famous!”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘notorious’,” Ashley corrected him.

“Says the girl who needs a YouTube video to fry eggs,” Danny shot back.

Lynn giggled and kissed her girlfriend. “Darling, he’s right, and that’s a fact.”

“Oh yes, and who cooks twice a week?” Ashley unwisely challenged.

“Stouffer!” Danny and Lynn chorused, high-fifing each other.

“You louts!” Ashley huffed. “So I’m not the little homemaker. Sue me!”

“Wait until you taste my Poire Belle Heléne,” Helen joked, to take away the heat from Ashley. It backfired.

“Since when are you Belle Helene, Helene?” Danny retorted.

This time, Ashley laughed so hard she almost fell off her chair, and Helen hit Danny on his upper arm.

“You’re being an ass!” Then she shook her head. “Damn! I never made the connection. So your general requirements have already paid off. That must have been your first witty remark since we met.”

“Well, we’re going to have a merry old time here,” Marsha stated. “Irina, I wanted to ask, do you still remember any Russian recipes?”

Irina actually grinned a little. “I do, but I had to promise Danny that I wouldn’t use them anymore. It was his birthday wish, and I didn’t have any other gift for him, so I promised.”

“Best birthday ever!” Danny deadpanned.

“You could teach me. I never promised anything,” Ashley said with an evil smile.

“Aargh! Russian food and Ashley cooking it. Will the horrors never end?” Danny expostulated.

“You know something? You guys are all nuts,” Helen stated. “What culinary gems can we expect from you, Lynn?”

“Why, deep-fried sheep’s stomach, filled with grit and ground innards,” Lynn answered sweetly. “Never waste, never want.”

“Marsha, dear, perhaps we should also consider going out for dinner every so often,” Tyler remarked.

“Like once a day?” Marsha asked with a wink.

“What’s the use of all our money if we die young of food poisoning?”

The next day was overcast, but not rainy, and the whole family walked the beach for almost two hours. Of course, Larissa tired herself out within the first twenty minutes, meaning that she spent the rest of the walk on Danny’s shoulders. After a sandwich lunch jointly prepared by Marsha And Tyler, the grandparents took over Larissa, giving the young people a chance to throw a Frisbee disk on the beach and horse around for a bit.

For the evening, Lynn and Ashley planned to go to a bar a few miles away. They invited Danny to come along, but he was not in the mood, and so, Helen was recruited instead. They left at 8 p.m., and Danny stayed back with his mother and Larissa while Tyler and Marsha also went barhopping. After Larissa had gone to sleep, mother and son sat companionable together in the living room and enjoyed a glass of wine.

“It’s a pity that Lucy could not come,” Irina remarked. “She always makes you more easygoing.”

Danny shrugged. “She and her friend Chris are trying to get a foot into entertainment, work on their YouTube channel and perhaps find an agent. She just couldn’t make it here.”

“Do you think you two have a future?”

Danny shrugged again. “Right now, it feels like she’s moving away. I may be wrong, and she may just be under stress, but during her last visits nothing was easygoing anymore. Let’s face it. She’s two years older and trying to make a living in show business. I’ll be a junior in the fall, and I’ll probably go on into graduate school. That doesn’t look too promising for Lucy and me. If it hadn’t been for the Two-Bucks commercials, things would have probably ended two years ago.”

“You don’t love her?” Irina asked calmly.

“At times I did ... still do, I guess. She always made it clear that she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Friend with benefits, huh? A fuck buddy.”

“Mom!”

“Oh, please! You know enough about me to know that I’m not judging.”

“All right then, yes. I’d prefer friend with benefits though. Speaking of which, what’s happening with Alan?”

“Nothing,” Irina said sadly. “It turned out that he was expecting a woman of my background to be a little more ... adventurous?”

“Like in the clips?” Danny asked, for the first time ever broaching that issue with her.

“Like in the clips,” Irina confirmed. “I guess I’m a little more boring in real life. Danny, is what I did for a living still affecting you?”

Danny considered this question. “It was. Back in the old apartment, in South Philly High, yes, it wasn’t nice. Some guys gave me bad names, others wanted to know how much you charged, still others wanted me to steal stuff from you.”

“Underwear, right? Well, for a while I sold quite a lot of my supposed underwear to fans. There’s a huge market for that in Japan. I couldn’t possibly wear as many as I sold, so a few of my friends had to help out. I should have switched to running my own website instead of joining Silver Star. Then again, I’d still be doing that. I think we’re both better off now, right?”

“Yeah, Ashley and Lynn helped me a lot over the last years to get my head out of my ass. Lucy did too, and even Helen.”

“Helen is a good girl. She’s good for my ego too. Last month she told me that she’d much rather had me for her mother than her crummy parents.”

“And that, Mom, is a fact. It’s what I tell people if they ask me how it was growing up with you. I tell them that you were a great mom, really looking after me.”

Irina chuckled. “We were an odd family, but not a bad one. I only wish I’d been braver and told Tyler about you much earlier. I mean, once the Senator got me the naturalization papers, there was nothing to fear, but my stupid pride got in the way. Then the Kaçanis happened, and nothing was like before.”

“I know. I felt like shit because I could do nothing for you.”

“You did, Daniel,” Irina said somberly. “If it hadn’t been for you, for you making me proud, for you depending on me, I would’ve ended things back then. That gun? I didn’t keep it for my safety.”

“Oh, fuck! Mom, I never knew!”

“How was I to tell you? After I shot those two assholes and you were taken care of by Tyler, it started again. Only, my gun was now evidence. I was thinking about my options while I was cleaning the damn apartment. I didn’t want to leave a mess behind. And then the doorbell goes off, and I was thinking, ‘Shit, just leave me alone’, but it was Marsha, and she showed me a way out of the mess my life had become.”

At this point, Danny was out of his chair and plopping down close to his mother, hugging her almost violently.

“Shit, Mom, I never knew. You could’ve said something. You know how much you mean to me!”

“I know it now. I know that raising you worked out to be the best thing in my fucked-up life.”

“So you’re not having those dark thoughts anymore?”

Irina shook off the morose mood. “Didn’t you see me driving up in my blue Mercedes yesterday? I work hard, yes, but my boss treats me like a friend, I make a good, honest living, and I’m not afraid of Vice Squad picking me up anymore. Hell, I’ll be a graduate with a bachelor’s degree next year! Me!”

“I know. It’s amazing, but also a little sad. Helen and I talked about that once, before Larissa’s birth. You had all those abilities, but nobody gave you a chance.”

“Marsha did, so here I am, with my rich kid son, vacationing with you guys in a private house on the outer banks, and nobody expects me to pull my asscheeks apart to pay for it,” she retorted a bit crudely, making Danny blush. “To be quite honest, I don’t need a man in my life for happiness. In my past, men have mostly meant trouble. Then again, Sly gave his life for me. I know, not knowingly, but he’s dead because he protected me. He’s the one guy in my life whom I could trust when push came to shove. Well, there’s also you of course. Bottom line, my life is pretty damn good now.”

“Wow, you know, I’m happy for you and sometimes I’m so proud of you I could burst! When that Gunderson asshole called you a Jezebel, I was ready to deck him.”

“I saw it. You know what, I could see Tyler squaring his shoulders too. That day also helped me a lot. Helen’s grandmother was also quite nice to me. Well, she still is. We meet for coffee once a month. She ... this is just among us, right? I posed for her. In the nude. She shot a series of pictures of me. They’re ... beautiful? She is such a talented woman! I love those pictures. Maybe I’ll send you one on that phone of yours when you’re in the middle of class.”

There was an impish smile on her face and Danny hugged her again.

“Thanks, Mom. I mean, not for any pictures, but for telling me all this. I’ll think of this whenever I get self-conscious again.”

Irina’s smile widened, and she grabbed his face and pulled him close for a fleeting kiss on his lips.

“Dito. Talking to you is also helping me. Now let me go to my room. I must check my emails. Sleep well!”

Danny watched her as she collected her book and left the living room and he felt his heart swell. Yes, there was nothing to be ashamed of being Irina’s son.

Two days later, a surprise visitor showed. It was Rosalind. Apparently, she had made up with her mother and was staying at the family vacation home with her older sister, and she wanted to see if Danny and Lucy were also in Kitty Hawk. Danny introduced her to Irina and Helen, and they agreed to meet on the beach on the next morning for some catching up. For some reason, Helen and Rosalind were a bit catty, but Danny did not worry about it. After all, nothing would happen between him and either Helen or Rosalind. As far as he was concerned, he and Lucy were still an item, and the last summer had taught him that Rosalind and he had no real connection anymore.

Later that day, he was in for yet another surprise. As expected, Lea and Rita Rautilaina drove up to the house in a rented Chevy Malibu. What Danny did not expect were the two slender blondes stepping out of the car who looked like slightly matured versions of the gorgeous blonde twins of four years ago. In a flash, Danny realized that the photo they had sent must have been doctored with some software to make them appear fat. It had been a prank. The realization helped him to maintain his presence of mind.

“Hey, you two. That SlimFast stuff really works, doesn’t it?” he grinned. He could tell that the twins were slightly miffed when he did not show his surprise. “Come on! I have a computer too.”

“Hi, Danny,” one of them said. “We didn’t want...”