Chapter 5: Junior

Two weeks with a licensed driving instructor had been enough for Danny to get his driver’s license, and now he was returning to school in his own car. That was going to be a nice break. Danny also carried written instructions from his father allowing Danny to drive home over the weekends rather than staying at Triple-P. The car was a sweet ride. They had driven to a BMW dealership where Danny had fallen in love with a Mini Cooper convertible.

Thus his mood was great as he drove along the narrow access road leading to the forbidden looking main building that had housed the juvenile correctional institution from which Triple-P had developed. He parked the Mini in a visitor spot and entered the pseudo-gothic monstrosity that still housed the administration and the class rooms. There he handed over his registration papers, the instructions and other signed forms from his father. He also registered in his new name – Daniel Berusov Westbrook. He had opted to retain his old name as middle name, unwilling to toss away his old identity. His father had approved.

The paperwork was still being processed when the door opened and another student came in with her parents. It was Helen Gunderson. The two looked at each other briefly before Danny remembered his manners.

“Hi, Helen.”

“Hi, Danny. Mom, Dad, this is Danny Berusov. He’s a junior too.”

“It’s Westbrook now, but nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Gunderson.”

Helen looked her question.

“I married and my wife wanted to keep her name,” he explained deadpan.

Helen looked puzzled at first, but then she grinned. “He’s pulling our legs. He took his father’s name.”

“Your parents are divorced? Small wonder you landed here,” Mr. Gunderson pontificated. “I always maintain that a stable family is the best foundation for raising a child responsibly.”

Danny disliked Helen’s parents immediately. Not even a “nice to meet you” from either of them.

“My parents were never married,” he answered recklessly and with a grin. “I am the lucky outcome of a one-night-stand and a broken condom.”

Helen had a hard time controlling her face, but the older Gundersons were properly scandalized.

“That’s not something to be proud of, young man!” Mrs. Gunderson made herself known. “This attitude probably brought you here.”

“No, I could get into any school,” he shot back, enjoying himself now. “Triple-P’s a great school if you want to focus on studying. That’s why I’m here.”

“Danny’s been pulling As and Bs last year, even after transferring from — where?” Helen defended him without even realizing it.

“West Philly High.”

“Yeah. Still, he’s already our resident math genius. Plus he knows how to clear tables,” she added with a grin.

“Humph! Where’s that secretary?”

“Xeroxing some of my paperwork I suppose,” Danny supplied.

The door opened then, but it was the principal.

“Ah, Mr. Gunderson! How nice to see you! And you brought Miss Helen back. She made good progress last year I must say and it will only get better.”

“That’s what we hope for, Mr. Marlowe. After all, we cannot have her get in trouble again, can we? Haha!”

Marlowe gave a dutiful laugh while Danny watched the scene with an amused smile. The principal only noticed him now.

“Well, Berusov, what are you waiting for?”

“Mrs. Connor is preparing my parking permit, Sir,” Danny supplied. “She’s also registering the name change.”

“Name change? What sort of nonsense is that?”

Danny shrugged. “It’s legal and it’s what my father wanted, so we had it done.”

“You changed your name to Westbrook then?”

“Yes, Sir. Daniel Berusov Westbrook. I kept my mother’s name as middle name.”

“Well, Mr. Westbrook, good for you!”

The coin dropped for Mr. Gunderson. “Your father wouldn’t be Tyler Westbrook?”

“As a matter of fact, he is,” Danny answered cautiously.

“Helen! Why didn’t you tell us?” Mrs. Gunderson chided her daughter in a suddenly syrupy voice. “We could have invited young Mr. Westbrook during the summer break.”

Danny looked at Helen who could not help but roll her eyes. “Mom, Danny and I are classmates, but we’re not friends.”

“Why on earth not?” the woman wanted to know.

“Because he can be a prick and because I can be a bitch, and we don’t get along well,” Helen blurted.

“Oh, that’s too bad. But Helen, we do not approve of your language. Mr. Marlowe?”

“I think Miss Gunderson should write a short essay on the advantage of polite speech to get her started into the school year. The usual five pages, Arial 12, 1.5 lines,” Marlowe stated. His glance fell on Danny. “Any excuses for her this time, Mr. Westbrook?”

“Only that I can really be a dimwitted appendage at times,” Danny deadpanned.

He quickly settled back into school life. Over the course of the first days back, the youngsters were trading stories about their summers and the air was heavy with bullshit. Of course, each and every guy had got laid by at least two supermodels. There were exceptions of course, such as Danny who would not volunteer much information other than that he had spent the summer first in the Swiss Alps and then for a few days on the Outer Banks. When asked he would admit to having made new friends, but nothing more.

After yet another brag fest at supper, Danny left the cafeteria and sat outside enjoying the last rays of the evening sun and reading an email from Lea and Rita on his laptop. He was a little engrossed on what they wrote and did not hear her approach, but when she got close, Danny looked up at Helen with a little surprise.

“Hey!”

“Hey back!” he answered amiably.

“How come you’re not in there telling every one of your exploits?”

“Perhaps I don’t have anything to brag about.”

“Yeah, right! You’re full of shit in your own way.”

Danny shrugged. “I just don’t feel like talking about my friends in this way.”

“So you got laid?” she asked accusingly.

“Nope. I just made some very special friends,” he grinned. “How about you?”

“Me? I wasn’t even allowed to leave the house without my mom shadowing me. I screwed up last year. I got drunk at a party and the cops picked me off the street. Dad almost had a coronary. He’s a church elder and anything that threatens his position will be stomped out. Basically I’m grounded until after graduation.”

“That sucks. I have weekend passes to drive home. I have a pretty cool sister now and I look forward to seeing her and the rest of the family.”

“That’s neat. That’s a pretty cool ride you’ve got too. Your family is rolling in money, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much. But the car wasn’t that expensive. My sister got a Beemer.”

“Yeah, but my mom got dollar signs in her eyes when she made the connection.”

Danny grinned. “That was actually hilarious to watch.”

“It was, wasn’t it? I mean, she’s so predictable! A little hint of money and she starts salivating like Pavlov’s dog.”

“What does you dad do when he’s not ... eldering at his church?”

“He’s a vice president in a small pharmaceutical company. He’s doing okay,” she said neutrally.

“Yeah, well, you have two more years before you can go to college somewhere.”

“Two more years! But I guess you’re right. Okay, I’ll see you around. Thanks for being normal.”

“Yeah, you have a good night. I’ll see you.”

It was strange, but Danny felt that he could like Helen. She didn’t seem to be such a bitch. Well, at least not all the time.

Knowing his way around the school, Danny settled in much quicker than in the spring. He had to put in some effort, but he was soon at the top of most classes. Normally, that would have made him the butt of pranks and a target for hazing, but people remembered Tom Burton and were wary to tick Danny off. He also ingratiated some of his classmates by allowing them brief spins in the Cooper. Even some of the teachers succumbed to this temptation, something Mr. Marlowe did not approve of. Yet, with Danny sailing ahead at the top of the class, he had no real handle to reprimand him.

Once everybody settled back into the drudgery of the school year, Helen Gunderson reconnected with her old clique and resorted to ignoring Danny. In a way, he was okay with that. The blonde girl, at 16 years of age, was developing into a real stunner, attracting the attention of the A-list seniors. Not that this attention could come to any fruition. With the exception of classes and meals, the genders were separated strictly, with the girls’ dormitory shut down like a medium-security prison at night. PDAs during meal times were cause for demerits, at least if a teacher was watching. Still, Helen had her followers around whose purpose in life was their servitude to the Blonde Goddess.

Danny watched all this with an amused grin. He understood the futility of romances with fellow Triple-P students and he had distractions enough from the emails he exchanged with Lea and Rita. They were planning their next summer break. The idea was for Danny to visit Finland first and to stay with the Rautilainens, and then for Lea and Rita to fly to Philadelphia with Danny and to spend time with his family in their Kitty Hawk beach house. Their mother – Mr. Rautilainen was on a sabbatical leave in Japan – had given in to Danny’s visit and the twins were now working on her for the counter visit to Philly. Danny had already received a tentative O.K. from his father for the twins’ visit to the US, but the visit to Finland was not in the bag yet.

Some of those plans transpired during the usual chat at lunch or supper. There were pictures from the twins on his laptop screen when he received them by email, and he could not always avoid others seeing them. Therefore, the school soon knew that Danny was dating a pair of gorgeous Finnish twins.

It was mid-October before Danny had his next real conversation with Helen Gunderson. She sought him out at lunch and sat across from him looking at him speculatively.

“Hey! How have you been?” she asked.

“I’m doing okay. You?”

“So-so. School is better this year, but some people here are not easy to stomach.”

“Yeah, but not much we can do,” Danny agreed. He saw an amused smile on her lips “What?”

“Twins? Really?”

Danny had to laugh. “Hard to keep a secret here. Yeah, they’re cool. I met them in Switzerland and they’re great company.”

“Company. A-huh!” Helen shook her head. “You’re a dog!”

He blushed a little. “Look, I’m not engaged to them. I don’t even know if I’ll ever see them again.”

“Methinks the Lord doth protest too much,” Helen grinned. “I didn’t come to grill you anyway. I’m having problems with the damn trig assignment for tomorrow. I know you blew me off last year ‘cause I didn’t ask nicely. So please, pretty please, with cream and sugar on top, could you spend maybe ten minutes looking over my pathetic attempts and give me a pointer or two? I’m doing better this year and I’d hate for trig to screw up my grades.”

Danny weighed this. She was asking nicely this time and he could not refuse.

“Yeah, why not. Let’s see if I can help.”

She scooted around the table and showed him her efforts. Danny took a few minutes to get into the problem. He was already taking higher level courses, but he knew enough from the previous year to help. As a matter of fact, she had not done much wrong. It was just a single fluke that was messing up her calculation. He still took his time to lead her through her calculation, so she could discover the error herself and he was rewarded when Helen slapped her forehead in exasperation.

“Duh! Stupid! God, I hate it when I make those stupid mistakes,” she berated herself.

“Hey, it’s not that bad. At least you understood the principles. You just need to take your time and not muddle things.”

She squinted at him. “You’re really good with this, you know?”

“What? Trigonometry?”

“No, teaching. You dumbed yourself down to understand my problem and you didn’t belittle me.”

Danny shrugged. “I made some money tutoring kids in the neighborhood since I was eleven. It’s cool to help, it kept them from ganging up on me, but I knew better than to piss them off calling them stupid.”

“You got hazed a lot?”

“With what my mother did for a living, you can bet your shapely tush I was hazed.”

With gossipy Mrs. Connor in the principal’s office, Danny’s origins were by now common knowledge in the school.

“That must’ve sucked,” Helen said sympathetically.

“Well, not always. Some of the kids thought it was cool to have a MILF for a mom. I’m undecided. She really did her best to raise me and she’d go hungry herself to keep me in food and clothes.”

Helen snorted at that.

“What?” he asked warily.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you. I just tried to imagine my Mom making a sacrifice for me and the thought was funny. My brother, yes. Definitely. She worships the ground he walks on.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Getting piss-faced with his team buddies, boinking everything in a skirt and telling everybody what a great athlete he is. He already made the varsity team at Marshall and he’s still a freshman. Running back.”

“Uh-oh! Sibling rivalry?” Danny needled her.

“Sibling disgust. The stupid ox took me to that stupid party and didn’t warn me about the booze in the juice bottles. That’s how the cops busted me. Even then I was lucky. I was really completely out of it and some of those morons would have made use of it. Afterwards, he blamed me for the bust and for the troubles.”

“Well, at least you’re away from him here,” Danny commented.

“Yeah, there’s that. Look, Danny. Thank you. I appreciate the help.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t mind.”

She nodded, but then she had another thing. “Would you mind ... I mean, you don’t have to, right? But Frankie said those girls are gorgeous. Mind if I had a look?”

Danny laughed and opened the laptop. He opened the image folder and activated the pics, showing them to Helen.

“Wow! That’s some stiff competition for us American girls.”

“Oh, you could hold your own.” Danny stated and Helen smiled coyly. “At least against one.”

“I get it — there’s two of them. Not a chance for mortal girls,” Helen joked back, but then she looked at him curiously. “I’m impressed. Anybody else would have had those pics printed on a 30” by 20” poster for everybody to see.”

“You send me a pic of yourself in a bikini and I may still do that,” Danny grinned.

Helen blushed and her eyes became just a bit smokey. “You are dangerous, Danny Westbrook. Thanks again, but I better split before you talk me into a photo session.”

“I’ll just have to dream then. I’ll see you around. Take care!”

It was funny how the mental image of Helen in a bathing suit kept popping up before his inner eye.

Over the next weeks, Helen asked him for help a few more times, always being nice and always staying with him for a chat after getting help. A few more people from her clique also followed her example and Danny found himself less of an outsider. He had always been self-sufficient, but it was nice to feel accepted.

Christmas came and went. The Westbrooks spent it in Aspen. Danny had his first experience with skiing and he did not like it at all. The stay had to be cut short anyway because Tyler Westbrook sprained his knee badly and they returned to Philly in a chartered business jet.

By early March, he and the twins had almost finalized the travel plans. Danny would fly to Finland and stay with the Rautilainen family for three weeks. Then he and the twins would fly to Raleigh, to be picked up and driven to the beach house where they would stay for two weeks. Then they would have another ten days together to see Philadelphia and perhaps New York, before Lea and Rita would return.

Then, in the first week of April, Danny received an email. It was from Lea. She did not beat about the bush. She wrote that they would cancel their plans for the summer. They both had boyfriends now, Rita for over two months and Lea for the last two weeks, and they would feel awkward with Danny visiting. She asked him to understand that their relationship would never last, not over the distance. She also went on to express their hope that they could remain friends.

Yadda, yadda, Danny thought. He felt like a fool for staying clear of girls all winter. He could have tried at least to date one of the girls at Triple-P, or he could have asked Ashley to set him up. No, he had assumed that the twins were as serious about him as he was about them.

He waited until the next weekend before he answered. By then his anger had made place for cynical amusement over his own naiveté, and he just wished the twins good luck with their new boyfriends. The temptation was there to strew in a remark insinuating that he too was involved with somebody, but he let it be. He would finish the school year and then spend the summer on the Outer Banks. He was young, he had a generous allowance and a cool car. He would find a summer fling.

Academically, he had been putting in a lot of effort. This paid dividends and he was expecting almost solid A’s. There were even plans from his father to have him attend Ashley’s school in his senior year, but Danny decided to finish at Triple-P rather than changing schools again. Another consideration was that Ashley would have to explain how she suddenly came by a brother.

Therefore, when school finally let out, he drove his Mini back to Philly. He spent four days shopping with Marsha to replace the much too small summer clothes from the last year. At 17, Danny was now six foot two and weighed a trim 162 pounds, also thanks to a lot of sandbag and speed bag training. He had let his hair grow a little bit since the last year and it gave him a carefree look. He would have fun, he promised himself.