One

September 7^th 1991

Danielle takes a peak around the curtain, scanning the crowd for the familiar face the she is looking for, but he is nowhere to be found in the sea of stranger's faces looking back at her. She is not surprised at all to find him missing. He has never been one to come to these things just to support her. That would mean that he would have to know about them.. or care, for that matter.

“We are up next, Dani.” Comes her best friend Melania Polk's voice from behind her. Her friend comes to stand beside her and Dani nods to acknowledge her words.

“Okay. Where is Lia? We need to get ready to go on.” Danielle asks her, looking around. Lia Baynor is her other best friend, the three of them are a small, close knit unit. She and Mel look around behind the stage until they find her by the curtain, talking to her mother.

Lia's mother, Laurel Baynor is a broadway performer and a minor actress. She was in a few movies back in the late seventies, early eighties when she was around their age. She was just fifteen when she got her big break playing an extra in some horror movie. After that, she only got more popular as she grew older. Now, she is well known around the world in her late thirties.

She had thought that her career was over when she got pregnant by a co-star at nineteen. She thought that the two of them could handle it together, but he ran out on her to persue his career. He told her that he would never let a mistake like that get in his way.

So she was forced to have the baby alone, but she did not let it jeopardize her future career, as he had assumed having a baby would. She got a couple of au pairs and nanny, leaving them to raise her daughter while she was off becoming a star.

That meant that she had not been there much for her daughter when she was younger but she is trying to make up for it now, by supporting her in everything that the girl does.

Like showing up to the school's talent show on a Friday Night, even though Dani is sure that she had far more glamorous thing to do. But Laurel put her daugther first above all else, coming to support her, which Dani was glad to see.

That is more than Dani can say about her father, Fredrick Millman. Or Fred, as his associates and business colleagues call him. Of course they would call him by a friendly name. They see him all the time, so they would not feel stiff and awkward around him. Not like she did.

But it is hard to be comfortable around someone that you do not know. Even if that man is your father. Nature formed the connection between them, but genetics is where it begins and ends. The are two strangers that share DNA and a home. They have nothing else between them, certainly not a relationship.

“Lia!” Dani calls out to her friends and Lia turns to smile at the two of them, beckoning them over to join her and her mother. 

Her mother, a tall, willowy blonde with ethereal beauty smiles wide at the approaching girls. “Hello ladies. You all look so amazing!”

“Thank you, Miss Baynor!” Dani tells her and she winks at her in return.

“Laurel, please, Danielle. You can call me Laurel.”

Dani smiles at her and nods. “Alright, I will go get back to my seat in the front row but you girls go out there and break a leg!” Laurel tells them, pulling them all in for a hug.

Danielle returns it, not realizing until that moment how much she had missed having someone show her any sort of affection. Other than her boyfriend, Rick, who tries to show her too much affection anytime that they are alone. He gets a bit carried away with the touching, then gets angry when she pulls away from him.

“Dani! Mel! Lia! Come on! You three are up!” Their classmate Paris Lanette calls out to them. She is running the show and she takes the job seriously. Very seriously.

“Alright, ladies. Looks like it's show time!” Mel says and they all chuckle, heading in the direction that Paris just disappeared. 

The three of them run over to take their positions on stage. Dani scratches at the wig on her head, which is bothering her. It itches so bad. But she has to wear the short blonde wig to look like Chynna Phillips. Lia and Mel wear wigs as well to help them look like Carnie and Wendy Wilson. Together they make up the new pop group Wilson Phillips.

“Give it up for Danielle Millman, Lia Baynor and Melania Polk!” Mr. Ratcliffe announces in his booming voice, adding flair to their names. He adds flair to everything that he says or does. It is part of his niche as being a drama teacher. Everything that he does, he does with pizazz!

Dani bites back an amused smile.

The large curtains slide back to reveal the thousands of strangers all staring at the girls. Dani's stomach clenches but she fights to ignore it. Her mom never suffered from stage fright and she is trying to be fearless like she was. Besides, Dani knows that she is right there with her. She has always believed that her mother is her guardian angel now.

Dani takes a step forward, to where the tape is on the stage to mark where she should be standing. The girls stand behind her, one on each side. The opening strains of the song ring out loudly through the large theatre.

She has a mic in front of her and she makes sure that she does not stand so close that it causes feedback. She hears her que in the music and she takse a deep breath and begins to sing.

“I know there's pain..”

She hears the girls echo the words behind her in harmony.

“Why do you lock yourself up in these chains?”

“These chains..” Mel and Lia sing in sync..

“No one can change your life except for you.. don't ever let anyone step all over you.. Just open your heart and your mind..”

“Mmm..” The girls harmonize.

“Is it really fair to feel this way inside..?”

She hears the music change and she begins to dance, swaying along to the beat. Everyone in the audience claps their hands to the music as the three of them put on a performance of a lifetime.

“Woah..”

“Some day somebody's gonna make you wanna turn around and say goodbye.. until then baby are you gonna let 'em hold you down and make you cry?” She looks out in the audience and she nearly misses the next words.

“Don't you know..”

She sings on autopilot, as she watches him walk up the stairs towards the exit. Somehow she is able to pull her thoughts back to the moment at hand and she finishes her performance with a big smile on her beautiful face. As the three of them bow, amid a roaring applause, she is too distracted to enjoy the fact that everyone seemed to enjoy their efforts.

She rushes off stage ahead of her friends and she turns left to go out into the school halls, ignoring the sound of them calling out to her. She looks around but she does not see him anywhere. Where could he have gone when he left in the middle of the show?

With a shrug, she begins to walk to the bathroom, since she had to pee since before she even went on stage. As she passes the men's bathroom, she hears groans coming from inside. She pauses, corncerned that someone might be hurt or in distress in there.

She can not exactly just bust up in to the men's restroom just because she heard a noise. So she knocks. If anyone is in there, they would surely respond. She hears an agonized moan, which urges her to knock once again, a bit more frantically.

When she does not receive an answer, she pushes open the door slowly, in case there are men in their who will get angry when they see her. She feels all kinds of weird about going in there, but she is concerned.

The first thing that she notices about the ornate rest room is that it is just as nice as the girl's room, but it does not smell as good. The women's toilet room smells of perfumes at any given time. It just smells like cleaner in this room.

Looking around, at first she sees nothing out of place. But she hears heavy breathing and groaning, as if the person is in pain. Is some poor man having a heart attack? Should she be dialing 9-1-1?

As she hears the rhythmic slapping of skin on skin, she wonder if someone is being attacked. Is their a fight going on in here? I someone getting hit? “Hello? Are you okay in there?”

“Shit!”

She hears the muttered curse and she straightens her spine. She knows that voice all too well. She moves forward, passing unused stalls with open doors. When she reaches the last stall, which is the largest, she places her palm flat on the metal door and gives it a push.

The door swings open slowly with a creak and she gasps at what she sees.

He stands there before her with his pants and underwear around his ankles, with his shirt pushed up to beneath his neck. She is only spared getting an eyeful of his anatomy by the leg that is wrapped around his narrow hips.

Amber Wagner's skirt and panties lay in a heap on the floor, as she leans against the wall of the bathroom stall wearing just a bra and nothing else. Her head is tipped back as she moans in pleasure. His hand is on the lacy cup of her bra, squeezing the soft flesh beneath the fabric and Dani's stomach swirls with nausea at the sight. Just last night he had been trying to touch her like that.

“What the actual hell?”

He turns his head to look at her, stilling the relentless thrusting of his hips. He knows that he has been caught. She can see the fear and the worry in his eyes as he looks at her. Amber on the other hand wears a satisfied grin. She knew exactly what she was doing. As Dani stands there frozen with shock and disgust, she meets the eyes of Rick, her boyfriend. She glares.

Make that her ex boyfriend.