Chapter Two
Today was Frankie’s first day of school – ever, and he was plenty nervous. Frank Senior had always insisted that his son be tutored at home to prevent possible kidnappings or death threats, but he also wanted to ensure that Frank Jr. would be removed from any outside influences. The only playmates that Frankie ever had were the carefully selected children of Frank’s mob employees. Frankie often spent weeks or months with the families of Frank’s bodyguards when his father traveled the country building and maintaining his infamous crime network. In time, Frankie had acquired his heavy New Jersey accent from his series of foster families, a direct opposite of Frank’s crisp diction and an endless source of amusement for his father. "You sound like a common hood," Frank would complain upon returning from LA or Detroit, playfully slapping Frankie on top of the head.
In spite of his scattered upbringing, Frankie was an intellectually brilliant child, and he quickly earned his GED by his thirteenth year. The last two years of Frankie’s life had been devoted to learning the intricate ins and outs of his father’s enormous criminal empire, culminating in Frank Senior’s award of the number two position and right hand man status to his capable son.
Frankie shifted his feet and looked down at his creased blue chino pants. "Do I look like a real kid, Johnny?" he asked anxiously. "Do you think anyone can tell that I’m not?" Frankie’s worried blue eyes looked intensely into Johnny’s dispassionate green ones.
"You look reasonable," agreed Johnny as he adjusted Frankie’s shirt collar, dusted off his shoulder and walked all around him to inspect. "Just remember to let me do the talking when we arrive at school. It’s the natural order of things."
Frankie nodded impatiently. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered under his breath.
"You’d better have some breakfast downstairs before we head to school," Johnny mentioned parentally. When Frankie shot him a sharp look, he shrugged, saying, "I’m a parent, what can I say. Old habits die hard. My Rickie and Sally always have a good breakfast. It helps them to learn."
"I’ve learned everything I need to learn from books," Frankie replied gruffly. "Now’s the time to put it to practice." He cracked his knuckles and sighed. "Let’s go," he directed as he walked toward the door.
Kelly’s diner was hopping with a brisk breakfast business, but Ruby noticed her newest tenant. "You look mighty handsome," she said smiling. "Is this your first day at Port Charles High School?" Frankie nodded sullenly, trying to mask his anxiety. Ruby patted him on the back. "Well, you look great. I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine. How about Kelly’s breakfast platter to start your day right?"
~*~*~*~
Nikolas selected an English muffin and orange juice from the lavishly appointed breakfast bar in the Wyndemere dining room. The elegant, wood-paneled room featured 18th Century antiques complete with a large crystal chandelier hovering over the twelve-foot long walnut dining room table. The breakfront of a massive china cabinet held exquisite china plates collected by Laura on one of her many European expeditions. Each morning, Mrs. Lansbury stocked the freshly baked continental breakfast items for a variety of household schedules. Stefan always rose early with the dawn to practice his tai chi and meditate before he left at 7AM for his busy day as CEO of General Hospital. Nikolas usually appeared at the breakfast table as his father headed out the door. Laura was a late riser and didn’t leave the master bedroom until 9:00AM.
Nikolas split his warm muffin with a silver knife, and then reached for the fresh, whipped cinnamon butter. He absentmindedly slathered a large amount of butter over the rough surface of one muffin half. He raised his orange juice glass in a mock toast to the empty room. "Breakfast for one," he said aloud. "Fit for a prince." The muscle in Nikolas’ right cheek twitched as he looked down at his bread plate. His father seemed to spend more and more time at the hospital with one emergency after another. General Hospital was suffering from the same downward cost pressures as every other medical institution in the country, and Stefan was embroiled in endless rounds of meetings that sometimes extended into the late evening hours. Nikolas’ parents seemed to take only a light, passing interest in his life as long as he continued to bring home the good grades and excel in sports competitions.
Nikolas’ father loved to remind his son that as a child, he had never had the privilege of normalcy, of interacting with his peers. Nikolas was fortunate to be able to relax and enjoy his youth. Nikolas took a long sip of his orange juice and looked around the dining room with sad eyes. But, what if I’m not enjoying it? he wondered. Tears filled Nikolas’ eyes, and he angrily pushed his Chippendale chair away from the table, setting his orange juice glass on the breakfast bar with a loud bang.
~*~*~*~
"Thanks, Aunt Bobbie," said Sly shyly as he accepted a plate of peanut butter toast and a large glass of milk. So far, he’d stayed maybe six or seven times with his aunt over the last two years when Luke was away or busy. The longest time he’d been here was for two weeks. After his third visit, he’d finally relaxed a bit, secure that Bobbie wanted him around and didn’t mind the extra work of having another kid hanging about. Lucas was a lot of fun. Sly looked up at his cousin and laughed lightly when the four-year-old boy started building a pyramid out of discarded pieces of cereal. Maybe Lucas will be an architect when he grows up, thought Sly. "Eat your building," directed Sly with a knife pointed at Lucas’ creation. "I bet that tastes better all stacked up high like that," he commented with a smile and a wink for the small boy. Lucas pursed his lips and blew down the cereal building with a tornado-like expulsion of breath. "Hahahaha!" he laughed merrily, ecstatic to have the attention of an older boy.
Bobbie entered the dining room with her own breakfast, bagel and cream cheese with a cup of coffee. "Lucas is at the age when he’d rather play with his food than eat," she said to Sly with a smile. "Right, kiddo?" she said as she wagged a finger at her small son. "Now what did I tell you about eating all of your food, Lucas? We don’t like to waste food in this house."
Sly looked at his watch. "Aunt Bobbie, I have to go wait for the bus, it’s supposed to be here in five minutes," he said worriedly. "I can help you clean up when I get home from school," he promised. Bobbie rose from her seat and held her arms out. "Give me a hug before you go," she said. Sly accepted her hug and relaxed under the welcome embrace of his aunt. "Here’s your backpack," said Bobbie as she broke from the hug and bent to pick up Sly’s books. "What do you have in there?" she laughed. "The Franklin Mint? That's heavy!"
"I know," Sly groaned as he lifted it onto his shoulder.
"Have a good day," Bobbie smiled while she ruffled the top of Sly’s hair, then smoothed it down again.
"Okay," said Sly with a lopsided grin as he walked to the front door.
~*~*~*~
Maxie took her time cutting her waffle with the side of her fork. Mac looked on and frowned when he glanced at the clock in the kitchen.
"You’d better get a move on," he warned Maxie. "You don’t want to miss your bus."
Maxie didn’t look up or say anything but continued to eat her waffle very slowly and deliberately. Why did Mac have to be such a drag? He takes this stepfather thing way too seriously, she thought. I wonder what my real dad is doing right now? I bet he’d be better company at breakfast and cut me a little slack.
After ten minutes of this, Mac threw down his napkin on the table, making Felicia jump and look at her husband curiously. "Dammit, Maxie," he said with annoyance. "If you miss the schoolbus, you’ll have to walk to school. I’m leaving for work." When Mac walked toward the door, Maxie pulled a sour face and shrugged her shoulders as she rolled her eyes. Felicia sighed and rubbed her forehead as she felt another migraine headache coming on.
~*~*~*~
"Remind me again why I said I needed to attend the local high school," said Frankie tensely as Johnny drove the Cadillac into the Port Charles High School parking lot. The old car was so long it stuck out from the surrounding cars and trucks by at least three feet. Frankie rhythmically tapped the fingers of his right hand onto the door’s armrest and whistled a tune under his breath.
"Because people aren’t used to seeing teenagers who aren’t in school. It would draw unwanted suspicion to your activities," recited Johnny as he glanced at Frankie from the sides of his eyes. Boss is nervous. He’s out of his usual element, thought Johnny.
"Right," said Frankie as he cleared his throat and stepped out of the car. His blue eyes casually absorbed the enormity of the student population. Hundreds of kids nearly all the same age spilled endlessly out of cars and buses. The sounds of shouts, laughter, whispering, talking and arguing filled the air with energy and excitement. Boys and girls walked, skipped, hopped, hobbled and wheeled their way into the school.
Johnny had parked toward the building’s entrance in a visitor’s parking place. A late model green Jaguar whipped effortlessly into a parking place two spots down from Frankie. Frankie’s eyes never left the vehicle or its driver as the good-looking, tall dark haired boy slammed the Jag door shut and walked toward him. Here comes money, thought Frankie. I’d like to acquaint myself with that. Or at least get my hands on it, he laughed to himself.
Nikolas hurried toward the door with an air of impatience. He glanced over at the kid standing beside the huge white Cadillac and noted that he’d never seen him before. Intense blue eyes met interested brown ones for a second before Nikolas passed on his way to homeroom and readjusted his thoughts to the upcoming events of the day.
~*~*~*~
Sly looked out of the bus window. Five minutes earlier, he’d reviewed the passengers on the bus, and then turned around to look once more. No Maxie today. He slumped down in his seat, rested his left hand on his seat companion, the oversized backpack, and started spacing out. Sly didn’t have any friends on this bus since he only took it when he stayed with his aunt. The bus grumbled, shook menacingly, and started off at a slow 10 mph pace as the bus driver struggled with the gears and kept glancing in the rearview mirror at the hoodlums in the back of the bus.
Sly jumped in his seat, his reverie broken by the sight of a beautiful blond girl racing alongside the bus, shouting and waving her hands with her hair wildly streaming behind her. She noticed Sly looking at her, and cupped her hand to her mouth as she yelled, "Stop the bus!" Sly couldn’t hear her with the loud bus engine whining and cranking, but he caught her intent. He rose from his seat and haltingly made his way to the bus driver. "There’s a girl running beside the bus," he informed the irritable driver, an old lady, old broad really, who had seen 25 unrelenting years of bus action. She shooed Sly away with an annoyed hand motion. "Can’t stop this bus for nobody," she said imperially as she shifted her massive, uniformed buttocks in the uncomfortable driver’s seat. "Please," said Sly in his best ‘convince the adult’ voice. "She needs to get on the bus." The driver looked Sly up and down and decided that he looked harmless enough, unlike the potsmoking, tattooed, dreadlocked heathen in the back. "Okay," she sighed in her rough-edged cigarette smoking voice as she administered the rarely used brakes.
At the exact moment that the bus skidded to a stop, and the bus driver opened the doors, Maxie appeared breathlessly at the side of the bus, and Sly fell in a dramatic heap when the bus jerked for one last time. Maxie’s legs were shaking from exhaustion as she climbed the tall steps to board the bus, and she caught her foot on the last step, causing her to let fly all the books in her arms. Lucky for Sly, the books slid to a stop right beside his outstretched hands. Unlucky for Sly, he was prone on his stomach and looking up into the eyes of a teenaged goddess, the object of his desire.
Quickly recovering, Sly scrambled first to a kneeling position and then upright. He held out the books to a smiling Maxie. "Thanks," she said appreciatively as she looked closely at Sly. "For the books and for having the bus stopped. I’ve never seen you before," she said curiously. "Are you new? " Sly shook his head. "What’s your name?" she asked. Sly opened his mouth and then tragedy struck. "Sl-AY ECKert," his changing voice squeaked out. Sly turned red with embarrassment. The bus driver rescued him when she growled, "All passengers take your seats." Sly turned and sat back where he was originally seated. Maxie walked over to the seat and looked at him expectantly. Sly stared back at her, wondering what she was doing, and then he figured it out and picked up his backpack, moving it onto his lap and out of her way. "Thanks," said Maxie breathlessly, brushing the side of her hair out of her pretty face and sitting down only one inch away from Sly. "I thought I was going to miss the bus for sure," she added. "Thanks for saving me. My name is Maxie Jones." Sly continued to stare at her as he wracked his brain for all of the lengthy, rehearsed conversations he would supposedly be prepared with when he had the opportunity to talk to Maxie. As his hormones took over, all sense departed from him, and he was left gawking at her. Maxie gave Sly one more small smile and stared straight ahead for the rest of the bus trip while Sly mentally reviewed his ever-growing list of why he hated himself and how to join the priesthood – immediately, by email if necessary.
~*~*~*~
Frankie sat in the principal’s office beside his "uncle" Johnny. At first, he’d propped his feet up on the table in front of him, but Johnny lightly swatted at his feet, and gave him a look that said "don’t blow it, boss, not here." Johnny held the folder with the forged documents that outlined Frankie’s school history. His recorded grades were high, but not perfect. Frankie had given himself a sophomore’s 3.2 grade point average, not valedictorian status, which was fine since he didn’t want to stand out. The forgeries were good, and Frankie wasn’t concerned, even with the school’s ability to check records through the computer. Frankie would match his hacking skills against anyone’s legitimate computer methods.
"Mr. DeMarco," a female guidance counselor said as she came out into the lobby and motioned toward Johnny. "I’ve just completed a preliminary class schedule for Frankie. Why don’t you come back to my office with your son?"
Johnny stood up and was followed by Frankie. The counselor accepted the folder that Johnny handed to her and opened it up as she sat behind her desk. She nodded at Johnny. "I see that you are Frankie’s uncle and legal guardian?" she asked.
"Yes," replied Johnny seriously. Frankie shifted in his seat and mentally rolled his eyes.
"And the mother is deceased," she noted. Johnny nodded, but Frankie turned red and stared off into space over to the bulletin board with calendars, postings for school dramas, and teen hotline phone numbers for unwanted pregnancies and other tragedies. Frankie had never had a mother. He remembered his father showing him a photo of a Las Vegas showgirl when he was a toddler and curious about why he didn’t have a mother when everyone else seemed to. "This is your mother," Frank said. "She’s dead. Died in a car accident. You don’t have a mother. I’m your father, and that’s all you need. You don’t need any women in your life. They not good for much and they complicate things."
Frankie absentmindedly wrapped one foot around the steel leg of his chair. He’d liked several of his foster mothers, the mobster’s wives who never ventured far from the home and dutifully produced sons and daughters on a regular basis. Sometimes, one or two of them would take notice of the small boy with the blond hair and inquisitive, big blue eyes. He could help with the baking or cleaning sometimes if someone were in a good mood. One lady would take off her apron and tie it around and around his tiny waist until he felt like a mummy. Another would let him lick the spoon if she baked a chocolate cake. But, for the most part, Frankie blended into the woodwork or at least into the groups of children. He slept on couches, cots or air mattresses thrown on the floor. It wasn’t the families’ faults. They didn’t know that Frankie might show up with his bodyguard at 3:00AM on any given night.
Someone was talking to Frankie, and he diverted his attention to the woman in front of him. "Yes, I’d prefer gym over woodshop," he answered.
~*~*~*~
Frankie was disgruntled. The stupid guidance counselor had assigned him a "friend for the day" to shadow him and show him around the school. The geeky poindexter was getting on his last nerve. Dwayne MacKenzie was a Ronald McDonald wannabe with his bright orange curly hair, oversized glasses and feet several times too big for his body size. He delighted in showing Frankie where the cafeteria was and the best drinking fountains in the school. I can read the signs, Frankie thought to himself. They had a half-hour before Frankie had to show up to his first class, and he wanted to do an exploration of his own kind. Frankie lay his hand on Dwayne’s shoulder and roughly directed him down a dark, deserted hallway, pushing him up against a wall and staring directly into his nerdy, rapidly blinking eyes.
"Get lost, kid," Frank ordered in his best New Jersey mob accent.
"I have orders to show you each floor of the high school," sputtered the dweeb as he shifted his eyes away from Frankie’s commanding presence.
"Order this, Dwaaaayne," gritted Frankie as he jabbed his index finger into the kid’s bony chest. Frankie pulled out his wallet and peeled off two twenties, waving them in Dwayne’s face. "You have two choices," he stated calmly. "Take the money, thank me profusely and scram, or die. Which is it?" Frankie stepped away and cracked his knuckles ominously as he jutted out his chin for effect.
Dwayne grabbed the bills and scooted away, saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," in a high pitched voice. When he rounded the corner, he broke out into a run and hightailed it out of there.
Frankie sighed, cracked his neck and pulled out his class schedule. He looked at it and realized he had absolutely no idea where the planetarium was. "Dammit," he cussed to himself. "Uh, Dwayne? Yo, Dwayne boy," he shouted down the hall.
~*~*~*~
Frankie stood in front of his locker and shifted his eyes left and right. Other kids came and went, rapidly opening the locks on the doors and then slamming them shut. Frankie pretended like he was deep in study over what, who knows. He’d never experienced a combination lock and couldn’t seem to figure out how to open it. He kept twirling the numbers around and around but to no avail. He actively wished for his gun so he could shoot it off. But, the school had metal detectors, and Frankie didn’t own one of those special plastic guns. He was carrying four books from his first two classes, and already his arm muscles were becoming fatigued. Lunch was next at the ungodly hour of 10:30AM. Frankie wasn’t hungry, but this would be his last opportunity for food during the rest of the day, and he didn’t want to miss it. Frankie dropped his books with a thud at his feet and started banging on the locker in frustration.
A thin, gawky teen several lockers away from Frankie looked over at the noise and quickly figured out the newcomer’s predicament. He walked over to Frankie and said, "I’m real good at opening locks. Can I try?" Frankie looked at the kid in irritation, but he held his tongue and nodded. "Okay," he conceded. The thin teen twirled the lock back and forth as Frankie recited the combination and promptly opened the device.
"There," he said easily. "Are you new?" he asked Frankie as Frankie threw his books into the locker and slammed it, refastening the lock and cursing at it mentally.
"Um, yeah," Frankie admitted. "This is my first day."
The easygoing teen smiled. "Why don’t you join me and my friends at the cafeteria. We can steer you away from the mystery meat and other horrors."
Frankie laughed and grinned broadly. Maybe some of these plebes aren’t so bad, he thought.
"My name’s Sly, what’s yours?" the thin teen said conversationally.
"Frankie," was the reply. "Frankie DeMarco."
Next chapter...