Sherm gave Hudson a grimace followed by a smile. “That’s a good thing. I think my instincts were right about you.”
“So we don’t need to drive to Portland tomorrow?” Oakley asked, unexpectedly hoping she could go to school and not miss any more classes. She was getting behind. “If we don’t have to give your hired private eye a thousand bucks tomorrow, you don’t need the money.”
“Oh, yeah, I need it even more.” Hudson stiffened. “If I’m going to see my parents, I’m going to go with an armload of money. If they were in dire straits back in the day and I ignored them, then I owe it to them even more than ever.”
That sentiment was something Oakley could understand. He needed to give them that gift to assuage his conscience for ignoring them back then. Whether or not it had been twenty-plus years for them, it had been only a few days for Hudson. He wanted to go to them as soon as possible. Too bad it had been so long in reality.
“You can go,” Sherm said. “You can even take my truck. But no skipping school.”
Oakley was a little relieved. As long as she could find a sub for work, they could head downriver to Portland and see if they could find whatever imaginary stash Hudson seemed to think he had.
“Just so you know, I’ll plan to go with Oakley on Thursday,” Hudson said. “Then you don’t have to worry about it and can just do your trial.”
“Good. Thanks, Hudson, because I have a court appearance that day. It’s a big case and one I can’t reschedule.”
“Sherm? You’re not going to Seattle?” Oakley was surprised. Sherm wasn’t going along for her audition? Somehow that disappointed Oakley more than she would have expected.
“I can’t go either, dear.” Mom’s eyebrows tilted together in apology. “It’s testing week at school, and the principal has called for mandatory attendance of all teachers all week.”
Even for the kindergarten teachers? “When were you going to tell me this, Mom?” Oakley felt more upset than she should have for an independent teenager.
“Well, you just told me about the date change last night, and I argued all morning on the phone with the administration to ask for an exception. They aren’t making any exceptions.” Mom shook her head slowly. “If you absolutely need me there, I can talk to them about resigning. There’s probably something else I can—”
“Resigning! Mom! That’s ridiculous. Beautiful and amazing, but ridiculous. Thanks for even thinking of it, but Hudson will go with me.”
“It’s such a long drive.” Mom sighed like she was trying to work out some other way.
“Hudson’s a surprisingly safe driver.”
“Hey!” Hudson pushed her shoulder with his. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The mood lightened. Oakley got up and took Sherm’s nearly untouched dish to the kitchen to reheat it yet again. Mom appeared beside her at the microwave. Together they watched the dish spin in the flickering yellow light.
“I am so sorry, honey. I really want to be there for you. If it’s any consolation, I do have a sub for the next Wednesday when your callback was originally planned, not that it does any good.” She wrapped her arms around Oakley and kissed the side of her head. They were the same height these days. “You want to wear one of my wild outfits from the past? There’s a black skirt that will look great with those new boots.”
An outfit! That was right. Oakley still didn’t have one. If she was going with Hudson to Portland tomorrow, and then make up time at work, there was no way she could have time to shop before Thursday.
“Really, Mom? I loved that skirt. And the pink fur jacket?”
“It’s faux fur, honey. Let’s be clear on that.”
They hugged.
“Mom?” Oakley put the last dish in the dishwasher. “Sherm. He’s pretty cool.”
“I know, right?” A slow smile spread over Mom’s face. She’d obviously missed the guy. Having him here grounded her. There was no evidence of the wackiness that had floated around her off and on for the past few days.
“Oakley?” Mom said. “Hudson’s pretty cool, too. Don’t you think?”
“I know, right?” Oakley knew her eyes sparkled, but then worry blasted its way in. “I hope you’re okay with my liking him. Because I think I do. And I could be reading into things, but I think maybe he likes me, too.”
“Has he said so?”
He had, and he’d shown her, but she shouldn’t think about it, since it was off limits now to show any physical affection. There has to be a way around that.
“You always warned me about sweet talkers, and I don’t think he is. Honestly. I mean, the things he says to me are sweet, but he seems genuine.”
“How do you feel about him?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m a little scared that it’s all a dream and he will poof! disappear. You know?”
No one knew better than Mom, and her face said so. “You can’t live your life as though the worst is about to happen.”
But she’d seen a lot of worsts, hadn’t she? “You want me to be a glass-half-full person.”
“Scientific studies have proved that living with a positive outlook makes people live longer, healthier lives. It’s a natural anti-depressant. So are new shoes. I like yours.”
She did? “Thanks. They were too expensive, and I bought them anyway. It’s like I hadn’t learned my lesson.”
“About good shoes? Good shoes are important. They’re empowering.”
Well, that was true. “I promise, I wasn’t trying to go back on my word by buying them.”
“What word?”
“The one where I said I’d wear my old shoes until they were worn out.”
“If the shoes didn’t wear out physically, they certainly wore out style-wise.” Mom lifted an eyebrow.
Well, that had been true after just a few months.
“So you’re okay if I let the old shoes go?”
“Of course. Geez, Oakley. You can be so deaf to your mom’s words sometimes.” She pulled her into another hug. “I guess that’s teenage girls for ya.”
Oakley exhaled in her mom’s embrace. “He wasn’t one of those drug-addicted, womanizing pop stars that destroys everyone’s trust.” Even though he might leave her again any second. The more time she spent with him, the more she realized that his leaving could shatter her.
“Oh, I know that, dear. Why do you think I had such a thing for him?” One side of her face pulled into a smile. “I never settle for anything but a great guy.”
Mom walked off to the pantry with the napkin dispenser, but she left Oakley with a jolt running through her. She knew they were talking about Hudson and Sherm, but did that mean Oakley’s dad, Derek the Ranger, had been a great guy, too?
***
An hour later, after she and Mom had found the perfect outfit, up to and including the black leather miniskirt and the hot pink faux fur jacket, Oakley walked back toward the piano room, but she stopped short when she heard stern words passing between Sherm and Hudson.
“If this is your legal documentation, then you are legally forty years old.”
“I was born the year it says, yes.”
“And that makes you far too old to be kissing my daughter.” Sherm cleared his throat, like he did when he was going to emphasize a point. “The law wears a blindfold. It won’t see your youthful good looks. It will see your birth certificate, your driver’s license, and listen to your parents’ verification of your age.”
Ugh! Oakley knew this was going to happen. She’d get one perfect kiss, and then all hope of future kisses would be ripped away from her. She tried to mask her disappointment, since she didn’t want Hudson to know how much she’d liked that one moment they’d shared. It would be too humiliating when he left her.
“If we ever find them.” Hudson sounded dejected. “I just don’t get it. What could have happened to them?”
Oakley’s guilt over her eavesdropping grew too large, and she had to enter. “You couldn’t find them?” She’d been so sure
of Sherm’s sleuthing skills. “You were able to access your resources from home?”
Sherm sighed, an apology in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Oakley. There isn’t a single soul on the database with their names, Rufus and Greta Oaks. Nothing newer than twenty years ago, that is.”
With names like those, there weren’t bound to be repeats, at least not in that combination.
“Maybe something happened to them.” Hudson’s voice cracked. “They wouldn’t have split up, I swear. They were solid. Like Gibraltar.”
He looked to be on the verge of cracking just like his voice, so Oakley jumped in. “Maybe they don’t want to be found,” she offered. “Maybe the weight of being the parents of a missing famous child got to be too much.”
This didn’t seem to be the right thing to say. Hudson looked like he’d been kicked in the stomach. Oakley’s gut clenched in shame for having said it.
“I can’t think about it anymore. Not tonight. Sorry.” Hudson got up and dusted off his pants. “You’ll take care of the research end, then?” he asked Sherm, who nodded and got up. Sherm hauled his suitcases upstairs, and Mom was already up there.
Research? I thought they’d already established that he’d done the research and failed, Oakley thought to herself.
“I’m sorry for that.” Oakley looked at the floor. “I shouldn’t have said that something happened to them.”
“I’m the one who pushed the worst case scenario.” Hudson touched her arm. “You were just giving a theory. I want to hear all the theories. All the ones where they’re still alive, that is.”
This made her ears burn. It hadn’t occurred to her that they could be gone. “They’re all right. Somewhere. I’m sure of it.” She pressed her hand onto his fingertips, wishing she could press away his worries and sorrows. “I have full confidence in Sherm’s ability to find them.”
Hudson just held her hand for a while. “He says I can’t kiss you anymore.”
“I heard.”
“I will miss that.”
“Oh?” But she was just a novice. Their kiss couldn’t have been anything special to him. “You’ve probably kissed a lot of girls.”
“Yeah, I’ll admit it.” He looked like he was counting to a million, and Oakley’s stomach plummeted to her feet. “But it never meant anything like it means when I kiss you.”
She looked up at him. Their eyes locked, and jolts of electricity passed between them. She could hardly breathe. “I don’t think I could sleep now if I wanted to, Hudson. Do you want to sing? Let’s just sing.”
“Yes.” With what looked like great effort, Hudson tore his eyes from hers. “That’s a really good idea. But I want to hear something you’ve written.”
Me? Oakley might have choked, but Hudson looked so vulnerable.
“I don’t know. I haven’t got anything that’s polished.”
“Then write something new. Writing something new always helps me deal with stress,” he said. “I don’t do lyrics. Believe me. But maybe hearing your lyrics will spark a melody in me. I haven’t written anything new in a long while.”
If it would help him, maybe she’d relent.
“Wait for me in the piano room.” Oakley went upstairs and pulled her lyrics notebook out from under her bed. She’d taken it back up to her room after she’d found it in the couch. Its cover was worn. Every step made her legs feel heavier. She couldn’t show it to him. She’d never shown it to anyone. Her nerves went into high-alert status.
She almost turned around and went back up the stairs, where she could hide the book again and pretend she couldn’t find it.
But then, the sounds of Hudson strumming the guitar came up to her. The melody he was playing sent words straight into her mind. I found you, you found me, what chance caused that fortune?
“What do you say we write a song?” he said when he eyed her. “You up for it?”
“Together?” she asked. That was different from having to lay her soul bare by showing him her notebook, at least. “Oh. Okay.”
He nodded. “How about if it goes like this?” He started plucking out a new melody, and then he put in some background chords. It was amazing, the way they fit together. A feeling came from the notes that made Oakley’s soul lift off and float around at the ceiling of the piano room. She closed her eyes and sank into it.
“Wait. Is this ‘Lunch Lady’ again?” Oakley shuddered, recognizing it all of a sudden. “Stop.”
“It’s got potential.”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s too awful to touch. Seriously, man.”
“Just wait.” Hudson went back to the part that sounded like a chorus. “You heard a few of these gems already, but I want you to hear rest of the lyrics that already belong to it—not because they’re good but because the cadence is important—if we’re going to rewrite them.”
Oakley wasn’t sure she was up to it. “I don’t know, Hudson.”
“Just … humor me. Listen a bit.” Even with Hudson’s velvet-soft voice, the words he sang made a metal-on-metal scraping in Oakley’s ears.
The ice machine shivers and so do I when I see your ice-blue eyes.
We both find ourselves freezing up, and I can’t even say hi.
Lunch lady, lunch lady, give me a sign.
Tell me I’m yours and I’ll tell you you’re mine.
Lunch lady, lunch lady, we’re so meant to be.
Let’s share some salad from cart number three.
He sang to the melody. “Those have to be the worst lyrics in the history of verse.” But one thing did redeem it, and Oakley pointed it out. “Fine. Fine. You said it, and you were right. It does have an okay cadence.”
“So, there’s potential?”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
“Come on,” Hudson said. “Full disclosure, those chords and the melody you just heard are mine, mostly. Of course, editors mashed them up with some more instruments so that we had a bass line just rocking for Chris and all the synthesizer notes for Al to play, but then they ruined it with The smell of pizza and burgers permeates the air, perfuming your hair. I couldn’t fix it in time.”
“Pizza perfume. That could actually be a thing for some guys.” Oakley laughed at her own joke. Then her mind sang silently, Sweet sixteen, I’ve never been kissed, and she knew it wasn’t something he could do alone, but that she’d been given a gift, and he needed it. But she wasn’t ready! She wasn’t good enough. “I don’t think I’m ready for the big time, though.”
“It’s not the big time. Remember that anything is going to be better.”
Than pizza perfume? Well, no argument there. “What if …” With a hesitant hand, she slid her notebook out from behind her back and flipped through a couple of pages. “That song actually sounds like …” She was going to say something stupid. She stopped.
“Like what?” Hudson’s eyes looked expectant.
“Like”—she gulped—“the way a kiss feels.”
Their eyes met. A spark ripped between them, jolting her. She bit her lips. Hudson looked at them and then back at her eyes.
Slowly, Hudson began to nod, as if he were beginning to believe in bigger possibilities. “Maybe we can do this—this fix-the-album thing.” Hudson touched her hand. “Maybe I can make this right—for them.”
“For the band.”
He nodded, his face grave. Even though the clock struck three a.m., ridiculously late for a school night, Oakley cracked open her notebook, while Hudson picked up his guitar.
Scene 12: “Masquerade”
At lunch, when her make-up test for biology from last Wednesday was done, there were only a couple of minutes left before her next class, but she found Hudson, Brinn, and Clyde sitting at their usual picnic table under the outcast tree. Oakley hadn’t seen or talked to Brinn since Brinn’s big a-ha moment in the shoe store. A tremor of worry made Oakley clench her stomach as she approached. But Hudson had Clyde’s guitar, and there were also a bunch of other people, almost all female, milling ar
ound Hudson.
Hearts were obviously aflutter.
“Now, when you go for the chord change, if you slide your fingers, you get this sound.” Hudson was doing a demo, and girls from the freshman and sophomore classes hovered around him. “See?”
They ahhed in unison. Oakley choked down an involuntary gagging sound. Girls really did go crazy for Girl Crazy. It had a lot less to do with the songs he’d sung on stage two decades to ago and a lot more to do with the irresistible magnetism of Hudson Oaks.
He could rule the world in this day and age of instant transmission of music and words and charm everywhere.
“Hi there.”
He looked up and saw Oakley, and he jumped to his feet. “How was the test?” Before she could answer he turned to the girls. “Guitar lesson’s over.” A collective moan of disappointment rose from the female part of the crowd, and they dispersed.
“Fine. I mean, terrible, but I guess I could study harder.” She’d gotten a C-minus. Now she really had to show up at Board & Brush because her grades were definitely not on track for a scholarship. I really need to win TNRS. If only for the prize money to pay for college.
“That’s crazy!” Clyde chimed in, coming over by them.
“Hey, I’m working on passing biology, dude.” Oakley kicked the toe of his shoe with one of her new boots that Brinn had dropped off while Oakley and Hudson had gone to the Gorge on Sunday afternoon. “Give me a break.”
“No, I’m talking about the chord progression Pete just showed me. Great boots, by the way. My girlfriend has good taste in choosing them for you.”
“Thanks.” They really ought to tell Clyde that Hudson’s name wasn’t actually Pete Townsend. “You’re right. Your girlfriend is cool.”
“But back to the song Pete was playing—it’s exactly like this song I found done by that one band Girl Crazy.”
“Girl Crazy, huh?” Hudson said. He shot Oakley a look—not of alarm. More like of fifty cop-car sirens. “How’d you find it again?”
Oakley did her best to keep her face a mask of nonchalance. She’d never paid much attention to Clyde’s music obsession trivia fests before. But now, it felt like life depended on it.
My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2) Page 19
