“Brinn, I want you to meet the last person you’d ever think you’d meet—Hudson Oaks, lead singer for the nineties boy band, Girl Crazy.” She had no idea how Brinn would take it, whether she would lash out, turn and leave, or faint dead away. Oakley bit her lower lip, praying Brinn would somehow forgive her for the deception. “Hudson, this is my best friend, Brinn.”
Hudson extended his hand. Brinn looked down at it as if it might burn her.
“Best friend!” Brinn spat. “Best friend? And you leave me out of the loop on the most important discovery of your life?”
At least she wasn’t rejecting Hudson’s identity. It was cold comfort. Oakley reached for her. “Brinn, I couldn’t tell you. He hasn’t seen his family yet.”
“But he’s seen yours, and you took him to school. Please!” She huffed in exasperation. “I saw him talking to the Populars. I heard him tell them what you mean to each other, and you kept that from me?”
Brinn had heard about the girlfriend declaration? Oakley’s mouth went dry. “But—you heard that?”
“Uh, yeah. We have lockers right by each other, doofus.” The word doofus didn’t fit the mood, but Brinn shuddered. “If you don’t trust me with basic relationship information, like the fact that you have a boyfriend, I don’t know if I can call you my best friend.”
“What?” Oakley didn’t know how to explain that Hudson had used the term as a weapon, not as a truthful statement. She couldn’t deny it, either, since Brinn had actually heard the words come from his mouth, had stood there when Oakley hadn’t protested. “No, Brinn,” she whispered.
“I waited and waited for you to come to me. You didn’t.”
She’d been spending all her free time with Hudson. She’d ignored Brinn. “I should have told you what was going on, I know. I wanted to, believe me. I was bursting with it.”
Hudson opened his mouth, as if to speak, but he wisely closed it again.
“So, why didn’t you?” Brinn’s eyes narrowed on Oakley, her hands on her hips in tight fists. “And you had better have a good explanation.”
If there was one reason Oakley and Brinn had stayed good friends for so long, it was that Brinn had the rare trait of being someone who could revise her opinion based on new information, even in an emotional situation.
“It’s very good. I promise.” Oakley bit her lip and hoped it seemed as reasonable to Brinn as it had to herself when she was making excuses for keeping her best friend in the dark these past several days. “Like you suspected, this really is Hudson Oaks.”
Brinn didn’t soften. “And?”
“And he can’t find his family.”
“Oh.”
“And he’s been trying, but they’re nowhere to be found. If you were his sister, and he showed up in a news article before he showed up on your doorstep after being missing for two decades, how would you feel?”
“Betrayed.” Brinn said it like she already felt betrayed right now. “Highly betrayed.” When she repeated it, though, she took a breath. “Oh, okay. I see. You weren’t excluding me just because you think I can’t keep a secret, which I totally can. You were keeping it from everyone until you found his family.”
Oakley exhaled. “Yes.”
Brinn clenched her jaw a few times in the night’s lamplight. “I thought you could trust me with everything.”
“I can. You’re the only other person who knows besides my mom and Sherm. And that’s only because Hudson is staying at our house.”
“So I’m the first one you told outside your family?”
Oakley nodded.
“And I know even before his family knows?”
Oakley nodded. “So you absolutely, positively, a hundred percent can’t tell a soul.”
Brinn took several deep breaths, thinking. Then in a sudden turn of events, she threw her arms around Hudson and jumped a half dozen times.
“I knew it!” She jumped more, and Hudson looked at Oakley in mild distress over Brinn’s bouncing shoulder. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
Hudson patted her back a few times, and she released him at last.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“Well, first there was the fact that you look exactly like him. And then, duh, the voice.”
Well, there was that. Oakley grimaced. She hadn’t bothered to disguise him at all when she took him to school, doubting that anyone her own age would have the faintest knowledge of how a teen idol from two decades ago would look or sound.
“I still need proof.” Clyde surprisingly stepped out of the shadows. “Sorry for not coming out into the rain here sooner. I was texting my mom. She didn’t want me leaving this late on a school night. I told her it was a music emergency, though.”
Some moms fell for anything.
“What sort of proof?” Oakley’s mom had been convinced at first sight. Oakley had taken significantly longer. Sherm had simply trusted Mom’s word—and Hudson’s government-issued ID, and Brinn had believed because Oakley did. Where did that leave Clyde? “Driver’s license?”
“Birthmark.” Clyde was all business. “The sources said it looks like a butterfly.”
Birthmark! Oakley felt like she was being slapped by the memory of her mom’s bizarre behavior the day Hudson showed up and had paraded through the house in that towel.
“You mean like this?” Hudson started lifting up his shirt, and Oakley pressed her hands over her eyes. This was not happening.
“How would you even know about something like that, dude?” She shouldn’t have asked, since she didn’t really want to know.
“My insider magazine. I told you about it.” Clyde clapped his hands. “Yup! There it is.”
Oakley opened her eyes just in time to see Hudson tucking his shirt back in, but she caught a glimpse of the little wine-stain colored butterfly at his hip bone. Then she quickly averted her gaze.
“I knew it.” Clyde looked pleased with himself. “But I need one more thing—the lyrics to ‘Cafeteria Girl.’”
Oakley groaned. Hudson groaned. Brinn looked confused. But Clyde was undaunted.
“Come on. Out with them, man. Or I’m calling the cops on you for impersonation.” Wow, Clyde was upping the stakes. And then he upped them again. “Wait. I should ask for the lyrics to a different song on that unreleased album. The real Hudson would know them.”
“But they’re terrible.”
“No worse than ‘Cafeteria Girl.’ Well, maybe a little. Go on, then. ‘Baseball Season’s Over,’ please. Also known as ‘The Last Song.’ Go for it. Prove your identity. I won’t accept anything less.”
Reluctantly, Hudson cleared his throat and began to sing something with less cool of a melody than “Cafeteria Girl,” but with much worse lyrics.
This is our last song together
They’ve called the end of the game
Baseball season’s over
The pitcher’s arm was lame
We sat together in the bleachers
You shouted at the ump
We ate all the peanuts and Cracker Jack
You got beaned by a fly ball, and your head got a bump.
Baseball season, we fell for you,
Baseball season, your scores were true.
Baseball season, you didn’t make us sad.
Baseball season, you were all that we had.
Now you’re through.
“That doesn’t even make sense.” Brinn shook her head. “What does it mean?”
Clyde was grinning. “It means, my dear, that I was right. I told you it was him.” He turned to Hudson. “The reason I know is that those lyrics he just chose come at the end of the album. No one else in their right minds besides you and me would have been able to stand listening all the way through. And I only forced myself because I wanted to protect Oakley, here. I’m the one who told Brinn it was you in the first place, actually.”
“Nuh-uh.” Brinn shoved his shoulder with her fingertips and then went to huddle under the warmth of his arm. A sudde
n breeze sent a chill through the air. “I saw the resemblance first. But I just didn’t tell you.”
Whatever. “Okay, so now you know.” Oakley couldn’t leave it at that. “But there’s something I have to remind you, Clyde: with great knowledge comes great responsibility.”
“Spiderman!” Clyde said.
“What?” Hudson asked. “Oh, right. The comic book cliché.”
“We’re all clichés sooner or later.” Brinn rolled her eyes. “Fine. We can’t tell anyone about his secret identity. But in exchange, you have to tell us everything.”
“Yeah.” Clyde was breathless and said, “First off, where did you get the time machine, and where is it now? Can we go to Woodstock in it? I’m dying to see that. And then can we go to Lollapalooza? The first one in 1991? I always wanted to ride the crowd-surfing wave to the sounds of Jane’s Addiction.” He got all misty-eyed. “Can you set the dial to whenever you want to go to?” His face clouded, “And why the heck would you pick now and here? Am I missing something important?”
“Uh, yeah. Like the fact there’s no time machine.” Oakley shot him a shush-up look. “He didn’t come here on purpose. He came here because the universe didn’t want him to die.”
Scene 13: “The Perfect Fan”
It took almost an hour to give Brinn and Clyde all the details they’d pieced together about Hudson’s arrival in the present day, and to convince Clyde that no, there really was no time machine. His disappointment flowed off him like a smoke machine’s fog at a rock concert.
“Aw, man. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have bothered spinning yarns for my mom tonight. I’m going to have to do extra yard work tomorrow.”
“You’ll live.” Brinn kissed his cheek. “Maybe I’ll hold the lawn and leaf bag while you put in your leaf piles.”
“You’re the best.” They rubbed noses. Oakley shot Hudson a glance that said, Other people’s affection … puhleeze.
“I guess we’d better go.” Hudson took Oakley’s hand. “I don’t want Oakley to catch cold or mess up her voice. She’s got that live TV performance Thursday, you know. I’m sorry she had to lie to you.”
“I can’t wait to see how this turns out.” Brinn rubbed her hands together. “Hudson Oaks is one of the most famous missing persons of all time. His comeback could be better than Woodstock.”
Clyde snapped up at this. “Uh, not better than Woodstock.”
“Fine. But still,”—Brinn brushed water droplets from her hair—“he’s got to let his fans know sometime.”
“Yeah, but not until his family knows. That’s first on the list.”
“Yeah, and your label.” Clyde handed Brinn a handkerchief, and she dried her face with it. “You have to let your record label know. They probably still have rights to some of your stuff, right? Even that horrible song.” He winced. “I can’t believe you sang that.”
“Me, neither.” Hudson shuddered beside Oakley. “I mean, there’s good news on that front, though. Oakley and I have reworked the lyrics. We just finished them up. Mostly. It’s the same great chord progression you liked, but we completely revamped the words. I mean, Oakley did.”
“You helped.”
He looked over at her, and he smiled that blinding-wattage smile. Her knees almost buckled.
“Okay, lovebirds, we know you complete each other.” Brinn started walking toward the sidewalk to home, leaving those words vibrating in the air too high where short-legged Oakley couldn’t bat them away. “But why not just go home and tell your family, Hudson? What are you doing hanging around here when you could be back in Kansas or wherever they are?”
“That’s the problem,” Oakley said. “They’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“He’s from Seattle,” Clyde said.
“I meant it figuratively, Clyde. Quoting The Wizard of Oz?”
“His family went into hiding.” Clyde ignored her retort. “Didn’t you know?”
“Hiding!” Oakley gasped. “What all do you know, Clyde? Spill it immediately. No beating around the bush or acting superior for knowing more about rock star gossip than we do.”
“Think about it, Oaks.” Now even Clyde was calling her that. “If you were the parents of some famous disappearance, you’d get tired of being hounded by the tabloids every time any crackpot came forward with a clue. Or anytime some faker claimed he was Hudson returned from the dead. You’d have to get away from the stalker-fans who watched your yard day and night to see when and if the missing guy returned.”
“How do you know all this? If anyone should know it, it’s my mom—not you.”
“She probably doesn’t know about the insider music magazine I subscribe to. It’s a conspiracy-based mag, and it’s only in print, never online.”
Oakley didn’t want to touch that information.
“I can’t believe I put them through that.” Hudson stiffened, his voice low and remorseful. “Is that what happened?”
Clyde nodded.
Oakley felt sick. Clyde’s theory definitely sounded plausible.
“Did they, what, announce they were going into hiding?” Brinn asked. “Or did they just ask for their privacy and then disappear like they’d gone into witness protection?”
“Kind of a mixture of both.” Clyde couldn’t help sounding self-important as he educated them all. He genuinely did know more, so Oakley forgave him and let him have his moment. “Mr. Oaks went on TV begging for people to let Hudson’s memory rest, and to leave the family to grieve in peace.”
Grieve in peace! The words struck Oakley like an arrow to the heart, a sharp pain making her grab her chest. “I’m so sorry for them,” she said, her voice quavering. “I wonder where they are.”
“Have you looked online?” Brinn said, not very helpfully. “I mean, everyone’s online.”
Oakley rolled her eyes and suppressed a snort. “Do you not think we thought of that?”
“Not everyone has an online footprint, babe. Not if they really don’t want to,” Clyde said. “It costs money, but there are companies you can pay to have your tracks erased.”
Brinn huffed. “I meant for relatives. Duh. I’m sure Hudson had grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles.”
Oakley looked at Hudson with hope, but he just shook his head. “My grandparents on my mom’s side died before I was born, and my dad’s parents were really old when I came along. When we searched them up, we found out they passed away shortly after my plane crash. Obituaries were online, nothing else.” His voice didn’t crack at this, and Oakley thought he was brave. “There was one uncle, but he and my dad weren’t close. I never met him. We just didn’t have one of those families.”
Dead end. Oakley almost felt sorrier about non-close families than about losing the possibility of finding them through family connections. She knew how it felt.
“What about close friends? There’s got to be someone.” Brinn, however, wouldn’t let her idea go. “Church people, work buddies, golf friends.”
“It’s been too long.” Hudson frowned. “I mean, for me. Even though it seems like last week, you have to remember, I was estranged from them for a while before my death. At least six months.”
Six months. That’s not that long. But it could definitely feel like forever if you were living a crazy-intense life, and if you were on the outs with the people who should matter most. Oakley frowned. Still, maybe there was another idea.
“But what about the parents of the other band members? Would they have stayed in touch?”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.” Brinn rubbed her hands together as they walked down the uneven slabs of concrete on the sidewalk. A bower of maple branches covered their heads, and the occasional pool of white light from a streetlamp guided them along. “Think about it. If you were grieving a loss, wouldn’t you band together—no pun intended—with others in grief? You would! Oakley, you’re a genius.”
Being told she was a genius felt amazing, especially after being told she was a liar. “It was your idea,
Brinn. You’re the genius.”
“It won’t work.” Clyde rained on their genius parade. “Remember that Al, Nick, and Chris were all estranged from their parents before the crash.” He shook his head and looked at Hudson. “Although I did read somewhere that Chris, the bass guitarist, had reached out to his dad right before the crash, asking for legal advice. Did you know about that?”
Before Hudson could respond, Brinn grabbed hold of the conversation and didn’t let go.
“Uh, estrangement doesn’t mean lack of mourning when someone dies.” Brinn stomped her foot, displaying her strong opinion on this. “And it depends totally on the reason for it, and whose side the choice came from for the estrangement. I’m guessing it was the boys’ choice. Am I right, Hudson?”
“Uh, yeah.” Hudson seemed distracted. He bent over and picked up a fallen leaf, fiddled with it, and then let it go. “I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?” Oakley asked, but simultaneously realized why Hudson hesitated. “Is it that you don’t want to see them?”
Brinn’s face fell. “They might be upset if you’re alive and their son or brother or whatever didn’t make it.” She reached out and put a hand on his arm. “I get it.”
Oakley also knew Hudson’s other hang-up—that he blamed himself for the crash and the guys’ deaths. The families of the victims might blame Hudson, as well.
“If you don’t want to go that route to finding your family it’s okay.” Oakley stepped closer to him, threading her fingers through his, barely thinking about how close that made her feel to him. It was a girlfriend gesture, not an aloof-girl-who-can’t-let-you-get-close-to-me gesture. “I’m sure there’s some other way.”
Instead of being as somber as he’d been, Hudson chewed his lower lip. “Al’s family was close to me, despite Girl Crazy’s craziness.”
“It’s totally going to be your best way in. Call them up.” Brinn beamed, the genius light still glowing in her. “You’ll see. I mean, it’s too late tonight, but you have nothing to lose.”
My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2) Page 21
