by Hope Lyda
How sad that I would need an excuse, a story, a tall tale for this advent.
Hurrying along the retail area of the airport toward the main terminal, I checked my watch. Only then did I realize I had left the sign with his name on it in the car. I looked around the mini food court for something to serve as paper. Two young boys walked by with white pizza boxes. I quickly headed for the counter they just left.
“I’d like one of the to-go boxes. To go.”
Blank stare.
“I’ll pay you a dollar for one.”
“You want the box, but no pizza?” The young freckled girl asked with a slight accusatory tone.
“Yes, thank you so much.” I decided to keep the conversation positive.
She shook her head rigidly. “You have to order pizza to get the box.”
I wasn’t going to win this argument. “Okay, give me whatever is ready.” I shoved money at the girl, and she entered numbers into her register with her blue nails. She looked over her shoulder at the mini pies resting below the red glow of food warmer lights. “That would be pepperoni. Would you like cheese bread with that?”
“I don’t even want the pizza. What do you think?”
“Oh, right,” she said, as if our box discussion had been hours beforehand.
With practiced moves she folded up a pristine slab of cardboard and then placed a pizza shiny with meat and cheese juice in the center.
I started to salivate.
“Did you want a drink with that?”
My look said it all. She turned her attention to the next customer in line. I rushed off toward the gates for American Airlines. While walking by the departure and arrival monitors I slowed enough to skim the list. His flight was ten minutes late. Just enough time for me to whip out my lipstick and write “HUDSON” on the front of the box above the label for Pal’s Pizza. I was too anxious to recall the fake last name Cecilia had assigned our celebrity-in-hiding.
I scanned the gathering of people waiting outside of the metal detectors. A young man held a bouquet of flowers. A tall older woman clutched a small terrier dog to her chest and watched the corridor beyond the security forces with anxious eyes. A cluster of teen girls exchanged lip gloss and mascara wands and shook long strands of hair away from their shoulders in unison. Strategic placement was important. If Hudson looked at all like Jude, those girls might recognize him. I figured the safest place to stand was between the terrier lady and a family of two little girls, a baby boy, and a father holding a sign reading, “We love our military mom.”
The passengers of Hudson’s flight started to round the corner and walk in our direction. Strangers who had become acquaintances while in flight said their goodbyes and their well-wishes for whatever was discussed in the close quarters of an airplane row of seats. Unless Cecilia was a master makeup artist, nobody coming along the pike was a possible Hudson. Maybe I should have referred to some magazines or online tabloids so that his face was fresh in my mind. I knew of the guy, of course, but I was far from a groupie or up-to-date fan. Just when I was ready to call Cecilia on the cell phone, I saw him. Everyone did. He had on cowboy boots, a ten-gallon hat, and a shock of straw blond hair beneath the monstrous head topper. In fact, it may have been straw. Cecilia had turned him into the farmer in the dell.
Quickly, I positioned the pizza box so he would see it as soon as he lifted his Stetson. He was talking to an elderly gentleman with few teeth and a big smile. They were lost in conversation and were within a couple feet of me. I rattled the pizza box for effect. They kept walking and talking. I caught a little bit of the conversation, and it involved fly fishing and salmon. Hudson had apparently thrown himself into the role of outdoorsman with great abandon.
I turned on my short heels and started after the two gentlemen. Their pace was surprisingly fast. If I didn’t catch him, Hudson would disappear into the crowd and I would completely ruin this chance for Cecilia and for myself and for him.
“Hudson!” I yelled toward the crowd ahead of me.
The cowboy stopped in his tracks while his fishing buddy continued on a few paces. Hudson looked at me, at the pizza box in front of my chest, and back at my face. I nodded long and hard as though we were both in on the same big punch line. I was the obvious bad actor here. He nodded back at me with a very charming smile and turned to catch up with his friend. He tugged on the gentleman’s flannel shirt to get his attention, extended his hand for a firm shake, and the two said their goodbyes.
“Libby.” He stated this but his eyes questioned it. I followed his gaze down to my shirt and saw the scene I was creating. Pepperoni grease was dripping out of the box and onto my blouse. Appalled, I pulled the box away from me, only to reveal a much more startling scene. My blouse was absorbing the grease and rapidly become a very orange, very transparent top.
“Oh!” The air left my lungs and I looked around frantically. I’d have to hold the pizza box to my chest for the rest of the journey home. The rayon fabric stuck to my skin and a trickle of grease was making its way from my bra down to my belly button. I didn’t even get my few minutes of professionalism. I went straight to loser. At least Hudson would not have to figure this out. I was up front. Boy, was I up front.
Hudson responded to my cry with heroic practiced flair. He grabbed the box, stripped off his denim jacket, tossed the pizza in a nearby trash bin, and draped the jacket around my shoulders in one swift motion.
“Oh!” I said, this time out of thanksgiving.
“Shall we?” He said with a tip of his hat and a flat palm on my back. We headed for the baggage area and retrieved his one duffle bag in silence. Not another word was spoken until I pointed out where my car was parked.
“This is me.” I opened up the hatchback of the sea-green Honda Accord and Hudson tossed in his belongings. “You packed light,” I commented.
“They don’t recommend that you bring much from your past life—it tends to cause problems, if you know what I mean. Besides, I was leading a much simpler life by the time I decided to go to the center.”
When we settled into our seats, I pulled the denim jacket tightly around me and sat for a few moments, my hand with key hovering near the ignition. “Was it hard to make that choice?”
“May I?” Hudson motioned to remove his hat and I nodded. “It was difficult the first few times I went in. I have a track record with certain facilities, and it isn’t filled with gold stars. I was a jerk, basically.”
“Drugs probably change who you are.”
“They do. But I’d be lying if I said I was nice before I got heavily into the meds. Fame entered my veins long before any numbing agent, and believe me, celebrity can be far more mind and personality altering. I started in music because I loved to play and I thought I had important things to express.”
“So what changed?”
“The deals came, the tours, the fans, the groupies, the tension in the band, the money, the fights about money…I became out of control and completely careless in attitude and actions. I’m sure you’ve read about a few things.”
I shrugged, giving the guy some grace. “Does fame have to corrupt?”
“It doesn’t. I met some decent guys—and women—who never lost a sense of themselves in all the chaos. But for me, I never felt worthy of the fame, so I fought it. Then, when I was so low, Libby, that nothing numbed my anger and fear anymore…I didn’t feel worthy of being saved. You know?”
I rubbed my lips together and swallowed around the lump in my throat. “Believe it or not, I do know what you mean. I haven’t been that low…or high, but I’ve certainly struggled with not feeling worthy of…certain things.”
“Ah, the human condition,” Hudson said as he adjusted his seat and stretched his legs. “Sorry to get so deep so soon, but ya gotta understand that I’ve been talking about this stuff for days on end. Now it’s just flowing out of me.”
I smiled. “I completely understand. Let’s get home so you can rest.”
“That’d be good. I c
ould sleep for a week straight.”
I reached toward the ignition and paused. “Could you start that week tomorrow?”
A half-raised eyebrow was his response.
Waving the keys in the air I explained. “I sort of have an…engagement tonight. And Cecilia—well…you met Cecilia. She’d kill me if I left you unsupervised the first night.” Before he could respond to my choice of words I clarified, “I mean, I shouldn’t leave you alone.”
“What’s the engagement?”
I felt my face grow warm. “My friends are throwing me a birthday party.”
He sat up in the gray upholstery. “Happy birthday,” he said warmly.
“Thanks.”
Pushing up the sleeves of his flannel shirt, he considered the outing. “Won’t your friends and your boyfriend think it is a little lame to bring a stranger?”
I fake laughed with dramatic flair. “Oh, no boyfriend to worry about. But my friends will be a bit surprised that I’m bringing a guest.” A very handsome guest who resembles a rock star.
The tapping of Hudson’s fingers filled a few seconds of silence. For a minute I was afraid he had heard my add-on thought. “So do you have a story for me?”
I must have looked surprised or taken aback by the question because he quickly said, “You are the PR professional.”
I nodded. “Good point. Give me the drive time to come up with something.”
I started the car with a lighter spirit and much more confidence about how tonight and the days ahead would play out.
“Go, Grease Lightning.”
I gave him a sideways stare. “I had almost forgotten about my pathetic mishap.”
“You actually forgot that you’re sitting in a pool of pepperoni juice?” He teased.
“And you actually forgot I’m keeping a very big secret for you?” I bounced back.
Hudson feigned fear and raised his hands in submission. “You are going to enjoy this aren’t you…me being at your mercy?”
I started laughing and didn’t answer. He was right. Maybe not in the way he was implying, but I, Libby Hawthorne, was already enjoying the encounter I’d been dreading. I knew there was a lesson to be learned about trust and faith in this moment, but I had to focus on shifting gears and making up more lies to share with my friends and others.
I circled my neighborhood blocks in search of a parking place for nearly fifteen minutes. For the first time in my recent life I was able to see the benefit of my purse full of seemingly pathetic bus tokens. A spot on the corner opened up.
Hudson used his pinkies to drumroll on the dashboard. “And the story is…?”
Truth was, all I’d been able to think about was how the grease was transforming into a layer of lard on my torso. “The story is…” I stopped the car and stalled the conversation. “The story is simple but realistic…”
“I’m fascinated to hear it,” he said with more than a hint of a smile in his voice.
“Me too. Ba-dum-dum.” I gave myself a drum emphasis, again to stall. Hudson folded his arms and turned to lean partially on his door so he could look my direction. I took a deep breath and let it flow out of me. “You are a client from Texas. No, no. Wait. I don’t want to tie you to work. That would be too close to the truth.”
Did I hear myself? I was afraid to be in the vicinity of truth. This wasn’t good.
I continued at a pace of lies that could only be achieved by someone who had labored in Cecilia’s shadow for five years. “You are my cousin from Texas. You came to Seattle for a convention of some kind at the fairgrounds. And you have decided to stay in town longer to check out the Pacific Northwest. What should the convention be for? It should be something you know a little bit about or something you could at least…”
“Sheep.”
“Excuse me?”
He grimaced and then nodded. “Okay, so I was a 4-H’er in middle school. There are dozens of blue ribbons stashed in a shoebox in my childhood home—unless Mom sold them on eBay.” He looked away. Our false story was bringing up the real one.
“You were a 4-H nerd. Maybe we should say we’re very distant cousins.”
His humor returned. “Hey, I did not say nerd. Let’s be kind to my heritage. Besides, I might have to draw on my teen work experience to start a new career.”
“Do you remember enough to pull off this part of the story?”
“How much do your friends know about sheep?” He asked sincerely while replacing the mop of yellow with the Stetson on his head.
“Good point. You’re pretty sharp for…” I stopped myself from saying “someone who bungeed off the Space Needle.”
“For someone who did drugs?” He attempted to finish the sentence for me.
“No. I wasn’t going to say that.” I unlocked my door and continued. “I was going to say for a guy who only had sheep for friends. Geez, I need to shower,” I lamented, afraid to look down at my oil slick.
Simultaneously, we stepped out onto the street and looked at each other over the top of the car. “You might need a squeegee,” he said.
“Big, big secret,” I reminded.
The neighborhood was bustling with weekend activity. A string of solo coffee goers sat in the Adirondack chairs outside Caffee Ladro, faces shrouded by the newspaper or yellow paper cups. Hudson seemed cautious but also very excited to be experiencing the sights and sounds of life around him. A cluster of teens approached us. Individually, they barely glanced up, too in tune with a conversation or lost in their playlists pounding through headphones. As a group they split like an amoeba to go around the two superfluous adults and then melded back into one being on the other side.
I reached for Hudson’s elbow. “That was a good sign.”
He nodded, but his face showed the shock of being treated like a regular, unimportant person by a pack of CD-buying, song-downloading individuals.
I motioned toward the stoop of a five-story apartment building. “This is me.”
Hudson raised his hand to half-mast, a curious look shadowing his face. He turned to look back at the block we had traveled, then back at the stoop, and up at the building’s awning. Pointing as he went, he counted the number of brick entrances and shook his head with pure disbelief.
“What?”
“I lived here in the late eighties. Room 204.”
I shook my head before my lips started moving. “I don’t think that is possible. The Regal Queen was an apartment building way back, but in the eighties it was a hotel. They only switched it back to apartments ten years ago.”
“I’m tellin’ ya.”
“The eighties? How old are you?”
“Don’t start adding up the years. I was fifteen when I ran away from my home in the suburbs. I lived on the street for a few months before I hooked up with two other guys.” Hudson’s eyes focused on nothing but his past. His posture went loose like a teen boy with limbs too long to keep track of. “We all worked shifts at the mini-mart and the bowling alley…and we lived here. They allowed people to live here month-to-month.”
“You were so young.”
“I grew up quickly in those three years.” He kept shaking his head.
“And those other two guys? Were they…?”
“Yep. Ray Stricter and Trevor Lawson.” He spoke the names of his other band members with a bit of reverence.
“Maybe we had best not say those names out on the street. Come on.” I grabbed the melancholy man and pulled him by his shirt into the lobby.
Hudson’s wide eyes scanned the room from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. He looked a little disoriented as his head rocked on the axis of his tan neck.
Against all odds, Newton looked up to see who had entered the doors and let the breeze disturb the dusty fringe on the worn oriental rugs. Never mind that he generally refused to look up from his magazines to acknowledge me or any of the other tenants or visitors who graced this lobby. Today he was aware of his domain.
I turned Hudson toward me to keep his fac
e from Newton’s line of sight.
“Order pizza?” Newton questioned with lips that barely moved.
“No.”
“Smells like pizza to me. I could really go for some pizza.”
“Maybe there’s a piece lodged behind the radiator,” I offered as consolation and criticism.
The elevator was open, so I ushered Hudson into the narrow space quickly. “Wow, this is exactly the same,” he declared.
As the doors closed I saw Newton’s eyes narrow with curiosity.
“Newton is not the swiftest guy, but I don’t want to give him reason to notice you.” I leaned against the wall of the elevator. This was too strange. What’re the odds that I would live a floor away from where Jude and friends spent their formative years?
“You have to admit…” Hudson peered over at me.
“Yes, I do.” I laughed nervously.
“Weird.” We said at the same time.
“But not as weird as it would have seemed a year ago.” Hudson said as though thinking out loud.
“I know what you mean.”
The elevator door opened to my floor, and we walked down the hall. From several yards away, I noticed a sticky note. Now it was my turn to count doors. Sure enough, it was a sticky note with my name on it, on my door. I reached for it quickly and shoved it in the pocket of Hudson’s denim jacket in case it was an embarrassing note from Newton. The last time he left me a note it was to ask that I not wear so much perfume because it “irritated his eyes and nose membranes as only cheap and tawdry perfume can do.”
Aunt Maddie’s necklace gave me confidence. I felt so put together with my classic long skirt, white blouse, brown boots, and a tasteful but ornate single piece of jewelry. I wished I could pull this off all the time. I had a knack for disheveled. I put my hair up with a silver-and-amber clip I had bought at the downtown market.
“You look nice,” Hudson said.