My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2)

by Jennifer Griffith

  “That’s what I’m most proud of.” Mom beamed, and the warmth of it thawed the ice in Oakley’s fingertips. Win or lose, it was going to be okay. Of course, it wasn’t going to be win; it was going to be lose.

  Her pragmatic side prevailed.

  “I guess there’s always next year.” Oakley shrugged. “I’ll have to work on my stage presence.”

  Not that there was much opportunity to do something like that. Not in Wood River. But she’d figure out a way, even if she had to travel to Portland and sing karaoke on a weekend. Maybe she could convince Mom to take her.

  She knew she’d finished strong, and that memory gave her a sense of confidence that overcame even the knowledge that she was stuck with her bad shoes and their accompanying unfortunate nickname.

  The shoes that never, ever wore out.

  The camera crew was milling around, aiming various cameras at them, and Oakley had hardly noticed them in her adrenaline rush.

  “How do you feel, Oakley?” The stage director, Blue, intruded on their family moment, and a camera loomed close to both their faces. Oakley hadn’t bargained on being interviewed at this point. This wasn’t the televised version of the show. It was just the preliminaries no one ever saw, except clips of people who actually made it. “We’d really like to know.”

  “I feel like I could have started out better, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to try. Thank you for letting me.” She reached behind her to unstick the microphone from her back where it had been taped. “We’ll watch for next year’s audition locations. Maybe the show will take applicants from the Portland area again.” She shot her mom a hopeful look.

  Her mom just raised eyebrows, but Oakley couldn’t read whether they were a yes or a no. More like her we’ll see eyebrows.

  “Well, that’s what I’m here about, Oakley.” Blue shook out her amazing black, cotton-ball puff of corkscrew curls. “The judges aren’t offering you a spot on the televised program yet, but actually, your guess nailed it. They would like you to come in again, at the pre-show final audition in Seattle, after you’ve worked out a few kinks in your stage fright.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you have a callback.”

  Callback! Her heart stopped.

  “On the Seattle stage.”

  Seattle! She almost jumped for joy, but then skepticism surged in her. “Wait. You mean there were tryouts worse than mine today?”

  Blue frowned, as if she was going to say something she shouldn’t. In a low voice, she responded, “Lots of them.” Even lower she said to Sherm and Mom, “The execs want people from outside the Los Angeles metro area. We’ve had a lot of L.A. finalists chosen this year already. And St. Louis, oddly. We need Portland. Your daughter is talented, and they saw that. Despite the, uh—”

  “Bad beginning?” Mom filled in the blank. Mom was good with gentleness. It made her a great kindergarten teacher. As did her slight wackiness.

  Huh. Maybe Oakley didn’t have to be great to get on the show. She just needed to be less horrid than anyone else from Portland.

  Okay! The reality of it started sinking in. I’m going to Seattle! I made the next cut! Sort of! Something was better than nothing. Baby steps toward her dream still took her in the right direction.

  “Thank you, Blue.” Oakley shook Blue’s hand, and it felt like Blue had to hold her tightly to keep Oakley from floating up to the ceiling.

  “Mr. Levy has paperwork for both you and your parents to sign. Waivers, consent forms, agreements to allow your photo to be used for publicity. All standard, boilerplate documents.”

  Sherm cleared his throat, as if he had his own frog battalion quartered there, and stepped forward. “I’ll be sure to look them over carefully.” He tugged his glasses down to the tip of his nose, looking like the serious attorney he was during his day job. “Our daughter won’t be signing anything likely to bind her in an unsatisfactory way.”

  At this, Blue just frowned, and Oakley flushed red. How could Sherm do that to her—just when Oakley might be on the brink of something big? No way was she letting his lawyer-worries stand in her way. This was Oakley’s break, and Blue knew it too. She shot Blue a look, and Blue returned it conspiratorially.

  “I’m sure whatever Mr., uh—” Oakley had forgotten his name already.

  “Levy,” Blue provided.

  “—Mr. Levy has for us to sign will be industry standard,” Oakley said, using jargon she didn’t understand but had heard on TV watching some show like Nashville or Branson. She probably sounded stupid and too-big-for-her-britches, but she didn’t care. Sherm shouldn’t stomp on Oakley’s dream, at least not in front of Blue.

  He may have been her stepdad for the past three and a half years, but that still didn’t make him her dad.

  “Leave your contact information and I’ll make sure you get the details of the callback. Thanks.” Blue left them, and Mom shot Oakley a look of mild disappointment.

  Fine. Oakley shouldn’t have been bratty to Sherm. “Sorry,” she mouthed to Mom as they headed out to the car. Then when Mom smirked and gave a head-nod toward Sherm, Oakley relented. “I’m sorry, Sherm. I shouldn’t have interrupted. I’m sure you know what you’re doing with contracts.”

  There. How was that?

  “I’ve just heard a lot of horror stories about talented young people getting shafted by greedy execs. I’m not going to allow that to happen to you, Oakley. Not if I have the skill to prevent it.”

  Come on. In no way did Sherm resemble the big-shot attorney he seemed to think he was, considering the way he’d just talked to Blue. He had the whole boring-nerd thing going on. Her stepdad should have been an accountant instead. Still, it did let her know he was just trying to protect her.

  Some of her dark cloud regarding Sherm lifted. “Thanks,” she said sincerely. It lightened the mood between them all, and Mom and Sherm suggested a celebration lunch at Three Pines. Oakley said yes, but she was already texting Brinn and Clyde to tell them the incredible news.

  Brinn texted back instantly. Whoa. Does that mean you’re going to be on TV?

  A text came in from Clyde, Brinn’s boyfriend, too. Nuh-uh! I didn’t even know you were trying out! You didn’t tell me.

  Of course not. Nobody besides Mom and Brinn did. Well, Sherm, but … he was Sherm.

  Their car pulled into Portland traffic, and Mom turned on the radio. The announcer was finishing up a news story.

  “... shout-out to all of you who are heading up to the vigil at the Gorge tonight, here’s a little music to send you on your way.” Then the second song by Girl Crazy came on the radio, “The Eyes Have It.” It was their only other hit besides “Sweet Sixteen.”

  Mom burst into song with the opening chorus. “The eyes have it, they have it, they have it. I sink into your fathomless blues, and the eyes have it, they have it, they have me.”

  At the same time, from the back seat Oakley joined the song. Mom turned around, and they both held pretend microphones, singing along to the almost too-familiar song. It was like old times. Mom cranked it louder on the guitar solo, playing an air guitar, and Sherm added a doo-wop now and then.

  Oakley hadn’t felt this happy being with her family in ages. Mom was proud of her, and this moment imprinted on her soul. They passed a shopping mall, went through a yellow light, dancing in their seats, almost hollering the belting-high part of the bridge to the last chorus.

  When they caught their breath at the end of the song, Oakley glanced down at her phone. Two more messages were there from Brinn and Clyde.

  Brinn: Aaaaah! I can’t believe it. It’s real! I just saw it on my Twitter feed. I follow Levy and Blue, the producers of the show, and they named you!

  Whoa. It was social-media official already? Oakley’s fingers shook as she quickly texted back.

  Oakley: I’m swearing you to secrecy, though. I do NOT want this getting out all over Wood River High. As if I’m not weird enough, let’s add a golden microphone. Then she swi
ped over and looked at the message from Clyde.

  Clyde: Are you going to sing the same song for the callbacks?

  Before Oakley could even process how to answer that question, another question came in.

  Brinn: Don’t tell me you’re wearing those awful shoes. Oh, geez. I just saw a photo of your tryout. You ARE wearing those awful shoes. If you’re going to Seattle, you can’t wear anything you own. I’ll come drag you off the stage.

  “What’s so funny?” Mom asked as they pulled up at Three Pines.

  “Oh, just Brinn. She’s going to drag me off the stage if I wear these shoes in Seattle.”

  “We could shop,” Mom said. “You haven’t let me take you in a while.”

  “Or,” Sherm added without missing a beat, “you could pick something from your mom’s closet. She has some killer outfits from her days as a groupie.”

  Dead silence followed what Oakley had assumed was a joke.

  Mom shot Sherm a shut up right now look.

  Groupie? Oakley’s head popped backward, taking her as physically back as she felt emotionally. Where had that noun even come from? It had nothing to do with Mom. Forget it.

  “My mom was never a groupie. She’s a kindergarten teacher.” Kindergarten teachers weren’t groupies in past lives.

  Mom’s eyebrows squinched together and she bit her lower lip. “Uh,” she said, shooting Sherm a look of betrayal and then put on her cheery voice. “Let’s just have a nice meal.”

  But Oakley recognized it as strained. It was the kind of thing she’d say when she’d had it with the kindergarteners, telling them they all ought to go out on the playground for fifteen minutes so she could regroup. Why was Mom so upset about Sherm’s joke?

  “Sweetheart, we’ll find you something appropriate to wear for your audition. We have lots of time. Like I said, we can shop!” They got out of the car and Mom gave what looked like a forced smile. “What are you going to sing in Seattle? Say, how about ‘The Eyes Have It?’ You know the words perfectly.”

  Lunch proceeded, but Oakley planned to get to the bottom of whatever was bugging her mom. Soon.

  Well, that, and find something to wear—because she, Oakley Marsden, had a shot, an actual shot, at being The Next Radio Star!

  Scene 2: “The Perfect Fan”

  The next day, Oakley got home from school an hour before her mother did, since today was parent-teacher conferences. Luckily, word had not spread among the Wood River Huntsmen about her callback. Yet. That was one of the advantages of having no followers on social media other than your best friend Brinn. No one happened across the picture of you with your bad shoes or heard the croak that doubled as your singing voice and harassed you about it the next day at school.

  Like always, she’d kept her head down, her eyes on the floor in front of her, and survived biology, P.E., algebra II, English, world history, culinary arts, and Spanish II before making a break for the parking lot and Clyde’s car. Survive. That was the name of the game, and she’d done it pretty well through her freshman year last year, sort of. Not with her dignity intact, but she hadn’t physically died of the shame they heaped on her daily here at Wood River High. So she had that going for her.

  One year down, three to go, and she’d be out of there, and she’d never have to see any of these jerks again.

  After a quick bowl of cereal, Oakley put her dish in the dishwasher, and sat at the piano for a few minutes. She was trying to hash out a few chords to a song her brain had been stuck on all day. With a pencil, she wrote them on the music staff at the piano. When she added lyrics, those flowed like warm butter. As always.

  The words were so much easier than the music.

  There. She felt better. She couldn’t really function when a series of notes kept repeating. The only cure was writing them down. It was a ditty more than a song. It had bounce. She liked it. It fit her mood ever since she got the callback.

  She went up the curving staircase to her bedroom to start her homework before she had to go to her after-school job, nearly tripping on the shoelaces of the shoes Brinn despised. They had to go, no question.

  But they were the shoes that wouldn’t die. Why was it when you wanted something to wear out, it wouldn’t, but if you wanted it to last forever, it broke every time?

  Oakley hadn’t bought new shoes since the seventh grade. These were the shoes she’d wanted desperately then, and her mom had said she’d have to wear them until they wore out, since they cost so much. That was right after the wedding, and before Sherm made partner at the law firm, and things had been tighter then. It was before the house with the winding staircase and the piano and the boxes of name-brand cereal.

  Oakley had agreed, promised her mom, and she knew that today’s offer for shopping had been a test, to see whether Oakley would keep that promise.

  She knew she’d passed.

  If only the shoes would wear out! But alas. Even though Oakley’s taste in shoes had changed drastically from the black- and red-checked plaid, knee-high Converse-style tennis shoes with a kitten heel and neon yellow laces. She’d adored them as only a seventh grader could adore a shoe, but now they were her worst enemy.

  Maybe expensive, high quality shoes were a two-sided coin. Like most things.

  Two-sided coin. Hey, that could be a good phrase for lyrics. The cadence of the words didn’t fit the ditty in her head though. Bummer.

  The door to Mom and Sherm’s room stood open, and Oakley glanced inside. Their room had the juliet balcony of Oakley’s dreams, flanked by two oaks and a birch tree, their fall colors ablaze through the diamond-paned windows. Someday, a handsome young man would serenade her from beneath a balcony, singing of his true love.

  Okay, probably not. But she could dream.

  In that daydream, she floated to the window, looked out, and glanced down at where he might stand, guitar in hand, smile on his face, a long-stemmed rose in his teeth. Although, that would make it harder to sing. Whatever. This was a dream. Anything could happen. She sniff-laughed and turned away from the window.

  “You home, sweetie?” Mom’s voice floated up the stairs.

  “I’m in your room.” Dreaming about impossible things. “Can I talk to you?”

  Mom was up the stairs in no time. “Sure, hon. Ooh, are you wanting to borrow one of my outfits for your tryout?” Mom disappeared into the walk-in closet, and Oakley followed. It smelled like a mix of Mom’s perfume and Sherm’s cologne in here. The closet stretched deep, and Mom had gone into the darker recesses.

  “I’m okay, Mom.” Mom’s kindergarten teacher outfits consisted of a series of t-shirts with the elementary school’s ostrich logo—the Oregon Ostriches—and a lot of sweaters featuring letters of the alphabet that she’d ordered specially to help reinforce concepts with the kids. “I can probably put something together. Maybe Brinn has something I can borrow.”

  “Brinn is nearly six feet tall.”

  That was true. And Oakley barely cleared five feet. Some of Mom’s students were taller than Oakley was. A big racket sounded at the back of the closet as Mom slid hangers across the metal rods. Although she couldn’t see any of it, it was clear Mom was loading up her arms with stuff. This could be painful, having to tell her no. Better to pre-empt it.

  “I probably have something, Mom. Or, I’ve got some money saved from work. Maybe there’s something at Walmart.” Wood River was a one-Walmart town, and didn’t offer much else in the way of clothes shopping. It was a good thing Oakley didn’t care that much.

  Mom poked her head out of the closet. “That money is for your college fund.”

  That had been the agreement when Mom allowed Oakley to take an after-school job. She needed to keep her grades up, and all the money would go toward a college fund. College tuition was ridiculous these days, and Oakley was hoping not to take any handouts from Sherm. She desperately wanted to qualify for a scholarship, and to put herself through school with savings for the rest of it. It might be impossible, but she’d work herself crazy
trying.

  Even if it meant wearing something horrid on TV.

  “Yeah, I know, and …” Oakley’s eyes fell on the piles of clothes laden in Mom’s arms. “What the heck is all that?”

  Colorful stripes, wild floral prints, mini-skirts, mustard-colored sweaters, ripped jeans, even a hot pink, faux fur jacket tumbled onto the bed from Mom’s arms.

  “There’s probably something in here.” Mom huffed from the exertion and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “If you don’t use it, it’s just sitting there begging for moths.”

  “What is all this, Mom? It’s wild.” Oakley picked up a royal-blue satin mini-dress with spaghetti straps. Mom would never dream of letting Oakley be seen in downtown Wood River in this. She blinked in disbelief.

  Mom had disappeared again while Oakley ran a hand over a black velvet jacket with huge silver buttons, but she came back with a massive green plastic tub, which she dropped on the floor at Oakley’s feet.

  “The shoes. Well, boots, mostly. What size are your feet again? We haven’t shoe shopped in a while for you.”

  It had been three years, almost four. “Size seven and a half.”

  Mom clapped. “Aw, wrong size. But maybe you could squish your toes in.” She snapped the lid off the box, and it was almost like rays of golden light emanated from inside, beaming out with beckoning glory.

  “Here are my ropers.” She tugged out a pair of electric-blue cowboy boots, the female version, with a fringe of red leather under the bottom laces. “And my Uggs.”

  “You have Uggs?” Those were the most expensive, trendy boots known to girlkind. “They’re fur-lined!”

  “That’s lamb’s wool, hon.” Mom filtered through and pulled out a pair of wedge sandals with rhinestone-encrusted straps of red leather. “These are pretty high. Do you think you could walk in them?”

  Uh, no? But would she die trying? Absolutely.

  Die was a little like it—at least death of feeling in the ends of her toes. There was no way she could smash her feet into these size five-and-a-halfs. A half size too small, maybe, but two whole sizes? It wasn’t happening. Oakley dropped both the shoes and the idea of wearing them with a sigh.