She went to her room and grabbed her tote with her wallet and the snack she’d made for herself for her break at work. In a glance as she passed Mom’s room on the way out, Oakley saw that Mom was still picking through the pile of news clippings about the plane crash, kind of mooning over them.
My mother is insane. And all this time she’d thought she was a kindergarten teacher. Well, maybe Oakley was splitting hairs there. It took a special kind of crazy to deal with all those kid-questions all day long.
With every step she took on her way downtown to Board & Brush, Oakley got madder and madder. How could Mom have allowed embarrassment to keep her from telling her ex-husband he had a daughter? Or giving Oakley any information about him the few times she’d dared ask? Even his name would have been good.
Her dad was named Derek? He was a forest ranger? A nice person? Any one of those things would have been nice to know at any point up to now in Oakley’s sixteen years of life. “Geez, Mom!” Oakley punched the pole of the streetlight while she waited for the crosswalk signal to change to green.
“Whoa! Don’t hit me!” From somewhere beside her that she hadn’t seen, up lurched a homeless man in torn clothes, smelling like he’d just stumbled out of a wet dog convention. “You’ve got a mean right hook, and I’m way too fragile today to take it on the jaw.”
“You don’t look fragile.” Oakley, still simmering with anger at her mother, didn’t have time for jokes with a strange man. Maybe if she gave him her Little Debbie Snack Cake from her tote bag he’d go away. “Look, I don’t have any cash for your heroin habit. I’m just a high schooler, but you can have the snack that I was going to eat during my shift.”
“I don’t want any cash.” The guy was not deterred, even by Debbie. “I just need to know …” He swirled once, looked at the sky, and then collapsed in a heap, landing hard on Oakley’s shoes—the ones Brinn hated. Now she’d hate them even more, considering how they were going to smell like wet dog forever from this guy.
There was a homeless guy on her foot. She couldn’t just leave him here and go to work, could she?
That would be wrong. He needed help, obviously.
Ugh, a primal gurgle rose up in her lungs. She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t leave. Her dad’s name was Ranger Derek. Her mom needed time in an asylum.
“Help?” she called to anyone who might listen. “A little help?”
Scene 4: “When the Lights Go Out”
“Hey, mister. Mister!” Oakley bent down and shook the smelly guy by the shoulder. Now that she got a look at him, he wasn’t a man, he was a kid, not much older than she was. “Wake up. Dude. Yo!”
She shook harder. The sooner he woke up, the sooner she could get to Board & Brush, to which she was already late by now. The hobbyist carpenters were probably waiting for her to go to the storeroom and find the correct tint of mahogany stain for their cherry wood side table projects, and she wasn’t there.
“Come on, dude.” It was no use. He wasn’t stirring. Maybe he was … dead? Her stomach clenched, and her system hit a mini-wall. There had been too many shocks to it in the past half an hour, and she probably couldn’t take much more of this. If he was dead …
Oakley dropped to her knees, then rolled the please-not-dead dude onto his back. She reached into her tote bag and pulled out her compact mirror and popped it open. She held it under his nose. Nothing. Her shoulders slumped. She so did not need this right now, not with her mom checking out of sanity land.
A second later, there. It fogged. Hallelujah! She might have sung the Handel tune.
It fogged again, and Oakley exhaled all her held breath. “You are alive!” She sang those words, too.
At that, so-lucky-he’s-not-dead dude cracked an eyelid open. “You’ve got a nice voice,” he said in his own scratchy one. “I haven’t heard a good, solid alto like that in a long time. All the girls I know sound like mice on helium. Soprano mice on helium.”
Not-dead dude could crack a joke. Not a very good one, but if he was joking, he wasn’t dying. Which meant she could get out of here sooner.
Just not immediately.
“Here. Sit up, pal.” She helped him into seated position on the curb, his feet in the street. Not that it mattered. Wood River didn’t have much traffic at this intersection this time of day. Everyone was at Walmart picking up dried-out pre-cooked pizza to take home for their dinners. That, or Chinese food that had been sitting in a warming vat since lunch. She’d take Frosted Flakes cereal over that every time. “You alive?”
He nodded, his eyes squinched as he leaned his back against the streetlight pole. He slipped. She straightened him up again.
“Now, look. I’ve got to go to work. Here, take this Little Debbie. Someone will come along and you can ask them all your deep, deep questions—once your blood sugar comes back up again. Gotta go. Late for work.”
Once she saw that he looked stable enough to leave sitting, like a baby in one of those Bumbo sit-up trainer foam seats from when Oakley used to babysit for Mrs. Kowallis, she patted his head and pushed the crosswalk button again.
It had turned red.
Of course.
“Hey, what’s your name? You’re so pretty.”
Great. Now he wanted to know her name—and said, through his drug-waning haze, that she was pretty. Compliments from an addict were the last thing she needed today.
“I’m Hudson.” He extended a hand to shake hers.
“You don’t say.” She didn’t take his hand. She didn’t trust that he wouldn’t pull her down to sit by him on the curb. “Hudson, huh?”
What were the chances? Two Hudsons in one day? Not likely. But then again, didn’t things like that always happen in twos and threes? Like two weeks ago. She’d never once in her life heard the word xenophobic. She ran across it in a news article for a world history report, and had looked it up. Fear of foreign things. Then, that very afternoon, she’d found it again in lyrics in a song by The Smash when she was looking for audition possibilities.
“I’m Oakley,” she said, realizing that not telling him her name and not shaking his hand was the height of rudeness, and even if her mom was a doing a good imitation of a complete jerk today, Oakley still wouldn’t want the world to think that Stacey Sanders’s daughter was rude. Not the kindergarten teacher’s daughter. “Oakley Marsden.”
Daughter, apparently, also of Derek Marsden, ranger for the U.S. Forest Service.
Where was he? Should I try to find him? Does he have a social media page? What if he’s a total weirdo—or ... worse: what if he has another family?
The back of Oakley’s throat filled with wet cement, and she staggered a little, then started crossing the street, against the advice of the little green walking man, who had not yet appeared, ignoring the flashing red hand.
“See ya,” she managed, again with the croak-voice as she stumbled away.
“Wait! Oakley!”
Her shirt collar pulled against her collarbone, and then her throat, and choked her. Her body was yanked backward, and she fell smacking her body onto something hot, lumpy—and smelly.
The back of her head cracked against the pavement. Little birdies sang nearby, and fairies danced above her eye line. They were so bright and sparkly.
Oh, and not real.
“Ouch! Geez!” She reached her hand up and felt for blood—or brains. At that same moment, tires screeched, and a car’s exhaust floated to her nose.
“Are you okay, miss?” An elderly man got out of an old brown sedan and ran over beside her. “All I saw was the green light. It didn’t occur to me there would be a pedestrian.”
She opened her eyes and let Mr. Grumwald help her stand up. “Oh, it’s you, Oakley. I’m on my way to Board & Brush. Shouldn’t you be there already? It’s way past five.”
“Yeah, uh …” The world kept tilting on its side, even though Oakley was standing up. Tilt, tilt, tilt, whirl! Hey, she was at the annual county fair carnival. Tilt, tilt, tilt …
While O
akley grabbed the streetlight pole for stability, Mr. Grumwald helped this Hudson person up. “It’s a good thing you were there, young man. We could have had a very sad afternoon without your quick action. What’s your name? I’d like to give you something for your services today.” He dug out a zipper wallet and handed Hudson a shiny dollar coin, the old kind with Sacagawea’s face engraved on it. Sacagawea’s face twirled in Oakley’s vision, like she’d been spun on a dangling string.
“Come on, Oakley. Let’s get you to work.” Mr. Grumwald went to help her along. “Since we’re going to the same place, let me give you a ride. You can sing to the radio. We all love to hear you sing.”
Sing. She could sing? The sides of her vision were getting black, closing in.
“I don’t feel so good.” She might throw up. Oh, she hated throwing up. Her throat always felt raw afterward, and then she couldn’t sing.
Hey, maybe she did sing …
“I’m sorry, sir, but do you know where this young lady lives? I can take her home.”
“You don’t look like you’re in any condition to, uh …” Mr. Grumwald was talking to that dirty young man. Mr. Grumwald didn’t seem to think much of him. Oakley felt her legs starting to turn to that jelly that’s in the cans of vienna sausages she and her mom used to eat on those camping trips to the Gorge. Where they sang.
Hey, Oakley could sing. She liked to sing. Singing was …
***
“I’m sorry, Mom.” Oakley sipped from the side of the glass of water. “I was trying to go to work. I almost made it. They were counting on me, but I let them down.” Her head was pounding, but the water was cooling her throat and making the world slow its wild spin. She recalled its tilt-a-whirl ride earlier, but she didn’t want to get back on that. No way. “I don’t want to get back on,” she heard herself saying out loud.
“On what, honey?” Her mom was patting her hair, but then she ran her hand over the place that hurt the most, right at the back of Oakley’s head.
“Ouch! Owie, owie, owie.” Tears sprang to her eyes. She peeked an eye open and saw she was in her own bedroom, with the yellow curtains and the painting of the girl reading a book on the far wall. It was dark outside now, and pain throbbed in her skull. “I think I hit my head.”
“You sure did.” A man’s voice popped into her mind. It wasn’t Sherm’s voice. Sherm’s voice sounded like an accountant’s, even though he was a lawyer. He didn’t do courtroom law, he did contracts. His voice wouldn’t have convinced any jury of anything. Oakley peeked open one eye to see who’d spoken, when he added, “But I don’t think it’s broken. Just a bump.”
Oakley’s eyes flew wide, and she clutched the bed sheet up to her chest. “Who is that guy in my bedroom, Mom?”
“Oh, sorry.” The guy looked embarrassed, and Oakley vaguely recognized him as he came into focus. He was that man, er guy, she’d offered her Little Debbie to. What is he doing in my house—in my bedroom? “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”
“You … yanked me out of the path of Mr. Grumwald’s car.” It came back to her in flashes. “Oh, shoot. I’m late! I need to get to Board & Brush!”
She lunged upward, but when she tried to move, her head nearly popped off, and she realized she wasn’t going anywhere right now.
“He carried you home, hon. Even though he was pretty wiped out from, what did you call it, Hudson? A hike?” Mom turned her back on the dirt-encrusted guy to give Oakley a look—one where her eyes sparkled and it looked as if she was suppressing a squeal of delight. She grabbed Oakley by both hands and squeezed them hard. Then she made her face a mask of calm and turned back to their visitor. “He saved you, sweetheart, and we’re eternally indebted.”
Oakley bristled at the word eternally.
“Uh, don’t worry about getting to your job,” the guy said, and she caught a whiff of his wet dogginess via the air current from the ceiling fan. “That Mr. Grumwald man offered to let your boss know why you wouldn’t be in.”
At least there was that. Oakley exhaled and collapsed against the bed again before turning to look at Dirty Boy in the doorway.
“And, who are you, again?” And why had her mom welcomed him into their house for— how long had it been since she’d hit her head on the concrete? A glance at the alarm clock on her favorite nightstand that she had refinished herself said it was almost seven thirty. It’d been at least two hours since the incident on the sidewalk. Memories started to filter back to her.
“Sweetie, I’ll talk to you about it in a second.” Her mom wore a tight smile and turned back to the guy. “Our visitor probably needs to clean up. He’s had a long few days.” She turned to Dirty Boy. “Right?”
Either Oakley was imagining things, or else her mom had just batted her eyelashes at a teenage hobo. Nah. Oakley had hit her head. Anything could be a hallucination at this point.
“You go shower up, Hudson, and I’ll leave some of Sherm’s clothes by the bathroom door for you.” Her mom blushed. “You’re both about the same height and build.” She’d evaluated his build? And since when was she calling him a visitor, when Oakley would have been using the word intruder at this point?
“Mom, I’m the injured person here. Don’t you think I need your sole attention?”
But her mom had turned back to the guy and looked to be making daydream-glazed eyes at him. Oakley almost threw up in her mouth. What the what was going on here? This morning when Oakley got up and went to school, her mom had been completely sane. A single day elapsed and Stacey Sanders suddenly needed her head evaluated.
“I’ll need a long shower to get all this mud off me.”
“A steamy one.” Mom winked at him. Winked! Oakley hadn’t hallucinated that, and she nearly fell out of her bed. “We have lots of hot water and steam.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Sanders.”
Mom let out a soft sigh. “Call me Stacey, please.”
“Mom!”
Mom whipped her head back around and looked at Oakley, blinking for a second as if she was seeing her daughter for the first time. “Oh, right. Go shower up. I’ll take care of Oakley. Come see us when you’re feeling better.”
He left, and Oakley grabbed her mom’s arm—hard. “Mom. What are you doing?”
“I’m helping someone who’s down on his luck, first of all.”
“You’re flirting with a teenager!”
“He’s not a teenager. He’s forty years old. Same as me.”
“Are you blind?” Oakley practically spat the last word, shoving herself into sitting position. “What is going on here? Tell me the truth. Ever since this afternoon, you’ve been acting like an alien came and possessed your body. Are you actually Stacey Dineley Sanders? When is my birthday? What kind of cake did I ask for when I turned six?”
“Yellow cake with yellow frosting and pink sprinkles. And no, I’m not crazy. Well, I might be.”
That was more like it. “What’s going on, Mom? If you want me to, I can get rid of all that box of high school stuff you were going through today that triggered your psychic break.”
“Psychotic,” Mom corrected. At least Mom obliquely admitted there’d been a breakdown. That was progress. “And no, I don’t need you to. And we need to get you checked out for a concussion for sure.”
“I’m feeling fine now, Mom.” Mostly. “If I get dizzy or anything, I’ll tell you.”
Mom’s voice got that suppressed squealing quality again. “Don’t you know who that is?”
“Who who is?” Oakley refused to believe her mom knew the seventeen/forty-year-old currently in her master bathroom shower. “That guy? He’s probably a drug addict, Mom. Believe me, I see a lot more of them at high school than you see in kindergarten. They’re actually pretty easy to spot: lack of self-care, bad personal hygiene, general disorientation, smell of smoke.”
Come to think of it, that kid had smelled of smoke—besides the smell of wet dog. But it wasn’t the usual druggie smoke, or even campfire from being homeless at the river
. In the past, she’d given her precious Little Debbies to some of those folks who’d wandered through town. Instead, it was more like a weird version of exhaust fumes and burnt rubber. His wet dog smell had masked it at first, but now that Oakley thought harder, she’d definitely noticed something different about his scent. It wasn’t just filth. Maybe he’d been in a vehicle fire.
“Sweetheart.” Mom looked more serious than she had in days, and she grabbed both of Oakley’s hands again for emphasis. “That guy who is now showering in our house is Hudson Oaks.”
The housing development guy from the boy band two decades ago?
“Mom.” Oakley wondered how many times she was going to have to call her mom out today for making wildly ridiculous statements. It was climbing into the dozens category now. “I think you and I both know that’s impossible.”
Mom frowned. Hey, at least Oakley hadn’t laughed in derision. She’d been polite that way. Her mom should at least give her credit for that. Because snorting laughter had been her first instinct.
“It’s him.” Her mom blinked a bunch of times, looked at the ceiling, and a tear fell, stopping at her chin briefly before it dripped onto Oakley’s yellow, eyelet lace bedspread. “I always knew he would come back. I swear, I thought I’d be the one to find him, but it was you instead. Thank you.” Mom reached her arms around Oakley and hugged her hard. It hurt, but confusion overrode Oakley’s gasp of pain.
When Mom pulled back and swiped at her eyes, Oakley gave her a hard stare. She seriously believes this. Oakley’s hands twitched, and she bit her lips together to prevent herself from saying all the things. All … the … things. Things like, Just because you want something to be so, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. Or, Looking through that box of stuff today made you crazy. Let’s just get rid of that and everything will be fine again. Or, Lunatic! Someone bring the straight jacket!
Nope, she kept all that in and instead asked, “What makes you think so?”
“Well, for one, because he looks identical to Hudson Oaks.”
How she could tell through the sedimentary layers of grime, Oakley had no idea. “Go on.”
My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2) Page 5