15. Hudson
The calendar invitefrom JP had been called “Marriage Boot Camp, Part Two, Electric Boogaloo”, which did not inspire any confidence in Hudson. But Alana looked excited, so he wasn’t going to say anything. He also was not going to spend the entire evening overthinking everything that had happened the night before.
At least this time Alana didn’t say that she was more than okay to pretend that it never happened before he’d even taken off the condom.
Was it pity sex, though? Did she feel she owed it to him in some way?
“You okay?” Alana asked.
“I’m fine,” Hudson lied. “Why?”
“Uh, the wrinkle in your forehead is deep enough for a river to run through, that’s why. It’s your overthinking wrinkle.”
Hudson stopped, and turned and stared at Alana. “What do you mean, my overthinking wrinkle?”
“Anytime you’re overthinking something, you make that face.”
Hudson winced. “Maybe we do need this marriage boot camp class if I’m that easy to read.”
She didn’t know how he felt about her, right? She couldn’t have. She would have said something. Or maybe she wouldn’t have, because she didn’t want to make anything weirder than it already was. But if she did know, why would she have asked him to get married?
“You’re still wrinkling, Hudson.” Alana reached out to smooth out his forehead. “We’ll be fine, whatever it is JP planned for us.”
“Says the person who’s never lived with JP.”
“You have a point.”
“Happens every once in a while.”
The address JP had given them was a rusting door at the end of an alleyway in midtown, which also did not inspire confidence in Hudson, who hadn’t realized there were any alleyways in midtown.
He tightened his grip on Alana, like that was going to help either of them if anything happened. The door swung open, and standing there was a middle aged man wearing a clown wig. “Oh, perfect, you’re here!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been waiting all day for you!”
Hudson and Alana exchanged glances, and followed the man down a darkened hallway. “It’s been so busy, you know,” he said, his accent thick and Eastern European. More than that, Hudson couldn’t tell. “What with all the parties, and then Tatiana decided to start a cult, and now everytime I turn around, there is something to clean up. At least this time they put down layers before everyone squirted lube everywhere.”
If this was all some weird immersive theater experience, it definitely was different than any that Hudson had ever been to.
“Wait,” the man said, stopping abruptly. “You brought hazmat suits, right?”
“They aren’t provided?” Alana asked.
“Of course not, it was listed very plainly in the contract.” The man shook his head. “This is what happens when you let Barry recommend a cleaning agency. You think I’m going to be paying you that much money for hazmat cleanup and I’d have to provide all the supplies? No. You get rid of all the evidence, down to every last used paper towel. Industry standard. I don’t know what all this ‘reinventing’ bullshit is, but I’ll tell you what it’s not. Useful.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, hit a few buttons, and put it on speakerphone.
“Ah, Mikhael?” he began, and then began speaking rapidly in what Hudson thought might be Russian. A furious conversation followed, and then he hung up the phone. “Now,” he said, looking from Alana to Hudson and back to Alana. “You are here for…improv class, yes?”
Oh dear God. Was that what they were here for?
“Possibly?” Hudson replied.
“Yes or no,” the man said.
“Our friend set it up as a surprise,” Alana explained, “and so we’re not entirely sure.”
“There are four different events happening now,” the man said. “I need more information.” He crossed his arms and tapped a foot. “I cannot tell you what your choices are, because this is not that kind of game. What kind of surprise is your friend making.”
“The kind to help us learn to lie better?” Hudson offered. Alana stifled a giggle.
The man pursed his lips. “Still not good enough. That can still be three different events. Lie to who?”
“A doctor?” Alana tried.
“Pah, everyone lies to doctors. Why do you need a class on that?”
“How long do you have?” Alana asked.
The man looked at his watch. “Seven and a half minutes. So skip to the important part.”
Alana looked up at Hudson, who shrugged. She may as well. They were now trapped in a labyrinth somewhere in midtown Manhattan, and if this was the only way for them to get out, then so be it. He wasn’t sure this whole thing wasn’t some elaborate setup anyway.
“Well, Hudson made some bad choices, and we owe a lot of money to some people because of it. And so we’re trying to get him approved as a kidney donor for some very specific patients. But you can’t just skip the line for a kidney replacement. So we have to convince the doctor that they’re cousins.”
Okay, so that wasn’t where he thought she was going to go. But apparently they had started their own personal improv class already.
“And you don’t think the doctor is going to believe you?”
“I’m not good at lying,” Hudson said. “The last time we went to a doctor, I was so nervous I told him it was a kidney for my sister-in-law.”
“He doesn’t have any sister-in-laws,” Alana continued. “And the patient has never been a woman.”
The man pursed his lips in thought. “Hmm. And what bad choices did Hudson make?”
“You know, the regular kind,” Hudson said.
“What kind of regular kind? There are at least seven different regular kinds.”
Well, shit.
“Listen, bro, people kept on telling me about the whole crypto thing, you know? And then one of the guys at the gym all of a sudden started showing up wearing shit he couldn’t afford, and it wasn’t like he’d started sugaring or anything.”
“Sugaring, like the waxing?” Clown Wig Man asked.
“No, like being a sugar baby.”
“Ah, yes. I forgot this one.” Clown Wig Man nodded thoughtfully. “Continue, please.”
Hudson refused to make eye contact with Alana, because he knew that the second they locked eyes was the moment he was screwed. “So one day after he finished his leg day set, I cornered him by the free weights and asked him what he was doing, and he told me it was crypto.”
“And was it?”
“No, he had started working as a pharmaceutical sales rep and was selling heroin on the side, and then started dabbling in compounds. But I trusted him, and lost all my money in crypto.”
“Which crypto?”
“DogeCoin,” Hudson said, hoping that it had been a bitcoin that had collapsed. Normally when anyone started talking about crypto near him, he would tune them out.
Clown Wig Man nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Okay, not here for Tatiana’s cult.”
“No, I don’t think we are,” Alana said hastily. “I’m sure it’s lovely and all.”
“Eh. Tatiana yells at people who are not happily married and tells them to talk to each other and have more sex with each other. And somehow this works.”
“Shit, maybe we are supposed to be at that one,” Alana muttered.
“You are married?”
“Yes.”
“Are you happy?”
“Most of the time,” Hudson replied.
Clown Wig Man smiled. “This is good answer. This is not answer from Tatiana’s students. You know the couples on the Instagrams and the TikToks who always post so many posts about how much they love their husband or wife or whatever? And how marriage is so hard but everything is so good? Those are the ones who go to Tatiana’s cult. The liars.”
“So where should we be going?” Alana asked.
“We can always go home,” Hudson offered. “Tell JP we tried but there were too many options?”
“Who is this JP?” Clown Wig Man asked. He sighed. “Come. I make you tea while we figure this out. It’s not good to have you standing here in the lobby like you’re collecting charities.”
Was following him the smartest thing Hudson had ever done? No, but it also wasn’t the dumbest.
Alana typed something out on her phone, and turned it to him.
‘Whatever is happening is better than an actual improv class.’
Hudson rolled his eyes, and beckoned for her phone. She handed it over, and, with her watching, he typed ‘the bar is in hell and we have stumbled over it’.
Alana grinned. “Yay us!” she whispered.
“I am Sigmund,” the man said. “It is nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you as well,” Hudson and Alana chorused, and tried to stifle their nervous laughter.
Sigmund led them into a small lounge. “This is our greenroom,” he said. “We have tea and coffee and that is all.”
Hudson was deeply suspicious that those were the only two beverages available, but he wasn’t going to argue.
“Just water would be great, thank you,” Alana said.
“And for you?”
“A coffee, please.”
“Okay.” Sigmund gestured toward the couches. “You sit and now tell me the truth.”
“We did,” Alana protested.
Sigmund rolled his eyes. “Sweetie. You told a good story, but it was not the truth.”
“But it was,” she argued, as she took a seat on the couch directly next to Hudson.
The door to the lounge was flung open and a grandma-aged woman wearing a fur coat, heels, and carrying an oversized bag waltzed in. “God save me from whining childrens who do not want to communicate with their partners,” she said in a thick Russian accent. Noticing Hudson and Alana, she paused. “Another activity, Sigmund?”
“No, they could not figure out which activity they were booked for, and entertained me with stories about kidneys instead.”
The woman pursed her lips. “Not the tantric yoga class? They look…” she paused. “Like they would enjoy this.”
“Nah, that seems too sweaty for my enjoyment,” Alana said. She leaned against Hudson. “I’m all for sweating in the appropriate locations.”
“And a windowless room in a building in midtown is not it?” Hudson asked.
She snickered. “Not particularly.”
“I’ll file that away for future reference.”
The woman, who had swanned over to the coffee station. “Sigmund, were they supposed to come to my class?”
“Possibly,” Sigmund said. “But you don’t take new people.”
“This is true.” The smugness radiated. “I have a long waiting list of people who need me to tell them to talk to their spouse.” She opened a jar of jam that had been sitting near the coffee pot, and heaped a generous spoon into her cup, and stirred it in. “I am Dr. Tatiana.”
“I’m Hudson, and this is my wife, Alana.”
Dr. Tatiana came and draped herself on the couch across from them. “Hmm. Interesting, the way you say that.”
“Say what?”
“My wife.” Dr. Tatiana took a sip of her jam-laced coffee and hummed to herself. “Like you want it to be true but also you do not believe that it is.”
Well, that was horrifyingly accurate, and not at all what Hudson expected her to say.
“Now you say it,” she said, turning to Alana. “Say ‘my husband’.”
Alana tilted her head a little in confusion. “My husband?” she repeated.
Dr. Tatiana took another sip. “The same.” She stared at both of them for long enough to make Hudson have to resist the urge to squirm on the couch. “Look. In here I am on my breaks and I do not have to do the whole singing and dancing. No bullshit.”
Sigmund rolled his eyes. “The whole thing you do is bullshit, Tatianachka.”
“Takes one to know ones,” Tatiana replied. “Now, listen. Marriage advice for free for you two. Which I am qualified to give. In two countries, even, because one degree in psychology is not enough in the United States when you got it in the Soviet Union. Anyway.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not even going to make you each tell me what kind of bug the other one is.”
“Does that…help?” Alana asked.
Tatitana waved her hand. “Sometimes? It is like pretending to read minds, or crystals, or palms. Or maybe actually reading them. It’s not magic, it’s body cues that you do not realize you are giving away.” She grinned. “And a good mind reader is never going to give away their secrets, but they can see them the same way a dentist knows if you’ve been giving too many blowjobs.”
Hudson blinked rapidly. “Wait, is that a thing?”
“Oh, yes.”
“That does explain the slightly weird comments my dentist made to me as a teenager,” he said.
Tatiana laughed. “Some people are not good at keeping secrets.”
“Honestly, the fact my dentist hadn’t said anything to me is a miracle,” Alana said, “considering he pointed everything else out.” She twined her hand into Hudson’s, and he pretended that was just a thing they did, and not Alana trying to convince Tatiana that they were happily married.
“Anyways. We are getting off the train about dentists. The point.” Tatiana gestured to the two of them. “People give away their feelings with the things they do and the way they say things. Now, I do not know what is happening with the two of you, and I do not have time to find out, but I know that if you only talked to each other, things would be a lot different. And don’t say, ‘ah, Tatiana, we do talk to each other!’ No. Not the way you need to. You have to be brave enough to be open to the possibility of having your heart stomped on and break into a thousand little pieces.” She shrugged. “But you already knew this. The same way you always know what the tarot cards are going to say.”
Suddenly, a phone rang loudly. “Oh, that is mine.” Tatiana stood up. “It is time for me to go spread my wisdoms with another class.”
Pulling a flip phone out of her cleavage, she flipped it open, pressed a few buttons, shut it, and tucked it back into her bra. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said, blowing them kisses. “I hope to never see you again.”
The door slammed shut behind her.
“She’s a marriage counselor?” Alana asked after a few stunned moments.
Sigmund snorted with laughter. “Tatiana? She’s a nude performance artist.” He paused. “She did go to school to become a psychologist in Russia, though.”
“We were like, nose-to-nose. She was definitely a grandma-aged Russian lady.” By mutual unspoken consent, Alana and Hudson began to walk toward the subway station that would get them back home. Hudson did not remove the arm he had around Alana, and Alana had, at some point in between the stale pastries that Sigmund had offered them before leading them to the exit and the automatic front doors (which now looked entirely deserted), had draped her hand around his waist, and had not moved it, either.
Hudson wasn’t going to say anything about anyone’s hand placements, mostly because he wanted to see how far he could push this wonderful and terrible little fairy tale of he and Alana actually being a married couple that had accidentally went out to an immersive theater experience or something, when they had not meant to do that.
“Do you think this was the grand finale of fake marriage counseling?” Alana asked as they headed down the steps into the subway station. “The appointment is in two weeks.”
“I really hope so. I have to put the finishing touches on a proposal for a commission by next week, and JP knows that.”
“I will say, though, that Dr. Tatiana situation had Jamie written all over it.” Alana swiped her card, whispered her thank you to the turnstile, and immediately attached herself back to Hudson’s side. “Maybe our friends need new hobbies.”
“What, besides sending us to fake marriage counseling?”
“Well, yes. It was better when we all wildly speculated about the owner of Nest.”
“Wait.” Hudson turned to stare down at Alana. “Did you figure out who it is and not tell me?”
“Oh my god, I would literally be the actual worst wife who ever lived, if we found that out and I didn’t tell you! I just meant, like, in general. A slightly less unhealthy hobby, wildly speculating about the personal life of someone who is, for all intents and purposes, a ghost. There’s no action actually taken there. And if we ever actually found out who it was…” she paused. “Nah, we’d probably still wildly speculate.”
“So nobody’s actually published their Nest Owner fanfic to A03 or Wattpad?”
“I mean. Not that I know of. Wouldn’t put it past Shannon, though.” Alana tugged out her phone. “I’ll ask. And also ask her who knew Dr. Tatiana, because I feel like it was Jamie.”
“Maybe Oliver. You never know with him.”
The train thundered into the station, and the two of them slipped onto the train, finding a pair of seats in the middle of the car. Alana leaned against Hudson’s shoulder. “Good thing tomorrow isn’t a workday,” she said after a yawn. “I’m gonna sleep forever tonight. All that conversation with potentially a cult leader is exhausting.”
The lady sitting near them visibly startled, and it took a good chunk of Hudson’s self-control to keep his face straight.
The doors closed, but not before a middle-aged Black man with a handheld karaoke machine slipped into their car.
Great.
It was showtime.
At least there wasn’t a chance of Hudson getting kicked in the face by this guy. The train started rattling away from the 34th Street station, and the man with the karaoke machine turned on his microphone.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Charles, and it will be my pleasure to provide you with some musical accompaniment while you travel uptown. Remember, pass along those good vibes to all the people you meet, it can turn someone’s day around.” He clapped for himself as he moved to the middle of the car.
Nobody was paying attention, mostly because this was Manhattan, and it was a train that was traveling uptown at ten-fifteen at night. It was just locals.
“Tonight’s selection of songs are in honor of my favorite white musician named Billy,” the showtime man continued. “Billy with a Y. I will not be singing Green Day songs, although that is a good idea for another day. I was going to start with Uptown Girl, but I was feeling sentimental.”
He fumbled with his carry-on karaoke machine, and Billy Joel’s cover of To Make You Feel My Love began to play. “Sing along, everyone,” he said, and began to sing.
Hudson’s shoulders shook with laughter, and then the song got to the first instrumental. The man pulled out a harmonica from one of his many pockets and did a fairly credible job of playing along.
“I forgot he covered this song,” Alana said. “And I’m not even going to tell you how old I was when I learned that Adele didn’t actually write this song.”
“This is my favorite cover.”
Alana laughed. “You’re such a Long Island boy sometimes.”
“Most times, if we’re gonna be honest.”
Alana sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. “Today has been forever.”
“It’s almost over.” Hudson leaned just a little so he could rest against the window, so Alana could be more comfortable. He was going to be so normal about this. Really. He was.
And then Alana started quietly singing along with Charles the Showtime Guy, and he was done for. She wasn’t serenading him, he knew that. But he was dumb enough to pretend for a moment she was. Like all of this was real, like this marriage was as real as they were going to make Dr. Bradford believe.
He knew that hoping was only going to hurt him in the long run, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.