Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“What can I get you?” I ask for the thousandth time this afternoon.
My second didn’t show up for work, and my line has been three-deep all day.
Why is everyone at the mall? Why aren’t they home, napping on a Sunday afternoon?
I know I’d be napping if I could be. Who knew creating alien lifeforms in your body would zap all your energy?
“How about a minute to talk?” Jimmy asks from under his baseball cap. He’s pulled it over his eyes and flipped his collar up to shield his face.
“Jimmy?”
“Shhh, you can’t let anyone know I’m in the mall. What if my mother sees me?”
“Then she would be in the mall too, and we know that won’t happen anytime this century,” I grouse.
Bile surges up my throat, and I don’t know if it’s from the stench of the fryer grease or the thought of Jimmy reporting my belly bump back to the church.
He’s such a snitch that I know he would tattle to his mother, who would love nothing more than to spread my downfall around the parish.
“Cut the crap, don’t you see I have a line of paying customers behind you?
If you aren’t craving a hot dog on a stick, I suggest you step aside. ”
“Fine, I’ll take a corndog and a soda,” he says, pulling a fistful of crumpled bills from his jeans’ pocket. “I went to your classes, but they said you had withdrawn.”
“Yeah, well, I took extra shifts here to build up some capital and didn’t have the time for classes—”
“But what about your dream?”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
What about my dream? I’ll be a working mom, but not in the way I envisioned it.
Frankly, I wanted an office job, not a job cooking beef franks.
Choosing my career was my dream, but without a partner on this planet, I don’t have that luxury.
The babies swimming around in my belly are all the luxury I can afford.
“Your change is twenty-five cents,” I say, holding a quarter in my outstretched hand.
“You know, I did like you,” he says, taking my fingers instead of the quarter. “I know we were matched, but I did—do—want to marry you. I’m sorry that marrying me was so distasteful that you left the church.”
“I didn’t leave the church because of you,” I snap and turn to the fryer to drop a battered dog into the grease. I’m not as fast as I was a few months ago, and it splatters onto my protruding belly. “I left for the mall. That sounds dumb. I left for the future the mall promised—our dream.”
“The dream you can’t afford to pursue?”
He’s got me there.
“My timeline shifted, that’s all. I didn’t sell my dream to your mother like you.”
“Ouch, Jenny,” he says, rubbing his chest.
I rub mine in sympathy because I don’t like how he’s collateral damage in my flight from the church.
He’s not a bad guy—just not the guy for me.
I learned I need a strong man—not a bodybuilder—an emotionally strong man who can lead me as an attentive partner.
Jimmy divides his loyalties between his mother and his future partner.
I’ve decided that’s not enough for me, not after experiencing what I could have with Var’n.
“Look, I’m at work. These people are hungry—”
“Jenny, please give me another chance. We could date like a regular couple, and maybe in time, you will reconcile with the church. The dream doesn’t have to end here.”
Luckily, the women in line behind him sigh with little hearts in their eyes instead of angrily glaring as they wait.
As I turn to pull his corndog from the fryer, I’m tempted by his offer.
But I left the church because his mother insisted on crushing my dreams. Can I trust him to stand up to her?
And what about my alien babies? He certainly wouldn’t want to raise them.
They wouldn’t be accepted in the church.
“Reconciliation between us is not the answer,” I say, handing him his steaming food in a paper boat.
“You are better off asking the prophet to listen for another match. You can blame me and say I’m a lost lamb.
We didn’t get along as kids, hang out together as teens, or go on dates before we were matched.
You can’t possibly believe I’m the girl for you. Let me go.”
“Why won’t you give him a chance?” Asks the lady behind him. She rearranges the shopping bag loops on her arm in order to slap the counter. “Isn’t the power of love enough?”
“No, it’s not. I mean, it is, but not in my case. Look, Jimmy, there’s someone else.”
“How could you find someone else? We were engaged up until a few months ago!” He blubbers.
“You can’t get over an engagement that quickly,” says the third lady in line. If she can wear that shade of neon yellow fishnet tights with that shade of neon green tunic, then I can get over an engagement. “The heart doesn’t jump from one love to another.”
“It wasn’t love,” Jimmy corrects her. “But that’s okay, because I don’t love her either. It’s ordained, so love will grow.”
Both women’s eyebrows jump to their hairline. The one in the loud outfit presses her lips together as if holding in her nasty response.
“Jimmy, I did find love. That’s why we’re through,” I reply with a curt nod. “Now, Ma’am, I believe you were next. What can I get you?”
She orders enough food for a football team and balances the heavy tray on her bounty of shopping bags across the food court.
Half a dozen kids cheer when she reaches their table.
Little hands snatch and jostle the tray.
She fights to maintain its balance as the weight distribution changes.
Without a single thanks, the kids scamper to the condiment station.
The mother sighs as she drops her shopping bags under the table.
There’s no corndog left on the tray for her.
She plops into a chair only to move once a kid returns to pull it out from under her.
Is this my future? Left without a corndog because I couldn’t carry one more thing on the tray?
Her exhausted expression will haunt my dreams, as will her faded clothes and limp hair.
She has washed the neon out of her hyper-color shirt.
I bet those shopping bags are full of kids’ clothes, games, and school supplies—not cosmetics and the latest fashions.
When was the last time she spent an afternoon at the salon, refreshing her perm?
I want to ask her if her husband is at work or if she’s a single mom, but how rude would that be?
Her plight dominates my thoughts as I slog through a double shift.
By the time the mall closes, I’m ready to drop.
My feet sting with pins and needles. The babies kick my insides with frustration—their soft pretzel was hours ago and devoid of real nutrition.
At least Mom will have real food left over from their dinner tonight.
Maybe I’ll wait to tell them of my predicament until after I eat.
The trash bags seem to smell worse with each trek to the dumpsters.
The stench of ketchup follows me with its cloying sweetness, overpowering the ever-present grease.
I may never eat ketchup again after this.
I wonder if these babies will eat Earth food?
And if not, then what? I’ll have a hard enough time feeding them without alien food aversions.
On the spaceship, Var’n had pellets that filled my belly and gave me nutrition.
We didn’t eat. What if my babies don’t have the organs to eat?
“Oh, Var’n! I’ve made a mistake. Why did I leave you?
” I wail to the night’s sky. It may only be eight o’clock, but it’s already dark.
I shouldn’t linger in the parking lot, but I’d hoped to face my parents before I broke down in tears.
Rubbing the translation chip fiercely with one hand, I use the other to fling garbage bags into the dumpster.
“I made a huge mistake—the biggest mistake of my life. I need to be with you! I miss everything—my purpose with your mini-selves, your love for my body, the freedom to use my words and love myself, and mostly—I miss you! Where are you?”
Is that my imagination, or is the translation chip buzzing in my chest? I flatten my palm over it…and kinda feel vibrations… I rip open the polo shirt buttons and jam my hand inside. It is buzzing! “Var’n! Var’n! I’m begging you. Please take me back!”
It buzzes harder, but no green beam surrounds me.
My babies swish and kick with my distress.
Might as well head to Mom and Dad’s house.
My feet ache slightly less than my heart as I traverse the parking lot to the bike rack.
How long will I be able to work on my feet all day?
If I can’t work, I can’t ask Lisa to float my part of the rent.
Even with Johnny paying a third, reducing my portion, I don’t have the savings to take time off.
Plus, I get the sinking feeling that the lovebirds would rather I disappear, so they can rent a one-bedroom apartment closer to the mall.
When I release the chain on my bike, it topples over.
I cry out in pain as I’m knocked onto my butt.
The backs of my thighs scrape against pebbles on the asphalt.
One bike drops onto the other, wedging me underneath them.
I roll onto my side and lift my legs to protect my belly.
My arms shake as I try to lift the bikes off me, but they won’t budge.
I’m trapped until someone else comes to retrieve their bike.
What if they were all left here for the night? What if a murderer finds me first?
“Help!” I scream. “I’m pinned under the bikes!”
My sobs echo through the dark parking lot.
The bikes balance on my hip, but for how long?
If I shift a millimeter, they will crash down on my belly and squish my babies.
My knees and lower back ache as I maintain the strange position.
I lower my upper body to the ground to conserve energy.
My heart pounds and my blood pressure soars with panic.
Glassy with my tears, the world tints green.
I’m lifted from the Earth with four tangled bicycles. My limbs fall from their confined place, and my body seems to sigh with relief. I’m going to be okay. Var’n will make everything okay. I repeat the phrase like a mantra in hopes this is real, and I haven’t passed out.
“Pet,” Var’n commands from the shadows. “You have earned yourself the punishment of a lifetime.”
“Are you mad at me?” I whimper from my spot on the floor.
“Furious.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t speak up to stay with you. I was flustered between my duties to others and what my heart desired. By the time I chose…my choice was gone.”
“By not using your words as I specifically, repeatedly asked you to, you put the worries of those who only wish to control you over your duty to protect and cherish yourself, you have earned the spanking of a lifetime—”
“Then you will take me back? Please,” I wail loudly and sob into my forearms.
“I’m not finished!” He yells. I freeze. We stare at one another until a soft hiccup escapes my lips. “And then you will serve a life sentence on this ship, so I can be the one who protects and cherishes you…”