Chapter 7
Off Planet
Aelanna, Kora and Nayli had all met Ms. Dapkey’s criteria for being eligible for the Harmonious Mates Agency.
There had been medical tests but Aelanna had expected that, and they were carried out at a private clinic.
They also took photos and installed an alien language translator in her brain.
Wherever this place was, it was an advanced society.
They were going into space!
Aelanna’s insides went queasy at the thought, but she was doing it; she had made up her mind.
On being accepted, she quit her job at the diner.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t go back to her apartment, for sure.
The three sat in the airport cafeteria waiting to board the private plane that would take them to some state in the south — Dapkey wouldn’t tell them where.
She claimed she didn't know where it was.
“Is the Harmonious Mates Agency strictly legal?” asked Kora out of the blue, slurping her coffee and holding her cup a little way from her face, deep in thought and staring at nothing.
Aelanna was stirring sugar into her coffee and at Kora’s question she stopped the teaspoon mid-stir.
Nayli recovered from her agitation at the question and sipped her orange juice. “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be,” she said doubtfully, “The government must know about it to let the spaceships land, right?”
“Or maybe the alien ships are illegal and they enter Earth’s atmosphere cloaked. Star Trek has cloaking. It’s common knowledge,” said Kora. “Dapkey runs the Harmonious Employment Agency as a cover for shipping women to aliens. Who knows if it’s legal?”
Aelanna didn’t like the way Kora’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
“I hope they have coffee where we’re going. I’m so nervous I can’t stir mine,” she said.
Kora threw her a concerned look. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Girls’ privilege. We’re not committed until we board the spacecraft, remember?” added Nayli.
“But you’re going?” Aelanna looked at Kora, who nodded once, then at Nayli, who gave a series of little nods, her head bobbing.
“Into the unknown,” said Kora.
“Stop it. You’re frightening her,” Nayli replied.
Aelanna lifted her cup to take a sip, but just a look at the black, steaming drink turned her stomach over. Or maybe it was what she was about to do. She set the cup down in the saucer with a decided chink. Nayli blinked in surprise and Kora side-eyed her.
“You alright, babe?” she asked. “I was only fooling around.”
Aelanna jumped up to her feet as if her seat had been set on fire.
“Yeah. I’m just going to the ladies' room,” she replied, hoping her voice didn’t betray her nerves and she grabbed her purse and fled, leaving the other two behind with raised eyebrows.
What was she doing? Going on this crazy quest?
In the ladies’ room, she stared at herself in the mirror that stretched the width of the four wash basins in the single counter, her face pale, eyes blown wide with alarm.
“Are you alright, honey?” asked a cleaner, who was mopping the floor behind her and giving her worried looks. “D’you want me to fetch somebody?”
Aelanna didn’t want to make a fuss. She forced a smile. “No, I’m good, nervous of flying.” She nodded vigorously. “I’ve taken a pill, just waiting for it to kick in.”
That seemed to get the woman to back off. “If you’re sure,” she said doubtfully, picked up her mop and bucket and exited the washroom, leaving Aelanna alone with her thoughts.
She didn’t have to do this. It wasn’t too late to back out.
They had been allowed to take a large suitcase and a carry-on.
Not that she had much, but she’d thrown all her precious personal things into the big case, along with her clothes.
As she was having to move out anyway, she didn’t have much choice.
Her photos of happier times, a Disneyland snow globe of Cinderella’s castle that a kind foster father had given her, her school certificates, a few childhood toys, stuff she'd collected when she was working, one gift from Brad, his team tee shirt.
There were no perishables, liquids or creams allowed for fear of contamination.
Strictly clothes and shoes. Before going on the spaceship, Dapkey had told them that the items would be irradiated in the suitcase before loading and that the girls themselves would undergo a decontamination procedure too, although the manager had been vague about it and Aelanna wasn’t sure what to expect.
Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe she should get out of New York and make a fresh start, find a new job in a new city.
She would move to Tampa, Florida. She had visited there once.
When she was thirteen, her then foster parents had relatives there and they took her with them for a week.
The relatives were quite well-off and had a house in Tampa Bay.
She had liked it; the beach, the waterpark, the climate.
She could find a new job and an apartment and go swimming every day.
The USA was a big country; she didn’t have to go to another galaxy to escape memories of Brad. The world — or the U.S. — was her oyster. She didn’t owe anybody anything. She was a free agent. She could go to LA, Las Vegas or San Diego.
Yes! She would grab her big case when they landed, say goodbye to the girls, and stay a few days wherever they ended up, book into a motel, and find a job in any of those cities on her target list. She’d make it work somehow.
She splashed her face with cold water, dried it with a paper towel and went out to join her friends.
“Are you okay? You’ve been gone ages,” Kora asked, studying Aelanna with apprehension.
Aelanna nodded and sat down. Her coffee was cold.
“Here, let me get you a new one,” offered Nayli. Aelanna stopped Nayli rising with a hand on her arm.
“No, I don’t want it.” She took a deep breath. “Guys, have you ever... Have you... lost your nerve, at all? Do you want to chicken out?” She looked them squarely in the eyes. Nayli appeared confused then worried; Kora looked sympathetic.
“Oh, babe, we understand if you decide not to go, it’s a big step,” Kora said.
Relief washed through Aelanna.
“I thought you’d be mad at me. I’ll miss you guys, though, of course I will.”
“We’ll miss you too,” commiserated Nayli, face clouded with regret. She leaned closer and patted Aelanna’s hand resting on the laminate table. “This is goodbye, then?”
“I’ll come along for the ride. I’m not ready to give up my friends just yet.”
“What will you do?” Kora asked.
An air of sadness infused all three of them, and Aelanna heaved a sigh.
“I can’t go back to Queens. I quit my job and I already quit my apartment there, I thought I’d be moving in with Brad. I think I'll stay in a motel for a few days and look for a job in Tampa, Florida.”
Kora looked appalled. “Tampa? Oh, babe, a New York girl going to sweaty Florida... ”
“Sweaty? Have you been to Tampa?” Aelanna asked, defensive. “I have. And I liked it.”
“I hope things work out for you, sweetheart,” added Nayli. “We’ll miss you like crazy. It’s the last time we’ll see each other. Forever.”
Forever sounded final to Aelanna’s ears. A long time. A life-changing moment. The three of them had made life-changing decisions.
No going back.
Dapkey’s warning echoed in her head.
“Do you think I’m doing the right thing?” she asked.
“That’s not for us to say,” Kora said kindly. “It’s your life. We all must make our own decisions.”
Nayli was looking up and frowning at a panoramic TV screen in the cafeteria high on the wall.
“Is that the creep Brad or are my eyes deceiving me?”
Aelanna and Kora followed her gaze and landed on a well-known sports reporter on a news channel, in front of a clip from a famous New York baseball team in their home stadium. The video cut to a still of a new player.
Oh no...it was Brad the rat Silverman. He had made it on another rung to international stardom. Was he to plague her life forever?
Nayli muttered on. “If I ever get my hands on him, he’s gonna regret it... ”
“Guys please, let’s not do this again. I’m trying to move on,” Aelanna cried.
Kora was giving one of the waiters a death stare. He came over.
“Could you change the channel?” she asked.
“What to?”
“Anything but that.” She jerked her head at the screen, but Aelanna said, “Scrub that” because the sports report was over.
The waiter rearranged his face into a bland, customer-facing expression. He took his order tablet out of his pocket.
“Can I get you ladies anything?”
Aelanna didn’t know anything about planes, but this one was small and exclusive, and the journey seemed to take hours, until at last she felt it descending just as the day was fading.
The young male cabin assistant didn't speak to them, apart from running through the emergency routine and making sure they were strapped in.
They touched down in the middle of nowhere and sped along a tarmac runway in the middle of gently undulating grassland for longer than she felt comfortable, but the vastness felt like a blank page.
She could remake her life here; start over.
The three women stepped off the plane, down a few steps into a warm breeze. The sun was setting, and it was the golden hour, washing the grass plain that they’d landed in with a lurid orange glow.
The landscape was empty and isolated. Apart from a few runway lights flickering in the dying sun, and a fence of posts and two wires stretched between them, nothing and nobody was there.
Deserted. As in an actual desert. All Aelanna could see was a horizon of endless prairie, of rippling grass, the low sun and rapidly darkening sky around it.
A strange feeling for a city girl who had never seen anything but buildings and streets and people.
They had arrived in an alien world here on Earth.