Lola
There was a segment in the Roswell Falls Gazette that my Grandma Gladys had loved to read every Sunday.
It was an advice column, where people would write in with their problems, and an anonymous columnist named “Sally” would issue their best assessment of the situation.
Sometimes the advice sounded good to me, and other times it seemed ridiculous.
I wondered what the advice-giver would have to say if I wrote in about my particular problem.
Dear Sally,
I seem to have accidentally hired an alien to work in my family’s restaurant.
I found out and then made a fool of myself by tripping over my own two feet.
I sprained my wrist and had to ask the alien (yes, a real alien!) to wrap it for me.
He was gentle and sweet, and he assured me that he came in peace—whatever that meant.
And, maybe this isn’t relevant, but he’s kind of hot even though he has green skin and green hair and tentacles (yes, real tentacles!). But his eyes look the same when he’s not in his disguise, and the more I look at him, the handsomer he seems. Which is weird, right?
Oh, also, I’m supposed to cook for a pair of judges next week to win a contest that would earn my family’s failing restaurant (did I mention it was failing before?
Because it is.) enough cash to save us from having to shut down.
(For now.) But now I can’t cook at all because of my wrist, and I think I might have a crush on an alien. A real-life alien.
What should I do?
—Stressed in Roswell Falls
I was too delirious with pain to be sensible. Everything was jumbled—a heady mixture of fear and pain and piqued interest.
Kal was an alien. Not Ohioan, not in a cult, and definitely not Amish. He was an extraterrestrial. A sentient being from another planet. That explained so much about him, somehow, but also nothing at all.
It kind of made sense, right? With as much time as we’d spent together, I had noticed some peculiarities, like how Kal moved as if he didn’t quite fit his body, and how he knew what some things were, but was completely clueless about others.
Kal had also shown up in the middle of a shift looking for a job that he didn’t have any experience in, which was especially strange.
Come to think of it, he probably wasn’t looking for a job at all.
Plus, there was that freaky incident not too long ago, where the electronics went on the fritz and my brother and I had heard a loud boom.
How…how could I have missed the signs? I could have blamed my parents for raising me to be a reasonable, well-adjusted person who didn’t believe in conspiracy theories about aliens being real. But I was simply too busy to think too much of Kal’s eccentricities, and too charmed by him to care.
And now I was stuck alone in the back of Southern Charm with a sprained wrist and an alien. A green alien with incredible hair and striking eyes. Who I had kissed—and maybe still wanted to kiss?
I rubbed my forehead with my good hand. Now my head and my wrist were smarting, and I was pretty sure I was in shock.
“Are you alright, Lola?”
Kal was still kneeling on the floor, a tentacle rested on my knee, my injured hand held loosely in his own. I hadn’t realized we were still touching like this.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Kal,” I said. “No. I’m in serious need of painkillers, and I’m still processing the fact that aliens are real.” And that, despite that, I still want to kiss one.
I paused. “Sorry, is that offensive? Calling you an alien?”
The corners of Kal’s lips pulled into a tentative grin. “No, not at all. You can call me whatever you want.”
“Great, thanks,” I said, lowering my eyes to the floor, hit with a sudden bout of shyness.
“So, here’s what needs to happen. The first aid kit is out of painkillers, but I think I have some at home. I can walk there, but there’s a chance I could pass out, so I need you to come with me.”
“I’ll carry you,” Kal said.
“Oh! Um, you don’t have to do that. I just need you there in case I get lightheaded and—”
Before I could finish, Kal had already scooped me into his arms—and tentacles. Too stunned to protest, I let him carry me as far as the front door.
“Wait!” Kal stopped short. “Your, um…your alien is showing.”
Brilliant job, Lola. Very chill.
Kal flicked a stray curl away from his face. “Stars above! I almost forgot.”
He placed me down gently, and I watched dumbly as Kal slipped his tentacles (all four of them!) into that stretchy skin suit of his and pulled it up past his torso, over his arms, to his shoulders. When Kal began to put the suit up his neck, I laid a hand on his forearm, stopping him.
“Please,” I said. “Leave it off.”
Concern was written across Kal’s face. He was clearly nervous about being seen for what he was.
But Roswell Falls was my town, and I knew it well.
If it was after dark, there was practically a one-hundred percent chance no one would be outside to see us.
Besides, I couldn’t imagine Kal covering up his real face with that mask again.
He was too beautiful to stay hidden. Or maybe that was just my pain-addled brain talking.
Well, that’s one problem solved, I thought as I entwined my arms gently around Kal’s shoulders. Despite the painful injury, some good came of my accident that night: I didn’t have to invite Kal to my apartment.
Instead, I’d forced him there by being hopelessly, pathetically in pain. Much better.
I grunted as Kal carried me up the stairs to my apartment, the shock of the injury finally wearing off into just plain old discomfort.
I directed him to set me down at the kitchen table, which he did so very gently.
Immediately, I missed his touch. And equally immediately, I recognized how much trouble I was in.
I had a crush on Kal. My employee-slash-coworker, who was incredibly kind and sweet and funny. Who was gorgeous, and caring, and an actual alien.
“There should be a bottle of pills in my bathroom cabinet,” I said, coughing to clear my head. “Blue and red. Can you bring it to me?”
I listened as Kal shuffled through my things.
He came back a few minutes later, empty-handed.
Somehow, I had run out of painkillers—probably from the constant headaches I’d been nursing because of restaurant stress.
I dropped my head onto the table and let it sit on the hard surface. I rose and let my forehead fall again.
“Are you okay?” Kal asked, voice laced with concern.
“Just peachy,” I said, sitting up. “Except I’m about to do something stupid against my better judgment, and I apologize in advance.”
Minutes later, I could hear Jacob stomping up the stairs outside the apartment. He slammed through the front door without so much as knocking.
“You rang?” my little brother said, shaking a bottle of pills like a maraca. “Wow, you look terrible.”
“Gee, thanks. You know what I love most about having a brother? How he dotes on me.” My head was pounding like a kick drum, but I still had the wherewithal to argue with Jacob. As always, I was good at maintaining priorities.
Jacob eyed me up and down. “Whatever, you should just be happy I came to your rescue. What happened anyway?”
“Doesn’t matter. Hand over the painkillers and scram,” I said, holding out my hand, palm-side up.
“Not until you ask nicely.” Then Jacob’s mouth fell open. “Oh. My. Gosh.”
My brother threw his fists in the air and shouted, “I told you so!”
I followed my brother’s eyeline and saw Kal peeking his head—his real head—from the doorway to the living room. Yep. I knew this was a monumentally stupid idea.
“Stop that!” I hissed, pulled at Jacob’s shirt. “And you didn’t tell me anything.”
“Yes, I did!” he insisted.
“No,” I said, holding up a finger from my good hand. “You called Kal weird and a lizard person, and you were really rude about it.”
“And was I wrong?”
I scrubbed my uninjured hand over my face, exasperated. “You know what? I’m too messed up for this. Whatever, you were right. Kal is an alien from another planet, and you’re a genius.”
“Whoa.” Jacob gawked at me, then at Kal, who looked like a human up to his neck and an alien from the neck up. “That’s awesome. Let me grab my camera to get some pictures. Maybe some candids? I’ll let you decide. We’re gonna be rich!”
He turned to leave, and I grabbed my brother by his shirt again.
“You are not taking photos of Kal and selling them. Kal is a person, not a spectacle. I mean…even if he is an alien.”
I turned to Kal, who was watching us with his arms hugged tightly around his middle. “And just because he’s different doesn’t mean we treat him differently. Okay?”
Jacob harrumphed at me but grumbled in agreement.
“Besides,” I said, “we have bigger things to worry about than proof that aliens exist.”
Jacob scrunched his nose at me. “Like what?”
“Like the fact that I hurt my wrist and I don’t have health insurance,” I said, cringing as I lifted my arm. “Or that I only have a few weeks to prepare Southern Charm for the Greatest Restaurants of the Great Smoky Mountains Contest. Or that…”
I trailed off, not able to bring myself to speak the truth out loud. Or that if I don’t win first place, or can’t figure out how to bring in new business, I’ll have to shut the family business down for good.
“Or that it’s almost your bedtime and I would bet money that you haven’t finished your homework yet,” I said, changing the topic.
Jacob’s mouth hung open. “You just found out aliens exist and you only care about some stupid contest and homework?”
Before I could argue that this was actually a very normal and healthy priority, Jacob turned his attention to Kal directly and started peppering him with questions—about his home planet, why he was here, where his ship was parked.
The little twerp couldn’t even finish one question before starting another.
I noticed that Kal, who seemed quite calm throughout most of this disastrous evening, was beginning to look overwhelmed.
I needed to step in. Delirious and in pain as I was, it wasn’t right to subject Kal to this level of unfettered attention from a very enthusiastic teenager.
“Jacob! Let Kal breathe! And get out of here before Mom or Dad figure out you’re not home.”
He rolled his eyes at me in a uniquely I-am-an-annoying-teenager way.
“Don’t you want to know why he’s here? What he wants with us? How long he’s staying? You’re the type of person who dies first in a horror movie.”
I sputtered. That was extremely rude and upsettingly accurate. But more than anything, I was stuck on one thing Jacob said in particular.
If Kal isn’t from this planet, how long is he staying?
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Well, I just don’t think we should be asking him such personal questions,” I said.
A throat cleared, prompting Jacob and me to turn toward Kal in unison. “I’m right here,” he said, wiggling his fingers in an awkward wave. “Maybe you could talk to me directly?”
Where were my manners? No one likes being talked about like they don’t exist, and there I was speaking for him. I cringed at my own insensitivity.
“I’m sorry,” I said, chastened. I elbowed Jacob in the side, and he apologized, too, rubbing at his ribs. “We didn’t mean to make you feel left out. I want the answers to all of those questions, too, if you feel like sharing.”
Kal scratched at the material around his neck. “Do you mind if I take this thing off?”
* * *
“Dude.”
That’s all Jacob could say for about ten minutes. I was right there with him. What we just learned was nearly unbelievable—except we had the evidence right there in shades of green.
I lent Kal a pair of old sweatpants so he could remove his costume (apparently it was called a human suit, which made me gag). It sat crumpled on the floor in a pool of flesh and hair and orifices. Total nightmare fuel.
With incredible patience, Kal sat down across from Jacob and answered my brother’s questions as they came. It was…edifying, to say the least.
That night alone, we’d learned: aliens were real; Kal was from a planet called Xaerea millions and millions of light years away; Xaereans were some of the foremost extraterrestrial explorers on Earth, with stations all over the world.
And, finally, that Kal specialized in human studies, which explained why he was able to fit in among humans as well as he had.
“Not that well,” Jacob said under his breath. I kicked him in the shin.
I had questions for Kal, too, but unlike my brother, I wasn’t yet brave enough to ask them.
How had this happened? Of all the places in the entire world where Kal could have ended up, he’d come here. I wanted to know why.
Why Roswell Falls? Why Southern Charm? Why me?
Before I could work up the nerve to ask, Kal started to yawn…and yawn some more. It was time for sleep. The adrenaline had worn off and left my head so full of new information that I just needed to lie down.
I looked at Jacob. “We’ll pick this back up some other time,” I told him as my eyelids struggled to stay open. “But I need you to pinky promise that you’ll keep your mouth shut, okay?”
Jacob was his own person, and I was fully aware that he could decide he didn’t want to keep Kal’s secret at any time. But at his core, my brother was a good kid (despite being a teenager), and I knew I could trust him. At least for now.
From my spot on the couch, I extended my arm, fingers folded into a fist, pinky finger out. I waited for Jacob to follow suit. He crossed his arms and considered me with pinched eyebrows. I worried that I’d read him wrong. Eventually, Jacob looped his pinky finger around mine.
“Pinky promise,” I said, holding his gaze.
“Pinky promise,” Jacob repeated.
I felt something smooth snaking over my hand. The very tip of a tentacle looped itself into the clasp of our little fingers. Kal smiled shyly between us.
“I’ve always wanted to do one of these.”
After we all let go, Jacob jabbed a finger in Kal’s direction. “If you abduct my sister, I’m coming for you,” he said in his best threatening voice, which wasn’t particularly threatening since his voice cracked on the last word.
It wasn’t until my brother had left and Kal was settled onto my couch that I realized Kal hadn’t answered one of Jacob’s questions—one I had a particular interest in.
How long was he staying?