How To Break Up With An Alien

by Magan Vernon

  ***

  My mom quit doing hair a few years ago. Sometime after she married Brian and right before she signed her first book deal. This would explain why I had the same Bettie Page style cut with short bangs for the past few years.

  "So how are we going to do this?" Mom ran her fingers through my hair.

  I didn't go in her bedroom a lot, mainly because it grossed me out to think of her and Brian naked in bed together, but when I did it was usually for her to do my hair. The master bedroom was huge and painted the same color as the Mediterranean Sea. They had a giant four poster bed flanking one wall with long silk curtains hanging over the Spanish windows behind it. Opposite the bed stood a sitting area with a green chaise and a few copies of Dr. Seuss books that mom would read to Elijah before bed.

  Going into the master bathroom was a large walk-through closet, and I sat on the other side, in the in-suite bathroom, facing the giant mirror with the whirlpool tub to my back.

  I shrugged. "I don't know. Whatever you think will go with my dress."

  "I guess we can just start with some curls and go from there?" It sounded like a question, but before I could respond mom had already started clipping up chunks of my hair and turned on the curling iron.

  "So, what are the boys doing in the other room?" I asked, hoping that Brian wasn't being his usual creepy self.

  "Who knows?" Mom took a section of my hair, wrapping it around the curling iron. "Brian is probably talking Ace's ear off or Elijah is begging him to play."

  "So does that mean that Brian likes Ace?" I looked at my mom's reflection in the mirror.

  She paused for a moment and then let the curling iron go, an auburn curl falling down on my shoulder. "Well, we are just getting to know him, honey."

  "So, you are saying that you don't like him?"

  "Oh, Alex, don't be so dramatic. I never said that. It's just hard for a mother to see her little girl growing up and making big decisions in her life. Like going off to college in the southwest for an older gentleman."

  I rolled my eyes. "Mom, I'm not going to Arizona just for Ace. Dad is there too, and besides..."

  "They have a great public relations program," we both said, practically in unison.

  "Right, I guess I've said that, a lot." I looked down at my hands. After breakfast I painted my nails a bright red color that was called Waitress in Waiting. It looked like I just stuck my fingers in a gallon of finger paint. How girls could keep their nails painted all the time was beyond me. I knew I would probably have them half chewed off before the dance anyway, so I probably shouldn't have bothered.

  "I just don't want you to rush into anything."

  "I'm not, Mom. I've thought a lot about my decision." I looked back up at our reflection. "When I was in Arizona it was one of the happiest times of my life. I felt like I really belonged there. I would just love to feel like that every day and to be around people with the same interests as me."

  Mom nodded, staring down at my hair. "You know when I was your age I met a boy, too."

  "I'm not going to be grossed out by this story, am I?"

  Mom tapped my shoulder with her finger. "Hush, I listened to you and now it is your turn to listen to my story."

  I blew one of the fallen curls out of my face. "Fine, go on."

  "Anyways, I always wanted to go to school to be a writer, but I had this boyfriend who joined the Air Force."

  I knew where this was going. It wasn't exactly a secret that my dad was in the Air Force or that I was the aftermath of a night in the backseat of a Lebaron.

  "So, I followed him to boot camp and eventually followed him to the base he was stationed at. I started beauty school there and planned to do hair to help pay for my college tuition. Then a week after beauty school graduation, I found out I was pregnant."

  And there was the kill switch. I was the one that ruined my mother's dreams of college.

  "But you know what, Alex?"

  I looked up at mom's reflection. She had tears in her eyes and both her hands were placed on the side of my head. "I never regretted my decision for one second. If I didn't follow your father I would have never had you and while I was at the base I wrote my first novel."

  Her first novel. The one that got her an agent and the one that hadn't spent a single day off one of the best seller lists. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that she didn't go ahead with her original plan. It seemed to work out better for her this way. Maybe it would for me, too.

  She brushed through my new springing curls with her fingers. "I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, and sometimes you just have to go with what your heart wants instead of listening to what everyone else wants."

  Chapter 36

  Brad Gage lived in the same neighborhood as me. Right down the street. We actually used to even play together the first summer I moved to Winnebago. Then when we started school he realized I was a geek and quit talking to me.

  It was almost surreal to be pulling up to his house and see all the girls lined up in their dresses and the boys in their button-down shirts and ties. I'd never had any of this. Since the day I arrived in Winnebago I knew I was different. Not just because I looked different than the WASPs, but because I was different. A colonel's daughter, divorced parents, and now a future alien princess.

  Mom let us drive her car for the dance, so I parked in front of Brad's house and locked the door before being greeted by Rachel Johnson in the driveway.

  "Oh em gee, you made it! Your hair rocks!"

  Rachel was wearing the same cheetah print tube dress with the long red train that I had tried on. It was still a ridiculous dress, but somehow with her long torso, she pulled it off. Except she just had to paired it off with a side ponytail and some converse high tops. Very classy.

  "Gee, thanks." I ran my fingers through my hair. Mom had curled most of it and then just pulled half of it back while clipping a bright red flower in it to match my red nails.

  "And this is the same guy from last night, right? Ace?" Rachel stared at him as if he were some sort of a statue in a museum. For how good he looked he could have been. While all the other guys wore button-down black shirts with ties to match the color of their date's dresses, Ace wore a three piece black suit complete with a crisp white shirt and red tie. I'd have to say, he looked good in just about everything.

  "Yep, same one." I looped my arm through Ace's more for support than anything else. Mom insisted that I wear heels and even though they were only one inch high, I still wasn't very graceful walking in them.

  "I heard you and Brody almost got into a fight at the game last night?" Rachel's eyes didn't leave Ace's.

  He shrugged. "Yeah, I may have overreacted a bit. Just thought he might have been after Alex." He moved his arm and looped it around my waist.

  Brian, mom, and Elijah walked up the driveway just in time to break up the awkwardness. Following close behind them was grandma and grandpa. I should have known they were coming. Grandma never missed one of the grandkids' dances. She showed up to everything, always with an old disposable camera in one hand and an unfiltered cigarette in the other.

  Ace quickly glanced up at my grandpa, nodded, then looked back down.

  "Is this the young gentleman from Arizona?" Grandma shuffled up the driveway, her voice more gravelly than a country road.

  "Yeah, this is Ace." I smiled as Ace pulled me closer.

  Grandma looked up at Ace and tilted her head, then looked back at grandpa. "Harold? Doesn't he look like the spitting image of that boy you were in the service with? The one who had the same Egyptian eyes?"

  "Mother!" My mom put her hand on grandma's shoulder. I guess Egyptian eyes were the nicest way she could describe Ace's eyes that looked like they were circled in eyeliner. Of course it was not guyliner. He proved that to me once—a time that I would never forget.

  "Now I didn't mean anything by it. Just said that he looked familiar, that's all." Grandma pulled her arms around herself and pulled out a pack of cigarettes fro
m her coat pocket.

  Grandpa nodded, looking up at Ace. For awhile they just stared at each other and then both nodded, like they relayed a silent message. "Yeah, Marge, maybe a distant relative." He patted grandma on the back.

  With good timing, Brad's mom ran over to break up the awkwardness and rounded us all up to take millions of posed photos. Brad's mom looked just like a girl version of him: tall, a little stocky, and in a real need of a trim of her mustache hairs. She even sounded like him as she yelled for all of us to gather around the oak tree near the side of the house.

  Our group was composed of Ace, the rest of Brody's usual crowd of vice presidential populars, and me. But Ace and I still made a point of trying to stay as far away as we could from Gemma and Brody. Incase either one of them wanted to start a fight.

  We smiled for picture after picture, keeping in the awkward dance pose where a guy stands behind the girl, wrapping his arms around the waist, and holding hands. I wouldn't have minded the pose so much if so many people weren't around. With Ace's body still radiating a chill, even through his suit, and his warm hands on mine I was getting an icy-hot sensation all through my body and it was hitting every corner imaginable.

  Every time I felt that chill I just wanted to pull Ace closer in a full embrace, but I couldn't very well do that with my mom standing in front of us, yelling, "Smile, come on I know you can smile wider than that! Three years of braces and I'd better see a smile!"

  After taking more pictures than I could count, we finally got into the car and headed to dinner. I was glad that we all decided not to ride in the same car and Ace and I could have some alone time.

  "So did you find anything more about the mystery sleep creeper?" I asked, still keeping my voice low. We may have pulled out of Brad's driveway, but I still didn't want anyone to hear us or notice what we were talking about.

  "I spent most of the night at Circe, researching, but I still found nothing."

  "Oh." I sighed, gripping my hands on the steering wheel and then loosening them. Researching? I hope it wasn't that he was actually visiting some alien girlfriend instead.

  "Hey." He ran his index finger from my earlobe down to the nape of my neck. The sensation made my whole arm break out in goose bumps and it was hard to stay mad at him.

  "Don't worry, we will figure all this out. Let's just enjoy tonight as a normal couple going to the Fall Ball." I glanced over to see him smiling, his dark eyes locked on me.

  "I don't think we will ever just be a normal couple."

  "Well you might be right about that one. A normal couple doesn't include a girl that looks even more beautiful than Venus de Milo."

  I tried to smile, but the name Venus gave me a slight twitch. The girl that Monte mentioned. Another one of Ace's supposed many girls back in Calta.

  "Something I said? Not into Roman goddesses?"

  "No." I shook my head. "It just got me thinking about what Monte said, about all the girls you dated before."

  "Alex, Alex, and how many times must I tell you that I only have eyes for you?" His hand slid down from my neck to pull my hand off the steering wheel and intertwine our fingers.

  "So you wouldn't prefer Venus, the princess of Kelari or whatever?"

  He sighed. "No, don't get me wrong, Venus was a great girl and it would have been a noble cause to combine our two planets with us getting together. But it wasn't meant to be."

  His thumb rubbed against the back of my knuckles before he pulled my hand to his lips, gently kissing at the back of my fingers. "We didn't work because we both knew we were meant for other people. Even the girls I was promised to after her, I somehow always knew that there was something more out there. I didn't know it at first, but when I first saw you, all of that became very clear."

  As soon as he finished we sat at a stoplight and we were lucky there was no one behind us because I had been waiting to embrace him and crush my lips against his. The doubt was still there. After the dance I would have to figure out what I wanted. To spend the rest of my life with an alien or to have a normal life. But that decision could wait until after the dance, at that point I was just enjoying the moment.

  Chapter 37

  A horn honked and I quickly released Ace, turning at the light and pulling down the street toward the restaurant.

  Maria's wasn't much to look at and wasn't exactly in one of the best neighborhoods. It used to be surrounded by Italian immigrants, but now it was full of boarded up houses and a lot of stray cats. That being said, it still had some of the best Italian food in town.

  I parked mom's car right underneath a streetlight and walked up to the brick building. There were no windows and from the outside it looked like any other building. Then when I walked in I was bathed in a romantic red glow that gleamed off the wine bottles behind the bar and every black, leather booth surrounding the restaurant.

  Of course the red glow did nothing to help Gemma's spray tan and in her orange, sequined mini dress not only did she look like a stuffed sausage, but the lights just made her cast appear like it was glowing. She looked like a giant, hobbling cheese ball.

  "Welcome to Maria's. Do you have a reservation?" The girl didn't even look up from her phone lying on the hostess podium. She couldn't have been more than a few years older than us with her glossy black hair slicked back into a ponytail that was the same color as her button-down shirt and pants.

  "Yes." Brody stepped to the front of the crowd. Aside from Ace he looked like he put the most effort into his look. Even though he had on the same shirt and tie as the rest of the guys, Brody actually shaved his soul patch and trimmed his chicken fuzz to a short buzz. I knew he was really trying to impress because he ditched his usual Carhart jacket for his blue corduroy FFA jacket. That was reserved for special occasions. I knew this because he only wore it to school on days that he had to dress up for band or if there was a funeral.

  "Table for six for Birely." He leaned up against the podium.

  The girl glanced up from her phone, scanned the sheet of paper and grabbed some menus from behind her.

  "Right this way." She didn't look up at us, just kept her head down and sat the menus down at the other the end of a table at the far end of the restaurant under a giant painting of the Last Supper.

  Ace took the seat closest to the wall and I took the seat next to him. Awkward as it was with Brody and Ace to begin with, Brody still took the spot on my other side and across from Gemma.

  "This is quite a place. I almost feel like I'm back in Italy." Ace looked up at the brick walls, running his hand along their edges.

  "Whoa, you've been to Italy?" Rachel asked, spitting chunks of bread out onto the table.

  Ace winced slightly and then continued, "Oh, yeah, all over Europe with the Army Air Force."

  "Wait!" Brody leaned over, the closer he got to me the more I could smell his cologne and he really slathered it on for the night. "Aren't you only like eighteen? How the hell would you go all over Europe with the Air Force in less than a year?"

  "Well, Brody." Ace leaned in, pressing against my side. It was a war of the egos and I was stuck in the middle.

  "Well, what? Don't patronize me and treat me like an idiot!" Brody banged his fists on the table, causing the silverware and glasses to rattle.

  "Dude, chill. He didn't say anything about you being an idiot." Brad held out his hands.

  "Whatever, man." Brody kept his hands in fists, laying them on the table.

  "I can't pronounce half this stuff on the menu. It's like in another language or something." Gemma groaned, squinting at the menu.

  "Uh, this is an Italian restaurant," Rachel mentioned.

  "Don't you think I know that?" Gemma snapped.

  "It's not that hard to pronounce," I muttered.

  "Here." Ace held up the menu and pointed to the small print under the pasta dishes. "Each item has a description underneath, so if you can't pronounce it at least you can see what is in it."

  "Oh, yeah that works." Gemma smiled coyly.r />
  "First you take Alex, now you have to go after my date, too?" Brody stood up, knocking his chair against the wall.

  Ace stood up, his hands balled up into tight fists at his side. "I didn't take anyone. Alex IS mine."

  Brody snorted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Oh, that's awesome. Acting big and bad, saying that Alex is your property."

  I looked around, seeing that a few people were staring at our table. I stood up, placing my hands on each of the boys' shoulders. "Listen, if you two are going to stand around and act like two rats fighting over a piece of cheese, then I'm leaving."

  I took one step forward, planning not to leave and hoping the boys would sit down, but they just stared at each other with their hands balled into fists.

  "I said, I'M LEAVING!"

  They didn't move. So, I stomped past all the gawking onlookers and out the front door. The September night air whipped my face, and it took everything I had not to let the tears spring from my face. What the hell was I doing?

  "Alex?" I turned to see Ace running out the front door.

  "What? Here to argue with more of my friends? Make another scene? This isn't freaking Circe. You can't just go around attacking people!" I spat.

  All the anger and frustration that I had built up over the past few weeks came to a head and I had to let it all out.

  "Whoa, Alex, what is this about? I thought we were past this." Ace held up his hands, slowly taking a step toward me.

  "Maybe I'm not past this. Maybe I don’t know what I want and this is all just too much for me to handle." I stomped my stupid heel on the cement sidewalk.

  Ace pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing at the screen.

  "Okay, seriously? You are now going to ignore me for your phone? You really do have another girlfriend, don't you?"

  "I just got a text from Monte. Circe is aware that a Caltian ship landed a few months ago with one passenger receiving a visa for this area."