Four

 

Sophie stuck by Marsha’s side for most of the weekend. After the scare the alien had given her, she hated to let her out of her sight.

So far, living with an extraterrestrial was duller than Sophie would’ve expected. Marsha mostly wanted to sit at home with her eyes closed. Sophie thought she might be communicating with her home planet, but no. Marsha said that she was reading through all the information she had about Earth.

In the afternoon, they went back to the spot where Marsha had appeared—her landing site, as she called it. She seemed disappointed that no one had come to find her. Sophie suspected that if another alien showed up, they’d never be able to find Marsha—but she stayed quiet about her doubts, not wanting to ruin Marsha’s hope.

Marsha was still clearly anxious, but she spoke less about her work and the meeting she’d missed out on. She seemed to accept the fact that she was stuck on Earth for the moment, and she was starting to have a sense of humor about it.

“I’m like an explorer now,” she said. “Even if it was by accident, I might as well make the best of it. I can make my own notes and add them to the database. I’m sure there’s a lot about Earth that no one ever bothered to learn.”

“Because we’re such a last-tier planet?” Sophie teased.

“Sixth-tier, not last,” Marsha said very seriously.

For her part, Sophie was becoming less inclined to think Marsha was delusional. Marsha was too consistent, and try as Sophie might, she couldn’t poke a single hole in her story. Sometimes she tried to surprise Marsha with a random trivia question or a phrase in a different language.

“Your eyebrows are on fleek,” she told Marsha. “I really want to yeet them.”

“Let me check my database.” That was becoming a catchphrase for her. “Okay, you got me. What language is that?”

“It’s new slang in English,” Sophie said. “To be honest, I’m not sure what it means, myself.”

Marsha had questions about everything in the apartment, from the bean-bag chair in the living room to the aloe vera plant by the window. “What is the function of this?” she asked with that same confused frown, and Sophie would explain as best as she could.

Sophie found it nice to be the one who knew how things worked, for once. She felt like a capable, confident adult next to Marsha. It was an unfair comparison, seeing as Marsha was from another planet. Then again, Sophie felt like she was half the time, anyway.

Sophie was enjoying Marsha’s company so much that the phone call on Sunday morning came as a surprise. She didn’t even notice her cell phone ringing until Terry tossed it at her head.

Oh, Lord—Sunday dinner. She’d forgotten. How had she forgotten? She hadn’t missed a Sunday dinner with her family since the day she’d moved out. It had never even been a question.

Repositioning herself on the couch, she picked up the phone. “Hi, Mama.”

“Sophie, I haven’t heard from you in days! What’s happened? You’re still coming tonight, aren’t you?” Anxiety poured through her mother’s voice.

“Yes. I mean, um—ah—”

She glanced at Marsha and Terry, who were looking at her expectantly. Marsha sat on the beanbag chair—it had become her favorite spot during the day—and Terry was draped over the armchair. They’d been peppering Marsha with questions about life on her home planet before the phone had rung.

“I don’t think I can go today,” she said. “I’m very—you know—busy.”

“Not come?” Mama gasped. “How can you be that busy?”

“I have a—a friend visiting, and I’m going to show her around.”

“A friend?” Mama said. “She has a friend visiting, Roger.”

Sophie heard her father’s muffled voice. “Tell her to bring her.”

She cringed. There was absolutely no way she would subject Marsha to her parents. “We have other plans.”

“Well, no plans are more important than your family,” Mama said. “We expect you to be here tonight, friend or no friend.”

Before Sophie could argue more, her mom had hung up.

Letting out a loud groan, Sophie sprawled across the couch. She enjoyed spending time with her parents and her sisters, she really did. But she hated that she couldn’t stand up to them.

“Are we going to see your family tonight?” Marsha asked eagerly.

“I’m going,” Sophie said. “You’re not.”

“Why not?”

“Sophie’s family is… different,” Terry said.

That was a polite way to describe them. Then again, Terry hadn’t even met them. All he knew about Sophie’s family was what she’d told him.

Bad enough that they lived on a giant farm in the middle of nowhere and grew all of their own food, rarely interacting with other people besides the staff at the local dry goods store.

Bad enough that they’d homeschooled her all her life and hardly taken her off the farm, leaving her clueless about the world beyond their green acres.

She hadn’t even told Terry about how they’d encouraged her to stop school after the tenth grade and help out more around the farm. They’d accepted her decision—after a few blow-out fights—and they’d objected even more when she decided to go for her bachelor’s degree.

She’d managed to find a neighbor who commuted forty-five minutes to Rocksoil every day, and from there she took the bus to the community college. Her parents had tried taking away her textbooks and cutting off her phone line, but she’d persisted.

In college, she’d found out more about the world, and about herself. She’d gained access to the Internet, which held answers to so many of her questions. Her English courses had been a joy—she’d always lost herself in books—and she’d adored the French language classes almost as much.

By the time she was finished, she’d learned about the existence of speech language pathologists, people who helped others to speak and communicate. And since that was about the only thing she was confident about in this new world she’d found herself in, it was only natural for her to go on and do a graduate degree.

Her parents had reluctantly accepted that she wasn’t going to live her life strictly on the farm, the way they wanted her to. By the time she moved out, she’d been working for years, and she had a healthy amount of savings. She was tired of commuting with the same neighbor, and she thought it was time to become more independent, like a regular person. Her parents didn’t see it that way.

Sophie loved them despite everything, and she didn’t want to strain the relationship. They got along most of the time; her parents just had a different vision for her life than she did. The Sunday night dinners were nothing, especially since she got to see her sisters as well. And it wasn’t like she ever had anything better to do.

Until tonight.

“Can I come?” Marsha asked. “I’m not going to judge.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Sophie said.

 

***

 

Marsha sat in the beanbag chair, scribbling notes in one of Sophie’s notebooks. Her writing was barely legible, since she wasn’t used to having fingers or hands, and she hoped she’d be able to read it when the time came to add the information to the Earth database.

Part of her wondered if she’d ever be able to. After all, she wouldn’t take this physical body with her—it’d vanish into thin air in the reverse of the way it’d been constructed. And then there was the fact that she didn’t know if she’d ever get home at all. Where in the world was the search party?

She sighed. She needed to figure out a way off this planet. As lovely as Sophie and Terry were, she didn’t belong here. But she had no idea how to teleport off such a primitive planet. She really should’ve read the instruction manual.

“Hey.” Terry stood in the doorframe, his arms crossed.

Marsha sat up straight. He was less friendly than Sophie, and she was usually with either Sophie or with both of them, not with him alone.

“I’m going to my boyfriend’s place,” he said. “Are you okay here by yourself?”

“Sure.” She could fend for herself. Kind of. The database had no information on Earth cooking, and she was starting to feel a little hungry, but she was too proud to ask him for help.

“Great.” He fidgeted. “Do you think I should tell him you’re an alien? He’ll be coming over at some point, and if you meet him, it might be a little hard to explain.”

“I’d rather keep that between us.” It would be better if as few people knew as possible.

“Okay. At least he won’t think I’ve gone off my rocker.”

Marsha scanned through her database to find the meaning of the expression, then laughed politely.

“I have to say, it’s not bad having you here,” Terry said. “I believe you are who you say you are, and you seem like a nice person—or whatever I should call you.”

“Thank you.”

“The thing is…” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “This apartment is meant for two people, you know? And it can’t be comfortable sleeping on a couch every night.”

Marsha tried to parse what he was saying. Humans were much subtler than hrylyts, and a heck of a lot more sensitive. With her kind, you could say what you wanted, when you wanted to, and truthfulness was a given.

“You want me to leave?” she asked.

“It might be smart to have an exit plan,” Terry said gently. “An idea of what you’ll do if a search party never shows up.”

Marsha’s stomach did something funny—like it was trying to digest, but she hadn’t eaten. “What would you suggest?”

“It would be good for you to have some money,” he said. “You’d need to get a job.”

“Oh.” That would make it feel like she was going to stay here indefinitely. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not kicking you out. Like I said, it’s fine having you here. I see you as Sophie’s houseguest.” He paused and scratched the back of his neck. “Sophie’s work pays well, but all of this costs money. Food, housing…” He gestured around them. “I don’t know how things work where you’re from, but on Earth, if you’re staying for any amount of time, the kind thing to do would be to help out.”

“Okay,” Marsha said. “I understand.”

She understood that she needed to get off this planet as quickly as possible.

 

***

 

It was almost ten o’clock when Sophie stepped out of an Uber outside her apartment. She was in a bad mood. Her parents had been their usual lovably annoying selves, and it had been good to catch up with her sisters Nicole and Katie.

But she would’ve rather been home with Marsha, and it embarrassed her that she’d been unable to say no to her mother. She was thirty-four years old, and yet Mama still treated her like a little girl—and she responded like one! It was disgusting.

Even comparing herself to Marsha didn’t help this time. Marsha was so independent that she went to other planets by herself! She’d never even mentioned her parents. If Sophie were stranded far from home, she would’ve been crying for her mother.

The apartment was quiet, and she found Marsha sitting alone in the living room. “Terry’s gone to Gary’s,” Marsha offered from the comfort of her beanbag chair. “Is it normal for couples’ names to rhyme?”

“No, Terry just happened to luck out.” Sophie set down her purse and flopped onto the couch. “The whole gay thing isn’t weird to you?”

“Of course not. I’m just surprised, because of the databases—but it seems like humans have come a long way in that area since 2000.”

“Definitely. Most humans, anyway.” She thought of her parents. They’d never accept what she was really like.

She hadn’t mentioned her sexuality to Marsha—not for any particular reason, it just hadn’t come up. Terry was still the only person who knew. She assumed it’d be easier once she had a girlfriend to casually drop into conversation—but then, how would she get a girlfriend without anyone knowing she liked women?

“How was your dinner?” Marsha asked.

“Fine.” She didn’t want to go into it. “Did you eat?”

“I found some packages in the cupboard. Some were salty, and some were sweet.”

Lying on her side, Sophie looked down at Marsha and made a face. “You ate chips and candy bars for dinner?”

“I suppose I did.”

“You’re going to get a horrible stomachache.” It was what her mother always said to her when she ate poorly, although when she was growing up there’d never been anything like chips or candy in the house. “What is your family like?”

“I have several siblings, and the beings that birthed me are pleasant.”

“The beings? You mean your mom and dad?” Sophie laughed.

“Not exactly. There are three of them, all the same gender.”

Sophie blinked a few times rapidly. “How does that work?”

“We have four genders, but they aren’t like yours here,” Marsha said. “They aren’t connected to our reproductive capacities. Certain body parts can retract or elongate as needed, and two genders are able to develop what you would refer to as a womb.”

Sophie wondered what differentiated the genders, if not genitalia. Then again, there were plenty of people on Earth whose genders didn’t match theirs. “Sex must be interesting.”

“It must be here, too.”

Sophie wouldn’t know. “So you’re not actually a woman? What gender are you?”

“It doesn’t translate to an Earth gender.”

“But do you feel like a woman? Would you feel happier if you were a man now? Or would you call yourself non-binary?”

Marsha laughed. “I feel bizarre in this body. Human bodies are strange, no matter the gender.”

“So…”

“You’re being so human right now. Not everyone fits into one of your arbitrary Earthside categories. However…” She cupped her breasts. “I do enjoy certain aspects of this female vessel.”

Sophie gaped at her. “Even aliens like boobs?”

“Boobs might just be an interplanetary treasure.”