“. . . Hollywood, I guess,” I hear my uncle say as I run downstairs to grab the pizza. I waited to come down until they paid for it, naturally.
“Not Roswell?” My mother’s voice is heavy with sarcasm. “Or Cheyenne Mountain?”
“I can’t picture Carol anywhere near there,” Jack says, bewildered. “When was she ever interested in alien bullshit? Did I miss something? A sign?”
God, these two are morons. Let it go. Let. Them. Go.
“I don’t want to contact the cops,” Jack says. “Should I? Do we need to wait until three days have passed or something like that?”
Stop talking like it matters. It doesn’t.
Fortunately the smell of fresh pizza keeps me from blasting them both with my opinions. Two pizza boxes sit smack in the middle of the table—unopened as I knew they would be.
“Um, hey? Are you finished with the pizza?” I ask Mom and Jack. I point to the table and they both look at me as if they never heard the word before, and then at the boxes as if they had no idea how they got there. Even though they just paid for them.
Jack furrows his brow. “I’m done. Are you, Lorna?”
My mother bobs her head. “Take as much as you want, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart? Okay, let’s put the wine down and take a breath.
I grab both boxes and snag a couple of Cokes from the fridge.
Before I can leave, though, I’m stopped again—this time by my uncle.
I sigh, not even trying to hide my exasperation. “You changed your mind,” I say. “You want the pizza.”
A glimpse of the car-salesman smile fades in a heartbeat. “Did you, uh, did you find your dad’s box? Was it in the shop?”
I sharpen the edges of my voice, make sure both of them hear the no-bullshit tone in it. “No. It’s all gone. His whole workshop is empty.”
“You’re sure you didn’t—”
“Nothing’s there.” I swing myself out the door before I get any more stupid questions. They’re so concerned about the deed to the farm that they don’t realize that it means nothing to my dad. The fact that the box is missing is irrelevant. He probably took it and didn’t even realize what was in it. What really means he’s gone is the missing telescope. That’s how you know he’s not coming back. Don’t they get it?
Up at the field, Ginger guards Priya, who is sitting on the ground with her feet tucked inside the tent, notebook on her lap. The telescope is on the tripod, aimed at the sky, which is getting darker because of cloud cover. The air is heavy and humid, ripe for rain. Priya’s not going to get her view of the stars tonight.
As if to underscore my thought, thunder rumbles in the distance.
“Um, hey—”
Priya’s face opens into a smile. “I brought the telescope,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I cast a critical eye at the green bubble of liquid on the tripod. “Looks level to me. Nice job setting it up.”
“Thank you.”
“But you know it’s going to rain, right? In about . . .” I lick my forefinger and hold it up to the wind. “Ten—no, five seconds.”
Priya mimics me and it looks like she’s politely hailing a waiter. “I do not understand. Does your finger control the weather?”
“Ha, no. It’s just a thing my granddad used to do. Old-school weather prediction.”
She nods. “Ah, I see.” She picks up her pen, about to jot a note, and then stops.
“I guess it’s not important enough to collect, huh?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t believe we can use that, no.”
Thunder rumbles again, louder, closer, and Ginger walks around my legs in a circle. She’s an outdoor dog except in the rain and snow, when she turns into a giant lap dog.
“Seriously. Rain. Two seconds.” I grab the telescope and thrust it into Priya’s arms, then push her into the tent, following with the pizza. Naturally, Ginger barrels in too, positioning herself between Priya, me, and the pizza. It’s a tight squeeze and my head keeps grazing the aluminum rod holding it up, but who cares? I’ve got sixteen slices of mouthwatering pizza from the best joint in town.
Oh man, the scent of melting mozzarella and garlic and onions is overpowering. I can’t wait. I pull out a cheesy slice and flip the triangle over and onto a second slice, forming a pizza sandwich. I fold that in half and shove one end into my mouth. Grease oozes from the folded corners and I lean over the box to let it drip onto the white cardboard. Ginger whines, so I give her a bite of crust with some sauce on it.
“Holy crap, this is so good,” I say, still chewing. I had no idea how hungry I was. Priya stares at me for a long moment, almost as if she doesn’t remember what pizza—or hunger, or me—is.
I offer her the box. “Cheese on this one. And that’s got pepperoni and mushrooms. Oh, and here are some drinks.”
I open the box and watch, incredulously, as she does exactly what I did: she takes one slice, flips it over on top of another, folds it in half, and then stuffs it into her mouth.
Okay, that is seriously awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl do that, not even Emily.
“How do you not drip oil all over you?” I ask, amazed. “I think my dog was expecting to have something to lick up.”
Priya finishes the huge bite, smacking her lips like a total pizza fiend, following it with a long slug of the Coke—yet she’s still careful not to touch her mouth to the can.
“Do you like it?”
“I have never had this.”
“Never?” I can’t believe anyone who’s our age not having had pizza. Maybe they haven’t had good pizza, but none at all?
“No, none at all,” she says, answering my unasked question. It’s still jarring, but I’m kind of getting used to it. We finish our slices and then Priya says, “I would like some more, please.”
“Yeah? Okay, I’ll take one too.”
Again, she sandwiches two slices together and I do the same. We wolf these down in slightly more time than it takes to say “More, please.” And just like that, an entire eight-slice pizza pie vanishes.
More lip smacking, more Coke, and when she’s done, I spot a tiny bit of sauce on Priya’s cheeks. Two swipes of red like smeared lipstick. It’s so adorable that I want to take a picture of her. Would that be weird?
Before I can do anything, though, Ginger jumps up and licks the sauce off Priya’s face. She falls back against the tent, her elbows digging into the ground.
“Ginger! What the hell are you doing?” I pull the dog away from Priya and shake my finger in her face. “Bad dog. No pizza for you.”
Too late I remember Priya’s sensitivity. She covers my hand with hers and pulls it away from Ginger. “Please don’t scold her. Her food should not be withheld because of her poor behavior.”
I laugh. “Okay, okay. Why don’t you feed her?” I grab the pizza box with the pepperoni. “She loves cheese, hates mushrooms.”
Priya pinches a gooey blob of cheese from a slice and holds it out to Ginger, who inhales it before she can blink. “Oh! She’s very hungry!”
“She’s always hungry. She would eat both pizzas, burp, and then eat two more.”
Priya’s laugh is like wind chimes as she pulls an entire slice from the box and feeds it to my dog bite by bite. Munch, munch, munch. My fat, dumb dog. Fat, dumb, and sweet dog.
I should tell her to stop—my dog doesn’t need the diabetes—but Priya’s joy, her delight in this simple thing, charms me. Everything about Priya is so . . . I just want to . . . If I could only . . .
Shut. Up. Matty. Stop thinking about her. She believes she’s not human.
And reminding myself of that makes me cool down—just a bit. I lean my head back outside the tent flap and feel the approach of the storm. The cool breeze slows my racing heart to a hundred miles an hour from a million; my blood lowers from a rolling boil to a simmer.
A droplet of rain plops onto my cheek. Then another and another until it’s a steady sheet. I seal up the flap and shiver giddily despite the heat. I feel like a little kid, cozy in my tent with my dog and snacks, content and secure as if the thin nylon around me were an iron-clad barricade against intruders and not just a waterproof shell.
Hard to tell how long this storm will last. It’s fast-moving, though; thunder cracks twice more like the sky is splitting, and Ginger tries to climb on top of Priya’s lap. I resist the urge to pull her away. They seem so happy together.
“Did you do this as a kid, too?” I ask her. “Camp outside during storms?”
She thinks a moment, and her long fingers dig into the scruff around Ginger’s neck. “No, this is not something we did. But I like it,” she adds with a hint of a smile.
“Even though it means you can’t get home tonight?”
She looks at me with pity in her brown eyes. “That is not what it means, Matthew. Rain will not deter my . . . what did you call it? Mother ship?”
“But . . .” I feel dumb. And sad. And yeah, disappointed. But mostly dumb. Rain doesn’t stop planes from flying. Why would it stop a spaceship?
Spaceship? Did I just . . . ?
“. . . unfortunately, no contact is possible.”
I missed something. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
“Regardless of weather, the ship is on its way, but unfortunately no contact is possible.” Priya peels a dried lump of cheese that has stuck to the cardboard box and feeds half to the dog, holding the other half in her fingers. “In the meantime I will continue to collect data.”
I see Ginger eyeing the other piece of cheese. Cheese is one of my dog’s most favorite things ever; the mere hint of it drives her into a frenzy. She’s watching Priya’s hands as they flutter in the air while she talks, her eyes on the prize.
“. . . items I believe will be useful to my people . . .”
“Um, Priya?”
“. . . flora and fauna of the area are unusual . . .”
“Priya? You might want to—”
And then it happens. Ginger lunges at Priya’s hand and snatches the cheese from her fingers. Startled, Priya tries to scramble away, but with no place to go in this tiny tent, she falls over and lands directly on my thigh. I catch her before her bony elbow digs into my ribs.
“Oh!” Our eyes meet and she smiles, her chin to her chest. I see a blush bloom in her cheeks and wonder if the same is happening to me. It feels very warm in here.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I tried to warn you.”
She pulls back, righting herself but sticking closer to me than to the dog. When she shakes her head, her white hair grazes my nose.
I want to trail my finger against her cheek, feel the down of her skin and the gentle slope of her cheekbone. If I wasn’t blushing before, I must be now.
Well, it is a small tent.
“It’s my fault,” she says. “The dog was merely being a dog.”
“That dog is more than a dog. That dog is, like, two dogs.”
Priya giggles. “That doesn’t make sense. How can one dog be like two?”
“Well, she’s usually a good, sweet dog, but then she sees cheese and she’s all . . .” I lunge at Priya’s hand, grabbing her fingers in mine as if I were Ginger taking a chomp on them, which sends Priya into a gale of laughter.
“She’s evil, you know? Good dog, evil dog. Two dogs in one.”
Priya gently loosens her fingers from my grip but allows her hand to linger.
Or at least it feels that way to me.
“No, there is no good or evil. Not in a dog. Not in a person.”
“No?”
“What is good to you may be evil to another person.” She strokes the back of Ginger’s head and my sweet, dumb dog continues to try to lick her hand, hoping for more food. “This dog wants cheese, which is good for her. But when she bites my fingers it’s evil to me. Who is right?”
“You.”
Priya’s smile is quiet and small. For a moment all we hear is rain falling on the nylon tent. It’s slowed some but remains steady. No stargazing tonight. I take my cell phone out and turn on the flashlight. It’s almost too much light for this small tent, too intimidating. I tuck it beside the pizza boxes and the beam bounces off the nylon instead.
“Matthew, when I go, that will be good for me, yes?”
Don’t say it.
“But it will be—”
“Ginger! Come here, girl. Want some cheese?” I know what Priya’s trying to say and honestly, I just don’t need to hear it spoken out loud. Maybe it will matter to me when she leaves and maybe it won’t.
We’ll just see when the time comes.
I feed the dog a big glob of mozzarella and try not to think.
Priya is quiet again, which makes me wonder what she’s thinking. If I stare hard enough at her, can I read her mind?
Down at the house, Mom and Jack are probably still talking, still bitching about their loser spouses. I’ll take the rain and the smell of wet dog over that any day. “So, Priya, listen . . .”
She cups her hand behind her ear. “Yes, Matthew. I have not shut off my hearing.”
“Um . . . do you . . .” Wanna hang out? The memory of Emily’s emphatic “no” is seared into my brain, and the thought that Priya would reject me too is frightening.
And yet . . . if I don’t try and she leaves . . . will I forever wonder if this crazy-beautiful girl might have said yes?
“You wanna collect some data with me tomorrow? If you’re here, I mean.”
Priya’s face lights up. It’s as if I’m suddenly speaking her language. “Yes, if I am here, I would like that. As long as you promise me I’ll be back to wait for my ride home.”
“Absolutely.” I feel a huge wave of relief wash over me, quickly followed by massive nausea. Now what?
“What data will we collect?”
“Oh, um, I don’t know.” I hadn’t thought very far in advance. What do I do that’s worth “collecting”? Riding motocross? Smoking weed? I’ll think of something.
“You’ll think of something,” she says with a grin.
I poke my head out of the tent and feel the rain against my face. It’s not a storm anymore, but it’s still coming down pretty steady. “Are you going to be okay out here? You can stay at the house tonight. I can sneak you in.”
“My ride—”
“Your ride. Right. Okay, well, you’ve got the rest of that pizza in case you get hungry again, and well, I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” I hope.
“Matthew, could you . . . ?” Her hand rubs her temple. “The pills you gave me. Do you have more?”
“Yeah, of course.” I dig a finger into my jeans pocket and pull out the loose pills.
See, Mom? For once, it’s a good thing I didn’t put my clothes in the wash.
I roll all the pills into Priya’s hand and curl her fingers around them. “If you need more, just come down.”
When Ginger and I hike back, I find Mom alone at the kitchen table.
“Where have you been?”
“You noticed I was gone?”
“Not you. I’m talking to the dog.” My mom’s smile is tired. “Where’s the pizza?”
“Oh, I, um . . .”
“You ate it all yourself?” She looks past me toward the field. Can she see Priya from here? I follow her gaze, but it’s impossible to see anything beyond the willows.
I rub the dog’s head. “Just me and Ginger. We were hungry.”
My mother wobbles to her feet, swaying like one of the willow branches, her eyes half closed. She’s buzzed—not completely wasted, but I wouldn’t want to drive with her.
I follow her up the stairs, ready to catch her in case she stumbles, and she turns to me as we part at the second floor. “Matty, love . . .” She blinks slowly and moves her mouth, forming the words. “Love is . . . shit, it’s complicated. You think it’s gonna be easy when you fall in love. You think a kiss is forever and you’ll be the center of their world.” She aims a sloppy pointer finger at her chest. “I . . . your dad . . . we . . .”
I sigh and try not to roll my eyes. “You love him, I get it.”
My mother lifts her chin; her nose is red, her cheeks pale under her freckles.
“No,” she says harshly. And again: “No.”
Her gaze finds me and nails me. I feel my breath behind my ribs, stuck in my lungs.
“I hate him. I hate him.” And her eyes fill with tears.