By Aurelio O'Brien
This Ebook published by Bad Attitude Books, P.O. Box 1460, La Cañada, CA 91012-5460 at Smashwords.
GENeration eXtraTERrestrial. Copyright 2010 Aurelio O’Brien www.aurelioobrien.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews, especially any favorable ones.
This book is a work of satirical fiction. Places, events, situations, and celebrity references are all outrageous and purely fictional inventions by the author and not meant to be taken seriously – seriously!
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available upon request.
ISBN: 978-1-935927-14-3
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to www.smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
In fond memory of
Louis Tate
“I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.”
Terence
(c.190-159 B.C.)
PROLOGUE
Blackstone Branch Library, Chicago:
Dora Matthews turned out the lights, armed the alarm system, and exited the stately Greek revival building. She bolted the heavy bronze doors and pushed back her thick glasses. Her breath hung in the icy air like unfinished cartoon thought-balloons.
No windy city tonight.
Dora shivered and raised her collar. She dropped her keys into her shoulder bag, slipped on her knit gloves, tucked her ears under her stocking cap, and being careful to grip the railing and watch for ice, sidled down the large granite stairs to the sidewalk, heading south.
Her mind multitasked her evening to-do list:
Quick grocery stop; Woolite my gray sweater; avoid any conversation with mother; start my to-do list for tomorrow, then I can write in my journal…
The night was unusually quiet, dead quiet in fact, the streets, deserted.
The silence interrupted Dora’s thoughts.
Distant sounds of a dog’s bark filtered through, muted by an increasingly heavy ice fog rolling slowly off Lake Michigan. Through the thick fog, only the light from the streetlamps, hovering like detached glow-balls in the opaque, gray-white air, gave any sense of distance.
Dora’s trusty Civic emerged from the fog. She fumbled inside her shoulder bag for her keys as a sudden whoosh of air and a fluffy thud to the right of her made her jump. She stiffened and groped instead for her small can of Mace.
She pivoted, Mace extended.
Nothing. No one. All was quiet, white haze.
She took two cautious baby-steps toward the source of the sound and peered into a rectangular, foot-deep indentation in the day-fresh snow next to the sidewalk.
A book sat, framed by the indentation, as if it had fallen from somewhere high above and tidily imbedded itself there.
The sound she had heard fit this scenario, but…
Dora glanced up.
There was nothing directly above this spot, no building or tree, no place from which the book could have fallen.
Yet, here it is, she thought. How odd.
Dora dug the book out and gently dusted off clinging clumps of dry snow.
High Adventure by Edmund Hillary.
She opened the cover.
A signed first edition, in excellent condition, with its original dust jacket—very rare.
She glanced back toward the library.
All remained quiet, the building, dark.
She slipped the book and the Mace into her shoulder bag, found her keys, and turned back toward her Honda.
This will certainly liven up my journal entry tonight.
Out of the corner of her eye Dora caught a vertical blur followed by another cushioned thud. Her eyes followed down the channel of curling vortices left in the fog to another indent in the snow.
Curious, but cautious, Dora stepped off the sidewalk and into ankle-deep snow, toward the adjacent Kenwood Academy track field.
Next to the metal gate she examined this second indent.
Another book lay tidily at its bottom.
Stuart Little by E. B. White.
One of my childhood favorites.
She retrieved the book, shook it off, and flipped it over in her hands. It fell open to the first page of chapter one. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and in the dim light could just make out the familiar text she had already committed to memory as a child:
When Mrs. Frederick C. Little’s second son arrived, everybody noticed that he was not much bigger than a mouse.
Curious, she leafed back a few pages. Her eyebrows rose in astonishment.
Another signed first edition?
#Thud#
This third one was further away, from somewhere inside the tall wire fence surrounding the athletic field. Although the bent gate onto the campus was chained, Dora pushed it ajar and was just thin enough to squeeze through. She glanced about, hesitant. She inhaled, then waded the calf-deep snow to locate another, deeper, perfectly rectangular indent—and yet another rare first edition.
Un Nouveau Monde.
The abecedarium with hand-colored lithographs of animals dressed in human costumes—French—1855—and only minor foxing.
Incredible. Where are these coming from?
Then, another whoosh and thud.
A fourth rare book.
#Thud#
Dora trudged eagerly toward the sound.
A fifth.
Her shoulder bag grew heavy with the incredible literary collection. She wore a giddy, Christmas-morning grin, oblivious to the growing weight of books and enormous gaiters of snow stuck to her pant legs and shoes, or to the ever-thickening mist that allowed her to see no more than a few feet in any direction.
#Thud#
There it is again!
Dora giggled with anticipation and blindly snowplowed a path to the source of the sound.
Once there, she fell to her knees, overwhelmed.
Oh my God…
Imbedded deep in the snow before her lay something quite rare indeed: an original copy of Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, which — unbeknownst to her — had led her to the precise center of the mist-shrouded field.
EPISODE 1
Chapter 1
The Seventh Sign
Grace Brown should have read the signs.
The first was when she had neglected to fill her automatic coffee maker the night before, so there was no alluring aroma of freshly brewed coffee to greet her when she awoke. Instead, there was the faintest chemical smell of cooked plastic from the empty appliance faithfully attempting to perform its duties despite its impotent state.
Sigh.
The second sign came while toweling off after her shower, when she realized that the dress she had planned to wear that morning was still at the cleaners along with the bulk of her general office attire.
Shoot.
Grace resisted the thought of wearing her brand new mud-print Dashiki top and pants set—she was saving it for a special occasion—but it was the only decent clean thing she had left.
Oh, well.
She accessorized with a long Kente cloth scarf and Cowry necklace to make the choice at least look deliberate, but avoided the matching head wrap.
The third sign waited until she was halfway to work, when her brain flashed a mental picture of her ID/key card still sitting atop her bedroom bureau, right where she had left it, rather than in the customary left hand pocket of her lab coat.
She probed the pocket in vain.
Damn.
It meant a day full of access hassles and securing a loaner card, but she was already running late and didn’t dare turn back.
The fourth sign greeted Grace at the gate of the Extraterrestrial Life Forms Lab compound, tucked inconspicuously behind the Jet Propulsion Lab in the foothills of Pasadena, California.
Number four came in the form of Fred Rincón. At least that’s what his brand-new incised plastic name badge read. It was Fred’s first day as a gate guard. Fred was as thorough as one can be on one’s first day in a new job. He began the lengthy protocol for a proper gate clearance of an “unknown.”
Unknown indeed.
Grace had worked at ELF since its inception and immediately lost patience with this newbie. She abandoned negotiations, set her lime green 1974 AMC Gremlin in gear, waved good-bye, and rushed the gate.
Grace’s Gremlin was her first and only car, and had finally entered a vintage only appreciated by the most extreme gray-haired-male-with-a-beer-gut AMC aficionados, who had taken to leaving her notes scrawled on the back of Pep Boys receipts tucked under her wiper blades, asking if she wanted to sell it.
Grace maintained the car out of practicality mixed with a bit of spite. She knew all the arguments: that her Gremlin was a hydrocarbon hog, out of date, dangerous, and homely.
“It is far worse for the environment to build a new car,” Grace argued, adding, “Besides, I’ve had it modified to run on cooking oil.”
Waste not, want not.
Grace parked and grabbed her briefcase when she finally recognized the signs. She paused, set her briefcase in her lap, and counted.
Only four. Good.
There was still a chance she wouldn’t have a bad day, but the odds were now numerically against her. Still, four signs were a far cry from seven.
Grace’s “Seven Signs of a Bad Day” were born of a life of struggle. She was a physician and research fellow at the ELF Lab, having earned a Ph.D. in biophysics from UCLA, while simultaneously earning an M.D. and then practicing medicine, all while still in her teens.
Grace was born poor. And female. And brilliant, which she initially counted squarely in the negative column. When you are a poor black girl who does nothing but read books without pictures and question everything, even your own family doesn’t have much hope for you. Boys don’t date you. Girls don’t befriend you. You’re not even sure you like yourself.
However, Grace’s teachers all adored her, and she loved them in return. They found her irresistible, this inquisitive child with a brain like a parched sponge who actually enjoyed learning. Her mind blossomed. Then, far later than the rest of her peer group, so did her body. She eventually became quite stunning: tall and lithe with nicely proportioned curves and an elegant, refined face. But her physical beauty came far too late. Its arrival was inconvenient to her studies, and although she marveled at the sudden rush of attention it brought her, she just as quickly mistrusted this newfound allure, deducing that men were only interested in her for her body. Her brief experiences in dating did nothing to disprove this theory, and Grace gave up on men altogether before any counterevidence appeared.
As with many brilliant people, Grace lost patience, as well as her temper, far too easily. It plagued her early childhood, causing her to let life’s frustrations bind her up. She soon realized that if she continued to let every little problem distract her from her goals, she would never go as far as she wanted in life.
She was only seven years old when she concluded that seven was to be the proper number of annoyances she would allow in a day before she would be fully justified in losing her temper. It stuck with her and evolved into her “Seven Signs of a Bad Day.”
But there were still only four.
Grace forced a smile and took a deep, cleansing breath. She pushed the four annoyances to the back of her mind, and opened her car door.
As she stood, one end of her long scarf caught under the seatback-adjustment handle, yanking her awkwardly back into her seat.
Sh…
She paused.
With great restraint, Grace gently extracted the lodged scarf. She examined the end of it. It was snagged a bit, but the cloth didn’t actually tear. She could smooth it out with careful ironing.
She insisted to herself that this didn’t really count.
It’s still only four.
Grace squinted through the thick, steel-wire reinforced window next to the locked door of her building, making eye contact with the guard inside. She waved. This one knew her and buzzed her in.
“Good morning, Dr. Brown,” the old guard said with a bit of a knowing smile.
“Thanks, Gerald,” Grace sighed, blushing, “It’s been one of those mornings.”
“I figured that when I was alerted a green Gremlin ran the front gate.”
“Sorry about that. He was… new. Anyway, I left my access card at home. I’ll need a loaner.”
Gerald gestured down to the desk. A card was already set out for her.
“On the house.”
“You’re the best.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Grace made a quick stop in the break room for an overdue cup of coffee before heading to her office. She found the pot empty, save a thick reduction roiling in its bottom.
Yuck.
She dropped her briefcase on the counter and rinsed the sizzling-hot sludge from the pot. She hadn’t had her morning coffee at home and now there wasn’t any here either. She had the beginnings of a headache from lack of caffeine.
Five. Okay, now this is definitely five.
At least there’s still drinking water in the Sparkletts dispenser and I don’t have to invert one of those cumbersome bottles.
But it’s still FIVE.
Grace filled the pot with fresh water, poured it into the maker, plopped a fresh coffee pack into the hamper, slammed it shut, hit “BREW,” snatched up her briefcase from the counter, and clipped out of the kitchenette.
When she reached her office, her thick-featured but well-coiffed assistant, Michael Newton, greeted her cheerily. When she didn’t respond in kind, his smile waned.
Michael followed Grace’s stride into her cramped, windowless office to place the morning’s mail in her inbox.
“Hmmm… What’s your sign?”
Grace turned and lofted an index finger.
“Michael, you don’t even want to go there.”
He stared her down.
“I’m a FIVE,” she relented, ominously raising an eyebrow.
Michael chewed away the beginnings of a grin, plucked a large manila envelope off of the top of her inbox stack, and handed it to her.
“Better make that… a six.”
He grabbed Grace’s coffee mug off her desk and backed toward the door as if the envelope were about to explode.
“I’ll… just go… get you some coffee… or something.”
Grace stood in the middle of her office, holding the inter-office envelope. She saw who sent it, and it could only mean trouble. The fat envelope wasn’t sealed, just looped with a string around its little round rust-brown tabs. Judging from how neatly the string was coiled, Michael had already had a peek.
She unthreaded the flap and peered in.
What the…?
Grace startled an elderly executive assistant, Vera, when she burst into the frosted-glass-walled suite of Harry Butler, the Senior Executive Director of ELF.
“Dr. Brown to see Mr. Butler,” Grace announced, continuing her clip straight for Harry’s office door.
Vera leapt to her feet in a feeble attempt to block Grace.
“Wait, Dr. Brown! Is he expecting you?”
“Oh, I’m sure of it.”
Grace burst into Harry’s office with Vera in flustered and futile pursuit.
Harry spun to face her, grinning. He clicked the stopwatch function on his Rolex Yacht-Master.
“Ha! Twenty-three minutes, eighteen seconds,” he announced. “That’s a full three minutes faster…”
“Than last week, when you cut my lab budget in half?”
“It’s not a fair comparison, Grace. Vera wasn’t chasing you then.” Harry nodded to Vera, waving her off.
“Anyway, I meant the other time.”
“When you gave your racquetball-playing twenty-something Yalie buddy, Phil Masters—who I trained, by the way—my research grant money? And now this nonsense!”
Grace tossed the manila envelope at Harry, spilling a swath of its contents across his uncluttered mahogany desk: clippings from newspaper tabloids concerning alien abductions, a travel itinerary, and a stack of airline e-tickets.
Harry selected one of the clippings, examining it.
The article showcased an avant-garde artist named Uni Zeno living in Taos, New Mexico who claimed she’d been abducted and impregnated by extraterrestrials. Uni stood next to her boyfriend/muse, Lennon Radd in the accompanying photo. By the look of Lennon, it was a good guess he had had everything tattooed and pierced.
Harry smiled.
Grace scrutinized the smile and narrowed her eyes.
“I get it,” she said, straightening her scarf. “This is one of your little jokes? Ha ha. You and the boys will have a big laugh at the gym tonight–‘Oooh, You should’ve seen how I made ol’ Doc Brown run!’”
Harry was cartoon-caricature handsome: six-foot-two with lacquer-black, wavy hair beginning to silver at the temples, matched by an ascot of dense but tidily trimmed chest fur framed by the two open top buttons of his lightly starched, blue Brooks Brothers’ Oxford cloth shirt. He had piercing, sky-blue eyes shaded by one strong, dark eyebrow that had been professionally groomed into two. He was either an MBA from Yale adorned with generations of powerful connections or simply the rich idiot son of a rich idiot son, depending on whom you talked to.
Grace’s assistant, Michael, nicknamed him “Handsome Man” behind his back. It was only mildly derisive, as Michael couldn’t decide whether he was repulsed by Harry or wanted to sleep with him.
Grace concluded Harry didn’t like her because he didn’t see her as potential bedding fodder, the very thought of which she found simultaneously repulsive and insulting.
And she didn’t like Harry because he was the poster boy for every reason why she gave up on men. It also didn’t help matters that Grace was squarely in the “idiot son” camp.
Harry dropped the clipping and adopted a poker face.
“It’s no joke, Grace. This new wave of alien abductions is getting serious press. Word came from Washington. We need someone out in the field right away, to examine these people, get to the bottom of this thing before it gets out of hand.”
“And you have to send me?”
“You’re our best choice.”
“I’m a scientist and a physician, not a psychiatrist.”
“A physician who spent the last twelve years with us, running life form simulations and probability studies for nearly every possible adaptation alien life might take. Now, who else do we have here in the ELF family who would be better suited to evaluate the validity of these claims for us?”
Harry used all the irritating, faux-inclusive MBA buzzwords like “us,” “we,” and “family” when he talked to the staff, even though he had only been at ELF for a year and four months. It drove everyone nuts, especially the old-timers like Grace.
“Don’t be cute. You know as well as I do, I study potential extraterrestrial life, and on other planets, not Earth. My research is purely theoretical, and has nothing to do with searching for intelligent life. It’s science, Harry, not science fiction.”
“But where there is life, there is always the potential to find intelligent life.”
“You’re leaving yourself wide open for a crack.”
Harry winced.
“Look, I’ll make it easy for you,” Grace continued. She closed her eyes, held her palm up, and took a deep breath.
Only six.
“Harry, these people are just… nut-cookies. It doesn’t take a research scientist to tell you that.”
She headed for the door. “Find yourself another patsy.”
Harry cleared his throat.
Grace hesitated at the door handle. She knew his throat-clearing thing. It meant Harry had one more card stuffed up his crisp sleeve.
Fine.
She turned and calmly returned to his desk.
“Was there something else, Mr. Butler?”
“We can’t go on butting heads forever, Grace.”
He opened his top drawer, carefully extracted a document, and slid it across the desk.
She scanned the text.
It was a letter, from her to him, stating that she was refusing this assignment and as such realized this refusal would render her employment contract with ELF null and void.
Harry took Grace’s moment of stunned silence to collect and replace the contents of the manila envelope. He set the envelope beside the letter. He clicked a pen and held it out to her.
“If you refuse this assignment, Dr. Brown, you’re in breach of contract. The choice is yours. I’m good either way.”
Grace’s body went rigid as her hands unconsciously curled themselves into tight little balls.
“Seven,” hissed from between Grace’s clenched teeth.
“‘Scuse me?” Harry asked.
Vera heard a sharp thwack and a dull thud, followed by the sound of Grace’s heels drumming their exit march from Harry’s office, manila envelope in hand.
Vera’s intercom beeped.
“Vera,” Harry’s voice moaned through the speaker, “Call H.R.”
Chapter 2
The Distraction
With her carry-on stowed above her, Grace settled into her business-class window seat.
She was still seething, but her anger had energized her through the day’s preparations, and after retrieving her wardrobe from the cleaners, she packed, watered her yard, sealed up her house, and made it to the airport with time to spare.
Grace had grown tired of the anger several hours earlier but still couldn’t shake it. What she really needed was a good, stiff drink, but she wasn’t in the habit of drinking alone. The flight attendants were not yet ready to take drink orders anyway.
She sighed and looked out the window. The baggage trucks stuffed and purged the rows of jets like termite drones attending fat queens.
She mined the seat pouch: duty-free catalog, dog-eared in-flight magazine opened to the crossword puzzle. Someone had started it in pen and screwed it all up.
Idiot.
She stuffed it back in the pouch and sighed again.
I need a distraction.
One arrived as if on cue.
A man in khaki shorts and a white, form-fitting tee shirt lofted his bag into the overhead compartment across the aisle from her.
Nice calves, Grace noted. Damn. Like a Greek sculpture! Great back definition, too.
Stop it, Grace, she countered. You’ve given up on men, remember? Anyway, he’s too young for you. And with a body like that he’s probably gay.
But man, his butt is really hot…
Against her better judgment, she found herself immediately and uncontrollably attracted to this guy.
Grace had read that there exists a close emotional connection between laughter and tears. She postulated there must be a similar connection between anger and lust.
She watched the dense blond hair on his chiseled forearm catch a golden halo of light from the evening sun pouring in the windows on the opposite side of the plane, and the downy hairs on her own forearms suddenly stood up in a tingle.
He turned around.
Grace quickly averted her eyes back to the seat pouch, groping again for the in-flight magazine and lofting it for cover. She decided to wait until he found his seat before sneaking a better look at the front of this unexpected distraction. She assumed he would take one across the aisle where he had stowed his bag, but peering past the bottom edge of her magazine she saw a bare, manly calf park itself beside hers.
She glanced up.
“Hi,” Distraction said, smiling.
Mmmm, Grace noted, great teeth.
“‘Lo,” Grace replied coolly, trying to get a good enough scan of him without being too obviously smitten, but she got the basics in a glance.
Distraction was white with an outdoorsy tan, looked mid-thirty-something-ish, with pale hazel-green eyes surrounded by very dense, long, light brown lashes, a dense five-o’clock, and had light brown, sun-bleached hair—the kind that had likely made him a towheaded child. He had a square jaw, deep-dimpled chin, square chest, washboard abs rippling through his shirt, and was solidly head to toe all man.
He did have a row of earrings on his right ear and a quarter-inch open post through his left. Grace wasn’t into that so much, or the odd tattoo of Ignatz the Mouse dancing about on his left forearm.
Or the soul patch under his lower lip…
Okay–okay! So he isn’t perfect!
But she sure wasn’t feeling angry now.
Distraction spoke.
“Business or pleasure?”
“Business,” Grace replied, trying not to smile too girlishly. She fought the urge to play with her hair.
What is it about this guy?
It had been so long since she had experienced spontaneous attraction like this that she had forgotten how powerful it could be, and exactly how to control it.
Against her better judgment she added, “And you?”
“Oh, I love to travel and travel is a part of my work, so it’s all a pleasure for me,” he replied with a warm, deep-voiced chuckle. He leaned in closer to her. “But officially, I’m working.”
They were interrupted by a Barbie-doll-clone flight attendant.
Rats! Grace thought. Now Distraction will spend the whole flight chatting up Barbie.
“Something to drink?” Barbie perked, with eyes only for Distraction.
“A club soda with ice, please,” Grace replied.
Barbie scooped Grace a glass of ice and popped open a can of club soda, handing them to her, all the while still focused on Distraction. She twinkled her pool-blue eyes, parted her well-glossed lips, and in a slightly breathier voice asked, “And you, sir?”
Distraction turned to Grace. He smiled pleasantly at her, like he would at an old friend. He turned back to the attendant.
“I’ll have a couple of your little bottles of scotch there, and some ice, please.”
Barbie eagerly obliged.
Two bottles?
Grace suddenly had visions of Distraction downing drink after drink and then either puking or passing out on her before they landed.
Oh well, she mused, he was a nice fantasy while he lasted.
“I hope you don’t mind…” Distraction began, after Barbie moved on.
He fondled one of the scotch bottles.
“…But, I thought I might trade you one of these for some of your club soda?”
He shot her that disarming smile again, like he somehow knew she had a really bad day and needed a drink to unwind.
“Come on. What do you say? I always think it’s a good idea to treat a business trip more like an adventure. It’s good for the soul.”
Grace’s mind heard her mouth blurt, “Sure, why not.”
Another scotch and soda later, Grace was mid-way through her life story, and for some reason Distraction was enjoying every minute of it. This attractive stranger made Grace feel uncharacteristically comfortable. She surprised herself when she found that, by focusing her intelligence on her fairly mundane life story, she was actually able to seem interesting, wry, and quick witted. She had Distraction laughing so hard he had to daub his eyes and avoid more than one spit-take.
And, realizing Grace had a captive audience, Barbie finally gave up her extra trips down their aisle trying to snag his attention away.
The events that had brought Grace to work at ELF were almost as odd as the Lab itself, and its mysterious funding. They began with her college thesis. She had been studying the physical adaptations of sea creatures that surround heat vents deep on the ocean floor. The bacteria, crabs, and worms that flourished there were unlike those anywhere else. Somehow they had adapted and thrived in this high temperature, high pressure, lightless, and chemically hostile environment that ought to have been as sterile as a hospital autoclave.
This led her to wonder if there were ways to actually predict the extraordinary physiology life might adopt in other completely unfamiliar physical environments, and in turn the potential examination, evaluation, nurturing, and medical treatment of those previously unknown or novel life forms.
This was a topic that brought together her varied interests, but the actual research was pretty dry, so to make it more noticeable, she presented all her findings in the form of a mock “how to” manual for the diagnosis, nurture, and medical treatment of alien visitors from other planets. It was a cute gimmick, but she kept the science honest.
The gimmick paid off.
Her professor felt her thesis worthy of publication and recommended it to several prominent scientific journals. One actually published it in full, two others quoted it, and Grace had her fifteen minutes of fame. In truth, her fifteen minutes were up in ten, the oh-so-eager-to-meet-hers stopped calling, and no actual research work resulted.
So, with school loans staring her in the face and in need of an immediate paycheck, she sought a medical residency instead. Grace took the first job available, at a hospital in Elk Grove, California, treating undocumented farm workers’ injuries and unmarried Central Valley teenagers’ pregnancies.
Then, something strange happened. She got a phone call from the National Science Advisor. Somehow her thesis ended up on his desk and he invited her to Washington, D.C. to attend a meeting.
“So, you went?” Distraction asked.
“It was a Tuesday. I’d already treated three tractor accidents that week and one squirrelly kid who’d lodged a lima bean up his nose,” she replied. “What would you do?
“Twelve hours later, I walked into a windowless room, in the Executive Office Building, and found myself seated in front of a conference table full of Presidential Advisors and Cabinet Secretaries.
“I knew then this was no interview for a consulting job or research grant.
“The room quieted and I asked aloud, and to no one in particular, if someone might tell me what the heck was going on.
“I was just a kid at the time,” Grace explained, “So I wasn’t very diplomatic. There was this moment of awkward silence, then a General or something spoke up.”
Grace lowered her voice melodramatically, “‘Miss Brown, have you ever seen a UFO?’”
“He really said that? Just like that?” Distraction asked, wide-eyed.
“He did indeed,” Grace replied, taking another sip of her scotch and allowing a pregnant pause.
“Well, what did you say?”
“It’s horrible really. Funny-horrible. I started to giggle. I mean, here I am in this room full of important people—all with stone faces and furrowed brows and no lips—and he asks me a question like that? I totally lost it. It was one of those situations where you start to giggle when you know you’re not supposed to, and the more you try not to, the harder it is to stop. But no one else was laughing. Then I heard this familiar voice behind me say, ‘Ah don’t laugh at people anymoah when they say they’ve seen a UFO. Ah’ve seen one mahself,’” Grace aped, with a toothy, deep Southern drawl.
Distraction shook his head in disbelief. “Jimmy Carter? Really?”
Grace nodded. “Yup. He’d come in the door right behind me. Claims he really saw one, you know. They were setting up an extraterrestrial studies team and I was invited to be a part of it. All because of my silly thesis.”
“Amazing!”
“Eventually that team evolved into the ELF Lab, where I work now.”
Grace handed Tab her card. He scanned it:
“Elf?”
“Pretty goofy, huh? It stands for Extraterrestrial Life Forms. It’s more legitimate than it sounds. We deal with everything from potential interplanetary biohazards to human adaptation within hostile environments—you know, the space suit guys. My area of expertise is more on the theoretical research end, speculating on and simulating what possible forms extraterrestrial life might take relative to their environments. Lots of computer statistical modeling. I’m more on the pure-science end.”
“Oh. So, what’s this trip for?”
Grace suddenly felt as if she was in one of those horrible nightmares where you are at a party and having loads of fun when you suddenly realize you are stark naked.
She felt her cheeks start to burn.
“I, a… just some… boring meetings and such. Nothing much, really,” she lofted her drink and sipped slowly, then changed the subject, “but I’ve been doing all the talking and I don’t even know your name yet, or anything about you.”
Distraction chuckled.
“We’d need a few more long flights for the story of my life.” He held out his hand. “My name’s Tab.”
Grace took it.
“Grace. Grace Brown.”
Tab didn’t let go. Instead, he brought his other hand up to wrap hers in both of his. His hands were large, warm, and strong, and Grace argued herself out of pulling away.
“Tab? Like in… Tab-Hun-ter?” Grace asked, sounding out the old movie star’s name in careful syllables.
Tab rolled his eyes and let go. He sighed, then chuckled.
“My mother had a thing for him. What can I say? But, worse yet, when she chose my first name she didn’t figure in our last name.”
Grace looked at him quizzically.
“It’s… Lloyd.”
Now it was Grace’s turn to laugh and daub her eyes. She giggled despite Tab’s obvious discomfort.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Tab, really, it’s not that funny. I’ll stop,” she said, although, despite her silence, her body kept jerking up and down as the plane descended.
They deplaned in Taos and since Tab didn’t have any checked luggage, he and Grace paused at the end of the ramp inside the terminal. A pudgy young woman behind them struggled past with three lumpy carry-on bags. She bumped hard into Tab.
“Oh, so sorry,” she said, shooting him a scowl.
Tab ignored her and took Grace’s hand.
“Thanks for chatting with me, Dr. Grace Brown. You could do stand-up, you know? You’re a real riot!”
Grace’s heart sank. She would probably never see this charming, handsome stranger again. She had to do something quick.
“Ah, Tab… do you need a lift? Somewhere? I’ve got a rental waiting.”
Her voice sounded a little desperate and she could feel herself begin to blush again.
“Nope. Thanks. I’m already covered.”
Tab extended the handle of his carry-on. He fumbled with his watch.
“Um, I still have a few minutes, though. Can I walk you to baggage claim?”
Grace and Tab walked to the baggage claim area, each in silent thought, with an occasional glance at the other, as if each had something they wanted to say, but couldn’t.
They arrived at the luggage conveyors, but Grace’s bags weren’t out yet.
Tab checked his watch again and looked at Grace. She was checking flight numbers on the monitor over the conveyor, so she missed the flicker of guilt there.
He reached out and tapped her gently on her shoulder.
“You know,” Tab said, forcing a smile, “I’ve really gotta run. I’m a little late as it is.”
He shook her hand one last time, gripped the handle of his carry-on, leaned it onto its wheels, and waved a hasty good-bye.
“Hope I see you again sometime, Dr. Grace Brown.”
Grace waved back, and Tab was gone.
Once outside the terminal, Tab race-walked to the car rental area. There was a van waiting. Inside, the pudgy young woman who had pushed past him at the gate, Diane Berry, sat behind the wheel, munching on a dry, low-carb, sugarless, and tasteless protein bar.
Tab threw his bag in the back and hopped into the passenger seat.
Diane scowled.
“Oh. You two didn’t stop for more drinks?” she asked, pointedly. “Or get a room?”
Tab slumped down in his seat and glanced back toward the terminal. “Just go, Di. Now!”
Diane put the van in gear and pulled out. “So, what’s the big rush, Romeo?”
“She has a rental car waiting. I ran all the way from baggage claim.”
Diane’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yup.”
“And yet I beat you here, carrying all our gear by myself.”
Tab gave Diane a contrite look. “Sorry about that. Will you forgive me if I buy you dinner?”
Diane pursed her lips, but their corners betrayed a hint of a smile.
“Save the cow eyes for Dr. Brown. Your puppy-dog crap doesn’t work on me. But, yeah, I’ll let you buy me dinner.”
They hit the main road. Tab raised up in his seat and smiled to himself. He fidgeted nervously. Diane picked up on it, and scowled again.
“Okay. There’s something you’re not telling me. What happened? She figured out who you are? What we’re up to?”
Tab chuckled and shook his head. “No. Don’t worry, Di. Dr. Grace Brown doesn’t have a clue.”
Chapter 3
Turning the Tables
Grace stuffed a third pillow behind her back and, using the TV remote, located the channel with the listing crawl.
She picked up her cup of mint tea from the bedside table and cradled it.
After a hot shower, a room service dinner, the tea, and a thick terry bathrobe the hotel had provided her, she at least looked cozy.
Her suite was posh. She had earlier cancelled her arranged reservations and booked herself into one of the nicest hotels in Taos instead, right on the plaza. A fire glowed with the breathy whoosh of gas jets above concrete faux-logs in the pseudobe fireplace. Hand-stenciled petroglyphs of buffalo hunts and extinct fauna adorned the walls and ceiling.
Expensing the extravagant room was just one more small way for Grace to stick it to Harry.
She sighed, still unsatisfied.
Thoughts of Harry Butler soured the ambiance.
She gave a half-hearted glance at the TV crawl to see if there was anything of interest to watch, but her eyes glazed over as her mind drifted back to her afternoon encounter with Tab, and she heaved another heavy sigh.
Her laptop sat next to her on the king-sized bed. Grace pulled it over and logged onto the hotel’s wifi connection to check her email: A load of pharmaceutical and stock market spam, a too-long letter from her mother wondering when she was coming east for a visit—she’d read that later—and a newsy note from Michael congratulating her on the magnificent shiner she gave Handsome Man.
Hmm.
Michael described its color as “hovering somewhere between aubergine and burnt-plum.” The downside, in Michael’s opinion, was that it “only makes Harry look all the more macho–be still my beating heart.”
Michael went on:
Handsome Man’s cover story was that he had been hit by a racquetball, but Vera had already spilled the beans to everyone before she got his story straight, so his bogus version simply made everyone smirk all the more each time he retold it.
The other rumor floating around was that Harry filed an assault complaint against Grace with Human Resources, and that she was sure to be canned the minute she returned.
Michael softened the blow by joking that at least she was “…going out swinging–LMFAO!”
Grace scanned further down her inbox list. There it was: an email from Human Resources, tagged “URGENT.” She opened it and read, even though she already knew exactly what it would say. She had been put on suspension, pending a formal hearing, and must return to ELF immediately.
Another email from the ELF travel department: the rest of her reservations had been cancelled.
Grace’s mind snapped onto her well-worn, life-list-of-regrets groove, which ended with her traditional self-flagellating conclusion that true happiness was not in the cards for her.
Why does Harry Butler hate me so much? Is sleeping with that jerk the price I’m supposed to pay, and haven’t? Or is it because I’m black? Or a woman? Or smarter than him?
She huffed, then scolded herself to stop brooding.
It was no use. Her mind kept going.
And what was I thinking with Tab Lloyd? He’s all wrong for me. Good God, he’s a young, athletic, friendly, hip, freewheeling, outdoorsy guy, and I’m a late-forties, bookish, suburban, intellectual, career-oriented, misanthrope. Stupid name, too.
Yet, it seemed to Grace that there had been some mutual attraction with Tab: those long looks he gave her and the way he held her hand, but then, he literally ran from baggage claim to get away from her. By now she had nearly convinced herself that he was merely being polite.
What else could it be?
The channel crawl began to slowly repeat the long list of viewing options. Grace clicked the TV off.
She crossed the room to retrieve the infamous manila envelope from her briefcase.
She spread out the clippings on the bed, first sorting their chronology to match with her now irrelevant travel itinerary, and groaned.
Just as well it’s been cancelled. This whole trip is beyond stupid anyway.
Her life had suddenly taken a very wrong turn, but she had no alternative other than to persevere and try to salvage whatever dignity she had left at the far end on her return to ELF.
What else can I do?
At least I’ll get to keep the bonus miles.
She fought visions of returning to a life of extracting lodged lima beans from button-nosed toddlers and explaining how babies are made to already pregnant teens.
Grace scanned the tabloid stories in disgust. Each new one seemed worse than the last. She found the Taos clipping. She scrutinized the photos of Uni Zeno and Lennon Radd.
Yeah, like those names are real. What a couple of fruitcakes.
Then, something about the clipping suddenly caught her eye, and her breath stopped in her throat.
She paled.
There it was, right under the story’s title: “ARTS and SpaceCRAFTS” by…
Tab Lloyd?
Grace could feel her blood pressure rise and she suddenly felt very hot.
Her mind rewound her afternoon, and replayed it with this new and ominous revision. She scanned the other articles.
All of the stories were Tab’s.
Grace panicked.
She turned to her laptop and Googled him. Tab was listed as a fringe journalist working for a tabloid called Real News. He wasn’t connected to a single legitimate press site or story.
Oddly, he also had a personal web site, advertising Spanish guitar lessons.
This joker is a total lightweight.
But, lightweight or not, she’d been had. This trip and her investigation were to be Tab’s next big scandal, no doubt.
Now, on top of everything else, I’m to be humiliated in the tabloids? That asshole purposely charmed me to get a story! Deliberately plied me with alcohol!
She slapped herself in the head several times for being so naïve.
How did he know?
Oh. Harry.
That realization erased any whiff of lingering guilt about giving him a shiner.
Her hands clenched into fists again.
Okay, Mr. Harry Butler, and Mr. Tab Lloyd, you boys had your bit of fun today, but now I’m on to you.
She was not about to go out with a whimper. It wasn’t her style.
Grace lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, glowering, fixing her eyes on a phony petroglyph of stick-figure humans murdering a bison, and plotted her revenge.
The answer came in an instantaneous and inspired flash.
She sat upright and returned to her laptop. She laid out the e-tickets, dug out her credit card, and rebooked all of them.
Next, she emailed Michael. She knew her ever-impish assistant would be an eager accomplice, especially since, once she got canned, he would be canned too. She felt surprisingly buoyed as she speed-typed her list of instructions for him.
Maybe it’s the challenge, or the taste of revenge?
Grace had to admit, she relished a good fight.
But, as she hammered away at her keyboard, a small voice whispered softly in the back of her head, taunting her.
The real reason you’re so happy is because you know you’ll see that adorable Tab again.
Yeah, and punch him in the nose, Grace insisted back.
The next morning, Grace located Uni Zeno’s gallery space, just a quick walk across the Plaza from her hotel.
She peered in.
It was still early, but the gallery was already stuffed with curious tourists and art collectors.
It was no wonder.
Uni sat in lotus position within a massive clear plastic replica of a laboratory specimen jar, which filled the center of the gallery. She looked to be some variety of Amer-Asian. Her hair was shorn into a Day-Glo pink and orange zebra-striped Mohawk. She had her bare belly prominently displayed, and appeared to actually be with child. Her navel had been tattooed into a now very stretched-out third eye.
Knocked up by the human pincushion, no doubt.
The jar bore an oversized paper label that read:
CLASSIFIED:
Caution - Contains material of unknown planetary origin. Property of Roswell, Area 51
Grace scanned the room carefully to make sure there was no sign of Tab before she entered. The coast was clear.
Lennon, his long hair pulled back in a ponytail, exposing his bespangled ears, sat behind a card table right by the door, counting a large stack of bills. He stopped Grace as she entered.
“Whoa! Hang on there, sister. Fifteen dollars, cover charge.”
Grace stared back, straight-faced.
“You must be Lennon Radd.”
Lennon grinned, wiggling his lip ring with his tongue.
“Sure am. Uni’s m’lady. I’m gonna help her raise our space baby.”
Grace flashed her ELF ID for effect.
“I’m Dr. Grace Brown, Mr. Radd. I’m here as an official US Government representative. I need to speak with you and Ms. Zeno, immediately. In private.”
Lennon’s eyes went wide. They darted back and forth from Grace’s face, to her ID, and back again. He scratched his brow stud while his brain caught up.
“Sure. That’s cool… Ma’am.”
He handed her a lapel button that read, “I’m not Zeno phobic.”
“Here. No charge.”
Grace pinned it to her lapel, then stared back at Lennon expectantly.
He stood, and, with a jingle of body accouterments, stomped to the center of the gallery right in front of the jar, facing the crowd.
“Okay, everybody! Like, this is an emergency! Okay? Show’s over! You all need to get your asses out! Right now!”
It was just past 10:30 AM when Tab and Diane’s rental van pulled in front of the gallery to find the door bolted, the lights out, and a plastic ‘We’ll be back at…’ sign in the window with a hand scrawled lime-green Post-it Note over the clock spinner that read, “whenever.”
Diane peeked in through the window at the giant empty specimen jar and made a face.
“Dammit, Tab! I thought you said they’d be here all day? What gives?”
“I don’t know. They’re flakes, maybe? You heard me on the phone with Lennon last night. He knows there’s more money in it for ‘em. He said they’d be here all day.”
Diane snorted. “Flakes or not, our flight leaves at four. If I can’t snag pix of the Doc with her, we’re totally screwed. You don’t think some other rag offered them more money for their story, do you?”
“Nah. This kind of crap is too crappy for anyone else.”
Tab pecked at his cell phone.
“I have their home address. Maybe the Doc’s with ‘em there. C’mon.”
They hopped back into the van and headed out of town.
A missed turn, a small tiff, a GPS that insisted they travel a chained-off road, and a couple of poorly marked dirt tracks later, they pulled up in front of a bright purple pyramidal house topped with a silver crescent-moon-shaped weather vane. The house was buttoned up as tight as the gallery, with not a car in sight.
Tab leaned against the side of their rental van, thinking.
Diane joined him.
“So. The Doc never checked into the hotel last night. And these goons have vanished. Now what, babe?”
Tab shook his head in response and chuckled.
“Have you totally lost it?” Diane snapped. “Tab, this is no laughing matter. Real News didn’t pay to fly us out here for nothing. We don’t come back with a story we’re both out of a job.”
“She’s a sharp one,” Tab mused, “Had me fooled. Gotta give her credit for that.”
“The Doc? Wait. She did this? You think she’s on to us?”
“Yup. She played me but good,” he replied, with another amused chuckle.
Diane looked Tab up and down, then rolled her eyes in disgust.
“Oh, good God, Tab,” she chided, shoving him, “You’re hot for the Doc!”
“Don’t be silly, Di. I’m a professional journalist,” he replied, straight-faced, but his boyish blush betrayed him.
“Yeah, and I’m Annie-friggin’-Leibovitz.”
The two climbed back into the van and Diane bounced it down the dirt road in silence.
“Okay, fine. I admit it,” Tab finally blurted. “Yes. She’s pretty damned hot. The Doc. Smart too. And funny as hell. You’ll see what I mean.”
Diane just smirked at her partner and shook her head.
Grace sat in her window seat while others boarded the plane, happily typing an email update for Michael into her laptop, when an all too familiar tanned calf sidled into her line of sight. She quickly shielded the screen and looked up to see Tab smiling at her from the adjoining seat.
Grace mocked surprise.
“Why, what an amazing coincidence. Uh… Tom, isn’t it?” She held out a hand. “So nice to see you again.”
“It’s Tab. You know, like the soft drink?”
“Oh, yes, artificially sweet. How could I forget?”
Diane took the seat across the aisle from the pair. She glanced over to get a better look at Grace.
Grace caught the glance, immediately recognizing Diane from their earlier flight, and connected the dots.
“Oh, you two are… together?”
“Yes. No, I mean, well… we’re workmates,” Tab replied. “This is Diane Berry. She’s a photographer.”
Grace stood. She leaned across Tab and the aisle to shake Diane’s hand.
Tab could feel the warmth of Grace’s body press against his leg. She gave off just the faintest hint of Chanel No˚5.
Wow!
While the two ladies returned generic pleasantries Tab took the opportunity to scan Grace’s trim and shapely torso. He started pondering just what it might feel like to put his hands around her taut waist when she sat back down.
The flight attendant reached them with his cart.
This one looked like Barbie’s counterpart, Ken.
“Would you like something to drink,” Ken asked them, his eyes glued to Tab.
Looks like this Ken is more interested in hanging with GI Joe than Barbie, Grace intuited. He, I can handle.
She gave Tab a glance.
“Two of your little ol’ bottles of Scotch there, and some ice, please,” she replied.
Tab put his head in his hands, mocking humiliation, and mumbled, “And just plain club soda for me, thanks.”
When the attendant moved on, Grace looked at Tab and, fondling one of the bottles, cooed, “I thought I might trade you one of these little ol’ bottles for some of your club soda?”
Tab chuckled, shaking his head.
“So how long are you going to keep this business up?”
“Oh, I always think it’s a good idea to treat business… more like an adventure,” she mocked, batting her eyes at him, “It’s good for the soul.”
Diane, who’d been eavesdropping, muffled a laugh and a snort. She leaned across the aisle and whispered to Tab.
“You’re right, babe, I think she’s the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“Uncle!” Tab blurted, with a broad grin and his hands held aloft. “Okay. You win, Grace. Truce!”
“Why Mister Lloyd, whatevah do you mean?”
Tab plucked the “I’m not Zeno phobic” button from Grace’s lapel.
“Ah-hah!” he challenged, waving it at her in triumph.
“That’s an interesting gallery show, have you seen it?” Grace replied doe-eyed, as she mixed a couple of scotch and sodas.
She handed one to Tab.
“I’ll have to tell you all about it. But right now I need to ply you with liquor and hear your life story.”
Tab could do nothing but oblige.
Tab spent his childhood in Boulder Creek, California, with an older brother, Harold, and a wolfhound named T-Rex, who was so big that Tab could ride him like a horse. It was a liberal household that, far too soon, became a single parent one.
His mother was an artist of sorts, and an heiress of sorts, making it possible for her to exist as an artist of sorts.
One day, out of the blue, Tab’s father voiced a need to “escape domestic tedium” and proclaimed his desire to “live life on the edge,” so he divorced his family, took up with a woman half his age, moved to Hawaii, and started a whole new domestic tedium, never looking back.
Tab was a good kid, a good student when he wanted to be, a good athlete, and his good looks made life easier than was good for him, so he was just as easy back to it, and tried to find the fun in it. He squeaked out of UCSB with a communication arts degree, a great tan, a few rowing medals, and not a clue what to do with his life.
“I tried P.R. for a while, then did advertising for a few years, but I hated wearing those silly suits and ties, you know? Then I tried acting—that was a mistake—then construction work, joined a couple of rock bands; then, I took a year off and back-packed through Europe and Asia, then taught guitar lessons for a couple of years back in Boulder Creek…”
“Wait. You moved back in with your mother?” Grace asked, eyebrow in an arch.
Tab nodded.
“How old were you when you did that?”
“Forty,” he replied, wincing.
“Okay, hold on now, I thought you were a thirty-something. Just how old are you?”
“I’m forty-three. It’s okay, people always guess younger. I have that kind of face.”
Grace instantly did the math before she could stop herself.
He’s only four years younger.
Stop it.
It was during Tab’s sojourn back home that his mother discovered the old snapshot of him as a youngster: the picture that changed his life.
In it, Tab sat astride T-Rex, stark naked, both he and the dog covered in mud. Tab had his grubby hands raised like claws in the air and an angry snarl on his face, undoubtedly meant for his older brother, Harold, who took the picture.
His mom laughingly commented that anyone seeing it “would swear he’d been raised by wolves.”
“That’s when I got the idea to submit my first story to Real News: ‘The Wolf Boy of Boulder Creek.’ With the photo and my byline, I couldn’t miss,” he beamed, as proudly as if he had cured cancer. “The rest is history. Which brings us to why I’m here with you.”
“So, ‘If life gives you lemons…’?” Grace smirked.
“Okay. Sure. Yeah. I say, why not? Hell, life’s way too short to spend it regretting what hasn’t happened or worrying about what might happen. It’s all in fun anyway.”
Grace pursed her lips and grew serious.
“The problem is, Tab, when people like you two go around having your fun, you jeopardize, mock, and threaten hard earned careers like mine. Not everyone wants their life’s work turned into a joke, you know.”
For a moment Tab looked like a whipped puppy. He sipped his drink, then, leaned in close to Grace.
He smiled that smile of his.
“Maybe this time we can both have our cake and eat it too, Dr. Brown.”
Grace pulled back.
“Meaning?”
“Let’s work together on this. What d’ya say? It’ll be fun! Look, you help me and Di get our story and we’ll keep your name completely out of it. Scout’s honor. We can… make up some fake name for you, or put you in a wacky blonde wig, or…”
“Wait a sec,” Grace interrupted, pressing a finger to his lips to quiet him. She leaned past Tab and addressed Diane. “Excuse me, Ms. Berry? You’re a photographer, right?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Well, can you… doctor up photos?”
Diane rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”
Tab nipped at Grace’s finger causing her to withdraw it.
“So, tell me, Doc. Just what do you have in mind?” he pressed.
Grace smiled so broadly her eyes became little crescent moons. Her newest twist made the idea she had already hatched even better.
She took Tab’s hand and shook it eagerly. “Mister Lloyd, Ms. Berry, you have yourselves a deal!”
Chapter 4
Encounter Group
Herb Tiller lived on the outskirts of Hays, Kansas, on a family farm that had been worked by Tillers for well over 100 years. Grace, Tab, and Diane found him standing in the center of a freshly turned plot.
Herb knelt and picked up a pinch of soil. He placed it on his tongue.
Diane took a picture.
Herb rolled the dirt around in his mouth a bit. He spat and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“Needs more potash.”
Herb glanced over to Tab and scowled as they approached.
“I told yuh too much the last time. Been a laughin’ stock ever since.”
He rose and strode toward a weatherworn board and batten farmhouse. He was a large, solid man, built like the trunk of an old-growth oak.
The three pursued, though Grace had worn pumps, so she trailed, picking her way gingerly between the dirt clods. They followed Herb inside.
Tab prodded Grace forward with a wink and a nudge.
“Mr. Tiller,” Grace pressed, flashing her ID, “I work for the Federal Government. Believe me, whether either of us likes it or not, I’m required to investigate this… alleged abduction.”
Herb snorted, “A Fed, huh?”
“Now, if I could briefly examine your wife,” Grace continued, “I’m sure we can get to the bottom of things and be on our way.”
Herb snorted again, “I ain’t married.”
“But you… I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You claim your wife was impregnated by extraterrestrials, don’t you?” Grace asked, glancing at Tab for a clue.
Tab grinned and shook his head.
Diane swallowed a laugh.
“There ain’t no wife, lady. It’s me. Me! I’m the one! Jeez… look at this.” Herb lifted his tee shirt, exposing his fuzzy potbelly.
Diane snapped a picture.
Grace stood dumb.
“Sorry about the misunderstanding, Herb,” Tab interjected, covering for her. “Dr. Brown is… new to your case. But the government is taking your situation very seriously. That’s why she’s here. That’s why we’re back. It’s why Dr. Brown needs to examine you. Get your medical history. Follow up on your… condition.”
Grace rolled her eyes and yanked Diane into the kitchen, whispering, “Look, I don’t think I can go through with this. It’s… too ridiculous.”
“Believe me, Doc, they get worse from here on. But hey, that’s what our readers crave, so that’s what we give ‘em. Supply and demand. Look, all these goofballs really want is some attention. Their pictures in the paper? You know?”
Grace opened the refrigerator. It was at least half full of beer.
She turned to Diane, gestured at the beer bottles, and whispered, “You oughtta get a picture of these to put next to the one of his belly.”
Diane laughed. She was beginning to see why Tab liked Grace.
“Look at it this way, Doc, the weirder this stuff is, the more fun you’ll have when you get back at that über-dick who put us on to you. Just a means to an end.”
Tab entered, glowering at the two women. He handed Grace her medical bag and a lab coat.
“Time for Herb’s examination, Dr. Brown,” he said firmly, prodding her back into the living room. He nodded to Diane, who turned on some lights as Tab helped Grace into the coat.
Grace handed Herb a paper hospital gown. He left the room and soon returned wearing it, his boxers, and a pair of mismatched socks.
“M’ feet get cold,” he defended, catching everyone’s glances.