How to Marry an Alien (18 page)

Hello, Alexandra!

I hope everything at school is going well.
Just been busy finishing up final notes from my editor on the
latest Fiona O'Hera piece, and Elijah is missing you like crazy. We
went to the store earlier this week and picked up a few supplies we
thought you might need. We also stopped at grandma's and she found
a few pictures she wanted you to have. She said you should show
them to Ace and see if maybe he recognizes one of the guys in the
pictures. I'd have to say I do see quite a resemblance; this man
grandpa fought with in the war could be Ace's twin! Well enough
about that. I hope you are doing well and will talk to you
soon!

Love,

Mom

A strong resemblance to Ace, ey? I took the
Bubble Wrap out and on top of a stack of bridal magazines was a
manila envelope. I undid the clasps and a few small photos slid out
and onto my lap. They all looked faded and in sepia tone, which was
probably just the black and white texture from the cameras of the
time.

I held up the first picture where a younger
version of my grandpa sat on a log in a white t-shirt and jeans.
The sleeves were rolled up on his t-shirt and a pack of Camel
cigarettes were stuffed in the sleeve. I didn't know grandpa
smoked. I thought it was just grandma. But that wasn't the shocking
part. There were two other guys sitting next to him on the log and
the other one had an uncanny resemblance to Ace: same spiky black
hair, fingerless gloves, and eyes that looked like he wore eyeliner
and…HOLY CRAP IT WAS ACE!

At first I thought my mind was playing tricks
on me, but there was no way it couldn't have been him. I had seen a
lot of Ace, and just about every inch of him more recently. I knew
my alien when I saw him. I looked through the other pictures and it
was the same thing: groups of people in grandpa's unit and in every
single picture there was Ace with his trademark white smile and
black circled, dark eyes. Ace told me he might have fought with
grandpa in the war, but now it seemed as if everyone else was
putting the pieces together.

I got up and rummaged through my messenger
bag until I found my phone and quickly dialed Ace's number.
Please pick up, please pick up
.

"Hello?" After what seemed like forever, Ace
finally answered.

"Ace, I think you need to come over here," I
said, trying to hide the panic in my voice. Did grandma and grandpa
know it was Ace in the pictures? What would they think?

"Why? Is something the matter?" he asked,
cool as a cucumber.

"Can you just please come here?" I begged. I
hated begging, but this was a situation that needed it.

He let out an exasperated sigh into the
phone. "Fine, I'll beam in after I finish working this file, is
that okay?"

"Fine, but hurry!" I said before hanging up
and tossing the phone on my bed. I sat back down, looking through
each picture. I might have been freaking out a tad, but that didn't
stop me from admiring how good Ace looked in a World War II Army
Air Force uniform.

The bright blue light streamed in near the
window and knocked me from my thoughts of wondering if Ace still
had the uniform and would possibly wear it for me.

The light disappeared and Ace stood in the
middle of my bedroom. I could tell he hastily threw on clothes over
his temperature control suit because a few of the buttons on his
shirt were mis-buttoned.

"Is everything alright?" He sat on the bed
next to me, his eyes wide with concern.

I passed him the pictures in my hand, and he
looked at them. A wide smile crossed his face. Not shock or panic,
but a genuine smile.

"Alex, where did you get these? Did Monte
Photoshop them for you?" he asked.

I shook my head as Ace thumbed through each
picture. "No, my mom sent them and said she got them from my
grandma. They thought you looked like one of the guys in the
picture, asked if he was related."

"Oh." The smile quickly disappeared from
Ace's face. "I take it your grandfather is the curly haired man in
these photos? Funny how different he looks now. I barely recognized
him when we saw him at the football game," Ace said.

Ace and I ran into my grandfather at a
football game, and I saw the recognition on grandma's face when she
came for pictures before the Fall Ball.

"Yeah, well, you happen to look exactly the
same as you did decades ago in these pictures." I pointed at his
smiling face next to my grandpa in the picture Ace was holding.

Ace shrugged. "What do you want me to do
about it?"

"I don't know! What is there that we can do?"
I asked.

Ace let out a small puff of air. "We can
always talk to some of the people in charge of memory modification
and delete me from your grandparent's memories."

I raised an eyebrow. "But couldn't that be
dangerous for two older people? Would it harm them in any other
way?"

Ace shook his head. "It shouldn't harm them,
but if you want to do something noninvasive just tell them this was
my grandfather in the pictures."

He stood up, looking at one of the pictures
he held in his hand. "At that time, I went by Michael Prince, the
best name they could think of using something similar enough to
Machiavelli and my royal title."

My mind drifted off to a daydream of Ace as a
military man in the forties. I had a thing for nostalgia and would
have loved to see him walking down the street in his uniform,
stopping in the local diners, and maybe even questioning the music
selection they had in the juke box.

"I came to this planet with the hopes of
learning something more and getting to see grass for the first
time. We always heard such horror stories about how underdeveloped
Earth was, but to me, it was one of the most beautiful places in
the world," he said, smiling at the photograph.

"After the trouble I had in Germany, when I
was accused of killing those women…"

I knew the story all too well. The way people
would find any way to blame him if someone died just because he was
around and he was alien. The reason he was marked as dangerous and
sent to live and work at Circe. Thank God that all got cleared up.
Circe should have done its research in the first place.

"I believe Circe put in place some sort of a
cover story that I was a prisoner of war or something and that was
what happened to me. We could always see if they could put some
obituaries in place and kill of the old Michael Prince," he said
sharply.

"Do you want to kill him off?" I asked.

Ace looked up from the pictures, placing them
on the bed before he sat next to me. "That was a different life for
me. I'm happy to be Ace, Circe resident and future husband of Alex
Bianchi."

I smiled."I think I like this Ace as
well."

"Good," he said.

"But, we never really talked too much about
your past. Does this mean you are immortal? Am I just going to
shrivel up into an old woman while you stay young and beautiful
forever?" I asked.

Ace laughed. "I don't think I've ever heard
someone call a male beautiful."

I rolled my eyes. "You are ignoring the
question."

He sighed. "I'm not ignoring it. It's just
sort of complicated."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? More
complicated than the fact that I'm engaged to an alien who I saved
from an intergalactic war because his mother didn't approve of our
relationship?"

"Touché," he said looking straight at me. "I
guess I can try to explain it the best I can."

"That will work."

"Okay." He took in a deep breath and then let
it back out. "There weren't too many Caltians that actually
volunteered to come down to Earth, so none of us knew how our
bodies would react to the warmer climate. The temperature control
suits helped to regulate us, but what it did to our aging process
was a different story."

I stared at Ace, unsure what to think. I
tried to inspect each line on his face, searching for any sort of a
wrinkle or smile line that might have landed there after decades on
Earth, but there was nothing to find.

"Caltians age very gracefully anyway; you've
seen the queen. We have a longer life span than humans and Calta
doesn't have that same pollution or diseases as Earth, so it is
easier for us to live longer. And, of course, our bodies are
different. But as far as how that all works, you'll have to ask
Jen; she's the scientist and I'm just the security guy."

"So would you still look the same if you went
back to Calta?" I asked.

Ace shrugged, leaning back against the wall.
"I actually thought I would start to age like a normal human when I
got here. Imagine the surprise to all of the scientists at Circe
when I didn't! I think that is part of the reason they've let me
stay here so long. I'm Circe's own little guinea pig. As long as I
can keep my body temperature regulated, I seem to do fine."

I nodded, thinking about what he said. I
thought he got special treatment (like not getting deported back to
Circe for killing the alien that attacked me or all the breaking
and entering we did), but I never thought of it as anything other
than the fact he was royalty.

"Do you plan on ever going back to live on
Calta? Like after I'm gone or something?"

Ace frowned. "I don't plan on going back home
for a long time and I don't plan on losing you for any reason."

"But then how are we going to explain why I
have the hot, young husband when I'm an old lady? What if you find
some new young human girl to go after?" I sat up on my knees,
staring at him and blinking slowly.

Ace wrapped his arms around my waist and
pulled me toward him. "Alex, you really shouldn't go on with such
foolish talk. There is no way that I would ever leave you for
anyone else. And I should age, eventually. If not, we have makeup
artists who will make me appear older for public appearances."

"For real?" I asked, looking up into his
statuesque face, never aging just like all the stone monuments.

Ace smiled. "Yes, Alex, how else do you think
so many aliens are able to walk among you for years? The invention
of plastic surgery helped us explain some celebrities being
ageless, but for others we just used special effects makeup artists
to help the aging process a little."

"Does this mean I can meet Michael Prince?" I
asked.

Ace raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure what you
mean."

"I know you said that Circe killed him off,
but I would really like to see you in that Army Air Force uniform
again." I ran my finger down the center of his chest, brushing my
nails against his temperature control suit.

"I think I can arrange that," he said before
he leaned over and kissed me, making me forget all about Michael
Prince and just focus on my favorite alien.

"Hey, what was in that package your mom sent
you?" Lucy asked.

Ace was back at Circe, and Riley had some
papers to grade, so we sat on our beds watching an old Cary Grant
movie. Lucy wasn't as big of a fan of older movies as I was, but
she tolerated it.

"Just some old pictures and wedding
magazines," I said not looking away from the gorgeous black and
white Cary Grant. What could I say? I had a thing for older men as
evident by my choice in fiancés.

"Can I look through some of them? Maybe tell
you what dress I will not be wearing?" Lucy laughed.

I looked over to see that she was already
bent over the box that sat beside my desk.

"What? You don't want to watch any more Mr.
Grant?"

Lucy continued digging through the box. "No,
he's cool. I'm just seeing what you got." She pulled out a small
blue box that I didn't even notice under the magazines. "Your mom
sent you tampons, too?"

I paused the movie, got up from the bed, and
crouched down next to Lucy at the box. "Huh, I guess she did. I
didn't even notice."

I was too busy freaking out over the pictures
of 1940's Ace, but I wasn't about to tell Lucy that.

"Tampons, chocolates, wet wipes…is your mom
trying to help you out with your lady time or something?" Lucy held
up the stash that was hidden underneath the magazines.

I stared at the bar of chocolate. Was my aunt
flo due for her arrival?
Oh crap
, I was late!

"Heh, must be just trying to help." I tried
to hide the nervousness in my voice, but it had to be squeaking. I
did a quick calculation in my head and realized that I was due for
my aunt flo three days ago, and I was never late. Never.

"Well, instead of fondling your gifts here,
I'm going to just look through some of these magazines," Lucy said
and picked up two from the top and headed back to her bed.

I felt like I was in a daze. I couldn't be
pregnant. Nobody gets pregnant after their first time; that just
happens in bad TV shows. And if I was, what would I even be
carrying? Would it be some sort of a half-alien and half-human
hybrid that came out with a full set of teeth and spoke in Latin? I
shook the thoughts out of my head and went back to my bed to sit
down. I turned the movie back on, but suddenly Cary Grant didn't
seem as attractive. Who could I talk to about this? What would I
do?

"Hey, Lucy?" I said and looked over at
her.

"Yeah?" She didn't even look up from her
magazine.

"So what does one do if her period is missing
in action?"

Lucy put the magazine down, her mouth wide
open. "Are you serious? Are you trying to say you think you might
be carrying a little spiky-haired baby?"

"Lucy," I whined. "It's not funny."

"I know, I know." She held up her hands and
stood up. "Well, you should probably take a pregnancy test if you
think that is the case."

"I'm not just going to go buy a pregnancy
test. What if someone that I know sees me? Why don't they just
carry those things in bathrooms like they do for condoms at truck
stops and bars?" I asked.