Lightspeed: Year One

reading. I say, “Your parents were cool with you coming to America? Mine wouldn’t even let me go out of state.”

“I don’t have parents,” Bibi says.

“Oh Christ!” I say. “I’m sorry. That sucks.” What can you say in a situation like that? I’d never met an orphan.

“It’s fine,” she says. “Nobody has parents. I grew up like this, sort of in a dorm.”

“How can nobody on Jupiter have parents?” I ask. I know I’m being nosy, but you’ve got to admit it’s a bit strange.

“It’s complicated,” she says. “I don’t feel like getting into it.”

I’m about to insist when there’s a knock at the door. Bibi jumps to get it and these men wheel in a full-size fridge. It’s brand-new, a Frigidaire, one of those side-by-side freezer-and-fridge jobs complete with icemaker. They prop it against the window, plug it in, and leave.

“What the hell is that?” I ask, knowing damn well it’s a fridge, not quite sure what it’s doing in our room. My parents bought us one of those mini units, just enough space for a Brita filter, pudding snacks, and string cheese. The university had exact specifications on which ones were allowed. This Frigidaire wasn’t on the list. Bibi explains how she got special permission to have it in the room, says she has a medical condition.

“What kind of condition?” I ask. “Are you contagious?”

“It’s not a viral condition,” she says. “I need a daily supply of ice.”

“Ice,” I say. “For what?”

“Don’t they teach you this stuff in school?” she asks. “The basics of the solar system?”

“Of course,” I say. “Third grade. We memorized the planets. There was a song.”

Apparently she doesn’t believe me. She goes to my dresser and starts grabbing stuff. She throws my nightie in a lump in the middle of the floor and says, “That’s the sun.” She places a red thong beside it and calls that Mercury. Venus is a pair of toe socks. Earth a blue bra. Mars a pair of leggings. And Jupiter and all its moons are my best sparkly panties. She lines them up, stands to the side, says, “See?”

“Yeah, I get your point,” I say, though I don’t really. I’m too pissed that my underwear are on the floor. Matching bras and panties aren’t cheap. “I appreciate the astronomy lesson,” I say, but she cuts me off.

She points at my bra. “You’re here,” she says. “We’re there. See how far we are from the sun? It’s cold. We don’t have sweat glands. Your planet is hot, so I need ice. Capisce?”

Capisce? Who the hell does she think she is? A Jupitarian girl trying to intimidate me with Italian. Barging in with her refrigerator. Taking the best side of the room and making my thong a planet. I snatch her solar system off the floor and stuff it back in my drawer, say, “I don’t know much about Jupiter, but here, shit like that just isn’t cool.”

There’s another knock at the door. I’m about to say, “That better not be a fucking stove,” when these guys from down the hall walk in. They want Bibi to join them for a game of pool.

“I’m Angela,” I say, extending my hand.

“You can come too if you want,” they say. But it’s clear they’re just interested in Bibi.

I shrug. “I got stuff to do. Maybe next time.”

And Bibi takes off. No apology. No, ”I’m not going without my roommate.” No nothing. She just leaves me there with her big fucking fridge while she goes to shoot pool with these boys she’s never even seen. I’m not sure what they see in her. She isn’t at all pretty. I mean, I don’t think so. We have rigid aesthetics here, right? How can you count a green earless girl without eyelids as pretty?

I watch them head down the stairs. The dorm is quiet, empty. I thought people were supposed to congregate on their floor the first night, praise each other’s bedspreads and posters and shit. The door across the hall opens and a guy wearing pink pants and a polo shirt steps out.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he replies.

He’s wearing his collar propped up like he’s Snow White. His hair is gelled back and all goopy. I want to tell him that went out of style with the Fonz, but instead say, “I’m Angela,” even though it’s written on the construction paper sign on my door.

“Call me Skippy,” he says, even though his sign says John Ward III.

“Where’d the nickname come from?” I ask.

“I made it up. People say you can reinvent yourself in college.”

“Huh,” I say. “Good choice.”

“So that green girl’s your roommate?” he asks.

“Yeah. Afraid so.”

“Do you know when she’s getting back?” he asks. “I heard she’s from Jupiter. You think you could introduce me?  Lloyd in Space is my favorite cartoon.”

The first week wasn’t at all what I expected from freshman year. Bibi followed me all over the place, dragging her leaky ice packs along. Didn’t quite understand we had different schedules. She’s taking all these science and math courses. And I have this good mix. Swahili. Ballet. Psychology. Statistics. My adviser made me take that last one, said I needed a math credit. But besides statistics, I’m thinking classes will be fun.

Then in psych lab, I turn around and there she is sitting behind me. She’s even got the books. I figure she must have bought them for both our schedules. How’s a girl from Jupiter to know better?

Everyone wants to be her lab partner. They crowd around her desk and ask stupid questions like, “Are you going to be a psychologist? Will you go back to Jupiter and counsel manic-depressives?”

“No,” she says. “I’m a neurobiology major. Stem cell research. I’m going to learn to grow pancreases and livers on rats, then take them back to Jupiter and implant them in bodies.”

“Right,” I say. “You’re not even supposed to be here. Don’t you have chemistry?”

She doesn’t answer, just prepares her rat for the maze.

Of course, hers finishes first. Mine gets stuck in a corner and goes into shock.

But what does it matter that her rat’s the smartest? The girl doesn’t have any common sense. She forgets her shoes all the time, puts the toothpaste in her mouth instead of on the brush, and doesn’t close the stall door behind her when she goes to the bathroom. No one wants to see how Jupitarians pee. Actually, everyone was interested, but once they saw it, they didn’t want to see it again.

Around the third week I finally get a look at her schedule. It’s in one of those ugly-ass Trapper Keeper things. As it turns out, Bibi is enrolled in my classes. Hers too. She’s taking nine at once. I didn’t think that was allowed. Bet they make exceptions for Jupitarians, figuring anyone from another planet is more intelligent than us. Bibi is pretty smart actually, gets perfect scores on the tests even though she says absolutely nothing in class.

And to top it all off, even the boys are into her. That guy Skippy won’t stop hanging around. He’s a complete dork, a grade-A loser. He stands outside our door like he’s the king’s guard. At night he brings Bibi ice cream and Popsicles. He follows her to dinner and leaves flowers outside our door, nasty weedy ones with ants. Bibi hangs them from the ceiling and the flowers die because there’s absolutely no light in the room. She won’t let me open the blinds, not even a crack, on account of her condition. So now we’ve got all these ants crawling across our ceiling between brown crusty root systems. And Skippy’s become this stalker. I find him in my closet behind my shoe rack and Dustbuster.

“Just playing hide-and-seek,” he says, and winks.

“Hide-and-seek, my ass,” I yell. “She doesn’t even have a vagina!”

I call my mother and tell her about Skippy and the icepacks and the ants. My mother tells me to be patient. She reminds me about Martin Luther King Jr. I tell her she shouldn’t send Bibi presents anymore. She puts something in all my care packages for Bibi. Cookies. Statuettes from the dollar store. Soup- for-the-Soul books. I tell her, “Bibi doesn’t need presents. You should see this girl’s checks. The government gives her plenty of money.”

My mother says presents are different. Bibi doesn’t have parents. She tells me to be mindful of that. I tell my mother no one on Jupiter has parents. She says that doesn’t sound right, and I agree. I mean a whole planet full of orphans. That just seems too sad to be true. She’s probably lying. Going for the sympathy vote. I could press the issue, but I don’t. I think about Martin Luther King Jr., and when Bibi comes back, I give the roommate chitchat thing another try.