“So who do you have the hots for?” I ask.
And she says, “Nobody really.”
I’m not quite sure how it works for Jupitarians, since they can self-germinate. She seems asexual, never mentions boys.
I say, “What about Skippy? He wants you bad.”
“Oh, him,” she says, as though she hadn’t noticed. She gets her shower caddy and heads down the hall. I stare at the door after she’s gone.
Maybe she’s bisexual. Maybe she’s gay. I wonder if she masturbates when I’m out of the room. It seems like genderless people don’t care about anyone but themselves. They might, but Bibi could give two shits about me.
By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, I’m getting pretty sick of my roommate. I mean how many times do you have to tell a person, “Put on your shoes,” before she gets it right? There’s snow on the ground, and she’s prancing in it like some leprechaun. She walks around in her bare feet, leaving these monster frog prints. Did I mention Jupitarians only have three toes? It’s like she needed to show them off. You’d think she at least would have tried to fit in. I think she liked being different. Everyone was always stopping by our room to see what the space alien was up to. I was happy to have a week at home without her.
But there was no place for her to go, and my mother offered our house, insisted, really, said, “Angela, if we were dead, I would hope someone would be nice enough to take you in for the holidays.”
I guess she was right. Bibi couldn’t very well go back to the moon. The least I could do was share my goddamn turkey with the girl. My turkey. My gravy. My family.
Bibi stayed in the guest room, and wouldn’t you know it, she got along great with my mom. Better than me. The two of them bonded like bears.
My mother showed her how to cook cranberry sauce and corn bread from scratch and, of course, how to pull the guts out of a turkey. Bibi was fascinated, watched my mother tear the bird’s insides out of its ass, leaving this hollow pink part in the middle. Bibi couldn’t stop staring at it, until finally I said, “It’s only a turkey. Gobble, gobble.”
Bibi didn’t answer, just looked at me like I’d threatened to cut off her head.
And my mother said, “Angela, why don’t you help your father clean the garage?”
Things went on like this for days, my mother acting like Bibi’s her new adopted daughter and treating me like chopped meat.
Then Thanksgiving Day, we sit down for dinner and, of course, my mother makes us hold hands. We do this every year, even though we’re a family that doesn’t go to church. Even though we’re a family that doesn’t pray. My mother insists we still believe in God.
She starts out as usual with, “Thank you, Lord, for the food before us.” Then she goes off on this new part, says, “Thank you for bringing this space child into our lives. May our civilizations be as peaceful as those of the Pilgrims and Indians.”
I want to say, “God, Mom, does everything have to be about Bibi?” Instead, I grab the nicest piece of turkey and dump gravy all over, a little extra in case Bibi helps herself to more than her fair share. But she doesn’t. She takes some potatoes and squash, a little cranberry sauce and corn bread, really small portions. My father tries to pass her the turkey.
“Don’t you like meat?” he asks.
My mother says, “Bill, maybe she’s a vegetarian.”
“No,” Bibi says. “It’s just that the turkey reminds me of my mother.”
I want to ask Bibi what the hell she meant at dinner, but she goes to bed early and shuts the door. The next day my mother takes us to the mall. I’m thinking she feels bad about the turkey thing because she tells us to buy any outfit we want. But Bibi doesn’t want clothes. She goes to the cooking store and buys a turkey baster. And now I’m really confused.
We go to the food court for lunch. We get Sbarro’s, chow mein, and Arby’s. My mom’s sucking a slushie. She gives Bibi a sip, says, “Tell me about your mother.”
Bibi says, “I never had a mother. No one does. She died before I was born.”
It’s been three months and this chick still hasn’t explained the “no parents” situation. So I say, “What’s the deal? No parents. No fathers. How exactly do you make babies?”
My mother gives me this look like I’m being rude.
“What?” I say. “You started it.”
Bibi swallows the rest of her egg roll, asks, “You wanna see?”
“What? Here?” my mother says.
She lifts her shirt, and there’s this hole where her belly button should be. It’s the size of a nickel, but it scoops in and up like the inside of a funnel. She does this right in the middle of the food court. People turn and stare. My mother tells her to pull down her shirt.
“So it’s like a vagina,” I say.
“Except you put your own pollen up there, push it in deep instead of flushing it.”
“What a relief,” my mother says. “I thought you couldn’t have children.”
“I can,” Bibi says. “But I won’t. Anyone who has a baby ends up dead.”
“Childbirth used to be risky here,” my mother says. “Thank God for modern medicine.”
“No,” Bibi says. “Procreation is suicide. Babies can’t come out the bottom. There’s no hole. To get out, they gnaw through your stomach. They eat the other organs on their way out.”
I sit there, shocked, my fries turning to mush on my tongue. “My God,” I say. “Why would anyone want to get pregnant?”
“They say it’s wonderful. Like being on heroin for nine months. The best euphoria there is.”
“Christ Almighty,” I say, “that’s some mad kind of population control.” I ask her if she’s heard of the one-child law in China, but she doesn’t answer.
“You’re in good hands now,” my mother says and gives her a hug, rocks her back and forth in her arms. Right there in the middle of the food court like she’s five years old. I just sit and stare at my food. As though I could eat after that.
My mother drops us off at school on Sunday, tells Bibi if she needs anything to call. We carry our laundry upstairs. Under our folded clothes, we find notes from my mother on matching stationery taped to bags of Hershey’s kisses. Mine says, “Loved having you home. So nice to spend time with you and Bibi.”
“Your mom’s really cool,” Bibi says. She props her turkey baster and note up on her dresser.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”
Now that she likes my mom, she wants to be friends with me. Go figure.
I curl up on my futon with a piece of leftover corn bread. “So did you ever think of doing it?” I ask. “Just to see what pregnancy’s like? Don’t you think you will eventually?”
“Why would I do that?” she says.
“Don’t you think you’re missing out? You said it’s like drugs. I’d try that.”
“I don’t want to die,” Bibi says. “That’s why I’m here.”
“How does your planet feel about stem cell research?” I ask.
“They don’t understand why things should change.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of the same in America,” I say. “Stem cell research is a sin. Better watch out. They might throw you out of the country.”
She empties her chocolate kisses into the porcelain bowl my mother gave her.
“I think you’ll do it,” I say. “That’s what the turkey baster’s for, right? To stick the pollen all the way up?”
She just stares at me with her black eyes bugging out, and for a second I think she’s going to throw the bowl at my head. Either that or she’s going to cry. But she just turns and walks out of the room.
She didn’t come back that night. I wasn’t sure where she went. And frankly, I didn’t care.
Bibi didn’t speak to me for weeks. We gave each other the silent treatment and slammed the door a lot. I called my mother and told her I wanted to switch rooms. She said, “Angela, that’s not how we deal with our problems.”
I went to the RA and asked how long it would take to get a new room. She said I could file a complaint, but room changes were rarely approved.
