“I’ll wait until after. I don’t want to miss anything.”
“Knock-knock.”
I jumped and spun around, but Eileen waved exuberantly.
“Hey, Adam! I’ll be right out!” She scampered back into her bedroom and slammed the door, coat hangers rattling as she hurried to dress.
“Guess she got a good night’s sleep, huh?” Adam let himself in and set a duffle bag down by the table.
“Wet hair?”
He shrugged.
“You drove home, fed the dog, packed a bag, showered, and drove back in twenty minutes?”
“I’m a guy. I hear pretty-boy’s still in there, though.”
“Well, the poor thing was caked in mud.”
Adam’s eyebrows rose, but the shower stopped right at that moment. “I smell cinnamon.”
My arms crossed. “It's French toast.”
He nodded as he looked around the room, eyes settling on the dustpan and broom. “I’m sure he’ll like it.”
“I made it for everyone.”
Just then, the bathroom door opened, and Sal poked his head out.
“Lila, do you have my pants?” He apparently mistook my immediate blush for a lack of understanding. “From the motel? They would have been on the floor beside the bed.”
“Jackass,” Adam muttered.
Sal’s eyes widened, and when I returned with his pants, he retreated into the bathroom without comment.
Which was exactly when Eileen bounded out of her room. “What’d I miss?”
Trust No One, Except Maybe the Alien
Well, breakfast was awkward, but what did I expect? After several minutes of silent chewing and brooding glares, I could tell Adam was getting edgy. Eileen just seemed annoyed in general. Her good mood had evaporated as soon as she realized she had to sit beside Sal. And me? I was the anxious hostess, feeling oddly conflicted as I sat across from her and between our two disparate guests.
At least Sal had a shirt to go with his pants. Adam had turned purplish when I went to dig for my old Rush t-shirt, and had grabbed one of his own out of his duffel bag, tossing it to Sal without a word to either of us. I really wasn’t sure what that was all about. Or why he’d packed a whole bag and was keeping it under the table near his feet.
“Adam? I forgot to ask what you told Phil . . . ?”
“That Aunt Sally was having health problems.”
“But he knows I don’t . . . ” His flat look said it all. “Oh.”
“I told them you’d caught something from Eileen. Sorry, kid.”
Predictably, his attention perked her up. “Oh, yeah! I’m missing school! Dang.”
“What, hon?”
“Nothing. We finished our projects.”
“On electricity . . . ” I prompted.
“Yeah, I was just gonna ask Miss Miller if I could do an extra credit one. I can ask her tomorrow . . . or whenever . . . I guess . . . ” She frowned at the bite of toast on her fork.
“Another project? On what?”
“I want to make a Tesla Coil.”
Sal stopped chewing and looked at her in surprise. “This interests you?”
“Yeah, so? Electricity is cool and Edison was a moron.”
His syrupy lips lifted at the corners. “Nikola Tesla was a very special human.”
“And you know a lot about special humans, don’t you.” Adam’s tone was a clear accusation, but Sal met his gaze calmly.
“Yes. That was my assigned task.”
I saw Adam’s fingers tighten around his fork and knife and figured that was a bad sign.
“Okay. Sal? If we ask you questions, I think that will be less . . . efficient . . . than if you just start at the beginning. So to speak. I mean, six thousand years is a pretty long time to cover.”
Adam’s sharp inhale led to Eileen pounding him on the back. “Oops! Guess I forgot that part.”
“Do not worry, young one,” said Sal. “You remembered much for such a stressful situation. You are an asset to your fa—”
“How do you know what she—”
“I thought you were going to stop with the ‘young one’ stuff.”
“You are correct. Eileen. Light of God.” Sal’s indulgent smile made me suddenly very interested in my plate. A half-eaten piece of dry toast had been abandoned on the blue stoneware—a casualty of my split attentions. Did he know? Could he know about Eileen’s angel soul coming to me when she was conceived?
“What’s that about?” I looked up to see Adam waving his fork back and forth between the two of us.
“If you care for her, you will stop pressuring her to talk about what she is unwilling to discuss.”
Shocked, I found myself torn between wanting to thank Sal and appease Adam before he did something unfortunate with his silverware.
“It doesn’t matter,” I swallowed and thought fast. “I think we can all agree that what’s more important here is the big picture.” That sounded reasonable, and Adam’s brow unfurrowed. “The beginning, Sal. Please.”
He took a moment to gather his thoughts and finished the last sip of his third glass of orange juice. After he’d carefully positioned his glass to the upper left of his plate, he dipped his head toward me in a seated bow.
“This meal was satisfying and delicious. Thank you for your effort in preparation and presentation. As an uninvited guest, I am exceptionally grateful for your hospitality.”
“Ah . . . sure. You’re welcome.”
“Thanks, Mom. Sorry.”
There was a thump under the table, and Adam grunted to concur. Any other time I would’ve laughed.
“Our world had been perfected for many hundreds of stellar cycles.” Sal’s resonant timbre captivated me. In one sentence he’d evoked an aged leather-bound tome with glorious mysteries scribed on yellowed parchment. “Our buildings were graceful glass helices that spiraled into vivid blue skies, each level segmented in such a way that, with a simple command, they could open outward like crystal cups to fill with fresh, clean air . . . and the waves of electricity generated by the nearest power source.”
A tiny smile formed on my child’s face. “Like Wardenclyffe?” she whispered. At his nod, fascination bloomed in her big eyes.
They had one thing in common, at least.
“We were unified. No battles for territory or ideology. Accumulated wealth was not valued because everything was available to everyone. We had evolved past destroying our planet’s resources, and our mastery of genetics ensured that everyone was viable . . . useful . . . with a purpose
