Page 61 of Sky Song
The rider was a narrow compact with three single seats positioned one after another. Paloma opened the roof and got in the middle, with Cricket sliding behind the controls and Lyle squeezing his body in the very back. They didn’t talk. Paloma whistled a soft melody, and it grated on Cricket’s nerves like nails on a chalkboard.
Finally, the thickening tension became too condensed for a small rider, and it exploded out of Cricket with the force of a steam leaving an overheated engine.
“You knew him,” she accused Paloma.
The whistling stopped. “Who?”
Cricket turned back briefly to murder her neighbor with a look. “The bartender. He was the alien guy I saw around.”
“I don’t owe you any explanations.” Paloma bristled with hostility.
“I almost drove myself crazy thinking I imagined it, and the whole time you knew, because he came to see you!” she shouted.
“Now, don’t go around blaming me for the voices in your head.”
Outraged, Cricket grated, “I trusted you.”
That seemed to have broken Paloma’s control. “That’s your problem!” she shouted back, and because she’d movedforward in her seat, her hot breath washed over the back of Cricket’s neck. “And I trusted you back. The poor you, traumatized by the aliens and wanting nothing to do with them. I felt sorry for you! And what does she do?”
“Yes, what do I do?”
“Hold handswith an alien merc.”
Paloma’s assumptions rankled. “Don’t resort to name calling. You don’t know Lyle. But I guess when everyone else around you is lying, it’s easy to assume he is, too.”
“Please. You’re up to your ears in lies, to yourself, most of all. And now you’ve dragged me into your wreck of a life. Thanks for nothing,neighbor!” To emphasize her point, Paloma slapped her hand on the back of Cricket’s seat, jarring her.
“By ‘dragging,’ do you mean this one visit to this shitty club? Lyle’s my friend, and he nearly got his ass handed to him at your favorite hanging spot. Which, in hindsight, should’ve told me something about you.”
Paloma sputtered. “Atticus was problem-free untilheshowed up. Again, not my problem, but I highly recommend you re-examine your life.”
“Are you saying it’s wrong to make friends with aliens?”
Paloma laughed bitterly. “Of all the aliens, you chose to make friends with this one.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at Lyle. A quiet, gentle Lyle who had gotten manhandled by the stupid Atticus door guard and harassed by two oversized bozos with raisin brains.
Bitterness filled Cricket’s heart. Things weren’t going well, not at all. “I have nothing to hide, Paloma. You?”
The rider stopped in front of their homes, and Paloma nearly wrecked the roof-door trying to pop it open. “I don’t care if you’re hiding anything. Stay away from me! Everything’s stupid.”
She jogged to her door and slammed it after letting herself in.
Slowly, Lyle unfolded his bulk from the cramped back seat. “Why are you angry at your friend, sky song?”
Throughout their overheated exchange, Lyle had remained quiet in the very back. Of course, he didn’t understand the words they were yelling at each other, but the fact that they were arguing couldn’t have escaped him.
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. Angry tears threatened to pour. “Just call me… Cricket.” She wanted to say Emma, but there was no going back from the bond that developed between them. A bond with a Rix alien. What had she done?
Lyle smiled slightly, humoring her. “Cricket.”
Hipper howled, and the drapes in Mr. Sulys’ window undulated wildly.
Cricket pressed her index fingers tight against her eyes to ward off a crushing headache that came out of nowhere. “Let’s get inside.”
They entered her home, and once she shut the door, the silence hung. He waited her out.
“I saw a guy around here that I thought was an alien,” she finally explained. “It’s super unusual to see aliens in Shadush, you know.”
“I know.”
