Dating an Alien Pop Star

by Kendra L. Saunders

  I’ve never shopped 5th Avenue with an alien. For some reason, if I’d ever actually imagined such a thing before, I probably would have pictured it differently… maybe people pointing and screaming or Donald Sutherland tugging at his hair and yelling about pod people.

  But shopping with Griffin and Devon is a bit more like shopping with a spoiled toddler and his famous handler. Both of them march directly into a shop, crowd of scary bodyguards in tow, and the store’s staff nearly tramples themselves to help us.

  “What are you looking for?” one of the saleswomen demands, all but throwing herself on top of Griffin. He seems immune to gorgeous twenty-somethings in expensive clothes. Instead, he’s completely transfixed by the fashion aspect of the store. He lets out a few gasps as his fingers trail over fabric and buttons, leaving Devon to speak to the staff.

  “Thank you very much for your offer of help,” Devon says, “but we have a stylist right here. Miss Kirkwood.”

  One of the male employees eyes me and shakes his head in the most judgmental manner I’ve ever seen. “We are professionals,” he says. “And I really don’t think ‘sales-bin chic’ is in this season. It went out somewhere around the time her clothes were made, which I’m guessing was before I was born.”

  “Excuse me?” I say, my face flaming with embarrassment. “I happen to call my style ‘off-duty rock star,’ and I think it’s pretty great.”

  “Off duty? I think you mean retired rock star. Maybe even deceased rock star.”

  “Well, at least I’m original.” I point at his suit, but I can’t think of any good insults.

  “Wanda will do just fine!” Griffin yells from across the sales floor, accosting a shirt with the enthusiasm of a starving man receiving a meal for the first time in days.

  “Oh my GOD. Your name is Wanda?” the male employee asks, cringing. “Did your parents give you up for adoption…?”

  As I try to leave the store, a couple of the scary guys step in the way of the door. I have to give up on that plan for now.

  “Wanda! Get over here and help me!”

  Wait—is he stripping down in public?

  Much to my horror, Griffin peels off the purple, fuzzy sweater, revealing a slender and taut body underneath. Tugging off his skinny jeans next, he tosses them aside. Just when I think he’s going for the underwear and might get arrested for public nudity, he snatches a pair of pants off a hanger and tugs them on, along with an ugly, mustard-colored shirt from a nearby display.

  “Good choice, sir,” one of the employees says, and they all chime in with their encouragement.

  “It’s very David Bowie,” another employee says. “So avant-garde to wear women’s clothes.”

  Griffin, who has just pranced to a mirror to stare at himself, stops spinning and looks at his crowd of admirers and then at Devon and me. “Yes or no?” he demands. “Is it very David Bowie?”

  I sigh and walk toward him. “Let me choose a few things for you to try on,” I say. “And in the fitting rooms, please, not out here. It goes against our customs to parade around in nothing but underwear.”

  “What about Victoria’s Secret?”

  Now I’m staring at him. “What do you mean—what about it?”

  “When your kind wears that brand, you don’t wear anything else. Isn’t that true? I saw the pictures everywhere.” Griffin takes off the expensive clothes and leaves them in a crumpled pile on the floor. “So I’ll do the same, thank you very much.”

  Great. Well, with any luck, he’ll take it too far and get arrested. The NYC police can take over dealing with the aliens. That’s probably well within their skill set, considering some of the Elmo-costumed weirdos they deal with in Times Square.

  I sort through clothes, thinking of what I’d most like to see my favorite rock stars in, and procure accordingly. On a whim, I grab a frilly, slate-colored shirt that will look good with Griffin’s eyes. He didn’t seem to object much to wearing women’s clothes, after all.

  When I return to Griffin, he’s talking with Devon in a low whisper. The words are only slightly unfamiliar, which makes them eerie, like something you’d hear during a confusing nightmare.

  “Here,” I say, holding the outfits out in offering. “These two go together, these two, and these two. Try them on.” Hopefully, the clothes will distract them enough that they’ll stop talking in their creepy language.

  Some of the employees have given up and retreated to help other customers, but I frequently catch people staring at Griffin and Devon as if they want to approach and say something.

  Griffin ultimately buys everything I’ve chosen for him, as well as the ugly, mustard-colored shirt he tried on earlier, and a pair of shoes. At no point during this whole thing has he ever taken off his sunglasses. Even as he pops the tags off a pair of shiny, black pants and slips into them—along with his original purple sweater—he leaves the sunglasses on.

  “Your taste isn’t bad, Wanda,” Griffin says to me as we exit the store. “But it is a bit boring at times. I’m an English pop star. I’m supposed to be better looking than anyone else on the planet. I must drip sex appeal.”

  “My name isn’t Wanda, and your taste is awful,” I mutter, but he doesn’t hear me, because he’s already gone back to conversing with Devon in their weird language. We continue our journey down 5th Avenue surrounded by the scary guys, stopping in a few more stores with similar results.

  By the time the sun sets, we’re armed with enough shopping bags to sink a battleship. Griffin’s still spunky and interested in visiting more stores, but Devon puts his foot down.

  “We’re going to get some food now. I’m hungry,” Devon says, catching Griffin by the collar as he tries to walk into another store. “You’ve got quite enough clothes for now, Griff.”

  “But what will I wear to dinner? Do I have anything that’s good for dinner? Are we going to Mr. Chow?”

  I’ve lived in New York City for only three weeks, but even I know that normal people don’t just go to Mr. Chow. Mr. Chow is for Cameron Diaz and One Direction.

  Devon considers. “Let’s go back to the hotel, and then I suppose we can go to Mr. Chow.”

  “Good. Now, Wanda, what should I wear?”

  “If you call me Daisy, I might help you.”

  “The deal was that if I proved myself to you, you were going to help me. So, what am I wearing? We’ll have a good table, of course.”

  “Why—because you’ll use your alien powers to get it? I’m not impressed.”

  “Hotel, Griffin, and then you’ll have two minutes to choose your outfit. I’m starving,” Devon says, an undercurrent of firmness in his voice that I haven’t heard before. It seems to do the trick on Griffin. He pouts as we halt beside a huge, black vehicle.

  Devon motions for me to climb into it after Griffin’s settled himself deep within, and although I hesitate, I slide in, too. It looks like one of those cars that celebrities ride around in, and in a way, I suppose it is. Devon sits beside me. A line of the scary guys perch across from us, none of them speaking. After the car’s in motion, I can’t help but say something.

  “Who are those guys…?”

  “Oh, just a bit of security. The Emperor President doesn’t want his son scampering around the universe without protection. It can get dangerous, you know,” Devon says in a very reasonable tone. “Thank goodness, things should be safer on this planet than back home.”

  Emperor President?

  I glance over at Griffin, who has fished a device from his pocket that looks like a phone except it’s completely round. His fingers fly over the screen, as if he’s texting someone.

  “So he’s a prince or something?” I ask.

  “Griffin? Of course!”

  We leave it at this because, apparently, Devon can’t believe I wouldn’t know that, and I have no idea how I could have known such a thing. All I see is a weird little man in an awful purple sweater. And those sunglasses, which he still hasn’t removed.

  Their hotel
is quite swanky, complete with a huge lobby that contains enough chandeliers to deck out the Titanic. We’re ushered into an elevator and escorted up to what might as well be the wing of a castle for all the rooms and fancy furnishings it has. I’ve only seen rooms like this in movies and magazine articles about my favorite rock stars.

  “Wow,” I say. “Do you have a bunch of cursed candelabra and clock servants, too? Singing plates? Champagne?”

  Griffin marches over to me. “You have singing plates here? I haven’t seen any singing plates. Where are they? Why don’t I have them?”

  “No. I’m just making a Disney movie reference.”

  “Disney! Oh, I’ve heard of him.” Griffin shrugs and walks away, having clearly lost interest in me.

  Devon disappears into one of the rooms very briefly and returns wearing a jacket over his spiffy white dress shirt and black slacks. He looks quite streamlined compared to Griffin, who is still a purple fluff ball on two legs, sorting feverishly through his bags and boxes for something to wear.

  “Griffin, we need to leave,” Dev says.

  “Yeah, yeah, but I’ve not found a bloody thing to wear. I’m not going to walk into Mr. Chow looking like some kind of wanker.”

  “Daisy, might you help him? Otherwise, we’ll be here all night. I’m hungry,” Devon says, placing a hand on my arm and pushing me toward Griffin.

  Come to think of it, I’m hungry as well. Starving to be honest. My stomach has been growling for quite some time, but I’ve ignored it in favor of taking in all the weirdness happening around me. I push Griffin aside, crouch down, and dig around a bit until I can find something suitable for a dinner at a famous restaurant, namely a pair of slim-fit black pants, that slate-colored shirt, and black jacket with little epaulets on the shoulders.

  “That’s not enough color!” Griffin says, pointing at the clothes I’m holding.

  “Do you want to eat at Mr. Chow or not? You won’t look like you belong if you don’t wear this. Trust me, I’m a… a human,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster. “Besides, this will look really good on you. The jacket made your shoulders look nice.”

  He huffs a bit but accepts the clothes and changes into them right in front of me, unceremoniously throwing his other clothes aside, most of them at my feet. When he’s finished redressing, he looks quite good, other than still wearing those silly sunglasses.

  Without thinking, I step forward and pull the sunglasses away from his face. One of his hands moves, at lightning speed, clamping over my wrist, but he only prevents me from tossing the glasses aside. I’ve already taken them off his face and seen what he’s been hiding all this time.

  His blue eyes glow bright with something that’s immediately, inescapably, not human.