Stellar Proportions (Cosmic Soul Mates)

by Jeanette Lynn

  “You ok, baby? Down the wrong tube?”

  His body started jerking, like he was having a seizure and I knew he was guffawing into the napkin.

  Neyenn just stared at us, face still fuscia. Except, now, all the veins were sticking out in his neck and forehead. Wow. Who knew your face could look like that? He made a strangled choking sound and started spluttering, like he was trying to say something and just couldn’t spit it out. Just when I thought our ruse would be had, Muna came to the rescue.

  “Oh, Mol dear, have you seen Jaye?” she asked, looking around, “There’s someone I’m just dying for him to meet!” she said and started peering around me, as if he was hiding behind me. Neyenn had made a hasty retreat as soon as he’d spotted his mother approaching the table, and Jaye had somehow pulled a ‘Houdini’.

  “Uh, sorry. No, Mrs.‘H’. Haven’t seen him,” I smiled.

  “Well, okay,” she sighed. “Hun?” she asked and I looked at her expectantly. “If you do see my wayward son, could you tell him his Mama’s looking for him, hmm?”

  I saluted her and smiled cheekily, “Yes Mam, can do.”

  She snorted and waved a hand at me as she walked away. I picked up my drink, took a sip, and glanced around the room, taking it all in.

  It looked like somebody went a little overboard on the décor. I blame Auntie Nona. The woman has, absolutely, no fashion sense at all. Nona once paired up puke green petal pushers with a baby pink ruffle trimmed top and to top it all off, a bright orange poncho. Yeah, that combo couldn’t look good on anyone, but even worse for someone with blue skin. She looked like someone ‘tasted the rainbow’ and then puked it up in her general direction.

  As far as the wedding décor went, I would have drawn the line when someone decided on sexually explicit ice sculptures. I mean one of them looked as if he was peeing into the champagne glasses…At least the color of the champagne matched the color of the man’s natural flow, right?…it was a little off putting…And some of the positions the statues were in.. I really can’t tell if they are even physically possible.

  I tilted my head to the side, as if to get a better look at the angle they were positioned in. I was distracted from my rather disturbing thoughts by a slight feeling on my left leg. It almost felt like something was crawling on me. I shook my foot and crossed my legs, hoping it was just an itch or something.

  There it was again. A weird tickling like sensation. Oh, my god! If it’s a big hairy spider, I know I’m going to make a fool out of myself. I can’t stand spiders, they give me the heebie jeebies. I was starting to get antsy about it. I was seconds away from jumping up from the table and doing my own version of the ‘pee pee’ dance, when Jaye’s cousin, Tawn, came up to the table.

  She was escorted by her, very pink colored husband, Ponne. Ponne wasn’t pink, as in human flesh pink…Ponne was pink ‘pink’, like the crayon. He’s a Cardanian. A seven foot, heavily muscled, six fingered, four armed, two legged being. He has no body hair and a large Mohawk like ridge along the top of his head, that runs down the length of his spine.

  “Hey Pinkysaurus!” I told Ponne. “How’s my favorite, Cardanian, dude today?” Tawn threw her head back and laughed and then elbowed Ponne in his side. Ponne just shook his head at us.

  He smiled down adoringly at his, much shorter, other half. He pulled her into the crook of his arm, snuggling her a little closer, for a cuddle. Tawn gazed back at him with the same besotted expression. They looked so happy, it made me want to puke. It made me want to tell them to ‘get a room’. And.. if I’m being totally honest with myself… it made me a little envious, made me want that too. The looks, the love, the cuddling. Everyone needs a good cuddle every now and again right?

  “Pinkysaurus, huh? I’m going to have to remember that one.” She looked up at Ponne again and then turned back to grin at me. “You’re such a goof Mol, I love it.” She gave me that big Tawn smile. The one only she could possess. She’s always so happy and bubbly, I swear she craps rainbows. Her grin developed a mischievous tilt to it, “Don’t ever change ‘Mollywog’.” I groaned and then gave her the 'look'.

  “I can still noogie you, you know. Bride or no bride.” I glowered at her. “I hate that name,” I muttered and Tawn laughed again. Then she turned towards a puzzled Ponne and she explained to him how Neyenn always came up with ridiculous nicknames for me, throughout our childhood, to better mock me with.

  ‘Mollywog’ was born when our families were vacationing on Bermuda’s Bowe (a planet known for it’s excellent weather and ‘Earth I’ like environment. A popular vacation destination) and he pushed me and Marty Fellman into a creek. Jaye and I turned fourteen that summer, Neyenn sixteen.

  Neyenn had said he’d read somewhere that tadpoles turned into toads and he was just giving us a step in the right direction. I had fallen into the more shallow area of the creek. You know, the part where it’s all muddy and smells awful. Yeah, that part of the creek.

  I got him back, though. I bid my time until the perfect opportunity presented itself, which ended up being the following summer. I waited, patiently, until we went back to the same creek to camp again. Jaye distracted his big brother, while I switched out his sun block with tanning lotion. We waited, anxiously, until he fell asleep and I wrote on his chest. Jaye, of course, stood watch. I used that one sun block they came out with a century or two ago. The one that doesn’t wash off for two days, no matter what. It’s kind of expensive, but it was worth every penny.

  Neyenn wasn’t too happy when he realized his chest said ‘I have blue balls’.

  If only he knew his back had said ‘wanna see them?’ Our mothers had thought it was best he didn’t know about that little tidbit. It was a wise decision on their part, considering how pissed off he’d been about the whole ‘blue balls’ thing.

  Who knew an ice chest could be chucked that far?

  Tawn chatted with me for a few more minutes, thanked me for coming, and then continued on to the next table, so they could make their rounds. She practically floated from table to table, her new husband in tow.

  Weddings, cakes and big mistakes

  I sat at my table, contentedly, and ate one of my Rellian cakes in peace. I’m happy to just sit back and watch other people doing their thing. I’m not a fan of being the center of attention. I like to blend in and be the observer if and when the drama unfolds.

  You wouldn’t think so, with some of the fiascos that have gone down throughout the years, particularly Neyenn, the ‘blue toned gorilla’, related ones, but it’s true. I’m also not going to back down in an argument, especially when I’m right. Even if it means making a spectacle of myself.

  There was that darn tickly sensation again. Almost as if something was crawling on my exposed skin or brushing by it. I shivered and shifted again. This time I uncrossed my legs, tucked them under my chair and crossed them at the ankles. There, that seemed to fix it.

  Tawn’s best friend, Mags, came walking up to my table. She had a plate made up similarly to the one I’d made up earlier. That is, before it became a mixed up geriatric concoction.

  “Hey ‘Molly Olly Oxen Free’ How goes it?” she said, then plopped her plate down on the table and bounced into the seat next to me.

  “I heard there were Rellian cakes… but have yet to see one,” she said then sighed. I scooted my last cake toward her and nudged her.

  “You don’t have to thank me,” I said as she fist pumped the air over her score. “Just name your first born after me and it’s all good.”

  She stopped as she was about to fork up her first bite. She looked at me and then back at the cake, fork poised above her prize.

  “Deal!” she said enthusiastically and we laughed. “But, if it’s a ‘he’, I’m shortening it to ‘Mo’.” I chuckled at that and listened as Mags filled me in on what she’d been up to since we’d last seen each other.

  Mags was a human, like me. Her parents weren‘t from ‘Earth I’, like mine were, but came from a sister planet a cou
ple of moon jumps over. Where my hair was wavy, long and brown, Mags hair was red, mid length and if I had to guess... well, I would say her hair was confused. The poor red mass didn’t know whether it wanted to be stick straight or curly. When her hair was down and unstyled, it gave her a wild, untamed look.

  Today, it seemed, she’d managed to tame the red mass into cute corkscrew curls that cascaded over her shoulders and part of the way down her back. To finish it off, she had side swept bangs.

  Mags and Tawn had lived in the same solar system growing up. Whenever Tawn came over, during school break, to visit with Jaye’s family, Tawn always brought Mags with her. Those two were practically joined at the hip, a lot like me and Jaye were.

  “So, have you scoped out the ‘man candy’ yet? Any promising yummy prospects? I heard Ponne’s brothers, Marre and Perre, are single,” Mags waggled her eyebrows suggestively as she said it and I snorted at her and gave her a funny look.

  “Yup, they sure are. Those two are looking for that one, special, little lady to make their every wish come true,” I said and waited a moment for what I had just said to sink in. I'm guessing she didn’t get it though, she always came across as sweet and innocent, in that aspect, but you never know...

  She brightened up at that exclaiming, “Wouldn’t that be perfect though Mol? Twins…”

  Huh? Maybe she did and she get it? Who would have thought crazy beans little Magenta would be into that kind of thing… but hey! To each their own. I say ‘Go Mags!’

  “I mean we could totally double date and if it leads to something more, we could be sister in laws!” she said excitedly. Oh, boy, guess she didn’t. I mentally kicked myself and prepared to burst her bubble.

  Hhmm... What was that? I cocked my head to the side and paused for a moment, listening intently. I could have sworn I heard, what sounded like, a muffled snicker. I must be really tired, I thought to myself, now I’m hearing things.

  “Uhm… Mags?” “Hhhmmm,” she said and I knew she was only half listening to me. Mags had that faraway look on her face and her head was bobbing absently, back and forth, to the music they were playing.

  It sounded like one of those pop songs my mom loves, from the nineteen eighties. It was kinda catchy. I, unconsciously, bopped my head along for a minute or two with the song and then remembered what I was supposed to be doing.

  ‘Focus Mol!’ I scolded myself. I clapped my hands in front of Mags face to get her attention. She popped up startled and looked at me. Her eyes were wide and it looked as if I had her complete and utter attention now.

  “Sorry,” I said apologetically, “Thought I’d lost ya there for a moment.”

  “Well what gives?” she said impatiently, “Spill it Mol, I was day dreaming over here.”

  “Marre and Perre are looking for a woman to share for a mate. Those two, plus one woman, you know?” I blurted in a rush. It all sounded like one big word.

  “Oh,” She paused for a moment and then, “Oooohhh,” as understanding dawned on her.

  “Scratch that. Not for me,” she said and sing-songed the last part along to the beat of the music. I laughed.

  Darnit! There went that noise again. I glanced around, surreptitiously, hoping to pin point were the sound was emitting from. I looked down and noticed, what looked like, the tip of a shoe peeking out from under the table.

  I motioned silently at Mags, so she could see what I'd noticed. I put my finger to my lips in a ‘shh’ motion, pantomimed myself peeking under the table, and for her to keep talking. Mags did a great job talking about nothing as I very slowly lifted up the bottom hem of the table cloth. A very familiar, very dear, pair of blue finger tips caught my eye first. That brat! So that’s were he ran off to.

  Hhhmmm. He thought he could hide out under there all night and live vicariously through my conversations, eh?

  “Hey Mags?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m gonna tell you something…”I said trailing off in a mock whisper.

  “But you have to promise not to tell anyone okay?” I motioned down under the table and she grinned, comprehension lighting her face.

  “K,” she said.

  “Not even Jaye. No one can know alright?”

  “Cross my heart,” she said in a terrible imitation of a southern belle.

  “I think I’m in love with Neyenn.”

  Mags smacked her hand over her mouth, in a poor attempt to cover up her hoot of laughter, at my proclamation. Luckily, the exact moment her muffled hoot made an appearance, there was a loud ‘thunk’ and our table lifted, with said ‘thunk’, and tilted precariously. It tottered for a moment and then fell back down to it’s original position.

  Jaye jumped out from his little ‘hiding spot’ and towered over me. He pointed his finger at me accusingly, his mouth agape.

  “How could You!?” he gasped. His other hand slapped against his chest, where his heart was, supposed to be, and he staggered back a little. The overzealous Rellian leaned against the table behind him and took big heaving breaths, acting as if he had just run a marathon. In all actuality, he reminded me of a big assed blue bellows. And the academy award goes to……

  “How…how,” he said between gasps, “…how could YOU!”

  Mags was staring at Jaye, as if she didn’t know whether to applaud his performance or record it and put it on the internet. She had that look, you know 'the look', the look people get on their face when they know they’re witnessing a ‘hot mess’.

  “WAIT! there’s only one reason you would ever, ‘magically’, love Neyenn,” he exclaimed and narrowed his eyes at me.

  “He seduced you, didn’t he?!!” he said, yelling the last part and I started to tell him we were just messing with him, but the big, purple at this point, dunder head cut me off when I started to explain.

  “You two were playing ‘hide the salami’ weren’t you?! I‘ll kill him!” he ranted, shoving his hands into his long, powder blue, hair, pulling it up and pulling his hands through it. Add to that the wild look in his eyes and all he needed was a mustache to look like a blue Albert Einstein on crack.

  “He showed you his blue iguanodon and you were putty in his dinner plate sized hands, weren’t you! I‘ll gut him, stuff him and kill him!!!?” He started pacing back and forth between our table and the one he’d been leaning on.

  “Ok… maybe not in that order…. but you get the picture!” he said and raised his hand high on the last bit, his pointer finger extended in a ‘hear hear’ type motion, as if to say, ‘so there’. He started muttering to himself incoherently and I was thankful at that moment that I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  “Wait! Whoa there treasure troll! You got it all wrong… it was a joke! Just a joke ..so chill bill!”

  He stopped mid pace and faced me again. His brows furrowed and he crossed the rest of the way to the chair next to me, on the opposite side of Mags. He sat down, scooted the chair forward until our knees touched and then put my hands in his gently.

  “You know you can tell me anything don’t you Mol?” he said and softly gave my hands a squeeze. His voice was low and gentle as he said it, as if I might break. Tears pricked at my eyes at the sentiment.

  “Oh you are such a dork,” I laughed lightly.

  “A wonderful, misguided, dramatic dork. But, yes a dork, none the less. It was a joke Jaye. Just a joke, for hiding under the table and eavesdropping. Seriously,” I smiled at him and the tension started to drain out of him. It was like watching a balloon deflate.

  They made an announcement over the mic that they needed everyone to please come over to the stage area. I gripped his cheeks in a bruising pinch and squeezed the crap out of them, shaking his head at the same time.

  I released his cheeks and popped up out of my chair and backed up really quick, blew him an air kiss and winked at him.

  “Bestest friend ever ‘Jayeleebean’! ” I shouted as I ran off in the direction of the stage, arm in arm with Mags, giggling like loons the whole way.
/>
  Oh, brother, where art thhh... Owe!

  Neyenn

  “What was that all about?” I asked Jaye as I walked up to him. I motioned towards Mol and Magenta as they skipped towards the stage, arm in arm, cackling like hyenas. I shook my head in bafflement. Those two chickies were odd ducks. I’ve never understood them and I don’t think I'm about to be enlightened any time soon. However, if something funny happened, at any of their expenses, I’m all for being in the ‘know’. I could use a good laugh right now, I thought irritably. I pulled myself from my thoughts and glanced back at my baby brother.

  Jaye’s eyes were narrowed at me and he was glaring. Little brother, finally, noticed I’d picked up on the ‘stink eye’ he was giving me and blanked his face. Jaye then adopted a bored expression.

  “Oh nothing’ ..nothing.. nothing at all…..there’s nothing ya wanna tell me, is there big brother?” Jaye asked, studying his hands as he answered my question from a few moment ago and asking his own.

  “Is there nothing you’ve been uh..” cough, cough, “doing, that you think I should know? Or something ….with something…. or someone, that you’ve been wanting to get off your chest?”

  The intense look came back and he kept studying my face, as if he was looking for something in my expression…like my face held unspoken answers to his oddly phrased inquisition.

  My blue eyebrows winged upward at that. What the heck was Jaye getting at.

  “You didn’t set your drink down and walk away from it again did you?”

  “That was one time! Will you people never let me live it down!” He flapped his arms in an exasperated motion.

  What an idiot…how are we related again?

  “How was I supposed to know Nona spiked it with Rellian fire liquor. It’s odorless and if you're not paying attention, you wouldn’t even notice the taste!” he said defensively.