It Came from the Sky

by Chelsea Sedoti

  I’d never been Cass’s only friend. She hung out with other people on weekends. She texted other people all day. But I always knew I came first. Cass said it was because deep down, no matter how much she might sometimes be the center of attention, she never really felt like she fit in. “Except with you,” she said once. “Like, people are always trying to find their place. And you’re it for me. You’re my place.”

  I’d never say anything so sappy to another person. I’d never even let someone know something so sappy had impacted me. But that was the great thing about Cass. In response, all I did was awkwardly shuffle my feet and fix my eyes on the horizon. And yet she knew everything I was trying to say.

  You see, Cass was my place too.

  And now, Arden was around. And maybe it was like adding another room to the cozy house Cass and I had created. But maybe not. Maybe it was like having an earthquake tear the house apart. Maybe Cass was finally going to realize how strange I was, how much easier it would be to have a different person as her best friend.

  I looked back and forth between them and something struck me. The feeling I had, the feeling that Cass and Arden were becoming a team that had no place for me, must be how Arden felt constantly. Every time she hung out with me and Cass. Every time she didn’t hang out with us but knew we were hanging out without her.

  A wave of guilt washed over me.

  And I suppose that was what made me offer something to Arden, a kernel of insight into my life.

  “I’m going on a date on Saturday,” I said during a lull in conversation.

  Arden’s face lit up. You’d think I’d just told her I’d been nominated for a Nobel Prize. “With Owen? Where are you going?”

  Cass raised her eyebrows.

  “Ah, actually, not with Owen.”

  Arden looked puzzled. Cass, less so. It occurred to me that Owen might have already told her about the situation.

  I explained, “It’s a blind date my mother set up. With the son of some myTality person.”

  Arden’s expression became even more confused. “How does Owen feel about that?”

  “Not great, I imagine,” Cass said.

  I gave her a long look. “You imagine, or you know?”

  Cass shrugged.

  “Cass,” I said, my voice rising.

  “Settle down, eager beaver. Owen and I don’t spend all our time talking about you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  It did worry me. I hated the thought of them talking about me. Cass knew me better than anyone, except maybe Ishmael. And Owen knew a different part of me than Cass did. I hated thinking of them comparing notes. Like by doing so they could put together a Gideon puzzle, make me into a complete person. Most certainly, it wouldn’t be one they particularly liked.

  “I wasn’t worried about that,” I lied.

  “You know what’s interesting about you, Gideon?” Arden said. “You hate the thought of people talking about you when you’re not around, but you also want to be famous for your sciencey stuff.”

  I opted to ignore that she’d called my work sciencey stuff. “All people are contradictions, Arden. That’s what makes them so unstable.”

  And frustrating.

  And terrifying.

  Give me rocks. Give me water or air. Give me elements that could be broken down into things that made sense. Things that would always be exactly what they seemed.

  “Okay,” Cass said. “This conversation is getting a bit heavy, and I can’t deal with that right now. Let’s talk about something fun. Gideon, are you excited for your date?”

  “That’s, perhaps, the least fun topic you could have chosen.”

  Cass grinned. “Not for me.”

  “Is the guy cute?” Arden asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Cass and Arden both leaned forward like I’d said something appalling.

  “How do you not know?” Cass asked.

  “It’s a blind date.”

  “Yeah,” Arden said. “But you didn’t look him up online?”

  “No.”

  “Trust me, he’s looked you up,” Cass said.

  “There wouldn’t be much to find.”

  I avoided social media like the plague. There were probably photos of me online somewhere—on my parents’ social media accounts, or Cass’s. But those weren’t attached to my name.

  “I wonder if that creeped him out,” Arden said. “Can you imagine looking up someone online and finding nothing?”

  “Personally, that would make me respect a person,” I said.

  Cass rolled her eyes.

  “What do you know about this guy?” Arden asked.

  “Not much. Mother knows his mother. She said he’s handsome, which, coming from her, could mean anything.”

  Cass swung around to the desk and turned on my computer. “Let’s look him up now.”

  “Let’s not.”

  “Come on. It’ll be fun,” Cass said.

  Arden nodded in agreement. “Aren’t you curious?”

  I wasn’t, for two reasons:

  1. There was more to a person than their looks.

  2. It wasn’t a real date anyway.

  “Please?” Cass said.

  “Pretty please?” Arden chimed in.

  I sighed. I supposed it wouldn’t hurt to do a quick search. I gestured to my laptop. “Fine.”

  “What’s his name?” Cass asked, pulling up a search engine.

  “Alex,” I said.

  Cass looked exasperated. “Um, are you aware of how the internet works? I need more than a first name.”

  “Spiro or Spiros or something like that.”

  Cass typed away. A second later she said, “Holy crap.”

  “What,” I asked, moving to peer over her shoulder. “Is he awful?”

  Then I saw the picture Cass was looking at. My stomach sank.

  My blind date was gorgeous. Not handsome-for-an-acne-riddled-teenager gorgeous. Not cutest-boy-in-school gorgeous. But model gorgeous.

  “Oh god,” I said in horror.

  “Oh god,” Arden breathed reverently.

  “Are you sure this isn’t an actor or model or something?” I asked.

  “His profile says he lives in Pittsburgh.”

  “There could be more than one Alex Spiros.”

  Cass scrolled through the pictures on his profile. Most of them were selfies. (Let the record state that, in my lifetime, I have taken exactly zero selfies.)

  “Not only is his name Alex Spiros, his hometown is Pittsburgh, and… Yep, here we go.”

  Cass stopped scrolling on a picture of Alex with a middle-aged woman, presumably his mother. She wore a myTality™ T-shirt.

  “Godammit,” I said.

  “How can you possibly be disappointed right now?” Cass asked. “This guy is hot.”

  “But look at the pictures,” Arden pointed out. “He’s at, like, clubs and concerts. Not exactly Gideon’s type.”

  “With looks like that, he’s everyone’s type,” Cass argued.

  Arden frowned and shook her head. “Gideon, you don’t need to like him just because he’s cute.”

  I sighed. “Thank you for that vote of confidence, Arden, but I’m not sure if me liking him is the issue we’re facing.”

  Cass made a huffing sound. “Don’t even go there.”

  I looked around dramatically. “Go where? Where am I going?”

  “That low-self-esteem crap.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me break this down for you. I do not have low self-esteem. I esteem myself just fine. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m objectively not attractive.”

  “See,” Cass said, “to me, that’s exactly what constitutes low self-esteem.”

  “It doesn’t matter to me, though,” I
said. “I genuinely don’t care if I’m attractive or not.”

  “How can you not care?” Arden asked, bewildered.

  Cass rolled her eyes for what must have been the twentieth time. “If you don’t care, why are you grumbling about this Alex guy being too good-looking for you? You have plenty to offer him. Yeah, he’s conventionally attractive. And no, you’re not exactly the underwear model type. But there are lots of different ways to be attractive.”

  “I guess.”

  “Look at me and Arden,” Cass said. “Do you agree that we have radically different looks?”

  I looked at Cass in her hippie costume and Arden hiding behind her hair.

  “Yes.”

  “Right,” Cass agreed, “but we’re both hot, aren’t we?”

  Arden’s face reddened. “Well, you are—”

  “Hey,” Cass interrupted. “That no self-deprecation rule goes for you too.”

  “You’re both beautiful,” I agreed. And I wasn’t just trying to pacify Cass. It occurred to me, in that moment, how seldom I actually looked at my friends. The same way I didn’t notice the woods surrounding my house or the lava lamp on Main Street. I was so used to seeing Arden and Cass that they’d become part of the landscape. But they were beautiful.

  “And you are too,” Cass said. “And you’re interesting. And ambitious. And unique. If Alex doesn’t like you, fuck him. But don’t for a minute think you don’t deserve to be on that date.”

  I smiled at Cass. “If I were the kind of person who believed in using physical affection to show gratitude, I’d hug you right now.”

  Cass snorted. “And if I were the kind of person who enjoyed backhanded compliments, I’d hug you back.”

  “Well, I do like hugs, and I love you both,” Arden said. And she pulled us together into an embrace.

  For once, I didn’t flinch away.

  Text Conversation

  Participants: Gideon Hofstadt, Owen Campbell

  GH: Will you please answer my calls?

  GH: I want to explain myself.

  GH: You know I’m not actually interested in this guy.

  GH: Owen, please?

  GH: You can’t avoid me forever.

  GH: Okay, you’re very talented, maybe you can.

  GH: Look, I’m sorry, okay? Maybe I didn’t make that clear, but I’m really, really sorry.

  OC: Does that mean you’re not going on the date?

  GH: Well…I can’t really back out now.

  OC: Stop texting me, Gideon.

  Event: Oswald’s Rally

  Date: Oct. 13 (Fri.)

  A sad fact of my life was that no one had to convince me to attend the rally J. Quincy Oswald held on Friday night. I had to keep tabs on him. You should always know what your nemesis has up his sleeve.

  My brother was neglecting to conduct his due diligence and instead went to a party at his friend Devin’s house. I knew better than to ask Father to help with anything involving Oswald, so I asked Cass for a ride instead.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said.

  That was how I ended up standing in a crowd of Seekers and myTality™ distributors, with Cass on one side of me and Arden on the other. Cass wore a shiny silver dress and tinsel laced through her hair.

  “The outfit is a bit much,” I told her.

  She glanced down, flexing a foot adorned in a sparkly, plastic shoe. “I’m going for a space-age look.”

  “I know what you’re going for.”

  “I can’t believe how many people are here,” Arden said, pulling into herself more, as if that would help her avoid the crowd. I didn’t blame her. Being surrounded by people on all sides always set off the panic sensors in my brain.

  Nearby, Arnie Hodges stood on his step stool and spoke to the people surrounding him, like he was Oswald’s opening act.

  “They want us to believe no alien spacecraft crashed in Roswell, New Mexico,” Hodges preached. “They want us to believe there aren’t alien corpses in freezer units at Area 51. They want us to believe Project Blue Book, a government study of UFO activity, never turned up evidence of alien life. But are we going to sit back idly and believe whatever they tell us?”

  “No!” shouted the crowd around him.

  Compared to the myTality™ distributors and Seekers, I saw only a few locals in the crowd: Adam Frykowski in his too-big suit, taking notes on a steno pad; a couple kids from school; some families I knew in passing; and Laser, standing outside Super Scoop, puffing on an e-cig and glaring at anyone who got too close.

  Our town had been completely taken over by outsiders. I’d never been fond of small-town life, but it was disorienting to suddenly not know most of the people wandering Lansburg’s streets.

  At five minutes past 7:00—fashionably late again—Oswald appeared in front of the crowd. He wasn’t on anything as unassuming as a step stool, like Hodges. No, Oswald towered over us on the observation platform that ran the circumference of the lava lamp. The stairs leading to the platform had been locked off for years and I wondered if he got permission to go up there or if he’d gone rogue.

  “People of Lansburg,” he drawled into a bullhorn. “Welcome.”

  The myTality™ distributors cheered enthusiastically, the Seekers slightly less so. Oswald let the applause wash over him, as if it was giving him fuel.

  “We come from different walks of life,” he said. “We’ve got unique hopes and dreams, battle individual demons. But tonight, we unite under one purpose. We’re here to unveil the mysteries of the cosmos and revel in the magnificent new gift humanity has been given.”

  “He sure has stage presence,” Cass said with admiration.

  “And he’s so handsome,” Arden breathed from my other side.

  I refused to acknowledge either statement.

  “Now I wanna tell you my story,” Oswald said.

  Many people in the crowd nodded eagerly.

  Oswald took a deep breath and cast his gaze around, conveying that he was sharing some great, personal secret. “When I was a boy, I was lost. I was lonely. I floated through my days without a plan.”

  More nods. Some sprinkled clapping.

  “Then one day, I woke. I realized the only person in charge of my destiny was me. If I wanted more from life, I had to reach out and take it, because no one was gonna hand it to me.”

  Well, I didn’t disagree with that.

  “You know what I did after that awakenin’? I studied. I saved money. I started a company that brought in over a million dollars in its first year alone.” The myTality™ distributors cheered. Oswald went on. “I took control. I changed my life. Now, my destiny belongs to no one but me!”

  Oswald paced back and forth on the observation deck giving his words a moment to sink in. The crowd was enthralled.

  After a perfectly timed pause, he raised the bullhorn again. His voice came out distorted but still had that powerful timbre that made people pay attention. “Now, I’ve told people this story, and you know what they’ve said? They’ve said, But Oz, I’m not as smart as you. They’ve said, I’m not as driven as you. They’ve said, I don’t know how to change.”

  He stopped and faced the crowd head-on again, looking solemn. “Tonight, I’m telling you the honest truth. I’m not smarter or savvier than anyone. I’m like each and every one of you, with one exception: I had help along the way.” He raised a finger and pointed at the sky. “I had an extraterrestrial influence.”

  The crowd went wild, distributors and Seekers alike. He’d hooked them all. Even Cass and Arden cheered along.

  “Could you please contain yourselves?” I asked them.

  Cass laughed, the tinsel in her hair sparkling in the glow of streetlamps. “If you want me to sit through this, you have to let me have fun.”

  Arden only shrugged, but there was no denying
the happy flush in her cheeks and the way her eyes shone.

  “I was visited by aliens,” Oswald preached. “And they told me there was a greater path for me. These Visitors gave me formulas for health products that could cleanse our bodies, and in doing so allow us to work toward spiritual enlightenment. But they also told me something bigger was coming. Something that would change the whole world and allow us to live in harmony with the universe.”

  The crowd seemed to take a collective breath, hanging on Oswald’s every word, waiting for this reveal.

  “And now, in this humble town, the Visitors have come again. They’ve made good on their promise,” Oswald said. “They’ve given me the fountain of youth.”

  The myTality™ distributors clapped and whooped with excitement. The Seekers and Lansburg locals were slightly more hesitant.

  “Imagine havin’ perfect health,” Oswald said. “Imagine never again feelin’ the restraints of time. Imagine knowin’ that the future stretched before you eternally and in that future you’d have the power to do anything you wanted to do, become anything you wanted to become.”

  Around me, people slowly nodded.

  “By combining ingredients found on Earth with others that come from the farthest bounds of the cosmos, I’m mixin’ up a product unlike anything our world’s seen before.” Oswald paused dramatically. “It’s called…the Elixir ETernia.”

  Transcript of Oct. 13 Radio Broadcast of Basin And Range Radio

  NASH: Live from the loneliest corner of the Mojave, you’re listening to Basin and Range Radio, where we keep an eye on the night sky. This is your host, Robert Nash. Tonight, we’re talking to a very special guest. Listeners, please welcome J. Quincy Oswald.

  OSWALD: Thanks, Rob. I’m thrilled to chat with you. And please, call me Oz.

  NASH: Now, Oz here has experienced direct contact with extraterrestrials. Why don’t you tell us about that?

  OSWALD: Most people know me as the founder of myTality, a successful line of health products. But don’t be fooled—I may not have spoken openly about the Visitors before now, but they’ve been present in my life.