I got bored pretty quickly. My hands felt so empty without my cellphone, but that had fallen out somewhere before I arrived on the space ship. My cup was empty, there wasn’t a TV, not even a radio, and the aliens in the room were basically ignoring me. That part, at least, I was used to.

I had no choice but to speak up. Ugh; I hate small talk.

“Um, excuse me,” I said.

The three aliens spun around like they’d forgotten I was there. They probably had; I tend to blend into the background whenever possible. My family jokes that it’s a superpower and I should be called InvisiGirl. They’re so funny, you know?

“Um, do any of you speak English?”

Blank stares from the aliens.

I felt like a cartoon character, but I made gestures with my hands and spoke slowly. “Do you speak English?”

The waiter-man seemed to understand me. He did the fancy bowing again and said something in their language. Maybe he was apologizing?

I made some more gestures. “Can you bring someone who speaks English?”

The waiter looked puzzled, but the other man seemed to get my meaning. He said something to the other two, and a brief conversation followed. I felt left out again, but I reminded myself that they weren’t trying to be mean. Hadn’t the other man said they weren’t planning to bring me along with Willie Joe? Nobody likes a party-crasher.

The aliens finished talking, and the not-waiter man left the room. As he walked through the swoosh-opened door, the waiter-man said something. It sounded like a reminder, as if the other man had forgotten something important. My mom talked to me like that a lot.

The man in the doorway flinched and spun back around. He bowed to me and said something. Then he left, and the door swooshed closed behind him.

“Oh, um, bye,” I said. Yeah, I really hate small talk.

The waiter spoke to the woman and pointed at another doorway. She nodded and said something, probably, “Yes, sir,” and went through that doorway. That left me alone with the waiter, who stood still like he was waiting for something. Was he waiting for me to do something?

“So … What’s your name?”

He looked at me like he was trying to be polite but had no idea what I was saying. I was also used to that.

I pointed at myself. “I’m Patricia. Patricia.”

He bowed right away and said something that included my name. Then he placed his left hand over his throat and said something else. He repeated it carefully, so I guessed it was his name. I tried to pronounce it.

“Draxar … Velnor.”

He corrected my pronunciation twice before I was able to say it the way he wanted.

I pointed to myself again. “Call me Patty. Patty.”

“Pah-tee,” he said. I corrected him once before he got it right.

“Um, what’s her name?” I pointed to the doorway where the woman had gone.

Draxar understood right away and helped me learn her name: Xandria Vexon. The man who had left the room was Lyraan Zorilith.

I’ve never been good at remembering names, but I repeated these names to myself several times. Somehow, I thought I should really make an effort, especially since this was the weirdest possible situation I could be in. Have to earn points somehow, you know?

We stopped talking after that. What else could I say? We didn’t speak the same language, we didn’t know each other, and I doubt we had anything in common other than being on the same space ship. Could I ask for a laptop so I could work on the paper I had to turn in next week?

This was even more awkward than slow-dancing with Willie Joe, and he’d been grabbing my butt.

A little bit of panic starting growing in my chest. I was on a space ship, going away from Earth, with the only person I knew being kept somewhere away from me. And he wasn’t even human; he was just as alien as everyone else and now I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in my life.

A door opened, interrupting my freak-out with a swooshing sound. It was the inner door that the woman– Xandria had gone through. Sure enough, it was Xandria who came back into the room. I had a sudden thought that what if it had been someone else? That would be just as crazy as every other part of this night.

Xandria marched over to me and bowed. Her bow was a little different than Draxar’s had been, but she didn’t give me time to think about it. She said something and gestured to the room she had just come out of. She kept moving her hands, and I guessed that she wanted me to come with her.

“Ok, Xandria,” I said.

She looked surprised that I knew her name. For some reason, I felt embarrassed, so I looked down as I grabbed my skirt and tried to stand up. I didn’t wobble too badly, though Xandria reached out like she was going to help me.

“It’s ok, ” I said, feeling myself blush a bit.“I can do it.”

She looked like she wanted to argue, but Xandria nodded and gestured to the other room again. I nodded and started walking. My skirts swished around my legs, sounding loud in the quiet room. You’d think I would have been accustomed to awkward situations, but this was a brand-new kind of embarrassment for me. I just kept finding new ways to be the weird one, you know? 

Draxar bowed as I passed him and said something that included my name. I think it was a polite sort of “See you soon,” or something like that. I nodded like I understood him and walked to the doorway.