“Juliet,” Ana says, her features grave as she sits down beside me. It must be serious. She’s only wearing half of her usually dramatic makeup and doesn’t even have on her fake eyelashes. “We have to talk.”
But then she looks around and shakes her head. “This is too public. Come on, over here.” She grabs my elbow and drags me over to a more secluded table in the corner.
“Okay, okay, what’s this all about?”
Ana leans close, whispering. “I’d show you on my computer but they might trace the IP. There’s chatter, Juliet. A lot of chatter. I had to tell you and Giselle.”
“Let me guess, this chatter is on the dark web?”
Ana nods emphatically. “It’s the only place you can find the truth these days.”
It’s hard but I don’t roll my eyes. I try to support my friend. But I also know she can get fixated on ideas to the point of it being unhealthy for her.
“And what is the truth?” Might as well get out with it. Then Giselle and I can start doing damage control.
Ana leans even closer and her voice is barely audible as she whispers, “Aliens. Aliens are among us.”
I’m truly glad I didn’t just take a sip of my coffee because I’m pretty sure I would have just done a spit take.
“Aliens?” I choke out.
Ana waves her hand and shushes me. “God, Juliet, not so loud! They’ll hear you.”
Right then, Giselle arrives at the tables with drinks for her and Ana. “She tell you yet?”
“She told me.” Giselle and I make eye contact and I can tell from one look alone that Ana has been chattering her ear off all morning about this newest conspiracy theory.
Giselle is the beauty of our group. She’s tall, has a models lithe build, and is a natural blonde. She’s basically California royalty, too. Her parents are rich and she had it all growing up.
I have no idea how she didn’t turn out as the most rich, stuck up bitch in the universe. Maybe because she didn’t get rich until a little later in life, she was just thirteen when her mom married her stepdad. Either way, she’s always stayed grounded and is basically the best person I know. She even volunteers for charities and shit. And she does it because she actually feels empathy for the homeless or the whales or whatever or whoever it is she’s trying to save that day.
“Here,” Giselle says, handing Ana her drink. “It’s some soothing ginseng tea. It will calm your nerves.”
Ana glares at Giselle. “I don’t need any fucking tea. I need you two to believe me for once.”
Giselle and I share another look but Ana continues, oblivious.
“Where do you think the technology for the atmospheric filtering came from? We’ve been on a crash course with global warming for fifty years and all the sudden, out of the blue, we suddenly figure out how to filter greenhouse gases and repopulate our ozone layer? When everyone said it couldn’t be done?”
“We were just finally motivated enough,” Giselle says calmly.
But Ana just shakes her head. “What about the terraforming technology? We just happened onto an unknown technology that can turn deserts into forests? How do you explain that?”
I just stare at her. “You’ve heard them talking about it on TV. It’s stuff they been working on for decades. They just didn’t want to tell anyone in case it failed…”
“Because that makes so much sense,” Ana says sarcastically. “Everyone’s been in a panic for years. You think if they were developing something like this, the propaganda machine wouldn’t have been running at a thousand percent, blasting it from every news station and online?”
“Okay,” I reluctantly concede. “You might have a point there.”
Ana’s eyes light up so I quickly continue.
“But aliens?” I shake my head. “Sorry, Ana, but no way.”
I’m the realist of the group. When Giselle gets too head in the sky optimistic about being the change in the world and Ana is heading down another one of her rabbit holes, I’m the voice of reason.
Some people call it pessimism. I call it ‘wake the fuck up to reality before it kicks you in the face.’
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
“That is so ignorant,” Ana starts while I pull my phone out and check it. Robbie calling. I hit ignore and shove it back in my pocket.
Giselle doesn’t miss a thing. “Trouble in paradise?” she breaks into Ana’s rant.
I scoff and roll my eyes at her. “Hardly.”
“Why don’t you just dump that guy already?” Giselle asks, heavy concern in her voice. “You could do so much better.”
I lower my eyes to the table, then grab my coffee and take a swig. Giselle doesn’t understand me and Robbie, and that’s fine. This is the problem with getting too close. People start to expect in. And that’s just not…it’s just not an option for me right now.