“I hope so.” I sighed.
She crumpled her napkin, her hand trembling. “They said they would cut off my head.”
With a spike of compassion, I patted her arm. “They say a lot of nasty things. But sooner or later, they must realize we have no money to give them.”
She sniffled and took a bite of her gyro. I ate mine, too, in silence.
“Jason believes there are some legal steps I can take,” she said after a little while.
“Who’s Jason?”
She perked up. “Jason Moore. He’s running for senate next year. Huge prospects.”
“Is he one of the guys you’ve been dating?”
She nodded, brushing a long strand of hair behind her ear. It was blonde, just like mine, only Mara’s was much better styled, of course.
“With him, it’s getting serious, though.” Her eyes lit up with hope. “I think he may propose soon.”
“Congratulations,” I said flatly.
It was hard to muster any excitement—another man with “huge prospects.” We’d been there before.
“Anyway,” she sounded enthusiastic, “I have a proposition for you.”
“What kind?” I asked suspiciously. Historically, all of Mara’s ideas had been largely self-serving.
“Two months ago, I applied for a marriage program,” she said.
“What?” I did not expect that. “Like a dating app?”
“Not really. It comes with a bit more commitment than just dating. You practically need to stay with the guy for a year before you can leave.”
I blinked at her. “Is that even legal? Why on earth would you agree to something like that?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “To get off planet, of course. Away from the mafia and their threats. To save my fucking head, Susanna.”
“Off planet?” It dawned on me. “Please tell me you’re not talking about one of those alien wife recruitment things?”
“Why not? What’s so bad about marrying some powerful alien dude and jettisoning off to another planet where no thugs would ever find you?”
“Well, if you put it that way...”
It sounded tempting, to leave not just this city or this country but the entire freaking planet. Talk about a new start!
Except that it came with yet another man attached.
“Think about it,” Mara continued, her enthusiasm building with every word. “No more looking over your shoulder. No more fear. No struggle, no working two jobs just to make ends meet.”
“That’d be nice...” I brought my gyro up for another bite, then stopped, staring at her. “Wait a minute. Are you talking about me?”
She chomped at her gyro with the energy of biting someone's head off. “They matched me with one—”
“But you don’t like him?”
That wouldn’t be surprising; my sister wasn’t easy to please. Her list of requirements for a man wasn’t long, but it was very specific.
She threw her hands up in the air dramatically, half-eaten gyro clutched in one.
“Susanna, you have no idea. The guy is from Aldrai!”
Aldrai was one of the four populated planets Earth had made contact with in the past few years. Neron, Tragul, and Ivodi were the other three.
“So?” I shook my head.
“Have you seen the Aldraians? They’re ugly as sin! The horns, the bumps...” She shuddered. “They say they have tails too. Only those must be the most disgusting things ever, since they hide them all the time.”
“Why did you apply, then?” I shrugged. “You knew what they looked like, didn’t you?”
She rolled her eyes again, then tossed her unfinished food into a nearby trash can, landing a perfect hit. I couldn't help but admire her aim.
“Besides,” I added. “You should be able to either accept or decline a match. If you don’t like him, say you don’t want him. Swipe left, or whatever they do for that.”
She hung her head between her shoulders. “Yeah, well... I already accepted it. A month ago, right when they matched me.”
I stopped chewing my very delicious lunch to stare at her in shock. “Why?”
Mara leaped to her feet, clearly agitated. “I was scared, okay?” She plopped back on the bench next to me again. “I wanted to get out. I didn’t even read the info they sent me about him. Besides, things weren’t going that well with Jason back then. I didn’t care.”
That was so typical for my sister, doing whatever she wished at any given moment without thinking about the consequences.
“But now you care?”
She made a face at me, as if I were the one forcing the unwanted alien on her. “Things have changed. Jason is about to propose. If I leave, I’ll mess it up between us.”
“The mafia may get to you before Jason makes up his mind, you know,” I pointed out.
She winced, drawing the ends of her coat closer together around her.
“They’ve kind of cooled off a bit, don't you think? I haven’t seen anyone following me lately.”
I hadn’t been approached by anyone for a while, either. That didn’t mean we hadn’t been watched. Either that, or I’d been growing insane with paranoia. Living in constant fear sucked.
“Well, at least you have a chance to leave, now,” I told her.
“No!” she yelled, as if I’d slapped her. “I can’t possibly marry this alien guy.”
“Why not? Just because of how he looks?” I knew my sister preferred handsome men, but she could be persuaded to overlook the flaws in a man’s appearance if he had some valuable assets, like yachts or private jets.
“Susanna, he’s some kind of truck driver!” she said dramatically, as if revealing to me that her match was a serial killer.
“Okay. But that could’ve been expected, couldn’t it? I would imagine people of all walks of life would apply.”
She wrung her hands, shaking her head.
“It’s just my luck. The first human woman who participated in the program was matched with a Voranian from the planet Neron.”
“Do you find Voranians more attractive than Aldraians?”
She curled her lips in disgust. “What? No. Voranians look like goats. Ravils are cute, but their planet, Tragul, doesn’t have a marriage program with us.” She heaved a heavy breath. “Ivodians are pretty good-looking too. But there has only been one Ivodian ship that came here for brides, and who knows when the next one would arrive. Anyway, that first woman from Earth got married to the head guy of the entire Voranian Army. She’s like a celebrity in Voran now. And what do I get? A farmer! How unfair is that?”
“You said he was a truck driver.” I finished my gyro and sighed, wishing it’d lasted longer.
“Same difference,” she dismissed. “It states in his application he’s a captain. I thought that meant he’d be a captain of a plane or a spaceship—”
“On spaceships, they call them commanders, I think.” I opened my bottle of water and took a drink.
“Well, he drives some kind of machine they use to...” she waved both hands over the pavement, “...to turn dirt or something. Apparently, that qualifies him to call himself a captain.” She sounded exasperated. “He drives a tractor for a living, Susanna. How can I possibly marry him? Me, Mara Takolsky! Dad would roll over in his grave if he knew.”
Dad must’ve rolled a few times by now, from the moment his beloved protégé Tom turned out to be a thief and scoundrel, to all our possessions being sold at auction to cover some of the debt Tom and Jim had made in my and Mara’s names.
“I can’t be a farmer’s wife!” Mara wailed. “I can’t spend the rest of my life wearing housecoats, milking alien chickens, and taking care of his bratty kids.”
“He has children?”
She faced me, her eyes wide in horror. “Four of them! Imagine that.” She shook her head with another shudder. “It could be worse, I suppose, since Aldraian marriages are super prolific. They say they get like a dozen babies from each pregnancy.”
“Why does he only have four, then?”
“I don’t know. Who cares? Just be happy it’s not twelve,” she groaned, rubbing her forehead.
It definitely didn’t sound like the lifestyle Mara would fit into. I felt sorry for her. But even more so, I felt sorry for the poor alien guy who would have to deal with her displeasure if she ever came to his planet.
“Can you get out of this?” I asked.
She looked outright miserable when she said, “No, I signed all the papers already.”
“Because you believed him being a captain meant something more exciting than driving a truck?” I wasn’t impressed with her lack of responsibility. Though, it didn’t surprise me, either.
She pursed her lips as her chin trembled. “At the very least, I’d hoped that captain was a rank in the army. That he lived in the city. But Aldraians don’t have any real cities. Even their capital looks like a bunch of hills.” She sobbed, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. “He lives in the countryside. Imagine me out in the country? On a farm?” A real tear rolled down her cheek, soaking into her napkin. “He’s expecting me to board the ship to Aldrai next week.” She gazed at me imploringly. “Susanna, I just can’t do it...”