Date Night on Union Station (15 page)

“Wow,” was all Kelly could say. “I mean, thank you. Can you imagine the odds of us meeting here fourteen years later?”

“Got to be better than one in a hundred million, or it couldn’t have happened,” Joe ventured. “At least, that’s the rule I always use for buying lottery tickets.”

After that, they drank two rounds of expensive bottled beer, but Kelly couldn’t focus on the conversation. She just sat staring at Joe, alternating between his face and his hands, and thinking about those few minutes of terror that encompassed her experience of war. Before she knew it, Joe had insisted on paying the check, and they found themselves standing outside the Burger Bar. Kelly willed herself back into the present.

“This was nice Joe. I have to admit that I feel a little funny about how things turned out, but I’d really like to see that ice harvester of yours sometime.”

“Hey, why not come take a look now? No point putting off until tomorrow what we can do tonight.”

Kelly hesitated for a moment, but she could have sworn that she heard both her mother and Libby yelling in her implants to just say “Yes.”

“Yes, that sounds nice.”

They were strolling slowly towards the tube lift, oddly nervous in each other’s company, when they encountered Blythe and Chastity. The girls were tricked out in dazzling white flower girl dresses and were holding matching bouquets. They were also facing opposite directions and straining their eyes up and down the corridor.

As Joe dug in his pocket for change without being asked, Kelly inquired, “What are you girls doing now?”

“Hi, Aunty Kelly. Did either of you see a lady run by in white dress with the train dragging and a man in a suit chasing her?” Blythe asked.

“No, I don’t think we did.” Kelly looked to Joe for confirmation, and he shook his head in the negative. “What are you up to?”

“A couple we sold flowers to last week told us they were getting married and asked to hire us as the flower girls to be in the wedding pictures,” Chastity explained.

“So we thought it would be a great new business opportunity, and we bought these dresses and made up the special bouquets and everything,” Blythe sounded increasingly upset.

“But when they got to the ‘Do you take this man,’ part, the lady said she felt sick, and then she took off running with the man right behind,” Chastity blurted.

“And we never got paid!” Blythe stamped her foot. “We’ll never be able to sell flowers on the corridors in these dresses, they’re useless. We look like rich girls!”

“And nobody would want to buy a fancy bouquet like this for just a date,” Chastity sniffed, with a teary edge in her voice.

“I’ll take a bouquet,” Joe offered generously. “Uh, how much are they?”

“It’s two creds for a bouquet, but we’ll let you have them both for four since you’re our best customer,” Blythe offered.

“What is he going to do with two bouquets?” Kelly asked, drawing a look of betrayal from Blythe.

“You could get married!” Chastity exclaimed. “We’ll even be the flower girls, and you can take pictures with us for free.”

Kelly shook her head at the girl’s nutty scheme and turned with a broad smile to share the joke with Joe, but he seemed to be lost in thought.

“Now that’s a proposition you don’t hear every day,” intoned a low, melodious voice. They all turned to see a hefty man with giant sideburns, who was dressed in a skin-tight white sequined outfit, open at the neck. He held an old-fashioned microphone in one hand.

“I’ll tell you nice folks what,” the Elvis impersonator continued like he was singing a ballad. “You help these nice little girls out by getting hitched, and I’ll do the ceremony for half price. We had a sudden cancellation earlier so I’ve got a free slot.”

“Half price!” Blyth grabbed Kelly’s hand and began pulling her into the Elvis Chapel.

“She’s really nice,” Chastity encouraged Joe while tugging on his arm. “And if you have a baby boy you don’t want to keep, we’ll buy him from you. We’ve been saving up forever.”

Joe looked at Kelly and cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve got more sense than to imagine I can do any better, and if it doesn’t work out, the ice harvester is big enough that we won’t be in each other’s hair. Will you be my wife before I lose the courage to try?”

“I can’t believe this is happening!” Kelly looked around wildly for an escape route, but Blythe had a death grip on her fingers, and the imported beer had kicked in and was making her head spin. Hold on to that as an excuse, she told herself as she gave in to the insanity, not sure whether to laugh or cry. “But what about guests? Can’t I even have time to invite your parents?”

“You’ll send them a picture, it’s better,” Blythe stated with finality. Maintaining a firm grip on Kelly’s hand, she guided her to the guitar-shaped altar. “Just think of all the money you’re saving by not having to feed a lot of guests.”

Chastity installed Joe in the groom spot and the Elvis impersonator launched into “Love Me Tender.” Kelly blacked out for a moment, but suddenly she heard Joe answering, “I do.”

As if in a dream, Elvis turned to her and asked, “Do you, Aunty Kelly, take Joe to be your husband? Do you promise to be true to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love him and honor him all the days of your life?”

“I do,” Kelly answered softly, but then she snapped back into the present and grabbed Elvis by the collar. “No, wait! This isn’t right.”

“Too late,” the impersonator drawled and turned to Joe, whose face had fallen with Kelly’s sudden change of heart. “That will be thirty creds with the marriage certificate, twenty creds if you want to skip it and take your chances that she’ll remember when she’s sober.”

“I guess I better get it in writing,” Joe replied sadly, extracting thirty creds from his various pockets.

“No, you don’t understand, you have to ask me again. My name is Kelly Frank, not Aunty Kelly,” she explained while glaring at Blythe.

“How was I supposed to know that?” Blythe looked at her suspiciously, as if Kelly was trying to pull a fast one. “Anyway, next time Elvis asks you for your name, you should tell him yourself.”

“I can fix it in postproduction,” the Elvis impersonator assured everybody. But seeing Kelly’s disappointed look, he sighed and took her hand, placing it back in Joe’s even as he accepted the money in exchange.

“Do you, Kelly Frank, take Joe to be your husband? Do you promise to be true to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love him and honor him all the days of your life?”

“I do,” Kelly answered a second time.

“Then, by the power vested in me by the Stryx of Union Station, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Please fill in your names and sign the certificate.”

Joe stepped close to Kelly and tilted her face up in his calloused hands, and she felt her knees weaken as they bumped noses maneuvering for their first kiss. “I never forgot your eyes,” Joe murmured as he nuzzled her ear, much to the disgust of the girls who wanted to hurry up and take pictures. “It just took me a while to recognize you with all that hair.”

“I can cut it off again,” she offered drowsily. “The last time a wigmaker paid me enough to get me out of debt for almost a month.”

A chime sounded in her ear and the message “Collect call from mother,” materialized before her eyes. Kelly thought about it for almost a half a second before she refused to accept the charges.

Date Night now has a sequel!

So many readers wanted to know what happens to Kelly and Joe, not to mention all of the aliens, that I put everything else aside and wrote a sequel -
Alien Night on Union Station
. It picks up five years after the events of Date Night, where we find Kelly has several new diplomatic puzzles to solve.

About the Author

E. M. Foner lives in Northampton, MA with an imaginary German Shepherd who’s been trained to bite bankers. The author welcomes reader comments at [email protected].