Nanny for the Alien Lord by Tammy Walsh

Belle

I pressedagainst the front door with my back and gently leaned against it.

The wood was so warped it wouldn’t shut properly unless you knew the correct way to finesse it.

It could be especially temperamental on wet nights like this.

Abbie would be fast asleep by now and I had no intention of waking her.

Especially since she would be hungry for all the “juicy” details and wouldn’t leave off nagging until I told her every tiny little thing.

I shut my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief that at least I wouldn’t have to go through that rigmarole tonight.

Zev wasn’t a dangerous place, with crime rates far lower than back home, but who knew what kind of creatures might be lurking in the shadows, ready to spring on an unsuspecting female human?

I deposited the house keys in the little dish we kept on the side for such occasions and rolled my neck.

I luxuriated in the popping sounds.

The hall lights were bright and made the veins in my eyelids vivid.

Just as the spotlight had done at the ball.

When the announcer called for the sponsor of the event to step onto the stage, I cast around just as everyone else did, trying to find the elusive Choer billionaire…

Only for the spotlight to fall on Tauas!

Tauas!

Tauas Choer!

I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand.

Why hadn’t I realized before?

He was the talk of the town!

His business, a humble start-up, had exploded onto the intergalactic business scene, taking the galaxy by storm.

His company was on the cutting edge of robotic technology.

Everyone knew the name Tauas Choer.

Even me, with my head down, focused on work and earning as much as I could to support my sister.

But never in all those years had I seen him on a holo-TV talk show or his numerous cameo appearances in holo-movies I’d never watched.

Nor had I read any of the magazines that featured him blazoned on their covers.

Or any of the thousands of other ways I could have seen what he looked like.

What a fool he must have thought I was!

I probably amused him.

The only girl in the entire damn city who didn’t know who he was!

If I’d just paid a few seconds’ worth attention to the myriad of magazine covers, of the holo-TV shows…

Urgh!

What an idiot!

I removed my shoes and massaged my ankles.

They might look good but they were tortuous things.

What made me even more of a fool were the serious feelings I was beginning to harbor toward him.

To think one of the galaxy’s wealthiest billionaires would ever want to be with me.

I edged down the hall and turned into the front room.

I felt for the armrest of the chair and folded my coat over it.

“Have a good time?”

I spun toward the voice’s origin, my fear preventing me from recognizing who it was.

The corner lamp flicked on and blinded me after growing accustomed to the pitch darkness.

I yelped, hopped backward, tripped on the coffee table, and landed—painfully—on the hardwood floor.

The lamp illuminated Abbie perched in the corner.

She might have been trying to surprise me but she hadn’t meant for me to trip over and hurt myself.

Her face was a picture of concern and she wheeled over hurriedly.

“I’m sorry!” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

She leaned down and braced her arm on her wheelchair to help me up onto my feet.

“Yes, you did!” I said, dusting myself off. “You just thought I would be more surefooted!”

“I should have known better. You’re as graceful as a one-legged albatross.”

I scowled at her but my anger—mock though it was—didn’t last long.

We burst into laughter.

I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye.

“I’m getting a drink. Want one?”

“No. So? How was it?”

Abbie followed me into the kitchen.

So, I wouldn’t avoid the interrogation after all…

“Aren’t you going to tell me?” I said. “No doubt you’ve been up all night watching it on holo-TV.”

“Like a hawk! But I couldn’t see you anywhere! Didn’t the ticket work?”

I considered the story I would tell my sister all the way home.

That the ticket didn’t work?

If I said that, she’d ask where I’d been all night, and as I wasn’t exactly a party girl, I couldn’t think of a single place she would believe I might go.

Worse than that, to think she’d wasted so much on a faulty ticket would only lead to her being deeply disappointed.

“The ticket worked,” I said.

Abbie blinked in surprise.

“It did?”

I was taken aback by her surprise.

“You said you knew it was genuine because of the hologram.”

“Anybody can slap those things on it.”

My mouth fell open, shocked at this revelation.

“You didn’t think it was real and you dressed me up and sent me out there anyway? What were you thinking?”

Abbie shrugged.

“I figured it would make a good story to your kids one day.”

“I don’t have any kids.”

“You will one day. Besides, I figured there was a fifty percent chance the ticket was genuine—”

“How did you figure that?”

“It can either be real or fake. That’s fifty percent odds.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works—”

“Of course it is,” Abbie said with a wave of her hand to dismiss my concerns. “So? How was it?”

“It was… good,” I said, failing to conceal my smile.

Abbie wheeled over to our tiny two-person dining table and rested her hands on her palms, prepared to be enthralled.

“So, tell me what happened!”

“A bunch of celebrities turned up—”

Abigail squealed.

“Oooo! Anyone I know?”

“Everyone you know,” I said.

Other than my sister’s job as an at-home customer service representative, her only true enjoyment was reading celebrity magazines and watching celebrity shows—not so much for the celebrities, but the outfits and sparkling jewelry they wore.

I often wondered what Abigail would have become if the car accident that claimed our parents hadn’t also stolen her ability to walk.

She’d become a recluse since the accident and couldn’t force herself to leave the house and show her face to the world.

She could have become someone rich and famous, known throughout the galaxy as an incredible fashion designer.

I tried to encourage her to do it anyway, but she wouldn’t listen.

Without our parents, there was no one else there to take care of her.

I dropped out of university—I’d been studying finance at the time—and got a job taking care of children.

It was a sideline gig that never really paid enough.

With my sister’s expensive operations to take care of, we sold our parents’ house, moved to Zev, and bought this drafty old house to save money on rent.

I got a job taking care of kids in a kindergarten—the same job I had on Earth but at twice the rate.

Human caregivers were in high demand.

Don’t ask me why.

Of course, the house we bought turned out to be a dive and a large proportion of our income went into paying to fix the place up.

It seemed every week another bill needed to be paid.

And for the past seven years, we worked, struggling to make ends meet.

But we did make ends meet.

At least, we had so far.

“Then what?” Abbie said.

I flicked the kettle on and took a cup out from a lower cupboard.

Everything had to be within easy reach for Abbie.

“Want a cup of hot chocolate?” I said.

“Never mind the damn hot chocolate! Give me some romance!”

I chuckled and turned to face her, my arms folded.

“There’s no romance to give. I went to the party, had a nice meal, some drinks, did some dancing and enjoyed the music.”

Abbie eyed me closely.

“I don’t believe you. Something happened. It’s written all over your face!”

I burst out laughing.

There was never any fooling my elder sister.

“Fine. There might have been this one guy.”

“I knew it! Spill the beans!”

So, I did.

I told her about how a stranger—I opted to leave out his name as Abbie wasn’t foolish enough not to recognize it or him—rescued me from an ugly and sinister slugwitch, how he bought me a drink from a robot bartender, how we danced, talked, and had a good time.

“And then what?” Abbie said, leaning forward.

“And then we said goodbye and went our separate ways.”

Abbie’s entire body melted with disappointment.

“Legs are wasted on some people,” she moaned. “Remind me next time to teach you how to control a guy.”

“Maybe you should have gone,” I said.

Abbie motioned to her wheelchair.

Not once had she complained or pitied herself for what happened to her.

“I doubt they have ramps into that place,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure they would have carried you in if necessary.”

Abbie shrugged.

“Nobody wants to dance with a cripple anyway. That’s it, seriously? No gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes? No deep heartfelt kissing? No emotional farewell?”

I blinked at my sister’s insight.

She might have been a hopeless romantic, into fairytales and make-believe, but it struck me at just how accurate she was about the night’s true events.

I knew what would happen if I told her the truth.

She would bang on about me finding out who this mysterious man was.

She would investigate him, contacting all the guests if she had to.

She’d do it in an effort to make me happy but it would do the opposite.

I would fear she would learn who he really was and force us to meet again.

And that was the very last thing I wanted.

The evening had been magical, something I would treasure forever, but it would do no good to dwell on what might have been.

There was precisely zero percent chance of the relationship developing into anything more than what it had been tonight.

Especially someone like me.

And especially with someone like Tauas Choer.

Besides, Abbie needed me.

I wasn’t about to give up on my responsibilities to her.

Or maybe, if I was being honest with myself, it was because I was afraid of a repeat of the past:

Of having my heart broken again.

When my good-for-nothing boyfriend took one look at my sister, still lying unconscious in the hospital bed, a machine breathing for her, her legs twisted and paralyzed from the waist down, he dumped me on the spot.

I would never let another man—or creature—dump me or my sister like that ever again.

I downed the last of the hot chocolate and turned to my sister, who was still a little dejected at my mediocre evening tale.

“Next time, I’ll have to get two tickets so I can show you how it’s done!” she said.

I giggled.

“I’d like to see you leave the house first!”

“You never know, I might surprise you.”

“You surprising me is the least surprising thing I can imagine.”

I kissed her on the cheek and wheeled her into the hallway and into her bedroom.

Since the stairlift broke, we’d had to move our bedrooms downstairs.

My room was little bigger than a closet.

I could have kept my room upstairs, but I wanted to be as close to Abbie as possible.

She paused at the door to her room.

“But you had a good evening, right?” she said, hoping her present hadn’t been a total waste.

I spoke from the heart:

“It’s the best evening I’ve had ever since we came to this planet.”

Abbie’s smile was priceless.

“Then it makes it all worthwhile. Night.”

“Night.”

She wheeled into her room and shut the door.

I removed my earrings and took the invitation from my purse.

I peered at its shiny golden embossed lettering, fingered it, and placed it on an empty shelf.

There weren’t many memories I would cherish once I earned enough money to leave this planet and return home, but tonight was certainly one of them.