Alien Diplomacy

become accustomed to, but still a lot better than this morning.
    “Ready, Ambassador?” Len asked.
    “Dudes, seriously, it’s me. And it’s just us in here.”
    It might have been a limo, but I could still see Len’s grin in the rearview mirror. “Got it, Kitty. You ready to rumble?”
    Kyle turned the stereo on, and the melodious sounds of Aero-smith’s “Back in the Saddle” wafted through the speakers.
    Ah, that’s what my driver and bodyguard were supposed to act like. Maybe this day wasn’t going so badly after all.



CHAPTER 8
    P ARKING WASN’T REALLY PLENTIFUL in the D.C. area. The nice thing about having a driver was that I didn’t have to worry about it. Len pulled up in front of the building where Mommy and Me was held while “Can’t Take Me Home” from Pink blared on the stereo, turned on the emergency flashers, and Kyle helped me and Jamie inside.
    Class was fun for both me and Jamie. While there were still plenty of moms and babies dressed for serious Washington success, there were plenty in jeans and tracksuits, too. I hadn’t really made any friends in class yet, but no one was unpleasant, and it was generally one of my favorite hours of the week. That the instructor allowed us to have our iPods on, on low, of course, was an added bonus. I usually played my Steely Dan mix playlist, since mellow was the order of the class day.
    I didn’t fret about what was going on. This was time for me and Jamie, and I let my subconscious wander while “Pretzel Logic” played in my background, and I focused on lifting her up and swinging her around and she focused on giggling.
    She was only three months old, but per her doctors, Jamie’s brain functions were highly advanced. So she was doing some things early, but not too many. Fortunately I had Erika Gower on speed dial, as well as Melanie and Emily, Lorraine and Claudia’s respective mothers. Not that my own mother wasn’t perfectly equipped to handle any concerns, but some things about a hybrid baby even my mom wasn’t prepared for, hyperspeed being only one of them.
    So far, Jamie’s hyperspeeding issues had been handled by Jeffand ACE. I didn’t ask how because ACE didn’t like to talk about it, and Jeff’s attempted explanation had confused the hell out of me. I was satisfied with the results and let it go at that.
    “Hi!” A mom about my age with a boy a couple months older than Jamie plopped down on the empty mat near us. “I’m Bernice. My friends call me Bernie. And this is Jordan.” She was dressed in jeans and an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. Jordan was sporting a Donald Duck motif. They were clearly our kind of people.
    “I’m Katherine, and my friends call me Kitty. This is Jamie.”
    She grinned. “Cool. I think we’re supposed to team up for the next stuff. You two want to buddy up?”
    “Sure!” After my earlier experience, someone actually being friendly for a normal, nonvicious reason was a treat.
    We passed our babies back and forth. I was glad my iPod was on low, because Bernie was a chatterer. She was small and dark-haired, with big brown eyes. Jordan looked a lot like her, though, per Bernie, not as much as Jamie looked like me.
    Her husband was a professor at Georgetown, and she was an adjunct. He taught law; she was in the humanities department. “I’m a Jackie of All Trades. They float me where they need me. It keeps things interesting.”
    “Sounds like a great gig.” It sounded a lot better than my gig, but I kept that to myself. “You must be happy to be here.”
    “Raul loves it here, I think it’s okay, but I’m not convinced it’s the right place to raise Jordan,” she shared.
    “Oh? What don’t you like about it?” I hated pretty much everything, so I figured I’d let her lead this conversation.
    “Pretty much everything,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, it just doesn’t feel like…us. You know?”
    “Totally.”
    Exercises changed. Bernie gave me a sheepish look. “I forgot my iPod. Would you mind sharing earphones?”
    I wasn’t a germaphobe, and we could easily be close together. “Sure.” I switched the headphones so I had one in my right ear and she had one in her left. “Any requests?”
    “Oh, I like pretty much everything.”
    “A kindred spirit!” I figured we could move off of Steely Dan, so I turned off in the middle of “The Royal Scam” to switch to the random-select option. The melodious sounds of “Take On Me” by A-Ha came on.
    “Oh, I love this