Alien in the House

Catholic-yet-also-former-Mossad mother, I’d grown up sort of waving at the December holidays. And Jeff, being an alien whose parents were born on Alpha Four of the Alpha Centaurion solar system, didn’t celebrate the majority of the available human holidays.
    However, we were in Washington, D.C. now, and certain things were inevitable. And demanded. There’d been a lot of demanding in recent months.
    Amy and I joined our men in time to hear Christopher ask what was becoming a very common question. “Are they going to try to blame this on us?”
    Jeff ran his hand through his hair. “No idea. So far, I haven’t heard about any anti-alien groups trying to pin a bad car crash and an illness on us.”
    “Just give it time.” Christopher shook his head. “Either that or they’ll be asking us to revive the dead and save the sick.”
    I’d stopped making really inappropriate jokes about this months ago. Because, sadly, Christopher wasn’t wrong.
    During the excitement that ended up with us all being outed, we’d discovered that our old friends, the wackos from the anti-alien Club 51, were still around and active, albeit with new leaders we had yet to ferret out.
    Once the general population knew about us, however, we got the fun of seeing just how many anti-alien groups there were. Turned out, there were a lot.
    Turned out there were also a lot of groups who sincerely believed Jeff, Christopher, and their extended family were here to save us all and show us The Way.
    In some ways, of course, they were. The A-Cs, as they called themselves, had been showing us the way since the 1960s, particularly in the areas of math, science, and technology. And they’d been protecting the Earth constantly from all the bad things from space that wanted to drop by to kick us or take over. There had been some human bad guy thwarting, too.
    I’d been involved with the gang from Alpha Four for about three years now. I had a natural affinity for handling the weird and mind-melding with the psychos and megalomaniacs we routinely tangled with. Hey, it’s nice to have special skills.
    However, the special skills I didn’t possess were those of diplomatic decorum and the ability to pretend to like people I detested.
    “Will it affect tonight’s dinner party?” Amy asked. “I don’t know if this means we should cancel or carry on as if nothing’s happened, or something in between.”
    Amy having come from money meant she was supposed to have been our go-to girl for all the formal affairs, fancy table settings, and keeping the rest of us from saying the wrong things to the wrong people. In other words, in the perfect world I didn’t live in, I should have been asking that question and she should have been answering it.
    Sadly, she’d spent her first few months with us dealing with the fact that her father had been one of the megalomaniacs we’d had to deal with in a very permanent fashion. So while she was good enough to pass muster almost anywhere in the shoulder-rubbing circles we now traveled in, her confidence had been somewhat shaken and she’d flipped over to my side of the house—the kick butt first and take names later side.
    Our diplomatic day had been saved by one man. A man of taste, breeding, and the ability to get anything done, at any time. A man who was now our Embassy Concierge Majordomo and potentially the most competent man on the planet. A man I decided it was time to call.
    “Com on!”
    “What can I do for you, Chief?”
    “Walter, can you tell me where Pierre is? We need to ask vital questions only he can answer.”
    “Yes, Chief. Pierre told me to tell you that if you needed him, the event tonight will go on as planned, with a moment or two of silence for the two representatives who died last week, and a short, silent prayer for the representative in the hospital.”
    “He told you all that?”
    “Yes, Chief. Five minutes ago. He said you’d want to know. He also said he’d be in the Ballroom, and would appreciate you and Chief Martini stopping by. Oh, and Commander Reader is about to join us on premises. He says he’ll meet you at the Ballroom.”
    “Gotcha, Walt. Com off.”
    We looked at each other. “Is Pierre psychic, or part A-C?” Amy asked.
    “No on the A-C, don’t think so on the psychic,” Jeff replied.
    “He’s just really, really good. I thank God every day that James brought him out here to save our Embassy.”
    “Speaking of which, I guess Kitty and I are going to the