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“Exactly, which means they’re supposed to take you as you are, warts and all.”
“Okay, for the record, I don’t have any warts,” she says. “But, I get what you mean.”
“Do you?” I ask. “Because it seems to me that you give them a giant pass when you should really be putting your foot down.”
“How could you possibly know that? Maybe I’m ruthless with them.”
“You’re not,” I tell her. “You’re someone who spends every holiday with her family, and if I had to guess, I’d say you probably spend most of it wishing they’d just learn to accept that you love what you do and just drop it already.”
“You’re partly right. I do wish for that, but I’m not some poor, meek, put-upon woman. I’m actually hellbent on proving them wrong. It’s that thought that causes me to throw my covers off every morning and start my day.”
“Really? That’s why you work in SETI?”
“Obviously I believe in what we’re doing, but proving them wrong is also definitely one of the reasons I’m going to stick with it.”
“Even though you know it’s a total long shot?”
“Yes. I just have to do it.”
“But why? I mean, really, what does it matter if you can prove them wrong or not? Why not just agree to disagree and go on with your life?”
She lets out a long sigh. “Because they think I’m crazy, and I’m not, and I really need them to know it.”
“Crazy? Your job is a little … out there, sure, but you’re certainly not insane.”
She stares at me for a second, as if trying to decide how much to say, then lets out a sigh. “The other night, I didn’t answer the question about the defining moment in your life, because it was too hard for me to share with the whole group,” she says. “Not with everything that had already happened with them. And once you hear it, you’re going to think the word hypocrite fits me perfectly.”
“I doubt that very much.”
“No, it does,” she says. “Because I laugh at Karen for believing in Yetis, when in actual fact, when I was twelve, I saw a U.F.O.”
I freeze long enough for her to say, “See? Crazy, right?”
“No, you were a kid. Kids sometimes mistake things they see for other things. Besides, I’m sure there’s an explanation for what you saw.”
She shakes her head. “Not for this. I was biking home from my friend’s house. It was late in the evening in the summertime. And I saw a big, triangular thing coming down from the sky. Like, really big. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen in the sky before or since. It had these bright lights around the outside. It hovered over a field in the distance, then after a few seconds it just shot up into the sky. Straight up until it disappeared.”
“Could it have been a helicopter?”
“No, it really couldn’t. I’m telling you, it was the size of a school. I rushed home, peddling as hard as my legs could go, and ran into the house to tell my parents. I was all wound up, thinking the world was being invaded, and my parents just laughed at me. No matter how hard I insisted, they came back with their own perfectly logical arguments,” she says, staring up at the tent for a second. “It went on for weeks—me trying to convince them and them telling me I didn’t see what I thought I saw. I spent my evenings over at that field, watching and waiting with my camera in hand.”
“So, that’s why you went to work for the SETI team in the first place,” I say gently.
Nodding, she says, “I’ve dedicated my entire life to proving my parents wrong, and I know it’s not healthy, but I just really need to be able to go back home and say, ‘Suck it. I was right all along.’” She lifts her head and looks me in the eye. “Now that I think about it, I guess I do have some warts, only mine are psychological. I’m a petty hypocrite, and I might possibly be insane as well.”
Offering her a small smile, I say, “There are worse things you could be.”
She rests her head on my chest again. “Tell that to my parents.”
“What about your brother? Did he believe you?”
“Privately, he would make it sound like he did, but when my parents were around, he joined the ‘make fun of Gwen’ team.”
“Wow, that’s shitty,” I tell her.
“Yeah, it wasn’t great.”
“Do they still bug you about it?”
