Excerpt from "The Department of Potentially Dangerous Things"

PROLOGUE THE SECOND (MARLENE)

AUGSUST 1^ST, 2017

POPLAR BLUFF, MO

Freedom is one of those things people passionately recommend, like kale or therapy or that one podcast your cousin swears will “change your life.” And now here I am—freshly graduated, newly employed by a shadowy organization that offers health insurance and a steady paycheck—about to hit the road and hunt alien parasites for a living. Which, when you say it out loud, sounds less like freedom and more like a cry for help.

     But still, this is it. The moment where life is supposed to open up, where everything is possible and nothing is decided yet. It’s exciting. It’s terrifying. It’s a lot. Like being handed the keys to the universe when you’re not entirely sure you passed the test to get your driver’s license.

     I tell myself I want this job and the freedom and experience that come with it. “You’ll love it,” I insist, as if it doesn’t come with side effects like emotional whiplash and the sudden urge to text people you absolutely should not be texting. I always thought freedom would feel like a movie montage—windows down, hair blowing, perfect song playing at just the right moment. But I have a feeling it might feel more like sitting in the passenger seat of your own life, wondering if you left your phone behind at the last stop.

     Yeah, I want this. More importantly, I need this. I need to see and experience things I haven’t yet. Sure, I’ve already been hunting aliens but only in my hometown of Poplar Bluff. Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. Let’s expand the résumé. Most of all, I need the distance. From this town. From everything in it. From one person in particular.

*

     My work partner, Clara Gonzales, steers the VW bus out of the garage and around the parking lot of Corporate Headquarters. The outside of the bus looks like a standard tie-dyed 1969 model. But there is nothing standard about this ride that’s been dubbed The Cosmic Bus. The engine runs quietly and the dashboard touchscreen lights with monitors, status reports of different applications within the vehicle. Corporate hooked us up with one tricked out ride for our new jobs. It’s also a manual transmission so all the old people who think young people can’t drive a stick shift can suck it.

     We turn a corner and head along the lot in front of the building toward the main entrance, employee paperwork and job details in hand. Signed W-2’s and whatnot. All the necessary stuff for starting our first real full-time job. Though, calling hunting Herpezoids, the slimeballs of the universe, a real job feels weird. But I’m going to roll with it.

     “Marlene,” Clara says. “Pull the first assignment up. Let’s start prepping.”

     “Already?” I say. “C’mon, let’s soak up the fun of it all. We’re about to go on Clara and Marlene’s Big Adventure.”

     “Let’s not call it that,” she says. “It’s a job. We hunt Herpezoids.”

     “While we travel the country. It’s the kick-assest road trip ever!”

     “Kick-assest?”

     “I’m just ready to go. I’m ready to see something new.”

     “You have eleutheromania,” she tells me.

     “No, I feel fine,” I say because she makes it sound like I have a disease.

     “Eleutheromania is the nearly manic need for independence and freedom. It’s like wanderlust on steroids.”

     “Where did you get that word?” I ask. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but I’ve never heard that word.”

     “Just read it somewhere.”

     Always reading, that one. Clara is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known.

     Maybe she’s right. I wonder if having freedom to go wherever you want is like eating. You   get hungry so you eat and you’re satisfied. Sometimes you overeat and tell yourself you’ll never eat so much again. Then, later, you get hungry again or at least tell yourself you’re hungry because you’re bored and no one is texting and you know there are some pizza rolls who miss you. So, I wonder if this eleutheromania Clara speaks of means I’ll never be happy in one place. Sometimes I wonder if it means I’ll never be happy, period.

     We have a cat named Leonard. He’s one of those gray tabby cats who is adorable one minute and indifferent the next. He wakes me up in the middle of the night by lying on my chest in bed. I don’t think he’s wanting affection. I think he’s judging me. Leonard likes to sit at the patio door staring at the outside world, but he’s not allowed out. Anytime one of us opens the door, he tries to dart out. We contort our bodies like amateur gymnasts to block his path. On rare occasions, he manages to jump out the door but then freezes up. It’s like Leonard finally got what he wanted but it’s too overwhelming. We pick him up and toss him back in the house and chastise his attempt to break free. Stay home where it’s safe, kitty, we tell him. But Leonard knows he wants to see more.

     I feel you, kitty. I feel you.

     “Is that Tony?” Clara points at a familiar figure walking ahead out of the doors as we approach the main entrance. I recognize his lanky frame, his brown hair, his pensive walk.

     “Shit,” I say because it indeed is my ex-boyfriend Tony Pershing, the boy who broke my heart into a thousand pieces.

     “Want me to do a slow drive-by so you can flip him off?” Clara asks. “Or I could run him over.”

     “No,” I tell her. “Pull up. I’ll say bye one last time.”

     Clara shakes her head and slows the bus up to the sidewalk. She gives the horn a quick press and Tony looks toward us with that cute impish half smile on his face—the one that always made melt. I roll down my window and lean out.

     “Hey, handsome. Need a lift?” Lame, I know. I can feel the cringe oozing out of my pores. He hurt me, but I understand more why. The hurt lingers, but I’m able to move on. 

     “Hi, Marlene.” He walks to me and waves at Clara. “Hi, Clara.” She doesn’t look at him.

     “Word on the street is you’re leaving for college.” I say.

     “Where’d you hear that?” he asks.

     “I stopped by your house to see you. Your parents told me.”

     I feel Clara’s judgmental gaze on me. She’s militant in her belief I’m too easy on Tony. She thinks I should shut him out of my life completely. I don’t believe she’s ever been in love. 

     “That makes sense.” He makes that face he always makes when he thinks he should be saying something significant but isn’t sure what it should be. 

     “Yeah,” he manages to mutter. He never understood that sometimes I enjoyed the silent moments between us. I didn’t need his words. Just his heart. I believe he loves me still and maybe under different circumstances I could stay and give him another chance. I think of Leonard at the patio door, looking for his chance to escape, and realize this is mine. I can’t look back. In my heart, I know he needs to go his own way, too. 

     “You’re going to do great things, Tony Pershing.” I grab his face and pull him to me. My lips find his and he almost backs away. He must think better of it, though, because he reaches a hand up to touch my cheek. I pull away and release a sorrowful sigh. No need to let the kiss go on too long and catch feelings.

     “I imagined us going to college together,” he tells me. “It’s what I wanted.”

     His words don’t make me angry. Just bittersweet. A dull ache, like aggravating a shoulder injury. 

     “Then you shouldn’t have backed out on prom. And you shouldn’t have broken up with me.” I know it’s a dig, but I try to say it with enough playfulness to let him know we’re good, but we’re also done.

     “Touché,” he says and flashes the impish half grin again. That damn grin is what I fell for in the first place, and I could easily let it suck me back in, so I need to change the subject.

     “Besides.” I hold up our white envelope from the orientation we just left. “Clara and I have new jobs.”

     “Let me guess,” he says. “Hunting alien scum?”

     “Something like that. I believe our official title is Dynamic Tactics Facilitator.” I reach out and take his hand. I allow myself a smile as I caress his fingers with mine one last time. “You take care of yourself, Tony Pershing.”

     “You, too, Marlene Hunter.” He looks past me to my partner in crime. “Bye, Clara.”

     Clara says nothing. She just puts the bus in drive, and we pull away, leaving Tony Pershing standing on the sidewalk. With him, I leave a little piece of my heart.

     “You should’ve let me run him over,” Clara says. Maybe she’s kidding. Maybe she’s not. It’s hard to tell with her sometimes. I error on the side of kidding, because that helps me sleep at night.

     “Stop it. You like Tony.”

     She looks at me with no expression and again I error on the side of kidding. 

     “Tunes,” I say. “We need tunes for this road trip.”

     I tap the musical note icon on the touchscreen and discover access to a variety of musical genres. I find my favorite song and hit play. “Follow Your Arrow,” by Kacey Musgraves. A faint smile tugs at the corners Clara’s mouth.

     “Of course you chose this,” she says.

     “Seems appropriate.” I take off my shoes and socks and prop my bare feet up on the dashboard. Leonard never made past the door. Me? I’m not getting carried back inside. I fire up the all-important tablet to study the first assignment. Clara and Marlene’s Big Adventure is underway.