"Cool," Michael said.
"Very cool," Max agreed. "Could you show us some hologram pictures, or whatever you call them, of some of the adaptations we have at home?"
"Home. I don't understand why you're calling it home," Ray said. "This is your home. Earth. It was a mistake for me to tell you anything about… that other place. I try to think of it as a dream, a beautiful dream. But not something real, not something I can ever go back to. This is my home now, too."
He sounded so sad suddenly, not his usual joking self. Max wondered how he would feel if he had to make a life on another planet, knowing he'd never see his parents or Liz or anyone else he cared about again. He didn't know if he'd cope as well as Ray seemed to have.
Ray stood up. "Let's get out of here."
"So that's it. You're not answering any more questions? You're just deciding for us that we shouldn't know anything about where we come from?" Michael demanded.
Ray looked directly at Michael. "I'm not going to encourage you to spend your lives wishing you were someplace else," he said. "Your lives are here. Get on with them."
"Thanks for nothing," Michael muttered.
Ray turned to Max. "I know it must seem that I'm being incredibly harsh. But trust me, living one place when your heart and mind are always somewhere else is guaranteed to make you miserable."
Max didn't want to push Ray. It was pretty clear that he was protecting himself as much as he was Max and Michael. But there was one thing he had to know.
"Can you just tell-" Max said.
"Max, I've made up my mind," Ray interrupted.
"This is important," Max insisted. "I just want to know if there's anything you can teach me that will help protect us from Valenti."
Ray sighed. "I guess that is something you actually do need to know. We can do some more work freezing time inside a particular location. But that's not something you can do often. I won't be able to do it again myself for at least a month-it takes too much energy."
"Is there anything else?" Max asked. He wanted to be prepared, no, he needed to be prepared if he had to go up against Valenti again. It's not like Ray would always be able to come to the rescue.
"Lay low. That's what got me through the last fifty-something years," Ray answered.
"That's it? Lay low?" Michael demanded.
"Well, there is a little trick I use sometimes," Ray admitted. "Watch this."
"Watch what?" Max asked. Then he saw it. Ray's face was moving. His hair was growing and darkening. His body was shrinking and changing shape.
He looked like… Liz. Ray looked like Liz.
"Aaaah." Michael gave a high, comical shriek.
"We can also give ourselves little makeovers whenever we want to change our appearance," Ray said. He even sounded like Liz. "I gave myself one after the crash. I didn't feel like being the scientist the people in Roswell knew anymore."
"You're giving me the creeps," Max said. He could hardly stand to look at Ray. There were just way too many things he didn't want to think about. Like the fact that Ray had grown a set of breasts… Liz's breasts.
"Okay, okay." Ray's voice got deeper as he took back his usual form.
"You even sounded like her," Max mumbled.
"It's all in the vocal cords," Ray said. "Did you hear about that Elvis sighting at a little taco stand in El Paso?" he asked.
Max shook his head.
"Me," Ray bragged. He sounded totally proud of himself.
Max cracked up. He knew Ray was an Elvis fan, but this was pretty out there.
"Doing my part to keep the King alive," Ray said. "Thank you very much," he added in a decent Elvis mumble.
"You've got to show us how to do that," Max said.
"Why didn't you say yes when Jerry asked you to go to UFOnics with him?" Maria demanded as soon as Liz stepped back behind the Crashdown Cafe's counter.
Liz snorted. "I knew you heard the whole conversation. You only wiped down the booth next to Jerry's three times."
"Four," Maria admitted. "But if I don't watch you every second, you'll slide back into daydreaming about Max, ignore all other guys, and end up a dried-up old woman with sixteen yapping Pomeranians."
"If you don't stop, you're going to end up with this sponge down your throat," "Liz threatened. She held up the sponge and advanced on Maria.
Maria backed away. "Did I mention that you'd be so pathetic that all the Poms would be named Max? Or Maxine? Or Maximilian? Or Maxi? Or-"
"Did I mention that I used this sponge to wipe off Mr. Orndorff's table?" Liz asked.
"The spitter?" Maria squealed. "Okay, I'll stop, I'll stop. But I still want to know why you told Jerry you'd let him know tomorrow instead of saying yes."
"It's the dancing thing," Liz said. "If he'd asked me to go somewhere besides UFOnics, I'd probably have said yes."
"But you're a great dancer," Maria protested.
"It's not the dancing part of the dancing," Liz explained. "It's the touching part of the dancing."
"The touching thing is going to come up, dancing or not," Maria said. "Say he asked you to a movie. Major touching potential sitting in the dark. Even if he asked you bowling, at some point he'd take you home, and then the touching issue would be right there."
"I guess." Liz didn't sound convinced.
The opening bars of the Close Encounters theme filled the cafe. Maria glanced over to see Liz's dad come in, whistling a Grateful Dead song.
Maria swung up the hinged section of the counter for Mr. Ortecho. "I won't dock you this time, but if you're late again, you won't be so lucky," she teased.
"Oh, Ms. DeLuca, I'm sorry. Don't be mad," Mr. Ortecho cried in a breathy voice. "There was a sale on this suit that I've had my eye on for, like, months, and I had to get it on my way to work or it would have been gone. Here, just smell this. It will make you feel better."
Maria giggled. "I don't sound like that," she protested.
"You sound exactly like that," Liz said. She grabbed the coffeepot and headed over to a table where two very serious UFOlogists were studying a map of the crash site.
Maria yawned and rested her elbows on the counter. She was exhausted. Ever since school today she'd felt weird. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop thinking about that blackout in English class.
Maybe I should have told Isabel the truth, she thought. But it was Isabel's first day back at school, and she had enough to deal with. Someday soon I'll tell them all about my psychic abilities, Maria thought. As soon as I figure out how to control my powers, then I'll give everyone a big demonstration.
But she couldn't control them. Today in class, for instance. Maria had been sitting at her desk, waiting for Ms. Markham to show up. She started running her fingers across one of the names that someone had carved into her desk, wondering how long the name had been there and what the guy who carved it was doing now.
She hadn't been trying to see the guy. But the dots had started to swirl, and a few seconds later she'd been standing in a used-car lot watching a paunchy guy try to sell a Honda to a twenty-something woman in a business suit. The dots had swirled again, and the classroom had re-formed.